It's Dental Health Month!  Here at Big Sandy, we have a great technical program for Dental Hygienists and Dental Assisting.   These professionals create beautiful smiles for a living as a dental assistant or hygienist. Students gain the technical and interpersonal skills essential for work in a dentist’s office.  Students regularly advertise free student-led dental cleaning sessions in Paintsville.

 Here are more great resources for excellent dental health:

The library and campus will be closed on Monday January 20, 2025, to celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.   His leadership and oratory skills were grounded in a heritage of resistance to powerful economic and political forces.   Here are just a few recollections from leaders of their time.  Each quote is from a video.   Search by keyword Martin Luther King within the Films on Demand library for more content like this.  

"There's a great deal of difference between non-resistance to evil and non-violent resistance. Non-resistance leaves you in a state of stagnant passivity and deadening complacency, wherein non-violent resistance means that you do resist in a very strong and determined manner." - The WPA Film Library

 
“Each time that he was doing something important, there was an effort to discredit him.” - Testimony before the Church Committee Details FBI Plans to Intimidate Martin Luther King Jr. ca. 1975

 "Well, I don't think that Mr. Helms or the extreme right really speaks for the American people. Probably really speaks for the Republican Party on this issue. I believe that the filibuster will be broken and that we will commemorative Martin Luther King's birthday as it should be." – Edward Kennedy, Opposition to a Holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr.

“And we will be able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and this will be a great America. We will be the participants in making it so.”  – Last Speech at the Washington Cathedral, March 31 1968

Make a point to eat less meat this month. Don't knock it 'til you try it! Make the yummiest (and prettiest) vegetarian meal you can find, and use #VegetarianMonth to post it on social media.

This weekend on June 30, we celebrate National Corvette Day.  If you're involved with either automotive engineering or industrial maintenance, you may be interested in one of Kentucky's unique manufacturing plants -- the GM Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green.  The Corvette Museum nearby sells tickets to tour the plant and see how America's premier sportscar is created on a factory floor of 1 million+ square feet.   Since its opening in 1981, it has produced over 1.1 million Corvettes.  This fall in late August, the plant will celebrate another Corvette Caravan week on the parkways of Kentucky.

12 Amazing things We Learned at the Corvette Assembly Plant Tour

Branding the Social: Leisure, Consumption, and the Corvette Community

Maintenance Strategies for Industrial Multi-Stage Machines: The Study of a Thermoforming Machine

Recently, plant tours closed amid the rumors of an "unthinkable" improvement.   Factory managers definitely didn't want any snoops to bring the news to the outside world.  Perhaps during the Corvette Caravan days the new improvements will be revealed.  For more car news, check out the library app Flipster for Motortrend and Car & Driver magazine issues!

We've updated the library's holdings for gender and sexuality.  For children's and young adult books, it's one of the most challenged topics in the nation.  As we welcome students from schools where they may not have been able to see themselves represented in their libraries, we say Happy Pride Month.

Some of the library's holdings to help understand and celebrate the diversity of community college life. 

We had a great time hosting the annual BSCTC women's history conference on Friday, March 22, 2024.  Tim Smith started us out with some self-portrait drawing, Michelle Fields discussed women's role in creating and expanding speculative literature, and Mary Wallen ended the lecture portion with a discussion of poetry.  They generously gave of their time and expertise to create a great conference.

After a light lunch, women's history conference attendees created their own canvas artwork in participation with The Printery, a local artist supply store and workshop studio from Prestonsburg.

This Hindu festival celebrates spring, love and new life. Holi marks the end of winter and beginning of spring. It also celebrates the Hindu god Krishna and the legend of Holika and Prahlad.  The wicked Holika tried to kill Prahlad in flame, but Lord Krishna stepped in to save Prahlad, and Holika was left in the fire and burned to death. On the night before the festival, images of Holika are burned on huge bonfires, drums pound, horns blow, and people whoop.  Since Antiquity, to mark the spring equinox, the whole of India celebrates Holi, the festival of colors. During this celebration, Indians of all castes throw colored powder in the faces of those they meet.  It doesn't matter if you're lower caste, a widow, a person marked by society -- the powder makes everyone look the same. 

Covering in red is for love, green is happiness, orange is for prosperity, and gold is considered sacred. 

Restrictions of caste, sex, age, and personal differences are ignored.  The festival reminds the Hindi peoples that all discrimination disappears in the holiest gazes.

We've been laughing, crafting, and reading at the library.  Our recent events have included the Lunar New Year, Make Your Own Valentine's Day Card, and Read Across America.    Hope your semester is ready for a renewed sense of learning and companionship! 

From sundown on Friday March 1 until Saturday March 2 at sundown, unplug.    Turn off your devices, leave the screens behind, and reconnect with those around you, your pets, and your community.    Unplugging is one of the ways to quell the stress of the constantly "on" lifestyle.   

Today is International Stand Up to Bullying Day.   When dealing with harassment, consider:

1. If you were faced with an experience that is beyond the bounds, would this trigger your own past trauma and memory of abuse against you, in its broadest sense? How can you make sure you will think rationally when you are in the middle of it?

2. Would you be afraid of anything? If yes, what would worry you? Consider personal safety, harassment, having your words and claims misconstrued, gossiping, legal action, the impact on your capacity to carry on working, as well as broken connections and friendships.

3. What if the situation made you feel guilt and a sense of overwhelming responsibility? What if you had helped this person with something in the past?

4. What about your personal involvement? What if the alleged perpetrator was someone with whom you had close connections or wanted to/had collaborated with?

5. How about your stand on how the target needs to be helped, if at all? What if they turned to you for help?

6. How might you label or understand the antagonist? Are they an immoral person, mentally unwell, a perpetrator, or likely to be a victim themselves? Are they all of these things? 

Bullying is a complex social and moral issue.  Here are more ways that people can stand up in situations where they may be uncomfortable and create a new narrative.

Being the Whistle-Blower

Bullying: Why Most People Do Nothing When They Witness It – And How to Take Action

Science Takes on Bullies

Fact Sheet - Bystanders are Essential to Bullying Prevention and Intervention

For 14 centuries the season of Lent has been a time for self-examination and penitence in preparation for Easter.  When public penitents came to the church for forgiveness, the priest would take some ash (made by burning the palms used on Palm Sunday of the previous year) and mark their foreheads with the sign of the cross as a reminder that they were but ashes and dust.  The period lasts for two lunar months through Easter of the year. 

So, for centuries, the first day of Lent was marked by a pre-Lent period of revelry, usually commencing on the last day of Christmas season and gaining traction as the faithful knew that "Fat Tuesday" would mark the last day of enjoyment of pleasures of the body.  The first day of Carnival (the celebratory lunar cycle) varies with both national and local traditions. Thus, in Munich in Bavaria the Carnival season, there called Fasching, begins on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6), while in Cologne in the Rhineland it begins on November 11 at 11:11 am (11th month, day, hour, and minute). In France the celebration is restricted to Shrove Tuesday (the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday) and to mi-carème (the Thursday of the third week of Lent). More generally, the commencement date is Quinquagesima Sunday (the Sunday before Ash Wednesday), and the termination is Shrove Tuesday. 

In the United States, New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama became epicenters for Mardi Gras celebrations.

In 1872, the Krewe of Rex initiated the Mardi Gras colors of purple (for justice), gold (for power), and green (for faith). These were the family colors of visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff, whose favorite song, “If Ever I Cease to Love,” also became the official anthem of the New Orleans Mardi Gras.   Carnival unleashed the urban tensions between these ethnic and religious groups through clouds of flour. A visitor from Britain described the Mardi Gras of 1846, saying, "There was a grand procession parading the streets, almost every one dressed in the most grotesque attire, troops of them on horseback, some in open carriages, with bands of music, and in a variety of costumes... All wore masks, and here and there in the crowd, or stationed in a balcony above, we saw persons armed with bags of flour, which they showered down copiously on any one who seemed particularly proud of his attire." A local told the Brit that Mardi Gras meant "flour and fun." Some scholars have viewed the raucous dusting as a remnant from Roman festivals, in which flour symbolized fertility. In New Orleans, it was a commodity symbolic of the agricultural riches that flowed down the Mississippi River to the city's docks.

Communities in New Orleans, of both sacred and secular identity, employ images of Native Americans as icons of spiritual power and presence. Acting as an instance of co-narration,  clergy and congregants of Spiritualist/Spiritual churches - whose narratives of the Indian spirits find expression through interlacing oral and ritual performances - have helped to establish a sacred dimension for Indian processions in New Orleans, adding an overtly spiritual note to otherwise secular 'rites of territory repossessed'. Through community response to the death of Big Chief Allison 'Tootie' Montana, and the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras in 2006, Indian icons and imagery still stand for many New Orleanians as powerful signs of something in the soul that, to paraphrase a popular Mardi Gras Indian song, won't kneel and won't bow down. 

Mardi Gras arrived with French settlers to New Orleans in 1703, but in Mobile they like to start the story with Michael Krafft, a one-eyed cotton broker who got drunk with friends on New Year's Eve in 1830 and raided Partridge Hardware Store, seizing hoes and forks and marauding through the streets to the mayor's house, where he was invited in for breakfast. Krafft formed the first society--or "mystic order" --to lead a parade around the city. Other cotton workers set up a rival group. Then more emerged, tied up with the city's businesses, with names like medieval guilds: the Knights of Revelry, the Maids of Mirth.

Where you celebrate, how you celebrate -- it's all a party during Mardi Gras!

It's like 15 Days of joy -- the long build up to the celebration of the Lunar New Year is important in many cultural traditions.    Some cultures, such as the Chinese, have developed crafts around the Lunar New Year celebrations in a way that is known throughout their diaspora.   Lunar New Year in 2024 is celebrated on Saturday, February 10.  It begins the year of the dragon in the Chinese horoscope, specifically the Wood Dragon, which will bring evolution, improvement, and abundance.

In this language learning exercise, you can learn all about the Lunar New Year including how people give each other gifts, how they welcome the good luck for the new year, and what stresses young people face when they rejoin their larger family.

Craftspeople in San Francisco describe how they keep their paper Chinese lion costumes cared for during the annual parade routes and neighborhood celebrations.  

People in Beijing are shown celebrating the Lunar festival, and recent commercialization is noted for the modern celebrations.

For a full documentary, see Chinese New Year (BBC Learning)

Very few people in American history inspire so much creative thought as Martin Luther King Jr.   Only a handful of politicians, statesmen, philosophers, and creatives are able to generate a fire of mind in the thoughts of writers.  King joins the ranks of John F. Kennedy, Emily Dickinson, and Pocahontas as individuals who continually inspire writers across the globe.    Here are a few ideas surrounding Martin Luther King Jr., as the nation remembers his life and legacy, calling on future generations to emulate his thoughtful philosophy of American life.

Bearing the Cross by David J. Garrow

Journeying Toward the Promised Land

A complete chronological timeline of King's life and works.

Power for the Powerless: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Late Theory of Civil Disobedience

This article examines the early reception of King’s  "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and the development of the liberal idea of civil disobedience it has become synonymous with to argue that its canonization coincided with, and displaced, the radicalization of King’s developing thinking about disobedience. It examines published and archival writings from 1965 through 1968 to reconstruct King’s power-oriented theory of “mass” civil disobedience as it developed in response to the dual challenges of white backlash and Black Power.

Critical Lessons About Leadership from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s brand of authentic leadership was disruptive. Disruptive leaders bring joy, hope, and a positive attitude to their companies and nations, primarily due to their ability to engender greater trust and engagement. Dr. King's innovative, groundbreaking leadership style disrupted civil inequity between the white majority and people of color. Nobody before Dr. King even fathomed the oxymoron of peaceful protest. He made white leaders look at their hypocrisy and ultimately agree to begin honoring the constitutional "all men are created equal."

"Where Do We Go From Here?": Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and Workers' Rights

This article chronicles Dr. King's alliances with labor activists as well as the tensions between organized labor and civil rights activism. This article also highlights how Dr. King's emphasis on labor activism informed his approach to fighting against segregation and on behalf of voting rights for African Americans. For Dr. King, true racial equality was inseparable from economic empowerment. Dr. King's insight that racial discrimination was linked to the economic subordination of workers followed a great tradition of political activism within the United States on behalf of racial equality and the rights of workers. This article argues that advocates for workers' rights and racial equality have been most successful when they worked together because race discrimination has been integrally connected to the exploitation of workers throughout our country's history. 

Surveillance, Spatial Compression, and Scale: The FBI and Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1976, the Church Committee, a Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations, came to the conclusion that Martin Luther King Jr “was the target of an intensive campaign by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to ‘neutralize’ him as an effective civil rights leader”. This paper explores how the FBI surveilled Martin Luther King Jr between September 1957 and Dr King's death in 1968 and how such surveillance relates to both spatial compression and scale. First, using FBI internal memos, government documents, social movement archives, mass-media accounts, and other sources, this history looks at how state surveillance—operating through the social mechanism of intimidation—compressed both the physical and tactical space that Dr King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference could comfortably inhabit. 

Known around the world as "the long night," the Winter Solstice brings cultural feasts, celebrations, and folklore about fending off the darkness and waiting for the light.  Because the earth rotates on an axis, the northern hemisphere drifts the farthest from the sun, lengthening the night and shortening the day, at the beginning of every winter. December 21 marks the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.  Check out these traditions from around the northern continents.  You just might find a new recipe or two to try to make your celebration brighter and your home's "hearth fires" more sustained.   

Christmas

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.   In the United States, traditionally, turkey and ham are served.  In the earliest days of the country, the turkeys would have been freshly killed while the hog meat would have been taken from the larder after a few months of curing.  Both meats represent a scrumptious meal that celebrates the birth of the Lord.

Party Dishes for the Holidays

Sugar and Spice, including Cinnamon Pear Torte and Cranberry Apple Upside-Down Clove Cake

Yalda

In Persian countries, the longest night of the year (Yalda) was met with fear that evilness and bad deeds had time to spread.  Persians celebrate the longest night of the year known as Shabe Yalda (Yalda Night) or Shabe Chelle.   On the night of the Solstice, the entire family would make a large, lavish meal.  Families stayed up throughout the night, snacking and telling stories, then celebrating as the light spilled through the sky in the moment of dawn. 

Party with Pomegranate! 

Persian Quince Stew

Tien

The Chinese honor the god T'ien, and traditionally, the Emperor would offer sacrifices at the Forbidden City in the capitol. Today, people commemorate the longest night of the year by visiting temples and serving feasts in their homes to honor deceased family members.  It's also a traditional time to eat dumplings!

Chilled Chinese Dumplings with Creamy Dukkah Sauce

Rain Flower Pebble Dumplings

The Feast of Juul

Spreading as a pre-Christian festival observed in Scandinavia first, then to England and parts of Europe, the festival most commonly lit fires to celebrate the longest night and prayer to the gods to bring back the light.   The tradition of lighting a Yule log most likely originated from the Feast of Juul.  Orthodox Christians still maintain that ritual.  After it stopped burning,  the ashes were collected and either strewn on the fields as fertilizer every night or kept in the house to ward off thunder and lightening.  A traditional feast saw people coming together to eat, drink, and make sacrifices while watching the yule log burning. 

Roast Goose with Apples

Sweet Sensations, including Festive Fondant Mints; Nutty Caramel Popcorn; Chunky Black & White Chocolate Bark

We've been finding Elves and reindeer, making crafts, winning prizes, and enjoying some cocoa on these cold days.  Wishing you all the best as we finish the semester with laughter and companionship!

On I Love to Write Day, founder John Riddle encourages the writing... of anything!  A poem, a short story, a greeting card, a letter, your novel during NatNoWriMo, anything.   For many people, that will be the beginning of their writing career. I Love To Write Day has the potential to launch the career of the next John Grisham, Mary Higgins Clark, Stephen King or Toni Morrison.  

While you're taking your inspiration, here are some people expressing their love of writing:

"To enthrall a reader is to control his breathing."  -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez

"The South is obsessed with words, the nuances, the rhythms, the hidden meanings of words, and that was a marvelous gift to get at a young age"

"Where's the camera?  Where's that pair of eyes that is guiding the reader through this story?"  - Ann-Marie MacDonald

Remember the veterans in your life on this national day honoring those who have served this country.

Finding Your Place:  The demonstrable problem facing most military with combat experience is managing post service emotional, mental, and physical readjustments. Today there is acceptance and understanding for the military people who need that help. So many organizations like Operation Homefront, Tunnels to Towers, The National Center for PTSD, and many more, are ready to step up and lend a hand.  Finding your place begins with the individual. It may be easier said than done, but the fact remains that it must be started, because without a start the fall to failure is too great.

Moral Injury in U.S. Combat Veterans:  Moral injury, or persistent effects of perpetrating or witnessing acts that violate one's moral code, may contribute to mental health problems following military service. The pervasiveness of potentially morally injurious events (PMIEs) among U.S. combat veterans, and what factors are associated with PMIEs are studied.

Partners of Military Veterans and Their Pet Dogs:  Partners of military veterans with mental health challenges may experience more stress than their civilian counterparts due to unique stressors.  Research suggests that pets provide social support to various populations. This qualitative study explored the impact of the human-animal bond in pet-owning partners,  including the human-animal bond as a social support mechanism to potentially improve mental health and well-being of veteran partners and their families.

The Boss Continues His Battle for Veterans:   American singer Bruce Springsteen maintains a historic and present support of American veterans.   Influenced by his father's struggles with depression and paranoia after serving in World War II, Springsteen used LSD to stop his own draft into Vietnam, only to watch his friend group be devastated.  In writing "Born in the USA," he hoped to condemn the U.S. government's treatment of war veterans. 

Seeking to Preserve Veterans' Stories of Service and Sacrifice:  Whether it's pride, pain, inspiration, nostalgia or a combination of sentiments, any time veterans tell their stories, there's a good chance they'll evoke strong emotions from both the tellers and their audiences.  The Veterans History Project is a national effort to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-hand remembrances of U.S. military veterans from World War I through more recent conflicts and peacetime missions so future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand what they saw, did and felt during their service.

   Day of the Dead   

  (Día de Muertos)  

Read some horrific books, face your fears, grab a hot drink and a blanket, and listen to the little terrors that go bump in the night.   

Not quite into the scary side?  Then bask in candlelight, wine, and the best of love, relationships, and all that makes your heart flutter... in a good way.

More Blackout Poetry from English Students

We held a third Blackout Poetry Workshop with English students on Monday. 

How to get started with Blackout Poetry at home?

1. Choose a piece of preprinted text. This can be anything you choose copied or scanned text from a book, a piece of newspaper, a magazine, a printed-out article, or even a recipe or printed-out short story. The key is having a piece of printed text.
2. Skim over the text in front of you.
3. Pick words that hold meaning for you. You want to look for an anchor word. An anchor word will help you select your theme.
4. Now read the text in its entirety. You may need to do this a couple of times. You will be creating a new work from this page of text.
5. Go through and choose your words by lightly circling them with a pencil or writing them on a separate sheet of paper.
6. Read your words.
7. Look for words that connect to your page.
8. Finalize your new message by outlining the selected words.
9. Go over the outlined words with Sharpie or a black marker.
10. Black out the unused words or don't. The key is to make the new text pop. Illustrate as you like or just leave it black and white
11. You have now given your page of text a whole new meaning and created a found poem!!

Check out student work from our Blackout Poetry Workshop in the Prestonsburg campus library for English classes last week!

Remember if you are on campus to stop by the Prestonsburg Campus library to pick up a pocket poem. 

It's crayon day, established to commemorate the creation of the tool that most kids use to learn to write and draw.  But the history of the crayon technique is an important one in the history of art.    Almost 73,000 years ago, a human used a crayon, as a combination of wax, dirt, and pigment, to draw on a now-fragmentary stone.  Thoughts, attitudes, memories, and emotions are expressed through the drawing of lines.   Since the late 14th century, when plaster as a wet medium was colored, artists and laypersons experimented with tools that would not need a pot to dip out pigment.   Instead, they would be consumed in the act of creation.  The conte crayon, a French technique, was invented in the late 18th century as a mixture of graphite and clay.  It became a hard pencil tool in limited colors of blue, black, and brown which could sweep color onto canvas.  Alois Senefelder, in 1798, testing stone and moisture absorption, invented a process called lithography by sticking wax and lamp black to alternating sections of drawn greasy crayon.   

In addition, charcoal crayons that have been deeply dipped in oil show a brownish streak left by the oil alongside the lines; this technique was used in the 20th century by the American artist Susan Rothenberg.  The attempt to produce a crayon or pencil of the greatest possible uniformity has led to the production of special chalks for drawing; what we think of as "chalk," was invented as a form of crayon.  Pastel chalks are particularly favoured for some portrait techniques; their effect approximates that of color-and-area painting rather than line drawing. But the effect of crayon -- that tool which is consumed as it creates -- remains. As the conte crayon evolved, purified, and washed, graphite could henceforth be made with varying admixtures of clay and in any desired degree of hardness. The hard points, with their durable, clear, and thin stroke layers, led to the graphite pencil, another form of crayon.

Artists' mediums on crayon emphasize the diversity of crayon outcomes:

But most people's first brush with crayons comes courtesy of the Crayola brand in the United States.   Looking at the textures of chalk and oily wax from the artists' palette use, two American cousins invented the first box of black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green crayons in 1903.  The Crayola company became synonymous with back-to-school lists, art time activities in public education, and the drawing interests of generations of children.  In 2003, in honor of its centennial, the company hosted a contest to bring a retired color back, and "burnt sienna" returned -- along with the reminder that the color was originally inspired by "burning the land of Sienna" --  an Italian region known for its artistry with crayon technique, as their artists sought to create the reddish-orange hue from mixing heated wax with the dirt of their region.   As late as 2020, Crayola caused controversy with its "Colors of the World," a 40-pigment box set meant to inclusively represent the skin tones of young artists.  

In honor of Take a Hike Day, and in honor of Kentucky's portion of the 60,000 miles of trails in the United States, here are some websites to help you get out there and explore.

Breaks Interstate Park Trail System

Pine Mountain State Scenic Trail 

Dawkins Line Rail Trail

Sugarcamp Mountain Trail System

Jenny Wiley State Park Trails

Prestonsburg Passage Rail Trail

All Trails' Best Trails in Kentucky

Remember the rules of good hiking:

• Leave clear instructions with someone you trust about where you're going, when you'll be expected back, and how long they should wait before they begin to search for you
• Travel and camp on durable surfaces
• Leave it better than what you found it, take only memories
• Minimize campfire impacts, especially during fire season
• Respect wildlife, beware of the bears
• Be considerate of other visitors

"Labor Day." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 3 Sep. 2020. 0510ihiq8-y-https-academic-eb-com.libproxy.kctcs.edu/levels/collegiate/article/Labor-Day/2416. Accessed 29 Aug. 2022.

While many media outlets sensationalize and politicize issues surrounding transgender youth, this program looks at the issue from a truly medical perspective. Along with medical experts who specialize in working with families, Jennifer and Josselynn Surridge describe what it is like to come to terms with being a transgender person, and with being a mother of a transgender child. This story will help every viewer understand the issue in a way that is rarely explored elsewhere.  More segments available at Second Opinion - Transgender Health.

Juneteenth celebrates when slaves in Texas learned that they were, in actuality, free after the lifelong work of abolitionists, war heroes, presidents, and civil rights leaders.  General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas to enforce Lincoln's proclamation more than two years after it was announced; that day, June 19, was remembered in slave narratives as a day when  "We all walked down the road singing and shouting to beat the band," recalled one Texas freedwoman, Molly Harrell, in The Slave Narratives of Texas, a book based on a thirties-era federal oral-history project. Said another, Lou Smith: "I ran off and hid in the plum orchard and said over `n' over, `I'se free, I'se free; I ain't never going back to Miss Jo.'" 

It arose from Texas.  At various times in the twentieth century, notably during both world wars, organized observances of Juneteenth were intermittent but always attracted throngs. In Dallas a 1936 gala at the state fairgrounds drew 200,000 visitors. Because segregation was a long-established policy, Juneteenth was often the only day blacks could enter many attractions; in Fort Worth, for example, they could visit the botanical gardens only on June 19. White merchants, however, cheerfully capitalized on the commercial opportunities. During the thirties, Foley's offered a special sale on "silk frocks" for the big day, Mrs. Baird's claimed its bread "goes mighty fine with barbecue," and railroads offered special rates for day trips.

Over time, the movement spread past the borders of Texas.  By the 1970s, politicians were making it a local and state-wide holiday in places like Atlanta and Charleston, SC.  But there was more to be done.  The "grandmother of the movement," Opal Lee, watched white rioters burn her home to the ground in 1939 while growing up in Marshall, Texas.   When she eventually made her home in Fort Worth, she watched a new generation take up the cause of the Juneteenth celebration as a way to celebrate the freedom so dearly won.   In 2016, she laced up her shoes and wrote a letter to then-President Obama: "You could save me a lot of shoe leather and a lot of wear and tear on an old body by saying how soon you can see me."  Then she began a 1,400 mile trek from her home to Washington DC.   Even though health concerns stopped her from completing the full journey, she continued to walk 2.5 miles -- symbolic of the 2.5 years when slaves in Texas were not told about the proclamation -- in every major city and at all major festivals.   When President Biden signed the national holiday into law, the grandmother of the movement was there -- shoes laced up and all.

Today, Juneteenth is celebrated with national and regional events, including

• a national music festival in Denver CO, a dynamic community event which annually attracts 50,000 people
• Affrilachian poetry at the Lyric Theater and Cultural Arts Center in Lexington, guest speakers Kentucky Poets Laureate Crystal Wilkinson and Frank X. Walker
• a cornbread competition in conjunction with the African American school and museum the Calfee Community Center and the Wilderness Road Museum, Pulaski, VA
• Juneteenth Jubilee Freedom Weekend, in Detroit MI, with a theme of economic development and empowerment

It's Flag Day!

On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress replaced the British symbols of George Washington's Grand Union flag with a new design featuring 13 white stars in a circle on a field of blue and 13 red and white stripes—one for each state. Although it is not certain, this flag may have been made by the Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross who was an official flagmaker for the Pennsylvania Navy. The number of stars increased as the new states entered the Union, but the number of stripes stopped at 15 and was later returned to 13.

 Although there are many claims to the first official observance of Flag Day, all took place more than an entire century after the flag's adoption in 1777.  The most recognized claim comes from New York. On June 14, 1889, Professor George Bolch, principal of a free kindergarten for the poor of New York City, had his school hold patriotic ceremonies to observe the anniversary of the Flag Day resolution. This initiative attracted attention from the State Department of Education, which arranged to have the day observed in all public schools thereafter.

President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that established June 14 as Flag Day in 1916, but it didn't become official until 1949. This occurred as a result of a campaign by Bernard J. Cigrand and the American Flag Day Association.  It is observed across the country by displaying the American flag on homes and public buildings. Other popular ways of observing this day include flag-raising ceremonies, the singing of the national anthem, and the study of flag etiquette and the flag's origin and meaning. 

Some of the library's holdings illustrate ways in which we communicate and understand each other across genders, sexualities, and biology.    Happy Pride Month.

LGBTQ Fiction and Poetry from Appalachia by Jeff Mann (Editor); Julia Watts (Editor)

ISBN: 9781946684929

This collection, the first of its kind, gathers original and previously published fiction and poetry from lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer authors from Appalachia. Like much Appalachian literature, these works are pervaded with an attachment to family and the mountain landscape, yet balancing queer and Appalachian identities is an undertaking fraught with conflict. This collection confronts the problematic and complex intersections of place, family, sexuality, gender, and religion with which LGBTQ Appalachians often grapple. With works by established writers such as Dorothy Allison, Silas House, Ann Pancake, Fenton Johnson, and Nickole Brown and emerging writers such as Savannah Sipple, Rahul Mehta, Mesha Maren, and Jonathan Corcoran, this collection celebrates a literary canon made up of writers who give voice to what it means to be Appalachian and LGBTQ.

 

 

Pray the Gay Away by Bernadette Barton

ISBN: 9780814786376

In the Bible Belt, it's common to see bumper stickers that claim One Man + One Woman = Marriage, church billboards that command one to "Get right with Jesus," letters to the editor comparing gay marriage to marrying one's dog, and nightly news about homophobic attacks from the Family Foundation. Barton argues that conventions of small town life, rules which govern Southern manners, and the power wielded by Christian institutions serve as a foundation for both passive and active homophobia in the Bible Belt. She explores how conservative Christian ideology reproduces homophobic attitudes and shares how Bible Belt gays negotiate these attitudes in their daily lives. Drawing on the remarkable stories of Bible Belt gays, Barton brings to the fore their thoughts, experiences and hard-won insights to explore the front lines of our national culture war over marriage, family, hate crimes, and equal rights. Pray the Gay Away illuminates their lives as both foot soldiers and casualties in the battle for gay rights.

 

 

East Kentuckian Lige Clarke had a prominent role in early gay and lesbian journalism.  Born in Knott County, he was a religious youth beloved by his family. Always known by his family and friends as creative and a “free spirit” who as a child was theatrical, collected dolls, and created “fashions” that included skirts, Clarke was popular growing up in Hindman. The youngest of three and easily recognizable with long, nearly-white blond hair, he spent his early years dividing his time between a little white house on Cave Branch and a residence above his grandfather’s store at “the forks of Troublesome Creek,” as his older sister has recalled.  After he joined the army, he returned to visit frequently.   In 1964, while holding high security clearances as part of his job at the Pentagon in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clarke saw men get caught kissing in a closet only to be summarily dismissed.  Clarke nevertheless remained undetected and unscathed by the military’s homosexual witch hunts. And he knew why—“he was simply another Kentuckian. Homosexuals in the mountains of Kentucky, [the Pentagon] must have reasoned, are as rare as truffles.”  A small band of Washington D.C. Mattachine Society activists staged the first openly gay picket outside the Pentagon, including Clarke's own hand-lettered signs "Gay is Good."  During the late 1960s, a heterosexual psychotherapist, George Weinberg, coined the term “homophobia” to refer to individual anti-gay behaviors and attitudes. Herek, in an article titled “The Psychology of Sexual Prejudice,” maintained that Jack Nichols and Lige Clarke first used the term in print in their column on gay issues in the May 23, 1969, issue of Screw Magazine.  Their column "The Homosexual Citizen" was the first regular LGBT-interest column printed in a non-LGBT publication. One month later in New York City, a police raid on a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn ignited an extended protest against the harassment of gay people and is celebrated around the world as the touchstone of the modern gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender movement.  Lige Clarke and his companion Jack Nichols were at the forefront, not only coining homophobia as an idea but also later publishing the first newspaper, Gay, targeted to gay men.  In a remarkable story, Clarke outed the idea of Fire Island. The small islet was a jealously guarded secret of homosexual New Yorkers when, in 1969, Clarke published an account of his sexy weekend along its beachfront. Lige Clarke, the island’s seasonal habitués complained, “blew their cover."  Years later Jack Nichols would publish a book about the island, proudly putting Clarke on the cover.   Clarke worked with Nichols on books such as I Have More Fun with You Than Anybody and Roommates Can't Always Be Lovers: An Intimate Guide to Male-Male Relationships, before Clarke's untimely death in 1975, murdered mysteriously in Mexico.

 

 

The Stonewall Riots began in the early hours of June 28, 1969.   The next year defiant protestors marched the streets of New York City in honor of those killed or wouded, and in that span, the American Pride movement was born.   Pride is celebrated each June in honor of the original protest movements.  In 1978 what is perhaps the most-recognized symbol of Gay Pride made its debut at the San Francisco event: the rainbow flag. The flag, with its eight colours (sexuality symbolized by hot pink, life by red, healing by orange, the Sun by yellow, nature by green, art by blue, harmony by indigo, and spirit by violet), was designed by San Francisco artist Gilbert Baker and has been adopted worldwide. The following year a six-colour flag, which is in common use today, appeared (with red, orange, yellow, green, blue [harmony replaced art as symbolized by blue in the flag], and purple/violet), partially because of the unavailability of some of the fabric colours. Although the flag's colors have been used in tacky, commercial ways--to decorate key chains and license plates, for example--its power has endured. Its popularity arises from the need for an oppressed people to have a unifying symbol of their own. In the words of Ann Northrop, a long-time activist: "It's still a brilliant signifier and connector and identifier of us as a special tribe of people."

 

 

"As Long As You Can” offers a bright, colorful new picture of what queer in Appalachia really means. This documentary offers expansive interviews covering the lives of 6 LGBTQ+ folks -- all Appalachian, all “successful” in their own ways. When faced with the choice of leaving or staying, “As Long As You Can” hopes to answer young LGBTQ+ Appalachians who are faced with this decision every day. Produced by Nikole Lee and Ellie Mullins, 2021, Appalachian Media Institute

The feast day of March 17 has been designated for Saint Patrick, a real person and church leader who concentrated on converting 5th Century western Ireland to Christianity.   Following his birth in Roman Britain, the young son of a church deacon was staying at his father's country estate in western Britain when he was kidnapped and forcibly enslaved for six years as a Irish shepherd.   For the worldly youth that he had been, though a nominal Christian, captivity became a means of spiritual conversion.  He escaped and went back into the priesthood in Europe, eventually rising to the second Bishop of Ireland as appointed by the pope, concentrating his roving conversion on western and northern Ireland. 

A desire to preach the Christian faith to the Irish grew within him to the certainty of a vocation. Once in a dream he even heard the "voice of the Irish" calling him back.  The Druids fought him bitterly.  He set up the first monasteries in European Episcopal style in Ireland, and he also raged against British clergy, who wanted to continue selling the Irish priests into servitude.  At one point, he fought with British Prince Coroticus, who during a retaliatory raid on Ireland had killed some of Patrick's converts and sold others into slavery.   Patrick showed his identification with the Irish in his phrase "we are Irish." As the bishop of the Irish Christians, he defended them with every ounce of his spiritual power, even if it meant defying a powerful military leader of his own ethnic background. To his critics Patrick replied with his Confessio, written in his old age.

Hundreds of years after his death, Muirchu's account of Saint Patrick's life introduced apocryphal stories about New Testament apostles. Muirchu retold episodes from stories about Bartholemew, Peter, James (the brother of John) and Saint John the Evangelist with St. Patrick as their central character. The canonization of the real monk had begun.  it is noteworthy that he draws attention to this activity as an important element of Patrick's impact on the Irish people.   Stories like the Easter fire and banishing the snakes from Ireland begin to develop details never seen in Patrick's writings.  Christianity began to develop Patrick into a legendary folk hero.   Over time, Patrick became known as the greatest of Ireland's missionaries and its national apostle. 

As the ideas, beliefs, and traditions of Christianity spread from one people to another, they are shaped--and reshaped--by the culture of each new group.  Nowhere is this more true than of the legend that grew around Saint Patrick -- a Briton who was enslaved by the Irish, who escaped his captors, then returned to the Irish with a fervent mission to convert them.  It was on the shores of a far-off land that Patrick truly became a symbol of community and continuity.  By mid 18th century,  Irish soldiers serving in the colonial British Army marched through the streets of New York City accompanied by Irish music. When a massive famine struck Ireland in the 19th century, and millions of Irish emigrated to a new world where they were subjected to discrimination, they remembered their patron saint as an ex-slave who broke down barriers, a story of purification and triumph after suffering.  

By the early 20th century, St. Patrick's Day parades in major American cities had become triumphant celebrations of Irish "arrival" in the hallowed halls of city government--victors over the old guard Protestant Yankees.  The importance of St. Patrick to growing Irish self-confidence was expressed in 1921 by Seumas MacManus, author of the sentimental favorite Story of the Irish Race, know for transforming traditional Irish folktales into modern ones: "What Confucius was to the Oriental, Moses to the Israelite, Mohammed to the Arab, Patrick was to the Gaelic race. And the name and power of those other great ones will not outlive the name and the power of our Apostle." 

Today the U.S. celebration of the feast day is the jewel of Saint Patrick's Day, two hundred years after a massive immigrant movement brought its patron saint to the continent.  Now new classes of immigrants embrace the "kiss me, I'm Irish" sentiment as a way to establish cultural acceptance and integration.   All from a Briton, enslaved for years, who later transformed his adopted homeland... Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

The library database Black Life in America chronicles primary sources from colonial times to present day.    It also offers restriction by topic and by geography, two great tools for narrowing your search.    Here's a brief video on how to use this important database.

During Black History Month, the library showcases areas of the collection regarding the history of African Americans in Kentucky.  If you have any questions, please contact your library and we'll help you find more information.

I watched the white and billowy clouds
          That floated lazily
   With sun encircled edges through
          The purple tinted sky.
   I never knew a sweeter look
          Of Nature ever wearing,
   I never saw her more sublime,
          With more grand awesome bearing
   Than when among Big Sandy's "Breaks"
          October last upon
   That long-to-be-remembered day
          I spent with her alone.

Databases:

Notable Kentucky African Americans 

The Notable Kentucky African Americans (NKAA) was originally a website with a series of individual web pages listing approximately 200 biographical entries on African Americans in and from the state of Kentucky. The site went live in September 2003. It consisted of one entry for each person arranged under the profession or activity in which they were notable, with references to sources of additional information.

Kentucky Center for African American History: Women in History

KCAAH’s goals are to enhance the public’s knowledge about the history, heritage and cultural contributions of African Americans in Kentucky, and in the African Diaspora. This exhibit highlights figures such as Effie Waller Smith, Helen Humes, and Nancy Green.

Please join us at any of the three library locations Pikeville, Mayo, and Prestonsburg for hot chocolate with all the fixings and hot apple cider from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM.

Need food assistance over break?

Here is a list of food pantries in the surrounding area:

Pike County

Thankful Hearts Food Pantry Inc.

648 Adams Rd Pikeville, KY 41501

(606) 437-6221

trissiascott@att.net

https://www.facebook.com/thankfulheartsfoodpantryinc/

Floyd County Emergency Food and Shelter Services

Auxier Food Pantry

Located at: 21 South River St.; Auxier, KY 41602 (Old Auxier Elementary School, across from Auxier Park)

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 135; Auxier, KY 41602

Contact Person(s): Gail Spradlin 886-0709

Service Days/Hours: 3rd Thursday of the Month, Hours: 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. Emergencies accepted upon call request; please leave a voicemail and an employee will get back with you to set up an appointment time for pick-up as soon as possible.

Service Area: Service area consists of Auxier, East Point, Route 3 (on Floyd County side), Jenny Wiley State Resort Park, up to the Armory Road on Route 321 (going towards Prestonsburg), and to the Johnson/Floyd County line in the opposite direction (old road toward Paintsville).

E-mail/Website: gail@myhandinhand.org

Heavens Harvest Food Pantry

Sponsered by: Heavens Harvest Food Pantry

Located at: 3534 KY RT 122 Printer KY (3 miles above the Hall Funeral Home on the right)

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 394; Martin, KY 41649

Contact Person(s): Renee Thornsberry 1-502-517-9233

Service Days/Hours: 3rd Saturday of each month Hours: 12 p.m. – 2 p.m. (Call or message us in Case of Emergency) October is the 4th Saturday because of the Red, White and Blue Days

Service Area: From the City of Martin on Rt 1428 to Allen Park includes Oklahoma Hollow and anyone with a Martin physical address, not a post office box that's a mailing address. Including Arkansas Creek and others roads in that area.

E-mail/Website: reneedthornsberry@hotmail.com & heavensharvestfoodpantry@gmail.com

Facebook at Renee D. Thornsberry page Heavens Harvest Food Pantry https://heavensharvestfood.wixsite.com/website

Jacob’s Ladder Food Pantry

Sponsered by: Jacob’s Ladder

Located at: 22 Main Street; Allen, KY 41601 (beside Allen City Hall)

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 434; Allen, KY 41601

Contact Person(s): Fudd Parsons 874-9859

Service Days/Hours: 3rd Thursday of every month from 10 am till 2 pm. Call for emergency

Service Area: Allen area, Dwale, Hinton holler. Gas Fork. Oklahoma Holler,1428 up to seasons Inn. Cow Creek, Calf Creek. Buffalo, Emma, Daniels Creek across Banner Bridge to plum orchard branch

Email/Website: fuddparsons@yahoo.com

Middle Creek Community Development Club Food Pantry

Sponsered by: Middle Creek Community Development Club

Located at: Chester Grove Rd Rt 114 Middle Creek ( next to Middle Creek Fire DEPT Station One )

Mailing Address: 657 Granny Fitz Branch; Prestonsburg, KY 41653

Contact Person(s): Charles Hackworth 606-886-3606

Service Days/Hours: 2nd, 3rd, & 4th Thursday 12 – 1:30 pm (Call for emergency)

Service Area: From 404 on Highway 114 to Magoffin County line, State Road Fork to Bonanza

Email/Website: nelsonelmina@hotmail.com

Mud Creek Clinic Food Pantry

Sponsered by: Mud Creek Community Health Corporation

Located at: Rt 979, approximately 7 miles from US 23, behind Mud Creek Clinic at Grethel

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 129; Grethel, KY 41631

Contact Person(s): Eula Hall 606-587-2246or587-1124.Linda Adam's 606-213-8514.

Service Days/Hours: 8-4:30,food distribution is the last week of the month. (Call in Case of Emergency)

.

Prater Creek Food Pantry Inc,

Sponsered by: Prater Creek Food Pantry Inc.

Located at: Mare Creek Road, Stanville, KY 41659

Mailing Address: Mare Creek

Contact Person(s): Jack Stanley (606)-794-7945 Rick Burchett (606)-424-5175

Service Days/Hours: 3rd Saturday Each Month -10:00 AM -12:00PM

Service Area: Service Area: US 23 from Banner to Pike-Floyd county line at Boldman including Penn Hook,Harold,to Mouth of Toler Creek,Coldwater ,Betsy Layne,Pike-Floyd Hollow,Justell, Stanville,Mare Creek,Tram, Ivel,Tom's Creek and Banner to Dana Post office.

E-mail/Website: jack_c_stanley@yahoo.com

Saint Vincent’s Mission Food Pantry

Sponsered by: Saint Vincent’s Mission

Located at: 6369 KY Rt. 404; David KY 41616

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 232; David, KY 41616

Contact Person(s): Jennifer Farkas-Sparkman 886-2513

Service Days/Hours: Tuesdays & Thursdays, Hours: 12:00 – 3:00 p.m. Emergency by appointment

Service Area: Wayland, Estill, Hueysville, Bosco, Eastern, our side of 1210, Hippo, Pyramid, David, Blue River all the way to KY RT 114.

Email/Website: stvm@stvincentmission.org

Paintsville Area

• 12 Basket Food Pantry 606-789-3995
• First Baptist Church 606-789-3168
• Highlands Church of Christ 606-789-3995
• Housing Authority of Paintsville 606-789-4455

First Church of God (Dan Heaberlin) Food Pantry

Warfield Area

• Appalachia Reach Out 606-298-7470
• Martin County Senior Citizens 606-298-3459
• RAMP Food Pantry 606-626-6654

While browsing in the library's articles, I found this one -- simple swaps and improvements to keep your meal scrumptious, but someone in your house healthier (maybe even you).   Built for diabetics but shareable to all.

New Twists on the Side: Tweak Your Side Dishes for a Healthier Meal

Happiness isn't a constant state, but ♦moments of joy♦ to feel truly thankful.

As we prepare to celebrate the season of homecoming and thankfulness, here are few articles to keep you in the spirit of gratitude.

• Ask Yourself: What are You Thankful for?

  • If your list is short - "My health, my family" - I get it. What could be more priceless, especially now? But think harder. Raising your gratitude game can make you feel happier during these unsettled times.

• The Art and Science of Gratitude: Increasing Happiness and Wellbeing One Positive Thought at a Time

  • At a simple level, gratitude shifts your focus from the negative to the positive.

• The Thankful Heart: Learning to Grasp Gratitude in Everyday Life

  • I have found myself becoming less conscious of the future, more connected to the here and now. What a beautiful discovery, the true meaning of that word, "present." A most precious gift.

• The Power of Gratitude in the Workplace

  • From an organizational, policy and leadership perspective, Cadiz says that employers should create formal or informal opportunities for people to express gratitude. Including gratitude in a business plan is an essential step that many business leaders miss, and that omission can have financial consequences.

Diwali is the five-day Festival of Lights, celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world.  The word Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word deepavali, meaning "rows of lighted lamps". Houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps called diyas.   Here are some library articles about this year's Diwali Festival, which began November 2 and continues through November 6. (Because the festival is based on lunar cycles, this year the biggest day of the festival is today, November 4.)

For South Asian people across the world, Diwali marks new beginnings and the triumph of good over evil. While celebrations look different from family to family, one feature is constant: setting out small lights that represent how light guides the way amid dark times. Find out more about the history and customs of Diwali here.

For many, Diwali marks the beginning of the new year. It is observed by lighting rows of oil lamps and exchanging greeting cards, clothing and other gifts. Family bonds are strengthened and forgiveness sought.  Joyous festivities and parties abound. Melas, or fairs, are held in almost all Indian towns and villages. In the countryside, the mela includes a festive marketplace where farmers bring their produce to sell and clothing vendors have a heyday.

We have online children's books for Diwali. 

It's Diwali!

Diwali

New Year's Celebrations in Different Places

This Diwali season shoppers can bring a little extra light to the kids of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital while supporting South Asian-owned businesses. GYFTING, an online marketplace for curated gift boxes, is releasing a limited-edition Diwali gift box, part of whose proceeds will go toward St. Jude research and treatment of childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Shoppers will also have an option to donate to St. Jude when they make their purchase.

Merry Quarantine-O-Ween!

October is normally my favorite time of the year, however with Covid-19, quarantines, social-distancing, and global-warming reality is scary enough for me these days. Since social-distancing is still being suggested by the CDC and it doesn't look like our counties will be out of the red anytime soon I thought I would put together a list of Halloween activities that are cheap, easy, and can be done locally or in the comfort of your own home.

What about a Scary Movie Night?

Horror Classics Available to Borrow at Big Sandy's Prestonsburg campus library

Don't forget that we have curbside pick-up or you can come in and ask about borrowing these. Please remember a mask is required.

Bram Stoker's Dracula

Call Number: PN1997 .B7367 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Jonathan Harker is a young lawyer who is assigned to a gloomy village just outside of Transylvania. He is forced to stay at the castle of the undead vampire Dracula and imprisoned by his minions. Dracula travels to London after being inspired by a photograph of Harker's betrothed, Mina Murray. Once Dracula lands in England, his reign of seduction and terror begins. He drains the life from Mina's closest friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy's friends, including her fiancé, gather together to try to drive Dracula away.

The Wolf Man the legacy collection

Call Number: PN1997 .W598 2004

Publication Date: 2004

The Wolf Man: When a man is attacked by a werewolf, he finds to his horror that he now becomes one himself under a full moon. Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man: Grave robbers open the grave of the Wolf Man and awake him. She-Wolf of London: A young heiress finds evidence suggesting that at night she acts under the influence of a family curse. Werewolf of London: While on a botanical expedition in Tibet, Dr. Wilfred Glendon is attacked in the dark by a strange animal.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Call Number: PN1995.9.H6 M37 2003

Publication Date: 2003

Adaptation of the classic horror story in which a young doctor creates life. The creature he assembles from the bodies of convicts and the brain of a brilliant scientist soon realizes that he will be rejected by society and goes on a rampage seeking revenge on the doctor who gave him life.

 

The Exorcist

Call Number: PS3552.L392 E96 2000

Publication Date: 2000

A young girl becomes possessed by the devil and causes several violent deaths before she can be cured. 

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

Call Number: PN1997 .S73 2007

Publication Date: 2007

ack Torrance is a writer who, along with his family, comes to the elegant, isolated Overlook Hotel. He is the off-season caretaker. Torrance has never been there before, but maybe he has. The answer lies in a ghostly time warp of madness and murder.

 

The Old Dark House

Call Number: PN1997 .O423 1999

Publication Date: 1999

A group of travelers on a mountain road in Wales, overtaken by a thunderstorm and torrential rains, seek shelter in a mysterious old mansion. It is full of eerie characters and uncanny happenings.

The cabinet of Dr. Caligari : a film in six acts

Call Number: PN1995.75 .C335 2002

Publication Date: 2002

In the film The cabinet of Dr. Caligari, a somnambulist commits murders under a hypnotist's influence. Also featured is a lengthy excerpt of Genuine. Both films are examples of the German Expressionist movement.

 

Nosferatu Symphony of Horror

Call Number: PN1997 .N563 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Rather than depict Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau's Graf Orlok is a nightmarish, spidery creature with a bulbous head and taloned claws.

The picture of Dorian Gray

Call Number: PN1997 .P53 2008

Publication Date: 2008

Dorian Gray is an innocent young man who has his portrait painted by a close friend. Soon after he falls under the influence of amoral Lord Henry Wotton. Dorian soon jilts his fiancee, which leads to her suicide. This is the start of a life of increasing debauchery. Dorian realizes that the outward signs of this are apparent only in the portrait. Eventually the picture, secreted in his childhood playroom, becomes almost hideous to behold. But Dorian still has one pure love - Gladys, the niece of the original painter.

Fox Horror Classics: A Terrifying Trilogy of Terror

Call Number: PN1997.A1 F69 2007

Publication Date: 2007

Three noir classic thrillers. The lodger: After a mysterious young medical scientists rents a flat in London, a series of brutal murders begins. The undying monster: A series of attacks by a part man/part wolf beast gives credibility to a legend. Hangover square: When a composer learns of a murder that occurred during his bout of amnesia, he is concerned he may be the suspect.

Topper & Topper Returns

Call Number: PN1997 .T67 2003

Publication Date: 2003

Dull and stodgy banker Cosmo Topper is spooked by ghosts. In Topper he finds himself the object of his deceased friends' desire to perform a good deed by getting him to loosen up and have some fun. In Topper returns, a beautiful young ghost enlists his help in catching a murderer.

Suspicion

Call Number: PN1997 .S976 2004

Publication Date: 2004

Alfred Hitchcock weaves a terrifying web of suspicion around a fragile young English bride and captures a classic suspense thriller. Joan Fontaine is the bride, a gently-reared heiress who fears she has married a murderer. Cary Grant is the husband, a dashing ne'er-do-well with a penchant for the high life--and a bank account that's strictly low-life.

Sleepy Hollow

Call Number: PS2067 .A1 2000

Publication Date: 2000

In this version of Washington Irving's classic tale, Ichabod Crane is an eccentric investigator sent to Sleepy Hollow to probe a series of murders allegedly committed by a headless horseman.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Call Number: PS2067 .L4 1988

Publication Date: 1988

The legend of the new schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane, the local bully, Brom Bones, and the ghost, the Headless Horseman.

 

 

 

Spooky Movie Night Snacks

Exorcist Throwing Up Pumpkin Guacamole 

Vampire Bite Brownies

Frankenstein Cheese Ball

Werewolf Kibble

Easy Cherry Pie

To make it Shining themed substitute the second layer of crust with letters cut out from the extra dough. Bake as directed in the cherry pie recipe.

Psycho Themed Cupcakes