In collaboration with the Sun Valley Music Festival, The Community Library welcomes Maestro Neale for an “Upbeat with Alasdair” talk titled “The Big Picture,” which will explore the ways classical music both celebrates and illustrates the human condition.
This live program will also be recorded for later viewing.
In partnership with the Sun Valley Museum of Art, The Community Library welcomes author Azar Nafisi for a virtual conversation. Nafisi will be in conversation with Kristin Poole, artistic director at SVMoA, and Martha Williams, the Library’s programs and education manager.
Azar Nafisi is a lifelong champion and ardent supporter of the importance of Humanities and Liberal Arts and the role they play in the preservation and promotion of democracy. She is best known as the author of
the national bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, which electrified its readers with a compassionate and often harrowing portrait of the Islamic revolution in Iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. Earning high acclaim and an enthusiastic readership, Reading Lolita in Tehran is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers of fiction in a world of tyranny. The award-winning book was named as one of the “100 Best Books of the Decade” by The Times (London).
She is also the author of a memoir about her mother titled Things I’ve Been Silent About: Memories of a Prodigal Daughter. Additionally, she wrote The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books, a powerful and passionate case for the vital role of imagination and ideas in democratic nations today to combat the rise of authoritarian states. Azar Nafisi’s book on Vladimir Nabokov, That Other World, was published by Yale University Press in June 2019. She is currently exploring the power of literature in traumatic times in her new forthcoming book, entitled Read Dangerously: The Subversive Power of Literature in Troubled Times. She lives in Washington, DC.
We can no longer evaluate just the surface of a painting. Scientific techniques, including the use of a nuclear accelerator, can tell us much more about a piece of art’s history and authenticity.
Join Dr. Philippe Collon, associate professor of experimental nuclear physics at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, as he shares in this virtual presentation how the same science that allows us to look at the stars allows us to look under the surface of great works of art.
Watch on Livestream. The presentation will be recorded for later viewing.
In collaboration with the Wood River Women’s Foundation, the Library will be hosting a virtual State of the Valley Forum on Tuesday, January 12 at 6:00 p.m. The program will be livestreamed with optional on-line discussion groups to follow.
The forum aims to take the pulse of our community as we embark on a new year, and also to envision life beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion will explore what we can do to build a healthier, more inclusive, and resilient community.
Panelists will include: Angenie McCleary, County Commissioner; Brad Henson, Principal of Alturas Elementary; and Ruby Garcia, Bilingual Outreach Coordinator at St. Luke’s Wood River Center for Community Health. The discussion will be moderated by the Library’s executive director, Jenny Emery Davidson.
Watch on Livestream. The presentation will be recorded for later viewing.
The one-hour forum will be followed by optional Zoom discussion groups. The Zoom link for these discussions will be featured in the Livestream chat during the forum. Please join the Wood River Women’s Foundation for these breakout groups to dig deeper into the questions raised during the live forum.
Jingle Bell Rocks! is a trippy, cinematic sleighride into the strange and sublime universe of alternative and underground Christmas music. The 2013 documentary features interviews and music from The Flaming Lips, Run-DMC, The Free Design, Low, Miles Davis & Bob Dorough, Clarence Carter, John Waters, and many more. The film was an Official Selection at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival and DOC NYC.
The film follows Christmas music junkie Mitchell Kezin as he unveils twelve of his most cherished, alternative Christmas songs. With titles like, “Green Chri$tma$,” “Santa Claus Was a Black Man” or “Merry Christmas Someone” these funny, sad, satirical, and scathing songs explore the flipside of the Yuletide: racial inequality, religious freedom, nuclear war, family angst, conspicuous consumption, or just the yearning sadness of being alone at the happiest time of the year.
Hitting the road to uncover the stories inside the grooves, Mitchell hangs with his holiday heroes — musicians, deejays, record execs, radio hosts, composers, critics and fellow collectors — who share his passion. Through rollicking live performances, intimate interviews and a kaleidoscope of touching and kooky archive, we’ll journey deep into the Christmas cosmos, uncovering the remarkable stories behind twelve of the weirdest, wildest, most poignant Christmas songs you’ve never heard.
Equal parts social history, pop culture pilgrimage and revealing character study, Jingle Bell Rocks! follows a motley crew of merry misfits as they confront the Christmas music mainstream, reinventing the seasonal soundtrack for the 21st century.
Streaming courtesy of Kanopy. Run time 95 minutes.
This program is part of our 2021 Winter Read of Octavia E. Butler’s 1979 novel Kindred.
As part of the Winter Read series, join us for a virtual conversation with award-winning author Lynell George about her new book, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler. George will be in conversation with Jenny Emery Davidson, the Library’s executive director about Butler’s creative life and private world, and why we look to her work to make sense of contemporary chaos.
Lynell George is a journalist and essayist. After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame was her first book of essays and photography, exploring the city where she grew up. As a staff writer for both the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly, she focused on social issues, human behavior, visual arts, music, and literature. She taught journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, in 2013 was named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow, and in 2017 received the Huntington Library’s Alan Jutzi Fellowship for her studies of California writer Octavia E. Butler. A contributing arts-and-culture columnist for KCET | Artbound, her commentary has also been featured in numerous news and feature outlets including Boom: A Journal of California, Smithsonian, KPCC’s The Frame, Los Angeles Review of Books, Vibe, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post, Essence, Black Clock, and Ms. Her liner notes for Otis Redding Live at the Whisky a Go Go earned a 2017 GRAMMY award.
A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky is available through Angel City Press or at local book stores.
