Northland Public Library Announces October Programs & Events

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: September  19, 2012
ATTACHMENT

Contact: Donna Rau
412-366-8100, x108
               raud@einetwork.net

NORTHLAND PUBLIC LIBRARY PROGRAMS & EVENTS FOR OCTOBER, 2012

FALL BOOK SALE BLOWOUT
Our annual Fall Book Sale Blowout will be held on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, October 5-7, in the meeting rooms on the lower level of the library.  Thousands of items, including books, DVDs, and CDs, will be available at deep discount prices.  The sale will end on Sunday with our popular $5 bag sale. Get a reusable tote to fill to the brim, and pay just $5!  Here is the complete Book Sale Schedule:

                Friday, October 5             9:00am to 9:00pm
                Saturday, October 6        9:00am to 5:00pm
                Sunday, October 7           1:00pm to 5:00pm            $5 Bag Day


LEGAL ADVICE FOR SINGLE WOMEN: PLANNING FOR PEACE OF MIND
Single women – divorced, widowed, never married – often have questions and concerns about current financial matters and decisions to make that affect their future plans and those of their loved ones. Wills, estate planning, property ownership, continuing care for children, elderly parents, future care for pets…these are just a few of the issues that many single women need to consider. Knowing where to begin is the first step in gaining peace of mind for the future.
Attorney Claire Johnson Saenz will address these concerns and help you sort and prioritize the areas that are unique to your situation. The focus of Saenz’s law practice is estate planning and administration. She will allow time for your questions after her presentation on Thursday, October 11 at 7:00pm. Please register for this free program by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or online through the Library’s website.

HUNTER-TRAPPER SAFETY
Northland Library will host the PA Game Commission Hunter-Trapper Safety Program on Sunday, October 14 from 1 to 5 p.m. To register for the class, go to the PA Game Commission website…www.pgc.state.pa.us and click on Education.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF VALUE LINE
Value Line is one of the best-known sources of investment information about companies. Weekly updates on almost 1700 companies and their industries provide historical data and estimates of future prospects and commentary on the economy and financial markets.
BetterInvesting , a national, non-profit educational organization returns to Northland Library on Monday, October 15 at 7:00 to help you explore ways to interpret Value Line’s information and find companies that meet your investment goals. You will also learn how to access the free information on the Value Line website. Please register for this free program by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or online through the Library’s website.
BetterInvesting’s mission is to provide a program of sound investment information to create successful lifetime investors. The organization does not sell, promote or recommend specific investments but rather teaches the principles that lead to a secure future.


INDIAN COOKING CLASS
Our favorite Indian cooking chef, Ann Manchella returns on Monday, October 22 at 7:00pm to demonstrate the preparation of Dal Palak (or Lentils with Spinach.) This is a simple, yet high-protein dish, served with rice or roti (Indian flat bread.) Tasty samples are served after the demonstration.
Registration for this free cooking class is required. Reserve your place by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or online through the Library’s website.

BORROWING LIBRARY EBOOKS FOR A KINDLE DEVICE
This informative program will demonstrate the procedures for downloading library eBooks to your Kindle reader. We’ll take you through the process step-by-step and answer all your questions after the demonstration on Wednesday, October 24 at 7:00pm. You do not to bring your reader. Please register for this free class by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or through the Library’s website.

DON’T TOSS MY MEMORIES IN THE TRASH:
A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO HELPING SENIORS DOWNSIZE, ORGANIZE AND MOVE.
Vickie Dellaquila, a professional organizer, has written a book titled “Don’t Toss My Memories in the Trash: A Step-by-Step Guide to Helping Seniors Downsize, Organize and Move. She’ll be at Northland Library on Thursday, October 25 at 7:00pm to share her valuable tips on downsizing, organizing and moving in an organized, efficient and caring manner. Moving is about memories, emotions and life-stages as well as the act of transferring possessions from one place to another.  Vickie’s compassionate approach gives seniors and family members the necessary tools to ensure a smooth and satisfying move experience.  You may register for this free workshop by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or through the Library’s website.
Vickie’s book will be available for those who wish to purchase it and she will allow time for questions from the audience after her presentation.

SAVVY SOCIAL SECURITY PLANNING
We couldn’t accommodate all of the people who wanted to attend a previous program on Social Security, so we’re offering a “repeat performance” on Monday, October 29 at 7:00pm!
A new generation is getting ready to collect Social Security. Find out what you need to know to make the most of your retirement benefits. There are many questions people have about Social Security: should I coordinate benefits with a spouse, how much will I receive, should I postpone collecting Social Security if I’m still employed?
Mark Ambrose of S&T Bank will present a helpful program to show you how to plan for your Social Security payments. He will allow time for questions and answers. Please register for this free program by calling 412-366-8100, extension 113 or through the Library’s website.



ONGOING SERIES & DISCUSSIONS FOR OCTOBER 2012

FILM SERIES AT NORTHLAND – No reservations required for these free presentations..

FOREIGN FILM –A Separation, a drama from Iran                              Wednesday, October 10, 2pm
Winner for best foreign language film at the academy Awards, this film provides an excellent look into the disintegration of a marriage when parental concerns and family allegiance present serious differences. Light refreshments served.


TRAVEL FILM – Budapest, Vienna, and Prague                                    Wednesday, October 17, 2pm
This month, we will host an Oktoberfest of stunning photography and interesting stories when John and Frances Gaylor return to Northland to share their experiences of traveling the picturesque land of Central Europe.


CLASSIC FILM – Mr. Smith Goes To Washington                                 Wednesday, October 24, 2:00pm
With the national election on the horizon, our movie for October is Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, the classic 1939 film about one man’s effect on American politics, starring Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and was added by the Library of Congress to the National Film Registry of “significant films.


BOOK DISCUSSIONS – No registration required for these free discussion events.
TUESDAY NIGHT BOOK DISCUSSION – Tuesday, October 2 , 7:00pm           Meets the first Tuesday of each month
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find--the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon.

SECOND FRIDAY BOOK GROUP – Friday, October 12, 11:30am                  Meets the second Friday of each month
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
Winner of the Man Booker prize, this month’s selection is a short but compelling novel on aging, memory and regret as the main character is confronted with occasions from his past that he had conveniently put to rest.
Bring a brown bag lunch; the library provides a beverage. Our discussion begins at noon.

MYSTERY LOVERS BOOK GROUP – Thursday, October 18, 7:00pm             Meets the third Thursday of each month
Call for the Dead by John le Carre
George Smiley, the most famous of recurring characters is introduced in this first novel written by John le Carre.

SERIOUS READERS GROUP – Saturday, October 27, 11:00am                      Meets the fourth Saturday of each month
Discuss those books which have often formed the outline of the political and economic philosophies of the United States.  For upcoming titles and more information: 724-935-4339.

CONVERSATION SALONS- No registration required
CONVERSATION SALONS – Friday, October 12, 2:00pm and Wednesday, October 24, 1:00pm
Informal discussion on timely topics such as politics, medicine science, current events, movies, education- anything that is on your mind! Share your opinions and hear what others have to say.

MISCELLANEOUS – No registration required
NORTHLAND KNITTERS – Wednesday, October 10, 7:00pm and Friday, October 19, 1:00pm
Enjoy conversation, knitting and dessert. For knitters of all skills to share techniques, ideas and to swap patterns.

AMATEUR ASTRONOMY CLUB – Thursday, October 25, 7:00pm  Meets the fourth Thursday of each month
Enthusiasts of all things astronomy are welcome to join.


CHILDREN’S/YOUNG ADULT/FAMILY PROGRAMS
HALLOWEEN HAUNTINGS
Stories, songs and a craft for the whole family! Children are welcome to try out their Halloween costumes before the big night at this special Halloween Haunting on Sunday, October 28 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm. No registration is needed for this free program. (Note to parents: Ghost stories told in a dark room may be a bit much for preschool children.)

CALLING ALL TODDLERS
Are you the parents of a baby or toddler?  Ready for some playdate fun? Then join us at our very special “after-library-hours” Playful Parenting Workshop Series.
Relax and play, socialize with other parents, and have a chance to meet and ask questions one-on-one with our visiting experts in Child Development, Nutrition, Speech & Hearing, Music & Movement and Emergent Literacy. Parents and their children can play and chat on Friday evenings from 6:30pm to 8:00pm on October 12, 19, 26 and November 2.
Registration is required and space is limited for these free evenings of information and fun.  You may sign up for this four-week series at the Children’s Reference Desk, or by phone at 412-366-8100 ext. 123.


STORYTIMES FOR BABIES, TODDLERS AND PRESCHOOLERS
Our storytime sessions for young children continue this month through mid-November. No registration is required to attend.

Picture Book Storytime     Tuesdays from September 25 to November 13 at 10:00am or 1:00pm
Preschoolers ages 3 to 5 years of age can have fun with picture books, songs, and action rhymes.

Mother Goose Storytime    Wednesdays from September 26 to November 14    at 10:00am
Nursery rhymes, songs, tickles and bounces for babies and toddlers with a parent, grandparent
or caregiver.

Kangaroo Storytime     Wednesdays from September 26 to November 14 at 11:00am
Nursery rhymes, stories, songs and romps for toddlers 24 months through 3 years with a parent,
grandparent or caregiver.

FUNDRAISERS

NORTHLAND GOES PRETZEL CRAZY!
Pretzels dressed for all tastes and occasions are this month’s Bread for Books feature. Sweetly dipped and dizzily drizzled, crunchy and nutty with a fruity twist, or on a blanket of marshmallows, you’ll find great treats for everyone at our special sale in the library on Friday October 5 from 9:00am to 5:00pm and Saturday, October 6 from 9:00am to 5:00pm. You can visit the sale table in the lower lobby for snazzy pretzels to take home right away, then, check out the selection online: www.pretzelcrazy.com where you will find even more treats for yourself, gift giving, or special occasions.  Pretzel Crazy will donate 20% of all in-library table sales, and when ordering online, enter “NORTHLAND” as the promotional code for the Library to receive 20% of your total purchase on orders through the entire month of October!

Posted on behalf of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates.  Joyce Kane is the owner of Cybertary Pittsburgh, a Virtual Administrative support company, providing virtual office support, personal and executive assistance, creative design services and light bookkeeping.  Cybertary works with businesses and busy individuals to help them work 'on' their business rather than 'in' their business.  www.Cybertary.com/Pittsburgh

Wood Street Galleries: The City & the City Exhibit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 Today's date: August 31, 2012
 Contact: Justin Hopper, guest curator, (412) 400-9250,  juddy.hopper@gmail.com

The City & the City: Artwork by London Writers at Wood Street Galleries, September 28 - December 31, 2012

Famed authors examine ‘the city’ in a unique exhibition.

 Pittsburgh, PA:  Wood Street Galleries and guest curator Justin Hopper present The City & the City, a first-of-its-kind gallery exhibition of artwork by British-based new-media and installation artists who are best known as writers of nonfiction, novels, and poetry.
 

Guest Curator Justin Hopper

 The exhibition launches with an opening 5:30-9 p.m. on Friday, September 28, Wood Street Galleries, 601 Wood Street (above the T-Station), downtown Pittsburgh, as part of Pittsburgh Cultural Trust’s Gallery Crawl in the Cultural District.  For more information about events happening during the Gallery Crawl, visit www.Trustarts.org
 
The City & the City presents an evening of readings, artist’s talks, and discussions with Caroline Bergvall, Rod Dickinson, Rachel Lichtenstein, Tom McCarthy, and Sukhdev Sandhu on Saturday, September 29, at 7:30 p.m., at SPACE gallery, 812 Liberty Avenue, downtown Pittsburgh.
 
 Wood Street Galleries hours: Wednesday-Thursday: 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Friday-Saturday: 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Sunday: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.  The gallery is free and open to the public.  Wood Street Galleries is a project of The Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Support for Wood Street Galleries has been provided by the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Additional support provided by the Port Authority of Allegheny County.  www.woodstreetgalleries.org
 
About the Exhibition
The City & the City draws many of its artists from London’s burgeoning psychogeography movement – a cross-disciplinary movement of artists whose work examines peoples’ cultural interaction with the urban landscape. In that tradition, each of the seven London-based artists in The City & the City is an experienced and well-regarded visual and conceptual artist, but arguably better known for literary output ranging from creative nonfiction (Iain Sinclair), to novels (Tom McCarthy), criticism (Sukhdev Sandhu), and poetry (Caroline Bergvall).
 
The City & the City features five installation and new-media artworks by Caroline Bergvall; Rod Dickinson & Tom McCarthy; Rachel Lichtenstein; Chris Petit, Emma Matthews & Iain Sinclair; and Sukhdev Sandhu.
 
“In their artwork, as in their writing, these artists examine the cracks between fact and myth in the modern city,” says curator Justin Hopper. “They’re looking at spaces where language, images and objects intersect to create new ways of understanding the places in which we live. And they’re doing so at a time when transportation and communication technology make the places we inhabit less definitive than ever: when that role of relating people to their surroundings is increasingly an artistic one.”

 
Contact: For further information, print-ready images, interviews:
 Justin Hopper (guest curator) – juddy.hopper@gmail.com or (412) 400-9250
 Murray Horne (Wood Street Galleries curator) – horne@trustarts.org or (412) 471-5605
 Rachel Tokarski (curatorial assistant) – tokarski@trustarts.org or (412) 471-5605
 www.woodstreetgalleries.org
 
 
The City & the City: ARTISTS & WORKS
 
Caroline Bergvall: “Middling English”
French-Norwegian, but based in London, Caroline Bergvall’s (b. 1962) cross-disciplinary work incorporates multilingual poetics into both publications and performance-oriented, often sound-driven, writing projects. In “Middling English,” Bergvall combines the linguistic and poetic style of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with modern London situations and slang to create a series of poetic broadsides – prints of poetry in the style of Enlightenment-era ballads and proclamations meant for the audience to take with them – and audio pieces in the style of a bard or town crier. Her practice sites her poetry, making it immediate and ephemeral as opposed to the contemporary relationship between poet and audience, which is too-often staid and static.
 
Rod Dickinson & Tom McCarthy: “Greenwich Degree Zero”
Rod Dickinson (b. 1965) is a British conceptual artist whose work engages themes of control and mediation and focuses on the way in which our behavior is moderated by feedback systems. He came to prominence, albeit anonymously, in the early 1990s as one of England’s original crop-circle makers, but is best known for pioneering historical reenactment as artistic practice. Tom McCarthy (b. 1969) is the author of the novels Remainder, Men in Space, and the Booker Prize-shortlisted C, for which he was described as “a young and British Thomas Pynchon.”

McCarthy’s artistic practice revolves around the International Necronautical Society, an affiliation of conceptual artists whose practice ranges from conventional installation work to multimedia, sometimes unauthorized, interventions. Dickinson and McCarthy joined forces in 2005 to create “Greenwich Degree Zero,” a multimedia museum-style installation documenting an alternate history in which the 1894 attempted anarchist bombing of the Greenwich observatory succeeded. (In truth, its perpetrator was killed by his own bomb’s premature explosion, though the event later inspired Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent.) “Greenwich Degree Zero” plays with ideas of institutional mediation of history and memory, and illustrates the way in which that historical memory becomes part of our cities’ landscapes, whether that history becomes common knowledge or is buried beneath our modern lives.
 
Rachel Lichtenstein: “Sight Unseen”
Rachel Lichtenstein (b. 1969) is one of the foremost writers of nonfiction considering London’s landscape and memory. Her debut book, the collaboration with Iain Sinclair Rodinsky’s Room, was published in 1999 by Granta in the U.K. and U.S. and has since been translated into French, German and Dutch. Her current work revolves around a three-volume series of creative nonfiction books about specific London streets: On Brick Lane (2007) and her new book Diamond Street (2012), about the historically Jewish diamond merchant’s street Hatton Garden, are both published by Hamish Hamilton.
 
 Lichtenstein was trained as a sculptor and installation artist, and “Sight Unseen” acts as a meditative bridge between her research, writing, and artistic practice. A collection of found and fabricated objects related to her research into Hatton Garden, “Sight Unseen” exudes the secretive life of that neighborhood – a sculpture of dark velvet lined books, water from the underground Fleet River, small and invaluable century-old tools from the desks of jewelers, and the ghostly audio installation of an interview with a now-deceased diamond worker.
 
Chris Petit, Emma Matthews, & Iain Sinclair: “Flying Down to Rio”
Chris Petit (b. 1949) and Emma Matthews are London-based filmmakers whose work separately and together runs the gamut from installation video to art-house classics to commercial TV and cinema work. Director Petit is best known for the 1980 cult classic Radio On, a post-punk road movie and perennial presence in “top-100 British films ever” lists. For decades, Petit and Matthews’ work has included collaborations with writer and filmmaker Iain Sinclair (b. 1943), godfather of modern psychogeography, and the writer of record on the contemporary history and hidden cultures of East London.
 
 Sinclair’s books include the seminal psychogeographies Lights Out for the Territory, a collection of “drifts” through London, and London Orbital, a walk around the city’s surrounding beltway. (The film of London Orbital was a collaboration with Petit and Matthews.) Sinclair’s earlier work included several volumes of poetry and fiction, which, likewise, imagined England’s terrain as being haunted by the cultural ghosts of its history – whether scarred by Thatcher’s revisionism, terrified by Jack the Ripper, or magicked by Renaissance architectural mystics.
 
“Flying Down to Rio” is one in an ongoing series of video installations Petit, Matthews and Sinclair have made together. The piece is a four-channel immersive video installation portraying a drive from East London’s borough of Hackney, north to the sea. Literal camerawork shows the four cardinal points of the artists’ vehicle – forward, back, left and right – on the four walls of the gallery space. But these images of work-a-day London are slightly slowed to create an unearthly vision, and soundtracked with samples from film noir and other sources that gives the city a new context: a surreal groundlessness that exists just a half step away from the reality at its source.
 
“Flying Down to Rio” is one in an ongoing series of collaborations between Petit, Matthews and Sinclair that also includes “Marine Court Rendezvous,” a multi-channel video installation about a pre-war building in Hastings, E. Sussex, and other projects about landscape and memory.
 
Sukhdev Sandhu: “Night Haunts”
Sukhdev Sandhu (b. 1970) is journalist, author and historian. He is the chief film critic of the Daily Telegraph, and has written on art, urbanism, and the poetics of migration for a wide range of publications, from London Review of Books and The Guardian to Gastronomica and avant-garde music bible The Wire. Sandhu’s books include London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined a City and I’ll Get My Coat, an artist’s book based on walks around traditionally Asian neighborhoods of England. He holds a doctorate from Oxford University and is an associate professor in New York University’s department of Social & Cultural Analysis.
 
“Night Haunts,” a collaboration with designer Ian Budden and sound artist Scanner, is a collection of Sandhu’s nonfiction accounts of London at night, told in a poetic style but from experienced, journalistic research. These pieces are given appropriate visual and audio settings by the collaborators and experienced by audience members in an interactive, digital, multimedia setting. Far beyond the mere “e-book,” “Night Haunts” imagines a new future for the nonfiction book as a total artwork.

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Posted on behalf of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates.  Joyce Kane is the owner of Cybertary Pittsburgh, a Virtual Administrative support company, providing virtual office support, personal and executive assistance, creative design services and light bookkeeping.  Cybertary works with businesses and busy individuals to help them work 'on' their business rather than 'in' their business.  www.Cybertary.com/Pittsburgh