Watertown Library's Blog

Yes They Can!

Although largely excluded from employment at the Watertown Arsenal in times of peace, in times of war, women became crucial to almost every aspect of operations.  In a series of photographs selected by Alan R. Earls, author of the Arcadia Publishing photo-history book, Watertown Arsenal, the lives and times of the Women of Watertown Arsenal come alive.  “Although the government photographers are anonymous, many of the images are reminiscent of those crafted by famed photographer Lewis W. Hines,” said Earls. Those photos capture the hard work and occasional triumphs of daily life in an industrial setting traditionally dominated by men.

The event will run through the month of November at the Watertown Free Public Library.

When: Wednesday, October 29 at 7 PM

Jeffrey Cramer has spent more than twenty year immersed in the writings of Thoreau. He will discuss what he has come to appreciate and understand about this complex American writer and icon. The man at Walden Pond was only one small aspect of Thoreau’s life. Learn why many contemporary nature writers have left Walden behind to find a different man in Thoreau’s Journal. Discover how Thoreau wrote, how he used his Journal, and hear excerpts from his Journal that will introduce you to a very different Henry David Thoreau.

Last Thursday, October 9, was the date of our fabulous Indian dinner with Tamarind Bay, and our penultimate event for One Book, One Watertown.

After reading about all the delicious Indian food in the Namesake - because like any good family, the Ganguli family bonds through mealtimes - I was really looking forward to tasting what Jhumpa Lahiri had so lovingly described.

And Tamarind Bay, a local Indian restaurant, did not disappoint.  With heaping platters of soft rice, warm naan (flat bread), and plentiful helpings of vegetarian and non-vegetarian offerings, there was something for everyone.  There was chicken tikka masala, a dish made of tender chicken, a creamy tomato sauce, and mild spices, saag paneer, cooked spinach, cheese and spices, and a rich and tasty dish with chick peas that I didn’t catch the name of.  And then there were tasty side dishes, and a uniquely spiced rice pudding for dessert.  Tamarind Bay also enlightened our group of diners with a brief, but fascinating lecture on Indian food.

Luckily for you, if you missed our all-you-can-eat Indian Buffet, we still have some room open on Tuesday, October 21st where we invite Tamarind Bay back to do it all again.  Tickets are on sale at the library for $5.

On Thursday, October 9 at 7 PM and Tuesday, October 21 at 7 PM, learn about – and taste! – Indian food in our closing events for One Book, One Watertown.

Local Indian restaurant, Tamarind Bay, provides the food for our final events. Tickets for this event will be on sale soon, for $5 each. Space will be limited, so make sure you get yours early!

Come join in celebrating the joys of everyday life with photographer Joanne Shapiro, who’s photography exhibit, “Extraordinary Ordinary: The Magic of Everyday Life” will be on display in the gallery throughout the month of October. You are invited to attend the opening reception for this exhibit on Sunday, October 5th, 2 pm – 4 pm.

Joanne first discovered photography while in grade school when she acquired her first camera, a turquoise blue 620-film box camera. Many years and cameras later, her love for photography continues to grow. Working many years with a 4 x 5 view camera and a traditional black and white darkroom, Joanne currently photographs with a DSLR camera and she prints her own photographs using a digital darkroom.

On October 5th at 1 PM, we’ll be showing the movie version of The Namesake, starring Kal Penn.

Here are some reviews of the film to whet your appetite:

Roger Ebert: “The Namesake tells a story that is the story of all immigrant groups in America: Parents of great daring arriving with dreams, children growing up in a way that makes them almost strangers, the old culture merging with the new. It has been said that all modern Russian literature came out of Gogol’s “Overcoat.” In the same way, all of us came out of the overcoat of this same immigrant experience.”

Claudia Puig from USA Today: “Nair has taken a fascinating piece of literature and woven a rich cultural tapestry for the screen. The Namesake elicits laughter and tears in its profound and emotionally resonant family portrait.”

Ty Burr from The Boston Globe: “The Namesake has a deep, alluvial poetry to it, like a mighty river reaching the sea. It’s mysterious and ordinary, insightful and banal, rambling and precise, and it is altogether unexpected.”

This movie screening will be hosted by Project Literacy, and will feature a discussion after at 3:30 PM, led by Watertown’s Anne Benaquist.  Anne Benaquist is an adjunct instructor of English as a Second Language at MassBay Community College and at Showa Boston. She has also taught literature and film courses at Lassell Village and ESL to foreign post-docs and researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She has a masters degree in linguistics and education from Syracuse University and edited textbooks for many years.

Benaquist’s ESL classes and literature/film classes have included reading and viewing many compelling stories about immigrant experiences, including The Namesake. She is delighted to facilitate discussion of Jhumpa Lahiri’s renowned story.

This Saturday is Watertown’s Annual Faire on the Square. This year, we’re participating with several events based on our community reading program, One Book, One Watertown.

Because we’ve been reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake, all three events we have planned celebrate Indian culture:

Taal Tales Dancing: Learn about traditional Indian dancing with Tara Ahmed.
Saturday, September 27 at 11: 30 AM

This 45-minute lecture/demonstration presents a history of classical South Indian dance and performances of dance pieces celebrating various deities. You will see analogies between art from India and America, and learn to understanding parallels between art forms and cultures. In this highly interactive program, the participants are engaged by asking and answering questions throughout the entire program. A small group is invited to get up to learn some movement, and there is a Question & Answer period at the end of the program.

Henna Tattoos: Get your own henna tattoo with Sue Murad.
Saturday, September 27 starting at 2 PM

Express your appreciation for Indian culture on your skin. Visual artist Sue Murad specializes in hand drawing these gorgeous henna tattoos that will last about two weeks. The Watertown Free Public Library has invited “Henna Sue” to help us celebrated Faire on the Square and One Book, One Watertown.

Drop In Crafts: Learn how to make Indian Block Prints in an event hosted by our Children’s Department.
Saturday, September 27 from 2-4 PM.

The Children’s Department will host Open Craft from 2-4 pm in the Watertown Savings Bank Room. Stop by to learn about Indian Block Printing and make your own print!

We kicked off our first ever One Book One Watertown Community Read with a talk by Professor Bakirathi Mani, who teaches at Swarthmore College.  About 70 people attended the event, nearly filling up the room.  After Professor Mani spoke about the Namesake and Jhumpa Lahiri, people asked questions, and told their own family stories of immigration and relocation.

It was a great event, and we’d like to thank everyone for attending.  Hopefully we’ll see you all again next Saturday, September 27th for the events we have planned for Faire on the Square.

Next week will finally see the official start to the events for our community reading program, One Book, One Watertown.

Swarthmore College Professor, Bakirathi Mani, will visit the library to give an engaging lecture on The Namesake and Jhumpa Lahiri.

Bakirathi Mani is a professor at Swarthmore College, and the Chair of their Women’s Studies Department. She has Pd.D.s in Modern Thought and Literature and Cultural and Social Anthropology, and specializes in studying the South Asian diaspora in the United States. As such, she is a scholarly authority on Jhumpa Lahiri and her works.

Refreshments will be provided for guests by our own cafe.  No registration required.

Are you looking forward to September?  You will be when you see the finalized list of events we’re putting on for our One Book, One Watertown program.

• SEPTEMBER 18 AT 7 PM:  Swarthmore College Professor Bakirathi Mani will kick- off the events with a lecture on Jhumpa Lahiri and the book, The Namesake.
• SEPTEMBER 24 AT 10 AM: Senior Center Book Discussion
• SEPTEMBER 25 AT 6:30 PM: Teen Book Discussion
• SEPTEMBER 27 AT 11:30 AM: Taal Tales Dancing - Learn traditional Indian dances with Tara Ahmed
• SEPTEMBER 27 AT 2 PM: Henna Tattoos with Sue Murad
• SEPTEMBER 27 AT 2-4 PM: Drop In Crafts hosted by the Children’s Department - learn how to make Indian block prints.
• OCTOBER 1 AT 7 PM: Adult Book Discussion
• OCTOBER 5 AT 1 PM: Film Screening of The Namesake and Discussion with Anne Benaquist
• OCTOBER 7 AT 12 PM: Brown Bag Lunch Book Discussion
• OCTOBER 9 AT 7 PM: Food Tasting and Lecture provided by Tamarind Bay

We’ll have more information on each event soon, so keep an eye on this space for updates!

This month, we are welcoming local artist, Julie Nordstrom, to the T. Ross Kelly Family Gallery. Part of a unique American tradition, Nordstrom paints screens of all shapes and sizes, decorating them landscapes or floral imagery. In this way, Nordstrom creates art and beauty out of something boringly functional, and adds a whimsical, decorative touch to a house’s exterior.

While art has not been my primary vocation, I became fascinated with painted screens in 2006 while traveling in Baltimore. Painted screens date back to the 1930’s and you can still see many of these original screens in windows of East Baltimore. The painted screens I saw were scenes of cottages in rural, pastoral settings, of woodlands and ponds filled with birds. As I further investigated this art form I noticed that the variety and type of painted screens that filled windows and doors were limited only by the artist’s and homeowner’s imagination. I decided this was an endeavor I wanted to pursue and I have fallen in love with painting screens.

It is my hope that by exhibiting my work in the Watertown Library I will help to keep this traditional form of American art alive. When you see the exhibit I think you will be fascinated by the fact that the artwork is almost invisible on the inside, thus your view of the outside is unobstructed. The exterior painting does make it more difficult to see inside the window.

-Julie Nordstrom, Watertown MA

All of the new copies of the Namesake are now in, so come in and get your copy to read, or place a request online. They’re all brand new, clean, and easy to carry paperbacks, so you can take your copy with you to read on the bus, train, or, if you’re very coordinated, while you’re walking around town.

The events for this program will kick off in September, so you have over a month to read the acclaimed book by Jhumpa Lahiri, if you haven’t already.

It’s not news that we’re selling books (even though lending is our usual M.O.) we’ve been selling books in our Cafe Bookstore for a while.  But some of our donated books are a cut above the usual.  Some of them are signed, first editions, or rare, out-of-print books in excellent condition. So we’ve put them online through librarybooksales.org to give a wider audience a shot at owning these awesome books. Of course, we want to make sure our patrons can see what we have to offer, too.

So, check out the list of titles currently for sale.  All pricing, posting, and packaging are done by library volunteers, and the proceeds go toward the Library Building Fund.

This fall, the library is going to launch a community reading program for Watertown called “One Book One Watertown.”

Thanks to a grant from the Watertown Community Foundation and funding from the Library Building Foundation, we’ll be able to buy enough copies of Jhumpa Lahiri’s exiting novel, The Namesake, for everyone in town to read. And we mean everyone! So, stop by over the next couple of months and pick up a copy, because starting in the fall, we’ll be having book discussions, special events, lectures, crafts, food and more.

If you aren’t tempted yet, let me tell you a little bit more about the book. The Namesake is a family history, encompassing two generations of the Ganguli family, an immigrant family that gains and loses more than they expect in their pursuit of the American Dream. There’s the father, Ashoke Ganguli, who leaves Calcutta with his wife Ashima to settle in Central Square, in Cambridge, and their two children, Gogol and Sonali. The book is primarily concerned with the son, Gogol, and how he struggles against his parents cultural values, even though he shares them more than he thinks.

The New York Times called the book, “that rare thing: an intimate, closely observed family portrait that effortlessly and discreetly unfolds to disclose a capacious social vision.”

So get reading! More updates will be posted as we finalize event dates, so stay tuned.