Library News

Jacob Edwards Library

August 2023

Library Hours

Monday & Thursday 9 am - 8 pm

Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday 9 am - 5 pm

Curbside pickup is available during library hours!

Massachusetts Statewide Digital Equity Survey

Time needed: 5 minutes

The Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI) wants to hear from you about your experiences with getting and using internet service. Your input will help the State make sure that everyone can have access to high-quality and affordable internet service, devices, skills training, and digital support.

The survey is completely anonymous. Questions are optional, unless specified otherwise. You may skip all optional questions. You can exit the survey at any point and return to the same page where you left by coming back to this website. We do not ask for any personally identifiable information (e.g., name, email, address). We collect demographic information so that we can make sure we are representing all neighborhoods, towns, cities and demographic groups across the Commonwealth, and to enable municipal planning efforts as well as statewide planning.

Thank you for your time and participation. Information you share here will help us develop the Massachusetts Digital Equity Plan and ensure equitable internet access for all.

Click here to take the survey!

August Art Exhibit

Ornamental Birdhouses

by Eric Kalwarczyk of Eric's Aviaries

Meet & Greet

Thursday, August 3rd

6:30 - 7:30 pm

JEL is pleased to host the work of artist Eric Kalwarczyk of Eric's Aviaries.

Artist's biographical sketch and statement:

"Eric’s interest in woodworking began as a teenager. Having a machinist tradesman for a father, there was a small woodworking shop at home where he could build things like small tables, speaker cabinets, little birdhouses, etc. The vocational path he ultimately decided to travel, however, was not at first woodworking. Starting out working in some small commercial kitchens sparked an interest in food service and an enrollment in Newbury College School of Culinary Arts. For the next 20+ years, he spent working in the restaurant industry as a professional chef, mostly in the Worcester area and Northern Connecticut.

As the years began to take its toll on trying to balance a family with the long hours of a hectic restaurant schedule, it became clear he needed to make a professional change. In 2015, he met Paul Girouard who offered him a position in his cabinet shop, Fine Lines Woodworking. Fine Lines specializes in custom kitchens, built-ins, and furniture.

The birdhouses enter the story when Eric's uncle and aunt, who are serious birders, approached him to build a few large, ornamental birdhouses for their garden. After obliging that request his uncle was approached by a local woman who was interested in having some birdhouses built for her property. After putting a few houses on his front yard for sale he began taking orders from local people. It gradually evolved into Eric's Aviaries and he started selling them at craft fairs around New England.

Eric is constantly trying to develop new designs and perfect the established ones. He feels the birdhouses are a perfect way to blend his love of woodworking, nature, art, architecture, and design and he hopes to be doing it for many years to come."

Sponsored by Friends of Jacob Edwards Library.

How to Fight Book Banks & Stand Up for the Right to Read

(Zoom)

Wednesday, August 2nd

6:30 - 7:30 pm

Sponsored by the Friends of the Jacob Edwards Library in conjunction with other Central Mass Libraries.

Please register for the Zoom link here: https://shorturl.at/zAJR7

Join area libraries for this virtual presentation by author Ashley Hope Perez. Ashley Hope Pérez is an assistant professor of world literature at The Ohio State University and the author of three novels including Out of Darkness (2015), which has been on the American Library Association’s list of Top 10 Most Challenged Books since 2021.

Follow Ashley on Twitter or Instagram: @ashleyhopeperez.

Learn more about efforts to fight book banning: 

https://linktr.ee/ashleyhopeperez.

(More) Jewish Life in Song with The Wholesale Klezmer Band

Thursday, August 10th

6:30 - 7:30 pm

JEL is pleased to host a return engagement of Yiddish singer Yosl Kurland accompanied by Accordionist Aaron Bousel and flutist Peggy Davis, all members of the Wholesale Klezmer Band in a new program of "Jewish Life in Song."

The program will include selections of liturgical music as well as humorous Vaudeville pieces about the liturgy of the upcoming High Holy Days. There will also be a suite of music for a traditional Jewish wedding including a song to the bride and groom and a dance of anger and reconciliation, performed to teach the couple about the importance of resolving arguments. Also included will be Yosl's translation into English of a song by Leib Kvitko, one of the victims of Stalin on August 12, 1952, the Night of the Murdered Yiddish Poets and a Hebrew psalm of thanksgiving set to a Ukrainian folk melody. All songs will be translated, explained, or sung in English translation.

The performers draw upon their vast repertoire of Yiddish folk, theater and Hebrew liturgical songs, including Yosl's own compositions, In introducing Jewish music and culture to diverse audiences, Yosl works to foster intercultural understanding.

Vocalist and educator Yosl Kurland, a founding member of the Wholesale Klezmer Band (www.ganeydn.com) since 1982, performs and writes Yiddish songs and synagogue music. With the Wholesale Klezmer Band he has performed widely for weddings, bar/bas mitzves and concerts, including at Carnegie Hall with Pete Seeger, and has taught workshops at elementary, middle and high schools on Yiddish music, dance, literature. He developed programs on "Yiddish Songs of Cultural Resistance in the Holocaust" and "A Jewish Perspective on Social Justice in Song". He teaches adult education classes on Yiddish language and literature as well as klezmer music and is a cantor for Temple Israel of Greenfield.

Wholesale Klezmer Band accordionist Aaron Bousel began playing the instrument at age ten, though it wasn't until 1995 that he began to play klezmer. He has participated in workshops at KlezKanada in Quebec and Yidstock at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Soon after moving to Amherst in 1997 he became accordionist for the band Hu Tsa Tsa with which he has played for life-cycle celebrations and local synagogue functions. He is also accordionist for the Yiddishkeit Klezmer ensemble and has accompanied Mak'hela, the Jewish chorus of western Massachusetts.

Peggy Davis (flute, vocals) grew up in Minneapolis, where she studied flute and guitar. She listened to the recorded Yiddish songs of Theodore Bikel, Ruth Rubin and Martha Schlamme and encountered native singers of Yiddish songs when working with Russian Jewish immigrants in Italy, many of whom spoke with her in Yiddish, which she had studied at the YIVO Institute. In Minnesota, she helped found the group "Yiddishe Folksmenshn." Peggy also sang Balkan and Russian folk music in the Ethnic Dance Theatre Choir. She taught calligraphy classes and childen's activities at KlezKamp, and has taught in public and Hebrew schools. Peggy is a calligrapher in Hebrew, Yiddish and English, creating illuminated Jewish wedding contracts (ketubot).

You can find more about the Wholesale Klezmer Band and Peggy H. Davis Calligraphy at http://www.ganeydn.com.

August's title is "Book Lovers" by Emily Henry - the instant #1 New York Times bestseller from the author of "Beach Read" and "People We Meet on Vacation."

Multiple copies in various formats will be on hold - ask for a copy at the Information Desk!

From the publisher:

"One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming...

Nora Stephens' life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.



If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves."

Recommendations for future titles are always welcome!

Afternoon Author Talk

I Shouldn't Tell You This

by Courtney Kuketz

Wednesday, August 23rd

2:00 - 3:00 pm

JEL is pleased to host author Courtney Kuketz who will present a talk on her book I Shouldn't Tell You This.

Synopsis:

Frustrated with life's disappointments, ranging from a relationship in disarray to a failed attempt at a prestigious internship, Olivia needs to get away. On the other hand, Betty needs to finish what she and her late husband had planned before his death. As luck would have it, the two women are seated next to each other on a flight to Barcelona; the rest is history. "I Shouldn't Tell You This" is a women's fiction novel, featuring overlapping stories and dual perspectives. The stories of 20-year-old Olivia and 73-year-old Betty show the ever-evolving generational differences, but more importantly, highlight the similarities. Betty may not be the sweet, innocent old lady she initially seems to be. The mysterious death of her first husband may not have been such a mystery to her. And Olivia is a perfectly imperfect college student swept up in an affair with her professor, before coming face-to-face with his wife and children. After landing in Barcelona, the women must face the realities they are trying to escape when an unwelcome surprise awaits at baggage claim.

About the Author:

Courtney lives in Massachusetts, accompanied by her rambunctious dogs, Ellie and Rosie. Like any self-respecting New Englander, she loves all things Boston sports, especially the Red Sox. When she’s not writing, she is teaching other people to write better than she does. Just like most authors, she drinks too much coffee and strives in isolation, but won’t turn down an invitation to a good brewery or a game night. Courtney was recently featured in Worcester Magazine.



Sponsored by Friends of Jacob Edwards Library.

The American Songbook featuring Quintessential Brass

Thursday, August 24th

6:30 - 7:30 pm

JEL is pleased to host a performance by Quintessential Brass.

Quintessential Brass performs majestic brass music. The group draws from a vast repertoire of jazz and pop music. This summer Quintessential Brass will be performing classics by John Williams, John Phillip Sousa, George Bizet, and Duke Ellington, and the timeless hits of Bon Jovi, Jason Mraz, Little Feat, Panic at the Disco, Queen, the Beach Boys, Tijuana Brass, and, as always, music from movies, TV, Broadway and the Big Band Era. Quintessential Brass takes the role of the brass quintet to the limit and beyond. Programs are selected to entertain audiences of all ages.

This brass quintet consists of five full-time professional musicians who have, individually, performed with groups all over the world, recorded CDs and movie soundtracks, performed for Presidents, and at venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center. Quintessential Brass has recorded two CDs: “Miscellenea” and “A Quintessential Christmas”.

Mike Peipman: Trumpet

Adam Mejaour: Trumpet

Robin Milinazzo: Horn

David Lindsey: Trombone

Leslie Havens: Bass trombone & tuba

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Southbridge Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. 

A Journey Through the Roots of American Popular Music

with Jon Waterman

Thursday, August 31st

6:30 - 7:30 pm

JEL is pleased to host Jon Waterman's program, “A Journey Through the Roots of American Popular Music" - a unique performance experience combining music history, storytelling, and original songs inspired by his research. Waterman successfully transforms fascinating tales from history into an evening-length performance that feels personal, contemporary, and politically relevant.

A lifelong performer, Jon Waterman has a deep appreciation for the epic tales of history and the stories of both lesser-known and more familiar individuals whose lives, struggles, and dreams mirror our own. Jon holds a degree in History and graduate degrees in Popular Music History and Psychology.

More of Jon Waterman's music can be found here: 

https://www.jonwaterman.com/history/

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Southbridge Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. 

Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

by Jenny Odell

"In this thought-provoking, deeply hopeful reframing of time, the author takes us on a journey through other temporal habitats, urging us to become stewards of different rhythms of life, to imagine an existence, identity and source of meaning outside the world of work and profit.

Saving Time tugs at the seams of reality as we know it—the way we experience time itself—and rearranges it, imagining a world not centered on work, the office clock, or the profit motive. If we can “save” time by imagining a life, identity, and source of meaning outside these things, time might also save us." - From publisher

Services Spotlight

Library of Things

Did you know that JEL has a number of non-traditional items that you can borrow for free with your library card, such as hotspots, jigsaw puzzles, museum passes, and more? Check out what we have to offer here and keep your eye out as new items are continually being added!

Suggestions are always welcome!

Welcome to the Children's Page

August

2023



Tuesday Steam Club

Join us on Tuesday Mornings from

11:00am-noon



Activities include art, playdough, puzzles, building circuits, kinetic sand, tinkering and much more!

Lego Club

Tuesdays & Thursdays

3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Crafty Wednesday

All Day

 Every Week



Tinkering Thursday

Join us on Thursday afternoons from

4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Great for kids 5 and up



What is Tinkering?

"to take things apart, put things together, figure out how things work, and attempt to build and make creations using tools."

See you at the Library!

Jacob Edwards Library

508.764.5426

jelibrary@cwmars.org