Danbury Library Blog

Tomorrow only comes once every four years! February 29th, Leap Day, is a day we add every four years to make sure our calendar year always falls in line with the solar calendar. This “tweak” isn’t perfectly accurate though; in fact, every 8,000 years we’ll be off by a full day – but none of us will be probably here to fix that issue.

With curious custom come curious traditions and folk lore, and Leap Year is no different. Among other practices, women could only propose marriage to men in leap years; a man who did not accept this proposal was fined in assorted ways, from a kiss to a dress given to the rejected lady. Through the centuries, as men felt they were becoming particularly vulnerable during these years, some places restricted proposals to men on only Leap Day, rather than the entire year. So ladies, get your breeches or scarlet petticoats on, and go ask that man for his hand tomorrow!

Posted by Merry at 01:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Writing heavyweights Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men won Best Picture and Upton Sinclair's Oil! which the movie "There Will Be Blood" is loosely based on featured prominently at the Oscars. Books well worth reading. DVD's of these two are slated to be released next month.

Some of the winners and nominees in different categories already available at the library are:

Michael Clayton
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
American Gangster
In the Valley of Elah
Gone Baby Gone
Ratatouille
La Vie en Rose

Posted by Mary at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are all familiar with work of William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, dramatist and one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. In the course of doing resaerch on my family history for my Genealogy program I discovered that my paternal grandfather came from Cloonaghil in County Sligo. Yeats lived in Sligo while a young man and grew to love it. But what I did not know was that Yeats had a younger brother, Jack Butler Yeats, who was also a poet, dramatist, novelist as well as a painter. He was an influence on Joyce & Samuel Beckett and is the most important Irish painter of the twentieth century but his reputation is overshadowed by his elder brother. He loved Sligo and said that its landscape had "made him a painter."

Posted by John O'Donnell at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Did you know that the town of Farmington was considered to be the “Grand Central Station” of the Underground Railroad routes that crossed Connecticut in the early 1800s? Go to the website of the Connecticut Freedom Trail for more information about the lives and experiences of African Americans in Connecticut in the 18th and 19th centuries; the site includes a list of probable Underground Railroad stops in the state. And take a look at The Slaves of Central Fairfield County: The Journey From Slave to Freeman in Nineteenth-Century Connecticut by Dan Cruson of Newtown.

Posted by Andrea at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Congratulations to Uno, the 15 inch beagle who took Best in Show in the 2008 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. The first beagle ever to win Best In Show, Uno did beagles around the world proud. Uno was easily the crowd favorite, strutting his stuff to thunderous applause in Madison Square Garden. Since his winning Tuesday night, news and talk shows from David Letterman to The Today Show to Charlie Rose have had “interviews” with Uno. Not since Snoopy has a beagle garnered this much media attention. Learn more about beagles and the other breeds from our extensive dog book collection, or be inspired by Snoopy and the gang with Peanuts Guide to Life, in which the famous beagle offers such wise advice as “Never try to lick ice cream off a hot sidewalk!” and "Keep looking up...That's the secret of life."

And Charlie Brown's advice on love, fitting on this Valentine's Day, is "Giving! The only real joy is giving!" Happy Valentine's Day!

Posted by Merry at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In December, we bid farewell to reference librarian John O'Donnell, never expecting his return to the staff in January. (Some job changes just don't work out.) But this week we must bid farewell to Kate Sheehan, the library's Automation Coordinator, who, chances are, will not be returning to our staff. Kate joined us on November 13, 2006, and her last day will be Valentine's Day, one day short of exactly 15 months. Thanks to Kate's eager enthusiasm to try new technology that will enhance and improve service to our customers, Danbury made international news by becoming the first library in the world to add LibraryThing information to its online catalog. She was also behind the addition of our new IM reference service called IMDanburyLibrary. She's leaving us to begin a specially-created position at the Darien Library, where Kate will be able to apply her skills and knowledge in a state-of-the-art facility currently under construction. We wish her only the best and thank her for a great, but far-too-brief, tenure.

Posted by Mark at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Good News! The national love/hate relationship to food with the attendant problems of obesity, eating disorders, guilt is nothing new. In A Short History of the American Stomach we find dieting gurus among the Puritans in the form of "fire and brimstone" Cotton Mather who viewed the gastro intestinal system as a depository of evil spirits to be removed by a variety of unpleasant means. Community fasts were big although we probably could've done without the one preceding the Salem witch hunt. Hey, maybe we should resurrect a National Fast Day.

Often hilarious--the author's analysis of "food television" is a hoot--we learn the body pollitic has always been quite neurotic when it comes to food--Benjamin Franklin thought eating oatmeal "would bring us all one step closer to utopia." Hasn't worked for me.

Posted by Mary at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Clive Cussler has been an outstanding adventure novelist since 1973. He had a huge bestseller with Raise the Titanic in 1976 and he has written 33 books in total. But he has another career as the founder of the National Underwater & Maritime Agency which he founded in 1979. This organization is a non-profit, volunteer foundation which is dedicated to preserving our maritime heritage through the discovery and conservation of shipwreck artifacts. This group has found over 60 historically significant shipwrecks including the C.S.S. Hunley which was the Confederate submarine which successfully sank for the first time in history another ship during the Civil War.

Cussler's new title is The Chase which is based on the recovery of a locomotive & a crime.

Posted by John O'Donnell at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that you’ve cast your ballot, put your feet up and enjoy the Hollywood version of political fun, passion and intrigue. Some classic films with political themes are straight-ahead dramas (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939, The Manchurian Candidate, The Parallax View 1974, All The President’s Men 1976, The American President 1995, The Contender 2000), and a few are flat-out comedies (Dave 1993, Dick 1999, Head of State 2003), but the most enjoyable seem to fall into that nether-realm of black comedy. Funny, yes, but in a way that makes us a little bit uncomfortable. Think of The Candidate 1972, Bob Roberts 1992, and Primary Colors 1998.

Inspired to throw your hat into the ring? Check out How to Win a Local Election: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide.

Posted by Andrea at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)