Occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things...

Tuesday the 31st: August is now at a close, and all Fall stands before us.  It's also the 588th anniversary of the death of Henry V, and with over fifty events taking place at the Library between now and year's end, we can repeat the chorus's question from Shakespeare's eponymous play: Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden "O" the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?  

Well, we're not presenting live theatre (yet), but our "wooden O" will host half-a-dozen concerts, Toddler Tuesdays, a new film series, three exciting Lifelong Learning Series classes (including the Bard's tragedies, led by Nan Morrison), and a whole lot more.

Tomorrow night: a pair of films on architecture in Venice and Northern Italy.  Drayton Hall is leading a tour group to the Veneto in September, and, in preparation, has some short films to show about the sights to be visited.  Screenings will be here at the Library Society, and members of both organizations are invited to attend.  6-7:30 PM, Wednesday the 1st and Wednesday the 8th.  Free for members.  Please RSVP, 843.723.9912 or shoot us an email.

On sale now: tickets for Unedited: A Concert Series with Laura Ball and Friends.  Tickets for Favorite Arias and Duets, the September 9th concert, and the whole series are currently available.  Get them at the Library, over the phone (843 723 9912), or via the interweb by clicking here.  $15 for one, $85 for all seven.  Cheap.  Get 'em quick.

Not on sale for much longer:  Lifelong Learning Series classes start next week.  More info here.  Both are almost sold out, so if you want in, call us ASAP.

Final random fact for the day: it's Dubose Heyward's 125th birthday.  Perhaps you should celebrate by visiting the CLS's "Rabbit Hole", dedicated to his children's classic, The Country Bunny.

Lisztomania (not Lizstomania, stupid), like a riot, like a riot, ohh...

And so it begins, the first Monday of the rest of our lives (or at least the rest of our Fall events season).

Only two events this week: Thursday morning we're hosting a Darkness to Light Stewards of Children training session.  This is a free training session addressing the issue of child sexual abuse.  No registration is needed, and everyone is welcomed and encouraged to attend.

Thursday evening we're hosting Morsza, a voice and piano recital concert.  Pianist Oszkar Morzsa and soprano Eva Morzsa, along with local violinist Nicholas Bentz will perform a program of Mozart, Chopin, Verdi-Liszt, Puccini, and Lehar in the Main Reading Room of the Charleston Library Society.  Twenty bucks, cash only, at the door.

As for Lisztomania (and my apologies to the Morszas, Franz Liszt, and everyone else with the "sz" construction... bocsánat, bocsánat, bocsánat.  Heaven knows how many times I have transposed those letters in the past few weeks.)... we hope you'll make it to the concert; we hope you're wildly excited about how great the concert is: but, we will have to ask that no one bottle the performers' coffee backwash...

Good morning, Tweetnam!

So there are just under fifty days marked, for some reason or another, on the Library's events calendar between now and the end of the year as having some sort of Official Library Function.  Plus, there's new construction aplenty around here- the revamped Research and Writing Center is largely complete (new doors just passed by my desk a few minutes ago).

 Notice the chop saw in the new Librarian's Office... this is going to come in handy.

And as if that wasn't enough... well there's wine and goat cheese in the staff break room right now.  'Cause we're the library that dials the cool up to 11.  Except for in the vaults, of course, they're permanently set at 22.2 degrees C.  Anyhow, we're busy, and we're happening, and all the cool kids these days are doing it, and I wanted to use the atrocious stolen pun in this post's title... you can now follow the Library Society on Twitter, at #librarysociety.

Me and you, your momma, and your cousin too...

It's hot, it's rainy, and now the elevators are dead.  The minsis horribilis continues.  SCE&G has swapped a transformer on our block, and until we get compatible motors, our elevators are just a pair of storage closets with electrically actuated doors.  Oh well: the good folks at SCE&G are on top of it, so the elevators should be back posthaste.

But the bitter always comes with the better.  Butter.  Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.  How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored.  Irish wristwatch.  Arg!

Okay, no more of that rubbish.  The better = Unedited: A Concert Series with Laura Ball and Friends, which premiers about a month from now on September the 9th.  A series of seven unique concerts, Unedited will present a wide spectrum of artists and styles, captained by inimitable soprano Laura Ball.  September 9th is Favorite Arias and Duets, featuring a selection of film soundtrack favorites.  Single event tickets are $15, and series tickets are $85 (about a twenty percent discount from single event price).  Get 'em via paypal through our website, linked above, or call us, 843.723.9912.

But the real problem is the 7.2 inches of average monthly rainfall.

August is a deplorable month.  Perhaps its the heat, or the grinding boredom of the tail end of summer; whatever it is, August is the sweating, stinking cesspool of human history.  Just pick a random August date - let's use today's,  2nd - and you'll find nothing but trouble.  August 2nd, 216 BC: Roman defeat at Cannae.  August 2nd, 1934: Hitler becomes führer.  August 2nd, 1939: the Einstein–Szilárd letter kicks off the atomic bomb project.  August 2nd 1964: Gulf of Tonkin incident.  August 2nd, 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait.  It's the death date of Caruso, Raymond Carver, Steven Vincent, and (the mournfully underrated) President Warren G. Harding.

In short, August is rubbish.

Except: the Library Society is kicking off its fall event season here in just a few weeks, and it's all going to start in August.  So mark your calendar: August 26th, at 7 PM, we're hosting Morza, a voice and piano recital concert.  Pianist Oszkar Morzsa and soprano Eva Morzsa, along with local violinist Nicholas Bentz will perform a program of Mozart, Chopin, Verdi-Lizst, Puccini, and Lehar in the Main Reading Room of the Charleston Library Society.  Twenty bucks, cash only, at the door.

 

It doesn't make up for August and its heat, its rain, and its apparent propensity for terrible historical events, but it's going to be a heck of a concert.  More info on our upcoming events page, as always.

WGH sez: be there.

Things I've said today

It's July 26th, the birthday of novelist Aldous Huxley, and the death date of King Offa of Mercia, the guy who established the border between England and Wales (likely in an attempt to keep England safe from excess l's and y's, rarebits, and rogue Methodist men's choirs).  It's also the 46th birthday of A Hard Day's Night, possibly your loyal blogger's favourite Beatles album.

It's also the one-week birthday of the Research and Writing Center's new construction project: a new office and a smaller, quieter, dedicated research room.  Construction is moving along very quickly, and we'll be moving into the space before you know it.

They've been workin' like a dog...

"A thousand twangling instruments / Will hum about mine ears..."

At least that's how Caliban put it in The Tempest.  And it's not just true on Shakespeare's windswept isle, but true as well in the Library's Research and Writing Center.  The Center is being thoroughly renovated, with new offices and reading bays in their own private, quiet space.  The project is on schedule, and should be completed and ready for use by next week.

Until then, the twangling of power tools and hanging drywall and painting will hum about your ears, if you're in the other half of the Research and Writing Center.  The rest of the Library, including the Main Reading Room, is as calm as ever.


In "The Spirit of Music", Geddy Lee reminded us the "machinery making modern music / can still be open-hearted, / not so coldly charted; / It's really just a question of your honesty."  And- honestly- that little snippet of Canadian prog-rock might describe the renovation even better than the Bard.  And, it's what the construction workers were listening to yesterday, so it's stuck in my head...

Rush: Canada's Shakespeare

Still waiting for our first Bar Mitzvah...

Hotter than hades outside, fewer patrons inside, and no events on the calendar 'till September: summertime means project time around the Library.  Latest result:

 

That's the front room of the Barnwell Annex, once home to audio books and lots and lots of beige.  Now?  It's a snazzy conference room; home to the Library's collection of French books; our 1825 Jean Alexandre Bouchon map of South Carolina; and this fall, home to our restored Mouzon map of South Carolina.  It's a great space finally getting put to great use.

Speaking of using space around here, there is now a dedicated page on our website covering the basics of renting our rooms for your events.  The info is also available in the downloadable .pdf on said page, if you'd prefer it that way.  We've hosted parties, investment groups, genealogical conferences, a couple of weddings, and all sorts of other stuff here before: if you've got a get together, we'd love to host it.

It's not like our event calendar isn't free at the moment.

E pur si muove...

It's June 22nd, the 377th anniversary of Galileo's forced abjuration of heliocentrism.  Obviously neither Galileo nor the inquisitors were correct: the Earth and the Sun are consubstantial!  Proof?  Here in Charleston, it's 95+ degrees all week, with 70%+ humidity.  Earth=Sun, Q.E.D.

Still, we're used to it, right?  And warm weather will be no excuse come next Monday, as we march in the Carolina Day parade.  3 PM, Washington Park... be there!

ALSO HOT: our Fall events schedule!  Programs with Nic Butler, Jack Weatherford, Patrick McMillan, and more!  The return of our Lifelong Learning series, with Nan Morrison and Bret Lott!  Concerts galore!  Dates, times, and more info as it becomes available...

 

Also, I'm fairly sure the universe revolves

around Scottish actress Karen Gilian.

Prove me wrong, "science"!

Love letters from Mountain View

You like us, you really like us!

Okay, sorry for (mis)quoting Sally Field and her Places In the Heart Oscar speech.  [Besides, everyone knows her career peaked with Smokey and the Bandit.]  No, your loyal blogger is gushing because we're now a Favorite Place on Google.   During recent testing period, the CLS was one of the most popular local businesses on the ubiquitous search engine/knowledge repository/future artificially intelligent Emperor of Earth (all hail Google!).  And we've now received our official "You're a Favorite Place" kit from the Googleplex.  Now you can come in with your smartphone, scan our "Favorite Place on Google" sticker, and read reviews about us or access special coupons.

Of course, we don't have any special coupons, and and it doesn't look like anyone's written a review of us (hint, hint).  But it's still nice to be liked, and even better when people codify exactly how much they like you, whether it's being voted President of the US, or becoming Miss Boiling Springs, SC, to merely being top 1% of businesses searched in the US (that's us!).



ALSO NICE: We're less than two weeks away from Carolina Day!  Join us June 28th, at Washington Park, at 3PM for the march on to White Point Gardens.  And don't forget the seersucker!

It worked for Joakim Noah!

Heat index: 103. Inside the library: 74. Where should you be right now?

The Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival was a terrific success.  A big thanks to our sponsors, Duvall Catering and Wachovia/Wells Fargo; to our Programs Committee, especially the indefatigable Dr. Jane Tyler; and, of course, to the six speakers -John McCardell, Louis Rubin, James Kibler, Farrell O'Gorman, Dacre Stoker, and Bob Anderson- who were the stars of the event.  And, of course, one last huge "thank you" to all of y'all who came and paid your fifteen-dollars-for-the-event-plus-one-dollar-processing-fee and enjoyed the Festival.  We can't wait for next year's series.

 Are you in the photo above?  If so, thanks!

But, with our part of Piccolo Spoleto over, it is officially summer around here.  We've no events; no speakers; Toddler Tuesday is on hiatus... other than marching in the Carolina Day parade(seventeen days to go!), there's not much doing around here.

So stop by and grab a DVD or some light summer reading!  We're all still here, and happy to help (except on the mornings of June 18th and 23rd, when the USA has World Cup games... then you can check out your own bloody books.)  And don't forget, we're hard at work planning a great fall schedule, and we'll be announcing Autumn's events as we finalize them...  Exciting speakers?  Extended hours?  Washed-up D-list celebrity guest librarians?  A small green alien only Fred, Barney and Pebbles can see?  Tune in next time to find out!!!

Only a few more months 'till we get Bernard back...

For those of you who missed his excellent speech at this year's Annual Meeting of the Library Society, here's part-time Charleston resident, full time friend of the Library Society, and all-around awesome guy Bernard Cornwell, delivering the commencement speech for Emerson College. Not many commencement speakers manage to keep their audience awake... Bernard got them on their feet, earning a standing ovation by the end of his address. If you've got ten minutes, spend it watching this:

Off, to the land of cheesesteaks and Tastycakes!

Well, your loyal blogger is about to take his first vacation day of the year.  The US men's national soccer team has their last home match before the World Cup in Philly this weekend, and that's where I shall be.  I couldn't be more excited about my first visit to a city that's been so well depicted in art and culture- Philadelphia, thirtysomething, Boy Meets World, Dawn of the Dead, 12 Monkeys, the opening credits to The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, One Life to Live, Always Sunny... okay, most screen depictions of Philadelphia have been kinda terrifying, or at least kinda depressing.  Still, great art museum, great music and sculpture, and I get to watch us whip Turkey's keister... pretty great.


But what I'm missing is going to be pretty great, too: the CSO Spirituals Ensemble is performing here at the Library Society this Saturday (May 29th) at 7:00 PM.  Tickets are $21, and are available through Piccolo Spoleto.  The concert, Circa 1748: Bridging Oral and Literary Traditions, is a joint project of the Ensemble and the Library Society, and will explore traditional historical connections between vocal and written arts.  Mostly, it's going to be the CSO Spirituals Ensemble doing what they do best, which is being awesome.  I might be missing Saturday's performance, but I was able to make it to their rehearsal last night: they're going to rock the roof off.  Also great, Literary Festival next week.  See you there!

Ed il vostro uccello può cantare

Monday night's Dixie, Denim, and Drinks was a smashing success, and if you missed it, you really missed out.  We would like to give a big thanks to all of the performers- Laura Ball, Peter Kiral, Courtney Sharp, Edoardo Carpenedo, and Erica Carpenedo- and hope that they'll be back to perform for us again.  While we're big fans of "quiet in the library", this concert certainly showcased the joy of a little occasional noise around here!

So we are now officially "warmed up" for Spoleto; on to Piccolo proper.  First up is another great concert called Circa 1748.  This is a joint project of the CLS and the CSO Spiritual Ensemble, incorporating our historical written materials with the vocal talents of the Spiritual Ensemble.  May 29th, 7PM, here at the CLS.

June 3-5 is the Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival, kindly sponsored by Wachovia and Duvall Catering.  Starting at 10 AM on the 3rd, John McCardell will discuss The Civil War and Historical Memory; at 3 PM Louis Rubin will talk about his new book, Uptown/Downtown in Old Charleston.  June 4th at 10 AM we'll have James Kibler present Getting Reacquainted with William Gillmore Simms, Poet; at 3 PM Farrell O'Gorman will give Writing Faith and Doubt in the Contemporary South: Walker Percy's Legacy.  At 10 AM on the 5th, former 60 Minutes producer Robert G. Anderson will tell us What NOT to Say to Mike Wallace; and at 3PM Dacre Stoker will discuss Unlocking Some of the Mysteries of Dracula, from the Stoker Family Perspective.

Event tickets for Circa 1748 and the Festival are available wherever Piccolo Spoleto tickets are sold.  The concert is $21, and the literary lectures $16.

Immediately following the will be our annual Literary Soiree, at 7 PM on the 5th.  Join some of our speakers and your fellow festival goers, and have a nosh courtesy of Duvall Catering.  Tickets are $15, and are available directly though the Library Society, 843.723.9912.

They're so old, we're thinking about naming them "Strom" and "Thurmond"...

The Library Society is now about 260 years old.  That makes us the oldest cultural institution in the South; it impresses the heck out of visitors from out West who seem to think anything predating the Carter administration is ancient; and it secures us a spot near the front of the Carolina Day Parade line.  Being 260 years old is kinda cool.

But our collections include a few manuscripts from as far back as the 15th century, and some Indic statuary from as far back as the 10th.  Absorbing that level of historicity is always amazing- to pick up a document and think, "This book was written the year Lorenzo de' Medici died", or "That little statue was around before the Normans conquered England".  Everyday, you're gobsmacked by the elastic nature of time on a grand scale: how can I call George Washington's letters as "old" when something created eight centuries prior sits a few yards away?

But then, then!, there are the twinned doyen of our collections: the ginkgos that flank our Main Entrance.  While ours were planted Garden Club in 1922 - practically yesterday, right? - the ginkgo is a survivor from the Permian Era - 270 million years ago.  Our Society might predate the United States; but ginkgos were around before flowering plants.  Before birds.  Before mammals.


That is old.  That is awesome.

And now, best of all?  That awesomeness has been formally recognized!  Our ginkgos are not just living fossils, they are the Charleston Horticultural Society's 2010 Outstanding Trees Award in the "Nonprofit" category.  We've even got a nifty trophy to boot.  There are a lot of great trees in the Lowcountry, and we're in really good company with our sister organizations that have won this award before: we really couldn't be prouder that the great organic members of our collections have been recognized in this manner.





Other reasons to stop by soon: "Dixie", Denim, and Drinks is this Monday night, it's going to be terrific, and tickets are going fast.  Call us and buy yours today.  Circa 1748 is just over a fortnight away (May 29).  The Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival is the weekend after that (June 3-5).  Tickets for 1748 and the Festival are all available through Piccolo Spoleto.  Also, Toddler Tuesday is going on summer break, as of June 1.  It'll be back this fall, having failed to do its summer reading but sporting a wicked tan.

Next year I'll talk about something pleasant... like Bohemia or Dos Equis...

Having written about Cinco de Mayo last year, your loyal blogger thought he might preface this post with some alternative May the fifth trivia.  Originally, this paragraph was to be about the death of Galerius (May 5th, 311 AD), the Roman emperor who was a major architect of the Diocletianic Persecution.  Then I realized the only interesting thing about Galerius was his death:as St. Luke said of Herod Agrippa, he was eaten by worms.  Thanks to Google, I learned that "worms" probably indicates Fournier gangrene.  And thanks to Google Image Search, I've learned exactly what Fournier gangrene is... and I shan't be able to eat for days.  Not cool.

What is cool is the Lifelong Learning Series classes slated for this fall.  Following on the tremendous success of the winter salon, Bret Lott will be back to guide a ten week course on fiction writing.  Across the hall, the Shakespeare scholar, former department chair, and CofC legend Nan Morrison will be teaching a six-week course on the tragedies of Shakespeare.  Also cool (for us) is how fast these classes are filling up: they don't start until September 7th, we've barely advertised them, and they're already three quarters full.  If you want in on either of these great programs, contact the Library Society ASAP.

Also, next Thursday, May the 13th the CLS will host Jennie Stephens of the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation to discuss the Center's work in providing free legal, educational, and other services to people attempting to clear title to Heirs' Property.  The free event runs from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

Don't forget for more info on any CLS event (like "Dixie", Denim and Drinks; Circa 1748; and the whole bleeding Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival), check our website, give us a call at 723.9912, or send us an email.  'Cause missing our great events would be terrible... terrible like Fournier gangrene!

Monday night's alright for singing...

"Spoleto's winged chariot is hurrying near, and yonder all before us lie artistic and cultural events." 

Andrew Marvell never said it, but it's still true: May is next week, and that means it's Piccolo Spoleto time.  Of course, the Library Society will once again host the Piccolo Spoleto Literary Festival: full details here.

But that's not all!

But that's not all!

We've also got Circa 1748: Bridging Oral and Literary Traditions.  This Piccolo event will be a unique and engaging evening illustrating connections between written and oral art traditions.  We'll be using the written materials of the Library Society, and the vocal talents of the CSO's Spiritual Ensemble. Circa 1748 will be Saturday, 29th at 7:00 PM, at the Library Society.  Tickets are $20, available wherever Piccolo Spoleto tickets are sold.


And finally (because I'm announcing events in the reverse order they will occur), on Monday, May 17th, we're having a "warm-up for Spoleto", entitled "Dixie", Denim, and Drinks.  DDD is going to be a fun, light (about 50 minute) program, featuring musical glimpses of the American folk tradition from Dvorak, Jake Heggie, Libby Larsen, and Carlisle Floyd.  Laura Ball, Peter Kiral, Courtney Sharp, Edoardo Carpenedo, and Erica Carpenedo will be performing.  Tickets are $15, available through the Library Society, 843 723.9912.  As the title suggests, the dress code is informal, and there will be drinks.  Sounds like a good way to spend a Monday to me.

"He turned to me as if to say, Hurry boy, It's waiting there for you."

Since there are no more events left at the Library Society this month (other than standing events like Toddler Tuesdays), your loyal blogger is going to make a book endorsement, preceeded by a brief story.  Because today, April 20th, is the 182nd anniversary of René Caillié's entrance into Timbuktu.

In the late 1700s, European soldiers left unemployed by the end of the Seven Years War, lined up in the search for the fabled lands of the African interior.  Legend held it to be the home of the great river Niger, which flowed into the Nile, and drained a valley filled with rich kingdoms and cities.  The greatest of these -and the rumour that kept European explorers awake at night- was a city of solid gold, known as Timbuktu.

A Scot named Mungo Park became the first white man to reach the Niger River (1795), but was forced by bandits and ill health to return home before reaching Timbuktu.  Soon after, another Scot, Alexander Gordon Laing, crossed the Sahara and became the first European to visit Timbuktu: he received twenty four wounds fighting with desert raiders on the way there, and lost his life shortly after leaving, leaving the "golden city" as distant and mysterious to Europeans as it ever was.

It took René Caillié to get there and get back.  Caillié was a sickly orphan, born in the west of France in 1799.  A voracious reader, the young Caillié's favourite book was Robinson Crusoe, and at age sixteen he set off for adventures that would impress even Defoe's fictional hero.  He worked in West Africa- even helping to resupply a failed British mission to Timbuktu- and became familiar with the string of elaborate expeditions that, one after another, could not manage the trip to Timbuktu.  Caillié decided that he, individually, could succeed where great collective effort had failed.

To do this Caillié went native.  He moved to Mauritania, living with Senegalese Moors, absorbing their language and culture.  Having done this, he moved down the coast to a British indigo plantation, where he worked to save up money for his trip.  One day he put on his best Moorish garb and declared he was an Arab from Egypt, abducted by the French on the way to Mecca, and joined a native caravan headed east.

Caillié blended in well enough.  His ostentatious show of Muslim prayer probably aroused more suspicion than it allayed, but was certainly received better than the bombastic shows of Christian religiosity performed by prior British travellers.  Largely he was ignored because he was too poor to steal from.  Arriving safely at Timbuktu, he spent a few weeks wandering the ancient city, noting that it was made not of gold, but "...a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth."  While it was once an important city during the Mali and Songhai empires, its glory days were long gone.  He caught a caravan headed north, trekked across the Sahara, and arrived safely back in France.  He became a national hero: he was awarded many francs, the Légion d'honneur, and the state even underwrote the publishing of his book Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo; and across the Great Desert, to Morocco.

The other half of this story- and my endorsement- is what France later did in pursuit of Caillié's legacy: thirty years of failed expedition after failed expedition in an attempt to tame the Sahara and open a north-south route from Algiers to the Niger.  This (perhaps surprisingly) interesting story is covered in Douglas Porch's The Conquest of the Sahara.  It's at the Library Society... upstairs, to the right, fourth isle down, number F78 P82.  And don't forget, reading 300 pages describing the Sahara makes good preparation for the upcoming Charleston summer...

Celebrating Thomas Jefferson's birthday with a little paper chasin'...

Event news: Gordon Rhea will be here Thursday evening at 6:00 PM for a lecture on Charles Whilden, an unsung hero of the War Between the States, and about whom Rhea chronicled in Carrying the Flag. The lecture is free; copies of the book will be available for $17.

Non-"events" event news: the Library Society has recently received an anonymous pledge to match up to $25,000 worth of giving!

The aim of the gift is to both increase membership, and to increase the giving of existing membership levels. Any giving above the normal $75 Friend of the Library membership level counts towards the matching pledge. So, if you're currently a Friend of the Library, consider throwing in an extra $25 bucks and upgrading to the Beatrice Witte Ravenel Circle.

To better recognize and facilitate this giving, we've split the Beatrice Witte Ravenel Circle of giving (formerly $100-$499) and created the John Bennett Circle for gifts of $250-$499. Not only does this honor a great Charleston novelist and poet, it's a great way to help the Library meet this challenge grant. Call with a credit card, stop by or mail in a check, or you can always donate via Paypal here. We hope you will consider helping the Library take full advantage of this $25,000 opportunity!

Jazz at the Library (and the Girl in the Curls!)

April 8th!  The anniversary of Roman Emperor and notorious bath-designer Caracalla's assassination (the jerk!); President of the United States and notorious balcony-designer Harry Truman's steel seizure (the jerk!); and Canadian starlet and notorious Douglas Fairbanks-designer Mary Pickford's 118th birthday (not a jerk, I suppose).

Rambling, pointless story time: Mary Pickford starred in Kiki with Reginald Denny, who (in addition to designing America's first UAV) starred in the 1966 film Batman, which of course starred Adam West and Burt Ward, who teamed up for the terrible early-2000s TV movie Return to the Batcave, which also starred a young Amy Acker, who played Whiskey/Dr. Saunders on the sadly-short-lived TV show Dollhouse.  Dollhouse starred Albanian-American megababe Eliza Dushku, whom your loyal blogger once sat behind at a Red Sox game (which thoroughly made my Summer of 2007).  So that, kids, is my Mary Pickford story...

And on the topic of the world of entertainments, a LIBRARY EVENT: we've got a brass quintet playing the Library Society this Friday night at 7 PM.  This event was originally scheduled through the CSO; and while the CSO has suspended operations, we are still hosting the same great musicians (including world-renowned jazz drummer Quentin Baxter), and ticket sales ($15) go directly to the musicians.  Tickets are available at the door, or call us at 843.723.9912.  To recap, IT'S NOT CANCELLED.  See you there!