Brand from Home | July 16, 2020

Music Playlists

Today's recommending listening is a new album by Norah Jones, pianist Idil Biret performing Beethoven, Guyanese singer-songwriter Juke Ross, and the soundtrack from the film De-Lovely. Log in with your Glendale library card to listen!

Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access our online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.Try listening to a streaming Playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library, Naxos Jazz Music Library, Hoopla or Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.

Streaming Music

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center has many videos and audio selections on their website including concerts, lectures, masterclasses and interviews.

Berkelee College of Music (Boston) has some very cool virtual concerts this month.

The Newport Folk Festival has a lot of concert recordings from previous years on their web site.

Read Music

Here are some music related cookbooks for Culinary Arts Month:

If you get a chance to try any of the recipes let us know! These titles are all in eBook format and you can check out using your Glendale Library card.

Learn About Art

Create your own Rococo wig with London's Victoria & Albert Museum's virtual wig-designing activity. Learn about hair fashions from that era.

Art Online

Get inspired by paper artist Asya Kozina. Kozina’s series of Baroque paper wigs reappropriates the wild hairstyles of Victorian-era women and men using individually crafted sheets, carefully curled and cut into perfectly permed locks. Sculpted arrangements like flowers, leaves and an exceptionally intricate sailboat are delicately placed in the mass of extravagant paper hair, adding a sense of fantasy and whimsy to the conceptual compositions.

Art Inspiration - Try It at Home

The New Art Gallery Walsall has children's workshops for printmaking, recycled containers with decoupage, stencils and cloud diaries. Their YouTube channel includes inspiration and artists interviews.

Try project ideas for family art activities at home posted by the Irish Museum of Modern Art and inspired by their collection. Grow roses and mint from cuttings, build your own city or recycle into many other at home art projects.

The House of Illustration has six accessible, hands-on activities with step-by-step instructions and examples. These resources provide simple but effective ways to use illustration to teach curriculum subjects and can also be used as fun activities for all ages.

Staff e-Recommendations

Dear Mr.Watterson is not an in-depth documentary about Calvin and Hobbes, and that’s good. Instead, it’s a collection of testimonials from fans far and wide about how this simple Sunday comic strip changed their lives. It’s got some some biographical information about Watterson, a trip to his hometown and talking heads discussing him. But the unspoken central question in this documentary seems to be, “Why did Watterson not capitalize on Calvin and Hobbes merchandising? Why was there no Saturday morning cartoons, no Hobbes plushies? No theme parks? Why does it exist solely as a comic strip?” Different assumptions are presented and because Watterson never came out and gave a definite answer we can only assume. After watching this documentary I’d like to think it was to keep the purity of the comic intact. I’ve never heard out loud what Calvin or Hobbes sound like, there’s been no one to voice them. But I hear them in my head. And those voices I hear in my head when I read these two are so personal now. Any adaptation would feel like a betrayal. Is this Bill Watterson's master stroke? Because of this, the characters now have fan art, nay, folk art created around them. Instead of watching a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon or buying toys, lovers of the comic strip make their own toys, snowmen crime scenes, animated shorts, etc. You hear from a guy who pasted the comic strips all over his bedroom walls when he was growing up. Another person read the strips to deal with grief. Another person learned English just to decipher the comics. The documentary is a love letter to Calvin & Hobbes. -GG

Rufus Thomas Funky Chicken. This is a fun, lightweight, upbeat album from 1970. Rufus Thomas was an R&B, funk, soul and blues singer and dancer. He had recorded for Sun Records and Chess Records in the 1950s and was an artist on Stax Records starting in 1960. He even appeared in the famous 1972 Wattstax concert. Rufus was the father of singer Carla Thomas, another famous Stax artist, who was often referred to as the Queen of Memphis Soul. Even though Rufus had an amazing career, he doesn’t have any problem with having plain, silly fun. The original album was titled Do The Funky Chicken and had different cover art but it is the same material. There is a fantastic band behind him and Thomas is a wonderful entertainer, The title track Do the Funky Chicken and Let the Good Times Roll are great starters. Old MacDonald Had a Farm is a blast and you should certainly listen to Soul Food since July is Culinary Arts Month. Most of this album is very danceable too. -BW