Posts from Battery Park City Library

They are among the most asked Library questions of the past year:  "Do you have those books? You know the ones I'm talking about? The ones I see everyone reading. The Girl Who Played with Dragons? The Girl Who Kicked the Fire? The Girl with the Hornet's Nest Tattoo?"

What if someone told you that you had one week to live? What would you do? What places would you visit? Would you read any books? Listen to any particular music? Would the common and insignificant things you pass every day become more meaningful? Would that apple taste any better if you know it was your last one? Who would you thank? Who would you apologize to? 

A few months ago I began thinking about the earliest books I remember reading and the first librarian I remember. The librarian was an older gentleman named Paige Ellisor. One book in particular stands out in my memory as a favorite. I recently began searching for a copy of that book, to read it again after over thirty years, and to try and see why I found it so memorable.

It happens quite often:  "Are you the actor Billy Parrott from Lars and the Real Girl ?"  "Dude!  Were you a Security Guard in The Incredible Hulk, Breakfast with Scot, and Resident Evil: Apocalypse?"  "I loved your work in Saw III. Can you sign this?"

I just smile and reply, "Sorry, I'm not an actor. I'm only a librarian."

Ben volunteers at the Battery Park branch and is an expert on all things Rock! Here are two of his recent picks.

Gabriel is a man with a plan: to build his resume by volunteering at the library, and at the same time parlay all of those visits into foursquare mayorship.

Has the recent roundup of Russian spies left you wanting to read up on the wide world of espionage?  Then I have the book for you: Agent Zigzag, by Ben Macintyre.

As discussed in my last post, one kind of film within film is when a scene from one movie is shown in another, on a television set or movie screen. As a viewer there is an interesting connection here because we are watching characters in a film and those characters are doing the same thing: watching characters in a film.

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the release of one of the most memorable films of all-time: Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho debuted in New York City on June 16, 1960.  

What can I say about Psycho that hasn’t already been said? 

Anthony Hopkins' approximately 16 minutes of screen time in The Silence of the Lambs won him the 1991 Academy Award for Best Actor. As far as film villains go, you'd be hard pressed to top Hannibal Lecter, but the portrayal of the sadistic and twisted Frank Booth by Dennis Hopper in David Lynch's Blue Velvet easily gets my vote for cinema's most memorable villain.

A digital mayor visits the Battery Park City Library and makes a formal decree about the importance of libraries.