 The return of Lenore Raphael to our Library is a cause for celebration! We are honored that the Lenore Raphael Quartet agreed to anchor the new, virtual Music from the Library series, curated as always by the indomitable Charlotte McLain.
Charlotte has reimagined the remaining concerts of the Library’s annual music series into virtual events through GrassRoots Community Television. Supporting local musicians is always of the utmost importance to Charlotte, with the usual diverse genres and excellent repertoire. Lenore Raphael, jazz pianist, is a New York native and frequent performer at the Library with many friends in our community. Lenore convinced the other members of her quartet to pre-record a concert for us in lieu of their scheduled fall jazz night, which would have been the first-ever fundraiser for the Library’s Music, Arts and Culture programs. Building on the success of our music series, the Basalt Regional Library seeks to secure funding to provide a wide range of arts programming. This fall, in a first for Colorado, the BRL will be a partner with the ArtistYear Americorps, bringing poet and performer Leila Milanfar to the Library for a series of youth workshops. In keeping with our mission to afford our community free and equitable access to information, tools and connections that nurture lifelong learning in a safe and welcoming space, we hope to continue to bring outstanding artists to our community.
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 For this week’s meeting of the Kanopy Movie Club we will discuss Captain Fantastic, a film about a family, their isolation, and growth that is both serious and sweet. Winner of the Directors prize at Cannes and starring Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic is a heartwarming and funny drama about a family in crisis that is an excellent reflection about the world around us.
In our extraordinary times, finding a place where you feel happy, healthy, and safe is of the utmost importance. While the story of the Cash family may be fantastic, the film’s core theme of looking for stability in uncertain times is one that resonates throughout the ages. All families have their quirks, and in times of crisis these idiosyncrasies often become very apparent. Like the families in other classic films like Little Miss Sunshine, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, or Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the Cash family is tasked with two difficult problems: how to fill the void left by the loss of a loved one and how to keep and strengthen family bonds during times of great change. The Cash family lives in rural Washington in near complete isolation. While Ben and Leslie have raised their children to be self-reliant free thinkers, it is their separation from the outside world, extended family, and community which drives their story from beginning to end. When a family tragedy forces them to confront the customs and taboos of the outside world, the Cash family must adapt. While their values do not change, their relationship with the outside world must evolve so that they may survive.  Seventy years ago Elvis Presley was the king of rock and roll. While the title no longer has any meaning and rock and roll is no longer the most exciting and dangerous music on the airwaves, Elvis is still a cultural icon. His sideburns, swinging hips and quivering lip are still part of American iconography, as important as Coca-Cola or the moon landing in the history of the 20th century. In the 2017 film The King director Eugene Jarecki travels the country in Elvis’ Rolls Royce exploring fame and authenticity in a memorable and deeply interesting documentary. Beyond Elvis's music is a landscape of history and ideas that shines through the musician’s career.
Elvis is one of the first celebrities of the modern era, a larger than life icon of post war America that reflected the era in which he lived. A rhythm and blues singer who embraced television, Elvis became an emblem of his age and appeared everywhere on tv, music and in dozens of films. Elvis was featured on products and places from lunchboxes to Las Vegas. Elvis became an ambassador of a cultural shift that gave rise to teenagers, a generation of rebels without a cause who lived lives distinctly different from those of their parents. Although rock and roll has been supplanted by more high tech music, teenage rebellion and youth culture have become hallmarks of world civilization. In Elvis's shadow lives modern celebrity culture as well. The eccentricities of Kanye West or Justin Bieber may be more expensive, but Elvis would have fit right in with them.  As the back to school season gets going, the Kanopy Movie Club will discuss a whole series of films about life, love and music for September.
Our first film is the 2017 documentary Check It, a fascinating look at youth culture in Washington DC. Anthropological films about growing up and adapting to adult life are some of the most illuminating and instructive cultural documents that exist—they show us what our respective societies value and abhor. Against a backdrop of sex, violence, poverty and drug abuse Check It shows the resilience and perseverance of culture you may have never even considered. Check It is a film that reminds me of textbook classics like Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age as well as gritty newer documentaries such as 1999 film N.Y.H.C. or the 2002 film Devil's Playground. While these 4 documentaries have wildly different subjects (an LGBT gang in DC, teens in Samoa, Punk rock musicians and the Amish) they are linked by a common thread: how do modern humans navigate and adapt to the cultural landscape of adult life.  Hey everyone I hope you are staying safe and healthy while keeping cool during the dog days of summer.
In this week’s installment of the Basalt Library Kanopy Movie Club we will discuss Wild Nights With Emily starring comedian Molly Shannon as misunderstood 19th century poet Emily Dickinson. This historical comedy looks at the life and unpublished works of Emily Dickinson and shines a light on her inspirations and motivations. Even a century after her death, Dickinson remains a mysterious, prolific, and fascinating writer whose work has, until recently, overshadowed the details of her own life. While the common conception of Dickinson is that of a dour old poet locked in an attic, this could not be further from the truth. The power and passion of Dickinson’s poems comes from her deep inner struggles and the vibrant life that she lived. Because of the time in which she lived her life, Emily’s love and art were unappreciated and misunderstood. While her poems have become a part of the canon of American literature, she remained largely unpublished and obscure for most of her life.  Hey everyone, I hope you are staying safe and healthy in these trying times. In this week’s installment of the Basalt Library Kanopy Movie Club we are going to discuss Capital in the Twenty-First Century, an examination of our modern social and economic order. Justin Pemberton’s film adaption of Thomas Piketty’s book of the same name takes one of the most important economic tomes of our age and explains the modern economy in less than two hours. French economist Piketty’s 2013 book is 500 pages jammed full of facts, figures, and historical minutiae; an entire graduate seminar on the state of the world. This daunting work of the dismal science of economics is easily digested in Pemberton’s examination—there aren’t 200 pages of footnotes to wade through here. Included in the film are a wide range of economic theorists including Francis Fukuyama and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. While Piketty’s own conclusions about the state of our social and economic systems differ greatly from those of Fukuyama, it is where these economists agree that is most illuminating. Below is a preview of Capital in the 21st Century. You can watch the entire documentary on Kanopy using your Basalt Regional Library card. Visit our website for information about how to join this event on Zoom on Friday, August 21, at 2PM. Next week’s Film will be Wild Nights with Emily starring SNL alumni Molly Shannon as poet Emily Dickinson. Please join me virtually every Friday from 2-3PM for Kanopy Movie Club. Hope to see you there!
-Matthew Cleer mcleer@basaltlibrary.org Join Matt for weekly film discussions beginning Friday, August 14th!  Watch and discuss films from around the world each week through our new virtual program: The Kanopy Movie Club! We will dive into the 2012 film Holy Motors for our first meeting on Friday, August 14th, from 2-3PM. Our weekly discussion is a fun, free-form chat about movies, where I hope we can make new friends and share what we love about film.
Holy Motors is a visual roller coaster of a film. A dreamlike slice of French Cinema, this critically acclaimed, Palme d’Or winning film takes us through a series of characters, all played by Denis Lavant. Lavant feels kind of like if Lon Chaney starred in Godard’s le Weekend, a shapeshifter moving from set to surreal set in his disguise-filled limousine. Lavant proceeds through a cavalcade of bizarre characters; a businessman and his assassin, a man in a green coat who terrorizes Paris, an old woman begging underneath a bridge, and a dad picking up his daughter from a party. Lavant is only himself between the sets, chain smoking and applying makeup in his limousine. Lavant is a gargoyle of an actor, disappearing into oddball characters, grotesque video games and familiar family situations. He is Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Bill Murray, and Godzilla all mashed together. Looking for your next book or audiobook? Check out what some of our staff members are listening to and reading! These titles are available in various formats in our collection. Click the cover to see the title in our online catalog. Donna's Picks:
Berenicé's Picks:
Brighten your day and jazz up your outfit with a dazzling crown!  This craft is adapted from Art Bar Blog, which you can read at www.artbarblog.com/paperbag-crowns. Materials:
Instructions: Step One:  Cut your paper bag down one side and then cut off the bottom of the bag. Next, trim down the bag to fit your child’s head. To do this, wrap the bag around your child’s head and add an inch to the end, then cut off the excess bag.
Upcycle egg cartons into a beautiful mermaid!  This week’s craft was adapted from the blog Art Camp Studio, which you can find at www.artcampla.com/new-blog/2017/3/12/egg-carton-mermaid-dolls. Materials:
Instructions: Step One:
Cut apart the egg carton into individual cups. Trim the cups so that they have a curved edge (like a fish scale) with the seam in the seam running down the center of the cup. You will need six egg cup sections for one mermaid.
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