"Reel Eclectic" Film

Art and Foreign Film Festival - July and August (see dates below)

Our film series continues throughout the summer!

Please join us for free films and refreshments on these dates:

• Thursday, July 2, 2009, 7 PM
• Thursday, August 6, 2009, 7 PM

All films are shown in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library.

Please call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for titles and complete movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Brooklyn Baroque Music Concert

Program date: May 31, 2009, 2 PM

The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. Present

Brooklyn Baroque

A Free Music Concert at the Library
Sunday, May 31, 2 PM
in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

"Bach and His Contemporaries"

Music of Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Boismortier, including the sublime Trio Sonata from the Musical Offering, one of Telemann's joyous Paris Quartets, selections from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, and sonatas by Handel and Boismortier.

The concert celebrates the release of two new CDs: Andrew Bolotowsky's recording of Bach's Flute Sonatas and Rebecca Pechefsky's recording of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I. CDs will be available at the concert.

Brooklyn Baroque will be joined by acclaimed Baroque violinist Claire Jolivet.

This concert is open to the public. All may attend! Light refreshments will be served.

"Reel Eclectic" Film

Program date: June 4, 2009, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Please call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for complete movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

"Reel Eclectic" Film

Program date: May 7, 2009, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Please call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for complete movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Hudson's Valley (three programs)

Program dates: (listed below)

Middletown Thrall Library celebrates the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's voyage of discovery and exploration with three special programs!

All programs are free and will be held in the 2nd Floor Meeting Room at Middletown Thrall Library.

Here is the schedule:

• Program 1:
  
  Henry Hudson and His World - "The Place Where America Began" *
  Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 7 - 8:00 PM - Questions to follow.
  Presented by Historian Tony Nappo, Middletown High School Social Studies Dept., retired
  
  During Hudson's three-week exploration in September 1609 Hudson claimed the river, fertile valley, and riches of timber and beaver for the Netherlands. Within 20 years a thriving colony and cosmopolitan city (New Amsterdam, now Manhattan) had been established. Discover this vital, little known period in pre-English colonial America when New Amsterdam became the gateway to a vast mixture of people that would come to define a nation. Don't miss this entertaining and informative multi-media program with historian Tony Nappo. Part of his presentation will include information from the book The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America by Russell Shorto.
  
  Tony Nappo recently retired as a teacher in the Middletown City School District. He holds an MA in Soviet-American Relations from John Carroll University, as well as an MA in Instructional Technology from the New York Institute of Technology. Tony has taught American History, World History, International Politics, and Futuristics to secondary and college students for over 35 years. He is excited by the opportunity to share new insights and historical interpretation surrounding the earliest settlement of New Amsterdam, and its evolution to the New York City of today.
  
  (* Historian Kenneth J. Jackson of Columbia University called New York "The Place Where America Began.")
  
  
• Program 2:
  
  "Of Time and the River: Songs of the Historic Hudson"
  Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 7 - 8:00 PM
  Presented by singer / balladeer / musician Linda Russell
  
  The Hudson River has been the backdrop for a wealth of human history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century pirates hid in its coves; soldiers built forts on its banks. In the nineteenth century artists, poets, and inventors drew inspiration from its power and beauty. In the twentieth century it changed from a dirty, neglected river into an environmental success story. Linda Russell will bring our Hudson Valley to vivid life accompanied by the hammered and mountain dulcimer, pennywhistle, and guitar.
  
  Linda Russell's New York venues have included performances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center Out-of Doors, Avery Fisher Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art - American Wing, and the National Archives. She enjoys sharing her talent at national parks, historic sites, schools, and libraries. She has recorded eight albums of traditional and historical music.
  
  This event is made possible through Speakers in the Humanities, a program of the New York Council for the Humanities.
  
  
• Program 3:
  
  Be Your Own Explorer - "The Joy of Hiking" or A Walk in the Woods
  Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 7 - 8:00 PM
  Presented by Peter Reiner and Aaron Schoenberg, leaders of the Adriondack Mountain Club
  
  Learn how to get started in hiking from the experts. Hiking will allow you to enjoy Hudson Valley vistas not too much different from what the earliest explorers saw. Reiner and Schoenberg will describe nearby hiking trails and bring along their hiking equipment to show and discuss the features of back packs, hiking boots, hiking poles, maps, GPS devices, and appropriate outdoor clothing. They include a slide show of some of the beautiful scenery in the Valley, with views from all four seasons of hiking. Reiner and Schoenberg will answer questions to get you thinking about enjoying the wonderful woods and parklands that surround our area. This talk will motivate everyone to enjoy a fun low-cost activity for all ages.
  
  Peter Reiner is the former president of the Ramapo Chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club, one of the oldest and most respected outdoor clubs in the Northeast. He has hiked throughout the New York and New Jersey area and is a member of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference. Aaron Schoenberg is a board member of the Ramapo Chapter and an avid hike leader.

For more information, please call (845) 341-5454, ext. 5479, or send e-mail to thrall16@warwick.net.

Music + Poetry Performance

Program date: April 19, 2009, 2 PM

Friends of the Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. Present Ada Margoshes' "Cummings and Goings"

...featuring the poetry of E. E. Cummings combined with music...

April 19, 2009, 2 PM, in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Singer Julie Ziavras will perform a theatrical work by composer Ada Margoshes entitled "Cummings and Goings,” written to the poetry of E.E. Cummings.

Performers will include baritone Elex Vann, and other singers and instrumentalists.

This concert is free and open to the public. Refreshements will be served.

"Reel Eclectic" Film

Program date: April 2, 2009, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Please call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for complete movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Elder Law 2009: Peace of Mind!

Program date: Thursday, April 16, 2009, 11:00 AM to Noon

Attend our "free legal checkup" and put your mind (and your family) at ease!

This program will be held in the 2nd Floor Meeting Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Learn about wills, health care proxies, powers of attorney, probate, guardianship issues, what documents to keep and for how long.

A volunteer lawyer will explain it all so you can begin to make more informed personal health care and financial decisions!

Now in its fifteenth year, Decision Making Day is a volunteer, public-service project of the Elder Law Section of the New York State Bar Association.

Handouts and sample documents will be given out to the audience to assist people in making informed decisions about important legal issues.

For more information please call the library at (845) 341-5454, ext. 5479.

Spring 2009 Book Discussion Series: "Favorite Fiction"

Program dates: Please see below

"Favorite Fiction: An Eclectic Selection"

from David, Mary, Chris, and Peggy

This book discussion series highlights some favorite novels from some of our favorite scholars. (We might also discover other titles that are scholar favorites.) With these examples of good literature we are given an opportunity to transcend ourselves - our time, our place, our backgrounds to discover characters of depth and substance. Join us and read any or all of these titles and see if you agree with the scholars' choices…

• Book: The Hamlet by William Faulkner
  Date: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 7-9 PM
  Scholar: David McTamaney, English Department, Monroe-Woodbury High School, retired
  
  About the book: William Faulkner has become known as the pre-eminent "novelist of the South." His elaborate creation of Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi with its unique history, social structure, and culture was the setting for many of Faulkner's stories including The Hamlet which was published in 1940. It is the first volume of the Snopes trilogy, to be followed years later by two volumes, The Town and The Mansion. In The Hamlet you will read of the advent and the rise of the Snopes family in Frenchman's Bend, a small town built on the ruins of a once-stately plantation. Flem Snopes -- wily, energetic, grasping, a man of shady origins -- quickly comes to overwhelm and dominate the town and its people with his cunning and guile. Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949.
  
  
• Book: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 7-9 PM
  Scholar: Mary Makofske, SUNY Orange Department of English and Foreign Languages, retired
  
  About the book: Read by generations of people, this novel was a sensation from its publication in 1847 and unsettling for many conventional Victorian readers. In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess and soon finds herself in love with her employer who has a terrible secret. Jane is presented as a strong, independent woman, for her time, making her way (and her living) in a hostile world. One of the most striking characteristics of this novel is the voice of Jane Eyre herself, who tells her own story in a way that encourages empathy with her situation. Read or re-read this classic from the perspective of your own life experiences.
  
  
• Book: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
  Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009 7-9 PM
  Scholar: Chris Godwin, Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange Department of English and Foreign Languages, retired
  
  About the book: Cisneros' lyrical prose and vivid imagery permits us to see the world through the perspective of Esperanza Cordero, an adolescent Latina coming of age in the Hispanic section of Chicago. Esperanza is determined to find her own path in life without forgetting her past. Don't let the simple sentences and short chapters fool you. Beneath the surface lies a rich network of themes: poverty, child abuse, spousal abuse, families, the importance of education, and a host of others. Readers will understand Esperanza's world and her quest for a better life, and the importance of her promise to come back for "the ones I left behind."
  
  
• Book: A Separate Peace by John Knowles
  Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 7-9 PM
  Scholar: Peggy Abt, Professor Emeritus, SUNY Orange Department of English and Foreign Languages, retired
  
  About the book: This is John Knowles' greatest and most popular work, a novel of volatile male adolescence. Here you will meet Gene Forrester in his senior year at a New England boys' preparatory school (recognizably Exeter) where, in 1942, the fairly peaceful, protected life is already overshadowed by the uneasiness of the war and the draft ahead. The novel concentrates on Gene's complex relationship with Finny, whose careless charm, disregard for and defiance of any rules, and dazzling athletic feats attract him- and also distract him from the academic success Gene is more interested in achieving. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes forever the innocence of these boys and their world.

All programs are FREE, and light refreshments, courtesy of The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc., will be served.

Books Available

Copies of each book can be requested at any time and in any order you wish using your RCLS library card. We will have copies of each book at Thrall about three weeks before each discussion.

When available, we will also try to have copies of each title in different formats - large print, book on CD or cassette. For more information, please call 341-5454, ext. 5479.

"Reel Eclectic" Film:
(Call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for title)

Program date: March 5, 2009, 7 PM

Playing in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library

Due to licensing restrictions, the title of the film cannot be published. Please call 341-5454, ext. 5479 for complete movie information.

Please note: Most of these films are not rated by the Motion Picture Association of America and are intended for adult audiences. Additional information for some of the films in this series may be found online at www.filmmovement.com or www.imdb.com. Film annotations provided by RB Publishing and Film Movement.

Gravikord Duo: February 22, 2009

Program date: February 22, 2009, 2 PM

The Friends of Middletown Thrall Library, Inc. present "Gravikord Duo."

This group will perform contemporary, folk, traditional, and Celtic music.

The program will be held in the 2nd Floor Community Room at Middletown Thrall Library.

Statement from the performers: "This program is made possible, in part, with funds from Orange County Tourism, Orange County Arts, and the County of Orange."

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.