One of my favorite childhood memories is spending New Year’s Eve with my grandparents. They lived in Tuftonboro, New Hampshire, a spot overlooking Mt Shaw and surrounded by pine trees and heaps of snow in the winter. During this time, I remember a fire in the fireplace and the smell of Nana’s homemade fish chowder. Sometimes my family would stay up to watch the ball drop in New York City but more often we’d gather in the living room where each person would share what they were grateful for in the past year. It was a peaceful, reflective time.

Needless to say the calm often disappeared the next day when the mad scribblings of New Year’s resolutions began. Even now the difference between a goal and a resolution confound me. However, I found the clearest distinction between these two words on author Gretchen Rubin’s blog. She says: “You hit a goal, you achieve a goal. You keep a resolution.” In other words, if healthy living is your resolution, Pilates might be your goal.

After many, many years of struggling with my annual list of resolutions, I’ve come to a wonderful conclusion. This is big news, so listen up! All of your goals and resolutions can be met by the public library. “What’s that?” you say. “Did you go heavy on the eggnog?” “How can the library possibly help me fulfill my goals in 2017?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. Let us count the ways together.

1.    Perhaps you’ve been meaning to help others in your community but you aren’t sure where to begin. Did you know the Morrill Memorial Library has one of the twelve Literacy Affiliate programs in the State of Massachusetts? If you have the time and desire to help adult learners improve their literacy skills, the library has an opportunity for you. Likewise, our Outreach department has volunteers who deliver books and resources to patrons who are physically unable to get to the library.

2.    Are you hoping to read more this year? Well, how about that? The library happens to have books galore. But let’s get specific. Not only do we circulate the latest Best Sellers, but should you be too busy to enter our doors, we have a solution for you too. You can borrow books using OverDrive and Hoopla on your cellphone or tablet with your library card. And, if you don’t want to read alone, we have a variety of book clubs available for you to join.

3.    Need to shape up? Ah, that fateful word—exercise. I believe I heard a community sigh echo across the room. But let’s think about it in the broad sense of becoming healthier this year. You can accomplish this goal at your public library as well. We have exercise DVDs for the young, the mature and the restless. Everything from Kick Starting Your Metabolism to Cardio Kickboxing. We also have Pilates and Yoga, for the gentler souls.

4.    Then again, you may prefer to revamp your diet rather than twist your body into a variety of yoga contortions. We have a bevy of cookbooks for the occasion. My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life by Ruth Reichl “follows the change of seasons as Reichl heals through the simple pleasures of cooking after the abrupt closing of Gourmet magazine.” Or try Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day by Leanne Brown. “If you’re living on a tight budget, Brown shows you how to maximize every ingredient and gives you tips on economical cooking methods; shopping and kitchen equipment; and much more.” And you can’t go wrong with Ree Drummond. Her book entitled The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime: Comfort Classics, Freezer Food, 16-minute Meals, and Other Delicious Ways to Solve Supper answers the question “What’s for Dinner?” with 125 simple recipes for the whole family.

5.    Want to stay in touch with family and friends but your social networking skills are a bit rusty? While we offer a variety of structured classes, you are welcome to sign up for individual technology assistance with our fabulous gurus. Some of the topics covered are help purchasing new technology, using a mobile device tablet, or Facebook and Twitter guidance.

6.    Who doesn’t want to add “Seeing the World” as a resolution for this year? The library has a whole travel section on our second floor. You can prepare for your trip ahead of time, without purchasing every single guide. And, speaking of travel, does your passport need updating? The Morrill Memorial Library is now an authorized US Passport Acceptance Facility. Several staff members have been trained to process passport applications. Book an appointment online, bring all your required paperwork and payment, and soon you will be all set to jet.

7.    Maybe you’d like to learn something new! We have workshops and lectures ready and waiting for you. Our Reference and Children’s departments create wonderful programs for all ages, including movie nights (with movie theater popcorn), expert speakers, and Learn to Knit classes. Maybe your child/grandchild can introduce you to a new board game (which you can now check out from the library) or to Queen Elsa when she visits.

8.    But wait! There’s more! Have you been meaning to find some of those relatives who may have fallen off of your family tree? We have several databases that could help you trace your roots. American Ancestors and Ancestry Library must be used at the library but Heritage Quest may be searched from home or a device with your library card. Also, Joe Petrie is our volunteer genealogist. You may schedule a one on one appointment with him for two hours and he will assist with your research using the online databases.
Isn’t that amazing? So many of your New Year’s resolutions can be found under the roof of your public library. In the words of Ray Bradbury, “Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.” What are you waiting for? Come check us out!

Nancy Ling is an Outreach Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts.  Read her article in the January 5, 2017 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

It’s not the holidays for me without a Love Affair. The movie, that is. It might be the original 1939 black-and-white film. Love Affair. Or it could be the 1957 color remake, An Affair to Remember. Or perhaps it’s the1994 Love Affair, Warren Beatty-style. It’s that ending scene on Christmas Day in Terry McKay’s apartment that makes my holiday season a classic affair of the heart.

The original Love Affair released in 1939 was Director Leo McCarey’s first attempt at telling the story of a notorious playboy who falls deeply and surprisingly in love with a beautiful fellow cruise mate.  McCarey co-wrote this tale of a love affair between French painter and paramour, Michel Marnet and the beautiful Terry McKay. (This screenplay was written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart.)

McCarey had recently crossed the Atlantic himself, along with his wife on a cruise ship.  That voyage was inspiration for the film when he viewed the Statue of Liberty and skyline upon entering the New York harbor. The film was shot in glorious CinemaScope, its lovely photography of the luxurious ocean liner and wide-open ocean, impressing theatergoers. Michel Marnet is played by popular French actor Charles Boyer. Boyer is aloof, and a bit too serious, for my taste. Yet, his Michel Marnet character manages to woo glamorous and feisty Terry McKay, played by Academy Award nominee Irene Dunne. Unlike the actresses who played McKay in other versions of the film, Irene Dunne was also a singer. The song sung by children from the orphanage in the 1939 film (“Wishing”) was nominated for Best Original Song in 1940.  Of course, “Over the Rainbow” from the Wizard of Oz was also nominated and it won the award that year.

In 1957, Director McCarey, realizing the enormous success of one of the greatest romances of all time, decided to remake Love Affair. He had directed a big failure in 1952 (My Son John) and needed a sure win. And so, in An Affair to Remember, McCarey cast heart throb, British-American Cary Grant in the new version. Grant played opposite red-headed Deborah Kerr as Nick Ferrante.

Cary Grant was a charismatic and handsome playboy and he was the perfect man for his role in Affair to Remember. Grant was in the midst of his third marriage at the time of the film (eleven years from 1949 to 1962 to Betsy Drake) and that marriage actually lasted the longest of any of them.

Even today over 60 years later, An Affair to Remember is absolutely most film-lovers favorite version of the two versions of the film. Several obvious reasons are that Grant is more likeable and sensitive than Charles Boyer in the role of the uncatchable bachelor. Instead of a distant and suave Frenchman in the 1939 film, Cary’s character is both European and American and just a bit more vulnerable. Deborah Kerr as Terry McKay is still feisty and feminine, but the film is in glorious color, and highlights Kerr’s subtle creamsicle gown or bright 50s orange jacket.

McCarey included the same dialog in virtually every scene and it seems a direct replay from the original with Cary’s British accent substituting for Boyer’s French.

What really contributed to the 1957 film’s success, however, was its Academy Award-nominated theme song, “An Affair to Remember” or “Our Love Affair”. Not only is it sung by Vic Damone at the beginning of the film, but is also sung later in the film by Terry McKay, Deborah Kerr’s leading character. Interestingly, Deborah Kerr did not sing in the film but her voice was actually dubbed by Marnie Nixon. Nixon was also the lead character’s singing voice in the film versions of The King and I (Deborah Kerr), West Side Story (Natalie Wood), and My Fair Lady (Audrey Hepburn).

“Our Love Affair” became a jazz standard after its popularity in the film.

The critics don’t agree with me, but my favorite version of the film is the 1994 version, Love Affair, produced by Warren Beatty. The box office didn’t agree either; the 1994 Love Affair cost over $60,000,000 to make and only grossed $18,000,000 in theaters.

However, I think Beatty was perfectly cast. For over three decades of his life, and into his mid-50s, he was known as an insufferable romancer. He was so self-absorbed, in fact, that Carly Simon admitted in her autobiography (Boys in the Trees, 2015) that her cranky song “You’re So Vain” was written about three womanizing men, one of them Warren Beatty.

Yet, in 1992, Beatty had finally settled down at the age of 55 with actress Annette Benning. She was cast as Terry McKay in his version of Love Affair, just as she seemingly had been in real life. Beatty and Benning have now been married 24 years (with three children.) In the film, when Beatty is perfectly believable when he says “You know, I’ve never been faithful to anyone in my whole life.”

The last version of Love Affair begins on a flight from New York to Sydney Australia. When the  plane goes down somewhere over the Pacific islands, Beatty and Benning, playing Mike Gambril and Terry McKay, are forced to board a Russian cruise ship in order to re-board a flight in Tahiti. The supporting actors who join them and wacky Russian crew make the film funny and bright for me. It is also Katherine Hepburn’s last film role film role at the age of 86 and she is wonderfully crabby. Kate Capshaw and Pierce Brosnan, play the love interests at home and the late Garry Shandling is particularly charming as Beatty’s agent.

It’s interesting to note that the screenwriters have named the lead actress Terry McKay in all three versions, whether played by Dunne, Kerr, or Benning; yet, her love affair is with Michel Marnet in 1939, Nick Ferrante in 1957, and Mike Gambril in 1994.

Whichever version of this film you love, the story has been enchanting us for nearly four decades and are worthy of a watch anytime during the year.

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte’s column in the December 29, 2016 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

When I was a kid, I did not read comic books. I didn’t know much about them, other than that occasionally my brother got to buy one at the grocery store, while I got the more sophisticated (I thought) YM or Seventeen magazines. I thought comic books were for boys, although that really never stopped me in other areas in my young life, like being the only girl on the baseball team. But the stories in comic books seemed silly and boring, and they always seemed to be about Superman or Batman or Archie.

Though my family did read – my Mom read romance or “fluff stuff” as she called it and my Dad loved political thrillers and sci-fi – like many 80s kids I wasn’t exposed to a lot of alternative media. Comics stayed in my mind as a thing for little boys, who perhaps used them as an entry point for reading more serious literature. My brother, who struggled with reading, probably colored and shaped this perception.

As a pre-Internet era kid, if you were not exposed to something in person by stumbling across it at the library or a friend’s house, you might never get access to it. Although I loved art and books, I mostly relied on friends for recommendations, and no one that I knew was into comics, so all I knew about them was the stuff I saw my brother reading. Until I went to college. Ah, college – when you finally find your people. My people are the art nerds, and many of these new friends were interested in reading and creating comics.

The first time I stepped into a comic book store I was vaguely embarrassed. I had seen comics that my college friends were reading and they seemed ’cool’ enough, but I couldn’t shake my lifelong opinion that they were really for kids and, maybe, immature adults. But from that first time in a whole store of comics, I saw how wrong I was.

There were people who had normal body types and weren’t superheroes! Women who weren’t just damsels in distress, gay and lesbian characters treated with humanity, people with white, black, and brown skin. Hand drawn art, digital art, watercolors, mixed media. Fiction and non-fiction. There was a variety I had no idea existed, and I have never been quite the same since this realization.

I love art and stories, and comics and graphic novels are just a marriage of the two. Sure, finding ones you like can be slightly trickier than picking up your average book. If you don’t like the art it can be hard to enjoy the story, or you may love the art and find the story dull. But art and words are the medium, and as I have discovered over many years of reading comics, any type of story can be told as a comic.

Yes – there are a lot of superhero comics and mostly, I am still not interested. But Ms. Marvel is now a young Muslim girl! And Squirrel Girl is a totally bonkers take on the genre! There are comics of every type. If you can write a book about it, then a comic equivalent can also be created.

In some cases, there are graphic reinterpretations of classic books. There are graphic versions of Shakespeare plays, the Odyssey, Beowulf, and Jane Austen novels. A Wrinkle in Time, Fahrenheit 451, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and even the Book of Genesis have all been adapted.

My favorite tend to be the autobiographical. Gabrielle Bell writes about the general ennui of life. Lucy Knisley’s books chronicle different periods, usually centered around travel, family and food. Lynda Barry is the master of showing us how awkward and confusing childhood can be. Jeffrey Brown tries to show us what being a shy, big-hearted, weird man trying to figure out love and how to navigate daily living feels like.

Children’s books are an obvious analogue – we are used to illustrations in children’s literature. There are early readers like Luke on the Loose by Harry Bliss, T-Ball Trouble by Cari Meister, and Stinky by Eleanor Davis. There are chapter books like the BabyMouse books by Jennifer Holm and the Lunch Lady books by Jarrett Krosoczka. Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke, Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson, Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi, and Bone by Jeff Smith are all popular graphic novels for kids. Raina Telgemeier, author of Smile, Sisters, Drama, Ghosts and new graphic editions of the Babysitter’s Club books are blockbusters of children’s literature!

History? Try “The March Trilogy” by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, which illustrates the 1965 Selma-Montgomery March and the history of the civil rights movement. Or “Persepolis” by Marjane Satrapi, about life in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. “Hip Hop Family Tree” by Ed Piskor is collection of stories that chronicle the history of hip-hop in the 70s and 80s. “Hark! A Vagrant!” by Kate Beaton (my absolute favorite humor/history comic collection ever) mainly focuses on European and North American history, but you can enjoy the jokes even if you have no idea who she is talking about!

Fantasy and Science Fiction? Saga by Brian K. Vaughan, is one of the top comics of the past few years. A space opera about star crossed lovers just trying to keep their family together, it has a lot of heart. Sandman by Neil Gaiman, is a classic that has a little bit of everything – mythology, folklore, and fairy tales – all bleeding into our reality. Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman is a cultural phenomenon, with its currently 26 volumes and a successful television adaptation. Rick Grimes and crew fight zombies, and even more deadly, other survivors in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Science? Neurocomic by Hana Ros is an exploration of the functions of the human brain. The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer, by Sydney Padua, is a thoroughly researched story of the collaboration between these two scientists. Radioactive, by Lauren Redniss, tells the story of Marie and Pierre Curie, and both their personal journeys and scientific work.

Cookbooks? Check out Lucy Knisley’s “Relish,” or “In the Kitchen with Alain Passard,” by Christophe Blain.
There is The Cartoon Guide to Statistics, a graphic explanation of health care reform, and books on weather, math, logic.
You get the point, as I did, after a long journey that really started by walking into a comic book store for the first time – there is just as much variety in the comic and graphic novel medium as there is for any other type of book. And if you can’t find something exactly of the topic you are looking for, someone is probably working on it.

Nicole Guerra-Coon is a part-time Children’s and Reference Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library. Read Nicole’s column in the December 15th issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

My holiday movie-watching tradition starts Thanksgiving weekend, the four-day holiday during which I usually have some pleasant and relaxing down-time. These days, it happens when the grown children and their children have left for their own homes after some chaotic few days of high chairs, potty chairs, sippy cups, and Sesame Street.

I nestle on a couch with my knitting needles and yarn, the remote and the dozen or so of my holiday favorites. It’s a contest to see how many I can watch in one marathon sitting. Call me a sap, but there is nothing better than a few sobs and tears at the end of The Family Stone or Love Affair (the remake with Warren Beatty and Annette Benning.)  I smile broadly each and with every last scene of The Holiday or Love Actually (even after crying each and every time Emma Thompson’s heart breaks.)

There is no better movie, though, to begin my marathon than Planes, Trains, and Automobiles with Steve Martin and John Candy, and written, directed and produced by John Hughes. It’s hilarious, it’s emotional, it’s heartbreaking, and it’s uplifting. As Roger Ebert once said, this movie is an arrow “straight to the heart”.

I’ve probably watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles 25 times. I didn’t discover it in the movie theater when it was released on the day before Thanksgiving in 1987. It the time, we were raising young daughters who were not even in school yet. We certainly didn’t spend much time or money at the movies that year unless it was Benji: The Hunted or The Great Mouse Detective.

So it was several years later that my daughters and I discovered Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Simply because of its R rating, we waited until they were older when the video made it to our home. (The movie earned its R rating for its funniest scene where Martin’s character is more than a bit frustrated with the car rental clerk. There are 18 F-bombs in the one monologue, certainly inappropriate for younger children.)

I’ve loved Steve Martin in many things, particularly his role as the dentist in Little Shop of Horrors. Like most of my peers, I chuckled through the Smothers Brothers, the Carol Burnett Show, and Saturday Night Live watching Steve’s comedic routines.  I enjoyed The Lonely Guy, Pennies from Heaven, and Roxanne but sometimes his slapstick was a bit awkward for my taste. It wasn’t until his roles in Parenthood, Grand Canyon, Father of the Bride and A Simple Twist of Fate that I began to truly appreciate him.

My favorite John Candy movie was Cool Runnings (1993), one my daughters loved, as well. We watched the movie over and over in the years after his death of a heart attack in 1994. Candy was only 43 when he died and Cool Runnings was the last movie released during his lifetime.

The beautiful irony in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (and don’t forget that New York City cab, Chicago Transit Authority commuter rail, and the back of several trucks) is that while both men appear to be caught in a nightmarish attempt to get home for Thanksgiving, it is only Martin’s character (Neal Page) who has anywhere to go. Clumsy and clownish Del Griffith (John Candy’s character) is genuinely trying to help, yet he can’t escape the disastrous results in each attempt.

I was a bit disappointed to learn that John Hughes, the producer, director and writer of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, originally wrote and filmed a different ending. I simply can’t imagine an ending that leaves out the perfect and poignant Scrooge Awakening when Neal Page reflects and discovers that Del Griffith actually has nowhere to go for Thanksgiving.

I adore this movie for its comedic moments, but I love it for its pain, heart and truth. Martin plays the extremely uptight Neal Page which, apparently, is more like Steve Martin’s true personality (much more serious and quiet.) Candy’s role as Del Griffith as a clumsy, obnoxious, ridiculous and sloppy salesman is sometimes achingly uncomfortable to watch. But he is real and he wins our hearts in most scenes because he tries so hard despite his sweet and honest self.

There are some fantastic cameos in the film. One is Kevin Bacon as Martin’s nemesis hailing a cab on the New York streets. Two days before Thanksgiving. In rush hour.  In real life, Kevin Bacon was hanging around after just shooting another John Hughes film and he volunteered for the uncredited role. William Windom begins the movie in the very first scene as a terribly confused executive who can’t make a decision. If you watch the credits all the way through, you’ll find Windom still trying to make up his mind on Thanksgiving in his boardroom, surrounded by his turkey dinner. In my childhood, Windom was a favorite TV actor of mine starring in Farmer’s Daughter opposite Inger Stevens. Edie McClurg plays the sassy and clueless rental car clerk and Ben Stein is the Wichita airport employee who broadcasts the cancelled flight that begins Neal’s and Del’s three-day saga.

In the beginning of his career, John Hughes was best known for writing, directing, and producing a handful of teenage angst movies (Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off). It was the moralistic Planes, Trains and Automobiles that earned Hughes great respect.

John Candy acted in eight of John Hughes’ films and Candy’s death at an early age deeply affected Hughes who stopped directing after Candy died. Although he continued to write and produce, Hughes was involved in only eight films after Candy’s death from 1994 until his own death in 2009. Hughes died fairly young himself of a heart attack at age 59.

Of course, the Minuteman Library Network has most, if not all, of Hughes’, Martin’s and Candy’s films on DVD to borrow. Morrill Memorial Library cardholders can download and watch some of Martin’s comedic antics with Carol Burnett and Johnny Carson on hoopla, our streaming video, audiobook and music service. One of my favorite Martin movies is A Simple Twist of Fate (1993) in which Martin has a very serious role as the adoptive father of a seemingly orphaned child.  It is available on DVD or on hoopla – a must-see for the holiday viewing season.

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte’s column in the December 1, 2016 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.