The world has lost a giant in the world of special effects. Stop motion/Dynamation pioneer Ray Harryhausen passed away at the age of 92 on May 7. Countless Baby Boomers remember 1953’s The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (in which Ray Harryhausen brought to life The Beast, based on “The Fog Horn,” penned by his good friend Ray Bradbury.) We also remember the octopus in It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), the flying saucers in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), the Ymir in 20 Million Miles to Earth (1957),the myriad of creatures in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), and especially the skeleton scene in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). When asked which was his favorite of the creatures he created, Mr. Harryhausen was quoted in the May 7th edition of The Guardian as saying, “It would be Medusa. But don’t tell the others.” Medusa appeared in Clash of the Titans (1981). Mr. Harryhausen received a career Academy Award for Technical Achievement (the Gordon E. Sawyer Award) in 1992. At the program, actor Tom Hanks famously said, “Some people say Casablanca or Citizen Kane–I say Jason and the Argonauts is the greatest film ever made!”
(Check for 3 Worlds of Gulliver and Clash of the Titans on DVD in the Alameda County Library, and Ray Harryhausen: an Animated Life and A Century ofStop Motion Animation: From Melies to Aardman, both by Ray Harryhausen and Tony Dalton, in the non-fiction book section.)
Mr. Harryhausen may have left this world, but the mythical creatures he created will be enjoyed by generations to come.
Most of us live in a constant state of fear—of our past, of illness and aging and death, and of losing the things we treasure most. But it doesn’t have to be this way, promises Zen master and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
Drawing on a lifetime of mindfulness in action, Thich Nhat Hanh shows us how to use the practice of living in the present to acknowledge and embrace our fears, recognize their origins, and render them powerless. The world-renowned Zen teacher guides us through practical exercises for transforming fear into clarity. The worries of the past and the anxiety of the future disappear as we discover the power of the present moment. Not only are we are able to handle challenging emotions as they arise, but we can summon feelings of well-being and contentment, no matter what the unknown may bring.
Rooted in the moment, we have the capacity to restore balance and happiness and be present with what is beautiful and affirming inside us and around us, every day. Excerpt from Parallax press
Fremont Main Library
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
9:30 – 12:30 p.m.
Interactive Business Seminar and Resource Fair
This seminar and resource fair is a must for any business owner interested in securing debt or equity financing. Be ready to participate in a panel discussion with lenders offering advice in today’s tough lending environment. Participation is a must for any business owner interested in securing debt capital.
Learn how a wide range of banks and other lending organizations evaluate your loan application and the types of funding they can provide.You will be given an overview of how to get “capital-ready” before you approach a lender to insure a greater chance of success.
Participants will learn:
• What the 5 C’s of credit are and how they apply to the participant • How a wide range of lending organizations evaluate your loan application • The types of funding different lending organizations can provide • What types of information the lenders are looking for and why
This seminar is free to all attendees. Advance reservations are required. Please register online at http://acsbdc.org/node/13414. Refreshments will be served.
Sponsored by the City of Fremont, the Fremont Chamber of Commerce and the Alameda County Small Business Development Center (ACSBDC) and the Alameda County Library System.
One day in the not so distant future, you’ll be visiting the Fremont Main Library and leaving with a bag full of library items and another bag of fresh produce. Fremont Main is entering into a partnership with Dig Deep Farms and Produce, a social enterprise and a project of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs’ Activities League. The Dig Deep Farms website describes a weekly delivery service of fresh produce; the partnership with Fremont Main Library is a pilot project that will bring Dig Deep produce stands once a week to consumers for the first time. That those first produce stands will be on library grounds certainly says something of Fremont Main’s role in our community. So how about that? With one trip to the library, you will be taking home food for the mind as well as food for the body. It certainly is a good deal to look forward to. You’ll know when it’s here.
Yes, I know it’s difficult to put those electronic gadgets away. My current addiction is playing Candy Crush Saga on my Ipad! I also love Words with Friends, Hanging with Friends, Skee Ball, etc. You get my drift. Dare I say, the time I used to devote to reading seems to be taken up by my IPad activities. Then of course, there’s TV. Now I just have the basic digital package from Comcast, but that means there are still a lot of stations to watch which uses up my free time. I also have Netflix streaming which adds to the goodies I watch. It is wonderful to be be able to watch whenever I want to. Thank goodness, my cell phone is a dumb one or that would take up even more of my time. Reading unfortunately, is now pretty much confined to what I can listen to on CD books in my car while I’m driving around the area.
I didn’t grow up with all these digital devices, but I sure can’t live without them now or so I think. My family got our first computer in the 1990′s when my kids were in elementary school. We also got our first VCR then. We had a great time with these devices. Playing games, recording programs, etc. Then the cell phone became ubiquitous, and now, I panic if I forget my cell phone at home, and I’m driving around without one. My Ipad usually is with me wherever I go. My, how life has changed!
We are all so attached to our devices that sometimes we forget that there’s a world out there, and so much to do when we turn off all the screens that are demanding our attention. This coming week, April 29-May 5, Screen Free Week reminds us that there is life beyond our digital devices. Get outside and experience the beauty of nature. Play a game. read (a real book!), daydream, enjoy family and friends in person, not just on a screen! The hope is that this week of turning off the tv, the Ipad, the Kindle, the Blackberry, whatever you use that keeps you away from real life, will be the beginning of a lifestyle change where you discover or perhaps rediscover that it’s more fun to get out and interact with life than just passively interacting with a screen all the time. Moving and getting out will give you real health benefits too. You may find that losing those few extra pounds is a little easier when you move more and sit less. There is a place for our digital devices, but we need to realize that we can’t let them take over our lives.
Go to the website for Screen Free Week and check it out today. There are ideas and resources to get you started. When Monday comes you can start the challenge! Are you in ? Join me!
This year’s summer reading game theme, “Have Book—Will Travel” will take you on journeys. You can explore new places and experiences, meet travelers from around the world, and even plan your own summer adventure.
The library has many titles and formats for you enjoy. You could plan a road trip, join a marathon race, or live for a time in a very different place. Try these adult titles: “My First 100 Marathons” by Jeffrey Horowitz, “Road Trip USA,” by Jamie Jensen, or “A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail,” by Bill Bryson.
The game will run June 10 through August 10, using a bingo game format – you’ll win prizes by reading or doing the optional activities. However, the best prize is the one you give yourself, taking the time for an enjoyable reading adventure. Reading is for all ages.
Laughter Yoga combines Unconditional Laughter with Yogic Breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can Laugh for No Reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group; with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits. Excerpt from Laughter Yoga International
First the reminder: Be smart and back up everything saved on your computer hard drive — today. Take it from one who learned the hard way. Our home computer died a couple of months ago and with it went my “stuff”, including photographs, recipes, saved pages and other bits and pieces that meant something to me. I hope to find someone who can recover things from that dead hard drive, but at odd moments I think of my lost collections and of possibly reconstructing what I had. I know I lost two poems introduced to me in long-ago high school literature classes. After leaving home for college, and for the longest time before online searching became possible, every time I found myself in a book store (remember them?) or any library, I would browse anthologies of poetry hoping to find either poem listed in some book’s table of contents or index.
The feelings each poem evokes, if not their words, have stayed with me through the years. One fires me up, bringing up defiance and strength in the face of adversity. “Invictus”, Latin for unconquered or unbeaten, is the title of William Ernest Henley’s poem that left a lasting impression on my teen and adult self. Invictus also is the title of a 2009 movie that starred Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize winner who spent 27 years in prison for campaigning against apartheid and then served as South Africa’s first black president. The other poem encourages patience and reflection and reins me in. At moments in my life, recalling Vernon Watkins’ Triads has guided me to my senses. I found these poems again online and now I share them here for safekeeping, sort of. At any time I can search the library catalog for poems, but for now I intend to keep my resolution to do scheduled backups of my computer hard drive.
Triads
by Vernon Watkins (1906-67)
Who am I to load the year with continual misunderstanding?
I will not accuse winter of a protracted hardness,
Nor spring of callousness, nor summer of regret.
The oak-leaf changes; green gloss cups the acorn.
First hidden, then emerging from resistance to statement,
The fruit holds nothing in its fullness but the tree.
To have held through hail, stormwinds, and black frost in darkness
Through the long months, gives meaning to the bud when it opens.
Song loses nothing of moments that are past.
So my labour is still: it is still determination
To resolve itself slowly in the weathers of knowledge.
By virtue of the hidden the poem is revealed.
Remember Earth’s triads: the faith of a dumb animal,
The mountain stream falling, music to the wheat-ears;
The salt wave echoing the grieving of the bones.
The lamb leaps: it is stubborn in its innocence.
The hawk drops, in the energy of instinct,
Dawn fires kindle perfection like a sword.
Fires: the hawk’s talons, the tongue of the chameleon,
In a peacock’s wings’ lightning the contraction of glory,
In death the last miracle, the unconditional gift.
What do I need but patience before the unpredictable,
The endurance of the stepping-stone before the footprint,
Cadence that reconciles wisdom and the dance?
I need more, I need more. In the moment of perception
Fit me, prayer, to lose everything, that nothing may be lost.
The stone that accumulates history is falling.
History is a pageant, and all men belong to it.
We die into each other: remember how many
Confided their love, not in vain, to the same earth.
Money Smart Week®, a joint effort of the American Library Association and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, aims to promote financial literacy. As a Money Smart Week partner, the Fremont Main Library at 2400 Stevenson Blvd. will host the following free programs in April. No registration is required. Fremont Main is wheelchair accessible and an ASL interpreter will be provided if requested at least seven working days in advance. Contact 510-745-1421 or TTY 888-663-0660.
Preparing for Home Ownership
Tuesday, April 16, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Learn from George Duarte, MBM, CMC, President of Horizon Financial Assoc., about the pre-purchase planning process; what you need to know to ensure success purchasing or refinancing your new home
Annuity Scams & Other Schemes
Annuity Scams and Other Schemes
Friday, April 19, 1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Neil Granger and Prescott Cole will discuss annuity and other common scams and what you must know to protect yourself from fraud. Neil Granger, a 30-year independent Life Agent in California, is a member of the California Department of Insurance Curriculum Board, which makes recommendations on educational standards for Insurance Agents in California. Prescott Cole is an 18-year attorney for California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR).
Estate and Gift Tax Law
Tuesday, April 23, 7 – 8:30 p.m.
Atashi Rang Law Firm presents current estate tax developments and how the new tax law can impact you and your loved ones by passing wealth from one generation to the next.
Estate Planning Mistakes
Saturday, April 27, 2–4 p.m.
Atashi Rang Law Firm will discuss how to avoid the seven biggest misstates in estate planning and how to successfully detect and avoid them.
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