Institute for Information Literacy, Burlington, Vermont

I was lucky to spend a week at an intensive information literacy retreat in Burlington, Vermont in July. The location was beautiful and I learned a lot -- some of it I'll put to use immediately at work and much of it will be useful to me as the information literacy program at my library matures. It was an awesome experience. One attendee described it as, "a vision quest minus the peyote." I met some amazing instruction librarians who are working on issues similar to mine, and much of what I brought home came from conversations with my cohort. Here are just a few photos:

The Institute was held at Champlain College. This is a view from the 3rd floor of the library. You can see Lake Champlain in the distance. Burlington is such a beautiful place!

Church Street, Burlington's downtown area
Of course I went to Ben & Jerry's. It comes from Vermont!
Some of my new friends from Immersion celebrating democracy (which is, in part, what librarianship is all about).
Most of our time was spent working . . . .
But on the last day we had a special performance by the faculty. Ha! Respected and esteemed librarians singing and dancing -- love it.
Speaking of singing and dancing, we had an outing to the Von Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont.
Where we had an Austrian dinner (yum)
And a singalong. (You can see the harp accompanist in the distance.)
I was very excited about the singing, and even jumped up for a solo rendition of "Edelweiss" (a la Georg Von Trapp at the Salzburg Music Festival)
What can I say? I'm a giant fan of The Sound of Music.

Multi-media Entertainment

It's been an action-packed week in Laramie. I'll go in reverse chronological order and tell you what Mike and I have been up to.
Last night we saw Ani DiFranco live at University of Wyoming. Ani is a feminist folk singer who became quite prominent in the 1990s. She is remarkably prolific and has released one album per year since 1990. She owns all of her own music and has never been under the thumb of any studio, since she started her own record company: Righteous Babe Records. Ani came to my attention in my Women & Gender Studies classes at USU and I've been a fan since then, but have never had the chance to see her live. Then she came to Laramie! She is absolutely amazing on guitar. Her songs tend to be political, but one of my favorites that she played last night is about being a new mother. It's called "Present/Infant":

lately i've been glaring into mirrors
picking myself apart
you'd think at my age i'd of thought
of something better to do
than making insecurity into a full-time job
making insecurity into an art

i fear my life will be over
and i will have never lived it unfettered
always glaring into mirrors
mad i don't look better

but now here's this tiny baby
and they say she looks just like me
and she is smiling at me
with that present/infant glee
and i would defend
to the ends of the earth
her perfect right to be

so i'm beginning to see some problems
with the ongoing work of my mind
and i've got myself a new mantra
it says: "don't forget to have a good time"
don't let the sellers of stuff
power enough
to rob you of your grace
love is all over the place
there's nothing wrong with your face
love is all over the place

So that was cool. It seems like a long time since we went to a rock concert.

Tuesday night we saw a UW production of Hamlet. It was quite excellent. There were two guest stars: Pete Simpson, Jr. played Hamlet and Pete Simpson, Sr. played the ghost of Hamlet's father. The Simpsons are part of one of Wyoming's most important political families, and some of them are theatrical to boot! (Al Simpson, former senator from Wyoming, is now co-chairing President Obama's commission on reducing the federal debt. He's probably the most well-known in the family, and Pete Sr.'s brother. This is completely tangential, but I highly recommend Al Simpson's interview in Newsweek. The best part is how he describes Rush Limbaugh: "I never considered Rush-babe to be anything more than an entertainer. He gets people all riled up all day long, get them filled up with gas, ulcers, heartburn, B.O., and fear. Hell, that's pretty good. You really are an entertainer if you can get that done!" Oh, and how he describes the filibuster: "It's like a big old hobnail-boot ass-kicking machine.")

I meant to review Hamlet and got sidetracked with Al's colorful way of speaking. We enjoyed the play very much and were impressed with the students and guest actors.
Finally, on Monday night my book group discussed this really amazing novel, The Secret Scripture. It's really beautifully written, with descriptions like poetry. The main character and narrator is a 100-year-old woman named Roseanne Clear who has been in mental hospitals for about 60 years. She writes her history -- and the history of Ireland -- on sheets of paper that she found and hides in the floorboards of her room. Some of the members of my book group thought the book was depressing, and Roseanne's story is a sad one, but as a narrator she is never mournful or despairing. I highly recommend the book.

I love Laramie. There are so many great things to do, even though it's quite a small town. And the people here are just the best. Even though it's mid-April and winter lingers (the forecast says we'll have 3-7 inches of snow between now and Saturday morning), I think we made the right choice when we decided to move here.

Rita Dove at Purdue University

Last night we had the pleasure of hearing and seeing Rita Dove at Purdue University. (The picture is awfully dark -- my bad.) Our good friend Karl, who is a student at Purdue, invited us for the evening and it was fantastic. Dove, who I studied back in "Women Writing Poetry" in the English department at USU, is a very accomplished poet, and was actually the U.S. Poet Laureate for a couple of years in the '90s. Last night she read from her new book, Sonata Mullatica, which is a book of poems (including a farcical play somewhere in the middle) that tells the story of George Bridgewater, a mullato violinist to whom Beethoven dedicated a violin sonata. Dove has a wonderful reading voice and stage presence and the reading was just lovely. One of her most interesting comments was about learning to play music and learning to write -- they're very similar, in that one must learn very good technique in order to play/write so that it looks effortless. Very interesting.

We spent a bit of time with Karl in Lafayette, then (thanks to Karl) listened to Neko Case's new album Middle Cyclone on the drive home. I highly recommend the album. The song "This Tornade Loves You" is incredible.

Finally, here's a very cute kitty, keeping me company while I read Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer:

Choir Concert

For the past few months I've been singing with a choir called the Heritage Singers. It's been fabulous -- the directors and members of the choir are really talented. It's exciting to sing with a group that can pick up a fairly complex piece of music, sight-read it, and have it performance-ready within a couple of rehearsals. The group is made up of graduate students and spouses of graduate students at the University of Illinois and we rehearse at the LDS Institute of Religion. This week we had an Easter concert at St. Matthew Lutheran church in Urbana and it was really great. I don't have any pictures, but our program contained:

• Two motets: "Jubilate Deo" by Mozart and "Regina caeli" by Lotti
• Two hymns of Zion: "Peace Unto Zion," a Shaker hymn, and "Beautiful Zion, Built Above" from the LDS hymnbook
• Three spirituals: "I Wanna Be Ready," "Balm in Gilead," and "Walk Together, Children"
• Two hymns: "Where Can I Turn for Peace" and "Come, Thou Glorious Day of Promise"
• and three new Easter anthems: "Song of Creation and Salvation," "This Is the Christ," and "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need."

The audience was small but appreciative and the choir sounded great in the big, open space of the church's sanctuary.