Ramblin' with Roger

Library trustee vote

APL budget passed!

As I noted, the trick with the library trustee vote for Albany Public Library on May 19 was that I found at least six of the candidates to be credible choices.

The vote totals for the nine trustee candidates were:
1. Kathryn Bamberger with 1,263 votes
2. Kayli McTague with 1,251 votes
3. Matthew Reed with 908 votes
4. Sarah Macinski with 865 votes
5. Leslie Dykeman with 751 votes
6. Smriti Sinha with 750 votes
7. Lori Kochanski with 701 votes
8. Jenna Kersten with 515 votes
9. Kenneth Louzier with 443 votes

Kat and Kayli were elected to full five-year terms, while Matthew Reed was elected to a partial one-year term.

I ended up voting for Kat, who I knew had been deeply involved in our public schools for years, in part because she came to my house and got my signature. Retail politics at its finest.

I also voted for Sarah Macinski, whose great job as the current board president cannot be overstated. And the truth is that I’ve known her personally for more than two decades. She and I have kids who are a year apart in age. She is good at trustee administering but only so-so at campaigning; I got a few people to sign her petition.

Also: “Albany voters approved the Albany Public Library 2026-27 budget May 19 with a final tally of 2,412 to 646. The $9,661,856 million budget was approved by 79% of the voters.” YAY!

“‘The approved budget erases our deficit and stabilizes our fund balance for rainy-day capital needs. This vote protects current branches, hours, and services, as well as library jobs,’ said APL Executive Director Andrea Nicolay.”

The City School of Albany’s votes went as I had hoped.

Not incidentally, I went to the city school district building and voted on Monday because I would be out of town on Tuesday. That IS a thing one can do!

FFAPL

The Friends and Foundation of the Albany Public Library book reviews and author talks on Tuesdays at 2 pm at the Washington Avenue branch, large auditorium.

May 26 | Book Review | The Fear and the Fury: Bernie Goetz, the Reagan ‘80s, and the Rebirth of White Rage by Heather Ann Thompson. Reviewer: James Collins, PhD, Prof. emeritus, Anthropology Dept, Program in Linguistics & Cognitive Science, U at Albany, SUNY.

June 2 | Book Review | Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People by Steven Watts. Reviewer: Jonathan Skinner, PhD, retired statistician & amateur classicist. (This is a replacement for the talk scheduled earlier.)

June 9 | Illustrator Talk | Marcus Kwame Anderson, Deputy Director, Underground Railroad Education Center, discusses his most recent graphic novel, written with David Walker, Big Jim and the White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined. (Rescheduled from February.)

June 16 | Book Review | The Gift of Fear: Survival Signs That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin de Becker. Reviewer: David Guistina, “Morning Edition” anchor & senior producer, WAMC, and adjunct professor, U at Albany, SUNY.

June 23 | Book Reviews | Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart and The Shadow Gospel: How Anti-liberal Demonology Possessed U. S. Religion, Media, and Politics by Whitney Phillips and Mark Brockway. Reviewer: Frank Robinson, JD, philosopher, author, & blogger.

June 30 | Author Talk | Molly Dunn discusses & reads from her psychological thriller, The Circuitry We Share.

Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

“Picture books are an introduction to literature for the very young reader.”

It’s ridiculous. Every time my wife and I went to Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, and came in through the main entrance, we passed by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Yet, my wife and I never actually went into the place until Saturday, April 11, after we helped the Daughter take down her art show. Of course, I knew who the illustrator was. I’ve read aloud Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967), written by Bill Martin, and, of course, The Very Hungry Caterpillar (1969).

I didn’t know anything about his personal bio, the early part of which was chilling. “Eric was born on June 25, 1929, in Syracuse, NY, the son of Johanna (née Oelschlaeger) and Erich W. Carle, a civil servant.”As the panel below notes, his mother, homesick for Germany, led the family back to Stuttgart. Eric graduated from the local art school, the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart.

Unfortunately, “his father was drafted into the German Army at the beginning of World War II (1939) and was taken prisoner by the Soviet forces when Germany capitulated in May 1945. He returned home in late 1947, weighing 85 pounds (39 kg; 6.1 st). Carle told The Guardian years later that his father was a broken man when he returned after his military service, recalling that Erich was a ‘sick man. Psychologically, physically devastated.'”

The first thing we did was go to the theater and see a segment of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood – this piece – where Eric shows Fred how to do art. It’s nicer on the bigger screen.

Since 2002

The website notes from Eric Carle: “In 2002, [the museum] opened in Amherst, MA. My wife, Bobbie, loved art and children – she worked in special education. She was a tremendous guiding force as we embarked on this project, created a Board of Directors, and hired staff in the early years of the Museum’s life.

“It has been said that picture books are an introduction to literature for the very young reader. Bobbie and I wanted to build a museum that would be for the first-time museum visitor: an introduction to the experience of looking at art.” I totally relate to this. We introduced our daughter to museums. For a while, in her teens, she seemed to eschew them, but now embraces the facilities.

“And we wanted to show the highest examples of that art to demonstrate the beauty, the seriousness, and the fun of it. We wanted to create a museum that exhibits the work of national and international picture book artists.” In the three gallery rooms, there is a variety of whimsical art, covering more than a century, some familiar – a library poster about reading and the dogs of William Wegman, for example.

“In 2015, sadly, Bobbie passed away. But our shared dream of a place where picture book art is enjoyed and honored continues. Bobbie’s Meadow, an outdoor space at the Museum, is a beautiful wildflower meadow and outdoor space created in memory of my dearest Bobbie.” It reminded my wife and me of an outdoor space at the Clark Art Museum.

Cooking

I think kids would like the museum a lot. Carle has created over 40 books. I was more interested in discovering more about Carle himself. If you go before September 26, 2026, check out the exhibit Cooking With Eric Carle in the West Gallery. His “career in book publishing began with commissions for Red Flannel Hash and Shoo-Fly Pie (published in 1965), a compilation of folk recipes from across the United States.”

The Eric Carle Museum, and for that matter, the Yiddish Book Center, will survive the closing of Hampshire College, even though both reside on the campus.

Mother’s Day on CBS Sunday Morning

CBS Radio

Since practically the beginning of its run in 1979, I’ve been a massive fan of CBS Sunday Morning. It is the network’s weekly magazine on the air.

Several of the segments on this past Mother’s Day made me a bit melancholy. They weren’t all sad, but many were reflective. Motherless daughters: Coming together involves “a global support network for women” who, like author Hope Edelman, were “young when their mothers died.” The women also experienced “laughter, sisterhood, and affirmation.” What caught me unawares was that the reporter, Faith Salie, was one of those women.

Every story I saw about the SCOTUS ruling ushering in a new era of gerrymandering made me heartsick.

CBS correspondent “Jonathan Vigliotti, who wrote about L.A.’s reconstruction efforts in his book ‘Torched,’ discusses how rebuilding after a disaster should include steps to prevent future catastrophes.” One fears that speed will win out over safety and strength.

Martin Short: Facing tragedy with joy is a heavy-duty piece in anticipation of Lawrence Kasdan‘s Marty, Life Is Short, a 101-minute tribute to the comic. It’s amazing and touching, given his sometimes difficult experiences – a brother and both parents died within an eight-year period in his youth, his wife of 30 years died in 2010, his daughter died earlier this year by suicide — how well put together he appears to be. Here’s an extended interview.

News

Remembering Ted Turner, an American original, reminded me of what we’ve lost since we had a reasonably straightforward, even boring, 24-hour news. I wonder if he knew whether FOTUS was limiting access to the bison on lands in Montana. (Here’s the CNN take on its founder’s passing at the age of 87.)

But I was most melancholy about the story of CBS News Radio, a beacon of broadcast journalism, as it signs off. “Founded nearly a century ago, [it] set the standard for radio news coverage, featuring legends such as Edward R. Murrow, Robert Trout, and Charles Osgood, and created the template for broadcast journalists. But on May 22, CBS will end its heralded radio service. Mo Rocca celebrates the long history of CBS News Radio, and talks with current and former staffers, including ‘Sunday Morning’ correspondent Martha Teichner (who reported on radio for decades), and Dan Rather (here’s an extended interview), a veteran radio correspondent and former anchor of the “CBS Evening News.”

So, CBS News did a credible job of explaining how it continues to decline.

Baby sister: biker babe

“farmer Green”

I always wondered how my baby sister, Marcia, became a biker babe in her 20s. She has forgotten more about motorcycles than I ever knew. Oddly, it seemed to have been instigated by our grandfather, McKinley Green.

He was the one who taught her about cars, including, and I only recently learned this, that he took her for driving lessons out on Airport Road near Binghamton, NY. She may or may not have had a driver’s permit, and she mightn’t have even been old enough for one. Almost certainly, my parents had no idea.

In retrospect, my two sisters and I all thought we each had a special relationship with Pop. And we all probably did. Even though he lived only a dozen and a half steps away, Pop’s apartment was an oasis from our dwelling, and he was fun.

For instance, Marcia spent more time planting items in the garden. He dubbed her “farmer Green,” I guess because she was wearing overalls. (Why don’t I remember this?)

My time with him involved watching boxing and other sports on his television and playing cards, mostly gin rummy. We all remember seeing Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom and smelling his vile Fatima cigarettes.

By comparison, my mom’s mom, Gert Williams, was the antithesis of fun, always trying to fill our heads with fear. But as the youngest, she saw through her nonsense.

One of these days, I’ll have to have a face-to-face with Marcia, not just the weekly Zoom chats. Happy birthday, baby sister.

Sunday Stealing Makes You Choose

tea and geography

Welcome to Sunday Stealing. Here we will steal all types of questions from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent questions. Cheers to all of us thieves!

This week, our inspiration is Life of a Fool. This blogger maintains that this meme has “been seen everywhere.” The questions only require a simple, definitive answer, but if you’d like to elaborate, we’d like to hear what you have to say.

Which one? Sunday Stealing Makes You Choose

1. Pepsi or Coke?

Diet Cherry Pepsi. That full-sugar glass bottle of Coke that one used to only get near Mexico

2. Cappuccino or coffee?

I don’t drink coffee, and never did. There is something vaguely uncivilized about not drinking it; some people have tried to make me feel that. Someone makes a pot of coffee, and you don’t share. I probably mentioned my absolute refusal to make it. It was an office task; I made it once, it sucked, and I was off the hook.

Here’s a useless piece of information about cappuccino: “The name comes from the Capuchin friars, referring to the color of their habits, and in this context, referring to the color of the beverage when milk is added in a small portion to dark, brewed coffee (today mostly espresso).

Ice cream?

3. Chocolate or vanilla?

I’m assuming the question refers to ice cream, though it isn’t explicitly stated. I find that vanilla ice cream, as an accompaniment, is about perfect. It goes with chocolate cake, fruit pies, hot chocolate, and much more. A good chocolate ice cream needs to stand on its own, and some do.

I shared this before – it’s about racism and vanilla ice cream.

4. Hot tea or iced tea?

One of the first things I learned when I visited my parents and baby sister after they moved to the Southeast US was that there is tea and hot tea. Whereas, in the North, there’s iced tea and tea. What was the question again? Either one; it’s weather-dependent.

5. Dinner for two or a party?

It must be dinner for two, because I do it far more often. I like other people’s parties, though; I only throw one per year because it’s work.