Carmen, Rain, and Brooklyn

So last night...our group traveled a few subway stations away to see Carmen performed at the Metropolitan Opera. This was by far our fanciest shindig, so all ten of us were dressed up. Actually fun to see us in our prettiest dresses. Unfortunately, no photo was snapped due to the fact the opera finished around 11:45 PM and some girls were ready for bed!

Overall, the opera was good. Definitely a change of pace from the plays and music concerts we have already seen. I knew the plot of Carmen so I could spend more time focusing on attempting to understand the French (mildly successful) and watch the actors (little tough being up in the dress circle). Both Murray and Susan were along and Susan luckily brought binoculars which we passed around during the performance. That definitely helped.

As I mentioned in my last post, it was raining here this morning, putting a damper on things. But nevertheless, I made it to work, dried off, and was kept busy.

My first project was to listen to one final veteran oral history I hadn't heard yet. It was a fascinating interview, especially since this vet was part of a unit that responded to 9/11. He was there, amid all the gray dust when the towers had fallen. Throughout the interview, he had a lot of poignant moments and his passion to help foster father-daughter relationships is pretty incredible.

Sarah (one of my bosses) asked me if I would like to write for a NYPL blog channel called Freedom of Thought. The way blog writing works at NYPL is that they have several channels on a wide variety of library topics and then various librarians (or interns like myself), write and post content. Of course I told Sarah I would be more than happy/thrilled/etc. to blog (because you know I LOVE to blog). I wrote my first post today, but it has to go through all the administrative channels before being published. But I will for sure let you know when it is on the web for you to read!

The last part of my day was spent getting some balls rolling on my other large project, the Music and Memory drive I've talked about. I got a hold of the recreation/outreach director from a nursing home near the Kingsbridge Library and hopefully next week, we can start creating a solid timeline. I'm super excited and happy things are falling into place.

I dashed home so Whitney and I could take a train to Brooklyn for an event I really wanted to go to. It was the publication release of the literary magazine A Public Space. The event took place at an independent bookstore called Book Court and Whitney and I had actually checked it out last week when we ate dinner at Joya. There was a fair turnout and the event began with Brigid, the editor in chief, introducing the readers and thanking us for attending. We heard from two fiction writers and one poet. All were fantastic. Post-reading, Whitney and I both expressed how much we are missing The Coe Review right now. Just the atmosphere of writers and putting together a literary magazine really excites me. And, I want to mention the readers because they were AWESOME. First was a short story by Tom Drury. Then we switched to poetry by Mark Bibbins. And we ended the night with part of a short story by Jessica Francis Kane.

Oh, can you tell I hang out with Whitney a lot? All the photos seem to be of the two of us! Haha!

Now it's time for some response writing and sleep because it's an extra special day tomorrow.
Aka my birthday! :)