Posts by Steven Cohn

Puppet Playtime with Nicola Rose

Puppet Playtime with Nicola Rose

Actress and puppeteer Nicola Rose will bring her repertoire of interactive games, songs and stories to the Library for an 11:00 a.m. performance on Wednesday, July 11th.  “’Puppet Playtime’ is a series of short vignettes—games and stories—for toddlers and pre-schoolers,” she says. “I will be handing out scarves, toys and musical instruments so that the kids can play along with me. They will be very much involved.” The Bronx-based Rose is a Columbia University graduate and received a master’s degree in theater from the Sorbonne in Paris, where she studied for two years.  She is an accomplished independent film producer
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June 27, 2018 9:00 am | by | 2 Comments
Categories: Events and Kids.

Rescheduled: The Deedle Deedle Dees Perform

Rescheduled: The Deedle Deedle Dees Perform

This event have been canceled for 3/21 due to weather and will be rescheduled. Please check back later for updates. On Wednesday, March 21 at 7:00 p.m., Lloyd H. Miller will bring the Deedle Deedle Dees with their mix of interactive music and activities for children to our second-floor auditorium. Miller has performed for 15 years (often for kids in care facilities and hospitals), and he is the one fixture in the Deedle Deedle Dees, which he describes as “a traveling show with different components.” In his performance, Miller’s accompaniments will include a bass guitar, ukulele and Olga Okuneva, a
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March 20, 2018 10:05 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events and Kids.
Tags: puppets and womens history month.

Story Theater with Jonathan Kruk

Story Theater with Jonathan Kruk

“I grew up on tall tales and day dreams,” says Jonathan Kruk, who went from “regaling his rambunctious brothers with bedtime tales” to becoming a master storyteller who has entertained elementary-school-aged children throughout North America for nearly three decades. He has become a Halloween and holiday-season perennial at the historic Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow with his renditions of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. All 60 shows have sold out every year since 2010. On Wednesday, February 21, Kruk will bring his “Children’s Story Theater” to the Library for a 7:00 p.m.
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February 14, 2018 2:23 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Events and Kids.

Writing Workshop for Families of Veterans

Writing Workshop for Families of Veterans

The adjustment for American veterans returning from war (depicted brilliantly by The Best Years of Our Lives after World War II and Coming Home and Born on the Fourth of July after the Vietnam War) extends to their families. “My late father, David Rust, was a member of the ‘Flying Tigers’ that flew dangerous missions over China and Myanmar [Burma] during World War II,” says Irvington-based telecommunications consultant Julia Rust. “I was born after he was discharged from the Air Force, but everything about him until his death in 2014 was influenced by the war—the way he moved, the way
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January 19, 2018 2:53 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Classes, Events, and Library News.

“When a Man Loves a Woman” Comes to the Library

“When a Man Loves a Woman” Comes to the Library

On Thursday, January 18, from 2-4:30 p.m., the White Plains Public Library will present a free screening of the 1994 film When a Man Loves a Woman in the second-floor auditorium. The movie, which chronicles a wife’s alcoholism and rehabilitation and her husband’s inner conflicts, complements the Library’s Shaken and Stirred short-story discussion series on works centered around the multi-faceted use–and abuse–of alcohol in our culture. Meg Ryan and Andy García play a couple with two young daughters. Their outwardly idyllic life is shattered not only from the binge drinking by Ryan’s character but also by her recovery, which brings
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January 12, 2018 3:40 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Events.

‘Mixed Media’ Art Exhibit

‘Mixed Media’ Art Exhibit

Rick Rogers is a self-taught artist who “grew up visiting galleries and museums and soaking in the riches of the masters.” His path was unusual as a park ranger for 10 years on the 4,300-acre Ward Pound Ridge Reservation (where he and his family lived for 34 years), but that would evolve into his co-founding Westchester’s Art in the Parks program and curating the reservation’s gallery.  Rogers subsequently spent 10 years at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, Conn., doing maintenance and art installing. While on the job, he “had the good fortune to meet many great artists
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January 8, 2018 9:00 am | by | 2 Comments
Categories: Events and Gallery.

Library Volunteer Orientation on November 28

Library Volunteer Orientation on November 28

Want to lend a helping hand to a very bustling White Plains Public Library?  Come to the volunteer orientation on Tuesday, November 28 at 7 p.m. in Room A on the second floor. Library Assistant Director Kathy Degyansky will give an overview of the programs, and the attendees will list their skills, hobbies and passions on the application forms. Then, in the coming weeks, each attendee will individually meet with Degyansky for placement. One project is the digitization of local newspapers. “It's converting microfilm–the way back copies of newspapers had long been preserved–to the Internet,” says librarian and historian Ben Himmelfarb. “Current newspapers like the Journal News
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November 17, 2017 11:30 am | by | 2 Comments
Categories: Library News.

‘Social Media 101’ Will Help Bridge the Digital Divide

‘Social Media 101’ Will Help Bridge the Digital Divide

Social Media–Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter, etc.–is as revolutionary to communications in the 21st century as the telegraph, telephone, radio, television and, yes, the computer were to the 19th and 20th. But innovation comes with the challenge of acclimation, and to meet it, White Plains Public Library digital media specialist Austin Olney will host two Social Media 101 programs in the main floor's Edge Media Lab on Tuesday, November 28, at 6 p.m. and on Wednesday, December 13, at 11 a.m. “We are targeting seniors and those who are not familiar with modern technology and software,” says Olney. “Social media is a popular resource, and it is
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November 6, 2017 9:00 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events and Library News.
Tags: events and social media.

An International Film Festival ‘Bonus’ on Aug. 29

An International Film Festival ‘Bonus’ on Aug. 29

Cliffhangers were the rage during the 1980s (remember Dallas‘ hugh ratings from “Who Shot J.R.?”), and the French got their taste in 1986 with the hit movie Jean de Florette. It ended with the namesake killed in a dynamite explosion over a water dispute, and his widow and young daughter were forced to leave their property. The bad guys won, with “End of Part 1” heightening the suspense. Jean de Florette was screened Aug. 8 at the White Plains Public Library as part of the summer's International Film Festival, which was scheduled to end on Aug. 22. But by popular demand, the Library is
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August 22, 2017 8:51 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Library News.

Come See The Mermaid, Chinese Blockbuster Aug. 15

Come See <em>The Mermaid</em>, Chinese Blockbuster Aug. 15

What Gone with the Wind, Star Wars and Titanic are to the U.S., The Mermaid is to China. The Stephen Chow-directed fantasy on a mermaid entangled in greed, love and revenge has grossed $553.8 million since its February 2016 release. That set a box-office record in China, which makes it all the more special that the White Plains Public Library will present a free screening of The Mermaid at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, August 15, in The Trove (second floor). The Mermaid, in Mandarin with English subtitles, is the sixth of the seven-movie International Film Festival being shown at the Library this
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August 10, 2017 9:30 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events.
Tags: film. International Film Festival and movie.

‘Love Stories’ Returns

‘Love Stories’ Returns

After a winter break, White Plains librarian Barbara Wenglin's popular “Love Stories” series resumes on March 16 with a discussion of Lorrie Moore's “Terrific Mother.”  “It's a wry and witty tale in which the protagonist, Adrienne, tries to rebuild her life and ability to love following a devastating loss,” says Wenglin. “Terrific Mother” is among the 19 selections compiled by Diana Tesdell in the Love Stories anthology (Everyman's Pocket Classics, 2009). Copies can be borrowed from the White Plains Public Library, and there is also one kept at the upstairs reference desk. Eight of the love stories are in the spring
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March 9, 2017 5:38 pm | by | No Comments
Categories: Events and Uncategorized.

Digital Art Exhibit: Donna Faranda

Digital Art Exhibit: Donna Faranda

It was three decades ago when artist Donna Faranda first used a computer to ‘paint' in points, or pointillism, the movement created by 19th century French impressionist Georges Seurat. “I had painted ‘traditionally,' with brush, watercolors, easel and smock, but I felt confined by my small apartment in Brooklyn,” she says. “My husband, Jan Novick, is an IT professional, and he helped me see the potential of painting digitally at a time when home computers were primarily word processors.” Technology and Faranda have both come a long way. “I now use Photoshop to create a montage from images that I have either drawn, scanned or found on the web. From these images,
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December 27, 2016 8:29 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Events, Gallery, and Library News.

Meet Josh Carlson

Meet Josh Carlson

As the new manager of Youth Services, Josh Carlson wants a “Fandemic” to spread through White Plains. In his former position as Youth Services director at the Utica Public Library, the SUNY Geneseo (BA, cum laude, in history) and SUNY Albany (MS in information science) alumnus created Fandemicon, which he described on the website as “a family friendly celebration of all things fandom–from comics and superheroes, to games and gaming, to anime and manga and cosplay, and everything else fanboys and fangirls enjoy. “I was inspired by Comic Con becoming a phenomenon in large cities. At the Utica Library, there was ‘down time' for
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November 29, 2016 10:44 am | by | No Comments
Categories: Library News.