News from the Mudd

Today marks the last day in "the Mudd" for Cheryl, ILL & Circulation Assistant extraordinaire. The Mudd staff sent her off in our very special way, with food. Best of luck to you Cheryl. You will be missed.

And you thought certain jobs in science were bad. A new book has come out, Working IX to V: Orgy Planners, Funeral Clowns, and Other Prized Professions of the Ancient World. The author spoke on NPR today about chefs (mmmmm, sow's udder,) charioteers and other Greek and Roman vocations.
The Mudd has a book which mentions ancient Roman jobs. Read more about 'em.

A whole lot has been written about J.S. Bach, as you know. Yo Tomita from the School of Music, Queen's University Belfast has put together, with the help of some contributors, a handy web site titled Bach Bibliography. From the web site introduction: "The aim of releasing the Bach Bibliography on the Internet is to provide facilities for scholarly community world-wide the most up-to-date and most comprehensive bibliography of J. S. Bach in most useful and efficient way."
Keep in mind no one place will provide one-stop research shopping, and this is a bibliography, so you'll get citations, not full-text. A lot is in German, as you may expect, but there's plenty in other languages and it's well worth checking out if Bach is your thing.

Today is "Handshake Day." Business consultants advise avoiding certain handshakes, the "dead fish" being one of them. This is particularly apropos since we are also into "Fish Are Friends, Not Food" week.
Of course, a handshake is good for greeting people, but it may also begin a boxing match, seal a deal, demonstrate one is not carrying a sword and spread communicable diseases. Just to be on the safe side, instead of handshaking, why not engage in "hand shaking?" Here's how to begin: you put your right hand in, you put your right hand out...

Forty years ago today (1967 was quite the year, was it not?) the first money was withdrawn from an "automatic teller machine." This momentous event occurred outside a Barclays bank in Enfield, north London.
The ATM's inventor got the idea in the bathtub while thinking of a way he could get his money anytime, anywhere. He hit on the idea of a chocolate bar dispensing machine, but dispensing money instead of chocolate. Had he gone with his original idea we'd all be a little fatter and a little wealthier.

Today would have been the 98th birthday of Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk. Ho-hum, you say? Perhaps you know him better by the name Colonel Thomas Andrew Parker. A native of The Netherlands, he came to the U.S. around 1929, six years before his most famous client was born.
The Mudd has only one recording of said client, but it's a good one. He's singing "Mystery train."

In keeping with the science theme, we must bring to your attention a momentous event which happened on this day in 1967.
"Our World" was the first live worldwide television broadcast made possible by four telecommunications satellites and was seen by over 400 million viewers on five continents. It may seem quaint that this was such a big deal, since we can now receive live worldwide broadcasts regularly, but remember, back then TV was reserved for Walter Cronkite and The Monkees, but not together. That we know of.
The broadcast featured Franco Zeffirelli, Joan Miro, Leonard Bernstein, Marc Chagall, Van Cliburn and The Beatles, but the only portion people seem to recall now is the Beatles' performance of "All You Need is Love," which was written by John Lennon just for that occasion.
You can view it on youtube.com, or listening to a recording on the Beatles' Love CD in the Mudd.

We all love science. Without science we'd never know why the sky is blue, or why cockroaches live so long, or how a hard boiled egg can be sucked into a milk bottle by just tossing in a lighted match first (don't try this at home.)

popsci.com has posted a "bottom ten" list of the The Worst Jobs in Science 2007. To give you some idea of the depth and breadth of jobs, Whale-Feces Researcher is only number 10. Visit the site before or after but not during a meal. The jobs may be icky but the illustrations are phenomenal.
You can find information about [possibly] these jobs and more by using the elegant Library of Congress Subject heading: "science vocational guidance" in LUCIA.

We hesitate to announce this, but it's both "Stupid Guy Thing Day" and "Take Your Dog to Work Day." The convergence of these two special days, and the resulting mental images they generate, are so frightening that we are rendered nearly speechless.

It's here, the day you've been waiting for: "Recess at Work Day!" You work hard the rest of the year, now you may officially act like a kid. But use your inside voice.
Watch a movie (with music by birthday boy Lalo Schifrin,) read a magazine (Rolling Stone is entertaining,) sharpen your expertise on some computer games, take a nap on your mat.
It's also:
"Learn French Month" - get out those language tapes
"Fiddlers Week" and "International Accordion Awareness Month" - yes, we've got violin and accordion CDs
"Watermelon Seed Spitting Day" - you're on your own there

It's also the Summer Solstice, so try to get out and catch some rays.

Today marks another birthday of note: playwright Philip Barry. Probably his most famous play is The Philadelpia Story, which he penned for Katharine Hepburn. The Mudd has both the play and the video. But the Mudd also has his play Holiday, an earlier effort which is equally as funny. Interestingly, Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant are in the film versions of both The Philadelphia Story and Holiday.

Paul McCartney turns 65 today. Lest you think he is now the king of geezerdom, recall that he just released a new CD. He also recently played unannounced shows in London and New York, with New York Times reviewer Ben Ratliff stating, "He played beautifully, in tight control of his voice (even in high range) and his musicianship." (NYT June 15, 2007.)
The Mudd has many CDs (and even a score) of music he recorded with some band in the sixties.

You've heard his work more times than you realize, but Robert Russell Bennett isn't exactly a familiar name to most people. This American composer, orchestrator and conductor was born on June 15, 1894. While his wind ensemble compositions are his most performed works, he is perhaps better known as the orchestrator of more than 300 Broadway musicals. The Mudd has recordings of the following RRB-orchestrated shows:
Show Boat (music by Jerome Kern)
Carmen Jones (version of Bizet's Carmen)
Annie Get your Gun (music by Irving Berlin)
Kiss Me, Kate (music by Cole Porter)
South Pacific (music by Richard Rodgers)
Bells are Ringing (music by Jule Styne)
Camelot and My Fair Lady (music by Frederick Loewe)

From June 16 to 18, 1967, an "international pop festival" was held in Monterey, California. The three-day event was attended by 200,000 people, admission was $1, and the gate receipts went to charity. A mix of artists performed for free; Ravi Shankar, who played all afternoon, was the exception. Janis Joplin, then unknown, emerged as one of the stars and Jimi Hendrix stunned the crowd by setting his guitar on fire. They would both live only another 3 years.
The Monterey International Pop Festival is regarded as the first major music festival (Woodstock would come two years later) and marked the beginning of the Summer of Love in the San Francisco, the rise of Haight-Ashbury, and helped establish hippies as a counterculture group.
It's not the original, but the Mudd has the Kronos Quartet doing a little Purple Haze.

If you don't know it's hot today, just step outside. If you can't stand the heat, come on over to the Mudd (bring your parka) where you can observe library staff crouched over their PCs wearing Bob Cratchit-style fingerless gloves or huddling in front of the microwave for warmth.
Wisconsin's governor, Jim Doyle, has declared today Heat Awareness Day. Read the official proclamation while listening to:
Heat Wave (Irving Berlin, not Martha and the Vandellas)
Too Darn Hot
Steam Heat
Fear No More the Heat o' the Sun

It's Flag Day, and here at the Mudd we enjoy celebrating holidays in a most non-traditional and unusual way. So while most places will be flying the flag today, we prefer to say it with music. Here's a quite excellent barbershop quartet version of "Stars and Stripes Forever" (did you know John Philip Sousa wrote lyrics to this tune?) If you don't care for this text, sing along using the "duck" lyrics. You know what they are. Or come on over and listen to a tuba/euphonium or marimba version. Our collection is nothing if not eclectic.

We here at the Mudd tend to think we're hip, we're happening, we're with it. And then someone suggested we get some CDs by The Yellowjackets, of whom we had never heard. They are featured in today's new CD pile, along with some s.o.b.'s (sons of Bach, as if you didn't know.)

This week is the official beginning of summer at LU, and here's the first pile of summer CDs. There's nothing particularly summer-y about them, no Beach Boys, no Ventures, no Surfaris (yes, we ARE old.) They just happen to be here now, so take some time to enjoy them.

Ever have a question about the history of Lawrence or Milwaukee-Downer College but was too busy during the school year to ask? The University Archives will be open throughout the summer. Stop by anytime the library is open, 8-4 Monday through Friday. Reference questions welcome, tours of the Archives provided spontaneously, and random thoughts greatly appreciated.

Check out the Archives digital collection that includes materials from the Trivia Contest and Henry Wriston collections, as well as the founding of Lawrence. Items can be searched by keywords and select fields. Different formats of materials are included. Check back often to see what new digital collections have been added.

http://www.lawrence.edu/library/contentdm/archives/

Questions about the digital collections of the Archives? Come to the Mudd Coffeehouse Wednesday, July 11, to learn more about that and the oral history program being done by the Archives. Any questions, comments, or random thoughts about the digital collection can also be sent to archives@lawrence.edu. In person visits to the Archives with your comments are also welcome.

Today is the 77th birthday of Jim Nabors. After his Gomer Pyle days, he made somewhat of a career as a singer. Around 1972 a studio recording of Man of La Mancha was released, with Mr. Nabors in the leading role. The rest of the cast is (and we are not making this up) Marilyn Horne as Aldonza, Jack Gilford as Sancho Panza, Richard Tucker as the Padre, and Madeline Kahn as the niece. We are very sad that we do not have this LP in the Mudd's collection. But we do have the original cast recording on CD.

Today marks the end of Youth Cowboy Poetry week, which inexplicably began June 8. But don't get your chaps in a knot. Thursday is the start of the Youth Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Apparently young cowboys take four days to write the poems and another four to read, collect and trade 'em.
If you like your cowboy poets on the more mature side, we suggest reading something from cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian, Baxter Black. You can also listen to some poems by cowboys gathered at the 2004 20th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, courtesy of NPR.

Here are some books of cowboy poetry in the Mudd.

If we had to concoct a dream musical for today, it would star Judy Garland with music by Frederick Loewe, and libretto and set design by Maurice Sendak. All three have birthdays today. Since this is not to be, get some Garland, Sendak, and Loewe from the Mudd.

Today is the 58th birthday of pianist Emanual Ax, and also the anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann (1810.) Do we have a CD of Ax playing Schumann? You betcha.

Looking at today's pile of LU CDs, you're probably thinking, "There's no way there could be any performances by Lee Tomboulian in that batch." And you'd be so wrong.

Today, June 7 is "Daniel Boone Day" and the Mudd has a bunch of Daniel Boone-related books. Books were probably considered trial technology back when the Diamond Sutra was printed in 868, and today is also "Trial Technology Day." If you'd like to view a videocasette concerning Daniel Boone (after all, it's "VCR Day,") the Appleton Public library has a videorecording titled The American frontier, Appleton child video, call number 978 Ame.

Our regular blog readers are probably asking themselves, "How did our mild-mannered music librarian become the Blogging Machine that she is today?"

Well, now the whole story can be told -- because Antoinette told it herself! To a national magazine, no less! Read "That Bloggin' Pneumonia!" from the June 1, 2007 Library Journal.

It's June, which means it used to be May, which means it's Concert Season here at LU. The Conservatory has generated an impressive number of concerts, which in turn has resulted in an equally impressive pile of CDs for your listening pleasure.

Maybe we're still feeling a little Sgt. Pepper-y, or maybe it's because in about an hour Starbucks® is rolling out Paul McCartney's latest album, but we must call to your attention an upcoming PBS program. On Monday, June 11 at 10 p.m., Wisconsin Public Television is broadcasting Best of the Beatles, the story of the early Beatles as told by Pete Best. Best, as you know, was booted out of the group and replaced by Ringo Starr just after they recorded Love Me Do, but he's "not bitter." It's a fascinating, albeit somewhat biased, view of those early years from someone who was intimately involved.
To get another pretty good look at The Beatles' rise to fame, read Bob Spitz's well-documented book, The Beatles, A Biography.

Someone once said, "A day without a new pile of CDs featuring Lee Tomboulian is like a day without sunshine." Well, grab your Ray-Bans® because it's a scorcher out there today.

It doesn't seem possible to those of us who were there, but The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was issued on June 1, 1967. Widely considered to be the first "concept album," it didn't start out as one. The group only wanted to produce something "different," and different it is.

The Mudd not only has the CD, but also a book about the album, from the Cambridge Music Handbooks series, no less. Also check out the mash-up on the new Love CD.

Dress up in your shiny band director's uniform and pose beside a wax likeness of yourself to celebrate.

When you think Mozart's Thematic Catalog, you naturally think Köchel. But did you know Mozart compiled his own thematic catalog? From February 1784 until December 1791 (three weeks before his death) he kept a record of his completed pieces. Here he included the dates, titles and sometimes instrumentation, along with the opening bars of each work.

The brilliant, technically advanced and well-funded people at the British Library have put together an online gallery called "Turning the Pages". Here you can [virtually] flip through Jane Austen's early work in her own hand; Mercator's first atlas of Europe compiled in the 1570's; the Diamond Sutra, the oldest printed "book" (China, 868) and Mozart's thematic catalog, among many others.

You'll need Adobe's Shockwave plug-in to do the flipping. Mozart's catalog also includes soundclips of the entries, text, and even the capability to hear the text read to you.

Looking at this latest new CD pile, you might think, "More Mengelberg?" and you'd be right. But we also snuck in one Furtwängler and a Lerdahl just to mix things up.

You knew it was coming. Of COURSE the Mudd has a recording of June is Bustin' Out All Over.
June is also "Adopt a Shelter Cat Month," and today is "Hug Your Cat Day." So get going.