Music Playlists
Today's recommending listening includes Prince, contemporary composer Aaron Jay Kernis, a new album by John Legend, and a new collaborative album by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile. Log in with your Glendale library card and take a listen!
Get a free Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Library eCard instantaneously. It can be used to access our online resources including eBooks, eAudiobooks, eNewspapers, eMagazines, online classes, online tutoring, and learning games, as well as streaming movies and music, and more.Try listening to a streaming Playlist from Freegal Music, Naxos Music Library, Naxos Jazz Music Library, Hoopla or Alexander Street free with your library card. Alexander Street will ask for an academic institution, use Glendale Public Library.
Learn About Music
The Toy Theater has tons of online educational art and music activities for kids.
The American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City is dedicated to the history of the banjo. There are virtual tours, workshops, concerts and more on their website.
Streaming Music
Gramophone Magazine has a Daily Online Music Guide in their Classical Music News.
Art Online
Animator and illustrator Vier Nev describes A Mind Sang as “a short film about perception, rebirth and transformation.” The beautifully animated short film explores pareidolia, the psychological phenomenon in which the mind incorrectly perceives an unfamiliar image to be recognizable, like seeing faces and other body features in places where they aren’t.
Little Angel Theatre is releasing stories, told by their talented team of performers, every week day at midday. Enjoy classics such as I Want My Hat Back, and more. Each story is accompanied by a craft activity, so you can recreate the characters as puppets using materials you can find at home.
Learn About Art
The Museum of the World: History Connected is an interactive timeline of our world. Spanning prehistory to the present day, it features audio insights from the museum’s curators, providing context and analysis on each item. Works of art, folk art, crafts and design all reflect in the themes of humankind’s story. The British Museum website offers a virtual gallery tour, expert podcasts, a searchable record of the museum’s four million objects, and more.
Art Inspiration - Try It at Home
The Summer Reading Challenge is underway! Need something to keep your place? Crochet your own leaf bookmark!
This project was inspired by the leaf pattern at the end of Lucy's (author of the Attic 24) “triple layer flower” tutorial. Please follow the instructions below and refer to Attic 24’s pictures as needed.
You will need two colors of yarn: one color for the central vein and the stem, and one color for the actual leafy bit. The weight of the yarn will determine how big your finished leaf is, and also how many stitches you need to make the stem. Both of your yarn choices should be the same weight. Aside from that, “free to be you and me,” baby. Just make sure your hook is the right size for your yarn, and off you go!
The sample bookmark was made with teensy cotton Lion Brand Bonbons, specifically the light brown and green colors from the “Nature” pack. Bonbons are classed as “Fine” weight (#2) and Lion Brand recommends a 3.75mm (F) hook. The bookmark’s leaf is about 2” long, and this project barely made a dent in either of the Bonbons, so you can make plenty of these with a small amount of yarn.
Here is a handy reference guide for the stitches used in this pattern using US crochet terms.
sl st [slip stitch]: insert hook, yarn over, pull the loop back through the stitch, then through the loop on your hook.
sc [single crochet]: insert hook, yarn over, pull the loop back through the stitch (two loops on hook), yarn over and pull through both loops on hook.
hdc [half double crochet]: yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull the loop back through the stitch (three loops on hook), yarn over and pull through all three loops on hook.
dc [double crochet]: yarn over, insert hook, yarn over, pull the loop back through the stitch (three loops on hook), yarn over and pull through two loops on hook (two loops left on hook), yarn over and pull through remaining two loops.
tr [triple crochet]: yarn over TWICE, insert hook, yarn over, pull loop back through stitch (four loops on hook). Yarn over and pull through two loops (three loops left on hook), yarn over and pull through two loops (2 loops left on hook), yarn over and pull through remaining two loops.
Part One: The Stem With color 1, tie a slip knot and start chaining. Make enough chain stitches to produce something about 6 inches long, and then make 10 more chain stitches after that. Starting in the second stitch from your hook, sl st all the way back down the chain and fasten it off at the end. I recommend slip stitching underneath both Vs of your chain stitch (or, turn the chain and go in through the back loop, which will have the exact same effect). Ta-dah! A stem!
Part Two: The Leaf Make sure that the fastened-off end of your stem is pointing to the right, and from the left end of your stem, count 9 stitches. Because you have Vs hanging out on top of other Vs thanks to the slip stitching, in order to count your stitches, look for the Vs that are widening to the right. Insert your hook into the 9th stitch (you only have to go under one loop of the V), yarn over two times with color 2, and begin the pattern. Work 1 sc into that first stitch. (No turning chain required, just start right in with the sc.) You already have the two loops on your hook, so you just need to pull your hook through with the two stitches on it, yarn over one more time, pull through both loops, and you’re on your way. Work 1 dc into the next stitch. Work 1 tr into each of the next four stitches. Work 1 dc, then 1 hdc, then 1 sc into the remaining stitches. That should take you to the end of your stem!
Once you’ve made it this far, there should be one loop directly beyond your last stitch that’s hanging out all by itself. You will use that loop to make what’s called a “picot point”. In that one loop, make 1 dc, chain 2, sl st into 2nd chain from your hook, and make 1 more dc. You are now ready to crochet the other half of the leaf, and you can keep crocheting directly into your stem, going under just the outermost loop of your stem stitches. Work 1 sc. Work 1 hdc. Work 1 dc. Work 1 tr into each of the next four stitches. Work 1 dc. In the final stitch, work 1 sc and 1 sl st to finish. Fasten off and darn in all yarn ends through the central stem. Happy crocheting, and happy reading!
The finer the yarn the better the bookmark! Thicker yarn is good to begin with if it is your first time with crochet.
You can knit one too! Search for i-cord on Creativebug (classes available for free with your library card). You can add on a leaf by picking up stitches.
Staff e-Recommendations
Try our staff developed Black Lives, Black Stories teen reading list that provides further education about the Black experience and how we can work together to create a more just society.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. As Pogo the Possum once said, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Elizabeth Kolbert’s deeply researched, beautifully written and harrowing account of how we’ve arrived at this point in our natural history gently accumulates evidence like geologic strata to make a powerful point. The earth has been through five previous mass extinctions, but thanks to the activities of “one weedy species” (homo sapiens) we now stand on the precipice of a sixth. Each chapter advances this idea by showing the various ways in which humans are inadvertently or deliberately causing the rapid extinction of other species. Everything from the introduction of invasive species – not usually a deliberate act but nonetheless highly destructive – to exploitation of resources, shrinking natural habitats, acidification of oceans, global warming due to the overproduction of greenhouse gases, and even genetic absorption (in the case of homo neanderthalensis) are described in depth. The prose is lyrical and haunting, and the science is rendered as poetry. This one will stick with you. -LD
Experiencing Tchaikovsky: A Listener’s Companion by David Schroeder. Brand Library owns copies of this title as an eBook and hard copy. This is a popular, non-academic guide to the music of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. Not a biography, it focuses on well known works such as the 1812 Overture, Romeo and Juliet, the First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Eugene Onegin, the 4th and 6th Symphonies, The Nutcracker and more. A glossary, selected reading and selected listening are also included. You can find many of these works on Naxos Music Library and Music Online as well as from the Brand Library CD collection. This is a good introduction for those new to Tchaikovsky. The Listener’s Companion series has other volumes on Debussy, Alice Cooper, Berlioz, Beethoven, the Beatles, Chick Corea, Black Sabbath and more. Brand Library owns many of the titles. -BW
Covid-19 Resources
Reliable information about the coronavirus (COVID-19) is available from the World Health Organization, the California Department of Public Health and Los Angeles County Public Health Department and City of Glendale.
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