Tag Archives: Central Arkansas Library System

Friday the 13 is LUCKY for art lovers

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It is time again for 2nd Friday Art Night.  Though it may be Friday the 13th, attendees will be lucky because they’ll still have time to catch Tessaract Dancing (the art of Brett Anderson and Emily Galusha) at Historic Arkansas Museum.

Opening tonight at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) Women to Watch series. The exhibition includes the work of artists who were selected for consideration for the NMWA’s Body of Work exhibit as part of its biennial Women to Watch series. This series features emerging or under-represented artists from the states and countries in which the museum has outreach committees.

Continuing at the Butler Center through February 25 is ARK. In the Dark: An Exhibition of Vintage Movie Posters about Arkansas. The Butler Center and Ron Robinson are co-hosting an exhibition of vintage Arkansas-related movie posters to be shown in Concordia Hall of the Arkansas Studies Institute. The show features 35 posters from films covering the years 1926 to 2009.

On the second Friday of each month, the Butler Center Galleries participate in 2nd Friday Art Night, when galleries, museums, and businesses in downtown Little Rock are open from 5 to 8 p.m. for an after-hours gallery walk.

CALS encourages Winter reading

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The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) invites you to snuggle up with a good book and participate in Hot Reads for Cold Nights, a winter reading program for adults.

Hot Reads for Cold Nights will run from Monday, January 9 – Saturday, February 25.

Participation is easy. Read or listen to a book, then complete a short review of the book. For each review that you turn in to the library, you are entered into a prize drawing.

Don’t know what to read? Your library branch has bookmarks that list 2011 prize winning books, books to help you go green, beach reads to take you away from cold nights, and many other topics.

 

CALS – A Great Place for an Epiphany

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Today is Epiphany. As celebrated by Western Christian churches, it represents the date that the Wise Men visited the Christ Child.

Epiphany can also mean a realization or a grasping of a concept. It is a true Eureka! moment.

A great place to learn more and to have epiphanies is the branches of the Central Arkansas Library System.

The Wise Men are sometimes referred to as Kings.  CALS is a great place to read books about Kings.  In 2011, the Culture Vulture checked out at least three books from CALS which had “King” in the title.  These “Three Kings” were Exit the King by Eugene Ionesco, King Hedley II by August Wilson and King Richard III by Shakespeare.

There are many books about Kings as well as Epiphanies.

Sculpture Vulture: DAEDALUS AND ICARUS

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Happy 2012.

With the end of the holiday season, the Sunday Sculpture Vulture feature returns. 2012 marks the 45th anniversary of Raymond Rebsamen giving the sculpture Daedalus and Icarus to the Little Rock Public Library (now Central Arkansas Library System). Rebsamen, a local businessman and philanthropist, had served on the Library board. It was originally displayed in a courtyard at the corner of 7th and Louisana Streets on the site of the original Carnegie library building. When CALS moved to Rock and 2nd Streets, the statue was moved to a new courtyard where it is more visible.

The statue depicts a scene from the Greek myth of hubris where Daedalus is trying to keep his son from flying too close to the sun. It is created by EvAngelos W. Frudakis. This was one of his first commissions; he is still active with a studio in Kerrville, Texas.

Two Jewish Guys Chanukah Special on KUAR

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Chanukah begins at sundown tonight.  To get everyone in the spirit of it, KUAR – UALR Public Radio – is presenting the 11th annual Jewish Guys Chanukah Special tonight at 7pm on KUAR – FM 89.1.  Little Rock attorney Phil Kaplan and adman Leslie Singer recorded the broadcast before a live audience earlier in the month.

The Jewish Guys Chanukah Special celebrates cultural Judaism and features skits, music and general shtick. Musical guests included the Meshugga Klezmer Band and the Bauman Brothers.

“This year’s special guest is Susan McDougal who special prosecutor Ken Starr sent to prison for no cooperating with his investigation of President Clinton,” Leslie Singer says. “I’m going to ask her if she celebrated Chanukah with the Jewish inmates she has said took her in.”

Kaplan and Singer started identifying themselves as the Two Jewish Guys during KUAR’s semi-annual on-air fund drives several years ago. In 2001, the Two Jewish Guys and UALR Public Radio began producing an annual recorded Chanukah Special. After first featuring a live audience at the Central Arkansas Library System main campus, it outgrew that space and moved in 2007 to the Clinton Presidential Center.

“Interesting enough, at least two-thirds of our audience are not Jewish. That really inspires me that they are interested in the religious and cultural part of Judaism,” Singer noted to KUAR. “They enjoy a peek into another culture. And they like it.”

The program will also be broadcast on Christmas Day at 1pm. That is also the 5th of 8 days of Chanukah.

CALS commissions new art to Celebrate Centennial

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The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) has commissioned a piece of public art celebrating its 100 years of service to the community.

To help complete the work, through Thursday, December 29, CALS is gathering translations of the word “celebrate” in as many in different languages as possible. Patrons wishing to participate may submit a translation and identify the language on the CALS website, http://www.cals.org. Each entry of a correct translation of the word celebrate will be included in a drawing for a $50 gift certificate for “gently read” books, supplied by CALS’s River Market Books & Gifts. The drawing will be held on Friday, December 30.

Arkansas artist Michael Warrick (who is on the faculty of UALR and has pieces throughout the US as well as China) has designed a top which will incorporate the translations of the word in a ring around the piece. The Main Library campus will host the art, which is expected to be completed in 2012.

CALS hosts annual Food for Fines week

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The Central Arkansas Library System has been hosting its annual Food for Fines this week.  It began on Monday, Dec. 5 and continues through Sunday, Dec. 11.

The Food for Fines program gives patrons an opportunity to help others in our communities while offsetting fines for overdue library materials. When returning overdue materials, patrons are encouraged to bring at least one non-perishable food item per overdue item to any of the library’s 12 branches in Pulaski and Perry County. Food items may not be used to cancel fines already on record for materials that have been returned prior to Food for Fines week.

Food collected during the drive will be donated to Arkansas Rice Depot’s Food for Kids program which provides backpacks and ready-to-eat food to over 600 public schools in Arkansas for more than 30,000 children. Items needed for Food for Kids are ravioli, peanut butter, tuna, canned fruit, pudding cups, cereal, and granola bars.