Toronto Reference Library Blog

Doors Open(ed)

Who doesn't like to take a peek at something that has been hidden? We are curious beings by nature and when someone hides something from us - well, we just love to find out what the big secret is all about.

Doors Open Toronto is this wonderful opportunity to see and be inside buildings we just can't get into most of the time. Toronto was the first city in North America to launch this prestigious event dedicated to built heritage, architecture and design.                                                           

The 14th annual Doors Open offers everyone an opportunity to take a peek behind the doors of over 150 architecturally, historically, culturally and socially significant buildings across the city on  Saturday, May 25 and Sunday, May 26, 2013. Developed as a millennium project in 2000 by the City of Toronto, Doors Open Toronto has since attracted over 1.5 million visitors to hundreds of buildings throughout the city. 

Want to have a peek before Doors Open? Come to the Toronto Reference Library, Humanities and Social Sciences on the 2nd floor. Look for the Toronto Collection by the Reference Desk. Have a look at some of our Toronto architecture and history books.

Piqued your interest? Here are a few titles:

Free Screening: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

As part of its Asian Heritage Celebrations, Toronto Reference Library will be screening the documentary Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry in the Beeton Auditorium on Tuesday May 14th at 2:00 pm.

Last year he transformed his own (rather late) version of internet meme Gangnam Style into a protest for free speech.

 

Rachel Arons in the New Yorker writes:

Ai Weiwei’s version of “Gangnam Style” is as stupid-silly as any other, and more poorly made...but it’s also an ingenious response to the attitude toward creativity put forth in the Chinese media. Ai called his video “Grass Mud Horse Style,” after a made-up creature, invented in 2009, that has become a symbol of anti-censorship in China...and, by embedding it in otherwise harmless content, it has become a way for dissenters in China to give the finger to government censors.

In support, sculptor Anish Kapoor (of Chicago's "Cloud Gate" fame) answered with his own "Gangnam for Freedom"

 

From August 17 – October 27, the Art Gallery of Ontario will be hosting a major retrospective of his work Ai Weiwei: According to What?

Recent visitors to the AGO will have seen the Snake Ceiling commemorating the over 5,000 school children killed by the 2008 earthquake--and what Weiwei calls "tofu construction"--in China's Sichuan province.

   

 The library has lots of resources on this important artist and dissident, but you might want to get prepared for the AGO exhibition with one the following:

Ai Weiwei : circle of animals by Ai, Weiwei.(with Susan Delson) Prestel, c2011.	Ai Weiwei's blog : writings, interviews, and digital rants, 2006-2009 by AiWeiwei (with  Lee Ambrozy,) MIT Press, 2011.	Ai Weiwei : So Sorry by A  Weiwei. (with Mark Siemons) Prestel 2009

 

 

 

 And remember the screening this Tuesday:

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

Tuesday May 14, 2013

2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Toronto Reference Library Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium

 

Tafelmusik on Beethoven

Allen Whear, violoncello performer with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, speaks about classical giant Ludwig van Beethoven. Allen Whear is a composer, recording artist, the Artistic Director of Baltimore's Pro Musica Rara and holds a Doctorate from Rutgers University.

	Tue May 07, 2013 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Toronto Reference Library Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium   Speaker: Allen Whear Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra

After the lecture there will be a draw for two tickets to Tafelmusik's Season Finale at Koerner Hall, CHOPIN & BEETHOVEN, featuring Canadian pianist Janina Fialkowska and conducted by Bruno Weil.

Tafelmusik, Canada’s award-winning period instrument orchestra, was founded in 1979 and has long been renowned in North America and internationally for its distinct, exhilarating and soulful performances.  Under the outstanding leadership of Music Director Jeanne Lamon, C.M., it has excelled equally in music ranging from the baroque and classical eras and beyond, including adventurous cross-cultural reinventions of baroque classics.  In the words of Gramophone, Tafelmusik is “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras.”

War of 1812: Celebrated in Song

 

Toronto's commemoration of the War of 1812 hits close to home this month as April 27, 2013 marks the 200th anniversary of the Battle of York.

Here at the Toronto Reference Library we celebrate with a new exhibit in the Gallery (March 30 to June 22, 2013) and with, a special event, The Return of the Books (April 28 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., featuring dramatic readings by R.H. Thomson and music by Mike Ford.

Given all these celebrations, I shouldn't have been surprised to get a question at the desk asking about songs of the period. But it really was a surprise to me when I found an unexpected gem in the music collection of the Toronto Reference Library, Arts Department 5th floor: Ballads of the War of 1812, sung by Wallace House, published by Folkways Records in 1954.

 

This set of two vinyl records also includes liner notes with lyrics and background on each of the songs. Short samples of the songs can be found online along with the liner notes [PDF, large 16MB file].

Traditionally, soldiers have kept up their spirits during war time with song. In more recent decades anti-war and protest songs have dominated but, in the past, war songs also included celebrations of victories, calls to arms, recruitment songs, or even complaints about rations and drilling. The soldiers of the War of 1812 were no different [click on each image below to see a full version of the Battle of Lundy's Lane].

 

 

The Folkways music collection is decidedly American, but it gives the listener a unique perspective on the conflict. A book in TRL's collection, The Annals of the War : illustrated by a selection of historical ballads, by J. M. Harper, published in 1914, broadens the perspective to include the songs of British troops fighting in Canada. And the Ontario Historical Society published The Bold Canadian : a ballad of the war of 1812, attributed to Pte Flumerfelt, in 1926.

 

Folkways Records (the publishers of Ballads of the War of 1812) was founded in 1948 by Moses Asch and Marian Distler. Together they create an outstanding catalogue of 2,168 albums until Asch's death in 1986. Folkways was acquired by the Smithsonian Institute in 1987.

Asch is best remembered for recording such folk and blues singers as Woody Guthrie, Leadbelly, Cisco Houston, Ella Jenkins, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Pete Seeger. But he also pioneered the release of music from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean and documented a full range of African American culture, from jazz and poetry to children's songs.

To learn more about the label, the recordings, and its founders, check out these terrific books on Folkways Records:

 

Making people's music : Moe Asch and Folkways records by Peter David Goldsmith, 1998.
Folkways records : Moses Asch and his encyclopedia of sound by Anthony Olmsted, 2003.
Worlds of sound : the story of Smithsonian Folkways 1st ed. by Richard Carlin, Richard, 2008.

Toronto Reference Library's Arts Department has an enourmous collection of Folkways recordings in both vinyl and CD . We provide listening stations for both formats here at the library and encourage you all to visit and enjoy some of the nearly 40,000 recordings available.

 

Chopping up an English Professor with a Machete

 

Poet, playwright, Officer of the Order of Canada, University of Toronto Professor, George Elliott Clarke is a heck of a busy guy.

Here he is talking about his upcoming projects at a recent appearance at the Academy of the (Im)possible:

 

He’s also Toronto’s Poet Laureate, (following Dennis Lee in 2001 , Pier Giorgio Di Cicco in 2004 and Dionne Brand in 2009) which makes him the City’s literary ambassador for poetry, language and the arts.

April is National Poetry Month (this is actually the fifteenth year that Canada has been celebrating it)  so on Monday April 15 at 7pm, Clarke will be hosting a night of poetry and spoken word performance at Toronto Reference Library with guests Andrea Thompson and Pamela Mordecai.

The first thing one notices about Clarke in performance is his infectious good humour, a contagious happiness which lets him cross ALL sorts of boundaries and taboos, whether he's discussing chopping up an English professor with a machete or reinventing Othello as a big sweetie:

  

He's joined by slam poet, spoken word performer, freelance writer, TV and Radio Host Andrea Thompson. Here she is a clip from Paul Devlin's 1998 documentary SlamNation:

   

Pamela Mordecai rounds out the trio. Her new collection, Subversive Sonnets, comments on love, history politics and family.

 

 

Books by George Elliott Clarke:

Illicit Sonnets by George Elliott Clarke Eyewear Publishing 2013	I & I by George Elliott Clarke Goose Lane Editions, 2009	Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke Polestar Book Publishers, 2000

 

Books by Andrea Thompson

Eating the Seed by Adrea Thompson Ekstasis Editions, 1999.	Other tongues: Mixed-Race Women Speak Out Editors: D.A. Adebe Andrea Thompson Inanna Publications and Education Inc., 2010

Books by Pamela Mordecai

Subversive sonnets by Pamela Mordecai TSAR, 2012.	Certifiable by Pamela Mordecai Goose Lane Editions	De Man by Pamela Mordecai Sister Vision Press, 1995

 

Toronto's Poet Laureate: George Elliott Clarke and Friends

Monday April 15, 2013

7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Toronto Reference Library Atrium

Italian Film Series: Anche libero va bene (Libero)

Join us for our last in the series of three contemporary Italian films at the Toronto Reference Library, with a discussion to follow led by Anthony Cristiano from the University of Toronto. Anthony Cristiano is an Italian-born Canadian film director, educator, and writer.

 

FILM #3: Italian Film Series: Anche libero va bene (Libero), 2003 by Kim Rossi Stuart 108 min. [In Italian with English sub-titles] Sat. April 13, 2013 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Toronto Reference Library Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium

 The director, Kim Rossi Stuart, and first time actor, Alessandro Morace, give compelling performances in Libero. It is the story of an introverted pre-teen and an irate father, during the first economic crisis of the twenty-first century. Tommi, the character played by Alessandro Morace, comes to a bitter realization for which he is emotionally and psychologically unprepared.

Our host Anthony Cristiano's most recent release is a DVD collection of ten short films, made in Toronto between 1998 and 2008, titled A Self-Conscious Mise-en-scene: 10 Short Films by Anthony Cristiano.

 

Italian Film Series:
The Italian film series 2013 begins with a look at the relationship between children and adults, family values, and memory. The history and socio-political context of contemporary Italy, a country rich in cultural traditions and family values, is re-examined and challenged through the lenses of masterful film directors. What is compelling about these films is the realistic representation of its characters, enmeshed as they are in moral and psychological dilemmas. The stories are told with utter realism, and yet the subtlety and ability to cut deep into the viewer's consciousness, a recurring characteristic of Italy's cinematic tradition, makes these works a remarkable experience.


Visit the Toronto Reference Library to learn more about Italian film. Here is just a sample of what you will experience:

The history of Italian cinema : a guide to Italian film from its origins to the twenty-first century
by Gian Piero Brunetta
Wallflower Press, 2006.

 

 

Stardom, Italian style : screen performance and personality in Italian cinema
by Marcia Landy
Indiana University Press, c2008.

 

 

 

Italian neorealist cinema : an aesthetic approach
by Christopher Wagstaff
University of Toronto Press, c2007.

 

 

 

The architecture of vision : writings and interviews on cinema
by Antonioni, Michelangelo.
University of Chicago Press, 2007. 

 

 

The cinema of economic miracles : visuality and modernization in the Italian art film
by Angelo Restivo
Duke University Press, 2002.

 

 

 

Cinema Italiano : the complete guide from classics to cult
by Howard Hughes
I. B. Tauris, 2011.

Italian Film Series: La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows)

Join us for a series of three contemporary Italian films at the Toronto Reference Library, with a discussion to follow led by Anthony Cristiano from the University of Toronto. Anthony Cristiano is an Italian-born Canadian film director, educator, and writer.

 

FILM #2: Italian Film Series: La finestra di fronte (Facing Windows), 2003 by Ferzan Ozpetek 102 min. [In Italian with English sub-titles] Sat. March 30, 2013 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Toronto Reference Library Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium

 Ozpetek's film deals with a woman, Giovanna, and the men around her: her husband, the Holocaust survivor she takes care of, and the man she observes through the 'facing window.' The story unfolds as an ordinary 'triangles' of exchanges between Giovanna and the three men, but soon turns into an existential plot.

Our host Anthony Cristiano's most recent release is a DVD collection of ten short films, made in Toronto between 1998 and 2008, titled A Self-Conscious Mise-en-scene: 10 Short Films by Anthony Cristiano.

 

Italian Film Series:
The Italian film series 2013 begins with a look at the relationship between children and adults, family values, and memory. The history and socio-political context of contemporary Italy, a country rich in cultural traditions and family values, is re-examined and challenged through the lenses of masterful film directors. What is compelling about these films is the realistic representation of its characters, enmeshed as they are in moral and psychological dilemmas. The stories are told with utter realism, and yet the subtlety and ability to cut deep into the viewer's consciousness, a recurring characteristic of Italy's cinematic tradition, makes these works a remarkable experience.


Visit the Toronto Reference Library to learn more about Italian film. Here is just a sample of what you will experience:

Filming the nation : Jung, film, neo-realism and Italian national identity
by Spinelli Coleman, Donatella, 1963-
Hove, East Sussex; New York: Routledge, 2011.

 

 

 

Italian cinema : gender and genre
by Günsberg, Maggie.
Houndmills, Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

 

 

The body in the mirror : shapes of history in Italian cinema
by Dalle Vacche, Angela, 1954-
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1991.

 

 

 

Le cinéma futuriste
by Lista, Giovanni.
Paris : Éditions Paris expérimental, 2008.

 

 

Il cinema italiano contemporaneo : da "La dolce vita" a "Centochiodi"
by Brunetta, Gian Piero.
[Roma]: Laterza, 2007

 

 

 

Measure for Measure "On Stage" at Toronto Reference Library 2013

Professor Alexander Leggatt on Measure for Measure Toronto Public Library and the Stratford Festival present four thought-provoking lectures by noted theatre experts on the Shakespeare plays to be presented at Stratford in 2013. Preceded by a cash bar reception; doors open at 6 pm. A question and answer session will follow each talk. Tue Mar 26, 2013 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. 60 mins Toronto Reference Library, Bram & Bluma Appel Salon, 2nd Floor Book for your free ticket for this lecture - and all the other On Stage Shakespeare lectures. Note: separate ticket required for each lecture. A draw for a pair of Stratford tickets will follow the Q&A.

 
Want to learn more about Measure for Measure, why not try these reading and viewing suggestions?

  

Speaker’s Choice: suggested by Dr. Alexander Leggatt

 

Measure for Measure by Harriet Hawkins.  Twayne’s New Critical Introductions to Shakespeare.  Twayne, 1987.

The Myth of Deliverance: Reflections on Shakespeare’s Problem Comedies by Northrop Frye.  University of Toronto Press, 1993.

The Problem of Measure for Measure by Rosalind Miles.  Vision, 1976.

Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare (DVD).  Ambrose Video Publishing, 2000.  Originally produced in 1979 by BBC Television, starring Kenneth Colley, Kate Nelligan and Tim Pigott-Smith.

 

     

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and even more about Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure:

Measure for Measure edited by Graham Nicholls.  Text and Performance Series.  Macmillan, 1986. Stage history of the play and discussion of representative productions.

 

 

 

Shakespeare on Love and Friendship by Allan David Bloom.  University of Chicago Press, 2000. Focuses on five plays including Measure for Measure to trace the full variety of erotic connections encountered in Shakespeare’s drama. 

 

 

William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure edited by Harold Bloom.  Chelsea House, 1987.  A collection of contemporary critical essays by various authors, arranged in chronological order.

 

William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (CD).  Audio Partners Publishing, 2003.  Fully-dramatized recording based on the Pelican Shakespeare starring Roger Allam as the Duke, Simon Russell Beale as Angelo and Stella Gonet as Isabella. 



 

Shakespeare:

The Life of William Shakespeare: a Critical Biography by Lois Potter.  Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Explores Shakespeare’s life and works, emphasizing the literary and theatrical influences that shaped them.

 

 

Nine Lives of William Shakespeare by Graham Holderness.  Continuum, 2011. Nine scenarios in various literary styles depicting different aspects of Shakespeare’s life, with accompanying essays discussing the factual sources for each.


 

 

 

Related Reading:

Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America by S. Wise Bauer.  Princeton University Press, 2008.   A history of public confession in modern America, revealing the rhetoric, theology, and history that lie behind every successful public plea for forgiveness. 

 

 

Cambridge Companion to Puritanism edited by John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim.  Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Examines Puritanism through many lenses including gender, literature, politics and popular culture along with core concerns such as theology and devotion.

 

 

Head and Heart: American Christianities by Garry Wills.  Penguin Press, 2007.  Traces the history of Christianity in the United States and the ongoing tension between church and state.

 

 

Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction by J. David Kuo.  Free Press, 2006.  A personal account of church and state interconnectedness in America by a former member of George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.  


 

 

 

Go Digital:

Shakespeare  Collection.  Full-text electronic database from Gale Publishing, including The Arden Shakespeare, criticism, performance, literary and interdisciplinary journals.   [TPL library card required to login.]

Italian Film Series: Io non ho paura (I'm Not Scared)

Join us for a series of three contemporary Italian films at the Toronto Reference Library, with a discussion to follow led by Anthony Cristiano from the University of Toronto. Anthony Cristiano is an Italian-born Canadian film director, educator, and writer.

 

FILM #1: Io non ho paura (I'm Not Scared), 2003 by Gabriele Salvatores 108 min. [In Italian with English sub-titles] Sat. March 23, 2013 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Toronto Reference Library Elizabeth Beeton Auditorium

Io non ho paura is the story of Michele, a teen who makes a shocking discovering about a secret activity involving his own parents and the community he lives in. It is an unusual coming-of-age story where early adolescent angst and friendship pair up in unexpected ways.

Our host Anthony Cristiano's most recent release is a DVD collection of ten short films, made in Toronto between 1998 and 2008, titled A Self-Conscious Mise-en-scene: 10 Short Films by Anthony Cristiano.

 

Italian Film Series:
The Italian film series 2013 begins with a look at the relationship between children and adults, family values, and memory. The history and socio-political context of contemporary Italy, a country rich in cultural traditions and family values, is re-examined and challenged through the lenses of masterful film directors. What is compelling about these films is the realistic representation of its characters, enmeshed as they are in moral and psychological dilemmas. The stories are told with utter realism, and yet the subtlety and ability to cut deep into the viewer's consciousness, a recurring characteristic of Italy's cinematic tradition, makes these works a remarkable experience.


Visit the Toronto Reference Library to learn more about Italian film. Here is just a sample of what you will experience:

Filming the nation : Jung, film, neo-realism and Italian national identity
by Spinelli Coleman, Donatella, 1963-
Hove, East Sussex; New York: Routledge, 2011.

 

 

 

Italian cinema : gender and genre
by Günsberg, Maggie.
Houndmills, Basingstoke ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

 

 

The body in the mirror : shapes of history in Italian cinema
by Dalle Vacche, Angela, 1954-
Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1991.

 

 

 

Le cinéma futuriste
by Lista, Giovanni.
Paris : Éditions Paris expérimental, 2008.

 

 

Il cinema italiano contemporaneo : da "La dolce vita" a "Centochiodi"
by Brunetta, Gian Piero.
[Roma]: Laterza, 2007

 

 

 

Merchant of Venice "On Stage" at Toronto Reference Library 2013

Dr. Vivian Rakoff on The Merchant of Venice Toronto Public Library and the Stratford Festival present four thought-provoking lectures by noted theatre experts on the Shakespeare plays to be presented at Stratford in 2013. Preceded by a cash bar reception; doors open at 6 pm. A question and answer session will follow each talk. Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. 60 mins Toronto Reference Library, Bram & Bluma Appel Salon, 2nd Floor Book for your free ticket for this lecture - and all the other On Stage Shakespeare lectures. Note: separate ticket required for each lecture. A draw for a pair of Stratford tickets will follow the Q&A.

 

UPDATE: Dr Rakoff's lecture was recorded and is available as an audio podcast from the Straford Festival website.

 

Want to learn more about Merchant of Venice, why not try these reading and viewing suggestions?

  

Speaker’s Choice: suggested by Dr. Vivian Rakoff

 

Shakespeare and the Jews by James Shapiro.  Columbia University Press, 1996.  Shakespeare scholar Shapiro analyzes English attitudes towards the  Jew s in the early modern period. 

Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt, New York: Norton, 2004.

     


 

---

and even more about Merchant of Venice

Merchant of Venice:

Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Arden Shakespeare, 2000.

 

 

 

 

The Merchant of Venice: A Guide to the Play by Vicki K. Janik.  Greenwood Press, 2003.  An introduction to the play for theatergoers and students that examines sources, plot, characters, themes, critical reception and performance history.

 

 

Screening Shakespeare in the Twenty-First Century edited by Mark Thornton Burnett and Ramona Wray.  Edinburgh University Press, 2006.  A collection of essays on recent cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays including an analysis of Michael Radford’s Merchant of Venice.  

 

 Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy by John J. Gross.  Simon & Schuster, 1992.  Theatre critic Gross examines the performance history, changing audience response and societal influence of Shakespeare’s most controversial character.
 

 

 

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (DVD).  BBC Worldwide, 2008.  Originally broadcast in 1972, starring Maggie Smith as Portia, Frank Finlay as Shylock and Charles Gray as Antonio.

 

 

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (DVD).  Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment, 2005.  Starring Al Pacino as Shylock, Jeremy Irons as Antonio and Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio; directed by Michael Radford.

 

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (DVD).  Ambrose Video Publishing, 2000.  Originally produced in 1981 by BBC Television in association with Time-Life Television.  Starring Warren Mitchell as Shylock and Gemma Jones as Portia.

 

 

 The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (CD).  CBC Audio, 2002.  The Stratford Festival production directed by Richard Monette, starring Lucy Peacock as Portia, Paul Soles as Shylock and Peter Hutt as Antonio.

 

 

 

Shakespeare:

The Life of William Shakespeare: a Critical Biography by Lois Potter.  Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Explores Shakespeare’s life and works, emphasizing the literary and theatrical influences that shaped them.

 

 

Nine Lives of William Shakespeare by Graham Holderness.  Continuum, 2011. Nine scenarios in various literary styles depicting different aspects of Shakespeare’s life, with accompanying essays discussing the factual sources for each.

 

 

 

Related Reading:

The Birth of Feminism: Woman as Intellect in Renaissance Italy and England by Sarah Gwyneth Ross.  Harvard University Press, 2009.  Explores the challenge to traditional notions of womanhood provided by educated women during the Renaissance by focusing on the lives of nineteen learned women.

 

 

The Ghetto of Venice by Riccardo Calimani.  M. Evans, 1987.   Traces the origins and history of Venice’s Jewish ghetto including the complex and shifting relationship between the city’s Jewish and Christian communities.

 

 

A History of Venice by John Julius Norwich.  First American edition.  Knopf, 1982.  A comprehensive and engaging popular history of the “Floating City”. 

 

 

 

 

Go Digital: 

Venice: Pure City by Peter Ackroyd  (eAudiobook).  Chatto & Windus, 2009.  eAudiobook tie-in to the television program Venice Revealed, hosted by popular novelist and acclaimed biographer Peter Ackroyd and read by Simon Vance.

 

 

Shakespeare Collection.  Full-text electronic database from Gale Publishing, including The Arden Shakespeare, criticism, performance, literary and interdisciplinary journals.  [TPL library card required to login.]