Vol 8 # 9  June 15, 2024

Knitting & Crochet Circle with Susan Segal!

Every 2nd and 4th Monday of the month, 11 – 1 pm Settle into a warm and inviting space where creativity and conversation intertwine at our Adult Knitting & Crochet Circle!

Teen Pop Up Crafts  

Come and hang out and get crafty with us every 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month, 3:30 – 4:30 pm. Teens ages 13-18 all welcome. Snacks will be provided.

Build, Make, Play

Saturday, June 15, 2024, 3 – 4 pm

Join us for an afternoon of hands-on activities. From tie-dyed shoelaces to washi tape bracelets, there's a new project to make every week. Come create with us!

East Bay Vivarium

Wednesday, June 26, 2024, 6 – 6:45 pm

Join experts from the East Bay Vivarium as they share some of their scaly friends and teach us about the fascination of reptiles, amphibians, and bugs.



Zany Zoe Magician

Wednesday, July 3, 2024, 6 – 7:15 pm

Zany Zoe performs her one-of-a-kind magic show with engaging music, body movements, and plenty of humor.

Insect Discovery Lab

Wednesday, July 10, 2024, 6 – 6:45 pm

Learn about the extraordinarily diverse world of insects and arthropods. SaveNature.org staff will share their knowledge about the role that insects and arthropods play in our lives.

Aguacero

Wednesday, July 17, 2024, 6 – 6:45 pm

Join us for a dynamic and energetic Bomba workshop and demonstration for the entire family featuring live drums and singing. Bomba is Puerto Rico’s oldest music and dance tradition, originating over 400 years ago when enslaved people practiced this artform in the sugarcane plantations as a means of survival and resistance.

Temporary Staff helping at our library -

While the Main Library is closed for renovation we are pleased to host three wonderful staff members who work at the Main - Keith, Natasha, and Linda. Keith is filling in this month as our children's librarian until Nathan returns in July. Keith's expertise includes children's programming, outreach, and collection management, which will ensure an engaging experience for children and families. Natasha's extensive background as a librarian and Teenzone manager brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, offering invaluable support across various tasks and programs with all age levels. Linda's role as a part-time aide promises essential assistance with shelving, patron services, and support of diverse projects at our branch. 

Little Explorers' Petting Zoo

Stay & Play

Bringing the Library to Seniors

A sign at Spectator Books on Piedmont Ave.



Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read - Groucho Marx

How The Friends of PAL Supports Our Library

 and How You Can Support The Friends

Since the library moved to its current location in 2012, we have had our eye on the empty, decrepit CDC building next to the library, owned by the Oakland Unified School District. How perfect it would be as a permanent home for our library, with enough room for classes at PAES to visit!

Our members attended School Board Meetings, often late into the night, as the future of OUSD’s empty properties was debated. We took a poll of the community, recruited new members, and strengthened our ties with Piedmont Avenue Elementary School. The campaign to move to the empty CDC building has been gathering momentum.

But this isn’t our only focus - The Friends have advocated for our library and OPL since 1993. It has been a lot of work but also a lot of fun!

During Oakland’s budget crises of the early 2000s, when some branch libraries were threatened with closure, we gathered signatures and rallied our neighbors to attend City Council meetings to speak in support of our libraries.



When the centrally located building on Piedmont Avenue & 41st St was sold, we had to move lock, stock, and books to our new temporary home on Echo. We organized members to march in the Halloween Parade with wheelbarrows full of books to publicize the new location. Then, with the help of artists in the community, we made and installed wonderful wooden signage using cutouts on the library fence.



The Friends funded the first LGBTQIA+ collection at our branch, purchased rugs for the children’s area, and paid to clean the furniture.

We also pay for programs that introduce our community to the library, such as, the popular Ase art series, the Gelli Prints Workshop, Baby Café, and many more.

See the Friends’ website www.friendsofpal.org for more information about our work and come to the Friends’ meeting on June 25^th, 6:30 pm at the library. We will discuss how we can continue to help our “small but mighty” library.



We fund our work with Book & Bake Sales and donations. You can make a tax-deductible donation at www.friendsofpal.org/donate/ or with a check payable to Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library, and delivered to 80 Echo Ave, Oakland, CA 94611.

The Friends of Piedmont Avenue Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our tax ID.84-4203055. 

Library Head to Discuss Path to Our

New Branch Location



Jamie Turbak, The Director of Library Services at OPL, will attend the Friends of PAL meeting July 23, 6:30 – 7:30 pm, at the library. Jamie will present updates on the Feasibility Study and future steps toward getting a permanent home for our branch. See our website www.friendsofpal.org/campaign/ for details. More about the meeting in the July HOOT!

Happy Pride Month!

Celebrate pride all year long at OPL!

Browse LGBTQIA+ Items in our Collections

https://oaklandlibrary.org/lgbtqia/?utm_source=biblioemail-oaklandlibrary&utm_medium=email

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

[1994, translated by Stephen Snyder in 2019]

This is a wonderful book. By turns Ogawa’s book reminded me of Octavia Butler’s Tales of the Sower, that also was written in 1994, Michael Ende’s Momo and The Neverending Story, Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, The Diary of Ann Frank, Kafka’s “Metamorphosis,” Orwell’s 1984, and Borges’ labyrinthine fiction. The unnamed narrator of The Memory Police is a writer, and she is writing a novel within the novel that closely mirrors her own anxieties and travails. It also is a metaphor within a metaphor, a captivity tale within a captivity tale, a meditation on writer’s block, and an Alzheimer’s analog. For sure it is a dystopian tale and not for everyone’s taste, but I found it very moving, evocative and, with its sparse and elegant prose, an excellent narrative arc. It’s a profound book about writing, words novels and memory.

The narrator lives on an island off Japan where things and memories of things are manipulated by the Thought Police. One day ribbons disappear, then birds and roses, the calendars, and then scents. Boats disappear, snow becomes omnipresent, and seasons disappear. Typewriters and photographs and food and fuel and novels, too, disappear as do limbs. People are “disappeared” by the Thought Police, mostly people who are suspected of not forgetting. The narrator is a novelist, and she is losing the thread of her story. She is losing her words. Her mother and father were disappeared. Her mother, a sculptor, has secreted scents and ribbons and tickets within her sculptures. She takes in her editor, a man who does not forget, and with the help of a ferry pilot, his boat long disappeared, who has become a handyman. They build a secret room to shelter the editor who remembers. They form a triad: the novelist, the handyman, and the editor. The writer struggles to write, the handyman is passive and stoic about his memory loss, and the editor forgets not. The Thought Police are ever more draconian in their sweeps, arrests and enforcing one memory loss after another. They burn down the library and books are burned. More arrests, the circle seems to be closing.

The writer and her novel within the novel are intertwined. The quality of a parable, like Octavia Butler’s, reverberates. Like Ende’s works, including The Neverending Story, there is a looming “Great Nothing.” Like Borges and Kafka, Ogawa’s tale is intricate and like the Ouroboros the tales within tales seem to eat themselves. Like Ann Frank there is a secret room, like Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Orwell’s 1984, sinister forces, the Thought Police are at work on the destruction of memory.

Again, this book is not for everyone but if the comparisons in the first paragraph of similar literatures resonate with you, Ogawa’s work, with its terse, unsparing prose, its novel within a novel and metaphor within a metaphor might lead you to a book I now revere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw1fWUTJk3g   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0jCTNPUvUk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1wOtbGqbfY

By Louis Segal. Louis was born in Oakland, raised his family in Oakland, dropped out of school in 1968, worked many jobs over the decades, dropped back into school in the 80s, got a Ph.D. in history, taught as an adjunct professor from 1993 to 2015. Retired but not withdrawn. 

Storytime, every Tuesday, 10:15 - 10:30 am Families are welcome to stay

after Storytime for Stay & Play

6/15 Build, Make, Play, 3 - 4 pm

6/19 Juneteenth, Libraries closed

6/24 & 7/8 Knit & Crochet with Susan Segal, every second & fourth Monday,

11 am - 1 pm

6/25 & 7/9 Teen Pop Up Crafts, every second and fourth Tuesday, 3:30 - 4:30 pm

6/25 Friends of PAL meeting, at the library, 6:30 - 7:30 pm

6/26 East Bay Vivarium, 6 - 6:45 pm

7/3 Zany Zoe Magician, 6 - 6:45 pm

7/10 Insect Discovery Lab, 6 - 6:45 pm

7/17 Aquacero, 6 - 6: 45 pm

Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library Board of Directors 2024

President: Joanna Smith; Secretary: Arleen Feng; Treasurer: Ronile Lahti

The Friends of the Piedmont Avenue Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Our tax ID is 84-4203055.

All contributions are tax deductible.

Donate to Friends of PAL