This Week from Your Mastics Moriches Shirley Community Library

Weekly eNewsletter

January 20, 2025

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Monday, 1/20

This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we honor the enduring impact of Dr. King’s message of equality, justice, and peace. All library locations will be open, offering a welcoming space for reflection, education, and community connection. Stop by to explore our collections, participate in programs, or simply spend some time with us as we celebrate Dr. King's vision for a better world.

CHILDREN & PARENTS

Early Literacy: Letters! @ Moriches

Monday, 1/20, 11:00 - 11:30 AM

Early literacy activities involving letters! Ages birth - 23 months with an adult.

Messy Meetups @ Moriches

Wednesday, 1/22, 10:00 - 11:00 AM

Join us for child-led, messy, creative playtime at the library! Each month we explore creative sensory activities together. These activities require close supervision by an adult. Ages 18 months - 5 years old with an adult.

Guided Meditation @ Moriches

Wednesday, 1/22, 7:00 - 7:30 PM

Never meditated before? No worries! Bring a blanket and your imagination for a relaxing pre-bedtime experience. Come in comfy clothes to experience deep calm before sleep. Grades K-5.

Snowman Painting @ Main

Thursday, 1/23 - 4:00 - 4:45 PM

Join us for some fun and festive Snowman Painting! Ages 2-5 years with an adult.

Short Story Writing Workshop @ Main

Thursday, 1/23, 7:00 - 7:45 PM

Young writers, come bring your imagination! In this fun workshop, kids will create their own short stories and explore the magic of storytelling. Grades 2-5.

TEENS

Soup Night @ Moriches

Wednesday, 1/22, 6:00 – 7:00 PM

January is National Soup Month and we are heating up the Instant Pot! Bring your own mug and help us to prepare and eat a steaming pot of healthy soup. You can bring home leftovers with a recipe!

Snickers Dip @ Mastic Beach

Friday, 1/24, 4:00 – 5:00 PM

You can make Snickers… into dip? Yep! Make some yourself and scoop it up with your cookie of choice!

Mystery Video Game Tournament @ Moriches

Saturday, 1/25, 1:00 – 4:00 PM

Think you’re a video game master? Put your skills to the test, as you won’t know which game you’re playing until you arrive for the tournament! The overall winner earns themselves a $20 Nintendo eShop Card!

Don’t miss out on any info or fun! Follow @MMSCLTeens on TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and YouTube. Chat with us on Discord.

ADULTS

Virtual Author Talk with Amanda Montell

Online Program

Thursday, 1/23, 2:00 - 5:00 PM

Join us as we chat with the New York Times bestselling author, Amanda Montell about her newest book, The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality.

“Magical thinking” can be broadly defined as the belief that one’s internal thoughts can affect unrelated events in the external world: think of the conviction that one can manifest their way out of poverty, stave off cancer with positive vibes, thwart the apocalypse by learning to can their own peaches, or transform an unhealthy relationship to a glorious one with loyalty alone. In all its forms, magical thinking works in service of restoring agency amid chaos, but in The Age of Magical Overthinking, Montell argues that in the modern information age, our brain’s coping mechanisms have been overloaded, and our irrationality turned up to an eleven.

In a series of razor sharp, deeply funny chapters, Montell delves into a cornucopia of the cognitive biases that run rampant in our brains, from how the “halo effect” cultivates worship (and hatred) of larger-than-life celebrities, to how the “sunk cost fallacy” can keep us in detrimental relationships long after we’ve realized they’re not serving us. As she illuminates these concepts with her signature brilliance and wit, Montell’s prevailing message is one of hope, empathy, and ultimately forgiveness for our anxiety-addled human selves. If you have all but lost faith in our ability to reason, Montell aims to make some sense of the senseless. To crack open a window in our minds, and let a warm breeze in. To help quiet the cacophony for a while or even hear a melody in it.

Don’t be irrational, register now for a conversation you just don’t want to miss!

Book Discussion: Daisy Jones & The Six

@ Main

Thursday, 1/23, 2:30 - 4:00 PM

Experience the highs and lows of fame, fortune, and forbidden love while discussing the novel, Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing the Whisky a Go-Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that make people do crazy things. Another band getting noticed is The Six, led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend. The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies.

Copies of the book are available for pick-up at our Main Building.

Seal Walk at Cupsogue Beach @ Cupsogue Beach County Park

Saturday, 1/5, 10:45 AM - 12:45 PM

Bundle up, grab your binoculars and meet us at Cupsogue Beach County Park in Westhampton Beach. The Atlantic Marine Conversation Society scientists will guide us in an interactive, educational seal survey. Participants will learn about the seal species we find in our local waters, the threats they face during their seasonal time here and what we can do for them. After the survey we will walk the beach to learn about monitoring the beaches for seals in distress and remove harmful marine debris along the way. Must be a MMSCL Cardholder to register.

Please note: This program is weather dependent, children must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, the path is not stroller friendly, and Cupsogue Beach does not have bathroom accessibility. Cupsogue Beach County Park is located at 975 Dune Road, Westhampton Beach, NY 11978.