Upcoming Events

Live out your fantasy!  Be chaotic evil or lawful good. Choose to be a barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock or wizard. Be a dwarf, elf, halfling, human, dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, tiefling or choose another race.  Fight monsters!  Find treasure!  Join our expert Dungeon Master and intrepid band of adventurers for an all-new campaign.  Register to get the Zoom link.

The year 2020 marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth, and there are celebrations worldwide. This colossus of music took the aural world that he was born into, mastered it, and then shouted, "OK, everyone, follow me!" and led the way to a new era.   
In this single session presentation about the Maestro, we'll talk about and listen to some of his great work.   But we'll also explore the person behind the genius:  his upbringing, his love/hate of the metronome, what event caused him to give greater depth (pardon the pun) to his bass lines, how deep his frustration with his deafness really was, and his influence on the musical world around him. 

Barry Wiesenfeld is an internationally-respected musician who has toured on three continents, performed and recorded with Grammy- and RMI-winning artists, and has appeared on radio and TV.  In addition to performing and lecturing, Barry teaches for Ramapo College and SUNY.

Decorate a mug with Sharpie markers.  Then add some hot chocolate spoons for an over-the-top gift or to keep for yourself.  Register to reserve your craft bag, then watch our YouTube instructional video to complete the project.  Begins December 12th.

Join a bi-weekly virtual discussion group to explore “The 1619 Project,” a publication of the New York Times Magazine, which marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown, Virginia. The series highlights the contributions of Black Americans and the many ways the legacy of slavery continues to shape society in the United States. The project includes essays, photos, stories, music and poems that challenge readers to examine their knowledge of U.S. history and provides a lens to understand the moment of racial reckoning we are in today.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Isabelle Wilkerson writes about the United States as an old house in her new book, Caste:
“Not one of us was here when this house was built. . . .We are the heirs to whatever is right or wrong with it.  We did not erect the uneven pillars or joists, but they are ours to deal with now.  And any further deterioration is, in fact, on our hands.  We must see past the plaster, beyond what had been wallpapered or painted over, as we now are called upon to do in the house we all live in, to examine a structure built long ago.”

Beverly Braxton is a beloved teacher and educational leader who throughout her 29 years at the WVCSD worked at all levels of the educational system: classroom teacher, PTA officer, school/district committees, and staff development. Since her retirement in 2010, Beverly has been teaching parenting workshops and in 2014, founded Family Central, a grassroots, non-profit parenting support network, based in Warwick. Ms. Braxton is a recipient of numerous teaching awards and honors, and continues to work as an education consultant, adjunct professor, trained facilitator and published writer.

If you are interested in examining America’s foundations through the lens of “The 1619 Project,” please join Beverly Braxton on the following dates this fall:  Tuesdays:  October 6, 20;  November 3, 17; and December 1, 15.   Please register in order to receive the Zoom link in advance via email. 

Live out your fantasy!  Be chaotic evil or lawful good. Choose to be a barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock or wizard. Be a dwarf, elf, halfling, human, dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc, tiefling or choose another race.  Fight monsters!  Find treasure!  Join our expert Dungeon Master and intrepid band of adventurers for an all-new campaign.  Register to get the Zoom link.

When musicologists refer to the "Three Bs of Music," they generally mean Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. ,But that list presumes we're limiting ourselves to the classical world. ,If we shed that shackle and widen our horizons, another indisputable "B" must be The Beatles.  The Beatles did for pop music what Beethoven did for the classical world: mastered what came before them and then took us all in a new direction.  In this class, we'll explore some of the innovations that qualifies them for this lofty list.  Lyrics, instrumentation, studio techniques (and more) will all be discussed. Join us!

Barry Wiesenfeld is an internationally-respected musician who has toured on three continents, performed and recorded with Grammy- and RMI-winning artists, and has appeared on radio and TV. In addition to performing and lecturing, Barry teaches for Ramapo College and SUNY.

The Science Book Club reads A Crack in Creation by Jennifer A. Doudna. Copies of the book are available for checkout at the libraty.

Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. That is, until 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a

worldwide moratorium on the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR—a revolutionary new technology that she helped create—to make heritable changes in human embryos. The cheapest, simplest, most effective way of manipulating DNA ever known, CRISPR may well give us the cure to HIV, genetic diseases, and some cancers. Yet even the tiniest changes to DNA could have myriad, unforeseeable consequences, to say nothing of the ethical and societal repercussions of intentionally mutating embryos to create “better” humans. Writing with fellow researcher Sam Sternberg, Doudna—who has since won the Nobel Prize for her CRISPR research—shares the thrilling story of her discovery and describes the enormous responsibility that comes with the power to rewrite the code of life.