long-walk-to-freedom-book-cover

True Crime: War Crimes Edition

long-walk-to-freedom-book-coverI already admitted to my true crime addiction in my May 3rd column/confession. The genre generally refers to murders, assaults, kidnappings and the stuff of Investigation Discovery programs. Although it’s hard to imagine worse crimes than these, victims throughout history have experienced such horrors on a grand scale: genocides, torture, ethnic cleansing. Grim as it may sound, my non-fiction leanings extend into the realm of some of the most disturbing events in modern history. A book that impacted me deeply, for example, bears the shockingly candid title, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda, by Philip Gourevitch.

I learned about U.S. history and “Western Civ.” in school, with a cursory overview of “World History.” College taught me more about non-Western cultures, art and religion. As a working-class girl at a liberal arts college, I met people from all walks of life, and continued to do so after graduating, developing a passion for travel, and working at another liberal arts college for many years.

As my curiosity about history, global inequity, and other cultures increased, I read The Fear: Robert Mugabe and the Martyrdom of Zimbabwe, by Peter Godwin, and Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey, about a desperate Honduran child’s perilous experience riding the “train of death” on a quest to reunite with his mother. Tim Butcher’s Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart, broke my heart indeed, as did King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild, with their historical and modern accounts of the Congo.

Many people have read the classics, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and the graphic (non-fiction) novels Maus I and Maus II, bearing witness to accounts of Holocaust survivors. I recommend additional autobiographical books such as Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom, or the film by the same name, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, and Giaconda Belli’s The Country Under My Skin, her memoir of the Sandinista/Contra war and the revolution in Nicaragua.

I thoroughly enjoy movies that many consider total bummers as well. Holocaust movies Schindler’s List and The Pianist both won multiple Oscars. Hotel Rwanda, The Lives of Others, and The Last King of Scotland received awards and critical acclaim as well. I recommend a few lesser known titles: Welcome to Sarajevo, Beasts of No Nation, Walker, and the bizarre truth-is-stranger-than-fiction exemplar, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait. (The last is a documentary while the others are motion pictures inspired by true events.)

I gravitate toward material on certain countries and occurrences, but a quick search of the library catalog reveals no shortage of true-war-crime reading and viewing options focused on Asia, Australia, the former Soviet Union, and of course the United States too. Unfortunately, every inhabited part of the world has experienced tragedy and injustice.

I understand that many avid readers seek to escape everyday life, often with the help of Hobbits, aliens, or fictional characters embarking on adventures and falling in love. I have nothing against sci-fi, historical fiction, mysteries, or even the guilty-pleasure romance genre. Why then, do I become engrossed in morbid tales of man’s injustice to man?

Continuing education: After finishing my formal schooling, I made a commitment to lifelong learning. To converse about politics and history and avoid sounding like a jerk when traveling abroad, I want to learn some things beforehand. Regarding current events, I agree with the George Santayana quote, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Inspiration: While millions have perished in wars and genocides, some who survived have written their memoirs and documented atrocities. It amazes me that Nelson Mandela endured Apartheid and Robbin Island in South Africa. In spite of enormous struggles, Rigoberta Menchu became an activist and change agent. I admire Holocaust survivors for preserving the memory of those who met a different fate. True stories of heroes and people who overcame adversity inspire me to advocate for human rights and to persevere in my own times of trouble, which pale in comparison to what others have gone through.

Perspective: Like anyone else, I complain about mosquitoes, traffic, and long lines at the post office. Fortunately, I’ve never faced unjust imprisonment. Police have never turned dogs or hoses on me. My father immigrated to the U.S. as a war refugee, but in my lifetime no one has forced my family to flee our home or our country. True stories of terrible events remind me to practice empathy, express gratitude, and try not to take for granted how lucky I am.

Lydia Sampson is the Technical Services department head at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Lydia’s column in the May 31, 2018 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

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Love at First Click

Love-at-first-click-book-coverO Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou internet Romeo? Buckle in and hang on to your hats, folks, we’re about to take a ride through the exciting, data-driven world of online dating. If you don’t agree that something data-driven can be exciting, then we probably wouldn’t be a good match. Swipe left.

You may have heard the phrases “swipe left” or “swipe right” bandied about in recent conversations or on weeknight sitcoms. These phrases have become part of our modern lexicon thanks to “swiping apps” where you swipe right to “like” a photo, or swipe left to “dislike” a photo. One of the earliest swiping apps was Tinder, a location-based dating service that launched in 2012 and that is still going strong today. When you open the app, you only see potential  matches within a certain distance of your location who are also using Tinder, and all you see are a person’s photo and some brief bio information.  Everyone swipes left or right through their potential matches, and when you and Mr./Ms. Dreamboat both swipe right, demonstrating interest, the app lets you start chatting. Location-based  efficiency of meeting someone is Tinder’s big strength, and therefore the app has a reputation as a “hook-up” app, yet many people who meet on Tinder end up in long-term relationships or even marriage.

So, online dating has been around since 2012? Nope! After a little digging, I was surprised to learn that online dating has mid-century roots. According to Dan Slater in his book, Love in the Time of Algorithms, college professors gave out punch card questionnaires, which were then fed through early IBM computers to help facilitate romantic matches based on questionnaire compatibility. Each new decade saw the dating scene keeping step with advances in technology, starting with early computers in the 1950s and 1960s, video cameras in the 1970s, bulletin board systems in the 1980s, the Internet in the 1990s, and smartphones in the first decade of the new millennium.

Remember the movie You’ve Got Mail starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks? Today we might chuckle at the thought of AOL email being cutting edge dating technology, but this 1998 film helped normalize the idea of online dating. Each new step in dating technology was met with societal stigma and concern; growing up I remember watching scare-monger episodes of Dateline and 20/20 warning against the dangers of meeting strangers on the Internet, and there’s been a persistent idea that the people who use online dating services must be desperate. According to Dan Slater though, as of 2010, one-third of adult singles in the United States – that’s about 30 million singles – had an online dating profile. As of April 2017, www.statista.com reports that the Match Group had 3.44 million paid subscribers in North America. The Match Group consists of platforms such as Match.com (the leading dating website in the United States), OkCupid, Tinder, PlentyofFish, and others. Suffice it to say, there are a heck of a lot of people using technology to meet.

These are only a handful of the apps and services available, and each seems to cater to a different group or audience. Match and eHarmony are paid websites that use algorithms and lengthy questionnaires to match you with other users, and many people using these services are explicitly seeking long-term romantic relationships and potentially marriage. Other services are intended to help users find other fun people in their area, and still others are used to find hook-ups. Some websites and apps seek to serve people with very specific interests, such as ChristianMingle and FarmersOnly.

Technology isn’t everything though, and algorithms can be fooled. Answering the questionnaire in ways that will make you more likely to be matched with more people can be fairly simple, and it’s not uncommon for people to try to game the system, as discussed by Amy Webb in Data, A Love Story. And what happens when you finally decide to meet IRL, or in real life? Laurie Davis has some suggestions in the book Love @ First Click, as do Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider in Not Your Mother’s Rules.

If you’d like an entertaining read on the subject of dating in today’s technological world, pick up a copy of I Love You, Nice to Meet You by Lori Gottlieb and Kevin Bleyer, or I Love You, Let’s Meet by Virginia Vitzthum. Popular comedian Aziz Ansari weighs in with the book Modern Romance.

I’ve just thrown a lot of data at you, but then again I did warn you at the top of the column. What’s been my personal experience so far? Honestly, pretty good! My intent is to meet fun people and not take any of this too seriously, and with that relaxed view online dating has been exciting and enjoyable. Many people find they connect with people they wouldn’t normally run into through serendipity, but that they would be interested in getting to know if they had met through more traditional means. This has also been my experience. So, if you’re on the fence, I say give online dating a try! Start with a fun, free app like Coffee Meets Bagel, and see where it goes.

Liz Reed is an Adult and Information Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Liz’s column in the May 24, 2018 issue of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

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The Day the Fugitive Stopped Running

The-Fugitive-posterI was eleven when I moved from the city to the suburbs in the East Bay Area west of San Francisco. I left all the city streets behind – in the 1880s Berkeley had been designed as a grid that easily and efficiently moved from the Bay waters to the golden hills above. Those foothills rose across to the Sierra in the distance.

Moving as a pre-teen, I also abandoned all of my elementary school friends and started afresh in a town where the valleys and grassy rolling hills were situated next to the freeway that headed to Sacramento and Nevada.

There were three or four floor plans in the houses of this post-World War II development of Pinole Valley Estates. Houses were lined up on the streets that were tucked among the ravines. The outside paint color and landscaping distinguished one home from another, but the interiors were eerily similar. Spending the night in a classmate’s home was always a bit surreal when the pink or green porcelain sink in the twin, back-to-bath baths matched those in my own home. Each kitchen had the modern miracle of a dishwasher; each garage was built for two cars.  One was usually a station wagon. The small, manicured yards were fenced and lines with wild, red berried pyracantha and tall, resilient oleander bushes.

Luckily, during this baby boom, nearly every home on my street housed a family with two to six kids. Summer days were spent building rafts on Pinole Creek or navigating the miles of golden hills yet to be developed.  Early evenings into dusk, there were perhaps ten to twenty of us playing Kick the Can. This was a California childhood in the 60s where black-and-white televisions sported rabbit ears and garages were emptied for Friday night neighborhood dances.

It took a few weeks after we moved into our new home for the neighborhood girls to welcome me with open arms. However, kids are kids and it didn’t take long for my new next-door neighbor to become my new best friend. She had two brothers the same ages as my younger brothers. Her house was two-storied, mine was only one. We spent hours in her upstairs room upstairs reading Teen and Ingénue magazines and listening to her extensive collection of 78s. In my house, we learned to sew and type and watch my stay-at-home mother in awe as she made Jell-O parfaits and cut-up cakes.

Because her dad worked the graveyard shift at the Southern Pacific Railroad, he was home during the day and the television was always on. Or so it seemed to me. In my home, the television was strictly managed by my step-father. It was only on Sunday nights that the family watched our black-and-white TV – the Wonderful World of Disney and the Ed Sullivan Show.

Therefore, my memories of many television shows of the 60s are of watching them along with my adopted next-door family.  Bewitched, Bonanza, Gomer Pyle, Route 66, Mr. Ed and countless other television shows (and their reruns) were on back to back at the Campbell house. One that intrigued me the most, I think, was The Fugitive.  Dark and brooding David Janssen was running from the law every episode. There was no need to see them in any order because each episode was another town, another cast of characters, and another chase by Indiana State Police Detective Lt. Gerard.

Years later, of course, Harrison Ford starred in the movie version in 1993 (now twenty-five years past!) A fan of Mr. Ford, I’ve seen the movie countless times. The details are changed in the movie, but the premise remains the same. Dr. Kimble’s wife was murdered by a one-armed man and Dr. Kimball must prove his innocence.

Many people surmise that the Fugitive was based on the story of real Dr. Sam Sheppard who was accused of murdering his wife in their home on Lake Erie, Ohio. Although Sheppard was convicted of the crime – second-degree murder – and given a sentence of life in prison, he always professed his innocence. He claimed his wife was murdered by a bushy-haired man. He was acquitted ten years later in a retrial. The creator and writer of the Fugitive series, however, denied the connection to Sam Sheppard.

The Fugitive ran for four years with thirty 51-minutes episodes produced each year. They were aired on Tuesday nights at 10. Knowing this, it was obviously summer reruns I watched next door – probably beginning in 1965 or 1966. The first three seasons were filmed and aired in black and white; the last and fourth season (1966-1967) was in color.  The last season began in September 1966 and 28 episodes were aired through mid-April.

Producers and writers of The Fugitive wanted to leave Dr. Richard Kimble forever running. However, they realized that their audience needed a conclusion.  ABC’s vice president of programming, Leonard Goldberg claimed in a Vanity Fair article (Aug. 29, 2017) “I realized we were going to leave viewers empty-handed, and that was wrong.”

However, audiences, who had seen the fourth season end in April 1967, were made to wait until August for the finale. The Judgment Part 1 and Part 11 were aired on August 22 and 29, 1967.  Because it was aired in the summer, I may have seen those episodes. I know for sure that the Campbell family would have watched them on August 22 and 29. A record 78 million viewers, or 72% of the homes that had televisions, watched The Judgment – Part II.  For more than ten years afterward, the final episode of The Fugitive held the record for being the most-watched in television history. The Fugitive was a television milestone.

I am struck by the names of actors who were cast as one, two, three or four-time guest characters: Ronnie Howard, Bruce Dern, Brian Keith, Charles Bronson – the list is well over one-hundred of well-known names. Because each episode of the Fugitive stood on its own, stars often played different characters in several episodes.

The Morrill Memorial Library has the four seasons of the Fugitive in its collection. You just might want to binge-watch along with me and travel back to the 60s again – or for the first time.

Charlotte Canelli is the library director of the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Charlotte’s column in the May 24, 2018 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

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A Surprise Royal Watcher

prince-harry-and-meghan-markleAfter my one column about space turned into two I did not think I would be writing more anytime soon. However, when I discovered my colleagues did not share my level of excitement over the upcoming royal nuptials I knew I had found something else to write about. For those of you who attended our “Real Hollywood Royalty” film series featuring Grace Kelly (m. Prince Rainier III of Monaco) and Rita Hayworth (m. Prince Aly Kahn), I hope you enjoyed my attempt to build excitement for when American actress Meghan Markle marries Prince Harry on May 19.

As a child I was fascinated by Queen Victoria because we shared a first name. She was my go to option for any assignment on a historical figure where she could be made to fit the requirements. Given that interest in the British royal family, the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981 was very exciting for nine year old me. It came as no surprise, to my mother at least, that I wanted to get up early enough to not only see the 11:20 am BST ceremony (6:20 am EDT) but also the procession to St. Paul’s and guests entering the Cathedral. Fortunately it was summer so I didn’t need to worry about missing school, but I never voluntarily got up that early! Like many young girls I was taken with Princess Diana’s seemingly fairy tale marriage and so impressed by the spectacle that I decided I would require female guests to wear hats when I got married. I outgrew that fascination before I got married, much to the relief of my female relatives and friends, though not until after I graduated from college.

Of course I was excited to read about the births of Prince William in 1982 and Prince Harry in 1984. The 1996 divorce of the Prince and Princess of Wales four years after their separation made it clear the marriage was not a fairy tale. 4 am EDT was too early for me to watch the entire thing live but I did get up early to watch part of the funeral of Princess Diana after her tragic death in 1997. The 2006 film The Queen depicts the royal family’s response to this event.

When Sarah Ferguson married Prince Andrew in 1986 I was a teenager and we had a VCR so I had my dad record it and watched it at a more reasonable time of day. I had not been at my first professional job for very long when Prince Edward got married, and for some reason wasn’t very interested anyway.

When the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton was announced in 2010, my previous workplace had some lunchtime conversations about reusing an engagement ring from a wedding that ended so unhappily. The general consensus was that we’d be happy to have to such a beautiful piece of jewelry, but not as an engagement ring. In the months leading up to the wedding, whenever I was in a waiting room I devoured People, Us Weekly, and the like for photos of the couple and information about their wedding plans. I took the day of the wedding off so I could watch it on TV. Although I watched the repeat broadcast rather than the live version, I was up early making British scones and cakes to eat with my friend who came to watch it with me. I was not alone in having a wedding watching party. In fact, serious royals fans would consider me an amateur since I didn’t watch it live and we didn’t dress up or wear hats. I did get some awesome swag though: a commemorative tea tin and china mug. The births of their children has also been exciting and I eagerly awaited the arrival and naming of Prince Louis last month.

While I’m sure there are many people who will find it easier to watch Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding on a Saturday, I would prefer a workday since my family would be busy at school and work leaving the TV, and my time, free for binge watching the wedding. My understanding is the British would have preferred a work day as well so they could get a Bank Holiday. Unfortunately my friend who watched the 2011 wedding with me will be working, and my other potential watching partners live elsewhere, so I probably won’t spend much time creating a special menu just for me.

I was too young to pore over gossip magazines when Princes Charles and Andrew got married and am not a committed reader of them now, but if you are, Morrill Memorial Library’s Flipster app gives you access to several of them. I prefer to look at a few blogs that follow the royal family. My favorite is written by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. Each week they do a “Royals Round-Up” with links to articles about and photos of European royals from the preceding week. When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge travel, the site often has daily posts with photos from the trip. The two also wrote book The Royal We about an American who goes to college in England where she falls in love with the heir to the British throne. What Kate Wore has fashion coverage of the Duchess of Cambridge and an offshoot called What Kate’s Kids Wore has information about what the young princes and princess wear. Meghan’s Mirror covers Ms. Markle’s style including an entire page about her handbags (a weakness of mine).

I know some of my coworkers were surprised to learn just how interested I am in the British royals.  I am clearly not a slave to fashion, do not watch reality TV shows, and generally have very little interest in celebrities. The truth is I love some of the fashion worn by the Duchess of Cambridge and Miss Markle but my practical nature means that even their off the rack styles aren’t likely to be found in my closet since my lifestyle doesn’t call for cocktail dresses or high heels. But now you know I’ll be glued to the TV next Saturday morning!

Victoria Andrilenas is an Adult and Information Services Librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, MA. Look for Victoria’s column in the May 10th edition of the Norwood Transcript & Bulletin.

Crime-scene-tape

Confessions of a True Crime Fanatic

Crime-scene-tapeGuilty as charged- I am an avid reader of books about murder and serial killers. At the moment, I can’t put down Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker, about the homicides of five women who advertised as escorts on Craigslist. While most know John Grisham for his novels, I preferred his foray into non-fiction with The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town, the account of the exoneration of a death row inmate wrongfully convicted of murder.

I finally read Ann Rule’s classic, The Stranger Beside Me, a chronicle of a crime spree involving the homicide of at least 30 women. In an utterly remarkable coincidence, the true crime author landed the contract to write a book about a serial killer on the loose in the 1970s, only to find out that the murderer was her friend and former coworker, Ted Bundy. Rule later wrote Green River Running Red, about the “Green River Killer” in the Pacific Northwest. After finishing that one I checked out Green River Killer: A True Detective Story, a graphic novel about the same subject.

When not reading books about true crime, I spend my free time watching shows and movies and listening to podcasts in the same genre. To anyone else who binge-watched The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, or Making a Murderer, I recommend the series The Staircase, about Michael Peterson, the crime author accused of murdering his wife.

In the feature length category, I enjoyed both the documentary Team Foxcatcher, and movie Foxcatcher, about John du Pont’s murder of wrestler Dave Schultz. Recently released, the film My Friend Dahmer, based on a graphic novel by the same name, chronicles the young life of the cannibal killer, before he began taking lives.

During my daily commute I listen to Casefile, with its mesmerizing and anonymous Australian host, and Criminal, which extends to crimes including Venus flytrap theft and the abuse of the Tennessee Walking Horse. For lighter fare, My Favorite Murder combines true crime and comedy, as the hosts chat about real-life horrors not as experts but as fellow true crime fans. They end each episode with their catch phrase, “stay sexy and don’t get murdered!” Real Crime Profile digs deep into cases in the media spotlight thanks to TV series such as The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, looking at them through the lens of behavioral analysts and FBI criminal profilers.

Please do not judge me or accuse me of voyeurism or gawking at others’ tragedy! It turns out I am not alone in this fascination with the macabre. The true crime genre is extremely popular, among women in particular. Prolific crime writer Ann Rule estimated that 85% of her readers were female, according to an article about this phenomenon in Cosmopolitan.

Why, though, do women gravitate toward the sick and twisted? These are some reasons, I suspect, behind our guilty pleasure:

Relatability: Margaret Atwood once said, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” With some exceptions like Aileen Wuornos, whose crimes are recounted in the movie Monster, women are the victims of male serial killers. Men simply can’t identify with these stories the same way that women can.

Cautionary tales: Given that some risks disproportionally impact women, true crime tales teach us what to do and what not to do in the face of an attack, and how to protect ourselves. Memorize license plates. Preserve DNA evidence. Notify others about where you are going, and with whom. Don’t get into cars with strangers. Never hitchhike.

History: I mainly read non-fiction. I love constantly learning about historical events, and thinking about how they inform the future. The serial murders recounted in true crime narratives really happened. I feel it is important to know about the “summer of Sam” and Pogo the Clown, should things like this come up. The history of scientific progress encompasses the evolution of forensic investigation, including fingerprint, ballistics, and DNA analysis.

Justice: Although some perpetrators elude capture, most true crime stories follow a similar arc in which a reign of terror and frustrating hunt for a killer culminate in the discovery and apprehension of a “bad guy.” Usually evidence abounds and the murderer goes to trial, gets convicted, and ends up behind bars, or even sentenced to death. This “happy ending” provides comfort, sending the message that bad guys get punished, and justice prevails.

Lydia Sampson is the Technical Services department head at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood, Massachusetts. Read Lydia’s column in the May 3, 2018 edition of the Norwood Transcript and Bulletin.

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