Hello and welcome to Episode Forty Four of Page Turn: the Largo Public Library Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah!
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The English Language Transcript can be found below
But as always we start with Reader’s Advisory!
The Reader’s Advisory for Episode Forty Four is The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. If you like the sound of The Revisioners you should also check out: Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson, The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, and The Edge of Heaven by Marita Golden.
My personal favorite Goodreads list The Revisioners is on is Book Covers That Make Me Feel Like I’m Going Insane 2.
Happy Reading Everyone
Today’s Library Tidbit tidbit is another self-care tidbit. This December we are covering meditation and singing bowls.
As always we are well aware December brings with it several stressors, even for those in our community that do not celebrate any major holidays during the month, so we like to take the December tidbit to spread some calming and centering techniques, a way to reduce some stress and lower heart rates.
While some meditation is religious in nature the meditation we are talking about today is not and is being promoted solely as a health measure. Meditation will develop an awareness of self and develop mindfulness. Regular meditation reduces stress and anxiety, promotes emotional well-being, and helps someone have better sleep.
There are several different types of meditation. The important thing is to find a comfortable location with as few distractions as possible. This will vary from person to person. You can meditate by simply sitting and breathing, or by focusing on a specific thought. You can also meditate through a specific task, such as coloring, playing an instrument, or movement. This is where singing bowls come in.
A singing bowl, or standing bell, is a bell without a stem, supported from the bottom of the bell and the rim open at the top. These are used for a multiple of reasons, to make music, to meditate, and for religious or spiritual practice. Singing bowls come in a variety of sizes and in both metal and crystal. They are played using a striker. You can either tap the rim of the bowl to make it chime or run the striker around the edge of the bowl to make it sing.
To meditate while playing a singing bowl start by making it chime or sing, whichever you prefer, and focus on the sound the bowl is making. When the noise begins to die down strike or make the bowl sing again. You can move yourself closer or farther from the bowl to hear slightly different vibrations changing the sound. You can experiment with striking the bowl with different materials, a wood striker or a felted striker.
How does a singing bowl work exactly? Well, have you ever moistened your finger and then run it along the top rim of a glass to make it sing? A singing bowl works along the same principles. Your finger along the edge creates friction between your finger and the glass, the water allows this to be a smoother friction, this friction causes the glass to then vibrate. This is a stick-slip motion, the friction is the stick and the water is the slip. The vibration is transmitted through the air along a specific frequency, one which the human ear can pick up.
This is the same thing that happens when you run a striker around the outside rim of the bowl. The wood or felted wood striker moving along the outside of a metal or crystal bowl creates a stick-slip motion that causes the bowl to vibrate. This means that different size bowls will vibrate at different frequency, creating different pitches! If you have several bowls you can create harmonies while they are playing. You can also change the pitch of a bowl by filling it with water.
How, you may ask, can you try out a singing bowl for yourself? Well you can buy them fairly inexpensively online, however, even better, we have meditation kits available to check out at the circulation desk that have a singing bowl, a book on how to use a singing bowl, baoding balls, a book how to use baoding balls, chimes, a guided meditation cd and a book on meditation. Kits check out for 28 days and are not able to be renewed.
Now I’m going to take a few minutes to demonstrate using a singing bowl. If you want to pause and find a comfortable place to sit and listen please do that now.
And now it’s time for Book Traveler, with Victor:
Welcome to a new episode of Book Travel. My name is Victor and I am a Librarian at the Largo Public Library. Today I am going to talk about a graphic novel that we have in the Spanish collection, Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez.
Synopsis: Named a “modern masterpiece” by The A.V. Club, Locke & Key tells a sprawling tale of magic and family, legacy and grief, good and evil. Acclaimed suspense novelist and New York Times best-selling author Joe Hill has created a gripping story of dark fantasy and wonder—with astounding artwork from Gabriel Rodriguez—that, like the doors of Keyhouse, will transform all who open it. The epic begins here: Welcome to Lovecraft.
Following their father’s gruesome murder in a violent home invasion, the Locke children return to his childhood home of Keyhouse in secluded Lovecraft, Massachusetts. Their mother, Nina, is too trapped in her grief—and a wine bottle—to notice that all in Keyhouse is not what it seems: too many locked doors, too many unanswered questions. Older kids Tyler and Kinsey aren’t much better. But not youngest son Bode, who quickly finds a new friend living in an empty well and a new toy, a key, that offers hours of spirited entertainment. But again, all at Keyhouse is not what it seems, and not all doors are meant to be opened. Soon, horrors old and new, real and imagined, will come ravening after the Lockes and the secrets their family holds.
Opinion: When I first started reading this graphic novel, I didn’t think I was going to like it that much, but it is an excellent book: a supernatural horror conspiracy, based on a house inherited from the family called Lovecraft and the secrets and pasts that it contains. . A family tragedy causes the Locke family to return to their family legacy, Lovecraft, only to be in more danger.
Something I really liked was the author’s focus on the devastated Locke family and how they have to recover from the murder of his father. We know and care about each of the characters, which I think it is key to a great horror story. There’s also some amazing dialogue, not just gory and creepy, though if you’re looking for it, this story won’t disappoint.
Outro: That is all for today. Until the next episode of Book Traveler. Bye
Stay safe everyone out there! Check out our programming page here as our planned programming has changed!
For everyone interested our intro music is by Break the Bans and the outro music is by Jahzzar, both artists can be found on Free Music Archive.
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