One fine night...

Our first open mic night was a lot of fun. We set up the stage in the café area of our store and a nice group gathered, some strangers, and some old friends. The cafe was open and we offered our usual selection of coffees, soft drinks and pastries. There were a lots of families and groups in attendance and the space was great for mingling and making new friends.

We all enjoyed an varied mix of electric and acoustic acts, and some read poetry and prose. One person even wandered off for a few minutes and browsed our shelves, returning to read a poem from our collection. We wee also graced with a great narrative poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay and a few haiku.

We had a guitarist perform some great instrumentals on electric guitar, one gentleman who played the banjo, and a singer-songwriter who surprised us with her beautiful voice, performing two covers and an original song. Another featured duo sang a couple Beatles songs and some nineties hits.

It was a fun night all in all. We’re planning on making it a monthly event, on second Fridays, so come by February 12th at 7pm to join in!

Unfinished Desires

I've never read anything by Gail Godwin before, but I picked up Unfinished Desires because I love books set at schools. The closed environment, cliques (and other adolescent behavior), and bad teachers all make for good drama.

The book had a less dramatic plot than I expected, and the events were all pretty low key. All throughout Unfinished Desires, characters kept referring vaguely to the freshman play by the class of 1951: the class, as headmistress Mother Ravenel puts it, was "toxic," and they did something almost unspeakable that year. Their actions and the result, she admits, were partially her fault, but the events and behaviors leading up to it are so complicated and subtle that we doubt that anyone's at fault. That's the problem at the heart of the book: everyone's forgiven, and no one is in the wrong, but none of the characters can stop confessing and obsessing.