Ferndale Library Staff Recommends: Lindsey's Picks

Lindsey Harnish is our in-house innovator, our tinkerer; a Ferndalian who shares my inclination towards wit, whimsy and daydreaming.

Lindsey's always spotting ways we can improve (or further augment) our collection (or displays) with a keen eye for the artistic... Indeed, not only an artist in her own right (specializing in Mixed Media) but also a Board Member for our Library Arts & Exhibitons Committee, (a key component, I'll note, towards organizing our Inaugural Exhibition, wrapping up this weekend). 

Lindsey has refined tastes that can drift towards the abstract as much as they can stay rooted in a quainter classicism. A varied sampling, to be sure.

Lindsey's works will be on display, later this season, in the Plymouth Coffee Bean. (Info). You can also view her work (and many other intriguing/provocative creations, works, illustrations) at the annual Damned Arts Exhibition of Enlightened Darkness, this weekend (more info).

Lindsey's Picks

By Lindsey Harnish

Wild About Greens
Nava Atlas
641.563 A 

I’ve read that kale is among the more nutritionally-dense foods, but including this powerhouse green into my diet has left me a bit baffled. How to prepare it?

Wild About Greens shares a plethora of interesting and unexpected ways to fix kale and its other dark green leafy brethren (-collards, -arugula, -bok choy, etc.) into happy edibles--from smoothies to stews to salads. The recipes are influenced by cultures from all over the globe and all are vegan.  Included is a helpful guide to different varieties of greens, depicted with appealing illustrations by the author.                                                                        

Fever Ray
Fever Ray
CD Fever Ray

The Knife’s Karin Dreijer makes a solo project in the self-titled album Fever Ray. While sharing  the catchy synth-pop of the Knife, Fever Ray embarks to stranger and more distant territories, both musically and lyrically. Yet amid the chilly electronics and occasionally fractured lyrics are warm tones and a child-like winsomeness that make it resonate. Energetic, yet introspective, soaring yet brooding.  It gets a lot of play at my place. Fans of Björk take note.

The House Held Up by Trees
Ted Kooser
JE KOO

There’s something about old houses that has always captured my imagination. Abandoned houses, particularly, fill my dreams. This lyrical story is about a man who builds his home on the edge a forest. He combats nature to keep an impeccable, suburban lawn while his children play among the brambles and find delight in the song of birds.

Subtle with its deeper implications about living with the wild and unpredictable, about change and time. It’s no surprise that the author is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Lovely illustrations draw the reader deeper into the tale, yet have a pleasant sparseness.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
DVD HORROR

Every film guide and encyclopedia will tell you this is an essential film to watch. Add my lowly name to the list. Mysterious, brooding and a bit deranged, the story twists, unfolds and turns again on itself, as enacted by iconic characters--from the frail, beautiful damsel to the menacing doctor with waggling wild eyebrows and the haunting Cesare, a dark, thin somnambulist that leaves horror in his wake when he walks at night. All of this takes place in an exaggerated painted set that adds a sense of surreal to the action.

Silent films can seem a bit sleepy with their classic soundtracks--Mr. Harnish recommends pairing this one with Swedish neoclassical/industrial (Arditi, Toroidh, Raison D'être) instead. We both agree that it’d also be great with Cranes’ La Tragédie d'Oreste et Électre. What? You haven’t heard of these bands? Try experimenting other music and see what happens--the moodier and more string-laden the better.

Frederick Carl Frieseke : the evolution of an American impressionist
Frieseke, Frederick Carle
759.13 F

I admit it. I’m a bit bored of Impressionists. Their idyllic and bright images of rosy-cheeked lasses in ruffled lace dresses strike me as moth-eaten now. However, I pause on occasion and then actually consider them and am struck again by their beauty. Now, I want you to look at an Impressionist you’ve likely never heard of: Frederick Carl Frieseke. This chap was born in Owosso, Michigan and graduated from high school there before leaving the States to spend the rest of his life in France. Jealous? There, he lived next door to Claude Monet in Giverny. There he became fascinated with trying to capture light in his paintings.

"It is sunshine,” he wrote “Flowers in sunshine; girls in sunshine; the nude in sunshine, which I have been principally interested in. If I could only reproduce it exactly as I see it I would be satisfied." It actually looks nothing like real life, but more like a dappled Eden, with the profusion of flowers and pale beauties lounging their afternoons away. Frieseke wrote, "I get much pleasure in shocking the good Church people with the nudes." See why I like this guy?

But seriously, nekkid girls and sunshine, he had a fascinating way of repeating patterns and textures, of using color in vivid and unexpected harmony that makes his work striking. There is a sense of stillness, a pause to his paintings that can literally take your breath away.

Ferndale Patch thanks Jeff Milo and Lindsey Harnish at the Ferndale Public Library for contributing to Patch! Check back soon for more ideas from library staff. Are you looking for recommendations on something specific? Email jessica.schrader@patch.com, and we'll pass on your questions to the library.