Savvy Signs the YAZ

Savvy, the MPL Young Adult (Teen) Librarian, has been signing-up a storm in the Young Adult Zone (YAZ).  Check out Savvy's photo, which Boss Lady forwarded in an email.

Savvy's new YAZ Posters

Quite nice posters, I'll say.  This encouraged moi to try out the Library's new digital camera.

Click to Bigify

Boss Lady purchased a Canon EOS 1100D Rebel T3 digital camera for the Library at the end of last year.  This is the most fantastic digital camera I have ever laid paws upon!  It is truly the cat's pajamas.

Close-ups?  I can do that.

Click Each Photo to Bigify

(Not My Fault If They Don't)

Pretty neat signs, Savvy!  Teen Tech Week looks like it's going to be chock-full of technological excitement.  How about the high-tech quality of these photos, as a prelude?  Thanks, Boss Lady, for buying your staff a really cool graphics tool.  Now we can take photos or shoot videos like professionals.  That's assuming we can figure out how to work the thing.

Built-in Flash Was a Surprise, Let Moi Tell You,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

YAZ News Beat

P.S.  "Freeze Frame," by the J. Geils Band, appeared on the album by the same name (1981).  The group must have really liked photography.

Behind the Scenes With Wild Thang & Sammy the Toucan

Ever wonder how Wild Thang (Miss Jaymi) and Sammy the Toucan shoot their early literacy videos?  Let's go behind-the-scenes to watch this dynamic duo in action.

That's MPL videographer Rachel Buchanan (on the left) using the Youth Services digital camera to film this segment of Explore to Learn: Early Literacy Fun.  (To watch all of Wild Thang and Sammy's early literacy videos, visit Miss Jaymi's YouTube Channel.)  Scowl-Face is using the Library's new Canon EOS 1100D Rebel T3 digital camera to film the "behind-the-scenes" angle.  (Actually, Scowlly just does a poor job framing the shot.  Hence this "behind-the-scenes" video.)  He used the new tripod, so that's why the camera isn't shaking every which way but loose.  Truly fabulous resolution!  This is the Library's "go-to" HD video and digital still-photography device from now on.

I surely appreciated Wild Thang and Sammy devoting this entire early literacy video to moi for Cauli Le Chat Appreciation Day today.  "Flat" Cauli II was great as my "stand-in" while I was out roaming the streets for the latest news stories.  Unfortunately, because of Scowl-Face's ineptitude in camera angling, the ceiling lights reflected rather harshly off "Flat" Cauli II, washing-out her features.  These things happen in show business.

I was further pleased by the early literacy reading suggestions that Wild Thang and Sammy recommended.  Those cat books were terrific choices! One of my favorite books was featured. (You can see it on my blog background.)  Guess I'd better fetch our book trailer.

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, by Laura Numeroff
(Felicia Bond, Illustrator)

(MPL Book Trailer #142)

Hearing Wild Thang and Sammy talking about the letter R r reminded moi of pirates, too.  I've got that covered.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

(MPL Book Trailer #49)

My Library blogged about this book as well.  Cybrarians call it "cross-pollination" among the social media.

Weren't Willie and Hank dressed as pirates last October for Halloween?  Let's reprise some blurry photos.

It was a wonderful day of appreciation for moi.  Thanks to everybody for making it so special.

When Is Sammy the Toucan Day?  Just Asking,

Cauli Le Chat

MPL Roving Reporter

My Holiday News Beat

P.S.  "The Cat Came Back" (1956), by Sonny James, was released as a 78 r.p.m. record in the UK.  Not bad sound for a brittle disc made from shellac resin.

Following Paul Hadley's Footsteps, Part Trois

Once again, we're walking in the footsteps (pawsteps, for moi) of longtime Mooresville resident Paul Hadley (1880-1971), who designed the Indiana State Flag and was a well-known impressionist watercolor artist who taught students at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis.  If you'd like to catch our earlier installments in this series, click here.  Here, too.

Earlier today, my minions, one of my many "Flat" Caulis, and I visited the Brooklyn Bridge.

Not That One!

Let's begin by showing Paul Hadley's painting of the covered bridge that once stood in Brooklyn, Indiana, which is displayed at Mooresville Public Library.  Click the photos to bigify.

 Taken with Scowl-Face's Kodak digital camera

 Taken with the library's Canon digital camera

Compare painting with this 1911 photo of
the Brooklyn mill, dam, & covered bridge
[courtesy of Stuttgen, Joanne Raetz & Tomak, Curtis.
Morgan County (Postcard History Series) (2007).
Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, p. 87]

Hadley painted the bridge (well, more precisely, his painting OF the bridge) nearly a century ago--but probably after Brooklyn Mill was demolished in 1924 (see photo above).  The covered bridge is no longer there (neither are the dam or mill), but now there's a concrete bridge (constructed in 1948) in approximately the same spot crossing White Lick Creek at Brooklyn's edge.  You can tell by the terrain that this was the correct bridge location--plus we know the road leading into (and out of) town historically crossed the river hereabouts on the way to Brooklyn cemetery (further southward).  Plus we have that 1911 photo above (and historical caption), which pretty well nails the thing down tight.

Brooklyn Bridge Today

 The Lady With the Red Hair & "Flat" Cauli

standing upstream of the modern bridge

looking downstream (south)

along White Lick Creek

Observant readers will have noted that Hadley must have been standing downstream of the covered bridge near the eastern bank of White Lick Creek (looking north at the west end of the covered bridge). He was probably painting approximately where that fisher dude is standing in our above photo (look left beneath the bridge).  Hadley might possibly have stood in the river's shallow waters to capture the perspective.

Upstream (north) view of White Lick Creek

(the modern bridge is behind photographer)

Watch out for traffic across the bridge!

Daredevil Moi with "Flat" Cauli & the Lady With the Red Hair

The concrete bridge is certainly utilitarian, but it lacks the grace of its wooden ancestor Hadley so elegantly captured in his watercolor painting. White Lick Creek, too, looked more charming with those rocks and that little waterfall.

When I first saw Hadley's painting at my Library, I mistakenly thought it was the red covered bridge that, a century ago, spanned the East Fork of White Lick Creek on the Waverly Road (now State Road 144) at Mooresville's outskirts.  Upon closer inspection, however, it's obviously not that bridge in Hadley's painting.  See what you think.

Brooklyn's covered bridge was quite charming.  I'm glad we know its beauty, thanks to Paul Hadley.

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat

P.S.  Neil Diamond reflected upon his childhood days growing up in Brooklyn, New York (the other Brooklyn) in his song, "Brooklyn Roads" (1968).

Barnstorming and Spelunking (Part Deux)

After our Lynnville lunch, we drove further east along Interstate 64, crossing the bottom of the Hoosier National Forest.  Soon we exited the interstate and drove to Marengo, Indiana, to our spelunking destination, Marengo Cave, a U.S. National Natural Landmark.

  

 Yep.  Pretty Much

Click Images to Bigify

The official Marengo Cave website has MUCH better photos than Scowl-Face took with his Kodak digital camera (we didn't have my Library's MUCH nicer, but pricier, Canon Rebel EOS T3, about which we've blogged elsewhere).  So it's low-res pix for us, I'm afraid.

Your Feline Roving Reporter checks out

interesting stalactites & stalagmites

(The ones on the ceiling are stalactites; the others on the floor are stalagmites.  You can remember because the "g" in stalagmites reminds moi of ground.  There are lots of other fancy names for cave formations, which the Marengo Cave folks nicely included on their website.)

Apparently, there's some stupid human safety law that says we felines are not allowed to enter public caverns along with tourist people.  But we feline reporters have lots of tricks up our tails.

Scowl-Face took a variety of lousy photos, the best of which appears below.

I could recount the interesting history of Marengo Cave, but why not read the historical markers instead?  Works for moi.  Also take a peek at the Marengo Cave website.

Two words, Scowl-Face:  solar glare.  Just saying.

It was refreshingly cool in the cave--a constant 52.1 degrees Fahrenheit year-round--but the humidity is nearly 100 percent, so it's a tad bit damp for my taste.  I was waiting for Ol' Scowlly to do one of his patented pratfalls, but he was more sure-footed than usual.

Thirty-three years ago, when Scowl-Face was a first-year law student, he studied (in his property law course) the famous case of Marengo Cave Co. v. Ross, 212 Ind. 624, 10 N.E.2d 917 (1937).  Thirteen years later, Ol' Scowlly wrote about the case in his single claim to fame.  Although the case concerned the law of adverse possession, it also illustrated the tort of trespass to land.  If you enjoy reading briefs of appellate court decisions, have at it.

After the Indiana Supreme Court ruling in 1937, the Marengo Cave owners erected a brick wall inside the cave at the neighbor's property line, with a plaque attached explaining why cavern visitors could not further explore the portions of the cave beneath the neighbor's land.  Ol' Scowlly's property law professor, Hendrick Hartog, who, it must be said, was (and still is, I'd venture) a brilliant legal scholar as well as a kind, thoughtful, dedicated teacher, told his property law class (in 1980) that he had visited Marengo Cave and saw the wall and plaque.  When we visited last Saturday, however, both wall and plaque were gone.  Apparently, at some subsequent time, owners of Marengo Cave must have purchased the adjoining land subject to the 1937 decision, so additional cave chambers were opened and explored.

We had great fun exploring Marengo Cave.  It's well worth a visit.  Great family fun!  For my feline readers, however, I recommend entering through a sinkhole a few dozen yards northeast of the human public entrance.  Fortunately, we kitties can see in reduced light, but you'll still need to wait until the tour staff has turned on the electric lighting.  Otherwise, it's pitch black down there.

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat

P.S.  "The Cave," by Mumford & Sons, was the band's third single, which appeared on the group's debut album, Sigh No More (2010).