Mental Sampler 43

I learned about a website from Kottke that allows you to see reciprocal library card options. I knew about all of the ones tied to my card, but then I started looking up libraries that had reciprocal agreements with my original library, and they had reciprocal agreements with other libraries. I looked at the library furthest east, west, south, and north, often finding that one of my reciprocal partnerships opened up into a whole new set of additional partnerships.

It’s kind of an odd idea: Could you cross the US building on reciprocal partnerships? I think I may have found myself a summer project.

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I’ve had “Simple Gifts” stuck in my head for weeks due to a line in A Deadly Education where she uses it as a meditation. Oh no. I read the line, and the song started looping in my head, over and over again.

Then Josh asked if I wanted to see The Testament of Ann Lee. A movie about Shakers? “Simple Gifts” is a Shaker song. The song went back into my brain.

Finally, we went to the symphony, and lo and behold, the final song of the evening? Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring, which contains… yes… you guessed it… THE TUNE OF “SIMPLE GIFTS.”

I am never going to get this song out of my head.