Monthly Archives: August 2019

Civic Centre Resource Library Recognized for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario Award

Commitment to build an exceptional and lively city and providing exciting spaces for the future are just a few notable features of the recipients of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Federal Gas Tax Fund distinguished award. AMO award is presented annually to municipal governments that showcase excellence in the use of the Federal Gas Tax Fund. Tim Simmonds, Vaughan’s Interim City Manager, received the award at the annual AMO Conference in Ottawa on August 20 for Vaughan Public Libraries’ Civic Centre Resource Library (CCRL).  

CCRL, an award-winning and LEED Silver Certified library, successfully “offers programs and resources in a modern public space, all while using less energy than traditional building models” Jamie McGarvey, AMO President. CCRL encompasses energy-efficient features including LED and motion sensor lighting, efficient mechanical and electrical systems, high-performance insulation and windows, drought tolerant landscaping, low-flow plumbing, roofing that reduces heat loss, refillable water stations, three-stream recycling services, low volatile organic compound sealants, adhesives, paints, and coatings and more! It is indeed an accomplishment when one infrastructure can make a difference in our community by addressing local needs, creating economic growth and achieving environmental outcomes.

We invite you to stop by CCRL to see this exceptional project that has redefined traditional expectations of libraries all while enjoying the variety of programs and resources we offer.

Mycophilia

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Book Cover of Mycophilia by Eugenia BoneFungi. Shrooms (magic and otherwise). Sporing bodies.

Yeah, I have to admit, that last one doesn’t have quite the right mouthfeel as a description of what you put into your mouth every time you eat a mushroom or other fungus, but either way, I am incredibly pro-mycophagy. A fungivore, if you will (though I eat more than just fungi, so perhaps that isn’t quite the most accurate description?), who will heartily agree that mushrooms “represent[ing] a distinct and unique food group that adds a great deal to a healthy diet… should be eaten enthusiastically” (Bone, Mycophilia, p.186). (So much so, in fact, that I actually misremembered this quote as saying mushrooms should be eaten with exuberance.)

I love gobbling up shiitake mushrooms in either side dishes or soups, and the thought of being able to try out a new mushroom strikes me as an exciting adventure*, to the point where the missed opportunity to do so not long ago actually haunts me a bit.** It was only recently that I started wanting to  learn more about the mushrooms I love though, despite having grown up eating a variety of fungi & mushrooms: shiitake, cloud & wood ear fungi, and enoki, to name a few. My interest was piqued by my gardening ventures, for sure, but also the fact that there’s a fun book written entirely on the topic of mushrooms (I’m not sure if it qualifies as a microhistory exactly): Mycophilia by Eugenia Bone. Mycophilia is exactly what it sounds like: an ode to mushrooms that will have you digging up different organizations and festivals, and which will have you wanting to forage for more information about fungi, if not actually for the mushrooms themselves. (I should note though, that this is not a foraging guide, of which we also have a number: mushroom guides for Canada.)

Eugenia Bone is also the author of Microbia: A Journey Into the Unseen World Around You, which is written in just as approachable a manner for the lay person. I did find a few chunks in Microbia that were repeated from at least one chapter to another though, which jarred me a bit as I was reading through it because – didn’t I just read this?? – which might actually have been worsened by the fact that some facts are actually just repeated between the two books, but apart from that found it quite a fun and informative read. And in reading both Microbia and Mycophilia, I believe the main lesson that Bone comes away with is actually a bit larger than just their exact subjects: it is that this entire world is interconnected, and that there is no individual that can exist independently of what has been contributed by all the other organisms that have done their part to make the environment what it currently is.

With that in mind, check out some more books about fungi and mushrooms below!

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Sally Rooney, Modern Writer for a Modern Ireland

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Image result for normal people book coverIreland’s writer-to-overall population ratio has always been impressive. The little isle known for shamrocks and Guinness has been home to some of the most influential writers of the past couple of centuries. In poetry, there was William Butler Yeats. In drama, Samuel Beckett confused generations of English students with Waiting for Godot. Edna O’Brien brought women’s emotional and sexual politics to the fore. Bram Stoker introduced the world to Dracula! And of course there’s one of my all time favourites: the inimitable, infinitely quotable Oscar Wilde. 

Twenty-first century Irish writers have some big shoes to fill, and so far they’ve been easily meeting the challenge. One of the most buzzworthy books this season is Normal People by Sally Rooney, which has catapulted the 28-year-old writer into the general literary consciousness. Less intensely millennial than her previous work Conversations with Friends (but only by a little), Normal People is the type of book you burn through in one sitting—a book The Guardian called “a future classic”.  Rooney’s writing is difficult to explain; there’s nothing flashy or unearned in her prose, and yet with a few simple, well-constructed sentences she can take down everything from author readings (please see: “It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about.”) to capitalism. Maybe this quality is what makes The Atlantic compare her (in a weirdly spot-on way) to Jane Austen; she is simultaneously participating in and sending up the conventions she is clearly skeptical of. In Austen’s case, it was the role of women, love, and class under the rigid rules of Regency society. In Rooney’s case, it’s the existence of art, love, and class under capitalism. So even though reading Rooney is very much like listening to your cool 20-something artsy friend talk about her life, her work feels like a natural progression of radical writers before her.  

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