The Oliver Wolcott Library offers a wide range of programming for adults, from continuing series like Monday
Scholars and Tea with TED,
to lectures, book discussions, and author talks. All events are free and open to all.
Continue your journey of lifelong learning with us!
Watch the Film - Breuer's Bohemia
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Cinema Quality Streaming Access to the Film Breuer's Bohemia
Directed by James Crump & Produced by Ronnie Sasson
Beginning Thursday, October 21 at 7 PM through Saturday, October 23 at 11 PM
(Streaming access details coming soon!)
Exclusively through OWL, from the comfort of your own home, you will be able to stream Breuer’s Bohemia. This limited release film is being offered to our patrons for a limited time, anytime between 7 PM on Thursday, October 21 through Saturday, October 23 at 11 PM, you can download the film and watch it on any device that you normally use for streaming video. Click here to watch the trailer.
Breuer’s Bohemia surveys a collection of private homes designed by iconic architect-designer Marcel Breuer for his most politically progressive clients between the 1950s and 1970s. More than clients, in fact, these patrons were friends with whom Breuer shared a close-knit and sometimes hedonistic community that included a Who’s Who of postwar-era artists, thinkers, and visionaries. With a heavy focus on Litchfield and the many Breuer homes built here, this is a film – and a companion book - you don’t want to miss!
"James Crump, the intrepid director, writer, and art historian, has done the impossible, crafting a smart, serious architecture documentary that isn’t hopelessly dry and boring. His latest film, Breuer’s Bohemia, takes an incisive look into the roiling cultural milieu in which Marcel Breuer crafted some of his most groundbreaking residential projects. It’s a tale of inspiration and decadence, rife with heavy drinking and free love, all set against a backdrop of leftist politics and social iconoclasm incubated in the seemingly staid suburban outposts of Connecticut and Massachusetts." — Architectural Digest
Buy the Book - Support the Library
Breuer's Bohemia
by James Crump
From October 5 through November 5, OWL will be selling copies of Breuer’s Bohemia, the companion book to the film written by James Crump.
The companion book written by the director is heavily illustrated with vintage and contemporary photographs as well as rarely seen archival materials, Breuer’s Bohemia is a unique glimpse of a twentieth-century milieu that produced an aesthetic, intellectual, and sometimes sybaritic community during a fertile period of American design and culture
When purchased online on our website or at the Library, a percentage of each book sale of Breuer’s Bohemia by James Crump directly benefits and supports the Library’s services, materials, and programs.
All books will have a signed bookplate by the author. Please note that all books must be picked up at the Library. We are unable to ship books.
To purchase your copy, stop in the library or buy online by clicking here.
Monday Scholars: Cooking Across the Ages
Mondays: 1:00 - 2:30 PM
September 13 - December 6*
*No meeting October 11
About Monday Scholars:
Monday Scholars combines the best of online learning with live virtual discussion! All you need to do in advance is be eager to learn and discuss. Each week, you will log in and together, via Zoom, all of us will watch two video lectures presented by Professor Ken Albala. Then, via Zoom, OWL's Karen Pasternak will lead everyone in a discussion of what we just watched.
About the course:
Does the fact that we depend on very exact, almost scientifically rigid recipes make us great cooks—or does that take the fun and creativity out of the whole experience? What was cooking like before the internet, before meat thermometers, grocery stores, and internationally standardized measurements? And more importantly, who were these cooks of the past and who did they cook for?
In Cooking across the Ages, award-winning Professor Ken Albala of the University of the Pacific takes us on a fascinating international journey through civilizations across the ages—showing us who we were, how we lived, and why—through the lens of cooking. In 24 fascinating lectures, you will learn:
- About the values and flavor preferences of ancient peoples, in addition to the labor that went into their daily tasks;
- How regional foods in the Middle Ages reflected travel and trade among Mediterranean peoples;
- How regional foods in the Renaissance reflected unique relationships between far-flung nations;
- Who turned to cookbooks for medical and romantic advice and why; and
- Why mid-century Americans idealized canned foods as the height of luxury.
But in addition to learning about this history, you’ll have the opportunity to taste it and smell it, exploring cuisines of the past through a type of gastronomic time travel as Professor Albala prepares dishes and illustrates techniques in each lecture. Throughout the 24 lectures as he cooks, Professor Albala welcomes you into his own home kitchen, a cozy place where he encourages you to relax, experiment, and shed any gastronomic insecurities at the door.
About the instructor:
Ken Albala is a Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, where he won the Faye and Alex Spanos Distinguished Teaching Award and has been teaching for more than two decades. He holds an MA in History from Yale University and a PhD in History from Columbia University. He is the author or editor of more than two dozen books on food, including Eating Right in the Renaissance; Food in Early Modern Europe; Cooking in Europe, 1250–1650; The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe; Pancake: A Global History; and Beans: A History, winner of the International Association of Culinary Professionals Jane Grigson Award. His textbook Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican, Chinese won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Foreign Cuisine Book in the World. He also coauthored the cookbook The Lost Art of Real Cooking and its sequel, The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home, a handbook of kitchen and home projects. His most recent book is Noodle Soup: Recipes, Techniques, Obsession.
- To Join by Phone dial 1 646 876 9923 (New York)
- Meeting ID: 828 2532 2507
- Password: 102248
Zentangle - Adult Take & Make Bags
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A Mindful Art Project for Adults to Take & Make at Home!
October 4 - November 4
Register Here for your Take & Make Bag*
* While supplies last
Have you ever found yourself mindlessly doodling while engaged in other activities?
Take those lines and squiggles and shapes, add a fine drawing pen, good white paper and place all of your ATTENTION on creating a small, unique piece of art! That’s Zentangle!
Zentangle is an American method for drawing that promotes concentration, creativity and relaxation. It was invented by a monk named Rick Roberts and an artist named Maria Thomas.
This is a mindful, relaxing practice for adults. It doesn’t take up much space or require much equipment. You can work on one piece over many days, or sit and breath and relax until you feel the Zentangle is complete in one sitting. No rules other than to remain present to the activity of drawing.
Register above so we will have your bag ready for you, and then stop in any time from October 4 - November 4 to bring home a fun and engaging project that you can do on your own, at your own pace, and when it works for you! Note: While supplies last!
Your bag will contain:
* Several sheets of 6x6 white paper for your 4x4 drawing
* Two fine point black pens of varying thicknesses
* Directions and inspiration for creating shapes that “tangle” together and guidance for settling your mind into the unfolding design created by each shape, line or squiggle you add
NO drawing or art experience required!
Share your Zentangle with us!
Email a photo of a completed block with your name to Sheila Klapper at [email protected] and be included in our online Zentangle display book.
Opt-In Bonus Option:
Want even more Zentangle fun? If you wish, you can opt-in to receive three to four follow-up emails from us with suggested reading, listening, and watching ideas to enhance your journey exploring meditation, attention, creativity, and focus. Click here to register for the Opt-In Bonus Option!
Bookmarked: How the Great Works of Western Civilization F*#@$! Up My Life
with Author Mark Scarbrough
Live, In-Person & Live on Zoom:
Tuesday, November 9 From 7:00 - 8:00 PM
Registration is Required ONLY for the In-Person Event. Register here.
Zoom Link - click here at 7 PM on Tuesday, November 9.
Join us for an up close and personal talk with the talented, versatile and humorous Mark Scarbrough as he shares the story of his memoir - Bookmarked: How The Great Works of Western Literature F*cked Up My Life.
Mark summons a host of greats — Chaucer to Henry James — to show the danger of accepting the stories we are told by our parents, our partners, and even the very authors whose books we treasure. In a brave, singular memoir that is equal parts charm, wit, and withering self-reflection, he recounts his journey through literature and life to find a self that is truly his.
Mark Scarbrough has published 35 cookbooks with his husband, Bruce Weinstein. Bookmarked is the first time he has told his own story through memoir. Scarbrough hosts three successful podcasts, Walking with Dante, the only podcast to slow-walk Dante’s Comedy and Lyric Life, a podcast devoted to the pleasures of lyric poetry. With Bruce Weinstein, he hosts a popular food podcast, Cooking With Bruce and Mark. He also teaches eight-week seminars on Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Toni Morrison and leads an international book group of more than 150 committed readers who work through challenging fiction while zoom-sipping wine. Mark has also been featured on outlets like TODAY - NBC, The View, Good Morning, America, NPR’s Morning Edition, Fox and Friends, and The Martha Stewart Show.
Non-Fiction Discussion Group
Thursday, November 11
Non-Fiction Group: 2:00 pm
Meeting will be held in the Library's Jamie Gagarin Community Room.
Pentimento by Lillian Hellman
This series of portraits by Hellman has been both widely praised as a moving, beautiful memoir, as well
as vilified for its questionable veracity. The film Julia was based on the most controversial portrait.
Whether fact or fiction, begged, borrowed, or stolen, who cares? This book makes for great reading. A
discussion about the line between fiction and nonfiction might be very interesting. Moderated by Nancy
Fiction Discussion Group
Thursday, November 11
Fiction Group: 3:30 pm
Meeting will be held in the Library's Jamie Gagarin Community Room.
Beheld by TaraShea Nesbit
In this plain-spoken historical novel, the story of the Mayflower Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony is
refracted through the prism of female characters. Despite the novel’s quietness of telling,
its currency is the human capacity for cruelty and subjugation. Moderated by Cindy
Corsi: The World's First Male Supermodel - A Talk with Filmmaker Jake Gorst
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Live, In-Person & Live on Zoom:
Thursday, November 18 From 7:00 - 8:00 PM
Registration is Required ONLY for the In-Person Event. Register here.
Zoom Link - click here at 7 PM on Thursday, November 18.
Antonio Corsi was said to have the most famous face in the world. He inspired legendary works of art that are still loved by millions. Corsi elevated modeling to a serious profession, but his story is presently missing from the art history books. Even though his likeness is found in cathedrals, government buildings, museums and public spaces globally, very few experts are aware of the connection between these great works of art.
Why was he forgotten?
Documentary filmmaker Jake Gorst will discuss the project he is co-producing with his wife Tracey Rennie Gorst. The two have spent the past decade tirelessly researching and piecing together this remarkable man's life and career.
Jake Gorst has produced many films, including the documentary series Frey as well as The Nature of Modernism: E. Stewart Williams, Architect; Modern Tide: Midcentury Architecture on Long Island; William Krisel, Architect; Journeyman Architect: The Life and Work of Donald Wexler; and Desert Utopia: Midcentury Architecture in Palm Springs. His films Farmboy and Leisurama, have been in national US public television distribution.
Jake is the author of the book Andrew Geller: Deconstructed and is an Emmy award winning documentary filmmaker and the director of Mainspring Pictures LLC. He is also a contributing writer to The Architect’s Newspaper, VOX Hamptons, HOME Miami, Modern and Modernism magazines.
MORE Information about Zoom:
All of our Virtual Zoom Events are live. They are not recorded. To participate/join the event, you need to use the exact link connected to the event. Once you click on the link at the specified date and time, you will be prompted to open Zoom, the virtual meeting program we are using. All you need is an internet connection and a device or computer with a webcam and audio. Most computers have built-in webcams. No passwords or confirmation codes, just click the link and follow the prompts.
Still having difficulty understanding how to access Zoom? Email OWL's Technology Coordinator Ted Moy at [email protected] to set-up a virtual Book-a-Tech session and he will go over it with you.
More security, more privacy: In response to concerns about privacy in a virtual meeting space, we have enabled additional security features in Zoom and updated our meeting links to be protected, private, and secure. These new, unique links can also be accessed through our e-newsletters.To receive secure information regarding these events, please subscribe to our e-newsletter! Click here to subscribe