Mercer County Library Blog

I first watched Venom (2018) at the end of 2019—pretty late to the game—mostly because the trailers made the movie come off as nothing more than your run-of-the-mill superhero movie. Tom Hardy was eventually the turning point for me as his acting is fun to watch and his portrayal of Bane, another comic villain in Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies , gave me hope. Suffice to say, I was extremely surprised with how much I liked the movie. My initial review on Letterboxd was: ★★★★★ Not the movie I expected, but definitely the movie that I needed. I loved it so much! "We are Venom" !!!!!!!! I'm so excited Yes, not very elegant or anything particularly insightful from Post-Movie-Me, but can’t you just feel my excitement (or at least see that I wrote I was excited)? This is why I am thrilled for Friday, October 1st, when Venom: Let There Be Carnage hits the theaters. We get more of Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and we get to finally see Woody Harrelson as serial killer Cletus ...

What is Upcycling? Upcycling is when an artist takes materials that might have otherwise been thrown out (like old clothes, jars, newspapers, or even bicycle inner tubes!) and turns them into something new and beautiful. As more people learn about the environmental challenges our world is facing due to pollution and waste, upcycling has become popular among everyone from young children to professional artists. In fact, just this summer, the Hopewell Valley Arts Council put on a Junkyard Upcycle Art Exhibition where artists of every level could share their upcycled projects. I was completely blown away by some of the work I saw, including these mannequins from TerraCycle made from corks and coffee pods:  The Upcycle Challenge Here at MCL’s Lawrence Branch, kids and teens can try their hand at upcycling by participating in our weekly Upcycle Challenges. Each week, a new challenge is presented, such as “create a piece of art containing a secret coded message” or “design and buil...

In a recent conversation, my friend mentioned how it is absolutely imperative to "empower ourselves." I had heard this phrase countless times but still had no idea what it meant. So, I did what all of us do in this day and age...I went to Google for answers. According to Google's definition, "Personal empowerment is about taking control of your own life, and making positive decisions based on what you want. It's closely linked to attributes like self-esteem and self-confidence, but true empowerment comes when you convert intention into action." Of course, there are many aspects of the world that are not in my control. Focusing on those can create a sense of anxiety. Instead, personal empowerment comes about when I focus my abilities and attention on the things that are in my control. If I can simply understand that something is not in my control and figure out a way to make peace with it, it will help to relieve some of the stress. A diagnosis of an illness ...

Paper snow. Last weekend when everyone seemed to be talking about their memories of 9/11, the thing that came to mind for me was paper snow, the most vivid of blue skies, and just an odd collection of snippets as opposed to any linear memory. For me, the day started off with a trip to the old Princeton hospital with my mom, who wanted company when she went for an ultrasound. On the way back, we were startled by a low-flying plane that appeared to be banking sharply and both of us commented it looked like it was about to crash. We later realized that was United 175, which turned over northwest Mercer County before hitting the second WTC building. Later on, I was in my driveway when I saw the paper snow. A piece of paper hit me and, thinking it was a bug, I swatted at it and then noticed small pieces of paper and ash slowly flying by overhead. The piece that hit me was on the ground, it was a small three-inch piece of charred claim form for Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, which had ...

Since 2018, the end of each summer reminds me that it is college application time again. I did not know a lot about it, so I took advantage of every opportunity my daughter’s high school provided. I attended all parent meetings and found them to be very informative, but it would be difficult for me to navigate this process without the resources that the Mercer County Library System provides. The library staff provides college essay reviews, and you can submit your essay and prompt to collegeapps@mcl.org . I spent many Sunday afternoons searching the Mercer County Library catalog and placing holds on books related to college admissions. Every book I read gave me more insight, so I was able to look forward to the transition. I selected a few books that might be helpful for parents and high school students who are about to apply to college this fall. Acing the College Application: How to Maximize Your Chances for Admission to the College of Your Choice by Michele A. Hernandez With so man...

The popsicle/Popsicle was invented in 1905 by an 11-year-old named Frank Epperson in Oakland, California. Epperson had prepared a drink for himself by stirring powdered soda mix together with water using a wooden stick and accidentally left it on the back porch overnight. The following morning, after an unusually cold night, he discovered the drink had frozen in the glass with the stirring stick stuck in the ice. Easily removing the frozen drink from the glass, he was able to eat it off the stick. Some accounts claim that Epperson soon started selling his invention to his friends and others in the neighborhood, other writers say he didn’t do much with it in the beginning. What is clear is that by the early 1920s, the “Epsicle” (a portmanteau of his name and “icicle”) had become a crowd-pleaser on Neptune Beach, a large amusement park near Alameda, California. (Incidentally, snow cones also made their debut on Neptune Beach.) In order to protect his product from imitators, Epperson fi...

Part I: The Problem with Logical Positivism In the early 20th century, a new and influential school of philosophy came into being in Europe; originating in Austria and Germany and known as Logical Positivism , it was, in fact, the leading modern philosophical school of thought for a number of decades. The logical positivists were vastly influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein 's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus —it's probably not overstating the case to say the Tractatus was their Bible—even though Ludwig W., while not unsympathetic to the positivist school, was not himself a logical positivist. Essentially, the positivists were deeply opposed to a philosophical outlook that values metaphysics of any kind. They considered metaphysical statements to be not wrong, but rather—to use their own dismissive epithet—“meaningless”, and therefore unworthy of inclusion in the methodology of any reputable school of philosophy. Were you to read any of the major log...