August 10, 2018 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com • 5A
Politics, memoirs on library’s summer list
Fall Festival coming Sept. 29
R
ecent columns touted
volunteers, book sales and
other events at the Cannon
Beach Library. It’s time to emphasize
the library’s primary mission—
meeting the reading interests of
community residents and visitors,
what volunteers and fundraising
make possible.
One library member plays a
pivotal role in acquiring new titles.
Every month Marjorie MacQueen
scans bestseller lists, major library
purchases, and book reviews to
identify about 20 new books for the
library.
This past month MacQueen added
precisely 20 books, including 15
fictional books (seven mysteries and
eight popular novels) but only five
nonfictional titles. Authors and titles
for all 20 titles are accessible under
at http://cannonbeachlibrary.org/
new-book-purchases.
MacQueen notes that patrons fa-
vor fiction over nonfiction to explain
the imbalance between fictional and
nonfictional titles. As a reader of
four nonfiction titles for every novel
cracked, this columnist periodically
will devote columns to highlighting
nonfictional titles available in the
Cannon Beach Library or through its
interlibrary loan service. Nonfiction
purchases can only increase if patrons
check out titles already available. To
that end, I recommend two nonfiction
books now available at the library.
“The Glass Castle,” a memoir by
AT THE LIBRARY
JOSEPH BERNT
WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 29, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Jeannette Walls, opens with Walls,
age three, catching fire while boiling
hot dogs. The fire brings a lengthy
hospital stay and lasting scars. From
that initial scene, Walls details the
poverty, insecurity, hunger and
embarrassment of life in a dysfunc-
tional, nomadic family that travels
throughout the American Southwest
before landing in a three-room
hovel without plumbing or regular
electricity in a holler in Welch, West
Virginia, a down-on-its-heels coal
town where her alcoholic father grew
up. In seventh grade at Welch High
School, Wells attracted the attention
of an English teacher and newspaper
adviser. She joined the newspaper
staff as a proofreader, becoming
editor as a junior who wrote most
articles the paper published.
Recognizing Welch offered few
prospects, Walls and two siblings
planned an escape to New York. Lori,
her older sister, would leave after
graduation; Walls after her junior
year; and her brother Brian later. The
three pooled money from part-time
jobs for the trip, only to discover after
a year that their father stole their sav-
ings for booze. They began another
fund for Lori’s start in New York.
Handmade items and baked goods will be for sale. Local shops have
donated gift certificates valued at nearly $1,500 for drawings and
five hotels have donated local stays for silent auction. Gift certificate
tickets and bid sheets will be available at the library from Sept. 1
through 29. All proceeds support the library.
Eventually they reached New York
and found jobs. Walls finished high
school and entered Barnard College
with scholarships, grants and a job
answering Wall Street telephones until
she received an internship at “The
(Brooklyn) Phoenix.” That experience
led to work as a gossip columnist for
New York Magazine, Esquire and
MSNBC.com and to marriage and an
apartment on Park Avenue. Her par-
ents, always spoilers, followed their
children to New York, living on the
streets for three years before squatting
in an abandoned building.
This beautifully written memoir
describes why and how seriously
homelessness affects families in
contemporary America, and especially
why Walls both hates and loves her
brilliant, crazy parents. Anyone who
begins this description of abject pover-
ty and where determination and educa-
tion took Walls may choke back tears
but will read to the very last page.
Published in 2005, “The Glass
Castle” has sold nearly three million
copies, remains on the “New York
Times” bestseller list, became a hit
movie in 2017, was translated into
22 languages and won major book
awards. Walls has also published
“Dish: The Inside Story on the World
of Gossip” and two novels, “The Sil-
ver Star” and “Half Broke Horses.”
“Russian Roulette: The Inside
Story of Putin’s War on America
and the Election of Donald Trump,”
is recommended for those trying
to follow the intricacies, turns and
twists and changing assertions of the
current investigation into Russian
“meddling” during the 2016 election.
This easily read narrative by Michael
Isikoff and David Corn, two veteran
DC investigative reporters, brings
order to the daily press revelations
about interactions of Trump’s circle
with Russian hucksters, oligarchs
and friends of Vladimir Putin from
2013 through 2017.
Containing as many Russian
names as Dostoyevsky’s novels,
“Russian Roulette” explains the
interest of the Obama administration
and U.S. intelligence agencies and
justifies Robert Mueller’s investiga-
tion of collusion between the Trump
campaign and Russian sabotage of
the election.
Finally, don’t miss these upcom-
ing library events:
Consider attending the Cannon
Beach Reads discussion of “The
Glass Castle” and enjoy cookies and
coffee, Wednesday, Aug. 15, at 7 p.m.
Members of the Cannon Beach
Library will gather for a presentation
on “The State of the City” by City
Manager Bruce St. Denis, a month-
ly business meeting, brunch and
conversation, Wednesday, Sept. 5, at
10 a.m.
Manzanita author Holly Lorincz
will discuss the world of collabora-
tive writing and read from “The Ev-
erything Girl,” her latest novel, at the
Northwest Authors Series, Saturday,
Sept. 8, at 2 p.m.
Library members and volunteers
are crafting handmade items and
planning baked goods to sell at the
library’s Fall Festival, Saturday,
Sept. 29, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Additional crafters and bakers would
be welcomed. Local shops have
donated gift certificates valued at
nearly $1,500 for drawings and five
hotels have donated local stays for
silent auction. Gift certificate tickets
and bid sheets will be available at the
library from Sept. 1 through 29. All
proceeds support the library.
Editorial, design wins for Gazette Rare insect returns
Cannon Beach Gazette
Journalists at The Cannon
Beach Gazette and its sister
publications recently earned
a number of honors in the an-
nual Oregon Newspaper Pub-
lishers Association contest.
• R.J. Marx, editor of the
Cannon Beach Gazette and
Seaside Signal, won second
place for his editorials and
columns.
• The Gazette won second
place for design, and the Sig-
nal third.
• Brenna Visser and Katie
Frankowicz won second place
in business coverage for Help
Wanted, about the struggle of
North Coast employers to find
workers.
• Colin Murphey won two
first-place awards, for best
news photo and best sports
photo.
• Elleda Wilson won first
place, best local column, for
In One Ear.
COLIN MURPHEY
This image of Felix the dog reuniting with his owner after
he was rescued from a cliff at Ecola State Park won best
news photo in the annual Oregon Newspaper Publishers
Association contest.
• Erick Bengel won second
place, best local column, for
Scratch Pad.
• Frankowicz won third
place, general feature story,
for Trail of Discovery, about
hikers ditching the Pacific
Crest Trail in favor of the Or-
egon Coast Trail.
• Frankowicz also took third
place in lifestyle coverage for
Sturgeon Bonanza, about fish-
ermen flocking to the river for
a rare short season.
• The Daily Astorian staff
won first place, special sec-
tion or issue, for the 2017 edi-
tion of Our Coast Magazine,
and second place in the same
category for its commemora-
tion of the 10th anniversary
of the Great Coastal Gale of
2007.
Newspapers belonging to
the EO Media Group — the
parent company of The Dai-
ly Astorian — took home
dozens of ONPA honors. The
East Oregonian, Blue Moun-
tain Eagle and Capital Press
all won the general excellence
awards in their respective
divisions, and the Wallowa
County Chieftain third.
Another local Clatsop
County newspaper, the Co-
lumbia Press, won four sec-
ond-place awards in a dif-
ferent circulation category
— best coverage of business
and economic news, best local
column, best government cov-
erage and best overall writing.
to Saddle Mountain
Silverspot
caterpillars are
back
By Katie Frankowicz
The Daily Astorian
Rare butterfly caterpillars
are back on the slopes of
Saddle Mountain for the first
time since they completely
disappeared from the area
years before. Government
and private partners released
500 Oregon silverspot cat-
erpillars on the mountain’s
rocky meadow slopes re-
cently as part of an ongoing
effort to rebuild the threat-
ened butterfly’s population
at key sites.
“It was a culmination of
so much work and it was
almost a celebration,” said
Trevor Taylor, manager for
COLIN MURPHEY/THE DAILY ASTORIAN
Kim McEuen holds up an
Oregon silverspot butter-
fly in the lab at the Oregon
Zoo. The conservation lab
raised caterpillars that
were released at Saddle
Mountain.
the reintroduction project at
the Oregon Parks and Recre-
ation Department.
Artists explore collage effects, outdoor scenes of Cannon Beach
Fabric from Page 1A
a fabric gull, sun, girl with
balloons and butterfly.
“Originally, the words on
the fabric were ‘I fish,’ but I
put a ‘w’ where the ‘f’ was,”
Bonny said.
“I just take a bunch of
weirdo stuff and I just cut it
apart. I never use brand-new
or in perfect condition. I just
use stuff that’s discarded in
one way or the other.”
“Fabric is her passion,”
Richard said. “She just loves
fabric. She’s got a flow of re-
ally quality fabrics, a lot of
tasteful things from different
generations.”
Colorful materials are
stuffed into 20 cubbyholes
in a floor-to-ceiling shelf, as
well as drawers and baskets in
her studio that has gobbled up
the living room in their sunny
Cannon Beach home. They
are given to her by friends
and shopkeepers who collect
scraps.
Along with her fabric col-
lages and garments in the his-
tory center exhibit are three
collages composed of wood
and metal. Selected recently
as an artist in residence for
the Coastal Oregon Artist
Residency, Bonny embarked
on a project called “Junk Ele-
vated,” where she used mate-
rials scavenged from the local
transfer station. The residen-
cy program was sponsored
by Astoria Visual Arts and
Recology Western Oregon.
Her 15 collages were shown
at Vintage Hardware in Asto-
ria.
Paintings, too
While Bonny works up-
stairs in her home studio six
days a week, Richard paints
in his downstairs studio.
A retired illustrator and
designer, Richard spent every
day throughout 2002 paint-
ing 365 scenes of Haystack
Rock. They captured national
attention from “Good Morn-
ing America” and The New
York Times. A few of those
paintings, as well as other
Cannon Beach locations, are
Experience Family Dining in
a Relaxed & Friendly
Environment
included in the history center
show.
“Painting and drawing is
really my purpose in life,”
he said. “I’m totally at peace.
I’m happy, I’m content, I’m
right in the spot I’m supposed
to be in.”
When he and Bonny
moved to the coast from Eu-
gene in 1999, he became in-
trigued with the small com-
munity. He sought to capture
the “spirit of Cannon Beach”
in his paintings of village life.
“The feel of a small town
community — no matter how
long I live, I think I will al-
ways find plenty to paint.
Cannon Beach is a source of
inspiration,” he said.
Like Richard’s paintings,
which evoke an appreciation
of a place, Bonny’s fabric
art also delivers a message.
A visitor to the history cen-
ter recently bought a collage
with Jack London’s book ti-
tle, “Call of the Wild.” She
wrote to Bonny, telling her
the piece came at the right
time in her life.
ABOVE Richard and Bonny Gorsuch are exhibiting their
artwork at the Cannon Beach History Center & Museum
through September.
LEFT Bonny Gorsuch wears a smock she created. The fabric
scrap originally said “I fish,” but she turned it into “I Wish.”
Words and phrases run through many of her collages and
garments.
NANCY MCCARTHY PHOTOS
“It says something to them,”
Richard noted. “The material
is beautiful, the clothes are put
together, but what they say …
the words strike something in
people’s lives.”
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