Come see us at NyanCon this Saturday at Lakeland

See you at NyanCon! We'll be the ones in full costume with the free manga.

Do you love anime? Gaming? Comics? All of the above?

Then you're going to love NyanCon.

NyanCon is Lakeland Community College's annual convention dedicated to anime, manga and all things awesome. It's from 1 to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.

Mentor Public Library will be there giving away free manga. (Yes, giving them away for free.) That includes trades of Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, Tokyo Mew Mew, Dramacon and more. Get them while our supplies last.

We'll also be making crafts, if you want to join us.

In addition, NyanCon will have special guests like inker Jeremy Freeman, artists Del Borovic and J.M. Dragunas, voice actors Daman Mills and Amber Lee Connors, Love and Capes creator Thom Zahler, and more.

There will be panels, vendors, a cosplay contest and all sorts of other fun.

Hopefully you'll be there too.

Stop by our NyanCon booth at Lakeland Community College on Saturday!

Saturday, October 4, will henceforth be called Caturday, in honor of NyanCon, the Anime and Pop Culture Convention taking place at Lakeland Community College from noon to 9 p.m.

NyanCon is a nod to Nyan Cat, the YouTube sensation that made everyone want to get up and dance, and then quickly stop dancing and get annoyed, and then want to eat Pop-Tarts. I can’t really explain it any better than that, so maybe you should just watch it

 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH2-TGUlwu4.)

I guess I could have mentioned streaming rainbows.

Here’s a description of NyanCon from the convention’s website:

NyanCon is Lakeland Community College’s premier anime event. This is a full one-day event, free and open to students and the public. NyanCon is an all-fandoms convention where anyone with an interest in anime, gaming, comic books, science fiction, fantasy or any other geeky fandom can convene in a fun, welcoming atmosphere. NyanCon is appropriate for all ages with programming ratings and a section just for kids. We're proud to offer panels on a variety of subjects, a cosplay contest, full gaming area complete with dance, band, video, board, tabletop and card games with tournaments, video rooms, a vendors and artists section, NyanCon theater and so much more!

Here’s the gist:

It’s free.

It’s for anyone interested in anime, comics, sci-fi, fantasy, gaming.

The library will be there with cool things to do, a raffle, and great books and movies to check out (so bring your Mentor Library card!)

What else do you have to do this Caturday? Stop by NyanCon and don’t forget to say hi to your local public librarians Meredith and Marilyn!

Your Mentor Public Library Card can now do more than ever…

You likely already know that you can check out books, movies, music and video games with your Mentor Public Library CORE Card. After all, that’s what most library cards do. You might even be aware of all the different digital services to which your card gives you access.

But we at Mentor Public Library wanted to do more. Yes, we want you to check out books and movies. We want you to use your card to stream indie films and download music you love, but we also want you to use your library card to check out your community around you.

After all, we’re fortunate to live in a wonderful community. But even the most plugged in person might not know everything about Mentor or Lake County.

For example, did you know there’s a business in Mentor that can teach you to be a pilot? Did you know there’s an art gallery that attracts world-class artists to Center Street?

You probably know about Lakeland Community College. You might have even taken classes there but are not be aware of all the concerts, exhibitions and shows it hosts.

You probably aren’t aware of all the different wonderful ways this community helps us stay in shape:fitness clubs, karate dojos, dance studios, yoga and more.

Our community is a lot like a well-stocked bookshelf or movie collection. You don’t know everything in it; but, if you start looking, there’s a good chance you’ll find something that you love.

That’s why we’re launching our CORE Card partnership, which begins April 13 in conjunction with National Library Week.

So how does the CORE Card help you check out your community? (By the way, the CORE Card is just another name for you Mentor Public Library card. You don’t have to get another card if you already have one.)

We’ve partnered with 12 businesses and nonprofits (with more to come) to offer MPL cardholders a discount as a way to encourage our patrons to check out their organizations. In other words, you get a discount at all these awesome places—just for having a library card!

Furthermore, all of our inaugural 12 partners in the CORE Card reinforce the library’s goals of stimulating the imagination and encouraging lifelong learning.

So check them out. Your CORE Card discount might be the incentive you need to first visit them, but you’ll stick around for all the awesome things they do.

Without further ado, our CORE Card partners are:

• Lakeland Community College. MPL cardholders will now pay the student rate for all of its civic performances. 
• Lake County YMCA. Cardholders get a 1-time, 1-day free family guest pass at any branch. Additionally, if the family signs up for a membership that day, they get a 20 percent discount on their sign-up fee.
• Lake Humane Society. Cardholders receive 25 percent off any item in the pet shop. 
• Mentor Heisley Racquetball and Fitness Club. MPL cardholders get a 1-day free guest pass. 
• City of Mentor Parks and Recreation, who is offering different seasonal discounts. In April, cardholders can purchase 2014 pool passes at 2010 rates. In May, June and July, MPL cardholders get $1 off nine holes and $2 off 18 holes of golf at Black Brook Golf Course. 
• Gallery One Art Gallery. MPL cardholders get $25 off any purchase of more than $100 of either fine art or custom framing. 
• Vector Aviation. Cardholders receive a 10-percent discount on their first flight lesson. (That doesn’t include discovery flights.) 
• Karate Institute. MPL cardholders get their first class free. 
• Family Karate. MPL cardholders get their first class free.
• Awaken Yoga. MPL cardholders who buy a 5-class package get a sixth class for free. 
• Spotlight Dance Studio. MPL cardholders get their first class free.
• Mentor Skateland. Cardholders receive a discount to skate during afternoon sessions and will only pay $3 for admission instead of $4.50. 

This is just the beginning. We hope to add more partners in the near future and to give you more ways to check out your community.

If your business or organization is interested in participating in the CORE Card program, call the Mentor Public Library at (440) 255-8811 ext. 213.

Thanks to all of our partners who made this exciting program possible. You make Lake County a better place to work, live and learn.

What Do Your Dreams Mean?

Lakeland Associate Professor Anthony Palermo explains the what buildings usually stand for in our dreams.

Anthony Palermo and Jim Dailey, associate professors at Lakeland Community College, visited Mentor Public Library's Main Branch to talk about dreams Monday night.

They answered questions almost everyone has: What our dreams? Why do we have them and what do they mean?

While I can't recapitulate all the insight Palermo and Dailey provided, I do want to offer some of the highlights.

For example, Palermo explained what common symbols in dreams mean.

Flying in a dream represents freedom and creativity.

A house or building represents the person who's dreaming; the rooms, different aspects of the person; and the basement, his or her subconscious.

Both falling and being chased are classic personifications of anxieties. (When you wake abruptly from a falling dream, that's called a hypnic jerk.)

The shadow represents our double which does, in dreams, the things we would never do while awake.

It's not uncommon to dream of yourself as the other sex. An anima is the female aspect of the male self, and the animus if the male aspect of the female self.

Recurring dreams represent unresolved problems, and premonitory dreams are things "the unconscious can see" that the conscious won't acknowledge, Palermo said.

Speaking of which, several famous scientists, authors and politicians had dreams that helped guide their work. Friedrich Kekule had difficulty constructing a benzene molecule until he dreamed of it as an ouroboros ring. That structure turned out to be accurate.

The same thing happened to Niels Bohr who dreamed of electrons rotating around the nucleus. He won a Nobel Prize for following (and verifying) his dream.

Albert Einstein dreamed of seeing the extended spectrum of colors while traveling at the speed of light. He later said, "My entire scientific career has been a meditation on that dream."

The list continues: Harriet Tubman trusted her dreams to select routes along the Underground Railroad; Abraham Lincoln predicted his death in a dream two days before he was assassinated; and Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Mary Shelley dreamed of Kubla Khan and Frankenstein, respectively, before they wrote them.

Finally, Palermo said that there are three levels to dreaming.

Level one are dreams that depict the day's events. Level-two dreams contain personal symbolism. And dreams of the third level contain what Carl Jung referred to as archetypes.

Jung, a student of Sigmund Freud, believed that there are certain characters and motifs that appeared in every culture's imaginations: the hero, mother, child, trickster, flood, dragon and so on.

Furthermore, Jung believed that archetypical dreams tapped into something he called the collective unconscious.

If Jung's correct, not only do all people share the act of dreaming, but our dreams connect us all at a basic level.

In other words, dreams show us that we all may have more in common than we thought.

Thanks to Palermo, Dailey and everyone who came to their talk Monday. For more information on programs and events at Mentor Public Library, visit our web site or call 440-255-8811.

Lakeland professors talk about importance, symbolism of dreams

Tony Palermo has been fascinated with dreams since he was a child.

“I remember being amazed at how real some of my dreams were and how my emotions were affected by them,” Palermo said.

During graduate school, Palermo researched symbolism which led him to the study of dreams.

Palermo is now an associate professor of humanities at Lakeland Community College, and he’ll be sharing his knowledge of dreams and dream interpretations at 6:30 p.m. Monday, March 10, at Mentor Public Library’s Main Branch.

The talk will be part of the library’s Monday University series.

“It’s been my experience that the majority of people love to talk about their dreams,” Palermo said. “More than anything else, they are ‘personal mysteries,’ which individuals love to solve. Once given the proper tools, most people can do their own interpretations; and it is phenomenal how much you can learn about yourself through interpretations.”

Palermo will be joined at the library by Jim Dailey, another associate professor at Lakeland. He specializes in the science of sleep, which has a big impact on the study of dreams.

Those who come to the Monday University program will learn the significance of dreaming, the importance of dreams in several religious traditions, and some methods and techniques with which people can interpret and understand their own dreams.

The talk at Mentor Public Library is free and open to the public. However, people are asked to register for it beforehand.

They can also sign up to hear Palermo and Dailey by calling (440) 255-8811 ext. 215.