Cat on a motorcycle

Originally uploaded by dwain

A picture taken by my friend who is in the envious position of being in Greece for a long time.

KLA observations

I went to the Kentucky Library Association annual conference last week in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. It was for professional development, so just about everything was paid for--a perk that I am still getting used to.

The funny thing was--I didn't get as much out of it as I thought I would. Apparently, I'm not alone in thinking this. My colleagues told me and a fellow newbie to get used to that feeling.

The two sessions I enjoyed (out of a two day event) were "Next generation catalog landscape" and "Copyright in the library: painless solutions for the moderately squeamish." Absolutely fascinating for those of you outside the library world, I know; nonetheless, very enlightening for those of us that need to know.

I felt very much a "Generation-Y" person there, a youngish person in a sea of mostly grey-haired professional folk (I was wearing jeans alongside other folks smartly dressed in blazers and shiny loafers). My library is remarkably forward-thinking, especially as regards technology and the evolving paradigm embodied in "Web 2.0," so it was interesting to encounter folks who were reluctant to acknowledge the place that technology has in libraries, especially as our patron group is shifting as younger generations grow up. I understand this reluctance, even as I am impatient with it.

On the web

I've contributed a page to LibGuides@EKU.

It's the Faculty page under English & Literary Research.

A way to begin the day

This morning, while walking to Magee's, I came across a chipmunk. It was stretched out, tiny and slim, on the sidewalk, as if in sweet repose, were it not for the rosy blush staining the sidewalk beneath its head.

I looked up and saw a large, brilliant white cat with golden eyes staring at me, almost as if in challenge, "What?! What do you expect?"

Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open

I saw this book at Barnes & Noble the other night. The back flap indicates the reasoning behind the title.

"It's 'black belt' in the sense that it is strong, resolute, and to the point, like a roundhouse kick."

This quote sounds like it came from the website Chuck Norris Facts.

Quote for the day

"Democracy requires of its citizens qualities that it cannot provide."--Jürgen Habermas (German philosopher)

More than you wanted to know

For those of you dying to know, my official title is "Electronic Resources Access Librarian." I have business cards, too, if you want one. My supply will probably last until I die.

So what exactly do I do at work?

I tell people who ask that I deal with all the "online stuff," such as

databases

online journals

I also deal with access issues (as my job title suggests), which involves anything from checking links to communicating with publishers and/or our middleman at Ebsco (which handles most of our subscriptions) to updating SFX, our linking system and all other sorts of things.

Are you even more confused? See why I just said "online stuff"?

I also spend some time on the reference desk, am working my way into serving on some committees, and am a liaison to some departments on campus.

Caterpillar

Stuff everywhere

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum

This kind of stuff fascinates me. It appeals to the pack-rat within, the curiosity-shoppe minded person living in the back, the little kid still enthralled by oddities of nature.

On a similar note, I want to see the places mentioned in this Smithsonian article: Small Wonders: Europe's idiosyncratic house museums yield pleasures beyond their size

A library position opened up in the Field Museum in Chicago...sigh

You really wanted to know

There are few things I keep tally of. One of those is how many years it has been since I've had to throw up.

I had a bout of food poisoning this weekend. We think it was the spoonbread at the Spoonbread Festival in Berea, Kentucky. One hour after eating, I was vomiting in the parking lot, and vomiting on the hour until late that night, with the Discovery Channel to keep me company, long after there was any food left to come out. I lost four pounds.

It's rather amazing how vigorously the body works to defend itself.

Owls in the air

I want to read this book:

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl

Apparently, baby barn owls smell like butterscotch.

When we have our farm, we hope that barn owls will come to roost with us.

Bill Bryson

I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson. His writing style is very laid-back, intelligent without being stuffy, not to mention laugh-out-loud hilarious at times. His writing is witty in a subtle, conversational way, and he has a knack for using words in unexpected ways.

"It shows a balding but not unhandsome man of about forty who sports a trim beard. In his left ear he wears a gold earring. His expression is confident, serenely rakish. This is not a man, you sense, to whom you would lightly entrust a wife or grown daughter."--p. 2 of "Shakespeare: the world as stage"

His book "A Walk in the Woods" is a classic. Some quotes from there:

"I turned to my own bunk and examined it with a kind of appalled fascination. If the mattress stains were anything to go by, a previous user had not so much suffered from incontinence as rejoiced in it."

About a waitress in whom Katz (Bryson’s hiking partner) feels a romantic interest:

"She went off to deal with a distant customer, and Katz watched her go with something like paternal pride. 'She's pretty ugly, isn’t she?' he said with a big, incongruous beam.
I sought for tact. 'Well, only compared with other women.'"

Oh, to be young again

Mom poses as her daughter to become a cheerleader

??

Once upon a winter's morn

Jon is trying to convince me to accompany him on more winter hiking trips.

It's quite easy to want to agree, while one is wrapped tight in humidity, wearing short sleeved shirts and sandals in response to glaring heat--when cold weather is easily relegated to distant memories and vague associations.

Then I remember one of my very first nights out on a cold winter's night--how it seemed the stars must shatter on such brittle air, how a breeze felt like razors scraping my pink, raw cheeks, how strange it was that I felt warmer outside the sleeping bag than in it.

But that was back when I was inexperienced, before I realized that bodily discomfort and the nearness of death don't necessarily come hand in hand. Each time we go out, the more accustomed I get to the things nature throws our way, to the point that I treasure a blurry picture Jon took of the two of us laughing in a spate of icy rain that blew parallel to the ground.

Such moments make the simple pleasures of being dry, cocooned in warmth, with a mug of piping hot chicken noodle soup all the more treasured--you no longer take them for granted.

I know that place!

There's a new cool feature over at Google Maps. They now have a "Street View" option that lets you actually see the location you are pinpointing on the map. It's a strange feature that lets you "walk" along a street, looking at the houses along the way.

I looked at my parents' house in Rockford, and, lo and behold, there was my dad's truck parked out front. You can also look "up" at the sky and treetops while in the "Street View" option (you have to play around with the buttons a little to get a handle on it).

It's necessary

I'm doing some mandatory online workshops on "Office Safety." A sample question, and its possible answers:

The better your _______, the better prepared you are to handle stress factors.

a. psychic abilities
b. SAT scores
c. physical condition
d. golf handicap

The dilemma

"Only librarians like to search; everyone else likes to find."--Roy Tennant

Movies on the menu today

I've seen two rather dark movies lately that were excellent. One is No Country for Old Men, the other is Eastern Promises.

I went for a long time without seeing No Country for Old Men--it just didn't seem my cup of tea, in spite of the rave reviews it garnered everywhere. Then a good friend of mine from the old library told me to see it, so I did, and was blown away. I have no intention of watching it again--it's not Pride & Prejudice--but it sticks with me still. In the midst of its bleak imagery (the amoral hitman appears to get away, leaving a rampage of blood behind), the good characters shine brightly all the more.

Two things stick with me from that movie: the wife of the dumb and careless ranch-hand. When the hitman shows up in her home near the end of the movie, she refuses to submit to his power, thereby breaking the cycle of violence that he thrives on. The other thing is the sheriff's story of a dream he had, of his father riding ahead of him into the darkness, and how he knew that there would be a fire waiting for him, a lone point of warmth and light in the middle of a dark wilderness.

Eastern Promises is strange. A rather bleak tale of a midwife who comes against the powerful Russian mafia in London, the movie manages to make her small victory quite feasible, in the face of such mindless eye-for-an-eye violence.

People grow up

I went home for a spell--what better way to spend the break between my old and new jobs? Not much happened while I was North, which is the way I intended. I spent lots of time at the house, scrapbooking and reading and pestering the new cat and watching cable (I got addicted to these shows: "It's me or the dog," "Jon and Kate plus eight," and "What not to wear"--I know, I'm pathetic).

In addition to spending time with the folks I love--my parents, Grandma, my dear cousin Rosie with whom I grew up (I treasure a photograph of all us baby cousins piled on the floor, where Rosie is staring, open-mouthed, at something off camera, and I am transfixed by her open mouth, reaching my pudgy fingers out, determined to have a look-see), I ran into some old friends from the high school years: Keelan McMorrow and Salem Barker.

I am blown away by how they turned out, maturing into full-fledged artists with art shows in the Chicago area. When we were all younger, I would never have seen them turning out this way; yet, looking back with hindsight, I can see clues scattered along the years that point to their unfolding as artists.

Keelan McMorrow does paintings:



Salem Barker does wood sculpture:

A new beginning, and wi-fi

I'm a couple days into my new job. My brain feels like a box of puzzle pieces, with some pieces missing.

One perk of this job is the laptop, which has wireless. Because of this, I found out that there is a wireless signal in the area called "bigdaddy."

Fit or not

Today, someone called Jon "disgustingly fit."

He had ducked into a Starbucks to fill up on water and overheard this comment (which the person obviously intended to be overheard).

My, my how can I forget you?

Mom and I went to see Mamma Mia!

We enjoyed it very much. I think most of the movie's charm came from the location (some gorgeous Mediterranean island) and Meryl Streep. Of course, you can't forget Colin Firth, who will never be able to completely shed his Mr. Darcy stigma.

If only our lives were filled with song and dance numbers...

I mentioned this to Jon. He said nothing, which says a lot.

The name's Bond

After two years of pestering, I finally got Mom and Dad to get a cat. He's a slim, debonair looking little fellow, in his tuxedo coloring, mostly black with a white underbelly. His official name is James Bond, but we call him Jimmie. Though I sometimes call him Hitler because of the white moustache he has.

Art in the park

We walked around the Woodland Arts Fair yesterday, basking in the variety of arts and the even more diverse population of fair-goers.

Some artists that I liked:

--Kent Ambler (I particularly liked his woodcuts)

--Mary Lou Hess (Her art has a dreamlike quality)

--Angela Bond (I especially liked her "Sinuous Kitty," under the 'Cats' link)

--Mark Traughber (I love his technical expertise)

Oh the absurdity of it all

Jon decided he didn't have enough marks on his face, so he went and plowed into the back of a minivan on his bike.

He was at an intersection and when the light turned green, the minivan started moving, and Jon started pedalling, looking over his shoulder to see if a car was coming up. He didn't know the minivan had stopped while he was doing this, so when he turned his head back, there was the wall of minivan in front of him, and he had no chance to brake appropriately. First the bike, then his head, slammed into the back window.

Helmets are supposed to protect your head, but it turns out that the force of impact made the helmet-strap cut into the bottom of his chin. He wound up needing six stitches.

He didn't even realize he had a gaping wound on the bottom of his chin. He was telling me about the unfortunate event, saying, "No, no, I'm fine, I'm not hurt," then he moved the paper towel at his chin and revealed the brilliant red wound, skin hanging down like the beginnings of age, and I said, "No, I think you need stitches."

I started laughing at this point. He said, "Oh, don't cry!" To which I snickered, "I'm LAUGHING at you!" Because that's what I do when I'm under any kind of stress--it just bubbles out in laughter: oh the absurdity of it all!

For those of you who don't know, this is the third wreck Jon has been in that has required stitches (and sometimes more). He has scars on his eyebrow, the top of his chin, and matching slashes on both of his cheekbones (from two separate accidents) so that he looks like he is a gang member. Now we can add the bottom of his chin to this list. I told him he needs to get scars on his nose and lips so that he has all the major parts of his face covered. Now do you understand why I started laughing?

So we ended up spending over six hours Friday night in various waiting rooms, trying to find someone who could stitch him up.

Is there someone out there that could patent bubble wrap for cyclists' faces?

Man and the machine

I feel like a cyborg with this new hearing aid.

All these controls and buttons, such a finely attuned machine that works to convert the chaos of noise into a comprehensible string of sound, and it still doesn't compare to a normal person's hearing, even though it's improving things on my end.

It's better than my old hearing aid, especially in picking out the nuggets of voices out of the vast turmoil of noise (I was so surprised that I could actually hear a patron over the screeches and whirrings coming from the construction of the new library wing, that I forgot to listen to what she was saying).

I'm still adjusting, but it's been good so far.

Moving on

I got a job at a university library, where I worked as an intern. We are absolutely thrilled, and I am looking forward to the challenge of working with "online stuff", as well as working with a cool bunch of people.

On the downside, this means I have to leave my current public library job (obviously).

What I will miss:
--Updates on the price of milk and orange juice from a certain curmudgeon lady patron
--Children so antsy for the books they are checking out, no sooner do they lay them on the counter, they snatch them away again, before I can check them out
--Showing folks how to use a mouse
--Books
--Learning some odd tidbit of local history
--Calming a nervous patron down as we work through the process of figuring out some medical terminology for a scary disease
--Books
--Working with a crazy, lovable group of folks
--Seeing shy teenagers peruse the stacks and come out with a towering stack of books to read
--Books

It's a zoo in here

Salato Wildlife Center is a very pleasant surprise.

--You get to watch two bald eagles sit on their perches, no more than ten feet away.
(What we saw: 1 of them calling out in a weird guttural, trilling voice, perhaps in greeting to us? The other one coughing up something--the motions very similar to a cat)
--You get to watch two black bears lolling around in their lazy glory, grown rather fat (they reminded us of the people from Wall-e)
--You get to see two very shy bobcats (they act like cats, whadya know!)
--If you get there at the right time, you get to see the rat snakes being fed (Jon and I knew it was time to get to their enclosure when all the kids started shrieking)
--You get to see an alligator snapping turtle up close (like the ostrich hiding its head in the sand, the turtle seems to think it disappears when it sticks its head behind a branch, never mind the monstrously sized body that takes up most of the tank)

I'm a sucker for animals. Those bald eagles captured my heart.

Society news

"Little Otis Pace is in shool again after having been ill for some time." W. Sun, March 5, 1905

(You never know what you'll come across while looking at old newspapers.)

We are always dancing

Even though I am a thoroughly clumsy dancer (at those rare moments I compelled to dance--and even then, I am not as bad as Jon), my outer ear cells are skilled at dancing. Scientists cannot come up with a better term for describing how the cells of our outer ear propel and amplify sound before it enters the innermost parts of our ears. They dance to coax the sound waves to expand as they transform into electrical signals, so that when the brain is ready to translate what it receives, it has the best copy available, so to speak.

Thanks to D. for bringing this to my attention.

Great whites in TV

Last week was sharkweek on the Discovery Channel.

Since I am an animal lover, I think even sharks are beautiful. But I'm still afraid of them. Especially the great white. So much so, that when there were shots in open water (without the barrier of a shark cage) of the great white passing by, my stomach was tight with fear. To give you an idea of how much this fear has always troubled me, when I was a child, I used to be afraid of great whites in Lake Ripley in Wisconsin. Illogical as this seems, it goes to illustrate the point that fear is beyond rational thought.

The funny thing is, I'm not afraid of swimming in the ocean. At least there, I can handle my fear. Watching a great white approach on camera, unable to do anything about it, limited to the scope of the camera, my imagination runs wild. What if...What if...?

This is why I do not watch scary movies.

To dethrone google

There's a new search engine out. Cuil

What I like:
-the layout of the search results page is interesting: a three column spread with pictures next to many of the results, with a suggestions box that gives you ideas on how to tweak your results further.

What I don't like:
--The search algorithm (like the millions of pigeons clicking on keyboards over at google) needs to be worked on. Some searches turned up interesting results, others fell down the rabbit hold. For instance, a search on "christian classics" (I was thinking of the "Christian Classics Ethereal Library) brings up a long list of various university database pages that include links to the CCEL, in addition to the homepage of CCEL. While the fact that a search engine appears to be searching university library pages, and putting those near the top of results, is interesting--does it need to list every university library out there that has this one resource listed on its website? Compare this to google, which has hits beyond just those relating to the CCEL.

--Where are the pictures coming from? Some of the pictures appear to have been plucked randomly from the sea of the internet, not from the website they're supposed to represent.

--The brief paragraphs accompanying each hit make no sense--they're just strings of words that don't necessarily have anything to do with each other.

They have a long way to go before they can dethrone google.

Waiting time

One day at work, the big guy was helping a patron with his studies. Fannie came in and took a seat at the reference desk. She waited twenty seconds, then said very loudly, "Well! I can't wait!"

He just ignored her.

Roan Mountain

I've added pictures from our trip to Roan Mountain in 2007 to my flickr account. Also note my new flickr badge to the right. Hopefully, I'll be adding more pictures to flickr so that people can view them wherever they are.

I wrote about our trip to Roan Mountain in a previous blog post.

Adjustments

I've been wearing my new hearing aid for almost a week now. My audiologist made some adjustments to it this morning, mainly the fix the problem of "squishing."

"Squishing" is when the hearing aid, in an attempt to make what it perceives as loud sounds more comfortable, compresses the sound. Sometimes this works, but in my case, it was making a lot of sounds, mainly people's voices, muffled. So we'll see how it does.

So far, it works for me. I'm still getting used to hearing more 'soft' sounds, like paper crumpling, pens clicking against the table, fingers tapping at the keyboard. At first, they seemed to interfere with people's voices, but when I thought about it, I realized that I could still understand people, my brain just had to adjust to picking their voices out of the sea of sounds.

Hearing is more than just an ear taking in sound waves. There's a lot of brain work involved as those sounds have to be processed, some noises being tossed into the 'white noise' category, other sounds receiving preferential treatment, and still others being completely ignored so that my conscious part no longer notices them. We all do this naturally, but when there's an adjustment process, it can be a little perplexing.

Read

"Over the course of four years I made time to read all of the Harry Potter books out loud to my daughters. If I can do that and run for president, then you can find time to read to your kids."--Barack Obama

Olde Worlde shot-Jon & Laura

Olde Worlde shot-Jon & Laura
Originally uploaded by ozimanndias8

I've put some wedding photos up over on flickr. This is my favorite. See the others here

The place of remembering

The library is always in an interesting place. It must be forward thinking, even as it must preserve the past, keeping it present for the next generation. This is a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it.

I realized this while listening to A. telling Tamera about the move to make Holocaust-denial illegal. It's hard to imagine that people would refuse to admit the Holocaust, but the more years that separate us from that cruel event, the more distant it becomes, relegated to books, photographs, documents, for more and more survivors are passing away, their memories locked away beyond death.

Yet those materials, however pale in comparison to the memories of survivors, are taking the place of those memories, taking over the task of remembering. And where are these materials of remembering usually housed? At libraries (and archives, museums, personal collections), so one sees the unique role libraries have in society. I never thought about how critical that role was until I heard the story of Holocaust-denial.

A new order

I've had my new hearing aid for about 3 hours so far.

Some good things:
-I can hear
-There appears to be better distinction between types of sounds, but I have yet to distinguish it (i.e. I have yet to adjust)
-I do not look like this model from the Phonak hearing aid ad



What is different:
-Some things are louder than others, in strange ways: the crumple of paper is much louder than a voice (which my audiologist may adjust if this doesn't go away)

When I walked out of the office and into the main part of the KY Clinic, it felt like I was entering a war zone, where one side had dragons that they were using to great effect: it was that loud! Everyone else was walking along, oblivious to the war they were in the middle of.

When I went into Kroger's, there were the dragons again, along with airplanes taking off: it was that loud! Jon thinks it must be the ventilation system.

Obviously, I have a lot of adjusting to do. I go back for a hearing aid tweak next week. There may be more tweaking to do after that. It will probably take up to half a year to become completely used to this hearing aid. But I'm optimistic for several reasons:
-I can hear
-I can understand Jon
-I can hear Pope's mews

We don't realize how much we rely on simple things until they are threatened.

Connections

I was checking out books for a guy this weekend and realized that the cover of a book looked familiar. It was Rhododendron Gap, of the Grayson Highlands (see my post below).

It gave me an opportunity to wax poetic about the beauties of southwestern Virginia. He looked very impressed, and I was, consequently, very impressed with myself. How much we esteem the opinion of our fellow man...

Talk about being able to recommend a book!

What's in a name

I came across this name while working on a Kentucky DAR scrapbook today:

Beach Jett

How appropriate for summer.

The briefest movie review you'll find here

The Dark Knight is very good. It actually had a theme that it explored, in the midst of superhero chaos.

Heath Ledger made the Joker his own.

Christian Bale is one of my favorite things.

The things we will eat

I went to a writing workshop hosted by Tamera from the library. I felt a little shy in a group of strangers, especially when I saw that Tamera was going to have us read our writings out loud, so my creative bent was hindered by that, but I enjoyed it very much. Tamera is a very good teacher (and writer too!). One of the prompts she used was scents. She handed out little containers of random things that we were to smell, then write down our associations to that particular scent. I got vinegar, which evoked the kitchen. This is what I wrote:

Jon in the kitchen, carefully, methodically dumping these ingredients in, measured by sight, carelessly tossed into the pot, there to simmer the appointed time.
Our life is composed of these moments, these nightly rituals in the kitchen--he concocting his latest culinary miracle while I read in the living room, keeping my clumsy hands far away from the things we will eat. Our cat goes to and fro, drawn by the smells of fish oil, mewing his pathetic cries, tail bushy with anticipation.
I read and wait--the feast is served.

I'm not sure how fish oil showed up, but that's how the power of association works for you: one thing leads to another, and you discover something new.

This exercise reminded me of a post I made on this blog a while back: "The associations we come up with."

A few of my favorite things

Here are some of my favorite things right now:

1. The show "So you think you can dance?"
2. Christian Bale (he has always reminded me of my cousin Brian, my good buddy from the days of growing up, even though they hardly look a thing alike--I think it must be the dark eyes)
3. Almond croissants from Magees
4. The Dark Knight
5. The wall of new books wanting to be processed at the library
6. Ashland Avenue, Lexington, KY (gorgeous old homes)

Rhododendron Gap - Baby Pony and Mama Pony

Rhododendron Gap - Baby Pony and Mama Pony
Originally uploaded by Vicky TGAW

This past weekend, J. and I went to Damascus, Virginia with our friends Jenni and Carson. We rode the Virginia Creeper trail (17 miles, mostly downhill), which I always like because I can ride very fast without the fear of being hit by a car.

We also hiked up to Rhododendron Gap, in the Grayson Highlands. It was too late to see the rhododendron in bloom, but the ponies were out in full force. We saw this mother and baby out and about--note their coloring!

Bollywood animals?

Words fail to describe this.

Another day as always

Fannie called the library and asked for two other people. Since they were not there, I said, "Sorry, you've got me."

"Wellll...that's allright. It's just you know nuthin'."

I did not take offense, as she has been thrilled by my help many times in the past.

All she wanted to do was tell us that she had had a half-hour nap and was going to eat dinner.

Thinking of trees

Alan Jacobs has written an awesome essay : "The life of trees".

Some of the "tree-reveries" I've had:

--Somewhere in Scott County, there is a grove of mature oak trees. I saw it for only a fleeting moment, glimpsed from the car as we rounded a bend. That brief glimpse gave me such a powerful sense of peace that I still remember those trees now. Tall and stately, the oaks set that place apart. One could go there and think.

-Late, late on a summer night long ago, Jenny, Rosie, and I took a walk down the lane. It was the full moon, and vast expanses of clouds were passing overhead. The moon played coy: hiding, then dashing out in a blaze of cold silver light. We walked through that interplay of darkness and light, each of us touched by the moon, our eyes and teeth flashing as we talked, our hair almost glowing, so that we looked like a group of fey wending our way to the dark forest beyond. The fields to either side of us shivered under the wind, the grass transformed to stalks of silver that, together, moved like the ocean, drawn by the moon.

My tree-reverie came during one of the moon's bold moments, when we were passing near a group of trees, a moment I happened to look up and saw the dark outline of those trees against the sky. It should have filled me with dread, to see the inky shapes of branches and leaves, lines of darkness against the riot of silvery clouds moving overhead, and the black space deep among the trees. Instead, I was overwhelmed with calm: there was no other place I would rather be. My petty fears of the dark had disappeared in the face of such a rare show of beauty.

"Hamburger!" she cried

I was helping someone at the reference desk who was asking about researching the history of a property when I heard, "Hamburger!"

I looked up to see Fannie, about 20 feet away, saying again (quite loudly), "Hamburger!"

When she got to the desk, she said, "Don't forget hamburger! ... Hamburger at Kroger's has e. coli--don't you eat it! Don't forget hamburger!"

Then she turned to one of the women I was helping and poked her, "Don't forget about the hamburger at Kroger's!" She walked away muttering to herself, her duty accomplished.

Thankfully there were no small children in her way, otherwise they too would have received a poke.

The pleasures of lists

Because I love lists and books, I can't resist posting a list of some books I'm ordering for the library.

-Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, by Rita Nakashima Brock

-Original sin: a cultural history, by Alan Jacobs

Finding our way again: the return of the ancient practices, by Brian McLaren

-Berlitz complete guide to cruising & cruise ships

-Berlin Wall: a world divided, 1961-1989, by Frederick Taylor

-God's gold: a quest for the lost temple treasures of Jerusalem, by Sean Kingsley

-Life with God: reading the Bible for spiritual transformation, by Richard J. Foster

-Perfect summer: England 1911, just before the storm, by Juliet Nicolson

-HarperCollins atlas of Bible history

-Complete Travel Detective Bible: The Consummate Insider Tells You What You Need to Know in an Increasingly Complex World!, by Peter Greenberg

-American Resting Place: 400 Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds, by Marilyn Yalom

-Come on shore and we will kill and eat you all: a New Zealand story, by Christina Thompson

-Barbarians to angels: the Dark Ages reconsidered, by Peter S. Wells

-Muhajababes, by Allegra Stratton

-Lost on Planet China: The Strange and True Story of One Man's Attempt to Understand the World's Most Mystifying Nation, or How He Became Comfortable Eating Live Squid, by J. Maarten Troost

-Mutiny: The True Events That Inspired The Hunt For Red October, by David Hagberg

Libguides at EKU

This is so cool! I wish we had these "LibGuides" when I was still in school, particularly as an undergrad. When I think about how I did research back then (and I'm still not quite sure exactly how I researched things before library school), I cringe.

The folks over at EKU have started making guides to various subjects, ranging from geology to theater to social work to homeland security. Depending on who made the guides, you can find news feeds, databases of interest, tips on how to do effective searches, websites to check out, etc. For an example, see LibGuides@EKU: Geology, created by Cindi Trainor, or LibGuides@EKU: Social Work, done by my former supervisor Kelly Smith.

What was going to be a simple click-through from Trainor's blog turned out to be an in-depth exploration as I mentally filed away tips and ideas for use at the reference desk (while we don't get serious researchers everyday, enough students come in for help to keep me on my toes--particularly as a small public library doesn't exactly have a lot to offer on topics like sociology or small child counseling).

Random things seen

Every time J. and I come home to the in-laws, we see Golf Cart Guy with Two German Shepherds.

He rides around the subdivision in a golf cart with two huge German Shepherds for company. One sits up front, the other sits in the back, tongue lolling as he calmly regards you. Such well-behaved dogs are rare, and in a golf cart no less. (We suspect they are sampling his beer).

I am starting to expect this comical sight when we come down, just as I expect to see Fannie come into the library, wearing those men's clothes from Goodwill, telling us that milk and orange juice are on sale at Kroger.

Insufficient quantities of time

The number of books on my "to-read" list over at goodreads is 136 so far. This number could easily change next week, after I've been in the library. That's what happens when you're surrounded by books everyday.

In one of the classes for Public Libraries, Professor Carrigan remarked on the piles of books waiting for him to read. He figured that, at the rate that he read books, he would have to live at least another 100 years in order to complete his reading list.

Considering how much younger I am (therefore more years of spying many more books here and there), how much longer would I have to live in order to read my accumulated piles of books?

What's a wordle?

I found out about a cool website through Cindi Trainor's blog.

Wordle lets you create tag clouds out of whatever words you want. The results are rather neat and professional looking. You can play around with the layout, font, and colors. While the options are limited (I'm not too happy with the color schemes available), this application lets you feel like a computer pro.

I created a wordle out of Wendell Berry's Country of Marriage. Have a look at it here.

I'd like to create one out of a poem or passage about libraries.

Beauty will save the world

This past Sunday at work, the library director showed me the elecam. It shows what's going on in various parts of an elephant sanctuary down in Tennessee. For a few minutes, we watched an elephant rubbing its rear against a tree, its trunk lazily reaching up to grasp at branches (I was put in mind of Autumn taking her bottle, how she would reach up and touch your hair or pull at her toes, stretching her legs like a yogi). It was strangely relaxing--quite a nice little respite from a busy afternoon.

I've always wanted a house that backs up against a cow pasture (I wouldn't mind a zoo, either, but that would be a little hard to find). Every night I would sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee and watch the cows...doing what cows do. This herd of cows would easily replace the parade of actors and actresses on TV, for their dumb, bovine grace shows me that beauty can be found in the oddest places.

Oh, the horror!

I helped a boy with his homework. He came in asking for stuff on 19th century U.S. history. I asked what it was for, and he showed me the questions he had to answer at the back of a chapter in his textbook.

Everything he needed to answer the questions was there in the chapter--he could have copied his answers verbatim. His problem? He didn't want to read.

I forced him to scan the chapter with me. I even pointed out the sections that contained the answers to some of the questions, and asked him what he thought the answer was, but he still resisted the notion of reading.

It's a good thing I don't work all day with children, because such resistance to reading is foreign to me, and I would become highly impatient.

Twilight fanaticism

A lady called the library one day, her voice a flutter with nervous anticipation: she had to be certain that the sequel to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight was on hold for her.

For those of you unaware of what exactly Twilight is, you've been living under a rock for the past year. I have emerged into the sunlight, and now you will too. Even though I have read the books, I was taken aback by the fervor of the twilighters, as the fans of this series about the love story of a vampire and a human are known. I became acquainted with this fanaticism firsthand when this breathless lady (who was older than me) called the library.

How did a young adult book about vampires and love become so big that grown women sigh over Edward, the vampire equivalent of Romeo? I haven't a clue, seeing as the type of books that deeply affect me are ones like C.S. Lewis' Till we Have Faces.

A room of one's own

I don't know what is more taxing: packing or unpacking.

We're out of the old place and into the new. The bedroom and kitchen are mostly sorted out--those are the important parts to take care of immediately, even if all you do is make the bed and make sure there is milk and cereal available in the midst of piles of boxes.

But there are still boxes. I opened a closet door, thinking it was all set, and found six boxes sitting coyly on the shelves: Remember us?

Check out this living library .

Cats on the belfrey

There is a cat herd here at the in-law's. J.'s sister's 3 cats, our very own Pope, and the in-law's two cats.

Watching them sort out their place on the hierarchy of cats is very interesting. The only real aggression I've seen is between Pope and Toby, one of the mostly-outdoors cats belonging to the in-laws, everything else is just playful altercations.

I think Pope and Bea like each other secretly. It's like middle school, where they tease each other because they're too embarrassed to admit they like each other.

Bea is the strangest cat of the herd. She has to investigate everything--the surface of everything, including the digital TV (she has good balance), the inside of everything, etc. She is quite vocal in her opinions. In front of a door leading outside, "MRow!" If Pope is about to pounce, she flicks her tail and disdainfully says "MRow!" which puts him in his place. If she glimpses a parallel world in the mirror, "MRow!"

Things in the dark

I had a rather interesting experience the night before last. I woke up while I was sleepwalking, in the still unfamiliar territory of the in-laws' basement.

I was not wearing my glasses, and I did not have my hearing aid on. It was very dark, almost pitch black. When I moved my arms around, I couldn't feel anything. As I am almost legally blind without my glasses, deaf without my hearing aid, having all my senses deprived of stimulation was rather terrifying. It felt like I was suspended in a void.

Thankfully, I made it back to bed after shuffling around a little and stumbling across the pet crates, which I knew were at the foot of the bed.

The big guy at work says that I should read Becket's How it is

Aliens among us

The cicadas are out in full force down in Lincoln county. We got to the in-laws in time for the emergence of Brood XIV in their backyard.

I didn't know it was time for cicadas, so when I was walking down by the nearly non-existent creek in the back, I was startled by the sight of countless blank-eyed brown hulls clutching at the undersides of the leaves around me. It was a little frightening at first, when I first registered the existence of those bodiless shells, so numerous the leaves were drooping with their weight, as it seemed the invasion of the body-snatchers was upon us.

Later that night, we went out to the buckeye trees and watched the cicadas rising from the ground and crawling up the trunks to find a spot to molt. There were so many, the surface of the trees rippled like a breeze whispering over a lake.

They seem remarkably dumb, content to crawl along your hand, oblivious to the dangers inherent in being so trusting. I guess that's how it is when you've reached the point of your life where your sole purpose is to carry on your line. Right now the males are singing outside, pining for females. It's the sound of summer--how strange it is that we associate the song of dying insects with the joys of this fleeting season.

Out of the ordinary

We are packing for the move to our new place.

This perplexes Pope. He doesn't know what to do with himself when he walks into a room and some large piece of furniture is missing. His eyes dilate and his ears start swiveling furiously and any little noise sets him off.

I've been seeing more of the bushy-tail Pope--whenever he's frightened, his tail bushes out as he turns so that the full length of his body is facing you while the hair raises on his back, making him look bigger than he is. He also does a strange stiff-legged skip backwards/sideways.

A name you can call your own

Jon's thesis is cataloged now.

Anyone can find the record, not only in UK's catalog, but also on Worldcat (see the link in the right-hand column). His name has an authority record now, which means that no other catalog record can have his name assigned to it unless he actually created the thing that is being cataloged.

Wow, that's lovely and amazing, and I'm sure this post reveals what a library geek I am.

Everything has its proper place

I came across a travel book on Spain that was classed in 919.604.

According to that number, Spain is located in the Pacific Ocean, near Australia and New Zealand.

It put me in mind of a scene from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell where Strange is helping the British army in the Napoleonic War. They are about to be surrounded by the enemy, so the general cries out to Strange to do something, anything. Strange casts a spell that physically moves the land the British army is on to some place in America, where they wait a little while before Strange casts a spell to move them back.

I reclassed the book to its proper place, 914.604, and had this brief, amusing image, of Spain being wrested from the Pacific and planted back in its proper place.

Get the wiggles out

This is the kind of hearing aid I once wore a long time ago (at school):


No, we did not dance around in our underwear. These children are reacting to rhythms they feel in the floor. I tried to find a better picture of body-worn hearing aids, but this is the only one that came up.

And now, hearing aids have to be cool. I find the idea of marketing hearing aids as "sexy cool" rather strange, as they are such a necessary part of my life, almost on the same level as bread and water. Are canes and walkers ever advertised this way? (Note that the models are not actually wearing the hearing aids).

Everything's changing

I've made an appointment to see about getting a new hearing aid. Exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

Nerve-wracking because I'm accustomed to my current prop and leery of the adjustment period the new machine will require. My brain will have to retrain itself on the new sounds coming in, so similar and yet not to what I once heard. I don't enjoy change.

The memory of my initial acquaintance with my current hearing aid is still fresh--how I hated that thing! Everything seemed so soft and muted. When the audiologist said that this is actually quite similar to how normal people hear, that everything isn't so magnified (who pays attention to the ruffle of papers on the desk, or the quiet rumble of the dishwasher, anyways?), I couldn't believe that normal hearing could be so frustratingly boring.

The wow factor of the hearing aid lay not in its amplification power, but in its ability to tease out the various frequencies of sound, to suppress background noise and bring human voices to the fore. It took me a long time to appreciate that kind of technology.

Daydreaming a book

When my brain started going cross-eyed at the reference desk last week, I allowed myself to daydream a little, to work the snarls out of my thoughts before they turned into a gordian knot and I would end up staring dumbly at patrons asking questions such as: "Do you have any books on cats?"

This is what I did: imagined who would play who in a movie adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke's doorstopper of a book on an alternative history of England in which magic returns in the nineteenth century (think Tolkien meets Austen).

Jonathan Strange, young, impetuous magician -- Christian Bale


Mr Norrell, stodgy magician -- Ian Holm


Gentleman with the thistledown hair, fairy king of Lost Hope -- David Bowie


Arabella Strange, patient wife -- Kate Winslet


Lady Emma Pole, condemned to live half her life (she spends her days in England, her evenings in Faerie) at Lost Hope after Mr Norrell bargains with the Gentleman with the thistledown hair to bring her back to life -- Keira Knightley


John Uskglass, The Raven King, the mysterious father of magic in England -- Johnny Depp


One of the fae, a faerie we meet in Lost Hope whose dress is made up of beetles -- Nicole Kidman

Achoo

I suffer from a photic sneeze reflex. Apparently, I'm part of a minority.

Exercise hurts

If you want to torture someone, and they have never done an exercise like this before, make them do decline situps.

Then force them to do it again two days later.

The first time is incredibly difficult. The second time will leave you weeping like a baby. You are using muscles you hardly ever call upon, and they will protest in a painful way (think knives scoring your sides).

This is the ugly truth of exercise. The second time is the worst.

Thankfully it always gets better.

Muscles and looks

I conquered my fear of the free weight room at the Y. That bastion of testosterone, realm of muscled men, was no match for me as I marched in with what feminine pride I had, holding my head high in spite of my inability to lift no more than a fraction of what they could benchpress.

They grinned at each other and looked askance at me as I settled in to do sit-ups, and I realized that I was not leery of them so much as I was of being in a strange place and not knowing what to do with myself while those initiated into the mysteries of free weights could plan their workouts with ease.

I finished and, sitting up, noticed that they spent as much time standing in front of the mirror as they did actually working out. I didn't feel so awkward after all--if guys with thick cords of muscle, at the height of their fitness, still need to look in the mirror and reassure themselves of their appearance, then there's hope for the rest of us.

State dance

"Clogging is named and designated as the official dance of Kentucky." --KRS 2.101

Cultural literacy at its lowest

An exchange Jon had with one of his students:

student: "So how come they have different laws in Holland?"

Jon: "Holland's a different country."

student: "Holland's really cool. They can smoke pot and stuff there! I've seen pictures of coffeehouses that have little scales where they weight out the pot."

Jon: "Well, Holland's a different country. They do things differently there."

student: "So Bush isn't in charge over there?"

Jon (trying to keep a straight face): "No, he's isn't. Holland's a different country. They have their own laws and people in charge."

student: "So you mean Bush isn't in control outside the United States?"

Jon: "No..he isn't."

Words

I have not met a colporteur lately.

Jezebel was defenestrated.

Abrams Falls

Congratulations to my parents for completing a five mile round-trip hike to Abrams Falls in the Smokies this weekend. They might not think it was worth it at the moment, as their aches and pains are still quite fresh (believe me, I can relate!), but the falls were rather glorious in all their rain-swollen force.

First time for everything

Here is a list of the books (from what I can remember) that made up my very first order for the library:

Jesus for president: politics for ordinary radicals, by Shane Claiborne
Apples are from Kazakhstan: the land that disappeared, by Christopher Robbins
The new Christians: dispatches from the emergent frontier, by Tony Jones
Christ plays in ten thousand places: a conversation in spiritual theology, by Eugene Peterson
Human smoke: the beginnings of World War II, the end of civilization, by Nicholson Baker
Nonviolence: 25 lessons from the history of a dangerous idea, by Mark Kurlansky

Free food

Fannie gave us a package of english muffins (minus one). She didn't like them, and since she abhors waste of any kind, she brought them to us.

One of my coworkers said that, normally, she will bring in a loaf of Rainbow bread and offer you a slice ("Just one, mind you!").

An allowance

I'm spending the library's money, specifically on books on religion, international travel, and world history.

That sounds well and good--but it's rather hard. There's a host of considerations to keep in mind. There's the target population (the county, which is overwhelmingly white, mostly conservative), the mission of the library (to help make responsible, well-informed citizens), the purpose of the collection (to educate, but also to provide leisure reading--this is a public library, not a university library).

So, with all that in mind, I approach the catalogs. Is it any wonder I am overwhelmed?

I've been spending time in the stacks, communing (I can't think of another word, and since the library director used this term, I will too) with my sections. This entails not just staring at the books (though there's plenty of that), but considering the strengths and weaknesses of what the library has, looking for potential gaps, deciding what is outdated and needs to go, deciding what should remain in spite of low circulation counts.

So far, I've determined that the Christianity section has nothing targeted at my age group, that we need some more liberal books to balance out the Lucados. The Buddhism section is strong, though I think the books on Judaism and Islam may need some updating. We have two books on Voodoo, due to a patron request.

Trying to maintain a collection that serves the interests of the library's patrons while at the same time maintaining a balance of materials that cover a broad range of subjects is tricky. This means that the Christianity section will be large in proportion to the Islamic section simply because the majority of library patrons are church-going folk (there isn't a mosque in the county that I'm aware of), but we will devote at least shelf to books on Islam so that people can learn about it if they so desire.

All these considerations...

Stories

I am still thinking about Anne Rice's latest book, Christ the Lord: Road to Cana. Its simple prose belies its power. This book sets you quite firmly in the time of Christ: you can feel the dirt of Israel between your toes just as you can feel the keen political tension of a time when the Roman empire covered the known world, and yet above it all is the overwhelming sense of family and community, for the Jews were a powerfully knit people.
In the midst of all this is Yeshua, a quiet and unassuming man whose family and friends watch closely, knowing about his unusual birth and the Magi who gave him a king's ransom. He acts nothing like what they expect, not even knowing himself what is expected of him.
I think what makes this story so powerful is how human Rice makes Yeshua, even as he becomes aware of the entirety of his being. We emphasize with him when he gives up the love he has for a girl, giving her hand to another (theirs is the wedding at Cana), even as we are in awe as he comes into the fullness of his power after John names him at the river Jordan and baptizes him.

from the book:
"'It begins now at this wedding,' I said. 'And the wine you've drunk is for the whole world. Israel is the vessel, yes. But the wine flows from now on for all. Oh, I wish I could fix this as the final triumph, this lovely morning with its gentle paling sky. I wish I could open the gates for all to come and drink of this wine here and now, and that all pain and suffering and suspense would come to an end.
'But I wasn't born for that. I was born to find the way to do this through Time. yes, it is the time of Pontius Pilate. Yes, it is the time of Joseph Caiaphas. Yes, it is the time of Tiberius Caesar. But those men are nothing to me. I've entered history for the whole of it. And I won't be stopped. And I go now, disappointing you, yes, and to what village and town I head next, I don't know, only that I go proclaiming that the kingdom of God is on us, that the kingdom of God is with us, that all must turn and take heed, and I will declare it where the Father tells me I must, and I will find before me the listeners--and the surprises--He has in store.'" (p. 240)

If Yeshua isn't the most perplexing figure in history, I don't know who is. Thousands of years have been spent arguing over the message He proclaimed, and his followers are split into many branches of faith in spite of the central belief they all share. Who is this man?

Anne Rice's story is a thoughtful response to that question.

The story ends with Yeshua healing a deaf-mute girl from his village, one he has known for a long time. There is no magic word spoken, no special wave of the hand. He engages her, requiring her participation in the act of healing, the seemingly innocuous act of teaching her to repeat the prayer "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one" accomplishing the unthinkable: opening her ears and unstopping her tongue.
Thus does a new age begin.

Greetings

Happy birthday, Mom!

Mis-hearing

Fannie thinks I'm getting dumber by the minute. Here's a recent exchange we had (according to what I heard):

Fannie: "Do you know what a Honda mumble mumble is?"

Me: "No, I'm afraid I don't."

Fannie, getting up and looking at me with disgust: "Honey, WAKE UP. What's wrong with you?"

Apparently what she really asked was if I knew what holiday it was.

Welcome to my life. We had a good laugh about it after she left.

Time to roam

The Eskimos have a saying, "Glorious it is when wandering time is come!"

Now that spring is sneaking in, and sweet little green things are rising up, there comes that deep-seated itch to go somewhere, to swing a pack over my shoulders and enter the woods.

The urge comes strongest in the mornings when I go out to the car, and the birds are singing, a call and response among the treetops. It is their call that filled my dreams in the deep slumber of winter, a distant memory of trees and sky and earth and rock.

The naming of names

I hope you have noticed my new profile picture. That is my lovely grandmother Juliette, who I get my middle name from. You can't see it at this size, but there is a "Love Juliette" note scribbled in the lower right-hand corner. It must have been a picture she gave my grandfather, probably during WWII.

Food is a good thing

Fanny has been in a better mood these days. She no longer gripes so much at us--it's more like good-natured grumbling at our apparent idiocy. We think she is eating enough now to function more like a normal human being (cutting back on food was one of her cost-saving measures--she was probably eating saltines for dinner, for all I know).

My coworker told me that sometimes I just need to say "I don't know," to her if the conversation is getting out of hand due to her incomprehensible mumbling and it would be best for both parties concerned to end it.

So I tried it on the phone the other day--it worked!

Fanny: "I'm at the bank!!! You know those mumble mumble mumble I was tellin' ya 'bout?").

me: "Um, I don't know."

Fanny: "Well anyways, I got 'em. GOOD BYE!"

Normally, this conversation would have stretched on and on for five minutes as I tried vainly to understand what Fanny was saying. Really, all she wants is someone to talk to (most of the time, she doesn't much care for what you have to say--sometimes I interject comments like "Yeah, I know about that," and she'll say, "Whatever, I don't care." and keep talking).

The beauty of a hawk is inspiring us this day

How funny is this. I wrote a post about my red-tailed hawk friend just 15 or so minutes ago, puttered around on the internet, then checked my friend's blog--and did a double-take. Apparently he is also up at this early snow-heaped hour, writing a post about my post.

That's the power of the internet for you!

By the way, he included a Robinson Jeffers poem in his response to my post that brilliantly captures what I was vainly grasping at. Read it below:

"Hurt Hawks"

I

The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder,
The wing trails like a banner in defeat,

No more to use the sky forever but live with famine
And pain a few days: cat nor coyote
Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons.

He stands under the oak-bush and waits
The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom
And flies in a dream, the dawns ruin it.

He is strong and pain is worse to the strong, incapacity is worse.
The curs of the day come and torment him
At distance, no one but death the redeemer will humble that head,

The intrepid readiness, the terrible eyes.
The wild God of the world is sometimes merciful to those
That ask mercy, not often to the arrogant.

You do not know him, you communal people, or you have forgotten him;
Intemperate and savage, the hawk remembers him;
Beautiful and wild, the hawks, and men that are dying, remember him.

II

I'd sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk;
but the great redtail
Had nothing left but unable misery
From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved.

We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom,
He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death,
Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old
Implacable arrogance.

I gave him the lead gift in the twilight.
What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what
Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising
Before it was quite unsheathed from reality.

Beowulf

Beowulf is the dumbest movie I have seen in a while.

What little gravitas it may have had was ruined by the animation. They altered the story beyond forgiveness. And why was Grendel's mother wearing high heels?

Lord of the air

There's a red-tailed hawk that hangs out along a certain part of Winchester Road. The first time I saw him, I thought he was an overweight crow until I got closer and saw the thick body and curved beak. He was eating some unfortunate rabbit, brilliant red meat dangling from his beak.

I saw him again during an ice storm. He was surveying a field from atop a telephone line, ignoring the ice pelleting him. The last time I saw him, in better weather, he was on the telephone line again, getting ready to launch himself into the air.

There's something beautiful about the flight of a hawk.

Rhyme of the ancient mariner

I got a haircut last week, over a year after I thought of getting one. That shows you what a procrastinator I am.

I no longer feel as if I am carrying an albatross after I shower. Who knew water could be so heavy?

A name is a name

Fanny knows me by name now.

One of my fellow coworkers told me that she called him "Mr. Man" for several months before grasping his name.

I don't know whether to be proud or afraid.

The joys of asparagus

The season for asparagus is almost upon us. This makes me very happy. Having a side of steamed asparagus sprinkled with salt is the equivalent of reading a good book, of reaching the summit of some Appalachian mountain after a long climb, of turning the corner and seeing home.

Something unexpected

One day, I walked into the locker room at the gym, expecting little more than the occasional lady here and there stretching or tying her shoelaces.

Instead, I walked into a storm of flesh.

It was nearly an adolescent boy's dream, this riot of flesh, ladies moving to and fro, chatting and laughing as they got ready for work. Through it all, white towels flashed here and there, as quick as lightning, joined by the roar of hair-dryers and the cacophony of feminine voices.

I was dazzled, and not in a good way. A modest person, I unconsciously avert my eyes whenever I encounter someone's nakedness, with the understanding that they will do the same for me. When I encountered this crazy scene, I hardly knew what to do with myself, blinded by this unexpected change from the norm, not knowing where to look, somehow weaving my way to the back.

Undine

Since I liked Samantha Hunt's The Invention of Everything Else so much, I looked into what other books she had written.

Just because I like a particular book does not mean I will read everything else that the author has written--I have not read Ursula LeGuin's science fiction works in spite of the fact that I rank her Earthsea books up there with Tolkien, but when I saw that Hunt's first book The Seas was based on Undine, an early German story written about 1812 and somewhat similar to the Little Mermaid fairy tale, I knew I just had to read it. Fairy tale retellings and 'mythic fiction' are my particular favorite styles of fiction.

Wow. What a weird little book. If you want to know what it's like to be inside the head of a disturbed, somewhat mentally off-kilter girl, this is the book for you. I liked it for the lyrical, strong prose and for the unique take on a fairy tale, but I don't know if I will re-read it anytime soon since you are thoroughly inhabiting the mind of this unfortunate girl and it can be an uncomfortable experience. That, and the rendition of the sea as a living, somewhat careless entity creeped me out (I kept thinking of my experience swimming through a bed of seaweed... ugh).

I particularly liked this quote, which probably doesn't make any sense outside of the context of the book, but maybe you can appreciate its irony:
"The possibility that this might be the truth swoops near my head like a bat at dusk, a bat that soon flies off in the other direction uninterested in me" (p. 186).

This girl is so engrossed in her version of things (convincing herself that she is a mermaid; that her father did not drown at sea, but is waiting for her out there; that her friend melted into water after she kissed him) that, even though she is aware of it, she refuses to acknowledge the truth.

Library of Congress on Flickr

Answering the nation's need for womanpower, Mrs. Virginia Davis made arrangement for the care of her two children during the day and joined her husband at work in the Naval Air Base, Corpus Christi, Texas. Both are employed under Civil Service in the Asse
Originally uploaded by The Library of Congress

Check out some neat pictures on flickr. The Library of Congress has uploaded two collections of photographs to flickr as an experiment to see what the response would be in user-tagging and the like.

While the collections have uninspiring titles like "1930s-40s in color" and "News in the 1910s," they are pretty neat to look through.

I just want a good read

A friend introduced me to the reading website Goodreads. You can see that I've added a list of books that I'm currently reading to my sidebar. I'm having too much fun with it, especially categorizing the books I've read so far. My goal is to encapsulate the theme or feel of each book, as this will help with reader's advisory (not that the library does a booming business in that part of reference, but it'd still be nice to appear to be the all-knowing librarian: "Oh, so you want a space-age book that reads like a G.K. Chesterton mystery...?").

I haven't gotten too creative, though my list of shelves is growing. I've created the shelf "mesmerizing" for those books that have stayed with me long after I've read them, either because the prose was incredible, or the story was so real, or it was profoundly affecting. Mesmerizing was the only word I could think of that came close to describing the world-changing feel of these books.

I've just thought of another way to categorize books: character-driven and plot-driven...

Money, money

Maybe there's something wrong with me, but I don't want that tax rebate. It's just going straight into savings, in spite of what Bush wants us to do. Why are we increasing our debt just so consumers can continue spending? It's supposedly to help cushion the fall as the spending ballon bursts, but consumers are still going to have to learn to spend less--why dangle that carrot in front of them?

Americans do not understand the concept of living within their means. There's a commercial playing now, where some guy goes into a store to look at big-screen TVs, and the song is: "I want it all...and I want it now." That summarizes the state of things.

The cynical misanthrope in me just had to say something, whether or not you wanted to hear it.

People

Fanny called the library one morning and told my co-worker that Heather French Henry had run for governor of Kentucky.

She called me later that afternoon demanding to know if the tie between Clinton ("that girl out there...not the man!!") and Obama ("that black boy out there!") had been broken during one of their races.

You can appreciate how discombobulating it is to deal with someone who still knows quite a bit, in spite of being slightly off her rocker.

The patron saint of modern electricity

This is how I imagined Tesla while I read the book The Invention of Everything Else. If you have not seen the movie The Prestige, you should.

Electric prose

The invention of everything else is awesome. It focuses on the life of Nikola Tesla and a hotel maid Louisa, and the unlikely friendship that ensues when she is caught snooping through Tesla's papers in his room. A surprising blend of magical realism and science, it is a meditation on time, love, creativity, memory, and all other sorts of things, with a dash of time travel and homing pigeons. The author is a powerful writer.

I saw a blinding light...

If you're interested, Project Blue Book, 1947-1969, UFO Investigations, is free to look at online at Footnote. Just click on the "Browse all titles" link near the top of the homepage and look it up in the alphabetical title list. The website has a special partnership with the National Archives to digitize and make available some of the stuff they have.

That's right--this Project Blue Book is for real, a collection of case files made by the Office of Special Investigations on incidents of UFOs. Whether the subject matter of the book is real is up to the reader to decide.

My admirer

If I interpret Pope's tail behavior correctly, it would appear that this strange little creature absolutely adores me. According to the article "The 9 most common tail positions and what they mean," if, while the cat approaches you with his tail held straight up (a sign that he welcomes you), "the top third of the tail twitches as the cat nears you, this means that he totally adores you." (Planet Cat, page 221).

The extent we go to to convince ourselves that these vain animals actually consider us worthwhile...