January/February 200528 February 2005 Now Jeff Foxworthy is talking about the Michael Gorman thing:
Ok. Foxworthy didn't say that. But really, folks, the theme of Gorman's column is his recent discovery that some bloggers go into batshit attack mode if you talk about their favorite flavor of Kool-Aid in anything but the most positive light. We're saddened that so many librarians and geeks have so little appreciation of common motifs from comics and B-movies (creatures that change, aliens living quietly among us until the attack) that they don't immediately get the "Blog People" concept. We suspect that many bloggers who weren't Blog People to begin with became Blog People (at least temporarily) by going batshit over the column. And that they don't see the irony there. You're Blog People only if you decide to act like Blog People. Of course, the most amazing thing about the situation is that people actually give a damn about what an ALA officer writes. Gorman could've earned our complete respect, though, if his reply on the ALACOUN list had just said this:
That's the way to get re-elected! 24 February 2005 "The library, to me, was every bit as much a refuge as a crack house might be to some gang kid today. You know, a library card was a ticket to ride." So said Hunter S. Thompson about his childhood, in a 1996 interview with P.J. O'Rourke. Did you know that Thompson's mother was a librarian? We read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when we were in high school in the late '70s, and the book didn't inspire us to go on drug binges. Imagine that. It took a while before we could listen to "White Rabbit" without cracking up, though. 16 February 2005 It would've been cooler if she were wearing one of our shirts, but Rory Gilmore did have on an excellent "reading is sexy" t-shirt in one scene last night. Recently, Highlander and The Matrix were on different channels at the same time. We took advantage of the situation to educate the young one:
As with most of our attempts to teach important lessons, all we got back was a "So?" Speaking of important lessons, we want to share a good one with anyone thinking about starting IM reference service: Do not distribute fliers advertising your AIM screen name to every junior high classroom all on the same day! Trust us on this one; we learned it the hard way. Doesn't anyone go out and play after school any more? 14 February 2005 Seven bucks a call to hear a story on a dial-a-fairytale line!? Are these people on drugs??! Oh, wait ... dateline: Amsterdam. Never mind. 11 February 2005 "Our groupies run the gamut, all the way from librarians in their 50s with a passion for cats, to librarians in their 60s with a passion for cats." From the FAQ page for the Rock Bottom Remainders, the band featuring Dave Barry, Amy Tan, and other famous writers. If libraries were to circulate copies of the SAT Vocabulary Shower Curtain, they couldn't come back any more disgusting than some of the books that get returned. We'd impose heavy fines for not laundering the curtains before stuffing them into the book drop. What's the next best thing to freedom of speech? Why, criticizing and exposing collaborators! According to a 1985 book by the Ayatollah Khomeini, you shouldn't eat a donkey that somebody fucked. 10 February 2005 Do Jenny and Walt get the boingboing feed in their aggregators? Cuz this recent item might have been useful to them. Wasn't podcasting what happened in Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Or maybe we're thinking of the VR units in eXistenZ or Aliens hatching. Or that's how the machines sowed the baby fields in The Matrix. In any case, the word really creeps us out, despite our love of neologisms. Speaking of pods in sci-fi movies, what would happen if books and ukuleles got tossed into the teleporters in The Fly? Something like this, we guess. 08 February 2005 So, we're talking with our 8-year-old about cat breeds this morning ...
For her next birthday, maybe we'll get reels of Kafka and Calvino stories for her ViewMaster. Jill's library conference drinking game requires one to have a drink in one's hand at all times during the conference. Which might not be a bad idea. Oh, that reminds us ... If anyone at ALA in a position to do anything this year is reading this, the last time ALA Annual was in Chicago, there was no beer being sold at the concessions area in the middle of the exhibit hall, despite the presence of beer signs and beer on the menu board. Big letdown when we ran into an old friend and said, "Look! Beer! Let's go have a drink." 07 February 2005 We don't have any confirmation on this, but rumor has it that the Germans love our "Computers in Libraries" song almost as much as they love David Hasselhoff. New in BibDitties. If we had a monkey, we'd ask you to touch it. Speaking of computers, they sure is wacky. Had to capitalize a couple letters in the URL for our RSSify feed to make it work again. Oh, the things that happen when you don't post for a few months! The Cuddly Menace made us laugh so hard, we cried. It's an "inspirational" Little Golden Book re-worked as a manual for young, spine-sucking alien invaders. Hurry up and read it, before lawyers make it disappear. A couple quotes added to Lib.Sigs.: "Langdon had been inside hermetic vaults many times, but it was always an unsettling experience ... something about entering an airtight container where the oxygen was regulated by a reference librarian." Dan Brown, Angels and Demons. (Thanx to Rosemary McCarthy!) "I didn't lie! I was writing fiction with my mouth!" Homer Simpson. 31 January 2005 Considering the popularity of the "Chicken Soup" books, we're surprised there are no holdings in WorldCat for Chicken Soup for the Ho. Now, something like this could solve the problem of library patrons planting themselves at the Internet stations all day. Rochelle proposes ALA Council: The Drinking Game. Y'know, we'd have to be extremely drunk to begin with just to sit in on any association business meeting. James "I Didn't Say SpongeBob Is Gay" Dobson suggests that kindergarteners shouldn't be "potentially hearing incomprehensible references to adult perverse sexuality" in class, but ought to be "leaning ... about exciting fairy tales." Perhaps he has the exciting fairy tale of Sun, Moon, and Talia in mind:
(That tale will be the next addition to Ancient Stories 4 Modern Boys, when we get around to it.) BTW, Dobson's account of a cover-up by the We Are Family Foundation is actually pretty interesting, though we suspect the real problem the "pro-family" folks have with the WAFF is that it's partly supported by the Disney Channel, stateside home to the absolutely gayest kids' show on TV. 20 January 2005 "Daughters Do Daddy" (from Genesis 19) has been added to our collection of Ancient Stories 4 Modern Boys. We've changed our Zen Librarian t-shirt design (partly to account for the growth of the Web since we did the original), and we recently added an "It's a Scientific Fact: That Book Sucks" design to the librarism.com store. Also added organic cotton t's and other shirtage options. The following acrostic was written by a genuine second-grader:
17 January 2005 Have you heard people complain that kids aren't learning classic stories? That teen boys aren't being encouraged to read? Well, tell 'em to shut the fuck up, 'cause here are Ancient Stories 4 Modern Boys! Brand new feature on this site. Of course, we've put ourselves at great risk of being sued by The People Who Owned the Bible. (A fable about copyright extensions by fantasy author Will Shetterly.) Speaking of classic tales, we saw Spamalot! in it's pre-Broadway run. Part tribute to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, part parody of stage musicals, it's a hugely entertaining show. Some of the movie bits don't translate well (e.g., the Knights who say "Ni"), but others have been adapted quite successfully. And throwing lines from a few Flying Circus skits into the script was a nice touch. If you've read any reviews, you probably already know that -- despite David Hyde Pierce, Tim Curry, and Hank Azaria being the "name" actors in the cast -- this woman is the real star of the show. |
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