Librarian Avengers

can’t sort out my head properly, so I’m sorting my books. Plover and I are drinking red wine and water, respectively, and pacing the apartment listening to motown.

I’m rearranging my books.

I’ve you’ve read Nick Hornsby’s book High Fidelity or seen the movie, you might remember Rob rearranging his record collection. Today is sort of that, but without the breakup.

When I have something big on my mind, usually related to self-definition, I become more interested in music and stories.

The music I listen to becomes Important. The books on my shelves become Me. I download. I read. I sort. I fuss and swap and graze over my books, looking for the right system.And through this, somehow, I describe myself to myself. Whatever is going on in my head benefits from the organization I’m doing with my hands.

I externalize this stuff because it’s easier than neurosurgery and cheaper than therapy.

Behold my books. They are arranged by priority, then color.

Modern Day Prometheus or why my boyfriend is the greatest guy ever. Can you believe I get to kiss this man?

My first question was a slightly judgmental “where were his parents during all of this?”

I’m remembering week after week of library visits when I was a kid. We didn’t have any money, but we had all the books we wanted. My first library card was at age, what? four?

Apparently the parents were there checking out videos. Hopefully they will return.

1. Queen Bees are expensive
2. It’s damned difficult to find a cat-sitter in Ithaca
3. Johnathan Lethem’s You Don’t Love me Yet is, so far, an absolutely perfect book
4. Tom Phillips is an artist who did a really great book painting featuring fictional books with titles stolen from Shakespeare
5. Roccapulco is a salsa club in San Francisco. I’m going next week with my friend Jake
6. The Lunch Meeting is the gold standard for interviews at eBay

Oldschool Metadata

7. You can randomly teleport somewhere in Second Life and end up getting juggled by a large pink elephant
8. Hotels in San Francisco are way cheaper than hotels in NYC. Jobs in San Francisco pay way better than jobs in NYC.
9. All it took for me to get my finances in shape was to get some software with a decent interface
10. The only cure for pregnancy-induced hypertension is childbirth (hi clay!)
11. My friend Josh has taken over things digital at the NYPL
12. Adobe CS3 will steal your soul with its compelling beauty
13. Google Analytics has a new interface that will steal whatever bit of your soul is leftover after Adobe gets done with you
14. Half of you people are still using Internet Explorer. I’m saddened. Please, for the love of all things holy: Use

rew sent me a Pastafarian Bible. Now I can properly proselytize! Unbelievers beware!

Thanks Drew!

I spent a few minutes on my walk to work this morning watching a muskrat. Hunched under the footbridge uprooting plants, he didn’t mind as I clopped along in my optimistically-chosen high heels.

He was intent on his business, wringing small hands around in the mud, looking for the muskrat version of breakfast, a bagel, coffee.

In honor of the first Water Rat of Spring, here’s an excerpt from The Wind in the Willows:

When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlor, and planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-time.

about herons, and how particular they were whom they spoke to

Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike; and about herons, and how particular they were whom they spoke to; and about adventures down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions far afield with Badger.

he New York Review of Books contains reviews written at great length by people who wish they had written the book in question and are slightly bitter about it.

’m in a parking lot in Owego, NY (an actual place!) borrowing bandwidth from an anonymous linksys router. Upstate connectivity sucks. There’s a German Shepherd dog asleep in the back seat. Her name is Fiona. I borrowed her for the trip. I just bought this car. One problem solved.

Don’t know if you’ve heard, but a version of Katamari is coming out for the Wii. Hope you aren’t doing anything this summer.

I’m reading Guns Germs and Steel: A Short History of Everybody for the Last 13,000 Years. It gives an excellent overview of the evolution and intersection of human cultures. I’m not far into it, but it’s pretty captivating so far, like taking an anthropology course from Oliver Sacks.

Miles to go before I sleep. Woof to everyone.

pring birds are yelling from snowy trees this morning. It’s spring, despite wind, snow, roaring wood stove, and other evidence to the contrary. I’m taking today off of work. I’ve got nine stitches. I can do whatever I want.

I finished re-reading Microserfs by Douglas Copeland yesterday. This book was important to me at a formulative time. It helped convince me it was cool to be a nerd. It introduced other tech-inclined women to my humanities-girdled world. It drew a model of unashamed geekery, separate and outside of a traditionally-female need for perfection and image. It was pretty liberating.

An excerpt:

Susan is 26 and works in Mac Applications. If Susan were a Jeopardy! contestant, her dream board would be:

* 680X0 assembly language
* Cats
* Early ’80s haircut bands
* “My secret affair with Rob in the Excel Group”
* License plate slogans of America
* Plot lines from The Monkees
* The death of IBM

Susan’s an IBM brat and hates that company with a passion. She credits it with ruining her youth by transferring her family eight times before she graduated from high school - and the punch line is that the company gave her father the boot last year during a wave of restructuring. So nothing too evil can happen to IBM in her eyes.
…
Susan’s a real coding machine. But her abilities are totally wasted reworking old code for something like the Norwegian Macintosh version of Word 5.8.

Thanks for your kind comments last night during my Dark Night of the Beer. Friendly words were unexpected and wonderful. I often forget that there are people out there. Hello imaginary people. It’s as though my fictional heroes (Elizabeth Bennet! Harriet The Spy! Meg from Wrinkle in Time!) suddenly started interacting.

Off to haul wood one-armed and scour Craigslist for cars. What would your Dream Jeopardy! categories be?

mid the body pain, sore throat, fever, and seal coughs, I’ve managed to keep myself entertained. Here’s how to beat a week-long flu using only a laptop, broadband, and some good over-the-counter drugs.

Web

• South Park character maker Version Two. Yes, I said version two. With even more hairstyles, weird hats, and weapons. Waste your holiday break the new-fashioned way!
• Download obscure mp3s from emusic.com, a DRM-free site that gives away 50 free downloads to get you hooked. Quite successfully, I might add. They have the entire Alternative Tentacles catalog, so you no longer have to fill out the little form in the back of your Dead Kennedys cassette tape.
• Facebook - Stalky stalky!
• Shoe sale at Amazon.com. Ann Klein boots are 65% off. I’m powerless against low-priced yet stylish footware.
• E-tarot cards. It’s so much more meaningful when you shuffle them with your mouse.
• My dad’s blog (caution: ham radio geekery)

Print

• New Universal - The latest comic by transmetropolitan genius Warren Ellis. The premise? In a slightly alternate world where Paul was killed instead of John and China owns the moon, individuals begin to spontaneously develop superpowers. Often with unhappy results.
• White Oleander - I grabbed this from the library book sale because it was well-reviewed, and I enjoyed it despite my friend Kara’s warnings. She has a point, the characters can be less than sympathetic. Still, I enjoyed the book’s authentic voice, and the author’s willingness to describe a young woman’s reaction to desperation and loneliness.
• Bitch Magazine - I’ve got a subscription. You should too. Give this to smart female patrons who haven’t yet tapped into the vibrant young feminist culture out there.

Video

• Invader Zim - Find and watch this. Kill if you must.
• The Tick - Mighty! I love Bi-Polar Bear.
• Battlestar Galactica - There is good acting and directing here, if you don’t mind the occasional robot army and Deus ex machina. Here’s a 44 minute recap to get caught up on the plot.
• Thank you for Smoking - I haven’t watched this yet, but I’ve got the Netflix envelope sitting on the coffee table. I’ll letcha know.
• Creature Comforts - Not sure if you know this or not but, the Wallace & Grommet folks have a show on the BBC called Creature Comforts. They interview people in Britain about random topics, and overlay their voices onto claymation animals. It’s rather wonderful.
• Loose Change - an independently-produced video exploring many of the unanswered questions about the events of 9/11. An interesting topic, and less frothing than most. (warning: do not watch while taking cold medicine, as you will be especially vulnerable to sad footage and will probably need to stop the film several times to blow your nose and cry)

Realia

• Cats - Preferably in a large pile, nesting around your head. Include one that doesn’t mind being used as a pillow.



• French cold medicine. Seriously? This stuff is fun. I can see my house from here.

Mimi Smartypants is my favorite blogger. I want to say more about her writing and why I enjoy it, but everything I type comes out like: “blarg! cliche! gush! gush!”

So, I’ll just skip that and mention that she recently asked for comic book recommendations for her daughter. This woman needs a librarian! We are compelled to help! Here’s a thumbnail reference interview:

1. The little girl in question is Preschool age
2. Ideally, avoid mainstream comics. You know, ones with TV tie-ins or superheros.
3. She currently enjoys The Far Side, and Sam and Max
4. Violence/weapons are to be avoided.

I took a crack at it. Let me know what you think in the comments, and I’ll ship the whole list off to her Miminess at the end of the week as a tribute of librarianly esteem.

These are comics I have personally read and recommend. I take full responsibility if you think they suck. I avoided the Bone series, despite the cute drawings because those Stupid Rat Creatures can be pretty scary. Stupid, stupid rat creatures.

Librarian Powers: Activate!
Clan Apis - A view of life as a honeybee but without looking like a Mark Trail comic strip. Hilariously written by an entomology grad student who is allergic to bees. Great for kids, fun for adults.

Pogo Possum - I learned to read with these cartoons. Which gave me a rather unusual grasp of the Queen’s English. Still, you don’t have to be old enough to read to appreciate the indelible Albert Alligator and Porkypine.

Castle Waiting - These are the sweetest stories ever. Great art, gentle tales with subtle feminist undertones. Sort of the anti-Optic Nerve.

Liberty Meadows - Frank Cho. Why not? Talking frogs are funny.

Ok, go ahead. You try.