Lately I've been grazing my way through a bunch of VHS tapes of older movies which the library discarded.

The Philadelphia Story was good, but not great.

On the other hand, The Ice Storm was simply a waste of time -- mine, the actors, the directors, and everybody else's who was involved with it. Who knew that sex and death could be so boring? Perhaps Ang Lee was making some kind of subtle point about sleepwalking suburbanites. You could appreciate the point just about as well by watching two hours of daytime television, except that it would be more exciting and better acted.

Recent Reads

The Dream of Scipio, by Iain Pears

I picked this up only because I saw it at a dollar store where I was casually browsing while waiting for some freinds to show up for dinner at a restaurant next door. I'm glad I did. It's easily the best novel I've read in months.

Three different men, in three different intertwining plots in three different historical epochs, deal with the problems of love, politics, and the kinds of social chaos that make for interesting history, but make shredded ruin out of the lives of those human beings unfortunate enough to exist during them. In the waning days of the Roman Empire, a provincial aristocrat in southern Gaul faces the collapse of civilization, the apparent failure of philosophy, and an irresistible influx of barbarian warlords. A thousand years later, a gifted young poet becomes entangled in the snares of art, politics and the dreaded Black Plague at the court of Pope Clement in Avignon. In the framing story, a twentieth-century French scholar tries to puzzle out their two lives and the intellectual connections between them while around him, his country succumbs to the influence of the Hitler's Germany.

Pears is reportedly the author of a number of detective novels, and some of the intellectual gamesmanship of the whodunit is evident here. The story begins with a brusque account of a suicide, and only then proceeds to tell the story that led up to that act. Pears is a master at dropping tantalizing hints to the reader as he switches back and forth between characters and timelines, and masterfully intertwines the action of the plot with reminders of the erratic course of history and the philosophical implications of the characters' lives and fates. Does the Dream of Scipio -- a philosophical view of society described by one of the characters in the novel -- justify the ways of man? Can it ever?

A book well worth recommending to any fan of historical mysteries or philosophical fiction. Da Vinci Code readers who don't insist on single-sentence paragraphs and four-page chapters that all end with physical cliffhanger situations might enjoy it, too.

The Portrait, by Iain Pears

I picked this up out of curiousity after reading the Dream of Scipio. The title and cover -- featuring an illustration of a unusual painted portrait-- seem designed to attract Da Vinci Code readers. I read it anyway.

When I started reading it, I felt something like a shock of recognition. The book is very reminiscent in its structure of Walker Percy's Lancelot, a book which had a great influence on me when I read it nearly ten years ago. A narrator, who may or may not be reliable, speaks in extended first-person monologues to an old freind regarding past and present events, the nature and explanation of which may be subject to dispute. And Pears, like a good detective novelist, keeps the reader guessing about his character's ultimate goal may be. (There's just a subtle hint of Poe's Fortunato....)

The Portrait doesn't have the philosophical ambition or weight of Lancelot, but it's a good read in its own right. The narrator's eccentric, perhaps slightly-unhinged persona keep the reader guessing about what he's up to, and his rambling, opinionated discourses about the past events that brought him and his listener together are an entertaining puzzle to unravel.

Ubermensch!, by Kim Newman

What if a small capsule bearing the infant sole survivor of the planet Krypton to Earth had landed near Kleinburg, Germany, instead of Smallville, USA?

Thanks to the poster on the Fiction Magazines listserv who suggested this short story. I'm not sure I agree with the author's implied stance on nature-versus-nurture, though.

On the other hand, though, Frederik Pohl's The Gold at the Starbow's End (1973 World's Best SF, ed. Donald Wollheim), also mentioned on the same listserv, was something of a disappointment. The premise is interesting, but the conclusion is far too redolent of dippy early-70s nostrums about the purported mystical powers of the human mind. I might have found it convincing if the characters were given something more to work with than, well, nihilo.

Poul Anderson's Goat Song, from the same volume, develops some amusing parallels, but ultimately works better as an exercise in literary gamesmanship than an emotionally or intellectually compelling story in its own right. I seem to recall that Anderson wrote an introduction to Silverlock, and it would seem that this story was influenced by the tale of Mr. A. Clarence Shandon and his bardic guide. There are even smidgens of archaic poetry scattered through it. Unfortunately, the story is chained far too closely to its mythic predecessor, and lacks much of the casual irony and emotional vibrancy of Silverlock's clueless narrator. As a result, the story is all too predictable to the readers who recognize it, and probably incomprehensible to those who do not. Anderson's reputation quite rightfully rests on The Broken Sword, The High Crusade, A Midsummer Night's Tempest, and dozens of other works superior to this one, which is at best an hour's mild amusement for a certain type of educated reader.

Recent Reads : Gladiator-at-Law, by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth

Many years ago, I wrote a rather bad short story in which attorneys, rather than arguing their cases before juries or judges, literally fought like gladiators on live television. It was intended to be an absurd satire of the American legal system and television audiences' love of vicarious violence. I didn't realizehow quickly the O.J. Simpson trial, The People's Court, and so-called "reality TV" would approach that level of absurdity in the next few years.

When someone on a fiction-related listserv mentioned the title of this book, I knew I had to read it. So I got a copy by interlibrary loan and read it over the course of my next few lunch breaks at Busy Bee College. I was somewhat relieved to see that despite the title, Pohl and Kornbluth did not have quite the same idea as I had expressed in my clumsy piece of satire.

Despite the title, and despite the rather misleading cover illustration on the 1986 Baen paperback reprint, the book does not actually feature attorneys resolving legal disputes with flaming clubs and elbowspikes. (There are gladiatorial combats in the book, but the attorney-protagonist enters the arena only once, toward the end of the book, and not as a combatant.) It's another of Pohl and Kornbluth's forays into social science fiction, projecting corporate and mass media trends into the future much in the style of other collaborations such as Venus, Inc. and The Merchant's War (originally published separately; later combined as The Space Merchants). In this book, as in the other two, society is portrayed as being dominated by giant, amoral corporations run amok. The seething masses of the population are kept (mostly) docile by updated versions of bread-and-circuses, including sadistic gladiatorial spectacles. In Venus, Inc. and The Merchant's War, the protagonists are in the advertising business, and the focus is on the potential excesses of that trade. In Gladiator-at-Law, the protagonist is an attorney, and the novel deals with the cutthroat world of corporate control.

There's plenty of social satire along the way, as P&K take swipes at shoddily-constructed suburbs, violent entertainment, the social deadweight of "old money", and other targets. There are other similarities between the books as well. P&K seem to have used a similar plot pattern in all three books: complacent drone begins by failing to recognize the flaws in his society, gets pulled into someone's attempt to right a wrong, becomes a target of his erstwhile employers/patrons, recognizes the evils of his society, and finally attempts to correct them through some clever stratagem.

The humor is about as black as it can be, as in this disquisition by a stadium manager planning an evening's program:

"Of course, it's rough -- the emotional values need bringing out. The comedy stuff with the vitriol pistols ought to follow a tense thriller like Man Versus Scorpions instead of another comedy number like the Octogenarians With Flame Throwers. But that's easy enough to fix. Race Against Man-Made Lightning is out too; Stimmens told me himself we couldn't get the equipment from Schenectady...."

The appeal of these books is in their satirical projection of a hypothetical future, not in their characterization, poetic prose, or innovative literary structure. For the most part, they work, even though a few of the authors' projections in Gladiator-at-Law fall flat from today's perspective. Suburbs, as a rule, have not decayed into anarchistic slums like the Belle Reve/"Belly Rave" portrayed in the story, although if gasoline prices continue to rise, and if other inventions projected in Gladiator-at-Law ever come to pass, it's still possible that they could. We do not -- yet -- have entertainment programs in which the contestants are stabbed with spears, incinerated with flamethrowers, or eaten by pirahnas. And yet what we do have is close enough that Misters Pohl and Kornbluth can be rightly regarded as minor prophets.

There are other faults. The female characters are not much more than plot devices. This is not surprising in a story originally published in 1953. Still, when a female character shows early signs of being something other than an ornamental prop, it would be nice if the authors followed up by having her do something other than get kidnapped and have to be rescued.

On the whole, though, it's a good adventure yarn laced with cautionary paranoia about corporate power and occasional flashes of blacker-than-black humor. And, as it happens, I enjoy such things. Recommended.

Overheard at the reference desk:

"Oh.... I thought Norman Conquest was a person...."

"Why does the title say You Can't Do It All? That doesn't make sense." (Person was looking for books about delegation.)

Recent Reads

Lipstick Jihad : a memoir of growing up Iranian in America and American in Iran, by Azadeh Moaveni

Personal update (or, I Am Cursed.)

I've been delinquent in updating this blog lately, and particularly neglectful of personal news.

For any readers of this occasional and desultory blog who haven't heard from me personally in the past few weeks, the first big news is that I've taken another part-time job in the library of a vocationally-oriented private college up in Michael Moore's home town. Let's call it Busy Bee College. This brings to three the number of part time jobs that I am scrambling back and forth between while trying to keep body and soul together in this so-called profession.

The second big news is that I may not be able to keep getting to any of them, since someone stole my car this weekend. I'll spend the afternoon trying to get the registration and insurance updated on the old truck. Won't it be fun commuting for 120 miles a day at 12 miles per gallon.

May pestilential, painful, incurable boils infest all car thieves everywhere. May their balls shrivel, their teeth fall out, their eyes go blind, and their limbs be struck by quivering palsy. May they live in excruciating pain, crawling upon their bellies for all to look upon and jeer at and kick them like the despicable animals they are.

Recent reads (in brief)

The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

The fictionalized saga of several women from the Old Testament, as narrated by Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah. A better read than most "bestsellers" and book club selections.

Bear Flag Rising : the Conquest of California, 1846, by Dale Walker

The U.S. of the nineteenth century was about as aggressive and acquisitive as they come. Walker tells a tale of hypocrisy, greed, and ambition.

Celtic Lore, by Ward Rutherford

An extensive but somewhat unfocused collection of examples of Celtic lore and customs that have survived in European culture. The author's thesis seems to be that the Celts had a greater cultural impact that is usually attributed to them.

Metaphors we live by, by George Lakoff

Lakoff's writings on politics and communication have been highly recommended on DailyKos and elsewhere. However, I wasn't particularly impressed by this book. He seems to expend a great deal of effort proving that much of the English language and the thought processes that underlie speech are made up of metaphors. No duh, Sherlock. Perhaps Don't Think of an Elephant will carry the analysis a bit further.

The Atrocity Archives, by Charles Stross

H.P. Lovecraft meets cyberpunk, courtesy of a secret government organization called The Laundry, which spends its time making sure that theoretical physicists, computer programmers, and "stoned artists from Austin, Texas" don't accidentally create energy patterns that will release the demonic beings that dwell "at the bottom of the Mandelbrot set." Great geeky fun.

The Double Shadow, by Clark Ashton Smith

This is a slim collection of otherwise hard-to-find CAS short stories recently collected and republished by Wildside Press. They don't quite hit the mark established by Smith's Averoigne stories, but they're pleasant enough. The Voyage of King Euvoran seems imitative of Dunsany. The Double Shadow is reminiscent of a Lovecraft story filtered through CAS's exotic fantastical settings rather than HPL's haunted New England. The other four stories are typical CAS exercises in literary decadance, in which plot is less important than the creation of a langorous and exotic atmosphere. The Maze of the Enchanter is atmospheric and disturbing, if a bit predictable to anyone who's read CAS's other tales of self-absorbed and self-indulgent sorcerors. The Willow Landscape is an uncharacteristically gentle story of an unusual enchantment. Not bad, although for those unfamiliar with CAS, Arkham House's collection A Rendezvous in Averoigne is a better place to start.

Recollections in black and white, by Eric Sloane

A slim collection of pen-and-ink drawings of historic buildings, with Sloane's commentary on their significance and his techniques for portraying them. I always enjoy glancing through his work, whether he's describing buildings, or old tools, or any other aspect of American life in days gone by.

Voelker's Pond : a Robert Traver Legacy, by photographer Ed Wargin, with essays by James McCullough

This book was given to me when I left the Queen City of the North. It's largely a collection of color photographs and personal recollections of its namesake, the private fishing camp of John Voelker. Voelker was a prosecutor and judge from the Upper Peninsula who, under the pen-name Robert Traver, wrote tales of courtroom drama such as Anatomy of a Murder and odes to troutfishing such as Trout Madness. His prescription for warding off the pestilential insects of the northern forests may be of particular interest to Fiend: "If you are hardy enough, smoke Italian cigars. They smell like burning peat bog mixed with smoldering Bermuda onions but they're the best damned unlabeled DDT on the market; all mosquitoes in the same township immediately shrivel and zoom to earth. {Fellow fishermen occasionally follow suit.}"

The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan

I really can't put my finger on exactly why I haven't enjoyed this book. The characters are fairly well-drawn and sympathetic, and unlike some "best-selling" authors, Jordan does write coherent sentences that more-or-less make sense from one chapter to the next. But for some reason I just can't seem to get interested enough in the story to enjoy it.

The politics of questions and answers

I've mentioned before that I seem to be on the mailing lists of just about every political party in the U.S. Recently, among the stamp-signed photos of Our Leader and the hysterical pleas for money to fight the great menaces of America-Hating Liberalism, Right-Wing Radicalism, Radical Abortionists, Anti-Woman Activists, and so forth, I received yet another political survey form, this time from the Democratic National Committee.

I've seen these things before, and usually chuck them into the trash after briefly glancing over them and chuckling over the blatantly biased phrasing of the question. ("Do you support our President's war against those who seek to destroy American lives and values?" "Do you believe that government should take more of your paycheck in order to support radical left-wing social projects?" "Do you believe that women should be held captive to an outmoded view of male domination?")

Most such surveys are purely push-polls, designed to influence the emotions and opinions of those who receive them. Getting an accurate view of the survey-taker's preexisting views is the last thing on the mind of the people who write them. Instead, they're intended to arouse the True Believers to mail in money and march to the polls to vote the party line on Election Day. That's why they're mailed predominantly to people who have already been pre-selected as likely supporters of the group sponsoring the survey, by virtue of party membership lists or, in my case, probably because they subscribe to a political magazine of a certain type.

I was surprised to notice that the DNC's survey was phrased in relatively nonpartisan terms, and most of the multiple-choice options actually offered reasonably unbiased summaries of the most common arguments for or against the proposal under discussion. For example:

3. Do you support new tax cuts targeted at working families?
O Yes, with our economy struggling, working families need a tax break.
O No, additional tax cuts at this time will only worsen the federal deficit.

4. Should the government put a high priority on stopping American manufacturing jobs from being "outsourced" to overseas workers?
O Yes, the manufacturing jobs being lost are essential to our economy.
O No, American consumers benefit from cheaper goods made overseas.

5. Do you support raising the minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 per hour?
O Yes, the minimum wage should be increased to help workers make ends meet.
O No, raising the minimum wage will hurt small businesses an cost jobs.

My conclusion: the Democrats, who have lost a lot of political clout in the last decade or so, are genuinely trying to figure out what voters think and what voters want. While Republicans confidently use their "surveys" to blast propaganda into the ears of their likely voters, the Democrats feel the need to actually figure out what their supporters really think. This could be taken as a sign of political weakness, I suppose, or as evidence of basic confusion about what the Democratic party stands for. It could also be taken as an example of the difference between top-down and bottom-up political organizing that some posters on DailyKos and elsewhere claim to see between the Republican and Democratic organizations.

I didn't send the survey in, but I have to have a certain amount of respect for a survey that actually tries to do what surveys are supposed to do, and in the future, I'm more likely to respond to surveys like this one than to ones that demand I choose between "Yes, I support our President! My contribution is enclosed!" and "No, I hate America".

Recent Reads

Turning on the girls, by Cheryl Benard

Some months back, I read a book titled Moghul Buffet that turned up in the library's stack of unwanted donations. I enjoyed the book's ironically detached narrative voice, a kind of "Dear Reader..." narrative persona that helped coat the brutal sexism of its setting in Pakistan and the murders, deceptions, and betrayals of its plot with just enough satirical distance to help readers get through the story, but not so much as to make light of the sickening reality on which it's based.

Early this year, after reading some positive reviews of a book titled Turning on the girls, I requested an interlibrary loan copy without noticing that it was by the same author. Once I finally realized that I'd seen the author's name before and looked her up in the library catalog, I realized that she was also the author of a nonfiction book about women in Afghanistan that I had glanced at a year or two ago. That's the last time I'll fail to notice her name.

Turning on the girls is another fictional story laced with satire. This time, Benard's targets are closer to home for Western readers. Her scattered targets include militant feminists, smarmy/sensitive New-Age-Guys, old-style male chauvinist pigs, political Utopians of all flavors, and more than anything else the strange, strange world of romance novels, erotica, and other sexual fantasies.

From the blurb on the front flap: "It's 2000something, the world has just been taken over by women, and things are wonderful, or at least they will be just as soon as the new rulers finish fixing things. And here's Lisa, a dedicated young employee of the new government, ready to do her part. Why does she have stacks of pornography, love stories, and romance novels on her desk? Well, that's her job! To come up with politically correct sexual fantasies for women. No more lovesick simpering, no more masochistic daydreams! Women are going to learn to be turned on by healthier, more dignified fantasies -- just as soon as Lisa can come up with some...."

Benard's targets are almost too easy, but she skewers them beautifully. I enjoyed both the comically exaggerated machismo of the male-chauvinist resistance movement and the equally exaggerated dogmatism of the New Order's Ministry of Thought (Department of Values and Fantasies, Subdepartment of Dreams). The well-meaning attempts of the New (feminist) Order to re-educate men are good for a few chuckles, too. But the parts of the book that had me literally doubled up with laughter were our earnest young heroine's efforts to research her assigned subject. Her bewildered reaction to romance novels, and the ludicrous but plausible examples of her research materials that the author helpfully supplies, are worth the price of the book. And that's without even mentioning poor Lisa's puzzled attempt to figure out Anne Rice's "Beauty" books.

Some of the plot hinges are a bit creaky and contrived, especially toward the end of the book, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. Highly recommended. I'll be waiting for Benard's next book.

Recent Reads

The Book Shop : a novel, by Penelope Fitzgerald

A kindly, intelligent, book-loving woman in a decaying English town starts a small business. In the process she renovates a derelict building, helps revitalize the local economy, provides jobs for otherwise idle teenagers and self-proclaimed intellectuals, and makes the world of books and ideas accessible to an otherwise isolated population. Naturally, someone with money and political connections is offended, and takes legal and social action to halt this dreadful menace to their ego.

It's a story of hopeful idealism versus pigheaded selfishness backed up by money, social position, and sly legalisms, and it should be required reading for anyone in the US where the Supreme Court's ruling in Kelo v. New London makes such things the law of the land for anyone who is unlucky enough to own a house, business, or any other property coveted by the local government's golfing buddies, "campaign contributors", business partners, or corporate sponsors. (See here for more background on this egregrious sellout of citizens' Constitutional rights by the Court, and what Americans who believe in Constitutional rights are doing about it.)

Recent Reads

The Last Disciple, by Hank Hanegraaff and Sigmund Brouwer

Radio's Bible Answer Man responds to the "Left Behind" phenomenon by writing (or co-writing) a fictional treatment of the Book of Revelations which adheres to a more historically-oriented interpretation than LaHaye and Jenkins. The Beast of John's prophetic vision is identified as the depraved Emperor Nero, and the Tribulation as Rome's persecution of Christians under his deranged rule.

There's plenty of dissension among Biblical scholars about the proper interpretation of Revelations, but the version put forth by Hanegraaff strikes me as far more plausible than LaHaye's and Jenkins' projections of John's visions into the present day and the future. Hanegraaff acknowledges the difficulty of interpreting mystical visions both in an explanatory epilogue and through a character in the story, a former Jewish rabbi, who notes while analyzing John's cryptic writings that a skillful user of symbols can make them encompass multiple meanings, and use them to conceal as well as reveal meaning. Hanegraaff's epilogue states that his purpose is not to "call into question the orthodoxy of the Left Behind authors", but this doesn't keep him from quoting a passage from one of their books, in which LaHaye's and Jenkins' version of AntiChrist performs a miracle by raising himself from the dead, and arguing that this literal, rather than symbolic, interpretation of certain passages in Revelations violates several basic Christian principles:

In a Christian worldview, only God has the power to raise the dead. If AntiChrist could 'raise [himself] from the dead' and control 'the earth and sky', Christianity would lose the basis for believing that Christ's resurrection vindicates His claim to deity. Further, if Satan possesses the creative power of God, this would subvert the post-resurrection appearances of Christ in that Satan could have masqueraded as the resurrecting Christ. Moreover, the notion that Satan can perform acts that are indistinguishable from genuine miracles suggests a dualistic worldview in which God and Satan are equal powers competing for dominance...." (p. 394)

Unfortunately, the plot of the story in which these ideas are presented is both predictable and plodding, the prose is unspectacular, and few of the characters are more than stereotypes. Still, the book is a useful corrective for wild theorizing of the Left-Behind variety, and it's moderately entertaining as historical fiction set in the turbulent decline of the Roman Empire and the surreptitious growth of the early Christian church.

Recent Reads

Married to a Stranger, by Nahid Rachlin

I read this because Rachlin wrote a blurb for a friend's book, and because that friend seemed to have regarded her work highly enough to include her work in an anthology and in her writing classes.

I can see some reasons why Rachlin's novel would have appealed to S. The setting in pre-revolutionary Iran and the pervasive concern with family relationships and women's status in marriage and in the society as a whole also appear in S.'s work.

However, I never really felt the kind of direct connection that I felt with S.'s descriptions of similar situations, or with graphic novels such as Maryam Satrapi's Persepolis. The story Rachlin tells is interesting enough, but the prose and the characters' emotions, with one or two exceptions, seem rather flat. Perhaps this is deliberate on the author's part, an attempt to replicate the psychological repression that comes from living in a society such as she describes.

It may also be that my lack of personal experience with the milieu of the story makes me partially deaf to the story's emotional tones and undertones. Perhaps this is further proof that one can never quite fully understand how another person perceives the world, no matter how much one wishes to do so.

Recent Reads

The King's English : Adventures of an Independent Bookseller

Betsy Burton, proprietor of the King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City, describes the trials and tribulations that she's experienced in the story's twenty-plus years of operation. Along the way, she describes what it's like to organize booksignings, dinners and other events for authors ranging from the sublime (Isabel Allende seems to be a particular favorite) to the cranky (not named, but described in excruciating detail) to the eccentric (John Mortimer and his ubiquitous bottles of champagne) to the controversial (Jon Krakauer, whose book Under the Banner of Heaven was unpopular enough with Mormon fundamentalists that many local venues were unwilling to host them, and Burton was obliged to supply security staff.) Her accounts of censorship issues in the local schools, and of her observation of suspected "vice squad" cops suspiciously prowling the shelves of the bookstore looking for something to object to, are both disturbing and funny. (She makes a point of saying that it's not the fault of the Mormons, or at least not entirely so.) Her firsthand reportage of the ongoing war between independent bookstores and big-box corporate retailers, and the strategies that they use against each other, are invaluable. I particularly enjoyed her account of how TKE dealt with the Harry Potter frenzy after being stiffed by a book wholesaler who promised to deliver the books by the Big Day and then refused to do so. Keep the customer satisfied...

For Sale: one ore dock, slightly used

My Beautiful City On The Bay contemplates what to do with the monolithic, 800-foot-long solid concrete ore dock that has sat unused in the Lower Harbor since the Soo Line railroad stopped loading ore into lake freighters twenty-five years ago. Developers propose "dividing the dock into three floors, with the top two floors renovated into about 50 apartments and the bottom floor retained for parking." I'm not sure exactly how they propose to turn the ore bins into apartments, but it certainly would be interesting to see their architectural drawings. The loading chutes might be a convenient way to get rid of unwelcome guests.

Note to Fiend: it's sort of an island....

A superior view, indeed.

From the Yooperrails listserv, a link to the website of Superior View, a business in Da Yoop that has an incredible collection of old photographs of the region and makes them available to anyone who's interested. A good-quality, "suitable-for-framing" reproduction will cost a few bucks, but their subject-categorized image index includes reduced-size images that make for interesting browsing.

A reminder, I suppose, that every once in a while the free market of eclectic individuals throws up a solution to a problem that the public sector is unable or unwilling to address.

The Oxford American : The Southern Music Issue

The Oxford American's 2005 Southern Music issue and its accompanying CD arrived a while back. For me, Sammi Smith's whisky-voiced rendition of "This Room for Rent" is the highlight of the collection. "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb", from the Pilgrim Travelers, is an entertaining piece of Cold War evangelical wackiness, and I was pleased to note that the insightful profile that accompanies it is by Bob Darden, editor of the Wittenburg Door, sometime gospel-music reporter for Billboard, and one of my former professors at Thee University. Zora Neale Hurston singing "Crow Dance", a black folk song with African roots, is of some historical interest, and there's a smattering of good tracks from big names, including a live recording of Elvis Presley's first public performance of "Suspicious Minds", to go along with the usual (for the OA) selection of forgotten bluesmen and eccentric, obscure garage bands and lounge singers.

It's pleasant to listen to, but for some reason doesn't have quite the same eccentric kick as previous iterations. None of the tracks send chills down my spine like the first time I heard, say, King Pleasure's "Swan Blues" or Esther Williams' version of "No Headstone on my Grave" from the 2003 collection, or Wilco and Billy Bragg's "When the Roses Bloom Again", Dolly Parton's "Silver Dagger", or Todd Snider's "Back to the Crossroads" from the 2000 collection. Nor do any of them make me laugh like Earl Scruggs and Billy Bob Thornton's bizarre hick-hop version of "Ring of Fire" from the 2002 version, although the DeZurik Sisters' intricately playful "Arizona Yodeler" comes close. Perhaps I'm becoming jaded.

Don't let me discourage you if you have the slightest curiousity about southern music. It's still better than just about anything you're likely to hear on the radio, it's pleasantly eclectic, and the accompanying articles about the musicians are entertaining and informative. And the OA, which is currently on its third life after relocating to Little Rock, Arkansas, could use the money. (Other online reactions to the music issue, mostly positive, can be found here.)

Recent reads: The Johnstown Flood, by David G. McCullough

The events described here are almost eerily reminiscent of the recent situation in New Orleans, except that they happened over a century ago. Proof of the Eternal Return of human negligence, perhaps?

Engineers had stated for years that the dam at Lake Conemaugh, 15 miles upstream from the steel-milling town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was in need of competent repair. Those with control over the dam insisted otherwise, and performed such repairs as they did see fit to perform in a cheap, desultory and incompetent fashion. The rains came. The dam failed. And on May 31, 1889, a city died.

Some excerpts from McCullough's description of the aftermath of the flood:

Along the Frankstown Road on Green Hill some 3000 people had gathered. On the rim of Prospect Hill and on the slopes above Kernville, Woodvale, and Cambria City the crowds were nearly as big. Chilled to the bone, hungry, many of them badly injured, hundreds without shoes or only partly clothed against the biting air, they huddled under dripping trees or stood along narrow footpaths ankle-deep in mud, straining their eyes and trying hard to understand.
Spread out before them was a vast sea of muck and rubble and filthy water. Nearly all of Johnstown had been destroyed.... (p. 184)

The problems to be faced immediately were enormous and critical. People were ravenously hungry, most everyone having gone twenty-four hours or more without anything to eat, and now there was virtually no food anywhere.... Moreover, there was no water that anyone felt was safe to drink.... There was almost no dry clothing to be had and no medicines.... (p. 188

But by noon things had begun to happen, if only in a small way. Rafts had been built to cross the rivers and to get over to those buildings still surrounded by water. People on the hillsides whose houses had escaped harm and farmers from miles out in the country began coming into town bringing food, water, and clothing.... (p. 188)

That afternoon, at three, a meeting was called in Johnstown to decide what ought to be done there. Every able-bodied man who could be rounded up crowded into the Adams Street schoolhouse. The first step, it was quickly agreed, was to elect a 'dictator'.... (p. 189)

[Arthur J.] Moxham was a fortunate choice. He took charge immediately and organized citizens' committees to look after the most pressing and obvious problems. Morgues were to be established under the direction of the Reverends Beale and Chapman. Charles Zimmerman and Tom Johnson were put in charge of removing dead animals and wreckage....

Dr. Lowman and Dr. Matthews were responsible for establishing temporary hospitals. Captain Hart was to organize a police force. There was a committee for supplies and one for finance....

Captain Hart deputized some seventy-five men, most of whom were employees ofthe Johnson Company sent down from Moxham. They cut tin stars from tomato cans found in the wreckage....

As dusk gathered, the search for the living as well as the dead went on in earnest." (pp. 190-191))

A compelling story told by a skillful storyteller, with enough detail that a reader can understand how the disaster occurred, what created the danger in the first place, and how people worked together to salvage their lives afterward. Highly recommended.

Defining moments

This editorial from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. caught my attention today.

For those who don't have subscription access, I'll summarize. The author, a history professor, asked his students to identify the most important event in their fathers' life. Some listed Big Historical Events like the Vietnam War, the civil-rights movement, etc., that are discussed in typical American history textbooks. Others listed arrival in the U.S. as an immigrant, or some significant event overseas that influenced their fathers' decision to emigrate. But the majority identified, instead, some purely personal event:

In some ways the even greater challenge to the conventions of the field came from the majority (55 percent) of students who listed private matters as most decisive. A few of the answers were self-referential, whether flippant ("having me"), conventionally sentimental ("meeting between him and my mom"), or the opposite ("father not a part of my life"). More responses singled out death -- of parent, sibling, friend -- as a historical influence on their father. (One student elaborated, "death of his mother -- my dad has nine siblings, so he had to help out because they live in Poland and he lives here.") Culinary schooling in Rhode Island, admission to the Chicago Fire Department, entering the Marines, quitting drinking, getting shot, imprisonment in Texas, retirement, divorce and single parenthood, college graduation at age 50, and health and money problems rounded out a long list of life-altering events.

Before even reaching this passage, I had come to the conclusion that this was true of most of my relatives. Although I don't pretend to be able to identify *the* most important event of my father's or grandfathers' lives, I can make pretty good guesses at the two or three most likely possibilities, even after leaving aside the obvious answers like being born healthy, meeting their future spouse, or the general childhood environment that helped form their personality.

For my father, for example, the decision to finish his college education at a state university with a strong engineering program, and his later decision to go to law school after he became dissatisfied with engineering as a profession, seem to have had the most far-reaching effects in determining the course of his life. It got him off the farm and out of the Ozarks and sent him on a peripatetic career, living as far east as Pennsylvania, as far south as Texas, and taking occasional trips to countries around the world.

For my grandfather B., it's a little harder to tell. Perhaps it was his fathers' death of pneumonia when he was twelve years old, leaving him as the primary male support for his mother and his younger siblings. Or perhaps it was a genuine text-book Historical Event, the Great Depression that hit shortly thereafter, making life on a hardscrabble hill farm even more difficult than it was before. Or perhaps it was his stint in the CCC camp where he quickly became a gang foreman due to his hard-work ethic, his stubbornness, his mechanical aptitude, and the burly build that made potential troublemakers reluctant to challenge him. Perhaps the vocational course in sheet-metal working that he took on the eve of World War II, or the job that he was offered working the aluminum-shaping drophammers in an East Coast bomber plant during the war. Again we see economic considerations directing a life: that job took him out of the Ozarks and away from the hardscrabble farm country. Even today he talks about the long, long drive from Baltimore back to Kansas City, where he spent the rest of his working life in an oil refinery before retiring back to the small town in the Ozarks that he had never quite forgotten.

For my female relatives, the choice of spouse seems to have been the most dominant influence on their subsequent lives -- or at least the most obvious one that is apparent to me. (I'm not necessarily privy to all their personal experiences!) Of course, this is largely due to the fact that, whether by their own inclination or due to the prevailing social customs of the time, they had no long-term careers of their own and, to a large degree, followed their husbands and their husbands' jobs around the country.

As for myself -- well, I'm not sure that's quite obvious, even to me. Every move from one place to another, from infancy to the present, could be looked at as a critical event, since it introduced me to new people and places. Every new acquaintance who has shaped my thinking and affected me in both good ways and bad, The loss of freinds who had, over the years, become like a distant but intimate part of myself. The books and movies, etc., that have shaped my thinking. Getting a masters' degree in library science. Every change of job, including the one that took me from Texas to Michigan.

Big news events like the September 11 attacks and the war in Iraq have affected my own life mainly in indirect ways and through the way that observing them has affected my view of the world. I have been fortunate in not having any freinds or relatives who were directly affected by these events. My closest brush with a major catastrophe was a recent interview for a job at a university which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina shortly afterward. I didn't get the job -- thank God for small favors, eh?

Finding out about This Thing Called Blog must also rank somewhere among the defining events of my recent life. Heck, even a long-ago, casual decision to post a comment on the blog of somebody who lived in an entirely different country could have momentous effects....

The Nick Bantock-ization of Sherlock Holmes

Courtesy of "Professor Pangaea" by way of the FictionMags listserv: Sub Rosa, A Correspondence by Wire.

Yarns, ripping and otherwise

After Carlos mentioned the DVD release of Ripping Yarns on his blog a while back, I felt a strange, uncanny compulsion to get my own copy. I remember seeing episodes from this series on the dorm TV while doing laundry years ago at Thee U. -- that is, when there wasn't a mob of frat guys hanging around and insisting on watching MTV's Top Ten or a football game instead. I can't help but wonder whether it's really as funny as it seemed then. Will it be as appealing when I can watch it at my leisure, instead of having to catch precarious and fragmentary glimpses in between trips to the washer and dryer?

Until then, there's Tales From the Vault, the Library of Canada's tribute to Canadian adventure yarns, to tantalize a taste for delicious pulpy goodness.

Apropos of nothing

I saw a donated copy of one of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's books at the library today, and it reminded me of an e'mail that was circulated in response to her death last year.

"Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has died."
"No! Dammit! But what if.... " *Sigh*. "Okay."

Does this one belong in the category of tasteless jokes? Or is the mere fact that anyone gets it a tribute to her influence?

I almost missed it again!

Today is the feast day of St. Lawrence the Librarian, one of the patron saints of this ancyente & honourable profession. At least I'll be able to honor him in proper fashion once I get home and prepare a midnight snack. The traditional food for his feast is cold cuts.

Changed his mind

It seems that Larry McMurtry will stay in the bookselling business after all.

Things That Should Not Be

Superman Meets the Quik Bunny... Superman Meets He-Man... and my all-time favorite tale of cultures in collision, The Punisher Meets Archie. All courtesy of this link from Tech Knight, via a link from TangognaT.

I'll probably be reading TangognaT more often now that I've volunteered to order adult graphic novels for Suburban Public Library. (And for the dirty-minded among you, that's adult as in Persepolis or Sin City, not "adult" as in porn.)

What Everyone Should Know About Blog Depression

Have you experienced a loss of pleasure in the Internet? Are the intervals between your blog postings getting longer and longer? Are you occasionally sickened by your own blog?

You may be suffering from Blog Depression! Read all about it in a handy public service pamphlet from The Nonist.

(Thanks to Louise for the link.)

Rolling footnotes to history

Union Pacific recently unveiled the first examples of its "Heritage Series" of individual locomotives painted in styles reminiscent of various railroads it has absorbed. I'm no fan of the Yellow Borg, but I like the updated MoPac and WP colors and I'm sure they'll be a welcome change from the monotonous parade of Armour Yellow. It'll be interesting to see how they update the paint schemes of other UP predecessors like the MKT. I suspect they'll start with the Katy's most recent color scheme, the cheerful "John Deere" green-and-yellow of the 1970s and 1980s, rather than the monotonous red of the Deramus years or the flamboyant red-and-silver of the "Texas Special" streamliner of the 1950s.

Added comment, 8/8: A poster on a railroad history listserv speculates that UP's motivation for this project may be to preserve their trademark ownership over the logos and color schemes of the predecessor railroads, in order to collect royalties from commercial model-railroad manufacturers and railroad-book publishers who wish to reproduce them.

Is such cynicism warranted? On the one hand, UP has demonstrated long-term corporate interest in historical preservation, as with the UP Railroad Museum and their continuing steam-locomotive program. On the other hand, they've been the most aggressive of all the major railroads about demanding royalties and permissions from railroad modellers and historians.

Of sex and stacks

The pseudonymous "Thomas H. Benton" discourses upon the fate of intellectual inquiry (and other activities) in libraries when those libraries no longer offer the opportunity to immerse oneself in the printed work of previous generations.

I've commented before that some of most intriguing and life-changing moments I've experienced in my own life were the result of unstructured, free-ranging browsing in library collections. Without that kind of unstructured browsing, I would never have discovered James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, or many of the other authors who have come to be part of my consciousness. I hope that similar moments of momentous serendipity are not forbidden to future generations by blinkered library administrators infatuated with shiny gadgets and ignorant of the value of the vast troves of ideas, stories, and information embodied in the printed collection of a typical university.

The Return of Gilbert Bland (and other comments on library thievery)

Several years ago, the book The Island of Lost Maps described in fascinating detail how an otherwise unremarkable antiquarian map dealer with the improbably appropriate name of Gilbert Bland sliced and smuggled his way to infamy by stealing hundreds of rare maps from atlases and other books found in the rare-books departments of libraries across the country. In the appendix to that book, the author expressed the hope that Bland's depredations would prompt libraries housing such collections to improve their security. Because the thieves won't stop coming just because one of them gets caught. Witness the recent capture of a "respected antiquarian dealer" who seems to have acquired the bulk of his inventory by stealing it in exactly the same fashion as Bland did.

Recently, a library at which I work lost an extremely expensive reference book when a thief simply requested it at the reference desk and then blithely waltzed out the door with it. The library does not require users of such materials to check them out or sign in or leave any ID at the desk while using them, and it's an open secret that the impressive-looking book-detectors at the public entrance are impotent scarecrows that are never turned on. Once the thieves figure this out, it becomes very expensive to run a library.

Moral of the story: If your library has anything in it that is worth stealing, keep it under lock and key, because no matter how innocuous they look, some of your patrons are thieving scum who will steal anything that's not bolted down.

Down memory road

This article made me feel a bit nostalgic. Perhaps I'll get other chances to go a-wandering in future summers.

The New Balkanism?

I've alluded before to projects like the Free State Project, and to various half-serious secession efforts in different states.

Now comes Christian Exodus, which is "moving thousands of Christians to South Carolina to reestablish constitutionally limited government founded upon Christian principles."

Their webpage proudly features the First Amendment to the Constitution to which they allude: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...."

The phrase "deaf to irony" comes to mind.

"You eat an apple one bite at a time...."

The Economist argues that the political power of U.S. theocrats will continue to grow. The article features a very nice photograph of the Southern Baptists meeting to worship their deity.

And while I'm ranting about libraries

... I'll point out that the current edition of UtneReader contains a couple of interesting articles about American libraries:

Knowledge for Sale

The New Monastic Librarians (subscription required for full article but a short abstract is free.)

Books, schmooks

The University of Texas at Austin, once reputed to be a prestigious and intellectually respectable institution of higher learning, no longer expects undergraduates to actually look at books. A local news channel, among other sources, reports that the U. of T. has removed practically all the books from its undergraduate "library" in favor of installing computers, "flexible furniture", and staff trained in making "multimedia presentations" (i.e., PowerPoint).

The predictable result: in about four years, instead of undergraduate students who can't read, think that research consists of doing a Google-search, and think that a "library" is a place to play Solitaire between classes, UT librarians and professors will have graduate students who can't read, think that research consists of doing a Google-search, and think that a library is a place to play Solitaire between classes.

We are assured, say the UT head honchos, that the books will be readily available to anyone who asks for them. If they know the right title to ask for. At the proper desk. At the proper time. On the proper form. A day, or a week, or six weeks in advance. If the "multimedia presentation"-trained staff can remember where the storage area is. If the requestor has the proper authorization to the proper specialized graduate library. If the administration hasn't appropriated that space for other purposes.

Disciplina praesidium civitatis, indeed.

Nyah nyah nyah!

My ribbon is bigger than your ribbon! So there! That makes me a better American!

(Thanks to Louise for the link)

Oh Enetation... Enetation.... Here, Enetationenetationenetation....

Enetation's less-than-helpful FAQ suggests adding a new post to the blog to make the comments reappear. We'll see:

Back by popular demand

Carlos, you asked for it. It's been a busy month, but I should find it easier to update the blog on a regular basis over the summer.

Goodbye to All That

As of the beginning of May, I'm no longer an Academic Librarian. I question whether I'll ever want to try that career path again. My experience in academic library-land has been that unless you're an unsuccessful would-be academic with multiple unused graduate degrees, there are no steady jobs to be had, and no opportunity to work one's way into a long-term career. Covering a university library's reference desk for twenty to thirty hours a week counts for precisely zero in the academic measure of an employee's worth. Likewise with any desire to provide good quality service to students or faculty who don't happen to be the heads of their department or the personal friends of library administrators.

In the calculus of academic careers, students and low-ranking faculty are undesirable pests to be avoided, since time spent with them detracts from the amount of time one can spend kissing administrator's asses, schmoozing with tenured colleagues, padding one's vita with "scholarly" publications that no one will ever read, and collecting and carefully arranging paper documentation for future promotions. Students (and library users generally) have no influence on hiring committees, tenure committees, or budget allocations. Therefore a wise aspiring academic will do everything possible to avoid them and avoid wasting time on them.

When I interviewed with "Huron State", I was told that the position would involve reference and bibliographic instruction as well as other duties. During the two years I was there, I was assigned to precisely one hour-long bibliographic instruction session. I was assigned twenty-two to thirty hours a week of reference desk coverage, including the majority of the library's evening hours from 6 to 10 pm. The "other projects" ranged from the fun (event-related bibliographies and displays) to the mildly interesting (investigating or confirming the availability of lists of titles) to the dull (modifying MARC records for periodicals to include links to electronic indexes and databases) to the stupendously pointless and time-consuming (transcribing information from thousands of electronic catalog records onto paper). When I questioned the methodology and purpose of the latter, I was informed in so many words that, as a lowly lecturer, I wasn't supposed to ask such questions.

Meanwhile, tenured faculty with three-day work weeks made sarcastic comments about my selfishness and disloyalty for having a second, part-time job with which to supplement my munificent $25,000-per-year salary and pay rent during my otherwise unemployed summers. Another tenured faculty member consistently refused to speak with students who had complex or specialized reference questions in her assigned subject area, and complained bitterly to the administration about mere lecturers who complicated her life by referring such students to her. And another considered it to be her perogative, as a tenure-track faculty member, to throw shrieking temper tantrums at Mere Lecturers.

Meanwhile, in addition to covering 22-30 hours of reference desk service per week, I was expected to cheerfully volunteer to cover whatever reference hours the tenure-track librarians didn't feel like covering. And, oh, by the way: lecturers get no vacation time at "Huron State", and must apply well in advance for permission to earn or use comp time.

The university is currently conducting a search for tenure-track librarians. Since I did not have the foresight to accumulate a stack of unused graduate degrees before becoming a librarian, I was not qualified to apply for said positions.

Suburban Public Library, amazingly, considers me to be capable of ordering books, organizing library programs, and doing other things that professional librarians do, despite the fact that I'm only working there part time. I've applied for a full-time position there, and I hope to get it. I may get frustrated at the paucity of resources available for in-depth historical research, non-bestseller fiction, and poetry. I may get bored dealing with a clientele made up largely of people whose interests revolve ceaselessly around the latest fad diet book, the latest quick-get-rich infomercial, the latest paint-by-numbers bestseller or right-wing political hatchet job.

But at least it would pay enough to live on.

When Roombas Attack!

I've thought of getting one of these handy little devices. Anyone who's visited my place can vouch for the need for more-frequent vacuuming.

Sadly, though, it seems they do not get along with household pets.

Thanks to the Stilyagi Air Corps for the link.

A clash of loyalties

Either way this contest went, I was going to end up both congratulating and offering condolences.

Congratulations to the Lady Bears, and condolences to the Spartan women, who will be coming home on their shields rather than carrying them (metaphorically speaking.)

Drink your way to genius!

In Bellwether, Connie Willis wrote about drinks that enhance one's mental powers. Apparently this is one more instance of science-fiction's prophetic powers. Behold Google Gulp!

Oh no!

I wonder if I'll have time to make it to Archer City this weekend.

This makes me mad

Had an unpleasant episode at work yesterday evening. A male person, wearing jeans and a beige jacket and lurking amongst the shelves of the children's area of the library, exposed his genitals to a young girl browsing the stacks. (I refuse to call such creatures "men", by the way. Biologically male he may be. A man he is not.)

Fortunately, the girl was a relative of a library worker, and felt comfortable and self-assured enough to immediately tell the library staff what was going on. When the cowardly sleazebag saw her going up to the library staff desk, he bolted out the door and was gone before anyone knew to stop him.

I'm glad nothing worse happened. My only wish? That some library staffer had known what was going on in time to stop him or at least identify him. Who knows how many other kids might not have felt self-assured enough to say anything?

One of the children's librarians spent a few minutes with the girl after the library had closed, both of them "practicing" screaming at the top of their lungs. Rehearsing what the girl should do if something similar happened again. (Her response, when asked what she would have done if he had touched her? "Bite him!")

Against my will, I now feel obliged to scrutinize all unaccompanied men entering the library. When I saw a middle aged man chatting briefly with a gregarious and intelligent young girl who frequently comes to the library with her homeschooling mom, I felt obliged to stay in the area and keep both of them under observation until he left. It's a dirty world we live in.

London is a happening place

From Joss Whedon's blog: Advance screenings of Serenity, the cinematic continuation of the dearly departed Firefly, are taking place in London.

Also found through the same source: Doctor Who has apparently regenerated again. From the FAQ: The official World Premiere of new series starts in the UK on BBC1 on Saturday March 26th at 7pm. The North American premiere will be Tuesday April 5th 8pm on CBC in Canada. No airdate has been given for the series in Australia or New Zealand yet, and a US broadcaster has not yet been announced.

Grrrr.

The month in review

Aside from last week's quick post about the snowfall, I've been too busy to blog for almost a month. A quick recap of the past month:

Spent the weekend of the 13th-14th up in Ottawa, visiting Fiend and exploring Winterlude. My skating skills seem to have regressed since January. I fell down on the frozen Rideau Canal more often this time around than I did on my first visit. Could it be that I'm getting overconfident? The snow and ice sculptures, the "bed races" across a frozen lake, and the other appurtenances of the Winterlude festival are all pleasant memories, even if the ice sculptures were a bit drippy due to some unseasonable warmth the previous week.

With the end of my current contract at Huron State rapidly approaching and no word about renewal, I've returned to my jobhunting ways. That is to say, I am once more inundating the postal service with resumes and cover letters going hither and thither and yonder across the country with little visible result. I did have one telephone interview with a place I'll call Gulf Coast State University during the month. It seemed to go reasonably well. Although I don't have much experience performing the exact functions they're looking for, I did manage to blurt out some questions and observations which prompted actual conversation with some members of the search committee, rather than just the usual packaged rote questions and answers. Certain family and friends who reside in the Lone Star State would probably like to have me closer at hand, or at least have a free place to drop their luggage while they head for the beach. Unfortunately, it's about 1500 miles in exactly the wrong direction from some other places I'd like to be.

The Ann Arbor Model Railroad Club sponsored its usual annual train show this month. I was disappointed by the lack of modular layouts on display. Last year there were three or four operating layouts; this year, that number was reduced to one, with the rest of the show dedicated to dealers hawking their wares. I did end up patronizing the latter, though. I spent more than I should and less than I wanted to. At least I'll have some nifty toys to show off, if I ever manage to make it to a local model railroad club. And the Lionel layout at grand-dad's house will look a little spiffier next Christmas (or whenever I next get time to fiddle with it).

Unfortunately, I was back in Missouri on more sombre business this past weekend, attending the funeral of Great-Uncle S. He was not a relative with whom I'd ever spent a great deal of time over the years, but I always havd a great deal of respect for him. He was the epitome of a gentleman and a capable, responsible, sensible man in every way, and his influence on the family and the community in which he lived will be greatly missed. It is possible that in the absence of his calm and moderating influence, both may fragment and dissolve. I hope not.

My return from Missouri was delayed by the inevitable encounters with shirt-tail relatives and community acquaintances with whom one must, for the sake of politeness, share a cup of coffee, or a lunch at a local restaurant, before departing. Many problems of the world were solved, and the moral and intellectual character of many individuals not present was analyzed in deep and searching detail. Consequently, instead of making it all the way back to Michigan on Sunday evening, I found it necessary to check into a cheap motel near Fort Wayne, Indiana, at about 3 a.m. I noted that, for a cheap motel, it had a surprisingly large bed and mirror. I didn't realize until morning that it was right across the street from an ... ahem ... "gentlemen's" club. (I don't particularly want to think about why the wooden ceiling beams near the bed had bolt-holes through them.)

Accomodations notwithstanding, this proved to be a fortunate delay, since I was able to visit the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Museum in Auburn, Indiana the following morning. It's one of the best antique-car collections I've ever seen, and although the cars and displays are not arranged in any particular chronological order, it does a good job of showing that at one time Indiana was home to a number of thriving and historically significant auto makers. I knew that Cord had introduced things like retractible headlights and front wheel drive to North America several decades before anyone else, and that the Duesenberg roadsters of the late 20's and early 30's were among the most glamorous creations of their era. But who knew that the same family of companies had also introduced the hydraulic brake, superchargers, and unit-body construction? Even for those not particularly entranced by automotive engineering, it's worth seeing if one ever passes through northern Indiana with a couple of hours to spare. The cars are gorgeous, and the building, the former headquarters of the Auburn Automobile Company, is a fittingly grand place in which to see them.

Unfortunately, the rather curt woman on duty at the next-door National Automotive and Truck Museum of the United States was unable to provide any information about the "Samson" or "Sampson" truck which my great-grandfather is said to have driven. Also unfortunately, the Garrett Historical Society Museum, housed in a former B&O railroad depot, was closed. Fortunately, it is located next to an active CSX switching yard, and while I was parked there, a fellow ferroequinologist dropped by. According to him, the partially-dismantled Florida East Coast steam locomotive which is en route from Traverse City, Michigan, to a proposed tourist railroad in Colorado, and which has been the subject of much discussion on Michigan railroad messageboards, was in a train waiting in the yard. Unfortunately, the train in question was hidden on the inaccessible side of the yard, behind another train, limiting his (and my) ability to photograph it. Apparently he did eventually get a chance to photograph it, though, since I later received copies of the photos from him via e'mail.

Unfortunately, I had no time to wait for trains, since I was due to work the reference desk at Suburban Public Library that evening. And so homeward through the snow flurries and the slush. Waiting at home: two hungry cats, an overflowing litterbox, at least two piles of cat-puke on the carpet, and two phone messages about potential job interviews.

So it goes....

Perfect snow

Y-town and Suburbia are receiving today what I would consider to be Perfect Snow. It's fluffy, it drifts through the air picturesquely, and it sticks to the ground only on unpaved surfaces.

Unfortunately, I've yet to figure out how to post pictures, and I don't have a camera with me in any event. So you'll just have to take my word for it.

Copied without comment...

...from Huron State's winter 2005 schedule of music and dance events:

Barry Manilow Competition

Many of [the school's] finest undergraduate music majors compete for scholarship honors as they perform in thie annual prestigious competition recital.

Well now, there's a surprise

I'm a....

Loner. Loner 75% Goth 56% Geek 50% Drama nerd 50% Punk/Rebel 44% Stoner 25% Ghetto gangsta 19% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 13% What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com

Recent reads

Bellwether -- Connie Willis

Explains it all: stupid management theories, faddish hairstyles, incompetent mail clerks, hula hoops and tongue piercing. Not to mention chaos theory and, above all, the importance of being a little greedier, a little pushier, and slightly less stupid than the average sheep. Funny and thought-provoking and highly recommended. I'm still internally debating whether to use this book's revelations as a practical guide to office politics.

"I'm delusional. That's why I'm calling you."

This essay, linked to by the current issue of Library Juice, got me to thinking about a series of "reference" telephone calls received by me and other librarians at Suburban Public Library. The caller usually begins by asking what sounds like an actual reference question (e.g., "I need to know the telephone number for my representative"). But before the librarian taking the call has time to check a webpage or directory of goverment officials, he's off on some other tangent, usually having to do with some military subject. And then another tangent. And so on.

A representative sample, reconstructed by memory:

"I saw this picture in a magazine, but I don't know which magazine. There were these three soldiers. Can you tell me who they were? One of them looked Portuguese. I mean, mercenaries are usually white, aren't they? I need to know how many blacks have won the medal of honor. Oh sh*t, I just dropped my cigarette, gonna burn the f*ckin' place down. Do you know anything about parachutes? I'm delusional, that's why I'm calling you...."

Fortunately, if the call is picked up by the answering machine, he usually rambles on and on until the message ends in mid-sentence, and never leaves a callback number, thus absolving the librarian on duty from having to call him back.

Obviously, the fellow's suffering from some pretty serious mental and/or substance-abuse problems. And it wouldn't be the first time that someone very lonely and isolated had latched onto the idea of calling the local library reference desk just to be able to talk with some other human being. But it's difficult to know quite how to respond, especially when he starts asking for personal names. Do I want to become this fellow's favorite librarian?

Once more into the breach

The Biblioblog is back!

A Blog is Born!

I've started a new group blog here. It's intended as a discussion forum for politics, news, art, culture, and whatever else various acquaintances might want to discuss. Hence its name. Since it's a group blog, in which any member can post stories but no one person is solely responsible for updating it on a regular basis, perhaps it will be a useful outlet for those who have occasional outbursts of opinion but don't have the time or the inclination to blog regularly. So far, Carlos (of the currently-quiescent Biblioblog) and Fiend have expressed interest. We'll see where it goes from there. In the meanwhile, the Hill is likely to become more of a venue for personal musings, and may be updated less frequently, but will not be abandoned. The cold, stony reaches of the March still bear watching.

Busy, busy, busy

Back from the ozone again, with a few stories to tell and many complaints about the sad, sad unfairness of life, tow trucks, and automotive maintenance.

Ottawa is a lovely city in the wintertime, when the ground is covered in white and the Rideau Canal turns into the world's longest skating rink. While visiting with Fiend a couple of weeks ago, I surprised myself by making it onto the ice without instantly toppling over. Together, we made our way up the frozen canal for a kilometer or two and back, she slowly but gracefully gliding with only a hint of unsteadiness, me flailing wildly in all directions at once with arms windmilling and legs scrambling. (Or should that be "scrambled legs"?) As I mentioned to her at the time, and later in a comment on her blog, it seemed like a very apt illustration of the differences between the stereotypical female (cautious, graceful, makes steady progress with minimal disturbance or risk) and the stereotypical male (impetuous, reckless, makes faster progress but falls down frequently.)

Quote of the evening: "How do I skate backward? Like this? WHOOAAAHHH...." *thud*

We also saw the National Art Centre's production of Love's Labours Lost, one of Shakespeare's stranger plays, and one that is relatively rarely performed. I can see why. Much of the play consists of rapid-fire, nearly impenetrable seventeenth-century wordplay, like some bizarre blend of John Donne and David Mamet, which seems to prattle on endlessly and, to tell the truth, somewhat tiresomely. The plot involves a comically self-absorbed and misogynistic ruler and his courtiers, who vow to avoid (among other things) the company of women in order to focus on exclusively intellectual pursuits. A female representative of a neighboring kingdom and her ladies-in-waiting promptly arrive on an important diplomatic mission, and romantic complications ensue. I found most of the characters, and the "humorous" pranks they play on each other, to be unappealing. The play ends strangely for a comedy, not with the usual comedic resolution of conflicts and round of happy marriages, but with a sudden, tragic twist that radically alters the atmosphere of its bucolic Arcadia and seems to summarily dismiss the youthful intellectual and romantic hijinks of its pun-slinging, metaphor-twisting, hyperverbal characters as meaningless frivolities, or, at best, as nothing but a shallow prelude to the much grimmer and weightier world that awaits them outside of Arcadia. It's almost as if it's a comedy that deliberately and subversively undermines the idea of comedy itself. Perhaps Shakespeare, in his middle age, became disillusioned and cynical about happy endings?

On the whole, it was a lovely trip, even if I did have to brush some snow and pulverized ice off my pants.

Unfortunately, my return to Y-town was not quite so idyllic. An early morning flight got me to work at Huron State by 9:00 am, slightly groggy thanks to Northwest's failure to provide one of the key necessities of life but with a pleasant memory of watching the sun rise from 30,000 feet. On arriving home after work, though, Your Correspondent could not help but note that something was missing. The city had had its licenced car thieves tow Ol' Whitey while I was gone, for the "offense" of being parked for 48 hours in a legal parking space on a city street in front of the residence of its duly registered and tax-paying owner. While I was mulling this over and trying to get to Suburban Public Library for the evening reference shift, the Land Yacht, after motoring happily from the airport to Y-town and from the University to my home, inexplicably decided that it didn't feel like starting again. Despite feeling somewhat the same way myself, I found this annoying.

I won't bother to describe the rest of the week in detail, except to mention that the Land Yacht seems to have taken a dislike to cold Mondays. I can't say I disagree, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist on more reliable cooperation from it in the future. Nor will I dwell upon the towing company's momentary lapse of memory in which they claimed total ignorance of the existence of both me and my truck after I coughed up the ransom they demanded. Nor the Land Yacht's blown fuses and broken door handle. Nor the money I'm going to have to shell out for repairs for Whitey, nor the lowlife who's taken it upon him/herself to vandalize my outgoing mail, tearing it in half very neatly and very deliberately. (That's a $250,000 rip if the postal inspectors ever catch up with you, bubs.)

More pleasantly, I did get to go to one day of 31 Flavors of ConFusion, a science fiction convention put on by a local fan group, before the weekend blizzard dumped 12 inches of snow on everything in sight and made travel from Y-town to the convention hotel a practical impossibility. A quick summary of information gleaned and recommendations to be made: David G. Hartwell and his wife Kathryn Cramer are astute editors and observers of both science fiction and its fans. Watch for both their recent anthology of hard SF and an upcoming anthology of space opera. The Flash Girls and Steven Brust are wonderful and witty live musical performers. (Check out the lyrics to All Purpose Folk Song (Child Ballad #1) and A Meaningful Dialogue). Bang!, a card game recently released by Mayfair Games, is an entertainingly silly take on the Old West as filtered through the squinty gaze of the classic spaghetti westerns of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone.

And that's about all the news that's fit, or unfit, to print. Except for one announcement....

Ninth circuit endorses sexual discrimination

Alternet has the story.

I am shocked, shocked, I tell you!

U.S. gives up search for (alleged) Weapons of Mass Destruction

As if anybody really thought that BushCo was telling the truth in the first place.

What alignment are you?

You scored as Neutral Good. A Neutral Good person tries to do the 'goodest' thing possible. These people are willing to work with the law to accomplish their goal, but if the law is corrupt they are just as willing to tear it down. To these people, doing what's right is the most important thing, regardless of rules, customs, or laws.

What is your Alignment?
created with QuizFarm.com

Thanks to Louise for pointing the way.

Oh, and one more thing....

Hi mom.

By a circuitous and unintentional means, it seems my mother has become aware of the Hill. If anyone feels like saying "Hi mom", they can use the comments field below. Despite having disreputable offspring like myself, she's a pretty cool lady. So be nice.

Post edited 2/13/05.

A Christmas to remember, or to forget

Have you ever had one of those trips in which it seemed that every move you made was cursed? I have.

My initial plan for Christmas and New Years was to spend some time with Fiend the weekend before Christmas, then drive down to the Ozarks for the family Christmas get-together on the 23rd and onward to Texas for a week, and back to Michigan following New Years.

Fortunately, most of the weekend with Fiend was not affected by the curse that afflicted my later travels. As she noted in her blog, we had all sorts of fun adventures. Some of them were delightful, like seeing the musical comedy that indirectly inspired the movie You've Got Mail and browsing the rambling used bookstores that make A-town such a pleasurable and dangerous place for bibliophiles. Others, like having the front grille of my car bashed in by a nitwit driver who blithely sailed past a stop sign into multiple lanes of oncoming traffic on a through street, were not so delightful. Fortunately, no one was hurt, although the other two cars involved were totalled. The Pontiac's front grille and headlights were damaged. (Note: If one plans to be involved in a low-to-moderate-speed collision, plan on driving a twenty-year-old full-size family sedan with heavy steel bumpers and a full-length steel frame.)

Still, on the whole, I couldn't ask for better company for such adventures, delightful or no.

It was after Fiend left that the curse manifested itself in all its gruesome strength. I contemplated driving to Missouri in the damaged car, but reports on the 22nd and 23rd of record-breaking blizzards in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio; of interstate highways closed due to snow and roadside motels packed with stranded travellers sleeping in the hallways, dissuaded me from doing so. Thinking quickly for once, I informed family in Missouri that I wouldn't get to visit them for Christmas this year, took the Pontiac to a local body shop, bought an air ticket to Texas for the New Year weekend, and made plans to meet up with family and friends in Texas during the reduced time available to me. Problem solved!

Or so one would think. One would think wrong.

Unfortunately, my air itinerary had me making connections through the Little Rock airport. This, as I found out, is not a good idea. The airport staff there are evidently unaccustomed to people making connections through their fair city. This means that they are unaccustomed to such niceties as transferring baggage from incoming to outgoing flights. Which, in turn, means that I arrived in Dallas-Fort Worth, but my luggage, with all but a few of the family's Christmas presents, did not. It was not until the middle of the next day that the airline finally got around to delivering them. Fly the Friendly Skies, indeed. The flight attendant who expressed amazement at the very idea of connecting to another flight in Little Rock had the right idea.

In the meanwhile, Pablo and Carlos picked me up from the airport and, following long-established tradition, we went out for exotic food, a raid on a secondhand bookstore, and a snooty foreign movie. Unfortunately, the Inwood, the chosen site of past revels, was closed for renovation, so we had to settle for the Angelika Theater.

Oh, I'm sorry. I said Theater, but it's not a theater at all. It's the Angelika Film Center, which is much more prestigious than a mere theater. Sorry for the confusion.

Either way, A Very Long Engagement was worth seeing. It's a bit too romantic to be a war movie, and far too graphically bloody to be a traditional romance. This means that one can not fall back on the comfortable expectations of cliched movie genres. The central question of the plot -- whether the heroine's fiancee did or did not survive the War -- remains unresolved and could go either way right up until the end of the film. Although there are a few moments when it seems that leading lady Audrey Tautou's performance is reminiscent of the gamine Amelie, the sheer brutality of the trench warfare depicted in the film, and the amoral inhumanity of those who exercise power over human life and death with no thought for the consequences of their actions, counterbalances her perkiness and perseverance with a very real and very cold sense of bureaucratic evil at work. If I were to venture a highfalutin' metaphor, I'd say that the continual push-and-pull between her persistent love for her fiancee and the military's callous disregard for humanity is an instance of the perpetual battle between those who love life and those who love death.

The "neighborhood" around the Angelika looks like a planned experiment in upscale New Urbanism, with narrow brick-paved streets winding between two-and-three-story buildings housing restaurants or trendy shops (shoppes?) on the first floor and (presumably pricy) apartments above. Curious, but a bit too new and synthetic and self-consciously trendy to appeal to crusty old cynics like myself. Give it a few decades to accumulate grime and non-standard, non-committee-approved building alterations, and I might reconsider. Having lived in a small downtown area that actually supplied most of what a person would need, including affordable housing, within a space of a few blocks, without central or artificial planning, I am not easily impressed by consciously planned imitations.

New Year's Eve became a substitute Christmas with parents, brother, and sister-in-law in Austin, Texas. Spent the rest of the vacation visiting Pablo's new/old house, getting my butt kicked at Settlers of Catan, and rummaging through the long-stored remnants of my pre-Michigan life in a storage compartment, trying to find a few useful pieces of it that I could mail back to myself in Y-town.

The trip back didn't go any more smoothly than the trip down. (Remember that curse?) American Eagle changed their departure gate twice at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, took off almost an hour late, and arrived in Little Rock fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time of my connecting flight. I elbowed my way down the aisle of the airplane and sprinted the length of the Little Rock terminal only to find a "cancelled" sign hanging on the Northwest departure gate and no Northwest personnel in sight. After wandering around for an hour or so trying to find someone from Northwest, I was eventually able to rebook passage on a later flight. They didn't lose the luggage this time, and it only took them two hours to unload it from the aircraft in Detroit. And so home again. And it only took 15 hours!

Notable Christmas swag:

Return of the King extended edition DVD. (Thank you!)
Nifty socket-wrench set specially designed for work in close quarters like car engines (in case I ever have time to do my own mechanic work)
Fancy coffee
Various books, including a couple of books about the Louvre's art and architecture, Literary Feuds, and Dungeon, Fire and Sword : the Knights Templar in the Crusades.
Scented candle
Various cat toys, including a battery-powered mouse that scares human beings and amuses felines.
Heavy insulated gloves
Pilgrim in the Ruins : a life of Walker Percy