Hustler of Culture
In order to raise funds for a budget-strapped library system, a group of Wisconsin librarians have decided to get naked and publish a calendar of themselves. Which I think is a splendid idea. I always thought porn movies had it all wrong. A librarian doesn’t need to let loose her hair bun and hike up her sensible skirt to be sexy. I’d say the librarians I know
Screw America’s Top Model. I’m ready for America’s Top Circulation Desk Manager (via Booksquare.)
So I too went ape poopey when Delicious Library came out last year, thinking at the very least it would be a fun, addictive way to develop a digital database for my book collection. Trouble is, that’s about it’s good for. You scan your books in, Delicious Library makes then look all pretty and they just sit there.
When Steve Rhodes tipped my off about Library Thing a few weeks ago, I didn’t pay much attention. I wasn’t that interested in rescanning my whole library just so I could have them on a web-based system instead of sitting on my hard drive. But the other day, I was in my converted closet of a library trying to remember what novel I had bought 10 years ago was a little like The Moviegoer but wasn’t exactly The Moviegoer and but was in some anthology with another Walker Percy something and then it hit me.
Tags. If I could search my library using the tags “anthology, moviegoer, film” I could see how my books related to one another. Which is what I was missing and what Delicious Library is as well.
So long DL. It was nice sort of knowing you.
A great newly-discovered blog San Francisco Gourmet (suggested by the always excellent Lipstick and Magazines) has just alerted me to some fantastic news: Bon Appetit has just voted San Francsico the #2 restaurant town in America behind New York! Also the SFG lists 10 reasons why San Francisco is a great eating town. Which makes me want to go out and nosh right now.
Nothing like a little civic pride. I’m all over this blog and its foodie obsessions.
So Laura Bush invites poet Sharon Olds to present at the National Book Festival in DC. Olds (winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University), thinks about and declines citing that “it would feel to me as if I were condoning what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.” The Nation runs her letter under the rather bombastic headline “No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame.”
I’m a few minds about this. First, good for Olds for sticking up for her convictions. Book festivals of that size mean mucho exposure particularly for poets whose work is not featured at festivals to nearly the same extent as novelists. By saying no, she’s turning down at the very least some good bookselling opportunities. Second, while I don’t think the First Lady nor the book festival represents the administration itself, nothing wrong with making your statement in the way you can, long as it doesn’t step on innocent bystanders in the process.
Third, and this bothers me some, did she have to go ahead and publish it in The Nation? Nothing wrong with saying no but if it’s such a personal decision, which it sounds like it was, did it need to be published in a national magazine?
What do you think?
Taps: “Only in the 1980s are uniformed students at a centuries-old military academy the misunderstood rebels of cinema.”
I didn’t watch The Emmys last night (the NY Times as a half-decent summary) but did come across Salon’s announcement of The Buffy, the award for most underappreciated TV Show. This is the second year of The Buffy. “The Wire”, HBO’s Baltimore crime drama which is sitting in wait in my Netflix queue, won last year.
This year, the award went to “Veronica Mars” which I couldn’t be happier about. I don’t know if I’ve done it here yet but you Must Watch Veronica Mars, easily the best new show on television. VM is a noir Encyclopedia Brown, set in a plastic Southern California town. Veronica, a former quen of her high school’s whose best friend, Lilly Kane was murdered. Her father, the sherrif accused Lily’s powerful parents of involvement which led to the’s Mars’s being ostrcized from the town.
Season #1 is Veronica’s attempt to solve her friend’s murder. Season #2, which begins next week, is something else entirely.
This is consistently great television, funny, smart, dark, creepy. I can’t wait for this next season to start.
Season #2 begins Wednesday, Sept. 28 on UPN. See it, see it, see it. You will not be sorry.
1) Several utilities (Keychain, Disk Utility) on my iMacG5 refuse to open. Or rather they open and shut. I’m using Tiger. Anyone know why this is?
2) Does anyone know how to record a conversation in Skype without hearing the echo of both conversationalists on each other’s computer speakers?
Answer in any order you like.
*My friend Keith Knight has illustrated a great new book called A Beginners Guide to Community-Based Arts. Their supporting organization The Crossroads Project create a network of community-based artists, educators researchers and organizers.
*The New York Observer profiles the relaunched Paris Review. The journal has redesigned its pages and overhauled its staff looking to maintain its position of literary esteem in the media-overloaded 21st century.
*Webzine 2005 is next week! Check out this great clip about the last Webzine in 1999.
I’ve got my ticket. Do you?
Mosaicist: Someone who practices the art of making mosiacs (as mentioned Friday night by my friend Keith Knight).
Backstory: Got sent to me by a publicist. Mr Auslander appeared at my local JCC (I was out of town) and got me curious. Needed a short book for my trip to Chicago.
Notes: Short story collection of little perverted fables about isues of faith and religion (Auslander is a recovering Orthodox Jew). Included is a talmudic debate from the point of view of two hamsters and a story about a young hasid who wakes up as a giant goy.
Verdict: Will be over before you know it but still a memorable ride. Funny, smart with a sing-songy arrogant cadence that works rather than puts off. You don’t have to be Jewish to get “Beware of God.” But it helps.