Words dazzle and deceive because they are mimed by the face. But black words on a white page are the soul laid bare. - de Maupassant

“She could feel the water seeping through her skin, the droplets turning into tiny silver coins that jingled as she moved” – Nick Bantock

Jane laughed at me when she got home from work last night. I was sitting on our couch/bed in the living room eating watermelon and watching “Metalocalypse”. And laughing uproariously at all the metal jokes. It’s true, I am a closet metalhead. Not so closet really though. I love bands like Diabolical Masquerade, Satyricon, Melechesh, Dimmu Borgir, Old Man’s Child, Dying Fetus – the list goes on and on. I prefer black to death, symphonic to noise, the terminology is near infinite. My good friend Tom Banjo is a huge metalhead and got me into it in college, when he played in a band call Thrones of Scorn. There is nothing more soothing after a long day of yelling at squirelly kids than an extended scream courtesy of Bethlehem. This doesn’t in any way impact my love of disco and other super-gay dance music, it is just a supplement.

On to library related things. Today I added a Twitter widget to my blog, another step in my developing knowledge of internet applications. If you haven’t explored it, the service is just a way to keep your intimates updated with developments in your life in a bite-sized portion. I have seen it on http://www.kawaiinot.com, one of my favorite cartoons online and decided to finally take the plunge. Another site I interacted with today is http://www.graphjam.com where users can submit their own humorous graphs for inclusion on the website. I submitted a Smiths-based bar graph, I hope it will be included. These graphs can make me laugh aloud. But now I need to stop ignoring the fact that a huge pile of reading for my last week of government documents awaits my attention and so I sign off –

“it has been given to few mortals, eyes which witness the dance of desert dervishes – ‘Joshua Trees’ – in arboreal ecstasy – ashiver in a sheen of melligenous moon of Mojave” – George Herriman, author and illustrator of the “Krazy Kat” comic strip

Poised beneath a twig-wigged tree, she spills her sparkling vocal powder. - Szymborska

I loathe government documents. My class is interesting and I appreciate that all the information is in whatever source my professor directs us to but wading through each tedious and exhaustive document is like being sucked into quicksand. Or so I would imagine. I especially hate the Congress sites and find them uniquely unnavigable. It took my over 2 hours to complete 4 questions in a single part of my homework assignment. Again, I am pleased the class is only 5 weeks long and I am in week 4.

Jane called me at work yesterday, to inform me that we had bees in the house. Bees?!? Who has bees? I thought at first she was joking, considering everything else we have had to deal with, both individually and collectively, in that house but apparently she was in earnest. I learned there is a “Bee Master of Las Vegas”. Bee Master? I am a huge fan of honey but that is the extent of my preferred interaction with apiculture. There is a great quote from a novel called Fourth Queen about a sultan’s harem and one of the queens describes her feelings as follows “So close have we been, with our chests opened and our ribs splayed like bone petals, with the honey running, and our two hearts like red bees, humming and sucking together.” This is a bee quote I can get behind. My idea of romance has always tended toward the gory, like Slavenka Drakulic’s Taste of a Man in which the woman consumes her lover after determining that cannibalism is the only true marriage, the way that two can literally become one. I read this book in middle school because my librarian mother did not censor my reading at all (with the exception of disallowing VC Andrews’ books which I have still never read) and imagine this idea has since shaped my theory of relationships. I have another relationship theory based on punk music that allows for three couple options. 1 – Sid/Nancy (Sex Pistols) – obviously an explosive and overwhelming passion that destroys all involved. 2 – John/Exene (X) – once romantic develops into long-term friendship. 3 – Lux/Poison (the Cramps) – lasting romance, the fairy-tale type of love (that makes allowances for hookers and drugs) and is forever. I shall close with a quote from Paul Eluard’s letters to Gala that showcases his overwhelming adoration for his muse:

“Abandon yourself to whatever tickles your fancy, nuzzle whomever you please, ogle whoever pleases you”

When they have eyes for me, it's like Heaven. - Ginsberg

There is another celestially-relevant quote from the Beats; Gregory Corso said "I'd reached Heaven and it was syrupy. It was oppressively sweet." I imagine he is correct and Nietzsche said “In heaven all the interesting people are missing” which basically cements my preference, should I indeed find there is an afterlife. Hell, however, may be found in Staff Day for the LVCCLD. All of the library district’s employees are dragged to a casino and forced to endure hours of monotonous and inane lecturing from a series of irrelevant speakers. The one bright spot in the day was a futurist speaker who discussed innovations in the Internet and other devices, like the Pleo Dinosaur and iGoogle. I am now completely obsessed with creating a perfect iGoogle page which includes a daily literary quote, CNN.com, weather, moon phases, art of the day, NY Times crossword, MapQuest directions, mini-Amazon, an iTunes feed, movie times for my zip code, my email inbox and a translation box. And all of that is just on the home page, I have separate news and art pages. Then there is, of course, the background choices, including artists like Agatha Ruiz de la Prada. I am completely enamored with iGoogle. I was for so very long avoiding all sorts of technology with a fanatical passion but taking this class has flung me forward into exploring all types of Internet applications. I didn’t have a cell phone until 2004. I still don’t have television and probably never will. The combination of the class and the speaker at Staff Day has ignited my enthusiasm for Web exploration and constructing things to my taste.

No television does not equal no movies though. I watched “Desk Set” last night and fell absolutely in love with Hepburn’s brilliant reference librarian, Bunny. The scene on the roof where Spencer Tracey’s character interviews her is priceless and an excellent example of the incredible value of a librarian’s brain. “Party Girl” is another favorite librarian movie and Parker Posey makes an incredible conversion to the marvels of cataloging in an absolutely charming series of events. I watched the “Librarian” parts 1 & 2 with Noah Wyle but was not all that impressed. Any suggestions for good library movies? Post a comment.

I spent my day off yesterday removing every book on my shelves, dusting the shelves, and reorganizing the books in a new order. My arranging is similar to the LC categories but I have yet to actually generate Cutter numbers for them. There may come a point when that happens, perhaps after I graduate and have more free time. Alarming, really.

“The wild nerves of your poems will translate straight into my tongue” – D.M. Thomas

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol

"There's something in my ear and I don't think I can get it out" was just said to me by one of our regular patrons, a 14-year-old boy who is much too big and strong for his age. "What did you put in there?" I replied, keeping a mostly straight face. He wasn't sure what it was or how it might have gotten in there and seemed reluctant to try any of the removal suggestions I looked up for him. He then re-seated himself at the computer and logged back on to the online Gaia gaming site. *sigh*

The joys of public librarianship are many.

open your lovely twilight eyes very wide - Paul Eluard to Gala

There is a prevailing stereotype regarding librarians: frumpy women with glasses, buns, and a shushing frown plastered across their wrinkled faces. Look at the photos from an ALA conference and this will seem to be entirely accurate. I love this stereotype because it allows me to break it, to be a rockstar librarian. My boss likes to send me to do our school outreach because I have red hair, tattoos, and I’m under 30. So when I enter a classroom and ask who knows where I am visiting from, the students rarely know the answer. I did get one girl who guessed I was a doctor which I found both strange and flattering. I do wear glasses (after online MLIS work for nearly 2 years), I often wear my hair in a French twist, and I have a penchant for librarian cardigans. I also love to bellydance, have danced on stage with Iggy Pop (at last year’s Vegoose music festival where Jane and I had artist-access wristbands and got tons of free stuff and hung out with Flava Flav and Chuck D, among others), enjoy cheering on the Sin City Rollergirls at their derby bouts, and love to go to offbeat places like the outdoor sculpture museum at Rhyolite or to the Amargosa Opera House. (Look those last two up, you’ll be glad you did.) All of these aspects of my life are integrated and not exclusive. Maybe next time you visit your local library’s reference desk, you should give the librarian an extra glance to see if you recognize her from somewhere else.


"Hey you, just keep on dancing". This quote from the incredible Austin duo Ghostland Observatory was written by Jane on a picture of Mikhail Baryshnikov and hung on our refrigerator and it never fails to make me smile.

“I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket” – Sylvia Plath

Pleasure is the beginning and the goal of a happy life. - Epicurus

I am not a fan of children. It seems odd that I work in the Young People's Library but it was the luck of the draw and I took whatever position was open. That being said, there are a few notable and adorable exceptions. One 3-year-old girl has taken a fancy to me and uses my name quite frequently in her stream-of-consciousness monologues made me laugh today when she was telling me how excited she was about the Summer Reading Program. The prize at the end of the program is a gold medal and we have a poster advertising the prizes hanging behind our desk. She pointed at the poster and said "See that gold medal? When I go to sleep, I will dream of that and when I wake up, I will read and read and read" and this continued on for about 5 minutes. This made me grin hugely.

"Nothing exists unless it's on paper". - Anais Nin

I feel there is an angel in me, whom I am constantly shocking. - Cocteau

Our next assignment for class is to interact with Flickr, something I have never done. After extensive research on folksonomies and the Semantic Web for other classes, I am well aware of Flickr but amazingly have yet to visit it. I am such a Luddite at times. I refused for as long as possible to get a cell phone but am now completely addicted to text messaging. I still find actual vocal interaction distasteful but endure it. HOWEVER – I had some incredibly delightful interaction with my mother via phone when she called to offer financial assistance in the form of a loan to repair my air conditioner. As it was over 100 degrees for the last week and up to 93 degrees in the house, this offer could have saved the lives of my cats. Now I am wallowing in delightfully cooled air and able to again focus on my schoolwork.

Government Documents is more interesting than I anticipated and I have learned a lot of fascinating things. Like the Federation of American Scientists (FAS.org) exists. This is a group of scientists formed by some who had worked on the Manhattan project to keep the public and policy makers informed about the developments in the scientific field. Intriguing. I also learned about NASA’s qualifications for being an astronaut – surprisingly not as difficult as one might imagine. Or one might hope for, now that I consider it.

I have a new favorite word: sprezzatura. Italian term for “the art of effortless mastery”; this is a concept of great importance to me as I expect to just be able to naturally do things I have never done before. Sometimes I am successful, like with French-braiding my own hair. Sometimes I am less successful, like with my cataloging class and working with the AACR2. I did reach cataloging mastery but it was certainly not effortless. I am always shocked when I encounter something I am unable to execute immediately, as I apparently have a reckless self-confidence and assume I am completely invincible. Though I do have an Achilles’ heel – my astonishing lack of common sense. This ties in with my tendency toward romanticizing and forgoing necessities for luxuries, quite like the Dorothy Parker quote from the last post. I have been seeking quotes as of late, 1) because I like them and 2) because the Bunny is taking a psychology class on motivation and is required to collect motivational quotes. My favorite of her selections and also the title of a fabulous YA book is “Be patient and tough. Someday this pain will be useful to you.” I haven’t a clue who said it but the Bunny enjoys it so much that she plans to have it tattooed on her wrist. I of course think this is a brilliant idea. She never ceases to amaze me. Another quote I found in my searches was a Dorothy Parker, “I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.” And I don’t bite my nails anymore, unless under extreme duress. Another Zelda Fitzgerald (why did her husband get all the attention?) “She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.” Fabulous women, these. Another source of great quotes is the movie “The Women” from which Jane and I get the designator “jungle red” for really delicious gossip. And now to end the post and return to my desk in the monkey house. I can’t wait until elementary school is back in session.

-BiblioFemme

Punk jokes are hilarious to very few (but I'm one of the few!)

Q: What has 8 arms and kills its girlfriend? A: Squid Vicious. Ha!
Q: How many Rudeboys does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: 4. One to drop it and 3 to "pick it up! pick it up! pick it up!"

Okay, enough. I am in a quandary regarding my upcoming story time. Our library district is, for the first time, celebrating GLBT Pride month. This is incredibly excited and I am delighted to have been on the committee to ensure its’ occurrence. However, I have already heard complaints from others in the library district that I will be pushing a homosexual agenda on unsuspecting children. This is wrong for many reasons but I shall list 1) there is NO agenda that homosexuals have to trap any unsuspecting heterosexuals in some sort of weird deprogramming ritual, 2) the kids who attend the program will most likely be the children of gay parents and therefore are already WELL AWARE of homosexuality, 3) it is a district-wide recognition of gay pride! I will not create a trajectory rant on gay rights or any other social or political issue in this blog but I feel that is relevant to my experiences as a Sin City librarian.

Writing this blog reminds me of my first time in college at UCSD when I was so involved in the radio station (KSDT) and the associated “scene”. It was a very different experience than the ecampus program in which I am currently enrolled and I find I prefer the latter. San Diego taught me I hate surfers and quite enjoy artists (but I had my suspicions in that regard anyhow). I had a pink Mohawk and piercing though I grew out of both. I also picked up a lot of fabulous new bands and music knowledge that has served me well (like at the eviction party the Locust threw). I am grateful for the experience and pleased that it is behind me. This segues nicely into my musical therapy theory – music can always change your mood. Songs that will always make me happy, no matter how behind the couch I feel (ask Jane about “behind the couch”): Madness’ “One Step Beyond” (this is also to be played at Jane’s funeral, it’s a pact we have), Erasure’s “Oh l’Amour”, Madonna’s “Hung Up” (how to make ABBA and Madonna gayer? Mix them together!), the theme from the Bollywood movie Dhoom 2 “Dhoom Again”, the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”, the Specials “Monkey Man”, and anything from the Misfits (only with Danzig singing). Post a comment, what’s your happy song?

- BiblioFemme

"Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was" - Margaret Mitchell

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it" - the divine Mae West

I am a deeply superficial person. - Andy Warhol

I find it intriguing that the library system in which I work purchased and circulates a book called "Daring to find our names : the search for lesbigay library history" edited by James V. Carmichael, Jr. I would never have imagined that there would be a demand for such an item that it would be created in the first place and subsequently purchased and included in public library collections. Though I sought and found it, so perhaps it isn’t so unusual after all. I am enamored of all things library. “Party Girl” with Parker Posey is one of my all-time favorite movies, essential viewing for all future librarians. And speaking of my future as a librarian . . . where to end up?

Sin City is not a big place for libraries and literacy really. But in my research, the most literate US cities are all cold and rainy places, environments with which I am completely incompatible. The noticeable exception to this rule is Atlanta, GA which, according to Places Ranked and Rated, has well over the national average of libraries. Average for a large city is 27 and Atlanta has over 100! Plus high rankings for art museums, science museums, local music and gay culture – all qualifications high on my list and severely lacking in Sin City. I agree with Warhol’s assessment, “I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic”, but I can’t afford to live anywhere in CA.

And speaking of not being able to afford things, the a/c in the house is broken and none of us can afford to fix it. This is terrifically sad, since Jane, Zelda, and I are all degree-holding and employed, yet can hardly afford to feed ourselves, much less finance major repair work. I can gauge the house temperature by the cats and how flat to the ground they are. If they are little furry puddles, it is far too hot. If they are sitting in meatloaf shape and seem relatively animate, we are safe. They still try to cuddle with me at night though, causing a seriously overheated sleeping arrangement.

Lately, I have leaned toward insomnia and instead spend my nights staring into the dark and thinking about library science. Seriously. One of my classes is much like my philosophy undergraduate work and encourages mental unraveling of some of the more intricate ideas presented. The other class is working with government documents but even that isn’t putting me to sleep. I am delighted at the prospect of my MLIS being so close. Then I can put on my helmet and sword and charge out, declaring myself MASTER of INFORMATION to a largely uninterested population. Though my story time kids might enjoy that. Today they were all engaged in our stories, participated in the songs and activities, just generally has the sort of time that makes the job rewarding. They crack up at animal sounds, LOVE to “shake their sillies out”, and go ape for the gluing/cutting/coloring/dot-connecting crafts presented to them. But being in a small room with 53 little ones quickly becomes terrifically unpleasant. I’ll conclude today’s post with a pair of applicable quotes from Dorothy Parker: “I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it” and “Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves”.

My Love Affair with Colette

This is an essay from a beloved (by me) French author Colette on the art of writing:

A woman of letters who has turned out badly: that is what I must remain for everyone, I who no longer write, who deny myself the pleasure, the luxury of writing.
To write, to be able to write, what does it mean? It means spending long hours dreaming before a white page, scribbling unconsciously, letting your pen play around a blot of ink and nibble at a half-formed word, scratching it, making it bristle with darts and adorning it with antennae and paws until it loses all resemblance to a legible word and turns into a fantastic insect or a fluttering creature, half butterfly, half fairy.
To write is to sit and stare, hypnotized at the reflection of the window in the silver inkstand, to feel the divine fever mounting to one’s cheeks and forehead while the hand that writes grows blissfully numb on the paper. It also means idle hours curled up in the hollow of the divan, and then the orgy of inspiration from which one emerges stupefied and aching all over, but already recompensed and laden with treasures that one unloads slowly on the virgin page in the little round pool of light under the lamp.
To write is to pour one’s innermost self passionately upon the tempting paper, at such frantic speed that sometimes one’s hand struggles and rebels, overdriven by the impatient god who guides it – and to find, the next day, in the place of the golden bough that bloomed miraculously in that dazzling hour, a withered bramble and a stunted flower.
To write is the joy and the torment of the idle. Oh, to write! From time to time, I feel a need as sharp as a thirst in summer, to note and to describe. And then I take up my pen again and attempt the perilous and elusive task of seizing and pinning down, under its’ flexible double pointed nib, the many-hued, fugitive, thrilling adjective . . . The attack does not last long; it is but the itching of an old scar. It takes up too much time to write. And the trouble is, I am no Balzac! The fragile story I’m constructing crumbles away when the tradesman rings or the shoemaker sends in his bill, when the solicitor or one’s counsel telephones, or when the theatrical agent summons me to his office for “a social engagement at the house of some people of very good position but not in the habit of paying large fees”.

S-T-A-U-N-C-H

"I tell you if there's anything worse than dealing with a staunch woman... S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There's nothing worse, I'm telling you. They don't weaken, no matter what." - "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens

Required by a class in my final semester of my MLIS program at UNT, I have begun a blog about being a Young People's Librarian in Sin City. Rising like a phoenix from the smoking wreckage of my past, I am curious to create this outlet and see how the experience will develop. My truths? I am very nearly (see me August 8, 2008) a librarian. I am a voracious reader. I am gay and an enthusiast of roller derby, burlesque, and bellydancing. I have a lot of tattoos including several designed from comics by R. Crumb and George Herriman. I share my house with 4 cats: Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski, Zzyzx, and Icarus. And I have 2 fabulous roommates whom I shall henceforth refer to by their imposed pseudonyms: Jane (for Jane Birkin) and Zelda (for the name Marilyn Monroe used when checking in to hotels). The following is a quote from Allen Ginsberg that seems appropriately updated by replacing the word "poetry" with "blog": "Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private."

I am not a writer, beyond research papers, but rather a consumer of what is written. I like to collect quotations from myriad sources and save them in a journal. I have a color-coded planner that never leaves my side and my books are all sorted in a method similar to the Library of Congress cataloging. I am bossy and a know-it-all show-off; I am selfish and well-aware of my own shortcomings. I am just shy of becoming a crazy cat lady. That said, I am looking forward to the upcoming interactions with this blog.

- BiblioFemme