I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.
I’ve been having a difficult time getting my daughter dressed in the morning, and it’s not really her fault. On Sunday, it was 28-30 (all temperatures Fahrenheit) for most of the morning. But then the temperature went into a free fall. My wife came back from grocery shopping at 4 pm; not only was it down to 23 degrees, but the wind was blowing at 29 mph, gusting to 37 mph. By midnight, the temperature was a balmy 12. Monday at 6am, the temperature was 6. It only got up to 19 degrees (3 pm), and went back to 13 by midnight. Yet Tuesday at 6 am, it was 25 degrees and kept going up even after sunset, so it was 49 at midnight. Wednesday at 6 am it was 53 degrees. It was 55 at 11am but 48 at noon and got colder during the afternoon. Thursday started out slick and 27 degrees, but ended up with sleet and freezing rain and eventually snow. Graphic captured at 5:30 p.m., 11 Dec 2008
So when I suggest apparel for the daughter, based on ever changing conditions, it’s tricky. I must convince her of the efficacy of snow pants and boots one day, and a jacket and sneakers a couple days later.
All the data, BTW, came from wunderground.com, a really useful site for historical weather data. Most references on the site are to 51 minutes after the hour, but I rounded to the next hour. Most temperatures are in tenths of a degree, and I rounded up (.5-.9) or down (.1-.4), the way they taught me in grade school.
Please tell me what life is like for a research librarian. I’m IT support for several different libraries. I work closely with the librarians on a daily basis. Many of them are my age or older and not at all worried about age discrimination as they cross into their 60s and b beyond. The say that this type of problem is just not that important for librarians. I cannot say the same for the IT business. They tell me that it is a very good industry to?look at if I’m thinking about changing careers as I get older. Can you give me some idea of what your level of job satisfaction is? Thank you in advance.
Librarians have been told for years that they will become extinct as more and more information is made available on the Internet. We have not found this to be so. For one thing, someone has to be the gatekeeper as to what is good and what is crap. For another, there will always be specialized databases that you’ll need someone to access and search.
I think there is a librarian ethos of cooperation with each other. I don’t think it’s sexist to say that it may be a more collegial business at least in part because it tends to be a female-dominated business.
When I was in grad school in public administration in 1979-80, it was very competitive, with students actually hiding resources from each other. In library school in 1990-92, students were more helpful to each other.
There can also be a teaching component. We’re trying to get our folks to use blogs, to use Twitter and other newer technologies. This means WE need to know what that stuff and Facebook and other services mean, whether they make sense for us and for our customers, who are business advisors and by extension, the small businesses they serve. Occasionally the learning curve, plus doing what we’re hired to do (reference) is hard to fit in, but we usually manage.
If you have the sense of curiosity necessary to be a good librarian, you’ll do well. If you want something stagnant, probably not so much. *** “Librarians are the secret masters of the universe. They control the knowledge. Don’t piss them off.”
– Spider Robinson, science fiction author, from The Callahan Touch ROG
As you can see from the map above, I’ve been to 30 of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia. The pictures interspersed in this piece are from my trip to my 30th state by some measure, Illinois, specifically Chicago, different shots from my piece on Chicago here. By other measurements, though, I’d already been there, since I’d been through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport 20 years ago. In any case, the descriptions below do not include airline layovers, and there now no states for which being at the airport is the only connection. I started thinking: what were the circumstances of the first trip to each state I visited? Born: New York Day trip to adjacent state: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont. When I was growing up, my friend Carol’s family had a cottage south of Binghamton, just inside the PA border. State visited en route to another place: Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Virginia, West Virginia. I feel guilty actually counting Delaware, since it was on a trip to DC. But I did eat there; the rest of them I’ve actually slept in. Vacation: Georgia, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island Is visiting your family actually a “vacation”? Work-related, FantaCo: California, Wisconsin California was a twofer. FantaCo flew me out to San Diego in 1987 for the Comic Con and I stayed with my sister, who had moved there a year or two earlier. Work-related, SBDC: Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah In fact the ONLY time (or in the case of FL, times) I’ve been to those states. Finally, in 1969 or 1970, a bunch of us from high school traveled to Tennessee to help the folks in a very poor rural county. At some point, we were out wandering around without our adult supervision when we came to a sign: Now entering Mississippi. We walked about a half mile before we thought better of the idea of a bunch of northern high school kids of mixed races wandering around in rural Mississippi and returned back to the Tennessee farm we were visiting.
Pictures (C) 2008, Mary Hoffman. Used by permission. ROG
One of the overriding problems I had in my later years at FantaCo in the late 1980s was that we were putting out product that I was selling that I did not enjoy. It wasn’t just the Freddy Kruger masks and the Freddy Kruger gloves (plastic, not real) and the Jason Voorhis masks that bothered me. It was all the Herschell Gordon Lewis related material that ewe published that I didn’t read and yet from which I was actually beginning to make a reasonably decent wage that ultimately caused me to quit. It’s not that I had a moral objection to them; it was that I just didn’t enjoy a lot of gruesomeness. I’ve never seen a Sam Peckinpah film, for example. And after seeing A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather and Catch-22 in a short time period, I pretty much swore off movies rated R for violence for nearly a decade. So it’s a miracle that I’ve seen ANY of the movies of the top horror movies. A number of people did this, but I first saw it at Tom the Dog’s.
1.The Exorcist. William Friedkin (1973) – certainly I’ve seen large chunks of this movie at home on TV. Oy. 2.The Shining. Stanley Kubrick (1980) – this movie I actually saw in the movies. And I HATED it, NOT because it was gruesome but because Jack Nicholson’s character seemed to be going crazy when he and Shelly Duval are having their first meeting with Barry Nelson. So I believe NONE of what follows from Nicholson, especially the cutesy “Here’s Johnny!” It felt like Jack doing Jack and I disliked it on that point. Actually thought the excessive amount of blood was laughable, not scary or gory. 3.Alien. Ridley Scott (1979) – saw this in the theater and LIKED it 4.The Silence of the Lambs. Jonathan Demme (1991) – was at my parents’ house and one or both of my sisters was watching it on HBO; I bailed fairly early 5.Saw. James Wan (2004) – now here’s a movie I just will never see 6.Halloween. John Carpenter (1978) – did see large parts of this on TV 7.A Nightmare on Elm Street. Wes Craven (1984) – only small parts of this 8.Ring (Ringu). Hideo Nakata (1998) – neither version 9.The Wicker Man. Robin Hardy (1973) -no 10.The Omen. Richard Donner (1976) -no, still in my no R rated period 11.The Birds. Alfred Hitchcock (1963) – this I saw at some revival theater, and it STILL scares me 12.The Thing. John Carpenter (1982) – no 13.Lost Boys. Joel Schumacher (1987) – don’t think I avoided it, just didn’t see 14.Dawn of the Dead. George A Romero (1978) – always intended to see this, actually 15.The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Tobe Hooper (1974) – oddly enough, this as well. Someday. 16.Jaws. Steven Spielberg (1975) – no, and I feel culturally deprived. 17.The Blair Witch Project. Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez (1999) – no. might. 18.An American Werewolf in London. John Landis (1981) – no, but still might. 19.Se7en. David Fincher (1995) – probably won’t. 20.Poltergeist. Tobe Hooper (1982) – may someday. 21.The Amityville Horror. Stuart Rosenberg (1979) – probably won’t. 22.Candyman. Bernard Rose (1992) no 23.Scream. Wes Craven (1996) no 24.Carrie. Brian De Palma (1976) probably will someday. 25.Friday the 13th. Sean S Cunningham (1980) certainly I’ve seen parts of it. 26.Final Destination. James Wong (2000) – nope 27.The Evil Dead. Sam Raimi (1981) – probably not 28.Hellraiser. Clive Barker (1987) – nope 29.Hostel. Eli Roth (2005) – heck, no, any more than I’d see Saw I to infinity. This played three blocks from my house and I had zero interest. 30.Salem’s Lot. Mikael Salomon (2004) – maybe some day. 31.The Descent. Neil Marshall (2005) – don’t know this 32.The Hills Have Eyes. Wes Craven (1977) – maybe some day. 33.Wolf Creek. Greg McLean (2005) – don’t know this. Tom got bored. 34.Misery. Rob Reiner (1991) – this movie I actually saw in the movie theater and liked, because it feels so normal on the surface. Around this time, someone told me that they were my biggest fan, not having seen the movie or read the book, and it freaked me out! 35.Rosemary’s Baby. Roman Polanski (1968) – saw this in New Paltz, NY in 1971. Happy memories. Oh, it was the date I was on. 36.Child’s Play. Tom Holland (1989) – don’t know 37.The Orphanage. Juan Antonio Bayona (2008) -don’t know, but I’m guessing not. 38.The Entity. Sidney J Furie (1981) – no, but I might 39.Nosferatu. FW Murnau (1922) – seen segments, not the whole thing 40.Night of the Living Dead. George A. Romero (1968) – feel as though I SHOULD see it 41.House on Haunted Hill. William Malone (2000) – don’t know 42.The Haunting. Robert Wise (1963) – no, but not of any real avoidance. 43.It. Tommy Lee Wallace (1990) – no, and it just didn’t look that good in the previews. 44.Audition. Takashi Miike (1999) – don’t know. 45.The Changeling. Peter Medak (1980) -heard of, but don’t really know 46.The Mist. Frank Darabont (2008) – probably won’t 47.Suspiria. Dario Argento (1977) – probably won’t 48.The Vanishing. George Sluizer (1993) – probably won’t 49.Shutter. Masayuki Ochiai (2008) – don’t know 50.Planet Terror. Robert Rodriguez (2007) – now this I did actually avoid when it was part of Grindhouse
So, I’d say I REALLY saw four, all with one word titles, excluding articles: Shining, Birds, Alien, Misery. I should probably add Exorcist. Five out of 50. Probably will double someday.
Today is the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. I realize that, while I always mark his birth (October 9, 1940), I don’t always note his death (December 8, 1980), not just because the death was so tragic and senseless, but because I’d been operating on the assumption that it was somehow disrespectful to focus on death. One should focus on life! Though I do remember calling my friend since kindergarten Karen at 2 a.m. that night Also working at FantaCo the Sunday after, we closed the store for ten minutes in the middle of the afternoon for a time of silence, with some of the customers still inside (at their request).
Then I pondered: am I’m being unrealistic? Public figures, especially, come into one’s life generally after one is born. I remember November 22, 1963 but do I even KNOW John F. Kennedy’s birthday. Well, yes, it’s May 29, 1917, but only because I once blogged about it. (Aren’t blogs educational?)
Likewise, I’m convinced that the push for a Martin Luther King holiday was born, in part, by people who didn’t want April 4, 1968 to be his legacy but January 15, 1929, a/k/a the third Monday in January.
So, I suppose, instead of overthinking this, I should, in the words of one of Mr. Lennon’s colleagues, “let it be.”
THE Lennon song I think about today The nice video LINK The not-so-nice video LINK.
Odetta died last week. I have a grand double album of her music on something you kids may not recall, vinyl. This was one of my father’s true musical heroes, and her passing, in some way, makes his passing eight years ago, more real. LINK
Forry Ackerman, who died a few days ago, was a huge part of my life at FantaCo, for we sold oodles of copies of the magazine he founded, Famous Monsters of Filmland. The earlier issues were classics, but the latter ones, most of which came out after he’d left the publication, were often reprints of previously published material.
It was so significant a publication to publisher Tom Skulan that three years after I left, FantaCo published the Famous Monsters Chronicles. Though a book rather than a magazine, Tom always considered it the last of the Chronicles series that started with the X-Men Chronicles a decade earlier. It’s out of print and apparently in demand based on the Mile High price listing.
I went to see the AIDS quilt last Wednesday. Not so incidentally, the program was cut from five days to four because of budget cuts. For the last three years, I had requested that the section featuring my old friend Vito Mastrogiovanni come to Albany. This year, it made it. There it was, a much more simple design than some of the others. There it was. Seeing it, I thought I’d get emotional, but I did not. There it is. Until I started talking to one of the guides, a task I had done in previous years, talking about how we were in high school together, how we tried to end the Viet Nam war together, how we partied together. There it is. And then I did get just a little verklempt. There it is – Vito Mastrogiovanni 1951-1991. May 15, 1991, same good friend Karen, who was his best friend, noted when I called her that evening.
