It’s Thursday. The week is almost over. Time to impose on you my obsession with the Pythons. Enjoy!
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Argument Clinic
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Confuse-a-Cat
Poem: Los Angeles
Some of our streets
look like blasted heaths
with King Lears and Fools
wandering around, heads uncovered
wailing in the tempest.
Meanwhile in the walled estates
Goneril and Regan plan
to raise armies and sweep
all before them. It is as it always
has been. It is a story as old
as mankind, and as unkind,
mired in strength and vigor.
May Lear find his Cordelia,
and live in her bosom,
not torn from her,
another trophy above the hearth.
Afternoon music break – Steely Dan
A bit of Fagen & Becker to break up your afternoon.
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Reelin’ in the Years (with a pre-scandal Bill Cosby introducing)
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Do It Again
On casual racism
I’ve said that the library is the community commons. And as such, it reflects the community, both in its good and its ill.
I helped a young lady whom I knew vaguely by sight. I didn’t know her name, but she always seemed pleasant enough. She was walking with the aid of a cane as she had a cast on her foot.
We chitchatted, and as I finished getting her the book she was looking for, I asked how she’d hurt herself.
A car had run into her at an intersection. She had suffered several injuries. This had occurred months before, and she had gone through many surgeries.
Me being me, I said, “Well, I hope you sued the bastard”.
She told me that “the bastard” had fled the scene. His car had been found, abandoned, and it had been unregistered.
She said, “Which makes me think it had to be an illegal. My friend said that was racist, but it’s just the truth. Who else would do that and be able to live with themselves?”
Morning poetry readings
As I’m feeling my way through this regular blogging thing, I figured I’d have (semi)regular features. So this morning, a bit of the first art.
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T.S. Eliot – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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Nikky Finney – Dancing with Strom
I’m a librarian. Not a monk.
I have what some would call a “booming voice”. There are many reasons for this—one of which I will propound on at length in a future essay. But suffice it to say that my voice carries.
Now, as a children’s librarian, this is an absolute boon. Having a loud, controlled voice as I read “Pete the Cat” to the little darlings is a major asset. And especially when I get to the part in “Wheels on the Bus” where the driver says ‘GET ON BACK, GET ON BACK”. (Yes, I do all this with a straight face. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m laughing the entire time.)
However, it seems that when I’m on the reference desk, and getting animated while I research something interesting for a patron, my voice can get a bit loud. Cavernous, even. Stentorian. And, sometimes, a patron is less than pleased with my rich, strong tones.
“Do you have to be so loud?”
Tuesday afternoon music break – Burt Bacharach
I really didn’t know who Burt Bacharach was until he and Elvis Costello made “Painted from Memory”. And then I consumed everything he had ever done.
For your Tuesday afternoon music break, a bit of his magic
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A House is Not a Home
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Walk on By
Continue reading “Tuesday afternoon music break – Burt Bacharach”
Novels in Progress is dead; long live A Writing Corner!
Well hello there.
If you’ve followed me at all, you’ll remember I had a little blog called Novels in Progress. It was a space where I was going to publish chapters of my novel for critique and discussion
It never quite took off, as life kept interrupting. And, eventually, I found a circle of readers who would read chapters as I finished editing them, giving me feedback and encouragement.
But, mostly, I just never posted enough, as I was engaged in political writing on my other homes at The Obama Diary and The People’s View.
Continue reading “Novels in Progress is dead; long live A Writing Corner!”
A Writing Corner 