Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Todays Thoughts

Jan Van Eyck


Todays Thoughts

I haven't really had a chance to write up a summary of The Other Wind. Life has been too busy. I napped on the train coming in to work. I'm a bit tired today. I had three cups of coffee at lunch time to keep myself awake.

Right now, I am working on three programs. The first is an estate planning workshop from a local lawyer. We have found that creating a sign up sheet beforehand guarantees a certain amount of audience. We have seven people signed up for the workshop tomorrow evening. Usually we get another group of people who come in who don't sign up as well. In addition, I do traditional announcement over the intercom half hour before the program starts as well as make sure there are fliers around the building for the program.

The next day, we are showing Cars by Pixar. The director has asked me to show a "Family Film" suitable for all ages. At first I tried Because of Winn Dixie and Madagascar, but they didn't seem quite right. We usually buy small packets of popcorn and apple juice for the films. Next month, I am showing The Jackie Robinson Story starring Jackie Robinson because there is a baseball program in the evening.

Next week, I am doing a poetry program where we do an open microphone. I like to serve fruit and juice for the poetry program. I think we might get eight to ten people who will read poetry next time. I actually get up and read a few of my own poems. There are several audience members who do as well. Hopefully, there will be some momentum and we will get more people.

Programming is not something which I have done that much of before. It seems like it kind of sneaked up on me. I'm just starting to get the hang of creating fliers and get the feel of writing simple press releases for the calendar of events in newspapers.

This morning, I did more ordering of social science books. I went through The New York Review of Books for the last several months looking for titles in the 300s. I am actually not that fond of The New York Review of Books, it seems to be a bit exclusive in its taste aiming for the upper middle class. I did find several titles to order however. Some titles which looked interesting were Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, The Warhol Economy, and I Don't A Contrarian History of Marriage. I also took a look at the latest several issues of Choice magazine.

In addition, I took some time to look at New York Public Libraries recommended reading lists which are quite interesting. They have links to lists of books which have won various literary prizes. Queensborough Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library also have recommended reading lists which I look at occassionally. Libraries tend to compile these lists on their websites. http://www.nypl.org/branch/books/

I also took a few minutes to look at the graphic novels I ordered. Most of them have already been taken out by patrons. I have Fables 1001 Nights of Snowfall by Bill Willingham in my hands as well as DC Showcase Presents Challengers of the Unknown Volume 2. Challengers of the Unknown is a classic science fiction comic book with golden age science fiction stories.

Several boxes of new books from my orders are coming in as well. The order of Manga and science fiction books is being processed as we speak. Volume 1 and Volume 2 of the new Vampire Hunter D manga are sitting on the cart as well as the science fiction novel, Space Vulture.

There is a lot happening very quickly right now. There are a lot of new books for me to examine. I find myself busier than usual right now.

Tonight, I erased a video game which I had purchased from my hard drive. I had it for about a week. I found that I felt compelled at times to play it a little bit too long. Get to the next scene or go to the next level. It was eating into my time and making me a little bit tired. The game promised 1000+ hours of gameplay. This is a bit much.

Something in me said stop you are spending too much time on this thing. For me video games can be hypnotic and distracting. They are hard for me to stop playing sometimes. It is like alcohol for some people. I enjoy playing them for a short time. But, the games they are designing these days can be very long complex and overly involved.

I think I will step back and go to my other distraction right now, blogging.

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