Morning Thoughts, Afternoon Thoughts, B Movies In the Library

Taft's auto leaving New York Public Library.
This photography comes from the Library of Congress photo archive on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/







Morning Thoughts

This morning, I read a little bit more of Acacia on the train as well as some of the book, The Public Domain. It was a quiet, peaceful morning. The only difference this morning is that I had half and half instead of milk in my coffee.

I also requested a robot detective novel, The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez. This is a classic theme in science fiction. I rather like science fiction detectives.

When I got in to work, the first thing I did was look through the Nutshell series printed by Thomson West. They are legal summaries for different subjects like constitutional, family law, and criminal law. I requested a bunch of these be ordered along with a variety of Nolo books for our collection.

Right now, I have a copy of Iron Man the movie novelization by Peter David sitting next to me. The cover says "Based on the screenplay by Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway." That is a lot of authors for a single screenplay.

Afternoon Thoughts

I am looking at the two copies of Vampire Hunter D, volume 1 and 2 by Hideyuki Kikuchi. The novel is being adapted into a manga comic by Saiko Takaki. The publisher is Digital Manga Publishing. The story is rated 16+ on the back of the book. It would be close to the equivalent of PG-13, maybe R, for its content. A lot of the manga publishers are now providing ratings for their books.

I saw Vampire Hunter D as an anime film a while ago. I would give the film about the same rating. It is not a childrens movie. It is full of all sorts of strange mythical creatures, vampires, werewolves, and other things. I enjoyed watching the film, I hope that the manga is just as good.

Right now, I am also contemplating whether or not I should watch Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. It is the story of J.M. Barrie the author of Peter Pan. For some reason, I like watching films about authors.

I can recommend another film about a fantasy author, Robert E. Howard, The Whole Wide World starring Vincent D'onofrio as Howard. It is a very tragic story.

B Movies In The Library

I got home tonight. I watched a short bit of Earth Versus The Flying Saucers. This was a 1950s film, it just was colorized recently. The special effects are by Ray Harryhausen. I think it is kind of funny. I rather like how hokie the flying saucers look. The beginning of the film is classic as soon as the aliens show up, the United States military starts shooting at them.

Watching this film reminds me of some things that have been happening with videos recently. We actually circulate more videos of movies than any other item in our collection. My experience is that these are not great videos, they are often the most mind numbing things imaginable. People love to escape. They especially like television series like the Sopranos, Gilligan's Island, the old Star Trek reruns, and other things like that.

A lot of people come in to check out movies to escape. They want the B movies which aren't in our collection sometimes. We get asked for Rambo a lot even though it is not available. Mindless horror films like Chuckie, or Freddie vs. Jason are also popular.

Also, there seems to be a preference for R rated films. Some even want the unrated versions. There really is no one watching what you bring home to your family. So, people can and will take out anything. There is not an audience like in a theater and nobody knows whether you are watching a good quality film. The only real limitation is that we don't really have anything that is pornographic.

It really is hard sometimes to say why are you checking this thing out. I actually have asked some people why are they checking out American Pie, or Norbit and the generally answer is we need to unwind and escape. We don't want to think too much, we have been thinking a lot at work and we want something which we can laugh at.

It is no different than a lot of the things at the public library in book form. Romance is the most popular item in the fictin room. It is nice to dream about having romantic notions and read inexpensive Harlequin romances sometimes.

Sometimes, you wonder about the choices being made. It is hard to fathom why someone wants to watch House of Frankenstein, or all five seasons the television show Colombo. I guess people have different ideas of what is fun to watch.

You also wonder sometimes about people who will come in and check out three or four videos or dvds every single day and return them the next day. I guess it is free entertainment. It is really not something which I am supposed to ponder too much. If you ask these questions, you are often called an elitist in the library setting. People check out a couple books every single day and return them the next day sometimes.

Are videos and dvds the main point of the library? It seems to be the thing which most people want more than anything else in the library. It becomes a question in the movies also what should we get. A lot of the old classics are not ever watched. However, surprisingly there is a strong demand for the old silent films and some of the classic black and white films. People want to see every old silent ever made.

At one point, I decided that I wanted to see every classic science fiction film ever made. I've seen The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001, Godzilla, The Empire Strikes Back, Bladerunner, Metropolis, Things To Come, and a huge amount of old science fiction films. I am sure that there are plenty of people who want to see all the classic horror, detective, and monster movies ever made.

I don't always want to see things that make me think too much. I rather like The Three Stooges and I can understand why so many people love Jim Carrey movies. Watching deeply intellectual things can make your head hurt.

Still, you ask yourself, is the library an educational institution for self-education and self-improvement or is it purely for entertainment value. Is it more important to house ballet tapes or slapstick comedy. Where is the balance? I think there is not enough self-reflection on what we are doing sometimes.

Blog2Print, Thoughts

Armed Forces Radio Services broadcaster Jack Brown interviews Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall for broadcast to troops overseas during World War II. This is public domain because it is a defense department photograph.

I posted a question about blog2print on the blog at sharedbooks.com:

What happened to your blog2print function? It has been a little over a day and a half and I am wondering if your server will come back up. I would like to know if I should keep my widget on my blog? It is taking up both space and time. Please explain this.

This morning should be interesting. I am showing the Maltese Falcon today at work. It should be entertaining. I have always liked Humphrey Bogart. A little classic mystery gets the day going right. Right new the popcorn and juice are being bought and the room is being set up by maintenance.

I really enjoyed the film. There is a special aliveness you don't see in many of todays films. Humphrey Bogart is a great actor. The ending line was quite nice. Humphrey Bogart is holding the Maltese Falcon and says the famous lines "This is what dreams are made of."

This morning I learned something interesting, Verizon also publishes the Five Digit National Zipcode Directory. We were billed for phone books without an itemized bill, so I had to go back and call Verizon, which sent the bill. Always ask for fully itemized bills, it ends up saving you money and insures you are getting what you want.

Today has been a bit frustrating. A lot of little details. I put some new looseleaf pages in the law books; New York Code of Rules and Regulations, and Benders Forms for the Civil Practice. This is a slow process, requiring care, patience, and attention to detail. With this kind of thing, I try to do a little bit each day.

There have been a lot of hard details to take care of around work. Things like checking, the email reference and answering questions.

I finished reading The Citizen Powered Energy Handbook Community Solutions to A Global Crisis. I wrote a rough draft for the review on the train home. I feel that I want to wait until morning to write the final review.

While I was looking around the house at books, I found The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. It is one of the Mythopoeic award books which I promised to read. I have read the first few pages. The writing is very literary despite being fantasy.

Neil Gaiman's Stardust came in. It was just the book. I will probably check out the book and wait for the film to come in so I can read the book than see the film immediately after.

I didn't have a whole lot of time to play with entrecard today. I was simply too busy for once.

Information Overload, Shrek The Third

This is one of the four Three Stooges shorts that they failed to renew copyright on in the 1960's.

Sometimes, I have to stop reading because I have read so much during the previous week that I get information overload. Usually, I stop for one or two days so I can let what I have read gel in my head. I often do memory exercises to handle the amount of books which I read. Very basic eidetic memory exercises like the method of eidos.

The story of the eidos is that a Greek was at a banquet hall and he left the hall. Shortly after he left an earthquake struck and caused the hall to collapse. Eidos sorted out who was at the hall by systematically trying to remember the hall and the pillars which held up the roof. He would place different people next to the pillars to identify who was in the hall. Through this method of memorizing the location and placing people inside the location, he was able to identify all of the attendees at the banquet.

Memory was considered the fourth canon of rhetoric in ancient Roman times. It was considered essential to be able to memorize very long speeches because of the limited amount of written material available. As part of this it included the ability to have learned a wide variety of subjects as well. The combination allowed for very flexible speaking ability without reliance on cues.

Anyways, this seems to be a bit off subject. I watched a film today, Shrek the Third to let my mind rest and not read any books. I have also watched the first two films, Shrek and Shrek 2, I really didn't watch it to review the film. I watched it for the same reason people watch Abbott and Costello, The Three Stooges, or Gilligan's Island. To relax and zone out a little bit.

A lot of people come in to check out videos and dvds for this express purpose at our library. They want to see things which have no redeeming value as cultural objects but will help them relax and tune out. Things like the Merry Melodies Foghorn Leghorn, Ren and Stimpie cartoons, and the Honeymooners.

These things will never get high ratings, but many of them will be watched far more than some of our better art films. Low comedy rarely gets good ratings from reviewers, but that is not why people watch it. National Lampoons Family Vacation, American Pie, and Norbit have little if any redeeming value.

It is the same reason that children check out books of Knock Knock Jokes, Knock Knock Who's There? Lettuce, Lettuce Who? Lettuce in and you'll find out. Or people create faux book titles like The Yellow River by I.P. Freely.

It is the same reason people ask for Jason versus Freddie, people want an visceral experience at the basic emotional level which does not require a lot of thought. It took me a while to get this. I used to resent people taking out really awful trashy films like Bride of Chucky. The conversation might go:

Do you have Rambo?

Let me check. Um no.

Do you have American Pie, The Naked Mile?

Yes, we have American Pie, but there is a waiting list.

Place me on the holds list.
Alright. Can I have your card?

Here is my card. Do you have Bride of Chucky? that was such a fantastic movie, even better than Leprechaun.

Let me check. No, we don't have Bride of Chucky.

Wait, let me think. No, yes I remember what I want. I need "I Dream of Genie". That was such a great show.

We have I Dream of Genie Season One and Season One Two.

Place me on hold for "I Dream of Genie." Wait, I remember a show I used to really, really like. Do you have "Welcome Back Carter"?

No, we don't have that, can I suggest a show that just came in. We got the first season of Kojak.

Hey, that sounds wonderful, put me on hold for that.

Alright, you have reached your hold limit of twenty items.

Thank you so much for helping me.

I got angry enough a couple times to ask people why they wanted a string of bad B movies while I was working at the reference desk. The answer I got was "I just want to turn my brain off and relax." or "I have been thinking all week at work and I don't want to have to think anymore for a while." Or, the most reliable one, "It brings back memories, I like to remember watching these things on tv. It was so wonderful." Sometimes, people just like to come to the library to check out lots of films.

Another class of film that gets very little respect from critics are comic morality plays. These really do deserve a little more respect. They aren't about being artsy. Tyler Perry is a very good example of a person who writes films that are not critically acclaimed but have a positive message. Movies like Diary of A Mad Black Woman, Medeas Family Reunion, Why Did I Get Married?, or Daddy's Little Girls are not high theater, but they offer comic relief with a strong moral lesson, somethng missing from many of todays films.