Good Morning

You too can cartoon!

Good Morning

I was going to watch another dvd, but it was scratched from the library. So, I ended up watching Art School Confidential written by Daniel Clowes and directed by Terry Zwigoff. There was a lot of humor in it. The film was set at Strathmore College. I rather liked the film. It reminded me of Daniel Clowes comics brought to life on the big screen. I think I like Clowes comics much better than his films. The humor was very dark.

I don't usually watch films in the morning. I am not going to go into a deep review, other than saying it had some very nice acting.

This is my 500th post. It must mean something, but I have not figured it out yet. Congratulations to me for writing endlessly, practically every single day.

I went to the mall at noon. There were not as many people as usual. Most of the stores had sales going on. It was very easy to find parking. Most of the time there is very little parking. I went to Barnes and Noble Bookstore. I spent some time looking around the store. I bought one book for myself, a paperback by R.M. Meluch, The Sagittarius Command, A Novel of the U.S.S. Merrimack.

I did not buy The 500 Essential Graphic Novels by Gene Kannenberg. However, I did spend some time looking through it for comics which we did not have in our collection. It contains 500 one page descriptions of graphic novels in full color. We have many of the selections. Some of the items which I am thinking of getting are Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography, Death The High Cost of Living, Scott Pilgrim, Planetary Vol. 1, Avengers Kree Skrull War, The Big Book of Hell, Aliens Omnibus, and Iron Man: Devil In A Bottle.

I walked around the store a bit and went to the computer books section. I am thinking that we may have to get some computer certification books, MCSE, CCNA, CCIE, and Comptia exams.

Then I walked around the mall for a while and a got a slice of pizza and a glass of water. It was not a bad afternoon. The restaurant was very empty. I remember going to the barber last week and the barber telling me that he usually had 40-50 people come in each day, and now he has 10-15 people coming in each day.

While wandering through blog land, I learned about a new title that is both intriguing and frightening. I read the review in the magazine, The Economist, for Hitler's Private Library by Timothy W. Ryman. I placed it on hold. I think it will be very interesting reading this book.

Sometimes if you watch blogs on libraries and listen carefully, you can pick up where the wind is blowing in terms of funding and financing. This is a recent article from Library Journal.

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6609686.html .

I think there is going to be a lot of funding coming available for job related books and financial literacy materials. We already have a career counselor who comes to our library. We also have lots of job books. The financial literacy part is a challenge.

The strongest value of libraries in a down economy is that most libraries have a EJIC (Education Job Information Center). This provides a lot of value to the community. We have sections for resume books, civil service test books, professional test books, county job listings, annual reports, and general job and small business books.

Good Morning, Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes, Evening Thoughts

Betty Boop In Snow White

Good Morning
Google settled its landmark lawsuit over book scanning.
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6609195.html?desc=topstory

On Twitter, I found a link for Brewster Kahle's criticism of Google's settlement with the publishers. Brewster Kahle works for the Open Content Alliance.
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10839879?source=rss

New York Comic Con now has a twitter address: NY_Comic_Con
New York Comic Con is going to happen 100 days from now. I am looking forward to it.

Ice Haven A Comic Strip Novel by Daniel Clowes.

This book is written is in the comic strip style like you would see in a newspaper. This makes it a kind of unique format and shape for the book. The story itself is named after the town Ice Haven. It is a morose, angst filled, and ironic story in the comics format. This made me somewhat ambivalent when reading it.

Even the little kids spout philosophical. If you have a really strong sense of irony you might like this graphic novel.

My favorite sections of this work are the opening of the book, and the closing biography narrated by Harry Naybors, Comic Critic.

I liked the character Charles who is a little kid with glasses. His head is very big for his body. He even plays baseball like Charlie Brown. The drawings are almost realistic. They are just slightly off from reality making things look very odd.

I spent some more time ordering books this afternoon. This afternoon, I went to http://www.oreilly.com/ which is a publisher of computer books. They have an excellent selection of computer books. One series which I order a lot of is "The Missing Manuals" series. I also ordered a book which I very much want to read, We The Media: Grassroots Journalism By The People, For The People by Dan Gillmor.

As is the case every day, I also spent quite a bit of time weeding books. I have a lot more weeding to do.

Daily Thoughts

Mary Shelley A Miniature Portrait by Reginald Easton.

Daily Thoughts

I've started reading This Book Contains Graphic Language Comics as Literature by Rocco Versaci. Rocco Versaci teaches the Comics As Literature course at Palomar college. I've just started reading the book. It has a quote from Dan Clowes on the cover, "Big-Hearted And Clear-Minded".

One of the first characters that Rocco Versaci recognizes is Krazy Kat by George Herriman. Krazy seems to be a favorite of cartoonists. This is a short video of an early Herriman cartoon.

Rocco Versaci also mentions Daniel Clowes and the Brothers Hernandez as being very literary. I am partial to Love and Rockets. Fantragraphics maintains a page the Brothers Hernandez. http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=69&Itemid=82

Los Brothers Hernandez are one of the few artisits that have as many female readers as male readers. They are very accessible. Another popular artist who has an equal number of male and female readers is Neil Gaiman. But, then Neil Gaiman is a fantastic all around writer of fantasy.

This Book Contains Graphic Language Comics As Literature is a fairly complex book. It is not the kind of book which I can sit down and finish in a single evening. The language is dense and contains critical interpretations you would find in academia, as well as very carefully thought out arguments about why and how comics are a literary form. There are a lot of different artists and types of comics being covered.

This morning I went to the doctor. I lost five pounds. I am planning on systematically losing five pounds every two weeks. I was told I had to cut back on carbohydrates, no bread, no pasta, no sugar, no rice, and eat less, focusing on eating five small meals a day instead of three large ones. I still have a little bit of reactive airways from the illness from a week ago, it should clear up in a few weeks. I have to change my lifestyle. I'm going for a walk in a little bit.