Daily Thoughts 7/5/2009

CowParade Prague 2004. #002 KNIHOMILKA, Artist: Šárka Vokurková. "Book-lover Cow". The design of the cow is a self-parody of its sponsor, Levné knihy (literally: "Cheap Books") bookstore (LEVNÉ KYDY literally: "Cheap Twaddle").

Daily Thoughts July 5, 2009

Yesterday, I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It was a piece of escapism. I liked the space alien archeologist references. They reminded me of Erich Von Donikens Chariots of the Gods books. The movie was fun to watch. Harrison Ford still did most of his own stunts which surprised me.

There was plenty of flim flam in this movie. All of the real crystal skulls which have been looked at indicate they were created in 19th century Europe. They were not Mayan. Indiana Jones was of course seeking El Dorado where the skull and aliens resided. He had to follow the Nazca lines to get there. I was surprised that they did not make reference to the now debunked theory of ancient hot air balloons over Peru.

The villains were cartoonish kgb agents. One of the agents of course was psychic which was quite slly. In many parts of the film, especially the chase scenes it reminded me a bit of a video game. The best part of the film was when Indiana Jones hid in a lead lined refrigerator to survive a nuclear blast. Silliness at its best. A fun afternoon of free entertainment rented on a dvd from the library.

One of the subjects which many people ask about is the paranormal and the occult in the public library. We get a lot of junior high school and high school students coming in with assignments on big foot, Nostradamus, and psychics. There are also a lot of believers in various ideas from various authors like Carlos Castaneda, Sylvia Browne (television psychic), and Edgar Cayce. I try to be as neutral as possible with these questions because you don't know why they are asking for these books.

Watching films like The Da Vinci Code can be useful because many people at least partially believe the stories behind the films. They want to know about The Knights of Malta, Opus Dei, the Masons, and other groups. Often after films like this one we get spikes in requests on occult material. Popular entertainment at least partially drives the purchase of this material. It also often causes controversy which attracts people to reading about it. It is good to remember the public library is supposed to be a neutral institution not supporting specific religious and philosophical viewpoints. The library is a government institution and the separation of church and state can and sometimes does come up as an issue.

Some of this material has made me a fan of James Randi, the author and magician who debunks psychics and mystics. I may believe in certain phenomena, but I also sometimes feel it is necessary to protect yourself from being too gullible. He explains how fakery and flim flam happen. He is also a very entertaining speaker. His book The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer is quite popular.

We also get quite a bit of other practical books of psychology which can cross over a little bit into mysticism. One of my favorite books in this category is The Relaxation Response (Paperback) by M.D. Herbert Benson (Author), and Miriam Z. Klipper (Author) which is about meditation from a scientific standpoint. Some people consider this material to be religious which can be surprising. Being polite is very important around other peoples beliefs. Even things like books on yoga floor exercises can be considered religious by people.

I finshed reading How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer. It is an intriguing book. This book definitely deserves a review. It says many things which are counterintuitive about how decisions are made. I liked the discussions about poker, strawberry jam, flight simulators, and having too much information in decision making. Right now, I am pondering how I will review the book.

Daily Thoughts

Statue of Isidore of Seville (c.560–636) at the entrance staircase of the National Library of Spain in Madrid. Sculpted in Italian white marble by José Alcoverro y Amorós (1835–1910) in 1892.

Daily Thoughts

Today was another steady day. I put together a list of family oriented films which we might show on Sunday afternoons. A lot of them are cartoons, Shrek, The Incredibles, classic Popeye cartoons, or musicals The Wizard of OZ, High School The Musical, and Annie. Now that I have a short list, I am supposed to meet in committee to select what we are going to show. I have volunteers for the first three committee members.

I also spent some time filing looseleafs for the New York Code of Rules and Regulations and Bender's Forms for the Civil Practice.

This is the first day in a while where I have not done any specific weeding. I selected some books to be sent to the bindery, mostly older material that was in the storage area. Also, I reviewed a few older titles for discard. Some of them were classic works by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I decided these had literary merit and were worth keeping. I also kept some of Ian Fleming's early James Bond novels.

I finisehd reading Building Hope Leadership In The Nonprofit World by John Bateson. It was a very interesting book about running a busy crisis center for preventing suicide. The book was a combination of a memoir and a management guide for nonprofits. I will be writing a review of it soon.

Immediately after finishing Building Hope, I started reading How To Manage An Effective Nonprofit Organization by Michael A. Sand. I am trying to get a better understanding of the process of management in the nonprofit versus the for profit world. Hopefully this will give me a better sense of what is happening at my job.

Daily Thoughts

Ceiling of the British Museum Reading Room, London, England.

Daily Thoughts

Good evening, today was a long but interesting day. I broke down the collection into sections for people to order from and created a list of ordering assignments for the collection. I am still doing business management, law, social science, computers, the job information center, and graphic novels. At least, we will have coverage of the full collection. Things were a bit spotty for a while.

I also went through the books I ordered recently that came in and prioritized what should be processed to be put on the shelves first. I also made a few changes to the processing of the books. We still have a large backlog of books which needs to be processed.

This afternoon we had a demonstration of Hoovers and Firstsearch for business online. I am fairly familiar with Hoovers online. I think it is an excellent online business database for finding company information and creatings lists of companies. We are going to evaluate it this week. It is something which I think we should consider getting. I used it a lot while I was working at an internet company.

I was pleasantly surprised at the number of people that came for our Foreclosure Information Workshop. Although, I was not there, we had thirty people come for the presentation. It ended up closing a bit late. I find this kind of programming useful and satisfying.

Tomorrow, I will be working on creating a list of family oriented films to show on Sunday. I already have a few picked out. I am going to ask the other staff members what they would like to see. Films that both adults and children can watch together. We got our movie licensing for the year filled out.

I was a bit distracted, so I did not get a chance to read that much more of John Bateson, Building Hope Leadership in the Nonprofit World. I think I will finish reading it tomorrow.

I will be going to New York Comic Con on Friday. I am very much looking forward to doing it.

Good Afternoon

Ivan Kramskoy. Portrait of Leo Tolstoy. 1873. Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

Good Afternoon

Today was another half day. I read a bunch of magazines, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Library Journal. It was mostly typical material. I also prepared some more orders to go out for different kinds of books. It went fairly smoothly. On P.19, December 22, 2008 in Publishers Weekly, there is an article about Sony ebooks. Apparently, they sold 300,000 Sony ebook readers this year. The e-ink technology is changing the way ebooks are being read. There are still no figures for the Amazon Kindle ebook reader that have come out. But, this means there are going to be a lot more ebooks produced. Apparently Oprah Winfrey has come out in support of the Kindle ebook reader.

We have the new agreement for film permisions to show movies during the next year. There will be Sunday matinees coming up for family films. There also will probably be young adult films as well. Also, everything is in place in the calendar for January- February. I am still wondering about the new brochure being produced.

I had a chance to read some more of Spunk & Bite. The book is about how to improve your expressiveness and descriptive phrases so far. For example, you might say cerulean blue, or create a surprising phrase like tiny hamhanded man, or chocolate brown notebook, or savage hamster. There are reminders about style and diction. I try to keep my diction my own, not high handed or high minded in the least.

I find something particularly annoying about thesauri. It reminds me of teenage vocabularly building books. I often think it is more important to make your children read the classics to improve vocabulary than rely on pedantic lists of prosaic words. The best way to improve ones vocabulary is to read constantly. I read the advertisements on the subways, the contents of food packages (one of the main ingredients in many brands of bread these days is high fructose corn syrup), newspapers, the internet, community bulletin boards, and many other things.

The Society of Midnight Wanderers is no more. Psalms From The Wilderness http://jdrbeaudoin.wordpress.com/ told me it had gone defunct. It is one of the first places that I had posted a book review outside of my blog.

I am thinking of putting a list of links to favorite authors on my blog in the sidebar. Could you tell me if you would like this? It is something I have been thinking of for a while.

Good Evening

Fyodor Dostoyevsky is one of my favorite writers of classic fiction, The Brothers Karamazov is one of my favorite books.

Good Evening

Today has been another extremely busy day. I spent time preparing to show a Tyler Perry film at the library. I really enjoyed it. We had seven people who sat through the whole film and a few others who came in and out. It seems that I am doing much better with the poetry readings than the films. They are moving the films to a Sunday matinee for families once a week. I think this will work bettter.

Right now, they are showing an anime film, Claymore, in the fiction room. There is an anime club at our library which brings in the teenagers. They also play Magic the Gathering card game at the club as well. It looks like the attendance is decent.

I also spent some time talking to an artist who did papercrafts in the childrens room. She also teaches tissue paper watercolors, as well as illustration. About a year ago, she started doing manga classes. The manga classes are what interest me most. I was thinking we could do a program that would be for teens and adults to draw manga.

Of course, I did the regular activities as well, more weeding in the social science section, and maintaining the central display.

On the way home, I tried to read How To Do Everything With Your Web 2.0 Blog by Todd Stauffer, but found I had already done everything that I wanted to do listed in the book. I am not going to start a wiki, or do podcasts, start a forum, or do video blogging, at least not yet. I am not that fond of Technorati, and I already have Sitemeter. This book would be a good introduction to blogging, but I have found I am past the introductory stage at this point. It did, however remind me to ping my blog with pingomatic.

Good Morning

WPA Adult Edution. Works Progress Administration New Deal. This is the way the United States will be heading if business people do not get their act together.

Good Morning

Last night I read some more of Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch on the train home. For a while the train was so crowded that I could not sit down so I didn't get as much reading done as I would have liked. The trains have been much more crowded lately. People are driving less. Cars are very expensive.

I finished ordering for romance paperbacks. There should be a nice solid order coming in. I went in the storage area and looked at the books I ordered. There are lots of computer books, Job Information Center books, business books, social science books, and professional books waiting to go out on the circulating shelves. There is something satisfying about seeing books which you have ordered on the shelves.

I am doing a film program at my library today. I just checked to make sure the room setup was done, small individual bags of popcorn and juice were ready. I'll make an announcement over the intercom later this afternoon. The computer technician is going to check the dvd to make sure it works. We have an extra copy of the film ready in case the one being checked doesn't work quite right.

We had fifteen people who came to the program, eight people stayed for the film, and seven more came for a short while. There were also a few people who came and looked in the room to see what was happening. I gave out two calendars of events for other programs. A lot of people come initially just because of the popcorn and juice.

I also compiled some patron requests for ordering. Items like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 on dvd, the author Zane, the subject of how to find and buy foreclosures, and a young adult paperback series--Angels In Pink.

Thoughts For Today

Thoughts For Today

I have a bit of a cold, so I relexed a bit today. I also spent some time looking at websites for dvds. Kung Fu Cinema http://www.kungfucinema.com/ reviews some 500 different martial arts films. Also, the selection of Midtown Comics for dvds is rather interesting for cartoons. I spent some time looking at the dvds from them as well as Forbidden Planet.

There is some money in the budget still for purchasing films for the library. I am looking out for myself and suggesting some cartoons, animation, and martial arts films because I like to watch this kind of thing. I am not in charge of ordering films, so I have to be selective and not suggest too many.

I am going to try and get some Max Fleischer cartoons. He is famous for his Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman cartoons. Max Fleischer also did a number of cartoons featuring Cab Calloway and other famous jazz musicians which are currently out of copyright.

I also read a little bit from a collected work by Image Comics, The Savage Dragon. It is light entertainment, but not something which I really want to review.

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.

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.

Driving Miss Daisy, Ordering Computer Books, Random Thoughts

Driving Miss Daisy

We showed Driving Miss Daisy, starring Morgan Freeman in the auditorium. The film was nominated for nine acadmey awards. It was kind of sad, only a few people came. The film was beautiful to watch. I haven't decided what the next film we are going to show is. One of the patrons wants us to show Angels With Dirty Faces starring James Cagney. I think we are going to go back to more classic noire films. They seem to do better than newer films. Dashiell Hammett films or Alfred Hitchcock films do well. In a way, I like the classic films much better than the new films. Many of our patrons say the same thing. They want classic actors like Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, or Gregory Peck.

Ordering Computer Books

I spent quite a bit of time this morning selecting computer books. I tried to get a lot of books with lots of visual instruction in addition to text. Peachpit Press and Teach Yourself Visually are good for libraries because they include a lot of screen captures and photographs of computers. The computer books with visual instruction are often even more popular than the For Dummies series of books.

I also looked at a bunch of different publishers, O'Reilly Media-- especially, the missing manual series which seems to be functional. I reviewed Facebook The Missing Manual earlier on this site. I also reviewed Clear Blogging. I am ordering both of these books for our library.

Just so you know, I didn't forget blogging. I made sure we had books for Wordpress, Blogger, Facebook, and Myspace. I also ordered the new Darren Rowse book, Problogger Secrets For Blogging Your Way To A Six Figure Income.

Random Thoughts

I still haven't had time to review Hot Text. But, you might have noticed the style of my post has changed slightly. This is the result of having read Hot Text. Also some items are labelled more clearly in my sidebar.

One book came in for me today that was on hold, Farewell My Subaru An Epic Adventure In Local Living by Doug Fine. This is a book about experimenting with living a green lifestyle. I hope it is entertaining and educational.

Although, it has nothing to do with books. I am happy with my choice to invest in Capstone Turbine. They recently had a very large order for hybrid electric vehicle turbines for DesignLine city buses.

Miss Potter-- DVD- Review

I watched the film, Miss Potter starring Rene Zellwegger as Beatrix Potter, and Ewan McGregor as Mr. Warne. I really enjoyed the film because I happen to really like her childrens books. Peter Rabbit the book she is most famous for sold over 40 million copies. When Beatrix Potter was a child, she had two pet rabbits, the first was Benjamin, and the second was Peter.

The film has a magical quality much like a fairytale. But, then Beatrix Potter's story is very much like a Victorian fairytale. Large portions of the film were shot on the Isle of Man. This means the cinematography and backgrounds were quite beautiful. You have rolling hills, forests, quaint villages, gardens, and old fashioned Victorian houses as the backdrop.

The story is at once tragic and at the same time uplifting. Ewan McGregor does an excellent job as Mr. Warne, the gentleman who first helps Miss Potter get her book published. He dies as they become engaged. The film is a more than a little stuffy in explaining their romance. They barely kiss. If you look at the actors cast as Beatrix Potter's parents, they look very similar to the photographs of her childhood. The film appears to be historically accurate.

There are numerous small animations of her childrens characters, including Jemima Puddleduck, Tom Tittlemouse, and Peter Rabbit. They come alive for brief moments in the film. These are very slight animations. Maybe, their ears move, or their eyes, or a frog hops about. Beatrix Potter was a mycologist and wrote numerous tracts on fungi.

This is also a story of a woman becoming independent. Beatrix Potter moved away from her family's house after she learned that she had a small fortune from selling her books. This allowed her to buy numerous small farms. Although, this wasn't shown in the film, she was famous for raising sheep. It did show her meeting William Heelis who helped her purchase her country properties and later married her.

I really enjoyed the film. Many people will find it stuffy and excessively proper, but that is how much of Victorian times was. There are tea parties, Miss Potter gets followed around by an old lady to make sure she is acting properly, and her father and mother try and marry her off to appropriately rich upper class people which she refuses to do.

Beatrix Potter's real life story is quite uplifting. The final screenshot where she leaves 4,000 acres of farmland to the British national trust to turn into parks is quite uplifting.

The DVD includes a documentary about the life of Beatrix Potter, and a film on the making of Miss Potter. It also includes some truly awful trailers of other films which are well worth skipping

I decided to do something a bit different this morning and review a film on an author. I am not sure if I should do this again with Finding Neverland starring Jonny Depp as J.M. Barrie author of Peter Pan. The film did not do too well in American markets, but did alright in world markets. I think it is more of an artistic statement than a mainstream film.

Stardust-- Neil Gaiman-- Comparison Book and Film

Stardust was produced in three formats, a graphic novel, film, and a book. I am going to focus on two of them, the book and the film.

Neil Gaiman's Stardust was produced both as a film and a book. I liked the book far better than the film. There was a lot that was very different between the film and the book. Neil Gaiman apparently was inspired by Charles Vess's drawings to write Stardust.

The novel is far different than the film. There is much less violence in the novel and it is definitely more of a love story than an adventure story in the book. The ending where there is a huge battle between the three witches and the hero simply does not happen in the book. The witch cannot have the Star's heart because she has given it to Tristan Thorne because she loves him. It is no longer available for the Lilim to take.

Also the "Babylon Candle" is black magic in the film. I have no idea why they did this. Maybe they were appealing to people who believe all magic is evil. In the book, it's magic comes from the magic of nursery rhymes.

"How Many Miles to Babylon
Three Score Miles and Ten,
Can I get there by candlelight,
Yes, there and back again.
Yes, if your feet are nimble and light,
You can get there by candlelight."

Also a little man gives Tristan Thorne his candle in the book. Maybe the little man is a leprechaun. A person who helps him in the land of fairy.

There is another nursery rhyme in the book which occurs, the lion and the unicorn. Here it might have made sense if Tristan Thorne helped save the unicorn from the lion. Here is the rhyme. It is not clearly explained how the unicorn appears in the film.

The Lion and the Unicorn Were Fighting for the Crown
The Lion Beat the Unicorn All About the Town
He beat him once, he beat him twice
With All his might and main
He beat him three times over
His power to maintain

I rather like this hidden allusion to Tristan Thorne's royal blood. I also like how it describes Tristan Thorne and the Star riding the unicorn in the book. The unicorn is still a very beautiful animal in the film. This would not fit well with the theme of magic being mostly bad in the film.

The way magic was shown in the film was quite sinister. At points it became ridiculous. An old woman shooting flames at Septimus the lord of Stormhold in the final battle seemed overdone. It seemed like the final fight scenes were put in just for special effects.

Three was a lot removed from the film which I would have liked to see. I think, it would have been better if they had shown more of the "faery market" in its splendor. I thought they showed too little.

The best part of the film, I thought was the skyship, Perdida. I liked them catching lightning, dancing, and Tristan Thorne learning swordplay on the flying ship. It was really interesting watching a ship fly through the sky. Some people say that Robert DeNiro's playing a gay pirate was ridiculous. I thought it was funny. This was a very short piece in the book.

The countryside in the film was also very beautiful to look at. It had the feeling of green rolling hills where very few people live. Also the costumes were interesting to look at. They had a swashbuckling feel to them that you would see in historical romances.

There are also small differences in the book which did not appear in the book. Tristan's mother in the book had cat's ears and a tail. I guess this was a bit too odd for the film. In the book, the jewel which the Star wears is around her waist, not a necklace. It is also a topaz in the book, not a ruby. These little details changed the perception of the film ever so slightly.

Also, Victoria is in love with Mr. Monday, the shop owner, not the young fop in the movie. I rather like this a lot. It makes more sense in the book that there would be rivalry and loss of his job if Tristan Thorne worked for Mr. Monday. It is almost silly to see Tristan Thorne hit with a cane in the film.

The scene with the promise of love and following the star for Victoria is done right in both the film and the book. In the book, Tristan Thorne is let through the wall because they know he is part of faery. In the film, he has to fight an eighty year old man... This makes for a kind of silly inconsistency.

The film was enjoyable to watch with excellent cinematography, but it turned the story into a swashbuckling adventure film, rather than a fantasy romance.

Even the ending is different. Towards the end of the book, it is found out the star cannot bear children, yet lives on forever after Tristan Thorne dies. This is an allusion to the immortality of fairy. There is always a sadness which occurs when people with mortal blood love the fae. In the film, Tristan Thorne and the Star live happily ever after and have many children eventually becoming stars again.

I think Neil Gaiman created a different story for the film, one which would appeal to the swashbuckling fan. I would have preferred that he stick to the original story in the book which I enjoyed a lot more than the film. Still, the film was enjoyable enough to watch.

However, I wish they had not chosen to add unnecessary violence and chosen to portray the magic of faery as black magic or evil.

Evening Thoughts

I really didn't get a chance to read much today. Today was another busy day. I thought I would have a chance to look at the magazine section for a few minutes, but things caught up with me quickly. I'll probably take a few minutes to look at the periodicals section tomorrow.

I ordered a thousand dollars worth of Job Information Center books, mostly career oriented books, Opportunities In Nursing, Opportunities in Carpentry, and similar titles. I also ordered a variety of start your own business, business planning, and franchise type books. Franchise books are in demand. 80% of franchises succeed unlike most new businesses.

I spent a bunch of time putting in looseleafs for the law collection in addition to my usual three hours a day of helping people at the reference desk. I also checked the email reference for questions by email. There were a few questions yesterday, but not today. It was quite busy. They are also checking over everything which we are ordering lately and having us sign off on our orders. Every last cent is being checked.

On the way home on the train, I took a look at Stardust. There is a free coupon in the back of the paperback for a smll popcorn if you went to see the film in a theater. This is the first time I have seen a publisher do this. I am number 119 on the waiting list for Stardust, the film.

I am planning on showing another film, Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. Everyone recognizes the line "Play It Again Sam." I am also thinking of which three oscar films would be interesting to show in a public library. I haven't decided yet.

I have ten books on reserve at work and none of them came in to read today. It is a slight disappointment. Something will come in tomorrow.

It is hard to get yourself going so you can write something every single day. Sometimes, you just have to start writing. I didn't know what to expect today.

Thoughts for the Day

I am looking at a new series called Best American Comics, it is c2007, the series is in its second year. The editor is Chris Ware. Last year in 2006, the editor was Harvey Pekar. This is a comics lit book collecting high quality samples of works by alternative comic artists. Some of the artists are Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, Adriane Tomine, Kim Deitch, Charles Burns and others. The books is very colorful.

I also have a copy of Richard Matheson, I Am Legend, the vampire novel which the new film starring Wil Smith is based on. I noticed that Richard Matheson renewed the copyright in 1995, the original copyright is 1954. The book which is a trade paperback is perma-bound, coated in plastic to make it last longer.

I am Legend is also printed on acid free paper so the paper will not brown. It looks like the glue holding in the pages will dry out before the paper and the cover goes. This is what seems to happen with trade paperbacks with acid free paper and high quality covers. The pages come undone fairly quickly, but the cover and the paper stay in perfect shape.

Anyways, SCORE Service Corps of Retired Executive did a free sales and marketing seminar last night at the library. I went and got groceries for light refreshments, mini-muffins, a vegetable platter, apple cider, and a jug of water for the attendees. We had ten people attend. These kinds of things are always kind of hard to do. I did the rough draft for the flier and the press release to the local papers. The lady in the office did the final editing for release to the public. It is impossible to know how many people will attend these kind of workshops.

I am going to prepare a film today, something out of copyright, The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Lana Turner. I'll end up getting individual bags of popcorn, they have big bags with little bags of popcorn inside them, and juice. We have a projector for presentations that can be rigged up to a dvd player and a fold up movie screen so we can show films.

I am still thinking of Rumi. Some of the poems are very short stories. My favorite of these is the story of the Ocean Frog. The Ocean Frog lives in the wide ocean while the ditch frog lives in a small ditch. The ditch frog tells how huge his home is which is two feet by three feet while the ocean frog listens. The ocean is seen as a metaphor for living in the presence of god or the universe having wide vistas of perception.