Good Morning, Good Afternoon

Cut out of figure of Everyman from the frontispiece to the first edition of the play, from the 16th century. Author is Anonymous.

Good Morning

This morning on the train I read Ferguson Career Skills Library Teamwork Skills. The book is written for those who are just getting their first job in a corporate setting. The book goes over the most basic skills which a person would need to know to work as a team player. Most of this would be obvious to someone who had been in the workplace for the while. It would be a good book for someone who was just getting out of college and starting their first job. The book was very easy to read and follow. It took me only a couple hours to read. There was not much for a person who already has been working for a while.

I replaced the books on the central display stand with new books. I am currently putting books on immigration, the immigrant experience, and legal and political issues surrounding immigration on display. I hope the display works. There certainly are enough issues with immigration these days.

I also did a little more weeding in the 300s. Right now, I am going through the military history section. I have to pick things up a bit because the director is planning a major shifting of books to other parts of the library. The furniture in the stacks is going to be rearranged.

Sometimes while you are looking through various websites or Twitter, you find little things that are entertaining:

Letter to Beginning Writers From Robert Sawyerhttp://www.sfwriter.com/beginner.htm

Tea and Mysteries Event (I Just liked the idea).
http://www.rebeccabenstonwrites.com/RebeccaBenstonEvents.html

Good Afternoon

I placed another book on hold, The Shadow of the Scorpion: A Novel of the Polity by Neal Asher. It is printed by NightShade books which is a new publisher of speculative fiction.

I have had a few minutes to look at news around the web. These are two articles that struck my fancy.

Wikipedia meets $6 million fundraising goal (AP)
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090102/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_fundraising . I think of this as good news. Occassionally, the servers on Wikimedia can be a little slow. I am hoping that they raise a little extra so Wikipedia and all its subsidiaries can become a truly universal free encyclopedia. Sometimes, I think that Wikipedia will eventually become a true "Final Encyclopedia." Gordon R. Dickson wrote a novel about an encyclopedia that contained all mankind's knowledge.

DCPL Tightens Rules on Bags, Sleeping; Seen Aimed at Homeless
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6625738.html . This is a really touchy article for librarians. We get a lot of people who might be homeless at our library. It is very hard to know, some of them are just a little odd.

Also the library card is often the first piece of identification that people get immediately after people get out of jail or a psychiatric facility. It is seen as a way for people to be reintroduced to society. We get people reintroducing themselves to the everyday world through libraries. In addition, the library card is a right of passage for many immigrants.

Many people view the library as a safe haven where people can get away from the streets and violence which so often plague homeless people or people who are particularly different. We generally leave people alone unless they are bothering other people, they smell bad, or are involved in offensive behavior. There is less money for shelters and others places for homeless people to go. We do have a no sleeping rule. Most libraries have a no sleeping rule.

This is the first time I have seen a bag limit in a United States public library. I have noticed there are people with very large bags and carts who have been coming into the library lately. I have seen people check their bags in bookstores, Strand Bookstore in Manhattan has a bag check area, and Forbidden Planet in Manhattan has a bag check area. I have heard that you have to check your bags and coats in the main library in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Everyone is welcome in the public library because it is a public space. Public spaces are not supposed to be exclusionary. Many homeless people also read in the library. That is what the library is for. They do not want to stand out for the most part. It is terrible to be homeless.

Still it is one of the reasons why we have security guards and require someone to ask for the bathroom keys. The library is not as safe a place as many people believe.

We have created an initiative as part of the Bridges Out of Poverty program to talk to the local social service agencies to see how we can help them. This may help with some of our own issues with homelessness and poverty. We are going to do this this month.

Daily Thoughts

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) from "Vanity Fair", issue 812, April 1884. Signed by caricaturist "Ape" (i.e. "Bee", pseudoname of Carlo Pellegrini 1839-1889).

Daily Thoughts

I took a short walk to my local library. The computers were completely filled up so I could not sit down at them. I returned two books and took out a few more, Ferguson Career Building Skills Library Teamwork Skills, Second Edition and a science fiction novel by Andy Remic, War Machine A Combat-K Novel.

The walk to the library was rather pleasant. It was a little drizzly outside. Walking regularly, doing a bit of yoga, and changing my diet has helped me a lose a pant size. It is quite comfortable to be a bit smaller. I am hoping to be even smaller in February.

Today has been a quiet day, more so than other days.

After realizing my blog traffic has fallen off a little bit, I decided to add a top commenters widget for blogger. This lists the bloggers who have made the most recent comments on this blog. I found the widget at: http://www.corpseofattic.com/2008/05/top-commenter-widget-for-blogger-with.html . I also put in the blogger followers widget. This was to show who from blogger was following me.

When you go through your site tracker you often find the strangest things. Apparently, my blog is a fantasy stock worth fantasy money. I was a little surprised. I thought I had to register my blog, but apparently, other people can. http://blogshares.com/blogs.php?checkid=11728918

Today is rather unplanned and a bit here and there.

Razor Girl Love Cuts Both Ways by Marianne Mancusi

Razor Girl Love Cuts Both Ways by Marianne Mancusi

This is a silly campy novel. It is a postapocalyptic
zombie romance. The main character, Molly Anderson, is
a tribute to William Gibson's Neuromancer. She has
ocular implants and razor claws.

The book starts out as Molly Anderson is falling in love
with Chase Griffin, the boy next door. This is during
the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. People start
turning into pus filled, man eating zombies. There are
of course references to George Romero films.

Numerous cliches abound. They have the feeling they are
meant to be there. Molly must shoot Erin her best
friend who has turned into a three eyed zombie. Molly's
father is a mad scientist who makes
supersoldiers.

Switch to six years later. Molly has been in a fallout
shelter. When she comes out of the fallout shelter, she
immediately tears apart a zombie with her razor claws
saving Chase Griffin her high school fling. He of
course looks like the cover of a romance novel. Fabio
here I come.

The novel switches back and forth between high school
zombie apocalypse; and the end of the world wasteland.
Molly must get to Disneyland to save her father. She
brings Chase Griffin and his eight charges, child
survivors of the apocalypse.

This novel is silly and fun. It is competently put
together. There is sex, zombie killing, and cliches;
lots of cliches. Marianne Mancusi writes young adult
novels and action romances. This is her blog
http://mariannem.blogspot.com/

The Dell, Kirstenbosch

I must start by wishing all my blogging friends a wonderful, prosperous and happy painting 2009.

Dianne McNaughton posed the question in her last blog - how do different people motivate themselves to paint! Well, all I know is when it gets this hot, I cannot do anything. And today is no exception. I know my blogging/cricketing friend in India, Sanjeev Joshi, would laugh, but honestly when the temperature hits 30 deg C (86 def F) I become useless. I go into my art room and just sit there looking at the canvas, listlessly put a few strokes down, and then have to find some cool spot. And the coolest spot in the house is where the computer is! I will make the effort later when it cools down but in the meantime I thought I would post this painting.

It is of the Dell at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. It's such a lovely cool area in the gardens, starting from the pool shaped like a bird and appropriately called after the Colonel who designed and built it, Cnl Bird! flows over a small waterfall and onto the Dell where it forms a small pool before going under a stone footbridge.

We were 'plein air' painting that day, and I gave up and took a photo to do this picture, but the peace and tranquility of the area stayed with me. I hope I conveyed it.

Cake, Thai food and water -a big NO NO

God morning little blog! Long time since I ever wrote a morning post (if I ever have written one ^^), but today I have to if I want to blog any at all. Because today is unfortunately study day, but it's something I have to do so I better just get it over with...

January 1st was the greatest and the worst as well. I even made another vow...-.- : Never overeat and then drink lots of water afterwards... -I not only felt pregnant, I looked like I was expecting any minute and damn it hurt A LOT!

Mum had bought this lovely cake for the first day of the year x)

Amazing Thai had great food, but the feeling afterwards wasn't all that great...

Me and sister before swelling up like balloons -otherwise we had a very lovely evening xD

The Merchant of Dennis The Menace The Autobiography of Hank Ketcham

The Merchant of Dennis The Menace The Autobiography of Hank Ketcham

Hank Ketcham is the creator of Dennis Menace based on his five year old son. Hank Ketcham says he was always interested in being a cartoonist since he was five year olds.

He had been drawing cartoons all his life. He even left college early to go work in Los Angeles as a cartoonist. He started working as a cartoonist at Walt Lantz studios. Then he eventually reached his dream of working for Disney where he worked on Pinocchio, Donald Duck, Bambi, and other films.

He calls his education university of Disney. The section of Disney is the history of the studio from an artist working thre during its early days. He worked with many famous cartoonists like Walt Kelly.

This book details the artists life. It describes the every day life of a working cartoonist: the deadlines; the reliance on gag writers; and learning from other cartoonists.

There are illustrattions and photographs from every part of Hank Ketcham's career. This includes some unexpected episodes like the Dennis The Menace Playground and Half Hitch, a cartoon about a navy sailor in the 1960's.

For Dennis The Menace fans there are biographical sketches of all the major characters, Martha and George Wilson, Henry Mitchell, Alice Mitchell, Joey McDonald, Gina Gillotti, Margaret Wade, and Ruff the dog. Hank Ketcham wanted to include an African American character, but when he tried initially there was an outcry against how the character was portrayed. It was his one regret about the series.

In addition to being a cartoonist, Hank Ketcham travelled all over the world; he lived in Switzerland for ten years, and travelled through Russia during the cold war. Dennis the Menace is known as Daniel el Travieso in South America and Henkie Het Huisgevaar in Amsterdam.

You get a picture of a very conservative man who wrote a very universal character for children. Hank Ketcham was a father of five, a navy man, a supporter of Barry Goldwater, a lover of Bing Crosby, powerboating and golf who supported strictly traditional values in raising children.

This book is excellent. I enjoyed the cartoons, photographs, and writing. It was accessible to read and good clean fun.

Daily Thoughts

Jack Kerouac's poem in the center of San Francisco Chinatown's Jack Kerouac Alley.

Daily Thoughts

I am reading Marianne Mancusi, Razor Girl Love Cuts Both Ways, an action romance. The book is part of the Shomi Fiction action romance series. It is very campy. During the first part of the book, they even include some words on George Romero. On the Shomi Fiction site, you can see the author Marianne Mancusi in a gothic lolita cosplay outfit. This is kind of entertaining. http://www.shomifiction.com/ . It makes the book both contemporary and a bit geeky.

The book is published by Dorchester Publishers. They also do the Hard Case Crime line of noire mystery paperbacks which I really like also. http://www.hardcasecrime.com/ . I have read a bunch of Dorchester paperbacks including Max Allan Collins, Ms. Tree. I like the publishers campy irreverent style. It is making them well known very quickly. http://www.dorchesterpub.com/ .

I watched Walt Disney's The Sword In The Stone, 45th Anniversary Edition this afternoon. This is based on T.H. White's Sword In The Stone written in 1938. It is the first part of The Once and Future King, a classic of fantasy. People still ask for the book occassionally. The movie brought back memories from when I was a child. I remember seeing it when I was seven years old in the theater. Sometimes, it comes on television. The screenplay is written by Bill Peet who is one of my favorite childrens book writers.

I really like the way that Arthur or wart as he is called in the film is transformed first into a fish, then a squirrel, then a bird. The animation is wonderful. It has a whimsical quality to it. These are my favorite parts of the movie. It is a nice reminder that using your brain is the best way to get ahead in the world.

Ekaterina Sedia who wrote The Secret History of Moscow has a new novel, The Alchemy of Stone. It is supposed to be a steampunk novel. I am looking forward to reading it.

Jonathan Carroll also has a new novel, The Ghost In Love, it is supposed to be a paranormal fiction novel, but as all of his novels, it probably has some very unusual philosophy woven into it as well.

I searched http://www.worldcat.org which lists the holdings of a lot of the public and academic libraries in the United States and found 196 listings for Jack Payne's Six Hours Past Thursday. I am going to place an interlibrary loan for the book this Saturday when I go back to work.