Last night I finished reading Dead Man Walking, by Sister Helen Prejean, and I told N that if anything ever happens to me, no matter how horrible, not to seek the death penalty.

Read it. It will change your mind.

Vote for your favorite rockstars in Venus Magazine's 2003 Poll.

We like Venus Magazine (Zine?), although we will like them even more once they feature my band, dammit.

I boycotted Fast Food Nation when it was assigned reading in my young adult literature class. I was afraid it would ruin the simple joy I get from my M&Ms McFlurry and fries. Seriously. I'm susceptible. Back when I read Diet for a New America, I went off red meat for four years.

Oh sweet bacon, how I missed thee.

Ok, robotic r,

Numbah 1: Girl, you hold out for that job that inspires you! I just quit a job with great benefits, albeit, a crap barely livable wage, to figure out a way to get into audio production. When you spend 2/3 of your waking hours working, then you may as well do something that you love, or at least really like. We will do it.

Numbah 2: Congratulations on your graduation.

Numbah 3: You are soon going to be a rockstar with New Black! You will tour the world, with a stop in Portland, OR, where you will stay with me, and partay!

On another note, I'm reading "Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser, which I'm sure most of you folks have read by now. Quite a bit of the first few chapters focus on McDonald's. We all know McDonald's and at some point have eaten their "food", so as part of the experience, I decided to go out and do a little market research for lunch today.

I biked over to the mall and bought $1 McDonald's french fries to see if the flavoring of the fries were good enough to keep me coming back. After chomping on them with ketchup (catsup), I thought to myself, "Y'know, these are pretty gross." And the last time, I had a McDonald's cheeseburger, I woke up in the middle of the night and puked. So, it's safe to say that I hate McDonald's.

I can't wait to read what Schlosser has to say about Arby's and Taco Bell, the two fast food places that, yes, I admit, I like'em. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

I climbed down off my educational high horse around 7 this morning on my way to Temp Heaven. For the past three summers, I have been the fill in for an unnamed proofreader at an unnamed ad agency, where I sit comfortably in my own (his) air-conditioned office, surfing the Internet and reading in between proofreading copious unnamed computer ads. This year, I finally made contact with the unnamed proofreader, and now he leaves me selections of CDs to amuse myself with (I know, I know, it's a dangling preposition) while he's out.

So yes. I am now counting my blessings while perusing Joan Jacobs Brumerg's The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls. Fascinating. Did you know that until 1920, Western doctors had no clue of the purpose of menstruation?

If you want to know what being a new graduate feels like, it's something along the lines of dragging yourself out of bed at 4 am to think about how you're going to ask your boyfriend for $3 to take the train at 7 am to your temp job and further, how to explain to Dad that I'm nearly 30 years old and still can't make my rent this month. I'm celebrating three years of underemployment and a spanking-new $20k debt (thanks, Dominican U!), and it's times like these that make me wonder why I have to be so stubborn about finding a field that inspires me rather than just biting the bullet (excuse the cliche, it's early) and jumping on the first thing out there with vacation and benefits. Blah.

The good news, fellow readers, is that I have a LOT of time for books and magazines. I finished the Da Vinci Code before bed, and despite my efforts not to enjoy it (there isn't a whole lot of literary value beyond the well-researched plot), I found myself sucked in. The best scene, by far, is when the symbology (is that a word?) professor and his cryptologist lady friend sit waiting for a tea-drinking British librarian's boolean search with four proximity operators so they can solve one of the final clues in their search for the holy grail. Yes, sir.

What does the newly minted (and still jobless) librarian choose for Saturday morning reading?

Yankee Magazine's Living Well on a Shoestring, of course. Maybe this will become my bathroom reading, too!

(ix-nay on the ewish-jay okes-jay, peanut gallery)

RR, thank you for adding me to this blog, I'm happy to be here.

I'm afraid that this may be a little late for your list, but I've heard good things about a little chapbook called, "Please Don't Kill the Freshman" by Zoe Trope (clever, huh?). This book has gotten quite a bit of hype here, as the young author (15 years old?) hails from the area around Portland, OR and got a hefty advance. I admit to not having read for myself, but as soon as my roommate's friend returns it, I'll give it a go and will review it here. However, to tide us over, I'll leave this here interview link.

For my first blog, I'm reviewing an old book from my adolescence. Not exactly the most intellectual fare, but I highly recommend it just the same.

Right now, I'm working this temp job answering the phone. It isn't too terribly exciting, but I can bring books, which is pretty great. The first few days, I brought John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces" along. Unfortunately, I was having a difficult time getting into it being interrupted by the phone. My solution? To find a mindless, but exceedingly pleasant book to read.

What is it you may ask? I proud to say that I've been re-visiting the "Anne of Green Gables" series. I discovered these books when my roommate and I moved two bookcases and all the books they contained from the first floor to the second floor.

The first three of the series are really the best, not that the others aren't good, but Anne doesn't get in nearly as many scrapes as she did in the first two books. Who can forget her dying her red hair green or having a mouse die in the pudding?

I admit that I was introduced to Anne by the boob-tube, but the show got me off my butt and to the library, where I promptly read them all, plus all the other tie-ins to Avonlea. I thought, "Compared to Laura Ingalls, Anne Shirley is a perfect heathen", which translated into perfect fun. My only complaint is that Anne seemed to grow up a little too fast, but I suppose that is natural.

Did I feel a little bit silly reading the books in the front office? Well, just a smidge, but in the end, I didn't care because that Anne-girl does "beat all".

Krtek's funhouse - Leather librarian outed - via west wash blog. you librarians get crazier every day!

Science Is Cool. Wouldn't you much rather have a giant lab-grown diamond at a reasonable price, over one of those stupid, cult-of-romance, exploited-labor diamonds that the shady DeBeers cartel keeps at artificially inflated prices by limiting supply? According to this story in Wired, 3-carat gem-quality stones are already being made. (Thanks to the Arts and Letters Daily for the lead.) The thrifty romantic in me is cheered, and looks forward to a similar drop in the price of robot brides.

Rachel--I loved Hole in My Life! I want to read his children's books now--I hear that they are pretty wacky. I know I'm too late to help you with your memoir list, and this book doesn't really fit 'cause it's fiction, but take a look at Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. A short, simple-on-the-surface book about two boys' lives during the Cultural Revolution and their tender, complex adolescent emotions. Reminded me of Ha Jin's books. Congrats on being almost done with school!


Some days, I need a little jolt of English to go with my morning tea, so I head over here, to NPR's archive of Summer Reading interviews, for some good recommendations. I keep another screen open to Amazon so that I can surf the book while I am listening to the interview. You can hear Lynne Cheney, Eden Ross Lipson (on the difference between classic Children's Lit and Harry Potter), Jeff Bezos (funny!), Laura Hillenbrand, and others.

Now that I've listened to all of them, what's the one book I really want to read? House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski.

-Jennifer in Tokyo

Okay guys, here it is: the official list of teen memoirs/nonfiction and my last library school project EVER. I've read all of these except for numbers 7, 9 and 10, which I'll be finishing by 5 o'clock tomorrow. Of the others, I can vouch that they are all worth the read, particularly My Bloody Life, which takes place just three doors down from my old apartment. Kedzie and Armitage, represent. Holy cow.

1. Michener, Anna J. Becoming Anna: The Autobiography of a 16-Year Old. The University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1998. When Tiffany is 16, her abusive parents decide they no longer want her around the house and lock her up in a mental institution. This is the story of what it’s like.

2. Sanchez, Reymundo. My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King. Chicago Review Press: Chicago, 2000. Initiated in the Latin Kings at age 14, Lil Loco lives the violent life of a gangbanger on the streets of Chicago.

3. Karr, Mary. Cherry. Penguin Books: New York, 2000. This story of Mary Karr’s adolescence in the 70s chronicles love, loss, junior high and high school, leading up to her flight from small-town Texas to Los Angeles.

4. Katz, Jon. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho. Broadway: New York, 2000. When journalist Jon Katz contacts two small-town geeks online to investigate a story, he has no idea how deeply he’ll become involved in helping them establish new lives in Chicago.

5. Things Get Hectic: Teens Write About the Violence that Surrounds Them. Youth Communication. Touchstone: New York, 1998. This collection of true stories by teens around the country includes their firsthand experiences with abuse, immigration, violence, drugs, sexual assault and war, among other things.

6. Digges, Deborah. The Stardust Lounge: Stories from a Boy’s Adolescence. Anchor Books: New York, 2001. When Stephen gets so out of control that his mother doesn’t know how to help him, she begins following him around at night, welcomes his friends into her house and adopts a series of animals-in-need.

7. Carroll, Rebecca. Sugar in the Raw: Voices of Young Black Girls in America. Three Rivers Press: New York, 1997. A series of profiles of black girls between the ages of 11 and 20, Sugar in the Raw is the result of more than fifty interviews in over 12 cities nationwide.

8. Gantos, Jack. Hole in my Life. When popular children’s author Jack Gantos is just 18, he finds himself part of one of the largest smuggling busts in history. This is the story of what led up to it, and how he survived prison.

9. Santiago, Esmeralda. When I was Puerto Rican. Vintage Books: New York, 1993. This coming of age story is about a Puerto-Rican who packs up her childhood when her family moves her to New York City as a teenager.

10. Lobel, Anita. No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War. Harper Trophy: New York, 2000. National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Nominee No Pretty Pictures is the haunting story of the five years Anita and her five-year-old brother spend hiding from the Nazis and enduring concentration camps.

A collection of Nigerian scan spams: Urgent Request for Assistance - My CapsLock key is Stuck

I usually avoid reading stories about Friendster.com, (even though, as roommate Lucas points out, it's fun to look up the writers and see how you're connected to them on Friendster,) because it makes me sad that my starving journo friends find it necessary to sell out the cool scene to their corporate owners (and lamewad readers) in order to make rent. But this one rises above the others. It gives background on the company, its founder (a pathetic, humorless single, it turns out), and his missionary zeal to berid Friendster of (hilariously) phony profiles. It touches on creativity, community, copyright, censorship, and other issues that give us librarians boners all night. Highly rekked.

Ok, took Saturday off from my life and sat next to the airconditioner and read until I finished "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal" by Christopher Moore. Apparently I am the only person who has never read his stuff as all my bookie friends scream with laughter at the mention of his name. The premise: Biff is brought back from the dead by an Angel to write his book of the bible, which is basically his memoir of hanging out with the Messiah as he was figuring out what it meant to be the Messiah. A very enjoyable tale of the missing years. Christ travels around the world to find his destiny accompanied by his wisecracking and not-so-spiritual pal Levi called Biff. He spends years with each of the three wise men learning about eastern spirituality. The whole tale pays no attention to historical timelines or gospel timelines. The fun part about this book is the silly backstory for why we do so many things today, like eat Chinese food on Christmas. Not to be read by anyone missing a sense of humor. It reminded me in some part of Jeanette Winterson’s Boating for Beginners where Noah creates a supernatural being when he has a small accident with the freezer and some old ice cream. So he makes up a story for this being and sells it to the rest of his community and therefore invents God. (perhaps a tad too long for a blog?)

Still reading folktales. Make it stop.

Hey kids, this is my first wrybrarian recommendation request. My final class project, EVER, is gonna be a booktalk about teen memoirs. I need 10 titles, and so far, I only have two: Go ask Alice and Hole in My Life. Any other suggestions?

p.s. This is not the Go Ask Alice book, but it is a great site...

I don't know why the Nigerian scam is getting to be so prevalent. It's been around forever but seems so less likely to actually fool anyone anymore, and nowadays, I'm getting this spam up to five times a week. Now they're even starting to arrive from "Iraqis" with "money" abandoned in the war. Here's a site that turns this shitty grift into a game: Nigerian Spam Scam Contest. From my own research, I have compiled the following facts:

1. An awful lot of Nigerian government officials die rich
2. Perhaps indicative of their third-world predicament, the heirs of rich Nigerian government officials are unable to afford lower-case letters. Perhaps if we help them smuggle that money out of the country, they'll stop sending their emails in ALL CAPS.

I'm amazed that people used to fall for this when it arrived via fax, in the pre-email days.

Ah, of course. The Man always has the answer.

Oh boy! I just love creepy spam. Is there really a Mrs. Jessica Wadu? Let the geeky research games begin!

Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2003 11:49:12 +0000 (GMT)
From: "jessica wadu" | This is spam | Add to Address Book
Subject: widow(please read me)
To:


I AM WRITING TO SEEK YOUR WILLINGNESS AND KINDNESS TO ASSIST ME IN A LEGITIMATE MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR TRANSFER.I IMPLORE YOU TO PLEASE GO THROUGH THIS MESSAGE AND SYMPATHISE WITH ME. I AM MRS.JESSICA WADU,WIFE OF LATE DONATUS WADU,A NIGERIA/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSMAN WHO WAS MURDERED ON THE 6 DAY OF OCTOBER,1997,BY SOME UNKNOWN GUNMEN.I AM SURVIVED WITH TWO CHILDREN(DAUGHTERS)TO THE GLORY OF GOD FOR HIM,DUE TO OUR AFRICA LOW BELIEVE ALL HIS FABULOUS WEALTHS AND PROPERTIES WHERE INHERITED BY HIS CLOSE RELATIVES,SIMPLY BECAUSE I DID NOT BEAR A MALE CHILD FOR THEIR LATE BROTHER,NOW LEAVING ME AND MY TWO DAUGHTERS IN A REAL DIFFICULT SITUATION.

AS GOD WILL WANT THINGS EARLY THIS YEAR 2003,ONE OF HIS FAITHFUL LAWYERS SECRETLY CAME TO ME WITH SOME DOCUMENTS COVERING MY LATE HUSBAND AS THE BENEFICIARY OF SOME FUNDS AMOUNTING TO THE TUNE OF US$9.350,000.000,(NINE MILLION THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY UNITED STATE DOLLARS)WHICH HE BANKED HERE IN NIGERIA. HE(THE LAWYER) PROMISED TO HELP ME MAKE CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP TO A FORIEGN ACCOUNT AND TO TENDER ALL VALID/LEGAL DOCUMENTS TO THE NEW BENEFICIARY TO ENABLE HIM/HER MAKE CLAIMS OF THE FUNDS.

PLEASE IF YOU ARE THE GOD SENT TO HELP ME AND MY DAUGHTERS FROM THIS HARDSHIP,I WILL WANT YOU TO INDICATE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO HELP,SO THAT I REFER/ENTRUST YOU TO THE LAWYER STRAIGHT. I HAVE SET ASIDE 25% OF THE TOTAL SUM FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE AND KINDNESS,WHERE YOU WILL ADVICE ME ON A PROFITABLE BUSINESS IN YOUR COUNTRY FOR MY DAUGHTERS AS THEY ARE THE ONLY HOPE I HAVE IN LIFE.

PLEASE HELP A WIDOW FOR THE MERCIFUL GOD WILL KEEP REWARDING YOU.
I WILL BE PLEASED IF MY REQUEST IS NOT IGNORED.
BEST REGARDS
MRS.JESSICA WADU

I've been reading Dashiell Hammett's Crime Stories and Other Fiction(NY: Library of America, 2001) which consists largely of the Continental Op stories. The first two were pretty flat, but things started picking up from there. The crimes became more elaborate and the detection became more delightfully convoluted, and the characterizations really started to set in. The Op (Operative) is a private detective with the Continental agency, a short, fat man with the tenacity of a pit bull, who enjoys the good graces of the San Francisco police department, and,more often than not, works on cases in tandem with their Detective O'Gar. I think the Op's "just the facts" style is the touchstone for Sgt. Joe Friday, though conjecture, supposition, hunch, and happenstance play larger roles in his process. "The House on Turk Street" struck me as especially cinematic in its description of setting and moment-by-moment narrative. Anyway, these are potboilers, less suitable for fans of subtle detection than they are for fans of violent crime and elaborate grifts. In the story I'm reading now (the first not to feature the Op) one sturdy soul is witness to assault, murder, burglary, burglary, adultery, a double murder, a police frame, bootlegging, and insurance fraud, all in the course of one evening. The insurance fraud might sound anticlimatic, but believe me it's one hell of an insurance fraud. These stories lack the spectacular descriptive wit and verbal play of either Hammett's The Thin Man or the Raymond Chandler oeuvre, but they're great wake-up reading for my morning commute, and the Op is much better company than Sam Spade, the laconic brute from Hammett's other famous work, The Maltese Falcon. Good stuff. Ted tells me that there's another recent volume of previously uncollected Continental Op stories, which I will certainly check out when this volume is cashed.

Sine Die Update! While I couldn't find Sine Die in the Chicago Public Library holdings, I did find out what it means.

Hahahahaha. I have prevailed. Behold, new monthly archives!

Fantastic. I tried to change my archives to monthly, and Blogger is having its way with me. Archives will be fixed shortly. I hope.

Oh dear. I found the Sine Die guy too, thanks to his carefully placed train advertisements (see June 30 entry by Erik).

Says Matthew, about his monograph: Have you ever forced yourself to read a prize-winning novel that was memorable only for its skimpy plot and boring characters? Did the book put you to sleep each time you cracked it open? Did it turn you off to reading?

Books don’t have to be boring. Sine Die, my new novel, certainly isn't.

Thrilling, irreverent, erotic and violent, Sine Die packs a ton of fun into 328 vibrant pages that are far from boring. You won’t labor through it, waiting/hoping for something to happen. Rather, you’ll coast through the story as rapid-fire images and action explode inside your imagination.

This is shameless self promotion at its best. Of course, sucker that I am, now I'm going to have to read it.

I'm reading so many folk and fairy tales, my head is spinning. While searching for texts appropriate for the kiddies (In case you're wondering, it's the storytelling portion of my children and young adult services class at library school), I accidentally checked out Tales from the Arab Tribes by C.G. Campbell, a collection of tales from around Southern Iraq. And sorry kids, I can't seem to find a review of this online. But take it from me, there is d-i-r-t-y stuff in here, as in corrupt young maidens with creamy thighs accidentally getting pregnant!

Tales from the Arab Tribes is by far my favorite of the lot, which includes a number of other multicultural titles such as: Indian Tales and Legends by JEB Gray, The Story Bag: A Collection of Korean Folktales by Kim So-un and The Complete Grimm's Fairytales (not as appropriate for children as you might think). It's kinda nice to read folk tales from another culture, and guess what? I like Iraqi folktales.

Eat that, Dubya.