Moon People and Other Horror Stories

Because I'm just that kind of person, when I see something awful that makes me laugh I feel the need to share it. Thus, I give unto you The Worst Book Ever is Moon People from the Publisher's Weekly News Blog. Do check out the other 'worst books ever', too.

There's probably something to be said about Publisher's Weekly picking on a vanity press book, but I'm not going to come up with it. Why? Laziness. Be grateful you're getting an update at all!

Happy Foot, Sad Foot

From From Salon: How a podiatrist sign became a literary icon.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's generation had its green light at the end of the dock in "The Great Gatsby," that symbol of unattainable dreams, and today's young literati have -- a podiatrist's sign?

The sign for the Sunset Foot Clinic on West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is known to some locals as a kind of fortuneteller. On one side is depicted a foot with a woeful face, a bandaged big toe and crutches, while the other side shows an ecstatic foot in gloves and sneakers giving the thumbs-up sign. (Yes, these feet have both arms and legs.) When the sign is working, it rotates, and several residents of the nearby Silver Lake and Echo Park neighborhoods believe that whichever side they see first indicates what sort of day awaits them. Others use the sign as a guide: If they see the Happy Foot, they get to do something fun, while the Sad Foot condemns them to an afternoon of chores.

Just kind of funny. Though thinking of The Great Gatsby and signs, I make an mental link to the blue and gigantic eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg and their yard-high retinas and of some mistake involving use of the word 'retinas' I read about when I was studying the book in high school, which was over a decade ago. I imagine I can be excused for my memory lapse. Fun fact.

Book Smelling

So now smelling books and keeping track of what they smell like is art. (The New York Magazine goes into more detail.)

I would like to propose that is not art but rather a hobby. See, it's funny if you consider it a hobby, but it's just annoying if you consider it art.

I was amused by one of the comments on the LISNews post:

this is completely unscientific. she omits all types of metadata that a librarian would include.
how long did she sniff each book?
did she sniff a random page or the inside cover or page 23? and "paper-y" in place of "paper"??? is that like saying a book has "around 200 pages"?

How would you even decide which page to sniff in a scientific manner? Page 23? Halfway through the book plus one page?

Bad Book Review Leads to Libel Case

Why do I keep coming back to book reviews? And how did I manage to fall behind in posting during Reading Week, which required no reading at all? So it's another three posts on one day, bam bam bam, thank you.

The author of a book about law has charged a reviewer with libel. In France! The author is French but lives in Israel; the reviewer is German but reviewed the book in English. Supposedly the French view of defamation includes 'views attacks on honor as a form of assault.'

Note to self: don't tell 'your mama' jokes in France.

Ms. Calvo-Goller did not respond to two e-mails seeking comment. In her correspondence with Professor Weiler, she said the review he published “may cause harm to my professional reputation and academic promotion.”

So may the prosecution she started.

Brian Leiter, a law professor at the University of Chicago, assessed Ms. Calvo-Goller’s case on his blog on philosophy and academic freedom. “The author has obviously done more damage to her reputation by making this criminal complaint than would have been possible by any book review, let alone the one in question,” he wrote.

Ta mere est si grosse que...

Book Crimes

From the New Yorker: Book 'Em: Library Bandits by Ian Crouch.

And how can we pick on libraries, which despite their rules and fines, are like over-indulgent grandparents, always eager to forgive us our mistakes. Take the Park City Library, in Utah, which this year is offering amnesty to patrons owing fines, allowing them to donate non-perishable food instead of money. We’re sorry libraries; we promise to be better.

An odd story about a woman who stole books from the library, a couple of mentions of vandalism, including the weird one with Harvard University and the bottle of pee. (But why was there a bottle of pee there in the first place?)

Protective Literature

If you can't spend under three minutes watching, you were best off with 'Witz', though one commenter pointed out the books 'would be constricted under a coat' while the books in the video just flew open. Another stated they should have tried Mark Twain's autobiography, too. Me, I was sold with the jaunty declaration, "Let's shoot some books!"

Maybe that's not the best thing for a wannabe librarian to be amused by, but really, it's for protection, folks.

From LISNews: Computers in the Library - Stamp Them Out!

Via LISNews, in full, but here is a link anyway:

Computers In Libraries: Stamp Them Out!
December 13, 2010 - 1:04pm — Blake
"It should be stamped out '...the computer is not for library use; that all the promises offered in its name are completely fraudulent; and that not only is it extremely expensive compared to other methods at this time, but that it will become increasingly expensive in the future; that it has been wrapped so completely in an aura of unreason that fine intelligences are completely uprooted when talking about it; that its use in a library weakens the library as a whole by draining off large sums of money for a small return; and that it should be stamped out."

–Ellsworth Mason, "Along the Academic Way," LJ, May 15, 1971"
(See Also:'The great gas bubble prick't; or, Computers revealed' by a Gentleman of Quality [Ellsworth Mason] in College and Research Libraries, 32 (May 1971): 183-196.)

Chocolate Library a No-No

So apparently it's illegal to refer to something as a library if it is not, in fact, a library, such as a chocolate shop.

Around Thanksgiving, a fastidious little artisanal chocolate shop called The Chocolate Library opened in the East Village. We know what you're thinking—won't little schoolchildren get confused and wander in there to borrow a copy of My Pet Goat, only to emerge all jacked up on sugar? The State Education Department’s division of library development was thinking the same thing, and bureaucrats quickly swung into action to choc-block the shop!

The other day I had a chocolate lunch. It was a bad idea. A delicious bad idea.

Saddam Hussein Had a Koran Written In His Own Blood

From Huffington Post: Saddam Hussein had a Koran written in his own blood. Whiskey, tango, foxtrot. WTF.

Being born in 1980, Saddam Hussein was like a kind of childhood boogeyman for me, the way I imagine Osame Bin Laden is for younger folks. A boogeyman that was real* and while this news doesn't surprise me it creeps me right the heck out. Good riddance, you crazy mofo*.




* Bin Laden: also real.
** Pardon the language.

Brooklyn Law School Smut

Apparently Brooklyn Law School let Diesel, a clothing line, do a shoot in their library and they aren't happy with the results. Link NSFW (not safe for work).

Something Wrong With Library Desk Design

Uploaded to reddit.com with the note 'I think there might be a flaw in the design of our library desks...'

View comments here. I take no responsibility for whether you find them funny or not.

Gordon Pinsent Reads Bieber

"Ahh, the girls... the grilled cheese... I wish I was you."

Maybe I Should Move to Calgary in a Couple of Years

The University of Alberta is compiling a video game library. It works just like any other library and has enclosed multimedia rooms where students and researchers can rock out with Rock Band or play other games. Which is pretty much awesome and wow now it's more tempting to live in Alberta!

I imagine a lot of technical expertise would be needed, like 'just blow on the cartridge' and identifying the inevitable red rings of death. AND I AM THERE.

Also awesome: Video Games and Young People: Learning, Literacy, and Libraries, a paper by Heather Robinson.

Morgan Rosenburg

On the subject of crazy books, please see Baltimore City Paper's story on Morgan Rosenburg by Blake De Pastino.

In a nutshell: this guy named Morgan Rosenburg who lies about himself a lot writes books about a fictional guy named Morgan Rosenburg who goes out, has sex with, and then kills women. With extreme, explicit violence. Seriously, that's some pretty nasty stuff just quoted in the article above.

Self-insertion stories are nothing new; people have been writing them for a long time, often creating fan fiction, stories set in the universes of popular TV shows. Some of the first appearances of fan fiction were based on the original Star Trek series, where there were few women in the cast. While some fan fiction is concerned with the stories of the setting, quite a bit is self-insertion and can get kind of disturbing. At first confined to mailing lists and the like, with the advent of the internet people's stories got an even bigger audience. And now with vanity publishing, just about anyone can release a book without the benefit of things like editors and psychiatrists. Morgan Rosenburg is one of those people!

School Sucks Promoted at Library

Say you're an activist group that's against public, government-funded education in the United States. Why, oh why, would you decide to slip bookmarks for your cause into five thousand books at a library? It just seems like aiming at an audience that isn't receptive to your message, kind of like those annoying 'don't pirate movies' commercials before movies in theatres. You know, the movies you paid money to sit down and watch and not steal so you can be told that stealing movies is wrong.

Condiment Crime

A woman in Boise, Idaho, cas caught pouring mayonnaise into a book drop at the Ada County library. She's also the prime suspect for past condiment infractions, including corn syrup and ketchup.

Authorities say a 74-year-old Boise woman... is a person of interest in at least 10 other condiment-related crimes.

Mostly this is posted because I like the phrase 'condiment-related crimes'. GENIUS.

Spelling Bee Protests

Four people dressed in bee costumes protested the Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington, DC.

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for 'fruit' to be spelled as 'froot'...

While I agree literacy is important, I don't think dumbing language down will help anyone. In fact, I think it might be UNGOOD. Perhaps DOUBLEPLUSUNGOOD.

Library of Congress and Twitter

Every Tweet Will Be Preserved for History. Seriously?

I wonder what category tweets go under in the Library of Congress Classification system.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

More in the battle against late fees! A teenager in Colorado has been sent to jail for an overdue DVD.

Apparently the kid borrowed House of Flying Daggers and accidentally packed it up while moving. The DVD's about $30; it cost $200 to get the kid out of jail, another $200 to get his car out of the impound lot, and $60 in court fees.

Littleton Mayor Doug Clark said the city plans to change its policy on overdue DVDs and books as a result of the case.

"We're not going to arrest people who don't return $30 DVDs," he said.

Gee, y'think?

Onion Google Article

While only the AV Club section of The Onion is an actual news site, some people get a little confused. So: this is not a real news article about Google responding to privacy concerns in an unsettlingly specific apology.

"Americans have every right to be angry at us," Google spokesperson Janet Kemper told reporters. "Though perhaps Dale Gilbert should just take a few deep breaths and go sit in his car and relax, like they tell him to do at the anger management classes he attends over at St. Francis Church every Tuesday night."

"Breathe in, breathe out," Kemper added. "We wouldn't want you to have another incident, Dale. Not when you've been doing so well."