I’ll take myself to an east coast city and walk about

Billboard September 9

• "Hey Lloyd" is my current favorite song, pretty much.
• And it's a perfect fall song.
• It may just be my Autumnal Theme Song, 2006.
• (It's also my current myspace profile song, if you haven't heard it yet.)
• Janet Jackson's got a new album.
• I can't help it; I love Janet.
• You can't have been born a girl in 1979 and not LUV "Nasty".
• The only nasty thing I like is a nasty groove.
• Ludacris is on the real cover, with some crazy sideburns.
• And those giant diamond studs that, I guess, the men of hip-hop all got together and decided Weren't Feminine At All.
• heh
• Decembrists are on Capitol now...interesting.
• Did anyone watch History Detectives this week?
• They were talking about records and metal masters and such. It was really cool.
• hee--I made my parents watch it, too.
• Oh, so who wants to hear me be devestatingly mean about a GLBTQ teen?
• So, I'm reading this anthology that proclaims to not be coming out stories, even though every story is about...how that kid came out, pretty much. In one of the pieces written by someone who likes boys that way (I forget if it was a gay boy or a trans kid), there's a mention of squeeing over a favorite New Kid on the Block.
• The unacceptable part?
• It was Danny Wood.
• Let's all give a collective, EW!, shall we?
• Perhaps this is a good distillation of the PoBaL Philosophy: It's OK to be gay, it's not OK to want to kiss ugly people.
• Thoughts?
• Stop the presses!
• Linkin Park are on iTunes now.
• I'm so excited.
• I'm about to lose control, and I think I like it.
• Speaking of NKOTB, their manager just died.
• Billboard asks the hard-hitting questions: "Just how important is an original vocalist to a tour?"
• Streeeeeeeeeeeetlights! People-le-le.
• Did you know that you can get ladies' underwear with a pocket for an iPod?
• It's called...wait for it...the iPanty.
• Have I mentioned how much I hate the word "panty"?
• It's yucky.
• Janet looks good in this picture.
• Plus, she's working this double-breasted long jacket with a gold belt over it ensemble that's quite nice.
• And giant gold hoops.
• I wish I could wear earrings.
• So, the girl in 28 Days Later? The one whose dad became a zombie?
• She's a "goth/pop artist" now, called Betty Curse.
• ugh, Chrissie "I care about animals more than women" Hynde needs a new haircut.
• The shaggy long bangs just aren't working in her favor anymore.
• So, there's going to be a big Dylan tribute in November. Some of the people involved are Patti Smith, Cat Power, and...Philip Glass.
• 
• I wanted to find a picture of the South Park kids in their gray jumpsuits, but no dice.

like some French filmmaker's plot

Red (over at The Cupcake Tent) has a list of 20 things she doesn't like that "everyone" else does.
Since I'm a contrarian--gets up to check the dictionary for the spelling of that one, and hopes that, for once, she doesn't forget what word she's looking up by the time she gets to said dictionary--Um, apparently "contrarian" isn't a word, but "cosmopolite" is, and I'm totally one of those, too.
***
Since I'm a contrarian (yay, internet), a cosmopolite (sensing a new favorite word?), and days like today always make me happy (hot sun, cool fall breeze, I'm wearing tights), here's my list of "20 Reasons Why You Probably Shouldn't Like Me", except mine are all things I like that no one else seems to. Or at least, things that the sort of people I tend to populate my social circles with proclaim to dislike. Or something to that effect.

1. Let's begin at the beginning, shall we? I know I've mentioned it before, but James from Twin Peaks. I began by pretending I was in LUV with James because I thought it was funny, and everyone else in the Twin Peaks Club at Pitt (that's totally not even the nerdiest thing in this post, I'm warning you) audibly hated him.
2. Scrubbing things. Not often, mind you, but I'll take getting-rid-of-the-dirt cleaning over organizing-my-crap cleaning any day of the week. This is a rarity in the World of the Librarian.
3. While we're in the World of the (Public) Librarian, the Dewey Decimal System can kiss my ass. Library of Congress all the way, fools!
4. There are a bunch of verboten color combinations I really like, but I'm still planning a fall fashion blog at some point. This is my attempt to not be repetitive for once.
5. Arrogant, somewhat asshole-ish boys. Not for any kind of big, important relationship, mind you. Just for hanging out, making out fun. In my (very limited) personal experience, whiny sensitive boys just get scared off, never tell you, and you're left wondering what you did wrong to this nice boy. With assholes, there's no surprise when they never call you again. Sometimes with "nice" boys, you feel like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.
6. Faux-hippie pop songs from the 60s. Like, the kind of song with lyrics such as, "I think you're groovy/we should go to a movie" or, really, the majority of the Donovan oevre.
7. Gas stoves. Screw that electric noise.
8. Old apartments with character. Yes, my air conditioning doesn't work, trying to use a level to hang shelves and things is futile because the floors are all uneven, and half the walls have water/mold stains, but I'll be much happier than in something that looks like a motel room. Until my bathroom ceiling falls in, that is.
9. Grey days. I like rain, too, but I really love those overcast weeks in February and November when everything becomes monochromatic until you break out the hot pink scarf or tapestry-patterned swing coat.
10. Ice cream and french fries together. Actually, I suspect this is something a lot of people like, they just don't admit to it.
11. I'm not a children's librarian, to the point of getting offended whenever anyone makes the mistake that I am one (TEENS, dude.), but I still keep up with new picture books.
12. TEENAGERS. I think the number one question your average teen librarian gets asked (or maybe #2, after "So, you mean like Sweet Valley High?") is, "Why? How can you stand them?" And then I wonder how many of those people have ever had to, say, figure out why a toddler book is sticky, or have a poorly disciplined five year old throw a Veggie Tales video at them.
13. Mixing silver and gold jewelry. Although Jackie's all about this, too, I think.
14. Pretentious avant garde, nonnarrative film. Especially if it in some way comments on the nature of filmmaking, or the materiality of film itself.
15. Dinosaurs. And I don't just mean, I wanted to be a paleontologist when I was 5 like everyone else (actually, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was 5. When I wasn't playing Library, that is). I mean Ross on Friends, was excited to go home in part to see the tiny feathered dino fossils from China, recognized Sue the T-Rex on a friend's fridge, like dinosaurs.
16. Same with mummies, things they've pulled out of peat bogs, and the early middle ages.
17. Overly earnest lo-fi bedroom 8-track pop.
18. Pictures of strangers, like the ones abandoned at thrift stores.
19. Bad sitcoms. I try to watch every new sitcom, every fall, at least once. Most of them I only watch once, but still--I'm fascinated by the format of the cheesy, overdone sitcom, and all its slight permutations. I always thought the Bloomfield apartment (yuckiest. roommate. ever. well, of mine.) would be good sitcom material. The theme song would be The Replacements' "Heyday". Tiff and Cara, would, of course, be the wacky neighbors.
20. "On the Air". Poor, poor, "On the Air". No one likes you; David Foster Wallace HATES you. But I think you're keen.

so wonderfully wonderfully pretty

I was playing with the movie function on my camera the other day, instead of working on my resume.

Anyone know how to embed youtube in blogger?

And how neat is this? Ann Arbor Library set up this thing where you can look at every record as an old-school catalog card, and even add notes to it.

Nobody writes them like they used to, so it may as well be me.

I've been workin' on my resume
All the live long day
I've been workin on my resume
'cause if I don't get out of this town I'm going to become even more bitter and hateful and disgust the only friend I've got here...uh, day.
Can't you hear the people shouting
Rise up so early in the morn
('cause I didn't go out last night because what's there to do, who's there to do it with & I've got no money)
***
It's no Anime Club theme sung (sorta) to the tune of "Animal Shapes" or "Din-ner for Legs and John-ny" ("Springtime for Hitler") but what do you think?
You know, all the miserable songwriters I listen to, you'd think I'd be better at this.
Where's Paul Westerberg when I need him?

Words Like Violence, a Friday Rant.

Holy hell, I hate AR. Hate hate hate. It's not just the forced reading. It's not just the assigning points to books. It's not just the way PUBLIC SCHOOLS have to pay for each and every test, and don't even buy the same tests district-wide.
Nor is it only the way everyone just expects public libraries to be on board and change their organization practices (you know, like alphabetical. By author.) or the fact that I see a definite difference in the way reading for pleasure is viewed by my jr high kids (who have AR) versus my high school crew (who have a 20 minute free reading period every day).
The parents who ask, over the summer, whether we have AR tests their kids can take, during the summer, are up there on my reasons for hating AR (especially when they get shirty about the fact that we don't*), but even they aren't my biggest beef with the system.
My Biggest Problem With AR
I'm revising our copy of the jr high AR list, because my brain isn't functioning well enough right now to do any of the things I need/want to do that require thoughts beyond "cut" or "paste" or "alt tab".
An aside: Funnily enough, most of the books on the list that are part of our YA collection are also the books on my report for weeding, which goes to show you how the AR people and the test-choosers really have their fingers on the pulse of our fair town. And now I'm stuck with decisions like, Do I keep a book that I'm assuming the jr high library owns but no one even looks at here, and take up precious precious shelf space, just because someone might need it to get their last 5 points to get to the next grade? All that shojo manga's gotta go somewhere, people, and I'm guessing neither Stephenie Meyer's or Christopher Paolini's third books are gonna be exactly thin.
So, back on (sort of) track, I'm going through this excel spreadsheet of all the books. A lot of them are in kids' fiction, but some are in YA.
Some of the titles on the list in our YA collection:

• Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Hard Love
• Born Confused
• Of Mice and Men

Now I love all of these books (yes, even Of Mice and Men. I like Steinbeck, okay?), and recommend most of them whenever I can. Which is whenever it's appropriate. Let's repeat that, shall we? In bold?
Which is whenever it's appropriate.
The jr high stops at 8th grade. Hard Love is not a book for an 8th grader, no matter how smart they are (or how many AR points they need, as is more frequently the case).
Is it any wonder that we're seeing more challenges coming from 5-8th grade parents when these books are offered with no regard for the maturity level of their content? It's like saying James Kochalka's work, all of it, is all-ages-appropriate based on the simplicity of his drawing style and the small number of words he uses.
And, yeah, I was there when Aiden Chambers was all, this is how they learn to be adults! Read up-level, kids! but I think there's a difference between challenging oneself and reading something before you're old enough to get all the meaning it wants to give you.
And this is true for books aimed at 20- and 30-somethings placed in YA collections as well, from the other end. Paul Moves Out is an amazing book, and one that many teenagers probably enjoy. I would have really liked it at 16. But I don't think I would have enjoyed it enough if I had read it before being that age, living similar experiences, etc, myself.
Plus, I have to respectfully disagree with a man who wrote what is most possibly the most boring piece of fiction I've ever read not directly for a class.

Did this make any sense, or should I just go back to staring at the spreadsheet and thinking about yarn?

*And, hell, I don't even know if we could, or if it would count for the kid. Public libraries aren't part of the school district in most cases, including YOURS, you mook.

I wanna ramone you.

Billboard August 26

• YouTube is working on a deal with labels to use the site for music videos.
• interesting...
• Probably has something to do with the consistent sucking of MySpace's video capabilities, no?
• My black little heart shrieks with glee everytime I hear that Jimmy Chamberlain is the only original Smashing Pumpkin working with Corgan now.
• hee--Marissa told me the other day that she was waiting to order the new Nelly Furtado, in the hopes that I would.
• We had a "No, you order it!" fight over the last Coldplay album, too.
• 'til stupid teenager page mentioned it, and it became a YA thing.
• I still say I got screwed in that one.
• (For the confused--we only have one cd section here. Marissa and I fight over things both of us hate, but we know we have to order for the library.)
• Although, "Promiscuous Girl" is kind of growing on me.
• I think I'd like it a lot better if it weren't a Nelly Furtado song, because I just hate her so much.
• But the beat is fun, and the lyrics are ridiculous, and I like that in a summer radio hit.
• Plus, c'mon:
• "Chivalry's dead but you're kind of cute"
• That's a great damn line.
• So, the Simpsons 7th season box came in at work yesterday.
• So many great episodes!
• 22 Short Films About Springfield! (Best. Episode. Ever.)
• Homerpalooza!
• The one where they take Cabin de Flanders!
• And the dud in not-Mystery Date looks like Milhouse!
• Interpol has left Matador and will be with Capitol.
• The headline for this bit of news is "Bring on the Major Leagues", which is kind of bitchy, if you ask me.
• And now I've got "Major Leagues" stuck in my head.
• Paul and Tommy are going to be on a soundtrack together.
• Also, Pete Yorn is doing one of Paul's songs for it, which is nice.
• The headline for that one is "'Open' Bar". The movie has the word open in it.
• Also kind of a not-nice thing to say.
• Man, who's bored at their job and writing those headlines? It's like they gave the job to me or something.
• mmmm, Jered Leto in eyeliner.
• You know, I really don't care what 30 Seconds to Mars sounds like.
• ...so pretty...
• Meatloaf has a new single.
• Fat Joe has a big ass I95 pendant.
• You're going to make me say it, aren't you?
• He's got--sigh--I95 bling.
• I hate you.

I mean I like my Skechers, but I love my Prada backpack.

Pagan Kennedy’s characters are always in my head. When I wake up with a pair of scissors, or a scrap of tshirt, or a plastic dinosaur under me, I think about Lilly. Hank stands in as a nice shorthand for every indie rock boy I’ve known who was desperate for fame and ashamed of it at the same time. I know the girl who creates a nest in the library out of ridiculous theories because the seminar is way over her freshman head. She keeps me from doing the same.
I also think of her as the girl who never wore makeup until one day attending that seminar in bright red lipstick that she quickly smudged off, but I think I might be mixing Pagan’s story with a piece about makeup from Bust magazine. That’s the thing about reading a lot—characters get mixed up in your memory, become different people. It’s weird.
But that’s the thing about a writer like Pagan Kennedy: she knows her audience, and uses a shorthand that lets them know she knows. But then, I have to wonder: Can I really claim that smirkingly name-dropping The Yellow Wallpaper* is a sly wink, when all around me are those complaining that mentioning the brand of a new girl’s lipstick is shameful, pandering, lazy writing? Designed only to sell more of said lipstick?
***
I just started Confessions of a Memory Eater. I’ll let you know how it is.

*just in case you didn't take an intro to womens lit class