journal

07/16/2006: Papa's mum and her sis

2006: Parker Library staff book review

In one single “feverish episode,” fiction writer Walter Mosley — yes, Mosley of “Easy Rawlins” fame — tackles American political apathy in a thin, rambling reader: Life Out of Context, a moving tract regardless of its brevity.
The upshot of his meandering, overarching argument — totally inspirational in some respects and alienating in others — is that we have lost all sense of sociopolitical context. We have become totally disconnected not only from the political process, but also from our own communities. We are, he follows, totally oblivious to the international community and are “unmoved when confronted with atrocities, numbers of dead, obvious inequities.”
Such values will not be shared by all readers: “There are people dying and being tortured” because Americans support wrongdoing transnational corporations, because Americans voted for a war-mongering president, because Americans drive large automobiles that suck foreign oil, and because Americans wear garments “that were made by slaves.” He does give folks a break: Low salaries and poor medical insurance — the rat race in general — keep the multitude from questioning anything. That's no absolution, however: “We are culpable for our nation's actions,” he cautions.
The non-violent takeover Mosley suggests is a movement in which many political interest groups are created to transform the two-party system into a sort of assembly. Current leaders, he writes, falsify information, creating fake enemies to tie us together in fear. Combat this, he writes, by showing up, by becoming involved. “One of the most important things we can do for our community is to show up,” he writes. “You may not have been invited, but that's not a problem. ... By the fifth meeting, you will be holding your own.”
“I do believe,” Mosley wraps, “that we need to build a table and sit at it together, including as many people as we can to develop our policies, our agendas, and our goals. Economic globalism has pressed many lives out of context. It's about time we push back.” — Jeanie Straub

2006: Parker Library staff book review

The Bad Seed is William March's landmark 1954 thriller — not only a torrid bestseller but also the prototype for droves of later fiction about sociopathic killers. It is the story of an increasingly strained relationship between Christine, a mother growing disturbed with her overly proper young girl, Rhoda — a girl who wears her braids in “hangman-nooses.” Unmonstrous in appearance, Rhoda is almost more normal than other little girls. At the same time, something terrible is absent: namely a capacity for real affection, guilt, remorse, empathy, loyalty, gratitude and love. March principally describes her as cold, shrewd, calculating, pitiless, entirely selfish — or having no feelings at all; she not only lives by her own rules, but exhibits complete indifference for the rules governing others. Says March: “She was like a charming little animal that can never be trained to fit into the conventional patterns of existence.” At the same time she can simulate affection or “ape the values of others” when necessary to forward her own intentions, which is why her mother takes so long to connect a series of grisly events — the least of which is a dead dog: a “little terrier with its spine crushed.” Eventually the natural tenderness Christine feels for Rhoda dissolves. “She regarded her daughter ... with uncomprehending, chilly distaste,” March writes. Christine must confront both the malignancy that came from her own womb and her own bloodline. Otherwise, as March states, Rhoda would continue to show her “genius ... just as outstanding poets, mathematicians, and musicians did.” — Jeanie Straub

01/25/2006: Parker Library staff book review

Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam documents in all-inclusive detail how Washington spent decades nurturing ties with the anti-Communist Islamic right, a strategy that was supposed to impede Soviet expansion and curb the development of Arab nationalism. That strategy, author Robert Dreyfuss argues, came back to haunt the United States in the 1990s, most notably on Sept. 11, 2001. To back his case, Dreyfuss scoured archives and conducted countless interviews with Washington insiders: policy-makers, CIA officers, defense officials and foreign-service leaders. He taps details to fuel his argument that our well-funded — at times overt and at times covert — drive to create an Islamic bloc via alliances with radicals in Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Afghanistan was a most grave miscalculation with a worst-nightmare outcome: the emergence of the brand of Islamic terrorism we see today. His meticulous research includes a recurring examination of the relationship between Western banks and the Islamic right. While the level of detail and the number of names, relationships and events in Devil's Game can overwhelm, this book is a must-read for those hoping to understand the geopolitics of our times.

01/23/2006: Parker Library Local Music reviews

Laura Veirs
Now based in Seattle, Laura Veirs is a phenomenally talented singer, guitarist and songwriter who grew up in Colorado. Her newest CD, Year of Meteors, was released worldwide in late 2005 to critical acclaim from publications such as The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly and Spin. What she calls “a road record” is a disparate work: stark but sumptuous stuff. Her rich but bare-boned, pop-based songs blend neo-folk, neo-country-slash-blues and even punk influences. Veirs, whose sound is all her own, plays with the Tortured Souls — Steve Moore (piano, organ), Karl Blau (bass, guitar, vocals) and producer Tucker Martine (drums, percussion, treatments) — as well as with contributors Eyvind Kang, a viola player, and Keith Lowe (upright bass). The tracks, together making up a sort of travelogue, are fluid but distinct, pouring out of your CD player like liquid heaven and offering a meld of stark beauty, detached risk and lyrics that are pure poetry. Note to Martine: This production is smooth as rain. (And to Laura Veirs: I love your CD!) When she's not touring North America, Europe or elsewhere — this girl is on the road a ton — Veirs is playing benefits for homeless shelters or teaching guitar licks to teenage girls at the Vera Project in Seattle. “It is so uplifting to see these girls seriously rocking out at such a young age,” Veirs writes on her website. “And they are such quick learners. Their wheels are fully oiled!”

The Motet
Ready for a groovalicious, funkadelic jam session that will have you shaking your hips while you happily clean the entire house? Check out Live by The Motet, a primarily funk but also genre-twisting / fusion-loving 11-member Boulder-based band lead by fab drummer Dave Watts. While basically classifiable as funk, music by The Motet gets down with Afro-beat, Afro-Cuban, Latin, funk and jazz — The Motet achieve one groovy improvisational track after another. The fact that The Motet don't have a vocalist, according to Westword, frees “the musicians to focus on funk rather than the moronic lyrics, crappy singing and cliched melodies that are so common to the genre.”

01/15/2006: Life is good

11/27/2005: Movie picks

Check out "Elephant" (2003), winner of the Golden Palm at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The film follows a number of teens on a seemingly normal day at high school. Seemingly normal because the day in fact will end in tragedy. Also recommended is "Secret Partner" (1965), a treat for noir fans.

11/20/2005: Back from Iraq: A Young Veteran's Perspective

Former Parker resident Capt. Jeremiah “Weed” Tucker recently returned home from active-duty service in Iraq. Hear a first-hand account of his experiences at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 in Room A at Parker Library, 10851 S. Crossroads Drive in Parker.

Capt. Tucker attended Ponderosa High School and graduated from CU-Boulder with degrees in International Affairs and Economics. He has been flying F-16s for six years and has completed two tours in Iraq — the first beginning in 2003 with Day 1 of the war.

Information: 303-841-3503.

Photo courtesy Parker Chronicle.

10/20/2005: Parker Library staff book review

Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic tackles — in excruciating detail — the “painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” In other words, the authors take on the American way of life; their metaphor-based argument — constructed largely from news clippings, sound bytes and anecdotal evidence — is that the all-consuming pursuit of material things in this country leads to everything from, at best, stress, bankruptcy, divorce, gridlock and chronic dissatisfaction, to, at worst, poor city planning (sprawl), the breakdown of families and communities, resource-exhaustion and environmental devastation. Love the book or hate it, much of it will ring true. — Jeanie Straub

09/21/2005: Stuff I'm excited about at Parker Library

I'm excited about our new Health blog I started this week — I'm in charge of the Consumer Health section — and Local Music, which I order and promote with Allison Lyons, hipster Children's librarian and resident fashion icon. I am starting to get into my groove at Parker; I have dreams about stuff like ordering a neon sign for Local Music. That ain't gonna happen but it is fun to think about possibilities. If you want to write a Local Music review for our webpage, let me know. My email at work is jstraub@dclibraries.org. You don't have to live in Parker, you just have to have access to our Local Music collection. I'm thinking of making Rick write a review. What else? Here's a recent picture of Syd and the kids. I see them a lot on my days off. I don't see Albert and Shawna and Maggie and Ben nearly enough. (Hint, hint.)

08/13/2005: Movie picks

Check out "The Island," "War of the Worlds" or "Equilibrium." I am going to watch next "The Man of the Year," "O Homen do Ano." I rented "Saw" but couldn't make it through the whole thing. Rick said he does not recommend it.

07/02/2005: Parker Library staff book review

Follow the exploits, including two violent attempts on her life, of the strong, intelligent and independent Nina Halligan, a former New York prosecutor turned private investigator, in Black Heat: A Nina Halligan Mystery by Norman Kelley (1997). Watch bodies pile up as Halligan works to find a missing person — the daughter of civil rights leader Malik Martin, who was slain more than 20 years before — and undertakes to solve the murder of Martin; she also offers ongoing criticism of dueling black-liberation camps, which can at moments make this seem like a thinly disguised work of cultural criticism. While the ending may be too tidy for some, the ride is griping, and the blending of fiction with real history and real issues, from afro-centrism to the proliferation of conservative store-front “McChurches” to the repatriation of African art, works well in this novel, the first in the series of Nina Halligan mysteries.

05/10/2005: In case you missed it ...

The Entry Level Gap: Breaking in to the profession is harder than ever if you're fresh out of library school. By Rachel Holt & Adrienne L. Strock. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA527965

08/26/2004: Mamie Doud Eisenhower Public Library internship

The top-most thoughts on my internship, not necessarily in order of importance:

• I could not have been more fortunate than to have picked MD. It is the perfect size for such an internship because you get the whole pie as opposed to a piece of it. We've done so much in such a short, short time; it is so comprehensive an education, I can't believe how lucky I am to have landed this. My site supervisor, Susan Simmons, is an Emporia graduate, so it is cool to have her mention something that is a theme in the SLIM program in relation to real life — the application of the abstract to the concrete. She is a born manager; I am in good hands and am quite thankful. She doesn't tire of my questions and has been receptive to my thoughts and ideas. Sometimes I feel a tad dumb because my focus was on special libraries, because she is a veteran, on and on. But I don't dwell on it.

• I think that an internship should be required in the program, and I wish I had done this sooner. Also I think that it will behoove me to have completed an internship at a public library, even if I should end up in a special library, etc., in the future. It is the most solid foundation you could hope for. I took it for granted how much real library work you do not encounter in a special library; I would recommend that anyone going into special libraries strongly consider completing an internship at a public or academic library. (Sarah Landeryou from the News told me this early on when I would discuss possibilities such as newspaper internships. She always said you know how a newspaper library works.) Everything I am learning totally applies elsewhere. Maybe this is coming at the perfect time, but if nothing had been an obstacle, i.e. paying rent, buying food, etc., then I would have loved to have worked as an intern the whole time I was in school. Maybe several internships. I just can't stress enough that this should be a requirement. And that SLIM or DU students consider my MD recommendation.

• Today we did a little training on how they handle acquisitions. It occurred to me with the masses of paperwork that I'm accumulating that I'll have to ditch the manila folder in favor of a three-ring binder with tabs, i.e. Collection Development, Safety, Children's, YA, Tools. On and on. Like I said, we're going to cover everything. Today we took our second tour and met a ton more people because I've only worked two nights so far. This was my first taste of daylight there.

• It is an excellent library with funding shy of $2 million, which says a lot. I am amazed at what public libraries do with such little money. I told my nephew about the Anime sp? nights I am working in YA — he's going to attend — and my sister-in-law, nephew, niece and brother all said they loved MD. They used to live in Northglenn and their library was a little branch with no flair or color or whatever. So they of course mentioned the flair and color, how inviting a library it is.

• I need to be careful not to get too excited about projects, but we have already talked about a few possibilities. One for sure is that I will be building a database to look at the magazine collection. I also am very interested in looking at why non-English-speaking Hispanic library users do not take advantage of the bilingual collection and other resources such as the conversation classes offered. I start to get excited about what I could do and have to remind myself that the internship is 120 hours. I do want to sit down with Susan to talk more about what she has mentioned so far about Emerald Elementary School, where many ESL students attend classes, and MD outreach activities and possibilities. I think what would be doable would be maybe a meeting with the principal there and then a focus group and then maybe some follow up, etc. I just really would like to see those great resources used by folks who may or may not know they exist; a lot of it will come down to finding out about those users, and I am a big fan of community analysis. That was one of my favorite classes. An openness to new ideas is totally evident at MD. Cheryl German of RMSLA fame, a MD reference librarian, has done a lot of great creative projects, small, medium, large, massive, etc., that really add value to the library and its services. I do have to remember that I am an intern and that I have only worked a few hours so far in the last two weeks, but starting next week I will have more hours, and more consistent hours. I very much need to take time tomorrow or this weekend to organize all the information and notes, etc. I just can't do it tonight because of said interview. And on and on. There is always something that needs to be done NOW! But I seriously have such a mass of papers. I have dated my notes, etc., I just need to migrate to a three-ring binder from the old manila startup. I am grateful to be able to do this piece electronically. All hail the Web. The thought of one more three-ring binder — note that I have two shelves of three-ring binders as a result of my SLIM education — makes me hope for a paperless future. As if.

• What else? The only really weird thing for me has been all the locks. You just take it for granted that in the public sector there are a lot of locks. I used to leave my wallet sometimes in my desk or whatever, even overnight. Or you just toss your purse under your desk. Everything from public to private is so different. I have to get used to the orientation. Of course it is totally appropriate to have locks and keys, it is just new for me and has stuck out.

• I can't say enough that this is an excellent opportunity for me. I am going to attend a Library Board meeting as well as a Library Foundation meeting. I will get a taste of all these different aspects of public librarianship. It is just so exciting!

Library Journal Feedback 06/15/2004

Librarians pick up the slack

Tony Greiner's "Case of the Disappearing Article" (BackTalk, LJ 4/15/04, p. 58ff.) is a stellar read, and fellow students of Greiner in the Emporia State University School of Library and Information Management (SLIM) are pleased with the size and quality of audience he reached through LJ. Greiner is quite the investigative reporter, and his work shows how librarians pick up the slack where the Fourth Estate falls down. (Lending quantitative validation to the bumper sticker that reads, "Enjoy your freedom? Thank a librarian!")

I forwarded the LJ link to his article to everyone — librarians, intellectuals, news industry folks, conspiracy types, on and on. I used it in a SLIM classgearing up for field research in Romania as a great example of what can happen — and what did happen in Romania — with regard to rewriting history by virtue of disappearing evidence. Thanks to Greiner and LJ for a solid contribution to the profession.

— Jeanie Straub, Student, SLIM, Emporia State University, KS.

www.LISNews.com 05/08/2004 9:34 p.m.

AP story on DVD / CD rot ...

I don't mean to sound snotty, but this story was treated like banner news on one of the high-end lists when it was first moving on the wires; it was a buried feature — um, filler — in the business section the following day. And, um, folks were surprised by this story? Why? What do folks want, never to die? This is not breaking news. Geez. It is called entropy, and you can't outrun it for long. I LOVED my preservation class — taught by the esteemed Randy Silverman — and love running into Luddites, but I hate it when people get overly self-righteous about technology issues and the downside to technology. Because, news flash again, paper has its own issues (i.e. it burns — witness Bosnia, Iraq, etc.), CDs can be made into multiple copies, they can be stored properly, on and on, and they can fail, as a paperback fails, fail big, and we as a culture will lose a bunch of good stuff next time we migrate to the next big innovation — why aren't folks complaining about the fine art films you can't find, period, at the retail monopolists? The guy interviewed by the AP writer should write a big fat letter of complaint to the music industry for shoddy manufacturing, etc., but because one of my music CDs fails doesn't mean everyone needs to get on the milk crate and say, "See, told you so: Technology isn't so perfect." (If one of mine fails, it is because I sat on it in the car, where it baked for 72 hours.) Technology is our baby, the enemy is us. And, to quote a great film on digital preservation, We can't go home. The problem to me is that folks are quick to criticize technology but slow to line up to be part of the solution. It is like someone saying that the banks are going to fail tomorrow. Maybe so, but at 35 I have to continue to operate in the world with the information and tools I have. Everybody wants a magic bullet, but none of them wants to pay for it. They just want to live forever or have some evidence that they existed last forever, and they want it all to be free or available for cheaper than free in bulk at Sam's Club. I'm not saying CDs are fabulous and that this isn't a real, relevant issue and a good story all around for everybody on the planet to read. It is that I get tired of the overall theme and the high-and-mighty reaction from folks. As the daughter of an electrical engineer and the sister of an embedded software engineer, I can tell you that stuff breaks down. When I first got my laptop for my MLS program, I was afraid to take it out of the box. My brother's advice was to plug it in and run it for 72 hours. Engineers are failure-based. Instead of counting your chickens before they are hatched, you count broken eggs before they are dropped. I've had to suffer through the tour of a clean room with a tape drive running none-stop; the point of that is failure. Not will it fail, but when will it fail. And I don't remember anyone saying CDs were designed to last 100 years. I do remember warped LPs and LPs that were stored properly. No one started buying CDs because they were supposed to last 100 years. We started buying CDs because all the other consumers voted that LPs could go away. There were a lot of reasons why we started buying CDs, and I don't remember long-term viability being one of them. Just because the music industry produces shoddy CDs doesn't mean we need to kill the baby ... the articles notes accountability in manufacturing; that's a good start. Let's also go to the automobile manufacturers and ask for cars that will last 100 years and run on solar, while we're at it.

www.LISNews.com 02/16/2004 7:49 p.m.

The victims and survivors ...

Regarding the article today predicting librarianship will be extinguished by Google: Being from a long line of engineers, my nature isn't to bank on the security of anything, ever. (Think: Not FDIC insured. May lose value.) Not that I would equate librarianship with a declining stock, but as an almost-there library school student who has had to deal with these doomsday articles since the get-go, I've come to the peace that while the writer behind this Google-worship story du jour could be blamed for a number of obvious holes and faulty assertions, the skinny on it all is that nothing escapes evolution or the potential for extinction — and that things are indeed changing at an exponentially faster rate. Not that we shouldn't worry about people being exponentially more stupid in the future — that's a huge concern for me personally. I just think careers come and go or evolve and change to adapt to specific market forces or social conditions, etc. (Romanian libraries did not practice collection development for more than a decade.) Professions merge, or they split and become more specific — on and on. LIS itself is much more interdisciplinary now than it was 20 years ago, and every librarian I know is very oriented toward technology and embracing new developments to reap the benefits for users; look at all the academic institutions seeking librarians who can meet the needs of students virtually. And we've got to consider this type of prediction in the context of other sectors or industries — the physical product of a newspaper comes to mind. When I was in journalism school, I saw an old Chicago newspaper columnist be totally dismissive of the Internet and the fact that folks would be willing to read news off a screen. Well, he was almost dead then, and he is dead now. And guess what? The physical product of a news PAPER isn't going to be around much longer, but a lot of jobs from the newspaper industry have and do and will survive. Librarianship will either be a victim or a survivor depending on those in the profession, and I appreciated the comment to this article by the librarian who said this could be interpreted to mean librarians will be in greater demand than ever. That's my bet. And if I'm wrong? Well, the whole Google-worship deal reminds me of that line in "The Lost Boys" when the vampire played by Donald Sutherland's son says: "It's rice. Eat it. Twenty illion Chinese people can't be wrong." In other words, if the Everyman says so, it is pretty much so. Even if the Everyman has no sense of what's being lost. Even if it goes against our better judgment. I have just accepted that I can't worry about forces outside of my control on a daily basis.

WESTWORD New Year's Eve 12/18/2003

When in Rome

BY LUCY HERON

OK, so I'm kicking around Rome in late December 1999 with this ex-pat friend-of-a-friend, Bryan Geraghty, whose mom has an apartment there and whose mom happens to be gone for the holiday so we can crash at her apartment right around New Year's Eve.

Geraghty's mom got a divorce at some point when Geraghty was a kid. And then — boom — just like that, she gets a hare and moves to Rome; she didn't even know Italian when she got the hare. Geraghty grows up in both places (Thornton, Colorado, and Rome, Italy) and is truly bicultural. When I looked him up, he had been there a couple of years working as a graphic designer close to Milan.

We took the train to Rome to be there for the festivities. I cried on the train because I was midway through my two weeks and I never wanted the trip to end.

On New Year's Eve, his brother and sister-in-law and another guy from the States descend — very fun folks — and we're all out kicking around this fabulous city where cars are totally irrelevant and inconvenient; like, if you got a car, you gotta ditch it. Immediately. And even though the cars are all tiny, you still find them hard to ditch. (A side note: One key may work on several of the same makes and models. This is useful if you're out of smokes.) Scooters are cool and inexpensive and fun, but cars are out, and with the cobblestone streets and the plazas all blending together, you just end up walking around and around and you never get tired, because, you know, you're in Rome, and when you think about leaving and coming back here, you want to cry some more.

So our posse, we're out, we enjoy a typically fabulous dinner where folks eat as if it is an act of art or worship and talk and aren't in such a rush, and you eat your salad last for digestive reasons, I'm thinking. And then we're walking around just like all these folks. And I guess on New Year's Eve or all the time, you can pretty much have a bottle or two or three of champagne or whatever you're drinking, and you don't get busted for the open container deal.

People in Rome on New Year's Eve, even though there is this massive number of folks gathered in these plazas, it is kind of an organized chaos, like the city itself, which is perpetually under construction while nothing ever seems to get constructed or whatever, but it all works in the end and is, um, superior to anything we've got here in the American West.

(One of my favorite things was how many old people were out and about, as opposed to warehoused. You know what I'm saying? That and the complete lack of homelessness and the slowness and aesthetics to everyday life. Like, you can't get a cup of coffee to go. You've got to slow your ass down and just drink it there in the café. And as an American, you want to down two or three of them, because we're all used to the grande thang.)

Okay, so midnight comes and — get this — everyone throws their bottles into the center of the plaza. There are like a thousand people throwing a thousand-plus bottles into the center. And amazingly, it just works. No one gets hurt.

Which brings us to the highlight of the night. I am quite buzzed, and I see a bunch of bottles that aren't quite broken to satisfaction. So I'm running around grabbing bottles and smashing them. A smash here and a smash there. I'm smashing. I'm having a fabulous time doing this when a firecracker — a bottle rocket or similar deal — hits me an inch above my left eye. It sounds weird to say that was the highlight of the night, because the party went on until dawn, and the degree of fabulousness was exponential, but believe me, when you get hit an inch above your eye with a firecracker when your Mum and Dad don't even know you're in Rome, you're like, um, There is a God! And thank you so much, God, for not taking out my left eye!

After breaking all that glass, and after I totally decide God exists and have the bump to prove it, we continue to kick around all over town, seeing fabulous fountains and stuff where folks from everywhere are just sitting around in heaps in the cool night air. You get your useless and irrelevant fortune told. Buy trinkets. Continue to drink. You can't talk to too many people because you're not Geraghty, you're just a dumb unicultural American Girl Wonder. But you're not so dumb that you don't want to just exist in that moment forever.

You know? You're in Rome. New Year's Day 2000, and you've got both eyeballs in place. It's just a rush.

WESTWORD Letters 10/24/2002

Who's the Boss?

The creative Muse: Reynelda Muse — that "bossy female voice" (Off Limits, October 17) at DIA — accomplished exponentially more than a mere "stint anchoring on Channel 4." Not only was Muse the first woman to anchor a Denver newscast, she was also the first black anchor, period, in Denver broadcast news. Fresh out of Ohio State University, she joined Channel 4, then known as KOA-TV, in 1968 and was promoted in 1974 to the high-profile anchor spot. She jumped to CNN in 1980 but returned to anchor the evening news at Channel 4 in 1984; she did not leave again until 1997. To diminish the importance of her career at Channel 4 by characterizing it as a "stint" is terrible. Muse was a trailblazer, an agitator, a hero.

As for her excellent voice, some folks will forever use negative terms such as "bossy" to describe successful women — and positive terms to describe the same in successful men. How would you characterize Ms. Calhoun's voice?

Jeanie Straub
Denver