Cycho Librarian

Well folks, I've decided to take a run at NaBloPoM o . I know, that probably doesn't sound like a very good idea, given my track record so far on trying to post at least once every week. Posting once a day for the entire month of November is going to be quite the challenge. Oddly enough, it seems to be some strange sense of guilt over not posting weekly that has driven me to try this. Man, I've got issues. In principle though, I think it's a great idea. Let's get as many people as we can to write something once a day for a whole month. For all our problems getting kids to read and write, we're still the most literate society that the world has ever seen. Things like this can only serve to help that trend. And you really can't underestimate the power of the Internet in allowing this to happen. The Internet is very quickly becoming the great leveler. I see kids from all sorts of cultural and societal backgrounds in the library daily using the Internet ...

I was thinking about live blogging the World Series tonight. Not because I'm a baseball expert-- I know many people who are much more knowledgeable about baseball than I am. I just thought it would be fun. So I was going to start out critiquing Francona's decision to field Ortiz. Mainly because Youkilis has shown that he can hit well, Papi seems to have been a bit of a slump lately, and I have worries about his ability to field with his numerous aches and pains. I was also worried about Ellsbury leading off. Well, my worries about Ellsbury were quickly settled. The kid's amazing. I can't believe that he's only just come up. But for the first two innings it looked like I was right about Papi. Plus Fogg was looking unhittable, and we seemed to finally have a game on our hands. Then the third comes along. Not only was I clearly way off base to worry about Francona's lineup, but what looked like it might be a game got blown wide open. I do feel a little ba...

I would not describe myself as a Black Sabbath fan. I definitely don't fit the profile of your average Ozzfest attendee. And frankly I have very little patience for that demographic. I just don't think that they appreciate music. Yes, I am a snob. But even though I'm not a fan, I do enjoy a lot of the music that Black Sabbath put out in the 70's. You have to admire rock music that can be transcribed for marching band and still sound cool. But seriously, it's remarkable how many of their songs like "War Pigs" have entered our cultural consciousness, and their staying power is phenomenal. The fact that a several current bands have covered the song is a testament to that. One of my personal favorites is the Dresden Dolls' version, which I think they only do live. You gotta love a "Brechtian punk cabaret" duo covering a song like that on keyboard and drums. This morning on the drive in I was listening to Cake's cover of " War Pig...

Ah, the oh-so delicious irony of it all. This is why I love America. That's right folks, Barack Obama and Dick Cheney are cousins . Eighth cousins, granted, but still cousins nonetheless. Naturally, this immediately led to all sorts of silliness over the fact that Obama is black and, shockingly, Dick Cheney is white. At least NPR did point out the irony that many black families appear to hide the white roots in their tree in much the same way that white families try to hide the black roots in their trees. For Bog's sake people, grow up! I would've thought that Star Trek had long ago pointed out how silly all this blathering about skin color was. As long as we're on pop culture references, this brings to mind the constant references to Cheney's apparent resemblance to a particularly famous evil sidekick. Now that we've got the family relationship, all sorts of possibilities come up... Okay, I'm done now. But doesn't this point out exactly what is...

I am tired of "God Bless America." It was always a pretty stupid song, better suited to being belted by a bunch of 7-year-olds at the school concert than professionals. But ever since 9/11, the song's prevalence has been especially annoying. I will admit, I got chills when Congress spontaneously sang the song on the steps of the Capitol the day after the attacks. But that was because here were the leaders of our country, brought to this place where the best thing they could think to do was to sing a song of their childhood about how America would survive. That was great. But why are we still hearing it now? Years have past, and we should have moved on. I mean, we still sing "The Star Spangled Banner" before sporting events, why belabor the issue? As far as I'm concerned, the worst part is that it's taken the place of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at the seventh inning stretch. First of all, way to kill the mood. We're supposed to b...

I keep forgetting that I get depressed around this time of year. I always remember that I get depressed in February, but for some reason, when I hit the doldrums in September it always takes me a few weeks to remember that it happens this way every year. And, just like my February doldrums it always takes me a while to remember that the reason I'm depressed is that Ohio isn't New Hampshire. There's really only one time of year that I like in Ohio. That's late evening in August, where, after a hot and humid day, the heat begins to recede and you can sit on your porch watching the sun set in an orange haze while listening to the cicadas. The problem is that in order to get to that evening you have to sit through a sweltering day under a bleached white sky with an atmosphere that you could drink sooner than breathe. In fairness, New Hampshire has its nasty season too. It's that straggling end of winter that comes around April and usually lasts through May. Locals...