Cycho Librarian

I didn't watch much of the Oscars last night. I only just turned them on briefly as I was going to bed. I did turn it on in time to see something of a surreal moment that Oscar provides every so often. More often than not this is usually the result of the participants having engaged in a little too much pre-show revelry, and I think that may have played something of a role this time as well. Clint Eastwood comes to the podium to present a lifetime achievement award to Ennio Morricone , the composer behind the instantly recognizable and eternally pervasive music to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly among other Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. Now normally this moment in the show is one surrounded by dignity and solemnity as the academy honors someone who has contributed huge amounts of work to the industry over their lifetime. However, dear old Clint apparently forgot his glasses and thus couldn't read the teleprompter. This led to an oddly rambling speech that clearly was ...

For those of you who are not familiar with the Catholic-based forms of Christianity, this past Wednesday was Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent. This is a penitential season, where people are called on to fast, pray, and generally be reflective about their lives and their relationship with God. It is also, oddly, one of my favorite seasons in the church. There is something refreshing about dedicating yourself for 40 days to exploring and understanding the non-physical side of yourself and the world around you. At the end I always feel more connected to myself and more grounded, ready for the new birth of the world. People who don't know me well are often surprised to find out that I am fairly religious person. Apparently, there is still a prevailing belief in our society that one cannot be both an intellectual and religious at the same time, C.S. Lewis's efforts notwithstanding. This is a relatively new phenomenon however. For millenia the on...

Probably one of the most challenging aspects of my job is biting my tongue when I see possibly questionable parenting. I'm sure that these sorts of things have been going on since the dawn of time, and we probably are doing better parenting now than ever before in human history, but that doesn't stop me from cringing when I see parents screaming at kids to shut up, telling kids that if they don't stand perfectly still and not touch anything they can't have a book to read, or any one of a number of other responses to problems that wouldn't exist if they just saw their kids as human beings and tried to talk to them. The other day I had one that ascended to a meta-level of commentary on society. A mom with a very talkative and engaged 6-year-old were standing at the circulation counter trying to decide what movies to get. Since they were taking their time, I continued checking in returns. While I was doing this, the boy saw me check in a copy of Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi...