Summer Reruns-1st in a Series

Aged Like Fine Wine

Monday, February 21, 2005

Howdy!
Hi, I'm Mr.Jack the Student Librarian. I was born a long time ago in the city that Sports Illustrated called the armpit of the East: Buffalo, New York. Later that day; June 17, 1954, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin announced that communists had infiltrated atomic power plants and the CIA.

The day I turned eighteen, the Washington Post’'s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were sniffing out the story after five well-dressed men wearing rubber gloves were arrested in an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee’'s sixth-floor suite in the Watergate hotel. So, suffice to say, with the possible exception of Cold War duck and cover drills, and my haunting performances as a boy soprano at St. Paul’s' Church, my childhood was pretty uneventful.

In the fall of 1972, my plan to escape Buffalo reached fruition. I packed up the nine-year-old Ford Country Squire station wagon, filled up the tank with 26 cents-a-gallon gas, and headed off for my first of many college adventures. What I learned at Herkimer County Community College includes how to accept criticism; speaking whole sentences without saying “uhmm-“or “ahhh-“, and you can’'t maintain a 3.5 average working forty hours a week. Well, I can’'t. So except for jump-starting my career in radio and television, meeting the first Mrs.Jack, and graduating with honors, my first crack at college was pretty dull.

I spent the next twenty years working in a dozen small to medium towns in radio as an air personality and salesman, and in television as a reporter, photographer and newsanchor. Occasionally, I’'d pick up some extra cash acting, or doing stand-up comedy! Ten years ago, I needed a change and I wanted to empty my head for a while. I went to truck driving school and started traveling the country. And let me tell you, ten years later, my head is pretty freakin'’ empty!

So except for online poker, interviewing Bill and Hillary (at different times), and my near-death experience on thirteen miles of bad, bad road in northern California, my adult years have been nothing to write home about.

Now I'’ve grown fat and happy while residing in Vancouver, WA in the heart of the beautiful Great Northwest. Books are okay, but I love research, film and music.

I'm looking forward to renewing old acquaintances and beginning new ones with my classmates and colleagues.

Lies in SciFi Class

They all wannabe lawyers!

Each of my classmates made three personal statements, one fictitious. Watch me as I ferret out the truth with incomparable reasoning! We join the following harangue already in progress...

...As you may recall I've already indicated my assertion that Dr. B. couldn't care less about choral music. That was pretty much an exercise in investigation and deductive reasoning. The rest of you shall all be victims of my mystic powers of prevarication identification, or as we say in the trade; "fib flaggin'."

Tina- I don't understand how someone from Norway (Norway, Maine -Ed.) with the last name Sullivan could be Native American...so that must be a fabrication.

Laurel- We never did Les Mis when I was in high school ('72 graduate) so that is definitely a falsehood. Nevermind you didn't specifically say that it was a high school production, and disregard the fact that the Les Mis London premiere wasn't until 1985.

Karen- I get the distinct impression that your first job in Maine was not as a Quaker pastor. Despite the fact that you grew up in Indiana where they grow a lot of oats, they don't grow many in Maine. Now if you'd said you were a Ocean Spray pastor...well, that makes a lot more sense because of all the cranberries in Maine, and you might have fooled me!

Paul- The vibe I get on you tells me to discount your assertion about collecting WWII firearms. It seems obvious to me that someone of French heritage would not be drawn to weapons of that era. Did the French have any weapons at all in WWII? Now, if you said you had a 60-pound noodle, that would have been my first choice.

Harolyn- Hmmm...Graduated with an Associates in 1974...same as me...so you are at least as old as me... Ran part of the boston Manarthon? Ha...I'm having troubnle typing i{i'm lasughins gso hard!

Caro- Your mother did not date Walter Miller. Some things just are and there ain't no explaining them.

Mark M.- Hey, Bud! I've got some old gravity boots for sale, but I know you don't want 'em because you don't spend any time upside down. Why, even doing somersaults makes you pass out!

Mark C.- Osaka, yes. Kyoto, no. How's that for few words?

Tresha- An English major who's favorite book is "A Clockwork Orange?" Doubtful.

Steven- Your 'wildlife' has very little to do with biology.

Jenna Joy- Angst-ridden teenage newlywed. Harvard and Oxford? Oxford and Harvard? Oxvard and Harford, maybe.

Kenzie- My dad had huge anger control issues, but nobody ever called him a behavioral technician. He was a high school teacher.

If I missed anyone I did it on purpose...the mystic powers are never wrong!

Fib flaggin' demonstrations are available at a modest fee, plus expenses, for groups or individuals. Please contact me off list.

Notes to my SciFi Lit Class

Armageddon Don't Impress Me Much!

Why are we so willing to accept, even embrace, the notion of apocalypse, Armageddon or the end of days? What is this morbid curiosity with the end of our existence?

Certainly extinction has become commonplace and we all have become desensitized to some degree. Is it the biblical tales of a world washed clean in a great flood? It is because we have just escaped the bloodiest century in human endeavor and we are finally confident of our ability to thoroughly eradicate ourselves?

Is it example after example of great civilizations, the Mayans, Romans, Egyptians, rising then falling? Are empires, even those in a galaxy, far, far away, as predictable as the tides? Philosopher George Santayana said, "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." Now I ask you, despite all our history lessons, are we still doomed?

Guestberries!

From Bog to Blog...


Cranberries! 

A Farewell Shot

At Children's Lit Class

I hate this part...

"What impact has this course had on your knowledge of blah, blah, de blah-blah science, as well as your professional blah blah? How would you describe de blah blah in the Land of Children's Literature?"

Yes, I learned a lot. Sure, I now know I could write a review if somebody put a gun to my head. OK, there is a full, rich body of children's titles out there and I might actually enjoy reading one or two of them myself.

As for describing my visit to the Land of Children's Literature, it was a kind of unexpected pleasure to be reminded of the classic books I read as a child. It's the kind of experience I'd like to repeat again...in another forty-odd years.

And when I finally get around to doing it again, I want all of you there with me...you've all been very cool and it's been my pleasure to do this time with you!

Washfields vs. McFornias

Oh, Lordy...Fuedin' State Libraries


This here's one o' my fav'rite web sites, when it don' git me all riled up!

Librarian's Index to the Internet for the State of Washington: The Washington State Library is a primary partner in the California-based LII, "a well-organized point of access for reliable, trustworthy, librarian-selected Internet resources, serving California, the nation, and the world." The Washington LII version: www.wa.lii.org offers extra, state-based news and information. While it's important to use state-based resources, especially when it's "information you can trust," it's also imperative here in the Evergreen state to keep an eye on those goofy Californians.

Now pass the corn squeezins and my buffalo gun!

Book vs. Audiobook

Hmm... Anyone else smell homework?

The Great Brain By John D. Fitzgerald Dial Press 1967
Audiobook 5:13 The Great Brain Enterprise 1987


Well, I started with the audiobook, cassette tapes in this case, and I'm afraid I found them irritating. These audiotapes appear to be self-published, and it's been my experience that some things don't translate well from one medium to another. Perhaps a major audiobooks producer could have steered this production another way. Unfortunately, the irritation I felt at the cassettes was hard to forget when I read the book later, and thus influenced my appreciation of the book.

The book got some very nice reviews from sources like the School Library Journal, Time, The New York Times, Book World, Kirkus and Best Books for Children. I've yet to see a review of the audiobook. I thought I was getting a CD, but what I got was old audio cassettes. What I heard was filled with hiss and machine noise.

Now the things that irritate me might not irritate the next person. The next person might in fact rather appreciate the same aspects that make me cringe. The Great Brain is that kind of old-timey, down home storytelling that you might expect to hear from an aging, bedraggled prospector pulling a mule behind him. For example, the first chapter is entitled "The Magic Water Closet." Well, the presentation doesn't just suggest this atmosphere, it lets you have it without apology, like a cave-in at the ol' mineshaft. The book is really a series of vignettes and tall tales about three Mormon brothers, their long-suffering family, and the denizens of southwest Utah nearly a century ago. The second brother is the The Great Brain, at least in the eyes of the youngest brother. The younger relates the adventures, goings-on and make-a-penny dealings of his more experienced, but not necessarily more intelligent elder sibling. The character's last name is the same as the author's. The book is filled with morality lessons like 'honesty is the best policy' and 'mind your own business.'

They start the presentation with a song. An original song, a mediocre original song about the book and its characters. Hey, tell me what's in the book! It's the book that everybody seems to like, why gild the lily? Next on my list is the performer. He probably makes his living doing ol' prospector parts. Way over the top! Hey, the book's narrator is a seven year old boy, now wouldn't that make a nice change of pace?! The performer keeps trying to do all the voices of all the characters, and again, there's no subtlety, just irritation. Add to that the sound effects and the unrelenting banjo, scrub-board and wash-tub music they use underneath every word...and I may never pick up an audiobook again!

The audiobook goes at its pace, not mine. If I'd like to dwell on a particular aspect of the story or a clever turn of phrase, too late, we're movin' on! Years ago, in the radio curriculum I attended, we learned that a radio play done well, like in the early days of radio, could be "Theater of the Mind." You paint pictures with words, and bring them to life with actors and sound effects. Of course, the more they added the less you had to imagine, and the less you had to imagine, the less that particular story becomes one you helped create in your mind by imagining what the hero looks like, or what color is the sea. I love movies, and in horror films especially, the scariest stuff is the stuff you don't see, the stuff your mind inserts to fill those gaps. And believe me, my mind can be plenty scary!

In the case of The Great Brain audiobook, I believe less would be more. Much more.