Rest in Peace, Buddy. You did good with your life.

I need Facebook professionally. But Dear Lord, the advertising is brutal. You look at an online hat, maybe a scarf, and suddenly every other post in your scroll is a the same hat and scarf. It feels like a desperate hawking of product - throw it in my face over and over until I give in.

Not too long ago I would have dismissed this as hyperbole.

And yet… I am a librarian because of an unsolved missing book that I checked out when I was a teenager. It haunts me to this day. What happened to that book? How? Why? Sometimes I take long walks in the fog, reliving the horror. And every book I scan is another step to redemption.

“Every Facebook-lovin' boomer Wants to fight a culture war So tell your core consumer What the hell they're fightin' for A fight for morality We're bringin' back Christmas And it's not comin' back with some manufactured tree”

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

Tonight’s double feature. #Christmas

Step one: work on your pre-slow- -dance anxieties by chugging a beer and chasing it with a shot of whatever.

Happy #caturday

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

Any time some guy starts blathering about his plan to colonize Mars or whatever, I just mentally substitute, "move all the world's fruit and vegetable production to Antarctica." Which is just as foolish, but infinitely more plausible.

Sat with my kid & friends while they studied in the library. Some were writing essays on Holden Caufield. To help them, I started to read the book and got through 40 pages. It's been decades. I found it compulsively readable. Holden's attitude puts him in constant, awkward conversations. #booksky

Child advice? Try Bookstores. Books. Audiobooks. Podcasts. Magazines. Libraries. Churches. Schools. Nonprofits. Parents. Grandparents. Friends. Fellow Human Beings. Looking into your own heart.... or try ChatGPT.

I do not have fond memories of my Corporate-layoff days. But the silver lining is I was young enough that it opened up other possible futures to where I am today. Not everyone is young enough to switch paths easily.

Honestly, though: it’s Kindle-only short stories of popular series that disappoint more people. They appear on lists of works in the series, and people think they’ve missed a book in a series. They are disappointed to find out that no, they haven’t.

We have had a few requests to purchase books that were AI-written and sold on Amazon. It takes time to evaluate the resource and figure out if it’s a legit book.

Will I read all the library books I have at home? No. Will I read all the books I'm taking home with me now? No. Will I read all the books I have on reserve? Still no. Will I slow down putting books on hold? Again, No? Is this costing me any money? No. So leave me alone.

Sketching the boys in Procreate~

We need to get our act together

Whenever I talk about this, people look at me like I have 2 heads. It took, what, 100 years between figuring out vitamin c deficiency caused scurvy and navies supplying their ships with good old C? I hope we move faster in this one.

This year’s Christmas display includes feline Kaijus to terrorize the poor townsfolk, who can’t catch a break.

Have we tried talking with them? Maybe we can find some common ground.

Further evidence that widespread covid vaccination is better for everybody.

Finally, financial advice for the common man!

Made a lovely Moroccan style lamb stew with homemade hummus. My kid says he doesn’t like it and would prefer sushi. I started to object and 10 minutes later I served him a plate of smoked-salmon cucumber cream cheese sushi. I am a short order cook legend in my own mind.

““The time a library lends, I suspect, is a little like love: the more it gives away, the more comes back to it in kind.” This is a lovely essay on libraries. I think back on all the times my kids hung out at the library while I was working.

I wish this wasn’t true, but yeah… this is the direction my family is headed. My kids, meanwhile, hate it with a passion.

We need some kind of news/magazine that can highlight all the independent news that needs to reach a wider audience… I’m just not sure what that looks like. Or the $$ side of the equation.

Murder Your Darlings is a great book.

Something to celebrate

We've reached the point where phone service begs you to please, please stay on the line and give them feedback, to the point I'm guessing they must be getting graded not only on the feedback, but also the quantity of feedback. And I can never give feedback about the terrible system they've devised.

This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"

This is my Read of the Year. I'm reading it a 2nd time. This is beautiful writing (and translating), a stirring subject, and also quite personal & idiosyncratic. Papyrus by @irenevalmore.bsky.social, translated by @charlotte-whittle.bsky.social. Buy it for the book lover in your life.

This is a hell of an interview, and if you need a piping hot cup of hope poured from the pot of historical relevance, listen. It’s worth your time, for many reasons.

Same.

Also the narrative disorder angle…

This truly shocked me. “If you keep Orshansky’s logic… but update the food share to reflect today’s reality, the multiplier is no longer three. ..if you measured income inadequacy today… It would be somewhere between $130,000 and $150,000.”

Court permanently blocks Trump's executive order to dismantle federal agency for America's libraries IMLS librarytechnology.org/pr/31973

"The Map of Knowledge" by Violet Moller is a terrific history of the movement of knowledge in the years 500AD to 1500AD. Readable, fascinating, and yet another corrective to a simplistic notion of The Dark Ages. Scholars traveling MiddleEarth in search of books reminds me of someone... #booksky

Dad advised me to be a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant. So I majored in economics, wandered the world for a half-decade, became a librarian, then waited another decade to start my first librarian job.

The guy in the coffee shop listening to Facebook videos at full volume has turned into high comedy for me. Just disrupting everyone. People staring. F-bombs dropping with children around. He occasionally looks up. Is he even thinking? Has he noticed the empty chairs forming a curve around him.

Made rusks today. Last year we ran out of them quickly, so I doubled the recipe. I knew something was off when I made a vat of buttermilk-butter - soup. Wife then reminded me that last year we halved the recipe. Friends, we are lousy with South African health rusks. Great with a morning coffee!

In my whiniest voice: But I don’t want to feel like an entrepreneur.

For book club this month, I'm reading Jayber Crow. Re-reading, actually. It's as good as I remembered. #booksky #bookclub

Target employees are now all Milford-men.

Based on the volume of books I see as a librarian, it is my personal opinion that, America, we’ve gotten very weird about the Kennedys.

Attacked by the local wolf pack, one wearing angel wings.

My dreams last night featured my forgetfulness. This means the team working the command center upstairs is aware of the absent-mindedness. Guys: get to work. I know, that you know, there’s a problem. You can fix this.

It’s POTS awareness day—a blood flow problem common after Covid. POTS can be subtle—I often wonder how many people who feel rundown, anxious or distracted have this treatable condition. Main criteria is heart rate going up >30bpm when going from laying down to standing—smthg you can check at home!