More Library Talk

Posted on July 31, 2008 | Comments Off on More Library Talk

Continuing our discussion on libraries from yesterday, there is some good news: libraries are working hard and doing some creative things to bring in new readers, especially younger readers. I point you toward this article in the Maryland Gazette on the libraries in my area hosting video game competitions — specifically, Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero.

According to the article,

“The video games are part of a larger effort by libraries across the county to get more teenagers involved. Kathie Weinberg, the teen librarian at the Bethesda Library, said the libraries have recently planned a number of events geared toward teens, including coffee houses, forensics sessions, and concerts. The Bethesda library brought in two representatives from MAC Cosmetics who did makeovers for more than 40 teens.”

That sort of thinking, however, led to a snippy editorial cartoon captioned “These Days At The Library,” making fun of the library as catering to game players at the expense of books. That, in turn, prompted this letter to the editor from two library employees, including the Young Adult librarian. I’ll quote them in part:

“These programs in no way diminish the importance of someone ‘just want[ing] a book.’ Yes, we have dramatically increased our teen programming this summer, but we have also increased our teen user base and their leisure and academic reading. In fact, circulation of teen books has increased more than 50 percent in the past year.”

More young people using our libraries? Circulation of teen books up 50 percent? Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

I’m was planning to head to the library this week as it was — but while I’m there, maybe I’ll also see if they’ll let the head librarian and me play “Sweet Child of Mine” together on Guitar Hero 2. I call the bass part!

Comments Off on More Library Talk

Posted in libraries, outside the box

The Library System We Deserve?

Posted on July 30, 2008 | 2 comments

According to this article in today’s Washington Post, budget reductions have prompted the D.C. public library system to propose cutting back its hours — including the closing of all branches on Fridays.

I wish this wasn’t a common occurence. Even in my neck of the woods — up in Montgomery County, Maryland, where we have a fairly healthy budget — our libraries aren’t open every day, either. Even more frustrating, the local library two blocks from my house is closed on Sundays. I can almost understand closing on a Tuesday, or even on Friday. But closing on weekends, when it’s easier to find the time to visit the library — and when students often need their resources the most — is teeth-gnashingly exasperating.

The thing is, Americans have a shaky relationship with their libraries. Like an aging or senile parent, we love them in concept, but don’t want to visit them. When that new David Baldacci or Stephen King or David McCullough book comes out, we don’t run for the library, we head for Barnes and Noble instead. We’d rather purchase it new in hardback and read it when we have the time, rather than read a loaner which we only have a certain amount of time to read before it’s due back.

I’ve heard plenty of reasons offered for why we don’t visit libraries as much any more. Germphobes don’t like the thought of reading a book that plenty of others have touched or (*shudder*) may actually have read in the bathroom. Others cite the inconvenience of having to return the book after a certain number of days or weeks (though some of these are no doubt the same people who have no problem returning a movie or video game to Blockbuster after three days). Researchers say the availability of materials on the internet has removed the need to run to the library for the Encyclopedia Brittanica or a newspaper from 1972. Some point out that libraries, in their rush to acquire as many copies as they can of the latest bestseller, often give short shrift to older books — making the library a great place to read books published after 1990, for example, but not much else.

There’s something to be said for all those arguments, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re all finding reasons to stay away from the library. It’s like public transportation: everyone wants government to invest in more buses and mass transit for someone else to ride. We like the idea of libraries more than the libraries themselves.

I’ve been fortunate enough to visit and speak at a number of fantastic libraries up and down the Atlantic Coast — the Redwood Library and Athenaeum, the New York Society Library, the Philadelphia Library, and even my local library in Damascus, Maryland — and if there was one thing they all had in common, it was readers and librarians who were passionate about them. Unfortunately, passion alone doesn’t keep the doors open on Sundays, when I’ve got my nose pressed up against the glass front door wondering if they’ve got a copy of Ted Widmer’s Martin Van Buren so I can look something up. Our libraries need more than our passion and affection; they need our support and patronage.

If you haven’t been to a library in ages — for any number of reasons — visit one again. You’ll find it’s still the best form of entertainment around, and librarians are still some of the most helpful people on the planet, always ready to help you find anything you’re looking for — and maybe even recommend something you don’t know you’re looking for yet.

Go on. You deserve it.

2 Comments

Posted in libraries, reading

Catching Up with the Pope of Prose and the Wizard of Northampton

Posted on July 29, 2008 | Comments Off on Catching Up with the Pope of Prose and the Wizard of Northampton

First, there’s this news straight outta San Diego: Neil Gaiman is writing a two-issue Batman arc — running through Batman and Detective Comics — for 2009. Pardon me while I say Zoinks! You can read about it here and here and here.

And then there’s this interview with Alan Moore, over on L’Essaim Victorieux des Mouches D’Eau. Moore discusses writing, working, and politics — and when the Wizard of Northampton talks, it’s always worth a listen. I mean, where else are you gonna get advice like this:

“If I ever write a book on writing it will probably be called Real Men Don’t Use Thesauri, because no, don’t touch ‘em, I think they’re cheating. What’s wrong with having an enormous vocabulary? What’s wrong with thinking, ‘Oh, there should be a word that means this or that, could it be this, could it be…,’ then making up a word and checking in the dictionary and seeing if there is such a word, and if it meant what you thought it did. That’s better, and all right, you can waste an hour trying to get the exact right word that’s got the right kind of sound, the right flavour, the right colour…that fits just perfectly….

“The thing I’d grab if there was a fire is my Random House Dictionary, which is an etymological dictionary which tells you where the words come from so you actually know what you’re talking about. If you use a word like ‘fascism’ you can actually have a look and see: ‘now where does that word come from, what does it actually mean?’ That’ll save you a lot of embarrassment. It’s also got a great Encyclopaedia function . . . it’s a biographical dictionary, it’s got all famous names and obscure names and dates . . . it’s fantastic. And that is my best Grimoire if you like, my best magic book, because it’s got all the words in the English language and where they come from and what they mean.

“If you’re gonna be a writer, you’ll cover all this territory, from the broadest categories down to, like I say, the sub-atomic detail of words and syllables.”

Read it. Learn it. Live it.

Comments Off on Catching Up with the Pope of Prose and the Wizard of Northampton

Posted in Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman

Tagged ,

Gonna Keep On, Keep On, Keep On Groovin’…

Posted on July 28, 2008 | 1 comment

We’ve all got them in our CD collections: those discs we’re embarassed to own and will either make excuses for (“I got it for a buck!”) or outright lie about (“Er, that’s not mine…”) if anyone finds it in the CD cabinet.

I’ve got quirky enough tastes in music that I’ll even ‘fess up to purchasing — and enjoying — CDs like Neil Sedaka’s The Hungry Years or Toto: Past to Present (1977-1990). Even something like Orleans’ Waking and Dreaming is a keeper — after all, it’s got “Still the One” on it — once you get past the worst album cover of all time.

Still, there are some discs that I love but can’t help making up some excuse for why they’re in my collection. Usually it’s my wife who gets splattered by the shrapnel of the cover story. “Best of Barry Manilow???” my friend will say incredulously, holding up a CD with Barry staring androgynously outward, eyes heavy with glittery eyeshadow. “Uh . . . that’s Barb’s,” I’ll reply, despite the fact it’s been in my collection since 1990.

Anyway, here are three more discs that I love, yet will completely disavow:

First, there’s It’s A Sunshine Day: Best of the Brady Bunch. Oh yes, it’s as dumb as you think it is. Naturally, it’s got the Bunch singing “Keep On,” “It’s A Sunshine Day,” and “Time to Change.” But it’s also got some unappreciated gems like “Candy (Sugar Shoppe)” (with Barry Williams trying — and failing — to rock out) and “Merry-Go-Round.” And what’s not to love about a Brady Bunch version of Don McLean’s “American Pie”? Classic.

Next, it’s K.D., er, k.d. lang’s Ingenue, an album I purchased not for the single “Constant Craving,” but rather for the retro-campy “Miss Chatelaine.” And only k.d. lang would describe her look in the song’s video — in which she wore a classy 1930s-era frilly ball gown — as “dressing in drag.” Say what you will, it’s still a terrific album, though one I always try to hide by mixing it in among my Jonny Lang discs.

Finally, there’s the self-titled Buster Poindexter, the retro-cool persona of New York Dolls front man David Johansen. Buster was several years ahead of the swing revival of the early 90s and therefore never really got the play he deserved, though he’s now made a comeback, of sorts, as “jump blues.” “Hot Hot Hot” may have been the hit single (it was sort of the “Macaraena” of the late 1980s), but there were also a killer versions of “House of the Rising Sun” and “Smack Dab in the Middle.” How you feelin’? Why, hot, hot, hot, of course.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to the Little River Band’s Greatest Hits. It’s Barb’s. Really.

1 Comment

Posted in brady bunch, buster poindexter, guilty pleasures, k.d. lang, music, stuff i dig

He Sings! He Dances!

Posted on July 25, 2008 | Comments Off on He Sings! He Dances!

This only just came to my attention: the New York Society Library has posted video of the talk I gave on April 19 for National Library Week. So if the audio itself isn’t enough, and you wanna feel like you were really there, you can check out the video right here. I’ll also hardlink it over in the right-hand column, in case you feel the urge to watch it over and over again…

Comments Off on He Sings! He Dances!

Posted in my pumpkin head, New York Society Library

Tagged

Worst…post….ever!

Posted on July 24, 2008 | Comments Off on Worst…post….ever!

Looks like it’s Batman Week here at Literary Conceits, as we dip into the mailbag for a question from Rich in Ocala, Florida:

“Found your page through your review of the Ten Cent Plague, and I really liked your recent posts about Batman. As a fellow comics nerd, I’ve gotta ask: What do you collect, and how big is your collection? Any particular favorite Batman writers, artists, or stories? Always glad to read a fellow Batfan. Keep up the good work!”

Thanks, Rich. Let me see if I can cover all your questions:

The bulk of my Batman collection consists mainly of three titles: Batman, Detective Comics, and the first incarnation of Brave and the Bold. My Batman run is probably my most impressive, as I’ve got a straight run from issue #120 (December 1958) to #555 (June 1998), with a good number of issues from the 1940s and early 1950s, including this gem from 1957, featuring Batman Jones, who is not me:


My Detective run covers much the same period, though with a few gaps early in the run. As for Brave and the Bold, I was only interested in it once it became the regular Batman team-up book at issue #75 (October 1967). You had to love B&B — only there could you see such bizarre team-ups like this classic from March 1974:


As far as favorite Batman writers, artists, and stories, I’ve always been a sucker for the art of Jim Aparo, who did nearly every issue of Brave and the Bold (as well as most Batman covers in the late 1970s/early 1980s) and for the stories penned by Steve Englehart for Detective Comics in 1977-78. When I wrote for a Batman fanzine back in the late 1980s, I actually had the chance to interview Steve Englehart, and he was still pretty proud of his run on Detective Comics (though even a decade later, he was still annoyed that writer Gerry Conway had brought back the character of Hugo Strange after he had done a thorough job of killing him off).

What’s that you say? Geek check?

Oooh, busted.

Comments Off on Worst…post….ever!

Posted in geek check, jim aparo, stuff i dig

Tagged ,

"The Renowned and Antient City of Gotham"

Posted on July 22, 2008 | Comments Off on "The Renowned and Antient City of Gotham"

Batman fans owe a debt of gratitude to Washington Irving. Why? Two words: Gotham City.

In 1806, 23-year-old Washington Irving was New York City’s worst attorney. Bored with his legal practice — he would allegedly abandon the only client he ever had — Irving persuaded a close friend, James Kirke Paulding, to join him in launching a literary project. The object of this self-published effort, as Paulding would put it, “was to ridicule the follies and foibles of the fashionable world.”

The result of this collaboration, the satirical magazine Salmagundi (a 19th century dish equivalent to today’s chef’s salad), made its first appearance on January 24, 1807 — and it was an immediate smash. Writing under a variety of disguises — Will Wizard, Anthony Evergreen, Pindar Cockloft, Mustapha Rub-A-Dub Keli Khan — Irving and Paulding poked fun at New York fashion, politics, society, and culture. More than anything, it was a 19th century Mad magazine, and at the time, no one had seen anything quite like it.

Despite its popularity at the time, Salmagundi might be a mere literary footnote, a blip in Irving’s writing career, had Irving not inadvertently created a brand name in its seventeenth issue.

Appearing in the November 11, 1807 issue was a piece by Irving describing a (fictional) library full of rare and out-of print books. Among those books was one particular volume—”a literary curiosity”—from which Irving now reprinted a chapter for his readers:

CHAP CIX.
OF THE CHRONICLES OF THE RENOWNED
AND ANTIENT CITY OF GOTHAM
Over the next few pages, in a mock history of New York, Irving related how the “thrice renowned and delectable city of GOTHAM did suffer great discomfiture, and was reduced to perilous extremity.” “The antient and venerable city of Gotham,” Irving continued, “was, peradventure, possessed of mighty treasures, and did, moreover, abound with all manner of fish and flesh, and eatables and drinkables, and such like delightsome and wholesome excellencies withal.”

While the word “Gotham” had appeared in the pages of Salmagundi before—Paulding had made a passing reference to a musician, “a gentleman amateur in Gotham” as far back as issue two—Irving was the first to explicitly attach the name to New York, and to refer to its citizens as “Gothamites.”

The word, which in Anglo-Saxon means “Goat’s Town,” came from a real English town in Nottinghamshire, near Sherwood Forest. According to English fable, the King’s Highway would be built wherever the king set foot—and if the king walked through your town, you were sunk, for the throne would then perform a royal taking and construct a highway right down Main Street. To prevent King John from entering Gotham, its citizens — displaying a NIMBY mentality remarkable for the 13th century — pretended to be crazy, behaving so oddly that snickering scouts advised the king to steer clear of the town. “More fools pass through Gotham than remain in it,” the English said, and New York readers grinned in appreciation. The name stuck.

So, there you go. Two hundred years later, Bill Finger and Bob Kane poached Irving’s nickname and grafted it onto their own dark and highly-stylized vision of New York City. In a way, that makes Irving — who created his own iconic American heroes in his own time — one of the grandfathers of the Batman legacy. And Washington Irving — that great lover of pulp novels and secret identities — would probably be pretty proud of that.

Comments Off on "The Renowned and Antient City of Gotham"

Posted in Gotham, Salmagundi

Tagged ,

First Books: Limited Collector’s Edition C-37 (1975)

Posted on July 21, 2008 | Comments Off on First Books: Limited Collector’s Edition C-37 (1975)

In honor of the release of The Dark Knight — which broke all kinds of records this weekend — I wanted to share with you My First Batman Comic.

I first became a Batman fan not because of the comic books or the TV show (which was off the air before I was a year old), but rather because of the Super Friends cartoon, which premiered on ABC when I was six years old. It may have featured a somewhat emasculated version of the Dark Knight Detective (Hey criminals! Wanna make Batman cower? Take away his utility belt!), but, hey, it was still Batman. He was super cool, and I was completely smitten. My life as a fanboy had begun.

But I didn’t actually have any Batman comics until this one — with the clunky official title of Limited Collector’s Edition, Vol. 4, No. C-37 — which my mom ordered through the mail for my brother and me in 1975. Back in the early- and mid-1970s, DC was publishing collections of Golden Age comics in oversize editions, including reprints of the first appearances of Batman and the Flash, which still confound some rookie collectors to this day. This particular issue — under a terrific Jim Aparo cover — was touted as the Batman Special All-Villain Issue!

Needless to say, I read this thing until the cover fell off of it.

The first story, “The Cross Country Crimes!” (a reprint of Batman #8 from 1941) pits Batman and Robin against the Joker, who leads the Dynamic Duo on a murderous chase across the United States. It contained a great hook (the Joker is actually using the first letter of each state he visits to spell out his name), some scary Joker moments (Joker forces a jeweler’s bus off a cliff), and a thrilling fight in a swaying cable car. And check out this great splash of the Clown Price of Crime (complete with that iconic 1940s Batmobile at the bottom):


Next, the Penguin gets his shot at the Dynamic Duo in “The Blackbird of Banditry,” a 1947 story from Batman #43 in which Penguin declares he will “use fictional birds you’ve read about in books … and commit real crimes!” Penguin manages to stay one step ahead of Batman, and at one point even gets the drop on the Dynamic Duo by puffing on a pipe full of popcorn, which explodes into Batman’s unsuspecting face. Then, displaying a mentality that could only belong to a comic book villain, he chains the captured Robin to a wall (with a tightly drawn bow-and-arrow pointed directly at the Boy Wonder’s heart), locks Batman in a nearby cage, and (wait for it) . . . leaves to allow Batman watch Robin face an almost certain Death by Clever Trap.

Naturally, Batman uses a discarded umbrella to make a bow and arrow of his own, and as the Penguin’s arrow screams toward Robin, Batman intercepts it by firing an umbrella handle-arrow into its path — a drawing that always baffled my eight-year-old brain, as it looked to me like Batman had fired a pickle to block the Penguin’s arrow:


But maybe that was just me.

Anyway, Batman eventually nabs the Penguin, and can’t resist taunting him in his jail cell by reminding him of another famous fictional bird. “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore!” Batman guffaws. Hilarity ensues.

The last three stories in the issue featured Two-Face (who meets his demise via accidental hanging at a drive-in movie theater, an image that horrified me), the Scarecrow (captured by an old vaudeville trick in which he’s smacked on the fanny by a see-saw), and Catwoman (who models her crimes on famous women criminals like . . . er, well, the wicked queen from Snow White). And if all that weren’t enough, there was even a four-page spread featuring a map of the Batcave (circa 1968) and diagrams of Batman’s equipment, including this sneak-peek at the contents of his and Robin’s utility belts:


I stared at those pages forever, trying to figure out how Batman could get those smoke capsules out of his belt so quickly, or how that laser torch really worked. When you’re eight years old, it doesn’t get much cooler than that.

Come to think of it, it still doesn’t.

Comments Off on First Books: Limited Collector’s Edition C-37 (1975)

Posted in first books, joker, pickle arrows, stuff i dig

Tagged ,

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Posted on July 18, 2008 | Comments Off on Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Translation: Who watches the watchmen?

I do. And now you must, too.

Comments Off on Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Posted in oh my god, squeeeeeeee, stuff i dig

Tagged

Library Blogging

Posted on July 15, 2008 | Comments Off on Library Blogging

A quick post today from one of the truly great buildings in the United States. I’m sitting at a computer in Alcove 3, just off the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress, where I’m doing a bit of research on several potential projects. I’m waiting for the librarian to drop a book off for me at desk 191, which I can see just over the top of this computer, peeking around some of the construction that’s going on in here.

It’s my intention to some day take readers of this blog on a brief photo tour of the library, so you can see what it’s like where you first walk in, check your bags, then make your way down the dark corridors leading to the small anteroom just outside the Main Reading Room. That moment when you walk out of the anteroom into the enormous Main Reading Room — with its soaring, ornate dome and circular rows of old wooden reading tables — is, for bibliophiles, probably the same feeling art lovers get the first time they enter the Sistine Chapel. It’s huge and awe-inspiring, yet somehow cozier and more intimate than you thought it might be from staring at it in pictures for so long.

Ooop, there’s my book being delivered now! See you later.

Comments Off on Library Blogging

Posted in library of congress, sneaky posts