Pop Goes the Library

Wednesday Night Lights: Taken Advantage Of

2008-05-07T18:59:00.002-05:00

Last night, my wife turned to me and said, "Do you think we would be able to find Andy [last name redacted] online somwhere?" Now Andy has a pretty common last name, so searching for him was going to be a challenge. But hey, a reference question at home, and a challenging one at that? Awesome!

"You know, does the library have some sort of database that you could look at that a regular search engine wouldn't be able to see?" she continued. My wife's one smart cookie. She taught high school English for a long time, she has a Master's degree in English Education, and she currently teaches undergraduate and Master's level college courses, so she knows about searching online.

She also knows how to hit all the right spots to pique my little librarian brain. We went to college with Andy. He was in our wedding. We knew essentially the field of work he was in, but weren't sure he was still in the Midwest or not. Using Google was not going to be an option as his common last name would result in too many hits. Plus, who knows what sort of online presence this guy has?

You search for me "John Klima" and you get me or an artist in Brooklyn (we 'met' online and had a laugh about wondering who the other John Klima was that was messing up our Google hits). And you still get 25,700 hits on my name in quotes (almost 2 million without).*

So I tried Reference USA first. The numbers weren't bad: using Andrew, 146 in the US and 21 in WI; using Andy, 49 in the US and 7 in WI. That wasn't a terrible amount; you could certainly check all of those. But you'd have to call them to get any information. And what if he has an unlisted number?

I moved over to Facebook since I've found some old high school buddies there, but no luck. My wife said that she didn't see Andy as a Facebook kind of guy, but considering the World Wide Web was in its infancy the last time we saw him, who knew what he would be into?

Then it hit me, while Andy wasn't the kind of guy to use Facebook, he was totally the type of guy to use LinkedIn. I logged into LinkedIn and searched. There he was. We sent a request to join my network, and he responded almost immediately. I then saw that one of the people in his network was another college friend we'd fallen out of touch with, so I sent him a message, too.

After I got done, I looked at my wife and said, "You asked me this tonight because you knew I would just take over and find him."

She smiled and said, "Yep. I knew if I asked you wouldn't be able to stand it until you found him."

I feel so used. And yet, it seems strangely fulfilling.
____________________
* I never tried Google last night, but I tried tonight. I put Andy's name in quotes and added 'WI.' The first result is actually how I found him, but through a more circuitous route last night.

Oh, My Golly, It's a Galley!

2008-05-03T18:16:00.001-05:00

liz_sophie
Originally uploaded by Peter Bromberg

So, Liz & I are in the midst of working on the galley of Pop Goes the Library: Using Popular Culture to Connect With Your Whole Community. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that Liz is done while I am taking my sweet time with it. Um, sorry, Amy & Rachel, Editrix Goddesses!

Congratulations All Elected ALA Candidates (But Most Especially Carlie Webber)!

2008-05-03T06:55:00.004-05:00

The results are in, and our dear friend, colleague, and fellow Pop-er (Pop-ian? Pop-ie? What's the best suffix for us?) Carlie Webber has been elected to YALSA's Michael L. Printz Award Committee. She's the second of our crew (Liz Burns was the first) to attain this honor, and we couldn't be more pleased, more proud, or less surprised (I mean that in the best possible way -- anyone who's met or read Carlie knows what a savvy, tough reader she is).

Congratulations to all of the winners, and, as a member of the 2009 YALSA Nominating Committee, thanks to everyone who ran this year!

If you're a member of YALSA, please consider running for office next year! Info on all available positions is at the YALSA Wiki.

Friday Fun: A Little Horsing Around

2008-05-02T20:38:00.025-05:00

It is the first weekend in May and that can only mean one thing in the world of sports and pop culture: Derby Day is here. 2008 marks the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby. The hats. The mint juleps. The red roses. The strains of "My Old Kentucky Home" that fill the air at Churchill Downs. And of course the horses. Always the horses.

When I was a kid I watched Secretariat on TV win the Kentucky Derby (track record), and then the Preakness (track record), and finally the Belmont (world record) winning by 31 lengths in 2:24. I was so taken with this amazing horse that I was inspired to pick up my pen and write a fan letter addresed to "Secretariat, Kentucky, USA." A short while later I received a small post card from Mrs. Penny Tweedy of Meadow Stables and two photographs: one of Secretariat and the other of Secretariat racing with stable mate Riva Ridge. Needless to say I was thrilled. I soon began reading everything I could about Secretariat, which included the sports pages of the New York Times. It also spurred me to go to the library and read a lot of books about horses, which inspired me to write a lot of stories about horses, which sent me back to the library for books about how to draw horses in order that I could illustrate my own stories. You could say it was my love of Secretariat that began my love of reading, writing, and drawing.

Do I owe my literacy and ability to draw today to a childhood interest in Secretariat? Probably. Remember, dear librarian friends, that when a child comes to you with an interest in horses, or dogs, or bugs, or baseball, or any of a myriad of things, that YOU may change their life with a simple, "Why don't you try this book?" My librarian placed the book the "Black Stallion" in my hands. I read the entire Black Stallion series, Misty of Chincoteague, Smoky the Cowhorse, Black Beauty, non-fiction and encyclopedia articles, and anything else I could find about horses.

However, my greatest discovery at the library was the work of writer and illustrator C.W. Anderson. One day I got lucky and bought a set of C.W. Anderson lithographs titled "Turf and Bluegrass" from a garage sale for 50 cents. This was a lot of money for a little kid. I practiced drawing by copying Anderson's drawings which included "Seabiscuit," "Man O' War" and other famous race horses. If you are unfamiliar with C.W. Anderson and love horses you are in for a real treat. His illustrations are gorgeous. Check out Librarything for a glimpse of Anderson's work and also eBay. Hint: include "horse" as a keyword when you search for "C.W. Anderson" or you may find the wrestler by the same name instead.

So put on your best hat, grab a mint julep, and tell me about your favorite horse books or movies from when you were a kid...or perhaps even a grown-up.

Wednesday Night Lights: 1992's Influence on Music

2008-04-30T19:36:00.003-05:00

This is quite long, I'm sorry for that. Once I got going, I couldn't stop. Also, I've linked primarily to Wikipedia articles for consistency of style.

It seems that I'm on a roll with music lately. The other day I was listening to Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks' new album, and there were some bits and pieces of it that reminded me of Nirvana. That got me thinking back to when I first heard Nirvana. Well, not first heard, but when I first bought Nevermind on casette. That's right, I bought Nevermind on casette.

This was 1991/1992 so portable CD players existed, but they were iffy. You were better off with a portable casette player since the CDs tended to skip. A lot. So if I was trying something out, I'd get it on casette. Nevermind came out in September of 1991 (is that really 17 years ago!?) and I had heard/seen "Smell Like Teen Spirit" a bunch.

No one knew who they were; not me, not my friends. I already was listening to Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, and Pearl Jam. Without knowing it, I was already keying into the Seattle sound, aka "grunge."

I decided "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a strong enough song that I would pick up the album. A friend was coming into town that weekend, and we swung by a record store on the way to my place. I picked up the casette, having no idea what lay in store for us.

To show how dorky I am, the weekend was spent listening to Nevermind (the casette didn't have the hidden track that's on the CD, so the auto-reverse would just flip the tape over and we'd get the other side) over and over and over and over again while we played Super Mario Bros. That was basically it.

The album was brilliant. I couldn't get enough of it. My roommates and my friend...? They had their fill. Thankfully for them, I could listen to it in my trusty Sony Walkman.

In early 1992 (see, I'm bringing the title of this post in) Nevermind hit #1. Music was changing. The grunge music was in full swing, causing a ton of Seattle-based bands to get signed to record deals so that labels had a grunge artist in their list. I bought a lot of that music, and I won't even try to list it all.

Even outside of Seattle, you had releases from bands like San Diego's Stone Temple Pilots, who had a definite Seattle or grunge quality to their music. I was in my third year of college, and music was hugely important to me. I was in bands, playing guitar, singing, doing all the things that I thought would make me a rock star (except actually working hard at it, of course).

On top of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, there was the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and they both got me thinking about 1992 again. And I was curious what was released that year and what sort of influence it had. I came up with a short list of, in my opinion, hugely influential in music.

In addition to grunge, there was Rage Against the Machine (RATM) with their self-titled debut. This didn't sound like any of the Seattle music. This was quite different. And it had a lot of say. Even today, sixteen years later, I can listen to the first RATM machine and became angry due to the content of the lyrics. Highly politicized, RATM caused controversy wherever they went:

"At a 1993 Lollapalooza appearance in Philadelphia, the band stood onstage naked for 15 minutes with duct tape on their mouths and the letters PMRC painted on their chests in protest against censorship by the Parents Music Resource Center. Refusing to play, they stood in silence with the sound emitted being only audio feedback from Morello and Commerford's guitars."

Sca-core band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones released their first full-length album More Noise and Other Disturbances. I saw them for free at the student union, and can safely say that was the craziest show I've ever been to.

While I didn't come upon the album until much later, Gordon from the The Barenaked Ladies came out in 1992. And I'm not ashamed to admit that the Barenaked Ladies are my favorite band. I saw them on a whim in 2000, and metaphorically kicked myself for missing out on the band for so many years. Although to be honest, I probably would have hated them at the time.

It was all good, 1992 foisted a full Right Said Fred album on us, and Color Me Badd had a #2 single with "I Wanna Sex You Up" (sorry, no links...I can't bring myself to do it). This was the type of stuff that was burning up the charts prior to grunge. I, for one, was glad that grunge came along.

But what about the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy? Who the heck were they? Well, frontman Michael Franti has gone on to form Spearhead, and like RATM, use his music to bring awareness to political issues that are often overlooked in the United States. But there's more. The album Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury introduced us to the work of a young guitarist named Charlie Hunter.

Hunter is a jazz guitarist, and one of my favorite musicians. He plays an eight-string guitar (although now I see he's moved down to a seven-string) and performs both the guitar and bass lines on the same instrument simultaneously.

Here's where things get funky, Hunter's 2001 album Songs from the Analog Playground featured the vocals of a young songstress, Norah Jones, who of course went on to win a Grammy for Best New Arist with her 2002 alubm Come Way with Me. When I first heard "Don't Know Why," I couldn't figure out why her voice sounded familiar. Then I figured it out. I had heard it a year earlier.

If not for the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (who I found through the Alternative Tentacles album Virus 100, a compilation of Dead Kennedys cover songs) we might not have heard of Norah Jones. Considering the talent level of Hunter and Jones, it's likely we would have heard of them regardless, but the connection is there.

Jones' Come Away with Me hit #1 on the charts in 2002, ten years after Nevermind hit #1. Things had changed over those ten years, not least of all Kurt Cobain's tragic suicide. My own musical tastes had changed to allow in artists like the Barenaked Ladies and Norah Jones. What albums from 1992 resonated for you? From 2002? What musical connections do you know about that are kind of cool and funky (if not obscure)?

The Frederatorian Armada

2008-04-28T02:31:00.000-05:00

Remember when Hanna-Barbera was brought back from near death in the 90's? Like Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio in The Abyss? Fred Siebert was Hanna-Barbera's Virgil Brigman. He slapped the life back into the studio by creating the What-A-Cartoon! showcase for new shorts, reorganizing the personnel and modernizing their process, resulting in scads of great shorts that spun off several great shows for Cartoon Network including Cow & Chicken, Powerpuff Girls, and Dexter's Lab.

With the Hanna-Barbera brand saved, Fred then founded Frederator Studios in 1997, and their first project was Oh Yeah! Cartoons for Nickelodeon, another showcase of shorts featuring many of the same animators and directors who had produced work for What-A-Cartoon. Oh Yeah! has spun off 3 series for Nick so far, most notably the wonderfully awesome My Life as a Teenage Robot (created by Rob Renzetti who storyboarded some of the best episodes of Dexter's Lab) and Megahit work of genius The Fairly Oddparents, created by Butch Hartman. Farily Oddparents is Nick's second most-popular show, only surpassed by the mighty Bob l'éponge; it's a powerful mix of wish fulfillment, brilliantly mutated character tropes, mind-blowing voice performances, and a self-aware formula that never seems to get stale, with a seventh season of episodes just beginning to air. The loud characters and slapstick potty moments (Supertoilet!) successfully scare off most adults, but Cosmo and Wanda just kick so much ass on so many levels that you musn't dare write off FOP as pablum.

While Fred excels at pulling together fresh teams for these showcase incubator series, and the newest Frederator project, Random Cartoons, is another installment in Fred's trademark genre. Frederator has also produced the Nicktoons Film Festival, an open call for shorts from animators of all stripes. The best shorts are aired on TV and the possibility of being the next Frederator star looms large for the participants. Fred is serious about crowdsourcing and his methods have brought TV some of the most innovative and hilarious cartoons of the past 15 years.

However, Fred (who was also MTV's first creative director, producer of the early MTV and Nick animated IDs, and savior of Nickelodeon with the Nick at Nite concept) is no one-trick-pony; Frederator's online offerings rival their TV projects, and Frederator gets it right so much more throughly than almost anyone else in the TV business it's a little shocking. For instance, check out one of Frederator's 65 blogs, including Fred's official blog or the Fairly Odd Blog. While it's still unique for a studio to essentially insist that each project has a corresponding blog, the best parts of the Frederator online presence are their web-native projects.

Channel Frederator takes Fred's trademark approach -- welcome all comers -- and ports it online into a channel full of new cartoon shorts that anyone can submit to and a podcast of the best stuff. There's also annual Channel Frederator Awards (voting is now open for the best of 2007) and one truly standout original series of shorts: The Meth Minute 39, by Dan Meth. The Meth Minute can best be described as the Wario Ware of cartoons; short, hilarious, usually inappropriate, steeped in pop references, and with many sets of recurring characters. The latest episode of the Meth Minute features Ultra and the Lazer Hearts, who exist to hang jokes upon the truly outrageous carcass of Jem and the Holograms. One of Meth's most-forwarded shorts is the undeniably NSFW Dog Video Dating, and the first episode, meme-tribute Internet People, became a bit of a meme of its own. Even the Meth Minute 39 is in on Fred's crowdsourcing mission, currently running a contest to find the best viewer-created short using meth minute characters, with a cash prize.

In addition to the awesomeness of Channel Frederator is ReFrederator, a simply amazing daily podcast that features a different vintage cartoon each day, along with some incredibly knowledgable posts. The work the ReFrederator folks are doing is nothing short of miraculous; acquiring, digitizing, and archiving priceless but usually commercially worthless cartoons in a modern format that's simply one of the very best podcasts on the whole dang intertubes.

However, the absolutely best thing that Fred has done recently has been to discover a guy named Pendleton Ward and give him the chance to make Adventure Time. Go watch Adventure Time right now, and be forewarned that the next time you see something really awesome, you just might find yourself using 'ALGEBRAIC!' as an expletive of awesomeness.

Frederator Studios is doing totally RHOMBUS work all over the place; but Channel Frederator is merely the anchor of Fred's newest corporation, nextnewnetworks, which takes Fred's proven old/new media flexibility and mastery and stretches the definition of a video network in a very forward-looking direction, towards nichier audiences and snappier, shorter, more frequent programming. See Ultra Kawaii (so cute it hurts), Threadbanger (for DIY Fashionistas), Vette Dogs (for corvette owners) or Total MMO (for Massively Mutliplayer Online gamers). Fred will rule the world someday, perched atop his shiny red armada of networks and viewer-created content flying in close formation. Submit now and you can say you were a Frederatorian before it was compulsory!

Fun Friday: It's Caturday!

2008-04-25T09:37:00.004-05:00

Like many librarians, I have cats. Just two, though, Henry and Beezus. (Witness their adorableness!) And like many people who are not librarians but have cats, I like to read cat and kitten blogs. So for Fun Friday, I'm going to share my favorites.

First, I Can Has Cheezburger? spawned an internet culture and a new way of speaking online. This site consists of LOLCats, pictures of cats with funny captions that are meant to emulate a cat's way of thinking. If you know of no other sites dedicated to silly pictures of cats, you should know about this one.

Cute Overload features pictures of kittens, puppies, hedgehogs, and all other kinds of adorable animals.

Kitten War! It's not really a war, just clicking through cute pictures of cats. Cats "battle" each other by showing the viewer two pictures at a time, and the viewer clicks on the ones he believes is cuter.

The Daily Kitten. Look forward to 3:07 p.m. every day, because that's when the Daily Kitten adds a photo and little bio of their Kitten Du Jour.

And my personal favorite, the only one I look at every day, the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee. Let me tell you, there is a special place in heaven for the humans that update IBKC. They're a couple in the Seattle area that fosters homeless kittens until they're ready for adoption. I dare you not to read this blog and NOT think, "That is one of the cutest things I have ever seen in my life." Right now they're fostering five kittens, three of which are polydactyl, and a mama cat.

Try not to fall over from the cuteness.

Wednesday Night Lights: Feels So Good

2008-04-23T19:53:00.002-05:00

A few weeks ago, I claimed writer's block and wrote about places to find inspiration. I also claimed that I had half-formed thoughts on: "absinthe, Chuck Mangione, science fiction, baseball, and syrup." Some of that was true, some of that was grabbing disparate things in my mind and stringing together an absurd combination of things. OK, I threw in syrup at the end for no reason, but the other ones I had thoughts/post ideas about.

Growing up, we had a giant Magnavox record player cabinet sitting in our family room. Every Sunday, my father would load it up with four to six albums (linked for you young'ns) and sit and read the paper and work on the floor. The albums would fall one by one onto the turntable. Once they were done, we would fight over who got the chance to flip the stack over and play the other side of the records.

Of course today I look back at this fondly. It was a time when my father was around (as a partner in a large accounting firm, he was very busy) and we all loved that. But it wasn't like we could interact with him. He had work to do. And often when he was home, it was time to do chores around the house he wanted done. Nonetheless, there was something serene about lying on the family room floor and reading while my father worked.

The soundtrack of these Sundays was an eclectic mix. My father's listening tastes runs in streaks. We all remember the eras that made up the 1980s: Julio Englasias, Willie Nelson, and Kenny G. By the time he got to Leon Redbone, it was CDs and I was in college.

But the 1970s! Oh man, there's a whole bunch of music that I have an overly fond nostalgia for because of these Sundays: Peter Frampton, Chicago (there was a set of the first five albums), Jesus Christ Superstar, the Young-Holt Unlimited Trio, Supertramp, Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, and Chuck Mangione.

Oh Chuck was the man. We heard him more than anyone else. I hear the opening flügelhorn notes of the song "Feels So Good," and I could be four years old again. I was more excited than I should have been when I got a copy of this for myself a few years ago. Sometimes when I'm working on things late at night, I use the album now to clear my mind and help me focus on the task at hand.

There are times when I'll hear a song from these Sundays, and I get transported back to those times. Last night American Idol did an Andrew Lloyd Webber night, and when I heard "Jesus Christ Superstar" I was four years old again in front of that big old Magnavox. Whenever I hear songs from Frampton Comes Alive, I know all the words, I know all the musical phrasing...but I couldn't tell you anyting about the album sitting here in my chair. I'd have to hear it, and then it would all be there.

For my wife, it's country music. She knows every (and I actually mean every) country song from the 1950s through the 1980s. It's eerie.

How about you? What music reminds you of your childhood?

Buried Ortiz Jersey on ebay

2008-04-23T16:19:00.002-05:00

Anyone who watches baseball or follows the history of the game knows about the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox. The latest episode included a David Oritz jersey buried in the concrete during the construction of the new Yankee Stadium. The Ortiz jersey was dug up and is now being auctioned off on ebay with all proceeds to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund. Last time I checked the bidding was up to $84,000.

Go to ebay.com and find the auction with the key words "Ortiz," "Yankees Curse," "Jersey," and "Jimmy Fund."

Just call me Lucien: Recap of NY Comic Con

2008-04-19T16:17:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend the New York Comic Con, and here are some highlights:

1. THANK YOU, REED EXHIBITIONS, for learning from your mistakes. This is the third time I've attended NYCC and every year it is more organized, seems less crowded, and offers a wider range of programming. The first year, the exhibits hall looked like rush hour on the A train. This year, there were wider aisles and everyone could move around much easier. I got through registration quickly and easily. Also, thank you for offering free registration to librarians. What was the one major thing wrong with this year's programming lineup? All the programs I wanted to go to were at the same time. It seems like no one considered the idea that often, the children's librarian and the teen librarian in any given library are the same person. With the children's-centric panels and the teen-centric panels running concurrently, librarians often had to sacrifice one for the other.

2. The exhibits themselves were really neat. I am not as well-versed in the comics world as many of my colleagues, so it was cool to see the wide range of available (and vintage/collectible) comics and graphic novels. In addition to the comics booths, major publishers had booths and were offering some galleys and trade editions of popular titles. I know I saw Harper, Random, Tor, Hachette, and a few others. What I found most interesting, though, was that the titles these publishers were offering were almost entirely fantasy and science fiction. I realize many comics and graphic novels are centered on fantastic themes and ideas, but didn't Neil Gaiman say that graphic novels are a format, not a genre? One would think that people who enjoy comics and graphic novels but prefer realistic fiction to fantasy would want to see publishers displaying their realistic fiction as well. So now I'm curious: Who else out there likes graphic novels but prefers realistic fiction to speculative fiction?

3. Fabulous panel #1: "Helping bookstores buy and shelve comics for teens." I know libraries aren't bookstores, but when it comes to moving and marketing the teen collection in a library, I like to employ the occasional bookstore technique (handselling, faceouts, themed displays, etc.). The panel included buyers and distributors of YA novels and graphic works, who talked about issues of visual content, cultural differences, and age ratings on manga. They also discussed issues behind shelving and marketing a graphic novel collection for teens.

4. Fabulous panel #2: "Age-appropriate content for kids and teen comics." Lana Adlawan and the awesome Alison Hendon from the Brooklyn Public Library gave an excellent run-down of high quality graphic works for people ages 0-18. At the end, they talked about their wishlist for graphic novel publishers who want to see more libraries buying their books, including higher-quality printings, better bindings, etc.

5. Sherrilyn Kenyon is just about the nicest author ever, even though I made a fool of myself in front of her.

6. Fabulous panel #3: "Minx: Your life in pictures." Minx, an imprint of DC Comics aimed at teen girls, had several of their authors and illustrators on a panel and showed preview pages from upcoming books to the audience. I'm really excited to read all of them, especially because I've read and loved previous Minx titles.

I really wanted to go to the dinner with Neil Gaiman, too, but alas, I lack the $400 it would have cost. Ah well. I will have to follow my fish from afar.

Friday Fun: The Mortified Shoebox Show

2008-04-18T07:26:00.001-05:00

How about a few hilarious little movies to kick off the weekend? (LONG weekend for myself and the rest of Massachusetts, Maine, and the public school system of Wisconsin--happy Patriots' Day, one and all!)

Mortified's latest project in the ongoing "comic excavation of the strange and extraordinary things we created as kids" is the Mortified Shoebox Show, "videos from the vaults of everyday life." Building upon the Mortified stage performances, the series already includes six episodes, including "Stairway to Winnipeg," a modern recreation of Johanna Stein's version of "Stairway to Heaven," once performed for her entire eighth grade class on guitar; "Everyone's a Critic," Will Seymour's retelling of his shoplifting exploits, drama club failures, and the much-needed intervention of "Aunt Liza"--Minelli, of course; and the latest: "500 Miles to Hollywood", a reading of "500 Miles to Indy," the two-decade-old screenplay of Jason Smith as performed by a truly all-star cast: Elijah Wood, James Denton, Busy Phillips, Kevin McDonald, and Curtis Armstrong!