Good Bad Librarian! Now go to your room!

not so slight return

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:54:26 -0400

Last night I did my first open mic reading since mid-1999. I managed to avoid having a full-on panic attack while on stage for all of three or four minutes, and only stumbled over myself a couple of times. Before reading I went over the piece, which was one I wrote in early 2002 and have neither performed nor published previously, and agonized over a few phrasings, rhythms, questionable adjectives, and the general sense of will people throw shit at me before I’m done.

I think I killed.

Maybe it’s the sense of ecstatic relief after reading a piece that took me somewhere when I wrote it and recognizing that it took someone else somewhere in hearing it. Maybe it’s the long arc of returning to spoken word readings after my longtime sequester (bad word: nothing more of a turn-off right now than the United States Congress) and attempts at domestic bliss: freestyle and easy at first, tense in the middle, forced later on and the outright antithesis of bliss in the end. Maybe it’s that I just love to read in front of willing listeners and that it was extra good after a long abs(tin)ence. Maybe it’s that it was a fucking good poem despite my earlier misgivings and difficulty finding the right voice for it, finding that sweet spot of tone and delivery right when the mic was in my face.

Bonus parts: one trick of the evening was to write a six word piece with the theme “your most extreme sexual fantasy” My initial scribbling was:

fucking on Mars: hold your breath!

but then submitted this one instead:

high altitude

free fall

sixty nine

Yeah. I’m a voodoo child, motherfuckers.

the beautiful ones

Mon, 20 May 2013 22:55:31 -0400

I wrote this last year after learning that two excellent dogs were dying yet generally not giving a fuck that they were dying and spending their time chasing squirrels that weren’t there. And I wanted a world where the Zoes and Webbys were still among us and would not give up living the way they always had because that’s just how they rolled and SQUIRREL!!!!!.

Tonight I read that Zach Sobiech died this morning, and it seemed like I needed to read it and share it again.

—-

The news travels fast once

it hits center mass

spreads out and is intuited,

hanging between a sigh and

a weakened hip

the headline was clear on my horizon:

it is beginning, and

the beautiful ones are leaving

now, already, it seems too soon -

too soon! Not yet!

But already some have left the shores,

and now, more are waving.

One at a time, yet two by two

in the mirror. Please, don’t go.

They are going anyway.

Today I watched two more settling

into pre-flight, their first steps

to the last steps, to whatever comes

next, a future past this and us.

In the bright fading I saw the kivas

at Chaco, their magic lantern

stories told by firepit, drifting across

fifteen hundred years, peeking into a

random high desert day trip,

blue smoke from time’s basement

telling tales in dead languages,

and leaving clues for those of us

who allowed ourselves to hear

them and bear the knowledge

that they were long gone.

And once again,

the beautiful ones

are starting to leave,

already, too soon, now.

I sent a tear from my own future

into that chasm now being born,

wondering if it might throw bread

crumbs into their path. Let it be

a bon voyage gift if it must. Let

it mark the beginning of this end

or whichever way that will twist

on minds’ polymath tongues.

It will not change any trajectory,

it will not stop spring flowers from

crawling back to next year’s earth.

They are saying their farewells.

The beautiful ones are walking

toward the gate and never looking back.

Hubble Space Fan

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:36:00 -0400

As much as I try to put living sentient beings above others in my general regard, at the moment I’m saying a little prayer (or what ever comes closest to prayer in my bizarro schema) for the Kepler space observatory. As you may have heard, a malfunction currently threatens to derail Kepler’s ability to search for habitable planets, which would render it little more than an expensive and out of whack webcam. NASA believes it may be able to restore some of the observatory’s maneuverability, even though the broken parts were not expected to last any longer than they already have (Kepler’s original mission was to expire last year but was extended to 2016). The mission has already located 132 potentially habitable planets, although all of them will have to be confirmed by future missions such as the European Space Agency’s ChEOPS and NASA’s TESS, both scheduled to launch in 2017. Both of those missions will use Kepler’s data as a starting point, so the more it’s able to collect the better prepared the future missions will be.

So why do I blather on so much about an expensive space telescope when this space is usually dedicated to not-so-passing mentions of the financial woes of higher education? Wouldn’t the millions spent on Kepler and pals be better spent on teachers, infrastructure, and operating expenses for schools and colleges?

What we miss by framing NASA vs. education is that NASA missions are education. They collect information at the cutting edge of science and also inspire us. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and all around awesome human being, reminds us that by exploring space we give the human imagination a whole new playground. And when we give our imaginations new toys, we get cool stuff in return like the Internet and flying cars and cat videos

There’s another reason I’m looking to Kepler for inspiration. Even though two of the spacecraft’s main wheels (the thingies that allow it to point its lenses) may be busted beyond repair, NASA engineers believe they can still get some usable data from Kepler a while longer and haven’t given up. So as long as it’s The Little Satellite That Could, I’m going to keep hoping other things that appear to past salvaging will turn around.

Yes, I’m talking about the Community College of the Damned again. This week I returned to the Pantsontheground campus for the Summer semester only to find that our entire IT network was even more broken than usual and that our librarian at the Boonies campus will be leaving us next month. Normally these two news tidbits would be normal in the former case and cause to shotgun my resume over to our department head’s office in the latter. In this case the effedness of the network is more robust than its usual weak tea characteristic (a college-wide “upgrade” has been in process for several months, with optimal results clocking in at “they didn’t completely break it”), and my reaction to the new vacancy has been “meh”.

The departing librarian will be moving to another vast bureaucracy, just one closer to both home and spouse. Even though she had been one of the rare cases of an adjunct moving into a tenure-track position, I think she saw the futility of continuing here, even if I had already begun a sinister plan to nominate her as our next department head. Plus, she gets to work near home and in the same institution as her hubby, who is also a refugee from the CC of the D. But in the end my reaction was

The raucous sound of
the inmates loudly cheering
the fugitive’s flight

Because in the end, I realize that this place is as damned as its entirely made up name. Between an IT fuckup that would have resulted in enough rolling heads to fill a macabre ball pit, an overall sense of stagnation throughout the staff and faculty, an eternally sinking and increasingly mismanaged budget, and an administration that actively devalues its employees, CCotD appears to be headed for a massive fall. And as committed as I am to our perpetually under-resourced and under-prepared students, I do not plan to be with it when it tries to make friends with that iceberg on the horizon. The proverbial cosmic shit is on course toward the Hubble Space Fan.

Still, I may set up an altar to St. Kepler at my reference desk workstation to remind me that although the fat lady may be well into her warmups, she has yet to sing. Just the same, I am still memorizing the locations of emergency exits and personal flotation devices.

quit

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:12:05 -0400

quit

Best part of my library at Pantsontheground campus

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:01:25 -0400

Best part of my library at Pantsontheground campus

Summer teaching, week 2

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:36:44 -0400

I have wrestled this courseware

like a mad naked angel,

wrapped wires around us

both to exhaustion; bound

and marked, we tapped out

simultaneously. We may

never see eye to eye, I will

still force my gaze upon

this machine mind to the

point of tears. I am prepared

to stand in its gaping hallways,

shouting into echo chambers

until someone finally wakes up.

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley

Mon, 13 May 2013 21:00:20 -0400

Ken Robinson: How to escape education's death valley:

this is a briefing for the revolution we need

newspaperblackout: “Be the you nobody messes with,” a blackout...

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:56:06 -0400

newspaperblackout:

“Be the you nobody messes with,” a blackout by Austin Kleon

Read more→

campfire tales

Wed, 08 May 2013 06:25:00 -0400

Sylvester Graham believed
his toasty sweet meal would
serve to cure young men from
pesky impulses and ignoble
desires, prevent the dread
demon masturbation.

We have rescued his lowly
cracker from its dry and
sterile shelf with open
fires of the hearth and hill,
the lustful dripping marshmallow
and the silken caress of
the deep goddess Xocoatl.

My children: your ‘smores
may save humanity from its
baseless flight from our base
desires. Your selfless acts
of melting will be appreciated
by generations to come.

I Just Don’t Fit In.

Tue, 07 May 2013 06:04:17 -0400

I Just Don’t Fit In. :

Who do I think I am, calling myself extraordinary? What am I? I’m certainly not ordinary; I know this for certain.

by the way

Sun, 05 May 2013 22:23:23 -0400

don’t forget to start a revolution against yourself.

right. now.

freight train (slight return)

Sun, 05 May 2013 21:05:00 -0400

I’ve been recovering from a day grading the final papers of the Spring term while trying at being an adequate parent and driver (B- on the former, D+ on the latter), and now gearing for a new round of classes starting Wednesday. I woke up at my customary catscratch o’clock, roughly 6am, fed the little bastard, and promptly crashed until 11. Spent the day writing up lecture notes, uploading assignments and revising the syllabus, crosswiring the course website and emailing the whole class while listening to the Dresden Dolls and the Decemberists and by the time I got to writing for myself I was tapped out. so here’s an oldie but a goodie.

—-

She was a train wreck waiting to happen

I was just along for the ride

She had a date with destiny hidden up her sleeve

She was getting her karma dyed

She was channeling animal spirits through her body

She was making love to every species in the kingdom,

one by one and two by two

She was giving god a lap dance

She wanted santa with a vengeance

She was killing the buddha and giving him

mouth to mouth reincarnation

She was a FREIGHT TRAIN

I had a round trip ticket,

at least that’s what I thought

She held a cheap sixpack like a football,

held it cradled tight,

pushing through the crowd, nobody gonna take it from her

til she got where she wanted and then she

slammed it down and did a victory dance

she was swimming in an altered state of grace

she was s h i t f a c e d

she was a Night Train, a

Bullet Train, aching to happen

and I was tied to the tracks

she was doing bong hits of coffee

she was waiting at the bottom of the pool

she was clearing her calendar for a good day to die

she was taking conference calls from strangers

she wasn’t taking shit from no one

she was free as a bird, crapping on houses

she was laying on hands left and right,

granting divine light to the wicked and holy orgasms to the chaste

she was teaching womankind to piss in the sink

she was hellbent on growing her tail back, and winning

she was an urban legendary rocket car,

riding a cruise missile like the last cowgirl

she came to Texas in hopes that the voices would speak more slowly

she was a 747 landing on the freeway

she was driving that bus like a stairmaster,

jamming on one pedal, slamming on the other

crunching it and punching it

she was a train wreck waiting to happen

and I was along for the ride.

"I have a secret so obscured that even I don’t know what it is"

Sat, 04 May 2013 21:32:00 -0400

“I have a secret
so obscured that even I
don’t know what it is”

- uh huh

"goddamn fucking world won’t go according to plan kryptonite again"

Wed, 01 May 2013 23:42:00 -0400

“goddamn fucking world
won’t go according to plan
kryptonite again”

- (guess)

"you awakened the dragon with his tail tied up. Knots can be undone."

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 05:45:00 -0400

“you awakened the
dragon with his tail tied up.
Knots can be undone.”

- yep, that was me again

"Welcome to Hell. It’s just like high school but with more boredom and entrails."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:47:18 -0400

“Welcome to Hell. It’s just like high school but with more boredom and entrails.”

- Sandman Slim

Dove Experiment Parody: How Men See Ourselves. {Video}

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 10:11:18 -0400

Dove Experiment Parody: How Men See Ourselves. {Video}:

Watch the real Dove experiment video first.

"Information wants to be free. Sometimes it just needs to get a room."

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:00:00 -0400

“Information wants
to be free. Sometimes it just
needs to get a room.”

- Yours Truly

The end of the course lecture (that I won't be allowed to give)

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 16:40:00 -0400

So.

Over the past several weeks we’ve been through the world of what the syllabus calls Research - information research, but the basic principles of the larger idea of research are all there. I’ve also referred to this as inquiry, or even the Way of Finding Out For Real.

We’ve looked at the basic process of research from start to finish: figuring out what you want to know or know more about, looking at how ideas surrounding those areas of knowledge might appear out in the world, crafting questions and refining them, asking and re-asking those questions by picking apart language and putting it back together.

I called this Asking Better Questions and told you that it was the core of this entire course. Later I said, no, it’s really about communication. No, actually, it’s about language. In fact, all three are true.

We’ve looked at good places to start looking, and tools for that art of searching. We’ve looked at how to evaluate the sources you find - how to figure out whether or not they’re reliable, and why. I showed you some bullshit and asked you to cut through it, with varying degrees of success.

We’ve talked a lot about how we can document those sources not just to make your instructor happy but to strengthen what you have to say by providing a solid base of evidence. We’ve summarized and synthesized, proofread and simplified, learned where to be more specific and where to go big, and how to incorporate your own thoughts, ideas, and experiences into your work.

Often, I challenged you to do better, and sometimes I just plain messed with your mind, which in some ways are the same thing.

Finally, we’ve tried our hands at communicating that summary of information, taking that distillation of what we’ve found and learned and getting it across to another living mind, whether to a room full of colleagues, an auditorium of near strangers, or a sea of flat panel display screens.

From the start I’ve asked you to investigate an area that interests you, whether that’s from your program of study or your own life outside the college. As long as you could ask a measurable and answerable question, it didn’t really matter what the topic was, as long as you had some skin in the game. As I’ve said a dozen times, it needs to be something that will sustain your interest for the duration, otherwise you’re going to get bored to tears and find less motivation to follow through on the work you need to do to complete this course.

What I didn’t say - although I implied it now and then - is that there was a deeper layer in that selection of topic. I didn’t just want you to be interested in your research project, I wanted it to matter to you.

At one point I talked about laying the groundwork for your presentations, how you first needed to find a purpose, a reason you were undertaking this work - other than the fact that this is a mandatory course for graduation. That idea of purpose extends throughout the entire process of inquiry. You need to have some sort of motivation, some incentive, to do this well. External motivation, like the grade for each assignment and for the course, will only get you so far and probably fade away by the end of the summer break, if not sooner.

Intrinsic incentives, though, will keep driving you, through the project and beyond. Ultimately, I hoped to tap into that to teach you this curriculum. Some of you have really excelled, whether you were well prepared for this course from the start or found your way during the course. It’s always a treat to have the former sort of students in my class and a serious feeling of accomplishment to have the latter - watching a student start from self-doubt and then turn it around to master the material is really what keeps me in this education game.

I also have to come to terms with the fact that some of you just are not interested. I’ve known that for a while, but more recently I’ve recognized something more disturbing underneath that: some of you have no interests whatsoever.

Some of you just don’t give a shit about anything, and maybe never will.

In some ways I’d rather have students that don’t show up or turn in any work, because my own natural inclination is to shake you and try to find where that joy exists, the thing that keeps getting you out of bed or out of the house, even if it is an effort doomed to fail. I know many of you are pretty young, certainly by my increasingly middle aged standards, and possibly from a radically different frame of reference and experience than my own, but the very concept of just having no interest in anything is so alien to me I honestly don’t know how to teach to it.

I don’t want to leave you with that disturbing thought - disturbing to me, anyway; I also figure it won’t really bother the non-shit-givers here. Instead, I’ll leave you with this: what we’ve covered here is just a taste of what we do in information research, whether that’s in academia, in business, or in your day to day life. But even though it is a limited slice of this field of work, what we’ve covered here is something you can take with you and use, build on, even improve upon, for the duration of your careers and the rest of your lives. If anything, I hope it improves the quality of whatever you do next.

Now get the hell out of my classroom and go have a life.

Devil Said Bang, but in a library voice

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 08:40:56 -0400

Just found out that Richard Kadrey and Marc Frauenfelder are going to be speaking at the ALA Convention in Chicago this June. Now I really need to go. I already missed Henry Rollins at ACRL, I am not missing this.

Hell Yes, in so many ways.