Food for Thought

We truly dislike having to go anyplace we can not get to either on foot or two wheels, so the good mood that had settled in last Saturday morning after a pleasant transaction at Reser Bike, where we had found the exactly correct lubricant cum cleaner needed to clean up the sordid personal bicycle chain and received a quick tutorial in its use from the bright lad at the counter, had worn off well before the Stewart Road exit from I71, miles and miles and miles from our walkable limits on our way to Trader Joe’s with a list of things to be found only at Trader Joe’s which is the only reason we would submit ourselves to such a trek to such a wasteland. When we had filled our basket with enough unfair trade coffee, dried mangoes, doctor-prescribed chocolate, and a month’s worth of assorted frozen rice concoctions, we were agreeably surprised to see that our checkout person would be Howard, the refugee from the carnage that is twenty-first century publishing, with whom we traded news as quickly as possible so as not to upset those in line behind us. Howard is v. happy to be working regular hours and has become reacquainted w/ Mrs. H.. We did not know, however, whether he was truly happy or corporate happy, since all the Trader Joe sales professionals seem to be at the same level of bliss which they are all eager to share with their shopping friends. We complained to Howard about the ridiculous distance to his establishment and were told that we should stuff it, that it wasn’t that far, that it would be the only Trader Joe’s in the county, that people come all the way from Louisville, and that there would never be consideration of another. We thought that was pretty nervy since Columbus has two of the hyperhip groceries, and Detroit has five or six. Why dis Cincinnati, we ask?

We got home in a black mood, opened the mango packet and gnawed while we finished reading Brent Ghelfi’s The Venona Cable. We think Brent Ghelfi is v. v. good. Please join us in complaining to the Trader Joe management. The store is much smaller and less complete than the one in Royal Oak, Michigan, by the way.

-Nemo Wolfe

Watch Worldcat Grow

As a new addition to OCLC Worldcat–possibly the greatest invention since the cocktail shaker, I can’t help but post this link to “Watch Worldcat Grow”, which shows, in real time, as new items are added from all over the world to this truly global catalog.   -Ed Scripsi

We’re back

Now that we’re finally (pretty much) settled in, we should be back to (pretty much) daily blogging as of today, starting with the rather lame post you are currently reading, wherein, in lieu of writing anything original, I simply point you toward pieces from UrbanCincy and the Enquirer on our renovation, and HGC’s behind-the-scenes expose on what the months and months of banging and sawing were all about.  The HGC slide show is pretty great.

-Norm De Plume

Restacked

Surely you will excuse our failure to bloviate over the past couple of weeks.  It’s not as though we were goofing off.  Come see what we’ve been doing.  You will find no finer library at any price.

Details to follow.

Important and distressing:  The incredibly curious and capable Kevin LeMaster, whose Building Cincinnati is the first read on many daily blogjourneys, is throwing in the towel.  It seems he has to support himself.  The nerve.  There’s a nice outpouring from the commenters.  We deeply hope he hangs on.

-Nemo Wolfe

Ludd Have Mercy

Just when you think political life can’t get any stupider, the Enquirer is still alive to say “Mais, non!,”  Today’s report on the Plum Street Cretins is all about the resistance to the Kindle reading device.  Acting on a sensible recommendation from councilamerican Roxanne Qualls, the city machinery purchased Kindles for each and every councilamerican so that the reams and reams and reams of legislative baloney cranked out by council in its valiant, neverending fight to justify its existence, when it could be replaced by two houseplants and copy of People would no longer need to be printed in the ridiculous, featherbedding City Hall print shop for each and every meeting of the august body and its nearly as august committees, but would exist digitally until actually needed on paper.  Cost savings to the city after purchase of the wee readers?  Something like $25k.  Where do the great moral giants stand on the use of the wee readers?  Go to the article.  We’re ready for a warm bath and a straight razor.

Oh, and had Norm used his time more efficiently, he would have had time to run for City council, a race he would have won handily, and he wouldn’t have had to whine in public for a free Kindle.  He would have been handed one.

-Nemo Wolfe

Exciting ebook reader news you may have missed

- Amazon claims to have sold more Kindles than old timey paper books on Christmas Day.  Sadly, none of them found their way to Castle De Plume.

- At least two new readers are expected to appear at the Consumer Electronics Show this week: the Skiff and the Que.  But where will the books come from?

- And later this month, Apple is expected to introduce their long rumored Tablet.

I’d love to get one of these things, but money is tight right now.  Anyone know of any poorly guarded liquor stores?

-Norm De Plume

The Future is Nigh

As Dr. Dimitri Moisevitch says to Heywood Floyd in the opening pages of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: “We’re merely playing with lots of crazy guesses I’d be ashamed to tell you.  Yet none of them, I suspect, will be half as crazy as the truth,” which pretty much sums up the business of science fiction, futurology, and so forth.  Still, on the cusp of the second decade of the 21st century, it’s interesting to note how reality adds up to fiction.  Every family might not own a flying car, but we do have the option of owning a Prius which, let’s face it, is a pretty futuristic looking car.  A super computer hasn’t as yet gone crazy near Jupiter, but suddenly everyone is running around with a hand-held computer more powerful than what was considered, just decades ago, a supercomputer…  not to mention all of these devices are connected through the “mobile internet” (which is where the safe money is being placed on “wealth creation” these days).  Who knew?  But while innovations like pocket computers abound, there’s still plenty of poverty and craziness, not to mention general mayhem, viz. this essay by George Saunders on a week spent in Tent City U.S.A. in Fresno, CA. Will we soon be driving around in Thorium-powered Priuses? Is the plural of Prius Prii?  I leave you to ponder these important questions while you enjoy a safe and happy New Year.

-Ed Scripsi

Still more of the old “Plus ça change…”

Even at our great age we are capable of being embarrassed. And electrified.  Here is what happened to embarrass, electrify, and amuse us. We came home after an odd day at the odd library only to find we had forgotten to bring with us something to read. We know. Stupid. We work in a bleeding library for X’s sake. But we are oldish. And we wanted to get away from the spreadsheets as fast as humanly possible. So there we were at home where we had mixed ourself a serious and really very tasty martini, and we had nothing to read except a book that had been lent to Mrs. Wolfe about the unrelated Mrs. Woolf and the Servants and a copy of The Essays of Elia. (We agree. That is one pretentious sofa-side selection.) So we thought, “We remember these Essays from the paternal bookshelf where they rested undisturbed throughout our childhood. Just what the **** are they?” We picked them up, sipped some delicious gin, and within seconds were enjoying the sensation of hair standing up as we realized Elia – Charles Lamb – brother of Murderin’ Mary Lamb – was the World’s First Blogger!! Are we the last to know? The first to discover? We can’t remember seeing anything about blogging Lambs, but you would have to be a bleeding eedjit not to realize within forty five seconds of reading this hilarious man that blogging is not just old, but centuries old. Centuries! Charles Lamb, employee of the South-Sea House in London was cranking out amusing essays on company time long before most of our ancestors had even found their way to North America, centuries before Al invented the internet! We’re not kidding. Get past the retro-even-then language and within half a page you will realize that you are in the orbit of one of the Great Pioneering Goof-Offs of all Time. And you will be happy.

Or you will be happy until you get to the part where it is revealed that he got a month off every year and quit pretending to work every day at 4pm.

But I promise you you will recognize the mind of an eighteenth century blogger immediately. If not sooner. So very very interesting. More later.

-Nemo Wolfe

Phoned in Fridays: Other People’s Mail

I have Christmas shopping to do, so when Stacked-Web-log-Pubah Norm “passed me the torch”, as it were, I set my Internet Re-up-take inhibitor to “off” and this is what I got: “Letters of Note.com”, wherein the discriminating surfer may take in such curiosities as a letter from J.D. Salinger on why he won’t sell film rights to Catcher in the Rye (and inadvertently makes an argument for why fiction is a worthwhile pursuit in the first place), a letter from one infamous Mr. Barrow on his proclivity for powerful Ford motorcars, a famous response to 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon on the existence of Santa Claus, and many other telegrams and communiques of historical import.   -Ed Scripsi

Police Procedures

Question for Stacked readers:   If the Mercantile Library were to set up a police procedural group to tackle a crime novel a month, meeting in the director’s shabby office or upstairs in the more comfortable lecture hall to gabble about what made the month’s book readable or not readable or better than last month’s or not or worthy of emulating, would anyone sign up?  What if it were a two year project?  One year reading and analyzing crime.  One year constructing a group crime novel which could be, if it got written to where it was readable, either Kindled (something that anyone can do with any manuscript) so everyone would have a copy, or it could just be made into a handy generic e-book available on the Library’s website.  Would that be fun?  Or too much like work?  You would have to join the Library to apply the police procedure.  No freeloading.

Use the comments.  Or make an anonymous phone call.

-Nemo Wolfe