Add it to the list

First installment in an occasional feature in which I tell you what I'm reading, because I'm a librarian-in-training and you're my captive audience.

At my readers' advisory job, under "staff fun" on the intranet, there's a form for writing recommendations that get posted on the library website. The caveat being that the item in question must be part of the collection. This library must not process books as fast as my other one, because I'm already done with this book (from the other library) and it's still showing up as "on order" here, despite there being 27 holds on it. So I can't recommend this book to the masses yet.

But I digress.

I finished reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl last night, and it blew my mind. Plot-wise, it doesn't sound particularly amazing -- I suppose it's sort of a mystery/thriller-type novel, which is not normally my cup of tea. The main character, Blue Van Meer, is a high school student whose father is a perpetual visiting professor at a string of unremarkable colleges around the country. In her senior year, he suddenly decides to put down roots, and they end up spending the entire year in the same North Carolina town, where she attends an elite private school and becomes part of a clique of too-cool students and the school's enigmatic film teacher. About halfway through the book the teacher is found hanging from a tree during a clique camping trip, and Blue pulls together all sorts of stuff from the first half of the book in an attempt to solve the mystery of whether her death was suicide or murder.

Nothing in that description sounds mind-blowing, I know. It is suspenseful, to the point where I was even more resentful than usual about having to answer Dead Celebrity Patron's questions because I would have vastly preferred to be on break and finding out what would happen next. But the cool thing about the book is Blue herself; the conceit is that she's writing her autobiography, basically, and because she's the daughter of a professor and extremely well read, the whole narration is littered with references to all sorts of scholarly, literary, and trashy books, movies, and websites, not all of which actually exist. The book is structured like a syllabus for a Great Books class -- each chapter is named for a major literary work, and the epilogue is presented as a final exam, which sounds cheesy but really does work. The whole thing is just really well done, and even though it's long and the first half probably could have been edited down to something more manageable, I read it in less than a week.

(The book jacket copy crosses the line, though. Particularly the movie tag-line-esque slogan that appears on the back cover: "Apply to life at your own risk." Jesus. Someone in the marketing department deserves a good flogging for that one.)

Wait a minute ...

My final semester of library school starts Wednesday. This morning it occurred to me that I have no business working in public service because I hate people. What the hell was I thinking?

The hope, of course, is that academic librarianship is a better fit. I start my practicum at the college library on Wednesday as well, so I guess we'll see if experience dispels that fantasy. I know there will probably be a fair share of whiny freshman who want all full-text articles for the paper they have due in four hours, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be far fewer senior citizens and mentally ill patrons than in the public library. Honestly, if I wanted to go into social work, I would have (and obviously, my hatred of the human race kind of excluded me for that).

At my reference job, we have a new crazy patron. I guess he's been coming for a few weeks now -- every fucking day. Apparently he lives across the street and doesn't have much other than TV and Bible study to keep him busy, so he visits at least once a day, sometimes more. His thing is TV and movie stars from the '50s and '60s -- are they alive or dead? This is actually not an uncommon question, and it's a relatively easy one to answer with either the Internet Movie Database or the Dead People Server. But most people ask about one or two individuals. And they know their names.

This guy delivers a mumbled stream-of-consciousness-esque monologue about whatever show he watched on Nick at Nite the evening before. Eventually I'll say, "Do you have a question?" and he'll mumble something about wondering what "he" is up to, and then I'll say, "what's the person's name?" and he says "CLAYTON MOORE!" (or whoever) at the top of his lungs, because of course I should have caught that. And then I'll say something bitchy about how I wasn't alive when that show was on the air, because I am a horrible person, and then I look up the person and nine times out of ten, tell him when they died. And then he is shocked, because he saw that person on Nick at Nite just the day before. And then I explain that it's a rerun.

This generally goes on for five minutes or more, and finally I answer the phone or tell him to have a nice day or whatever, and he kind of shuffles away. And then he immediately comes back, because he's remembered someone else he was just wondering about, and then the whole process repeats again. Usually he leaves and comes back once or twice more and then finally exits the building, at which point I look for something sharp with which to slit my wrists.

Obviously I am not the only person who deals with him, but it sure seems like when there are two or three of us to choose from, he gravitates to me. Or -- as occurred on Saturday, when I was literally walking away from the desk to go on my sacred fifteen-minute break and he approached me to ask what the Brady kids were up to, and the (60-ish) person I was working with looked at me helplessly and said she never watched that show -- I somehow manage to get stuck with him anyway. Funny thing -- I was able to find out what all of the Brady kids, as well as the parents and the maid, are up to, and not only did I not watch the show, but I wasn't born until four years after it went off the air!

Of course the patrons are not all like him. In between his visits, I also get to show senior citizens how to make double-sided copies and where to stick their floppy disks. Seriously -- how can you ask me that question and expect me to answer it politely?

And while I'm ranting, a few common patron interactions that will eventually drive me batshit crazy, if the above hasn't already done it:

1. When I ask if I may help you, for the love of God don't say, "I hope so" and then remain mute. It was a rhetorical question meant to elicit your information need, people!
2. When you do express your request, phrase it as a question. "Last Friday's Chicago Tribune"? Not a question. Setting a list of titles in front of me without so much as a word? Not only not a question, but grounds for homicide.
3. If you call the library to ask your question, do not ask to whom you're speaking as soon as I pick up the phone. Every time I answer "Reference, may I help you?" and someone responds, "Who is this?" I have to stop myself from saying, "Madame Defarge; who the fuck is this?" (Although I guess this is better than the people who refer to me as "Reference" throughout the conversation.)
4. When you ask if an item is in the library's collection, do not say, "Do we have this book?" Yes, the library is supported by your tax money (if you actually live in the library district; most patrons don't seem to). No, that does not make it yours. Do you go to the DMV and ask if "we" have any more copies of the Rules of the Road? I think not.

I'm going to beat myself senseless with a hardcover book now.

Sweet Home Chicago

Carson's on State Street is closing its doors (although the building will still remain).

And in sports, the White Sox had a Steve Bartman moment (link via Gapers Block).

Quote of the day

He even resisted the pitfalls of the newly crowned literary bigwig, the urge to fondle groupies and befriend Bono.

-- Giles Hatterley on Mark Haddon in the Times

Best analogy ever

A fine is not a fee for the right to break the law; it is a device for discouraging misconduct. (Similarly, a prison term is not a system of barter, whereby in exchange for doing a little yardwork around the warden’s house you get to shoot your husband.)

-- Randy Cohen, The Ethicist

Editor at large

I really think I need to offer my services as a roaming editor. Obviously there's a need -- even on the CTA, which obviously didn't bother with proofreading before they posted their new system maps in every train car (all 1,100 of them).

Two of the CTA rail system maps are posted in each car. The closer you look, the more errors you will find.The new maps list the Belmont station on the Blue Line as "Bemont."And on the Red Line, the Fullerton stop, a major transfer point on the CTA's busiest rail line, no longer is shown as a place for passengers to switch between the Red, Brown and Purple Lines.

They also transposed two digits in the CTA phone number, so instead of the transit authority, you get the voice mail of a kid named Nick. Lucky for him, his outgoing message says he never checks his voice mail.

Stranger and stranger

Apparently this week we're supposed to believe that our president spent his vacation reading Camus. Salon has his book report, written for his wife.

I really liked the last line, Laura. Meursault says, "I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me all with hate." Which reminds me a little of one of Rummy's press conferences. And also Iraq, where, though we are welcomed, it is not a peaceful welcome. There's opinions that don't agree with mine, and that's OK, right, Meursault?

(Link via Bookslut.)

Quote of the day

Oh you don't have a TV? Well I don't have a neurotic need to trumpet my imagined intellectual superiority.

--Mimi Smartypants

Shame-faced semi-self-promotion

This feels really "what I did at work today," but I think I had mentioned the reading maps we were putting together for the summer reading program and how I was disappointed that the files were in Publisher and therefore not really e-mailable. Anyway, they're online now. For what it's worth. Mine is the last one and not particularly noteworthy, but some of the other ones are really well done. They're technically trifold brochures, so not all of them translate well to the screen, but what can you do?

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In other news, my brother's wedding lurches from crisis to crisis, at least if you're keeping score along with my mother. Last week it was whether or not they'd be married in a Catholic or a Lutheran church. Now she's moved on to righteous indignation because I'm not in the bridal party. I don't really mind (one less bridesmaid dress to buy!), but apparently it's the principle of the thing.

* * * * * *

And on a completely unrelated note (or is it?), the latest random comment of my Human Records professor: "Even the Catholics were not so pessimistic." I haven't written poetry in years, but it makes me want to write a poem.

* * * * * *

Off to Ohio tomorrow for a Hindu wedding. I'm very excited; hopefully it will be more interesting than the usual Catholic/Protestant ceremony.

Potential T-shirt sayings?

My Human Records and Society class is not really discussion-oriented -- the professor pretty much talks for the whole three hours and we furiously write down everything he says. Or at least I do. I have no idea if most of it is important, but I've never been good at just sitting and listening. In addition to recording all of the stuff that seems useful, I use the margins of my notebook to write down the random crap he says. A sampling:

• No one has ever domesticated a zebra.
• The people who use cell phones are irredeemably literate.
• We don't see walls as mostly space.
• Who moved my caterpillar?
• Language is spooky.
• Societies without furniture probably don't have a word for "chair."
• His name is Patrick but we call him Guido. (I think that was about his grandson.)
• You don't come out of Spartan school an interior decorator.
• It's ridiculous to talk about a Mormon Hopi.
• Just because you know something doesn't mean you can do anything.
• If you roast a metal it will gain weight.
• If something happens to your yams, it's never an accident.
• Tycho Brahe (the astronomer) had a gold and silver strap-on nose.