Daily Thoughts 9/21/2010 (Coraline, Pattern Recognition)

Why books are always better than movies? Paranormal levitation made with the free software Gimp, 27, September 27, 2009, Massimo Barbieri, Gnu Free Documentation License 1.2http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Why_books_are_always_better_than_movies.jpg


 
Daily Thoughts 9/21/2010 

I read some more of Pattern Recognition this morning.  I also put Spook Country on hold which I will reread once I am done reading Pattern Recognition. Pattern Recognition reminds us that the world changes so fast now, that it is hard to recognize things in a short time period.  I read a bit more Pattern Recognition on the train home.  Somehow, William Gibson manages to fuse fashion, thriller, and near future technology into a unique mish mash in all three books.

I also read some more of Self Esteem by Matthew McKay, Ph.D.  I read the book, but did not finish completing the exercises spread throughout the book.  I have already done severald exercises on shoulds, wants, self assessment, and cognitive distortions.  They are quite interesting.  I still have to do some visualization, meditation, and self-hypnosis exercises.  The book has a lot of material in it.

I got invited to a book signing on October 17, 2010 by a local poet for the book "Blood Beats In Four Square Miles" An Anthology of Poetry. Hopefully, it should create an opportunity to work on doing a poetry reading series at the library.

We did a display for the book, Play Me a Song by Barbara Jo-Lucchine Kruczek.  She sent us photographs of big band musicians and some articles from the local paper, The Daily Argus on her father, Philip Lucchine, who was a composer for big band music.  All of it will go to the local history room when the display is over.

The business resources list is up on the library website now.  I am waiting for them to put up the new library website soon.

I also confirmed that I am going to the Ebooks meetup this Friday.  I think it will be an interesting and useful experience.

Tonight, I finished watching Coraline. I like most all of Neil Gaiman's writing.  This is a short piece on him talking about Coraline.



Web Bits
An animated Neil Gaiman is going to star in the children's show Arthur doing a book signing. http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2010/09/an-animated-neil-gaiman-to-guest-star-on-arthur/

Daily Thoughts 9/20/2010 (Pattern Recogntion, Coraline)

Luca della Robbia, Priscian, or the Grammar (1437-1439). Marble panel from the North side, lower basement of the bell tower of Florence, Italy. Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.

Daily Thoughts 9/20/2010

Today has been a quiet day.  I picked up a copy of Pattern Recognition by William Gibson to read so I can finish reading the trilogy of books.  It will fill in so I can understand Zero History a little better.  



We just had pins assigned to our library cards to increase security.  This happened yesterday which makes things a bit interesting today.  There were a few questions about how it worked.



We also finished creating the business resources list for the library.  We are printing it as a flyer and posting it as a webpage.  It was originally created in publisher.  We create a lot of our documents and flyers in publisher.  A gentleman came by today to look at our community room.  It can seat 49 people. We are having some business programs tomorrow.

On the train home, I read some of Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.  It helped me get a better grasp of the series featuring Hubertus Bigend.  Hubertus Bigend is not the main character in the book.  He kind is the theme behind the story.  All of the books, Spook Country (2003), Pattern Recognition (2007), and Zero History (2010) are very intricately detailed and can stand as separate works. In fact, there is an odd quality to them because unlike most series, they were published several years apart.  The complexity of the writing is very clear.  There is a lot of detail which can be very distracting but makes sense when you compare all of the three books together.  I am just beginning to get a sense of how this detail works.  On P.76 of Pattern Recognition, there is a quote from the writing which kind of explains how the books are very different when compared together, "Steganography is about concealing information by spreading it throughout other information. At present I know little else about it."

I also watched some more of Coraline.  I am almost finished watching the film.  I very much like the message of the animated film.  It is about being true to yourself even when giving up yourself is very enticing.  The animation is superb.  I especially liked the cat and the circus mice.  They are my favorite parts of the movie.

Daily Thoughts 9/19/2010 (Coraline, School District Library)

"The Writer", Hampstead Heath, August 2005, Creatives Commons Attribution Share A Like 2.0
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hampstead_Heath_The_writer.jpg

Daily Thoughts 9/19/2010

I finished reading The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee.  She also has written Warchild which is excellent.  Her website is http://www.karinlowachee.com/ 

I added April and May of 2008 to my list of book reviews. I actually erased one of the reviews and did some minor editing on the review on Tony Millionaire's Sock Monkey.  I can see a considerable difference between the writing I am doing now and the writing I was doing two years ago.  Writing this blog has improved my skills considerably.




Ossining Public Library is amending its charter to become a school district library.  This is very similar to the library I work at. They also have two open board of trustee positions like us. They are going to have their budget go up for a vote as well.  We will most likely have our budget go up for vote in 2011.  I think that there has been a push in New York State to put a lot of libraries budgets up for vote and change their charters to school district libraries.   http://yorktown.lohudblogs.com/2010/09/02/ossining-library-board-votes-to-amend-charter/


The changes which I have been experiencing at the place I am working have made things very uncertain.  In the near future the libraries budget will be put up for vote.  There also may be funding cuts.  In addition, there was a recent attempt at a reduction in force.  This creates a lot of uncertainty surrounding the January budget. The general environment in libraries across the nation right now is one of funding cuts and layoffs.

Even if our budget turns out well, we will be facing an interesting challenge in 2011.  In 2003, the New Rochelle Public Library Foundation spent $8000 dollars to campaign for the library budget.  New Rochelle is one third the size of my city.  It could possibly run quite a bit more than this considering inflation and the number of people that have to be reached. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/11/nyregion/education-stickering-over-that-old-date.html?scp=7&sq=school%20district%20library%20vote%20new%20rockelle&st=cse

I have to evaluate my own position and be prepared in case things don't work out well.  I have some time to systematically look at my options.

I took some time to watch part of Coraline the animated movie.  There is also a graphic novel and a book written by Neil Gaiman. The graphic novel is illustrated by P. Craig Russell one of my favorite comic book artists. I like the message underlying the film so far.  It reminds you that perfection has a high cost and being real is very important.  I think I'll finish watching it tomorrow.