books

I went on this tour today: "Follow the fascinating journey each Yale Library book goes through from the point that it is selected and acquired by the library to the intricate cataloging process, to the point that it finally reaches the shelf. This truly behind-the-scenes tour will take you through areas of the library otherwise inaccessible to the public. Participants will have the chance to see the various processes each book goes through. The tour will begin in the Acquisitions Department where over 120,000 books, periodicals and microforms are received and processed annually. Meet the forty staff members who work with nearly 3,000 publishers, vendors, and booksellers to acquire materials published in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. Then progress into the Cataloging Department where each book is classified and given a description. Find out how call numbers are designated so that books from all over the world are given their proper places in Yale's collections. The tour also includes a rare tour of the library's Preservation Department where damaged and special collection items are conserved, receiving a new lease on life! The tour will include visits to the Reformatting, Commercial Binding, Collection Care and Conservation units, where you can see examples of items being selected for microfilming, preservation photocopying and deacidification. This absorbing, one-hour tour will open your eyes to a whole new world behind the scenes at the Yale Library."
My only reflections at this point are: 1.) they really treat the librarians like mole people at Yale. 2.) I am having serious doubts about my career choice and 3.) the most interesting jobs seemed to be preservation related, and thus not what I'm studying. All the preservationists were smoking. As in totally hot (well, two were older, but they were 80% hot). This is an entirely different study path, one that I am not on. 4.) Many academics are pompous. 5.) S. R.'s facility was mentioned with revernce in the following context: "that Hamden shelving facility...a tour of that would be illuminating!"

I also want to mention that I neglected to mention the extensive conversation about heel spurs, bunions, and foot troubles we had at "club" on Monday. The quotes because it was really a jazzy chat session. If you like, you may use these topics to spur your writing. I am such a dork for that pun in the last sentence. Oh, and check out this week's Advocate for info on tomorrow's evening's Phil Birthday Bash at Daniel Street. Ice luge, guys, you know you want to take shots from it.

Love, Beverly

smarts

who is smart
and who is silly? big brained northern europeans, apparently take the brain cake.

club is without minutes, as we were without the lustrous furgaslack attack, so we just meet in a low key fashion while I dozed beneath my sweatshirt hood. Stephen P. regaled us with tales of the glory days of the register, in the 80s, where the fauna frontier was embraced and the sun shone on the printing department. SLS regaled us with tales of what happens when companies do not update their computer systems because profits are tied to people, people! Robin regaled us with tales of her 4 months as a secretary, and I continued to doze.

headquarters moving up in the world

well... it looks like as of june/july, the nhwc headquarters (castle greyskull, as it were) will be moving up about 15 feet closer to the sky. yep, 2nd floor! senator digger and pompom could not be reached for comment at this early date.

get off our turf!

so i'm flipping through the new york times book review this morning, and i gasp in horror when i see our catchphrase usurped! i suppose, as stenographer, i'm probably expected to be in charge of other logistical, secretarial duties, such as securing the copyrights for our gems of wisdom. have i let you down, my comrades?

for lovers of gmail

You know SLS, Furgs & I are big fans of gmail...so get ready for the revolution...
writely

my triumphs, my failures

Club: One cool and possibly bad thing is that you can live vicariously through my submitting. After the wanker we discussed just days ago, my inbox flowered a delicious springly surprise (goodness, if that last bit were a poem I'd reject it "flowered a delicious springly surpise" what is that?):

Dear Beverly Writer,
I am delighted to accept your poem POSTAGE DUE UNIT, CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA for
publication in the spring/summer issue of *journal name here*. Please sign the
attached release form and return it to us along with the work on IBM/MSW-formatted disk and a brief bio.

Thank you for sending us your interesting work.
Best,
A.A.

I love that she called my work interesting which is much more supportive than, say, Imaginative Work--but light on craft. Now I just have to locate another copy of the poem, which doesn't seem to be anywhere.

Minutes I: Half a Bottle of Wine. Mutterings, Ecstacy ... Little That Hasn't Been Said Before and Said Better

“Everyone is entitled to their opinion.”
This is something that I often hear—something I’d like to believe. It rings of pluralism and democratization. But really, as I see it, it is little more than an excuse for simple thinking and easy answers—answers derived not from logical analysis or anything resembling our fondest abstractions, love and truth, but instead from weakness, insecurity, and misanthropy. Critical thinking is usurped by idle chatter.
As I see it, most peoples’ opinions are wrong. Hateful. Ignorant.
“Who the fuck are you to say such a thing?”
I’m an asshole, sure. My name is Steve Ross and I’m narcissistic, and wasteful, and wholly ignorant of most of the world around me. I say stupid things that I regret and I can be manipulative and I often dream of the easy life I will have once I’m discovered by some unknown entity as an unparalleled writer, rock star, artist, etc. These are the lies I tell myself knowing them as untrue. These are the lies we inherit from watching Sesame Street and believing our parents when they tell us that we can be anything that we want to be. They forget about sadness. Nepotism. Competition. Loss. Defeat.
But they don’t really forget. They just can’t tell.
But still, as much of an asshole I am, I’m not a bigot. I’m not a racist. I’m not a misogynist.
I’m not a businessman or a cop or a good ol’ boy.
I claim no allegiance to any dogma, whether political, religious, or otherwise.
I tear up seeing sunlight fall across the sidewalk onto murmuring pigeons basking. I feel fondness for old women swearing. There’s times when I think that our species is magnanimous, beautiful, and admirable. There’s times when I think that the insipid brutality is waning and that finally, some god damn person is realizing that they have to shut the fuck up and take a look at the insects, the dirt, and later, the buildings.
That someone somewhere feels a twinge of guilt seeing the fescues brown after they mow.
Jung spoke of a collective unconscious—a common soul shared by all humans.
I don’t agree.
But I see the commonality in our genetic heritage, our phylogenic niche in the helices of churning millennia. I see the hands and minds of apes writ wise and nimble.
I see this family and I love it and I love that I can believe that I love. I love that someone so nearly identical to myself first felt the idea of love at all and called it a name, created this profound and familiar symbol.
But another, “entitlement,” has encroached upon it. Now “entitlement” calls the shots.
“Entitlement” allows us to claim that people living in ghettos don’t really ever want to leave.
That belief in a magic and belief in evolution are both theories, and therefore neither is more accurate of a description of the natural world.
That economies need be based on profit.
That buildings need be square.
That life is somehow less amazing without a purpose.
That “purpose” is real.

I want to relieve myself of my persona just this once. I, like you, are a carrier of genes, and while our temporal positioning corresponds, let’s be wise apes for once, and bare our teeth at the ones who are wrong, despite what they believe they’re entitled to. Let’s bite them and lick their wounds. For they aren't so much as wrong, but rather, misguided.

So how is this accomplished, my dear NHWC? Where do I begin?

Rejection Party

Just when my ego was getting puffy...all digger style, I get some poems back from the COMSTOCK REVIEW (I am so annoyed at the rudeness that I just have to reveal the source). Hand scrawled (and I emphasize scrawled) on the corner of the generic rejection form is this note:

Imaginative Work--but light on craft. JB

Wow, I'm so fucking glad this guy took a moment of his time to praise & insult my poems in the same sentence. What a wanker.

minutes. monday, february 27, 2006.

first of all, SR made some kick ass delicious pesto.

8:46 - siri wheels and deals for etsy feedback

9:43 - "all my orifices were jammed." - SR's reaction to the film love liza

9:46 - "i love it when people point at me shriek and laugh" "point at lola, too. she's really well-dressed. she's puffified." SLS, after SR asked if it was warm in the house, then saw her with much winter gear on and burst out laughing and pointing
"I actually think of her as a paradigm to female cat beauty." SR on Ms. Lola Digger, that's Senator Digger to you, gentle reader.

10:18 - "steveross, your mind is that of a complex beast" - miss beverly

10:20 - "trust the lobsters" becomes our new motto

10:33 - "do yourself a favor and read stranger in a strange land" - guess who.

10:35 - "oh. that's right. because you're not a pothead. you get used to that." SR to SLS re: being dumb the next day

10:40 - the ceremonial lamp is conceived.