Category Archives: books

13.03.11 [Monday]
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books, campbell river, library, travel, vancouver

the ol’ walk’n'talk

The other day I went out walking. It’s spring now, so the sun comes out sometimes and then it’s pleasant to see what there is to see. And for the first time in a long time – maybe even ever when I’ve been out by myself without a more talkative companion – I chatted with a busker for something like ten minutes. I see him at the library all the time so it’s not like he was a complete stranger or anything. We talked about Stalingrad and the shittiness that was WW2′s Eastern Front, topics we knew through History Channel documentaries, wargames and Hollywood movies.

Last week I went to Gold River, and before we started work we stopped for coffee. In the coffeeshop there was another table of four who were talking about someone they all knew who’d hit some ice and then the ditch just last week. It’s weird having a conversation in a small place where you know whatever you say will be clear to everyone around you and that they aren’t anonymous strangers but know who you are, or can find out. This was the day after Hugo Chavez died but I couldn’t draw my coworker into a discussion of South American politics, possibly for that reason. More likely because we didn’t have much interesting to say about Chavez. Though I did try to talk a bit about Chavez’s love of baseball.

I’m looking forward to the BCLA conference this year. I’m going to be on a couple of panels talking about things I find cool (breaking digital locks and indie comics), and interesting people are going to be talking ’bout cool shit on others. I’ve been going to Vancouver more recently, and I think it’s important for me to keep doing it. Just talking with friends and colleagues puts me in a much different (better) mindset for being here. Reading a lot just isn’t the same.

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13.01.24 [Thursday]
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books, campbell river, comics, library, teaching, travel, vancouver

hanging up a coat in an empty town on literacy day

The other day I wore my Tibetan coat inside the library and was told I looked very urban. Which was funny because I was only wearing the coat inside because I was waiting to go up to Sayward with my boss to see the branch there, which is very rural.

Sayward is about an hour north of Campbell River, and it is a tiny place. It was a foggy drive so I wasn’t able to see as much of the countryside as I would have liked, but there were mountains that appeared when the fog had gaps. And mossy forests that I saw one deer/elk trying to escape the highway into.

But the town itself doesn’t even have a grocery store. If people want more than general store milk and eggs they’ve got to drive an hour down to Campbell River. That seems crazy to me. It seemed crazy to a non-librarian friend of mine that the library branch was in a strip mall, but I had no strong feeling about that.

I’ve had a bit of a tense week because today was Family Literacy Day and it was the first event I’d done to sort of integrate with other community development projects in town. That one of the literacy coordinators was there to help made me that much more aware that I didn’t really take classes in early literacy type things at school. I feel fine doing storytimes and stuff, but really focusing on what kinds of words they’re learning gets a bit wonky for me. My sleep this week was interrupted with lots of inadequacy thoughts I remember from teaching in China. I definitely see myself as a librarian not an “educator” or “literacy expert” though I guess if I keep doing this kind of thing I’ll learn.

But it all worked out. We read some stories, I talked about community and we made “comics.” Nobody decried my event as being terrible and built a rail line to run me out of town on. Now I can relax secure in what I’m doing until my gaming for kids events start up.

On Saturday I’m heading into Vancouver, where one of my awesome librarian colleagues is visiting from Calgary. It means I miss our library’s post-holiday potluck party here, but it’s been almost 3 months since I was in the Lower Mainland. ‘Tis time.

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13.01.01 [Tuesday]
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books, campbell river, writing

goals and new years (and no portzelky)

Recently I was talking to Holly (and I say talking in the sense of typing) and our conversation glanced off the topic of setting goals. That’s one of those things I’ve always found helpful about being in school. Built-in goal: graduate. In 2012 I had two big goals; graduate and get a job. I succeeded in both of those. Hooray. My basic economic needs are met. I have food and shelter and internet connections (and a fucking motorcar).

As far as goals that made me happy and fulfilled and whatever, they were pretty much inadequate. One of my friends mentioned on Facebook last week that 2012 was a successful year for him, but now the goal is to make 2013 a happier one. That sounds like a good plan to me too.

I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out what I need to do now. Because going to work 5 days a week and then coming home and reading isn’t really cutting it. If I were in a place where I had friends then I’d be able to get by like that, because coming home and reading would be a prelude to playing games with people or going to parties or talking not in the sense of typing.
vagabondscrawl pt 1 - BTS
However, I’m not in a place with my friends. So it looks like this is going to be a year of trying to spend more time producing than consuming. I’m going to write more (if not blog more – sorry mom) and read less. I really liked making that stupid little Xwing video on Christmas morning. I’m going to make more stuff like that.

I’d been complaining about the amount of work it would be to do my Lego comic thing as stop-motion (even at a cut-rate 2-3fps), but fuck it. Goodreads says I read 333 books in 2012. I think I can afford to cut back a bit. Making shit may take time, but these days there’s no human with a demand on it. Someday I’ll be somewhere with friends and social things to do, but not right now. I’m okay with disappointing the never-ending stack of unread books by making something, and preferably something only I can make.

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12.04.20 [Friday]
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books, photography, vancouver

the sky was blue and the birds sang pretty

Last night Jamie’s four-day Trivia Blitz ended with our team (team name: Neal and the Unemployed Librarians) answering the most questions correctly and thus receiving a pitcher of beer. We missed out on the $50 gift certificate because of the way that prize is randomly allocated. Selah. The real challenge of the evening was paying the bill. After everyone had paid, many with cards, some with cash, the manager came back and said we were $10 short. Careful examination of his copy of the bill and the receipts the people with cards had gotten showed consistent discrepancies. There was a slight argument over what those discrepancies meant, but Alex did a fine job of resolving it in the end, making him the Applied Knowledge champion.

Today was 420 day and there was a huge event on the steps of the art gallery. So much selling of weed and weed-food. With banners advertising prices and varieties and such. It was odd seeing it all so concentratedly open. There were biker-types and hippies and a bunch of high-school students wearing Portland NBA hats. After I realized stuff was happening, walking around downtown was fun. It was easy to spot people who were obviously going to the square, but it was more fun to watch people avoiding the 420ers.

Digital Orca

I’d gotten some books from the library so I went down to the harbour to read comics in the sun. I hadn’t been to the square where the Olympic cauldron before, and though I’d seen the Digital Orca from a distance today was the first time I got up close. It was made by Douglas Coupland. Maybe if I’d paid better attention to the Olympics I’d have known that already, but there’s a handy plaque I read it from.

Tomorrow I’ll head up to the North Shore Writers Festival to blog it up. We had a meeting yesterday and it is not as intense as it might have been. It’ll be a longish day, but fun. There will be wine and cheese I was told to eat a lot of. I plan to comply.

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12.04.02 [Monday]
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books, comics, games, travel Aside

I’m back from Seattle and Emerald City Comicon (ECCC). It was my first big mainstream comics convention and it was pretty fun. I saw Wil Wheaton do readings, indie gamers do their thing, met a bunch of webcomic people I’ve followed for years, bought some books, watched an amazing reading of the Star Wars radio play by a pile of voice actors, saw Marian Call sing and a pretty great night of improv. Good times.

clicked my ruby heels and here i am

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12.03.24 [Saturday]
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books, library, school, vancouver

disposition in the sun

One of the quirks of the building I live in is how the lock on the front door is like a magic-eye poster. For the key to turn and grant you access to the wondrous 3D interior you have to insert it and then enter a zen trance enabling you to pull the key out just the very tiniest amount and apply the precise amount of delicate pressure. It’s a good way of measuring my state of mind when I return home on foot (when I bike I use a different door to the building which is much less finicky). How easy has it been to slough off the day’s events and enter that way of thinking?

It was sunny today, not warm exactly, but it felt spring-like. So I went out to the water to read and look at the mountains. I’ve written a draft of my last paper for the term and it’s turned from something I was ready to abandon into a piece of writing that actually has some interesting combinations of ideas (about irreverence towards books and how China Mieville should influence a youth services librarian). It must have been a very excellent day because for the first time ever I opened the front door on the first try.

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12.03.04 [Sunday]
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books, library, photography, school

plastic people buckling their swashes

I have had a busy weekend making stuff, which is a pretty good way to spend my time, even if it is technically for homework.

I’m doing a video booktalk/trailer for an excellent YA pirate novel (A.S. King’s The Dust of 100 Dogs), and I own a bunch of pirate Lego, so using that Lego to illustrate the trailer seemed like a great idea. A few weeks ago I supplemented my Lego collection with extra hairpieces and some less masculine torsos and I was good to go.

Now, everybody in class has to make a video, but you can also just do a video booktalk. Getting out the Lego and building sets and taking umpty million macro shots isn’t a course requirement. But I’ve realized this term that what I’m really excited about in librarianship is doing cool stuff with young people. Playing with Lego and making something cool to show people is something I’d actually like to do professionally (and doing media-creation YA programs is something libraries can get into). This was completely the kind of project I can get lost in. If only all homework was like this (I’m sorry to my friends in cataloguing this term).

As of now I’ve got 30 pictures for my 90 second trailer and I’ve figured out exactly what gaps need filling. I need to do at least one more action sequence, a leaving home sequence that’ll recall the one already shot in the other timeline and a handful more Lego dogs (so I can turn them into 100).

I also appear to have left my phone in my jacket pocket with the ringer off since Friday night and never even thought about looking for it, so engrossed was I in Lego. Apologies to the person who tried to call me.

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12.02.11 [Saturday]
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books, comics, sports, tv

sometimes i watch sports

I love baseball. True fact. But this past week I read The Complete Essex County and it was about small-town Ontario life and hockey played a big part in it. Today was Hockey Day in Canada so while I worked my afternoon away I took the opportunity to stream NHL games and feel a bit more stereotypically Canadian.

There is something about the way a hockey game is called that is calming just because of its familiarity. While baseball commentators on TV or radio can annoy the hell out of me (Buck, McCarver, Morgan) because of the inanity of what they say, I barely hear the words coming from the hockey game. I know friends of mine have strong opinions of who is damned good at their job in the booth hanging over the ice, who should never be allowed near a mic and who should have retired fifteen years ago, but to me hockey all sounds the same. It’s just this chanting cascade of names in succession (Tanguay to Jokinen to Iginla to Jokinen shoots Luongo saves), and it’s soothing as all hell.

Sean, who preferes football, and I have talked about the American ability and proclivity to mythologize the fuck out of things (he’s better at explaining it than I am). Listening to these games today I was thinking about how the announcers’ hockey chant is less a mythologizing than a ritualizing. In the game itself there’s no room for much more than the names, while baseball announcers have epochs to tell stories between pitches. Baseball’s got sagas while hockey’s doing rosaries.

Kind of bullshit, I guess, but something I might keep in mind. For future refinement.

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12.01.16 [Monday]
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books, library, school, vancouver

the difference a phone call makes

My weekend was spent working on an annotated bibliography, a topic briefing, and reading. There was reading involved in the first two parts as well, but well, yeah. Yesterday I took a break from my indoorsyness and went for a walk down to the water to watch the seaplanes land and take off again. I enjoy how Canadian that feels, with the mountains and the water and the trees, right here in the city.

My weekend was also kind of crappy with my lack of being called about the most recent student librarian gig I’d applied for. On the posting it said the interviews were going to be today, so when I didn’t hear anything by 5pm on Friday I figured that was yet another job missed somehow. I dwelt on what I could possibly have done to make my application better, brooded on the possibilities of ever finding a job when I graduate without recent library experience, and generally buried my head in books.

And then this morning I got a call saying I’ve got an interview tomorrow. So that’s all right then. I still might not get the job, but I’ve got a chance. A little bit of income, and the experience in a university library setting, would be so very excellent.

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12.01.10 [Tuesday]
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books, library, school, vancouver, whining

the studenty life

Today I gathered texts for assignments all day. Woo. Our management class has its first assignment due in a couple of weeks, and that requires a whole hell of a lot of books on management and economics and libraries to be annotated for a bibliography. Don’t you wish you were in library school?

Doing this kind of thing is much easier than I imagine it used to be when you couldn’t lie in bed with your laptop all day, reserving books from all over the area to be delivered to places conducive to being picked up, or just getting the documents loaded onto your computer. I did go out to the VPL to grab a stack of books. Just for the thrill of going to the library and hurting my shoulder by overloading my bag.

And I did laundry and bought groceries. Wee. Exciting. Aren’t you glad I’m writing about this?

So many of my classmates seem so much more busy than me. All with their multiple jobs and things. I’ve just got my classes and the assignments, which I might as well do now since maybe I’ll be getting a job at some point to cut into my schoolwork time. This term I don’t have any pressing reason to get my school stuff done early, but I’ve kind of gotten the habit started so it seems better to be working on that stuff than not. It’s basically procrastination from writing or thinking about the future to be working on homework.

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