I should be working, but…

I keep forgetting to post this when I’m at home, but here it is:

Harvard Square proclaims The Best Harry Potter Party Ever! I hesitated reserving my copy of the seventh book for when I knew where Harry and the Potters were playing, and which bookstore would be doing the Potter Party thing, etc. So, now I know, and I tell you.

Where will you be on 20 – 21 July? I’ll be in Hogwarts Square. (Yes, that’s what they’re calling it. It’s a bit much, eh?) The first 500 people to reserve their book through the Harvard Coop get a wicked awesome gift bag.

This is going to be fun.

The Shiny New Job

Thursday, 31 May, was my first day at the shiny new job. I’ve decided that my title is Archives Consultant. It sounds better than the whole “temporary-part-time” thing. It was just a made-up title, anyway, so I might as well make up a new, improved one, right? The MSPCA has funds set aside to pay for a consultant to help them develop a plan to organize and preserve their archival materials, and to survey the contents of the collection. This information will then be used to seek further funding in order to develop an archives program for the institution. I am the first step in that process. Ten years ago, someone started to organize things, but not much of it is accessible at the moment.

It’s my job to help the grant writer convince the funding agencies that the materials in the collection are important and need to be saved. They document not only the history of the MSPCA, but also Boston and the U.S., especially the social movements of the late 19^th and early 20^th Centuries. Preservation isn’t cheap, but it doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive, either. I will come up with a plan that includes short-term and long-term actions for preservation, starting with stabilizing the environment. I mentioned that the first step is to get some air conditioning up here (top most floor, next to the elevator machine room), not just for my comfort, but for the collection’s sake. When I came in yesterday morning, they were being installed, though I still have to turn them off when I’m not there.

Despite being distracted by the whole car situation, I managed to have a wonderful first day on Thursday. This is the first job I’ve ever had where I wasn’t ill and anxious on the first day. I actually have confidence, am able to speak intelligently about things I know about. I may be green in this profession, but it’s amazing to finally be able to demonstrate some sort of expertise. I don’t know everything that I’ll need to know to make every decision, but I know who to talk to help me find out what I need to know.

All of those internships and experiences are paying off. I know just enough to start putting things into practice, and to start crafting a career. It’s a great feeling. I’ll stop there, because I’m sure to start gushing and to get all Rah-Rah Cheerleader about archives. As my career continues, I’m sure I’ll stumble through difficult spots, but right now, things are pretty great: the end of my formal education is within sight, and I’m taking the first steps into my chosen profession.

Speaking of school, the first of my last three courses begins this Saturday. It’s a very short course: 5 meetings to occur over a span of 15 days.

History of the Book

Here’s the description of the course I’m taking this summer (from the catalog):

The course will cover a wide variety of topics concerned with the history and development of the book, both as a physical object and as the bearer of intellectual content. Therefore, the lectures / discussions will look at two different kinds of phenomena: the physical properties of the objects that carried written and pictorial texts and the intellectual use to which books have been put. A third area that the course will address picks up the miscellaneous but important issues of the world of libraries; the antiquarian and out-of-print book trade; remainders; handling, storing, caring for, repairing, and conserving books; legal considerations of book/text ownership and use; and other areas of book history. Students will be introduced to the extensive vocabulary of the book world. With a mastery of this new vocabulary, the students will have a grasp of a subject of extraordinary breadth, boundless fascination, and endless debate. As Milton said, \’A good book is the precious life blood of a master spirit.\’ This course will explain why.

Ahhhhhhh.

(That’s the sound of finally being able to read something fun that doesn’t have anything to do with school. At all.)

I have been compiling a list in my del.icio.us links (tagged: books) of things I need to get my hands on to read this year. I am attempting to do the whole 52 books in 52 weeks thing. I started in January, and am up to, um, book 13. Not too bad. Most of them were read during my recovery from The Whoop. (It’s amazing how horizontal one tends to be during recovery from a long illness. All I could do was read.)

Anyway, here’s a fun little thingie (is it wide-spread enough to be a meme? Where’s Daniel Dennet Richard Dawkins when you need him?) to get us all in the literary mood:

Six word stories.

Here’s my contribution:

Confessions of St. Augustine: Dear God, I’m sorry. I suck.

And here’s my 52 in 52 list so far:

1. Artemis Fowl – Eoin Colfer
2. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident – Eoin Colfer
3. Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code – Eoin Colfer
4. The Golden Compass – Phillip Pullman
5. The Subtle Knife – Phillip Pullman
6. The Amber Spyglass – Phillip Pullman
7. The Sandman Book of Dreams – Neil Gaiman, ed.
8. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul – Douglas Adams
9. Coraline – Neil Gaiman
10. The Neverending Story – Michael Ende
11. A Degree of Mastery – Annie Tremmel Wilcox
12. The Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo
13. The Whole Story and Other Stories – Ali Smith

As you can see, I lean heavily towards the Young Adult section when choosing material to read. As you may or may not also see, none but four of the books listed are new to me. The rest I’ve read many times. Hopefully, I’ll get so sick of listing books that I’ve already read that I’ll be compelled to seek out new books. I’m terrible at keeping up with new releases. I do read a fair amount of book blogs, however, so I do know about them, just in a disconnected sort of way. I haven’t chosen my next read. It’ll probably be something comforting and familiar, though.

Overheard in New York

Teen girl #1: So, what book are you looking for?
Teen girl #2: Well, whenever I get stoned I get paranoid that I’m getting dumber, so last time I got high I came here and read a giant stack of philosophy books, and I really liked one of them.

–Barnes & Noble, 82nd St

That sounds like something I would have done back in the day.

Better late than never?

Right. So, I’m about three weeks in to the new semester. We started on the 29th of January. Here’s the low down:

• Taking two classes: Oral History and Preservation Management
• I love both professors. If I can get (and keep) my act together this semester I’ll probably learn quite a lot from these two people.
• I’m dealing with mystery illness. Well, not really “illness” I guess, but I’m vaguely unwell. I’ve been feeling vaguely unwell since October. Then I caught the Whoop-like thing. I haven’t quite sprung back to my normal self. I haven’t felt normal since September. It’s weird. I might have a vitamin deficiency or something. I am trying to get a doc’s appointment for this week. I’ll try for Friday. Hopefully I won’t get Dr. Dick-for-a-heart (ew) this time.
• Working on a fun project inspired partly by my Oral History class and by NPR’s sounds thingy. You know, that little segment where you send in sounds of something? Well, I’m recording myself doing stuff. Just whatever’s going on at the time I happen to remember that I want to collect some recordings. It was supposed to be a daily thing, and I’d post it on the blog, but well, um, I have about four so far. Yeah, not doing so well with the daily thing. But hey! It’ll be neat once I get around to posting them, right?
• I’m secretary of SCoSAA (Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists), but that’s not very much work. We only meet four times this semester, but we have a few neat things going on. A visit to MIT Archives, resume workshops for Archivists, and I’m going to see about a couple of other tours that might be of interest to the group.
• Speaking of SAA, I need to renew my membership. Oh, and join NEA (New England Archivists). I keep forgetting about that.
• Haven’t been doing anything crafty. I haven’t really knit since Christmas. See? I told you I’m feeling vaguely unwell. By the time I get home, I don’t feel like doing anything fun, so my craftiness has fallen by the wayside. I’m able to go to Stich-n-Bitch this semester, so at least I have a reason to keep some sort of project on campus for those evenings. I’ve been reading on the train, instead of knitting.
• Speaking of reading, I’m trying to do 52 books this year. I tried to get ahead in January, and then I’ll pick up the pace again in the summer. I think I’m on book 11 so far. I think that’s a good pace. Most of them are silly YA books, so nothing too taxing.
• I got a new computer. It’s running Vista. I’m not sure I like it. The notebook is near the lower end when you consider hard drive capacity and processing speed, but I hope it will be good enough for school. I need to install a few programs to make it more fun (Photoshop, etc), but it’ll do for now. I think it would prefer I ran XP instead of Vista, but that’s what it came with, and I don’t know if I have disks for XP lying around. We’ll see.
• I want winter. Actual winter. You know, the kind with snow? That would be fun. We were supposed to actually get some last night, but it’s just a dusting, with some ice mixed in just to be a pain in the arse. I miss winter. It’s been cold, though, so at least there’s that.

The Accidental

I don’t remember if I said I finished Ali Smith’s The Accidental. Well, I did.

I bought the damned thing right when it came out. I even had it imported from the UK so I could read it as soon as possible. I read the first couple of chapters, and then life got in the way, and I barely read anything for months and months.

I finished it, though. Actually, I started over and then finished it.

I love Ali Smith. She could shit on some paper, have it neatly bound, and I’d eat it up. Not the shit. The book. You know what I mean.

Her writing style is somehow all over the place, and perfectly structured at the same time. Hotel World and the Whole Story and Other Stories have a much more subtle narrative. They read more like a collection of short stories, though they are linked, and provide an overall sense of connection. The Accidental appears straight away as one whole story, though the perspective changes throughout the novel. For all their flaws, each character is sympathetic. And this is going to sound really corny and lame, but here goes: They are so lovingly crafted that you can’t hate them, even when they’re doing horrible things. As cheesy as it sounds Smith’s books are full of love, even if it might be a bit hidden.

All of the characters are fleshy and real. Even Amber (who comes into the Smart family’s life to build them up and tear them apart) with her semi-metaphorical presence is real. Smith’s style is said to be experimental. I don’t really like that word in this case, because it seems like Smith is trying out different (non-standard) formulas to build stories. The stories don’t seem to have any formula. They’re structured, sure, but the characters are so well built, the lives unfold in their place and time, and the structure becomes invisible. I suppose the experimental qualities the critics are talking about is the way she gets the characters to speak and the way the story unfolds. The shifting perspectives, the distilled language. All of that, maybe, is experimental.

I just like to say that it’s good.

Mother Night

I’ve been trying to slowly work my way through my “to read” list. Last summer I read Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions and Sirens of Titan. I enjoyed both, and plan on reading all the Vonnegut that we have.I recently finished his Mother Night. I really enjoyed it. Sure, it’s a dark book, what with the Nazis and drunks and betrayal and all the rest, but that’s how it goes when humans are emotionally splayed before you. Fictional characters seem quite real, incorporating history, etc.

I really don’t have an intelligent thing to say about the book. I just wanted to make note of it before I forgot to record the fact that I actually read something. I’m certainly going to fall considerably short of my goal… what was it? Thirty books in 2006? Something like that. It’s already May, and I’ve read, what, three non-school books? Pretty pathetic.

I will say that Campbell was quite believable. I believe him when he says he didn’t mean all those nasty Nazi propaganda things he said– that he was doing it as a spy. I know he’s vindicated in the end, and his US contact comes forward, but even before then I was in his corner, even when he was at his most despicable.

Stop. Spooky Time.

For all you Dracula enthusiasts out there, I think you should check this out:

Dracula, 1897 in Live Journal

It’s going to be really cool. I’ve been reading 19th Century correspondence for the last 10 weeks, and this book is a compilation of letters, telegrams, etc. Each will be posted according to the date in the book, starting today. Fun!

positively presidential

I’m finally getting around to reading Sarah Vowell‘s Assassination Vacation. It rules. I’m three quarters of the way through, and I bought it a few days ago. (I needed something to read on the train that wasn’t school-related, so I could let my brain rest, but not actually fall asleep, because if I did, then when I got home I’d be too tired to do more school work. Make sense? Good.) She tells a fine story. I already knew I liked her, what with the bits of Partly Cloudy Patriot, and the various TAL bits, and who could forget her appearence on the TMBG documentary, Gigantic… etc.

It’s been fun to read because in her quest to follow the routes of John Wilkes Booth, she of course went to Maryland to visit Dr. Mudd’s house. Now, I lived for 10 years in Charles County, MD. Not many people understand what it’s like there. I mean, the only famous things we have are a 1) a tornado ate most of my town (La Plata) a few years ago and 2) that crappy neo-punk-pop band Good Charlotte graduated from High School two years after me. Other than that, what do we have? Dr. Mudd, of course! The man who was convicted (and later pardoned) of helping John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln.

Maryland is a peculiar place. Few people really appreciate the “southerness” of it. Technically, Maryland was for the Union, but they really didn’t want to be. Sarah Vowell is quick to point out that their theme song is all about being more like Virginia and woo hoo south and what not. And Charles County is adamant that you’re aware that it’s in Southern Maryland. It wasn’t really all that bad. Had I not spent my adolescence there, it might have been way more fun. She sure does hit on the vibe, though. I was reminded of the reasons I moved away. Oh, and one mustn’t forget the fact that most of the area is swamp land and that makes for one oppressive summer, I tell you.

It’s been great fun learning more about things I only vaguely remember from history classes. Her sense of humor makes her seem like someone I’d totally be friends with. She’s obsessed with this stuff, and makes looking at skull fragments and blood-stained shirts the most fun ever. I’d certainly never say that I’d been “Seward plaqued” for having read this book.

What’s especially cool is her explanation of why she’s so obsessed with assassinations. It comes from wanting to know everything about American history for the love of it. That sounds lame, but it’s really quite cool. I love stories, and know so very few about the people who have made this country what it is (for better or worse). I just kind of vaguely remember the ones I’ve heard repeated over and over again, but those seem so fake and touristy. I want to know the real people involved– all the gory details.

I mean, I’m an archives student for goodness sake. I should have a better grasp at the people involved in making American history. It’s the people that are the center of Sarah Vowell’s story: the presidents, yes, but also her sister, nephew, friends, etc. They’re all a part of it, too. And that kicks ass.