The Banality of Evil

“Library information, may I help you?”

“Girl, NO WAY! What a ho!”

“Information, how may I help you?”

“Wait a minute. I’m on a bus. Can you hear me?”

“Just barely.”

“Just wait a minute and the people next to me should quiet down”

More screaming and laughing.

“Perhaps this isn’t a good time. Why don’t you call me back when you’re somewhere I can hear you.”

“NOOO! I need to know if you have the following books and it’s really important!”

“What are they?”

“Introduction to Economics: Principles, Problems and Philosophies, Understanding Psychology, Que Tal, a Basic Introduction to Spanish…

“These are textbooks, aren’t they?”

“Yes.

“I’m going to be honest with you. We usually don’t carry them, especially the most current edition that your teacher will require, but I’ll be happy to go ahead and check the catalog.”

Not surprisingly, we didn’t have any on his long list.

“Couldn’t I get them through interlibrary loan?” he asked in a pouty, put out tone.

“You could try, but know that interlibrary loan books can take 4-6 weeks. Books also have to be over a year old to be eligible for interlibrary loan."

“But all these text books are really expensive and I don’t have any money. What am I supposed to do? Why don’t you check all of the surrounding library systems?”

“I’ve already been on the phone with you for five minutes and I need to take other calls. Those catalogs are on-line and you can check that way or call them yourself. Usually they don’t carry current edition of textbooks either.”

“But they’re too much money!”

“Believe me, I sympathize. Textbooks are a racket. Try getting them used off of Amazon or –"A deafening howl of pain interrupted me.

“OOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!! Why did you close the back door on me?”

Muffled sound, I assume from the bus driver, loud laughter from the other passengers.

“What do you mean, I should have gotten out of bed earlier? That really hurt! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.”

As much as I was enjoying hearing the exchange betwhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifeen the bus driver and my phone patron, I had to end the phone call because I was laughing so hard. I'm helpless against slapstick and pain inflicting pratfalls. The idiot thought he was going to be so clever and get a jump on his classmates by reserving all of his textbooks before his classmates that he was not paying attention to what he was doing and got the back doors on the bus slammed on him. The doors are fairly light so I suspect only his dignity was wounded.

I felt remorse for laughing but hearing a college aged man whine and pule about the cost of his textbooks really stirred the civil service sadist in me. I enjoyed, God help me, bearing the bad news that we simply don’t have what he needs. I’m always careful to watch myself for this sort of behavior, that petty, banal type of evil that seems to flower and flourish under civil service, the kind perfected by fonctionnaires. Many libraries are plagued with battle weary, burnt out monsters, the type who take such delight in crushing the joie de vivre out of little children, the ones whose little mean smile reveal the utter delight they feel when they tell a patron, “No, I cannot extend the time on your book.” Or, “The computer timed out and there is simply no way to retrieve your work. It’s lost FOREVER.”

I don’t know what it is about civil service that seems to produce so many on the job tipplers, hoarders and burnt outs, but please don’t let me become one of them. It must be not having the imminent threat of having your ass shown to the door like in non unionized jobs in the private sector. Maybe the fear of being fired is a good thing. Keeps you nice.

The Shinning

One of the regular patrons here has a fixation on military history. He also has some sort of mental condition which I have diagnosed as “barking mad.” An older gentleman with duct taped coke bottle glasses and greasy gray hair, he’ll materialize at the desk and hold forth, orating at a volume level like he is addressing the crowds at one of the imperial forums. His favorite topic is the military exploits of Admiral William Halsey and other famous military figures.

(Fun quote from Halsey, spoken to reassure the American people as he surveyed the ruins of Pearl Harbor: “Before we are through with 'em, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell!”)

Except for startling the Bejesus out of everyone this patron is relatively harmless, and all it takes is one glare from one of the security guards for him to quiet down and slink off. One time I was at the desk musing about one of the many, many funerals I have been to this past death ridden year. This particular funeral was at a beautiful historic cemetery reserved for the descendents of one of the founding families of a small town in East Texas. After the service I explored the headstones with some cousins. One of my cousins, who grew up in the town, commented, “We used to party in here when I was in high school.”

Right after the memory passed through my head, the patron, who was standing about twenty feet away from in the atrium trying to engage some member of the public in a story about Halsey, turned to me and shouted, "I want to party. Party in a graveyard!" He then came up to the desk and asked me for a Yiddish dictionary.

I wonder if that was some sort of coincidence or if I had shared some eerie psychic connection with the patron. Perhaps the insane can pick up on the mental static of those around him. In any case, psychi ability does run in my family. Family lore has it that my great-great Aunt Elizabeth had the gift. She told my grandmother that when she was a little girl she thought everyone had it, but when people reacted strangely to her she actively ignored it until it almost went away. She would still get occasional flashes, but I guess it’s one of those things that if you don’t use it, you lose it. She must have retained some sort of numinous presence because my grandmother remembered people stopping her on the street and asking her if she had the gift. When this happened one time on a train she said to the woman, “Why do you ask?” The woman said, “I can tell from your aura.”

My grandmother said that the only time she felt a spark of precognition was when she visited a relative’s house. She saw some furniture and said to herself, “That furniture is going to be recovered in light green leather.” Sure enough, the next time she paid a call there was the furniture, exactly how she had envisioned it in her mind’s eye. My grandmother, a highly pragmatic woman, was highly disappointed that she never had a premonition of anything useful, like the direction of the market, so she never tried to develop the ability.

The Shinning.

The Shinning

One of the regular patrons here has a fixation on military history. He also has some sort of mental condition which I have diagnosed as “barking mad.” An older gentleman with duct taped coke bottle glasses and greasy gray hair, he’ll materialize at the desk and hold forth, orating at a volume level like he is addressing the crowds at one of the imperial forums. His favorite topic is the military exploits of Admiral William Halsey and other famous military figures.

(Fun quote from Halsey, spoken to reassure the American people as he surveyed the ruins of Pearl Harbor: “Before we are through with 'em, the Japanese language will only be spoken in hell!”)

Except for startling the Bejesus out of everyone this patron is relatively harmless, and all it takes is one glare from one of the security guards for him to quiet down and slink off. One time I was at the desk musing about one of the many, many funerals I have been to this past death ridden year. This particular funeral was at a beautiful historic cemetery reserved for the descendents of one of the founding families of a small town in East Texas. After the service I explored the headstones with some cousins. One of my cousins, who grew up in the town, commented, “We used to party in here when I was in high school.”

Right after the memory passed through my head, the patron, who was standing about twenty feet away from in the atrium trying to engage some member of the public in a story about Halsey, turned to me and shouted, "I want to party. Party in a graveyard!" He then came up to the desk and asked me for a Yiddish dictionary.

I wonder if that was some sort of coincidence or if I had shared some eerie psychic connection with the patron. Perhaps the insane can pick up on the mental static of those around him. In any case, psychi ability does run in my family. Family lore has it that my great-great Aunt Elizabeth had the gift. She told my grandmother that when she was a little girl she thought everyone had it, but when people reacted strangely to her she actively ignored it until it almost went away. She would still get occasional flashes, but I guess it’s one of those things that if you don’t use it, you lose it. She must have retained some sort of numinous presence because my grandmother remembered people stopping her on the street and asking her if she had the gift. When this happened one time on a train she said to the woman, “Why do you ask?” The woman said, “I can tell from your aura.”

My grandmother said that the only time she felt a spark of precognition was when she visited a relative’s house. She saw some furniture and said to herself, “That furniture is going to be recovered in light green leather.” Sure enough, the next time she paid a call there was the furniture, exactly how she had envisioned it in her mind’s eye. My grandmother, a highly pragmatic woman, was highly disappointed that she never had a premonition of anything useful, like the direction of the market, so she never tried to develop the ability.

The Shinning.

Namaste, Motherfucka!

After a crapulent last few months I'm on a regimen of Krav Maga and Bikram yoga. The different philosophies of these two forms are making me feel like I have a split personality, though, because when I'm at Krav Maga punching or kicking the bag or extricating myself from a stranglehold it's all, "Die, motherfucker, die!!!" and when I'm at yoga it's all about serenity, peace, acceptance and attaining one with the Divine.

If anything, I hope that my yoga practice will mitigate some of the effects of Krav Maga and that I'll reach the beautiful equilibrium of the peaceful warrior. I've noticed that my daydreams have become a lot more violent since I started back on Krav Maga and I'm not sure if it's such a good thing to have physical violence in my repertoire of responses. Not that I would ever go around spoiling for a fight - Krav Maga, or at least what I'm learning at my level, is all about defense - smashing a groin or gouging an eye and then beating a hasty (cowardly) retreat.

And at least I'll have a fighting chance when the zombies come. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is the most exhilarating thing I've read in years. Combining two special interests of mine, zombies and Studs Turkel style oral histories, it contains riveting accounts of how ordinary people from all over the world- a soccer mom, a Japanese computer hacker, a Lesotho township shanty town dweller, an Air Force pilot forced to parachute in the Atchafalaya swamp teeming with the hungry, living dead - all survived a zombie war in the near future. Highly recommended.

Namaste, Motherfucka!

After a crapulent last few months I'm on a regimen of Krav Maga and Bikram yoga. The different philosophies of these two forms are making me feel like I have a split personality, though, because when I'm at Krav Maga punching or kicking the bag or extricating myself from a stranglehold it's all, "Die, motherfucker, die!!!" and when I'm at yoga it's all about serenity, peace, acceptance and attaining one with the Divine.

If anything, I hope that my yoga practice will mitigate some of the effects of Krav Maga and that I'll reach the beautiful equilibrium of the peaceful warrior. I've noticed that my daydreams have become a lot more violent since I started back on Krav Maga and I'm not sure if it's such a good thing to have physical violence in my repertoire of responses. Not that I would ever go around spoiling for a fight - Krav Maga, or at least what I'm learning at my level, is all about defense - smashing a groin or gouging an eye and then beating a hasty (cowardly) retreat.

And at least I'll have a fighting chance when the zombies come. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War is the most exhilarating thing I've read in years. Combining two special interests of mine, zombies and Studs Turkel style oral histories, it contains riveting accounts of how ordinary people from all over the world- a soccer mom, a Japanese computer hacker, a Lesotho township shanty town dweller, an Air Force pilot forced to parachute in the Atchafalaya swamp teeming with the hungry, living dead - all survived a zombie war in the near future. Highly recommended.

Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment*

*Just a moment, executioner, just a small moment...

Recently I watched Marie Antoinette, Sophia Coppola’s entertaining confectionery of a movie, and have since been reading up on the fates of all of the principles. I knew it ended badly for most of them, but because Ms Coppola stops the movie before the trials, guillotines and raving mobs I wanted to brush up on the details. Wikipedia has excellent entries on all of the characters, full of the fascinating, gossipy tittle tattle that makes reading about their lives so interesting. (In the entry for Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa of Austria, it reports how she got to marry for love, an unusual occurence for someone of her time and station. It was a fruitful and joyful union, so passionate that the newlyweds reportedly broke a bed on their honeymoon and eventually produced 16 children.)

Although I believe she got a bad rap, Marie Antoinette certainly was spoiled, frivolous and dangerously oblivious.

Fulfilling Marie Antoinette's determination to avoid boredom, conversation in her circle shied away from the mundane or intellectual. According to Madame Campan, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, "The newest songs from the Comédie, the most timely joke or pun or quip, the bon mot of the day, the latest and choicest tidbit of scandal or gossip – these comprised the sole topics of conversation in the intimate group about the queen; discussion on a serious plane was banished from her court.

She was a loving mother, however, and her maternal devotion softened my feelings toward her. While one son succumbed to spinal tuberculosis, an agonizing death that took months, she never left his side. When another daughter died in infancy she keened and mourned over the body for hours until the body finally had to be taken from her.

But getting to the good part, here is how she faced her own death:

As she was being led to the scaffold, the priest who had accompanied her whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." Marie Antoinette turned to look at him and smiled, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me." Legend states that her last words were, "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose," spoken after she had accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot.


Madame Du Barry, the low born courtesan and favorite of Marie’ Antoinette’s father in law, King Louis XV, was not so stoic. She initially had escaped to London, but foolishly and against all advice kept returning to Paris to recover jewels she had cached away. Eventually, she was betrayed, seized and charged with conspiracy.
From the Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun, the famous and exquisitely talented royal portraitist.

Madame Du Barry ... is the only woman, among all the women who perished in the dreadful days, who could not stand the sight of the scaffold. She screamed, she begged mercy of the horrible crowd that stood around the scaffold, she aroused them to such a point that the executioner grew anxious and hastened to complete his task.

Reportedly her final words, spoken to the executioner, were "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment" (Just a moment, executioner, a small moment.) I find this unbearably poignant, because isn’t that what we all want?

Vigee Lebrun continues:
“This convinced me that if the victims of these terrible times had not been so proud, had not met death with such courage, the Terror would have ended much earlier. Men of limited intelligence lack the imagination to be touched by inner suffering, and the populace is more easily stirred by pity than by admiration."

I wonder if this is true, if the not the French nobility had not faced death with such dignity and stoicism, had they not been so determined not to give the rabble the satisfaction, if this would have ended the Terror sooner.

The most chilling and stoic example of a royal facing execution was Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry the VII, the second ‘beheaded’ in the mnemonic of Henry's wives: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced Beheaded, Survived.

From Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways to Put Someone to Death

The night preceding her execution the queen, determined not to exhibit any feminine weakness on the scaffold, 'asked that the block might be brought to her room and, this having been done and the executioner fetched, to the amazement of her attendants she knelt and laid her head in the horrible hollow, declaring as she rose to her feet that she could now go through the ordeal with grace and propriety'.

Which she did.

Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment*

*Just a moment, executioner, just a small moment...

Recently I watched Marie Antoinette, Sophia Coppola’s entertaining confectionery of a movie, and have since been reading up on the fates of all of the principles. I knew it ended badly for most of them, but because Ms Coppola stops the movie before the trials, guillotines and raving mobs I wanted to brush up on the details. Wikipedia has excellent entries on all of the characters, full of the fascinating, gossipy tittle tattle that makes reading about their lives so interesting. (In the entry for Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Theresa of Austria, it reports how she got to marry for love, an unusual occurence for someone of her time and station. It was a fruitful and joyful union, so passionate that the newlyweds reportedly broke a bed on their honeymoon and eventually produced 16 children.)

Although I believe she got a bad rap, Marie Antoinette certainly was spoiled, frivolous and dangerously oblivious.

Fulfilling Marie Antoinette's determination to avoid boredom, conversation in her circle shied away from the mundane or intellectual. According to Madame Campan, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting, "The newest songs from the Comédie, the most timely joke or pun or quip, the bon mot of the day, the latest and choicest tidbit of scandal or gossip – these comprised the sole topics of conversation in the intimate group about the queen; discussion on a serious plane was banished from her court.

She was a loving mother, however, and her maternal devotion softened my feelings toward her. While one son succumbed to spinal tuberculosis, an agonizing death that took months, she never left his side. When another daughter died in infancy she keened and mourned over the body for hours until the body finally had to be taken from her.

But getting to the good part, here is how she faced her own death:

As she was being led to the scaffold, the priest who had accompanied her whispered, "This is the moment, Madame, to arm yourself with courage." Marie Antoinette turned to look at him and smiled, "Courage? The moment when my troubles are going to end is not the moment when my courage is going to fail me." Legend states that her last words were, "Monsieur, I ask your pardon. I did not do it on purpose," spoken after she had accidentally stepped on the executioner's foot.


Madame Du Barry, the low born courtesan and favorite of Marie’ Antoinette’s father in law, King Louis XV, was not so stoic. She initially had escaped to London, but foolishly and against all advice kept returning to Paris to recover jewels she had cached away. Eventually, she was betrayed, seized and charged with conspiracy.
From the Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun, the famous and exquisitely talented royal portraitist.

Madame Du Barry ... is the only woman, among all the women who perished in the dreadful days, who could not stand the sight of the scaffold. She screamed, she begged mercy of the horrible crowd that stood around the scaffold, she aroused them to such a point that the executioner grew anxious and hastened to complete his task.

Reportedly her final words, spoken to the executioner, were "Encore un moment, monsieur le bourreau, un petit moment" (Just a moment, executioner, a small moment.) I find this unbearably poignant, because isn’t that what we all want?

Vigee Lebrun continues:
“This convinced me that if the victims of these terrible times had not been so proud, had not met death with such courage, the Terror would have ended much earlier. Men of limited intelligence lack the imagination to be touched by inner suffering, and the populace is more easily stirred by pity than by admiration."

I wonder if this is true, if the not the French nobility had not faced death with such dignity and stoicism, had they not been so determined not to give the rabble the satisfaction, if this would have ended the Terror sooner.

The most chilling and stoic example of a royal facing execution was Catherine Howard, 5th wife of Henry the VII, the second ‘beheaded’ in the mnemonic of Henry's wives: Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced Beheaded, Survived.

From Execution: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways to Put Someone to Death

The night preceding her execution the queen, determined not to exhibit any feminine weakness on the scaffold, 'asked that the block might be brought to her room and, this having been done and the executioner fetched, to the amazement of her attendants she knelt and laid her head in the horrible hollow, declaring as she rose to her feet that she could now go through the ordeal with grace and propriety'.

Which she did.

Damn Matthew Lesko to Hell for all Eternity

I hate Matthew Lesko, that flim flam artist who is the bane of librarian and government worker's existences. Due to his criminally misleading television commercials, especially the one shilling his book "Free money fto Pay your Bills,” I have confused, desperate patrons waving their overdue credit card/final notice utility bills in my face in the misguided belief that Lesko’s book will provide them with a magical phone number to make all of their money problems go away.

Lesko generally advertises on the cheap local late night slots, the ones targeting the drunk and desperate late night television viewer, the adult version of the suckers who send off for sea monkeys, x-ray goggles and hovercrafts. Bursting with crazy good cheer, he practically jumps out of the television at you, screaming about ‘free money’ like some deranged, frantic gremlin or retarded, methed up Batman super-villain. “Government studies show that 50 million consumers are not taking advantage of even the basic programs,” he shrieks, “Don’t you be one of them!”

Lesko’s scam is that his books, which sell for $39.95 and up, are nothing but repackaged GPO pamphlets. And suckers, hearing what they want to believe, shell money out that they can ill afford in the hopes of an immediate windfall. Hey – I’m all for people getting the assistance they need. Why should Halliburton get it all? His ads are disingenuous and misleading, however, and I have to deal with disgruntled patrons looking to lash out at someone when they take a look at the dogeared reference copy and it dawns on them that it's not just as simple as making a phone call to get their bills taken care of.

What I do appreciate about Lesko’s books, however, is that they expose the welfare state that the United States has become. The New York Times had a recent revelatory article on the explosion in the SSI disability rolls. We in the U.S. sniff at Europe for being a welfare state but the US is just as bad – we just refuse to admit it. I could tell you first hand about the SSI disability recipients who hang out at the library all the live long day, getting paid by the government to sit on their ass and not bother anyone.

U.S. citizens on welfare sometimes don’t even realize that they are. In the wonderful Cadillac Desert: the American West and Its Disappearing Water by the late, great Marc Reisner, he chronicles how the Western farmers, with their massive water and farm subsidies, became the embodiment of the welfare state. He marvels at the hypocrisy of their conservative, anti-welfare, all-about-personal-responsibility, self righteous politics when they are, in fact, some of the biggest 'welfare queens' of them all.

"They regularly sent to congress politicians eager to demolish the social
edifice built by the New Deal - to abolish welfare, school lunch programs, aid
to the handicapped, funding for the arts, even to sell off some of the national
parks and public lands. But their constituents had become the ultimate example of what they decried, so coddled by the government that they lived in the cocoonlike world of a child. They remained oblivious to what their CAP water would cost them but were certain that it would be offered to them at a price they could afford. The farmers had become the embodiment of the costly, irrational welfare state which they loathed - and they had absolutely no idea."

Hell, even I, as a civil servant, am on the government dole, although I strongly believe in what I do and the mission of public libraries. But I've done my time in the private sector and know that it isn't pretty, so I am profoundly grateful of my job. When colleagues complain about working conditions here I stare at them in open-jawed amazement. This job may have its peculiar stresses, but when I listen to them bellyache I just think to myself, "You have NO idea what it's like out there." I may be a government parasite but I'm greatly appreciative one.

Worker and Parasite.

The Wikipedia exegesis.

Damn Matthew Lesko to Hell for all Eternity

I hate Matthew Lesko, that flim flam artist who is the bane of librarian and government worker's existences. Due to his criminally misleading television commercials, especially the one shilling his book "Free money fto Pay your Bills,” I have confused, desperate patrons waving their overdue credit card/final notice utility bills in my face in the misguided belief that Lesko’s book will provide them with a magical phone number to make all of their money problems go away.

Lesko generally advertises on the cheap local late night slots, the ones targeting the drunk and desperate late night television viewer, the adult version of the suckers who send off for sea monkeys, x-ray goggles and hovercrafts. Bursting with crazy good cheer, he practically jumps out of the television at you, screaming about ‘free money’ like some deranged, frantic gremlin or retarded, methed up Batman super-villain. “Government studies show that 50 million consumers are not taking advantage of even the basic programs,” he shrieks, “Don’t you be one of them!”

Lesko’s scam is that his books, which sell for $39.95 and up, are nothing but repackaged GPO pamphlets. And suckers, hearing what they want to believe, shell money out that they can ill afford in the hopes of an immediate windfall. Hey – I’m all for people getting the assistance they need. Why should Halliburton get it all? His ads are disingenuous and misleading, however, and I have to deal with disgruntled patrons looking to lash out at someone when they take a look at the dogeared reference copy and it dawns on them that it's not just as simple as making a phone call to get their bills taken care of.

What I do appreciate about Lesko’s books, however, is that they expose the welfare state that the United States has become. The New York Times had a recent revelatory article on the explosion in the SSI disability rolls. We in the U.S. sniff at Europe for being a welfare state but the US is just as bad – we just refuse to admit it. I could tell you first hand about the SSI disability recipients who hang out at the library all the live long day, getting paid by the government to sit on their ass and not bother anyone.

U.S. citizens on welfare sometimes don’t even realize that they are. In the wonderful Cadillac Desert: the American West and Its Disappearing Water by the late, great Marc Reisner, he chronicles how the Western farmers, with their massive water and farm subsidies, became the embodiment of the welfare state. He marvels at the hypocrisy of their conservative, anti-welfare, all-about-personal-responsibility, self righteous politics when they are, in fact, some of the biggest 'welfare queens' of them all.

"They regularly sent to congress politicians eager to demolish the social
edifice built by the New Deal - to abolish welfare, school lunch programs, aid
to the handicapped, funding for the arts, even to sell off some of the national
parks and public lands. But their constituents had become the ultimate example of what they decried, so coddled by the government that they lived in the cocoonlike world of a child. They remained oblivious to what their CAP water would cost them but were certain that it would be offered to them at a price they could afford. The farmers had become the embodiment of the costly, irrational welfare state which they loathed - and they had absolutely no idea."

Hell, even I, as a civil servant, am on the government dole, although I strongly believe in what I do and the mission of public libraries. But I've done my time in the private sector and know that it isn't pretty, so I am profoundly grateful of my job. When colleagues complain about working conditions here I stare at them in open-jawed amazement. This job may have its peculiar stresses, but when I listen to them bellyache I just think to myself, "You have NO idea what it's like out there." I may be a government parasite but I'm greatly appreciative one.

Worker and Parasite.

The Wikipedia exegesis.

Evil Eye

One of the many pleasures of my job is the fascinating and varied topics my patrons expose me to when asking for my help in research. In my department I only get to do initial, superficial research before I have to send patrons on their way to a subject specialist on another floor, but often if a patron's question intrigues me, I will spend days absorbed in the subject on my own, with, of course, all of the library's vast resources at my fingertips. The history of eunuchs in China, the science of deja vu, sweating sickness, trench art, territorial behavior in sea horses, the Bushwhackers during the U.S. Civil War, susperstitious and ritual behavior in animals - I can think of no happier job than that of a librarian if one has a meandering, catholic curiousity.

The other day I helped a patron get started on a paper about the origins of the evil eye. I thought the evil eye was something only gypsies cast, but in fact every culture seems to possess its own version. The seminal work, Evil Eye: Wet and Dry, by Berkeley ethnologist and folklorist Alan Dundes, reports that the universal, cross culture theme is that the evil eye has a detrimental, sometimes fatal, drying effect on its victim, and that its antidote usually involves water. The evil eye has had a powerful influence on art and society, and one can see it pop up throughout mankind's history. It is even believed that the 10th commandment, thou shall not covet, a word which means to eye enviously, is specifically a mandate against casting the evil eye.

In any case, the belief in the evil eye recognizes the power of looking at someone. I'm sure you have all experienced the sense of being stared at. There are many expressions in English that I can think of right off the bat that acknowledge the power of a stare or look as well: the weight of stares, eyes burning holes, to give a scathing, wounding, dirty, eat shit look, to shoot daggers with ones eyes. Our tax dollars are training operatives to kill goats with stares.

One of the Italian apotropic gestures against the evil eye, especially of the sort that causes impotency, is the mano cornuta. Interestingly, Steve Ditko, the creator of the Spiderman and Dr. Strange comics, has both of the title characters use this gesture: Dr Strange when he casts a spell and Spiderman when he releases silk from his wrist spinnarets to swing from building to building and, I assume, encase villains so he can store them in his web and drain them of their body fluids to drink at his leisure. At least that is what he would do if I wrote the the spider man comics - it would be more true and in keeping with the rest of his acquired arachnid behavior, no? Which reminds me of my new area of interest, so now I'm off to read more about sexual cannibalism in spiders.

Evil Eye

One of the many pleasures of my job is the fascinating and varied topics my patrons expose me to when asking for my help in research. In my department I only get to do initial, superficial research before I have to send patrons on their way to a subject specialist on another floor, but often if a patron's question intrigues me, I will spend days absorbed in the subject on my own, with, of course, all of the library's vast resources at my fingertips. The history of eunuchs in China, the science of deja vu, sweating sickness, trench art, territorial behavior in sea horses, the Bushwhackers during the U.S. Civil War, susperstitious and ritual behavior in animals - I can think of no happier job than that of a librarian if one has a meandering, catholic curiousity.

The other day I helped a patron get started on a paper about the origins of the evil eye. I thought the evil eye was something only gypsies cast, but in fact every culture seems to possess its own version. The seminal work, Evil Eye: Wet and Dry, by Berkeley ethnologist and folklorist Alan Dundes, reports that the universal, cross culture theme is that the evil eye has a detrimental, sometimes fatal, drying effect on its victim, and that its antidote usually involves water. The evil eye has had a powerful influence on art and society, and one can see it pop up throughout mankind's history. It is even believed that the 10th commandment, thou shall not covet, a word which means to eye enviously, is specifically a mandate against casting the evil eye.

In any case, the belief in the evil eye recognizes the power of looking at someone. I'm sure you have all experienced the sense of being stared at. There are many expressions in English that I can think of right off the bat that acknowledge the power of a stare or look as well: the weight of stares, eyes burning holes, to give a scathing, wounding, dirty, eat shit look, to shoot daggers with ones eyes. Our tax dollars are training operatives to kill goats with stares.

One of the Italian apotropic gestures against the evil eye, especially of the sort that causes impotency, is the mano cornuta. Interestingly, Steve Ditko, the creator of the Spiderman and Dr. Strange comics, has both of the title characters use this gesture: Dr Strange when he casts a spell and Spiderman when he releases silk from his wrist spinnarets to swing from building to building and, I assume, encase villains so he can store them in his web and drain them of their body fluids to drink at his leisure. At least that is what he would do if I wrote the the spider man comics - it would be more true and in keeping with the rest of his acquired arachnid behavior, no? Which reminds me of my new area of interest, so now I'm off to read more about sexual cannibalism in spiders.

Come Hither and Bring me a Cookie

Here is a recumbant Billy practicing his bedroom eyes.


















I can't decide whether he's more Venus of Urbino or Carravagio's Bacchus.







Notice how Bacchus is posed in that peculiar Roman patrician reclining posture to eat. To me, that does not seem like a body position that would lend itself to ease of digestion, and seems much more awkwardly uncomfortable than luxurious. Perhaps lounging about like that made it easier to transition into post prandial orgy time. Sadly, it seems like the existence of vomitoriums was greatly exaggerated, so perhaps such other "Fall of Rome" depravities like orgies were as well. Interestingly enough, during Roman banquets one's seating and posture indicated rank - only the those of the highest rank got to recline. Humans, it seems, are as obsessed as chickens with hierarchy.

Come Hither and Bring me a Cookie

Here is a recumbant Billy practicing his bedroom eyes.


















I can't decide whether he's more Venus of Urbino or Carravagio's Bacchus.







Notice how Bacchus is posed in that peculiar Roman patrician reclining posture to eat. To me, that does not seem like a body position that would lend itself to ease of digestion, and seems much more awkwardly uncomfortable than luxurious. Perhaps lounging about like that made it easier to transition into post prandial orgy time. Sadly, it seems like the existence of vomitoriums was greatly exaggerated, so perhaps such other "Fall of Rome" depravities like orgies were as well. Interestingly enough, during Roman banquets one's seating and posture indicated rank - only the those of the highest rank got to recline. Humans, it seems, are as obsessed as chickens with hierarchy.

Obits - Sports Pages for Seniors

Because I have been writing my share lately, and have a morbid streak in the best of circumstances, I've become very interested in the craft of writing an obituary. The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson is a great read and highlights many of the best of the genre, many of which hale from the London Times, a publication is known for elevating the obituary to an art form. She excerpts many wonderful examples, my favorite being Robert Helpmann's, whose obituary called him "a homosexual of the proselytzing kind."

As well as giving you a tender feeling of schadenfreude, the best obituaries also teach a little history lesson, one that is made all the more powerful and memorable because of the obituary subject's role in it. Here is one I have never forgot about a U.S. survivor of a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines during WWII. After the war, she and fellow prisoners appealed for the life of the commander, who had been very kind and allowed them to keep and grow their own food, which is the only way they were able to survive. He was was so benevolent that his superiors removed him from his post for "excessive leniency." Years later, she and other camp survivors organized a reunion with him in the United States to express their gratitude.

The title of this one was so evocative of the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex, where I was born: Local Man Loved Tractors and Grandkids.

But my favorite obituary ever was for a dog. As a librarian I should be more of a copyright warrior, but I'm going to risk a cease and desist and print it in its entirety here because it's too wonderful not to share. It makes my eyes sting with tears every time I read it.

Mountain Gazette 92, March 2003

OBITUARIES

The deceased: Ace
Born: 1989
Died: December 10, 2002
Cause of death: Cancer

Ace was "put to sleep" on December 10, 2002, after over 13 years of being a Mountain Dawg. He was born at over 8,000 feet and was named after the Ace High Tavern in Golden, Colorado. He was, at six months old, in two avalanches in one day on Mt. Sniktau near Loveland Pass. So, he was nicknamed "Avalanche Ace' " He never did learn to avoid standing on cornices.

He lived with his partner, Scruffy, on Floyd Hill near Evergreen and climbed extensively in the Mt. Evans area. He loved ski mountaineering with his partners/owners, Tim and Laurie, and other ski buddies. Never one to follow a ski track, Ace chased squirrels and bunnies all over the Front Range ski trails. He loved to run ahead of you on the trail and turn back and run straight for you. Just before hitting your ski tips, Ace would veer off to the side of the trail and get face shots in the soft snow. He loved to lay on his belly and pull himself down snow fields by his front paws.

Sometimes, he would be walking on the ski trail and would cut off the trail and run down a snow field for no apparent reason other than a powder run. That is, of course, the best reason.

As Ace got a little older, he added some impressive climbs to his resume, including several 13,000-14,000-foot summits. He skied the north face of Mt. Evans, the NE chute of Grizzly Peak, the north chute of Mt. Snoopy (Pettingell Peak) and the north face of Torres peak. He was often seen up and down the NE bowls on Berthoud Pass and was credited with a full-moon climb on James Peak. He often did the Second-Creek-to-Winter-Park ski tour, sometimes spending the night in the A-frame, sometimes not.

Summer was another favorite season, when Ace went on extensive backpacking trips, sailing and kayaking on Dillon Reservoir and guarding the beer while his partners with prehensile thumbs rock climbed. He trained- for two marathons with his partner Laurie running long runs of 10 miles- His last long run, about six months before his death, was on the trail between Bakerville and Loveland Valley ski area- Here he ran the five miles with ease, even including several "bunny sprints" along the way

Ace loved wildlife and would chase whistle pigs (marmots) and ptarmigans at high altitude. He found a bighorn sheep carcass on Mt. Evans and proudly dragged it to his favorite snowfield where he could roll on it. One day, hiking on Floyd Hill, he found a mountain lion, which fortunately wasn't hungry. Also on Floyd Hill he came across a dead elk skull while hiking with his partner Tim. He was forbidden from bringing it home, but the next day, when no one was home, Ace let himself out of the house via the dog door, scaled a five-foot fence, hiked more than a mile to the elk skull, carried it home BACK OVER THE SAME FIVE-FOOT FENCE, through the dog door and up two flights of stairs, where he laid it on his partners' bed. Maggots and all...

A gift from a good friend.

Ace regularly skied at Loveland and would hike up into Zip Basin or Mt. Trelease with Tim. After the ski back down, Ace was on "van duty." Together, Tim and Ace would ski more than 100 days a year. He was also a regular fixture at the Loveland Apres Ski scene, just recently getting himself 86ed for reasons unknown. He was also often seen at the Red Ram in Georgetown and the back porch of the West Winds in Idaho Springs.

In his older years, Ace skijored with his pal Scruffy, even entering a ski-joring race with no formal training. After two dog fights and Scruffy contributing some brown klister to the trail, they still came in fifth place out of a field of about a dozen. Soon after, their racing careers ended.

Scruffy died in January of 2000, and Ace became a season pass holder at Devil's Thumb Ranch. He never got over his wanderlust and loved to escape and tour most of Clear Creek County, including a five-mile trip down I70 from Floyd Hill to Kermit's, where he walked in the bar, got a drink out of the toilet, licked himself and laid down for a nap.

Ace's last big adventure was two months before his death - a five-day trip into the Cirque of Towers in the Wind Rivers. He had his own bed - a half bag (down) - and slept in the tent. He hiked for five days, being lifted over boulders in a talus field. Three weeks before he died, Ace ran the dog trail at Devil's Thumb, rolling in and consuming a large pile of horse manure. Life was good to Ace.

On December 10, the vet found a six-inch tumor on his spleen. We wondered why he was moving slowly.

Soon, we will pick up his ashes at the vet hospital and scatter them on Mt. Sniktau, where he became Avalanche Ace. He was a tough, barrelchested guy with sunburned eyes and paws scarred from scree.

- Laurie Crow

Obits - Sports Pages for Seniors

Because I have been writing my share lately, and have a morbid streak in the best of circumstances, I've become very interested in the craft of writing an obituary. The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries by Marilyn Johnson is a great read and highlights many of the best of the genre, many of which hale from the London Times, a publication is known for elevating the obituary to an art form. She excerpts many wonderful examples, my favorite being Robert Helpmann's, whose obituary called him "a homosexual of the proselytzing kind."

As well as giving you a tender feeling of schadenfreude, the best obituaries also teach a little history lesson, one that is made all the more powerful and memorable because of the obituary subject's role in it. Here is one I have never forgot about a U.S. survivor of a Japanese concentration camp in the Philippines during WWII. After the war, she and fellow prisoners appealed for the life of the commander, who had been very kind and allowed them to keep and grow their own food, which is the only way they were able to survive. He was was so benevolent that his superiors removed him from his post for "excessive leniency." Years later, she and other camp survivors organized a reunion with him in the United States to express their gratitude.

The title of this one was so evocative of the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex, where I was born: Local Man Loved Tractors and Grandkids.

But my favorite obituary ever was for a dog. As a librarian I should be more of a copyright warrior, but I'm going to risk a cease and desist and print it in its entirety here because it's too wonderful not to share. It makes my eyes sting with tears every time I read it.

Mountain Gazette 92, March 2003

OBITUARIES

The deceased: Ace
Born: 1989
Died: December 10, 2002
Cause of death: Cancer

Ace was "put to sleep" on December 10, 2002, after over 13 years of being a Mountain Dawg. He was born at over 8,000 feet and was named after the Ace High Tavern in Golden, Colorado. He was, at six months old, in two avalanches in one day on Mt. Sniktau near Loveland Pass. So, he was nicknamed "Avalanche Ace' " He never did learn to avoid standing on cornices.

He lived with his partner, Scruffy, on Floyd Hill near Evergreen and climbed extensively in the Mt. Evans area. He loved ski mountaineering with his partners/owners, Tim and Laurie, and other ski buddies. Never one to follow a ski track, Ace chased squirrels and bunnies all over the Front Range ski trails. He loved to run ahead of you on the trail and turn back and run straight for you. Just before hitting your ski tips, Ace would veer off to the side of the trail and get face shots in the soft snow. He loved to lay on his belly and pull himself down snow fields by his front paws.

Sometimes, he would be walking on the ski trail and would cut off the trail and run down a snow field for no apparent reason other than a powder run. That is, of course, the best reason.

As Ace got a little older, he added some impressive climbs to his resume, including several 13,000-14,000-foot summits. He skied the north face of Mt. Evans, the NE chute of Grizzly Peak, the north chute of Mt. Snoopy (Pettingell Peak) and the north face of Torres peak. He was often seen up and down the NE bowls on Berthoud Pass and was credited with a full-moon climb on James Peak. He often did the Second-Creek-to-Winter-Park ski tour, sometimes spending the night in the A-frame, sometimes not.

Summer was another favorite season, when Ace went on extensive backpacking trips, sailing and kayaking on Dillon Reservoir and guarding the beer while his partners with prehensile thumbs rock climbed. He trained- for two marathons with his partner Laurie running long runs of 10 miles- His last long run, about six months before his death, was on the trail between Bakerville and Loveland Valley ski area- Here he ran the five miles with ease, even including several "bunny sprints" along the way

Ace loved wildlife and would chase whistle pigs (marmots) and ptarmigans at high altitude. He found a bighorn sheep carcass on Mt. Evans and proudly dragged it to his favorite snowfield where he could roll on it. One day, hiking on Floyd Hill, he found a mountain lion, which fortunately wasn't hungry. Also on Floyd Hill he came across a dead elk skull while hiking with his partner Tim. He was forbidden from bringing it home, but the next day, when no one was home, Ace let himself out of the house via the dog door, scaled a five-foot fence, hiked more than a mile to the elk skull, carried it home BACK OVER THE SAME FIVE-FOOT FENCE, through the dog door and up two flights of stairs, where he laid it on his partners' bed. Maggots and all...

A gift from a good friend.

Ace regularly skied at Loveland and would hike up into Zip Basin or Mt. Trelease with Tim. After the ski back down, Ace was on "van duty." Together, Tim and Ace would ski more than 100 days a year. He was also a regular fixture at the Loveland Apres Ski scene, just recently getting himself 86ed for reasons unknown. He was also often seen at the Red Ram in Georgetown and the back porch of the West Winds in Idaho Springs.

In his older years, Ace skijored with his pal Scruffy, even entering a ski-joring race with no formal training. After two dog fights and Scruffy contributing some brown klister to the trail, they still came in fifth place out of a field of about a dozen. Soon after, their racing careers ended.

Scruffy died in January of 2000, and Ace became a season pass holder at Devil's Thumb Ranch. He never got over his wanderlust and loved to escape and tour most of Clear Creek County, including a five-mile trip down I70 from Floyd Hill to Kermit's, where he walked in the bar, got a drink out of the toilet, licked himself and laid down for a nap.

Ace's last big adventure was two months before his death - a five-day trip into the Cirque of Towers in the Wind Rivers. He had his own bed - a half bag (down) - and slept in the tent. He hiked for five days, being lifted over boulders in a talus field. Three weeks before he died, Ace ran the dog trail at Devil's Thumb, rolling in and consuming a large pile of horse manure. Life was good to Ace.

On December 10, the vet found a six-inch tumor on his spleen. We wondered why he was moving slowly.

Soon, we will pick up his ashes at the vet hospital and scatter them on Mt. Sniktau, where he became Avalanche Ace. He was a tough, barrelchested guy with sunburned eyes and paws scarred from scree.

- Laurie Crow

Crabs Season

Crab season kicked off recently and inadvertent hilarity ensued when I called the Safeway seafood department to inquire if there were any in stock.

“Do you have crabs?” I asked the butcher.

I didn’t realize the implications of what I had said until E, who had overhead my question, began shrieking with laughter. “Didn’t you mean to ask if he had CRAB?” Then I started laughing myself and apologizing and insisting that this was not a prank call. I promised that I wasn’t going to ask him if his refrigerator were running or for him to page Mike Hunt or Amanda Hugginkiss. The butcher had a very thick Cantonese accent so I don’t think he got my accidental joke. In any case, I was very appreciative that he patiently waited for me to calm down so he could answer my question.

I’m not a big fan of prank phone calls or the television show Crank Yankers. I don’t think it’s right to harass good people who are just trying to do their jobs. I get enough outrageous and odd questions as it is when I work the phones from the genuinely mentally ill and other vulnerable members of the population so don’t burn up my patience, compassion, goodwill and time on jokes that are not as nearly as clever as the perpetrator likes to think.

The other day I had my first call from a woman on a bipolar manic upswing. I’ve heard the term ‘pressured speech,’ but this went way beyond that. She seemed helpless in the grip of this talking jag. I felt pummeled by her words to the point where I wanted cover my head protectively with my hands like a boxer. She kept going on and on about the reasons for her overdue books and how she had been mistreated by a branch manager until I finally had to wish her a good night and hang up on her. She kept calling back the rest of the evening to go over the same matter, even though her problem had been resolved and there was nothing more to do for her. I felt sorry for her because she acted like she needed an audience for her torrent of words like it was a matter of life or death, but there was just no way to accomodate her.

Crabs Season

Crab season kicked off recently and inadvertent hilarity ensued when I called the Safeway seafood department to inquire if there were any in stock.

“Do you have crabs?” I asked the butcher.

I didn’t realize the implications of what I had said until E, who had overhead my question, began shrieking with laughter. “Didn’t you mean to ask if he had CRAB?” Then I started laughing myself and apologizing and insisting that this was not a prank call. I promised that I wasn’t going to ask him if his refrigerator were running or for him to page Mike Hunt or Amanda Hugginkiss. The butcher had a very thick Cantonese accent so I don’t think he got my accidental joke. In any case, I was very appreciative that he patiently waited for me to calm down so he could answer my question.

I’m not a big fan of prank phone calls or the television show Crank Yankers. I don’t think it’s right to harass good people who are just trying to do their jobs. I get enough outrageous and odd questions as it is when I work the phones from the genuinely mentally ill and other vulnerable members of the population so don’t burn up my patience, compassion, goodwill and time on jokes that are not as nearly as clever as the perpetrator likes to think.

The other day I had my first call from a woman on a bipolar manic upswing. I’ve heard the term ‘pressured speech,’ but this went way beyond that. She seemed helpless in the grip of this talking jag. I felt pummeled by her words to the point where I wanted cover my head protectively with my hands like a boxer. She kept going on and on about the reasons for her overdue books and how she had been mistreated by a branch manager until I finally had to wish her a good night and hang up on her. She kept calling back the rest of the evening to go over the same matter, even though her problem had been resolved and there was nothing more to do for her. I felt sorry for her because she acted like she needed an audience for her torrent of words like it was a matter of life or death, but there was just no way to accomodate her.

Trouble, trouble move away

Sorry for the radio silence but I was called home for yet another family funeral and asked to write another obituary... This was only a week after my good frisbee buddy and frequent Foxylibrarian commentator Ryan Stich was killed in a motorcycle accident in Georgia. What a shame and what a waste.

When the family is gathered all together like that I get to snoop around for more family lore - one of the few solaces of funerals. Here's a gem: my grandmother is rumored to have been born at 12:30 AM, February 12, but her parents backdated the event to February 11th. Her parents didn't want her sharing a birthday with Abraham Lincoln, that day being one of infamy in the South. Or I guess I should say for a certain segment of the Southern population, since I'm sure the descendents of freed slaves didn't have such a problem with the day. It was easier to do those sort of things - to tamper with the official record - in the days of home births.

Trouble, trouble move away

Sorry for the radio silence but I was called home for yet another family funeral and asked to write another obituary... This was only a week after my good frisbee buddy and frequent Foxylibrarian commentator Ryan Stich was killed in a motorcycle accident in Georgia. What a shame and what a waste.

When the family is gathered all together like that I get to snoop around for more family lore - one of the few solaces of funerals. Here's a gem: my grandmother is rumored to have been born at 12:30 AM, February 12, but her parents backdated the event to February 11th. Her parents didn't want her sharing a birthday with Abraham Lincoln, that day being one of infamy in the South. Or I guess I should say for a certain segment of the Southern population, since I'm sure the descendents of freed slaves didn't have such a problem with the day. It was easier to do those sort of things - to tamper with the official record - in the days of home births.

Wit and Wisdom of Churchill

This is rather apocryphal, but I love it. Here Churchill is responding to accusations that he has not given the Royal Navy its due.

Addressing the Sea Lords: "You say that I am ignoring the time-honored traditions of the Royal Navy? And what might they be? I shall tell you in three words: rum, buggery, and the lash! Good morning, sirs."

If I ever get a boat, I am so naming it "Rum, Buggery and the Lash."

Wit and Wisdom of Churchill

This is rather apocryphal, but I love it. Here Churchill is responding to accusations that he has not given the Royal Navy its due.

Addressing the Sea Lords: "You say that I am ignoring the time-honored traditions of the Royal Navy? And what might they be? I shall tell you in three words: rum, buggery, and the lash! Good morning, sirs."

If I ever get a boat, I am so naming it "Rum, Buggery and the Lash."

Booty Call *69

I was trying to find this page turner in the urban fiction genre on Amazon for a patron. The title wasn't coming up in Amazon, and then it dawned on me that the asterisk was acting as some sort of truncator or wild card and it was throwing the search off. I left the asterisk out, typed in "booty call 69" and voila. Publishers really should consider these sort of things when coming up with titles.

Amazon search tips.

Booty Call *69

I was trying to find this page turner in the urban fiction genre on Amazon for a patron. The title wasn't coming up in Amazon, and then it dawned on me that the asterisk was acting as some sort of truncator or wild card and it was throwing the search off. I left the asterisk out, typed in "booty call 69" and voila. Publishers really should consider these sort of things when coming up with titles.

Amazon search tips.

Children of the Damned

A little girl, no more than eight years old, quietly approached the desk. She reached into her Powderpuff Girl’s backpack and pulled out Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall.

“Hello. I’m looking for the short story "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov.”

“It’s not in that book?”

“I'm looking for the short story. This is the result of collaboration with another author, Robert Silverberg. Together he and Asimov and expanded the short story into novel length. I am only interested in the short story.”

Her poise was beyond preternatural and her voice was as carefully modulated as HAL the computer or Nurse Ratchet. It was all my colleague and I could do not to stare at her like she was channeling some sort of demon.

I searched the catalog and found the story in a short story collection on another floor. I wrote out the book and gave her the call number. She thanked me and twirled around and left.

After she was gone my colleague and I almost clutched each other in fear. Who at that age is into Asimov?

Children of the Damned

A little girl, no more than eight years old, quietly approached the desk. She reached into her Powderpuff Girl’s backpack and pulled out Isaac Asimov’s Nightfall.

“Hello. I’m looking for the short story "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov.”

“It’s not in that book?”

“I'm looking for the short story. This is the result of collaboration with another author, Robert Silverberg. Together he and Asimov and expanded the short story into novel length. I am only interested in the short story.”

Her poise was beyond preternatural and her voice was as carefully modulated as HAL the computer or Nurse Ratchet. It was all my colleague and I could do not to stare at her like she was channeling some sort of demon.

I searched the catalog and found the story in a short story collection on another floor. I wrote out the book and gave her the call number. She thanked me and twirled around and left.

After she was gone my colleague and I almost clutched each other in fear. Who at that age is into Asimov?

From the Annals of Creative Executions

When fed-up natives captured Pedro de Valdivia, a conquistador infamous for his rapacious cruelty and lust for gold, they pried open his mouth and poured molten gold down his throat. As ghastly a way to die as that must have been, it still beats how Edward II was dispatched: with a glowing hot poker up the ass. (He was suspected of being gay and had been promoting too many of his lowborn 'favorites.')

The Mongols liked their executions colorful, practically elevating them to an art form. From John Dolan's "Missing the Mongols":

"They (the Mongols) poured molten silver in the eyes and ears of traitors--a visual joke. They could be compassionate: when Genghiz Khan captured Jamukha, his closest friend, he did Jamukha the honor of killing him by rolling him up in a carpet and crushing him with boulders, so that the blood would remain in the body. They had their own sense of righteousness: when the small Slavic town of Kozelsk, near Kaluga, resisted them for months, they dubbed it "the wicked town." So upset were they with the scandalous behavior of Kozelsk that they not only killed all the inhabitants (which went without saying), but drowned the child-prince, Vladimir, in human blood."

Want more, you sick little devils? List of unusual ways to go.

Hmmmmm. What else. I’m still immensely enjoying Pox: Genius, Madness and Syphilis. The author's theory why 15th - 17th century Spaniards were such dicks:

"The Spain that Columbus left behind was already one of great carnage. Seven hundred years of warfare to take back Spain from the Moors had formed a warrior culture rooted in the values of the conquistador. The Inquisition sought out heretics and non-believers to torture and murder at the stake or on the gallows, to burn or hang, behead or flay. Columbus, very much a man of his times and culture, used these same violent methods against the people he found in the New World."

As I’ve written before, no two cultures deserved each other more than the Spaniards and Aztecs, because what disgusting torture one hadn’t invented the other one had. I have great admiration for the Aztecs, what with their culture's blend of cannibalism and dazzling achievements in astronomy, but I don’t pity them or romanticize them as helpless innocents. The inhabitants of Hispaniola, Columbus’ first stop, however, were peaceful and gentle and Columbus and his men abused their hospitality egregiously. After the natives welcomed them with singing and flowers, Columbus and his men entertained themselves by raping, sport torturing, feeding native infants to dogs, burning natives alive, amputating native limbs, etc. Too bad for Columbus, his men and the rest of Europe, though - the natives were teeming with syphilis, and had their revenge by infecting Columbus’s crew with a virulent new strain to which the men had no resistance. This strain, or some new super-strain that resulted when it mixed with Old World syphillis, had its first major outbreak in Naples in 1493 and before this strain burned itself down those infected would die in as little as two weeks in such agonizing, odorous and grotesque ways that even the lepers shunned them. I’ve always thought that the disease exchange between the Old and New World was rather unfair so it’s heartening to learn that syphilis balanced the scales a bit.

From the Annals of Creative Executions

When fed-up natives captured Pedro de Valdivia, a conquistador infamous for his rapacious cruelty and lust for gold, they pried open his mouth and poured molten gold down his throat. As ghastly a way to die as that must have been, it still beats how Edward II was dispatched: with a glowing hot poker up the ass. (He was suspected of being gay and had been promoting too many of his lowborn 'favorites.')

The Mongols liked their executions colorful, practically elevating them to an art form. From John Dolan's "Missing the Mongols":

"They (the Mongols) poured molten silver in the eyes and ears of traitors--a visual joke. They could be compassionate: when Genghiz Khan captured Jamukha, his closest friend, he did Jamukha the honor of killing him by rolling him up in a carpet and crushing him with boulders, so that the blood would remain in the body. They had their own sense of righteousness: when the small Slavic town of Kozelsk, near Kaluga, resisted them for months, they dubbed it "the wicked town." So upset were they with the scandalous behavior of Kozelsk that they not only killed all the inhabitants (which went without saying), but drowned the child-prince, Vladimir, in human blood."

Want more, you sick little devils? List of unusual ways to go.

Hmmmmm. What else. I’m still immensely enjoying Pox: Genius, Madness and Syphilis. The author's theory why 15th - 17th century Spaniards were such dicks:

"The Spain that Columbus left behind was already one of great carnage. Seven hundred years of warfare to take back Spain from the Moors had formed a warrior culture rooted in the values of the conquistador. The Inquisition sought out heretics and non-believers to torture and murder at the stake or on the gallows, to burn or hang, behead or flay. Columbus, very much a man of his times and culture, used these same violent methods against the people he found in the New World."

As I’ve written before, no two cultures deserved each other more than the Spaniards and Aztecs, because what disgusting torture one hadn’t invented the other one had. I have great admiration for the Aztecs, what with their culture's blend of cannibalism and dazzling achievements in astronomy, but I don’t pity them or romanticize them as helpless innocents. The inhabitants of Hispaniola, Columbus’ first stop, however, were peaceful and gentle and Columbus and his men abused their hospitality egregiously. After the natives welcomed them with singing and flowers, Columbus and his men entertained themselves by raping, sport torturing, feeding native infants to dogs, burning natives alive, amputating native limbs, etc. Too bad for Columbus, his men and the rest of Europe, though - the natives were teeming with syphilis, and had their revenge by infecting Columbus’s crew with a virulent new strain to which the men had no resistance. This strain, or some new super-strain that resulted when it mixed with Old World syphillis, had its first major outbreak in Naples in 1493 and before this strain burned itself down those infected would die in as little as two weeks in such agonizing, odorous and grotesque ways that even the lepers shunned them. I’ve always thought that the disease exchange between the Old and New World was rather unfair so it’s heartening to learn that syphilis balanced the scales a bit.

Tony Montana Word of the Day: Llello

Llello
1) A white powder that pollutes your womb, so that you can't even have a leetle baby.
2) Cocaine powder.

Courtesy of urbandictionary.com

Tony Montana Word of the Day: Llello

Llello
1) A white powder that pollutes your womb, so that you can't even have a leetle baby.
2) Cocaine powder.

Courtesy of urbandictionary.com

Larceny

A Japanese tourist approached me while I was puttering around the shelves of new books with a tale of woe. He had that he had left his bag unattended in the express internet line while he went off to the bathroom and when he returned it was, predictably, gone. I glanced over at the queue. In line, there was an old wino who was muttering to himself, swatting at the air. There were two hippies with matted dread locks chanting softly, their legs folded on the chairs swami style and their eyes closed. An old African American man was expounding on a passage of the Bible to a throwaway teen. The way to describe the rest of the people in line in one word: sketchy. I looked over at the queue for the internet and it looked more like the waiting room in the central intake unit of a county drug treatment center than a line for the internet.

The unfortunate Japanese tourists seemed genuinely bewildered that someone had taken his bag. I know that this sort of larceny/property crime is quite rare in Japan, but I still think he showed appalling cultural naivety by leaving his bag unguarded. He wanted to know if we had security cameras and I told him we did not. I suggested that he leave his name with security so they could contact him if the bag was turned in.

I myself had my wallet stolen from my backpack while I was in the university library back in graduate school, so I was disabused of my notion of a library being a hallowed, safe place of learning then. It's more like a den of thieves, perverts and deviants AND a palace of learning.

Larceny

A Japanese tourist approached me while I was puttering around the shelves of new books with a tale of woe. He had that he had left his bag unattended in the express internet line while he went off to the bathroom and when he returned it was, predictably, gone. I glanced over at the queue. In line, there was an old wino who was muttering to himself, swatting at the air. There were two hippies with matted dread locks chanting softly, their legs folded on the chairs swami style and their eyes closed. An old African American man was expounding on a passage of the Bible to a throwaway teen. The way to describe the rest of the people in line in one word: sketchy. I looked over at the queue for the internet and it looked more like the waiting room in the central intake unit of a county drug treatment center than a line for the internet.

The unfortunate Japanese tourists seemed genuinely bewildered that someone had taken his bag. I know that this sort of larceny/property crime is quite rare in Japan, but I still think he showed appalling cultural naivety by leaving his bag unguarded. He wanted to know if we had security cameras and I told him we did not. I suggested that he leave his name with security so they could contact him if the bag was turned in.

I myself had my wallet stolen from my backpack while I was in the university library back in graduate school, so I was disabused of my notion of a library being a hallowed, safe place of learning then. It's more like a den of thieves, perverts and deviants AND a palace of learning.

Visitation

While I was conked out asleep E heard some sounds from the kitchen that caused her alarm. She went to investigate and heard glass bottles being moved around and knocking against each other. There was also the sound of shuffling feet. My cousin and his girlfriend live below us so she thought they were returning us a favor and making a retributive midnight liquor cabinet raid. (We keep a shotgun filled with rock salt for just such an eventuality.) Their blind black lab, Dixie, also known as the Black Marauder, also makes occasional forays into the kitchen to see if we happened to have left the dog bin unlocked. Because she is blind, she has the advantage at night and usually is as quiet and stealthy as a ninja, so E didn’t think it was her. She flipped on the light and screamed, “Aha!” There was no one in the kitchen but she did see out of corner of her eye a face peeking through the flap of the dog door. She screamed and the head withdrew in a flash like a snapping turtle into its shell. This is a sketch based on E’s description of the intruder-

Since we don't have any Lucky Charms she allowed herself to be hypnotized and this is the result, a much more accurate description, I believe. It looks like our urban raccoons are back, and they have a taste for liquor, since that’s where they headed first.

E recently viewed this news report and it must have made her a little suggestible.

Visitation

While I was conked out asleep E heard some sounds from the kitchen that caused her alarm. She went to investigate and heard glass bottles being moved around and knocking against each other. There was also the sound of shuffling feet. My cousin and his girlfriend live below us so she thought they were returning us a favor and making a retributive midnight liquor cabinet raid. (We keep a shotgun filled with rock salt for just such an eventuality.) Their blind black lab, Dixie, also known as the Black Marauder, also makes occasional forays into the kitchen to see if we happened to have left the dog bin unlocked. Because she is blind, she has the advantage at night and usually is as quiet and stealthy as a ninja, so E didn’t think it was her. She flipped on the light and screamed, “Aha!” There was no one in the kitchen but she did see out of corner of her eye a face peeking through the flap of the dog door. She screamed and the head withdrew in a flash like a snapping turtle into its shell. This is a sketch based on E’s description of the intruder-

Since we don't have any Lucky Charms she allowed herself to be hypnotized and this is the result, a much more accurate description, I believe. It looks like our urban raccoons are back, and they have a taste for liquor, since that’s where they headed first.

E recently viewed this news report and it must have made her a little suggestible.

When Piglets Fly

Billy Jack at the beach with the tennis ball, his teacher/mother/secret lover.

When Piglets Fly

Billy Jack at the beach with the tennis ball, his teacher/mother/secret lover.

Don't Activate the Prey Drive

Not long ago I tried to intervene when Spoon caught and killed a mountain mouse while we were on a hike together. When I grabbed her head to stop her from shaking the little creature to death I was horrified to discover that Spoon had been transformed from my little fuzzy lovebug angel into a killing machine. Terrier instinct had taken over and she was in the full grip of her prey drive and there was no stopping her. Her facial expression reminded me Tom Berenger’s in the final battle scene of Platoon, an expression that I have never forgot. In the heat of the battle Berenger has gone completely beserker and tries to strangle Sheen, whom he doesn’t recognize or discriminate from the enemy because he's in a blind, dead-eyed, instinctive killing rage.

All predators, humans included, have what's called a prey drive and it's a good policy to avoid inflaming it. Recently I felt my own prey drive stirred while watching that horrid movie Failure to Launch. In one scene, Sarah Jessica Parker's character is dragged off to be an unwilling participant in a paintball tournament. During the battle she acts like a completely helpless ninny, and her mouse like squeaks, which I’m sure she thought were adorable and girlish, made Spoon stare at the television hungrily and made me, normally a non-violent creature, want to hunt her down and empty a clip of paintballs into her, and then follow that with a vicious titty twister for good measure. Her acting and making noises like such rodent prey under the circumstance of battle, even a mock, paintball battle, brought out the predator in me as well as Spoon, who I'm sure wanted to grab her by the neck and shake it until it snapped.

I have especially noticed the prey drive in action on my bike. I ride my bike to work, as do many of my colleagues, and we all have a tale about being chased down by an angry driver. Usually this was in response to a road altercation between the biker and driver. If there is any sort of words exchanged, or rude gestures made, etc. and the bike takes off, sometimes the driver will have an instinctive reaction to chase the biker down like a greyhound does a rabbit. There is something about the biker, maybe his or her vulnerability, or the way it seems that the car is overtaking the biker with speed, that makes the biker seem like quarry, and occasionally their primitive instincts overide their common sense and civility. When I ride my bike I now never try to escalate, engage or even make eye contact with drivers. When I formulated my car/bike as prey/quarry theory, it dawned on my that doing the FUH2 while on a bike is a very foolhardy idea. I know that I’m dealing with powerful instincts here.

As Josef Goebbel, Hitler's master of propaganda, remarked, "Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal."

One night a colleague and I sat talking on our bikes right outside the employee door. We didn't notice a deranged, hulking man who had been stumbling through and screaming at traffic approach us. All of the sudden he was upon us. As he lurched menacingly toward us he and opened his mouth to say something, I locked eyes with my colleague and we both instantaneously scattered in opposite directions, a common prey evasive tactic. I hadn't even realized consciously what we had done until I was 100 yards away, pedaling furiously. My colleague and I were operating on pure instinct.

While I was digging around for this Goebbel's quote I found this one.

“If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered.” I never knew that it was Goebbels who coined the term 'iron curtain.' I always thought it was Churchill.

Although for me, the most memorable Goebbels quote was that said by his wife, Magda: "Sleep tight, children."

Don't Activate the Prey Drive

Not long ago I tried to intervene when Spoon caught and killed a mountain mouse while we were on a hike together. When I grabbed her head to stop her from shaking the little creature to death I was horrified to discover that Spoon had been transformed from my little fuzzy lovebug angel into a killing machine. Terrier instinct had taken over and she was in the full grip of her prey drive and there was no stopping her. Her facial expression reminded me Tom Berenger’s in the final battle scene of Platoon, an expression that I have never forgot. In the heat of the battle Berenger has gone completely beserker and tries to strangle Sheen, whom he doesn’t recognize or discriminate from the enemy because he's in a blind, dead-eyed, instinctive killing rage.

All predators, humans included, have what's called a prey drive and it's a good policy to avoid inflaming it. Recently I felt my own prey drive stirred while watching that horrid movie Failure to Launch. In one scene, Sarah Jessica Parker's character is dragged off to be an unwilling participant in a paintball tournament. During the battle she acts like a completely helpless ninny, and her mouse like squeaks, which I’m sure she thought were adorable and girlish, made Spoon stare at the television hungrily and made me, normally a non-violent creature, want to hunt her down and empty a clip of paintballs into her, and then follow that with a vicious titty twister for good measure. Her acting and making noises like such rodent prey under the circumstance of battle, even a mock, paintball battle, brought out the predator in me as well as Spoon, who I'm sure wanted to grab her by the neck and shake it until it snapped.

I have especially noticed the prey drive in action on my bike. I ride my bike to work, as do many of my colleagues, and we all have a tale about being chased down by an angry driver. Usually this was in response to a road altercation between the biker and driver. If there is any sort of words exchanged, or rude gestures made, etc. and the bike takes off, sometimes the driver will have an instinctive reaction to chase the biker down like a greyhound does a rabbit. There is something about the biker, maybe his or her vulnerability, or the way it seems that the car is overtaking the biker with speed, that makes the biker seem like quarry, and occasionally their primitive instincts overide their common sense and civility. When I ride my bike I now never try to escalate, engage or even make eye contact with drivers. When I formulated my car/bike as prey/quarry theory, it dawned on my that doing the FUH2 while on a bike is a very foolhardy idea. I know that I’m dealing with powerful instincts here.

As Josef Goebbel, Hitler's master of propaganda, remarked, "Man is and remains an animal. Here a beast of prey, there a housepet, but always an animal."

One night a colleague and I sat talking on our bikes right outside the employee door. We didn't notice a deranged, hulking man who had been stumbling through and screaming at traffic approach us. All of the sudden he was upon us. As he lurched menacingly toward us he and opened his mouth to say something, I locked eyes with my colleague and we both instantaneously scattered in opposite directions, a common prey evasive tactic. I hadn't even realized consciously what we had done until I was 100 yards away, pedaling furiously. My colleague and I were operating on pure instinct.

While I was digging around for this Goebbel's quote I found this one.

“If the German people lay down their weapons, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would occupy all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered.” I never knew that it was Goebbels who coined the term 'iron curtain.' I always thought it was Churchill.

Although for me, the most memorable Goebbels quote was that said by his wife, Magda: "Sleep tight, children."