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Can't be pushed...must be found...can be guided...by the right hand, a librarian's hand, of course!
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The first Honorary Scrooge of the Month Award goes to Sony/ATV Music for blocking a parody of Michael Jackson's 1983 hit "Beat It" from appearing on YouTube. Local high school students who frequent Lansdowne Public Library (in Pennsylvania) and serve on its Teen Advisory Board wrote and produced “Read It,” a delightful take-off aimed at inspiring other teens and tweens to just pick up a book or e-reader and take the reading plunge. However, on November 19, just three days after the video made its debut during the dedication of the library’s Ronnie Hawkins Resource Room, they discovered that the performance had been blocked on YouTube by Sony, which administers the copyrights for Jackson's music. As you can imagine, the teens were crushed that all their hard work was going to go unseen.  Heroic librarian Abbe Klebanoff After a week of intense lobbying of Sony executives and the executor of Michael Jackson's estate by the video’s editor, Abbe Klebanoff, head of public services for the library, the corporation finally relented and acknowledged the video's parody/educational purposes under the Fair Use Act. The video has been restored to YouTube. Who knows, perhaps the fat cat corporate types were visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past and woke up remembering what it was like to young and excited about creating something... or maybe the ghost of the king of pop himself paid them a call. Below you can see what all the fuss was about. Central Connecticut State University, released the latest editio of its survey of literacy in America's most populous cities, and somehow Washington, D.C. came out on top. ????? For the second year in a row. Chicago came out 29th on the list. New York, the hot burning center of the publishing universe, tied with Austin, Texas for the 22nd spot. Of course, consider the methodology. The study focused on six indicators of literacy: newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and Internet resources.
Notice that it mentions nothing about the I.Q.s of politicians... And the rest: 2. Seattle (what better thing to do on rainy days than read?) 3. Minneapolis (what better thing to do during cold, snowy winters than read?) 4. Atlanta (what better thing to do on really hot, humid summer days than stay in the air-conditioned comfort of your home and read -- or sit in the shade of the veranda, with a fan, a book and a tall glass of sweet tea?) 5. Boston (well, they have Boston College, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, UMass, etc. etc., all those high-octane students add up to LOTS of literacy) 6. Pittsburgh (well, with an ancestral philanthropist like Andrew Carnegie, who funded over 2500 libraries across the U.S., Pittsburghers darn well better be literate!) 7. Cincinnati (no clue -- I visited the place in my childhood and have fond memories of eating shrimp on a boat/restaurant floating on the Ohio river -- I know I read there that summer, but I can't vouch for anyone else!) 8. St. Louis (great little city, home of Washington University, which aspires to be the Harvard of the Midwest -- oh wait, that's the University of Chicago -- and Ted Drewes Custard, the Fabulous Parabola, toasted ravioli, and a stone's throw from the Cahokia Mounds. I guess they read, too!) 9. San Francisco (the fog inspires one to curl up with a book) 10. Denver (well, you can't ski all the time) A viral video..."The Joy of Books." They are just so darned adorable, why would anyone want a Kindle or a Nook or a Kobo? Don't tell me how much a big hardcover weighs or how hard they are to lug around. Good grief, exercise those biceps...Thank you, crazedadman! In addition to today's holiday honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., January 16th is also National Fig Newton Day (I kid you not), and, according to my handy Librarian's Desk Calendar, Appreciate a Dragon Day. Never heard of it, you say? Well, neither had I, until I did a little Googling, and sure enough, wound up with over 16 million results. Turns out this holiday was created not by a group of obsessed Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying gamers, but by an author, Donita K. Paul in 2004 to herald the release of her children's book, DragonSpell. (Now why didn't I think of that back in September? Maybe I could have created a "Tell Us What's in Your Box Day" to shill for my novel! Too late...) Anyhow, I am happy to lend some appreciation to dragons I have known and loved over years of reading and/or listening... Starting, of course, with Puff...  From the creative minds of Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow But it was Smaug, the fire-breathing, gold hoarder of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, who really captured my imagination as a child...  Smaug, terror of The Hobbit Smaug is so covetous and obsessed with his treasure, guarding it, sleeping on it, that pieces of gold and jewels have been embedded in his flesh! Coming to a theatre near you in 2012, courtesy of Peter Jackson and his crew of WETA wizards. But better yet, read the book first! I moved on to other dragons, entering into what I think of as my "classical" phase... First, there was the dragon from the Argonautica, the Greek epic poem by Apollonius Rhodius, which relates the myth of the hero Jason and his band of brothers, the Argonauts, who are given the quest to retrieve the Golden Fleece from the land of Colchis. The fleece, property of the cruel King Aeetes, whose daughter, Medea (yes, that one), is a sorceress, is guarded by, what else, a dragon.  Jason and the dragon (before it falls asleep) Medea's sleeping potion is the key to overcoming this dragon. Jason and Medea hook up, escape the clutches of her father and brother, and the poem ends on a high note. Unfortunately, the marriage doesn't last and all ends badly, very badly. (See Euripides' tragedy, Medea, for the gruesome, dragonless details.) Then I came across the Old English and Norse dragons, the nameless one in Beowulf and the dragon Fafnir (or Fafner) from Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.  Sigurd slays Fafnir Fafnir is also the villain of William Morse's cod-epic poem The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Nibelung. Norse hero called Sigurd who forges a mighty sword in order to attack the dragon Fafnir, who guards, what else, a priceless hoard of gold. "He laughed and smote with the laughter and thrust up over his head. / And smote the venom asunder, and clave the heart of Dread". He kills the dragon and gets the gold, but there is, of course, a curse upon it. There are, of course, numerous "neo-modern" dragons, in both children's and adult literature. Ruth Stiles Gannett brought us kid-friendly dragons in her children's books of the 1940s, including My Father's Dragon, in which young Elmer dares a voyage to Wild Island to rescue a baby dragon.  The Harry Potter series featured numerous breeds of dragons, including Hagrid's pet, Norbert. In Dragon Rider, a children's fantasy by Cornelia Funke, the dragons are friendly and approachable, with names like Firedrake and Sorrel. The problem is horrible humans. But the dragons are befriended by a brave orphan, Ben, who becomes the "dragon rider".  An image for a Terry Pratchett Discworld calendar by Jackie Morris But dragons aren't just for kids. Terry Pratchett has several in his Discworld fantasy series as does George R.R. Martin in Song of Fire and Ice novels.
So I suppose dragons do deserve a day of appreciation. They've brought me much wonder and reading pleasure over the years! |
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