New Job!

I have one! Starting June 14th, I will be working as a technology assistant for a small, awesome, and prestigious private school in the Village. I'll be fixing computers, trouble shooting printers, and helping out in the small and beautiful library that houses the tech office and about 170 students who do things like learn Japanese at school and hang in the hallways playing blues guitar for hours on end.

I feel so trendy right now, you can't even imagine.

More importantly, this new job means that I can do things like hang out with teenagers, learn how to run and manage a small library with limited staff, and change the world with Karyn Silverman. It means that as of June 11th,  I will no longer be a vendor but an actual, honest to Dewey, librarian.  Less than a month out of library school, and I'm a real librarian at last.

Thank you, library gods. You are kind, and always remember to rewind (before returning). I will make several sacrifices at the altar of information literacy for you, and lo, it will be good. 

The Master

I totally am.

Because yesterday, I handed in my thesis.

That's right, my thesis. Handed in. Out of my hands, and into someone else's hands. 

Like, into a mailbox and everything. There's photographic evidence, posted to Twitter, with a time stamp and everything. And once the grades post, I'll have credentials and everything.

And then you shall refer to me as The Master of Library Sciences.

Bwah ha ha.

Law and Order

Has been officially canceled. While bemoaning the news with my distract-me-at-work-with-IMs-friend Brianna, I realize I've been paying way too much attention to this show ever since I was seven:

me: Law and Order has been official canceled.

I'm sad.

Brianna: wow, all of them?

like SVU and whatever else?

me: Nah, just the original.

But still! Jack McCoy, man!

Brianna: haha

me: He was a scary ass crazy old man WITH the death penalty!

Brianna: aw. i think i've seen like, two episodes :X

me: It's okay.

Here's how the show went:

1) Bitch(es) got murdered

2) Cops went out and found someone who they were sure did it, only we were only 15 minutes into the show.

3) That guy didn't do it. But ohnotheydidn't here's another guy who totally did!

4) Guy goes on trial (30 minutes into hour). Jack McCoy thinks it's a slam dunk, he gets foiled by some uppity defense attorney.

5) Jack's hot assistant DA chick said some stuff, wearing a short skirt.

6) They totally got the guy in the end, and now he's going down because YOU DON'T FUCK WITH JACK MCCOY.

7) Fade to black.
Brianna : hahaha awesome

Ya here that, NBC? You just stole a Police Procedural Part of my Childhood!

Law and Order taught me things about

• critical thinking ("If we're only five minutes into the show, that guy didn't do it even if he is a Neo-Nazi.")
• pattern recognition ("She's the first person they interviewed, and she looks totally innocent-- she's totally guilty.")
• and enough about the legal system to B.S. my way through every conversation that's ever mentioned legality ever and convince everyone I know what I'm talking about ("The burden of proof for insanity is on the defense, and they have to prove that the defendant was incapable of knowing right from wrong in the moment.")

 Important things! Things that are imprinted on my brain to this very day! Where will today's youth get these lessons? Huh? Won't someone please think of the children! 

Movie I Am So Going to See (*cough* bootlegged online *cough*)

Agora, with Rachel Weisz is about Hypatia, who has her own Wikipedia article and everything guys! And while it sounds like craptacular fluff (romance! murder! hot-man slaves!) there are two very important things to take away from this movie:

1) HYPATIA WAS A LIBRARIAN OMGZ!
And depending on who you ask, she was either:

a) the Last Librarian for the Library of Alexandria. She totally knew those circulation stats without the help of an ILS, man-- she had that down like James Brown. No, scratch that-- she INVENTED HER OWN INTEGRATED LIBRARY SYSTEM OUT OF STONE AND STUFF! That's hardcore, my friend. Hardfrickincore.

b) A naked lady who hung around thinking deep thoughts and being stoned by Christians (not the 4/20 stoned, the "we're gonna pick up pieces of your ILS and throw them at your head until you're all bloody and dead stoned).

c) A badass.


2) Racheil Weisz is Playing a Librarian for the Second Time in Her Career
She totally loves us. And if she does it a third time, she becomes one of us by default. Like how The Lesbian Rule of Three means Misha Barton is one pair of Doc Martens away from the Pride Parade; Rachel Weisz is officially one movie away from her MLS! Think of the exposure! Think of the hotness!

Dude. This could be in your library. This, right here. That hot chick with the headless snake wrapped about her body.

Thank you, Rachel Weisz. I promise to forgive all your fines if I'm ever in a position to do so. Not that you have fines, except being fine (get it? get it?) but the love is there. Oh yeah. It's there.

You Know What's Awesome?

XKCD made "Malamanteau" the fourth most Googled term as of 9:15 AM this morning. Fans of the web comic got into a Wikipedia war with, well, fans of Wikipedia, and now the article is frozen for discussion. There are multiple articles that have been hastily thrown together by online news source-y type peoples to give some meaning to the word that, as far as I can tell, was made up this morning.

Dear Power of Society Over the English Language,

Sweet dude. Totally killer.

All my love, 

Clair

PS-- This totally makes up for "guestimate"

Free Stuff, Just $5

So last semester I had to make a bookmark of Free Stuff for Teens for Sarah Couri's Young Adult Services Class.

Except they were all free things I did. Because I'm apparently still fourteen, only kinda hotter. (And I can buy beer now! Score!)


Free Music

Fanmix: Because somewhere out there, there's a little fangirl and boy who have made a free album devoted to their love of Castiel/Dean. And even if that's not your bag, baby, you should join and get free music. Cuz it's free. 


Elbo.ws: Blog aggregator for music. So on the twenty thousand bajillionty blogs out there, one guy posts a live version of "I Touch Myself," and instead of making you know where to find this gem of a music master is located, you can just enter it into the search thing that looks like a box, click go, and get to the song. Easy things are easy.

Free Clothes

S.W.A.P.P. & Five Boroughs Clothing Swap: The best part about clothing swaps in NYC? Everyone else has more money and better taste than me. Goodbye Gap T-shirt, hello over-priced dresses from stores I wouldn't actually go into! Booyah!

Free Fun
Etsy Labs: Have you ever looked on Etsy and gone "Wow, I'll never be that talented." Now you can do that in a room full of people! In Brooklyn! For free!

Free Geek
MediumAtLarge: Geeks everywhere, Peter is our people. And as the Program Guru for New York Comic Con, C2E2, NY Anime Festival, Star Wars Celebration, and Your Mom, he posts about a lot of cool (and relatively free/cheap) geek culture things going on in the NYC area.

So. Free things. Go and don't pay for them.

*iz sad*

Lena Horne died today at the ripe old age of 92. The first black performer with a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio (back when Hollywood Studios owned performers and treated them like trading cards), she fought for civil rights, for equal representations, and legal protection from violence and discrimination.

She refused to perform for USO shows where German POWs were seated before African American servicemen. She helped Eleanor Roosevelt draft anti-lynching laws. She supported discriminated against Japanese citizens during and after WW2, and was blacklisted for refusing to shut her mouth in the McCarthy era and sit quietly while the world moved around her.

While my first exposure to Lena was in The Wiz, where she played the Absolutely Fabulous Glinda the Good Witch (who hung out in Space with a lot of shiny babies), my personal favorite Lena scene comes from Sesame Street. She and Kermit sang about how is wasn't easy being green, but how they wouldn't want to be any other way.



You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.
~Lena Horne

Iron Man 2: Awesome Times with Blowing Crap Up

Two of the NYCC volunteers work with a movie screening company. Which means that when sad, broke, library students want to see movies before they come out, they have two sweet, friendly nerds willing to help.

So Tuesday night, Volunteer Den Mom and I got to go and see Gweneth Paltrow be hot and stilettoed, Scarlet Johansson be surprisingly likable, and Samuel L Jackson remind us all that he hasn't been "acting" for a good fifteen years now.


When Stan Lee made Tony Stark, he wanted to make a character who was intentionally hard to like. Arms dealers-- who the heck likes an arms dealer aside from pirates, mercenaries, and creepy militia guys who have Nazi flags in their basements? No one, that's who.

Unless that arms dealer is Tony Stark, and he has a talking house. Then we're okay.

Because Tony Stark is an orphaned alcoholic ass who deals with his pain by sleeping with everything that moves, spending a lot of money, and hiring a hot secretary to run his life. His temper tantrums involve race cars and Senate hearings, his midlife crisis will probably involve blowing up part of Mars, and his fifth birthday party was the real cause of the San Andreas Fault. 


Stan Lee made a character who was hard to like. When Marvel made this into a movie, they wanted to make a film that would be hard for me not to love with a passion. Because they're smart that way.

It's awesome. It comes out today. Go and see it.

Stuff Librarians Like: Fictional Librarians

In the spirit of Stuff Lesbians Like (duct tape! showing their undies! texting!):

Stuff Librarians Like #1: 

Fictional Librarians 

Just like lawyers are much more interesting on TV, librarians are much more awesome when they're fighting mummies.

 

The every day life of the librarian might involve dealing with ten patrons who are mean, twenty people who are clueless, and that one special boy who's defecated in a very special place, but librarians in the media deal with none of that. They are superheroes, crime fighters, and Harrison Ford.*

Librarians in movies have the ability to recall things that no real person that you'd want to spend time with actually knows. They hide library cards in uncomfortable places and pull them out at a moments notice (because all librarians secretly want to be Gambit).  

They repel from buildings, fight crime, and always get the girl. Because brains are hot. Seriously. We promise. Brains are mad hot and some day when you grow up all of your peers will find brains more attractive than pretty features, a nice butt, a fit body, and muscles. 

Really. 

*I know Indiana Jones wasn't actually a librarian. However this argument puts me like two degrees of separation away from Han Solo. Shut up and give me this one.

A Reflection on the Hours to Come

In haiku form. Like all good reflections should be.

Rough draft due Tuesday
Expect little sleep tonight
Thesis still needs work.

Bonus Verses: 

Coffee will be brewed
Bed will not be slept in much
Clair is freaking out.

Tomorrow comes soon
What is this, your matched luggage?
No, bags under eyes.

Spotlight: NYPL Research Branch

Because I'm spending the next month living in it to finish the Big Damn Thesis, I thought today might be a good time to focus in like a laser on the NYPL Research Branch. Also known as the ones with the lions in front.

Here goes.