Library stuff, words, words, words...
Dec. 21st, 2009 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderplanetThe library has added a new feature their networked catalog. The "My List" function, where a person can store a whole bunch of titles that they might someday want to borrow, now defines which books are currently available on short notice.
Using the networked computer, a person can log in to see which titles are checked in somewhere, and which titles are checked in to the specific library that the logged in person is in.
This first one is from "My List." It was the most appealing of the half dozen or so that were currently checked in to my local library. I don't know why or when I added it. Maybe someone recommended it. Maybe I read an online review. Maybe I just like pulp.
Book #1: Two for the Money by Max Allan Collins
The next one is a recommendation from my friend Ainslie who moved away to the Netherlands many years ago. The book is a collection of poems by Alice Walker. I don't like poetry because it's pretentious.
Now I've done that thing that I always do, where I use a pronoun in a way that muddies up the meaning.
I mean one, neither, or both of the following:
*I don't like poetry because poetry is pretentious.
*I don't like poetry because liking poetry is pretentious.
Ainslie replied to that - "the idea that poetry is pretentious is a capitalist plot to separate people from their cultural power. that and the shit they try to shovel down your throat is so largely off the mark in relevance to one's real life that the antagonism takes."
;P
Ainslie is right, of course. Working class people are alienated from creativity, appreciation and analysis of culture because communication is a form of power. Sometimes I succumb because so little of it is made from a perspective that I can identify with, and that's part of the process.
I was named after my mother's favorite poet, a reclusive emo. I still don't much like poetry. I still don't like much poetry.
I like everything in the book that I've read so far.
Book #2: Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth: New Poems by Alice Walker
Using the networked computer, a person can log in to see which titles are checked in somewhere, and which titles are checked in to the specific library that the logged in person is in.
This first one is from "My List." It was the most appealing of the half dozen or so that were currently checked in to my local library. I don't know why or when I added it. Maybe someone recommended it. Maybe I read an online review. Maybe I just like pulp.
Book #1: Two for the Money by Max Allan Collins
The next one is a recommendation from my friend Ainslie who moved away to the Netherlands many years ago. The book is a collection of poems by Alice Walker. I don't like poetry because it's pretentious.
Now I've done that thing that I always do, where I use a pronoun in a way that muddies up the meaning.
I mean one, neither, or both of the following:
*I don't like poetry because poetry is pretentious.
*I don't like poetry because liking poetry is pretentious.
Ainslie replied to that - "the idea that poetry is pretentious is a capitalist plot to separate people from their cultural power. that and the shit they try to shovel down your throat is so largely off the mark in relevance to one's real life that the antagonism takes."
;P
Ainslie is right, of course. Working class people are alienated from creativity, appreciation and analysis of culture because communication is a form of power. Sometimes I succumb because so little of it is made from a perspective that I can identify with, and that's part of the process.
I was named after my mother's favorite poet, a reclusive emo. I still don't much like poetry. I still don't like much poetry.
I like everything in the book that I've read so far.
Book #2: Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth: New Poems by Alice Walker
