The Librarius Interruptus Awards

The guy next to me chomps an apple, the lady behind me mutters to herself, harrumphing and sighing like a petulant child.  The guy across from me has his headphones so loud I can hear the frying . . . Just another day at the public library.

Of course, the problem isn't merely here.  On the roads, in stores and restaurants, movie theaters . . . every shared space I visit is degraded by people who seem to think no one else matters.  These incidents, outside the roads, are not necessarily dangerous or even any kind of problem, in and of themselves -- people make mistakes, zone out, and so on.  But I wonder about the sum.  For me, a few at the library, a few more at the bookstore, one or two at the supermarket -- day after day, all this distraction and life-as-obstacle course makes me want to bite people's heads off.

But I don't see a lot of people getting upset, so if they are, they're not showing it.  I flash dirty looks or make comments, because I simply can't function in certain ways with distraction . . . another cell phone rings, despite obvious signs everywhere that they are supposed to be turned off.  At least it wasn't answered.

I wonder how much can be chalked up to obliviousness, versus other natural proclivities, versus the annoying notion of  "it's just what people do . . .yeah it bothers me, but what can I do about it, so just go with the flow and be a dick."  I find it is hard, if not impossible, to adapt this way, because I can neither dull my sensitivity nor blithely ruin someone else's day, who hasn't ruined mine first.

I marvel at people who can preserve their concentration and depth of immersion in the face of . . . (someone cracks his knuckles) . . . is the problem that people like me cannot adapt, or are "they" simply a bunch of . . .


When I considering starting a blog, I had in mind anything but another forum for complaints.  Yet I look back, and the complaining starts with my second post.  Maybe that post is telling, that it was my misfortune or mistake to start blogging when I had no Internet access at home.  Or maybe it was the storm that set the cascade of rant in motion.

In any event, here it is a year later, and I am so disgusted with public libraries that I hope, ASAP, to never step foot in one again, or at least to never job hunt, read, or write in one.  I could do without using the restrooms too (post on this is coming soon.)

With all of this in mind, if that's possible, here is, without further delay (though I can't guarantee interruption), the first (and probably only) annual Monkey Shrines Librarius Interruptus Awards, for the worst libraries in Morris/Somerset Counties in which to do more than borrow . . .

And the winner is:  the library in a town beginning with B, in Somerset County.  I would mention it by name, but unfortunately I need to be there sometimes.  Plus, I hope these Awards will be taken as more than finger-pointing, that these illustrations of library dysfunction will prompt questions, like What the Hell is Going on with This Culture, Not To Mention My Tax Money?

At our winner, one staff member snorts regularly.  This is very noticeable in a small library, as is staff talking constantly in full voice, which also makes attempts to silence patrons fruitless.  And once, a pair of pre-teens were sitting next to me, babbling and giggling.  One proceeded to become gaseously fruitful of ass, at which point I lost it.  A tirade of cuss-laden berating did not satisfy me, so I complained to a staff member.  I was told to sit elsewhere, as if I wasn't on my way to another seat already, and as if the library had no children's room in which to exile the flatulent, gibbering offenders.  In my world, these kids would have been thrown out of the library altogether.

The staff are pretty clueless when it comes to newpaper classifieds as well.  Most libraries keep them behind a desk, seperate from the newspaper, to avoid theft and vandalism.  I have pointed this out every time I can't find a classified, or discover a hole where some selfish prick has clipped an ad.  After a few responses reminiscent of deer in headlights, I switched to written "suggestions."  Eventually the policy was changed, but not all staff have been informed of the secret classifieds location, so sometimes I'm still out of luck. 

Finally, and this sealed the victory for the library in the town beginning with B, their Net connection is often painfully slow -- minutes for a page to load -- and filters are way too active.  I routinely cannot access such dangerous sites as craigslist and Yahoo!  And the computers are strung so close together, I feel like I'm on a chain gang.


Some of the problems plaguing our winner are common, such as patrons behaving like they are in their living rooms, and lazy, clueless and even rude staff.  Inertia approaching that of a small moon is likewise commonplace.  For these, and some more unique problems, our runners-up:

I haven't been to The Roxbury Library in awhile, so what I say may no longer apply.  But in 2008, every time I walked in, my eyes, nose and throat would itch, and I noted other patrons with the same problem.  Some sneezed.  I thought it might be a mold problem, and told the staff as much.  I was encouraged to take my complaint higher, and to bolster my case, was shown hundreds of dead insects in a cluster, seemingly related to the venting system. 

The computers at the Bridgewater branch of the Somerset County Library are, for me, useless.  Monitors are blurry even when "privacy screens" are removed, and functionality is extremely limited -- text in browsers cannot be made much less than gigantic, cut and paste is sometimes disabled, tabs are blocked, and filters are overly active.  And like our winner, computers are so close together, you best be chummy with your neighbor(s). 

And finally, Dishonorable Mentions to The Rockaway Township Library, for being disgusting, with nary an unstained chair, an occasional sighting of mouse droppings, and a pervasive unsavory odor; The Chester Library, for being the location of the post that "culminated" in these Awards; and The Randolph Library, for an incomprehensible bathroom sink, with a faucet set so close to the back of the basin as to make washing anything but fingers impossible.  And even that is a challenge, constant pressure with one hand required just to maintain a meager trickle.  The genius(es) responsible for the design, installation, OK, and continued existence of this piece of Dada should be forced to use it, preferably after reconstructing a bus engine.

The Motorhead Cure

With an apparent allergy feeling like a bug crawling behind my face, I caught this on TV.  For those three minutes, and only those, my nose cleared, and my eyes stopped itching.  Unfortunately, as the band did only the one song, and another version wasn't around,  I don't know what relieved my symptoms -- what combination of  "Ace of Spades", that particular performance of it, and that particular band on that particular night.  But the show's subsequent performance did not effect relief.

The Motorhead Cure may cause elevated heart rate, whiplash, and dancing with the devil.  Neck problems may result from imitations of Lemmy Kilmister.  Not responsible for gambling losses incurred as a result of The Motorhead Cure.

All Natural?

Once I was given a list,  "Natural Highs."  Things you might expect were on it, like chocolate, hugs, dogs . . . rollercoasters.

Metal cars careening on tracks are more natural than, say, fermented fruit? 

I'm still puzzled by this, years later.  It seems fine if your high is built, manufactured, cooked or otherwise tweedled by humans, as long as it's not crack.  It's OK to be fermented, distilled, and/or packaged, as long as you don't induce more than inocuous pleasure or moderate productivity.  And it's "safe" to alter your biochemistry/psyche with sound, light, people and even plants, unless they're on a Federal Schedule. 

Then it's unnatural.

What about running from a rabid dog?  That's pretty natural.

It should be so obvious as to not need saying, but natural does not equate with safe, nor does unnatural automatically imply unsafe.   And, what are we talking about, anyway?  Is unnatural simply a synonym for manmade?   If so, cross rollercoasters, chocolate, and hugs off the list!

If naturalness were really what lists like "Natural Highs" were about, it wouldn't be a list of purported "safe highs."  But what else could it be?  Can we put every high not made by people on it?  And ultimately, can people, as products of Nature, using raw materials from Nature, make anything that isn't natural? 

Unnatural connotes frightening, and in everyday speech it seems to refer to such.  Homsexuality is frequently termed "unnatural", but not because it actually is -- some animals are "gay."  The fact is, sexual relations with a person of the same gender just scares a lot of people.  And consider the fear surrounding "synthetic" objects.


I'm not sure the word "unnatural" has any meaning outside it's application to individuals -- when we say something is not in one's nature -- because the nature of Nature, well, encompasses all natures, doesn't it?  If you believe that God, angels, demons, and so forth exist extra-naturally, then unnatural has a meaning for you that it doesn't for me.  What you speak of is outside my conscious frame of reference, and I have yet to be convinced from the "outside"  that anything called "spiritual" is supernatural.

I would like to know something "above" the morally-dualized spectacle of Nature, but I don't see how, and that alone will be cause for questions if I meet the Eternal.  In the meantime, let's disentangle our categories.  Debates on homosexuality, food and drugs, religion . . . all of this is saturated with the intermingling of safety, naturalness, and morality, and the abuse of language is as annoying as those who exploit it, covering titanic fears of unseen forces.

Who They Actually Are

Another teenage lesbian is suing a rural Mississippi school district, this time over a policy banning young women from wearing tuxedos in senior yearbook portraits . . .

 The ACLU lawyer says:

"It's unfair and unlawful to force students to conform to outdated notions about what boys and girls should look like without any regard to who they actually are as people."

Obviously, there are litigous and socially-ambitious advantages to framing the debate this way, but why are the journalists on board?  Why is there no questioning in the article of what a clothing mandate for yearbook photos could possibly accomplish?


Similarly ridiculous is the suspension of  a four-year-old, for having long hair, and the reasons given:

According to the district dress code, boys' hair must be kept out of the eyes and cannot extend below the bottom of earlobes or over the collar of a dress shirt. Fads [is it still 1968?] in hairstyles "designed to attract attention to the individual or to disrupt the orderly conduct of the classroom or campus is not permitted," the policy states.

Why, then, is there no mention of the boy's oh-so-trendy hairstyle causing havoc?

On its Web site, the district says its code is in place because "students who dress and groom themselves neatly, and in an acceptable and appropriate manner, are more likely to become constructive members of the society in which we live."

For this claim to have a rational basis, the terms "neatly," "acceptable," "appropriate", and "constructive" would have to be defined precisely enough to carry out a survey.  The survey would then have to follow the lives of very many people:  a group that corresponds to the criteria, and at least one control.  At the conclusion of this seventy-year-plus exercise, you might have something solid on which to hook your claim.   Otherwise, the statement reduces to "We don't like this kid's haircut, and we believe, on the basis of anecdotes and/or neurotic fixations, that it will be to his and society's misfortune."

This should be obvious to people working in education.  We should also expect knowledge of the state of relevant research.  This site says ". . . no long-term empirical studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of school uniforms or dress codes in improving student or school performance . . "   And according to this Policy Report, "research on the effects of dress code and school uniform policies is inconclusive and mixed." 


Perhaps the solution is to offer uniform and non-uniform options in public schools, universally.  This way, students retain choice, while allowing the experiment to continue.  Meanwhile, let's remain skeptical of a rally for appearance codes coming from a system obsessed with test scores, skewed heavily toward mechanical skills, that embraces warrantless searches.  If this trend toward drone manufacture continues, who a student "actually is" will be moot, appearance codes no more than dressing.

Royalty's Ass

In which the subjective value of opinions is proportional to ass origin.

I find film comment funny.  From experts on "down," it's so often confusion and folly.  Consider, for example, this proud declaration:  "I don't care about widescreen."   It was intoned as if a prod, trying to find out what team I was on.  Unfortunately for questioner, I'm on the team that wants to see original prints. 

Now, I'm not saying that cutting up a film willy-nilly amounts to a rectangular peg in a square hole, but . . . doesn't it?

It's a form of Dada, in a way, introducing a random change in a film after the artist is "done" with it.  Obviously it's not totally random, being a uniform squaring, but it is arbitrary.  And when the movie gets to TV, a cheap Pop Art ensues, a massacre by commercials, logos, and pop-up ads.  Is there absolutely no respect for the viewer, artists and crew?

And at this point, how far from the original film are we?  This object, slaved over by dozens if not hundreds of people, has been cropped, had random short films cut into it, and new elements have been placed in the frame.  On most channels, a logo stays on screen, like a tacky and undeserved signature.  Some go translucent . . . Newsflash:  I can still see it, so therefore I'm still struggling to avoid that part of the screen.  Who believes the lower right optional?  Why isn't it optional during commercials?

Often ads leap out at you, which is to say deliberately divert your attention from what you are watching.  Is the attitude of television viewers, overwhelmingly, not only  "I don't care about widescreen" but also "I really don't care what's on the screen as long as it's on?"   And I have to ask, if none of this stuff bothers you, if you can watch a film in it's original aspect and a Frankensteined TV version with equal pleasure, or a TV show shredded to ribbons by advertising -- how?  Would it be the same for you if you closed your eyes?


Another side of "I don't care about widescreen" is misplaced pride, about which I wonder:  even if one really doesn't care, where is the virtue?  I envy being so easily amused, but I don't see the moral victory. 

And so it goes, right "up" to the professionals, where an embarassing richness of silly statements and strange "victories"  make it difficult to pick a representative example.  But the fact that this more-or-less randomly chosen review excerpt is so telling is, itself, indicative:  

"Annie Hall contains more intellectual wit and cultural references than any other movie ever to win the Oscar for best picture . . ."

Did the reviewer count the cultural references in every best picture winner?   Is there an intellectual wit meter? 

". . .  and in winning the award in 1977 it edged out "Star Wars," an outcome unthinkable today.

Besides being a tautology, the clumsy implications -- that today a smart film could never beat a blockbuster, and thus that a blockbuster could never be smart -- are not "unthinkable" if one peruses the winners and nominees beginning with, say, 2001.

"The victory marked the beginning of Woody Allen's career as an important filmmaker (his earlier work was funny but slight) . . ."

So, an "important film" is the opposite of slight?   And, who does this guy think he is, dismissing seven films (and thus everyone who worked on them) with a single word?!

". . . and it signaled the end of the 1970s golden age of American movies.  With "Star Wars," the age of the blockbuster was upon us, and movies this quirky and idiosyncratic would find themselves shouldered aside by Hollywood's greed for mega-hits."

Again, the "best picture" winners and nominees tell a different story.  Plus, I see no preponderance of quirk and idiosyncrasy before Annie Hall, and the list includes blockbusters relative to their time.  Is 1977 a turning point by "virtue" of anything more than nostalgia?