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Thursday Thrift: Your Local Library: CDs

Today's Thursday Thrift is pretty much a PSA for your local library.  So.  We all have ipods or mp3 players or the like now, nu?  You could buy CDs and then download them to your players.  Or you could buy the songs online.  Or you could get the CDs from your library, download them, return them and spend $0.00.

Let's face it: many, many CDs are not keepers.  It's the same with books: some are keepers and others, once read, are not the worth the paper they're printed on.  E.g., Pride & Prejudice is surely a keeper (like you didn't see that one coming).  Pride & Prejudice & Zombies might be a keeper...keepability is subjective.  I could be wrong about this, seeing as I haven't read it yet, but I'll venture a guess that Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin is probably not a keeper (great title, though!  who thinks of these things? and how much do they get paid to do this? and how can I get that job?).  But what do I know?  I often wonder if my tastes are too parochial.

Anyhoo, you decide what you do and do not want for keeps.  And whatever you don't want, borrow it from the library.  Now, our library's CD collection is pathetic.  It's beyond small, limited or any other respectable word for 'meager'.  It's all the way to pathetic and then some.  But enough about us (btw, if you click that link you'll see the thoroughly unimpressive and sloppy website maintained by me, local library webmaster...*snort*...I still can't say that without laughing...I don't know wtf I'm doing).  The thing to note is that the library's website has a link to the online catalog.  That catalog covers what's called the MAIN consortium, i.e., all the libraries in Morris County.  Any library that is part of a consortium should have a link to their online catalog on their website.

Plenty of other larger and more metro libraries have big collections...some even still have LPs!  Your library prolly has inter-library loans (or some similarly-named arrangement) whereby you request that an item from another library be sent to your library for you to pick up there and borrow.  In our consortium, it usually takes 3-4 days for stuff to arrive, although it could take longer.  If the item is very popular, e.g., the newest James Patterson or Janet Evanovich book, it could take a while to get to you.  That can be frustrating when you're dying to read the new book by your favorite author, but I'm sure you can find something else to read until your book comes in.  Basically, it could take longer or shorter to get your requested item based on:

• if the item is something new from a popular author/artist/whatever; it can take weeks/a couple of months to get crazy-popular stuff
• if the item is not new, but a popular reading club selection, e.g., The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society has been out for over a year now, but reading clubs are still selecting it
• the item is not new, but something in the news sparks interest, e.g., the movie about Julie Child has resulted in a lot of requests for her books
• if the item can't be located right away (e.g., yesterday and still today I couldn't find a book another library's patron wanted so I marked it missing and now the request will go to another library)
• library closings, e.g., scheduled, holiday, weather, etc.

Now, what if your consortium doesn't have what you want?  You or your library may be able to search outside of your consortium.  I did this a bit when I was in school.  E.g., we have something called JerseyCat (love that name, obvs).  Patrons can search for and request the desired item from other consortiums (consortia?) and libraries throughout NJ.  JerseyCat's search feature seems a little less intuitive and user-friendly than the MAIN online catalog, so you can usually ask your friendly neighborhood librarian to help you search JerseyCat or search and request the item for you.  Most of our patrons' JerseyCat requests are placed by staff, but a few people use it regularly and place their own requests.

At least wrt JerseyCat:

• requests submitted by patrons need to be approved by their home library staff; e.g., if a Boonton patron submitted a request from home last night, a Boonton staff person will see it when they check our account with JerseyCat; most requests are approved, but...
• ...requests for wildly popular things that should be in every library, let alone every consortium, will most likely not be approved; e.g., every library has at least one copy of every Harry Potter movie and book, so Boonton would not approve a request for that in JerseyCat
• JerseyCat is supposed to be for things that are not available within your own consortium
• libraries are not required to provide requested items; e.g., the Trenton Public Library is not required to loan me their copy of Basic Data of Plasma Physics if doing so goes against their JerseyCat loan policy or, basically, if they just don't want to
• it will take longer to get an item through JerseyCat; it involves more processing on the part of the loaning and borrowing libraries; it jalso ust takes longer to get a book to Boonton from Cape May County than from Mountain Lakes, which is right next door to us; there is a van service that goes between the libraries, but not all libraries are connected; sometimes the material travels via old fashioned snail mail
• some libraries may charge for JerseyCat items, although we do not and I haven't heard of anybody doing so

The other neat thing about borrowing library CDs is that you never know when you'll come across something new or at least new to you.  E.g., one of our patrons recently borrowed an old David Bowie CD, Pin Ups, from another library.  So then I borrowed it and enjoyed it...I thought it was a lot of fun.  Now, I saw it bc I work at the library, but if you peruse your library's online catalog you'll be requesting stuff left and right.

Well, I'm off bc I have to go take care of something in the kitchen.  I'm working on an ingredient to try in another batch of chili this weekend.  It might just supply the certain je ne sais quoi that I felt the last batch was missing (although no one else seemed to think it was missing anything...I think so...but I don't know what!).

You Catch My Meaning

Happy Mother's Day to me.  Yes, yes, I know I haven't any children, at least not of the usual variety, and that I'm only being treated to a lovely Mother's Day bc Kevin uses the cats as an excuse to treat me nicely.  Thank goodness for the cats bc otherwise I'd be getting HMD cards from the plants...at least the ones I haven't let die from neglect.  HMD wishes from thriving, happy, content cats is a much better situation.

When he told his sailor stories

She could feel the ocean foam rise

She saw its raging glory

But he had always told the truth, Lord, he was an honest man

And Brandy does her best to understand

So, yes, having a lovely day.  It's beautiful outside, if a bit cold.  Typing here while I listen to what I call my 'gay songs' on iTunes, e.g., Brewer & Shipley's "One Toke Over the Line", The Foundations' "Build Me Up Buttercup", and "Don't Pull Your Love" from Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds.  OMG, while I was at the link for "Don't Pull Your Love" it started playing the song while I'm already listening to my gay songs -- at top volume!  Double gayness!  All at top volume!  Anyway, this is a bunch of lame yet fun songs that Kevin downloaded from iTunes and that I unabashedly enjoy so much that he made me a gay songs folder.  Any day now, I expect Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me with Science" to show up in the folder.

If it hadn't been for Cotton-Eye Joe

I'd been married long time ago

Where did you come from where did you go

Where did you come from Cotton-Eye Joe

It's actually since  morphed into simply miscellaneous songs I like that Kevin downloads on a one-off kind of basis when he just likes the one song (bc for some reason I don't do downloads, I just take what I like of what he downloads).  E.g., I wouldn't say "Hurricane" or "Cold Hard Bitch" are gay songs, so it isn't really a folder of exclusively gay songs.

he said he could i

dentify

the guilty

maaaaaaaaan

And right now, one of my favorite songs is playing, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me".  It's a sweet love song with a bit of sugar in it, what with all those strings, although I wouldn't say it's gay.

And the moon is the only light we'll see

No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid

Just as long as you stand, stand by me.

Now, when I say these are 'gay' songs, I mean 'gay' as in gay, not gay gay, that is, not really gay.  I tend to avoid using 'gay' in this way bc I think others might be offended, and justifiably so, by the usage.  Sometimes I think it's similar to how people generally say 'mentally challened' or the like instead of saying 'retarded', like we used to say when I was younger.  Or maybe it's like even further back in the day when people said 'colored' instead of 'black' or 'African American'.  It's kind of like an uncouth guilty semantic pleasure.

I said to the

undertaker

I said, 'Undertaker

please drive slow"

Anyway, the other day at work, I was chatting with a co-worker (CW) and a friend/patron (C) about something or other and I said that something or someone was 'so gay'.  I forgot about what or whom I was speaking.  So C jokingly said she was offended, but that really, she agreed; and CW said she knew exactly what I meant.  I said pretty much what I said just above, i.e., how I don't use certain terms in polite company (sorry, CW and C) and CW said, 'Yes, it's kind of like "retard", but you would never really call a mentally challenged person "retard".'  Which is true.  And I would never walk up to a gay person and say, 'You're so gay' (unless we were really close and it was a running joke or something like that).

I search myself

I want you to find me

I forget myself

I want you to remind me

You can probably tell that I have reservations -- even within accepting company -- about using 'gay' this way.  Thing is, it so perfectly expresses what I mean!  When I say that I think 'Muskrat Love' is so gay (so very gay, in fact, that it didn't make it into my merely gay iTunes folder), I think many, if not most, people understand me to mean that I think the song is lame and cheesy, but that I don't think the song has anything to do with anyone's sexuality.

And now he's tickling her fancy

Rubbing her toes

Muzzle to muzzle, now anything goes

As they wriggle, and Sue starts to giggle.

I imagine  using 'gay' this way has its origins in stereotypical conceptions of homosexuality.  So, the question is, should I stop using this term bc it might be offensive to some?  What if gay people use the very same term to mean the very same thing as I do?  Is it okay for them to use it that way, but not me bc I'm not gay?  Is it okay to use it this way with others who also use it, wort anyone's -- i.e., speakers' or listeners' -- sexuality?  I have a feeling that the answer will be that things like context, the speaker, etc. matter and that I shouldn't use 'gay' in this way.

All this being said, the song currently playing -- "It's Raining Men" -- is totally gay.

Morning Giggle

So I'm sitting here, having my morning-java-equivalent, checking my email and some blogs, basically being all snoozy and getting reconciled to the idea of being awake, when I click through apostropher's link to this spectacular version of 'O Holy Night'.  Always nice to start your day with a laugh.

Just Sharing

Sometimes I like to listen to music while studying.  Different music for different things, e.g., classical or instrumental for what I'm doing now, which is summing up a chapter of the Swinburne book. I'm listening to George Winston's December CD.  I just love his Variations on the Kanon by Pachelbel (I think you can hear/download it at that site).  It sounds simultaneously happy and sad to me.  The repeated theme is the sad part and the new stuff is the happy part.  The sad part evoking drudgery, the daily grind, resignation; the happy part representing hope and opportunity.  The ending sounds somewhat sad, but I also think it sounds satisfied, like when you think, 'I'm so glad I did/tried __________' bc you got so much out of the experience and you realize what you woulda missed if you hadn't done/tried _____________.

I'm thinking I'd like to get the sheet music.  The 20th anniversary edition of the CD is out this year and includes downloadable sheet music for the Variations.  I have the original CD and I don't really feel the need to buy the new one just for the sheet music and a coupla new tracks, so I'll have to find it somewhere else.

I've Said It Before

And I'll say it again: you simply cannot go wrong with a good horn section.  Kevin and I saw Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes last week at the Community Theatre in Morristown.  It was a lotta fun.  So much so that we might have to go see them at the Stone Pony later in their tour.  I've been in NJ for 15 years now and have never made it to the Pony, which is a source of considerable shame and embarrassment for me, given my longtime love of Springsteen et al.

However, it might be fun to go to Mohegan Sun and see one of their shows there.  I've also never managed to get myself to Atlantic City, but there's no reason to be embarrassed about that.  Actually, I've never been to a casino and I've heard the CT ones are fun, so that could be fun.

Jukes' music is such fun music; I'm so glad to have finally seen them.  After the concert, I told Kevin I wanted to book them for the party I'll throw when I finally get my PhD (I know, I know, I have to start on it first; don't worry, it's all in The Plan).  He figures he's got plenty of time to accumulate enough money in the ol' change jar.  Harrumph.

So Annoying

Grrrr.  I annoy myself so much sometimes.  I was all psyched to transfer some new stuff from my pc to my ipod and then go rock out to the new stuff while on the treadmill, but I've lost the thingie to connect the pc and ipod iot make the transfer.  Ya know, it was just a little pleasure, but I was so looking forward to it.

Put Up Your Jukes

Unnngh.  I've got some flu-type bug/thing and I'd feel really sorry for myself today if it weren't for the fact that I just got tix for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at the Community Theatre in Morristown in May.

Tickets went on sale online today at 9 a.m.  I planned on getting online then, but, being sick and all, overslept so I didn't get online until 10 a.m.  That's when the phone sales opened.  I forget exactly where my seats are - somewhere toward the back of orchestra seating - and the theatre is small and cozy, so I'm sure the seats'll be fine.  But I would have liked to have gotten better seats.  Wouldn't we all, though.

It's like I always say, ain't nothin' like a good horn section.  And I do say that. Seriously.

Reminiscing

Listening to a Christmas present from Kevin: the 30th anniversary edition of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band's 'Born to Run'.  Ah, I remember so very well when I first heard this album.  It was 1975.  I was in sixth grade.  My brother, Greg, was home on winter break from his (I think) first year away at U of Chicago.

The CD is kinda cute; it looks like the original album:

Ooh, wait, breaking here to announce that one of my favorite Springsteen/E Street songs is starting: 'Backstreets'.  Love the piano on this one.  I learned this song a long, long time ago: I had to drop some of the keys bc my hands weren't big enough.  And, just FYI, I totally suck at the piano.  I liked playing, but I'm not a natural, so it was real work with paltry results.  I pretty much stick to listening now.  Every once in a very great while I play - or try to play, I should say - when no one's around.

Annnnyway, Greg brought this album home with him.  I listened to it and never looked back.  It was love at first note.  I fell head over heels and back around again with this album.  And with Springsteen.  I was 11 years old and just starting to hit the rebellious years.  Much of what Springsteen wrote and sang about resonated with me: yer basic parent-child angst exacerbated by age differences (my parents are about 20 years older than parents of others in my age cohort); cultural differences (Irish mom, Polish dad); religious issues (both parents Catholic); occupational factors (although both had training in certain fields before coming to the U.S., they could not find similar work here; they both ended up working at labor intensive jobs); external influences (mom raised in Ireland, went to England for work, lived there during WWII; dad raised in Poland, captured a few days after the invasion of Poland, spent the duration of the war in a German prison camp; both grew up in relatively poor farm communities; both came here in the late 1950's; hmm, I could go on about these factors).

So, if you know a whit about Springsteen, you know he hits all these bases - and then some - quite heavily during this period.  Gosh, as I think back on it now, there's an awful lotta stuff to process around that age.  Developing independence of personality, belief, opinion, goals, values, desires, etc.  It brings to mind a chunk of ice breaking off of a glacier; a cleaving away.

A dear friend, Michelle, and I used to semi-joke about moving to NJ as soon as we were old enough bc, well, that's where Bruce came from.  And that was good enough for us at the time!  Well, here I am in NJ, although I swear Bruce Springsteen had nothing to do with it.  Michelle lived across the street and down a few houses from me.  We went through these years together, though with very different styles.

Michelle and I were pretty much opposites.  Where she had style, I had...none (that certainly hasn't changed) .  Where she had presence, I was, uh, there.  Where she was outspoken, I was shy.  Where she was cool, I was nerdy-sporty.  I remember many loud days at her house as she and her mother and/or father went at it about something.

For me, home could get loud as I went at it with my parents about something or other.  These outbursts were infrequent, though intense.  Michelle once said that I broke my parents in a way my brothers (I have five older bros) hadn't.  My brothers might yell and get angry and storm out; I often thought their real arguments hid behind other arguments.  I might yell, too, but, however I spoke, I said just what I was thinking.  My father once went off about me not going to church (I was older and was supposed to be getting myself there).  Whereas one of my brothers in a similar position might have said something like 'I'm going' or 'Don't tell me what to do' and walked out and gone somewhere else, I went with, 'Oh, why go to church anyway?  You don't even know if God exists.  And even if God exists, this church stuff is just made up.'  In retrospect, I think maybe my brothers had the right idea!  Avoid arguing and just walk away.  This particular response was one of my least successful tacks ever; it did not go over well at all.  My dad went off, and I mean, off.

Another, less explosive argument occurred during my senior year in high school.  I had already decided to go to Boston U. and declared philosophy as a major.  My father talked to me a long time about majoring in something practical, specifically: mathematics.

!

Now, y'all know I suck at math.  I knew it even back then; math was not my strong point; it was barely a point at all.  But no matter: what could I do with a philosophy degree (a fair question, I concede)?  With a math degree, I could get a good, steady job and probably always find work.

Well, y'all also know how that argument turned out.

I've listened to this CD many times since then, but I guess the re-issue with the DVDs and stuff got me thinking about when I first heard it and what else was going on back then.  Ayup, good stuff, good stuff.

Auction Slave

Kevin never uses an alarm clock.  Never.  This morning, his alarm clock goes off very early. I'm half asleep, wondering why he is getting up so eaaaarrrrly? On a Saturday, no less?  Turns out my philatelist/numismatist/ebay slave husband had a few auctions to attend at 6 o'clock in the morning.  For years, his numismatism was U.S.-centric.  Now that he's fairly well conquered U.S. coinage, he's turned his cursor on the rest of the world.  He's currently focusing on 19th century/some early 20th century European coins.

Now, theoretically, the idea behind ebay is that you put your maximum bid in and then be done with bidding.  Maybe your maximum bid wins, maybe it doesn't.  But if you really want something, you don't want to pay much more than necessary and there are other bidders...then you probably want to be there at auction's end, finger on your mouse, ready to snipe.  He didn't need to snipe on these particular auctions (although he did place his bids at the last minute, as if he were sniping).

He came back to snooze, but it wasn't long before the phone rang.  His group had some kind of install going in overnight (almost all of their stuff happens overnight) and something didn't go right.  So he's been up, trying to fix it and, from the sounds coming from the puter room, I think he's finally fixed it.

I can understand getting up so early for an ebay auction.  What I can't understand is listening to Roger Waters early on a bright, beautiful Saturday morning while you're trying to get some work done.  Snippets from a review at amazon.com:

Amused to Death is perfectly titled; it conveys its maker's mordant humor and underlying pessimism.

...this a concept album--the concept (as ever with Waters) being the crappy nature of modern life.

Waters's voice, however, remains the same: a weary whisper, positively dripping with contempt.

Ugh.  How depressing.  Roger, just end it all, already.

Viking Kittens

Viking Kittens take on Led Zeppelin and Electric Six.