Enough grumbling, though. Here's some random stuff I have been reading or doing:
- Oogling Nick Laird's pug
- Reading various interviews with A. S. Byatt
- Taking SRC poster illustrator Werner Zimmerman out to lunch. He's a pretty interesting guy. Best part about his visit was watching him interact with the kids - and one of the parents - who were aspiring artists. One little girl became quite enamoured of him, and asked me later where she could buy art supplies (Werner showed them his, including a truly gross/fascinating self-cleaning gummy eraser.)
- Spying on ALA in Chicago. My friend took a wicked pic of this little bad boy (can I have one for home?) I am ambivalent about the RUSA President’s program "From the Book and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Readers’ Advisory," which I was disappointed to miss at first. Now it just seems kind of not fascinating, based on various reports. Don't get me wrong - I do think Steve is cool, but the other stuff was pretty boring and stuff I had already heard about. I do think it's great to shine a spotlight on whole collection RA, and to have an RA event, and maybe I needed to just be there to experience the excitement (this gave me a nice visual of one poster session about face-out marketing - spectacular! But again, not exactly revolutionary. The Amazing Joan Swamber got me hooked on face-out display, colour-coded even, back in, um, 2004?), but I wasn't too blown away. Finally, my ALA spying has resulted in a crush on Neil Gaiman (yes, it took me awhile to catch up. I don't just give my heart away, you know!)
- Thoroughly digesting Cutting for Stone, a seriously wonderful novel about twin brothers, Marion and Shiva, born in Ethiopia just before the revolution to a nun who had emigrated to Africa from South India. There is a lot in here about "created" families and the legacy of blood relatives, the history of medicine, fistulas (they seem to be following me now - case in point), sibling relationships, politics, religion, you know, all the good stuff. Definitely one of my favourite reads of the year. I also quite enjoyed The Believers.
- Jumping for joy at the news that my friend Chris seems to be on the fast-track to super-stardom. He's going to have to create a new level after ParCon 5, to encompass the ratio of parents to children to movie stars.
- Speaking of super-stardom, Serena Ryder deserves some, too. I saw her at Bluesfest this past week, and she totally rocked. Also, I was semi-impressed with Ottawa for approximately 5 seconds, for showing up (my standards are low), singing along, and displaying a variety of age groups at a concert.
Eh bien, c'est tout!
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