".... while I read Shakespeare and listen to symphonies. 7 a.m. Get into twenty-year-old Corolla, turn on NPR, get rattled by news and switch to listening to a Charles Dickens book on tape read by Alistair Cooke...."
From "HOW NON-LIBRARIANS IMAGINE A LIBRARIAN’S TYPICAL WORKDAY" — #15 on "COUNTING DOWN OUR 20 MOST-READ ARTICLES OF 2022" (McSweeney's).
I need to work on a list — something like 20 most-[something] blog posts of 2022. Maybe 20 most useful tags of 2022 or 20 most meandering sidetracks of 2022 or 20 least expected topics of 2022 or 20 best hobbyhorses of 2022....
Posts
32 comments:
The easiest year-end list to do would be most-read articles. I've looked. It would be a boring list. My most-read blog post of the year is something about Mike Lee!
Anyway, a post only counts as read if people click on it, either to see the rest of a post that isn't fully on the front page or to go into the comments. A lot of posts are just read on the front page.
20-most promising topics for end of year 20-most lists!
Who puts on slacks? Men put on pants or jeans. Women put on what? Slacks? Why not pants or jeans? What’s this slacks thing? Ridiculous.
Thanks for pointing out this and the other McSweeney's articles. I haven't read them all but the Julian Fellowes take down is my favorite. Downton Abbey doesn't quite parody itself, but it's a ripe target. Some other shows are so ridiculous that they're beyond parody. It would be like making fun of a handicapped child to mock them. Downton Abbey however has just the right balance of pomp and predictability to make a parody rewarding. Someone should do A Naked Gun type movie based on it. Sad that Carol Burnett never got a crack at it.
Top Ten Close Reads of 2022 - where I woke you up to what the words were actually saying - with cruel neutrality thrown in for free!
First, thanks for another great year of stimulating reading.
Second, looking at some of today's posts provides a pretty good summary of 2022:
- Irrational responses to perceived climate change
- Public toilets
- Extra-legal efforts to punish a political opponent
Two more posts today, to cover Twitter and the southern border, and you would've covered all of 2022 in five posts.
Best wishes to all for a more rational 2023 - but all know that won't happen.
William, how about "Downton Abbey and Zombies" or "Lady Mary's Eyebrows"?
Nah. Non-librarians have mostly never heard of Shakespeare, much less Dickens.
Actual librarian's workday:
(1) Clean semen stains off desks and computer keyboards.
(2) Stop by local foodbank to pick up food for library vagrants.
(3) Order newest drag queen biographies and gender tranformation novels for the young children's wing.
(4) Stop by anti-Trump rally.
I almost forgot-
Restock Narcan vending machine.
20 best TikToks!
I love this post! When I read the first bit about Mr. Foibles I thought "oh dear God, what tedious homosexual obscure character is she writing about today?" It turns out that it was my own my own mental predilections that were being skewered.
from "HOW NON-LIBRARIANS IMAGINE A LIBRARIAN’S TYPICAL WORKDAY" —
I've read (and watched) more than enough porn, to Know what a Librarian's Typical workday is like.
Toyota Corollas do last that long. But I had a 10 year old Subaro in mind for the stereotypical librarian.
How many symphonies can one listen to from 6am to 7am?* Not that I would try, myself--to me one of the best things about mornings (and libraries, ideally) is the quiet . . .
To think, I didn't read (and don't recall seeing) the post about Mike Lee.
Maybe the Prof could list her ten or twenty least-responded-to posts, and we can try to figure out why.
*3-4 of Haydn or Mozart, 1-2 of Beethoven or Brahms, .81 of Mahler or Bruckner
“ Maybe the Prof could list her ten or twenty least-responded-to posts…”
I have no way to know how much readers are responding as they read in privacy.
The librarian thing was funny. Too bad it wasn't more accurate. Here's the biggest myth about librarians:
"Librarians love books."
No, lots of them don't.
The head librarian at my branch is a middle aged woman who drives a Chevy Spark with a WENDY DAVIS FOR GOVERNOR sticker on it, bless her heart.
"I have no way to know how much readers are responding as they read in privacy."
True. I should have specified "least-openly-responded-to-by-commenters." But it was a request made in jest.
(I was a librarian, but a special one, flying far above the grubby numbnuts downstairs, or at the--yugh--public library.)
#11 I'm Wearing Tunics Now. Hilarious!
It’s kind of late in the game for a Top 20 list, with only three days left in the year. I’ve been counting down my favorite “new” songs of 2022 on Facebook and sharing them here in the nightly open thread for almost two weeks now, plus I’m counting down my Top 10 photos of the year there as well. I planned those out starting at the beginning of December, timing everything out so that #1 on both lists will drop on December 31st.
How about your favorite blog posts.
My wife is a recently-retired librarian, and I have librarians in the family back to my Aunt Jennie who edited The Horn Book in the 1950s. Also, my newest DIL is a librarian. The description is sort of accurate for the librarians trained up until about 1965, plus some stragglers who thought that's the career they were getting into, quelle surprise. The last of them would have retired in the early 2000s and there remains an air of this throughout the culture of older librarians. They do listen to NPR, yes. It is part of their religious observance. But librarians now are more likely to be techies than bookish.
The new head of the ALA is a Marxist Lesbian. I imagine most of the to-do list will focus on destroying traditional American institutions: family, freedom, capitalism, etc.
“ How about your favorite blog posts.”
There were over 3,500 posts. I should look them over and pick?
"There were over 3,500 posts. I should look them over and pick?"
That would be easier than trying to find an insightful comment by Jim53IQ.
"There were over 3,500 posts. I should look them over and pick?"
Why not ... you're retired. ;) Or just pick the favorites you do remember.
Top Myths About Librarians:
1. They're all the same.
Actually, that about covers it.
My career as a librarian was highly satisfying overall, but I was lucky enough to stumble into a perfect niche in the ecosystem, for one of my aptitudes and inclinations.
I could have maximized my earnings potential by going into medical or legal librarianship, but those fields had no more appeal to me than doctoring or lawyering did.
The PC was bad, of course, but I was at a large university and that stuff was a given. What broke me was the %#&#@!$ administrivia required in all things at all levels.
Lyle Sanford, RMT said...
Top Ten Close Reads of 2022 - where I woke you up to what the words were actually saying - with cruel neutrality thrown in for free!
Top ten topics - Close Reads; Sunrise Pictures; Fashion Absurdities in clothes; Fashion Absurdities in words; Fashion Absurdities in Politicians; Fashion Absurdities in art; Bob Dylan: absurdly true; Wisconsin is hard to see (pictures); What's garnering your attention out there and how are you doing Xmas dinner, moving, gardening, coviding, social mediaing etc.; rando topics - maybe the best of all.
Lyle Sanford, RMT said...
Top Ten Close Reads of 2022 - where I woke you up to what the words were actually saying - with cruel neutrality thrown in for free!
Top ten topics - Close Reads; Sunrise Pictures; Fashion Absurdities in clothes; Fashion Absurdities in words; Fashion Absurdities in Politicians; Fashion Absurdities in art; Bob Dylan: absurdly true; Wisconsin is hard to see (pictures); What's garnering your attention out there and how are you doing Xmas dinner, moving, gardening, coviding, social mediaing etc.; rando topics - maybe the best of all.
I think girl librarians are sexy. ALL of them. They do something for me. Don't ask me what, I don't really know, it must be a fetish.
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