Rolling Paper Graphics

I love this quirky book, a visit to the wide wide world of Rolling Paper Graphics! (subtitled El papel de fumar.) This book by Jose Lorente is beautifully designed and produced by Gingko Press. Lorente has collected Spanish rolling paper (cigarette rolling paper) graphics for more than 20 years, ultimately collecting 4500 dated products from the mid-1800's to today. Only a portion of the collection is included, in chapters on nature, places, objects, people, typography, textures, and advertising. Graphic papers from other countries, from the collection of A. S. Dalmases, are also included. I've included a couple of slide shows from Flickr photo collections which feature graphics from the book. The second slide show focuses on the work of one artist, Julius Klinger of Austria.



Here are several graphics by Julius Klinger (Austria, 1918-1919) which are featured in "Rolling Paper Graphics." These are drawn from lamarde.wordpress.com, and his flickr photostream.



If you like reading about graphic design, check out How magazine. Here's their Typography blog, which is so exuberant and creative! and here's the home page for all the How Design blogs. You will enjoy this!

Kickin' Chunks

Kickin' chunks. Ice chunks, that is, the frozen chunks of slushy mush that build up on your car's mud flaps. Kicking chunks of ice off the mud flaps is one of my winter amusements.

To pass the long winter, I've become an urban phenologist, keeping track of winter's progression: "firsts" such as the first day the sun sets after 4:30, and the conversational slide from "we need the moisture" to "isn't the snow beautiful" to "My God, will winter never end!" When I rang the Salvation Army bell this Christmas, I was able to track the progressive addition of layers, ending up with three pairs of socks, long underwear and pants, a shirt and two sweaters, coat, fleece-lined ear-covering hat, 6' scarf, liner gloves, mittens, and choppers, and three layers of cardboard (to stand on)!

Today I have a new entry in my phenology list:

it's too cold to kick the snow off the flaps! It's frozen solid!

It's -20 degrees, a great day to reread Shackleton's Endurance, Jack London's short stories, or Robert Service's tall tales of the Yukon. Click to read my booklist in Hennepin County Library's Bookspace.

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Robert Service

Soul Thief

Soul Thief, by Charles Baxter

I tremendously enjoyed the beautifully written "Soul Thief," almost to the end. And though I'm unhappy with the ending, Baxter's writing is so enjoyable I recommend "Soul Thief" anyway.

Here is a book with a blank and tender hero, a book of mirrors, doubles, identity theft, of voiceless people finding voice and others silencing themselves. We are introduced to Nathaniel Mason, drifting through grad school in the early 1970s. (Baxter nails his descriptions of the 70's.) Nathaniel meets Theresa on the way to a party, and she introduces him to Jerome Coolberg. Soon he hears his distinctive life history parroted back to him as Jerome's. Then books and clothing begin to disappear from his apartment and migrate to Jerome. The identity violations climax in a final brutal incident.

The second half of the book opens years later. Nathaniel is a contentedly married man with two teenage sons. From out of the blue, he gets a phone call from Coolberg, asking for a meeting.

The ending has a twist I can't reveal, but I was disappointed. I read book reviews, as I did after "Divisadero," to see what others thought. The New York Times reviewer didn't mind, but the Powell's Books reviewer says, "it saddens me to report that the climax is a hackneyed bit of metafictional whimsy, which more or less sinks the novel."

In reading "Divisadero" and again with "Soul Thief," I assumed the fault was mine, that I wasn't a sophisticated enough reader to "get it." I have enough confidence to say "I didn't like this book/ending," but not enough confidence to think that fault is not solely mine. I wonder when that confidence occurs.

Here are the two reviews I read:

New York Times Review

Powell's Books Review-a-Day

Graduation

My younger son graduated last week from South High, home of the Gallant Tigers, in Minneapolis, MN. It was a great ceremony, with music, speakers that delivered on their promises of short speeches, and 480 students who processed across the stage in record time.

(Skip to the end for book recommendations.)

After each and every father, mother, sister, cousin, and aunt was wanded by security before entering the Convention Center, assistant principal Dagny addressed us sternly about the protocol for this "ceremony, not a celebration." It brought me back years, to being dressed down by former Hermantown principal Ray Wero. Even when he addressed the whole student body, and I wasn't culpable, I'd vow to straighten up and fly right.

There's a style, a cadence, and an "I expect to be obeyed" tone of voice that good school administrators have, and Dagny, with her short steel-gray hair, delivered the whole package. Inside sources tell me she has a heart of gold and sang in the Bach Society for a number of years, but in the moment I sat up a little straighter and vowed to do her proud. It was a strangely pleasant little nostalgia trip to be addressed in no uncertain terms by such a fine school administrator. Message received, we will not hoot 'n' holler when our grad crosses the stage. We will conduct ourselves with the dignity and decorum the occasion calls for. Yes, ma'am!

South High is a most wondrously diverse school, and rightfully proud of it. We were treated to an a Cappella choral version of the national anthem, and a solo a Cappella version of the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing." I would have preferred to join in on both, especially the moving "Lift Every Voice," but I'm old school. The First Nations students drummed and chanted a blessing, which for me was the emotional core of the ceremony. Our beloved "Star Spangled Banner" is stirring, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" even more so, but the drumming and chanting was spine-tingling. After the ceremony, my rock ribbed Republican dad surprised me by saying how very much he liked it.

I've formed a theory about the songs and speeches that form the graduation ceremony. They ground us in history, show respect for the cultures participating, and convey what wisdom the speakers can muster, but after last Monday I'm convinced that their primary function is to keep Moms like me, who were rocked by waves of emotion as 479 fine graduates and the one really important one processed in, from fainting straight away if we were to go directly to the diploma hand-out and actual graduation. They provide a breathing space and a chance to focus on the bigger picture.

I'd brought a delicate white hanky but did not surprise myself when I had to honk into multiple kleenex. Yeah, I'm tough all right. Tough as butter.

The speaker, David A. Walsh, took an anecdote I'd heard before and brought it to a new level. My systems analysis prof taught us that the the way a computer functions, searching in the background while other processing takes place, is analogous to the way the brain functions. On those occasions when you are reaching for a piece of information but just can't quite remember, the brain continues to do a background search until, finding the information in some remote file, gives the conscious mind a "priority interrupt" to convey the news that the name of that last dwarf, the one you couldn't remember, is "Sneezy."

Walsh described this as an example of how the brain is always wrestling with questions, looking for answers. So, he said, when you wake in the morning, don't ask yourself "What fresh hell is this?" (Dorothy Parker) Ask "who is the most interesting person I will meet today?" or "What would I do today if I weren't afraid?" That question will illumine your day. As long as you're processing a question in deep background search, make it a good one.

I believe that may be the most useful thing I ever took from a graduation ceremony. Thanks, David!

Leaders of the student government gave introductions to music performances or speakers, and two students gave brief addresses. All were women; all but one were African American women. You go, girls! It's good to see strong young African American women take their natural place as leaders of the world.

It's fitting, too, in a school that gave us two championship girls' basketball seasons. I was moved both years to see the entire school fill the Target Center, in full black and orange regalia and face paint, to cheer on these young, mostly African American, women. Just as it should be! But a far cry from girls' also-ran status in my youth. (South High's nemesis, the girls' state basketball champion this year and last year, was Central High in St. Paul, another urban team dominated by African American women.)

This is how change happens, before our very eyes, in joy and competition and hard work with other issues put to the side completely. At least in this arena, in this moment. I'm not saying the work of fighting racism and sexism is done, I'm just saying it was a wondrous moment, as was the graduation ceremony.

Then the 479 fine graduates and the one really important one processed across the stage at a rate of one every four seconds, accelerating gradually to one every three seconds and finally one every two seconds; they were pronounced officially graduated, the hats flew in the air, the mommas cried, the dads took pictures, and the graduates sang on the bus on the way to the all night party.

I want to tell you, too, about the delightfully cliche-packed student speeches (wouldn't have it any other way) and the small but important way those speeches have changed; and the story my friend told me about her daughter, who traveled to watch the "Ultimate" Frisbee competition with other Ultimate team mates on prom weekend, and the From, or "Frisbee Prom" they created, but this has gone on long enough; that will have to be another time.

And now at last, some book recommendations:

Chabon, Michael, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
This coming-of-age novel about a young college graduate stayed with me for years. Only recently did I revisit it and realize that it was Michael Chabon's first book! Like his other books, this is beautifully written, witty, and deep.

David Allen Walsh (click to link to his books in the HCL catalog) is a nationally known writer and speaker on developmental psychology, with a focus on children and media. He founded the National Institute on Media and the Family in 1996 and is also the author of the supremely useful "Why do they act that way? : a survival guide to the adolescent brain for you and your teen.

His children are South High alums, which is one reason he accepted the invitation to speak.

Click here for a sampling of a Cappella music.

Manly Men and Marines

Reading Lists click-throughs: in a recent (#221) post Emily Lloyd (Shelf Check) refers to 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library on The Art of Manliness. I love reading lists like this that reflect personal opinion. They don't have to be right, wrong, or all-inclusive.

One of the comments had a pointer to the Marine Corps Professional Reading Program (click on Reading Lists in the right-hand column), the latest version of a tradition that's been around since the 19th century. Fascinating!

Here's the 100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man's Library on Amazon.com. The blog post has great photos of vintage books, but the Amazon list is much faster, so you might prefer it if you have a slow Internet connection.

Dairy Queen

My grandpa Wenzel had a wonderful truck equipped with a Dairy Queen sensor. Whenever we passed a Dairy Queen, the truck would veer out of his control and turn in at the DQ for ice cream for his grandkids. Grandpa was a big, strong, gentle man, but he could never escape the gravitational pull of a DQ--at least when we were with him. It was fantastic! We begged Mom and Dad to get a DQ sensor too, but we never succeeded.

There's another DQ story about Grandma and Grandpa Wenzel: when the Minnesota Twins won, Grandma and Grandpa would celebrate with a bowl of Dairy Queen soft serve ice cream. When the Twins lost? They would console themselves with a bowl of Dairy Queen soft serve ice cream.

Catherine Gilbert Murdock's Dairy Queen, is not about that kind of Dairy Queen. Nor is it about a beauty pageant, which you might guess from the cover. It's about D. J.'s 15th summer on her family's dairy farm in Wisconsin, and about cows, football, hard work and not much talk.

D. J.'s family reminds me of the legendary Burkstaller family who farmed next to the Wenzels. The Wenzels would compete with the Burkstallers to see who could get the hay in first. The Wenzels, legendary workers, tipped their hats to the Burkstallers as "real workers." Both families, like D. J.'s, worked from "Can do to can't do," from dawn to dusk.

Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock (Houghton, 2006).

D.J. Schwenk, while not really happy, never complains or questions her life on the family's small dairy farm in Wisconsin. After her father injures himself, the 15-year-old girl must do the farm work almost single-handedly, including milking the cows. She never really noticed the similarities between her life and the lives of the cows. D.J. is a jock, so on top of all her farm chores, she takes on training Brian, the quarterback on a rival school's football team. The summer they spend together changes everything as D.J. discovers that she has lots to say about her life and what she wants out of it. Not to be missed. Stephanie A. Squicciarini, Fairport Public Library, NY in School Library Journal

Celebrations and Festivities!

May is chock-a-block with events and celebrations. Here are a few I've observed:

Minnesota's Sesquicentennial!

Minnesota became a state on May 11, 1858. One of the many aspects of our state-wide celebration is this slide show, Shines for All to See, commissioned by Roseville Visitors Association and MN150. I have lived in many places in Minnesota: Elmore, a tiny town on the Iowa border where as a small child I saw a tree shimmering with movement, completely covered by migrating Monarch butterflies; Plainview, a rural town near Rochester and the great Mississippi River bluffs, where my best friend's family had a dairy farm and where a brief walk out of town led one directly into the country. Hermantown, outside of Duluth, near beautiful Lake Superior, has a completely different northern Minnesota culture. My dad grew up in Park Rapids, in the heart of Minnesota vacationland, where family reunions are held every two years, and as an adult my family went to a resort near tiny Nevis, MN, for 13 years. And now for many years I've lived in the city of Minneapolis, and I love it here too.

I've created a Minnesota book list of some of my personal favorite books about, set in, or written by authors in Minnesota. Check it out!

Prom Night!

Last Saturday night was prom night for beautiful South High School in Minneapolis, Home of the Gallant Tigers, "where the administrators are strong, the staff is good looking, and the students are above average!" Or so Zee, our extraordinary parent liaison tells us, thanking Garrison Keillor.

Here's my Prom book list.

Spring!

Thank whatever merciful powers have brought us spring at last. Glory be! The best book about spring is found in walking outside on a spring morning, listening to bird song and if you are lucky, frog song.

I'm reading John Bates' A Northwoods Companion; Spring and Summer, edited from over seven years of newspaper columns describing the phenology of the north woods, from his home near Minocqua, Wisconsin. This is a companion volume to A Northwoods Companion; Fall and Winter.

Phenology is the orderly timing and progression of natural events. For instance, in Minneapolis, the peak bloom for lilacs, flowering crabs, and dandelions is typically Mother's Day weekend. This year, with Mother's Day just yesterday, the lilacs display small leaves but the blooms are still tightly budded.

In Duluth, however, the lilacs bloom for graduation in early June. Similarly, since trillium bloom before the leaf canopy fills in, they bloom in Eloise Butler Wild Flower Garden (Minneapolis) in April, but at Spirit Mountain Ski Resort (Duluth) for Memorial Day. And if you go far to the north, to Flin Flon, Manitoba, as I did one summer, you can welcome spring in June, and go to drive-in movies which start at 11:00, when it finally gets dark.

I enjoy the Fall and Winter volume of Bates' book more; the Spring and Summer version has a lot more birding information than I need. Both describe the progression of plant and flower life, animal mating and birth, bird migration, nesting, and hatching, the commencement of frog song, weather patterns, canoeing, snowshoeing, maple sugaring, and hiking rxpeditions, and particularly in the Fall and Winter volume, stars and the night sky. These would be wonderful books to have on hand if you lived north of Hinckley, but even for this city dweller they are a way to stay tuned into nature's rhythms. Spring moves north at a rate of about 17 miles per day, says Bates, so events unfold here about a week ahead of his timeline.

Here's a quotation Bates uses in his Fall and Winter volume:

"I go Up North as often as I can but it never seems to be often enough. My soul resides there. . . There is there a sacredness, a wholly otherness that I've found nowhere else. Those who know Up North know we take life from the depths of its water and breath from the far reaches of its open skies and peace from the quaking serenity of its birches."
-- Susan Wendorf

Another Minnesota phenology book is Through Minnesota's seasons with Jim Gilbert.

All three books can be found at urban and suburban Hennepin County Libraries.

Lots of books!

Recently read:

Asperger's from the Inside Out, by Michael John Carley.
This is a quick and fascinating read. Michael John Carley has been a playwright and a lower-level ambassador, and is now Executive Director of GRASP, the Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership. He was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as an adult, when his then-four-year-old son was diagnosed. He writes movingly of "the whole tumultuous path" to acceptance and understanding of Asperger's, which "changes everything." You will like this smart, articulate, matter-of-fact tale of a powerful advocate for those with Asperger's Syndrome.

Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher

Eric, or "Moby" to his friends, is fat, and his best friend Sarah Byrnes is severely disfigured by facial burns. They bond over their "terminal uglies" until Eric joins the swim team and starts to lose weight. Fearing the loss of her friendship, he doubles his eating, trying to stay fat for Sarah Byrnes, until she finds out and reads him the riot act. Soon much more serious trouble comes into Sarah's life when she finds out the truth about her past, breaks down, and is hospitalized. In the past, bright tough Sarah has always been a couple of steps ahead of Eric and has helped him out, but now it's his turn to help her.

I have been reading a lot of teen fiction and have enjoyed much of it, but this one stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Colors of the World; a geography of color, by Jean-Philippe and Dominique Lenclos
This is the coolest book! Color junkies will love this, but so will those with an interest in geography, anthropology, and art. From the blurb:

"Colors of the World presents a chromatic journey through the colors of vernacular architecture from the United States to the far corners of the world. Based on the "geography of color" analytic method . . . this book examines the palettes of diverse habitats to reveal how geology, climate, light, sociocultural behavior, the traditions of local residents, and construction techniques uniquely shape a landscape's architectural personality and chromatic character."

To analyze each site, the authors and their students take photographs and create colored pencil sketches of houses, then plot the color patterns of houses onto a color grid showing the predominate palette. They have studied sites in Japan, France, Guatemala, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa, but it was the middle Eastern studies in Algeria, Morocco, Iran, and Yemen, with their desert palettes, that particularly fascinated me. If you read this beautiful picture-filled book, prepare to be drawn into a daydreaming trip to far-flung cities of pink, blue, gold, and white.

Slow Snow Slog; and Book Rec: "Feed"

Here are the places I went as 3.5" of wet sloppy snow accumulated today, my only available errand day this week: Got a haircut. Target run. Took Evan to Verizon in Roseville to replace his broken phone. Dropped him off and went to the bank. Went back because I forgot to pick up Potamus, who stayed with Dennis and Jarrett while Evan and I went to Loyola in Chicago. Post office. Home for two hours; a time of inadvertent napping.

Got Jarrett and brought him to the dentist. (Dad picked him up.) Went too far north on Hamline and was funneled into Snelling going north. Got gas. Noticed windshield wiper was broken so went back down south to pick up a new wiper. Needed tools to install it so decided to skip it until I could get to the garage. Back up north to Mike's Discount Foods. And home.

WHAT I'M READING NOW: M. T. Anderson's teen/young adult book "Feed," set in a dystopian future.

In M. T. Anderson's "Feed," everyone is bathed in and entertained by a constant feed directly into their heads; it's 24/7 ads, music, video and gaming feeds, fads, fashion and hairstyle news, and telepathic communication with friends. People are happily distracted from concerns about the outside world, and can barely read, write, or think for themselves. During spring break, Titus and his friends go to the moon ("We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck") where he meets Violet, and where the group of friends is "hacked," ending up in the hospital without feeds for several days. After the feeds are reconnected, Titus and Violet continue to experience disturbing hacks on their feeds.

That's as far as I've gotten, though the blurb indicates that Titus and Violet will decide to "fight the feed." "Feed" reads like an unsettling and hilarious mix of George Orwell and empty "Valley Girl" dialog (which for this adult, is getting a little annoying.) It's a cautionary tale, and I'm eager to see if Anderson's ending is as bleak as Orwell's in "1984."

Any librarian who has watched dozens of people sitting elbow-to-elbow at long tables, riveted to their computer screens, will recognize the power of the Feed. Like the Internet, the Feed started as educational tool but quickly morphed into a business and pleasure emporium that delights, distracts, and captivates. Envision a constant silent cell phone link added, and it's easy to project into our own future a scenario in which virtual contact continues to eclipse the physical presence of all but our closest friends.

Good lines:

"Everything at home was boring. Link Arwaker was like, "I'm so null," and Marty was all "I'm null, too, unit," but I mean we were all pretty null . . ."

The grownups speak the same way. When Titus's dad visits the hospital, he explains that Mom is, "'She's like, whoa, she's like so stressed out. This is . . . Dude.' He said, 'Dude, this is some way bad shit.'"

The doctor who gets their feeds back online says, "Could we like get a thingie, a reading on his limbic activity?"

Books to avoid

I was browsing the mystery section at my local library the other day and found a lot not to like. I might be considered fussy, though not by me. I don't like my mysteries too cute, but I've sworn off the ever-escalating "can you top this" violence at the other extreme. Why are serial killers of young women so popular? I find it disturbing on so many levels.

Books I avoid include features such as:

- horrifically mutilated corpses of young women, and I don't care how good the writing is. I'm just done with this.

And on the other extreme:

- blurbs which include descriptions of Westies, Wheaten Terriers, or any small annoying dogs
- blurbs in which people "stumble across a corpse." Uh-huh. Repeatedly, book after book. Uh-huh. Really.
- blurbs for fantasy books which include anyone "wise in the lore of" anything
- any combination of cooking and murder
- books where the protagonist puzzles through one scenario after another, with the most gossamer of rationales, reeling off theory after theory based on nothing at all
- any combination of the romance genre with the mystery genre.

Which brings me to some deliciously awful writing I've been meaning to post. This is from Andrea Kane's "Dark Room," a book with a fairly good mystery which in my humble opinion is completely ruined by overlaying it with romance. You don't need to know much about the story to -- well, enjoy it is not quite write -- er, right . . . but here: Morgan is the one who, yes, "stumbled upon" her parents' bodies. Her father's best friend and his wife Elyse raise her along with their own daughter, Jill, with whom Morgan now runs an upscale dating agency. Lane is the hunky love interest. And now, with a flourish: ~~~~

“Dressed in an emerald-green velour Lacoste running suit, with her frosted blond hair cut fashionably short and wispy, Elyse invited Lane in, took his coat, and asked what he’d like to drink.”

“A lump forming in her throat, Morgan studied her mother’s handwriting—the flowing letters, the achingly familiar use of circles to dot her i’s.” (!!! Hair standing on end!!!) =:0

“Lane wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the fine-boned brunette who walked in. Shoulder-length hair. Pale green eyes. Fine features and delicate build that conveyed fragility. But with a take-charge self-assurance that completely contradicted the vulnerable image. No, actually it enhanced it. Sensitivity and strength, composure and fire, with a depth and expressiveness in her eyes that spoke of compassion and pain.
‘Hauntingly beautiful’ was the term that sprang to mind.”

(Feel free to permit yourself a small shudder at any time.)

“He glanced from her to Jill and back. ‘Two beautiful, intelligent women--one, charming and intuitive, the other vivacious and enthusiastic. It’s a pretty unbeatable combination. I can see why clients flock to your agency.”

This last reminds me of those clippings the "New Yorker" used to run, captioned, "Shouts we doubt ever got shouted." Things like "The crowd shouted, 'take your wife and your childen and your old green Chevy and get out of town." Not really pithy shouting material.

I can think of no proper summarizing remark. I'm at a loss for words.

Lazy Librarian

One of the standard library interview questions is about Reader's Advisory, or recommending books. My answer is that one starts by asking what the patron has read lately that she liked, and what it was about the book that she liked; and then recommend other books along that line. (Standard protocol.)

The interviewers agree but still want a recommendation, and in part because it is my second favorite book in the world (Zorba the Greek is my #1 favorite), and in part because I become forgetful in job interviews, I always end up recommending To Kill A Mockingbird.

I had a job interview recently and made mental notes about several books to recommend, and then forgot them during the interview. Fell back on To Kill A Mockingbird.

Imagine how hard I laughed when I saw this headline in the August 18 issue of the satirical newspaper The Onion: "Lazy Barnes & Noble Employee Recommends To Kill a Mockingbird."

Busted!

The Geographer's Library

"Item 9b: The Peacock's Tail, a brooch . . . Ten pieces of Baltic amber. . . each a different color (blood, cooling lava, late-August afternoon, Karelia, dead man's lips, January noon, wine, everything, nothing, God) . . ."

This is from Jon Fasman's novel "The Geographer's Library." It's a search novel along the lines of --yes--the "DaVinci Code" or "The Historian," except when we arrive on the scene, the mysterious local professor who has done most of the searching is found dead in his apartment, and Paul Tomm, a cub reporter on the small-town Lincoln, Massachusetts paper, has been given the task of writing his obituary.

The assembled items are part of an alchemists' formula for long life. Possessing even part of the whole extends life -- what would happen to the one who assembled them all? The delightful thing about this book is that the author manages to write all this convincingly, going back and forth between the creepy and unbelievable to the Tomm's very ordinary life (although his new girlfriend, the professor's neighbor, is pretty spooky.)

I want to know how the puzzle ends, and I definitely want to know Paul Tomm's fate. The real treat is Fasman's writing. He writes of mysterious things in matter of fact ways, and handles the quotidian equally well. His wit is dry, light, and laugh-out-loud funny, and at the same time, he maintains a suitable air of creepy mystery that convinces but doesn't go over the top. In looking for some short quotations to show off his style, I found whole pages I want to quote.

I will add some later, but for now, gotta go.

Read this book. Plot: four stars. Characters: four stars. Writing: five stars.

Unforgettable books--fiction

"A Winter's Tale," Mark Helprin's fabulous book of magical realism set in New York at the turn of the century, which features a consumptive heroine, a magical flying horse, and a gang leader who is a "color junkie, " is catalogued as follows:

Subjects

Irish Americans -- Fiction.

Reincarnation -- Fiction.

Supernatural -- Fiction.

Burglars -- Fiction.

Upper West Side (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.

=========
Nowhere do you find a hint of the book, and none of these are intuitively obvious.

Zorba the Greek is cataloged as "Love of life--fiction" and "Elderly men--fiction." It's a good start, but shouldn't there at least be a "Greek Islands--fiction" entry?

These are the Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication (CIP) categories, which the LoC kindly prepares so individual libraries don't have to reinvent the cataloging for each book. This save time and money and makes cataloging consistent from library to library. Fiction is difficult to classify, obviously, but somehow we're missing the heart of the book.

My solution, which might need some refining, is to have a category, "Must read this book." "Fabulous." "You'll kick yourself if you miss this one."

"Unforgettable books--fiction." Then the question is, who gets to decide what is unforgettable? I'm sure we could work something out.

Peach

This morning I ate a perfect peach, a proof of grace and beauty.

Do you remember the wonderful book Umbrella, by Taro Yashima? It's the story of a little girl named Momo, which means peach, and her umbrella. The rain, when it finally comes, makes the sound "bolo bolo, pom polo, bolo bolo, pom polo."

The Hennepin County Library doesn't have it, but the Minneapolis Public Library does. It was first published in 1958, and reissued in 1986. It's a perfect example of a classic children's book that stands the test of time, and a good example of why we need both kinds of libraries, the ones like Hennepin that have more copies of popular books, and a collection that is in general newer and in better shape, and a library with a big "back list" a deep collection of classics.

Running Around

Some future day I will wonder where all the time went. On Thursday it went for haircuts: Marius, Jarrett and I all went to Nicole's and got cleaned up. Got back from there about 10:30.

On Saturday Marius did chores all day (washing windows for Boston trip money) with Mikaela and Evan. I cleaned up and did a bunch of paperwork. Also driving around; went to fetch Mikaela for the chores, went to both libraries.

A sign of spring: first dalliance at Linder's, the little mini-greenhouse that springs up in the St. Anthony shopping center parking lot. A library, a greenhouse, and a DQ (first cone of spring, chocolate soft-serve, $1.49 for a small I would have called a medium.) Glory, glory, glory.

I got two plants. All plant sales at this point are unauthorized, off budget, because there isn't enough budget for them. Nevertheless I've been wanting poppies, pink poppies, for many years, and there one was before me, and one that promised a mixture of pink, orange-pink, and white poppies (changing over time? on one plant). I still would not have gotten them if I had checked closely. I thought they were $9.99, but they were $12.99, closer to $30 than $20 once you add in tax. Ouch.

The kids finished chores about 7:30. I drove Mikaela home, and Evan stayed down there. Marius and I stopped at Turtle Bread for chocolate bread buns and a baguette for tomorrow, then Lake Calhoun for a walk, and then to Burger King for supper for him. I had popcorn.

Some desperate reading of a good library book that's due (Sherman Alexie, Reservation Blues), then Saturday night live, and at 11:30 went to get Evan and bring him to dad's. Dennis was at a funeral: Neil Lincoln, from ETA days. Then stayed up until 2:00 a.m. reading the e-Artella I received last fall and never have had computer access plus leisure time to read (three computer fiends in the house.)

Sunday: morning came too early. I walked around Lake Calhoun while Marius was in Sunday School. The chores we were supposed to do (Boston fund-raising) fell through, to everyone's delight. I talked to the Alberti's and to Eric L about how interested they are in more chores. "Sorta" was the general response. The kids worked all last Saturday and all this Saturday, and worked hard.

Marius and I ate at Jimmy John's (BLT's, and I love their signs as much as their sandwiches) in Calhoun Square, then went to Target for soccer duds and swim trunks, and Play It Again Sports for shoes with cleats. Which turned out to be soccer shoes, making Marius laugh. Everyone in Germany plays soccer, everyone but Marius and Adrian, who hate soccer. So he comes to America, and what does he get? Soccer shoes!

Marius made supper, God bless him, with what we had on hand: potatoes, peas, and onion soup. Not a bad meal for a pantry-scraper. Gotta shop for groceries. Hate it. In fact fell into a short depression on reviewing the grocery ads on Sunday morning. Too much to do in life, I don't want to spend my time at the grocery store.

I was wiped out from my fast trek around Lake Calhoun (teeming humanity! one-sided sunburn -- the lake side. Fun, fun, fun!) and all our shopping and talking so I read for a bit, then got up and did the dishes, which for kids means dishes, but for an adult means dishes, wipe the counters, put away little fiddly bits of stuff on counters, fold a load of clothes, sweep the floor, empty the trash, clean the microwave) and then went out to garden, to plant the poppies. (cue Wicked Witch of the West, "Poppies! Poppies!)

Got sidetracked into finally transplanting my poor African violets which have languished pot-bound about 18 months past their recommended re-pot date, and the Christmas cacti, which were also pot-bound, and in not very good soil. Unfortunately I had purchased the cheapest potting soil, which was mostly dirt with a few tablespoons of vermiculite. I mixed in the African violet potting mixture and voila! usable stuff.

Then our neighbor called me over to talk about her dog (barks a frenzy whenever one of us is near.) Planting of course means trying to unearth some compost, but I did get the things in the ground. It is so much more pleasant to plant newly-purchased plants than the sickly neglected things I often deal with due to procrastination and business.

Dragged up the hose from the basement, climbed up the step stool to turn on the outdoor water. Pulled all the dead geraniums from their pots and tossed them. I've been keeping them for years but this year they were in Marius's room and they got dried out. (Out of sight, out of mind.) (Usually that room contains the TV so I see them all the time. Sigh.) I'd kept them for a number of years, but what the hell. All the amaryllis I've been keeping going rotted in the ground last summer or in pots this winter. All I have left is a bunch of baby ones too small to bloom. Daily debate over whether it is worth it to keep them.

So watered the poppies and tiny amaryllis, raced upstairs and took a shower. Quelle signs of spring! First trip to greenhouse! First unauthorized purchase of plants! First DQ cone! First workout with nail brush to remove dirt from under nails! First aching legs from gardening! Outdoor water turned on! Hose out! Oh, and we ate out on the back deck for the first time. Spring, glorious spring.

So came in at about 8:30? 9:00. Had to do a load of wash, no underwear of any sort. Started Lamb, by Christopher Moore, also due soon. Hilarious! I'm going to have to just pay the fines on this one. The untold story of the first 30 years of Jesus' life, as told by his best friend, Bif. Laundry, cleanup, late to bed because of Lamb.

So that's where the time goes.

Got up this morning not at all organized for the day; didn't leave until 7:55 for my 8:00 job, what with gathering lib books, packing lunch, gathering paperwork to try to do during the day.

INCREDIBLY GORGEOUS SPRING DAY> AIR SO SWEET AND SOFT> TEMPERATURE PERFECT> SUNSHINE AND BLUE SKY> SWEET SCENTS. HOSANNA! ALLELULIA!