review – the domino men

Whether burned or bloody, Jonathan Barnes does love to see London in complete chaos.  It happened in his last novel The Somnambulist, and has now continued in The Domino Men.  Few things crossover between the two, save the intriguingly bizarre characters constituting his uber-secret and not-so-normal civil service division called The Directorate.  Oh, and The Prefects, can’t forget them.

The story centers around Henry Lamb, a completely ordinary though perhaps even dull, clerk who through a series of extraordinary  though familial events is drawn into a hunt, a race to prevent London’s descent into utter ruin.  By all accounts he has no business within the Directorate or even approaching The Domino Men, the only ones who can either help or even destroy the chances for success.

Barnes excellently scripts his mystery around the fog that continually encompasses London, though he also lowers a fog over the reader’s mind as well, keeping us in the dark about the major players of the novel.  He offers breadcrumbs about the Directorate and the Domino Men, the comatose grandfather of Henry, and the ever over-confident mastermind Director Dedlock, though his description is never enough to quash the ever-lingering questions the reader may conjure. A frustrating yet gripping method.  We know of a battle waged for centuries and that the Prefects are dangerous to say the least, but Barnes, hopefully in anticipation of another novel, tells us only what were allowed to know of the process.  All that is requested is that we must “trust the process”.  And in the end, the distinction of who the villain was is not at all clear.

In several ways the Domino Men surpasses The Somnambulist; the ending is much more captivating though at times the pacing can be a bit slower.  His inclusion and description of the aristocracy (Prince Arthur in particular) is quite interesting, for it is neither kind nor overtly cruel. The Prefects, however, were a bit under-described as they were in the former. Their playfully comic nastiness, hinted to atmospheric levels, falls just short of their behaviour, though admittedly ruthless and reckless as the story hits its crescendo.  Their actions are more a vehicle of the story than the framework.  Overall, its another fascinating story about London, manipulated by all creatures forceful and ubiquitously normal.  Fun yet creepy, one can only wonder how many times and what twisted ways London has fallen and yet continues to rebuild itself in the mind of Barnes.

review – the atlantic ocean

It’s hard to take Richard Swift seriously at face value.  He looks kinda like Jack Black and has a similar cheekiness in his music. Also like Black, once you hear how adept he is as a musician you’re likely to be surprised.  Unlike Black, Swift is a bit more mellow in sound, his voice sounding like an amalgam of Bob Dylan and Frankie Valli. His surround sound bears a combined similarity to what one would hear on a Wilco album and your local oldies station, all mixed under the purview of Gnarles Barkley’s Danger Mouse.

With The Atlantic Ocean, Swift continues his surprisingly catchy oeuvre after the subtle yet very quality Dressed Up For the Letdown. The Atlantic Ocean is a bit more up-tempo, comprised of a weird yet intriguing inclusion of electronica weaving in between an omnipresent piano, lonely horn section, crunchy guitar and banjo ensemble.

For me, the album starts out as any typical alt-rock album would but slowly morphs into a 70ish guitar driven contemplation, to finally an echoing Motown dirge.  And Swift, with all his weirdness, pulls it off.  Favorite tracks include the immaculate The Original Thought, R.I.P., Bat Coma Motown, The End of an Age, A Song for Milton Feher, and the ultra funky Lady Luck.

The Atlantic Ocean is one of those albums that sticks in your head long after the headset is removed. It may not win many awards, but Swift proves he has a lot of originality to offer. Those taking a chance on Swift will be amply rewarded.

giving in to lazy library patrons

And the Dewey Decimal System falls victim.  From the Denver Post:

By the end of the year, all six Rangeview branches and the district’s outreach office will dump the iconic Dewey and its numeric organizing system for one that relies on word categories such as “history” and “science.”

…

“For years, we’ve had focus groups and people consistently tell us, ‘I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how this library works,’ ” Sandlian Smith said. “So we decided to turn things upside down, and so far it seems to work well.”

I got a lot of problems with this.  First, Dewey already contains the categories they’re using, they’re just categorized numerically. If patrons can’t “figure out how this library works” then a librarian can give a brief introduction to the Dewey system.  It’s kinda what we do here.  Second of all, the movement toward the barnes and noble/borders categorization is ridiculous because patrons will always become lazier and eventually want librarians to hand deliver all their materials to them without them ever doing any work.

And really, has anyone consistently found exactly what they’re looking for on the first try? At least Dewey will ensure some organization in that similarly topical books will be found within just a slight deviation of the call number.  Part of the fun of browsing through the stacks is finding not just the object of desire, but those pleasant surprises that hadn’t presented themselves earlier.  Dewey ensures more precision of similar subject matter than in the store.

Also stated in the article:

Ken Neely, a 17-year patron of the Perl Mack branch, said he’s happy with the new system.

“I think it’s a good idea, especially if you are new to the library and don’t know the system. You don’t have to go to one of the librarians and ask for help,” Neely said. “That means they can spend more time helping people and doing research for you.”

Arrgh. We’re here to help people learn how to sharpen their information literacy skills, thereby becoming better researchers; we exist not to do their research for them.  Not only that, but how can we spend more time helping people if they are being conditioned not to ask for help in the first place?

This here, is the caveat of Web.2.0…the more people are tagging, friending and stuff-and-such like that, the lazier and more apathetic they become to learning how to use an OPAC, where they can find what they’re looking for just as quickly, if not more so, by reading a brief tutorial or getting a two minute instructional session on how to move through the stacks and where to place their eyes.

I’m all for keeping up with people’s technological or taxonomic proclivities, but laziness doesn’t fall under the Web 2.0 schema. Even LibraryThing’s Open Shelves Classification project doesn’t completely dismiss Dewey,  as its emphasis is to collaboratively reclassify rather than assign quasi-arbitrary taxonomies. Dewey shouldn’t become a martyr because patrons refuse to acknowledge their own numerophobia.

Here’s an idea, why not just paste subject heading labels, taken from Dewey, throughout the stacks? Or would that not be upside down enough?

metacrap musings

So upon looking for some useful metadata guidelines, I stumbled across a somewhat dated virtual missive from info-meister and writer Cory Doctorow.  His screed appealed to me, as it provided a lighthearted counterbalance to the argument in favor of that ever-elusive fish, the perfect metadata taxonomy.  Doctorow provides many reasons one should be skeptical of pervasive metadata schemas, all boiling down to our uniqueness of being human. Here’s one of my favorites:

2.7 There’s more than one way to describe something

“No, I’m not watching cartoons! It’s cultural anthropology.”

“This isn’t smut, it’s art.”

“It’s not a bald spot, it’s a solar panel for a sex-machine.”

Reasonable people can disagree forever on how to describe something. Arguably, your Self is the collection of associations and descriptors you ascribe to ideas. Requiring everyone to use the same vocabulary to describe their material denudes the cognitive landscape, enforces homogeneity in ideas.

And that’s just not right.

I’m a big believer in having both a modicum of interconnected taxonomies as well as distinct and flavorful local schemas that are both concise and clear. Blogger-brarian Linda Summers counters Doctorow a bit more intelligibly:

Moreover, Doctorow’s tongue-in-cheek-yet-cynical diatribe on human nature reminds me in many of ways of Thomas Hobbs’s interpretation of human nature, as each focuses on the self-centered and lazy aspects of human beings. I do agree that humans have the capacity to be indolent and selfish; however, I disagree that these traits dominate the collective unconsciousness.

Rather than dive into a sociological rip-tide and become lost forever in a Durkheim-esque vortex of the collective consciousness, I will say that our indolence and selfishness have collectively served us fairly well in creating the crapstorm of economic malfeasance that our national boots currently wallow in.  But that’s another issue.  Regarding metadata, will it save the world and provide the pervasive info-elixir beaming information directly to our eyes? Probably not completely.  Perhaps our info-topia is found more in the journey of searching itself rather than just the result, however precise and quickly it is delivered by the Google.

review – officer friendly and other stories

One might surmise that after reading Lewis Robinson’s collection of short stories entitled Officer Friendly and Other Stories, his setting would most invariably be located in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps in Alaska.  Though no less intriguing than the storylines from the shows Twin Peaks or even Northern Exposure,  the content of Robinson’s stories actually take place in the surprisingly curious state of Maine.

Robinson’s collection is an interesting insight just beyond the seemingly perpetual thaw of Maine, not only into local hunting or hockey cultures, but of the ever changing relationships formed in the snow, along the coast and within the forest.  Often the stories deal with an emergence into adulthood, but more so the rites of passages faced by many in Maine, whatever their ages.

The stories themselves range from the creepy to the serenely cathartic, though like the weather, they’re always in a state of flux hovering just around the thaw.  Take for example, the stories The Diver, The Toast, and Ride ; both are increasingly unsettling to say the least, as they introduce to the reader the unfamiliar eccentricities of being foreign to the Northeast.  Puckheads, Seeing the World and Fighting at Night, on the other hand, deliver a sense of fulfillment no matter what was sacrificed from each character.

One captivating attribute of the book is that as a whole, time is not necessarily linear.  The setting can resemble the era of F. Scott Fitzgerald or perhaps that of last March.  Whether duck hunting with one’s father, evading a policeman in the snow, preparing to fight someone named Brick Chickisaw, or leaving home to fish for urchin on a whim, Robinson evokes a sense of wonder and exhilaration regardless of what era he writes.

new music – hold time

M. Ward’s latest release, Hold Time, continues his trend of revisiting and perhaps reinventing the good-old-time sound of none other than the good-old-times.  An ever-present countrified guitar, mixed with his usual lo-fi and low-key raspy voice, and a really well-conceived set of songs makes makes this his most thorough release evah.

A little more rock ‘n roll than his typical folkish sound, Ward keeps a good balance of electric vs. acoustic guitarmanship, with a subtle string section thrown in for good measure.  Add an impossibly haunting duet with Lucinda Williams and a beautiful complement of background vocals from Zooey Deschanel, and you’re left with an album that, like the throwback nostalgia Ward encapsulates, will stand on it own for repeated listening.

Among the many, standout tracks include One Hundred Million Years, Blake’s View, Jailbird, Stars of Leo, and Oh Lonesome Me.

review – yours truly, the commuter

Jason Lytle will admit through his lyrics that this is not a triumphant return, but his reemergence back to the indie, alt-country, southwestern music scene is certainly redeeming.   Rather than further eulogizing the dissolution of Grandaddy, Jason has reified his talent through his new solo album Yours Truly, The Commuter.  Not only is it a lo-fi production continuing the Grandaddy vision of natural wonder surrounded with crunchy guitars and ethereal overtones, but it’s also a statement.  Lytle, in his pursuit of serenity, is here for the long-haul, not as a rock star, but as an artist.

The overall theme of the album is somewhat a continuation of Grandaddy’s What Happened to the Fambly Cat, where Lytle is not subtle about never being able to return to his Shangri-La, geographical or otherwise. The Commuter, however, stresses the classic idea of having the destination matter less than the actual journey, and it is in this journey that Lytle realizes the heroism of the ability to keep pushing on rather than cling to fleeting paradise.

As the album progresses the landscape changes from the typical earthy Grandaddy sound of intertwined guitar, synth and subtle percussion to the takeoff of ethereal chords and extended, up-close confessionals.  Plenty of standout tracks on this one; mine include Brand New Sun, Ghost of My Old Dog, Rollin’ Home Alone, Flying Thru Canyons and Here for Good.   It’s an album that gathers an emotional momentum, but soon dissipates, for it’s typical of Lytle: all his intention is to make an honest sound, watch it fly around, and then be on his way.

planet china

Very similar to what Troost has documented in his book.  In Guangzhou:

A man threatening to commit suicide by jumping from a Chinese bridge was approached by a passer-by who shoved him over the edge, local media say.

…

Mr Lai is said to have then broken through the police cordon, climbed to where Mr Chen sat, greeted him with a handshake – and then pushed him off the edge.

Things are different in China.

library time

There’s not enough of it:

Academic librarians are eager to offer sessions for students on what we call “research education.” But the mistaken assumption that students don’t need it means that many professors don’t ask us to meet with their students, or even respond to our enthusiastic offers to lead such sessions. Students don’t need to be taught anything about working online, because they were practically born digital, right?

Research education is not tools education. Research education involves getting students to understand how information is organized physically in libraries, as well as electronically in library catalogs and in powerful, sometimes highly specialized commercial databases. It means teaching students to search effectively online to identify the most relevant and highest-quality books, articles, microform sets, databases, even free Web resources.

Knowing how to Tweet doesn’t equate to knowing the LexisNexis interface.

review – lost on planet china

J. Maarten Troost is a curious sort of traveler. Willing to endure the various waterborne intestinal afflictions encountered during his stay in the South Pacific, he’s not a typical tourist. So what better place to continue his exploits than in, say, China?  Specifically, his curiosity, like that of many, is to discern just exactly what the Chinese context is.  His latest book, Lost on Planet China, intriguingly relays his intrepid dispatches.

It is a wonderfully gonzo experience, one that readers may come away thinking how glad they are that someone other than themselves took the time to do this.  For readers will encounter, through Troost’s initial perceptions, that China is the preeminently overpopulated & polluted, tightly controlled yet super-industrialized nation in the world today.  That being said, all your perceptions of China are still wrong, because China is different.  It is the most complex, contradictory, and rapidly changing country in the world.  And because of this, it is impossible to gauge the Chinese experience from a Western perspective.

Troost surrenders himself to a China left un-traveled by most laowais (foreigners).  Some of his more curious destinations include the windy and dusty streets of Beijing (the Gobi is subtly encroaching), stumbling upon an endangered species black market in Guangzhou (incidentally where SARS is rumored to start), to the seemingly separate kingdoms of Shanghai, Hong Kong & Macau, to deathly day hikes at the Tiger Leaping Gorge, hearing karaoke in a state-sponsored Shangri-La, the frighteningly alien plateau of Tibet, and the frozen northern borders with Russia and North Korea.

Despite Troost’s unavoidable preoccupations with the crowds, unhealthy air and the ever-present Communist grip, his observations of China really point to the country as being otherworldly.  And despite there being so many diverse provinces and minorities adding to his inability to fully communicate, despite the harsh exertion of the ever-present big brother, Troost does discover the human connection, whether exchanging smiles with an old farmer on a crowded midnight train or being happily fed by a street vendor in Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter.

So as Troost’s Chinese experience starts to reach its conclusion, the reader may acknowledge in his writing a sense of fulfillment, perhaps harmony, as his sojourn winds down in the cold northern wilds of Harbin.  Despite the temperature, he feels the warmth in his visit to the local Siberian Tiger preserve; literally fishing for tigers with live chickens, his Chinese context slowly blooms upon a fascinating chance encounter within the North Korean neutral zone.  Everything, as the saying goes, is not only relative but foreign. Excellent read.