For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:33)
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Monthly Archives: October 2004
Green eggs and lembas
This one is for fellow Lord of the Rings and Dr. Seuss fans out there. My friend, Jane, sent this to me. I don’t know the source:
GREEN EGGS AND LEMBAS
Excerpt from a screenplay for THE LORD OF THE RINGS
by Dr. Seuss
(Scene: Bag End, after Bilbo?s party)
GANDALF:
That Samwise-Sam! That Samwise-Sam!
I do not like that Samwise-Sam!
FRODO:
Would you like some bread and jam?
GANDALF:
I do not want your bread and jam.
I?m busy being mad at Sam.
He likes to sneak. He likes to spy.
I?ll grind him up for hobbit pie!
FRODO:
Oh, do not grind him up for pie!
He is a pretty handy guy.
He mows my grass. He paints my gate.
He is my friend. We both are straight.
GANDALF:
Well, then, I will not grind up Sam!
Bring me bread, and bring me jam!
We?ll talk about another thing.
Tell me, do you have the ring?
FRODO:
I have the ring. I have it here.
But, mercy me! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!
I fear the ring is very bad,
The golden ring that Bilbo had!
Tell me, will you take the ring?
GANDALF:
I will not take that evil thing!
FRODO:
Would you, could you, by the fire?
Would you, could you, in the Shire?
GANDALF:
I would not, could not, by the fire.
I would not, could not, in the Shire.
FRODO:
Would you, could you, in a tree?
Would you, on the road to Bree?
Would you, with an orc or troll?
Would you, in a hobbit-hole?
GANDALF:
I would not, could not, in a tree.
I would not, on the road to Bree.
I would not, with an orc or troll.
I would not, in a hobbit-hole.
I will not take it here or there,
I will not take it anywhere!
For it is bad. It?s as you say.
You?ll have to take that ring away
And throw it in the Cracks of Doom!
FRODO:
I?ll need a friend. But who, or whom?
(Gandalf produces Sam, who has been spying)
SAM:
Oh, Master! Master! Sam is here!
He?ll wash me down with beer, I fear!
I do not wish to be a pie!
GANDALF:
I will not eat you, little spy!
But I will send you far away.
You both will go away today.
You?ll go to Bree. A man is there.
The man looks foul. The man feels fair.
He?ll lead you both, if all goes well,
To meet the elves in Rivendell.
SAM:
Oh, Master! We will meet the elves!
We?ll get to meet the elves ourselves
And hear them sing their elven songs!
We?ll hear them bong their elven-gongs
And strum their elven loola-lutes!
They?ll hoot their elven hooty-toots!
GANDALF:
I hope you?ll hear those loola-lutes
And hear the hoots of hooty-toots!
But go with care. To be a pie
Is better than to meet the Eye!
The Eye is mean. The Eye is red.
He rules nine Riders. They are dead.
They?ll try to make you dead, as well.
But will they catch you? Time will tell!
FRODO:
Oh, dear! Oh, dear! This is a mess!
We?ll have to fix this mess, I guess.
So we will go, just Sam and me.
And what will happen? We will see!
(Fade)
Home on the Range
Last night we bought the kids the movie, Home on the Range, at Sam’s Club. I am definitely not a Disney fan, so I was pleasantly surprised about this movie. I can even overlook the fact that Roseanne Barr is the voice of the main character. This is a great movie for kids and adults alike, full of humor and fun, with some poignant moments thrown in for good measure. A sad song, “Will the Sun Ever Shine Again,” performed by Bonnie Raitt, is a real highlight. Cuba Gooding Jr.’s perfomance as Buck is hilarious. Most people seemed to have panned this movie. Just goes to show that you can’t really trust the majority.
Some recent photos of the kids
It’s been a long time since I posted photos of the kids. Here are some from the past few weeks. Keegan is missing but I will post a photo from his school pictures soon. The first photo is pretty funny: Brinley is sitting on the toilet pretending to read The Adventures of Robin Hood. Next, Tristan is holding a baby chick at a nearby pumpkin farm. The third photo shows Brinley and Cohen fast asleep in Michele’s arms — a usual occurence ’round about 11a each day. The next photo shows some of the animals at a nearby pumpkin farm, including a goat, a rooster, and a donkey. Then Cohen is in his stroller, looking askance at the animals. The final picture shows Brinley looking at the Sicilian donkey at the pumpkin farm.
Only in Indiana…
Sign on a nearby farm, seen by my wife yesterday a.m.: “Farm Fresh Deer Urine For Sale.” My wife thought to herself, how do they collect it? My response: I just don’t want to know.
A beautiful fall day
Today is a beautiful fall day here in Indiana. The leaves are turning brilliant colors, the temperature is around 70 degrees, and the sun is shining. Better yet, the kids — my hooligans — are all either asleep or calmly watching television. In other words, yes, I get an opportunity to write in this blog a little bit, and to reflect and relax a little bit, too.
Today didn’t start out very well. The nighttime was rough. All of the kids except for Keegan have colds and aren’t feeling well, which means that invariably, one or more of them end up in our bed, and I end up in one of their beds. It’s been so long since I slept in my own bed the whole night through, sans kids, that I can’t remember what it was like! I couldn’t sleep for most of last night and ended up watching Nova on PBS, an interesting show on pearls. I fell asleep in the living room and woke up with one of the worst headaches I have had since the meningitis episode a year ago. I had to go back to bed, twice. Fortunately, now I feel quite a bit better, although worn out. Michele is taking a much-deserved nap upstairs. Keegan is holding Cohen.
Things on my mind today: I need to pay bills; I wish I had the energy to clean up around the house; we might do some shopping this afternoon so that Michele can spend some of her birthday money; should I accept the offer to teach another class next spring (’05) for my alma mater, the #1 ranked graduate library school, UIUC GSLIS; if I’m going to start my PhD program next fall, I need to get going with the application process; how am I ever going to get caught up at work; I desperately need a network of Christian friends and community here, and so does Michele; how ironic it is that this is so hard when I’m working for a Christian university in a largely Christian town.
Why the whole world doesn’t know about librarians
I thought this comic strip on the topic of librarians, forwarded to me by Ashley, was pretty cute. It also touches on a sore point with me, that librarians are not that great at marketing themselves. By marketing, I don’t mean shameless self-promotion. Instead, I’m talking about making clear to their institutions how integral and vital their role and the role of libraries is to their success and to society in general, especially in this digital age. Over and over and over again, I am reminded of how persistently overlooked and underrepresented libraries and library issues are in the general scheme of things in my local environment. It’s incredible, especially given the facts…like huge (and growing) library website statistics, huge (and growing) use of online resources, huge influx of people in the library, especially on Monday nights when I am at the reference desk and there are literally students lining the walls because of lack of seating space. And most of them are using their wireless-enabled laptops or ones that they checked out at the circulation desk. I could go on and on and I get tired of beating the drums about this, yet it is so important because there is a pervasive culture of thought that relegates the library to a print-only, technological backwater. It’s very frustrating.
Unhealthy libraries
I recently read about an article added to my friend Priscilla’s website, LISCareer.com. (Btw, this site offers an excellent collection of useful articles to read, although the one article I contributed doesn’t count.) This particular article is entitled “In Search of an Emotionally Healthy Library” and is written by Nancy Cunningham. It hit home to me because frankly, I’m all too familiar with the characteristics of emotionally unhealthy libraries as outlined by the author. I wonder what it is about libraries that makes them a place where this kind of stuff persists? By the way, I have also worked for a library vendor and that experience thoroughly disabused me of the notion that the pervasive nonsense of academic libraries didn’t prevail in a for-profit environment. In some ways, the vendor environment was far worse. Anyway, this is a good article, very direct and thought-provoking.