Blog Archives

If an American can't have fake gravestones with prank-phonecall names decorating her front yard, the terrorists have won. ALA should give this woman an intellectual freedom award, and maybe one of those big, inflatable Homer Simpson vampires.

We've written a new ending for the DHL library ad that's been running during the World Series broadcasts. The shushing librarian says to the delivery guy: "Yeah, it's great that you stopped rolling that noisy handtruck and took off your squeaky shoes. Now get these boxes off the reference desk, take them back to your truck, and deliver them to the service entrance, dipshit."

Here are some of our favorite lines from the first Rex Libris comic:

The librarian has faced patrons so terrible, so horrific, that they cannot be described here without the risk of driving readers mad. (p.1)

Just because I'm a librarian doesn't mean I'm at all tame. Bucko. (p. 9)

Hand to hand combat just goes with the territory. All part of being a librarian. (p. 10)

The librarian has spoken, Sally! We dare not disobey! (p.13)

Have you returned your library books? Huh, punk? Have you? (back cover)

We're in Peoria for the Illinois Library Association annual. Had dinner with Jenny and one of her co-workers last night, and then we went all by our lonesome to the Alice Cooper concert.

Before the show, we were exiting the men's restroom at the theater, and a lost-looking woman asked, "Where's the girls' room?" We pointed her in the right direction and felt so like we were at work.

We hoped the opening act would launch into "Stonehenge," but, sadly, that didn't happen.

Alice was entertaining; he delivered the hits, and the new songs didn't suck. The guillotine bit kind of reminded us of work, though: It felt like he keeps doing it just because he has to -- he's Alice Cooper! -- and libraries keep things in their acts just because they think they have to -- it's a library! But the all-around performance would actually be better if the bits were cut.

(BTW, this item's title is a line from "Department of Youth." Alice opened with that one.)

The 2005 Ig Nobel Prize for Literature goes to: "The Internet entrepreneurs of Nigeria, for creating and then using e-mail to distribute a bold series of short stories, thus introducing millions of readers to a cast of rich characters -- General Sani Abacha, Mrs. Mariam Sanni Abacha, Barrister Jon A Mbeki Esq., and others -- each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled and which they would like to share with the kind person who assists them."

We've been dreaming about something like this for years: "Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing incosolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs." Kill them! Kill them! Kill them all! Oh, wait ... UNICEF is saying that bombing Smurfs would be a bad thing. Whuddup widdat?

Two items recently posted on the WWN website, which should be of interest to librarians everywhere:

Alien Bible Translated! It has a Written Testament and an Oral Testament. The latter "talks in the authoritative but reassuring voice of Oprah." (Does the Alien Bible go in the 001s or the 299s?)

Satan's Supermodels: The Untold Story of Devil-Worship in the Fashion Industry. That's the title of an "upcoming book," which you'll have to buy if you want to learn the names of supermodels who've had a Mephistophelean makeover. One sign that a model traded her soul for beauty is that she "causes happily married men to have immoral urges." Dating a rock star is another sign. (133s? 659s?)