The Librarian and I: A conversation.

The following was a conversation held over MSN between myself and a Carleton University librarian, through their ingenious AsktheLibrary MSN feature.

AsktheLibrary says:
hi

AsktheLibrary says:
it means that the book has been rec'd but has not been catalogued into the collection

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
hi! thank you, i did put a hold on it more than a week ago

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
i wsa told that would put it into circulation

AsktheLibrary says:
you can ask at the reference desk and have them rush catalogue it

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
i didn't know there was rush cataloging

AsktheLibrary says:
...they will contact technical services and have it rushed catalogued

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
could i tell you the name of the book?

AsktheLibrary says:
yes, you just have to ask

AsktheLibrary says:
no sorry, I'm sitting in a meeting right at the moment and not in my office

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
MSN in a meeting!? tsk tsk

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
haha

AsktheLibrary says:
i'm multi-tasking

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
My hat is off to you, kind librarian.

I shall call technical services and have my request rushed through.

AsktheLibrary says:
...the reference desk

AsktheLibrary says:
you're vey welcome

AsktheLibrary says:
"very"

iain is a gun barrel diplomat says:
Ah. Thank you. See if you can multi-task outside for the day's remainder.

Good day!

AsktheLibrary says:
thanks, have a good day

This time, it's personal.

I figured it was time to write about how I've been "feeling." Oh god, what a tedious exercise, one which shall surely bore anyone (if, indeed, there is anyone at all) who actually reads this blog.

School has been as ubiquitous in the past month and a half of my life as sunshine and indulgence have been in the past week. I hope that's a more succint way of saying "I've been busy with school." Anyway, I'm over a hump of school work and working my way up to, and over, another; the last before exams.

Thank a God somewhere for me.

For some reason, I've actually been drumming more. We used to (I unfortunately have to say "used to") host jams in our attic here in Ottawa; a musty old place, sloping down on both sides with obviously poisonous pink insulation sticking out everywhere. My drumset is up there, as are the stacks, guitars, organs and keyboards of my cohorts and coinhabitant. I've been playing a lot more jazz style beats and solos, and hope that at some point this summer I can put my chops to some form of exuberant public display.

And about my summer...It appears that I shall be in Beijing. I am excited immensely for this, as anyone unfortunate enough to have heard me speak at all since I got back from China in September can attest to, I have been seduced. To list the many seductions a troubled, curious boy faces in the Far East - especially in cities with adulterous nicknames - is to list one too many secrets in a Googleable world. Regardless, I shall be combining in a nexus universes of my multiple passions: disappearing, writing, uncertainty, crowds, people, tall buildings, wide plains, breezes at midnight, drunkeness in alleyways, newsprint, and the loss of sanity and innocence.

Blog be gone!

No matter how hilarious Scoop is, I wish it would stop being so relevant.

A friend of mine in the Chinese media sent me this article and it blew me away. It simply reinforces my feelings that foreign reporters act, probably at an unconscious level, like spies and perpetuators of homeland ideologies. Obviously, Western reporters in the East tout their civil liberties horn often and loudly, and mostly they do it because they are concerned about colleagues in the Chinese media who don't enjoy the same freedoms. But at some point, one has to wonder just how far ideology, western freedoms or communist lack of's, have seeped beneath our skin.

My friend and I share the same reaction: whoa, this is interesting. It's loaded with philosophical questions about the nature of our belief and inherent assumptions.

Anyway, enjoy:

[EDIT: To make things even more absurd, I sent this link to the above-mentioned friend who originally linked me to the story, and it was inaccessible. Blogger sites are banned in China.]


Chinese Bloggers Stage Hoax
Aimed at Censorship Debate
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER and JUYING QIN
March 14, 2006; Page B3

Some well-known bloggers in China used an unlikely tool last week to make a point that Western news media and politicians misunderstand Chinese censorship. They shut themselves down.

Notices posted on the Chinese-language blogs Massage Milk and Milk Pig announced that "Due to unavoidable reasons with which everyone is familiar, this blog is temporarily closed."

Within hours, English-language bloggers and Western news media spread the word that the Chinese government had closed the sites. The BBC news service reported that Massage Milk was "closed down by the authorities," adding that the act had coincided with the annual session of the Chinese legislature. Picking up on that report and others from news services, French free-press group Reporters Without Borders issued a statement condemning the closure of the blogs.

China has recently stepped up its censorship of dissent and monitoring of the Internet, late last year asking Microsoft Corp. to take down the blog of journalist Michael Anti, among other acts. After the topic hit the front pages of U.S. newspapers and magazines, Congress held hearings in February about the ways in which U.S. Internet companies cooperate with Chinese censorship.

But in this case, it appears the Chinese government wasn't involved. By Thursday, a day after the shut-downs, the blogs were back up and running.

In an interview, Beijing-based journalist Wang Xiaofeng of Massage Milk says he shut his blog down to make a point about freedom of speech -- just one directed at the West instead of at Beijing. He calls the Western press "irresponsible" and says that the hoax was designed "to give foreign media a lesson that Chinese affairs are not always the way you think."

...

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114229717280997182.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top

The Great McCartney Hunt

There's a few things I cannot stand on this earth and chief among them is arrogance.

It's hard to tell who possessed more of it on the farcical debate between the fuzzy McCartney couple or the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams: the McCartney's or the host, Larry King.

After posing with a type of seal that has been illegal to hunt since the '80s, the two go on Larry King Live and end up debating Williams.

In the introduction, Larry King pronounces Newfoundland incorrectly. Some Canadians pronounce it differently as well, as in either: New...FOUND...land, or NOOFUND-LAND.

However, all of us agree that it is not to be pronounced: Noofind-lund. And apparently, not Labrador.

What an idiot. American mainstream journalism (we're talking one of the top networks' top shows) can't even research the province of the Premier he's hosting. When doing something like this has to be called research, the whole situation is utterly degrading.

I can just imagine: And here is Mike Huckabee (yes, of Talking to Americans fame), governor of ARRRRR-CAN-ZHAS.

What an absolute disgrace.

And then there was Paul and Heather, celibree-tos with the gall to take on an elected official in their position as what...um, guitar player and woman who...married a musician? Not journalist a journalist, mano a mano, or pundit vs pundit. But poofs vs tepid, irritated anger? Inconsequential. Irrelevant. This debate shouldn't have occurred.

My goodness. It wouldn't have been bad had it actually been a debate. But leave it for someone from the Beatles to skip logical, procedural argument and engage in unwilling satire.

It's like watching a more wrinkly, less relevant Bono. And even with the sunglasses, Bono is unpleasant at best; without them, even decked out (arrogantly) in a patronizing CANADA sweater, Paul McCartney came off as a sad, old photo-op, floundering around verbally like a beated bleeding seal flopping around on the ice.