Some Retirement Musings

The day is quickly approaching when I'm officially retired although I seem to have been drifting into this mode for the past several months. Since August 31st is the official date on the books with HR there are some processes to complete. One of which is to turn in keys. During my twenty years in the library including managing several departments I've accumulated quite the full key ring.

Another item I had to turn in was my ID card. The picture on this card has me wearing a mustache. Now I only ever wore that mustache for about six months in my entire life and I then had to look at it every day for twenty years. I'm glad it's gone.

Correction: I recently found a photographic evidence that I did wear that mustache at other times in my life but all in the 1990's. I had a mustache in my grad school graduation picture in 1991 and then I found a newspaper picture of me at a Technology Tuesday workshop at the Central Library from 1994 with me wearing that moustache again. The Canisius College ID photo was from 1996. However, I am sure the moustache wasn't there that entire time from 1991 to 1996. It came and went over those years.

Goodbye Waldo

For the last twenty years I've had Waldo hanging out in my office with me at the Library. I'm leaving but Waldo will be staying on to greet students.

Before I had to move my office during the coffee shop renovations Waldo sat in the window along the corridor beside the library. Many times over the years I would hear a student delightfully scream "There's Waldo" as they walked by. Waldo was even part of the annual campus wide scavenger hunt for new students.

Back in 2001 we created a virtual tour of the library starring Waldo... the library's been recently renovated but here is a look at the past.

Think I'm In Love - Songs 2006

Songs 2006
Alternative and Americana.

1. Beck - Think I'm In Love (The Information)
2. Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins - You Are What You Love (Rabbit Fur Coat)
3. Peter Bjorn & John - Young Folks (Writer's Block)
4. Yo La Tengo - Sometimes I Don't Get You (I Am Not Afraid Of You And Will Kick Your Ass)
5. Ray LaMontagne - You Can Bring Me Flowers (Till The Sun Turns Black)
6. Cat Power - Could We (The Greatest)
7. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Love Comes To Me (The Letting Go)
8. Glen Hansgard & Marketa Irglov - Falling Slowly (The Swell Season)
9. Hem - He Came To Meet Me (Funnel Cloud)
10. Joseph Arthur - You Are Free (Nuclear Daydream)
11. Tom Petty - Flirting With Time (Highway Companion)
12. Rosanne Cash - Black Cadillac (Black Cadillac)
13. Pete Yorn - For Us (Nightcrawler)
14. The Church - She'll Come Back For You Tomorrow (Univited, Like The Clouds)
15. El Perro Del Mar - God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get) (El Perro Del Mar)
16. The Kooks - She Moves In Her Own Way (Inside In/Inside Out)
17. Primal Scream - Country Girl (Riot City Blues)
18. Alejandro Escovedo - Looking For Love (The Boxing Mirror)
19. T-Bone Burnett - Baby Don't You Love Me (The True False Identity)
20. The Minus 5 - Cigarettes Coffee And Booze (The Minus 5)

Living Proof - Songs 2006

Moving on to 2006 with my mix of Songs 2006 from albums in my collection released that year.

1. Cat Power - Living Proof (The Greatest)
2. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3 (The Crane Wife)
3. Midlake - Roscoe (The Trials Of Van Occupanther)
4. Grizzly Bear - On A Neck, On A Spit (Yellow House)
5. Sparklehorse - Don't Take My Sunshine Away (Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of The Mountain)
6. The Weepies - World Spins Madly On (Say I Am You)
7. Peter Bjorn & John - Let's Call It Off (Writer's Block)
8. Kelley Stoltz - Ever Thought Of Coming Back (Below The Branches)
9. The Sleepy Jackson - God Lead Your Soul (Personality: One Was A Spider. One Was A Bird)
10. Damien Youth - Test Tube Jesus (Alchemy)
11. M. Ward - Poison Cup (Post-War)
12. Shawn Colvin - Cinnamon Road (These Four Walls)
13. Frank Black - You Can't Crucify Yourself (Fast Man, Raider Man)
14. Calexico - Letter To Bowie Knife (Garden Ruin)
15. Vetiver - Idle Ties (To Find Me Gone)
16. Josh Ritter - In The Dark (The Animal Years)
17. Neko Case - Star Witness (Fox Confessor Brings The Flood)
18. Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 - Underground Sun (Ole Tarantula)
19. The Church - Unified Field (Univited, Like The Clouds)
20. Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out Of This Country (Let's Get Out Of This Country)

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, 2005

Read this in July-Aug 2016.

I thought this was a wonderful book and generally agree with the many positive reviews on Good Reads and other book sites.  It took me a while to be comfortable with the narrative device which seemed to me to be forced early on but eventually appreciated the unique perspective and attempt at experimental fiction. The story was riveting and made it difficult to put the book down.

However, I was reading this book during the two presidential conventions and I could not keep those current events out of my mind.  The descriptions of Jewish people trudging through the streets of the character's neighborhood on their way to Dachau reminded me of the millions of immigrants to be forced through our streets as they make their way to the deportation camps in Trump’s America. The book’s characters lived in a state of fear that reminded me of Trump’s “Law and Order” acceptance speech and his executive orders that would change America. A final observation triggered by this book would be the knowledge that Hitler came to power winning an election not by a majority vote but because the opposition was divided.

No Love At All - Songs 1986

More Songs 1986. A little more softer love songs this time from albums in my collection released that year.

1. T-Bone Burnett - No Love At All (T-Bone Burnett)
2. BoDeans - Misery (Love & Hope & Sex & Dreams)
3. Lone Justice - Wheels (Shelter)
4. Billy Bragg - Levi Stubbs' Tears (Talking With The Taxman About Poetry)
5. The Jazz Butcher - Falling In Love (Distressed Gentlefolk)
6. Crowded House - Mean To Me (Crowded House)
7. XTC - Earn Enough For Us (Skylarking)
8. Game Theory - Erica's Word (The Big Shot Chronicles)
9. Eurythmics - Thorn In My Side (Revenge)
10. Iggy Pop - Cry For Love (Blah, Blah, Blah)
11. The Smithereens - Behind The Wall Of Sleep (Especially For You)
12. Timbuk 3 - I Love You In The Strangest Way (Greetings From Timbuk 3)
13. The Triffids - Tender Is The Night (The Long Fidelity) (Born Sandy Devotion)
14. Rubber Rodeo - Souvenir (Heartbreak Highway)
15. Steve Earle - Goodbye's All We Got Left (Guitar Town)
16. Nanci Griffith - More Than A Whisper (Last Of The True Believers)
17. Lyle Lovett - If I Were The Man You Wanted (Lyle Lovett)
18. Joe Cocker - You Can Leave Your Hat On (Cocker)
19. The Del-Lords - Love Lies Dying (Johnny Comes Marching Home)
20. Elvis Costello & The Attractions - I Hope You're Happy Now (Blood And Chocolate)

Not Looking Back - Songs 1986

Another mix in my Songs 1986 series of music from my collection released that year.

1. Lyres - Not Looking Back (Lyres Lyres)
2. Roky Erickson - Don't Slander Me (Don't Slander Me)
3. Iggy Pop - Real Wild Child (Blah-Blah-Blah)
4. New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle (Brotherhood)
5. Prince - Kiss (Parade)
6. Depeche Mode - A Question Of Time (Black Celebration)
7. Eurythmics - Missionary Man (Revenge)
8. The Jesus & Mary Chain - Some Candy Talking (Some Candy Talking)
9. Love & Rockets - Kundalini Express (Express)
10. R.E.M. - I Am Superman (Life's Rich Pageant)
11. Siouxsie & The Banshees - Cities In Dust (Tinderbox)
12. The Smiths - Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Queen Is Dead)
13. Pet Shop Boys - Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money) (Please)
14. The B-52's - Summer Of Love (Bouncing Off The Satellites)
15. The Bangles - Manic Monday (Different Light)
16. Talking Heads - Wild Wild Life (True Stories)
17. The The - Infected (Infected)
18. Talk Talk - Living In Another World  (The Colour Of Spring)

The Trolley Graveyard

Somewhere in rural Pennsylvania there is a plot of land set aside for the trolley graveyard. A place where trolley cars that have been discarded from the cities of the east come to a final rest. The green and yellow cars in the photo ran on multiple lines that crisscrossed through the Philadelphia neighborhoods of my youth and in particular the Germantown section where I lived. I rode two trolleys each way every day to high school. Two different lines were each about a block away from our house and they gave us access to the entire city. I was riding them regularly on my own long before I was a teenager. All the kids in the neighborhood did. Rode them to school, to go downtown, to go up the avenue, to the carnival side shows on Front St., to the museums on the Parkway, to the Phillies games at the old Connie Mack Stadium, to my Tuesday night Mummers string band practices, etc, etc.

Later I even sometimes rode the trolley to classes at Temple University. I'm sure everyone in the neighborhood has plenty of stories about them. Yep, I miss those trolleys and we could sure use them now.

More info on the Trolley Graveyard
www.atlasobscura.com/places/windber-trolley-grave-yard
or Google "trolley graveyard Pennsylvania"

What's My Scene - Songs 1987

The third mix of my Songs 1987 series. So much more of that big 80's production sound.

1. Hoodoo Gurus - What's My Scene? (Blow Your Cool)
2. INXS - Need You Tonight (Kick)
3. Eurythmics - I Need A Man (Savage)
4. The Jesus & Mary Chain - April Skies (Darklands)
5. Echo & The Bunnymen - Bedbugs And Ballyhoo (Echo & The Bunnymen)
6. ABC - When Smokey Sings (Alphabet City)
7. Pet Shop Boys - It's A Sin (Actually)
8. New Order - True Faith (Substance)
9. Julian Cope - Shot Down (Saint Julian)
10. Prince - Sign O' The Times (Sign O' The Times)
11. Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning (Diesel and Dust)
12. R.E.M. - It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) (Document)
13. Siouxsie & The Banshees - The Passenger (Through The Lookig Glass)
14. Dinosaur Jr. - Just Like Heaven (You're Living Over Me)
15. The Replacements - Alex Chilton (Pleased To Meet Me)
16. Sinead O'Connor - Mandinka (The Lion And The Cobra)
17. The Cure - Why Can't I Be You (Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me)
18. David Bowie - Time Will Crawl (Never Let Me Down)
19. U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Joshua Tree)

Some thoughts on a party

There was a group of angry people in a party smacking away at a yellow haired piñata. They had been doing it for a long time... several decades. They tried many different sticks and bats and clubs. They tried from every height and from every angle. Their hate, anger and frustration was obvious as the yellow haired piñata refused to break and got stronger as time went on. Then an orange clown joined the fray and started whacking the piñata and everyone else around it. All that anger and hatred got out of control as the wackos started relentlessly beating on each other even as the yellow haired piñata got stronger still. Now that grand old party is over, divided, self-destructing and dying even as the orange clown sets himself on fire in the middle of another incoherent rant.

Forevermore Starts Here - Songs 1987

More songs from 1987 that spent time on my turntable and my brand new CD player.

1. St. Christopher - Forevermore Starts Here (Forevermore Starts Here)
2. Aztec Camera - Somewhere In My Heart (Love)
3. The Cure - Just Like Heaven (Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me)
4. George Harrison - This Is Love (Cloud 9)
5. Duke Of Stratosphear - Vanishing Girl (Psonic Psunspot)
6. Game Theory - We Love You Carol And Alison (Lolita Nation)
7. The Northern Pikes - Just Another Guy (Big Blue Sky)
8. BoDeans - Only Love (Outside Looking In)
9. Marshall Crenshaw - This Is Easy (Mary Jean & 9 Others)
10. Paul Kelly & The Messengers - Same Old Walk (Under The Sun)
11. U2 - With Or Without  You (Joshua Tree)
12. Robbie Robertson - Sweet Fire Of Love (Robbie Robertson)
13. The Smiths - Girlfriend In A Coma (Strangeways, Here We Come)
14. The Silencers - I Ought To Know (A Letter From St. Paul)
15. John Mellencamp - Cherry Bomb (The Lonesome Jubilee)
16. Dwight Yoakam - Little Ways (Hillbilly Deluxe)
17. The Long Ryders - I Want You Bad (Two Fisted Tales)
18. John Hiatt - Thing Called Love (Bring The Family)
19. Rosanne Cash - Way We Make A Broken Heart (King's Record Shop)
20. Fleetwood Mac - Everywhere (Tango In The Night)