a.m.kelly|mindspigot

Sunday,
13 December

∞

Jimmy fucking Stewart.

YES, I want to be him, but I’m not quite tall&lanky or naively kindhearted.

∞

went tonight to see It’s a Wonderful Life at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square. It was shown on a print of the film, projected in a small theater packed full of people on a chilly night. I’d never seen the film not on broadcast TV, so didn’t know I was missing whole chunks editing out for TV. It was great, just the experience of being in a theater full of people, and in the last moments of the film, when you’ve got tears in your eyes and you’re a little in awe of the whole thing: you hear the clapping and you are bowled over, because the room you’re in is full of the same humanity that is pouring out their love for a good man and for a moment all that clapping brings home even more that wonderful sense of community you get out of George Baily’s Bedford Falls and it doesn’t take a miracle for life to be worth living but just two hours of celluloid with a light shown through it and a room full of strangers.

Saturday,
12 December

∞

taken some time in the summer of 2005. Dug it out of my old [very very poorly written] blog archives because I still like the idea for the project I was doing: take a photograph and under it, write a little story under it that relates to the picture. A nice little warm-up exercise for all the writing I’ll never get around to doing.

∞

Lucas wanted David Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi [via kottke.org]

I don’t know about you guys, but I want to live in an alternative reality where-in lynch decides the only way to rid himself of the growing headache is to direct Return of the Jedi, even assuming Lucas keeping him on a fairly tight leash, I’d be we’d have something weird and astounding. Imagine, just what Jabba’s palace would look like through Lynch’s lens, the ewok’s fighting off storm troopers. It’s fun just to try to wrap my head around what would be different just in terms of cinematography & editing, like if all the scenes happened the same in the same order but were shot by lynch and spliced together a little differently.

∞

the haul from harvard bookstore today:

[clockwise from top left]

Kim Stanley Robinson’s A Short Sharp Shock. $3.50 and worth buying just for being inscribed by a previous owner with the following:

Fascinating Fantasy (not SF) surreal but not stupid. engaging tho [sic] I’m not sure I “get it” — great.
Plot is not tied up at end.
-Jon Monsarrat
May 9, 2002
Finished this rushing off to buy Star Wars II movie tickets

Woody Allen’s Side Effects [it was two bucks, and I’ve only ever seen his films, not read his prose.]

Looking Closer 3: Classical Writings on Graphic Design, my big ticket purchase at ten dollars, looks like fun.

Robert Jordon’s The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time, Book 2) I’ve been contemplating a reread and recently re-bought the first book new from my old job, picked up this one to replace my hard-worn Book 2 with no cover and rapidly disintegrating binding, unread for 4.50 a steal for this class of paperback.

Friday,
11 December

∞

This too shall pass.

(via symphonyno2ineminor)

a sentiment especially for the end of semesters, I’m currently contemplating an all-nighter, though it’s my first and last of the year and therefore, really not a big deal.

Best of luck to you all.

Thursday,
10 December

∞

“

Job Title: Catalog Librarian
Full/Part Time: Full-Time
Regular/Temporary: Regular

Position Description
Clemson University is seeking a flexible and enthusiastic Librarian to join its Cataloging Unit.
This is a 12-month tenure-track position with faculty rank and status. Clemson library faculty members participate in library-wide planning and governance, work in a shared decision-making environment, and are encouraged to be active in university service and professional organizations.

Qualifications:
Required Qualifications/Experience:
ALA-accredited masters degree
Minimum of one year of cataloging experience
Knowledge of AACR2, MARC21, LCC, LCSH, and OCLC Connexion
Demonstrated flexibility in previous jobs
Excellent communication skills and ability to work collaboratively with others
Experience with standard computer applications, integrated library systems, and internet resources

Preferred Qualifications/Experience:
Supervisory experience
Experience in cataloging monographs, electronic resources, digital object description and/or foreign language materials
NACO experience
Experience with Innovative Interfaces Millennium integrated ILS

Pay & Work Schedule:
Standard Hrs: 37.5;
Salary and Benefits:
Minimum: $42,000; rank and competitive salary based on the successful candidate’s qualifications and experience. For a full description of this position go to http://www.lib.clemson.edu/cat

”

— current dream job: Cataloging Librarian at a major University. Clemson’s right near some of my extended family too.

∞

theremina:

Clay Davis. That is all. (via strutting)

I think a serious and determined rewatch of The Wire is in order. Never did get to the last season or two.

∞

Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I’m following, and I’m not walking in anyone else’s footsteps. I’m making it up as I go.

Career advice from Charlie Hoehn via kottke.org.
This seems to be the overriding strategy for work these days: ignore the path others have laid out for you, just strike out and start doing things. After that, or so the theory goes, all else follows. It seems like the old paths have mostly been trampled into dust anyway, there’s not much up there anymore.
This is why I like to have my hand in three or four things at once, life’s more interesting when you’re not only doing one thing. We should all have trouble, not figuring out how to write a resume, but when of our 6 pages of notable accomplishments all fit whoever we’re sending it out to.

Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you don’t. No one does. You shouldn’t be trying to check off the boxes of life; they aren’t real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path I’m following, and I’m not walking in anyone else’s footsteps. I’m making it up as I go.

Career advice from Charlie Hoehn via kottke.org.

This seems to be the overriding strategy for work these days: ignore the path others have laid out for you, just strike out and start doing things. After that, or so the theory goes, all else follows. It seems like the old paths have mostly been trampled into dust anyway, there’s not much up there anymore.

This is why I like to have my hand in three or four things at once, life’s more interesting when you’re not only doing one thing. We should all have trouble, not figuring out how to write a resume, but when of our 6 pages of notable accomplishments all fit whoever we’re sending it out to.

Wednesday,
9 December

∞

tragos:

(via kateoplis)

Thank you kateoplis! Walt! No further proof needed of the soul-succoring powers of the beard!

wonderful. i think the stripes really pull the look together.

∞

“Cause it’s gonna be the future soon
And I won’t always be this way
When the things that make me weak and strange get engineered away”

—

The Future Soon
Jonathan Coulton (via squaremelon) (via seej500) (via m1k3y)

note to self: finally get around to listening to some Coulton, given that I’m already so late to the party on this one that it’s the follwing Thursday and I missed the planning for this weekend’s already.

∞

this is just to say

chessieann:

i have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

-william carlos williams

oh, wcw. i miss english major classes.

I was talking the other day about how in LIS grad school I miss just discussing literature or history or film with a group. It doesn’t happen here and I miss it dearly. Also, you can buy the above image on a tshirt here as part of Ellis’ T-shirt of the week, only till Sunday.

∞

suitable for contemplation while you’re not spending 15 minutes a day shaving or showing the world that you’re more confident and manly than non-bearded men or waging the long hard war against the dissenting and sadly misinformed segment of the population that is still watching the shadow-puppet show of unbearded life.

here’s the PDF and publisher file for setting in a different type face or change to that organization name. Thanks to tragos for the quote and enormousair for bringing it back to my attention.

If this discouse had occured in an Enlightenment-era cafe, we’d be putting out a phamplet called On the Cultural Metaphysics of Beards: or Discourses on the overriding positive character of un-shaven-faced Man.

∞ shaving vs. beard

enormousair:

kateoplis:

tragos:

enormousair:

kateoplis:

tragos:

I believe that shaving indicates victimhood and a pursuit of shabby short-term goals. When you are doing the right thing for the wrong reason, you shave. When you are doing the wrong or right thing for the right reason, you let your beard grow.

That is a truth tested by time.

There’s nothing sexier on a man than a beard. Followed closely by a cable-knit turtleneck.

Lol. Now wait, just so’s I’m sure I’m getting the right message: does that second sentence sarcastically negate the first?

I would like to clarify here. I was merely claiming that beards lead to truth, justice, poetic sublimity and well-engineered bridges. Whether beards—or cable-knit turtlenecks for that matter—are sexy is beyond my jurisdiction. I can only hope the Tumblr community can shed light on this issue.

Au contraire, my statement is utterly in earnest and devoid of sarcasm; I was merely contributing a woman’s perspective to the discourse. My attraction toward bearded men goes way beyond the shallow physical attribute. It’s fundamentally about the lifestyle that anchors it, his conscientious character, choices and philosophy. In that, I wholeheartedly concur with tragos, and as a bearded friend once said: You’re doing life right if you have a beard.

Of course, there are exceptions to all rules, and shallow, bearded men abound, but that is the truth at the heart of this.

And yes, I just happen to find bearded men in cable-knit turtlenecks most desirable.

That’s right, fuckfaces, I’ma reblog this one into the ground, until every last drop of humor has been wrung out of its limp carcass, until the text of its quoted portions is strung out along that right-hand margin one-letter thick, goddammit.

that font of modern manliness [and sadly some misogyny and eventually suicide], HEMINGWAY. sadly, not cable-knit.
[via chessie, one of the pro-beard lady group cited earlier.]

∞

symphonyno2ineminor:

Orestes Pursued by the Furies, 1921

John Singer Sargent

Aeschylus has rarely been so vividly badass.