"Don't Read Shakespeare on the Shitter."

Don't ask why, but I found a bunch of stories on how unsanitary it is to read while you're on the toilet. In fact, an image search for "reading on the toilet" can fill your morning with delightful visions of women and men and animals all enjoying a little light reading while voiding their bodies of waste matter. Dee-light-ful.

The good news is, reading a printed paperback or hardback book while you pinch a loaf isn't going to kill anyone and could possibly make you a better person. A disgusting, filthy, better person.

According to the Guardian, contemplating the Meaning of Life while dropping a deuce is an enviable position in which to find oneself and that others should aspire towards, noting that, "the toilet of the middle ages, high up in a castle turret, offered the perfect solitude for "uninterrupted reading"; Lord Chesterfield too saluted the benefits, recounting the tale of a man who used his time wisely in the "necessary house" to work his way through Horace."

And we know how sanitary the Middle Ages were. But I think those old dudes were simply masturbating. They'd take a book to pretend they were reading, but they were really just diddling themselves. "How was your Horace? Wink, wink."

The danger, they add, is, "your poo can get on your hands, [and] be transferred to your reading material." Ah, public libraries: Aiding poo migration since 1600.

"Microbes don't fare too well on absorbent surfaces, and might survive only minutes on newspaper. But plastic book covers and those shiny, smooth surfaces of Kindles, iPhones and iPads are more accommodating, and it's likely bugs can live on those for hours. A recent study by Curtis suggests that in Britain one in six mobile phones is contaminated with faecal matter, largely because people fail to wash their hands after going to the toilet."

So the conclusion, the disgusting conclusion, is that reading while on the toilet is a widespread practice, which is mostly harmless so long as you view spreading feces on the objects you touch as mostly harmless.

Personally, I don't read "whilst" (the King's English) upon the "crapper" (the Earl's English). I don't tweet or play Angry Birds or do anything else with my hands. Except floss. And knit. And write checks. And compose commercial jingles on my Casio keyboard. And blog. Because I'm on the toilet now.

And The Mouthy Housewives, when asked by a mom if her son's new toilet reading habit is gross, reply, "WHO THE HELL CARES WHERE YOUR SON READS AS LONG AS HE’S READING!?!?"

Point taken. Reading trumps poo hands.

But getting back to "those shiny, smooth surfaces of Kindles, iPhones and iPads" where germs can live "for hours"... [GAG!!!!!!!!]

Someone has got to start a campaign against the reading of Kindles and iPads while on the toilet. This is fucking gross. It's like when I hear a cell phone conversation coming from the stall in a public restroom and all I can think is that the is no level of cleanliness that exists in that tiny space that allows for zero transfer of crap to every surface including the dude's face. Hand. Ass. Hand. Phone. Ear. Cheek. Mouth. I don't care if your shit came out in a neatly wrapped gift box with a bow: you're dipping you hand into the no-fly zone of the toilet. There's a perimeter level with the seat that should not be broken with the same hand you're using to hold your toothbrush.

So let's get this started now. Here is the "Don't READ" campaign. And yes, these are terrible slogans. You try coming up with authors whose names rhyme with "toilet" or "crapper" or "shit." How about, "Don't leave a turd, holding the written word"?

"Don't READ Shakespeare on the Shitter."
"Don't READ Tolstoy on the Toidy."
"Put Down That Gertrude Stein Before You Wipe Your Behind."
"Don't Wipe Your Ass While Reading 'Leaves of Grass.'"
"Don't READ Stephen King on The Throne."

You don't want to hear what I came up with for Honoré de Balzac.

Or maybe these should just be simple posters of celebrities sitting on the toilet under the banner, DON'T READ.

Or,
"The hand that swipes is not the hand that wipes."
"Leave your ebook in the hall, when you answer Nature's Call."

And the worst one of all,

"Hi, Siri. Do I look stupid to you?"

I know you've seen the latest Apple iPhone commercial where everyone is an idiot. Yes, you've seen the little girl who wants to see a weasel. But did you realize that most people in that commercial are idiots?

I've seen this ad on TV about 15 times. And the first time I noticed that the woman who is rushing to the hospital is smiling. She says, "Tell me the quickest way to the hospital." And she's smiling. Is she rushing there because she's sick, or because someone in her family has been injured? Maybe a friend had a baby; that might have her smiling. But then, why is she rushing? The baby isn't going anywhere. Or is it? Her whole world seems alien to me. Stop smiling! Someone is selling a baby on the black market, you monster!

And the woman who gets locked out of her house? Why the hell is she telling her phone, for? Because if you watch, Siri doesn't unlock the door, but does a business search to locate nearby locksmiths. "No, Siri, unlock the fucking door!"

And the guy who tells Siri to move his appointment from 3 to 4, what does he expect? Because if Siri can't unlock a door or even call the locksmith automatically and get someone who *can* unlock a door, is she going to call everyone scheduled to attend the meeting to tell them about the change? What the fuck do you pay her for if she can't make a simple phone call WHEN SHE ALREADY LIVES INSIDE YOUR PHONE?

And the flat tire lady with a car full of child ballerinas? She tells Siri she has a flat tire. Will Siri inflate the flat? I don't understand. Will Siri call her husband? Or will we just repeat that same stupid response about locating 3 tow trucks in the area. That does not solve the fucking problem of being stranded with five children in the car. Siri should say, "I will entertain the children with videos while you curse yourself for not being a member of AAA. Asshole."

So if you haven't seen the video, here are the questions the idiots ask, followed by Siri's responses, assuming she's anything like me:

We have a flat tire. "I thought you wanted a flat tire so you didn't have to sit through that shitty ballet recital."

How do I tie a bow tie, again? "Again? Just buy a clip-on, asshole." (Since Siri is only about 2 weeks old, this guy has asked about this at least once, and forgotten what Siri showed him. Already.)

What's the fastest way to Hartford Hospital? "Step in front of a bus."

Do I need an umbrella in NY this weekend? "No, you don't need one. Unless you don't want to get wet."

Remind me to call Chris when I get home. [Siri deletes all the contacts from the phonebook.]

Move my meeting from 3 to 4. "Meeting moved to November 4th."

Remind me to get milk when I leave work. [Siri posts her work address to Facebook/ Foursquare/ Twitter, with the message, "Who wants milk?"]

Tell my wife I'm gonna make it. [Siri tells the wife, "Your husband is making it with his secretary."]

Wake me up at 6. "Do you think I'm getting up early just so you can hit 'snooze' 3 times?"

Play some Coltrane. "Playing some Coldplay."

I'm locked out. [Siri snaps your photo and posts it to your networks with your location, "Can someone break into my house for me?"]

What does a weasel look like?



Oh, sorry. Too soon?

Wanted: Librarian Censor

Isn't it about time that censorship had some authority control? The thought of censoring a book or film may seem abhorrent to you, but what about haphazard censorship, without any standards or rules? People will censor. It's our nature to remove from view what we don't want to see. So shouldn't censorship have the same kinds of policies and ethics that guide the profession of librarianship?

We just celebrated Banned Books Week and I was appalled by the randomness of what is challenged in America's schools and libraries. One YA book is pulled for profanity, but some stay on the shelf. Sexual, homosexual, religious, violent or political content is alright in one book but not in another.

Don't people have any standards? Like, what if one day we censored all the gay penguins but not gay elephants? What if we hide the Koran in the basement but keep the Book of Mormon on the front shelves?

We have lists and lists of books that have been "censored" over the years, but those book challenges are so haphazard and random. I wonder if I need to start a site like Goodreads but called CensoredReads where people can tag everything that's offensive or possibly offensive in every published book. I think that would a useful selection, or deselection, tool.

"Find a reason to hate that book, at CensoredReads."

I'm tired of the morons who want to bowdlerize texts and replace words with friendlier terms. These are the same cowards who say N-word or F-word. We know what you're saying; you're not hiding anything. You say N-word so often that it's become the word it was meant to substitute. You say, "Oh, I would never say the N-word." Guess what? You just did.

But if we have to be cowards, at least let's gets our terms straight. We have a few resources to start. I know, based on a skit on Saturday Night Live, that dinosaurs can officially be changed into Jesus horses.

So that's one. But we need more.

That's why we need to begin teaching censorship in library school with classes on "How to Censor Responsibly," "Censorship Terms and Authority Control," and "Censor 2.0."

Here is your textbook, AACR: Anglo-American Censorship Rules.

I really want to hear a librarian who has graduated from the program say to someone who's complaining about a book, "I understand you find this book offensive, but you're hating it wrong."

The Working Dead.

I guess you've heard about the Occupy Wall Street assholes, um, protestors. They're the group leveraging social media to protest the corporate screwing of America. No, wait. They're not using social media; they're actually marching on Wall Street. With picket signs. And getting busted for it.

They aren't just virtually there with a Google map representing the greed on "the street," or creating an augmented reality app with facial recognition cloud resources to identify the richest trader cocksuckers in the crowd, but are physically there in NYC. And not one protester has signed into Foursquare to claim the mayorship of the intersection at Wall and Broad streets.

Wikipedia tells me, "The participants of the event are mainly protesting against social and economic inequality, corporate greed, and the influence of corporate money and lobbyists on government,..."

Ah, a political manifesto. Why not just be about jobs?

Here is their dickhead philosophy, "The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%."

You know what? I don't care about the greed and corruption. I'm glad Wall Street is making money. What I care about is their refusal to share.

I would protest the seeming collusion by big business to create a two-tiered America where the few blessed earn $10 billion a year and the rest of us earn $10 an hour. I would protest the union busting. The professional downgrading. The extreme costs of education that leave us in debt just for the empty promise of a decent living wage. I've complained for the last three years that corporate America has some plan to turn us into the working dead with lower and lower paying jobs.

Where is my American Dream? That should be your fucking mantra. Don't criticize the greedy. Greed shows that there is money out there to be made. But find a way to make those greedy bastards play fair and create jobs, good jobs.

Nobody cares if Mr. Big has a billion dollars if we also have good jobs, health benefits, safe places to live and play.

All you idiots with any other political agenda need to shut the fuck up until we all have jobs with a good future, with benefits to keep us healthy and productive and with pensions for loyal hard work.

Create Good Jobs. Any other message and you're wasting your fucking time. And mine.

Librarians Need Pimps.

Have you seen the movie Taken where Liam Neeson is asking the hooker about his daughter and the pimp comes up and takes Liam's money for wasting the hooker's time? Librarians need that.

How many times have you answered your patron's question only to get another question fired right back at you? And sometimes while you're still in the middle of the first question?

I mean, if you don't have your shit together enough to wait to get an answer for something before you want to know something else, you're either a mentally unstable adult, or a 4-year-old.

"Why is the sky blue?" "Why do I have a penis?" "Why can't dogs and cats have babies?" "Where do farts go?"

That was the adult.

But from what movies I've seen, a pimp can help a ho stick to business and not waste time with bullshit. Like eating. Or bathing. Or getting an education. Or anything else that doesn't bring in money. A pimp is like an extremely violent and unstable life coach.

Here comes the Pimp now. After the movie, Taxi Driver, we'll call him Sport. Here is a sampling of his guidance. Here's a thought, has anyone written a book like Tuesdays with Morrie, but with a dying pimp?

Sport (promoting his merchandise):
This librarian here, she's been on the job five years but you'll swear she's done it for twenty. She will blow your mind. With knowledge. She will fuck you up and down with information. You can ask her anything you want. And she will find it. But no rough stuff, no legal or medical advice, all right?

Sport: Are you bothering the librarian? Because I'll bother your ass with my foot.

Sport: Time is money. And your time is about to run out. Like your blood.

Sport: Asshole, the librarian has helped you. She found you a source in India for 12-foot long unfinished mahogany boards and she sent the contact information to your iPhone. And she found you a local periodontist who uses no anesthesia and let's you hold your dog during your gum scraping. And she gave you the phone number for Zooey Deschanel's agent. Now it's time for you to go. Do you really want this to go to the next level?


So, yeah, having a pimp sounds real cool. I'm just not sure how it works with the money thing, since I get a salary and don't get paid by the trick. I'm sure pimps have a sophisticated formula for figuring it out, like taking my whole paycheck. And then punching me in the mouth. Because I'm a librarian and don't make very much.

Public Libraries for Sale.

So libraries now have ebooks for the Amazon Kindle. And so does Amazon have us.

We often talk about the value of libraries, about the library building, about the collection, but we don't often discuss the value of the concept of a library and what it means and what it's worth.

Right now we're all broke. Except for your rich bastards. But most of the rest of us are broke. Either because of our own greed or stupidity or because the The Man keeping us down. In my case, it's The Man.

But libraries have value that we can't perceive unaided. Our library gets many requests from the public for us to allow them to become associated with us. Some want us to link to their website or some want to discuss their businesses or books they've written with the public.

I don't know about you, but when we're considering a purchase for our library, we look to see how many other libraries have made a similar purchase. Because libraries are home to many professionals and bright people so we've determined that libraries make good recommendations. And I think others feel the same. That's why some many people and businesses want to work with us.

I was once told that Google even views libraries as better than most other sites. And if a library links to another site, that site in turn gets an upgrade in Google's algorithm. And how much is that worth to have your business easier to find on Google?

So what is it worth to have libraries send our patrons to Amazon to borrow ebooks? You might think, nothing, because these people are Amazon customers anyway, Kindle owners. But now the library is delivering our patrons to Amazon. And what will Amazon do with our library patrons? In order to make our Kindle users happy, we're also giving away a little of their privacy. Amazon now knows which library books they read. Again, not a big thing by itself. But these are library patrons. And in this business world, this can be an entire demographic. I don't know. I only know that we've given a huge global entity access to something that, as libraries, we've been trained to protect. And we did this because our patrons wanted it.

So I don't think anyone can truly calculate the value of a library. Actually, I think the private companies that contract to manage libraries can because they exploit the goodwill that libraries have earned over the last 100 years when they use volunteers to run their for-profit *public* library.

Companies spend millions to create the perception that they are good, whether they are, or not. And libraries have this already. A library doesn't need sponsorship or logos or mascots or jingles. Build a library any place in America, in the world, and the neighborhood becomes a better place to live.

So the battle (okay, it wasn't a battle, yet) with Amazon is lost and it's not our fault. Our patrons don't really understand the value of their privacy and how it relates to freedom. Although, I've been telling them for years.

As far as the brokeness issue, I don't have the answer. But for libraries looking for money through partnerships with private companies, please rethink your true value. It's not just how many people will see the ad in your library stacks, it's how much each of those sets of eyes, those minds, are worth. In my view, they're priceless. But I won't criticize you if you sell out for, maybe, $50 million.

Amazon's Big Ass Library

News: Amazon copies the Public Library business model. And adds fees. The story is that Amazon is going to lend ebooks. And everyone says this is bad for libraries.

I don't know why Amazon didn't do this sooner. Here's what could have happened at any time: Let's say Amazon creates the Amazon Lending division and the Lending division buys ebooks from the Amazon Bookseller division. Amazon could lend those ebooks for $2 a week and make... $2 a week minus $10 cost per ebook, is $94 a year. Or given the short lifespan of a book, $47 for six months. So Amazon can make $47 dollars on each ebook it buys from itself.

And since Amazon the Bookseller creates the demand for the books in the first place by pushing them to the front page, it can target the most profitable books to purchase for its Lending division and not waste money on dogs. But given how the web page works, it can buy and rent pretty much anything at any time. "Buy Now for $9.99 or Rent Now for $2.00 a week." I don't think publishers would even be able to keep track of the bookkeeping.

Publishers could have complained. But since Amazon sells more of their books than any other outlet, they wouldn't complain for too long after Amazon gently, but purposefully, squeezed their balls.

What's funny is that libraries have been doing this for years. But without the $2 a week. The only thing Amazon adds to the Library plan is the rental fee. And Amazon's massive global presence. And the ball-squeezing thing.

Amazon's Subscription-based Lending Library vs. the Public Library.

Amazon: Thems that can join is thems that can pay.

Library: All are welcome. Even you.

Amazon: As quickly as possible, regardless of cost.

Library: As cheaply as possible, no matter the delay.

Amazon: We track every word you read. And we can tell which ones you don't understand. Don't you know what spurious means by now? God, my kid knows that.

Library: We couldn't give two fucks whether you borrow Catcher in the Rye. Or if you read, What's Up with Down There? (a guide to your lady parts) and it's companion, What's Wrong with my Dong? (a guide to dude stuff).

Well, actually that last two have wifi keyloggers that gather your Facebook profile if you keep the anywhere near a computer or smartphone. But that's just something I did. For research, not for spying. But I won't tell anyone that you checked them out. Except in my library school thesis. You know, for research.

Whenever our library would bring up charging for services in the past, the plan would always get shot down. The purpose of the library is to provide free services, was always the reason. It didn't matter that ALL real world examples had a cost. Book and movie rentals, computer use, instructional programs, research, all incur some cost in the real world.

So in the middle of a fucking recession, with this Amazon new, libraries are being told that people would rather pay than wait.

So watching TV, I see that most people still have $70/mo for a phone. And $8/mo for Netflix. And $6/mo. for Amazon Prime. But no one seems to have fucking dime for libraries.

Everyone says that libraries have become obsolete because people only want to pay for the things they want; there is no longer a common good. And I've also heard that people shouldn't be forced to pay for something that a private company could supply. Like private roads? Private armies? Because I'm sure you could find some company willing to keep the road in front of your house in good shape if you cough up $5 a day. And if you don't cough loud enough, I'm sure a good ball-squeeze is on the menu.

So you have librarians all shouting how library lending is dead because Amazon is willing to sell the same product that libraries could provide for free if only everyone would shut the fuck up and just pay their $8/mo. in library fees so that we can continue providing books to everyone. Oh, wait, and for that same $8 you get children's programs and online newspapers and computer classes and yoga and reading clubs and meeting space and internet access and music and SO MUCH OTHER SHIT it's not possible to calculate it all. If only you fuckers would just pay your fucking taxes.

But what these librarians are saying is that the book lending model for libraries is dead. Much like how the VHS and DVD lending model perished years ago when Blockbuster and then Netflix and then Redbox appeared. What? That part of library lending is stronger than ever? In fact, Redbox is only $1 and Blockbuster has repeatedly lowered prices AND Netflix users are quitting the service because prices increased?

So what is it about Amazon's model that will kill libraries? Is it the Kindle? So a business model that requires members to spend $114 upfront (for the cheapest Kindle) and then keep a valid credit card on record AND continue to pay $8 to $30 a month is going to beat out a FREE service?

What it will most likely do is allow libraries to get the same deal as Amazon and allow us to lease ebooks from publishers. So then the library will be able to lease 200 ebook copies of Stieg Larsson's ghost-written but based on his notes, second series of novels to fill demand. And then six months later, return them all and buy something else. And when libraries get the power to lease ebooks for one-fifth the cost of purchasing them, then we'll have the power to deliver content to our patrons and near-Kindle immediacy but without the added cost.

I'll say this again; if libraries could only manage to pool all the money, would could get publishers to give us what we want. Because this is tens of millions of dollars. Or even hundreds of millions. I don't have a calculator, but it's a lot. We could offer any book or movie or song to anyone at any time in any format.

Amazon isn't big because they're better. They're big because of that name: Amazon. It's a big damn river. It's the biggest river on Earth. So we'll need to come up with a bigger name for our combined national library. How about Library Planet? Or The Big Fucking Library? I'll leave the naming up to you.

But The Big Fucking Library would look great on borrower cards.