My Queen Phase

That's the band Queen. I watched the DVD of Bohemian Rhapsody last week and I can't stop thinking about Queen.

In the 70s and 80s I listened to Queen's music and liked it, but didn't pay a lot of attention to the band itself. That was the same for The Who; Crosby, Stills, Nash, and (sometimes) Young; Pink Floyd; Traffic and many others. I watched parts of the Live Aid concert. I remember when Freddie Mercury died. Was it really 1991? It doesn't seem that long ago.

Anyway, after watching the movie, all I want to do is listen to Queen and read about Queen. I can't stop thinking about Queen. Their music keeps running through my head.

Here's what I've done during the last week:
Watched Queen's performance at Live Aid on YouTube.
Borrowed 2 CDs via my local public library; I'll likely buy some CDs if the used CD store has any.
Ordered books on Queen via my local public library.

I'm not certain when this will end, but I'm enjoying learning all about the band and listening to the music again.

After all, sometimes I need a break from classical music and mystery books.

My, My, My

There are lots of titles that begin with the word "My" and I've reached that section in my alphabetical list of possible duplicates. That means very soon I'll be half way through the alphabet (M being the 13th of 26 letters). I began the letter M in mid-July - seven months ago. I began working on the letter L a full two years ago. I'm speeding up :-)

Rest assured I've done much more than merge titles beginning with the letter M. There are the typos and those weird characters that are supposed to be accent marks that I've corrected, the skimpy bib records that I've upgraded. Plus the files of records sent to me from MassCat libraries I've imported. And I've searched for many, many records that MassCat library staff haven't been able to locate. Sometimes I've had to create records from scratch. Well, that's my job.

One major transition I've made is to stop teaching continuing education workshops for librarians. Yes, after a couple of years of ambivalence, I told my contact at the Connecticut State Library that I just didn't want to do any more. Since I've been teaching so few, it gets harder and harder to rev up.

I haven't been attending any workshops or training or conferences myself, so I feel as if it's getting harder and harder to keep up. I can handle the MassCat cataloging because it's pretty simple and it's mostly copy cataloging. The original cataloging is usually straight forward.

I continue to subscribe to the various cataloging e-mail discussion lists, but I find I'm deleting more and more of the posts without reading them thoroughly. Very few of them address issues that I face.

I'm still enjoying my work at MassCat. It's enough of a challenge to keep me interested but not so challenging that I get frustrated. It's only 18 hours/week, 5 miles from my home and I get free coffee. What more could I ask?

Reading about the South

When I read books by Miranda James I can't help thinking about the movie Victor/Victoria. In an early scene, Julie Andrew's character exclaims to Robert Preston's character "A woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman?"

Male librarian Dean James writes the Cat in the Stacks mysteries as female author Miranda James whose main character is male librarian Charlie Harris. These books fit into the "cozy" genre as they take place in a little town in Mississippi called Athena. They're fun, easy reading with no graphic sex and violence - a nice break from some of the grittier mysteries I read. I recently finished Arsenic and  Old Books, the sixth book of the series.

And I just started reading Rita Mae Brown's Crazy Like a Fox. This is part of the Sister Jane Arnold series about foxhunting. This is another fun, light read.

I really like reading Rita Mae Brown's books. While I found her Mrs. Murphy series sort of silly, I don't mind the animals talking to each other in the foxhunting series. To me, it feels as if their conversations add depth and insight to the story and also adds to the information about the history and ecology of foxhunting that is woven into the plot.

Best of all, I like Rita Mae Brown's stand-alone titles. While Rubyfruit Jungle feels a little dated now, it was a real shocker when it was first published. Other favorite titles are High Hopes (about the Civil War) and Alma Mater.

What ties these two author (Miranda James and Rita Mae Brown) together is their detailed descriptions of life in the South, especially manners. Both authors are perpetually referring to "proper" behavior.

As much of a rebel as Rita Mae Brown is, Sister Jane Arnold, Master of the Jefferson Foxhunt, is always properly attired on the hunts and expects others to be too. There is a lot of description of the traditions of foxhunting and of the refined and cultivated south.

Charlie Harris sometimes gets angry or upset and would like to do or say something but doesn't because of his Southern upbringing. He also dislikes it when others ignore traditions.

Having lived in Massachusetts all of my life, and despite the state's Puritan history, Southern traditions and manners seem a little extreme to me. After all, I became an adult during the 60's when we "let it all hang out".  Since then I've found a comfortable behavior pattern for myself somewhere between being a Hippie and a Southern Belle.

Ultimately it all boils down to the Golden Rule.