Welcome to the first post of my new series! In Dispatches From the Mat, we will examine the lifestyle and philosophy of yoga, and what makes up a fully developed yoga practice (hint: it isn’t being able to stand on your head). I hope you will be part of the discussion and join me in the search for union, for the true Self and the true nature of reality.

There is a passage in the Katha Upanishad with which I deeply identify. Yama, lord of death, has granted young Nachiketa three boons, in reparation for the three days the boy waited at Death’s palace while Yama was away. Nachiketa’s first two requests were fairly practical: a return of the love of his father and instructions on how to properly practice a ritual which leads to spiritual development. For his third blessing, however, Nachiketa asks for the secret of death. Yama answers by saying, “That’s over your head, boy, ask for something else,” but Nachiketa sticks to his guns. Yama tries to tempt him with wonderous offerings:

Ask for sons and grandsons who will live a hundred years. Ask for herds of cattle,

elephants and horses, gold and vast lands, and ask to live as long as you desire.

Or, if you can think of anything more desirable, ask for that,

with wealth and long life as well. Nachiketa, be the ruler of a great kingdom,

and I will give you the utmost capacity to enjoy the pleasures of life.

Ask for beautiful women with loveliness rarely seen on earth, riding in chariots,

skilled in music, to attend on you. But Nachiketa,

don’t ask me about the secret of death.

To which Nachiketa answers:

These pleasures last but until tomorrow, and they wear out the vital powers of life.

How fleeting is all life on earth! Therefore keep your horses and chariots,

dancing and music, for yourself. Never can mortals be made happy by wealth.

It is an unfortunate truth of our world that most people seek comfort and luxury, as well as all sorts of pleasures, as opposed to seeking wisdom or lasting joy. Those things that we are taught to want, that our senses most desire, are very difficult to turn our backs on. I am as guilty as the next person — and was even more so when I was younger — of falling for the “sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll” ploy. Putting myself in Nachiketa’s shoes, I doubt I would have held fast as he did. The offer of beautiful women is tempting, but the offer of beautiful women skilled in music? That would likely have broken me. Especially as I may have been a little nervous to begin with, what with the whole speaking-to-the-Lord-of-the-Dead thing.

But Nachiketa has the right idea. he knows that all these pleasures are empty. He knows that they drain the natural energy (prana) that fuels us. Bodily pleasures are hard to turn down, but they lead to the desire for more bodily pleasures, whereas wisdom leads to the search for more wisdom. When we learn to turn ourselves away from the constant need for pleasure and luxury, we will find that we are more aware of what it is that we actually want, and that those wants come from a place far deeper than the wants of the body and senses.

This is key to a true yoga practice. In understanding what it is we really want, and in recognizing the wants that come from the Self as opposed to the self, we are tapping into our absolute nature, that exists beyond our bodies. It is this nature that was not born, that will not die. The goal of yoga is not to be strong or flexible or sexy. It is to gain knowledge of reality. All lower goals, all sensual desires, are merely illusion (maya). Yoga literally translates as “yoke,” meaning the joining of our minds and bodies in their true nature. When we begin to move beyond the illusion of our lives, we see reality, and it is a beautiful thing.

I was a 21-year-old fingerpick guitarist at the time, obsessed with blues pickers like Skip James, Willie McTell and Robert Johnson, as well as the varied British folk sounds of Nick Drake and the Incredible String Band. I had heard of Jansch, but had not located any recordings. My bus got into Boston early, so I found my way to the Avalon, the now-defunct music hall, where I would later meet my brother & Casey, then went for a stroll. I located a Tower or Virgin Records (note: kids, there used to be these places called music stores, where you would go to buy things called CDs, which were like a collection of downloads) and stopped in to kill time. I picked up Dazzling Stranger and walked back to the Avalon, sat on the street outside and put the CD into my Discman (note: kids, it was like an iPod, but it played the CDs I mentioned above). I heard this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMlLlwVk9eI

When that was over, I heard this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqjUWJtH88c

The next few years were devoted to British folk, from Jansch and John Renbourn, as well as their band Pentangle, to John Martyn, but none of them could touch Bert Jansch (except maybe Davy Graham). Jansch’s playing was superb and his melodies haunting. He could pick with a delicate beauty, but his style was characterized by sporadic, rhythmic plucks. He was undeniably one of the greatest players of his time, and is idolized by many greats, including Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin stole covered his “Blackwaterslide” as “Black Mountain Side” on their first album).

Jansch died this morning at a hospice in Hampstead. If you haven’t listened to his work, take a few minutes to do so. You’ll be glad you did.

There is one question that is being asked of librarians everywhere these days. Actually, the main question we get — as it has always been — is “where is the bathroom?” But a new question has emerged over the last couple years: “what do you think of eBooks?”

Professionally, my answer is quite simple: I think reading is good. Read a book. Or an eBook. Or listen to a book. Whatever. It’s good for you.

Personally, the answer is also quite simple: I like eBooks, love the instant availability of so many titles, will likely always prefer paper books but am eagerly waiting to see what the digital book of the future will look like. Not long ago, none other than Al Gore, Oscar-winner and inventor of the Internet, introduced an iDevice app for his book Our Choice. I haven’t had a chance to look at it, but I have heard that it really is a huge step towards a revolutionary product. Unfortunately, the makers of the Our Choice app, Push Pop Press, have closed their publishing division and gone to work for Facebook. It won’t be long, of course, before someone else comes along to do something mind-blowing with the digital book, but in the meantime there’s an article in the New York Times today about books released with soundtracks. The company behind the innovation, Booktrack, has published their first editions, and they seem pretty cool.

There’s still a lot to be done before a truly innovative eBook (or at least another one, now that Push Pop has closed) is available. Still, there are a couple great book apps that deserve mention. The first great innovation I came across in an eBook came from this guy:

Nick Cave‘s second  novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, is available in paper form, of course, but there’s also an amazing app, made by Enhanced Editions. With the purchase of the app, you get not only the eBook, but also an audiobook, read by Cave, with a mixed-in soundtrack by Cave and Warren Ellis. In addition, there are a number of videos of Cave reading chapters of the book.

Another app series that I am intrigued by is Shakespeare in Bits. I decided last year to spend some time with Shakespeare, who I hadn’t read since high school, and I came across these apps. So far, only Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth are available, but more titles are due. The apps, while quite simple, are great. Words that are uncommon today can be tapped to reveal a modern translation. Bits of information, including history, context and language explanations, are available for many sections. Each section (the scenes are broken down into smaller, more digestible bits) has an explanation at the bottom, and there are even videos of each one. They may be made with simple animation, but the parts are performed by real actors, and they can be quite helpful.

The true eBook revolution is likely yet to come, but these initial forays are exciting. It’s a brave new world for readers, and I look forward to seeing what comes next.

There’s an interesting article in today’s New York Times about organizations that pay people to write positive online reviews, as well as the groups that are trying to figure out a way to keep these fake reviews from flooding internet retail and advisory sites.

Increasingly, companies are relying on customer reviews from sites like Yelp, Amazon and TripAdvisor to sell their products or attract visitors to their establishments. No surprise, then, that a business of “fake” endorsements would spring up. Now, the web is cluttered with reviews that, though written by real people, are not genuine in their support or are composed by friends, family or those who have been paid to write them. Often, these reviewers have never even read the book or visited the hotel in question.

The NYT piece is worth reading, as it talks about what’s being done to counteract this trend. But even if we do figure out a way to stem the tide of fake reviews, it would do nothing to prevent bias or inaccuracies in personal reviews. Like many librarians who work in collection development, I frequently look at the review breakdown of books on Amazon before deciding on what to order. Working in a small library with a limited acquisitions budget, we have to choose carefully what titles we purchase. And, while we try to focus on what people want to read, as opposed to focusing only on quality books, we are of course affected by reviews, both critical and personal. In fact, I often look more carefully at negative (1- and 2-star) reviews to see why people did not enjoy a particular book.

Although negative reviews are more often written by “real” people, that doesn’t mean they are better. As anyone who reads Amazon customer reviews knows, many of the negative posts are reactions to either the price of the Kindle edition or broad objections to the content. It must be very frustrating for an author to see many negative reviews of his or her work based solely on the price assigned to the electronic version by a company with which they have no direct involvement. The problem of objecting to content is equally frustrating: any book on politics, for example, will feature scads of negative reviews from those with opposing ideologies. It’s safe to say that very few of those reviewers have given the title an honest, objective read. Another example is teen literature, where books that have any content that parents could possibly object to — basically any book ever written for a teen audience — are reviewed as trash or even pornography. I came across a good example at work this week: one reviewer of the teen fantasy novel Once a Witch, by Carolyn MacCullough, a book which is, by all reports, far tamer than many other similar titles, spoke of “nasty garbage and filth” because the teenage character drinks, smokes and there is a mention at one point of a condom.

It is easy to object to a review like this, because it reflects an attitude that is out of touch, old-fashioned or ignorant. Yet as a librarian, I must be aware of and sensitive to the many opinions that differ from my own. The fact is that many parents would likely agree with the reviewer.

One benefit of a review like this is that I can read it, decide that most teens are already aware of cigarettes and condoms, check the responses to the negative review, and make my own decision about purchasing or reading the book. At the same time, a parent who may object to the depiction of teen drinking or smoking, or who may think that the word “condom” is what makes teens want to have sex, can find out that these things are included in the book, and avoid that title for their kids. While I may disagree with this decision for many reasons (the kid will still find the book if she wants it, the arguments are unrealistic, etc.), I as a librarian need to at least pretend to respect the parent’s decision.

What do you think, friends? How reliant are you on online reviews? Are you scared off by negative reviews? Do you think you can tell a real review from a fake review? Do you write fake reviews? Tell us!

By all reports, Gerald Bull was a devoted but unremarkable student in his early college years. A hard worker, he gained the respect of some professors despite his limited academic success. These connections led to Bull’s acceptance at University of Toronto’s new Institute of Aerodynamics in 1948. Bull’s focus was on wind tunnels, and his hard work soon began to pay off.

Bull was noticed by the Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment (CARDE), where he made a proposal — turned down as too expensive — for a wind tunnel. It was during this time that he was first introduced to the field of artillery and weaponry. After finishing his doctorate in 1951, Bull returned to work at CARDE, again on artillery. In the mid-’50s, CARDE was visited by a US military team, including the director of US Army Research and Development, Lieutenant General Arthur Trudeau. Trudeau saw potential in Bull’s ideas, and began using these ideas for US military development.

While working for CARDE, Bull purchased a large plot of land that straddled the United States/Quebec border, in the towns of North Troy, Vermont (where I grew up) and Highwater, Quebec. Bull donated this land to McGill University, to be used for a new ballistics lab, under the direction of former British Army man Robert Stacy. Tests were begun with 5-7″ guns, capable of firing projectiles great distances. A gun designed by Bull and test-fired on the island of Barbados as part of the High-Altitude Research Program (HARP) in 1962 was able to shoot a 330-pound object more than 10,000 feet, achieving an altitude of 215,000 feet. A joint US-Canada project soon began testing guns that were more than 110 feet long.

In the late ’60s, Bull severed his ties with McGill University and set up the Space Research Corporation (SRC) on the land in Vermont and Quebec. The company was incorporated in both countries, and Bull began to branch out around the world. SRC took on projects for China, Chile, Taiwan, Israel and South Africa. This is when things began to get hazy. It is often claimed that the work being licensed through South Africa was actually connected to the CIA, who were supporting South Africa as allies against the Soviet Union.

What is clear is that my parents got somewhat accustomed to the explosions, which used to wake my brother and me from our naps. We used to take walks to the end of the Long Trail, known as Journey’s End, about 3 or 4 miles from the house I grew up in, and we would be bordering SRC land. The first house my parents lived in when they moved to North Troy was owned by an SRC employee who was then living in South Africa. My mom reports that no one really knew what was going on at SRC, but it was clear enough that it was weapons related.

The Northeast Kingdom is known as a place where privacy is a social norm, and no one asked too many questions. At least not until 1977, when the US government adopted new arms trade restrictions and Bull ended up serving time for illegal deals with South Africa. After being sued and fined back in Quebec, Bull moved to Brussels, where he continued his work, taking jobs for China and Iraq. In 1988, Bull took on the infamous Project Babylon, for which he was hired by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to construct superguns, and to work on SCUD missile development.

It was not too long after this, in March 1990, a few months before the Gulf War began, that Gerald Bull was shot outside his apartment in Brussels. Reports differ, of course, but it is most commonly assumed that the action was carried out by Mossad, Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. Other suspects are the CIA, Iraq or Iran, but no one knows for sure. This video takes the tack that Mossad was responsible:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsCjlUH0qsA

Whatever the actual case, it makes for a bizarre and fine tale, especially as contrasted with the seemingly serene Northeast Kingdom landscape.

Hello again, friends, and welcome to a very special edition of DFtS! Throughout this series, I have done my best to provide a humorous, or at least mildly amusing, overview of the library profession. I have discussed proper practice for the professional librarian, censorship issues, technology, fuckwits, patrons good and bad, etc, but I have never yet actually reviewed a book for this fine magazine.

Things must change!

So, behold, dear bookworms and bookwormesses, the first in my (intended) series of book reviews: Assam & Darjeeling by T.M. Camp.

Mr. Camp’s novel accompanied me on my recent trip to Cambodia, and it made for a joyful companion indeed! A deceptively simple fantasy that would be of equal interest to adults and teens, Assam & Darjeeling is one of the nicest literary surprises I’ve had in some time.

Well-deserving of comparison to the work of Neil Gaiman, Assam & Darjeeling begins with a terrible accident, which leaves a mother and her two children in a coma. The children are awake outside of their bodies, existing somewhere between life and death. The mother is lost closer to death, and the children decide to descend to the underworld in order to find their mother and bring her back.

Thus begins a story that dances wonderfully from funny to sad, from touching to scary. Along their path, the children come across a collection of characters, many of whom will be familiar to those of you who have read your mythology. There’s even a brief appearance by a certain shaggy-haired songwriter with round glasses.

The author borrows heavily from classical mythology and Dante in his portrayal of the underworld, but the final product is Camp’s and Camp’s alone. This is a modernized view, with pollution and litter, cellphones and cars, in which Charon goes by Charles. This is a world (excuse me, underworld) in which The Darkness has a job washing dishes.

In Camp’s capable hands, the two children come perfectly to life. Of the younger child, the girl, the author says, “She didn’t have a lot of room left over inside for listening, with all her fierceness.” I will gladly read a thousand books in which the boy is the sensitive, intuitive one, and the girl the fighter, before I will read two with the opposite. Assam (not his real name) is a thinker, a boy who is in touch with things that other people are not. Darjeeling (not her real name) is a little badass, who will kick the Ferryman of the Dead in the shin without hesitation.

The depth and literary flesh of the two lead characters is one main draw of the work, but the real star here is Camp’s near-perfect prose. This is a beautifully written book, plain and simple. Few contemporary authors write with such elegance.

All of this is not to say that the book is perfect. It is unfortunately plagued with typos, which is a real shame given the beauty of the writing. I do not understand why Camp chose to refer to the children as “the boy” and “the girl” at first, only to reveal their real names in succession partway into the book. But my complaints are very few, and very minor, when compared to the many truly wonderful aspects of this book.

I highly recommend Assam & Darjeeling, both to libraries and readers. With the charming characters, lovely prose, and two big surprises toward the end, this is a rare book, to be treasured and returned to time and again.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our country is kinda a little wee bit fucked up right now. Thankfully, I see a wonderful trend that growing in popularity, and I’m all for it!

All over the country, people are waking up and realizing that if we are going to make this nation strong again, what we need to do is start hating each other and thinking people who disagree with us are insane. As long as we continue to shout from highest mountain that our neighbor is our enemy, we will prevail! Turn your back to the person next to you, but keep watching them suspiciously, and stand with me, people!

Think about it: whichever political party manages to win the majority gets to kick the other side out of the country for a few years, right? So why would we ever have to work together? You know who likes to work together? Communists.

I’m sorry you had to see that. Scary isn’t it? But you need to know what we’re up against. People who want to work together are Communists, and you may know some. If you do, report them to the FBI. Communists know they are sick, and want you to put them out of their misery. If you elect me PresiGov, I promise that for every Communist you turn in, I will send you one adorable Oligarchical puppy!

Now that’s a pooch who knows how to hate! So remember, people, you are the only one that matters! You are the only one who isn’t crazy! If someone disagrees with you, they need to be arrested or deported. Get them out of the way!

Stand with me and against each other! Divided we stand!

I’m Johnny B. Hatin, and I’m running for PresiGov!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BSUmLAQG-4

I recently received an electronic message from a friend, who shall remain anonymous, but who may or may not be a fellow Contrarian scribe. The substance of the message is as follows:

My local librarian refuses to help me research how to create fake academic credentials in order to obtain chloroform. She also threatened to call the police once when I asked her a perfectly harmless series of hypothetical questions about vivisection. Is there some librarian malpractice board to which I may report her insolence?

Now, this is a real head-wringer of a question, and one which I absolutely love. There are two parts, which I will address in turn.

Let’s start with the chloroform. First, because you are asking for help with faking academic credentials, I am going to assume that you know more about what is necessary for obtaining chloroform than I do, so I am going to ask for some specifics. By doing this, I am going to keep from doing that websearch on my work computer, which could potentially get me in lots of trouble. I am also going to buy myself some time to figure out how to handle the situation.

It really doesn’t matter what the faked credentials would need to be. I’m sorry, Anonymous Friend, but I can’t help you fake credentials, because that is against the law. Now, there are a few things I can do. See, librarians can help you access materials to serve any number of purposes, as long as we don’t know they will be used to break the law. For example if you were asking for information for a novel you were writing, in which a character needed to fake credentials, I could help you. This is one of those places where the profession gets a little scary (and a good justification for why we need trained professionals in the positions). If I have any reason to believe that you will break the law, I can’t help you, and do eventually have the duty to report you to the police, should I think that a crime will be committed. Librarians are simultaneously incredibly simple and extraordinarily complex. Ask the right question, and we can answer almost anything. Ask the wrong one, and we can’t.

The second question has two parts: is there a librarian malpractice board, and should this situation be reported to it? In answer to the first question, no, not really (though you can always submit a nomination for the Fuckwit Librarian of the Year Award!). If a patron feels that a librarian has not done her (or, occasionally, his) job properly, I suggest asking (preferably a different staff member, if you are at one of those fancy libraries with multiple staff) if you can speak to the director about a complaint. If the complaint is valid, it will be taken to the library’s Board of Trustees, who will consider the situation and vote on a resolution.

So, is this situation worth that extreme? Maybe. Hypothetical questions should generally be answered (please see above re: trained professionals and the need to judge a hard situation). Vivisection may or not be legal, depending on your state and the definition of the word. Ideally, the librarian you asked knows all the state laws, and can tell you whether or not what you are asking is legal. Unfortunately, most libraries cannot afford a consultation lawyer, and few librarians also have law degrees.

Still, I believe in the freedom of information. I believe people need access to all sorts of information for all sorts of reasons, and, again, unless I think you are going to commit a crime, I believe I should help you access the information you asked for.

Long column short, I would have had to decide on the spot whether or not I thought you were going to commit a crime. Having done a quick appraisal, Anonymous Friend (oops, did I just link that?), I would have no choice but to decide that you are completely off your rocker, likely to commit many crimes, and I should not answer your questions. But I would likely have answered them anyway, because they were fun.

“Fine, Casey, for fuck’s sake!” I shouted. “I’ll put something up tomorrow!” And with that, the light was gone, and I was alone.

(Note: please don’t ask why I’m smiling. I had hoped it would look like I was scared when it was upside down, but it didn’t. Cut me a break, will you?)

Well then. I’m home sick with a nasty head cold, so instead of working at the library, I’ll give you a brief update from the library world.

Library Journal recently published their annual job placement and salary survey issue, which was quite frightening this year. A notable stat: Last year, Indiana University  — where I got my masters and one of the better programs in the country — graduated 251 students from their School of Library and Information Science. 66 found jobs in the field.

That’s depressing, though, and I’m not going to linger on the point. Instead, I’ll turn to one of the aspects of my job that I have illustrated the least in this series: Reader’s Advisory. Now, true RA involves matching a patron with a book he or she didn’t know about, based on what they tell you they enjoy. This is one of the fun parts of the gig, and a skill that really can’t be taught, like sneaking into people’s bedchambers and sitting on their chests without them noticing. (But not like adding faces into a famous painting for comedic effect.) That, for better or worse, can be taught fairly quickly.

But I digress.

Today I thought I’d would comment on some of the books people are talking about right now, or that I have read recently and enjoyed. Winter is coming, after all, and it is getting to be time when good books are required to fight off the cold and the dark. Or add to them, if that should be your preference.

Fiction: One of this fall’s most intriguing titles, which I have not yet had opportunity to read, is Emma Donoghue‘s Room. The novel is about a young boy whose entire world is a single room, the only room he has ever known. He and his mother have been kept captive his whole life, and he is about to learn that there more to the world than he suspected. Fellow Irish author Tana French, whose previous novels In the Woods and The Likeness set a new standard for beautiful prose in a mystery novel, has returned with the third in her series, Faithful Place. French’s novels are extraordinary realistic, and her theatrical background has given her a clear understanding of people and the motivation. Faithful Place is easily the most predictable of her books, but that doesn’t take away from the experience. As the film versions of Stieg Larsson‘s Millennium Trilogy are released, attention is again being drawn to those wonderful tales. They are the notable literary phenomenon of the last few years, and I highly recommend them.

I also recently reread Aldous Huxley‘s Brave New World, and the ending has lost none of its power.

Non-fiction: One title I’ve been hearing a lot about is The Wave by Susan Casey. A study of giant waves and the surfers who attempt to ride them, The Wave appears to have a far broader audience than I initially expected. In case anyone is interested, my library has only had one request for Susan Boyle‘s autobiography The Woman I Was Born to Be. We decided not to purchase the work.

Young Adult: I have a personal fondness for Lauren Baratz-Logsted‘s Sisters 8 series. A set of octuplets, each with a cat to match, is quite shocked when their parents suddenly go missing. One month at a time, they make their way through a series of mishaps and challenges as they attempt to hide their parents’ absence and figure out what has happened. Short, funny and perfect for the 8-10 crowd. I also just enjoyed Daily Show writer Josh Lieb‘s debut YA novel I Am An Evil Genius And I Want To Be Your Class President, though it did not quite deliver on the expectation of nonstop hilariousness. Being currently capable of little more than lying around watching my cat sleep, I started listening to the audiobook of Magyk, the first book of Angie Sage‘s Septimus Heap series. So far I have found it surprising, suspenseful and entertaining.

Graphic Novels: I recently suggested James Robinson‘s Starman comics to a graphics fan who doesn’t like superhero books. He was almost immediately hooked, and I plan to start him on a few other non-traditional series, such as Warren Ellis‘ Planetary. Not long ago, a friend sent me a bunch of graphics for the library, and I had a chance to read Mercury by Hope Larson. This was a very interesting book, featuring interwoven stories from two time periods.

Alright. My mind is going. I need a nap. Be good, readers, return your books on time, and don’t forget to vote for increased funding for your local library!