Alone and Unobserved

Me: (Shutting a book with a bang) Oh I hate myself so much right now.

Coworker: (Startled look)

Me: Well, more than usual, at least.

Coworker: What happened?

Me: I asked the library to buy this book, and then when it came in I let it sit on my desk for two months. I went to renew it just now but I couldn’t because there’s a hold on it for someone else, and we only have this one copy. So now that I can’t keep it, I finally opened it up and it’s really good! Or at least the chapter or so of it that I’ve read. WHYYYYYYY—

Coworker: Yup. Happens to all of us.

Me: —YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Sometime yesterday, during our normal business hours and right under our noses, someone—or someones—went through our nonfiction collection, pulled all the bright yellow-and-black Dummies books from their places throughout the stacks and reshelved them all together in one place.

This is funny. Yes, we laughed when we found it. But it’s not funny, too. It’s already hard for the shelvers in my department to keep up with the normal shelving flow, and now there are suddenly two full extra carts for them to deal with. When the shelvers are behind it immediately and strongly impacts how easy it is for patrons and staff to find books in the collection.

Also, with the ongoing censorship problem we’re having, security is already being tightened. And with tightened security, individual privacy is inevitably lost. Which is a shame for everyone. We don’t need a reason to tighten security even more. Please.

Gail Sweet, Director of the Burlington County Library System, is apparently guilty of that most vile of library crimes: censorship.

A New Jersey public library has ordered the removal of all copies of Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology (Alyson, 2000) from its shelves—despite the fact there was no formal book challenge—and its library director has referred to the title as “child pornography,” according to emails obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey through a Freedom of Information Act.

—Lauren Barack, “NJ Library, Citing Child Pornography, Removes GLBT Book,” July 27, 2010 (link)

“Copies need to totally disappear.”

—Gail Sweet, internal communication

What kind of anthology was this? What could be so awful about it that it needed to be so thoroughly purged? Child pornography is a serious charge (although one might wonder in what sense a printed work could reasonably fall under that heading) and should be backed up with specific details, which Ms. Sweet apparently has refused to do.

Here is an excerpt from the “Note from the Editor” at the beginning of my library’s copy of Revolutionary Voices.

Countering the Silence
I started this project in 1995, when I was 19, to create a venue for young queers to discuss the questions we are facing and the issues we are passionate about. I envisioned the project as a ‘zine, hoping to find grants to fund distribution and production. I 1996 I began circulating calls for submissions (through flyers, letters, E-mail, word of mouth), and over the next year I grew even more convinced of the need for a book in which we could respond to the world around us.

All around me I saw that marginalized communities were under attack. In 1996 conservative politicians waged war on affirmative action; its abolition in California led to a 50% decrease in the enrollment of students of color in the state’s top universities by 1997. This was also the year almost every major city in the United States welcomed the antigay, antifeminist Promise Keepers with open arms and money bags. This was the year I met Krista Absalom and learned that being gang raped while unconscious is not considered rape in New York State. This was the year I first heard about Brandon Teena, a 21-year-old who was brutally raped and murdered for being transgendered. Across the country young queers continued to take their own lives, young women starved themselves for a Kate Moss figure, and the United States continued to build more prisons than schools. Our communities were being pitted against one another. And we were failing to see the connections between these attacks, and further, our responsibility to act as allies to one another. As young queers from divergent backgrounds, we lacked a space and a common language with which to understand one another’s stories.

And it did not stop in 1996. Over the past four years I have met and worked with queer youth from all over the world, and by all accounts, the attacks have increased. Some have even made headlines. Matthew Shepard has become a queer community icon, his murder a cornerstone in legislation against hate crimes in the United States. But why was his the only story about hate violence to dominate the news that year? Why was there no significant media coverage about the murders of trans queers of color such as Marsha P. Johnson or Tyra Hunter? Why no media martyrdom for James Byrd Jr., a black, differently abled man in Texas who was dragged behind a truck by three white men? Why does the bombing of a gay bar in London make international news, while violent attacks against queers and queer organizations in Zimbabwe receive no mention?

These are the politics of the world we live in—under a system that dictates whose lives matter and whose don’t. Presenting the work of more than 50 individuals, Revolutionary Voices retaliates against these mandates. We speak to counter the silencing imposed on us; we speak to break the silence we have internalized. It was with this in mind that I sought a publisher who could help distribute this collection as widely as possible. We have created a family here. And standing in solidarity, we say, “We matter. Our survival is news too.”

—Amy Sonnie, in Revolutionary Voices, pp. xii–xiii

Apparently to Gail Sweet, speaking out against a culture of pervasive violence, discrimination and silencing is “child pornography.”

I can think of a few reasons for removing/weeding the book. For one thing, it is now ten years old, and the target age group (presumably youth from 16 to 21) would not identify well with the writers, who came into their queer identities in the ’90s. On the other hand, youth writing about their experiences as youth can in no way be described as “child pornography,” no matter how explicit those experiences and those recollections are.

I looked for the Burlington County Library’s collection development policy on their website, and when I couldn’t find it I initiated a chat through their Meebo widget asking for help.

[12:58] meeboguest890985: Hey, do you have a copy of your collection development policy on your website?
[13:03] meeboguest890985: Alternatively, is there an electronic copy of your collection dev policy that you could email me?
[13:04] askbcls: Hold a minute…
[13:04] meeboguest890985: Thanks.
[13:07] askbcls: We don’t have it on the website. Hold a minute for more….
[13:10] askbcls: What is your email address. I will take your email address and we will see if we can forward the document to you.
[13:10] meeboguest890985: All right. my email is sean@aloneandunobserved.com
[13:10] meeboguest890985: Thanks!
[13:11] askbcls: OK, bye for now.

We’ll see if they ever send me the collection development policy, and if so, whether it supports Ms. Sweet’s actions. Stay tuned!

Update:

I received this email in response to my informal request for the Burlington County Library System collection development policy:

Hello,

Earlier today you requested a copy of the library system’s collection development policy. As this is an internal document, the method for obtaining a copy is to request it via the “Request for Access to Government Records” form. This form is available at http://www.co.burlington.nj.us/upload/Public_Info/
Images/request_gov_recs.pdf
Please mail or fax the completed form to Ralph Shrom, Public Information Officer/Custodian of Public Records, County Administration Building, 49 Rancocas Rd., First Floor, Mount Holly, NJ 08060. Thank you.

Regards,
Marge
BCLS Reference Desk

This is very interesting, because Margaret “Marge” Delaney, the assistant director of the system, is also directly implicated in this censorship case, and probably should lose her job as well for violating professional ethics. It is also extremely interesting since at my library system our collection development policy is almost aggressively public—our explicit policy is to provide a copy to anyone who asks for it, especially where a book challenge is concerned. Apparently not at BCLS! Fortunately the ACLU has gotten a copy of the document, which apparently “states that patrons must fill out a Request for Reconsideration form, and then a ‘committee of staff selectors as designated by the Library Director will review the material in question’” (link)—except there was no formal request filed. Worse: it’s clear from emails obtained by ACLU that this book actually circulated at the Burlington County Library System—i.e., there was demand for the book among the library system’s patrons—which makes suppressing it even more unconscionable and even more clearly censorship.

The Burlington County Library System should be the target of an aggressive lawsuit. Gail Sweet and Marge Delaney should be fired, and the library commissioners who allegedly supported Sweet’s censorship (per another email obtained by the ACLU) should step down or be removed.

There is no place in the professional library world for conduct such as this.

Underland Press recently sent me an advance copy of Martin Millar’s next novel, Curse of the Wolf Girl (coming out August 2010 in the UK and US), to read and review, and as soon as I got my hands on it I did nothing else but devour it whole. (Well, there might have been some Wii-playing in there somewhere, but otherwise it was STRICTLY DEVOURING.) And it is fantastic.

Curse of the Wolf Girl is the sequel to Millar’s Lonely Werewolf Girl, which I have plugged and gushed about previously, and it is a fitting follow-up to what turned out to be one of my favorite books ever. The best part: the ending of CotWG is left open, so there may be more stories about the MacRinnalch werewolf clan in the future!

Here’s my full review, which I cross-posted on my Goodreads account.

Curse of the Wolf Girl by Martin Millar
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
[Review of an advance review copy.]

I was introduced to Martin Millar two years ago when Neil Gaiman recommended Lonely Werewolf Girl to his fans. LWF was a revelation to me. Here was a book that was whimsical, violent, sad, funny and completely insane and off-kilter, and yet it was also one of the most readable books I’d picked up in a long time. I loved it with my whole being.

The sequel is more of the same, mostly in the best sense: Millar’s characters, their relationships and their dialogue are just as idiosyncratic and absurd as ever, and the plot careens all over the UK and across two separate dimensions, yet each of the characters is allowed to be real: to feel real emotions—love, hate, passion for fashion, greed, anxiety, depression and happiness—to confront real situations, and to feel real doubts. Millar is at his strongest when writing about people confronting their fears, regrets and weaknesses, and he certainly does not shy away from this here. Don’t worry, though—I spent far more time during CotWG laughing than crying, and I promise you will, too.

The question now becomes: when is Millar’s next werewolf book coming out???

View all my reviews on Goodreads >>

Martin Millar announced on his blog a couple weeks ago that the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl will be titled Curse of the Wolf Girl (not Queen Vex, as I had previously reported) and will be released later this year. I’m not sure when it’ll be coming out in the U.S., but Amazon.com already has a listing for it, so I’m hopeful it won’t be too long after the UK edition.

I’m sure you have no idea how excited you should be, but believe me: a new Martin Millar book is a BIG FUCKING DEAL. And there’s still plenty of time before the sequel comes out to read his entire backlist, which is quickly coming back into print, thanks to the nice folks over at Soft Skull Press.

Here’s a review I just posted on Goodreads of a Soft Skull reprint of one of his older books:

Ruby and the Stone Age Diet by Martin Millar

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is perhaps the characteristic Martin Millar tale: it stars (and is narrated by) a young man with a tenuous grasp on reality and chronology who has just lost his girlfriend, and whose friend—and squatting buddy—Ruby occasionally likes to slip LSD in his tea, regale him with stories of a lonely werewolf girl, and swear off food for weeks at a time. In Ruby and the Stone-age Diet, Millar has assembled a fractured mosaic of fact, near-fact, fancy and myth that confuses and delights in equal measure. Definitely a trip.

My other Martin Millar reviews:

• Little-Known Facts That You Should Know (blog post on The Good Fairies of New York and Lonely Werewolf Girl)
• Lonely Werewolf Girl
• The Good Fairies of New York
• Lux the Poet

As you may or may not know, I use Goodreads to keep track of the books I read, and to rate and review them when I have the inclination. I recently read a book of poetry that completely blew me away, and my reaction to it turned out more like a blog entry than a review. So I thought I would cross-post it here.

The First Risk by Charles Jensen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don’t remember finding out about Matthew Shepard’s slaying. I was seventeen when it happened, a self-hating closeted gay Mormon, halfway through my first semester at Brigham Young University. Did I think he deserved it, the way I thought gays deserved to die of AIDS for their sins? I hope not, but I’m afraid to remember too well.

I am the failure of the body to remain a boy,
I am the remains of a boy, the body of his failure. (“I Am the Boy Who Is Tied Down”, p. 7)

The first section—”Safe”—interweaves various viewpoints on Matthew Shepard’s last moments with three poems describing Venus’s grief at the death of Adonis. The language is brutal, visceral, and the tone moves from cold and dissociated to immediate and passionate. Reading this section, it was like I was hearing about the killing for the first time. And this time, at least, I know I didn’t think he deserved it.

When I finally came out to myself as a gay man, and began to accept myself and to stop blaming myself for who and what I was, I took an entire summer to watch what I saw as the “gay canon,” films I had been too afraid to watch until that point. One of the first of these was Almodóvar’s masterpiece, All About My Mother.

I tell you, chica,

If you want something done,
Do it with a knife. (“La Agrado Explains Plastic Surgery”, p. 25)

The second section—”City of the Sad Divas”—is a collection of poems associated with All About My Mother and its characters: Manuela, who has lost her son; La Agrado and the other transsexual hookers; Huma Rojo and her heroin-addicted lover, Nina; and the city of Barcelona itself, where much of the action takes place. In these poems, the reader does not relive the film; rather, the violence and passion and filth of the film are held at arms length, looked over with a dark and dubious eye, considered, and then let go.

I’ve always hated Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, although it is often gorgeous to watch, because I never believed for a minute that any of it was happening. All of the characters annoy me, the plot annoys me, and Scottie’s obsession and eventual unraveling annoy me.

To be golden-haired means
you are destined to be idolized;

brunettes have less fun
but keep better secrets. (“Hair and Make-Up Notes, Scene 92″, p. 50)

The fourth section—”The Double Bind: A Critical Text”—presents a critical analysis of Vertigo, and includes all kind of tantalizing details about the cast, director and the narrative and directorial choices in the film. I have no idea if any of these details are true; that is not the point: they are simply too delicious to resist. Each snippet, naturally, is accompanied by an associated poem. One thing that must be said in Vertigo‘s favor is that it is beautifully shot, composed and scored. Unlike the previous collection, these silky little poems do much more to evoke the actual feel of parts of the film.One result of reading this section is that I have the sudden desire to see Vera Miles play the Kim Novak role (and, really, anyone else play the Jimmy Stewart role).

I’ve already reviewed the fourth section, “The Strange Case of Maribel Dixon,” on Goodreads. I have nothing to add to that review except this:

This is good poetry.

View all my reviews on Goodreads >>

An ancient code in the monuments of Ottawa.
A ruthless cult determined to protect it.
A desperate race to uncover the Mormon Church’s darkest secret.

When renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to the National Gallery of Canada to analyze a mysterious geometric form—etched into the floor next to the disemboweled corpse of the head docent—he discovers evidence of the unthinkable: the resurgence of the ancient cult of the Quintifori, a secret branch of the Mormon Church that has surfaced from the shadows to carry out its legendary vendetta against its mortal enemy, the Vatican.

Langdon’s worst fears are confirmed when a messenger from the Quintifori appears at the Parliament Buildings to deliver a macabre ultimatum: Turn over the archbishop, or one cherub will disappear from the Sistine Chapel every day. With the deadline fast approaching, Langdon joins forces with the saucy and charming daughter of the murdered docent in a desperate bid to crack the code that will reveal the cult’s secret plan.

Embarking on a frantic hunt, Langdon and his companion follow a 900-year-old trail through Ottawa’s most venerable monuments and sacred monuments, pursued by a Norwegian assassin the cult has sent to thwart them. What they discover threatens to expose a conspiracy that goes all the way back to Joseph Smith and the very founding of the Mormon Church.

Generate your own thrilling Dan Brown thriller in seconds with Slate.com’s Dan Brown Sequel Generator!

(H/T to Ryan Shattuck of RevolutionsforFunandProfit.com.)

From John (of Mind on Fire):

“Just because you were tagged, you so do not need to follow this. I am interested to see what books you all come up with, though.

“Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Copy the instructions into your own note, and be sure to tag the person who tagged you.”

I was tagged (on Facebook) by Chandelle of Conscious Intention.

• Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan
• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
• Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner
• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
• Se questo è un uomo, by Primo Levi
• The Dosadi Experiment, by Frank Herbert
• Troll: A Love Story, by Joanna Sinisalo
• The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
• Misquoting Jesus, by Bart Ehrman
• The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
• The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Diamond Age, by Neal Stephenson
• Huis clos, by Jean-Paul Sartre

I’m going to tag Craig of yes, I am, Miss Nem of Voice of Reason, chosha of a little east of reality, alea at All My Gettings, Petullant at a girl who wears glasses, Kerry at Windmill Watching, and anyone else who wants to play. I’m also gonna tag a few people on Facebook, I think.

If you want to play, either post your own fifteen books in the comments here, or post them on your own blog and leave a comment here with the link. There’s also my Facebook Note. It’s fun!

Martin Millar is writing a sequel (tentatively named Queen Vex) to Lonely Werewolf Girl, a book whose awesomeness I have written about in the past. You should find Lonely Werewolf Girl and read it, and then you and I can both wait breathlessly for its sequel to be written and eventually released in the U.S. and wherever you live. (Which will hopefully be within both of our lifetimes.) And then we can squeal about how awesome/what a disappointment the sequel is and praise/abuse the name of Martin Millar together. I can’t wait! Can you?

In other news, I am reading H. P. Lovecraft for a class assignment. I am not finding his writing particularly scary or horrifying, but it is giving me lots of scary/horrifying story ideas. Is this normal?

@ Sam Weller’s, in Heaven

I’m sitting in the Sam Weller’s Coffee Garden, reading my new book, listening to music on my newly Genius-enhanced iPhone, drinking a skinny iced vanilla latte and eating a decidedly un-skinny slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. And let me tell you: I’m already in love with Cryptonomicon. Neal Stephenson is MARVELOUS.

Later: now I’m on my way to the gym to work off the un-skinny. Laterz!