SemiConscious Dot Org

In these increasingly contentious times, librarians are often called to deal with complaints and/or challenges from patrons whose sensibilities have been offended by material in the library. Via Jessamyn, we learn of one librarian’s response to a challenged children’s book depicting a gay wedding:

Finally, then, I conclude that “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” is a children’s book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children’s picture book area. I fully appreciate that you, and some of your friends, strongly disagree with its viewpoint. But if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won’t agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don’t imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life.

Sure, this passage sounds measured, reasoned, sensible, and entirely consistent with the constitutional principles upon which this country has always operated. But we know the truth: such high minded rhetoric is merely a Trojan stalking horse for the insidious advance of The Gay Agenda, that fiendish supervillain who flies mincingly around the world in his fabulous pastel tights, zapping innocent heterosexual boys and girls with his Big Gay Laser of Gayness. One direct hit from this terrifying weapon will instantly turn the victim gayer than an Idaho Republican senator, gayer than an Oklahoma schoolgirl, gayer than a meth-smoking televangelist, gayer than the Gay Mayor of Gaytown.

Mein Gott! If we can’t count on librarians to protect our children from the Communist-inspired, objectively pro-terrorist notion that all people in this country deserve equal protection under the law, than who will?

It is with great shame and regret that I must inform you that I completely spaced on this year’s observance of Towel Day. I spent the entire day wandering around this low-rent rock of a planet without The Most Massively Useful Thing in my possession. It’s a wonder I survived. If any regular readers of this blog inadvertently experienced more danger or inconvenience than they otherwise would have due to my failure to warn them of the need to carry a towel, I sincerely apologize.

Let me make it up to you all. Tomorrow, June 16th, is Bloomsday. Whatever else you do, make certain that you have a copy of Ulysses on you at all times, and be sure to drink lots and lots of Guinness. Your very life may depend on it.

There, now we’re even. You’re welcome.

What’s daffier than daffy?

Writing a book about the future of libraries (you know, those places where they lend books to people)... and then charging twenty dollars to download it.

Who out there has the pun, the barb, the eloquent poison-pen quip, to sum up the silliness of this situation in devastating fashion? Let’s hear ‘em. Seriously, I’m tapped out. I got nothin’...

Short answer: no.

Slightly longer answer: Aw, HELL no.

Maybe one of the creators of the original, cheesy 70’s series was Mormon. Maybe the current show’s “Lost Tribe” mythos has some superficial similarities with Mormonism (and about a dozen other religions.) So? If The Best Show on TV™ was designed as a secret Mormon recruitment tool, they’ve done a lousy job of it: morally ambiguous, three dimensional characters; the principle adherents of the One True Religion being the Bad Guys; many different philosophical viewpoints presented without any being favored; and lots of drinking, swearing, and screwing. You know, sort of like real life.

As Keith points out, fiction (and science fiction) whose primary purpose is to advance one philosophical or religious agenda almost always sucks, because character development and story believability is inevitably sacrificed for the purpose getting across the author’s agenda. The result is a story that is boring, stilted, and predictable, with two dimensional characters doing idiotic things for reasons that never ring true. That, and lots of windy moralizing and long, boring speeches. In short, the end product is terrible and unreadable. (See: the Left Behind series; any Ayn Rand novel ever written.)

BSG will go down as one of television’s artistic pinnacles, precisely because it avoids all those pitfalls.

At last, someone has finally combined my two favorite pastimes:

Reading books and drinking beer.

That is all.

Best. Book. EVER:

I have several friends with birthdays coming up. Looks like the job of picking out presents just got a lot easier…

I would really love to have something profound and meaningful to say on this, the final day of NaBloPoMo, but quite frankly, I got nothin’. So check out this instead:

Yes, this is a real book.

I’m sure that, all this time, the vast majority of you have been laboring under the illusion that the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is the only annual prize awarded for horrible fiction writing.

How wrong you were!

When it comes to truly deplorable writing, not even death, it seems, lets you off the hook. This year’s Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award has gone to the late Norman Mailer for a description of oral sex in his final novel, The Castle in the Forest, in which a male member is likened to a “coil of excrement”.

“It was the excrement that tipped the balance,” admitted Philip Womack, assistant editor of the Literary Review, whose editorial staff judge the annual prize. “That, and the line about Alois [the male character] being ‘ready at last to grind into her with the Hound, drive it into her piety’. That was pretty awful.”

(link via LISNews)

As further irrefutable proof of the timeless maxim that People Too Old For Sex Should Not Write About It, the article notes that in 2004, the award went to Tom Wolfe for the amazingly awkward and voyeuristic I am Charlotte Simmons, a novel in which the 74 year old Wolfe described a bunch of raunchy college sex scenes from the first-person viewpoint of a female, 18 year old coed.

You know, so he could express his disapproval of such naughty behavior.

Riiiiight…..

Last week, the director at my library mentioned that several titles in the ever-popular “For Dummies” series had mysteriously gone missing, and suggested that I order some replacement copies. Shortly thereafter, I logged into our corporate Amazon account and purchased several hundred dollars worth of books.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t paying particularly close attention to the specific edition of each title I was ordering.

Needless to say, I had not previously been aware that Dummies publishes special teen-tiny editions of their books. Perhaps they’re attempting to monopolize a niche by catering to the previously-untapped hobbit market.

Great Zombie Jesus, it looks like Christianity is, yet again, under dire attack from the insidious forces of The Gay Agenda!

(Awesome pic via Badtux)

For those of you who may not know, The Gay Agenda is a fiendish supervillain who works 24-7 to turn all of America’s God-fearing children gayer than the Mayor of Gaytown. This insidious character has many weapons: in addition to zapping people with his Gay Laser of Gayness, he also works his dastardly plots through his allies in the Big Gay Evil Liberal Media.

Luckily, however, Rev. James Dobson is here to protect us from the terrifying menace of gay penguins:

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said the complaints over books are well-founded.

“Most of these books don’t end up actually being removed,” she told Family News in Focus. “The few that do end up being removed are being removed mostly because they have sexual themes or are explicit.”

The book that topped the list this year was And Tango Makes Three, the story of “gay” penguins. It’s the second year in a row that a book with gay themes drew the most ire from parents.

“Parents have a right to object to their kids being exposed to material that they don’t feel like their child is psychologically prepared to handle,” Cushman said.

Unfortunately, these days, the allies of The Gay Agenda multiply faster than the offspring of “abstinence only” sex ed graduates. Chief among those who thirst to destroy America: J.K. Rowling! It wasn’t enough for this wanton trollop to write books specifically intended to turn children into Jesus-hatin’ witches. Nooo, she had to go and announce that one of her main characters is a homo:

Clearly, this Bride of Satan loathes Christanity with every twisted fiber of her being, and will stop at nothing to destroy it. Will no one answer the call to save our omnipotent, omniscient Lord and Creator from the dire threat to His very existence posed by the vile machinations of children’s book authors?

Yes, one man will. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Don Surber, Defender of Jeebus. Onward, brave, brave columnist! You do America proud, sir.