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If you know more than I do currently, then perhaps he is gone and I’m looking like quite the fool. I suppose I’ll find out soon enough. ↩︎
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I sure do wish my own public library would implement this measure. There are many people in this city who would benefit from this change. ↩︎
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Rest assured, Amazon would not be providing their books to libraries for free. ↩︎
I just finished my twenty-fifth book of this year. It was the incredible Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. For some, that may a small drop in a large bucket. For others, a towering amount.
For me, it’s the most I’ve read in a single year in a long time. I think my younger self would be proud.
Texas School District Removes Bible and Anne Frank Adaptation in Back-to-School Sweep ↗
From Amanda Holpuch:
One day before students returned to classrooms in North Texas, a school district ordered principals and librarians to remove books including the Bible and a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” from libraries and classrooms.
Forty-one books were challenged by this backward school district last year with a new policy requiring that they be pulled from bookshelves until they can be reviewed. More than thirty-five thousand students may now have free access to important books taken from them.
Additional books challenged by the district include The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe.
These challenges are becoming more frequent, but no less disturbing and sad. Another public banning happened earlier this year, when Maus and others were removed from the shelves of a Tennessee school district. I wrote about it then in a post called The ban of Maus and other essential books. I shudder to think of the momentum that these misguided bans are building.
A notable quote from a speaker during a school board meeting on August 8, included in a CNN article on this story:
“We are very pleased that our new unwoke school board has made these changes. This is just the beginning, I hope.”
For too many people, being “woke” is the worst thing that could ever happen to a person. It’s the boogeyman. A living death. Unwokeness is a quality to strive for and wear like a badge of honor. In other words, compassion, equality, and fact-based learning should be rejected at all costs. Hatred, racism, misogyny, and bigotry are the only admirable qualities (but nobody who bans books would ever put it that truthfully).
How pathetic. Ignorance should be rejected at all costs instead.
Please consider purchasing, reading, and freely sharing these banned books with everyone you know. Especially younger people. They need to read the words that are kept from them. They’re all smarter than they’re given credit for; they can decide for themselves who they want to be and what they want to believe.
As an aside, I feel lucky to have attended school in Southern California when I did. Book bans have long been a blight on this country, but they weren’t so frequent and blatantly hateful when I was younger. I continue to hope that these bans don’t become more prevalent in my area of the state.
I also find it delightful that the Bible was flagged as an inappropriate book. It makes me think of The Satanic Temple and their continued fight against all things religiously hypocritical. Was the inclusion of the Bible their doing?
It made me sad to see what happened to Gregory the gargoyle in the second episode of The Sandman. A very sweet, loving, and playful as a puppy creature sacrifices its own life, much to the great sorrow of its caretakers, Cain and Abel, to provide Dream with some power to find his stolen tools, i.e., his punch of sand, his helmet, and his ruby.
I have yet to finish the graphic novels, but as far as I can tell, Gregory doesn’t ever die in the original books. He’s allowed to continue living with Cain and Abel, along with a new gargoyle named Goldie (but actually secretly Irving). Perhaps he might in a later issue, but there’s nothing to suggest this.1
Seeing this tragic scene play out in the show was distressing. Not enough for me to stop watching it, mind you; give me as much Neil Gaiman as you can, please. But in the short time Gregory is on-screen, he became a quick favorite. He’s just so dang lovable! It’s clear he brought much joy to those around him.
His sacrifice is graceful and noble, but it didn’t need to happen. That moment would still have worked had Dream taken back any other thing he gave to Cain and Abel, as happens in the book. Instead, the show knowingly hurt both its characters and, I’m betting, large swaths of its audience. It was an effective manipulation. Moments before the terrible death, Gregory was seen joyfully bouncing about and playing with a ball in front of a large, handmade gargoyle house. The show’s creators wanted the audience to see dog-like qualities. What are dogs if not playful, loyal, and easily loved? Who wouldn’t despair seeing something dog-like disappear forever?
Since watching that episode, this sad moment has stuck with me. The cruelty felt immense and unnecessary, made real only to hurt.
I’ll admit that this whole thing is silly at its core: Gregory, or any living gargoyle, is not real. I’m being deeply affected by a made-up creature in a made-up television show. Gregory can never die if he never actually existed. But I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I can’t forget or ignore this sort of pain so easily, no matter how fabricated it might be. This sort of cruelty is not something I want to witness because I know how I respond to it.
I should have checked in on the valuable site Does the Dog Die before watching this show. I was foolish not to; this heartache could have been prevented. I also encourage anybody who may feel like I do about this subject matter to also regularly visit the site. They’re doing good and helpful work.
In the meantime, I’m going to continue enjoying The Sandman (it has truly been excellent), but I’m sure I’ll be on edge from now on.
On one hand, becoming Dr. Manhattan sounds like it would be a great and terrible burden.
On the other hand, think of all the quiet rest I could enjoy! Just me hanging out in the happy face crater on Mars without a care or stitch of clothing in the universe.
It’s good to have a project to focus on. This year, perhaps I should write my memoirs. My working title is: “It’s So Nice to Be Lazy: The Sean Anderson Story.”
Oh, how I long for a Letterboxd-type, independent service for books that isn’t Goodreads. Amazon sucks all the fun out of most things.
Anytime I start a new Haruki Murakami book, and I get to the inevitable aural fixation, I wonder, does this man really have an insatiable ear fetish or is he just playing some kind of long-con inside joke?
After a marathon reading session, I’ve finally finished Stephen King’s The Stand.
I was left feeling breathless and satisfied. I’ll remember it for being thrilling, complex, maddening, exultant, and uncomfortably prescient. 📚
NYPL Announcement: The Library Is Eliminating Fines ↗
Tony Marx, NYPL President:
The New York Public Library is proud to announce a major policy shift: as of today and moving forward, we will no longer charge late fines on overdue circulating materials. In addition, we have cleared all prior late fines and replacement fees from patron accounts so that everyone gets a clean slate at the Library. This is a step towards a more equitable society, with more New Yorkers reading and using libraries, and we are proud to make it happen.
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Some might say fines teach accountability and ethics. I disagree. New Yorkers are quite reliable and responsible, clearly respecting our collections and the need for them to be available for others to borrow. We can reinforce the importance of returning books without attaching a financial burden that targets those most in need. If we’re talking ethics, it is clear to me that the real ethical conundrum lies with pricing our most vulnerable citizens out of using a free, public library system.
We sure could use more institutions that think and act this way, and I hope more follow in the footsteps of the NYPL.1 Punishing those who are least capable of paying something like a library fine, which is not an effective motivator, is not a kind or, as Mr. Marx says, equitable action to take.
Access to knowledge should never come with a price tag.
Want to borrow that e-book from the library? Sorry, Amazon won’t let you. ↗
I was led to this story by a Dan Moren post on Six Colors and it was just so remarkable that I had to place it here. I’ll also use Dan’s chosen pullquote:
Turns out, the tech giant has also become a publishing powerhouse — and it won’t sell downloadable versions of its more than 10,000 e-books or tens of thousands of audiobooks to libraries. That’s right, for a decade, the company that killed bookstores has been starving the reading institution that cares for kids, the needy and the curious. And that’s turned into a mission-critical problem during a pandemic that cut off physical access to libraries and left a lot of people unable to afford books on their own.
The reasoning behind this is likely to be something to do with capitalism, competition, and yadda yadda yadda. “We can’t let people have access to our product for free. They wouldn’t be compelled to purchase from us then! Why would we let someone else dabble in our product? How crazy would that be?”
Except the competition in this case are the libraries. They are young people. They are people who can’t afford to buy a brand new book whenever they want or have to read something. They are people who have lost work because of COVID (or any other reason) and are looking to develop skills that could make them hireable in another field.
How could any of that send a shiver down Amazon’s spine? What’s the harm in selling their books to libraries?1
Selling their product to a separate entity they couldn’t fully control would cost them some of their power through that dispersion. It would muddy their clear waters. Once they have that power, why would they ever let go of it? Keeping control over their published materials only benefits Amazon, and they’re more than happy to ensure it stays that way. They will not hesitate to employ their considerable wealth and popularity to maintain their monopolistic position.
At this point, I’m ready to follow in the footsteps of @Burk and escape the Amazon myself. This sort of heavyhanded restriction to stories and knowledge is greedy and harmful. I’m not saying I’m surprised by Amazon’s actions here, but I continue to be disappointed in them. They probably believe that they’re making the world better, or at least more convenient to live in, but when that’s done in the name of profit and under the guise of simplicity and affordability, the world just becomes worse. 📚
I’m currently reading a book that makes a reference to the mass malathion sprayings that took place in California (and other places) during the ‘80s and ‘90s. Tons of pesticide was dropped all over California in an effort to combat a Mediterranean fruit fly infestation. I was in elementary school at the time and I recall my school’s playground had to be covered in plastic sheeting to keep the play surfaces safe.
The whole thing is, in itself, a fascinating story that may have had eco-terrorist ties. Furthermore, the spraying didn’t actually stop the flies; sterilized flies were introduced into the area to help control the population.
It was a remarkable thing. It makes me wonder how well something like that would go over today. I recall it just being an accepted fact of life that pesticide would be dropped all over for a short while.
Now, though? I can just imagine the furor and outrage that would spark up over it. Oh, Facebook and the conspiracy theorists would have such a loud field day over it all!
I started reading The Stand a little while ago. Since it’s a Stephen King book, I’m really not looking forward to the part where he writes about anywhere from one to a lot of dogs dying. Dude seems to like killing animals in his stories. 📚