D.O.A. at the Movies: Descendants

I have a shiny new movie buddy so we went to see Descendants yesterday afternoon since there was absolutely nothing else out I wanted to see.

The story is Matthew King (George Clooney who has been an unlikeable heel in my book since his role in ER) has a wife in the hospital who is in a coma after an accident. He has two wild and ill behaved daughters (one ten, one seventeen) that he can't quite cope with.

The he finds out that his wife has no brain activity/response etc and she has an Advanced Directive that demands they pull the plug in such a situation. While trying to cope with this and figure out how to tell family and friends, his older daughter lets him know that she wasn't getting along with mom because mom was having an affair.




What follows is a slow acceptance of his wife's imminent death and a determination to meet the man she was having an affair with face to face, both to tell him off and to give the man a chance to see his wife a last time.

Characterization was really well done for every character, especially George. He was perhaps clueless about the workings of his family but he struggled to do the right thing by his daughters and friends and ultimately his wife.

I'm used to action packed films so the very slow pace of this movie was a bit hard for me. I do think they could have cut out at least a half hour of the film that they spent sloooowly panning over the landscape of Hawaii, the flowers, and George's face in closeup. His acting was very fine, but not that fine.

I cringed when they put the wife's ashes in that beautiful, pristine Hawaiian water.

One of the things I love about going to the movies is seeing previews. The previews for this one were all just terrible looking movies. Ack. Could not say what a single one was but they were theoretically touchy feely character driven films.

D.O.A.'s Guide to Twin Cities Literary Events Online

I've been trying to find ways to publicize our incredibly cool library programs to a wider audience.

In my search for places to promote our Author Programs in particular, I've found that there are plenty of places you can find listings for author appearances in the Twin Cities.

One thing I did notice is that many of the larger news sites list mainly bookstore events. I don't know if this means they get moola on the side from them or if libraries just don't think to advertise with them ( I will say that none of them posted my submitted events so who knows).

Meeting authors is always thrilling for a bookish type like myself. Most of the time, these folks are just fascinating and immensely likeable people who happen to create some of your favorite fictional characters or who write on topics of high interest. You have the chance to ask about character and plot and inspiration. Ideal!

Here's where to find your favorite authors:

Libraries

Libraries have always been a natural place for authors and readers to meet. In the last few years we have all been able to bring in more local and national authors. Check your local library web site for the latest appearances. Visit the MELSA website for links to Twin Cities area libraries to see what is coming up near you.







Online Events Calendars

There are a wide array of places to find events of all types. The sites below feature literary events.

My favorite for literary events is the Twin Cities Literary Calendar (Rain Taxi) http://www.raintaxi.com/twincitiesliterarycalendar. Packed with author events, I would look here first if I were you! Not only have they always posted my library author events (hugs!), they have the best listing of what is happening at venues all over the Twin Cities.

They also offer a Twin Cities Literary Punchcard which allows you to get credit for attending events at participating venues. Twelve punches gets you a gift certificate at a participating bookstore. Nice! Find out more here.

Minnesota Women's Press lists many events of interest to women. The online calendar gives brief descriptions with times and dates.

Hazel & Wren http://www.hazelandwren.com/events/ This duo says of their calendar "an all-inclusive, totally informational calendar of Minneapolis/St. Paul literary events" but it actually lists relatively few, but perhaps they are new and people haven't found them. The site has tons of book talk as well, so check it out.

Scout Me The site says it is in Beta but it lists many literary events in the Twin Cities. Use the search box to list your interest and locale.

Club Book http://www.clubbook.org/ Sponsored by MELSA (Metropolitan Libraries) this ongoing author series brings remarkable authors to Twin Cities area libraries.

MinnPost http://www.minnpost.com/bookclubclub/ Author events are listed on the site's oddly named "Book Club Club" page.



Bookstore Events


Check the site for your local bookstore to see what is coming up. Three local bookstore with great lsitings are:

Magers & Quinn http://www.magersandquinn.com/index.php?main_page=event A surprising robust list of author events throughout the Twin Cities.

Red Balloon Bookshop http://www.redballoonbookshop.com/ A charming store that hosts children’s and young adult authors.

Wild Rumpus Children’s Book events with major authors in a tiny space. http://www.wildrumpusbooks.com/


News Sites

Television and Print Newspaper sites can have listings for author appearances. Some of the smaller and online only papers do a great job of publicizing local events. My favorite of these is the Patch Newspapers. They really have created a robust reflection of their communities online.



Minnesota Newspapers Online Looking for your own community newspaper and their events listings online? Visit the Minnesota Newspapers Online site to locate your paper.


CityPages Use the search box to get listings or visit the main calendar page.

Sun Newspapers Covering many suburbs, the Sun Newspapers are great about listing local events. http://www.mnsun.com/
Thisweek Newspapers http://www.thisweeklive.com/ Sometimes literary events are buried in their not so easy to locate calendar, but always worth checking here.

KSTP http://www.kstp.com/index.shtml On their events page "Things to do" choose Events Calendar then Talks and Readings from the "categories" at the left. Mostly bookstore news.

WCCO Literary & Books Events Heavy on Barnes & Noble events and Nook Classes but worth a peek.

Kare 11 Look under Community then Community Calendar, then category Talks and Readings (these news sites appear to be designed by the same entity.) Kare 11's site lists a variety of venues, not just bookstores.

Once Upon a Time: Skin Deep

What a fun Valentine's Day episode from our Twisted Fairy Folk. They manage to cram so much into an episode and yet end with some cliff hanger that makes you wish it were next week so you can get more of the story.

Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite fairy tales. It has both Belle and the Beast looking beyond what can be seen on the surface to reveal the person who can be loved below. There is love and sacrifice and ultimate redemption.

I was not pleased to see that the Once episode would feature Rumplestiltskin as the Beast (and not just because they are over-using his character which they are). I wasn't sure Emilie de Ravin would be able to be sweet, smart, loving Belle. She was smart and funny and quite wonderful.

Somehow, they pulled it off and added layers to both the Fairy Tale and Storybrook storylines. Mr Gold/Rumple managed to be both sympathetic and exceedingly villainous.

Speaking of Villainous, the Queen/Regina has reached a new low as a hissingly Evil character. Her ability to snare people when they're weak and turn them and use them for her vile plans...she is something of a mirror of Rumple and his ability to see "Desperate Souls".

Rumple makes deals and advises gleefully that magic has it's price with his Desperate Souls, and he often lets them know deals can be broken. He doesn't seem to gain anything immediately from his victims though he laughs wildly when the deals sour. He doesn't gain puppets as the Queen does (well except for the poor couple from the Jiminy Cricket episode).

Romance Storybrook style:

I liked the girls night out segment with Ashley/Cinderella getting a shot at her Happily Ever After with her Prince. Even if their happiness is temporary it seems like a bit of a crack in the Curse to have this interlude.

Mary Margaret is growing and changing from the simpering schoolmarm to a woman who is taking her future in her own hands. I think that Emma and Red and Ashley and even Henry are looking to her for support and advice and that is helping her to find her Inner Snow White.

David is a long way from finding his Inner Prince Charming. The waffling between Kathryn and Mary Margaret on his part is making him look weak and mindless and stupid. I don't buy that he feels sorry for Kathryn because she is so nice and he theoretically has obligations to her. We know he has no obligations to her, and when he fell in love with someone else, even though it be his True Love, he needed to pack up and get the heck out. We all would have some respect for him if he had done that, rather than appearing to be a weak, slimy, cheating pig. I don't know how they will redeem "David".

I hope Belle gets released from her prison and that she comes out swinging. I don't believe her being alive to Gold/Rumple's knowledge would ruin any plotlines, I think it would just further complicate everything because Belle would certainly not rush to the Beast after all she has been through.

We have to wonder in fact how and why Gold looks and sounds sooo different in Storybrook than he does in Fairy Tale Land. He must have had some interesting clauses in his deal with the Evil Queen.

A final thought: I would like our Operation Cobra participants Emma and Henry to have stopped in a doorway on the way out of the jail to overhear the Gold/Regina conversation. Plots inside of plots!

Metropolitan Council

The Twin Cities Metropolitan Council has long been a purveyor of fascinating facts about local cities. Their web site allows you to see how your town stacks up, and you can zoom in with an aerial view on their "make a map" page.

6 Words Minneapolis

Lord knows how I came upon it, but there is a blog called 6 Words Minneapolis that is gathering people's memoirs using only 6 words to sum things up. Here is mine:

The Lean Mean Streets of Ord Mantell

As you can see, the concrete and steel streets of Ord Mantell are much kinder on the eye. I only got the grassy landscape streaks when I went out of the town.

My original choice of classes when I played this game was going to be Smuggler. As only one of two non-Jedi classes, it sounded appealing.

I really like my little shooting smuggler. She drops and rolls behind cover when it is available. She's a quick shot. She's a bit of a smarty without even trying.

They don't let you lean out and shoot from doorways, you just have to plough on in. You're never fighting less than three bad guys at a time, but they go down pretty fast (unless you thought you were leaning out from that door way but you were just getting popped).

I think you can get a better feel for a game if you try each class and go five levels, so onward next to Bounty Hunter or Jedi Consular. Best get the Jedi over with.

Star Wars Knights of the Graphically Glitchy Republic

After several hours of installation and the most annoying long account sign up package imaginable, I finally tried Star Wars The Old Republic.

I feared I'd never get out of the numerous cutscenes and to actual gameplay, but as you can see I finally made it. Whoa, you say. Yes, I turned all the graphics down to low but eek it is really hard to play with this disturbance in the pictorial force.




From my short time in game, I will say that it reminds me of Jedi Academy and Knights of the Old Republic as far as how the game plays out.

Also, the first mission has me out looking for some silly padawans who have gotten lost amidst the Flesh Raider Attack but nobody in the station seems the least concerned about these attackers right outside the walls, they're all standing around jabbering as if there is no attack. Sort of immersion spoiling.

I played through to level six last night. Very slow progression. The graphical glitching was horrible in outdoor areas but went away indoors. More caves, please!

Some poor fool invited me to a group (one of those without-a-word in advance ninja invites). Number one, I hadn't run into anything I couldn't handle, number two, it would be unfair to group with someone when the shredded landscape made it impossible at times to seem where I was going or what I was fighting.

Galaxies thoughts: when I entered the Jedi temple and The music that always played on Naboo came up, it brought tears to my eyes, unexpectedly. This game really isn't worthy to be playing that music. I have seen nothing in this game so far that makes me see any reason that they needed to take Galaxies down. Completely different games. No need.

What this game does seem like is a Mass Effect variation in a Star Wars skin.

Something that surprises me is that story has been the buzzword for SWTOR but I am not feeling that there is any sort of a storyline in particular, and as I, look at the world and the npcs, the entire thing seems curiously cold and empty and lifeless. Very much "on a rail".

Interesting to see how it plays out.

Time's 25 Best Blogs of 2011

While you wait for scintillating D.O.A. posts, you might wish to try out some new blogs as well. I have a great set of varied blogs on my sidebar bloglist, but for even more blogs, check out:

Time Magazine's 25 Best Blogs of 2011.

I liked three of them myself:

Everywhereist

A bit of a travel blog and rambling commentary


By Ken Levine

Television writer and sports announcer Ken Levine writes on a wide variety of popular topics, not just on sports. I think his insights into television shows are what I find appealing. This is not a blog by the uber cool Ken Levine who writes the Bioshock games, by the way :)

Smitten Kitchen

An artfully photographed cooking blog. Recipes and charming cooking and baking talk.

Rory's Story Cubes

I love games of all types, especially games that stimulate the imagination. Perusing the ever intriguing games section at Barnes & Noble I found Rory's Story Cubes.

They come in a sweet little box that opens like a treasure chest. Each dice-like cube has eight little drawings of objects. You roll the cubes and set the nine cubes in any sequence you'd like to create a story.




Sooo cute!

I see from their website that they have "expansions" one for "actions" and one for "voyages".

This can be played alone or with others. I love the box quote:

9 cubes
54 images
10,000,000+ combinations
Infinite stories!

DOA's Reference Services Thoughts via Wayback Machine (2005)

I wrote this waaay back in 2005 in response to a call for what we needed to improve in the interest of the "future of reference services". I edited out a few specific references to my library, but dang, I still feel we need to address everything I wrote:

Before we move forward, we should take a look at where we are now.


Promotion of existing services, databases, materials, equipment.

We need to promote what we have. The general public still has a vague idea of what libraries have to offer. We need to target our strengths and promote them tirelessly in as many venues as possible. We need to study our current users and what they use most and promote those things to the larger populace. We need to study what the most typical information needs are of those who come in after “not having been in a library for years” and promote those things. We need to find out what we offer that our customers don’t find anywhere else, promote that and offer more of it.


Interpreting the library catalog for current and new users


We need to do a much better job of interpreting our online catalog. It is not friendly to new users. Customers have ongoing problems seeing that an item is in at the branch, deciphering which branch does have the item, and telling which collection or shelf the item might be filed in.

Partially because we do not use the same interface to the catalog as our users, we are often not familiar with it and are not able to help them effectively. When changes are made to the customer user interface we are often unaware of it until the customer asks for help.

How responsive are we to these difficulties? Do we provide tipsheets to the catalog? Do we try to address in a timely manner problems the public encounters? Why are many of the search mechanisms in the public catalog not useful? How can these things be improved?


On the Web


Everything we do needs to be on our web page in an accessible and attractive format. We need to offer tutorials and tip sheets on our pages for using the library catalog, the electronic resources, and frequently asked questions from the public using our Internets and Word Processors. We need to offer Mouse Practice or links to Mouse Practice sites.

We need forums for public feedback, or places on the page for discussion and/or reviews of books,movies and CD’s by staff and the public. It needs to be alive and interactive.

The library web pages should reflect the communities in our area. You should be able to get a good snapshot of the county and what it has to offer from the library page. Perhaps each community library needs a page to help break it down into smaller segments. Education, entertainment, local government should all be reflected.

We need far more Reader’s Advisory on the web. If you like…. Lists need to be added.



Community Libraries

The people behind the public service desks are the library to most people. Our past ratings show appreciation for our service efforts. One of the things we offer that is getting increasingly hard to find anywhere is good service. We need to make sure we are there to answer questions of all types, and to make people of all ages feel welcome. We need to be there to interpret our catalog, act as a guide to our large collections, give advice on Internet searching, help with basic Microsoft office and the various information storage devices.

What we offer gets more complex every year, and we are in a unique position to make sure the public gets the most out of what we can give. We need to find ways to work with other organizations in the community such as schools, businesses, citizen organizations, literacy groups, social groups. We need to know our community well and be able to refer our customers to other groups who might provide services we don’t offer.