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Many of my co-workers keep colourful lists like this, or use Goodreads or Shelfari to track their reading. I prefer plain old text. Like most avid readers, my to-read list contains far more titles than I could ever read in a lifetime, even if I did nothing but read. Although I add books at a considerably faster rate than I tick them off, I do still keep The List, and I consult it when I'm looking for my next book. I do this with movies, too. I also read books  not  on my list, much more so now that I work in a library, and my reading tastes have broadened. But I don't keep a list of all the books I've read. This really bothers me. It has bothered me for a  very  long time. But at no time did I ever start keeping a list of All The Books I Read, because... I didn't start it a long time ago, so it will always be incomplete, so there's no point in starting it, ever. I know this is not rational, I know it's part of All Or Nothing thinking, which I work at avoiding, b

I don't do New Year's Resolutions, but I do enjoy using the revolution of our Earth around the Sun as an excuse to take stock in where I am and think about where I'm going. This is not a Big Promise To Do Something; it's not even goal-setting. In my ongoing work to free myself from a strong tendency towards All Or Nothing , to not paint myself into a corner, to not create Rules which I then use to limit my experiences, I don't even set concrete goals. My thinking takes the form of general precepts that I'm trying to remember. When the weather is nice, spend more time outdoors. Walk more. Remember to make plans with friends sometimes. Do a jigsaw puzzle now and again. At work, take my full one-hour dinner break without doing union work. Remember that it's all right to make mistakes. Explore local history. Stop multi-tasking. Remember to blog instead of Facebook. Read more.

I see by the wmtc tag "graphic novels" that I intended to write about graphic books I read and enjoyed...and I see by the scant number of posts with that tag that I have not been doing so! The last wmtc post tagged for graphic novels is from four years ago , almost to the day. In any event, I want to tell you about a graphic book I just finished and really enjoyed: Sarah Glidden's Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq . In 2010, Glidden traveled with three friends who had journalism visas to the three countries in the book's title. Two of the three were part of a nonprofit, progressive media collective; the third was a former US Marine who served in the Iraq War, and was a childhood friend of one of the journalists. Glidden doesn't merely report on what they found -- which would be interesting in itself. She stands outside the frame, as it were, and writes about their process and all its implications -- the ethics of their interviews, the indu

Last year, I took a break from my annual "i hate christmas" post. I don't remember the circumstances, but it was probably related to getting ready for our trip to Egypt. We lost Tala a few days later, but for better or worse, we were ignorant of that until the day before. This year I revive the fine wmtc tradition and then some. I did a stupid thing and it caused me to remember just how much I hate Christmas, like a sharp slap in the face: I went to the mall. Yes, after all my years of not stepping foot in any store for any nonessential shopping during the holiday madness, I found myself in a gigantic mall, three days before Christmas, in the afternoon. My hair salon happens to be in the mall. I normally go there first thing in the morning and am well clear by the time it is the slightest bit busy. But I waited too long to make an appointment, and I can't wait until January... and thus I ended up in a mall, the Friday before a Monday Christmas, at 4:00 in the afterno

Ladies of the Canyon , 1970 Original Front Cover I put this album on for the first time in probably three decades, and I thought, ah, here's Joni. Ladies of the Canyon , Joni's third album, is the first time we hear the seeds of the future Joni, the first glimpses of elements in her music which would become old friends. It's the first time we hear her on piano. The first time she has arranged horns, strings, percussion, and background vocals. The first time we hear several of the themes she would explore in much more depth and beauty in the future: the conflict between art and commerce on "For Free," and the bleakness of bourgeoisie life on "The Arrangement". On Ladies , we also hear the beginning of her distinctive guitar voice, more of the range of her actual voice -- and her peculiar and distinctive diction and phrasing. I love piano in rock (Nicky Hopkins, Roy Bittan, Chris Stainton, Dr. John) and piano in blues (Pinetop Perkins, Professor Longhair,

I am a Senior Librarian! It's a position I have aspired to for quite a while. Although I love my current job as a youth librarian, I've been ready to move on for a while. I had several near-misses, but couldn't get over the top. Just as my colleagues and I were all convinced I was being discriminated against because of union activism, I placed first in a big competition, and ended up with my choice of several locations. I chose the Children's Department of Central Library -- where I started as a Library Page and where I had my first Librarian job. During the past year, when I sometimes covered the information desk in that department, I remembered how much I enjoyed being there. I loved introducing all our newcomer families to the many resources we offer, loved finding tweens their next great read, loved being around children who are excited about books -- and the challenge of enticing children who aren't. It has its moments of insanity and frustration, of course, b

Trying to compose my annual Write For Rights post, I thought I would recycle a good one from 2014... only to learn I had already recycled it in 2015! And here it is again -- slightly edited, with new cases linked below. Tomorrow, December 10, is Human Rights Day . The date commemorates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations on December 10, 1948, the first document of its kind. Every year on December 10, Amnesty International holds a global letter-writing event: Write For Rights ( in Canada ). Thousands of people around the world write letters and sign petitions calling for action for victims of human rights abuses, and offering comfort and support to political prisoners. Here are 10 reasons you should participate in Write For Rights. 1. It's easy. Amnesty makes it really easy to participate. Read, type, send. 2. You can do do it from any device. No meetings to attend, no schedule to keep. Just more of something you do all the time anyway

I decided to solve the problem of over-interpretation of lyrics in Reckless Daughter ( described here ) by putting down the book. I'll go back to it in the future. For now the listening project is more interesting and absorbing to me than reading the biography. This means I'll review the two books on the nonfiction book group blog without having finished the second book. Don't tell anyone. Then I'll write new reviews for wmtc. Next up: Ladies of the Canyon .

Reading the biography  Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell  while doing this re-listening project is proving to be an obstacle. In general I'm enjoying the book. I love learning more about the artist who created some of the most meaningful music in my life, and about the woman I have always considered a personal role model. I love the stories of how albums were recorded, and even how they were received. What I don't like -- and don't want -- is author David Yaffe's pronouncement of what a song is "about". Art is always open to interpretation. In fact, art is not complete without interpretation. All art -- novels, film, theatre, visual arts, music -- is incomplete until the receiver (viewer, listener, reader, etc.) experiences it. And that experience is unique to us as individuals. I don't experience art exactly the same way you do, because we each bring our own unique experiences and consciousness to that art. Our interpretation may be consciou