Goddess of Functional Hentai's Journal

10:42am: In which the Library of Congress means what it doesn't want to mean
I just came across the heading "Poverty--International cooperation". What the Library of Congress means here, I believe, is international cooperation helping to relieve poverty. But what I and my coworkers thought on first hearing the subject was the opposite, especially in light of the book I'm cataloging, about "debt relief" and "poverty prevention" in "developing countries" through the World Bank and other organizations which are really bleeding those countries dry.

12:03pm: Book blurb for "Humor in der Bibel"
"Humor in der Bibel"? Kann man etwas anderes erwarten, wenn Juden untereinander reden und handeln?

12:31pm: The Aged...
The Library of Congress has just approved a sweeping change in its subject headings--all subjects formerly about the "aged" are now to be about "older people". The justifications given for the choice (that "elderly" seems too frail, "old" too old, and "senior" too unpleasantly euphemistic) seem forced, especially since "elderly" is now to be used in headings where it formerly was not, in places where "older people" makes the heading too unwieldy or idiotic-sounding. But the hailing of "older people" as the term to use, because it connotes more vigor, and is supposedly "a more precise term for people between middle and advanced age", reveals the choice as solely political in nature--the grey panthers need to be appeased, or perhaps some bored higher-up in the Library of Congress needs something to do. The change is cosmetic, solely euphemistic, rather than providing a more accurate or useful heading for the public. And what term do we now use for actual advanced-aged people? "Much older people"? "Really old people"?

Before the Library of Congress panders to political correctness that has no basis, it should look at some of its other headings (like those in this small, and by no means exhaustive, list of headings that are much more offensive):
1. Japanese Americans--Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945 (for the internment during WW2)
2. Female circumcision (for female genital mutilation)
3. Peacekeeping forces (for occupying troops)
4. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975 (because we "lost"--the current situation in Iraq is called "Iraq War, 2003")
5. Iraq War, 2003 (simply because Bush claimed the war is over does not mean that the acts of agression have stopped; it should read "Iraq War, 2003-")

It should also add headings that are mysterious lacking, like those dealing with sexual and racial discrimination in politics. Or provide a heading for "Inequality", which currently is a cross-reference under "Equality", and so cannot be used or discussed on its own. But the New-Speak-ifying of the subject headings will probably continue unabated.

10:14am: Oh yes ... and ....
neck face

9:53am: Xmas ... during which I get meat
So Epanastatis and I did what all good Jews do on Xmas--Chinese food and a movie. The Chinese was good (yum ... tasty dried lily and loofah). The movie was less so.

We saw "Paycheck", which, as all you other Philip K. Dick fanatics know, is based on the short story of the same name by him; Epanastatis and I had both read and enjoyed the story, and so were somewhat hopeful about the movie, despite the casting of Ben Affleck as the lead. But the director chose to turn the cerebral Dick story into an action film (an engineer and a biologist can magically high-kick and race motorcycles?). Even the background, and the basic political tensions were altered. The only way in which the movie improved on the story was in the expansion and improvement of the female lead character, which isn't difficult, given Dick's seeming contempt for women. I won't rant anymore about it (I'm sure Epanastatis will do so for me), but I have a request for anyone who hasn't seen it yet but is still planning on it. Please verify whether I have actually caught a continuity problem in the movie--in the scene where Affleck meets his friend in the Union Square station, check the table when he grabs his bag of items and ducks to avoid being shot. I think the bullet (you'll understand if you've read the story or once the movie starts) is still on the table, and not in the bag. I may be wrong, but it would be cool to finally be one of those people who catch things like these...

The best part of the evening came after the movie. We were hungry, so wandered around the Steinway St. section of Astoria, which is heavy with Middle Eastern restaurants. We ended up choosing a Moroccan restaurant (yum ... tagine). I was the only woman in the place, and feeling quite conscious of my X chromosomes. So the waiter brought Epanastatis' fried fish and french fries, and my tagine. And then he brought me a salad. And then he brought me bread. And then he brought me french fries. By this time, I was making silly jokes about how all this food only came because I was a woman, but I didn't really mean it--until the middle of the meal, when the waiter brought me a kofta patty for no good reason. More men ought to flirt by bringing meat, instead of making stupid comments ("Hey baby!"); it might be a more productive technique.

11:12am: Peace-building
A new LC subject heading--"peace-building"--has just been added to the list. The definition is: Here are entered works on actions taken after a conflict to identify and support those political and social structures that serve to strengthen and solidify the peace and avoid a relapse into conflict.

Nice to know LC is keeping its propaganda up to date; and hey, now I know the latest euphemism for what's going on in Iraq!

9:58am: neon smurf

12:38pm: Overheard during Fashion Week Preparations
They're having the opening show of Fashion Week here in the New York Public Library. (My husband has already made the obligatory comments about the wide gap between fashionistas and librarians.) So all day we've been hearing blaring music and repeated calls to "Get OFF the runway!", and seeing various skinny people in black talking on cell phones. One of my coworkers, while peering at the preparations from our balcony (we're forbidden to attend), overheard a pretty young thing in seamed black stockings telling someone via cell phone "It's soo cool here! It's, like, a library!" So now we all know why models weigh less than we do--they're not burdened with heavy heavy brains.

11:22am: Judysama asks Gazebogrrl many silly questions (and some not so silly)
1. You've already been interviewed once. Why do I have to interview you?
Lazybones--because I haven't been interviewed by YOU yet! And to cause you annoyance, as all good sistook should.

2. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
Do you mean African or European?

3. Do you like chocolate?
OH YES, PLEASE!!!!

4. Isn't the moon lovely tonight?
Give me a spoony.

5. Why is this night bifferent from all other nights?
It's "bifferent" because you can't spell! (Nyah, nyah)

1. Seriously, if you found out that your husband had cheated on you with another guy [whatever the reason], would you feel justified in going out and propositioning a female you were attracted to?
I might get the urge to proposition SOMEONE (male or female), in that stupid part of my brain that'd want to "even the score", but I wouldn't do it. Because I'd want to try to reconcile with Epanastatis (I do love him and stuff). If marriage counselling etc. couldn't fix our problems, and we got divorced, THEN I might proposition a woman, but more to catch up on missed experimentation and to get "difference" from what I've had before (see question 2 for more on this) than for any immature revenge on Epanastatis.

2. If you found that a person you were attracted to was trans, would it make a difference [after all the thinking and research on the subject that you've done] to how you would feel towards this person?
Heck, it might make me MORE attracted! I tend to be fascinated by "difference" (from me?) in people, and this would be as interestingly different--if not more so--as Southern, Christian, Republican, whathaveyou. But perhaps novelty is a bad reason for interest (insulting to the novel party?). Theoretically, though, I'm finding this out after I'm already interested for other reasons, and those reasons would still exist, so I don't think it'd make a difference to my attraction. Never know 'til I've tried, though.

3. When faced with any type of intollerance how likely are you REALLY to cudgel the intollerant person with whatever's handy?
Unfortunately, it depends on the circumstances. I'd love to claim that I'd always do it, but likely it'd be influenced by who was speaking, where the bigotry was taking place, how much bigger the person was than myself, etc. I tend to be much more cowardly than I like to admit.

4. In an average day, how much time do you NOT spend thinking about books to some extent or another?
Does time spent sleeping count? Seriously, I catalog all day then go home and read for fun. Or cook from one of the cool cookbooks I get from the New York Public Library. So aside from silly TV time when my brain's shut off, and conversations with Epanastatis, not much time.

5. What would you have done if I had just left it at the silly questions that made up for my complete inability to think of coherent questions?
I would have answered them and appreciated the in-jokes (bonding with my sistook). It might have been nice not to have to consider weighty questions! :}

2:25pm: Epanastatis interviews Gazebogrrl
1. What is your favorite LC subject heading with which you have personal experience? (This excludes "churchwork with cowgirls".)
Do you mean "favorite" as in easiest to assign (so a mental relief)? Or funniest? Or most satisfying esoteric subject challenge overcome? Or "favorite" because it fits the subject with only one heading (a relative rarity)? Or...? This is not a question you should have gotten me started on (and not one I can answer, either).

2. If I were to die in a sudden and unexpected manner, how long would you mourn?
Do you mean now? Because I imagine that the longer I live with and love you, the longer the mourning period would be. Even speaking now, though, it's hard to quantify or qualify something like mourning. How long would I be catatonic and constantly teary? Couldn't say. How long would I think of you, be reminded of you by life events or silly things, and mourn you quietly? Likely the rest of my life.

3. Who would be the first person you'd want to fuck once you were done mourning, if you could have your pick of anyone on the planet?
I dunno, Iman? I'd likely want to make it someone totally unlike you (and female), both to make up for the experimenting I missed, and to not miss you as much while doing it.

4. Please explain to the planet how you manage to not only put up with me, but live with me.
Many tranquilizers? Periodic monetary donations? Because you please me and love me and make me content?

5. Space tomato?
Yup.

I am now remembering to post the answers in my journal and solicit interviews from anyone reading my journal entry. (Does this mean I get 'em, or I give 'em?)

11:03am: Newspeak in LC Subject Headings?
I just cataloged a book about gender inequality in German politics (party quotas, etc.). While trying to create subjects for the book, I discovered that there is no way to express the concept of sexism (or racism!) in politics or the political system. I ended up having to use "Sexism--Political aspects--Germany", which does not have quite the same resonance. I shouldn't be shocked at the subject ommissions, since Library of Congress monitors the headings, and is tied ideologically and politically to our lovely government. But I hate finding constraints on what I can express--which limits what people searching for books in libraries can find. Will users think there are no books on sexism/racism in politics? Will they know enough to look for the altered heading? Or will the lack of a named subject somehow gag/strangle knowledge and discussion of political inequality (a concept Orwell would have understood)?

4:00pm: anger and impotence
Cataloging a book now of the miscellaneous collected articles of some priest from the Archdiocese of NY. In one sterling article, he compares abortion to the Holocaust. For example: "The [Holocaust] Museum [in D.C.] correctly states, 'Relatively few people helped Jews to escape death in the Holocaust'. Unhappily this dreadful but accurate judgment can be just as correctly applied to the vast majority of us in the present abortion apocalypse." In general, I am tired of Holocaust-comparisons being made for shock value, but this one is so blatantly skewed as to be insulting. The majority of abortions are not chosen today for eugenic purposes, nor do they seek to destroy all people (not only babies, remember) of certain ethnic/political/physical groupings.

The author then tries to use quotes from the Talmud (!!!) to inspire his readers to support his cause; not content, apparently, with merely insulting the memories of dead Jews (and others), he poaches from our collected writings. And he gets it wrong, of course--anyone who knows Jewish law knows that abortion is ok in the Jewish tradition. So why is he quoting the Talmud? To prove he is a friend to Jews and everyone, better than those Nazis, so support his cause?

Perhaps I wouldn't rant this much if I weren't already angry about the relative lack of abortion activism going on now, in this period of increasing challenges to, and limitations of, abortion rights in the US. I want to picket something, or yell at someone, not just be told to "vote for democrats."

3:03pm: Cataloger humor of the day
I just cataloged a book published in Poland but in English. On the back of the title page, it reads (verbatim) "Proff-reading: Andrzej Pietrzak".

11:11am: You asked for it, so now you can't complain
I wasn't going to post this, but my husband, Epanastatis, is an awful nag. I had a dream last night, most of which I don't remember, that ended in a parody of a conventional fantasy plot (or maybe a fantasy/romance plot?).

I am a (female--the only off note) Traveller from a Highly Developed Planet, temporary Stranded on one with Primitive Technology. A local young artist (of course, a Beautiful Blonde), who is sheltering me, copies my walkman as a piece of jewelry, even though I have told her not to do anything to draw attention to my Difference, or to mess with her planet's Current Level of Development (ah, the Prime Directive). I do admire her artistry, though, and am busily Overwhelming and Wooing her with my Superior Nature. I offer to take her back to my planet, and she hesitates, worrying that I won't be Satisfied with a Lowly Creature like herself, and that perhaps we cannot be Married. So, to soothe her, I tell her that I can marry just about anything I want--men, women, kitchen chairs. Kitchen chairs?, she asks. And I answer, quite Pompously, as the dream ends, that "Once One has attained the Level of 7th Level Mystic, One can appreciate Anything on a Higher Plane."

3:55pm: Cataloger humor? In the nature of an experiment
...so I was minding my own business, cataloging German monographs on patent law (sigh), and I happened to search the OCLC authority file for my author's name. (The authority file, for those not in the know, is the database which lists the preferred form of an author's name, so all books published by him/her, no matter how the name is listed in the book, can be found in a single catalog search.)

I didn't find my author, but stumbled across an "unpreferred" cross-listing for a different author. This guy, published in the 18th century, wrote under the lovely pseudonym "Trustee, cheesemonger". The intrepid cataloger who constructed the authority record apparently only discovered his real name by an attribution in the original manuscript (some detective work!). But one must wonder why Trustee thought that his pseudonym was cool in the first place, and why it was so important to let everyone know he was a cheesemonger; the book in question has nothing to do with food (it's a manual on the education of poor children).

My colleagues and I (pleased as we always are when finding humor in the authority file--like the subject "Church work with cowgirls") giggled over this for about 10 minutes. And then we tried to figure out if anyone other than catalogers would appreciate it. Or if others could even get past the technical jargon needed to explain its context. Has it worked? Or am I doomed to find things funny that only draw blank stares when repeated at parties?

11:09am: Preening (and ranting?)
I just found out that from July-December 2001, I was the fastest and most productive cataloger at the New York Public Library, churning out circa 418 book or video records per month (roughly one every 20 minutes). Feels good, since I did it without resorting to creating less-than-good records, lacking subjects or other vital information (which the department was being pressured to do, to reduce the backlog).

My only fear, and this is an important one, given the monetary problems of the Library, and the budgetarily-focused administration, is that my behavior will be held up as what all catalogers "should" (or worse, "must") do from now on; I don't want to be a modern-day Stakhanovist. And since catalogers turn out discrete units that CAN be counted in statistics, appearing far less "fuzzy" than reference statistics, this leads the administration to the (erroneous) belief that we can be given time or record quotas. They don't understand that books are actually like reference queries; some can be easily classified, while others present more tangled or obscure subject puzzles that take much longer to work out (like Business German).

My job would be much more fun if I could bask in the glow of my productivity, without having to fear its consequences.

4:02pm: Terrorism
The Bomb Squad closed down 5th Avenue in front of my work for about an hour today at lunchtime. Apparently there was some sort of threat (unsure of the details, since I heard about it from a coworker, and she couldn't find out much from the officials). I've heard that this is the second time in the recent past that this has happened; last time, it turned out to be someone's brown bag lunch left on the steps. I find the continued hysteria over terrorism an inconvenience at best (it certainly was for my coworker, who had to go out of her way for lunch), and at worst an ominous trend, resulting in rapidly increasing police presence and decreasing civil liberties.

9:22am: Library of Congress Subject Headings suck!!!!
I am furious with the Library of Congress. (I catalog books as my job, and so must use their subjects to describe the content of the book I have in hand.) Yesterday, I was annoyed, because the approved subject heading for the legal status of housewives was "Married women--Legal status, laws, etc.". In other words, all married women are housewives, and vice versa?
But that pales in the face of today's transgression. I have a book about female genital mutilation in hand, and Library of Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that "Female circumcision" is the correct term for it. Worse than this, however, is the definition, which completely sanitizes the procedure, glossing over the horror of it, and making it sound like a simple, medically-supervised undertaking. I quote directly:
"Here are entered works on traditional practices that involve surgery of the external female genital organs and that may vary in extent from simple cutting of the clitoral prepuce to total excision of the clitoris and parts of the labia."
"Surgery", for goodness sake? Don't they read accounts of how this is done? But I suppose I should have expected no less from an organization connected to the US government, which has repeatedly refused to grant asylum to women fleeing these "traditional practices". All I can say is, if there was a "traditional practice" involving chopping off mens' penises without anesthetic, and rendering them unable to enjoy sex for the rest of their lives, should they even survive the "practice", the US government would have been all over it years ago.
Bloody men and patriarchy. And fuck the Library of Congress.

11:14am: dreams and communism
So, I won't post last night's dream in detail here; if I did, I might as well start paying y'all for your analyses and consider this therapy. However, I will mention that it involved prisons and resistance fighters. This is one of the drawbacks of being married to a communist. Yeah, yeah, it's all well and good to defend the workers while I'm awake, and be cognizant of their trials, but do they have to invade my sleep? I used to have surreal "romance novel"-esque dreams, where I made love to various humans and humanoids, in a variety of guises (I wasn't always female, either--kinda fun). But now, I watch bloodshed and carnage perpetrated in the name of the system. Sigh...

11:09am: a dream I had...
Since my husband says that people post dreams on this site all the time, and since he claims that my dreams are more interesting than most, this, my first entry, will be about the dream I had last night. Beware digressions and parenthetical comments...

My husband and I were in the airport, waiting for our plane to London. (This will actually happen in late September. I love England, but my husband, I fear, is only half-heartedly acquiesing to my rampant Anglophilia, and will kill me after seeing his Nth Victorian author's residence.) I suddenly remember that I have not renewed my prescription for anti-airsickness drugs. (I actually use this behind-the-ear patch thing, with a deadly nightshade akaloid--quite effective.) So we run through the airport, looking for a pharmacy or shop that carries toiletries. We are in a rush, because suddenly our plane will be arriving any minute. So we find a shop, run by Germans (I catalog German books in the New York Public Library, so this is probably work creeping into my head. Sigh--unavoidable?), and search it for dramamine or some alternative. We can't find anything, so I ask one of the checkout women; she doesn't understand the word dramamine, but when I say "motion sickness" she nods and gets up. She walks down a fairly dusty aisle, and climbs up on a ladder, to get to a jar on the back of top shelf. She says that it holds cookie-like tablets which will help my motion sickness; she offers me a choice of seafood or chocolate mint flavor. (Seafood, ick. But it makes me wonder why there aren't more options in tablet flavors. Why not beef? Or asparagus?) So I tell her my choice, and she hands me a cookie. But she hasn't given me any instructions. So I try to remember what these sorts of things usually require. I seem to remember that you should take them at least an hour before getting on the plane, and since ours is imminent, I eat it immediately. Right after I've eaten it, though, I get a bit woozy, and then I see this woman, who has apparently eaten the cookie shortly before me (I just know this, in the way of dreams), chasing her husband around with an axe. Apparently the cookie works by giving people hallucinations and making them homicidal (I guess this way they don't get on the plane, so don't get airsick?). So I'm frantically trying to figure out how to keep myself away from both my husband and "shovels and rakes and implements of destruction" (points for getting the reference) when I wake up...