Day in the Life. Part 4 : October 18, 2023

Arrived 9:25 am. My day off didn't yield a boatload of leftover work; my supervisor in the office did his usual yeoman job solo yesterday.

11:05 am: Spoke to reference head, who informed me that they were quiet today and didn't need me to fill in, and reminded me that Professional Development day was next Wednesday.

11:15 am: tackling the backlog from yesterday, a small pile of returns from libraries hither and yon, including a historical fiction title called "Captain Caution" by Kenneth Roberts (Doubleday, 1934). The title put me in mind of a former fellow WMU music student who had referred to a previous conducting student as "Captain Adagio". Having met him on one occasion or another--it's been a few decades--I thought it an apt description. Taking "Captain Caution" next door to Tech Services for binding repair. It's not as simple as walking the book 50 feet to a technician; I have to change the record in Polaris so that people don't try to check it out while the repair is being completed.

4:30 pm: a light day for the UPS shipment. not much to report today. Onward.

Changes, op. V

 Hey all, Daniel here.

I've been at my "new" job for about a year. I'm the lead ILL Clerk at Montgomery County-Norristown Public Library. It's a quiet hump day morning; not much in the pipeline as far as fulfilling or finishing requests. My big thrill for the day is the arrival of my "date-received" rubber stamp, which keeps me from having to hand write that information 20-30 times daily. (It was actually supposed to be "date-returned" but I'm not going to quibble.)

The job entails receiving and shipping library items to various points on the globe. Not everything is eligible for InterLibrary Loan; reference books, historical items that don't circulate, older items that have grown brittle (or as I like to say, "crispy", new items--although I will confess that our policy on new items is more generous than other institutions. For example, the Free Library of Philadelphia won't ship anything within 12 months of publication. If everything is kosher, than we ship it for six weeks as a rule; exceptions are made for libraries using items for book discussion groups. 

I continue to get a geography lesson just about every day I report for work. I've lived in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for over 30 years, but I still get requests from places of which I haven't heard. We get requests from small rural libraries all over the country; the other "usual suspects" include the many K-12 and higher education libraries, governmental and military libraries--there are several in Pennsylvania, including the War College in Carlisle--even military intelligence units scattered across the US. Doin' my bit for Uncle Sam... 😏

Our biggest client libraries are, as you might expect, in Pennsylvania--

Adams County (Gettysburg)

Bucks County (Doylestown)

Chester County (Exton)--the ILL Librarian is my old boss from Spring City PL.

Carnegie Library (Pittsburgh)--arguably our #1 client in terms of volume shipped and received.

Dauphin County (Harrisburg)

Delaware County (Media)--our branches do more business with them than we do, but we get to distribute them when they ship a box of returned items.

Free Library of Philadelphia--I know their ILL Librarian, having worked with him a few years ago.

University of Pennsylvania--always asking for new items, almost always being told "no"

Paterno Library (Penn State University)

--but we do receive items from just about any library who will ship and not charge us. We charge $10 per item when they're headed to libraries out of state, except for the hodgepodge of public and university libraries with which we share reciprocity agreements--selected institutions in New Jersey, Michigan, Oregon, Washington state, and South Carolina, among others.

More to follow, but lunch is coming soon.

Onward.

Come Monday*

 Random thoughts on a Monday afternoon in mid-March (UPDATE: for some reason I just happened to come to this page and saw that I left the page unfinished)

1) I've been away from trombone for nearly four years now. Truthfully, I don't miss playing that instrument--which I started because that's what we had in the house; my brother's Bundy peashooter, stuffed into a closet on our tiny Cape Cod's upstairs. I probably would have played just about anything else brass--or sung in choir, if I'd realized sooner that being outnumbered ten to one by girls in a class where girls and boys mutually enjoyed singing wasn't necessarily a bad thing. 

I came to realize years later that school music was kind of a economic class thing. The kids of academics and more financially secure families played in orchestra, band was middle class, and choir was, well, just about everyone else. There were notable exceptions, but that's how it was (and still is, in many places) where I grew up. The choir always had its share of All-State members--three or four annually, if I remember correctly. An occasional band member would make all-state band or orchestra, but the Michigan Youth Arts Festival was always held on the same weekend as the annual Tulip Festival, and of course the band would march and squawk "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" to its thousands of adoring fans. Band members stayed home, even if they qualified for States. I didn't, and never regretted it. The trip to Central Michigan University was worth it. I played well, the band played well, and I was privileged to hear the Youth Arts Festival soloists with the Michigan Youth Symphony, as well as the All-State Orchestra. I look at the roster and the program and wonder what my fellow musicians are doing now.

*--Jimmy Buffett, Livin' and Dyin' in 3/4 time, 1974.

Asterisk*

To my readers, who think I've dropped off of the edge of the world: My heartfelt apologies for being away so long. I can't honestly add anything to what's been a year that was by turns horrific, depressing, hopeful--hell, the whole range of human emotion.

Not so long ago, people referred to certain sports records as needing an asterisk, as if they lacked legitimacy, as if they weren't accomplished with integrity. The home run battle in baseball between Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds, Floyd Landis' vacated Tour de France victory spring to mind, and ,  The pandemic has been that way in every corner of our lives, and indeed is leaving its own asterisk on the world of sports for 2020 and 2021 (and no doubt will in the future).

But I think what's going to leave the most impressive mark on the sports world (I'm not going to pretend and call them amateur sports) is the collateral (fill in your own noun, NSFW or otherwise) left by the recent Supreme Court decision in NCAA vs. Alston, whereby collegiate student-athletes (yes, even those majoring in "sports science") can be compensated for use of their name, image, and likeness by whoever wants to use them--the university (and I guess, the athletic conference to which their school belongs), people and entities in the private sector, whoever.  I'm not so astonished to hear that many of the Division I schools are jumping into the pool with both feet and establishing, in effect, representative agencies for their students, where people paid by the UIQ (University in Question) will sort thru offers and advise their clients--sorry, student-athletes--on which offers are good and which aren't.  I was never part of the college athletic program machine, but I know they have something called "compliance officers" that track the activities of all involved with their school's program and are supposed to flag illegal, immoral or unethical behavior on the part of coaches, athletes, and others inside or outside of the program. I can imagine the consternation of those involved in those jobs, having all this dumped into their lap. I can't imagine that this was something that they remotely thought they'd signed up for.

I've got more to say, but I can't couch it in terms in which I can communicate clearly.  More later.

Onward.

PS: I hope it goes well for you, Tammy. This not-so-dyed-in-the-Wolverine is praying for you.

*--composed by members of Japanese group Orange Range--Yamato Ganeko, Naoto Hiroyama, Hiroki Hokama, Ryou Murayama, Yoh Murayama--2005.

All Good Gifts*

Those of you who have been following this blog know that I'm a pretty decent home cook, and that I participate in the Free Library of Philadelphia Cookbook Club.  We've been meeting online for the last couple of months, thanks to ZOOM, and as I listened to my fellow club participants describe their struggles to get even basic food items, I posted this to Facebook:

"I don't want to sound preachy or act like "look at me, I'm virtuous and good", but I'm beginning to regret posting pictures of what I'm cooking and baking during the current crisis. I know that we have a lot of extra time on our hands, and it's fun to post our culinary creations here and other places, but I have Philadelphia friends, as well as a lot of former students, who are continuing to have issues with access to food and essentials.

Those of you who live in greater Philadelphia know that the big grocery chains aren't too plentiful in many of Philadelphia's poorer neighborhoods. On the other hand, I have Redner's, ShopRite, McCaffrey's, Costco, Sam's Club, BJ's, Wegmans, Giant, Acme, Lidl, Aldi, Weis, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Walmart, not to mention some large independents, all within a fifteen minute drive of my home. I'm pretty sure I could take SEPTA to all of them, too.

I haven't been in their shoes, thanks in part to our daughter who has gone shopping for us, Giant Foods opening an hour earlier for seniors and people whose family members are affected, and an employer who has deemed us essential so that we could work from home. We're in good shape, relatively speaking; my wife works for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and just returned to work (no, the retail locations aren't open, but they're helping to fulfill online orders). We're blessed to the point that we've been able to help neighbors and friends who aren't in our position--not a lot, mind you, but we do what we can.

Getting back to the point: many of you know that I participate in Cookbook Club, a program at the Free Library of Philadelphia. We actually met online this month (thanks, Zoom), and as more and more of the native Philadelphians participating in Club expressed difficulty in getting even basic items, I felt more and more uncomfortable about posting pictures of what I was cooking, so--I will not be posting food pics for the duration. I don't want to be responsible for adding to people's misery. I will continue to help our neighbors, take care of my family, and pray for our political leaders that they make wise, responsible decisions regarding the public health issues of our time."

I wrote this a month ago, and I hope and pray that your food situation is better than what it was then. Till we meet again, take care of those closest to you, be they family or friends, and don't be afraid to not only seek out opportunities to help others, but to seek out help when YOU need it, and gratefully and humbly accept it.

*--from Godspell, by Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak, 1971.

Porgy and Bess: A Review

Last Saturday I took advantage of the Metropolitan Opera's brilliant marketing strategy designed to bring live opera to folks outside of New York City. For just $28 and change, I found myself sitting in a seat in my local multiplex waiting for David Robertson to begin conducting "Gershwin's Porgy and Bess". The broadcast started just after 1 pm, and began by panning the audience arriving in their seats in the Metropolitan Opera House.

People were, for the most part, dressed to the nines for early afternoon; not many attendees wearing jeans or Giants jerseys.  This being an opera about Black people from the Gulla culture (South Carolina and the Georgia Sea Islands), I expected to see more African-American people, but didn't see many.

A member of management whose name escapes me came out on stage, and announced to the crowd that the man playing Porgy was singing with a "very bad cold" (you wouldn't have known it) and was going to soldier through it rather than cancel. The overture started, and I thought, "Oh, this will be good."--and musically, I was certainly not disappointed.

Individual performances were strong, especially Met veteran Denyce Graves, who played Carla, the matriarch of Catfish Row, and Angel Blue, the well-meaning but ultimately easily-swayed Bess. Men in the cast also played their roles well, and all the hit tunes with which we've become so familiar over the years were given their due. This production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess is the only production of this opera that I've seen, so I don't have anything with which to compare it.

But:

1) The HUGE, rotating, skeletal set piece that served as the Catfish Row neighborhood frankly took up too much room on stage.

2) As a result, the already too-large chorus was crowded into the front third of the stage, leaving too little room for the dancers.

3) The more I watched, the more Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935) reminded me of another piece of that period--Jerome Kern's Show Boat (1928), with highly stylized dancing, outlandish characters that veered dangerously into the gray area of caricature, and a script that treated the male characters as deeply flawed and the female characters as virtuous and noble, except for Bess, who was led astray by two men--Crown, and Sportin' Life, with whom she left Catfish Row for New York City, presumably to be pimped out by Sportin' Life.

Changes, opus IV

So I’ve been playing trombone for 48 years and singing in choirs and on stage and in church for far longer. I will be sporting hearing aids when I report for work on Wednesday, September 4. My hearing—and in particular, my ability to understand spoken language—has been declining for several years now. It’s been frustrating to say the least, not just to me but to family members, friends, library patrons, and musical associates, all of whom have had to endure my asking them to repeat themselves slower and louder. If I had to guess the cause of this, I’d have to say that 48 years of trombone playing, listening to music, and leading and rehearsing with musical groups of various ages and sizes have all taken their toll.

The cause isn’t important. I learned enough about the hearing issues faced by aging musicians along the way to know that it was coming, regardless of how I protected my hearing. The difficulty is going to be the adjustment to listening with a new set of “ears”, two little buds that sit behind my ears, with wires sticking into the canal.  It’s not a cochlear implant—I can put them on and take them off at my leisure.

In all honesty, I have no idea how this will affect my music-making now and in the future.  I asked for a leave of absence from the SPSO, the orchestra with which I’ve played for the last fourteen years, in order to get used to the devices while playing, singing, and talking. As for church choir, I’m going to see if I can continue to participate, but I can’t make any promises. It would be far easier if I was able to attend rehearsal but due to my work schedule that's not possible. Stay tuned...

Onward.

*--David Bowie, Hunky Dory, 1971.

PS: Welcome to the first person from the Maldives who visited this blog this week! Feel free to comment on anything you read here. I have never expected that this will be a place to hold chapter meetings of the local mutual admiration society, so if you disagree with me violently, have at it.