Will there be Archival Allergens too?

This story appeared in the Globe and Mail today and adds another dimension to the "e-books stink" discussions some of us may or may not have been having of late. According to this story, "Six out of 10 students...preferred buying used textbooks over new or electronic textbooks even though e-books are generally a third less expensive. E-books sales have been slow to take off." A study suggested that "43 percent of students identified smell, either a new or old smell, as the quality they most liked about books as physical objects." And, in an attempt to persuade college students to try e-textbooks, Web site CafeScribe.com on Wednesday said it was launching "the world's first smelly e-book.""CafeScribe Chief Executive Bryce Johnson said that from September the company will send every e-textbook purchaser a scratch and sniff sticker with a musty "old book" smell." Interesting. I do wonder if those of us who use digital archives will be offered a vial of allergens to help replicate the full archival experience of itchy eyes, runny noses and hives. Just thinking about it is making me itchy.

2007 Baseball Blog: August 5, 2007

August 5, 2007
Game Time Temperature: 64o
Attendance: 39,778
Winner of the Dunkin' Donuts Race: Dashing Donut
Final Score: Chicago 3 Detroit 1

In junior high, my friend Elaine and I laughed at a very short-lived colour commentator for the Oilers who declared: "at the end of a hockey game, there's a winner and a loser." And, though we've laughed at that for many years, I'm starting to think he might have been onto something. At the end of every baseball game there is a winner and a loser: there's no such thing as a tie in baseball. Baseball abhors ambiguity: a ball's foul or fair, a pitch is a strike or a ball, you're safe or you're out. Baseball is not a sport of maybes, sort ofs or almosts. You win or you lose. You make the playoffs or you don't.
Almost every day Dale tells me what team has won or lost and how those wins or losses affect the Tigers playoff hopes. It's getting to that point in the season where every game starts to matter. Soon, it will be at that point in the season where every pitch and every at-bat will seem to matter.
Now that wins and losses are really mattering, the mood around the park is changing. At the beginning of the season, people were abuzz with last year's spectacular season and the Tigers certainly gave the impression they could do it all again this year. Making it through to October seemed to be a given for the first few months of the season. Lately, however, doubt is creeping into people's minds again. Was last year a fluke? Are we even going to make it to the playoffs this year? Or, can they pull it all around just like they did last year.
I believe I've written before about how the year I really started to really love the Tigers was the year of their "losingest**" season. Perhaps I felt a certain kinship with them since I too was having my own version of a losingest season. Or perhaps it was because learning to love a team at their worst requires a degree of committment and creativity. When a team's winning, it's easy to find things to love about them. When your team is losing, it takes more effort to find the beauty of it all. As I watched the Tigers attempt a rally yet lose tonight, I started to wonder if there is an aesthetics of loss. Is there perhaps something lovely in a hard-earned loss that we overlook in our hunger for wins? Or, does this kind of thinking mean that I too am losing hope for October? Then again, as the Tim Robbins character said in Bull Durham, "A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while." Think about that for a while: I certainly will.

*He also said, rather memorably, "if you don't put the puck in the net, you're not going to score goals." There you go.
**I have to admit, I do like how sports makes up words like "losingest" and how, when you think about it, you'd be hard pressed to find a better word than "losingest." Except maybe embiggens and cromulent.

Holiday hours at the Cafe

Sorry I didn't leave a note before heading out to Algonquin. Like Boris and Natasha, we looked for Moose and Squirrel. A fab time was had by all. Photos on flickr. I am now sitting at home watching the rain pour and pour and pour. Regular cafe hours will resume shortly. Thank you for your patience and patronage.

Hope for all those doctoral procrastinators out there

According to a story from the BBC, "Queen guitarist Brian May has handed in his astronomy PhD thesis - 36 years after abandoning it to join the band." May recently carried out observational work in Tenerife, where he studied the formation of "zodiacal dust clouds." May will defend on 23 August, his spokesman said. The results should be known some time shortly after that date. "If I fail I will fail big time," May said. "It will be a very public failure with all this press."

So, what are you reading?

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my blog before but in NC I used to have a very lovely, charming colleague who began every conversation with: "Do tell me what you've been reading" rather than "Hello. How are you?" or "Hey. What's up?" He and I had similar tastes in reading and we'd often have conversations by the mailroom or in the hallway about the books we were reading. Sometimes if I read a fantastic book, he'd be the first person I'd tell. If I'd been particularly effusive about a book I enjoyed, the next time I'd see him, he would say, "Ah, Heidi. Now, I read the book you were telling me about..." and then proceed to tell me what he loved about the book too. The remarkable thing about his conversation starter was how few people in our department actually read books for enjoyment. But, of course, I have to admit that I too had a streak of that in me. For most of a decade, I read mostly 18th and 19th century books or, if I did read contemporary fiction, they were set in the the 18th or 19th century so I could justify it as sort of work-like pleasure not actual fun-pleasure. A notable low point was when I brought the Federalist papers to the Outer Banks thinking, "hey, this could be fun beach reading." To my credit, I ended up leaving it in the car. It held a grudge for a few weeks but I took it to a few coffee houses and it forgave me soon enough. Alexander Hamilton was many things: fun summertime beach-readable writer, sadly, was not one of them.
It wasn't until I left the world of literary scholarship that I actually felt I could read and enjoy books as I did before I entered my scholarly career. It's very odd, really, since what propelled me into literary scholarship in the first place was a love for reading and a love for falling in love with books. I've finally got that back now and I won't let go of it again. I've held onto my colleague's recurrent question over the years since, I think, it serves as a reminder that as teachers and scholars we should be excited and curious about reading.
I miss my charming colleague most when I read a fantastic book. If I still worked there, I'd hope to run into him tomorrow so I could tell him how much I loved Ted Bishop's Riding With Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and Books. It's funny how often the book you most need to read at a particular time just falls into your lap as if it is seeking you as much as you are unknowingly seeking it. This book sort of fell into my lap a few weeks ago-- though perhaps more accurately, it was placed in my hands by the kind Ted Bishop. There are many wonderful things about this book: his style has a lightness of phrase yet a grounded elegance. There were numerous personal resonances. There were many times when I was sitting on my front porch chuckling aloud and many other times when his turns of phrase made me stop and savour them. I won't say much more than this because I think you should have the joy of traveling its journey and discovering it on your own. I will say this:it's a book that's about the magic of books and reading but it's also a book that reminds one first hand how magical books and reading can be. Get it here and get it now.