Marcus' World

"America, I love you except in practice."

My college friend John W. Evans has published the "Poet's Sampler" in the May/June issue of the Boston Review. Most of the poems are in print and online, and two poems--"The Five-Dollar Shirt" and "Meliorists"--are online only. A few days ago the Review arrived in my mailbox, after a few fruitless searches at bookstores in Berkeley. Thanks for sending me a copy John!

The accomplished poet Campbell McGrath introduces the collection, offering a taut and vivid appraisal of John's work.  McGrath admires "how deeply he [John] drinks from the wellspring of compassion" and argues that he is a naturally humanitarian rather than a self-consciously political poet. 

While I am no poet at all, the humanitarian route does seem like the road less traveled in contemporary American poetry.  It is easy to find political posturing, and harder to locate real empathy and keen observation.  But that's what you'll discover in this sampler.

To take two examples:

1. In the prose poem "Windows Update," an Islamic interlocutor argues that the Bible is like Windows 95 and the Koran like Windows 2000--an updated and improved version of the old time religion.  The narrator recognizes the gulf between himself and his companions, in regards to the question of religion and (really) all other fundamentals of life.  Building bridges between cultures is a monumental challenge, and there are many false starts for every success.

In a lecture I attended as a student, Classics professor Martin Mueller stated that, eventually--whatever the issue--one had to take sides.  It's hard to stay in the middle forever, even if you can see all points of view.  Mueller said this wistfully and with sadness, enough so to penetrate my 20 year old brain.  "Windows Update" reminded me of that moment.

2. "Laureate" contains the immortal line, "America, I love you except in practice."  This is mischievously (but profoundly) ambiguous--does the narrator try to love America but fail? Or is it America that doesn't live up to its ideals? Or both?

The close of the poem speaks of:

"the Sound full of pinfish, all the
   usual
bullshit about boats, divorce and solitude." 

Another ambiguity--which Sound? Long Island? Nantucket? Does it matter? With one word we're somewhere in the upper-crust Northeast, tuning into predictable and tiresome conversations.

Who would want to be a laureate for this crowd?  Someone who is speaking tongue in cheek?  Or someone who is more viscerally aware than most of us of the gap between what is and what could be?

Both.

Helen's Gifts: A Photo Montage

As I mentioned briefly the other night, Helen left notes, a stuffed animal and a book before heading to her summer internship.  Below is a photo montage; hope you enjoy it as much as I appreciated it.



  
   

Helen's Summer Internship Begins

Tonight I accompanied Helen to the airport, and as I write she's en route to JFK airport in New York City. From there she'll move on to Danbury, CT.  She'll be completing an internship at Duracell (located in Bethel, CT) this summer.

I already miss Helen, and can't wait until I visit her in five weeks. In the meantime I am enjoying all the nice touches she left around the apartment--books, notes, even a stuffed animal.  All I did was go to the airport, so I have some making up to do!

Over the summer (and then again when Helen goes to London in the fall) I've set a goal of living "hermit Sundays," when I keep to myself and write more seriously than I ever have before. Blog posts are great, but I also want to write essays that go through many drafts and look nothing like you expected when you started. Writing on any day is fine, but hermit Sunday will be the focal point for sustained energy.

On most other days I'll come out of the hermit shell and hang out with the great friends I've made here in the Bay Area. And Helen already has great plans for all the fun times she'll have in New York over the weekends, and the activities (pottery classes? voice lessons?) that will fill up her weekday evenings. And of course we'll talk every single day.

So although it will definitely be lonely sometimes, I'm happy that we will both make the most out of this summer.

Nostalgia Tour: When You Can't Go Home Again...Literally

Last Thursday Helen and I rented a car and traveled from Evanston, IL to Grove City, OH.  The route was deeply familiar, because I drove it many times during college: down Sheridan road along the Evanston lakefront and into Chicago's Rogers Park; quick turn onto Lake Shore Drive, and continued lakefront cruising along Chicago's North Side and through downtown; exit to Interstate 55, which runs along the old blues trail down to Memphis and into Mississippi; quick exit onto Interstate 90, the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road (if you want to avoid the tolls, stay on 55 till you hit 94); eventual merge into Interstate 65, which takes you to Indianapolis (and Louisville, and Nashville, and Birmingham); in Indianapolis, east on 70 and through Dayton until you reach the west side of Columbus; from there, take 270 South to 71 South. Exit at State Route 665 (exit number 97), and take a few turns until you're at Mom and Bob's place off of Quail Creek Drive.

The route wasn't always exactly like this. When I was in college the final exit was off of 270 onto 3-C Highway. After that point you'd make a few turns until reaching Mom and Bob's place off of Red Rock Boulevard.  They moved out of that house four years ago, for a place that's all on one level and in a community where most of the neighbors know each other.  At the time I was happy for them but sad to be losing a house that I considered my childhood home more than any other.

Now that ambivalent feeling is magnified. Mom and Bob are Phoenix bound in less than two months, for a retirement of good weather and relaxing living.  I am happy for them but sad that a very significant tie to my childhood home is coming undone.  My Dad will always be in Ohio, but home base has always been Mom and Bob's.

So this brief visit really was nostalgic.  Helen and I made sure to see family and friends (of course).  Mom introduced us to many staff members at Hilltonia, where she's a middle school principal who is ending her career on a very high note. It's too bad that the librarian only comes around a few days each week these days (although library itself is spacious). The middle school art show is coming up this Thursday at 6 PM; i hope the kids get a good turnout.

After the school visit we drove over to 123 Dakota Avenue on the west side of Columbus, where Mom once lived and where I would spend the night at my Grandma's as a little boy.  Grandma and I had a routine: 1. Eat a delicious dinner, which often involved vegetables that she had canned herself and stored in the pantry underneath the house; 2. Play Connect Four, which I usually won (no doubt because she let me); 3. Sit on Grandma's knee and read the 23rd and 91st Psalms aloud from her large print King James Bible; 4. Head upstairs for bed, where I would lay beside Grandma as she quizzed me on the states and capitals; 5. Pray; 6. Trundle off her high bed, and go to another room, where I would go to sleep.

I recall the house as cozy yet spacious, warm but with large depths when you explored the three upstairs bedrooms. I loved the claw foot bathtub. Grandma's phone was in the more formal living room adjacent to the relaxing family room. She told me to give her 8 rings to get to the phone when I called, in case she was somewhere at the other side of the house.  To this day, I think 8 rings is a reasonable number.

The west side was in a bad way then, and it's apparently gotten worse. For the news of this trip is that 123 Dakota Avenue is now uninhabitable.  The yard hasn't been mowed in months, or maybe years. The front door was locked, but the side door off the kitchen was ajar. Mom opened it, and we were greeted with a scene of a moldy kitchen with a much more modern look than Grandma enjoyed. (For some years after she died, the house must have been in good shape.)

We walked through the family room--which had no furniture--and went upstairs to those old bedrooms.  In the room where I used to recite those states and capitals, playing cards were strewn about the floor and clothes were scattered randomly.  In the room where I used to sleep, lots of child's clothes were neatly arranged in the closet. It looked like the people living there had suddenly fled without any time to gather their belongings.  The bathroom no longer had a claw foot tub, but it did offer a steady leak.

What a sight! Mom and I had trouble believing our own eyes. Helen stayed outside and away from the mold, which was probably the wiser choice.

I'm not sure what to make of the decline of 123 Dakota; there's a fascinating story there, which I will never know.  But in some macabre way it seems like an appropriate symbol for the end of the Columbus era. For Mom really can't go home again, even if she wanted to. It seems that I don't have it that bad after all. 

Medical Library Association 2008 Meeting Wrap-Up Part 2--Librarians without Borders Task Force

As a member of the program committee for the MLA '08 conference that concluded in Chicago, the last few days have been exhilarating. The reviews of the conference have been very positive; the phrase "one of the best MLA meetings ever" keeps cropping up. Jane and Lora did a great job leading us all. I'm pleased that my primary role was to support the Web 2.0 plenary session that everyone enjoyed and learned from. (I blogged about this session last week; the link goes to all of the slides from the session, which David Rothman posted today.)

My personal highlight was presenting the final report of the Librarians without Borders task force to the MLA Board, and then to all who attended our open forum on Tuesday.  The task force--comprised of myself (Chair), Grace Ajuwon, Carole Gall, Jill Mayer, Tony McSean, and Lenny Rhine--sought to capitalize on increased MLA member interest in international service and collaboration.  We presented many ideas about how to do this, some of them intended for any member of MLA and some designed to emphasize the central role of the members of the International Cooperation Section (ICS) within MLA's global endeavors. As the Chair of ICS over the past year, I was happy to highlight the roles that section members could play..

Our MLA Board liaison, Scott, told me that the recommendations were received with thanks and excitement by the members of the Board. (The presentation embedded below outlines our key recommendations.) This news made my day.

Some of our accomplishments were tangible: there's a prominent link to the Librarians without Borders web site from MLA's main page, and MLA now presents a competitively chosen award for international service every year. That's all very good, but not our most important accomplishment.

The most important achievement was stimulating intense passion for international information work within the members of MLA.  We've recommended that MLA support a fund in which members could apply to lead trainings in HINARI and other information access programs. We've asked MLA to issue an association statement about the importance of international service. We've suggested strategic partnerships between MLA, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM is doing great work in the area of domestic emergency preparedness). We've articulated areas in which ICS members will take the lead, such as building a database of mentors to facilitate experts in international teaching newcomers who want to become involved.

The questions at the open forum were wonderful and gratifying. People proposed new groups to get involved with, and new grants to write. Lenny, Scott and I turned this energy back on the audience a little bit, by pointing out that anyone should feel empowered to take their great idea and run with it. Go out and write a grant! Offer training in how to access essential medical literature! (Just like I did in Nigeria last year, thanks to Librarians without Borders and the Elsevier Foundation.) Go learn from your colleagues working to help others in difficult circumstances, and remember why you became a librarian.

Of course, this is all easier said than done. Next year we will offer practical tips on how to conduct database trainings, pursue grants and build connections overseas.

Five years from now, nobody will remember who served on the Librarians without Borders task force, and that's OK. The important thing is that we helped set a very good chain of events in motion. Our task force's work may be finished, but the excitement is just beginning.

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The Nostalgia Tour Begins

I went to college at Northwestern, where I met Helen. And I grew up in Grove City,OH, just outside Columbus.

At the moment I'm blogging in Evanston, IL, two blocks from Northwestern's campus and where we had our wedding celebration. Tonight Helen and I strolled around campus a bit; we saw the dorm that contained the dining hall where we met, and discovered that the student center now has a Starbucks. (Perhaps Helen already knew this, and it was my discovery alone). I kept trying to distinguish what was new on campus (at least to Class of 1999 graduates like myself) from what was old. The recycling bins seem stable.

Tomorrow morning we're renting a car and driving to Ohio for a few days. Mom and Bob are leaving soon, for permanent retirement in Arizona. And even the Columbus Clippers are moving into a new stadium, leaving behind the Cooper Stadium I grew up enjoying.  So tomorrow night we're watching the Clippers at the old stadium, while we still can.

For all these reasons I'm feeling more nostalgic than usual these days. Blog readers beware! :)

Medical Library Association 2008 Meeting Wrap-Up Part 1--Web 2.0 Tools Plenary Session

The Medical Library Association's annual meeting ended today in Chicago. I've been a member of the National Program Committee for this conference for the last few years (invited by Jane Blumenthal, who always beat me in Scrabulous until we tied at 323 points recently!). Given my investment in the conference's success, I recognize that my assessment is not unbiased. But I do think it was a very successful meeting, and was especially proud that we were able to open up some of the conference content to members who were unable to attend. That was one of Mark Funk's goals during his Presidential year, and we accomplished it!

This is a great precedent for next year, because many members are worried about the high cost of attending a meeting in Honolulu.  Fortunately for me, it will be (relatively) inexpensive for people on the West Coast.

Another innovation this year: official conference bloggers, who did a great job of reporting during the conference. Their collective work frees me from any need to attempt an exhaustive recounting of goings on at MLA '08.  Instead I will focus on one event that had a great impact on me, today's closing plenary session.

This session--web cast in real time to members who could not attend--was about the effective use of "Web 2.0" tools in libraries: RSS feeds, blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, APIs, mashups. Planning this session, along with Brian Bunnett, Julie Gaines, and Jim Beattie, was my main contribution to MLA '08.

Sure, Web 2.0 is an easy to mock buzzword, and it is definitely over-used.  Despite these limitations, it's a convenient shorthand for this suite of tools that have the potential to radically re-shape the way librarians conceive of their jobs.

Or do they?  In some ways Web 2.0 apps are just more convenient ways to build communities and make connections, which is something librarians have always done.  That was my epiphany as I listened to the discussion.  We're talking about an evolution in librarianship, not a radical break from everything that's gone before. Scott's been making this point for a while now, but I just got it.

So I have a bargain to propose: If the young whippersnappers will concede that RSS et. al represents an evolution (not a revolution), then more seasoned librarians must recognize that learning how to use these tools is part of being a librarian these days. It's not something you should only do "outside of work."  Increasingly, mastering these web tools--how to use them, what to do with them, how to promote them--will become our jobs.  That's a very exciting future, because the sky truly is the limit.

The all-star panel lived up to their great reputations. David Rothman, Melissa Rethlefsen, Bart Ragon, and Amanda Etches-Johnson all presented practical uses of the various tools, and reminded us of the proper order of operations: first define needs, then investigate options, and finally deploy tools. In other words, don't start a wiki just because you think you should--make sure it fills a real need, and if so go crazy. 

Carol Jeuell, a reference librarian at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, was energized by the possibility of using these tools in her library.  While it's important to recognize that hospital librarians face unique barriers compared to academic colleagues, David provides a great example (and to some extent a unique one, given his technical prowess) of how hospital librarians can surmount these barriers.

I especially appreciated Bart's advice to integrate these tools into your personal life first, and then see how they could work in your libraries.  Not everything will work in every case--an experimental mindset is key. And if you try something and it doesn't work, don't be afraid to "pull the plug." In a paper I co-presented on Monday, we made a similar point.

The plenary session capped off an 8 week free online course about Web 2.0 tools this spring. Many MLA members grew frustrated by the pace of the course, and had trouble completing it. Clearly there is a wide range of experience with RSS et. al, and this will always be true to some extent.  But once we absorb the fact that learning about these tools is a key part of our jobs now--not just a fun frill, but an essential professional activity--that gap between experts and novices will narrow. 

I'm looking forward to it.

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My personal highlight of the conference was the presentation of the final recommendations of the Librarians without Borders task force. But since I'm much too tired to write skillfully about that experience, I'll get back to it in a few days.  

Sarah Lacy Thinks I'm a Sexist, and She's Half Right

"I like women better than men."

Thus reads the opening sentence--one of the clearest and most direct I've ever written--of an essay I've been toying with for a few months about my deep-seated preference for the company of women to that of men.  I haven't progressed very much on the essay at all, but that opening rings true and I will keep it.

This came to mind today, when Sarah Lacy accused me of sexism in response to my review of her book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good.

My review includes this paragraph:

"Lacy portrays [Jay] Adelson and [Kevin] Rose's mutual "man-crush" with good humor and relish, in a way that seems possible only because she is a woman. Despite their ritualistic grumblings about the media, the numerous men Lacy interviews have no trouble opening up to her over crepes at Ti Couz or drinks at the Fly Bar."

On her blog, Lacy responded: "Wow. Usually it's only snarky gossip bloggers or anonymous Twitters that are comfortable being so outright sexist. Way to go, Mr. Banks! I applaud your absolute lack of a filter or political correctness! Of course, it could just be because I've been a business reporter in the Valley for ten years and built a lot of sources, but no, no you're right. It's because I'm a girl."

By now I've responded to Lacy on her blog and she's responded to me, and it's reached a stage of respectful but awkward rapprochement.  Nevertheless I'm saddened, because I was actually complimenting Lacy's ability--after years of her hard work reporting, which I acknowledged at the very beginning of the review--to get supposedly gruff techie guys to open up to her.  I thought it was funny that these guys supposedly loathe the media but clearly love Sarah Lacy. 

This made me smile, and didn't make me think that Lacy only got to where she is today because she's a woman.

But hey--people can interpret words in multiple ways.  Once the words are on the screen (or on the page), they are out of the author's control.  Clearly I touched a nerve in Lacy, and her accusation of sexism touched a deep chord in me.

From a very early age I resisted most "boyish" pursuits--I didn't like roughhousing with the guys, and noticed that the phrase "boys will be boys" excused a lot of ridiculous behavior.  I watched the nightly news and saw that all the murderers and rapists were male. So I figured out pretty early on that men make a lot of messes that women have to clean up.  Given this knowledge, I couldn't believe that female babies could be left to die on a mountainside in some countries, while male children were treasured.  Back at home I thought it was strange that sports coverage dominated weekend television, and that there was a sports section every single day of the week in the paper.  And I noticed that an easy insult on the playground was to call a boy a girl.

And on. And on.

Now I'm a librarian, which places me in a mostly female profession.  I'm also one of the few males in the Haas business school partners club.  So on many occasions, in both professional and social situations, I am the only male in the room.  This is an entirely comfortable setting for me. I'd have a much harder time figuring out how to act in a group of mostly (or all) men.

Maybe I'm maladjusted; perhaps I need a little more yang with my yin.   

So yes, Sarah, I am a sexist.  You just picked the wrong sex. 

First SF Chronicle Book Review Published

Four months ago I had the pleasure of publishing a book review in Rain Taxi. 

Today I'm even more excited, because my first book review in the San Francisco Chronicle is online and will be in print in the May 16 edition.   The book under review: Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (Sarah Lacy, 2008). 

I hope that this is the first of many reviews to come, in the Chronicle and elsewhere. Book reviewing is a modest public service, as well as an excellent way to force clarity and precision in thoughts and sentences.  Those are worthy goals for all essay writing, but the tight limits of a book review are particularly demanding.

One of my most worthwhile pursuits when we lived in New York was a six week course on the art and craft of writing book reviews, taught by Ben Downing.   I'm very grateful that the class is starting to pay off!

Robert Rauschenberg, Helen, and Functional Objects

My appreciation for 20th century American art is very shallow.  While I'd heard of Robert Rauschenberg, I really knew very little about him until reading the obituary today. 

Fortunately I don't need any expertise to observe that this quote from Rauschenberg made me smile: "I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly, because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable." Later in the article comes the more serious reason for Rauschenberg's dismay--he loved to make something out of (seemingly) nothing.

Helen is very talented at turning everyday goods into functional objects.  Just today I noticed that a jelly jar had become a vase. 

For a dessert exchange party last year she converted a cereal box into a makeshift container.  Everybody else brought Tupperware, and people marveled about the creativity of using a cereal box instead.  At the time I didn't know it, but now I do: Helen's talents would have made Rauschenberg smile.