Woo Hoo… check this out. When Harry Potter fans go bad.
Okay, granted, it’s taken from a livejournal called “Child Free Hardcore.”
Me, me, me
Does everyone realize yet that I’m just a huge sucker for attention?
Remember grade school, when everyone was ‘gay?’
Michael’s friend Shirley was visiting this week from Alabama. Today, she brought her three kids into the city to visit Michael at work. While they were in his office, Michael was pointing out our cool wedding announcement to Shirley.
“You mean you guys are married?” asks Eric, who’s about seven years old.
“Yep,” says Michael. “We can do that in Massachusetts or in Canada.”
“If you were in Alabama, you’d be gay.”
Delicious Fat Babies
So, I finally did it. I got a tattoo. I’ve wanted to for a while, but it’s hard to decide what you want to display on your body for the rest of your life. I settled on an icon that has lasted nearly a hundred years: The Hungry Tiger of Oz.
He first appeared in 1907 in L. Frank Baum’s Ozma of Oz. With the Cowardly Lion, he pulls the royal chariot of girl monarch Ozma. Dorothy meets him in chapter eight.
“Oh! Are you hungry?” she asked, turning to the other beast, who was just then yawning so widely that he displayed two rows of terrible teeth and a mouth big enough to startle anyone.
“Dreadfully hungry,” answered the Tiger, snapping his jaws together with a fierce click.
“Then why don’t you eat something?” she asked.
“It?s no use,” said the Tiger sadly. “I’ve tried that, but I always get hungry again.”
“Why, it is the same with me,” said Dorothy. “Yet I keep on eating.”
“But you eat harmless things, so it doesn’t matter,” replied the Tiger. “For my part, I’m a savage beast, and have an appetite for all sorts of poor little living creatures, from a chipmunk to fat babies.”
“How dreadful!” said Dorothy.
“Isn’t it, though?” returned the Hungry Tiger, licking his lips with his long red tongue. “Fat babies! Don’t they sound delicious? But I’ve never eaten any, because my conscience tells me it is wrong. If I had no conscience I would probably eat the babies and then get hungry again, which would mean that I had sacrificed the poor babies for nothing. No; hungry I was born, and hungry I shall die. But I’ll not have any cruel deeds on my conscience to be sorry for.”
“I think you are a very good tiger,” said Dorothy, patting the huge head of the beast.
I got the tattoo at Redemption Tattoo in Cambridge. Erick Lynch did a fantastic job! I highly recommend him, if you are in the market for a really good artist.
My friend Jamie went with me to get a Chinese symbol meaning “peace” on the back of her neck, which took all of 10 minutes. Even mine took only about an hour, which I found really surprising. But the best part was when the guy from the front desk popped in to deliver a message to Erick.
“Your mom called. She’ll call back later.”
How can you not love a tattoo artist who gets a call from his mom at work?
I was really surprised that it didn’t hurt all that much. Sure it was like a constant pricking, but not even as bad as a shot at the doctor’s or getting blood taken. And the vibration of the pen was kinda nice. So, my advice is: if you want to get a tattoo, get the size, design, and placement right. It really doesn’t matter how little it hurts if it’s all wrong, so don’t get a tiny one just to avoid the pain. It’s still a pretty damned permanent commitment.
Just don’t ask Erick to draw a straight line around your leg. Apparently, the stencil is a pain to mold around body parts that aren’t perfectly cylindrical.
“You’re not a can of Coke!” he told one young customer. “Why do I always get this geometric shit?!”
I’m Not Wild About Harry
Yesterday was a little surreal at the Boston Public Library. Much of the day was filled with Harry Potter control. I am amazed at the level of mania induced by this series of books, especially in the workplace when that workplace is a library. Personally I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books; never had the desire to do so. This is a little strange, since I am a fan of the fantasy genre; you’d figure I would have tried one out by now. I have nothing against the books, and suspect that one day I will at least read the first one, if not the whole series. Anything that gets this many people, especially young people, is a good thing. I have seen the three movies that have been made so far, but I find them to be average to uninteresting and they haven’t inspired me to go back and read the books.
But I’m here to write about the strange hold Harry Potter took over the library yesterday. Libraries are notorious for not having new popular books; or rather, not having them on the shelf when someone comes to look for them. It makes sense: if a book is popular, it means many people want to read it. By their very nature, libraries only have one to several copies of any given book, and if a book is popular, it will be check out. Therefore new books, books with an advanced build-up of excitement, will all be on reserve for the people who have been waiting for its release. Nothing will be on the shelf when the books first comes out. Browsers who are not intimate with the “library way” will innocently walk into the building expecting to find the new Harry Potter book (I’m sure the library will own a couple of copies) and of course, it won’t be there.
The BPL decided to do something special for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which, if you didn’t happen to know, is today. When we ordered our copies of this book, we wanted to try to have a copy for everyone who requested it in advance. We ordered 300 copies, thinking that might be enough. 300 copies of a single book (albeit for 28 locations)! Well, unfortunately, we ended up being about 88 copies short to cover everyone’s reserve copies.
At a recent manager’s meeting, we discussed the Harry Potter events that would be occurring on it’s release date (today) including multiple events, face-painting, screenings of the film, people dressed in costume. It dawned on us that it would be pretty sad to have these events running all day long, but not a single copy of the new book available for anyone attending these events, and not have the advance knowledge of the reserve system available in the building. We decided to try a radical new experiment. We would take 50 copies of the book and make them non-requestable. These books would not be used to fill customer requests and hence would be available for our customers who walk in looking for the book. You wouldn’t believe the planning and controversy that erupted from this decision. One branch librarian complained that this project would “violate” that sanctity of the reserve list. Most were thrilled that we would actually be serving that large section of our customer based who did not use the reserve system. This week was consumed by Harry Potter preparations.
Our 300 copies arrived on Thursday, were entered into the system and prepared for their release date of today. Yesterday was almost entirely consumed with preparations and tweaks to the system. The tension in the building was palpable, with so many copies present, but unable to be checked out until its actual release date. An early check out could suffer legal ramifications, after all. Glitches were found in the system, and solutions implemented. Now, it’s half an hour until the library opens, and the BPL is poised for the influx of Potter fans who will be in to pick up their advance requests, and the 50 people who will be lucky enough to actually see a copy on the shelves.
It’s quite an amazing phenomenon, and one that both mystifies and thrills me. To see such an amazing amount of excitement built around a book, an object that many people believe has become almost passe. Who said working in a library was boring?