collected orange

Day one at the BNF

I’m back to work as of Monday, and well, it’s not clear how I ever spent my whole day away from home.  How did I leave the house at 7 with the child and not return until evening?  The mind boggles.

I’m working on a project related to C’s work, in fact, it’s for his boss.  There’s no denying that it’s a spouse job, but it’s not all coat-tails.  A librarian was needed and that is what I do (or did, and will do again).  The project is pretty interesting and has sent me both physically and virtually into the French agricultural archives.  I can explain in more detail for those who need more, but for the moment, I need to tell you about my first day at the BNF (Bibliothèque National de France).

I’m sure it’s a huge hassle to get to the goods in the Library of Congress so I can’t really compare my entry process well, but it was incredibly French in ways that have become very familiar.  First, I had an interview with some sort of access-preventer.  I presented my attestation stating that I indeed have a purpose, my contract stating that I am employed, and French-ily, my lease and a copy of my habitation insurance.  I showed off my identity card and the man helpfully pointed out the upcoming expiration date.  In the end, it was all rather fast and painless, and about 99% in French.  He completely misunderstood the nature of my project, but I think that was less about my French than about his sense of the topic.

Donc.  I get my card, I go pay for it, I exchange my stylish bag for a clear plastic box, I swipe my card, walk through a mysterious door and descend.  One escalator.  Two escalators.  All the way down to the garden.  I left my snacks behind but I shouldn’t have worried.  It being France, there are cafes scattered throughout the place.  People are sipping vending machine espresso and looking scholarly.  I decide that I will make friends in the cafe.  Eventually.  Since I need to be back in our neighborhood soon to get T, I proceed straight to my assigned seat in the reading room.

It turns out that the materials I ordered would take an hour to come out, at essentially the moment I needed to leave, but now I know that I can pre-order next time.  While I wait, I look around, I search the catalogue, I browse what’s browse-able on the shelves, and I feel really psyched about this new endeavor.  Eventually, my first materials arrive.  I open the cover and smile when I see the excellent 70s graphics:

Library, I missed you.

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Do you like my hat?

“Go, Dog. Go!” showed up at our house one day. We don’t know where the dogs came from (babysitter?) but we do know where they’re going. They’re going to the tree! to the big tree! to the green tree!

At first I classified the book as a “Doctor Seuss derivative that I will hate,” but I take that back. I concur with C’s analysis–that the separate but intersecting plots read like an Altman script. It’s seems long and disjointed (so many pages, so many dogs), but then the cameo appearances start to grab you and before you know it you’re trailing the dogs to the big, green tree, happily anticipating the dog party.

Similarly, we headed off to our own party in Berkeley yesterday afternoon. T spent the drive alternately demanding to see the Golden Gate Bridge and riffing on “Go, Dog. Go!” After attending multiple readings of GDG, she’s clearly internalized the link between parties and big trees, and as we got off the freeway to pick up C, she suggested that we press on to the big green tree, and fast. I don’t think she realizes that a gathering in a tree has a whole different meaning in Berkeley, but she’ll learn. In the meanwhile, life continues to mimic “Go, Dog. Go!” and we’re left to wonder “Will they work there? Will they play there?” Altman for the toddler set, no?

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Journeys Through Bookland

T’s bedtime routine has been pretty static for almost a year. The changes:
We used to read stories in the rocking chair and now we read them on the couch.
I used to carry T to her room from said furniture and now she prefers to walk.
We used to cover her with blankets, say good night and not see her until morning (or at least for many hours), and now we see her about 20 times in 2 hours until she finally welcomes sleep.

Tonight was a particularly extreme example, one which called for a shake-up in the routine. I sat next to her crib for a while and then pulled Journeys through Bookland: A New and Original Plan for Reading Applied to the World’s Best Literature for Children off the shelf and started reading. It was getting dark and hard to see but I dove in and came upon My Bed is a Boat.

She stopped asking about the noises from upstairs and stopped telling me it’s “dark in he-ah” and stopped noting “Mama is right he-ah,” and she listened. By the time I got to Hansel and Gretel, her breathing was even and she was done with Thursday.

I’m glad to have scenes like this in my future, sitting on the edge of her bed, reading her stories that calm her and allow her boat to launch.

Check it out for yourself on Google Books. We have volume one, but the whole set is available for you should you need to lay down some bread crumbs.

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Our new friend Bing

Our next door neighbors gave T. this book for her birthday and it’s been well received. It’s been a nice alternative to Color Kittens which was left behind in San Diego and satisfies someone’s incessant need to identify colors. I was a bit hesitant about it because Bing felt a little franchised, but when we got to the end and discovered that Bing’s favorite color was (gasp!) ORANGE, we were both hooked.

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A week of 5 ams.

Friday afternoon. Productivity plummets. Too distracted by memories of this week’s cold, dark pre-dawn wake-ups. After some thought, I’ve decided to blame it all on T’s recent reading list. You see her current favorites follow three major themes:

• animals and their sounds
• mamas (especially mother/child reunions)
• bedtime and the road to sleep

The Little Fur Family encapsulates all three, Hug explores the second within the Mommy/Bobo relationship, and I am a Bunny, the first (well, and the third). We’re also full on into seasons/weather and “action” type books like the beloved Little Yoga. None of these address some issues that the little girl must remedy soon before her father and I experience an irreversible change in our already disturbed rate of aging.

We must find books that emphasize:

• sleeping in until the sun rises
• channeling the urge for early morning screaming into song, or possibly rooster imitations (how nice would it be to wake up to the girl doing her well-rehearsed “cock-a-doodle-doo” instead of, well, screaming like someone’s broken into the safe room?)
• the benefits of molars

Suggestions welcome.

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Earth-related books for the holidays

• Simon Winchester. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. Harper Collins.
• Philip Fradkin. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. University of California Press.
• Jared Diamond. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. Viking.
• Timothy Egan. The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Houghton Mifflin.
• Kenneth Deffeyes. Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak. Hill and Wang.
• Richard Fortey. Earth: An Intimate History. Vintage.
• Jacques Leslie. Deep Water: The Epic Struggle Over Dams, Displaced People, and the Environment. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Craig Colton. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans From Nature. Louisiana State University Press.
• Henry Darcy. The Public Fountains of the City of Dijon. Kendall/Hunt.
• Richard Misrach. Chronologies. Fraenkel Gallery. Forthcoming.
  

Beyond Books:

If those punny “Reunite Gondwanaland” style geologist t-shirts appeal to you, check out Geographics

And for other gifts for your favorite science geek:
Holiday Gift Ideas (from Arts & Sciences Library, University of Buffalo)

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Voyage au centre de la terre

If you’re more Sci-Fi than Geo-Sci, you might like to know that 2005 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Verne (Feb. 8, 1828-Mar. 24, 2005).

I recommend taking your own literary Journey to the Center of the Earth if you haven’t already. Verne’s ideas about the composition of the Earth may have been discredited, but the vibe is entirely correct.

On a less geologic note, I’ve come upon another of Verne’s works, his lost manuscript, Paris in the Twentieth Century, written in 1863 but only recently published (1996). In this case, many of Verne’s ideas have proven true–fax machines! calculators! high-speed trains! One reviewer explains:
Verne’s vision of Paris in 1960 is a troubling one indeed; the wonders of technology have worked miracles on earth, yet humanity’s savior has proceeded to become its curse. It’s an action-oriented society, one run with great economy and efficiency. War has been made extinct because, once war progressed to the point that machines and not men were fighting each other, the whole thing seemed ridiculous. Life itself has become scientific, and in the process the society has given up its own humanity. There is no place for an idealistic dreamer such as Michel Dufrenoy in this world where the arts and literature have been completely forgotten; popular literature now consists of books such as The Lubrication of Driveshafts.

A cautionary tale…

Sources:
Earth Core
Amazon Review of Paris…

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