Another Blog ????

I just finished "The Battle for America 2008" about the election by Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson. It is a pretty straightforward account of the primaries and the general election, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to recall those events and put some structure on them.

I'm mentioning it here, however, for a tidbit included in their discussion of new media. The Washington Post columnist, Gene Weingarten, locked himself in a room for twenty-four hours during the election with six TV's, two radios and a laptop which cycled through blogs and cable news commentary. At first he was inspired by the "genuine war of ideas out there, being fought by highly committed people who care about the world..." In the end his reaction had changed. "I cannot tell you how horrible it is...It rattles the very center of your being. We are as a people bleak and hostile and suspicious, filled with senseless partisanship and willing to believe anything and everything about anyone. We are full of ourselves and we hate. And we do it 24/7." (Washington Post Magazine, March 23, 2008)

I'm not without trepidation adding yet another blog to cyberspace; I'm pretty sure I won't be senseless, partisan, gullible or hateful but blogs and self-importance seem all to likely to be wedded. Weingarten doesn't mention the tidal wave of the trivial that washes around the hostilities, but I do fear adding to it, especially with another blog that features books. Still Virginia Kirkus is going belly-up so there may be an opening. (Inside joke for librarians.) So we will see if this online venture of a old, largely housebound lady lasts until the new year.

Connie Willis

Connie Willis will at last publish a new book, Blackout, on an auspicious day, February 2, 2010. Her "To Say Nothing of the Dog" is surely one of the most engaging and funny time travel books, and one that I think is less well known. Certainly it is on a short list of my favorites in this genre along with "Time and Again" by Jack Finney and the more recent "Time Traveler's Wife. Her spoof "Bellwether" combines science fiction and telling asides about research facilities and life in large bureaucratic organizations. Take, for instance, the list of generic outcomes one woman turns in at every team training (right before she goes to the bathroom to miss the sensitivity exercises):
1. Optimize potential
2. Facilitate empowerment
3. Implement visioning
4. Augment core structures.
Unfortunately, since I am now retired I can't use them at a future staff dayaway.

"Blackout" will return to the time traveling historians featured in "To Say Nothing of the Dog" it seems, and I look forward to a very pleasant Groundhog Day reading it.

{Bellwether Aside: I did not find the heroine's amusing experiences with weeding in libraries as congenial. Yes, the trendiness of the hour does make its way on to the library shelves; the fairies in of Bellwether would surely be vampires now. However, I always wonder why a library user is so quick to believe that other library users won't read classic books and they will be weeded for non-circulation. One or two library users and even some of the librarians are book lovers after all, and the classics are so because they have been relevant and compelling over time.)