The Biz

Our library is all but deserted during the summer. And even if there were more action at the reference desk, I wouldn't get any of it, being isolated in the back corner of technical services occupied with various tedious chores. This week we received boxes of elementary school textbooks donated by the local school districts, who got them as samples from the publishers. We keep a collection of the textbooks adopted by the school districts for the use of our education majors, so I had to sort through them all, checking them against a list of approved titles. Pretty boring. I also started compiling circulation statistics. Nothing I selected has been checked out, but then again my selections have only been on the shelves a few months--languid summer months at that. If I worked the reference desk of a big public library I'm sure I'd get more business, but reading Dr. Chameleon and Male Librarian Centerfold makes me think I don't need that kind of excitement.

Beverages

Almost finished with the Busnel calvados. It's nice, but for the money I would prefer a good bourbon or, of course, my beloved gin. It occurred to me that the last three bottles of booze I bought--Bushmills, Busnel, and Carmen (a Chilean wine)--are in tight alphabetical order. What's next?

Starbucks is offering "shade-grown" coffee. I'll pick up a bag in Lubbock to see what it's all about.

Another Reason the Llano Ain't So Bad

Empty distance, remote vacancy is, as it were, the sublime in the horizontal. The wide-stretching desert, the boundless uniformity of the steppe, have real sublimity, and even in us Westerners they set vibrating chords of the numinous along with the note of the sublime...--Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy.