Departures

D.B., the nearly septuagenarian acquisitions clerk, is finally taking an overdue retirement. Like L.L., the cataloguer who quit last year to start a jewelry business (which failed months later), D.B. is trading the peaceful life of librarianship for the high-stakes game of women's entrepreneurship--selling Avon. The departure should mean a more efficient operation in tech services. Our current cataloguer will finish a cartload of books in a few days which L.L. wouldn't get around to for weeks. Likewise, I'm hoping D.B.'s replacement won't forget to place orders, order multiple copies of items, or lose invoices.

At church we're losing about half of the regular attendees because of new job opportunities. The parish is tiny enough already; its continued existence now seems truly doubtful.

Pop Culture

Not much to report. Movies: Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders is a real snoozer, although Solveig Dommartin has great legs. (Apparently being a film director is a good way for dorks to get beautiful women: Wenders/Dommartin, Lynch/Rossellini, Burton/Bonham-Carter, Allen/Keaton...) Music: In the latest of my sporadic attempts to keep up with what the kids are listening to, I picked up a used copy of the Shins' Chutes Too Narrow, which, even if it ain't Revolver or Highway 61 Revisited, is a pretty good effort anyway--unadorned rock with catchy melodies and clever lyrics. Lionheart wasn't so good, unfortunately. TV: SCTV is on DVD! I haven't seen it since the early 80s, and I'm enjoying it even more now since in junior high (1) I didn't understand the satirical references to Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, etc., (2) I ended up falling asleep in the middle of the episode. (I think it came on at 11:00 and lasted 90 minutes.)