credit: Delacorte Press
Mr. Leonard had a phrase he used a lot, "if it seems like writing, I rewrite it." My personal theory is he came up with that while writing this book, Unknown Man #89. The man began to play low jazz here, shifting into a steady gear and focusing on his characters and language unlike he has before while the plot becomes more "what are they going to do" rather than "What's going to happen next?"
Once again, Fleet Week is at the library! Get ready to get your nautical on as we have events and programs ready to test your knowledge and excitement about guys that live on boats.
credit: Focus Features
I loved this movie in a very simple way. It's delightful and charming. My brain wants to say "quirky" but fuck that this movie is weird. The people are strange and for some reason I want to reference Egger's The Lighthouse. If there had been more booze with Isla and Sandy, they might have had that problem. They might have eaten Daniel.
credit Doubleday, first edition
The book hits pretty hard today. Sure there's regular school shootings now and bullying has changed to a more passive global spectacle rather than the targeted abuse of one kid on one kid, but the feelings of isolation and public ridicule remain. While the shy introverted religious kid has a youtube or twitch following now, they still remain quiet and uniformed about basic sanitary habits. The themes of Carrie resonate still because, shit, growing up sucks.
Never trusted hot air balloons myself. Too simple of an idea. Nothing between me and a Looney Tune death but some wicker and a propane filled parachute feels like madness. Yet people love them, and I'll admit they do look pretty floating there against a serene landscape.
credit: Dreamworks
Memories and friendship are universal. Forgotten Island, the new Dreamworks animated classic, straddles the worlds of adult and childhood and of fantasy and reality. And it has a badass soundtrack. The adult nature of the film (it's essentially The Hangover with some Eternal Sunshine thrown in) may cause it to miss with the younger crowd, but for those who find this it will be in their hearts forever.
Credit: Cardinal Films, Wild Atlantic Pictures, Mongrel Media
You never know when your life will end. Few think of it, really digest what it means to no longer be. Even fewer run toward it, chased by the dream of living on by doing one great thing that will cement them forever in history. It's a pretty damn small number more interested in legacy than safety that drives toward death as a stunt driver in a rocket car.
Cryptids come and go in the library. The Book Wyrm. Purple Paper Eater. Magazine Guy. But none is more mysterious than THE MOTHMAN. All this week we celebrate the Mothman with programming to bring you closer to the Sacred Flame.
Credit A24
Walking into this movie, I had only heard Robert Pattinson's performance was top notch. Otherwise, I had little interest in the story of Chris Hanson, award winning journalist and host of To Catch a Predator, the show where he and his crew lured sexual predators to a fake address and confronted them on camera.
Anything can happen in the woods. You can be sitting and enjoying a nice fire when in stumbles a bit of trouble. Ethan Hawke's character learns that in The Weight, a new thriller from the minds that brought you… Holy s**t this is the director's and the writers' first movie (one writer has one other credit, but that's not really holy s**t worthy). I'll be honest, that lifts my estimations of this movie much higher.
Tuesday night was the library's big Autumnal Equinox Celebration and if you were not there, you missed a hell of a time. Last minute we did have some unforeseen changes. Mr. Rabbit Pete, local entertainer for children, had to cancel due to a case of paw and mouth disease. Our circulation librarian Brenda has some contacts in the music industry though, and a little band called Carnal Death Punch was able to fill in and rocked the dust off the library shelves!
image: Sony Pictures
When I say I understand how Bryan the medical courier feels trying to escape a plague of mutant zombies, you get what I mean. The new Resident Evil by Zach Cregger is a visceral splash of gore and tentacles right out of H.P. Lovecraft's dreams minus all the cats and puritanical racism. The film clips along at a brusque pace from a lone farmhouse to the empty Raccoon City without taking much of a breath. A hell of a good time at the movies.
Terry Pratchett wrote several books on belief but in this one he tackles the biggest aspect of belief: Hope. What else can come from a crazy assassin with a baby face and an evil heart being hired to kill Santa Claus? When the symbol of the season of death is taken away, who else but Death incarnate can slip in and take up the sled?
Twice a year mankind is forced to reckon with balance. The day and the night meet in perfect unison as the sun sits right over the equator. Summer ends and everything falls into autumn. The trees feel it and drop their leaves. Animals begin prepping their dens with winter shutters and aluminum siding backed by pink fluffy insulation. Everyone waits for darkness to fall.
They came in the library like locusts into a cornfield. Sheets were torn from the hands of librarians. They ran through the stacks with wild abandon. The library scavenger hunt began in a fury.
Students going back to school means after the final bell rings our stacks get full. For some, they've been coming for years but others this is their first time in the library. Dumped off by parents, waiting for rides, or just have no other place to go. We try to give them things to do other than dry hump in the copier room, but we are only librarians.
A newsletter for the Banned Library’s birthday! The Banned Library opened many years ago. Some say it sprang forth fully formed from the head of a god, but those people are confusing the library with the Greek goddess Athena. No, we were spilled from a drunken bottle of whiskey onto a bar and soaked up by a rag and onto the internet in September 2010. Long shot from where we are now. Staff didn't even have smartphones when we started.
I am writing this to clear up any misconceptions that may have arisen during this week's "Revolution" type programming at the library. The library is not calling for the harm of any person or persons, nor do we condone the destruction of public or private property. Our staff and Prof. Steve Hystarion of Banned Community College wish the public to know both the history of civil disobedience and the types of activities that have resulted because of stagnant economies and upper class greed at the expense of those who work for them.
You had me at "set in the world of The Guest (2014)." Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett have been favorites of mine (and everyone who likes horror) since You're Next (2011), so to have them back again with supersoldiers attacking a desert trailer park feels great. Sort of a Tremors meets Shane Black with a dash of Evil Dead, our veteran sniper hero must defeat large odds while protecting a precocious young girl in this fun thriller full of chainsaws, cleavers, and odd ball characters. Check it out.
Credit: first eiditon, Delacorte Press
Swag, published in 1976 by Delacorte Press, begins the modern version of Leonard's bibliography. Before now, he'd written westerns and a few crime novels (I've been reading them the last few years). Swag has the same dark story of criminals doing crime and the police trying to catch them, but adds in a ton more levity and fun to the criminal acts. It's a fast read at around 225-250 pages depending on the edition, but it may take longer as everyone around you will ask what you are laughing at.
