"The old battle..."

I'm pulling some stuff out that I had saved as drafts in the last few months. I am deeply in awe of these women trail blazers. This one I stumbled on because she is from the Boyfriend's hometown. She's on their website. Which led me to the New York State Senate site. I suppose NY is claiming her as their own. I can't quite remember the cataloging rules for nationalities anymore. I'm definitely not sure about states--anybody out there who can help me out? Actually, she deserves recognition from both places.

“All those interested in educational progress owe a debt of gratitude to the late Mrs. Winifred Edgerton Merrill...in the old battle for their higher education, in which she played so notable a part.”

Search the NY Times free archive for the school--sorry, I don't now how to make the PDFs link--grr.. You'll get to this in 1914: GIRLS FIGHT SCHOOL FIRE.; Oaksmere Students Also Dig Engine Out of the Snow.

1922 "America will send forth today on the Aquitania the first contingent of girl track athletes who have ever gone to represent the nation on foreign soil."

Winifred was a great American woman. I'm posting this for my own memory.

I just didn't see...my blind spots

A blind man can see how much I love you, by Amy Bloom

Or maybe I saw too much. I think the title just sucker-punched me. Why does that happen? The NBA and I never do see eye-to-eye. Well, these stories just weren't at all what I needed to read right now. Surgery. Cancer. Incest. Dead children. Lots of unhappiness and regrets. Though there were some interesting relationships and beautiful writing, it never filled my mind the way that Away did. Oh well. On to Ha Jin and A Free Life. Let's see if that's cheerier.

Al-Mamlakah al-'Arabiya al-Sa'udiyah

While searching for a customer for a different title by Laurie Halse Anderson, this record passed by my screen. I went back to look later and saw MPOW owned five copies, none at my agency. So I requested one and received it at my branch in a few days. I was blown away by it. I love Anderson (if that isn't some kind of given. oh, be that way if you must). It's not just Fever 1793. There's Speak, and Twisted, both of which I will recommend to almost any teen girl.

This book is the kind of school report book stuffed with factoids beloved by middle-schoolers with mass assignments. For me, the pictures did it, as much as the informative text, which told me things I didn't know. Of course, human rights get a white wash, as does absolute monarchy. Still, I think I may buy a copy or two while they are available.

Bints gone wild

Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea.

As an Arabian-American woman, this novel was of more than a little interest to me. The book is slight, in email epistle format. The author traces the lives of four Riyadhi schoolmates over six years. She manages to combine verses from the Qur’an, popular songs, and classical poetry, with the events in the women's lives. I thought it gave a decent idea of the pressures which shape Saudi women. It was a bit hard for me to tell, as I had "inside" information.

The novel combines classical and colloquial Arabic, and some regionalisms. This is probably invisible to American readers, but I could often feel the change in tones. I think the difference in tones would probably be considered uneven, or undesirable in English, but it is important here. Saudi Arabia was completely using oral tradition just fifty to sixty years ago. Classical Arabic is like Latin--not really spoken except for religious or ceremonial purposes. Most Saudis do not or cannot read Classical Arabic. Colloquial Arabic is very much an organic, growing language that varies greatly by country, region or town. Arabic is rather a portmanteau language, with prefixes and suffixes and special constructs allowing users to build the words they want as they go. Which can make interpretation very difficult.

I was born in al-Hasa, the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. I lived in Jeddah-by-the-sea in the Hejaz or western province as a teenager. Though never treated as a full Saudi (citizenship was never an option), I had some insights into the lives of Saudi women.

My last summer in Saudi Arabia was when I was 21. I could not go anywhere unless accompanied by my father or my brother. I had to cover my hair at all times (if I even took off my head covering in a car, it could cause a huge traffic jam), and wear loose, long dresses or caftans that covered my elbows, ankles, and silhouette. I did not have to wear an abayah the traditional one piece black garment, or the hijab, which covers hair and neck. I did develop strong feelings about the women who had to wear them. In Saudi slang, fully veiled women are referred to as ghosts. That is how they are treated, as well.

That summer, I was befriended by a woman named Ricarda, whose husband was working for the same company as my father. We lived in the same compound (go ahead, you can call me trailer trash). Ricarda had recently married Faiz, a Saudi man. They had both grown up on embassy row in Washington, DC. Ricarda's parents were from Trieste in Yuoslavia. Faiz's family was an old merchant trading family in Jeddah, so even though Faiz's family did not completely approve, they were more open to Ricarda than to an fully American wife. Ricarda and Faiz were married in a Muslim ceremony, and had to agree to spend two years "in kingdom" as the idiom has it. After that , they would be free to return to the US to complete grad school. Ricarda was studying English literature. She and I had a hoard of old book reviews we would pour over by the pool, before settling on a NYT crossword puzzle from a book I'd brought. Trust me, life a a Saudi woman is deeply boring.

Ricarda had to attend lots of family gatherings, which meant she mostly sat with Faiz's female relatives discussing other relatives and gossip. The main topic was matrimonial prospects, for men and women. The concerns about a woman's virtue and modesty were intense. So were lineage, class, and tribe. The matches were discussed and initiated by the older women, and then formalized by the older men. Most marriages were arranged. There was no interplay between unmarried members of either sex allowed in the traditional culture or religion. But everyone watched Egyptian soap operas, and listened to love songs and poetry.

I lived in Jeddah pre-cellphones. At that time, the most scandalous behavior I witnessed was night driving. Groups of young women and men would cruise the shopping malls in the evenings. Then small groups of women would make their way to their cars and drivers (women are not allowed to drive in SA). Some of the young men would follow in their cars, and the groups would drive around in circles in less populated areas, tossing bits of conversation out of slightly open tinted windows. Scandalous, I tell you.

At the same time, some of my father's employees who were not Saudi would do their best to chat me up. I realized early on that those gentlemen were just engaging in belt notching, just like what was so prevalent on my college campus in the states. The pelting with cell phone numbers that Alsanea describes reminds me of the matchbook collecting games played in NYC bars. My girlfriends might receive seven or eight matchbooks with phone numbers written on them, but they wouldn't call any of them, just wait to see if they received any calls from the one or two individuals they had given their correct number. My friends put matchbooks with good numbers in one pocket, and matchbooks with bad numbers in another. It was all a silly courting game.

Before starting this book, I worried it might turn tragic, with an "honor" killing or stoning. Those tragedies are realities in kingdom. Things are changing, albeit slowly, as this book details. The prospects faced by the four upper-class heroines of Girls from Riyadh seemed realistic to me. In the beginning, the girls are filled with the idea of romance and finding their true loves. They take different routes, almost all completely modest, and in keeping with Islam. The most scandalous behavior is talking by cellphone and/or internet to unmarried SA men.

One of the tragedies is the story of Qamra, who enters into an arranged marriage with great hopes and happiness. Shortly after the wedding, they move to Chicago, where Qamra has no family or connections. Her husband is cold and often absent. In time, Qamra learns he has been in love and living with a Filipina woman for years, but his family would not allow him to marry her. They forced him to marry Qamra. Qamra becomes pregnant against his wishes, and he divorces her and sends her back to live with her family in SA.

There are some happy endings, too, though some are a long time coming. I think any Muslim reader would understand the risks these women took searching for their true loves. I am actually a bit in awe of the bravery of the author, who, as far as I can tell is pursuing postgrad studies in endodontics in Chicago

I have to talk about what was for me, one or two of the funniest bits of the book. Firstly, at one point, the narrator says something about men being attracted to the "beautiful" Riyadh accent. My personal prejudices just had to snigger. The broad Saudi accent is somewhat like a southern accent in the US once was--shorthand for stupid. One of my Arab Teaching Assistants in college told me my Al-Hasa accent was the equivalent to deep Mississippi. He thought I should strive for a Lebanese accent, which he thought would sound "more cultured". Guess were he was from :D

Jeddah, with it's greater openness to the west over the centuries, and more relaxed customs and traditions, sounds more cultured to my ear. Plus, the Prophet spoke the Quo'ran in the neighboring cities of Al-Meccah and al-Madinah, which are closed societies. So those dialects/accents might be closer and purer than Riyadh. Riyadh may be the capitol, of government, and home of Wahabism but many people, Saudi and not, consider it provincial. That leads to the second giggle: toward the end of the book, the narrator notes that one of the people responding to and complaining about her emails feels she is purposely saying the men of Riyadh are inferior to the men of the eastern and western provinces. Though I doubt that was the author's intent, but that was always my impression. Plus my own personal regional prejudice. I guess we'll have to wait for The Boys of Saudi Arabia to enlighten us! Maybe someday the upper class will shed some of the old customs and traditions that make women so miserable.

Good things, not maudlin!

A note from one of my fave online friends (actually, we did get to share a face2face meal at ALA Katrina) just made it onto the "good things" that have happened to me today. GoodReads.com definitely is one for the year.

I plan to be one of the biggest boosters of web/lib 2.0 on the planet ad nauseum. It has been so important for me the last few years. I would be stark staring mad without it. (Peanut gallery--comments will be ignored.) If and when my fingers will type better (coming and going with maddening frequency), I will post again! And if typing my crazy long elliptical daft posts gets too hard, voice recognition software can be another hurdle to thud my way over/across/behind.

I started out today a bit maudlin. Picking charities in lieu of--arrant self indulgence. I've been sort of behaving myself since...while cackling with friends while eating Easter candy!

I thought I should put up a bitty post...to remind Blogger who I am, and to tell anyone who wants thanks so much for any good thoughts you can spare. I believe in them even more than my stated creed of Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, and hamentaschen.

Plus, I had to share the photo of the Ocean Beach Librarian skateboarding to work earlier this week. Do I know how to pick my priorities, or what?

LOC 2.0?

"The Working Group envisions a future for bibliographic control that will be collaborative, decentralized, international in scope, and Web-based. The realization of this future will occur in cooperation with the private sector and with the active collaboration of library users. Data will be gathered from multiple sources; change will happen quickly; and bibliographic control will be dynamic, not static."

On top of that LOC now has a flickr account! It must be irony. No, agony. No, sarcasm. Parody? Librariany?

Can it all have actually become cool? No, it must be an aberration...

Library funnies

I really wish I could draw. I wish I had a scanner, too. If I had a scanner, I'd be tempted to draw a couple of webcomics. Since I can't and don't, I need you to use your intelligence and imagination to supply the art for the following:

1. Young library worker comes up to where two middle aged library workers are talking. They all politely exchange greetings. The youngster is wearing killer shoes--pointy toes, short stiletto, two-tone leather. One of the oldsters says, "Nice shoes, B." Youngster says "They really comfortable. My mom says I spend too much on shoes, but these were only $60--that's not bad!" First oldster says "No," looking down at her Birkenstocks, "these were $90." Second oldster looks down at her Mephistos and says "These were $120." Youngster is visibly shocked that oldsters are paying that much for ugly shoes. Second oldster continues, "You have to have comfortable shoes. We're on our feet all day. Besides, it's your money, right? Moms."

2. Two young library workers are chatting in the workroom, while engaged in boring monotonous tasks. I mean skills! A middle-aged librarian is taking her break, reading a book in the nearby break room. The two youngsters are talking about college, which one of them is attending. The other explains that she is going to start taking some distance ed classes, and then after she gets that done, she'll do library school. She says fairly loudly "Once you've got a library degree, you're pretty much golden." Librarian falls off rolling chair laughing.

I hereby have to credit two young library workers who sort of work for me. They don't want their names used, but the give me countless hours of joy.

Since I can't draw, this has turned my brain to scriptwriting. I've been convinced for some time that we need a primetime comedy show set in a public library. It's perfect. Like Scrubs. Recurring characters, clueless administration, flavor of the week. You could have gorgeous young things and crafty old codgers. There could be a romance between a young librarian and an academic librarian. There could be lots of stress because their schedules don't mesh, and he's looking to take a sabbatical next year in Korea...oh the richness, the humor, the folly, all there in technicolor! Now that might change the stereotype. Mind you, I am beginning to enjoy being a dried-up old maid librarian...

New mayor takes his city by the hand | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/09/2008

New mayor takes his city by the hand | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/09/2008

My hero, and former favored patron--the person on City Council most likely to call the library and ask for some research--on you name it! And patiently went through the reference interview himself. Called back with more info. Just a dream politician customer. On Library Journal's cover as politician of the year in 2005. Thanks to Mary W. for the heads up.