Strange Weather by Joe Hill

Joe Hill’s Strange Weather is a stark examination of the duality of man.  The four short novels expose the individual and societal pressures that motivate our sometimes fateful decisions.  The first story, Snapshot, is nearly a sentimental coming-of-age tale with an added bit of horror, both real and imagined. Thirteen year-old Michael, a self-proclaimed coward, begins to examine the impact we have on others, when his kindly neighbor, Shelly Beukes, begins wandering the neighborhood, hiding from the “Polaroid Man.” Forced to confront his own fears, Michael discovers that Shelly’s Alzheimers may not be what it seems.

The second story, Loaded, is an unflinching look at what has become a common tragedy, mass shooting.  The lives and histories of Aisha, a young black mother who, as a child, witnessed a family friend gunned down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time; Becki, a young white woman who becomes entangled in a messy affair with her boss; and Kellaway, a veteran whose family life has fallen apart as he falls into a pattern of domestic abuse. No clear villain emerges, and each find themselves under Hill’s perceptive microscope.

The third novel, Aloft, is an unrequited-love-meets-the-Twilight-Zone story that touches on loneliness and the lies we tell ourselves.  Aubrey Griffen, fool-heartedly agrees to a bucket list challenge in honor of a deceased friend and bandmate, but he mostly does it for Harriet (despite being consciously aware of the fact that there is absolutely NO CHANCE that she would ever be in love with him). A strange occurrence forces his jump after he chickens out, and he finds himself stranded on a “cloud.” The cloud appears to be sentient and eager to fill his needs, though he quickly realizes that all might not be well in his cloud kingdom.

The final story, Rain, is a tad more poignant and introspective, though less-than-kind in its imagining of our response to real and unexplained catastrophe. Filled with satirical, and frighteningly realistic, portrayals of consumerism and corporate hegemony, Rain, is a what-if tale that will stick with you.  What would you do if the rain was suddenly transformed into piercing crystals? Would your loyalty take you as far as Honeysuckle’s love for Yolanda took her?

All four tales often gave me pause and made me think. The horror was often a side show that augmented a close look at our own human frailty.  I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of character-driven works of horror and/or drama.

Video Killed the Radio Star, or did it?

Here in the children’s department of the Delphi Public Library, we pride ourselves on our non-stick-in-the-mud approach to emerging technologies and trends. For a small, rural Midwestern community, this is really quite progressive. Lauren Brannon, children’s librarian and I, her intrepid and erstwhile assistant, decided we would embrace the MUVE phenomenon head-on by joining the Minecraft EDU community. If you’re not familiar with Minecraft EDU (https://education.minecraft.net/), it is a closed MUVE. What this means is that the world-building and interaction is limited to a select user base.  This differs from traditional PC-based Minecraft in that the players one encounters are not from a random selection of the populace, but instead are members of your school, youth group, library, etc. Basically, any organization willing to pony up the dough for licensing can have their own closed Minecraft.EDU world. This platform is preferred by schools and libraries over the more traditional Minecraft namely because of its higher level of accountability and content control. The library board approved the cost of the license, and Lauren and I gamely began our tutorial. Having two teen boys certainly gave me the edge. I began clearing hurdles like a crazy librarian. Fast forward two weeks and you’ll find our program room teeming with that almost palpable miasma associated with adolescents. The program appears to be a success! Everyone is cooperating, working together in a world-building utopia. The first hour and a half of the program flies by. Finally, its 5:30 and the time has come for battle-mode! The last 30 minutes crawl by in a haze of tears and recriminations (and that just Lauren!). What had been an egalitarian effort had transformed into a free-for-all as the wheat (seasoned Minecraft players) was separated from the chaff (noobs, or novice gamers). Many of the younger players began requesting that Lauren or I gift their avatar with particular resources or endowments. The older players complained that the young players, unable to craft with any skill, were looting their homes and property. After mediating countless disputes, we called it a day and vowed never to introduce battle mode again. Two Weeks Later: Amnesia has set in and Lauren and Jennifer have agreed to reinstate battle mode during the last thirty minutes of game play, with a new rule: “There’s No Crying in Minecraft.” Despite the occasional dust-up, Minecraft (even in Battle Mode) has been an excellent addition to our programming line-up for several reasons. Firstly among them, it satisfies our desire to provide free and easy access to technology and services. Many kids who had never been able to join in the conversation on MUVEs and Minecraft, now feel like they are a part of something by sharing that cultural touchstone. For some patrons, their inexperience was due to a lack of financial affordability of the internet, software, and hardware required to access the platform. For others, fears of internet safety had kept them from allowing their children to participate.  In the closed, supervised worlds of Laurenville and Delphi Land, parents feel comfortable in allowing their children to share in this experience. Another reason I value Minecraft as a library tool, is its ability to rewrite conceptions regarding video games and technology. As a teenager in the 1990s I remember reading articles, and listening to news stories that not-so subtly put Mario and Luigi on par with Judas Priest. Video games were seen as a vice, a hobby for the weak-minded and/or lazy. My how perceptions have changed! Minecraft has so thoroughly homogenized “gaming” that, not only is it now considered mainstream and socially acceptable, Minecraft, and by extension, gaming, is even seen as a wholesome activity.  Lastly, I appreciate Minecraft in much the same way I appreciate all “stories” (video game, book, album, or any other narrative). It has engaged children and young adults in a way that they find meaningful and entertaining. It is able to provide that distraction in ways that can be educational and beneficial. It sparks a curiosity, if even only a slight one at first, in the sciences and computing fields. That can’t be all bad!

https://education.minecraft.net/

http://bit.ly/2yxmrp1

Jennifer 

Social Media: Boon or Bane?

Welcome readers ("s" added in what was certainly misguided optimism)! I am writing this post, in fact, this entire blog, to satisfy the requirements for LIS 401 Project 3.03. In short, the assignment requires students to write a blog discussing social media. Let us begin with a bit of good old fashioned compare/contrast.
The two forms of social media that I have the most experience with are Facebook and Twitter. While I have personal accounts with both platforms, I seldom log on to twitter (however I believe that my settings automatically post to Twitter whenever I post to Facebook). I prefer Facebook for several reasons, the most persuasive of those is the fact that I rarely have a thought that can be summed up in 140 characters or less.  Facebook allows its users (sometimes to my chagrin) to post long, rambling updates on the status of their cat's last meal without a concern that they will be forced to leave some detail out in the interest of brevity. For some users of social media, the succinctness required by adhering to a character limit is exactly what they want. In fact, there seems to be an entire generation of internet users that has sprung up wanting to press as few keys as is humanly possible. These users have done for the acronym what decades of military brass failed to do: they made abbreviations cool. The micro-blog (as some refer to tweets/twitter) also caters to our now infamous eight second (If you can hold out long enough to read the whole thing, the New York Times published an interesting opinion piece on our newly foreshortened attention span, down from twelve seconds https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/opinion/the-eight-second-attention-span.html) attention span. I had to google it, but TL;DR is a thing, and Twitter plays into it beautifully.
Facebook and Twitter both allow users to share photos and videos, and on both platforms that sharing is very easy. In my opinion, that is where the similarity between the two end.  Facebook offers far more than just a chance to connect with friends and family using stale memes and selfies.  Many users take advantage of the Facebook marketplace to buy and sell items locally.  Facebook has become a place where a person can make friends, order a pizza, buy a dog, track down a high school crush, bully that kid from work with the acne, and watch funny cats without ever looking up from his or her phone!
Also, I find Twitter to be far more impersonal.  It's practically anonymous with users having Twitter handles instead of using their first and last name as is usually done of Facebook and LinkedIn. Despite this, users often report using Twitter to "connect" with people they wouldn't encounter during the course of their regular, work-a-day lives.  For example, a lowly librarian from a tiny, midwestern town could retweet a microblog from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and have that tweet liked by the president of the United States! What a magical world we live in!
Despite my cynicism, I have used twitter for work on numerous occasions. Social media, for all of its ills, has a place in library work. Before we hired a new adult services librarian, I took over the library's facebook page for several months. It is a remarkably effective tool for getting patrons in to the library.  The calendar feature does wonders in helping busy patrons remember upcoming programming events. I've went so far as to create a Facebook page specifically for Moms Club.  This is a program that I conceived and run. It meets the first Tuesday of every month, but my patrons would still forget if it wasn't for the Moms Club Facebook page. As moms with Facebook join the group, I add them to the group message I created. Using Facebook messenger moms can ask what the agenda is for the meeting, let me know if they are ill, find out if it is their turn to bring a snack, and much more.  Many have also been able to maintain connections with moms who have moved away. Many organizations use Facebook to spread information, including IUPUI. For example, the most recent post is a reminder informing students of Fall Break, which I hadn't even considered until reading the post. Perhaps that is why I am getting very little back from staff in terms of the day's correspondence (see how useful Facebook is!).