Fusenews: De-kinkifying the Kinks

I’m still wrestling with this new blog format.  I worry that a lot of you are checking the old links or the old RSS feeds and are simply under the impression that I’m not updating anymore.  Aside from Facebook, Twitter, and various Group updates (social networking has never been so useful) I’m not sure how to let folks know about my new location.  I sort of feel like I’m whistling into the wind.  But we’ll figure it all out.  No migration goes perfectly the first few weeks, right?  The kinks with out kinkify themselves.  In the meantime, have a bit o’ Fusenews.

• I was rather taken with this recent profile of children’s author and adult satirical cartoonist (amongst other things) Jules Feiffer at CNN.  It has never really occurred to me, but it makes sense that he would have influenced Doonesbury in some way.  Never really thought it through, though.  The comments about his thoughts on Charles Schulz are also fascinating.  Good reading!

• Some days, you just feel like screaming.  Other days, you scream and it ends up in blog posts called Why Is Fuse #8 Screaming? I’ll explain more about the reason for the less than impressive shriek (there are reasons I never became an actress) in an upcoming Lerner Librarian Preview, but for now I thought the blog post’s title funny enough to link to.

• Here’s how I look at it.  You’ve always meant to own some original Quentin Blake art anyway, right?  Of course you have.  You’re only human.  And now, if you participate in this auction for an original Blake piece, you’ll also be helping out the charity organization PACT — Parents & Abducted Children Together.  So, to sum up: Buy awesome original Blake art.  Help good cause.  That was easy!  Thanks to Children’s Illustration for the info.

• Oh man.  I almost made this a Daily Image before I figured it wouldn’t be fair to Leila.  Have you seen some of the awesome library posters from the late ’60s/early ’70s she’s been putting up?  Honest-to-Murgatroyd, they are amazing.  You can see most of them here, and an additional bit of magnificence here.

• The  new trend of 2010: Cancelling your social networking sites.  Authors are quitting Goodreads because the reviewers are so cruel.  Day laborers (which is to say, you and me) are quitting Facebook because of the privacy setting debacle.  And nobody’s quitting Twitter because, honestly, it’s not that big a time commitment.  I’m not quitting anything in particular, but the Facebook problem did throw me for a bit of a loop.  That’s why I was so grateful when AL Direct linked to this infinitely useful Facebook Privacy Scanner.  You just put it in your little browser bookmarks bar and it scans your Facebook accounts (yes, some of us have more than one) to see what info you are providing for the world at large.  Try it.  You’ll like it.

I hear that the Rainforest Action Network tested a random sampling of 30 books from the top 10 U.S. children’s publishers, and found that 18 of them contained fibers linked either to tropical hardwoods or acacia pulp wood plantations in Indonesia and you know what?  I get a little upset.  Naturally I would.  RAN released its findings just before Book Expo last week in the hopes of getting some attention directed to the problem.  Apparently nine out of the ten top children’s publishers in the U.S. use rainforest wood in their books regularly.  Interested, I downloaded the PDF of the report to commend top U.S. children’s publisher #10 for not following the lead of the previous nine.  The problem?  The report doesn’t name names!  No name naming to be found.  How the heck can I encourage the good publishers and makes raspberries at the bad if I don’t know who they are?  Ah well.  Shocking findings just the same.  Many thanks to Craig’s New York Business for the info.

• Dudes, I don’t mean to harsh your mellow but you are aware that now that BEA has ended we need to get cracking on the next big event: ALA in Washington D.C.?  And, most important of all, the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet at said event.  I’m pleased to announce that this year Jim Averbeck and I will once more roll out the dusty red carpet (slash bathmat) and invite folks to explain who they are wearing, just as we did two years ago (shown here).  I’ve my dress good to go and my tattoo paper ordered.  Newbery Honor winner Grace Lin is thinking about it as well, and she asks the masses to weigh in on her clothing options.  Color me Team Green.  I recently discovered that I don’t own a single green item of clothing, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like seeing it on other folks.

• Daily Image:

It’s small.  It’s simple.  It’s direct.  And as bookmarks go, it’s terribly literal.

You can download your own through the link at Swiss-Miss, if you like.  Might be perfect for those ironic hipster teens in your branch.  I can see them getting a kick out it.

Filed under: Fusenews