Monumental Mobility: The Memory Work of Massasoit - by Lisa Blee & Jean M. O'Brien

I read this for a faculty book discussion at the university where I work. It has local interest as the original statue of Massasoit (8sâmeeqan) is located on Coles Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts about 20 miles from the university. Created by artist Cyrus Dallin in 1921 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, replicas of the statue can now be be found in Dayton, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; Provo Utah; Springville, Utah and on the lawn of the Howard B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University (BYU), where students refer to the monument as "the naked Indian" and are scandalized over that fact that 8sâmeeqan doesn't adhere to BYU's dress code. One student with whom the authors spoke suggested that the statue be moved near the gym "to align with student-athletes in their sometimes-skimpy BYU-issued gym shorts". However, the student also pointed out that such a location "could be interpreted as the rival university's 'Ute' mascot and serve as target practice...".  

The original statue was commissioned by the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization still in existence and "limited to physically, mentally, and morally sound" white men. Its headquarters are located in Waco, Texas, and the authors made good use of its research library there. The Red Men Museum and Library also owns some 11-inch replicas of the statue commissioned as a fund-raising effort just before the statue's unveiling.

It was certainly an interesting time to read and discuss this book, not only because we are now recognizing the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing, an anniversary celebration that has been in the works for many years, and will now take place virtually, but also because we are witnessing the destruction of monuments to colonizers, and taking part in a larger discussion of the meaning of monuments to those who build them, those who visit them, and those who remove them.

The final chapter of the book "Marketing" explores how the statue has been exploited, along with other memorials, to make Plymouth a tourist destination - America's Hometown (and I know some Washingtonians who would dispute that moniker). The authors describe several tours available to tourists, some that provide a Pilgrim-centric view, and others that "challenge...expectations for a celebratory settler origin story." The traveling exhibit Captured! 1614 opened in 2014 in the Plymouth Public Library. 

Created under the guidance of Mashpee Wampanoag Paula Peters with a team of Wampanoag designers, researchers, and historical interpreters...the exhibit panels and series of short films...Captured! 1614 presents the Patuxet Wampanoag perspective on the slaving expedition of Thomas Hunt, who seized twenty men and boys from Patuxet, including Tisquantum...for sale in Spain...According to Peters, the reception of the exhibit has been overwhelmingly positive among Wampanoag communities and non-Indian viewers.

Excellent scholarship written for everyone.

Educated - by Tara Westover

Raised and home-schooled by survivalist parents in the Idaho mountains Tara Westover rejected her family's admonishments not to go to college and enrolled in Brigham Young University (BYU) before she turned 18. Ultimately she becomes a Cambridge-educated PhD, but not without painfully examining her role in the family. Her father's conspiracy theories about universities and the Illuminati were made known to her long before she thought about going to college herself. Her mother had taken charge of her children's homeschooling, which mostly consisted of letting them learn what they wanted when they wanted, and included occasional trips to "the Carnegie library in the center of town".

Westover recognized that she was one of the least disciplined of her siblings when it came to "doing school" which gave her a lot of reason to doubt her abilities when she arrived at BYU. Her misgivings were magnified when she discovered that her classmates had an understanding of US culture and history that she did not share. Her realization that everyone else knew what the Holocaust was, for instance, caused her not only embarrassment, but also opened her eyes to the fact that her peers shared a collective knowledge that she was missing. She did not even know what she did not know.

If Westover had anxieties about her place at BYU they were only compounded when she arrived at Cambridge. Upon her arrival on campus she and her denizens were invited to take a tour of the chapel, including the roof. She describes the experience of watching her classmates, and her professor fight the wind on top of the building as they cling to the wall while she climbs higher. Finally explaining to her professor that "she'd roofed [her] share of hay sheds" and that

The wind is just wind. You could withstand these gusts on the ground, so you can withstand them in the air. There is no difference. Except the difference you make in your head...I'm just standing...You are all trying to compensate...You've made yourselves vulnerable. If you could just control your panic, this wind would be nothing.

Even this insight though, was accompanied by apprehension

I wanted the mind of a scholar, but it seemed that Dr. Kerry saw in me the mind of a roofer. The other students belonged in a library; I belonged on a crane.

Her ultimate success in earning her PhD demonstrates that she certainly did belong in a library, and the final third of the book (from the time she lands in Cambridge for the first time) is scattered with references to using it. This stands in stark contrast to the first 200 (plus) pages, where there is only one.

Carsick - by John Waters

Baltimore, Maryland holds a special place in my heart. It is not only the land of my birth, it is also where I met, fell in love with, and married my husband. If all this weren't enough to make me feel good about the place it also is the home of movie director John Waters. My husband James and I are long-time fans of Waters and enjoyed reading his book about hitchhiking from his home in Baltimore to his home in San Francisco together. The book is divided into three sections. The first is a fantasy  trip called "The Best that Could Happen"; the second a fantasy trip entitled "The Worst the Could Happen"; and the third called "The Real Thing". Fantasy chapters included rides with celebrities, alien abductions, magic farts, and some rather poopy pants. None of this will surprise those who are familiar with Waters' work. The third section was actually the most surprising. It is where Waters cynicism is least evident. He was genuinely grateful for all who picked him up, even if only going a few blocks. He was also touched by the number of straight men he met who spoke lovingly, and affectionately of their wives, and enjoyed the company of all who rode with him.

Of course as much as I enjoy any book, it does not find a place on this blog without at least touching on some aspect of libraries. Waters' book makes the cut for his fantasy chapter "Bernice" in which a renegade librarian who runs her own bookmobile-type service delivers paperback porn (without cover art) to niche collectors. They visit one of her clients, Cash, who lives in a house made entirely out of cover-less paperback smut. (I don't know if such a house actually exists anywhere, but I do know there is a house in Rockport, Massachusetts made entirely out of newspapers).

What I especially liked about this chapter was that Waters says he knows "how wild librarians can be" having been a keynote speaker at "several of their conferences." Since I was a librarian at a conference in which Waters was the keynote speaker (the Association of College and Research Libraries 2007 conference in Baltimore) it was almost like reading about myself - wild librarian that I am.

I marked one other passage in this book for blogging, even though it had nothing to do with libraries. It did, however, have to do with Baltimore nostalgia. Those who have seen John Waters know about his iconic mustache. During his "real" trip, he frets that it is starting to get a little bushy, and compares himself to "Baltimore's longest-running TV weatherman", Bob Turk. It is not just that I remember Bob Turk, in 1975 an eleven-year old me was invited to read a story on-the-air that I wrote for his local Christmas special program. It is one of my best childhood memories.

Bob Turk

John Waters

This was a fun and quick read. Fans of John Waters will not be disappointed.

The World's Strongest Librarian - by Josh Hanagarne

Well, I couldn't resist this one! Librarian Hanagarne begins each chapter of his life story with an anecdote about his work in the Salt Lake City Public Library, but most of what this book is really about is found in the subtitle: "A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family". As he tries to find the best way to live with Tourette Syndrome, he is also on a journey of strength training, parenting, and religious questioning.

Hanagarne writes about visiting the library as a baby and how he developed a true love for books and reading from a very early age, and all the librarians knew him by name. I was reminded about taking my own daughter to "book babies" story time at my own public library so that by the time she could walk the librarian remarked that she "strutted around like she owned the place". Now at age 16 she still loves the library, and in fact has a job at her high school library.

I loved reading that as a child Harnagarne's mother let him pick out whatever he wanted from the library. "He can read what he wants" she tells his father who worries that his son will "drive his teachers crazy" when he starts school. His mother's proclamation only goes so far though. She is unhappy about her fifth grader's choice of Stephen King's Misery and puts her foot down, telling him the book is not appropriate for him. Hanagarne, however, finds ways around his mother's prohibition. (See the Wikipedia entry on The Streisand Effect for more information about how forbidding something will only make it more desirable.) I also loved that as a fifth-grader Hanagarne read Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret . While reading Judy Blume's classic work was de riguer for all the girls in my fifth grade class, if any of the boys in my class ever read it, they certainly didn't do it in public.

Throughout the work we see Hanagarne's love affair with books demonstrated over and over again.  As a fifth-grader at a newly built elementary school he marvels at the all the brand new books in the library "a virgin landscape of pages and paragraphs and dust jackets...". He packs eight boxes of books to take with him to college; and knows he has found the woman of his dreams when she shows him the accessories she made for her Strawberry Shortcake dolls as a girl which included  homemade backbacks, each carrying tiny hand-sewn books. "That Jeanette had spent her childhood sewing books so that her dolls could be literate was too perfect." Of course he instills a love of libraries and reading in his own young son, and puts no restrictions on what he can read (at least he doesn't admit to any). Stay tuned next week for my Banned Books Week essay about why I let my daughter read whatever she wants.

I was especially intrigued by his description of a patron in his library who traveled from Nicaragua. The visitor was awed by the huge library, where information was free. A "miracle" he called it, so different than anything he was used to. The following pictures may give readers an idea as to what he meant.

Here is your blogger is at the National Museum in Managua in 2006. Notice not only the use of the card catalog, but that several of the drawers are missing.

Here I am six years later, in front of a library that is closed during the coffee-picking season.

After 10 years of picking away at his undergraduate degree, Hanagarne manages to get his Masters degree in Library Science in just one year. The author sums up his library school experience thusly: "Library school was uninspiring." I often wonder about those librarians I speak with who did find their studies inspiring. Did they take better classes? Go to a better school? or do they just think that much differently than the rest of us? Uninspiring indeed.

The descriptions of body building were the least interesting aspect of the book to me, though I was bemused by the reactions of those who found out what the super-tall, muscular man did for a living. People really seemed to have a hard time reconciling these two facets of his life. "You're a strong guy" one observer says. "Do you work in construction or something?" "I'm a librarian" responds Hanagarne. "Oh. Wait, what - like in a library". Yeah.

I checked  this book out from the library where I work. Our standard location for a barcode is on the top of inside back flap of the book jacket, where one likely finds a short "about the author" biography. And so it is for this book. I got a kick out of the fact that the photo of Hanagarne, holding a boulder over his head, has been altered by the barcode placement, so that he looks like he is holding up the barcode over his head. Seems appropriate somehow for the world's strongest librarian.

Read Josh Hanagarne's blog at http://worldsstrongestlibrarian.com/