November 16, 2007: Cultures, by Rico Suave

607

L: I have the world’s best information retrieval system. It is called a desk. If you come into my office, you will see a pile of things, but I put them there, so I know where they are. Corollary no. 1: never put anything on my desk.

L: McGill does not buy fiction. If McGill buys it, it is, by definition, literature.

L: Unless you know everything, and it is your duty as new librarians to make the world think you know everything (between ourselves, you don’t have to know everything, you just have to know where to look it up)...

L: It is considered bad form to start a new paragraph at the end of each word.

B(TA): There were these people who weren’t that famous so you wouldn’t necessarily know when they died, and so people would get upset because there were these authors who were born in 1831 who never died...I knew one guy whose job it was to look up all the obituaries and figure out when all these people died.

B: But marriage will always equal love, and love won’t always equal marriage, so I don’t understand why the broader term...
L: Fortunately, this is a cataloguing course, not life skills, or philosophy...

L: North American librarianship is very much driven by the United States, and we all know that everyone speaks English, and if they don’t, they’re not worth considering...

601:

MNy: If I were you, I would take that as a personal insult. I always think paranoia is a good way to start an academic career.

MN: Anyone who spends the day listening to Fox News; if you’re not illiterate when you begin, you will be by the end of the day.....

Nt: When I was doing my undergraduate at Queen’s, they had we called it “the purple passion pit.” The 6th floor of the library was all done in purple vinyl. We never used it for study...well, not that kind of study....multi-purpose, utilitarian....that purple just did something to people.

N: Really, there’s only coffee in here, I swear. Maybe if there was something stronger, I would be better. You have to realize, my mother-in-law left this morning. It’s been a long week.

X: Where are these books banned?
S1. Texas...It’s always Texas. You can marry your cousin, but you can’t read that book.

Y: They always interview kooky British people on CBC. People with tanks on their front yard, big fish...they’re British, so it must be true! And they’re all kooky.
N: And they all live a certain distance from Reading.

C: I hate that movie (It’s a Wonderful Life). My family always makes fun of me. They’re like ‘That’s your future! That’s going to be you!’
S1: Because George Bailey’s such a better alternative. He’s such a moody bastard.
C: Seriously. I’d rather work at the library.

S1: Although, if you take naked pictures of your kid and post it on Facebook, is that pornography?
C: Generally no. But that is creepy.

615

B: What’s Grey Owl’s real name?
S1: Pierce Brosnan?

B: When was George W. Bush Born?
?: Yesterday?

B: (on dead people server) If I was doing important historical research, I’m not sure this would be the first place I’d go to find dead people...

?: It (The Académie Française] has no legal power. So even when they come up with recommendations, the French government feels quite free to laugh at them and do something else.

617

Be: Lots of good inventions have come from wars, so wars are good, actually.

CT: I could decide to divide you by gender. I don’t know when that’s useful but they always seem to do that...*ponders deeply*

CT: They could be like one name, like those countries where people have only one name, like...*ponders*
J1: Cultures, by Rico Suave.

CT: Some of you have been worrying about the project, which is due on the fourteenth, I believe...
Class: Seventeenth!!

CT: Ok, so if I want to tell the search engine “I want to search for the word “and,” goddamnit!!, then I...

CT: Divide everything that’s good by everything that’s good in the world, the database being the world...

CT: I bet you can meet some people who will argue that everything they want to know is on Google.
B: That may be true.
X: D: That depends on what they want to know. If they don’t want to know many things, they may all be there.
CT: You don’t want to tell them that...slippery slope...

CT: Ok, so, closed stacks is ‘What book do you want? What book do you want? What book do you want? Thank you. Here’s your book.’...Open stacks is ‘I’m not here. Go find your own book’....why did it change? People like to feel empowered. The ‘I want this book please. It’s called 'Everything you want to know about sex’ – people don’t like that.

Misc:

C: I heard most of the Leonard Cohen stories are like ‘yeah....Leonard Cohen checked out my ass...’ So clearly mine is better. It involves a hamster.

P: Let’s analyze this. If you die, you wouldn’t have to come here.
C: Or do your project.
S2: That’s true.
P: Or wander around Montreal wondering why it smells like hot dogs.

P: One of these days, I’m going to be like ‘Why does it smell like burnt peanut butter?’ and...
S2: ...and I’m going to smell nothing because of all my years and years and years and years and years of drug addiction.
P: I’m not sure if you’re kidding.
S2: I am, I am. When in doubt, assume I’m kidding. Except one day I’m going to be like ‘My brother died’ and you’re going to think I’m kidding and I’ll hate you forever.
P: Do you have a brother?
S2: Yes.
P: I hope he dies.

S2: How’s it going?
C: *unenthusiastic gesture* I’m writing a long, single-spaced paper.
S: What for?
C2: Info & Society. Case Study.
S2: Oh.
C: I have colourful bullet points, but they’re not cheering me up. There are three colours in the little dots there, but it’s not helping.
S2 *awkward look*

S2: Aw, I don’t want the death glare! Now L will never add me on Facebook!!

C: I remember reading about yetis. Yetis and drugs...seriously, every language class I took, we always read about drugs. Except Old Norse. That just had people running around and killing each other with axes and things. Although there also was this guy whose clothes burst off him at his son’s funeral because he got so emotional that his muscles swelled, so...
S1: ...his clothes burst off him.
C: Yeah, yeah, so rampant nudity, gratuitous disrobings, violence, but most of my language classes have been about drugs.
S1: If you told kids that, they’d probably take more language classes.
C: Probably.

R: I have no desire to work.
C: Strangely enough, I feel the same way.
R: Can’t imagine why.
C: I think I’m going to quit and become a hobo.
D1: It’s too cold to become a hobo.
C: Maybe I’ll spend the rest of my tuition money to get to California and then become a hobo.
D1: It’s a good place to be a hobo. If you’re going to be a hobo.
C: Or Spain. Maybe I’ll be a Spanish hobo.
R: And it’s a welfare country. Although you’re not a citizen...
C: I could work on my languages. I don’t have to give up on my education, just because I’m dropping school and becoming a hobo...

C: I love InMagic. I want to have its babies. In comparison.
P: I’m glad you said ‘in comparison.’

C: I think I read it in, like, grade seven...
P: You read erotic literature when you were thirteen?!
C: I don’t think I got everything from it that I could have...nuances...
(We were just talking about DeSade, ok? Actually, I don’t suppose that helps my case...I just read it out of literary interest....I don’t know how sad that is that that’s true...)

P: Michel Foucault? You just get weirder and weirder...

P: Can I ask why it’s propped up?
C: The fan is broken. No, it’s an OCD thing!
P: It must be tilted!
C: My computer is old. And slow. And makes me cry. I cry to myself at night. In my sleep...
P: Why are you telling me this?!

J2: Oh my fat god!
C: Oh your fat god? Your god is fat?
P: Are you Buddhist?
J2: Only when I’m swearing.

V: Where are you going?
P: I have to do my thing. My thing...thing. It burns when I pee! Don’t write that!

C: My cousin made out with him (Arnold).
P: So it’s not just you, it’s your whole family.
C: Yes.
P: I’d probably do that. I’d get the goat to give me fellatio.
C: That’s not an image I want!!!

P: Were you going to say people pay to touch you? Because you said people pay and then you went...
J2: I cut that sentence off for a reason.

P: What are you writing? Are you writing ‘What are you writing?’? Are you writing ‘Are you writing ‘What are you writing?’?’?

S2: Fifteen minutes. That’s not enough time to write a French e-mail, is it?
D2: ‘French e-mail?’ Is that code for something? ‘French letter’ is condom, ‘French e-mail’ is...?

U: I have misspelt Irving Layton's name so many times in the last few days.

B: No one can read my handwriting.
C: No one can read my handwriting. (shows sample)
B: Yeah, but mine is bad, no one can read it, and I write in print.
C: This is print.

B: When I sit at the reference desk, I don’t get many people, but when the other ladies sit there, they get a lot more people, because they look like professional librarians...
J3: You look too much like a student.
C: Maybe you should get a long grey beard.
B: Dye my beard...yeah...
J3: Maybe if you looked a little less like Harry Potter.
B: But I like my glasses! Shut up. I’ve admitted I look like him. Shut up. But it’s kind of a gyp because I don’t get his powers. I’d be fine with looking like him if I could use mangled Latin to do stuff.

A: You crapped your pants in kindergarten?
P: No, I peed my pants in kindergarten.