hi everyone!
this is noella writing, checking into the 'blogosphere' to share my thoughts with you on my very favorite librarian ever, mr. daniel menche! i'm not sure why, but i seem to have a lot of librarians in my life. maybe it's because i went to mills & i was surrounded by english majors, many of whom went on to library school, but it extends even further than that. many of my good friends are librarians. in addition to the lovely sarah spence, one of my first friends at mills (and a fine library employee, along with her mother!), there is also my friend matt, who has worked all over the oakland public library system and gotten jobs for countless other friends in that network (oh, those were the days--there was a time when i even considered applying for a position!). then there's our lovely librarian customers, such as trevor, and ed, and our anarchist friend who works at the san francisco public library; plus we can't forget all of our friends at the piedmont avenue library. and finally, there's our #1 star customer BW, who has embarked upon the library journey himself, by enrolling in the ever-popular library program at san jose state. so yeah, i think you get it, i am surrounded by librarians! i can't escape them! we are attracted to each other like positive and negative charge! i love librarians!!!!
which brings me back to mr. daniel menche. some of you may know 'menche' (as he is called in some circles) for his prolific forays into the world of sound art/noise (and no, please, let's not have that debate right now!!!!). to avoid it altogether, let's restate it like this: menche is a guy who makes music that some may call 'noise' and some may call 'sound art' but in any case, he is a pretty nice guy and yes, he is a librarian!!!! i don't know menche too well but i do occasionally check out his blog: WHAT DOES BLOOD SOUND LIKE? and it is there that i found an entry which put menche at the very top of my librarian list!
now i realize that this may upset some of my librarian friends, but i ask that you please cast those feelings aside for just a moment and hear me out. just because he is my favorite librarian right now, doesn't mean you can't be my favorite librarian later! (remember: in this universe, change is the only constant! a fact that i hate!!!!) but i digress....as usual.
okay, back to menche. while checking out his blog one day, i stumbled upon a fabulous and amazing entry all about 'emo'. you see, menche is a high school librarian, and like many of us, he was perplexed about the whole teen 'emo' thing. so he took it to another level and incorporated it into his librarian duties. more on that later, but first let me say that i too am pretty confused by this whole 'emo' concept. i don't really get it.
i guess my first association with 'emo' was the band sunny day real estate; i liked them a lot & i think i remember someone telling me that they were 'emo'. then later on, while living in florida, i would go to see bands like hotwater music and peterbilt, both of whom i think were called 'emo' by some; and later in LA, i continued to check out similar music. but really, i never actually got it or understood what it meant as a musical form or cultural phenomenon. which is why it was funny or just strange when i was walking into the bathroom at the troubadour one night and i heard a girl behind me whisper to her friend, "that girl's like 'emo chick.' she goes to every show." so i guess without realizing it, somehow i had become 'emo'.
these days, i don't think about 'emo' much, but i know it's everywhere. being human, i am not immune to pop culture and the likes of tmz and perez hilton, which is where i learned that jessica simpson's sister ashlee is married to a guy named pete wentz and he is in a band called fall out boy and that band is 'emo'. weird, huh?! even weirder, my friend's 10 year-old daughter shops at hot topic and wears clothes that say things like 'emo princess'. and i heard on tv that 'emo' these days means that you are dark and depressed and you are prone to cutting yourself to dull the pain. wow, nowadays, 'emo' really sucks!
which brings me back, again, to daniel menche, my very favorite librarian. being a high school librarian could be really hard or really challenging, but it could also be an amazing and incredible way to inspire and be inspired by the awesome young people of this earth. and so, when daniel menche was posed with the 'emo' conundrum, he took it full throttle and made an EMO section in his high school library, giving the dark & depressed teens resources to explore their feelings & their meanings--and all in a totally rock & roll way!!!! how totally radical!!!!
here's some pictures for you, but you can also read all about menche's quest for 'emo' understanding here: EMO A GOO GOO....EMO A GA GA!
and while you're visiting that post, why not check out the rest of menche's blog? the full address is here: http://danielmenche.blogspot.com/. it probably won't take you long to figure out the blog's true star: ARROW!!!! often found in wilderness-like situations, ARROW is quite the adventurer!
take care of menche, little guy. the kids need him! xoxo noella
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