L.A. Libraries reopen today!

It might not be big news where y’all live, but today, Monday the 18th of July, the libraries of Los Angeles will throw their doors open to the public, on a Monday, for the first time in months! That’s rights, thanks to the overwhelming voter approval of Measure L, the libraries have had enough of their funding restored so that they’ll be able to be open and fully-staffed on Mondays again. Hooray!

Greta and I already have very comprehensive lists prepared of all the books and movies we’re gonna check out today. So, see ya in the stacks, amigos!

Save our libraries, vote “Yes on Measure L” today!!

Oh, man, you don’t even wanna know how bummed Christine and I are that we can’t vote “Yes on Measure L” today. But, because we live in Burbank, which is its own city, we cannot. But what we can do is urge anyone of voting age in Los Angeles to get out there today and save our libraries!

Even before Christine starting working at The Library Store, we used the hell out of the libraries in Los Angeles and beyond, and now that Greta is here, well, forget about it. Books and libraries are a huge part of our lives and let me tell ya, the libraries in Los Angeles are in serious trouble.

Shortened hours, brutal staff and budget cuts and a philistine mayor and city hall who care more about pricey, unproven after-school gang prevention programs than they do about libraries have driven the already beleaguered LAPL system even further into the ground.

Well, guess what else keeps kids off the streets and out of gangs, Mayor Villaraigosa? You got it, libraries! Los Angeles ranks last in per capita spending on library materials in the eight largest U.S. library systems…LAST! We are a major metropolitan city, amigos, that is just plain shameful.

Great cities deserve great libraries, they are the cornerstone of learning and a real beacon of light in our community, especially in these troubled times, so, please, please vote “Yes on L” today.

To read more about the awesomeness that is Measure L, please click here.

“The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition”

Even though Greta had a lot of fun opening presents and stuff last Christmas, this is the first year that she’s been really getting into all the cool holiday traditions and stuff — music, lights, Santa, etc. — so, needless to say, every day has been an adventure this December!

And adding to that holiday magic has been the super-cute Christmas book, “The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition” by Carol V. Aebersold and Chanda A. Bell, with illustrations by Coë Steinwart. We bought this book and toy set (each book comes with a different looking toy elf inside) at a post-Christmas sale at Nordstroms last year, and, man alive, am I glad we did!

Here’s how it works. According to the story, every night, your personal elf (who you name and register online) heads home to the North Pole to tell Santa how you’ve been behaving that day. And every morning when you wake up, your elf is sitting in a new location in your house.

Our elf is named Paul (Greta named him, and we have no idea where the name came from) but lemme tell ya, watching her look for him every morning is hilarious and the look on her face when she finds him, well, if you could put Christmas in a bottle, that’s what it’d look like. Adorable!

I know it’s a little late in the season to start your own “The Elf on the Shelf” tradition, but, you could always do what we did and pick one up on the 26th for next year. Either way, this is a total holiday must-have for anyone with little kids…so cute!

Trailer Thursday: “Never Let Me Go”

Thanks to a certain video clip that our friend Danielle recommended for Greta, I have been spending a lot of time on YouTube these days and…wow, there are some cool-ass movie trailers out there! So, starting today, I am going to share my favorite new movie trailers with you every Thursday. Pretty exciting, huh?

To launch this bold, new venture I’ve chosen a trailer for the upcoming Oscar-bait drama, “Never Let Me Go”. Based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro — one of Christine’s favorite novelists, Ishiguro is probably most famous for writing “The Remains of the Day” — “Never Let Me Go” follows three characters from childhood to young adulthood in a mildly futuristic England where human clones are “grown” to adulthood and then harvested for their parts.

Most of that stuff is hinted at in the trailer, so, I hope I’m not giving too much away, but, wow, this book absolutely floored me! Yes, Wendy, I read a book, and it was beautiful. I actually dreamt about  this one several times while reading it and even now, I am totally haunted by the strange, delicate beauty of this novel. Seriously, if you haven’t read it, amigos, you gotta check it out. Amazing…

Or, you could just wait for the movie, which, judging by this awesome trailer, seems to capture at least some of the wistfulness of the book. My only concern about the movie is that it’s directed by Mark Romanek, who is a former music video guy and that always scares me a bit.

But when you have Oscar-nominees Carey Mulligan and Kiera Knightley starring alongside the dude who will be the next “Spiderman”, and a script from “The Beach” and “28 Days Later” scribe, Alex Garland, it’d be pretty hard for Romanek to screw this one up. That said, great books become horrible movies everyday in this town — um, hello, “Atonement” anyone? — so, you never know.

Either way, this trailer rocks. So, enjoy!

J.D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Man…January has turned out to be a pretty cruel month for influential authors of a certain age. Last week we lost “Love Story” scribe Eric Segal and hard-boiled “Spenser” creator Robert B. Parker, and today, the biggest name of them all…the crazy-reclusive, Garbo of literature, J.D. Salinger passed away at his home in Cornish, New Hampshire at the age of 91.

I’m not comparing their talents or anything — yes, amigos, the slowest reader on earth has actually read books by all three of the late greats listed above, so, suck it! — because, really, there is no comparison…Salinger’s “The Catcher In The Rye” is one of my favorite books of all time.

Now, I know everybody says that about “The Catcher In The Rye”, but, it’s true. That book rocked my world when I first read it and though my knowledge of Salinger’s other works comes mostly second-hand from my brother, Ryan — the true Salinger fanatic in our family! — I gotta tell ya, Salinger played a huge role in my development as a writer.

His use of slang and swinging, mid-century prose rattled my brain. I mean, whoa…that book was this shit, man. You weren’t just reading a book for your high school English class, you were cracking open Holden Caulfield’s head and peeking inside the man’s freaky soul, it was insane. Hell, it’s still insane!

“Catcher In The Rye” is one of like, three novels (“East of Eden” and “On The Road” being the other two) that is so good that it actually makes me shake all over when I read it. I wanna highlight every passage, memorize every line and read it aloud to Greta…all at the same time!

All I’m hoping is that the rumors are true and that Salinger left scads of books and short stories behind for us to read in the years to come. His daughter and several of his ex-lovers have mentioned the fact that Salinger wrote like a madman every day of his life…so, I’m guessing at least some of those wild ramblings must be worth reading.

In her 2001 memoir, “Dream Catcher”, Salinger’s daughter, Margaret said that her father actually color-coded his dozens of unpublished manuscripts: “A red mark meant, if I die before I finish my work, publish this ‘as is,’ blue meant publish, but edit first, and so on.”

So, if there is any solace to be found in losing Salinger today, it’s in hoping that some (if not all!) of those cryptic, red-marked manuscripts start bubbling to the surface very soon! Rest in peace, J.D., and here’s hoping you find some much-deserved privacy in the hereafter…