Awesome Sauce for Chicagoans

The Midwest chapter of The Awesome Foundation has elected to give $1000 to a nonprofit called Little Free Library. As this WBEZ article explains, Chicago’s Awesome Foundation is a group of ten individuals who seek to better the city by collectively donate money to a single chosen organization.

Right now, they are supporting Little Free Library, a choice I fully endorse. The Wisconsin-based LFL funds an effort to create clusters of micro libraries all over the world. These “libraries” are actually rather small shelves (they look like custom dollhouses or bird cages). But they each contain an unlimited amount of information, for whenever a patron takes a book, they must leave one. That’s it. No registering for a library card, and no payment of any kind. What the libraries may lack in depth they make up for in convenience. Better yet, they have the potential to bring communities together to support literacy, no small thing in areas that lack functioning public libraries.

So far, Chicago locations include:

Langley Ave. Church of God

6159 South Langley Ave.

Lincoln Memorial Congregational United Church of Christ

6454 South Champlain Ave.

The Young Women’s Leadership Charter School

2641 South Calumet Ave.

Angelic Organics Urban Learning Center

6400 South Kimbark Ave.

Ian’s Pizza

3463 North Clark St.

LC Book Giveaway

The very cool LC's Adventure's in Libraryland is having a book giveaway for those who follow, comment, and promote the blog. I suggest any one interested enter now!

English Literature 000:Urban Crime, Black Feminism & New England Puritans

The English Literature 000 segment of this blog will explore books I've sold (as Lawler Books on Amazon Marketplace), books I've read, books I'm reading, books I've bludgeoned folks with, ect.

The accidental theme of the week seems to be events in and about Washington D.C. Seriously, even the Pinkerton book I read last week mostly took place in D.C. And the Capitol was prominent in the news, too, as frat boys lit up the joint in order to celebrate the death of some notorious bearded man or something. Frat boys have a legendary antipathy towards beards, I'm told.

Anyway:

For Mother's Day, I got my NPR-worshipping mother The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. "I saw her on The Colbert Report/Daily Show," says Mom (To her, they are the same show), "She looks exactly the way I would have expected." She made this comment in approval of Vowell, obvs.

Still more literature on U.S History, because I love to gaze hypnotically at my country's navel. Thus, I've been reading Paula Giddings' When and Where I Enter. Ida B. Wells is now my personal icon. She was a sh*t-stirrer in the best possible way.

I finished Drama City by George Pelecanos this very morning. There is nothing like an operatic shootout between D.C gangsters to get the blood pumping. Pelecanos was a producer on The Wire, and reading this novel makes me want to devour the whole series during a solitary weekend. It is hopeful, human, elegiac, and violent without getting off on violence (although one character does get erect after stabbing women and watching rotwielers shred one another to pieces. Parental Warning).

Finally, Lawler Books sold Etendre y Hablar, a 1961 Spanish Language textbook. It's full of some very nostalgic illustrations, totally demonstrative of a certain conservative era at the tail end of the 50s, I guess. Stylistically, the sketches remind me of the opening credits from Bewitched. I'm guessing this aesthetic is the reason why the book sold. Certainly, it is not the most up-to-date Spanish primer. [Spanish Phrase of the Day: No sé lo que tengo]

Oh, and FYI: Vowell's book is about the East Coast (D.C counts as the East Coast, right? I didn't read the book); When and Where I Enter covers MLK jr's March on Washington; and Pelecanos' novel, as I've said, takes place in "Dodge City" (Pelecanos Note: "D.C don't stand for Dodge City").