Camden K

Reader, tea-drinker, and shameless promoter of my loved ones' achievements. I graduated from Goucher College in 2012 with a B.A. in English and San Jose State University in 2017 with a MLIS. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my idiot dog and massive shelf of unread books.

[camdenkimura]

I read a great list on @bookriot today: 50 DIY Reading Challenges To Make 2018 The Best Year Of Your Reading Life. This year has been really, really bad for me, reading wise. I read 6 books all year according to Goodreads! 6! (Not including all the picture books for storytime, which I don’t, because I’ve forgotten all of them as soon as I’ve finished storytime.) I know that part of this is that for the first half of the year, I simply had no time or energy. But for a full-time librarian, this is a really, really bad look, so I took some inspiration from the DIY Reading Challenges and also made up a couple of my own. Here they are:

Think of one or two authors who have written at least one book that you’ve loved. Now read everything else those authors have published (from Book Riot). I keep saying that Sherman Alexie is my favorite author and despite having read five of his books, I’m still missing huge parts of his catalog. My author challenge for year: read all of Sherman Alexie’s books! (And try not to buy them all?!)

Read a book about and/or written by a follower of each of the world’s four largest religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (from Book Riot). I’m also adding Judaism to this list. I’ve read a little Christian non-fiction, but NOTHING of the other religions and I think that’s a horrible oversight on my part as a person of faith. My faith challenge for the year: read outside my religion!

Read at least half of the Star Wars EU books languishing on my shelf. Look. I own so much new!EU and I’ve read, oh, two of them? Two and a half? And it’s almost entirely the YA novels! I could burn through couple of those in a few weeks! My fun (and easy) challenge for the year: get lost in a galaxy far, far away!

Finish a series. This is just to kick my ass into reading Magnus Chase #3 and finishing the Six of Crows duology. This is also an easier challenge, but no less important because I’ve been pissed off by the SoC cliff-hanger for over two years and yet have done nothing to rectify it. My procrastination challenge for the year: finish a series I’ve been meaning to finish!

It looks like a lot but I think it will give me more focus than just me setting an arbitrary goal on Goodreads with no guidance or purpose. I need guidance! I need purpose! I need specific goals! My guiding principle this year was “uh, I guess something from my irl tbr shelf?” WHICH DID NOT WORK. My irl tbr shelf is so packed that I don’t even know how to attack it! But the thing is, I own books that would fit each of these challenges, so I think that this is a good way to approach whittling down that pile. (And I work in a freakin’ public library, so it’s not like getting these books for free is going to be difficult.) I think these challenges will keep me on track! (And of course, this is all in addition to any bookclubs/book discussions I might get roped into this year.)

Bring on 2018!

[bookriot]

Looking for some rad reading challenges for 2018? Whether you’re a seasoned reading challenge pro or a total newbie, I’ve got you covered with 50 ideas for DIY reading challenges. All you need is a library! Friends, the bookish internet, a notebook and/or spreadsheet, and your favorite bookstores are also helpful, but not required.

https://bookriot.com/2017/12/11/diy-reading-challenges/

[camdenkimura]

The article I referenced in my post as the driving force behind my reading goals for 2018! ^_^

[camdenkimura]

Applestein-Sweren Book Collecting Prize

New Folks Call Me Dill post on my co-winning the Applestein-Sweren Book Collecting Prize! No story, just rambling after the discovery that Goucher had put my essay online. (I may have known this before and just forgotten.)

Read it here.

[camdenkimura]

Hello all! Long time no update; school, etc. I am on break now and have decided to start a blog for my To Kill A Mockingbird collection! I hope to update it every Tuesday. I wanted to learn Wordpress and practice my descriptive bibliography skills (hah) but my first post so far is just a story. I don’t know how long it will go or how interesting it will be because there are only so many ways to say “I bought this book when I was sad but I don’t remember where” but hopefully there will be some interesting stories or objects! Check it out if you want to read about a nerdy collection:

https://charlesbakerharris.wordpress.com/

[quotemybooks]

Writing stories is a kind of magic, too.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (via quotemybooks)

[riverpheonixs]

[camdenkimura]

The Joy of Books by Ohkamp

This is adorable!

[fykamalakhan]

#WOCtoberfest : Kamala Khan

[camdenkimura]

I have such massive overprotective older sister feelings about Kamala Khan. Girl, I support you! And I’ve only read the first trade - god knows what will happen to me when I get my hands on the second.

[camdenkimura]

Pumped Up Kicks - YONAS

In addition to be a GREAT jam, the music video is freaking adorable.

[camdenkimura]

Long time no post, tumblr! When school kicked in, it really kicked in and this tumblr fell by the wayside. I’m going to attempt to be better at updating it.

Here are some things I did last year:

Read all the Elephant & Piggie books, my new favorite series after Harry Potter.

Saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier twice in theatres, which was frankly not enough times and not a very impressive amount of times either. I still feel very connected to it. My favorite part was Bucky Barnes’ hair and Natasha Romanoff in general.

Fell in love with Young Avengers and mourned every day that I am too old to be in their crew. 

Someone needs to write “Mid-twenties Avengers” wherein people in their twenties suffer/fight their way through such situations as “Doing Their Taxes On Their Own For Only the Second Or Third Time And Worrying About It” and “Eating The Right Amount Of Vegetables.”

More or less memorized every song on Lorde’s “Heroine.” According to last.fm I’ve listened to “White Teeth Teens” 1300 times.

Watched the fourth season of The Killing and fell apart over the ending. Best cut to black I’ve ever experienced.

Still working at the Children’s Library; still love it!

Survived my first year of school and enjoyed it.

Here are some things I’ve done this year (did you know it’s March? I keep forgetting and then marveling and then panicking a little):

Read six Jedi Apprentice books in six days. No, I don’t know why I did it either. I didn’t wholly enjoy the experience. You can see my half-assed reviews on GoodReads.

Started reading Bitch Planet regularly. I am strongly considering a pull list just for this comic as it. is. amazing.

Finished watching Legend of Korra. I only started because I was spoiled for the ending and was so happy for the fandom. (I watched reaction videos just after the last episode aired - if you are ever sad, please watch every video in this post or just this reaction compilation video.) The first two seasons are a slog but worth it for the third and fourth seasons. Wow-ee.

Still working the Children’s Library; still love it!

Started my fourth semester at SJSU and am so far enjoying it. I’m taking a class for reference librarianship and one on young adult librarianship and they are both so fascinating and inspiring.

We’ll see what happens the rest of the year! As a general note, I am frequently on twitter, usually musing over how libraries work in the wizarding world and reviewing seasonal teas. Feel free to catch up with me there!

[explore-blog]

Ze Frank and the Monterey Bay Aquarium present “True Facts About the Octopus” –  a deep dive into the peculiar world of one of the planet’s most extraordinary creatures. This explains some of the Ancient Romans’ fanciful beliefs about the octopus. 

[sfgiants]

Tonight’s #GoldenGIF - Angel Pagan saving a run and showing off his amazing hair

[oupacademic]

If you’ve ever sat down and tried writing a dictionary, you’ll be aware of what an onerous task it is … In March 1879, over 20 years after the idea was first conceived, a publisher was finally found; Murray was contracted by Oxford University Press to compile the new dictionary over what was envisaged to be a 10-year period.

Why was the creation of the first part of the Oxford English Dictionary particularly arduous? The Independent looks at the early history of the OED, and how it was first compiled. (via oupacademic)

[flamehans]

TheSOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) bill has resurfaced and is once again trying to be passed.

[fyeahcopyright]

The info at the link above? It isn’t true. 

Sorry we’re hitting FYC with a lot of SOPA stuff today, but we wanted to address the specific legal issues in OP’s post. Comments are inline:

No, it hasn’t resurfaced. There are lobbyists who would love for it to be reintroduced before Congress and taken through hearings and committees onto the floor and marked up and passed by both houses ad signed by the president (also see: Schoolhouse Rock’s I’m Just a Bill). But that’s not happening at the moment. 

When it happens, we’ll tell you - but even before we do, the EFF.org will! If you ever hear anything about SOPA and we haven’t posted about it, check out their http:.., and use their Search feature. if you don’t find something about SOPA on the front page, likely nothing is happening right now, but you can always use their Search box to double-check. 

The link attached will take you to a petition. Unless this petition reaches 100,000signatures by next week, this will happen:

No. Nothing bad will happen if the petition doesn’t reach that many signatures, because SOPA is not currently before Congress, and the Executive Branch doesn’t have the right to make SOPA into law by fiat. 

All websites containing media that refers to or is owned by a company that hasn’t given its permission for the media to be displayed can and will be shut down. This means sites such as Tumblr, Wattpad, Pinterist, fanfiction.com.

No. Does anyone seriously think that if this were the case, billion dollar companies like tumblr and Pinterest - and, btw, GOOGLE AND YOUTUBE, would not be doing everything in their power to prevent passage of a law that would destroy (some of) their revenue streams and cause them to be shut down? 

And that’s without getting into the specifics of this paragraph. Because you can use anyone’s trademark descriptively (ie to “refer to”) and you can use anyone’s copyright for Fair Use purposes, which includes education, news reporting and transformative works(aka most if not all noncommercial fanworks). 

People who post such media can and will be fined, with a maximum sentence of five years in prison. This includes, but is not limited to, people who own/post the following: fanfiction, fan art, roleplay blogs, fan blogs/accounts and movie streaming sites.

NO. There is NO PROPOSED LEGISLATION currently before either the House or the Senate that says this (as of March 13, 2014). Nothing. 

Now, this doesn’t mean it’s legal to make copies of other people’s films or tv shows or music and upload them or stream them- that’s already illegal under the Copyright Act and the penalties are harsh and in many cases out of line with any possible damage that could be caused by the infringement (look to Aron Swartz). 

But that law does not apply to transformative works. Types of transformative works are - you guessed it! - fanfiction, fan art, roleplay blogs and fan blogs/accounts. Check out the Organization for Transformative Works’ website, Legal Page and FAQ for more analysis and explanation of transformative works. 

But as we said above, movie streaming sites? Those are probably infringing, and if you want to be careful around the Copyright Act, don’t share on publicly accessible streams. 

The top of the petition we linked to above says “In this case, all fanart will be deleted, all fan-pages, fanfics, fan made videos, etc.” Now you know, that’s not true. 

So, what does all this mean? 

Doug Adams said it well in the 1970s. DON’T PANIC. If the time comes for us to panic, the brilliant people at the OTW and the EFF and Google and the paranoid people at Anonymous will tell us to panic. 

PLEASE don’t reblog rumors unless you’re reblogging them to link to a post that explains why the rumor is unfounded (like this one).

If you see a post shouting that SOPA is back or copyright terms are being extended another 100 years (or, frankly, even 10) or ALL THE WEBSITES YOU LOVE will be shut down, check with news.google.com or the nonprofit of your choice: EFF.org, TransformativeWorks.org, the Beekman Center at Harvard, or news sites like Wired, Rolling Stone or Mother Jones. We’re keeping an eye on it at fyeahcopyright.tumblr.com, too. Everyone is tracking this issue. 

It’s great to be an activist, but you’re wasting your time and your energy if you get distraught about something that isn’t actually happening. And our concern is, if people continue to whip up concern about fictional SOPA reboots every few months, if something actually does happen, people will ignore it because they’ll assume it’s just another round of nothing. 

Don’t let that happen! Check before you reblog anything that says creative content and the websites that host them will be banned, criminalized or destroyed. 

Chances are, they aren’t going to be. 

[msoderstrom]

[therumpus]

Spotlight: Thoughts While Reading by Sophie Lucido Johnson

[noiseymusic]

No Tomorrow: A South Side Heroin Addict Parses the Noise on Chief Keef and Violent Crime in Chicago

When everything began to fall apart for me in Chicago last year, I thought, fuck it, maybe it’s time to give heroin another shot after a nine-year hiatus. So, like any enterprising self-starter in the 21st century, I turned to the internet. One needn’t be a news junkie to know that Chicago—or more to the point, a handful of Chicago neighborhoods—is in the throes of perhaps the most desperate outbreak of senseless carnage this side of the (other) Great Lakes. And even my solipsistic English-lit-graduate-student self was aware that this shitstorm of dope-and-poverty-fueled mayhem centered in a handful of South Side neighborhoods that bordered my own tweedy Hyde Park zip code.

Chicago is a heroin town and, as anyone who’s seen an episode of The Wire knows, the drug trade is an intensely regional affair. A modicum of message board research taught me that in Chicago, $10 bags of heroin are called “blows,” and the ostensibly larger “dubs” go for twice that price. I also learned that while open-air drug markets are common on the city’s West Side, on the South Side it helps to know somebody. Lucky for me, I spent the summer interviewing residents and activists in the South Side neighborhoods of Washington Park, Englewood, and Woodlawn for a documentary film project (let’s acknowledge the absurdity of this situation and set it aside for the moment) and thus knew a handful of likely somebodies whom I could call upon.

A few phone calls later, a kid called Earvin—the names of all my pushers have been creatively changed to protect their identity while still acknowledging their significant contributions to my story—assured me he could find what I was looking for and I set out on the pleasant walk across Washington Park to the corner of 57th and King Dr. While Earvin and I waited for his connection to arrive, I did what any well meaning, vaguely plugged-in liberal white dude would do and decided to ask him what he thought of Chief Keef, whose primary hustling grounds were just a few blocks away. Earvin’s response was somehow both cryptic and revealing: “Keef’s alright, he just needs to open up his vocabulary a bit.”

Continue