Hello All,
I just finished a book, Dispatches From the Muckdog Gazette (Henry Holt
and Co., 2002), a spirited account of one man's relationship with his
natal town in western New York State. Author Bill Kauffman, from the sod
farms of Batavia, is brutally erudite and drops more cultural and
literary references than William F. Buckley on a first date.
Anyway, I found it significant that on p.119 Mr. Kauffman relates the
annual springtime ritual of townsfolk acting out the roles of famous
deceased inhabitants and that "Librarian Rita McCormack shushes the
urchin horde as the Richmond's first librarian, Mary Elizabeth Wood".
Okay the "shushing" thing will get me flamed big time, but it goes on
to mention a certain Terry McCormack who is described as delivering
"with grudging snorts" the passages of a native author during "Batavia
Reads John Gardner Night". This is the same Terry McCormack, A/V
librarian who heads up the Koren Media Center at the sprawling campus of
SUNY Buffalo, and Rita is his real-life wife and librarian of the
Batavia Public Library. Not too shabby!
What's a muckdog? You'll have to buy/borrow the book. Anyway, Dispatches
is good commuter reading and, under the capable hand of Mr. Kauffman, is
like a small-town experience in itself--you can't help but keep coming
back to it.
JP
--John Pedini Director of Media Services Social Law Library 1200 Court House Boston, MA 02108 Ph. (617) 226-1337 FAX (617) 523-2458
"Anachronistic diction is the badge of the longevous."
-Bill Kauffman
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:44:45 PST