Notices by Jessamyn (jessamyn@glammr.us)

I did not write this (mostly) @richlitt did, but for those who are really interested in taxonomy, metadata and the historical record of same might enjoy this little article about preserving interpretive metadata in the sciences.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.27271

@HauntedOwlbear That looks really cool and once I watched the YouTube video I actually understood how to use it.

RE: https://mastodonapp.uk/@taoish/116884161402249680

One of the biggest questions I get at Drop-In Time at the library (besides "what is taking up all my cloud storage??) is how to disable or avoid intrusive AI that shows up where people don't want it. I'm going to make a handout that explains how to do some of the basic AI-removal or AI-avoidance things.

Would appreciate links which give simple steps to do this for the most-used (Siri, Alexa, Gemini, Copilot, Firefox's AI nonsense &c.) so I can collate and synthesize. Thanks!

Book 7: The Treasure of the Black Swan. A graphic novel about a shipwreck and the drama trying to figure out who was legally entitled to the treasure. It involves diplomats, lawyers, treasure hunters and US, Peruvian and Spanish jurisdiction. Based on a true story (which I did not read up on until afterwards) it's an interesting and well-told and easy to follow story even though it was clearly a pretty convoluted situation at the time.

Book 8: Vern Custodian of the Universe. A short fun graphic novel about Vern who is having a tough time coping with the earth being a mess. His mom and grandma nudge him into a job at Quasar which... does what exactly? Stuff happens on an interdimensional level and Vern has a front-row seat. This is one of those graphic novels which really feels like it was a lot of fun to draw: quirky, trippy, and colorful, with a good sense of humor and a good heart at the center of it.

Book 9: Haunt Sweet Home. A short novel about Mara, a youngish woman who doesn't quite fit in with her family or life in general. After drifting about, she lands a job on the night shift of a reality tv show about people who buy houses and then find out they are haunted. You'd think it would be tough to find enough people for that, but the crew gives extra haunting nudges along the way. Mara's a bit of a loner and still figuring things out and the show gives her life a temporary focus.

Book 10. Apple Watch for Dummies. I knew this book wasn't going to be great. But I got a used Apple Watch (partner has one, he likes it, was I just reflexively disliking?) & wanted to learn about it w/o watching a video or reading AI slop. I learned HTML from a Dummies guide, how bad could it be? THEY MISSPELLED THE WORD WATCH, for one. Tons of typos. Text which felt copied straight from Apple's marketing. Awful "jokes." I learned about maybe four features and feel dumber for having read it.

Book 11: The Joy of Snacking. It's hard when you don't like someone's deeply personal memoir, but I didn't. The front cover of this book made it seem like it was about snacks and... er... joy. The back cover makes it clear that it's about the author's lifelong struggle with some sort of disordered eating, an unhelpful bad relationship, and a confusing relationship with both her parents and her body. And a lot of it was told in a roundabout non-linear style so I wasn't even sure what was going on

Book 12: If Wishes Were Retail. No idea where I found this one. It's a fun book about a disaffected young woman, Alex, stuck with her shitty family looking for a job, any job. And she finds one... working for a genie in a retail kiosk at the mall. He's selling wishes which, of course, gets complicated really fast. He doesn't know much about the human world, and she's got big dreams about going away to college and leaving this all behind. Better than it seemed like it would be, and much funnier.

Book 13: Call Me Iggy. A sweet YA graphic novel about Ignacio, a kid whose parents immigrated from Colombia, trying to navigate being in high school (and Spanish class) with young women who he suddenly has an interest in, and also his jerk older brother. He connects with the spirit of his Colombian grandfather, who mostly helps him with some of this. This book touches on so many useful concepts (various Latinx identities, DACA, a little bit of US politics) and has a good heart at its core.

Book 14: The Locked Room. This is the penultimate book in this series and the plot points are coming in fast and furious. There's not really even that much archaeology in this one. Covid is really center stage and just ramping up. Ruth gets a new neighbor and finds out some interesting facts about her. Then there's a weird connection between a string of deaths that doesn't even get explained that much. I liked it because I'm mostly here for the people but a bit thin on plot.

Book 15: Silent No Longer: Advancing the Fight for Disability Rights. From the new shelf at my library, written by the CEO of a non-profit company which supports moving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities into supported living situations outside of institutions. Obviously he's got an angle. This book explains both what his company does (and how) but also why it's the RIGHT thing to do. Fewer stories from actual clients than I'd like, but still good overall.

Book 16: Black Arms to Hold You Up. Ben Passmore is a Black anarchist and graphic novelist. This book uses the framing of his mostly-absent dad coming back around and trying to school the slightly-politically apathetic Passmore about the history of Black resistance in the US, and Black armed resistance in particular. No punches pulled. The cops are drawn as pigs, a lot of it takes place in and around the carceral state, all the protagonists are complicated. I knew some of this, not all of it.

Book 17: Out on the Porch. I have a big porch Someone gave this to me. I thought "Oh neat, like my porch" but this is very specifically a book about SOUTHERN porches which means it has a certain vibe to it that is at once familiar (Faulkner, Lee, Wolfe, Morrison) but not what I was looking for. It's a nice commonplace book with lit excerpts about porches (Southern porches) alongside some nice photography of various kinds of porches. There's also an intro by Reynolds Price who I had not heard of.

Book 18: The Light Pirate. The VT Reads book for 2025. Many of the VT Reads books have been pretty heavy. Someone assured me this was not like that, even though it deals with catastrophic climate change (as in: there is no more Florida) topics. I thought this was a good book but it was also pretty grim. The main theme is that we need to start living in and preparing for the future world, not the past one we are already missing, but also managing the grief around that. Masterful but upsetting.

Book 19: The Last Remains. This is the final book in this series. No love to an author who writes two series and culminates each one with a book with "Last" in the title (i.e. I took the wrong one home from the library at first). This wraps up sort of like you think it will. A little pat and a little zipzip for a 15-series book, but overall for people who like murder mysteries and especially a female protagonist and complex humans, it was a great read.

Book 20: The Quiet Ear. Antrobus is a biracial poet who grew up working class in the UK with partial deafness. His memoir talks about his life before and after getting diagnosed, getting hearing aids, finding his voice, getting therapy, having a child, using BSE and BSL, and other milestones. The narrative jumps around a lot and is more like a series of vignettes than one single narrative. I particularly liked learning more about D/deaf poetry.

Book 21: Run Home. This is a graphic memoir about a woman who deals with a new school and a family tragedy and where and how she finds support, including with her running team at school. She is Puerto Rican (but also white and does not speak Spanish) living in New York and the book's timeframe is just post-9/11. Like the cover, the book has a great graphic style. Unlike many other memoirs, the author works through some complex emotions in a constructive and supported way.

DNF: Space Trucker Jess. I got halfway through this book and noped out of it because I was just not interested in where it was going. A spacefaring teenager in a future where kids grow up fast is in search of her father who may have gone missing when the planet he was on just... vanished? She's canny and lonely and interacts with, among other things, a planet all full of people who commune with the divine via an herb they smoke. A LOT of made-up slang made the reading a bit too slow going for me

Book 22: Stranger Diaries. A different series by Elly Griffiths who I have liked. This is the Harbinder Kaur series. Kaur is a mid-thirties British Indian gay woman who lives with her parents. She is also a great detective. This book, the first, is about a spooky horror story and goings on at the high school which used to be the home of the horror writer. There are a few murders. A lot of different narrative perspectives which I enjoyed more than I expected to.