{"id":240,"date":"2005-09-28T11:35:41","date_gmt":"2005-09-28T16:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=240"},"modified":"2005-09-28T11:52:01","modified_gmt":"2005-09-28T16:52:01","slug":"banned-book-reading-another-fine-event-last-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/09\/28\/banned-book-reading-another-fine-event-last-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Banned Book reading: Another fine event last night"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALA Banned book week button 2005<\/a>
\nCaf\u00e9 Scientifique<\/a> wasn’t the only excellent event on the schedule last night. As part of the 2005 Banned Book Week<\/a> our fine library<\/a> hosted a reading last night from various banned books. WeatherGirl<\/a>, Sub-Evil Boy<\/a>, and I hoofed it over there ASAP after Caf\u00e9 Scientifique wrapped up and enjoyed a pleasantly subversive end to a busy evening.<\/p>\n

We missed the first 10 minutes or so, coming on a nice (if overly long) reading from The lion, the witch, and the wardrobe<\/cite>. There were then readings from a whole host of sources which had been banned at one point or another, including some Shel Silverstein poetry, Gone with the wind<\/cite>, Joyce’s Ulysses<\/cite>, and a short bit from Harry Potter and the goblet of fire<\/cite> that was chosen, introduced, and read quite nicely by Sub-Evil himself.<\/p>\n

A definite highlight, though, was a wonderful poem Dave shared entitled “Scab sandwich”. His father apparently composed this gem and penned it in a friend’s school science book back in the day, and when it was discovered at the end of the year when they returned their books, the teacher was sufficiently grossed out that he had that copy of the book removed from circulation. Unfortunately I can’t quote the poem from memory, but we’ll try to get Dave to pass it along. For now, suffice it to say that Sub-Evil thought it was truly hilarious…<\/p>\n

Growing up in Texas, me and book banning go way back. Like the time my school district ordered several dozen perfectly good, brand spanking new dictionaries destroyed. These had been sent by publishers as evaluation copies but were discovered to have “bad words” in them. The review commitee apparently didn’t notice that they were in fact the same “bad words” that filled the dictionaries that were currently in use in our schools. Craziness of a high order. And then there was the time that in a fit of proto-blogging back in the days of Usenet<\/a> I went off on a long rant on this subject that (through no efforts of my own) later ended up on rec.funny and can still be found on their archives<\/a>. Ain’t life strange?<\/p>\nNo tag for this post.\n\t

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