French adjacent comedy

 

Here's some French adjacent comedy pulled from real life discussions:

"I have to go to the bathroom and I don't even know how to say "pee" in French!"

"That would be a useful thing to know."

"Oui."

Sometimes the best we can hope for

 

A person comes to the front desk to check out a book simply called Slaughterhouse.

"I've only read the fourth sequel." I comment.

"Oh, it has a sequel?" He inquired with interest.

I explained the joke.

He allowed it.

Learn how to smell our bookmarks!

 

I have recently, through a long, bureaucratic process, obtained free bookmarks to hand out to our library visitors (free for them!). Here is a picture sampler of our variety:

We've got some lovely and very sturdy famous painting bookmarks. These are two-sided. There are also the Snoopy ones, and Dr. Seuss, and Ernst Haeckel. Oh, but you can't see any Ernst Haeckel in the above picture. So...

Those are the Ernst Haeckel, flanking Snoopy.

But I am not here about any of those really, as exciting as they may be. I am here about the smellable bookmarks, like the one you can see below that says "I love to read cherry much":

"Wait!" You cry out. "If it's 'I love to read cherry much', then what did they do with the 'berry' bookmark?"

I've anticipated your question:

So, pretty much the same.

Except,

You really are the berry best!

Now, I love scented bookmarks, and I got as many as I could this time around. But I confess I was at first disappointed. Many of the bookmarks didn't smell like the fake versions of their pictured fruits. They smelled too... chemically.

But then, by divine providence, I stumbled upon an invaluable proper technique to smelling this kind of bookmark. And I am going to teach it to you, whether you are interested in it or not, which is usually how we do things around here.

First, choose the matte, or non shiny side of the bookmark.

Next, scratch it up a bit with your fingernail.

Then, don't hold it right up to your nose and sniff! That seems like the natural move, but it gets into the artificial chemical profile of the scent. What we want to do is ease the illusion out of the bookmark. So gently waft the bookmark in front of your face, like you're fanning your slightly too warm nose. Gently breathe in.

Smell that?

It's berry good, isn't it.

You'll be melon for more!

I hope that made scents.

Paj Llamas

 

A longtime library patron came to the front desk. She was wearing a T-shirt that had a picture of a llama on it. It read:

"It is no prob llama"

She had a book she wanted to check out, but she had forgotten her library card.

Oh no!

That's okay. I could use her driver's license.

She didn't have her driver's license either!

Well, that's a... thing.

But having seen her come to the library for forty years, or whatever, I was pretty sure I maybe knew this person's name. "What's your last name?" I asked.

She told me, and at that point, her first name, from some mysterious place, immediately popped into my mind.

So I looked her record up and checked the book out.

This woman was not known to our library staff for her graciousness, but she nonetheless thanked me politely enough.

I was happy I could do it. "No prob llama." I replied.

She looked at me blankly and then exited.

I may have misunderstood her T-shirt.

 

Cop Sew Eek

 

With a simple rearrangement of spaces our delightful Copse Week could have been: 

Cop Sew Eek! 

So I like to think we dodged a law enforcement quilting project that is invaded by mice!

So then let us be thankful for a moment and enjoy our bounty of copses.

Well, it's just one copse, but I like to think by now I've convinced you it's a nice enough copse to carry the whole burden of the week.

It's Murphy's Laws all the way down

 

When I am working on the automated check in machine, the degree to which I am hungry determines how many cookbooks are returned.

If I am hungry enough the machine will even refuse to check these books in so that I have to handle them over and over. I am, in fact, so hungry right now that I have run the same book through the check in machine probably thirty times, on each occasion longing after the simple but wonderful pasta cut of pie so beautifully photographed on its cover. 

And, alas, I am now too weak with hunger to even check the book in on a computer and throw it in its appropriate bin, and finally end my fruitless cycle of pain.

Accidental pun

 

My carefully constructed puns are not terribly funny, and my accidental puns aren't funny at all, but I still really like them both. And one of the latter happened to me today while I was working on content for clerkmanifesto, so I am going to tell you all about it!

I was combining photographic elements from the architecture of small French villages with the occasionally humble houses of the Saint Minneapolis neighborhoods I regularly walk through. I guess maybe I was trying to suggest improvements for my neighborhood in my dreamworld mind. And I had gotten three pretty simple, yet satisfying images I'll show you some other time. But the fourth picture I was working on was causing me problems. The house I started with wasn't very nice, so I kept adding more and more elements to it, windows, arches, roof, and so on. It was taking a lot of time, and maybe getting a bit silly, but it was starting to come together. The last thing I added was a cartoon car that a frog was driving, and that I wanted to put in the driveway.

Here's the final product:

Well, it is what it is. To be honest there's not much of the original house left.

But the pun part came when I was cutting out the car to put into the photo. On the photo editor I use one chooses the image and then with an assortment of tools meticulously marks out all of the parts one wants to keep. In this case, for me, it was the blue car, with the frog driving. But instead of doing it meticulously, one can tell the program to take its best shot at choosing the part of the image you might want, usually a person, or central object. This rarely works perfectly, but sometimes it kind of works. To try doing this, you  start by choosing the option...

"Auto"

Ha ha ha! It almost worked too! 

I just had to cut out between the tires mostly.

A leaf from my book

By your leaf I am going to herald the coming fall season with a collection of photographs of leaves. I leave it to you to decide which you like best; the close up dramatically backlit pictures of leaves, or the

or the...

Well, they're mostly dramatic backlit close up pictures of leaves, so I'm not sure you'll get to decide anything. 



How about this: 



If you don't like them, let me know, and I vow that I will turn over a new leaf!



Though as Yeats said:

Though leaves are many, the root is one.

So go ahead and leaf through these pictures.

Maybe if you like one or two take a leaf out of my book and leave a bad leaf pun in the comments.

I believe in you!

Twenty one leaf pictures incoming:

Curbside pickup hijinks

This is not perhaps the funniest joke, but nevertheless in the heat of the moment I felt its on-the-spot pun work went a bit underappreciated. So naturally I have come to share it here, where everything is just and perfect merely by being ever so slightly more appreciated.

A Mr. Collins called in because he had arrived at the library for his curbside pickup. After carefully determining that he had indeed already previously called in to check the item out I proceeded to the next step. I informed our "runner" that a "Collins" was here for his book. To make it perfectly clear, I said "Collins, C-O-L-L-I-N-S, Collins."

My colleague noted how spelling-bee-like my presentation was and asked if I would use the word in a sentence.

"Lately we're getting a lot of Collins who want to arrange a pick up of their books."

I ask you if things look a bit off...

Today I had a cart full of fiction to shelve. This doesn't happen so often for me these closed pandemic library days. In the elevator I noticed a book near the start of my top shelf by an author named Rilla Askew.

I got very excited!

I tilted the book to an odd, 45 degree angle so it stood awkwardly out in its row, but with its spine clearly reading:

"ASKEW   HEARTSONG"

(Heartsong being the name of the book). 

Then I looked for someone to share it with.

Two librarians were deep in conversation at the front desk, so no go there. However, there was a librarian in the phone room. I wheeled my loaded cart towards him, and...

The phone rang!

Drat.

But I heard the murmur of distant voices. Two people were shelving out towards the end of Science Fiction. I headed over enthusiastically, but they were talking animatedly, and it was about work!

Yuck!

So I gave it up.

I just wanted, all I wanted, was to point to my book, with my finger casually at that author's last name on the spine, and say:

"Look. It's Askew."

An awful lot of times when I'm at work I have no friends here but you.

Puns going up and puns going down

This will contain the first version with the straight spelling and the second version with the pun spelling. It is a mostly true story.


Straight:

I was at the front desk with Dan during the pandemic. Things had fallen off as they do with curbside pickup at the library during the evening and, because he does some freelance work as a house painter, he was researching different products online that would help him climb down from things, and he was also researching products that would help him climb up on things.

I watched at a distance over his shoulder, then offered my opinion. "If you're going to get one of those I'd get the latter."

He just turned and stared at me.


Pun version:

I was at the front desk with Dan during the pandemic. Things had fallen off as they do with curbside pickup at the library during the evening and, because he does some freelance work as a house painter, he was researching different products online that would help him climb down from things, and he was also researching products that would help him climb up on things.

I watched at a distance over his shoulder, then offered my opinion. "If you're going to get one of those I'd get the ladder."

He just turned and staired at me.

Adventures of Time Traveler Man!

Welcome to another thrilling adventure of:

Time Traveler Man!

He's the superhero who can travel through up to 24 hours of time in any direction! And while gambling and speculation could make him the richest man in the world, he instead uses his powers to vanquish evil and uphold goodness, justice, and rightness.

As we join our hero today he is pointing a gun at the head of a vile and dangerous murderer, who, it so happens, hasn't murdered anyone yet.

"I'm innocent!" Cried John Lake. "You've got to believe me. I've never murdered anyone in my life!"

"I can't deny that," replied Time Traveler Man calmly, only slightly relaxing his carefully aimed gun. "But in about seven hours you will heinously stab poor Lou Watson to death. I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen."

"You can't kill me for something I haven't yet done! I swear to you, let me go and I won't go anywhere near Lou Watson ever again!"

"Ah, alas." Said Time Traveler Man sadly, leveling his pistol into a position of more immediate and deadly aim. "You've said that to me before."

"Wait!" Yelled John Lake. "I was a fool that time. You've got to give me one more chance. You've got to believe me! On my life I promise you this time I won't harm a hair on Lou's head."

"That, I am afraid, is word for word what you said to me the last time we met."

This fact staggered and disappointed John Lake. 

"Shoot" He uttered.





This has been another thrilling episode of Time Traveler Man. Tune in again sometime. You never know when because he's... Time Traveler Man, and who knows when he might appear.

Stereotyping myself

There is some public display at my library right now about stereotyping. One of my managers is so enthusiastic about this display that he spends a fair amount of time lately working on it, augmenting it, displaying it, and trying to make it better. I'm not here to comment on all that.

I'm only here to tell you about how when he was putting together a bunch of signs in the backroom with "Stereotype" and "Stereotyping" in big letters on them it was my big moment to venture back there dramatically and say "That's bad! You should use one typewriter with two hands and never two typewriters with one hand each!"

Once that was fully understood the conversation turned to how stereotyping is genuinely a problem, and not as well understood as it should be. I was happy to take up that banner.

"Kids in middle school nowadays," I started to complain "Don't even understand what the term stereotyping means!" 

Then I cleared out of the backroom before anyone could try and trick me into having a remotely serious discussion.

Hilarious joke concerning minute library policy

As you will see this joke is meant for the oral tradition. So it would be best if you read it to yourself, listening to it and ignoring the spelling. Due to homophones it is less hilarious as written, and possibly slightly confusing. So you may thus not be amused by it in reading, but if you nevertheless bravely tell it aloud to everyone you know you will be gratified by their peals of laughter and their increased conviction, spoken or not, that you make everything in the world just a little bit better.

And so:

We freely give out day passes to people without library cards who want to use our Internet computers. But for reasons way too complicated and stupid and boring to explain a patron had to be 18 or older to get a pass on their own, unaccompanied. Some people abided by this policy. Others, like me, engaged in a dedicated "Don't ask, don't tell" approach. But finally, due to some quality staff advocacy, the word came down from our Management Team: Minors shall be allowed Internet passes anytime they want with no restriction. There was one proviso though. We should ask that they flick their headlamps on and off to prove that they are who they are pretending to be.

You see, it's a pun.

Yes, yes, much much better read aloud. Incomparable.

No, just trust me. Go tell it to a bunch of people. People love puns!

This is what I do here

I was in the backroom when they paged him. "Christian Berger, please come to the service desk. Christian Berger, please come to the service desk."

So I went out to the front desk. "The thing I hate about Christian Burger places" I said. "Is you get all that proselytizing when you just want some lunch."

Later in the day I was working on a complicated little crafts project making undershelf labels for a colleague's project with our CD collection. After plugging away at it throughout the day, usually while trying to watch soccer, I got them to an acceptable standard to go forward with. First up were a bunch of labels that read "oversized". Working on them at the front desk I held one up to her. We agreed it was good enough. "You know what they say." I said. "The perfect is the enemy of the completely mediocre."

And we'll just leave it there for the day.

Candy Bars

In an attempt to capitalize on the enormous success of my blog I have been rolling out exciting new products that you can buy, only here, on clerkmanifesto. But today I present our most special new product yet: A candy bar! We think it might be the best new candy bar introduced in the past 40 years!

We call it The Lowbar.

Made from whatever the cheapest possible sweetener is available on the market and industrial grade imitation "cocoa" flavorings, among other things, this is just barely legal for human consumption, but it's sweet, and salty, and cheap. The Lowbar doesn't have any chemicals in it that are technically classified as a "poisons", at least at the per bar quantities we use them in. And we are immensely proud to claim that the Lowbar is %100 legal for sale as an FDA approved foodstuff.

We also don't use slave labor because that is illegal. We just use really low paid, mildly desperate overseas workers.

If you don't like our new Lowbar, you might enjoy our other new candy, The Highbar. Produced entirely in a single meadow in the Swiss Alps, with free ranging flower fed cows and Swiss Mountain hothouse grown cocoa, the Highbar is the only candy bar in the world to receive a coveted Protected Designation of Origin, like Champagne, or Parmigiano Reggiano. Each Highbar is hand numbered and sealed after exhaustive standards testing by the local Swiss regional town council. These exquisite candy bars are wrapped in a carefully prescribed, etched Fabriano paper container with food safe inks made from mashed mountain violets. It sells for $212 per 2.08 ounce candy.

Head on over to our blog store and try them both out!

Advanced author knowledge pun

A patron was looking for a book, The School at Thrush Green, and I was helping them. I wrote down the title for the patron and the author's name. I gave explicit instructions as to location, and I sent the patron on their way.

After a long time the patron returned uncertainly to my desk with a book.

"I looked forever for this book!" The patron exclaimed. "It has the right title, but I don't think it can be the right book. It isn't by the author you wrote down. This The School at Thrush Green is by Mizreodd!"

I looked down at the book. "No." I said, pointing down at the author's name spelled on the cover. "That's a Miss Read."

On puns

There is nothing wrong with puns. Shakespeare loved them and so do I. The reason great and famous writers like us (on average) so enjoy puns is because they are part of the process of playing with, thinking about, and juicing language. The irony is that people who groan at puns with real disdain, finding them to be simple, jokey and unserious, are particularly guilty of what they dislike, a lack of originality and inventiveness. Disliking puns is a far greater cliche than any use of a pun could ever dream of being.

Today one of my co-workers was doing the closing announcements for my library. The announcements we do are bespoke and tend to have a lot of character. This particular librarian likes to bring up historical facts and various trivia related to that specific day. Sometimes he even likes to tie the milestone of the day to the fact that the library is closing. Like: "On this day in 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes had the White House’s first telephone installed. But if you want to make a phone call you'll have to leave the library to do it, because the library is closing in three minutes."

Today he said something like this:

"Today is National Nurses Day, a day in which we celebrate the important role nurses play in our society. I hope you'll celebrate nurses, but soon you won't be able to do it here because the library will be closing in ten minutes." 

I was working on the automated check in machine at the time, and he was sitting with another colleague whose phone he used to make the announcement. I walked over to them and said "R-N you glad you told everyone about National Nurses Day?"

No groans, no commentary, they just laughed the small but real laugh that was warranted, and it was over.

That's all I'm asking.