2024, books, Media, Movies, The Future, Uncategorized

Curated Batman

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As part of my rabbit-holing this past week, I stopped at the Southdale Library to pick up a DVD on Monday.  My local library is Washburn and I don’t visit other libraries too much but occasionally if there is something I want RIGHT NOW at another library not too far from me, I’ll go pick it up.

The Southdale branch does a fun voting game at the entrance on the second floor.   They set out a small displays with a question (usually favorite books or authors) and then you bot by putting a little piece of paper into a can.  It’s a silly bit of fun so I always vote.  I don’t know how often they change out the game and I don’t even know if they ever “publish” the results anywhere.

On Monday, the game was “Who is your favorite Batman”.   I wasn’t sure why but of course I voted for Adam West with no hesitation.  I went in search of my DVD and wasn’t thinking too much about it until I was leaving the library and noticed a big Batman display on the wall.  The photo above is half of the exhibition.  Then I understood why the Batman voting.

Washburn library displays books on a theme every few weeks on the big display table right as you come into the library.  Upon asking once I was told that it’s up to each individual library to curate their own special exhibits.  I always look at the books and usually pick one up every few weeks but I’d have to say we never have anything quite as fun as Batman!  It almost made me want to pick up one of the books but since I’ve never really been that interested in Batman (I haven’t even seen all the movies), I didn’t need to add to my obsessions this month.  But it did make me think how much work and hopefully fun goes into making these displays. And I sincerely hope that after the big Southdale Library renovation beginning in 2025, they will still have these fun interactive exhibits.

If you were to curate a display somewhere, what would it be and where?

27 thoughts on “Curated Batman”

  1. hats
    mens and womens maybe horses and others but maybe a historical stroll through the styles materials and mfg procedures as well as style points and nuances. fun and formal.
    dr suess had a hat collection he would call on to serve as inspiration when he hit a writers block. i get it

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    1. adam west for me too.
      i was attending my son spencers basketball tournament years ago and one of the other players had little brothers maybe 5&7 and the 5 years old had a batman and a superman. i told him batman was the best and gave him all the reasons why and that was the point that allowed me to see that batman was truely my favorite. i hadnt thought about it before that.
      michael keaton was very good also

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  2. OT. Blevins reminder this Sunday 2 PM at the park. I will bring plates cups, napkins, etc. I can also keep in touch via text that day if anybody wants but I’d have to know if you’re planning on joining us!!!

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  3. The Adam West Batman is the only one I know. I think I would be unqualified to vote on that.

    Most of the book related rabbitholes I’ve gone down recently (or anytime) would be equally inscrutable to most library patrons. One that might work has its origins in Percival Everett’s book James that I picked up earlier this year. That’s a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of his companion Jim. In preparation for reading that I reread Huckleberry Finn. Then I happened to pick up and read Rinker Buck’s Life on the Mississippi, and a passage in that book led me to an antiquarian book The Hive of the Bee Hunter by Thomas Bangs Thorpe. I happened to have a copy of that in my library. It contained several stories related to river travel in the first half of the nineteenth century.

    I can think of at least two books of Mississippi River lore I’ve read in the past (and I may be remembering incorrectly):
    Wicked River and Old Man River. I’m sure there would be plenty of others.

    If you really wanted to mix it up while staying on the rivers theme, earlier this year I reread Houseboat on the Styx and Pursuit of the Houseboat by John Kendrick Bangs. The premise in those is that everyone who ever lived is reincarnated along the river Styx and the story focuses on a select group of historic notables gathered together on a luxurious houseboat.

    Reading those brought to mind Phillip Jose Farmer’s Riverworld series, which follows similar lines, though the notables are reincarnated on the shores of a two million mile long river. I picked up three of the books from that series recently, so those are on my to-be-read pile.

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  4. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Since you did not say “currating books” specifically, then I would choose other stuff. Say plants. And actually, I serve on the committee, curating houseplants for the Hennepin County Master Gardener House Plant Sale. This would be a group curation process. The Sale itself:

    Sunday October 6, 9am-3pm, Eisenhower Center, Hopkins, MN

    The committee is busy curating a collection of rare and specialty houseplants for sale on that date, then later for the next year. Master Gardeners in the County plant sit these plants all year then offer them up to the public. I found this year that I am not the person to plant sit. The entire task drove me nuts, needing to manage bugs and repot them. So I will not do that part again. But the sale part is really fun.

    Other things: antique canning jars, tomatoes, flowers.

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  5. A bookmobile with curated displays of library cats and “childless cat ladies.”
    Long ago I was a member of the Library Cat Society. It’s founder, Phyllis Lahti, lived in South Moorhead. Sadly, I didn’t keep any of her newsletters.

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  6. Sherlock Holmes is one of the reincarnated figures in Bang’s Houseboat stories. That led me to E. W. Hornung’s Raffles, The Amateur Cracksman. Hornung was Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law and Raffles is a sort of anti-Holmes, a gentleman burglar. His adventures are recounted largely by his Watson-like associate, Bunny. Bangs also has books where the lead character is Raffles Holmes and Mrs. Raffles.

    Add to those riffs on Holmes the Laurie King books and doubtless many others and you have another curated presentation.

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    1. Bill, have you ever been to Once Upon a Crime bookstore? They actually do have a Sherlock Holmes display but none of it by Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s all fiction written using Sherlock Holmes characters. I have to admit that I can’t stay away from it whenever I’m in the store.

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      1. I’ve never been, mostly because I have little interest in mysteries, even the Sherlock Holmes ones. Sherlock interests me more as a character when he’s put in other circumstances.

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  9. Because I have removed so much stuff from my life, without regret, I no longer can think of things to curate that I know enough about. Artwork done by soldiers during wars, particularly African-Americans in WWII, would be interesting. I know there are some books. I only have one. As per Bill above, I used to have a few books about people rowing down the Mississippi. My favorite by an African American. Name is gone from my memory. Books about people walking the great walks of America. I once owned several but people who really did the walks. Not the false claims. Carved shore bird decoys, but those are curated in museums up and down the east coast.
    Clyde

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    1. Maybe I can do an adjunct display of silly kitchen gadgets that you don’t really need. I wouldn’t even have to leave the house to curate this display!

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