Those familiar red phone booths throughout England just aren’t being used as phone booths anymore. As in the US, everyone has their own cell or smart phone, and they just aren’t using public phone booths, so the phone companies have been removing them left and right. The thing is, England’s red phone booths have been such an important part of the landscape that folks waxing nostalgic are giving the booths new purposes. They’re becoming defibrillator stations, coffee shops, and free book exchanges. Check out this CBS piece on the repurposing of the Red Phone Booths.
Monthly Archives: June 2018
Wordless/Wordful Wednesday
Reading Pirates: Events in Portland (OR)
Reading Pirates
Watch this page for upcoming events, and join us!

Summer Reading Bingo, 2018
Featured in the library this week
Featured in the library this week:
Big Max, by Kin Platt
Nate the Great and the Halloween Hunt, by Marjorie W. Sharmat
Pierre: A Cautionary Tale, by Maurice Sendak (a childhood favorite of mine)
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Patterson (probably one of the first books to make me cry). Please note: this book has received the Tucker Cat paw of approval!
Happy birthday, Eric Carle!
Happy 89th birthday, Eric Carle!
Poem of the Month: Geography of the Near Past
Vogon Poetry: In Honor of a 42nd Birthday
My friend Coral turns 42 today. She decided to have herself a Douglas Adams/Hitchhiker’s Guide birthday party, and, among other things, invited people to recite Vogon Poetry if they’d like.
“What, exactly, is Vogon Poetry?”, you may ask. And if you are asking, then you obviously have not read that Douglas Adams classic, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Wherein we learn that Vogon Poetry is the third worst poetry in the universe. The book is kind enough to give us an example.
Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits
On a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me
With crinkly bindlewurdles,Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don’t
Click through for slightly more detail here.
People all over the world celebrate Hitchhiker’s Guide and its author. As a result, you’ll find Vogon Poetry translated into all manner of Earth languages. More examples of Vogon Poetry in English here and here. There is also a Vogon Poetry generator of sorts. Here’s one it came up with for me.
vogon poetry bookpoetry books for middle schoolstretch ear infectionnatural remedyfor a broken heartexplain escape the fatedeliver night season 3start 4 episode 1ask episode 16 the proton in chemistrythe proton in chemistrya mole of something is an amount thatis anxiety considered a disabilityin reading is sometimes referred to asselecting official for considerationemploy official forms of idser and estar
weirs without wry kiwi working kiwi sis, quip
Werner welkin lower kills kills onto jute
wreak wrap town – swift Sitka balm woke
lend skew with papaw mewls
welt sawweep so wrong
twang size, we null my kop mist
bison query grope
kith up bald shove – ah – ashen aye devisal parsifal waiver!
as jokers
suds kept
setback, fake snow digests silken set lines, as far then erasing
jokes dashed
I actually kinda like it. You know, in a gibberishy-poem kind of way. And if you found this entertaining, then you might like Lewis Carroll’s poetry too. Share some of
your best Vogon poems!
Happy birthday, Coral!
Donation of Cookbooks
Just received a donation of cookbooks this afternoon! Thanks to a brief interaction on Facebook, Rick just brought by a stack of cookbooks (and one gardening book) for the Little Free Library this afternoon. Thanks, Rick!
Watch for these in the Little Free Library over the next week!