#followalibrary on October 1st

A nice new Dutch originated, but worldwide initiative to make October 1st #Followalibrary Day on Twitter. The video below explains who, what, how and why:



It’s good to see such a creative, low cost promotion for something often seen as stuffy and oldfashioned as a public library. Especially now, when libraries are under threat in America and the UK as an easy target to cut spending on. It’s all a little less gloomy here in the Netherlands, but even so, in an age when we’re supposedly getting all our information of the internet anyway, the library is no longer the self evident public good it once was. Libraries are very vulnerable to misguided cost cutting attempts right now. Nobody will die if a library closes or limits its opening hours and people might grumble, but won’t get passionate about it the way they would if a local hospital would close.

Metal Monday: X, Y, Z — back to AC/DC

For the last (for now) installment of Metal Monday we’ll tackle the last three letters of the alphabet. Or we would, if there was any band worth mentioning whose name starts with those letters. Instead, let’s feature a band from the start of the alphabet not yet featured here: AC/DC. More a hard rock band than a heavy metal band, never quite gotten the same kind of respect a Zeppelin or a Priest has had from the critics, but still going strong thirtyseven years on. Here are some of my favourites:

Thunderstruck:



Back in Black:



Whole Lotta Rosie, featuring AC/DC’s original vocalist, Bon Scott:



Let There Be Rock:



Metal Monday: spandex and the devil

Moving along to the “V” in our Heavy Metal alphabet, two bands spring to mind that are almost as different from each other as you can get within the metal genre: Van Halen and Venom. Van Halen, the American band of Dutch origin was the first big Hair Metal band, making metal mainstream, while Venom was the founding band of the Black Metal subgenre, which revels in satanism and shocking the bourgeoisie. Both are bands I like a couple of songs quite a lot of, while the rest of their oeuvre leaves me cold.

So, which songs do you think about when Van Halen is mentioned? No you pervs, not “Hot for Teacher” but these two:

Jump:



And “Running with the Devil”:



Venom has never been a, well, a very good band; it’s more the sort of band you put on to shock your mother.

Calvin and Hobbes

Yet the band does have a certain charm and attraction, as shown here in “Welcome to Hell”:



“Countess Bathory”: