The We Need Diverse Books campaign has kicked it up a notch with an Indiegogo campaign. They’re raising money to support authors, diversify classrooms, develop educational kits, promote diverse programming, you name it.  As of my writing this they are $40,000 or so away from their goal.  Check it out:

Diverse Campaign w Thanks Card from Undercurrent on Vimeo.

And now for something completely different.  Cookie Monster has parodied Harry Potter and Hunger Games (not to mention Star Wars).  Dare we hope Twilight is on the horizon?  Because I would pay a lot of money to hear him say, “Climb onto me back, little spider monkey.”

It was Travis at 100 Scope Notes who alerted me to the Vine illustrator videos at The Guardian.  There are lots there to choose from so I had a hard time figuring out which one to show here.  In the end I went with James Mayhew.  Lovely stuff.

Thanks to Travis for the link!

Moomins! Rivera Moomins! In Finnish, yes? Beautifully done.

By the way, when I die I’m coming back as one of Aaron Zenz’s kids.  A strange ambition but after watching this video can you blame me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WNNJGJqnCA

I don’t think I need to tell you children’s librarians out there what a perfect fall craft this would be.  And talk about cheap!  Here are some additional photos of their creations.  These kids once did some Giant Dance Party fan art that I treasure to this day.  And as a side note, how cool is it that they watched Exit Through the Gift Shop as a family?

All I can say about this next Alice in Wonderland inspired video is that I am SO grateful I didn’t watch this while on any kind of drugs.  Lordy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGfNSitVQFM&feature=embed

Thanks to Marci for the link.

I don’t think I need remind any of you that this past week BookOps (the combined technical services of New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library) engaged in a sort-off with the Kings County Library system. You were all watching the play by play on your phones, right? Right? No? Hm. Well, in any case, I am happy to report that this year we won our trophy back.  It was a close race but that’s how we get it DONE, SON!  Now you can see this drone video of our freakin’ awesome sorter here, but if you’d like to check out the competition the following video shows a sorter very much like our own (and a Collection Specialist doing my job to a tee).

Granted, we don’t have a machine named “Mustang” in our building, but we’re still pretty cool.

I agree with Jezebel that Samuel Jackson’s reading of Go the F*** to Sleep is as good as it gets, but LeVar Burton reading it fulfills some deep hitherto unknown need in my soul. Do I really have to warn you about the language in this?

As for our off-topic videos, this one got me to thinking about how these goofy little internet videos often strip down a famous song to its most essential elements, and make it clear how strong the original melody really was.  I think it was Weird Al who pointed out that he could only parody songs that had a distinctive melody. Case in point: