Dear readers: help us trim our tree!

The final grains of sand are falling through the hourglass that is 2010.  One and one half months to go.  One month, one day until your loyal blogger's birthday.  [If you don't know what to get, Barbancourt rum is always nice.  C'mon, consider it a donation to needy Haitians.]

And with just a week of Library services left until Thanksgiving break (next Wednesday through Saturday), we have to start thinking of the holiday season.  Holly, tinsel, razzleberry dressing, all that jazz.  And while there are plenty of Christmas season blog post topics out there (like how you should buy our advent calendar... or how you need to get tickets now for the Unedited Christmas concert), I'm going to present one directly related to decking our halls...

Dear readers, what shall we put on the Christmas tree?

Last year, as you may recall, our book ornaments included tiny tomes from Josephine Pinckney, DuBose Heyward, Beatrice Witte Ravenel, and, of course, the December fundraiser guest of honor's latest book, South of Broad by Pat Conroy.

This year, they're all going back, along with miniature copies of The Fort, Bernard Cornwell's newest novel.  [Take that as a reminder to reserve your tickets for Bernard now.  Now!]  But it's a big, big, Christmas tree a'comin, and we're gonna need more little, little books.

So how about it folks?  Ideas, suggestions?  What do we add to the Library's pantheon of Lowcountry literary greats this year?  If you've got an idea, leave it in the comment section, email us, call, write, carrier pigeon, whatever it takes, get it to us.  The CLS staff will pick the best submissions, and on December 1st, we'll put it to an online vote.  Whomever wins will be immortalized in the boughs of the Library's tree for generations to come.  Quite the honor!

Slouching toward Bethlehem... (or at least trying to figure out where to put a Christmas tree in here...)

The tide is loosed, and everywhere the Society's events season's hours come round at last...

Monday was the Verdura jewelry lecture and exhibition, when your loyal blogger played with Cole Porter's "Night and Day" cufflinks (and now regrets not wearing French cuffs so that he might try them on).  Thursday was the end of Bret Lott's writing salon, and the start of the second session of Nan Morrison's Shakespeare course.  Wednesday, the end of the "Cocktail Party of Ideas".  Thursday, the end of the first series of Wide Angle Lunches (look for them again come March), and a fully packed-to-the-gills, turning-people-away-at-the-doors Unedited concert.  And tonight, mere minutes from now, the Poetry Society of South Carolina will have their monthly meeting with Michael McFee.

[Which reminds me, in case you haven't heard, Billy Collins will be the special guest for the PSSC's January Meeting / 90th Anniversary Spectacular.  Which isn't exactly what the Poetry Society is calling it, but we're talking national Poet Laureate... that's pretty spectacular.

Also spectacular: tickets for Mr. Collins are totally free.  All you have to do is be a member of the Poetry Society, and make a request for tickets.  Which you can do here.  $25 for an individual.  Not too shabby.]

And next week?  9 AM tomorrow the Fall Book Sale starts, and runs 'till 5PM, then again from 1PM-5PM Sunday.  Independent Lens Film Series is 4:30 this Sunday.  Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World (and recipient of the Order of the Polar Star) rounds out our Authors Series next Thursday at 7PM.  Our long fall events schedule continues to turn and turn in the widening gyre, moving its slow thighs towards the two ultimate happenings of the Society's season: our next Unedited concert (link goes to tickets.  Get them now.), and A Special Evening with Bernard Cornwell, our second annual December fundraiser.

A blog post inspired by a terrible demotivational poster.  A new low for your loyal blogger.

Drop Day: it's not just for Comm majors!

It's been six months since your loyal blogger wrote about the two (award winning) ginkgo trees in front of the Charleston Library Society's Main Building... and quite frankly, if I didn't stop myself, I could fall into the trap of writing about them every week.  Without devolving to mushy Joyce Kilmer poetry: they're really wonderful things.

There were eight golden yellow leaves amongst the sea of green when I counted at lunch today: depending on the vagaries of wind, biology, and tourists with sticky fingers, I'll assume they're still there.  Hopefully - and with the past few weeks being mostly dry and warm, it'll take a lot of hope - the other few thousand leaves will lose their chlorophyll in an equally glorious manner in the next few days.

And then: Drop Day.  Usually the Library Society's pair take a day or two to lose all their leaves, but it's not rare for ginkgos to go from golden to utterly bare in a few hours.  One majestic, aurulent shower of perfectly proportioned little fans.  As Joyce Kilmer might have said: It's pretty cool.

Also the day the South Carolina General Assembly gets off its duff and allows nonprofits to legally hold raffles and competitions of luck, we're opening book on Drop Day... so, go write your assemblyman!

I don't know what the heck Ginkgo Pearl Oral Liquid is, but it's the funniest SFW thing Google Image Search had for "ginkgo".