Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe!

“Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” - Edgar Allan Poe

Everybody knows I love Edgar Allan Poe so I can't let the day of his birth go by without mentioning it or sharing my video tribute to him yet again (yes, again!)  If you want to learn more about the video and how it came about, please visit my blog post about it by clicking here. 

Direct link to "The Raven is Hard to Handle: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSwsZ8L3S6Y

More than filming the video, I have enjoyed performing "The Raven is Hard to Handle" live at my shows.  It is an example of how so many other people of all ages love Edgar Allan Poe and perhaps have forgotten how fun classic literature can be.  I doubt Poe truly knew the power his words would have on future generations...or that you can dance to it!

I am also so flattered when I see the kids in the audience get excited about the poem and sing it back to me or want to wear my Raven wings or hats.  It reminds me that I am being heard and received in the manner that I always envisioned for Stand-Up Librarian: Reading + Pop Culture = FUN.  Learning is FUN!  I never wanted to just do stand-up comedy or write on this blog.  I wanted to utilize all of my interests and talents to share my love for books, libraries, bookstores, music and fashion. 

In just wanting to honor one of my literary heroes, I discovered a path for myself that also enables me to fulfill one of my dreams that I thought was impossible: being a rockstar.  While I may never sell-out stadiums like Aerosmith and U2 or sing live on the aerial trapeze like Pink, I am a literary rockstar to a few kids I know and that is pretty cool.  One of my goals this year is to do more programs and shows for young people.  Oh and if I can perform "The Raven is Hard to Handle" live on stage with The Black Crowes, now that would be awesome! (Call me, Chris Robinson!) 

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY and THANK YOU, Mr. Poe for inspiring so many of us to write, to dream, to explore the oddities that not only make us unique but enable us to dream...BIG. 

With the "fans" that truly matter. If something I say makes
them pick up a book, I did my job.

Thanks to Edgar Allan Poe and The Raven, I am able
to soar to heights I never knew was possible. 

Happy Birthday Madonna!

My show art from 2003 spoofing the Like a Virgin album cover.

If there is one birthday I celebrate more than my own, it is Madonna.  She's inspired me in so many ways over the years, and continues to do so. "Don't go for second best, baby....Express Yourself."  It began with a performance of "Papa Don't Preach" in Girl Scouts to doing "Vogue" in high school to eventually building a whole one-woman show around her in 2003.  My latest, the "Girl Gone Wild" librarian parody in 2012, was probably my favorite of them all.  An example that age most certainly does not slow us down, it makes us better.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually meet her so I can thank her in person for being the soundtrack of my life.

Happy Birthday Madonna! 

And once again, here are those "Girl Gone Wild" parody videos:

So Much To Celebrate

Dressed as Pippi Longstocking for my literary birthday party!

October has been a very productive month.  I’m so busy making my dreams come true that I have been away from posting anything in almost three weeks!  I guess this is also what happens when you have an actual job to go to.  Yay library job!

I’ve also been busy having fun this past weekend celebrating my birthday, which at first I wasn’t even going to acknowledge, being happy enough to simply have a job at the library of my dreams (which isn’t the whole truth, I just didn’t think anyone in LA would care enough to celebrate it with me.)  However, thanks to a couple of friends with kind hearts, I was encouraged to celebrate with a few activities – a literary birthday party being one of them.  Thank God for actors because they are the only ones who wanted to dress up and then be in character all night, which made it a heck of a lot of fun – Twilight kids, Ernest Hemingway, Joan Didion, and Edgar Allen Poe, I’m talking to you.  Thank you!) 

It’s hard to believe it has already been a year since I celebrated my birthday in 2010, high on the trapeze after going on my first library job interview which didn’t result in a job offer (link to that post here: http://stand-uplibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/10/circus-that-is-merediths-first-library.html.)  Now as I look back, it’s crazy to think about just how much I have experienced in the past year as a result of NOT getting that job.  Get ready for an old school Oprah full circle moment… 

In being forced to work as a waitress, a valet attendant, an executive assistant, a “background artist,” then be further humiliated and disappointed by endless people at these jobs, I learned the important lesson…to just stop doing them!!!  Or kill myself, but that wasn’t an option because like my party, I was worried that nobody would come to my funeral either.  Instead, I decided to go into debt by focusing my energy back to the library whether they were going to pay me or not.  By depending on myself and having true excitement and passion for the work I was doing as a volunteer with the library, (not to mention having few friends left to distract me with actual fun), I ended up accomplishing far more than I ever imagined.  I met Steve-O.  The end.

I kid, I kid.  Seriously, Steve-O should be happy he met me and I had the time to issue him a library card because that’s the smartest thing that “Jackass” has ever done.  My point with this post is that I finally work with really cool people in an awesome library that I love and I am paid to be there.  While I am not officially a librarian yet, I am treated with the same respect as if I were.  For example, just the other day a patron said that our library has too many stairs and that I am too skinny and should gain some weight.  I almost cried.  It was only a year ago that I was just a waitress wanting to work at the library and here I was…unable to accidentally drop her food in her lap.  

Listen folks, life will give you lemons and you could make lemonade but I say keep your dang lemons.  I prefer carrots.

***Oh and I’m really digging that new Kelly Clarkson song “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger).”

“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger


Stand a little taller


Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone


What doesn't kill you makes a fighter


Footsteps even lighter”

I made a reference to killing myself but suicide is never the answer, the library is.  It has saved me on numerous occasions.  Unlike people, the library will always be there for you even when you feel you have nothing else.  Information will always make you stronger.  Trust me.

Celebrate yourself today.

-MM

Ending my birthday weekend by worshipping the stage 

with a dance at the House of Blues. Hallelu-yeah life is pretty great!