Old School 2.0

Craig Wheeler, Humanities Reference Librarian at Texas A&M, Commerce, and Maria Hudson Carpenter, Library Advancement & Communications Officer at Northeastern University in Boston, get ready to make some noise at the highly unusual workshop “Facilitation and Experiential Techniques for Changing Behaviors in Library Work Teams” on Friday at ACRL. Instead of quietly absorbing the usual panel discussion, forty happily surprised librarians found ourselves banging drums, clanging cowbells, and learning-by-doing in a drumming circle conducted by workshop leader Keith Russell, a University of Kansas librarian and organizational development expert.

Just the warmup we needed for the luncheon keynote address from Baltimore native son and outrageous filmmaker John Waters. What a stream. What a consciousness. What a stream of consciousness. Waters strode to the platform wearing silver sneakers, a retro polyester dude suit, and his trademark slick hair and slender mustache and launched an hour long NC-17 rated tour of his Mondo that would make Robin Williams look mainstream and slightly sedated. Too bad there were no recording devices allowed.
The takeaway? “If you can make the enemy laugh that’s the first step in negotiation.” Must be something to it, because I was whooping so hard I can’t make a valid case for having been offended . . . although even at the time I was thinking, “I cannot really be laughing at THAT!”