There's an old joke about the guy who goes to a psychiatrist. "I want you to take a look at these ink blots," says the psychiatrist. "What do you see?"
The man looks at the first picture. "A man and a woman making love on a rock slide," he says. "It's pretty torrid."

"Hmm," says the psychiatrist. He shows the man a dozen more pictures. For each one, the man describes a very explicit sexual encounter.

A couple of weeks ago, News-Press editor Rich Bangs called me to say he was devoting a section of the paper to books and local writers. As a librarian, I enthusiastically approved. (And as a poet, I'll even be submitting a piece or two.)

He also asked the library to contribute a weekly list of "What's Hot." We define that as items that have more than three people waiting to read them. You'll be seeing that listing weekly.

But I thought I should explain a few things about how the library does business.

On Sunday, January 28, Jerry Siegel died. He was 81. Siegel was a good friend of Joe Shuster.

So who were Siegel and Shuster? They were buddies who together, while still in high school, dreamed up the Man of Steel, the Son of Krypton -- Superman. Siegel was the writer; Shuster (who died in 1992) was the artist.

It happens that I'm near-sighted -- possibly the result of too much reading under haphazard lighting. (Listen to your mothers, children!)

Far away, I see just fine -- with glasses. But for the past few months, especially in the evening, my eyes play tricks on me. I have to take off my glasses to read something right in front of me. I have to put on my glasses to see somebody across the table. It's a matter, I'm told, of the changing focal length of older eyeballs.