Good morning. It's Monday. We'll find out why a school librarian from Louisiana is coming to the New York Public Library's $5,000-a-person gala tonight. We'll also hear what a City Council candidate has to say about a "Saturday Night Live" sketch that has made him an internet celebrity.
Amanda Jones of Watson, La., is sure to get a shout-out at the New York Public Library's $5,000-a-person gala tonight. The library, which invited her to attend, is giving her a free ticket. Amid a surge in book bans nationwide, Jones moved into the spotlight in 2022 with a brief speech during a meeting at her hometown public library — not the library she oversees at a local middle school. She said books with L.G.B.T.Q. themes should not be taken off the shelves. Almost immediately, she began receiving expletive-laden messages accusing her of being a pedophile. Jones stood her ground, writing a memoir, "That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America." She also started a group called Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship to lobby against restrictions on libraries. "The backlash she faced is a testament to the urgent need to protect intellectual freedom," said Anthony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library. Last month the New York Public Library — together with the city's two other library systems, the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library, and the American Library association and the Association for Rural and Small Libraries — organized a "Freedom to Read Community Day of Action" with rallies at almost 200 libraries across the country. A "Freedom to Read" pledge has been signed by nearly 8,000 people, a spokeswoman said. Still, parents, activists and conservative lawmakers have used increasingly aggressive tactics to challenge titles and pressure those who oppose book bans. Jones said that after "That Librarian" was published in August, "the haters came out in droves." She said the attacks continued after The New York Times published an article about her in September. "My own community, which is very far right, said, 'She got a story in The New York Times because she's a leftist woke liberal, and of course they did a story because they're pushing liberal crazies.'" So is she a liberal crazy? "No," she said. "Actually, what's funny is I'm a registered Republican." She said that she had never bothered to change her registration, but that if she had done so she would have switched it to independent. "I don't identify with either party," she said. "I vote for the person who will do the best job. In the past I have voted for Democrats because I believe in human rights issues. I don't think those should be political." She also said that "people in my community think it's far left" to support women's rights and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Jones's speech and the vitriol that followed came less than a year after she was named a school librarian of the year by School Library Journal in 2021, when she was commended for organizing virtual field trips called "Journeys With Jones" for fifth and sixth graders during the pandemic. And while she has said that the threats left her so stressed that she took a leave of absence — and started carrying a Taser, mace and a handgun — the reaction has not been universally hostile. "I get, in the mail, probably a letter every other day from someone saying they support me. They begin, 'I'm a former English teacher,' or 'I'm a librarian,' or 'I love to read,'" she said. "The letters will be sent to my school. They'll be sent to the public library that I don't work at. I even get letters at the local bookstore." At the gala, Marx plans to cite her courage in the face of harassment and her continued determination to stand up for the freedom to read. She is not scheduled to speak to the black-tie crowd, but she said she would be ready if called to the microphone. "I would gush about Amy Tan," she said, referring to the novelist, who is one of five people who will be inducted as "Library Lions." The others are the environmental writer Elizabeth Kolbert, the filmmaker Spike Lee, the biographer Jon Meacham and the playwright Suzan-Lori Parks. "I speak about Amy Tan a lot when I go and speak about libraries because 'The Joy Luck Club' was a defining book for me growing up," Jones said. WEATHER Prepare for a mostly sunny day, with a high near 61 and a light wind. Tonight, the sky will turn cloudy, with a low in the mid-50s. ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING In effect until tomorrow, Nov. 5 (Election Day). The latest New York news
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We hope you've enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times. Harvey Epstein hits the big time
Harvey Epstein, above, had been a low-profile candidate for the City Council. Two and a half minutes of television time over the weekend changed that. Epstein, a Democrat who represents Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side, became something of an internet celebrity, thanks to a sketch on "Saturday Night Live." The sketch, shot to look like a campaign commercial, spoofed his name as a mash-up of two convicted sex offenders. The candidate, played by the comedian John Mulaney, struggled to explain to voters that he was neither Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood mogul who is to be retried in New York on sex crime charges next year, nor Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019 after being convicted of sex trafficking. His death was ruled a suicide. Harvey Epstein said he had not known that the sketch was coming and went to bed on Saturday before "Saturday Night Live" came on. He woke up on Sunday to "hundreds and hundreds and hundreds" of messages telling him to watch. He said he had picked up at least 400 new followers on X, potential momentum that his campaign seized on with a post sharing the sketch — and a link to his campaign donations page. "I have a really lovely reputation in the neighborhood," Epstein said on Sunday, "and people know me for who I am." METROPOLITAN DIARY Triple Wrapped
Dear Diary: It was some years ago, and I was accompanying my father on a business trip from the Milwaukee suburbs to Manhattan. While he met with clients at the World Trade Center, I traveled around the city, thanks to directions and shopping tips from secretaries at the company. My heart pounding, I boarded the subway solo. I was only 19, but I tried to show the bravado of a self-confident college student. I knew enough to attach myself to a group of people when getting off the train, scurrying along with the horde until veering off at Century 21. Later, I stopped at a nondescript restaurant for an egg roll and then made my way back to the Trade Center. When it was time to go the airport for the flight home, my father said there was one stop we had to make: a bustling deli where he bought two hot pastrami sandwiches on rye. He asked that they be triple wrapped. Once we had settled into our seats on People's Express, he bought a beer for himself and a Coke for me. Then he reached down, snapped open the clasps of his leather briefcase and pulled out our sandwiches. I was hungry but also self-conscious about what the passenger next to me might think. But after buying a tiny bag of peanuts from the flight attendant, he turned to us. "Wow," he said. "Now that's the way to travel!" My father was quite smart after all. — Mary Vraa Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Makaelah Walters and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
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N.Y. Today: A librarian fights book bans and ‘haters’
November 04, 2024
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