And so it begins

 

We are now overlapping posts with the Life is a Fountain Newsletter, and except for this introduction they will have the same content. As soon as I get a sense that everything is working, these posts will go into hiatus. 

You may hear from Clerkmanifesto on special occasions in the future.

And so it begins, With this you will start regularly receiving selections from Life is a Fountain. Life is a Fountain? You know, it's that thing I've been... Right right. Excellent! Today I am featuring the Art page, and if this letter leaves you wanting more, hit the link below:

Art Frida Kahlo in Arles, I guess I think someone once cut up a Picasso to sell square inches of it. That may be an apocryphal story. But the way I remember it is that the issue ended up in court, and it turned out some court somewhere said You can't go cutting up Picassos!!!!! Which means there is a limit to how much any person can own a piece of art. Which oddly seems to mean I can cut up a Frida Kahlo painting and glue it a Van Gogh. I mean, as long as I do it digitally.  Here are a couple along the same idea, though set in my library:

From here I become increasingly less elegant. I'm oddly fond of this one below, but it needs a lot more work.   One nice thing I find as I go around cutting up everything; Van Goghs, The Little Prince, Dr. Seuss, Frida Kahlo, is just how wonderful it all is. There's such strength and life in these images. And if what I'm doing is disrespectful. or illegal, or frivolous, well, okay. But I like how even in the most absurd situations so much of the work, so much of their art, still shines through. A Van Gogh really is beautiful. And Elvis happily standing in one doesn't really change that.

Begging Week, Day Seven, Independence Day

I'll be right up front about it:

Please check out 

Life is a Fountain

Unlike my previous six requests of begging week, all of which went to specific pages of Life is a Fountain, today's link will take you to the home page. You may have been there when I asked you to go early on, or maybe you went there on your own journey. But over the course of this week the front page has changed a great deal, looks far better, and features more rotating content. 

Plus, if you go there, you might catch sight of the cat!

Yes, still green.

So for one last time, check it out. 

Now, for the good news; I will leave you alone. Oh, things will still come to your email. You can read what you want. You can click whatever links appeal to you, but you don't have to interact with anything. I will ask for no more favors.

Thanks to whoever among you filled out my forms and went to pages just because I asked. That was kind and helpful.

But now, Begging Week is done.

Independence Day is here.

And Life is a Fountain.

Life is a Fountain?

Isn't it?

Begging Week Day Six: The cat

 

Welcome to Begging Week day six, the week where we feature a new page of our new iteration and glorious heir to Clerkmanifesto: Life is a Fountain.

Cats don't beg. Which is maybe one of 4,362 things I like about them. So when I ask you to go visit the Life is a Fountain cat, when I beg you to go...

Here

I am not asking on behalf of the cat. 

He wanted me to make that clear. I mean, I think he did.

You see the cat would just like to be left alone!!!!

But the cat has been through an awful lot this week (you'll see). 

And I think he would be really, really happy to see you.

Begging Week day 4: The Classics

 

Do you like Clerkmanifesto, but find the quality to be a bit... uneven?

Then The Life is a Fountain "Classics" page is for you!

Finally, finally, finally someone has finally come along to curate the endless, mad, endless, variable in quality posts of Clerkmanifesto.

 And now, on the Life is a Fountain Classics Page, which is

Here

Finally, finally, finally!

All of the posts are pretty good.

Begging week: Day 3, The Dylan Collaborative

 

Welcome to Begging Week Day Three!

If you've been paying any attention, and responded to any of my begging, you will by now understand that each day of Begging Week will bring you to a different page of Life is a Fountain. I mean, if my begging works. And if you hit the link and go to said page you will find something SUPER ENTERTAINING.

Today I am begging you to visit the Dylan Page at Life is a Fountain,

 Dylan

Why?

To see our collaboration! Yes, Bob Dylan and I have collaborated!

Here's what happened:

Bob and I were drinking Cognac, again. We're kind of stuck on Cognac. We like it, there's a lot to try, I got Bob somehow to invest heavily in it, and it would be weird to waste super expensive cognac. So we drink it, and love it, but have started to talk about Scotch. We're both restless drinkers, always wanting to try the next thing. There's always next things.

I said "Have you checked out Life is a Fountain yet? It has a Dylan Page."

"There are a lot of Dylan pages." He said ruefully. "But yeah. I wish you wouldn't film me like that." He paused, and, strangely talkative, added "I like the cartoon characters in your library though. You should do that with one with one of my pictures."

Bob is very reticent about any use of his music, fame, lyrics, writing, persona, and history. But oddly he's always looking to get his visual art out there. It's okay. I went looking for the oldest stuff of his I could find and set to editing it on my phone. I knew he would enjoy not being talked to for half an hour.

I showed him a picture.

"Yeah. That's good!" He said to my surprise.

Check it out here, please?

Begging week

 

www.lifeisafountain.com

Hello, and welcome to begging week on Clerkmanifesto!

This is day one! 

There are going to be seven days, all concerned with begging. I will be begging you.

Before we get into the begging discussion I'd like to get right into my first day's first beg:

Please, please fill out this survey on the "Forms" page at Life is a Fountain. I beg of you!

Go here!

Did you do it?

Really?

No, I understand that everyone is different. 

 There is only one beg per day during Begging Week. And it's over.

But can I just say:

Almost everything you see on the Internet, almost every email you receive, and almost every clickable link you see, is just a beg.

So do I want special credit for this act of honesty. Do I hope for a boon for being upfront about that which is so normally hidden?

No, my quiet, noble heroism is its own reward.

Enough is enough!

 

As I sit here at the front desk of my library I finally have to say, enough is enough!

I can no longer reasonably justify making fanciful pictures on my phone all day. My blog, my two blogs! (visit Life is a Fountain blah blah blah), are overwhelmed with peanuts characters getting library cards, Daffy Duck throwing fits in the back room, and figures from Norman Rockwell Paintings conducting business at, well, at the very desk I am sitting at right now. 

My grip on reality is fracturing!

I don't really work in a world peopled by Addam's Family characters, Maxwell Smart, and figures from Winnie the Pooh. Dragons Love Tacos dragons do not apply for library cards! And my making it so on my phone, hour after hour, cannot be healthy. Also, whatever happened to my quiet ruminations on the state of library work, or reviews of forgotten novels, or amusing accounts about supply procurement for the county? I vow to return immediately and without fail to these quiet studies,  these calm, elegant illuminations, and these gently humorous anecdotes that have brought you here to my website for all these years. Indeed, these are the bread and butter essays that have built me a

Oh my God!

THERE'S A DINOSAUR IN THE LIBRARY!

I'll try to snap a quick picture, but then, if you value your life

RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Summer

 

Now that the newer version of Clerkmanifesto, Life is a Fountain, is open for, not business, I guess, frolick?, I recommend reading today's post instead at Life is a Fountain. 

More particularly this following photo essay will feature on the Life is a Fountain Blog page, and will differ from this Clerkmanifesto blogpost mainly by having more pictures.

Why does it have more pictures? You ask.

I don't know. On the other hand the version over there doesn't have this super cool introduction, so it's all kind of a wash.

Summer

After three weeks of dry, wicked hot days, Summer came, and it rained and was cool. Strangely I have felt hot all day, as if my body is observing the Season, not the Temperature.

In between shelving and the other assorted library tasks that I performed in accordance with what I feel is appropriate for my job, I inserted fictional characters into my world. This curiously takes a lot of time on my phone, and sometimes it works better than others, but when I look at Charlie Brown standing behind the genre fiction area that I am shelving in I just get so... happy. And I feel like my world is a little different.

Here then are a handful of pictures from my work life today:

Hobbes of "Calvin and Hobbes" having a read of the draft of one of my blog posts while sitting on the rollers we use for deliveries from other branches.

Mark from "Doonesbury" standing at our service desk, musing on library work.

Snoopy riding our Check in Machine's conveyor belt, thinking about, well, I don't know what he's thinking about actually.

Gerald, of "Gerald and Piggy", who is usually pretty even tempered, getting cross in the Non Fiction section. Probably at something shelved incorrectly.

Life is a Fountain

My new website is Life is a Fountain. 

It occurred to me that the Internet has no competition.

Because it has no competition it sets all the terms. It has monopolized the discourse. It lords it over everyone! It has become BOSSY.

So I have decided to create another Internet. 

It is called Life is a Fountain!

The Other Internet.

It's not quite as big as the Internet you're familiar with. Actually it's quite a bit smaller.

You can't buy stuff on it.

There aren't any maps and it won't tell you if your local café is open.

It does not hold a vast wealth of scientific papers or the literatures of ancient peoples.

You probably can't share with your friends on it, or make travel plans, or find a recipe for every dish in the world, or diagnose your illness, or translate languages, or find a job, or date anyone, or see what movies are out, or conduct business, or play a game, or learn how to play the clarinet.

But,

And I say this with full humility,

I think Life is a Fountain is way better than the regular Internet!

Actually, that might not be full humility. 

It's probably like two or three percent humility.

Whatever.

Just, check it out. Please.

It's called Life is a Fountain. It's at www.lifeisafountain.com.

As I write this no one has ever ever been there!

I consider it the inheritor and evolution of this blog you are reading now, clerkmanifesto. 

Life is a Fountain will be in what is known as Early Access for awhile. That's a time for me to iron out it's roughest spots and develop its basic ideas, and for you, if you would only be so kind, to leave your input. There are lots of forms and comment places on Life is a Fountain, and it would mean a lot to me if you left your thoughts on what you like, or don't like, as I go forward with it.

Life is a Fountain will run concurrently with Clerkmanifesto indefinitely. The posts here will also largely be carried on the BLOG page of Life is a Fountain. But my main energy will be towards Life is a Fountain, and it will be, going forward, the more articulated version of what you see here.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy the more Carnivalesque Life is a Fountain.