What it sounds like if you call here

The phone rang. I wasn't working the phones at my library job, but our phone person was already on the phone, so, since I was loitering nearby, I answered. I greeted the caller. In response the caller said something so quiet, so mumbled, and so accented, that I couldn't even begin to interpret it.

"I'm sorry." I said. "Could you repeat that?"

The person on the other end of the line repeated at an equally unintelligible level.

"Still didn't catch that." I said regretfully. "Rough connection maybe? Could you say it a bit slower and louder?"

I don't know if it was the fact of a third repetition or that it was louder or both, but finally I was able to make out a question climbing through the haze and the accent and the mumbling. "Who is this I'm talking to?" is what it asked.

It sounded a little combative, and I thought "Wow, how confrontational!" But I roll with the punches and figure people are going to be how they're going to be. So I told her who I was and asked if I could help her.

In a friendly tone she told me who she was and how she wouldn't be in that day because of some weather related issues.

Ah, it was one of my co-workers.

Soft exile

In a kind of soft, but real exile I am in a lovely room looking out at a frozen Lake Superior. It's late Winter and though it has been warm for days, nothing out there moves. Nothing. It could be a picture but it isn't. Indeed it says "fuck pictures", because it is Lake Superior. You either see it, in its natural, bewildering guise, or you don't.

Holy gods all these miracles putting the world at our fingertips. Skip away on your fancy machines for 20 seconds and you can find thousands of pictures of Lake Superior, film, books. But none of it is real.

Luckily I am at liberty to tell you what Lake Superior told me today:

Magic is the absence of illusion.

People of the book

It was a usually busy Saturday at the library, and then the snow started falling heavily outside and everything slowed down to a half speed. About that time all kinds of people started showing up to prepare the library for that evening's annual gala event, an after hours fundraiser for the Friends of the Library. Usually they have a theme for this event. Once it was spies. Another year it was "The Great Gatsby". This year I couldn't grasp the theme at first. One person was maybe dressed as a ladybug. The retired friends of the library director was dressed as the statue of liberty. I made a point of going over to her in our back room at some point and saying "Uh, hi. It seems there are some tired, poor, huddled masses at the front desk asking if they can see you."

She laughed politely.

That's all I ask.

Usually.

Around that time, in the big program room, a bottle of alcohol that was going to be part of some silent auction, exploded. I heard about this from my manager who was much involved in cleaning it up. As you might imagine it was a fantastic mess, on carpet, with bits of glass, but good smelling. First my manager said it was a bottle of wine. Since it exploded I wondered if it might be champagne. Then later he said it was Scotch! 

More people arrived with decorations. There were dozens and dozens of helium balloons, mainly in blue and white, with a bit of gold. The blue was a peculiar one, a shade of blue my wife had just the other day charmingly called "jewish blue". I'd never heard that before, but it was perfect. These balloons were all jewish blue! Then they started decorating tables and it was all in jewish blue and white. It looked like they were getting ready for a big Seder!

"If I'd known this year's theme was "Jews" and they were serving scotch, I totally would have bought tickets!" I cried. But no one seemed too amused because none of them were Jewish, which made me a bit sad.

When I investigated it turned out it wasn't scotch that exploded, rather a growler of beer, which was not a good understanding of their party's theme of "Jews". It should, of course, have been sweet wine. Then the decorated tables started giving me Passover flashbacks and I had an urge to look around for a hidden matzah. Finally, as the whole library started to look like the Israeli flag, to the apparent ignorance of dozens upon dozens of gentiles, I was completely relieved to note that, may his name be praised, it was five o' clock and time for me to go home.

Home, where, thankfully, I am understood.

On the end of library fines

It is within my power to forever protect any library patron from any future overdue fees by simply setting their card to a "Persons with Disabilities" status. But the definition of this status in our policy is unclear. I am inclined not to see it as a status related to physical disabilities, but rather one for cognitive issues. From there I find a Catch 22 enters into it. I am pretty shy about asserting officially, on my own judgement, that some random library patron has mental disabilities. I feel that would end up being about half of all new patrons and some of them might find it insulting. And yet any patron who were to request this special status I would invariably find too sensible to give that status to. So if they don't ask, I don't give it because they didn't ask, but if they ask I don't give it because they asked.

Nevertheless there is a bit of a sweet spot with patrons that I feel I can safely give that status to knowing they'll never properly understand it. It's pretty extreme. These are patrons I regularly deal with who never notice that somehow they never ever receive late charges, no matter what they do and how negligent they are, and yet they still worry, sometimes quite deeply, about getting their books back on time. Well, I say books, but it tends to be CDs and DVDs.

On the other hand I'm probably over-thinking the whole thing. Probably every one of our patrons would be delighted to be awarded this "Persons with Disabilities" status if it meant fine exemption. They would happily chalk it up to their "bum knee" disability, or their "poor head for dates" disability, and gleefully never pay a fine again.

And to be honest, more and more, that all seems perfectly fair to me.

The English say "Cheers"

I helped a man at the front desk of the library this afternoon. I must have done a passable job, because he said "Thank you."

I presumably said "You're welcome." because after he walked away he made a U-turn to come back to thank me for that.

"I almost left." He said. "But then I realized you said 'You're welcome" and I just wanted to thank you for saying 'you're welcome' because did you ever notice no one says 'you're welcome' anymore? It's always 'no problem' or 'sure' or something. I mean what's that all about? Anyway, so I just wanted to thank you. Thank you."

So I said "'S'all good."

I mean, I didn't want to show off.

Wine Reviews: Smoking Loon

Over at my house we are quaffing a whole lot of Smoking Loon Shiraz. It has lately become our go to wine of choice. Right now we have eight bottles of the stuff lined up waiting to be, whoops, make that seven bottles lined up waiting to be drunk. Bottle eight is not waiting, rather it is in the process of being drunk.

So naturally with all this Smoking Loon around you are wondering what is its Clerkmanifesto Wine Rating Score (CWRS). But first let's review our previous Clerkmanifesto Wine Rating Scores (CWRS):


        1.


Uh, it appearls I've never, uh, actually rated a wine here before. Which brings up the question: How did you know about CWRS if I've never even done it before?

Well, never mind. I bet you'd like to know the score. Smoking Loon Shiraz scores...


A MILLION POINTS

Plus it only costs like $6.79 a bottle.

Everyone is going to want this wine after this huge score. Smoking Loon should pay me!

Except I wouldn't take their money. They can just give us wine instead.

Which I would rate!

And it would score...


A MILLION POINTS

Plus it only costs like $6.79 a bottle.


Am I getting dizzy or have I started going in circles?

I think I should sit down.

Oh, I am?







 

 

Should you read clerkmanifesto?

You have seen the clerkmanifesto drip feeding out onto the Internet. And ever starved for something decent to read on the vast paucity that is the Internet you wondered "Is clerkmanifesto for me?"

How can you know?

Perhaps, you think, you could read a random sampling from my easily available 1,800 extant blog posts and... just... see.

No.

No no no no no! That won't do at all!

There is only one reliable way to find out if clerkmanifesto is for you; take my quiz!

Is Clerkmanifesto Right for You?

1. A public library is

     A. A place where librarians are shamefully coddled.
     B. A good place to get free squirts of hand sanitizer.
     C. A little something for the less fortunate among us.
     D. The place to go to get on a long waiting list for A Gentleman From Moscow, which was published two years ago.
     E. Something I sure would like to read a blog about!


2. Politically I am

     A. To the left.
     B. To the left of the left.
     C. Further left than "B", whose rampant centrism disgusts me.
     D. Considerably to the left of "C", who might as well be fascist as far as I'm concerned.
     E. Aware that there are more than two answers to this question. There are five.


3. Nature is

     A. The step just before real estate.
     B. A trick.
     C. Either showing off or laying low. There is no inbetween.
     D. Am I at the right test? I'm supposed to get $20 to try a new "Wheat Thin".
     E. Something I would like to read more about provided it was written by a responsible Midwestern Blogger who has a special understanding with turkeys.


4. I particularly enjoy reading blog posts written by

     A. Geniuses!
     B. People who think they're geniuses and are none too shy to say so.
     C. People who joke about being geniuses but really think they are but are so ridiculous about it it can get a little hard to tell for sure.
     D. Geniuses who are so multi-layered, absurd, obsessive, and satirical about their genius that they have tricked you into thinking they are not geniuses when they totally are.
     E. People who give you a way out in the end where you don't have to get your hands dirty.

How to Score

1. If you answered any of the questions.

Yes, clerkmanifesto is right for you! We will send you out a chaperone for your first year.



2. If you read all the questions and answers without skimming, thinking carefully and deeply about each one, then re-reading to be sure.

You are too good for this world. We will pray for you every night and will see to it that the Wheat Thins people send you your 20 dollars.


3. You skipped the preamble and quit the test at the first question.

Keep practicing! 

Moonstruck

I haven't seen it for a year or two now, but it recently popped into my mind: Moonstruck, starring Nicolas Cage and Cher. I'm not sure what sparked it in my memory; perhaps writing in defense of the Romantic Comedy against a posturing interview with the dismissive actor Christian Bale, or maybe it was because of a Guardian series endeavoring to name the all time best Academy Award winners in the main categories, or possibly even just the imminent arrival of the Academy Awards themselves, but there it was, in my thoughts, Moonstruck. And I thought "Yes, here is the Romantic Comedy I would make my stand on."

And from there I just got carried away. Why not?

Not that it isn't true that Moonstruck is wall to wall brilliant, and packed with beautiful writing and performances, but I'd like to focus just on Nicolas Cage to get to the heart of it here. I do not say his performance has no rivals in cinematic history, but there are no performances by an actor I would take over this one, and certainly all its storied competitors are vastly more heralded. To make my claim I offer the reminder of this scene, for surely you need only the reminder, and have seen this lovely film many times:


Ronny (Nicolas Cage): Johnny came in here. He ordered bread from me. I said "Oh, okay, some bread" I put my hand in the slicer and my hand got caught cause I wasn't paying attention. The slicer chewed off my hand. And it's funny cause when my fiance' saw that I was maimed she left me for another man.

Loretta (Cher): That's the bad blood between you and Johnny?

Ronny : Yes, that's it.

Loretta: But, that's not Johnny's fault.

Ronny: I don't care! I ain't no freakin' monument to justice! I lost my hand, I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand, Johnny has his bride! You come in here and you want me to put away my heartbreak and forget?


Of course reading this in print is hardly the ideal way to make my point. What I ideally prefer, when making this case, and I have made this case a few times, is to actually perform the scene myself. Not that I'm particularly good at it, just, I love pointing at my hand and yelling:

I lost my hand!

I lost my hand!


That should be enough to convince anyone.

Sweet nuthin'

I set down once again to write my daily screed, a blank space before me. Before the hijinks and visions kick in, some secret, wise part of myself admires the nothing and longs to do as little as possible to it.

Dear Publisher: The Lorax

Dear Publisher:


I was upstairs shelving in the non fiction section of my library, and I was suddenly suffused with exhaustion. All these books! Agitating, cajoling, arguing, imploring, instructing! And all with their agendas, both naked and ambitious, furtive and secret. Usually all of the above.

I know that you may be responsible for several of these books. I mean no disrespect or personal condemnation. And anyway I suspect you have some rueful inkling of what I mean.

Because these books, thousands and millions of books! The babble! The cacophony! The cry of "Me! Me! Me!" I am overcome. Sometimes it is all too much.

And so, you ask, what is my point? Why am I writing to you?

I want you to publish my book of course.

And why, you ask, should you publish me? How am I different from all these millions of pages and millions of cries?

I have no agenda of my own. I speak for the trees.

Luck

I could make the argument that God is just Luck dressed up with a fancy beard. 

But maybe instead:

The world is practically drowning in luck, until, finally, the luck runs our way, and then it's justice.

How we describe snow

In the night, secretly, while the city slept and not a soul was watching, it snowed. People like the word "blanket", and it's not a bad one, though it's overused and deceptively warm. "Five inches" tends to be too technical a term to grasp properly. "Shovelable" is imprecise, and "bad enough for people to break out their snowblowers" is too idiosyncratic and suburban. I was looking out the window at dawn and the snow clung to every fenceline and every tiny branch of every tree, and it was beautiful. So I thought "a snow that became the top half of everything." And then a great gust of wind came, the world occluded in white for a second, and that was done.

One periodically hears it bandied about, in essays not totally dissimilar from this one, though all of them hopefully slightly worse, how the Eskimos have 50 different words for snow. I don't know. We may not be living above the Arctic Circle here in Minnesota, but we have our fair share of snow. I am guessing that the truth is that the Eskimos have just the same number of words for snow as we do; none.

My curling triumph

My small obsession with Olympic Curling met its mighty triumph this week. I hardly dared to dream...

But first let me set the stage:

Overflowing with Olympic Curling Spirit I put together an elaborate curling pool at my place of employ, the library. There was a big curling box, a two dollar entry fee, a blind pick of one of the teams, could be either in men's or women's, and a careful tracking of results and whose team was whose. I discussed curling with all my co-workers, frequently detailing the rules, and I probably have explained how the progression of the tournament plays out more than a dozen times. Luckily you probably already know as it would be a fair bit of typing here. I commiserated as people's teams floundered and failed to make the semis, and I rejoiced in other participant's sometimes surprising triumphs.

But all along while people were positive and even interested I always felt that I carried that interest. I always felt that it was my curling obsession, and the others went along for the amusing diversion.

Then, one day, with my team the Danish Men already well out of it, the tournaments were edging up to the playoffs (the gold medal games are this weekend). Of course I was aware of the thrilling tie-breaker game between Men's Switzerland and Great Britain (the ninth end of that tie-breaker will surely go down as one of the great moments of this Olympics, or, I should say, its greatest sadly unheralded moment), but Curling was far from my mind as I went to the library back room on some work related mission. I hardly could've imagined what I saw:

There, glory of glories, were my co-workers, all on their own, gathered round the computers, feverishly checking up on the Curling results.

It was easily worth the ten dollars I could have won if the Danish team was better, though, admittedly, they would have had to have been vastly, incredibly better.

Internet closed

We regret to inform you that 

The Internet is Closed for the Day

This is not a political statement against corporate public policy and Net Neutrality. This is not a drill. The Internet is closed.

There are no technical problems. Technically the Internet is working fine. Also, your computer is not broken. Don't worry about that.

The Internet is not a business. It relies upon unsolicited and random, self-posted, new and original content each day to carry on. Unfortunately today there was no new original content, and so we have had to close down.

We're pretty sure this is a fluke, and we expect to be back to normal tomorrow, though of course we can't say for sure. It depends randomly on human content, endeavor, and inspiration. We suggest you check back if you're interested.

In the meantime the Internet is closed.

We're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. As a temporary alternative, books and nature will probably still work as normal in the meantime.

 

Thank you for your patience.

Dentists vs. Library

I'm at the Dentist. My teeth are clean and doing pretty well. My wife's appointment followed mine so I sat in the waiting area and read the Olympic Curling news in the St. Paul Paper. I was pouring over it with great interest.

After awhile someone from the reception desk came over. "Uh, excuse me." They said. "Are you here waiting for someone, or are you, uh, waiting to see someone for an appointment?"

"No." I replied. "I just seek out random suburban Dentist offices to hang out at and read their newspapers."

I didn't really say that, though they were mere inches from deserving it...

Although on the other hand maybe they're on to something, and I should try it when I'm working at the library later tonight. "Uh, hi. Are you here to read our books, or use our computers, or study or something?"

"I'm looking through these books I picked out. I might check some of them out."

"Oh, okay, um, fine, good. Carry on. I just wanted to make sure you weren't just here to, uh, just..."

"Oh, no. Nothing like that."

"Good, good. I mean, though, not that you're not allowed to."

No hobbies here

This afternoon it's snowing over a layer of old snow. The new white snow reveals the texture of the old greyed snow as it half covers it. No one in my house has gotten dressed yet and it may never happen. I can't think why it should. Outside looks admirable from a safe distance only. Outside is issuing no invitations today. Mostly I've been just reading books here in our little house, for days actually, hardly has mattered what they were.

At some point though I had to come downstairs and write a clerkmanifesto. It's my job. Although, I must admit it doesn't pay anything. And no one ever asked me to do this, even if some people are quite nice about it. But, I mean, I've been doing it for five years, every day. That's a job, right?

One of those books I'm reading, hiding out from winter, is a memoir by Neil Young. It says "Our music is not a job. It's a way of life." 

Fine, that too.

The fever

In my long library career I am occasional seized with a feverish desire to spearhead some kind of all-staff social activity. Years can easily separate these endeavors, but I have a lot of years to work with so my little projects have added up. I have thrown all staff picnics, filmed multiple library movies, run a cooperative snack store, hosted a library game show with prizes, painted portraits of all my co-workers and hung them throughout the library, and lectured to 75 co-workers on video games. I briefly throw my heart into them, they run their course, and before I know it I am surrounded by newer co-workers to the point where barely anyone is even left to remember, for instance, the Halloween I outfitted the entire Circulation desk as Vampires.

It's a little sad.

But then a new idea comes rushing up and I go make my name once again. What name is that? you ask. 

Me.

And so this past week I was compelled to put together an Olympic Curling Pool. There's a big box in the break room. It says "Curling is like bowling crossed with chess, on ice." You put your two dollars in the envelope on top. You stick your hand in and draw your random team; one of 20, ten men, ten women. Then you write your name next to the team you drew. I drew Men's Denmark, for instance, and wrote my name there. In decreasing amounts there is a payout for Women's Gold, Men's Gold, Women's Silver, and Men's Silver.

After I made the box I went around to get it fully subscribed. This was easier than I hoped. Dan bought two teams the day I was gone because, well, he's Dan. I sold out the last pick of Japanese Women a few hours before the first round robin match began, the only draw where the person knew exactly what team they were getting. My favorite thing anyone said about any of this was that they wish there was one of these boxes for every Olympic event. Me too, man, me too.

I've tried to keep everyone posted incessantly on how the teams are faring, but I've missed a couple days sick so some of my co-workers might be a little in the dark on how their team is doing. But really, shouldn't they all be reading clerkmanifesto? 

I think so too, I think so too.

So, briefly, the Swedes are looking brilliant on both sides. This could be their year. The Canadian Men are doing just fine, but the Women, considered one of the great shoe-ins of this Olympics, tanked their early games in a spectacular collapse, and it remains to be seen if they've gotten their act back together in time to get to the qualifiers. Women's Japan and S. Korea look surprisingly good. Men's Swiss are doing all right as well. My team, the Danes, are looking pretty unlikely, but I'd be ambivalent about winning having organized the whole thing. At my press time of Sunday afternoon, with five or six rounds played, I'm not sure anyone is completely out of it, well, except for Men's South Korea maybe, but at least they've won one game. It's the Olympics though, so there is much honor in just showing up and taking part. Which I hope is how everyone will feel about the Olympic Curling Pool, since, in the end, most of us are just going to be out two dollars.

Our library clientele

I offer, with no explanation or embellishment, the following transcript, as accurately and faithfully as I can recall it, from a very recent phone conversation I had at the library. Is it, you may wonder, representative? On the one hand I have never had this particular thing happen in my decades of working at my library. On the other hand, both to myself, and to the co-workers I shared it with, there was a general sense that it fairly captured some significant demographic of our library users.



ME: Good afternoon, this is the library. How may I help you?

PATRON: Hello. I would like to renew my books.



ME: Sure. I need the barcode number off of your library card.

PATRON: I, uh, my library card, uh, I don't have that.



ME: Well, I can try and renew your books from your name and some other identification, but I won't be able give you any information about titles if we can't renew them.

PATRON: That's okay. Taylor Lewis.



ME: "Lewis" is the last name? L-E-W-I-S?

PATRON: No, Taylor Lewis. The last name is "Lewis", L-E-W-I-S.



ME: Okay, thanks. And what is your birthdate?

PATRON: Um (long pause, with lots of thinking). I. Hmm. I don't know.



ME: You don't know your birthday?

PATRON: Um. I'm sorry. I'm not so good at communicating. Sorry.



ME: How about: What was the day you were born?

PATRON: April 17, 1985.



ME: Okay, you have three books that will be due now on March ten.

PATRON: Due March ten?



ME: Yes, March ten.

PATRON: Okay. Uh.



ME: Can I help you with anything else?

PATRON: Um, no. I guess not.



ME: Okay. Goodbye.

PATRON: (Long pause, then, just as I'm hanging up they start to say something I don't catch, but it's too late, the phone hits the cradle, and the call ends).

How we do "naturalist" around here

So there I am on my morning ramble, heading towards the Mississippi, but as yet one block off of it and running parallel. I look up into a big, bare Winter tree. Could be an Oak. I don't know. There is a squirrel there, nothing too odd in that, but the end of his tail is all a pretty and colorful tribal-festive red. But more's the pity, squirrels adorn not, and I soon realize the red is blood. The squirrel's tail is bloody.

Not far away, on a branch in that same allegedly Oak tree, which might be an Ash, or a Maple, sits a enormous hawk, I'm 80 percent sure it's a hawk, and it's one of the largest I've ever seen so up close. The feathers on his left side are badly awry. He's uncomfortably trying to fix them.

If I were a naturalist I would say that the hawk leaped down upon the squirrel but mistimed his plunge just so to catch him on the tail rather than the body. The squirrel, rather justifiably, twisted round and gave the hawk a great clout in the side. Then, altercation over, and with any of the hawk's advantage gone, both went peaceably to their sides of the tree to attend to their wounds.

I suppose this could be true. But I have none of the patience, science, and sobriety for a Natural Historian. 

So as far as I'm concerned the squirrel and the hawk were both injured in a storm, traveled to this tree together, and became fast friends on the road. They knew that this tree was the mythical and famous Wild Animal Hospital Tree, and that all hurt animals who are able come there from far and wide to be healed. Nurse The Robin is tending to a pair of beetles with broken legs. Doctor The Raven mixes potions by the river's edge. And while they wait for them the squirrel and the hawk rest from their journey and talk of all they've seen and hope for. Meanwhile the magic tree, possibly an Elm, but no one really knows, works its soothing balm on their wounds.

Supply department investigates

Supply department query

To All Library Circulation Staff:

Recently someone using the date stamp was so cavalier and messy in the course of their stamping that they stamped all over one of our brand new, white worktables. These numerous stamps have been very difficult, if not impossible, to safely erase from the table, and I am furious.

If anyone has any knowledge as to when this incident took place please let me know immediately.

Thank you,

The Supply Department