Sally Brown at the Library

I was all set to gently chide those of you who did not know the very famous Sally Brown. But then I remembered that each post in Famous People at the Library Week comes with a picture, and that fact sure did put the kibosh on the chiding! Though I suppose some few of you might not have gotten all the particulars from just the picture, I doubt there's anyone who would not have gotten the general idea. And so it is, Sally Brown, Charlie Brown's little sister, regularly comes to my Library.

What is a little kid like her doing at our Library? I never see her with any adult, and I'm pretty sure she lives at least a few miles away from here. My best guess is that she was kicked out of her local Library and possibly banned. She is one ferocious kid, and quite a yeller.

On the one hand I kind of wonder about the Brown parents. Their son, who I've only seen a couple of times, at a distance, seems very sad, and their daughter is unusually emotional, loud, and fierce. It is very hard to know what kind of house that is. I've never met their parents. I think they might have a dog.

Anyway, general concerns about parenting aside, and some amount of horror at her too-boisterous-for-the-Library behavior, I really like that Sally kid. It is hard not to enjoy and admire that much spirit in a small child. It also makes her a very funny kid. I have tons of hilarious stories about her. Unfortunately I am finding that every time I try and tell you one of these stories my speaking parts in the story all either come up blank, like:

So Sally said "I crushed it but it won't stay flat!"

And I said ""

Or, sometimes it comes out as: And I said "Bwah bwah bwah bwah."

But I finally figured out a way to tell a story of Sally Brown at my Library without me appearing.

Garrison Keillor at the Library

That is a terrible title for this blog post. I think the problem is that I have been lying so much this week, during Famous People at the Library week, that I'm probably losing all perspective. In my defense I gave out the key as to what stories would be true in my introductory Famous People at the Library post (here!). I am very friendly and devoted to regular readers, pretty warm to occasional readers, and, well, too baffled and bitter about the one time readers to do anything but try and make them dizzy.

But either way, Garrison Keillor has never visited me in the Library. Oh, I met him once. He held the door open for my wife and I once at his bookstore (he owns a bookstore!). As he held the door he had just the same polite, slightly pained and awkward smile I would have had doing the same thing. I grinned sympathetically and scooted in.

But this isn't about that story. This is about how a young man, tall and lugubrious, did once come to my Library. And he looked just like Garrison Keillor! But this person was way younger!

For whatever reason, maybe even because it was true, who knows, I think I was working with Jim at the time. Jim is in a line of people who have left me here at the Library and broken my heart an ever so teensy amount. Fortunately he didn't go far. We still have sushi every once in awhile. Maybe I shouldn't say his actual name though. Is it too late to call him Biff?

Anyway, Biff and I got caught up in registering the Garrison Keillor looking young man into our system. It's not a two person job, but there we were. And the kid gives us ID and his last name was Keillor! I like to think his first name was Harrison, but, though I can't remember his first name, I think it's safe to say it was not Harrison.

One of us cautiously asked, "Are you...?"

"Yes." He said. "I am his nephew."

Which brings us back around to the title, which I can now reveal should be:

Garrison Keillor's Nephew at the Library

And though it is a bit thin as far as famous people anecdotes go, in a full week of them I think its low key restfulness allows us to pause and reflect, which might be necessary before we plunge ahead.

Prince at the Library

Sure, this is titled Prince at the Library. It's for the sake of consistency. I'd like Famous People at the Library Week to have a kind of matching look. All the portraits, for instance, are done with clickable black sharpies on copy paper. And all the titles are "So and so at the Library" But the real title for this one should be:

How I Gave Prince His Secret Name at the Library

Our story begins quite a few years ago. Back then, instead of a front desk, we had a big Circulation Desk; check ins, check outs, registration, non reference help, fines, all in one, sort of an overcrowded, desperately behind, open kitchen. I was there. Typically doing seven things at once, some of them directly job related, when a small man walks in.

Now, a real advantage to famous people stories, especially ones with pictures at the top, is that one need not waste much time describing the person. Nevertheless it is traditional to include a descriptive observation or two represented in contrast to expectation. "His mustache was darker than I expected." or "She had really long fingers. I wonder if that's why she likes to wear gloves so much." These are nice. They add texture and authenticity. Unfortunately, with Prince, he looked pretty much like I would've thought. Here. Picture Prince. Okay. Then there you are. But I can at least say this: I made him as Prince very quickly, but partly this was because he was the sort of person you look at, famous or not. He drew your eye.

He needed to register his Minneapolis Library Card into our system. He had the card, picture ID with his current address, no problem. No problem at all. Well, one problem. This all was during the time when Prince had just changed his name to that symbol. Just as I have no good way to put the symbol in here, I had no good way to enter the symbol into our patron registration program.

"What do people call you?" I asked.

"Prince." he said "And when they do I refuse to answer. So mostly they just say 'hey' to me, or tap me on the shoulder."

"Hmm." I responded.

Several clerks gathered, a supervisor, but as a solution eluded us they all sort of drifted away.

"I have to get going." Prince said "Can you register my card or not?" He wasn't being petulant. It was just straight up and reasonable.

"How about if" I answered with dawning inspiration "I just put in 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince'?"

Prince tilted his head a bit and looked earnestly at me for a bit. "That could be useful." He said "That could be very useful." And I suppose it was, just about everyone started using it for awhile. I should check our database sometime, and see if it's still in there.

Elizabeth Berg at the Library

"How famous is best selling author Elizabeth Berg?" some of you might want to know. 

Thirty-two out of 100 on the famous people scale.

Not helpful? I don't know what to do. Either you've heard of her or you haven't. At the Library I have told my Elizabeth Berg story, oh, ten times? Fifteen times? I'm pretty sure no one said "Who's Elizabeth Berg?" But then, it's a Library. A few bits of this post I wrote while shopping for furniture. In furniture stores they often put pretty random collections of old bestsellers, with the jackets removed, on shelves to give the furniture a bit more life and context. While sitting in a modestly comfy chair, writing the start of this paragraph, I happened to look up to a shelf and there was a book by her. I laughed. So, she is that famous. The rest of the day I saw no other books by her, though I looked. So she is that famous too.

One other note before I embark upon this magnificent beyond belief famous person at the Library story that it would pretty much kill you to miss. When I went looking for a picture of Bob Dylan to draw from for yesterday's famous person at the library story there were thousands of them, many photographed exactly the way I would have photographed it myself in order to draw from; scowly, and all half shrouded in shadow. Looking for a photo of Elizabeth Berg I found few, and in them she is always smiling. Now that I am an authority on these famous people you are probably dying to ask "How does Elizabeth Berg compare to Bob Dylan happiness wise?" It does not violate our Library's data privacy policy for me to answer: Oh, they seem about the same amount happy, roughly.  So I have drawn Elizabeth Berg using blurry YouTube footage of an author talk. No one really smiles all that much, besides, this is pretty much how she looked during our legendary interaction.

Right. Our legendary interaction. There I am at the front desk of my Library. What am I doing? Waiting attentively for the next patron or something technically similar to that. Up comes a woman looking just tons like the person pictured at the top of this post. At the time this means nothing to me. She's in town for a bit and wants a library card. We go through all the song and dance bits therein and soon I'm entering her information. Somehow we are talking about her last name. Was I fishing ever so slightly, or was it completely innocent? I can't remember, but whatever I said made her say "Berg isn't that common a last name."

I disagree, and I state my case. "I know a Berg, and then, there's the author, Elizabeth Berg."

To which she replies "I am the author Elizabeth Berg."

I nod, my eyes opening a bit and I say "I've shelved a lot of your books."

"I bet you have." She calmly retorts.

That's about it. I can be very quick at my job when no one is looking. And she is in no mood to linger.

I have thought a bit about this interaction. Up until recently I rather questioned my comment, and figured it could be better:

"We are unbelievably honored to have you in our humble Library."

Or how about "Wow, you're big time. Have you met Jane Austen?"

Or "If you'll pop upstairs and sign every one of your books I can get you walking out of here with any one book, CD, DVD or video game you want."

On second thought I might not have been able to do that much better. Only recently did it come to my attention that she needn't have savaged an innocent Library clerk. She too could have done better. How about:

"Try reading one. You might like it."

And I would have.

Bob Dylan at the Library

In earlier years I often frequented Zuma Beach. Near there, looking up to the bluffs, was a big house that looked just a little like a castle. For reasons I've long forgotten I imagined that that was Bob Dylan's house. I don't think it was, but his house was up on those bluffs somewhere. Still is. And when he's not touring I suppose he's out there. Just another elderly Jewish guy from the entertainment industry enjoying the mellow coastal climate of Southern California. There's several of those older Jewish guys out there, the ones who did unusually well having nice views of the ocean.

And yet, this one is a little different, even while being the same. Bob Dylan. I know his music. I know his music very well. To me he is a figure of the arts for the ages, a maker of our world, all majesty; Caravaggio, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Bob Dylan. A wonder. But I also know that scowl. I can do that scowl. I can see my brothers in that face. The dark eyes are my dark eyes, the twinkle my grandfather's, I'm sure my cousin has had that hat, worn in the same way, and I have had the same look of irritation in that face leveled at me from a different face. It is all familiar. Myself, family, men I have known, all swirling in that face. Once upon a time I did a show of portrait paintings of Jewish people 85 years old and older. Drawing Dylan here, the first time I ever had cause to do so, I see him in that group, maybe only 10 years or a bit more away, ready to join them if he can. Another person echoing everything I have known, good or ill.

Vastly many are the elegies written of Bob Dylan the artist, many far better than any I might write. But this is not that lesser elegy. Here is the thing I know, but most of the time fail to understand under all my wounds and the bedazzlements of my culture, but it is true: Our art, our work, does not exactly belong to us. Or perhaps I should put it this way. Bob Dylan the artist is only that Bob Dylan when he is doing his work, writing It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, or playing the harmonica, or whatever it is. When it's over he gets the credit, he can speak for it, maybe he gets a bunch of money, it is his. The pride is his if he wants it, and he did it, but the second he steps away, he is just whatever man he is. Another guy out on the cliffs near Zuma Beach. My 42nd cousin. He looks a little like my Grandma Bernice.

And so me too, on my infinitely smaller (artistic) and exactly the same size (human) scale, am who I am. At this moment I am the blogger. At the top of the post I was the artist. It was a one way street, it is a one way street doing those things. The umbilical cord runs to however much light my soul can shine. This conversation we are having is an illusion. If we talk for real, it is different. When I log out here I become a person walking, a clerk at work, whatever I am doing and feeling and thinking, one person, equal in size to all others. There is no way that I know of to make that larger, no song, no masterpiece, no blog post. When I say I know, but most of the time I fail to understand, it is that that is so, and a thing to be loved. Everyone lives on the ground. No money, no glory, no fawning retinue, changes going to the bathroom, or lying in bed or breathing air or thinking about the world, one thought at a time, one breath, one stream of pee, alone under our sky.

When Bob Dylan tours, when he comes by my area to visit some remnants of family, he does what any older guy with free time and a penchant for wandering about does, he comes to my library. A senior citizen, low key, halfway between dapper and seedy. Before you know him, from your perch at the front desk, you toss him into some random patron categories that you do inadvertently for everyone; trouble, funny, impaired, interesting, work, needy. I don't know what category I put him in. I kind of like them all in a way anyway, even as I dread some. For him maybe it's old guy, ready for a brief, appreciative exchange of observations, a couple light, situational jokes. It doesn't matter. And when I make him, when he becomes Bob Dylan, it doesn't matter either. Oh, it does, it's the most dazzling amazing spectacle in the world, but he is not singing, or writing, and he is just there. A library patron, one of 2500 for the day. To be helped, if I can.

What does the magnificent and massive Bob Dylan check out from the local Library? Ha! I knew you'd ask. I would've. But I can't tell you. His browsing habits are protected by our Data Privacy policies. I can give you a hint though. I keep trying to get him into the Gerald and Piggie books. I think he'd like them, and I have totally sold him on Anthony Browne, particularly Zoo and One Gorilla. Bob Dylan is practically obsessed with Anthony Browne's One Gorilla! But I probably shouldn't have told you that. Could you please sort of keep it to yourself? It's not much of a story anyway. 

Famous people at the Library

I have written about my own famousness (link here, go ahead, I can wait. I won't type a word until you come back). But what about real live, mind bogglingly famous people?

"You must get loads of fascinatingly famous people pouring through your near urban, super busy Library, and you must have tons of hilarious, pseudo illuminating anecdotes about those famous people!"

Well of course I do! Don't think that because I'm in Minnesota we don't get the big stars, the cultural giants. Prince and Dylan are from here, and are naturally heavy Library users. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Garrison Keillor, um, er, ah, um, the Dalai Lama, Jane Austen, Muhammad Ali, Lady Gaga, Hillary Clinton, Winona Ryder, Rasputin, Linus Van Pelt, Miguel Cervantes, all native Minnesotans. And though most of them have moved on, there's always some adored Aunt or something that brings them back for a visit, and when they come, and need an only slightly greasy book, this is the place to get it!

What's that? The Dalai Lama is not from Minnesota? Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree. Still, I can immediately sight my source (here). I hope you can do the same.

So, hilarious anecdotes about some of these famous visits? Hmm, they're not exactly hilarious. They're more libraryish and mildly interesting, which, when dealing with famous people, is plenty! Like:

"I saw Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck once."

"Really? What were they doing?"

"Checking out the DVD When In Rome."

"Wow!"

No one will ever get tired of hearing that story. They will actually seek out even more mundane details. "Did they wear hats?" "Were you able to save any of their garbage?"

Anyway, I don't know where you got the impression that these stories would be hilarious.

Oh. I did say that? Hilarious? Well, I'll take your word for it, and I take your point. There are parts of this post, up near the top, that weren't a hundred percent accurate, but I feel we've worked through to a much better place now and it would be great if I could continue on in a more uninterrupted way, as much as I've appreciated all the attempts to set the record straight. Thank you.

Oh! I just had a thought. What if instead of trying to cram all these fascinating, er, vaguely interesting, famous people in the Library stories into the puny remains of this blog post, what if we had a famous people at the Library week? Then each anecdote could feel free to fully flower and instead of one Hollywood Squares episode, we could have like five or six episodes of This Is Your Life, except all with puny anecdotes instead of people. Remember how much fun we had during "Short Post Week"? To paraphrase one of my most esteemed readers "You kind of lost me with that short post week thing, but I started reading your blog again recently." So, yes, this could be great like that.

Okay, we're on then. Famous people at the Library week has now begun.

"But wait!" You cry out, before I leave. "How will I be able to tell the fake pointless famous people stories from the real pointless famous people stories?"

Alright, a hint. Real famous people don't really visit near urban public Libraries unless they're mid list authors, or half famous locally, or just famous by association, or, possibly someone like Keanu Reeves. But don't worry, there will be no stories about Keanu Reeves visiting. I hope that helps.

"But wait!" You cry, before I can leave. "When will you return to trenchant, clear eyed views of the world, all hard hitting and visionary and renowned throughout the blogosphere?"

As soon as famous people at the Library week is over. I must follow my bleary hallucinatory visions as they come. Read as you will.

Clerks, Beatles, beetles

 

Just the other day I was comparing clerks to beatles. I have always fancied myself to be most like John, but with some of Paul's boyish charm, and George's spirituality. Also with some of Ringo's drumming ability.

What?

Oh, right, I was comparing clerks to beetles. The little bugs! Ha ha ha. 

I've always fancied myself to be a lot like Trigonopterus Viridescens, but with the sparkiness of a Big Dipper Firefly, and the industriousness of a Hercules Beetle.

Weirdly that's about all I have to say today. I had a whole bunch more on little yellow notes I carry around in my pocket. It really dug deep on how clerks are just like Beetles in many ways. I absentmindedly chewed all my notes up. I can't imagine why I would chew these notes up. That kind of behavior would be more normal for a Carpet Beetle, or a Cigarette Beetle, not a clerk. 

Well, I guess this kind of proves my point.

Tis the season

Because we live in a hyper Candid Camera era, where some kind of oddball public prank or flash event may take place at any moment, I go into a state of alert when something eye opening starts unfolding in my Library as if it is just happening "naturally." 

And yet all these strange, carnival weirdnesses that take place here actually do seem to be natural, they don't show up on youtube, and they aren't stunts designed to blow our minds. They are just the everyday magical confluences of a varied world.

And what is it today? You ask.

Santa Clauses.

Upstairs today, less than an hour ago, I was able to count six, yes six full on Santa Clauses! No, not guys in costumes. That kind of thing is small time. There's always some reason for that. These are the real deal, just regular men, going about their business, who happen to fit, in every basic, out of costume particular, the required parameters of Santa. Rotund? Check. Late middle age or older? Check. Full white beard and white hair. Check. Rosy cheeks. Yeah, pretty much. It's a warm day, they had to climb the stairs. Did they all have a twinkle in their eye? Well, no, let's not get carried away, it's a Library here, not a charming story about the North Pole. But the best one had maybe a little twinkle. I don't know. Give them all the suit, a pipe, a few gifted reindeer, and they all would have been perfect enough. As they actually were attired it was more like they were of the funny Santa genre. Santa on vacation in bermuda shorts. Yes, he's up there. Biker Santa. Yes, but he comes here all the time. There was a kind of techno Santa too. Santa nerd I guess, all wired up, packing screens. He seemed to have an antenna coming out of his head. So no classic Santas, but more like they'd all come from magazine advertisement photo shoots as companies put together their Christmas print campaigns. A hip, modern Santa selling Christmas computers, that sort of thing. Of course they were a bit too real to really be that. One guy had water bottles and ziplocked sandwiches strapped to his body, another sported mysterious, overstuffed briefcases. Many had tangled or frayed or unkempt beards. I literally can see one more across the library coming down the stairs. He has suspenders, which is very Santaish, and an army camoflauge shirt, which isn't, and a tan golf hat. Very white hair, long enough, but beard a bit thinner than ideal, and his cheeks could be rosier. I'm gonna throw him back. I can afford to be picky. I've got so many to choose from.

My fiction mood

My reaction to the fiction section is a very good barometer of my mood. If I am dazzled by the bewildering and sophisticated magic of the literature on display, the testaments to art at a profound level far surpassing our thin notions of God, then I should be okay. But when I am shelving my way through fiction and become convinced, in reading jacket quotes, synopsis, bios, epigraphs, dedications, and stray passages, that though I am encountering hundreds of different authors, hundreds of different books, it is all, in reality, one book, over and over, with a few unimportant changes between each of them, then I know I am in trouble for the day. I should seek out quiet places as often as possible and just...

sit there.

The one book? How is it described? This is it:

Fusing tragedy and hope in this heart wrenching masterpiece is only part of so and so's brilliance. This (Pulitzer, Booker, National Book Award, PEN/Faulkner award) winning author has crafted a narrative that explores the deepest meanings of what it is to be human. So and so takes us on a journey down to the souls of characters that are beyond our love and hate while evoking both. This book and it's small/large fictional town/city of Whatsit will stand testament to the power of evocation and to the mastery of one of our greatest living authors. This book and the characters of Whatsit, will live forever in the shattered remains of your heart.

No, really, some days they're all like this, and I either want to read them, or hide under the stairs. It's under the stairs today for me.

Furniture store

I have been doing a lot of furniture shopping lately. My wife and I venture off into one furniture store after another. My focus is only partly on the furniture. I like the air conditioning. I like the sitting. I am keenly interested in the music. Often the music is jazz. Sometimes it is very good. Hip places these days are intensely focused on mid modern, which covers, in practice if not by definition, furniture and design and suchlike from the late 50s to maybe the mid seventies. I know some of this stuff from childhood. Time and memory has made it hideous and charming. For music in these places it is Big band, rat pack sixties, and the non-rock pop of the era. It's all pretty entertaining.

The workers too at furniture stores interest me. They are not clerks. Indeed, they belong to a different genus than clerks. They are sales people.  Clerks tend to be in complicated tension with Capitalism. Sales people are an ultimate expression of Capitalism. These furniture folk seem to mostly be commissioned sales people. Their very livelihood mainly depends upon you actually buying stuff as they attend upon you. A clerk's livelihood mainly depends upon you not shooting them, that and upon their ability to live on a modest budget. But what I really think of for an analogy is from the animal kingdom. Clerks are like, um, maybe beetles. You know, like, look at that little beetle! It's so cute and industrious rolling that dung around! Or, look at that little beetle, it's so shiny! Why is it just sitting there? Is it dead? Poke it.

Furniture sales people are like spiders. 

You walk in the store, maybe you touch a fabric. A reverberation sounds out through all the fabrics and deep into the store. Suddenly a sales person appears right before you to ask if you need help. You never see them move fast, but they can be right up close at a moments notice, instantly at your right hand, attendant, ready, with a claim and possession. A gruff "Just looking" sends them back deep into a quiet heart of the store. Where is it, that quiet heart? I don't know, but start to like something, have a question, or just remain in the store long enough, and there, instantly, they are again.

Yes, yes, I know they are not spiders. They do not want to wrap you in a cocoon of death and suck the life juices out of you. They do not want to eat you. While a couple of these sales people were alarmingly offensive, I found most of the sales people to be nice and, on the surface, not so dissimilar from clerks, good clerks that is. They could be caring, helpful, and at our service. But these sales people do care just a little bit more, and though, in the best of them, you will never see it, there is a gleam in their eye, an avid, hungry gleam. Of course they want to eat you. Everyone's gotta eat. It's not personal.

Our brutal return instructions

If you want to return items to our exterior, drive-up, automated return book drop you drive up to a little door, in the middle of a brick wall,  just maybe about five inches high, that raises up very smoothly and slowly when approached.  And just as you activate it by approaching, a deep voiced recording says nicely "Please return your materials one at a time." At this point you put a stack of six children's books into the slot, then a stack of three dvds, and finally two fat novels that you have to sort of squeeze and shove to get through the slot together.

Just kidding. You don't do this. Some people do, but not very many and not you. But, alas, some people really do. I have tried to listen in my heart for who these people are, but it's a lot of work. The best I could get to is that they are so wildly distracted by the cure for cancer they are working on in their head that they don't hear the voice.  Or, maybe, if the belt is moving super slow, because the machine is under heavy return load, they are making the executive decision to defy the return process request of "One at a time" because they are dropping off their items while on the way to the hospital to have a finger reattached, or they could be firemen on the way to a fire. They could be deaf. They could be rocking out too intensely to the most awesome, blistering guitar solo ever recorded, they could know that "One at a time" guy from somewhere and have a really ugly history.

Whatever they are up to that causes them to return items in a stack, in defiance of deep voiced instructive guy, it should be a very very powerful thing, such a divine emergency, or so understandable a mistake. And the reason it should be such a strong thing is because on our side of the wall, when all the little items come in, and, suddenly, unexpectedly they are in stacks, each stack feels like a little slap in the face, or like someone put a gob of phlegm in there,  or maybe, instead of three books, like they put in three sheets of paper, one after the other, and the first one says "I", and the second says "HATE" and the third says "YOU."

Maybe the fact that these stacks feel like hate mail, or spit, seems silly to you. But you would be no different working this machine. I have seen even the mildest mannered of us all, the least confrontational, yelling "One at a time!" at the slot even though it is unlikely they can be heard. They try to sound reasonable, but you can hear them coming unhinged.  No one is immune. Some leave notes on the patron record. Some take it out on the books. I personally like to pick up one of the offending books like maybe I'm going to throw it in the garbage. I think I even mean to for a second. An unrealistic scenario plays out in my head. The patron saying "I know I returned it in the book drop."

"Did you return it in a stack?" I ask "The machine will easily lose items returned in a stack, destroys them, we have to charge the patron. We have no choice."

It all passes. I don't throw good books in the garbage, or yell through the slot. I unstack the books. It is a small indignity. Small is too big. It is a tiny indignity, and it is just part of the job. I can handle a few stacks a day, I can shoulder these little indignities. What do I expect anyway, what with all our confusing rules?

Bad news

It is always a moment that sticks in my throat, a momentary touch of toil in my job unlike any of the other toils. and it is worse when my dealings with the patron are warm. We are chatting maybe about their Portugal guidebooks, the ones they are bringing to check out. They tell me excitedly about their plans, and I tell them about that nice gelato place in Lisbon, or about the fabulous cafe' Pois (pronounced, I think, poysh). They want to know more. And while we're talking they give me their Library card. I bring up their record and everything stops. I have some bad news.

Oh how I pity a Doctor. My burden and bad news is but a trifle next to someone having to tell someone that they have some terrible cancer or something, but, nevertheless, I find no joy in it.

"You have $150 in late fines." I say in the gentle tones of an undertaker. "And these four DVDs are still out and overdue." I add, turning the screen towards them.

Our warm chat is over.

If there is any saving grace it is that people rarely take the news as hard as I think they will. I can't think of anyone ever breaking down in tears, and hostile belligerence is very rare. To tell you the truth I think the sort of people whose Library borrowing can go so completely pear-shaped tend to be, at least generally, the sort of people who are used to it, and the sort of people who take it with aplomb.

"A hundred fifty dollars?" They might say. "I'll write you a check."

No worries, huh?

I just hope it doesn't bounce.

Fallow

I have spent much of my day today writing.

"What have you been writing?" You ask. 

Why, blog posts of course. Did you think I was working on a novel or something? I may be old school, but not that old school. More 2007 than 1886.

And so writing all day I have said pretty much all the important things I wanted to say. This is always a good time to come write my Sunday post, the fallow post. There is not overmuch order to it, really what comes up can just come up. Today is a field of weeds for you. If you are fortunate enough to find some wildflowers pick them freely. Tonight we plow this all under and tomorrow we get a richer and fresher soil.

Today it is quiet here and songbirds and flocks of blackbirds poke around under a gray sky. Tomorrow I will be eager to tell you things once again.

Like other things

A few days ago my colleague, Dave, who, for some reason I'm not clear on, is my only colleague I freely name on this blog, brought to my attention the tagline of a book or DVD he came across while emptying a bin: "Like Downton Abbey, but with magic!"  We thought this was pretty amusing. It had been a very long day and we were very eager to be amused. Perhaps what seemed amusing is that "magic" seemed so antithetical to the essential nature of Downton Abbey, and so made its eagerness of association especially desperate and silly seeming. But who knows, there are only so many kinds of things around, and much is like much else. Perhaps it pretty much is Downton Abbey, but with magic. I myself have always fancied that this blog is a lot like Don Quixote, only in English, and Non-fiction, and in blog form. For the record though, I'm not saying Dave is anything like Sancho Panza. You can draw your own analogies here. Since I'm not selling this with taglines, you'll have to.

She is leaving

I try to be circumspect in how I discuss my co-workers, not so much generally, but in the specific. The foibles of a basically decent co-worker are certainly fodder for this blog, but not if they can't be separated some from the actual person, and tempered by that person's virtues even as that person is disguised. Curiously, it is always a delight and surprise to me, but some of my co-workers read this blog, and I have no wish to wound or to expose them.

But some don't read this blog. And some are not quite in that "basically decent" category.

While I suspect it is an immutable law of humanity that all people have some virtues, some people have cut wrecking paths through life. Occasionally those wrecking paths are run right through my work world. They have burned and scarred ground in the history of my library. And while these people are great for stories and staff unity, for the bizarre carnival colorings of our world, we should not lose sight that they are destroyers, and by their very nature have eschewed our protection. On the contrary, if we have any job it is to watch these people, keep them in check, and speak truth to them. Patching the wounds people like this inflict on the public and sometimes on my colleagues, for instance, is as much my job as is registering library cards. And speaking about a person like this with more clarity and lack of forgiveness than of a co-worker who is trying, is, to my mind, not just fair, but right.

And so I come to report today that one of these people is leaving us, retiring. I can see her now through the window I am sitting near, as I am typing, on my dinner break. My association with her is long and I still feel a certain kind of affection for her, a slight touch of sympathy. I am surprised it has survived, though there have been many times in our history where it has gone dark altogether. Like I said, small virtues, a sense of humor, playfulness even, can be readily apparent in her. Also like I said, all have some virtues, but a few flowers poking up through burnt and ruined ground makes for some heartbreaking poignancy while still remaining a long way from healing that ground. She has committed no great or singular crimes that I know of. Whatever evil is there is truly mundane and almost easy to forget, especially in these quieter days, when her fangs have dulled and her effect has been quieted by poor health, a mellowing of age and a diffusion of her personality in a changed Library dynamic. It would not be so hard to take the small virtues, the sins made comical by softening time, and the fact that it is over, that in a way it has been over for awhile, to say an almost nostalgic goodbye. There goes one of our own. There goes someone who has been part of what defined this place for thirty years. There goes someone around whom so much spent drama was once spun. There goes someone who we will never really be able to explain to the workers to come. There is no way to convey that persecuted, Eeyore gruffness of hers, that intensely unwelcoming approach to the patrons, that profound unhelpfulness. Who would believe it? The newer people already don't really understand who she is, not now that there are worse people, worse in a modern way, failing all of us and this place in a way that is contemporary. She is history. Couldn't we just wave as she drifts off into the horizon, shed a (metaphorical) tear for lost youth, different times, and long faded grievance?

But.

She hurt a lot of people. She hurt a lot of people. Maybe none so much that anyone carries so much of a wound anymore. There is that. But. People cried in the bathroom after encounters with her. They were locked in months long pitched battles about nothing, that they could not choose not to fight. She alone in her time filed more grievances than all the other people in my library system put together over that same time period. Thousands of patrons had their days ruined by that needlessly grudging, antagonistic, unhelpful woman. Some feared her. And none of it, not for a second, was for something constructive. It was always to serve some unresolved horror in herself, to protect her from any change, any self examination, and any reckoning.

Do I want her to read this? No. Do I want to hurt her? No. Would I be delighted at her self reflection, apology, and pursuit of redemption? I would be amazed and dazzled. But I do not believe it is coming. And to you great cultural purveyors of forgiveness I say this:

I sit here of sound mind and heart. My spirit is calm and without rancor and whole. Forgiveness is beautiful and powerful and profound, but forgiveness is only disrespected when bestowed unsought and unasked. And contrary to all you may have heard, wrongly given, it does not ennoble and heal the heart from which it issues, rather it degrades it because it plays too light with truth, and no heart can be sound without truth. The uncountable, dazzling thousands of stabs of pain my co-worker has inflicted stand in the small fabrics of history forever, and though I suppose it is possible for every one of them to heal in their victim's hearts, there is no chance of absolution without her, and the book of these deeds belongs open, forever.

My co-worker is leaving. The time when that would have engendered a profound relief and joy is passed. Now the newer people can merely see it is a good thing, and the veterans are merely... amazed. I don't believe I have ever had a colleague leave the Library without my feeling at least some touch of sadness. I have traveled a long way with this one and that touch is not so small here. But as long as there is a single star in the sky it will stand testament to the grief you have sown in this world, just as it will stand testament to the joy.

Flattering spam

I don't just want to be a megalomaniac, I want to be the greatest megalomaniac who ever lived!

-me

One regular feature for a person writing a blog is that we receive some very, very flattering spam. I have so far managed to prevent any of it from appearing on my blog because I think you would be less interested in hearing what iwouldliketostealyourhandbag@violentcriminal.eu has to say. But I am always delighted to know that he or she has "found my very interesting post." and is "certain I will be a blogger much to watch!"

Oh, sure, I look to be the eminently confident, self possessed blogger to you, but when soonhavingpowerofattorneyoveryou@insanesociopath.ru writes a comment to say, about my post on who the people in my neighborhood are, "You sir have given me much thinking in your wonderful post and I will be coming back here often. Check out my own site at..." my heart thrills to know, in reaching out to the world, I have touched someone so much that they would like to sell me shoes or steal my identity. Sure, we value my identity around my house, but it's so nice to know others out there do as well. So to all the nice spammers out there; thanks for letting me know, and I'll be sure to check out all your sites as soon as I can. So nice of you to leave those handy links! Your very general, but also perceptive and encouraging comments, totally keep me going. Bless you.

Old guys, a 5 minute story

Older guys tell me stuff. These guys are anywhere from 5 to 40 years older than me, and I like them. At least, in the context of being a library clerk, I like them. It's a perfect context for me. I'm at home there at that front desk, comfortable, welcoming, and my expectations for fun and freedom are pretty modest, so if someone wants to entertain me I'm all in. Plus, and perhaps most importantly of all, everyone is limited to, very roughly speaking, about 5 minutes maximum with me. All of this seems to engender a certain amount of formality, and, if the chat is going well, a certain amount of not entirely satisfied interest and enjoyment. This makes us happy to see each other the next time we meet. Also, these are people, so terrible deeds and darknesses of all kinds lurk in the corners. But I don't usually get to that stuff in five minutes. I just get highlights: one man's long travels in Europe, bar stories from distant, historical versions of my own cities, a lawyer's work stories. Could they become evil or boring? Sure, but not in five minutes. And I am no great interviewer, but again, in five minutes I don't have time to ask the wrong question or start to tell one of my own stories, breaking the flow. They give me a best of, and I am attentive.

Just the other day I got some interesting snippets from a man just back from Rome (this is a city I love, but I am still waiting to hear from someone who doesn't sort of hate it in the summer. The interesting parts were concerning his Roman cousins there, who were only there for a bit because they hate Rome in the summer too!). This lead to the next man picking up on the Italian stuff and telling me about enlisting in the Navy in WWII as an Italian-American. He said when war broke out they thought of putting Italian-Americans in internment camps like the Japanese-Americans until they realized there would be no one to fight their war for them. He said everyone wanted to enlist after Pearl Harbor, but he was underage so his distraught Italian mother had to accompany him on the bus downtown to sign for his enlistment. He said his mother, weeping, made the recruitment man promise to take care of her son. The recruitment man did promise, the man told me ruefully, a tone that spoke richly to many interesting stories of not being taken care of while fighting in the Pacific. But that was the end of it. People were in line behind him and we had to break off. Would I have liked to have heard all about his being in the Navy in the Pacific in WWII? Sure. Will I? I doubt it. Maybe I'll see him again in a week or a month or two. Maybe he'll tell me another five minute story. I hope so. I'm a big fan of five minute stories, after all, it's the kind I tell too.

Antiques, the cautionary tale

 


I went with my wife to a pretty river town and looked through many huge stores crammed with antiques. Yes, crammed. I really liked them and could see a bit of a path not traveled in myself. Some part of me could have become obsessively absorbed with all this stuff, with its light touches of rareness and history and time travel, with all the collecting and treasure hunting and value. But, as a career, for me, I think it would have failed hard. I am not good at sales, never mastering that essential emotional remove that is required for it. I am far too inclined to go all Daffy Duck and have vivid, feverish dreams of swimming in gold coins as any sale is negotiated. I'm not sure people would really like buying some Victorian doctor's case from a person who starts exulting flamboyantly about being a fabulously wealthy millionaire the second their $175 sale is completed. And besides that problem I suspect I would have formed deep emotional attachments to all my collections that no money exchange could adequately compensate for or reflect on my real valuing of the object. So if I went that route I probably would have ended up more on the hoarder end of the spectrum, which, I imagine, is where most antique dabblers end up anyway. A man at our recent garage sale (here, if you want to hear a small bit about it) told us about how he had to get a second house to store all his stuff. He has a 21 room mansion, he said, to keep it all. He said it could be in a museum, it should be in a museum. It should be a museum. 

But it shouldn't, really. It should be in an antique store somewhere, and he shouldn't have so much money that he can have a spare mansion just to store stuff he buys. Of course, I might not feel this way if he had bought something at my garage sale, and made me a millionaire. A millionaire! But he didn't buy a thing. I guess he just came to tell his Rime of the Ancient Mariner story. Every weekend he leaves behind his multiple houses that have no room for him anyway. He travels up and down the alleys of my city, seeking garage and yard sales at which he can tell his lonely story. It is his ritual and all he has left, if you don't count all the houses and stuff. But also it is his curse, to tell that story over and over throughout the city, and, perhaps, it is his gift, too, not buying, rather telling, telling us garage salers we have chosen the right path. And so we have.

Real truth behind shocking Library reading program story!

"Why," no one ever asks "does your blog never include outrage inducing stories that turn out to be totally deceptive and misleading?"

I love this question. Say more!

"Well, I read your blog and never walk away with a sense of fury about how terrible the world is and a desire to share my now totally confused, frothing misconceptions of reality in a viral way that will have the whole Library world talking about YOUR BLOG!"

You don't? Crap.

Well, thank you for your input. I try to be misleading but truth keeps leaking out like blood from a bad wound. And so I am consigned to be me, and you are consigned to being you. We must try and make peace with it.

But wait! Don't leave! I have a story the Library world is up in arms about! I will tell it more roughly, sort of, vaguely, as it was told to me by a co-worker. Good story, good co-worker, and if all the details turn out to be not exactly true it is all probably vastly more true than anything you can find about it anywhere else in the world. It will enrage you! You will go insane!

So, in Hudson Falls, NY, a kid in the Library there has won the reading contest at his local Library five times in a row now. Do you know this one? Well, it's true, He read more books than any other kid to take the prize five years running. Publicity spread about this because it is an amazing, once in a lifetime story. Oops, no, it isn't. I think the closest we can get to "once in a lifetime story" is that if his grandmother is around she was probably politely interested. The librarian over there was contacted about this five time winner by a reporter for reasons no one will ever know because it bears no relation whatsoever to news.  So the librarian said something about the kid dominating the contest and how it was discouraging the other readers. I believe she used some variation of the ill-advised word "hogging" and said something about switching to a drawing. The mistake here is the "hogging" thing. And there's a good chance there is something about the librarian hating the kid's mother, but unlike the hard facts I have been presenting, the hate part is just super perceptive speculation. Anyway, the pro and anti competitive reading sections of the internet went nuts over this and local news teams (the real villains in most news stories like this, keep your eye on the ball) went into high gear. They interviewed left and right, found dissenting opinions in that very library and puffed desperately on the super tiny flames. Fights raged across the internet, and many scoffing, hypothetical accounts of young, competitive athletes being asked to lose, just because they won too much, were invoked until the fires burned out of control. Everyone pretended to be sensible the whole time, even me.

Finally, as Fox news covered this wild controversy that shook the foundations of competitive bulk reading among children, the kid was asked what he thought. 

"I don't see what the big deal is." He said. "The prize was a T-shirt."

All the wisdom in the world

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
-Henry David Thoreau

I don't know what to do with this quote. It grabbed me by the scruff of the neck while I was looking at books about elephants. It left me wobbly. But everything leaves me wobbly lately; the Finnish book about the guy who leaves everything and travels with a rabbit for a year, elephants listening with their feet, by vibration, and just all this thinking about writing. I wander around the Library, composing in my head, fixing things in my mind that no one will ever be able to lay a hand on no matter how perfect the fix. And everywhere is answers...

Oh, here it is:

I have accumulated all the wisdom in the world. It is packed in my psyche like junk in some hoarders attic. I have all the wisdom in the world.

Now it is time to use some.