James Joyce

It was St. Patrick's day at the library, but I swear I wasn't thinking of that at all. I was upstairs shelving in fiction where it gets very heavy at the ends of the "J's" and the start of the "K's", literarily heavy, all James Joyce and Franz Kafka. As I do, compulsively, frequently, and appropriately, I pulled a book off the shelf to take a look. Something about Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce, called to me. I think it was the nice old edition we have.

Oh my. This book is splendid! Out amidst the stacks and stacks of books all screaming about their own wonderfulness, but all roughly enough the same with their stories and characters and normal English and all that, I finally open a lauded book and it is MADNESS. I cannot even begin to dare to formulate any real opinion about this thing by looking at the first page. Do you know how rare that is?

You may have read every word James Joyce ever wrote and this is nothing to you. Surely I have opened Ulysses several dozen times and thought how wonderful I might be if I would read such a thing. But today I am here without agenda. There is no way I will read Finnegans Wake. If I didn't decide to tell you about it I doubt I would have fully worked my way through a whole sentence. A whole sentence... here, let me share a random one with you from the first page of this book:

"Rot a peck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface."

You can't see my Google spell check light up like a four alarm fire here, but it has. In fact, I think that sentence just broke my spell check, and more power to it. That spell check and I have never gotten along. And if you're thinking I only chose that sentence because it was especially fulsome, you are mistaken. I chose it because it did not contain the word 

"bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk"

which is a word that I seriously did not want to have to type. The jokes on me though. I typed it anyway.

It wasn't so bad.

I took Finnegans Wake downstairs with me to admire on my dinner break, or, as it turns out, to blog about, but certainly not to read. But who needs to read it when I've already extracted such joy from it?

So, I wish to you, a late happy St Patrick's day from "out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy."

Well, I may read it just a little...

Seven in one blow

The library was busy,
The pace was not slow,
But never did I imagine,
I'd do seven in one blow.

I  was working the desk,
With my co-worker Jo
It was the luck of the draw,
That I'd do seven in one blow.

Two parents approached me,
Their five children in tow.
They spoke fateful words,
That led to seven in one blow.

"We'd all of us like cards,
And believe us we know,
There are quite a lot of us,
Can you do seven in one blow?"

There are always ways out,
But you reap what you sow,
For the honor of clerkdom, "Yes,
I'll do seven in one blow."

We took up our pens, our forms,
All IDs did they show,
We typed and we wrote,
And did seven in one blow.

The family departed,
I started to crow,
"I've broken all records,
And done seven in one blow!"

My co-workers were startled,
And some nicely said "Whoa!"
For they'd done quite a few,
But never seven in one blow.

I had too my detractors,
But they had to say "No."
When I asked if they'd ever,
Done seven in one blow.

So if there are eight of you,
The clerk to whom you should go,
Is me, our record holder,
Who did seven in one blow.

My colleagues are fine with this,
It makes them quite glow,
For who in their right mind wants,
To do eight in one blow.

 

Glamourous

I woke up this morning and didn't shave. I put on rags for clothes, had coffee with my wife (which is the best part of the day), and headed off to work. My clothes are full of holes, one layer of rust shining out from under a layer of brown, like stars, but with considerably less magnificence. My hair is sticking up in a wild, strange way. I think I have an ink smudge on my cheek. If I can find my fake cigarette in my work drawer I'll dangle it from my lower lip, ever so occasionally giving it a outward puff that blows a small cloud of white dust that looks surprisingly like smoke.

What am I up to? Well, for Halloween, when I was about five, I went dressed as a hobo. I have had a soft spot for this look ever since. But I think my real mission has something to do with a surge of disaffection for professionalism, that glossy, clean, tech, glamour that the whole world, including libraries, seems to strive for, that successful, positive, professional, corporate, virtuous, perfect, magazine wonderfulness of image that has eaten us all whole. Our success, our beauty, our positive goodness, our achievement, our love are all only the cheap tools to get others to be jealous of us, admiring, validating. I'm not up for it today. So I dressed as a hobo.

It's a busy day. I am very good at the front desk. I will be content If just one person goes home in a daze and says "There was like, this street person at the library today. I thought he would smell but he didn't. Then it turned out he worked there. He was incredibly helpful. Look at all these great Columbo DVDs I got!" 

If just one person says that it is enough for me.

Please don't be jealous.

Righteous!

On my accustomed day off I read books, watched movies, played games, cooked, and went for a walk with my wife. This is instead of what I sometimes do on my accustomed day off, which is to write a blog post or two and then wander around the Internet and ask people to read my blog post.

"Hey, Mister, will you read my blog post? No? Okay."
"Hey, Lady, will you read my blog post? I just wrote it myself. No? Okay."
"Hey, Mister, will you read my blog post? Part of it is sort of funny. No? Okay."
"Oh, hi. Excuse me. Will you read my blog post? No, it doesn't have any bunnies. I could go write a new one with bunnies? No? Oh, okay."

But even though I was just watching movies and reading and stuff, I did not forget my blog. I set aside my two favorite quotes from my entertainments on this day. The first was from the movie Catching Fire. Someone, maybe Finnick, says "When you're in the arena remember who the real enemy is." I thought that was terrific and got pretty worked up about it. I fancied I'd make a very righteous post about it and about how when you work with a terrible co-worker and they're driving you crazy, it's your manager and your manager's manager you should get mad at.

Then, later, I was reading The Red Box by Rex Stout. Archie says this: "...but now that it was over there was an inclination inside of me to feel righteous, and that made me glum and in a worse temper than before. I hate to feel righteous, because it makes me uncomfortable and I want to kick something."

I liked this one even better.

The perfect and the real

Sometimes there are library anecdotes that are so picturesque, so elemental, and of such simple construction that, while they are irresistible to a blogger such as myself, they are actually difficult to use. On the one hand their streamlined perfection makes them textureless and hard to hold. They seem too immaculate and precise to be part of the real world. They feel made up. And on the other hand, without complication and the touch of the real, the anecdote does not feel funny or striking, rather, it feels like something you already heard somewhere else, probably on some lousy sitcom, or a cartoon, or something. On top of all this, it is such a very short anecdote, with nothing extra swirling around it to give it life, nothing to build up to, no crescendo, no investment that makes you feel like you've earned it.

So I wrote this really long introduction to try and help. And I will tell you the anecdote very soon. It will not, as I have already made clear, blow you away. But if you are willing to believe me that this very thing did happen, to me, at the front desk of the library, this very evening, exactly as I describe it, I think you will find it worthwhile. Yes, it is too perfect, but I swear to you it really happened. And in reality, believed, the perfection of it, as is, is part of what's enjoyable about it.

The anecdote:

A group of rocket scientists had our large meeting room scheduled for this evening. They came up to me at the front desk. They could not figure out how to turn the room lights on.

Yes, that's it. 

I did warn you. I think if you sit with it for a bit, if you really try, there is a small ray of light to be found there. Perhaps even enough to read by.

Our perfect system

When you drive up to our billion dollar automated return machine, its automated voice issues forth with only one instruction. This is because the machine, which, again, cost a billion dollars, is so advanced that it has only one limitation. Just one limitation, as long as you don't count the following, which we are totally not counting:

1. It is terrible at processing skinny books of any kind, which is not a problem because only children's books are skinny, and practically no one checks out children's books, especially not huge stacks of them.

2. The rollers eat and jam on any book not in pristine condition, which is also not a problem since, as a library, we are so awash in money that we replace all our materials after just two or three uses.

3. Eleven or twelve other little things that are too technical to describe here, and, if I'm not going to describe them, I am hardly justified in counting them.

Which leaves us with the machine's one limitation and one instruction:

"Please return your books one at a time." Says the machine's basso profundo voice. I think it's the same voice that does the ketchup advisory board commercials on Prairie Home Companion. Labor as the machine might, it cannot handle items in stacks. Oh, it tries. It sends them up a little hill in a valiant attempt to fan them out, but they still tend to glom together, and, without an opposable thumb, our poor machine is helpless to separate them. Unseparated they are impossible for the machine to check in or to sort properly.

Fortunately, all our patrons heed the machine's one instruction, as long as you don't count the following exceptions, which we are totally not counting:

1. The deaf, who can hardly be faulted for our refusal to have braille announcements.

2. People who are too busy yelling at each other in their car to hear the instruction, who totally get a pass due to our thanks to them for not actually coming into the library.

3. People seeking revenge on us due to various fine grievances, who we dare not count on the list of malfeasance, lest they use their momentous powers of vengeance on this blog.

4. People simply not paying attention, who it would be pointless to count since they will undoubtedly be dead soon in a horrible traffic accident.

And what does that leave us with? 

Perfection!

Careful where you work

Once, many years ago, my wife and I were spending several days in the strange, lovely confection know as Disney World. We were at a souvenir kiosk in the Wilderness Lodge Hotel buying things related to Winnie the Pooh. The kiosk operator, friendly enough in our dealings, groaned and said something roughly like "Only 45 more minutes and I can go home."

It was like being stabbed in my very tender, disneyfied heart, which cried out deep inside of me "But, but, this is supposed to be the happiest place on earth!"

I count myself fortunate that I do not work at a place that goes by aphorisms of happiness such as that. I am capable of feeling happiness only occasionally, and only when under no compulsion. I work at a library and deal in information, not happiness. I can be informative practically around the clock. "No," I can say "You do not mean Harold Pinter, you mean Thomas Pynchon. Wineland is actually Vineland, and we do have a copy on the shelf." Unlike happiness, this sort of thing comes naturally to me. We also deal in finding things at the library, which I find sort of fun, and in putting things places where they can be found in the future, which is boring, but at least you don't have to be happy while you do it, and you can do it at a very, very, very thoughtful pace.

Of course, a library, like Disney World, is also a place of entertainment. We are also putting on a show here, and playing parts, and creating a world of our own. We are Main Street and Adventure Land and Tomorrow Land too. But even in that guise I like to think of our show as less Disney, and more as a Wes Anderson movie.

"This is my first time here."  The patron says.

"Really?" I reply. "I've lived here for years! I sleep downstairs in the bowling alley."

"You have a bowling alley?"

"Absolutely. Most libraries do. The librarians have to blow off steam somehow."

"Is this the truth?"

"No." I say. "All lies." 

We deal in lies too. And if disillusioning to our patrons, well, we're big here on providing disillusionment as well. A library, after all, is all about illusion in careful moderation.

Writing this

Sometimes, here, I will write a sentence, look it over, and decide it is not fit for publication. Maybe, I muse, it is unnecessary to make fun of people who are under the impression that Thursday is two days after Wednesday. Isn't the journey of life steep enough as it is for these people? So unless my sentence is funny enough to make up for the cruelty of it all, out it goes. But it is just a small taste of things I may delete in the course of writing one of these essays. I might get rid of words, punctuation, clauses, and parenthetical remarks (though this one's a keeper!). Whole paragraphs, labored over for an hour, deep in the library stacks, may be shown the door. Bits may be deleted, re-added, and then deleted again. This is all part of the writing process. Like, there, did you see that? I got rid of three "uh's", two "very's", and five "like's". I left one "like" though, at the start of a sentence, to give you a taste of what you're missing. Good, huh? Oh yeah, it's excellent. But only in moderation.

This is the life of a writer. It is how a writer writes, and we quite like it this way. Where else can one perfect language at one's leisure? Certainly not in talking. Talking leaves a trail of chaos, saved only by our chronic forgetfulness and inability to listen properly. No, writing is the place. Everything is erasable, cookable, tasteable, and everlastingly adjustable. All is under the composer's dominion, limited only by the boundaries of the writer's talents, boundaries which barely exist when one is gripped in the fever of creation.

When the fever breaks, however, sometimes things are not so pretty. Sometimes the writer is compelled to delete a whole essay, forced by the illuminations of reconsideration to write it off as nonredeemable. It is a bitter and hard and cold work then. All dreams lie shattered at one's feet, and a blogger is left late in the night with no post for tomorrow morning. What can he do?

He can write this.

Endeavoring to appreciate

My library is big enough that the particular contributions of us individual laborers can easily be lost in the shuffle. This can be disappointing when one wants to be acknowledged for one's mastery and industry, but, and I know this sounds a bit wise, but, after all these years I've mostly come to feel that all that doing a good job stuff is its own reward, that doing my job well is primarily a private satisfaction. Perhaps this is merely a response to the ignominious reality of Clerkdom, as is my complicated array of takebacks and rewards for my good work, which, since I'm left in charge of them, are manifold and given at every possible opportunity. But what this comes down to is that I am thus well situated to enjoy the benefits and pleasures of all this lost-in-the-shuffle work.

Aside from the self managing autonomy spoken of above, the principle advantage of this collectivism is in the possibility of enjoying all the work of my co-workers. This is not necessarily an easy task. I have had no great struggle enjoying the colorful and erratic skills of my good co-workers, and they can be nice to talk to as well, but after years of much teeth gnashing about my more challenged co-workers, I must admit that it is a more ongoing struggle to suss out their beneficial nature. Fortunately I encountered another learning opportunity today. I had been doing a good deal of other things during my shelving hour, some of them even job related, when I decided to pitch in and try and get a full cart of genre fiction shelved in the 20 minutes I had before I needed to report to the front desk. There, up in the fiction stack, was a co-worker. She had the same assignment as me but had gone upstairs with a cart long before I showed up on the scene. She was plodding along without much success, and though she'd been working on it for at least 15 minutes, she had only gotten about a quarter of the cart done. I passed by, noticing, and proceeded to apply myself, shelving my whole cart, straightening up as I went, and then racing down to the front desk as per arrangement. Passing by, on my way, I noted the same co-worker with the same cart. She was slowly working her way to the three quarter done mark. She hadn't made it yet.

I could be mad at her failure to sufficiently contribute her fair share. I could be bitter that I thanklessly shoulder a heavier load. I could cringe at the extra pressure of unshelved books that will lie around the library due to her lackluster performance. But I don't have to do any of that.

I can enjoy her measured pace, which sets the par for shelving comfortably low. I can take her lesson that everyone doing their tiny bit adds up to enough, and, most of all, I can let her shining example indicate that, later in the afternoon, when I have another hour of shelving scheduled, I can start it out with a 45 minute coffee break.

Unbelievable

People, man, they're just unbelievable! I'm out working at the front desk of the library and this guy comes up and wants to get a library card. Yeah. Just like that he wants a library card, like it's nothing.

"I need a picture ID with your current address." I say. And he, like, takes out his wallet and gives me his drivers license. Okay. So I start entering it all in to the computer to give him a card and everything. I type in the address and all that. I ask him for a four digit pin number. I say it very carefully, emphasizing the word "digit" to forestall him from saying any letters. 

He thinks for a second and then says "5421"

Right, so that's odd enough, but it's fine. I finish putting in all the information. I hand him the card with a pen. I say "You need to sign the card." So, get this, the guy, who wanted the library card, I guess to check out books or whatever, he signs the card. It's a nice big signature. Great. So, I decide, what the hell, and I give him a brochure.

"This has all our policies and hours." I say as I hand it to him. "You can check out whatever you want." I say in a cheery, concluding sort of way.

And the guy says, get this, he says "Thanks."  Yeah, just like that, he says "Thanks." and then he walks away.

The whole thing was just, I don't know, bizarre. I guess there's a lot of characters out there. But sometimes it gets pretty strange.

Blog temple

I suppose that one day this blog will achieve its dream of humility. When that happens I will stop my small, strange forays to solicit readers. I will cease to hunger for small fame here.  And so then I will cease to discuss it all as one of my themes. I believe this will come in time. These words you are reading are a small few of all the footprints that take us in that direction.

My troubled pursuit of glory comes from a repeated misunderstanding of my blog and myself. I sometimes think this is a place of discussion and tumult. I think it is a finger on the pulse of our culture. I think it's an argument for something, a way to be heard. I believe I am holding court, and that this is my fiefdom. I believe I am Don Quixote on a fool's attempt to remake the world. I am fixing libraries, fixing Bob Dylan, fixing the Internet, fixing politics, fixing art and mostly, fixing us all.

It is not any of this.

This blog is a temple to all our mad gods. I love our mad gods. And I can scream at the top of my lungs about how this is a temple unlike any of all those famous, absurd, Religion's temples, but in the end it is just a temple. I have no greater powers than that. And a temple is a temple whether anyone sits in it, or not.

Less smart

I'll try to be gentle. You might already know this. But, as I would with an unpropitious, possibly embarrassing rip in your clothing, I thought I'd just, you know, tell you, just let you know. And if you say "I don't care. I am willing to bear whatever ignominy may or may not come with it." I accept your position on the matter. I mean no disrespect, that is, I bear you no disrespect outside of that which is inherent in the truth of the thing.

Clearly, you can see that I am doing a bit of careful dancing around this. I could end it all with one simple sentence, and just tell you. But I have played that telling sentence in my head and it sounds pretty bad. So I am trying to find a different way in.

Perhaps we could work up to it with alternate examples. What if, for instance, you were a heavy smoker. And let us say it is not common knowledge that smoking kills you. That second part is important. It would be mere annoyance if it were common knowledge. We must presume I am a Doctor, a student of the matter, seeing constant heart disease and cancers and so on before all this is widely known. "Uh," I say quietly "I know smoking, is, er, very compelling, but most of the time it stops allowing you to breathe air. And then I have to gas you up and cut chunks of your innards out of you."

"Hmmm. Thanks for letting me know Doc." You can think it all over now. You are now informed.

What say we move in just a wee bit closer.

"Hey, you know how occasionally you slug strangers, crash cars, throw up a lot, and wake up in jail? I'm just saying, um, I have sort of noticed a correlation between those things and the times where you think it would be fun to have six gin and tonics."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Thanks for noticing. I'll think about it."

So, do you think that with all that everyone is ready? I want you to know this isn't directed at anyone in particular. It's not about you, exactly. It's more of a universal thing, like with the cigarettes, and it applies to anyone. Okay?

Okay.

Er, so, there are these times where you drop books off in passing at the front desk of the library even though it is not where they go. I can't stop you. You're not really paying attention to things. If you do engage with me you hear me but don't process half of what I'm saying. You get vague and your response time slows.  You misunderstand what I say, or take longer to grasp it.  You grow sort of clumsy, everything takes you a little longer than normal, and you lose your sense of humor. And all these things, this behavior, correlates to when your smart phone is in play. I'll sum it up with that direct statement I have been avoiding:  

When you are using your cell phone in any way, you become more stupid.  

Just, in case you didn't know. I thought you might want to know.

Do with it what you will.

We're here

Sunday night I was hard at work on the Internet, launching a campaign to help an impoverished Bob Dylan and save him from degrading advertising work. I'm not sure it went so well. A lot of people seemed to think he was doing it on purpose. Shudder, brrrr, a chilling thought. That does not sound plausible! Anyway, there I was on the Internet, and the Internet started yelling at me about the Academy Awards.

I have no interest in the Academy Awards or in any other competitive sporting event so completely untethered from any objective measurements. But, in a matter of moments, having seen not a single movie involved, I formed deep opinions, complicated favorites, and a fierce partisan interest. I developed an analysis of how everything will go according to an inevitable trajectory that I abhor. I monitored, in dread, as my horrible expectations were fulfilled, and then, just as I was about to whip into a feverish lather of rage about the whole thing, that tiny voice, like unto the one from Horton's dust speck, came back to me. What was it again? Oh, right, I don't care about the Academy Awards. I am not interested in the Academy Awards. The Academy Awards mean nothing to me.

Helpful little voice, that. A voice that saves the world, no matter how small, and I seize on the voice to pull myself out.

This is a good trick. I like this trick. I would like to do this trick a lot more!

Here is the thing. I can form a ferocious opinion on any subject in scant seconds. Even when formed off of the mere fumes of actual information, my opinion will be fierce, sharp, clever, thorough, unusual, and idiosyncratic. Full of confidence, occasional humor, and commitment, this opinion will burst forth like time lapse photography of a blooming flower.

And then, in that same magical speed, it will rot back into the mud, forgotten.

And what will I have gotten for my dexterous burst of fanatic tumult?

Righteousness. Mastery. Superiority. Energy. Disillusionment. Despair. 

Usually in that order.

Can I get by without these?

I am thinking it would be good to try, to follow the small voices in the clouds, the ones that are actually my own, and to see what other worlds there might be.

Not boring live blogging from library!

It has been ages since I live blogged from the library. Perhaps I bowed out because nothing interesting happens during live blogging. Well, that's just wrong! I am committed to a warts and all vision of modern life in America, with a major emphasis on life in a library. If nothing happens during live blogging, not only is it telling, but it is the result of a risk we must take! If you are afraid of being bored here you have come to the wrong place! We taunt boredom here! We bait boredom. We dare boredom to rear its bland, banal face at clerkmanifesto! Oh, sure, it may get the best of us. And, sure, sometimes we might look like we're pinned, but when the chips are down we may just twist out of boredom's tepid snare, fall back on the ropes, and, as boredom fastens its laconic, unmotivated eyes upon us, we might launch ourselves out, crying our special "Book caught in the automated checkin machine" wail, grab boredom in our fearsome "Pull books out of the rollers of the checkin machine" grip, and hurl boredom to the ground in our legendary "Toss a crumpled slip of paper into the garbage but miss" slam. Whether we manage to pin boredom from there or whether we don't is something you'll just have to risk by continuing to read as we

Live blog from the fiction stacks at the library!

3:54:  Is it really 3:54 already? I have got to tighten up my introductions because it is now just about my dinner break time. But fear not, live blogging isn't over until it's over, and there's still time for at the very least one more entry from my upcoming trip down the elevator.

3:58:  Hmm, surprisingly little happening here in the elevator. Sometimes I like to explore the interesting acoustics of the elevator by making percussive noises on my empty cart, but not today because I am

Live blogging from the elevator!

(Still) 3:58:  Elevator doors open. Hallway looks clear.

3:59:  No longer in the elevator. I am now

Live blogging from the hallway downstairs!

3:59:30:  Not much happening in hallway. I am tempted to linger in hopes that something of note happens, but I decide to "keep it real" and walk at a normal pace through the hallway.

4:00:  Emerge from hallway. Dinner time commences.

4:01:  We reflect on our live blogging session. We're think it's one of our best live bloggin sessions yet. Don't you?

Library information

I work at a library. I think you will grant that it is an institution that has much to do with information and the conveyance of knowledge. But let me clarify for you: this only has to do with its broader, public mission. As far as how the library runs or finding what's going on institutionally, as an employee, it is the same tattered, falling apart grab bag you will find in any institution anywhere. I am likely to receive an exhaustive email about a slight policy change that affects nothing that ever actually happens on the same day that no one bothers to inform me that our elevators are broken. 

Of course, the patrons can always let me know.

"You said I can take the elevator upstairs, but I've been pushing the UP button for 20 minutes and nothing happens!"

"I'll go take a look." I respond heartily. The patron indeed is correct. The elevator is non functioning. I return with patron in tow to the front desk and inquire of my co-worker "Did you know the elevator is not working?"

"Oh, yes," she replies. "It's been broken since yesterday morning! There's been quite a fuss!"

"Perhaps I should make a sign?" I suggest, leaving off that yesterday I did not work.

"I thought there was one." She says quizzically. The three of us walk back over to the elevator. During our inspection I spot a trampled piece of paper on the floor. I pick it up. It says "Out of Order."

"Ah, there it is!" My co-worker exclaims. I reattach it and reinforce it with several kinds of glues, tapes, solders, and metal screws. I know how long it can take for things to get fixed around here.

"So how am I supposed to get upstairs?" The patron asks.

I need to control my tone to prevent it from going into a withering, sarcastic mode. "I'm afraid you'll have to take the stairs, if you can." I say gently.

"What if I were in a wheelchair?" The patron asks confrontingly.

Once again I must check my tone. "Um, perhaps we would carry you?"

This apparently passes the test because the patron now willingly climbs the stairs, knowing we are willing to lift him in an emergency.

What this goes to show is that being informed as a library employee takes a good deal of craft. You have to eavesdrop, talk to a lot of people, and stay curious. My co-workers who socially isolate themselves are forced to constantly misinform people. Well, I suppose everyone has their method. I can't keep tabs on those people all the time, but since I do a lot of eavesdropping I can sometimes correct their most egregious errors.

"Oh. Yes." I gently interrupt. "We actually do have bathrooms; out in the lobby, in the kids' room, and upstairs, though we may have to carry you to those."

"OH! Bathrooms!" My co-worker exclaims, seeking cover for her error. "I thought you said Ferris Wheels! Ha ha ha. We don't have Ferris Wheels, but of course we have bathrooms, uh," She turns to me "Where were they again?"

Among my most useful co-workers in this tumult, and in the constant expectation that we absorb all vital library information by osmosis, are the people who enjoy collecting and sharing information. A couple of my colleagues are quite good at this, in different ways. One, especially good at dealing in higher level institutional information, has, like the rest of us, become so inured to the erratic and mostly useless relaying of information from above, that I think she feels a faint sense of guilt as she shares information. The word gossip rears its head. But we are virtually never talking here about salacious stories of our co-workers' shocking personal lives. We're talking about what's going on in our library system. The fact is that I work at the LIBRARY. I need to know this stuff, because sometimes it helps me do my job, sometimes it helps me understand my job, and because there is very little our public is not entitled to know. And I like to tell them. 

Just as I like to tell you.

Broken internet, the friend of libraries

I have worked for a long time at a busy library. Year after year more and more people have come to this library every day. Or, that's how it used to be. It is possible that things are stalling out a bit. Maybe it is the fluke of an unusually severe winter, but there is a glimmer of something else at work here. Perhaps we reached maximum capacity. It's not like an old inner ring suburb has a lot of room to grow and there is only so much area traffic to go around, no matter how compelling we are. I actually like that theory to explain the slowdown. The really popular theory however is one about how the digital world of downloads and streaming and online entertainment, e-books and e-readers, is gutting the libraries. People like to write newspaper articles about this sort of thing. Library professionals like to fret over it and cut their book budgets in order to fund anything with an "e" in front of it, no matter how speculative it is, or how small a population it serves.

While I am not keen on racing to appease the digital, I will definitely admit there has been one core technology that stabilizes library usage. No matter how quiet my library gets, no matter what stray, abandoned library branch I have stumbled into, there is always a thick knot of dedicated Internet computer users. Disaster may have crippled the city, a whole nation may go illiterate, a library may have been relocated temporarily to the dark side of the moon, but whatever computers it has will be mostly in use. Knots of quiet people sit glued to these interactive TV sets every day, every hour any library is open.

We take it for granted. It is so ubiquitous it goes almost unmentioned. And yet, it begs a question: Why do so many people have no usable internet at home?

The answer is fairly simple. Most of our Nation's Internet access is run by something that's largely indistinguishable from a monopoly. This causes our Internet to be half broken and insanely expensive. Many industrialized nations manage to provide Internet at speeds we can only dream of, and at a fraction of the cost. Perhaps in countries like this, when a library is quiet, it's just empty.

 But for us, with our horrible, broken, run by monstrous corporations Internet, a steady traffic to the library of frugal, impoverished and desperate Internet refugees is happily guaranteed, and the fate of American libraries is secured into the foreseeable future!
 
Of course, it is possible that these patrons are just people with no place to go. And if we had no computers, they'd simply read books, instead.

This note's for you.

I have written enthusiastically here about Bob Dylan. Perhaps I have been immoderate in my praise, throwing around gaudy bangles like "Nobel Prize" and "Greatest Artist of the 20th Century." Having looked into the Nobel Prize, its committee structure, and all its choices I'm happy to toss that one away as exceedingly unlikely and sort of pointless, but that "Greatest Artist" one remains fairly irresistible to me and I might, in the right mood, get pretty fierce about it. Who's better or more important? The thing is, I'm not alone on this one. The respect runs profoundly deep on Bob Dylan. It's not just the sharp, smart fans and critics, but probably far more notably, it's the vast swath of other esteemed, lauded, and world famous musicians and songwriters who walk in his footsteps and hold a kind of regard for him that seems similar to what any writer who's paying attention might think of Shakespeare.

All of this is why I was so unprepared for what I saw a short while ago. I don't remember where I was or what I was watching, probably some YouTube video of such luring appeal that I could be forced to sit through a short commercial. I don't remember much specifically what was being sold, but I'm pretty sure it was a car, or maybe just a car company in general. What was utterly unforgettable was that the pitchman was Bob Dylan himself, the greatest artist of the 20th century, and he was apparently reduced to working for car salesmen in order to get by.

I don't know if Bob Dylan had some unscrupulous manager, if he mumbled through one too many concerts, or illegal downloading finally cut his margins down to nothing, but clearly some disaster has struck! There is no way a genius like Bob Dylan would humiliate himself by begging people to buy some fat cat's cars unless he was desperately hungry. To think that we have allowed this magnificent artist to fall so low! I picture him riding the rails, sleeping under bridges, sharing old folk tunes with strangers on his battered harmonica in hopes of getting enough quarters to buy a can of stew, but all through it aware that winter was coming, and that he and his old bones needed real shelter, in a room, with heat, and regular meals. Perhaps he was too proud to call on old friends. Perhaps he felt his only option was to contact some slimy manager from his past.

"No." the guy tells him. "I told you there's no gigs. But I know some guys, as a favor to me, who wouldn't mind if you said some nice things about their car company. Not everyone has forgotten you. It'll get you off the streets for a few months."

Slimy bastard! And what choice did Dylan have? He's a senior citizen, impoverished, alone, and forgotten by all but a few hundred million people who think he's one of the greatest artists who ever lived. And we just sit there and let his personal tragedy unfold, like it's just another media sideshow.

"Oh," we say. "So Dylan's doing car commercials now. How the mighty have fallen (snicker)."

Well not me. The buck stops here! The man is a genius. He does not deserve humiliation. He does not deserve to have penury and poor choices force him into rank huckstering merely so he can stay solvent in his golden years. He shouldn't have to eat cold beans from a can to get by!

That is why I have started the "Send ten dollars to Bob Dylan" website. It's tax deductible and every cent of your donation, after administrative expenses, will go to help out the finest genius of our time. The author of Like a Rolling Stone shouldn't have to sell cars to get three squares! And It doesn't have to be ten dollars. It can be less if you're a bit short this month. Every bit helps. Also, if you're, like, Bruce Springsteen, or Neil Young or something, and saved more prudently for retirement, I'm guessing you've got a spare room somewhere. Maybe you'd consider putting Mr. Dylan up for a couple months, just, you know, until he can get back on his feet again. Maybe you keep him away from these car salesmen and unscrupulous managers while we gather a nest egg for him.

Remember that treasured old saw: There but for the grace of God go I. 

Sheer nihilism

We all like to present our best face to the public, and irascible bloggers like myself are no exception to this rule. I'll occasionally cop to a certain amount of slackerdom at my job, but there's usually some moral of the story in there that throws at least a touch of ennobling light on me. I don't usually air my plain, unadulterated deviant streak out here, in public. After all, it's nihilism, there is nothing to learn, and, fairly speaking, it's pretty rare anyway. I am a staunch friend of the patrons. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I am utterly for the patron. But every rare once in awhile, like today, I am seized with a destructive mischief. I am compelled to some darkness. And during a two hour shift of shelving, instead of shelving a single library book, I roam up and down our fiction stacks, find people who are peering into books, and in my sternest, most irritated and officious voice, ask

"Are you just going to read that all day, or are you going to check it out?"

 Before they can even begin to react I disappear into the shadows, where I lay low for 15 minutes or so, giggling, before I step out, and strike again.

Car curling

Perhaps I would not go on so much about our dramatic weather conditions here in Minnesota if my readership were primarily local, but my readership is primarily imaginary, and they love posts about weather. Think of it, you're out there in the ether, 40 tantalizing feet from existence, and suddenly someone writes for you a short essay about extreme cold, or snow, or ice. How bracing! How vivid! You now feel a mere 10 feet away from existence!

On that note I will now tell you about our roads. They are covered in ice, beautifully manicured ice, complex, blue, green, black, mysterious, hard, and, above all, slippery ice. It is way too cold and dangerous for people to come to my library on purpose. Nevertheless it is surprisingly crowded here during the day. This is not because of our whip smart collection of books, or because of our comfy chair, or because of all the witty things I say to people who owe us pocket change. It is because all roads for miles around slope slightly towards our parking lot. People climb into their cars reluctantly, en route to only the most vital destinations, and as they gently propel themselves out of their driveways and onto the streets, their cars become completely unmoored from what we think of as a traditional relationship to the ground. They become ice on ice, frictionless, prey to entirely new properties. Steering, braking, and accelerating are now utterly meaningless. Momentum, minute issues of slope, and spin determine everything. People pull out of their driveways to go get food, or pick up children, or go to work, but they have no control, their cars drift and slide on their own private winter agendas and, inexorably, they come to us. All roads slide to the library.

By the evening most people work out how all driving is almost exactly like Olympic Curling. It all depends on how you thrust yourself out of your driveway. You have to carefully propel your car with the right weight and spin to get it where you want to go. Having people run in front of the car sweeping the ice to control the speed and line helps a lot too. So because of this, by the evening, it quiets down a lot at the library. I wonder if anyone would come in to the library at all if it weren't for the occasional errant throws, the cars that come floating on some bad angle through the streets, gently sliding up towards our front doors. only to nestle up against a bush or a park bench. Nothing for those people to do then but come into the library and hope for a thaw. The earth is warming. It will come.

Stages of grief

Was it just yesterday I was talking about the stages of grief in returning to work after time off? Somehow it feels like more than a day, like maybe it was a day and a quarter or, at least, a day and an eighth. Well, regardless of whatever lies Time has to tell about it, and Time is one crafty liar, I feel I have some unfinished business there. I just sort of alluded to the stages of grief, but I feel they really need to be explained more thoroughly. This is why I am going to walk you through the stages of grief I experience as my days off wind down. You are maybe wondering if it is appropriate to compare the grieving processes and emotions about the end of a weekend to Kubler-Ross's look at how people feel when they're dying, aren't you? 

No? 

You're not? Cause I was all ready to defend it, but, you're sure?  Okay then.

I have three-day weekends and single days off. We will use the three-day weekend, Thursday through Saturday, for our case study because it's all more dramatic that way, and the emotions will run higher.



1. Denial

Friday morning. There are still two days left of my weekend. That is a long time. The future is an illusion. Even if the future isn't an illusion I could at any second win the lottery and have no need to go back to work. Do I feel a cold coming on? I think I have a cold. I'll probably be too sick or too rich to work. There is also a nice chance, what with the perfidy of humans, that the end of the world will have come by Sunday.


2. Anger

This is insane! A wealthy nation like us and I have to work all the time. I have to work on a Sunday? It is unfair! I should be paid to blog! Bloody Republicans!



3. Bargaining

I'll do anything! If we don't go out for cappuccinos all weekend will I save enough to retire before I have to go back to work? I won't have a cappuccino for a week. How's that? Wait, give me a chance here. Two weeks. I won't have a cappuccino for two weeks!


4. Depression

I'm not depressed. I just really like the couch, a lot. And I don't have anything to say. And I like the dark. And I'm so cold, but I don't care.



5. Acceptance

Are we at acceptance already? I'm not ready for acceptance. I really think I have a cold, a bad one. And my back hurts from being on the couch for 20 straight hours. Please let me stay home. I want to stay home! I love it at home!