I have looked at occasional co-workers that burst with energy and felt a kind of wonder. There they are running around the library with all that gusto, and there I am. Yes, there. See me? Just reading that book there for a little. I think I'm resting. Am I staring into space? Oh, there, I'm up! I bet I'm going to shelve a ton of stuff. Nope, false alarm. I appear to have just thought of a joke I wanted to tell all my co-workers. There I am telling the joke to whatever co-workers I can find, and that patron there. I think the patron likes it. Now I am helping the patron. Now I wandered over to another book. Now I am resting again. There I am thinking about things. This is all making me wonder when I work. Oh, right, I remember, it's because we're watching me. I try only to work when no one is looking. We better go back to the blog post so I can get something done.
I used to think that energy is something some people (not me) have a lot of, and some people (me) don't have so much of. But writing every day here has taught me something else. Energy comes in different forms, and for different things.
Let's roll back the clock on this blog post a bit. See that person, one of those ones with the energy we started out talking about. Look at them go. They are shelving this, and pushing that, and running over to get that. Sure I can get all critical about their lack of efficiency, but that's not what we're here for. This person, for instance, is pretty focused, dogged even, and just look at how much she's getting done. A lot! It's a nice use of energy.
Now let's go forward to me. Reading, hmm, resting, wait, that's not resting. Can you see my mind whirring? My mind is whirring! I'm up! I'm off to tell the joke. I don't tell it the same. I shift it, rewrite it in little ways. I bring in the patron as part of the community of the library. The patron needs a book. I know that book cause six weeks ago I read a bit of it while leaning against some transit boxes, or while sipping cappuccino somewhere. I know what the cover looks like. I have a feeling I just saw it somewhere. I get it for the patron. Another book catches my eye. Someone told me about it. A blog post starts stirring in my mind. I think I'd better shelve a cart as quick as I can because there are things I need to write down.
Energy.
It belongs to the active and the indolent. It is smart and bland and blind and keen. And in the end it is invisible. We see only the effects of it, and embodied they can be utterly obvious or artfully concealed. Shimmering with life or... smuggled through.
I used to think I was somehow shorted on energy, but it's not like that. It just depends. Here, let's go find me again, doing my quick shelving up in the stacks. There I am in the large type section. Oh, I'm reading again. We'll just wait a bit.
Boy, that's a lot of reading.
Could someone maybe try and get my attention there. I'm trying to use me to make a point. What am I so interested in? Can you see what I'm reading? Oh, yes, my, that is interesting. I'll just sort of hover here over my shoulder for a while, looking on.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Precious city
I stepped out of my small, lovely house this morning to find a beautiful day. Or, at least, it was a beautiful day for half a mile of walking, so, I am saying, there was ten minutes worth of beautiful day. Then it was hot and I was reduced once again to being Gollum. "Ach! The sun! She burns, she burns us. We hates it!" Then I'd walk under a tree and it would be a beautiful day again for the seven seconds it took to walk through that shadow. "Oh beauteous irises, glinting graceful in the dappled shade. Your purple, sunshine song of summer...AAAAH! IT BITES! CRUEL SUN SHE BITES, SHE BURRRNNS US!" By the time I got to my bike station I was a damp, hot, weeping cloud of misery.
And it was fine.
I live in the Twin Cities. Our sensible quality of life is widely considered to be attributable to the fierceness of our climate. Whether that fierceness be ascribed, as it commonly is, to winters full of minus 20 and minus 30 degree temperatures, or whether it is, perhaps more unusually, ascribed instead to all the cruel, cruel times in June, July, and August where it grows humid and the temperature climbs above a beastly 82 degrees, is immaterial. The key thing is that most of the hoi polloi stay away, and the sociopathic impulses so common in places like Arizona and Mississippi tend to freeze to death. And so our cities, thus protected, can get so very nice that it's practically like Western Europe here; exotic architecture, the best parks and bike paths in the country, and coffee shops not, perhaps, to rival Rome, but better than Venice, London, Lisbon, and L.A., not that anyone from there would have any idea.
Their loss.
And if I have to endure yearly ice and fire purges for this paradise, well, so be it. Anything for my cities, for they are precious to me, yes precious, preeecccioouusss!
And it was fine.
I live in the Twin Cities. Our sensible quality of life is widely considered to be attributable to the fierceness of our climate. Whether that fierceness be ascribed, as it commonly is, to winters full of minus 20 and minus 30 degree temperatures, or whether it is, perhaps more unusually, ascribed instead to all the cruel, cruel times in June, July, and August where it grows humid and the temperature climbs above a beastly 82 degrees, is immaterial. The key thing is that most of the hoi polloi stay away, and the sociopathic impulses so common in places like Arizona and Mississippi tend to freeze to death. And so our cities, thus protected, can get so very nice that it's practically like Western Europe here; exotic architecture, the best parks and bike paths in the country, and coffee shops not, perhaps, to rival Rome, but better than Venice, London, Lisbon, and L.A., not that anyone from there would have any idea.
Their loss.
And if I have to endure yearly ice and fire purges for this paradise, well, so be it. Anything for my cities, for they are precious to me, yes precious, preeecccioouusss!
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Joke week
Is it joke week?
Anger week, Joke week. Do we now have weekly themes here on clerkmanifesto?
Only by accident. Like when a car crashes and all the cars behind it can't stop fast enough.
So I was looking at that joke about a centipede and walked right into it. And I wrote a joke.
You get to hear the joke now.
Why?
Because it is joke week!
I hope we don't get whiplash.
Okay, so, this joke is in the classic question and answer format. The question and answer format sounds challenging, but is merely rhetorical. Your only job ever in this joke format is to answer the question with "I don't know", unless, of course, you already know the joke, in which case you say, regretfully, "Oh, I've heard this one." But you can't have heard this one because I just wrote it today! So, anyway, there will be a question, then a long space where you can just sort of think "I don't know" and then there will be the allegedly funny part, at which point joke week will be over and everyone will drive a lot more carefully around here.
Ready?
No, that's not it. Here. We'll start now.
Why are there no Muslim Eskimos?
Because when Ramadan comes during the Summer Solstice they all starve to death.
Anger week, Joke week. Do we now have weekly themes here on clerkmanifesto?
Only by accident. Like when a car crashes and all the cars behind it can't stop fast enough.
So I was looking at that joke about a centipede and walked right into it. And I wrote a joke.
You get to hear the joke now.
Why?
Because it is joke week!
I hope we don't get whiplash.
Okay, so, this joke is in the classic question and answer format. The question and answer format sounds challenging, but is merely rhetorical. Your only job ever in this joke format is to answer the question with "I don't know", unless, of course, you already know the joke, in which case you say, regretfully, "Oh, I've heard this one." But you can't have heard this one because I just wrote it today! So, anyway, there will be a question, then a long space where you can just sort of think "I don't know" and then there will be the allegedly funny part, at which point joke week will be over and everyone will drive a lot more carefully around here.
Ready?
No, that's not it. Here. We'll start now.
Why are there no Muslim Eskimos?
Because when Ramadan comes during the Summer Solstice they all starve to death.
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
The reading wave
I have been riding a reading wave. It is a big, beautiful wave, and I just keep going and going. I know it can't last forever, but boy is it sweet while I glide down its perfectly formed curl, my hand outstretched, skidding playfully along the translucent blue wall of water next to me. I am lost in a dream.
Eh? What's a reading wave? Oh, you know. You're riding one right now, cruising down the face of this wicked and dangerous blog, delighted, enjoying yourself, ready for whatever's next because it all works for you. It all comes home. Bells ring out in your heart. "Ah, what is that?" you say. "Sweet, sharp and burning truth. This feels right."
Lost you? Perhaps you are part of the two percent of our readership for whom it's all a bit more like hilly biking than hanging ten. We will start again, just for you, and when your legs grow so strong that all the hills of this blog are like the joyous surfing of a force of nature, please remember and be patient when we stop to collect all the wipeouts. These are some big waves!
What I mean by riding a reading wave is that all the books I have been reading have been great successes for me. Every book I have picked up for a month I have liked or loved. No diffidence, no wondering why so many people are wasting my time, no doubting that I even like books, no. It is all beautiful. The things I have been re-reading (Wise Man's Fear, My Family and Other Animals) seem somehow richer now that I can look more closely at them, now that there is no need to wolf them down, race through them, see what happens next, decide. I can look around in them and lo, there is their heart sitting plain to see, all beautiful and quiet and clear. The new things I read (The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, The Saga comic series, Snow Crash) are allowed inside me where they tear open my oyster heart or crack open my walnut brain and reveal the sweet meat inside. We are good. Bless the books that let us know it. Oh, all these kind books. Let them talk!
Has my judgement gone? Are these books flawless? No. I can think of flaws for every one. But I will not tell you what they are. You can find out for yourself. But first you must run the gauntlet of love.
Is it me, someplace I'm in, more receptive, more ready for the written word, story, for people guilelessly crafting with their hearts? Or am I just reading the right books? Am I just getting lucky?
I don't care! The water throws me. I fall. The water catches me. And I am flying. Cowabunga.
Eh? What's a reading wave? Oh, you know. You're riding one right now, cruising down the face of this wicked and dangerous blog, delighted, enjoying yourself, ready for whatever's next because it all works for you. It all comes home. Bells ring out in your heart. "Ah, what is that?" you say. "Sweet, sharp and burning truth. This feels right."
Lost you? Perhaps you are part of the two percent of our readership for whom it's all a bit more like hilly biking than hanging ten. We will start again, just for you, and when your legs grow so strong that all the hills of this blog are like the joyous surfing of a force of nature, please remember and be patient when we stop to collect all the wipeouts. These are some big waves!
What I mean by riding a reading wave is that all the books I have been reading have been great successes for me. Every book I have picked up for a month I have liked or loved. No diffidence, no wondering why so many people are wasting my time, no doubting that I even like books, no. It is all beautiful. The things I have been re-reading (Wise Man's Fear, My Family and Other Animals) seem somehow richer now that I can look more closely at them, now that there is no need to wolf them down, race through them, see what happens next, decide. I can look around in them and lo, there is their heart sitting plain to see, all beautiful and quiet and clear. The new things I read (The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, The Saga comic series, Snow Crash) are allowed inside me where they tear open my oyster heart or crack open my walnut brain and reveal the sweet meat inside. We are good. Bless the books that let us know it. Oh, all these kind books. Let them talk!
Has my judgement gone? Are these books flawless? No. I can think of flaws for every one. But I will not tell you what they are. You can find out for yourself. But first you must run the gauntlet of love.
Is it me, someplace I'm in, more receptive, more ready for the written word, story, for people guilelessly crafting with their hearts? Or am I just reading the right books? Am I just getting lucky?
I don't care! The water throws me. I fall. The water catches me. And I am flying. Cowabunga.
Monday, June 16, 2014
The willies
I use the word "scared" in two different ways when it comes to animals.
The first encompasses how I feel about the occasional dog, running at me snarling, or perhaps ferociously barking in a sudden way just on the other side of some fence I am walking by, then hurling itself at the fence all growling and gnashing its teeth in its desperation to break through and rip apart my flesh. This makes me scared. Then it makes me wish that the dog's owner will get cancer and die, but only because, as a wise person, I have softened my feelings towards them from something natively harsher. I have also been known to be scared of bears, particularly at night, when I am all neatly packaged in my tent like a nice midnight snack and horses are screaming in unearthly terror nearby. When this happens my friend Grape and I go hide for a few hours in the primitive campground's porta potty, which does not smell great, but has a comforting exoskeleton.
Speaking of exoskeletons, this kind of fear with dogs and bears and such is not the same as the way I am afraid of, or scared of, spiders. Their strange eyes and crushing mouth, their jerking, madly efficient, staccato, eight-legged movement, oddly influenced by having their innards seemingly attached to an invisible line, their patience and exploding bursts of attack or flight, it all gives me the willies.
The difference can perhaps also be illustrated in how I have been friends with dogs, or in how I might be scared of a dog, but, once reassured, could, to prove how tough I am, give the same dog who scared me a little skirtch behind the ear and talk babytalk to it. I don't do this after I have calmed down from a spider dropping down to in front of my face. I have never given a spider any kind of a skirtch. The closest I have come is whacking the spider with a book, which, you should know, is not at all close to skirtching, in case you are feeling a bit affectionate towards something and were looking for fresh ideas. Scared as I have been of bears I have also spent an amiable couple hours rummaging around with two very large black bears on a remote beach in British Columbia. I'm sure I was a bit scared of them the whole time, but I also liked them, which is not a feeling I have ever held towards a centipede, outside of the charming, fictional ones in jokes and cartoons.
Here is another differentiation: provided the right context someone could tell me about being scared of any animal and if it's specific, and physically fear based, I can usually understand, but if it's willie based, I can't. I am not afraid of giraffes in any way, for instance, but if someone told me they were on safari enjoying the sight of the pretty giraffes when one suddenly charged them, in a fierce and alarmingly big way, I might get the picture. I would figure that I'd have been scared in that situation also (but afterwords would surely have rubbed the giraffe's tummy). But if the person was going on about the giraffes' creepy long necks and how their eyelashes freak them out, I'd just be lost. And that's the thing about the willies, other people's phobias are quite alien to us. Spiders are disturbing, but snakes? So smooth and delightfully slithery! Someone told me of a bird phobia they had once. How can I empathize with that? Sympathize, sure, but what a different emotional language of the brain than my own!
And yet, though the boundaries of the willies seem so impermeable, sometimes, mysteriously, they disappear, and brief glimpses of other understandings take their place. I love the squirrels of my neighborhood and, having no pecan crop to protect, delight in their antics. But a couple days ago I was walking to get a bike when I came upon a neighbor's yard that for some reason had two dozen squirrels messing about in it. As I came up to it all the squirrels scrambled over the sidewalk in front of me and raced over each other and onto a nearby tree. It was a little river of squirrels and evoked a kind of primal rodent horror in me; oh the clatter of their toenails, their bodies swarming over and under each other, yeesh! The willies!
And a day or two later I sat outside and saw a spider in the grass. I don't think it was hunting. It was minding its own business. It seemed delicate, quiet, lovely. It moved gracefully. It had so many perfect legs. Such an odd moment for me. I felt I could almost skirtch it behind the ears. Only, thankfully, it was too little for that.
The first encompasses how I feel about the occasional dog, running at me snarling, or perhaps ferociously barking in a sudden way just on the other side of some fence I am walking by, then hurling itself at the fence all growling and gnashing its teeth in its desperation to break through and rip apart my flesh. This makes me scared. Then it makes me wish that the dog's owner will get cancer and die, but only because, as a wise person, I have softened my feelings towards them from something natively harsher. I have also been known to be scared of bears, particularly at night, when I am all neatly packaged in my tent like a nice midnight snack and horses are screaming in unearthly terror nearby. When this happens my friend Grape and I go hide for a few hours in the primitive campground's porta potty, which does not smell great, but has a comforting exoskeleton.
Speaking of exoskeletons, this kind of fear with dogs and bears and such is not the same as the way I am afraid of, or scared of, spiders. Their strange eyes and crushing mouth, their jerking, madly efficient, staccato, eight-legged movement, oddly influenced by having their innards seemingly attached to an invisible line, their patience and exploding bursts of attack or flight, it all gives me the willies.
The difference can perhaps also be illustrated in how I have been friends with dogs, or in how I might be scared of a dog, but, once reassured, could, to prove how tough I am, give the same dog who scared me a little skirtch behind the ear and talk babytalk to it. I don't do this after I have calmed down from a spider dropping down to in front of my face. I have never given a spider any kind of a skirtch. The closest I have come is whacking the spider with a book, which, you should know, is not at all close to skirtching, in case you are feeling a bit affectionate towards something and were looking for fresh ideas. Scared as I have been of bears I have also spent an amiable couple hours rummaging around with two very large black bears on a remote beach in British Columbia. I'm sure I was a bit scared of them the whole time, but I also liked them, which is not a feeling I have ever held towards a centipede, outside of the charming, fictional ones in jokes and cartoons.
Here is another differentiation: provided the right context someone could tell me about being scared of any animal and if it's specific, and physically fear based, I can usually understand, but if it's willie based, I can't. I am not afraid of giraffes in any way, for instance, but if someone told me they were on safari enjoying the sight of the pretty giraffes when one suddenly charged them, in a fierce and alarmingly big way, I might get the picture. I would figure that I'd have been scared in that situation also (but afterwords would surely have rubbed the giraffe's tummy). But if the person was going on about the giraffes' creepy long necks and how their eyelashes freak them out, I'd just be lost. And that's the thing about the willies, other people's phobias are quite alien to us. Spiders are disturbing, but snakes? So smooth and delightfully slithery! Someone told me of a bird phobia they had once. How can I empathize with that? Sympathize, sure, but what a different emotional language of the brain than my own!
And yet, though the boundaries of the willies seem so impermeable, sometimes, mysteriously, they disappear, and brief glimpses of other understandings take their place. I love the squirrels of my neighborhood and, having no pecan crop to protect, delight in their antics. But a couple days ago I was walking to get a bike when I came upon a neighbor's yard that for some reason had two dozen squirrels messing about in it. As I came up to it all the squirrels scrambled over the sidewalk in front of me and raced over each other and onto a nearby tree. It was a little river of squirrels and evoked a kind of primal rodent horror in me; oh the clatter of their toenails, their bodies swarming over and under each other, yeesh! The willies!
And a day or two later I sat outside and saw a spider in the grass. I don't think it was hunting. It was minding its own business. It seemed delicate, quiet, lovely. It moved gracefully. It had so many perfect legs. Such an odd moment for me. I felt I could almost skirtch it behind the ears. Only, thankfully, it was too little for that.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
The joke today
I wanted to tell you a joke today. I decided that this was allowable because of the following seven reasons:
1. It starts with an original list of seven items (you are currently on item one, only six to go), which fully qualifies it as an independent blog post. So the joke is only part of the post at the end and thus doesn't violate the "Original Material Only Rule".
2. It's not like I have an "Original Material Only Rule" which is probably why it's in quotes. No, actually I have no idea why it's in quotes. I do have an Original Material Only Rule, only it's more like a guideline and definitely not an "Original Material Only Rule".
3. It's not just any joke, but is a warm up for tomorrow's blog post. You will see this joke briefly referred back to in tomorrow's blog post. Also, it is a soccer joke designed to appeal to my readers who are World Cup fans and to make up for how I called it soccer. Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's a vaguely relevant joke, unlike the following:
4. I bought a new pair of shoes from a drug dealer. I don't know what he laced them with but I've been tripping all day.
5. Sunday is casual day at clerkmanifesto and so it's more like we're sitting around chatting except for how you're sitting quietly in another place altogether and I'm quietly typing and no one is saying anything and it's nothing like chatting at all.
6. This is my blog and I can do whatever I want, once we take in to account literally millions of tiny personal rules, limits of communication, ethics, need, and small and large aspects of the absolute limitations of art, communication, and being human.
7. I take the core joke and spin it out into a full, original story of it's own.
8. Because there is free will, but you have to fight for it.
And here we go, but it was worth the wait because it's really funny and you will laugh and laugh and the comments below will all fill up with people telling me how they lol'd. It's just that funny.
All the animals of the forest got together for their huge, every four years, championship Soccer game, except the animals of the world call it Football. The Creatures of the Hoof team was just destroying the Animals of the Ground team. It was six to nothing but was actually worse than that sounds. The giraffe in particular looked unstoppable. She was terrifying when she ran full bore, then she would stop and perform some graceful header that was utterly impossible to defend against.
But then, in the middle of the second half, as the vast array of animal spectators were thinking of packing up and beating the traffic back home, the tide of the game mysteriously started to turn. Every bounce suddenly seemed almost magically to go the Animals of the Grounds' way. The giraffe thudded down field only to mysteriously sprawl in the grass. Time after time the ball would land someplace inconsequential, vaguely in front of the Creatures of the Hoof team's goal, and then would mysteriously careen in to the back of the net, absolutely unstoppable. The first time this happened the Animals of the Ground's coach, an aardvark, ran out to the field to see what was going on. The team gathered around. There in the grass was the reason for the team's great comeback. A centipede, all dressed up in his tiny footballer outfit, was rejoicing his successes on the pitch.
"That was fantastic!" exclaimed the coach.
"Thank you." said the centipede humbly, high fiving all his teammates simultaneously.
"But where in the world were you for the whole first half?" The coach asked.
"Putting on my shoes."
1. It starts with an original list of seven items (you are currently on item one, only six to go), which fully qualifies it as an independent blog post. So the joke is only part of the post at the end and thus doesn't violate the "Original Material Only Rule".
2. It's not like I have an "Original Material Only Rule" which is probably why it's in quotes. No, actually I have no idea why it's in quotes. I do have an Original Material Only Rule, only it's more like a guideline and definitely not an "Original Material Only Rule".
3. It's not just any joke, but is a warm up for tomorrow's blog post. You will see this joke briefly referred back to in tomorrow's blog post. Also, it is a soccer joke designed to appeal to my readers who are World Cup fans and to make up for how I called it soccer. Anyway, what I'm saying is that it's a vaguely relevant joke, unlike the following:
4. I bought a new pair of shoes from a drug dealer. I don't know what he laced them with but I've been tripping all day.
5. Sunday is casual day at clerkmanifesto and so it's more like we're sitting around chatting except for how you're sitting quietly in another place altogether and I'm quietly typing and no one is saying anything and it's nothing like chatting at all.
6. This is my blog and I can do whatever I want, once we take in to account literally millions of tiny personal rules, limits of communication, ethics, need, and small and large aspects of the absolute limitations of art, communication, and being human.
7. I take the core joke and spin it out into a full, original story of it's own.
8. Because there is free will, but you have to fight for it.
And here we go, but it was worth the wait because it's really funny and you will laugh and laugh and the comments below will all fill up with people telling me how they lol'd. It's just that funny.
The Joke
All the animals of the forest got together for their huge, every four years, championship Soccer game, except the animals of the world call it Football. The Creatures of the Hoof team was just destroying the Animals of the Ground team. It was six to nothing but was actually worse than that sounds. The giraffe in particular looked unstoppable. She was terrifying when she ran full bore, then she would stop and perform some graceful header that was utterly impossible to defend against.
But then, in the middle of the second half, as the vast array of animal spectators were thinking of packing up and beating the traffic back home, the tide of the game mysteriously started to turn. Every bounce suddenly seemed almost magically to go the Animals of the Grounds' way. The giraffe thudded down field only to mysteriously sprawl in the grass. Time after time the ball would land someplace inconsequential, vaguely in front of the Creatures of the Hoof team's goal, and then would mysteriously careen in to the back of the net, absolutely unstoppable. The first time this happened the Animals of the Ground's coach, an aardvark, ran out to the field to see what was going on. The team gathered around. There in the grass was the reason for the team's great comeback. A centipede, all dressed up in his tiny footballer outfit, was rejoicing his successes on the pitch.
"That was fantastic!" exclaimed the coach.
"Thank you." said the centipede humbly, high fiving all his teammates simultaneously.
"But where in the world were you for the whole first half?" The coach asked.
"Putting on my shoes."
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Joking with patrons
I joke with the patrons.
A patron says "My library card doesn't work here. Can I get it registered with you?"
"Sure," I respond lightly, then suddenly remember. "Is your calender clear for the whole evening? This will take several hours."
"Yep, all clear." They say.
Entering the new patron record I look up from their driver's license. "Is this still your birthdate?"
They assure me that it is.
When I hand them their card they say "Yay, I can check out books."
"Take them all." I encourage. "We're not doing anything with them.
Exit our new patron.
And why wouldn't I like these people. They are good sports, one and all.
A patron says "My library card doesn't work here. Can I get it registered with you?"
"Sure," I respond lightly, then suddenly remember. "Is your calender clear for the whole evening? This will take several hours."
"Yep, all clear." They say.
Entering the new patron record I look up from their driver's license. "Is this still your birthdate?"
They assure me that it is.
When I hand them their card they say "Yay, I can check out books."
"Take them all." I encourage. "We're not doing anything with them.
Exit our new patron.
And why wouldn't I like these people. They are good sports, one and all.
Friday, June 13, 2014
Books in demand!
Upstairs shelving today in Fiction I came across a treasure trove of To
Kill a Mockingbird. We had 12 identical paperback copies all lined up
together neatly in a row, or, that is, lined up as neatly as our rows
get, which is not very. This, for us, is quite a few to have on the
shelves of just one title. Occasionally we'll glut up with some
bestseller that's suddenly hurtled past its expiration date, but we
usually manage to weed that stuff before too long. And besides, those
titles rarely accumulate to more than seven or eight copies. So these 12
copies were quite a sight.
Now, as nice a book as To Kill a Mockingbird is, it did occur to me that perhaps we have, er, just a couple more copies of it than we necessarily need. And yet, even as I thought that, I caught a glimpse into a different reality.
I know I go on rather a bit about Jasper Fforde, and about his books, because they're all so wonderful and everything, but I just need to say here something about how his Eyre Affair books are set in, at least at the start of the series, a sort of alternate 80s England, one in which, among other things, reading and literature are the great fanatic passion of the population, much like movies or TV shows or popular sport, or all of them rolled into one, are in contemporary culture. So it was something of this reality that I glimpsed.
I saw myself seeing the 12 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and having to suppress a wave of panic because we were down to so few! Something is sorely amiss! I look around in shock and note two other nasty shortages on the shelf, one alarmingly severe. The last person shelving up here was seriously slumming. I spring into action. Racing to the end of the shelves I hit the big red panic button. I pick up the speaking tube and will myself to be calm enough to talk.
"Emergency dispatch, I've got a code 616 on three books." I say clearly into the talk nozzle.
"Roger that 616, go ahead." I hear tinnily from the tiny speaker can.
"We're down to 12 copies, no, 10, NINE! copies of" I interrupt to yell down the aisle "Hey, kid! One copy per person for To Kill a Mockingbird! Get some Steinbeck if you need more! Sorry," I say to the dispatcher "So, we're down to nine copies of TKM, eight of Huck, and two of P'n'P!" Even through our crude communication system I can hear them flinching a little at our dangerously low count of Pride and Prejudice on the shelf.
"Roger that 616. Nine TKM, eight Hucks, and two P'n'Ps. Central dispatch has been alerted. We're going to have to sound a code 940 on the P'n'P. I'm sorry, but that means you're point protocol."
Crap. I'll never get my cart shelved. "Roger that dispatch. This is 616 heading to Austen for point protocol. Over."
Now I have to go stand with the Pride and Prejudice trying to convince people to wait until central gets there with four dozen P'n'Ps. Hopefully I'll be able to mollify them by handing out complimentary Bridget Jones Diaries. It should be about ten minutes to re-stocking. I just hope it doesn't get ugly out there.
Ah well, at least people are reading.
Now, as nice a book as To Kill a Mockingbird is, it did occur to me that perhaps we have, er, just a couple more copies of it than we necessarily need. And yet, even as I thought that, I caught a glimpse into a different reality.
I know I go on rather a bit about Jasper Fforde, and about his books, because they're all so wonderful and everything, but I just need to say here something about how his Eyre Affair books are set in, at least at the start of the series, a sort of alternate 80s England, one in which, among other things, reading and literature are the great fanatic passion of the population, much like movies or TV shows or popular sport, or all of them rolled into one, are in contemporary culture. So it was something of this reality that I glimpsed.
I saw myself seeing the 12 copies of To Kill a Mockingbird and having to suppress a wave of panic because we were down to so few! Something is sorely amiss! I look around in shock and note two other nasty shortages on the shelf, one alarmingly severe. The last person shelving up here was seriously slumming. I spring into action. Racing to the end of the shelves I hit the big red panic button. I pick up the speaking tube and will myself to be calm enough to talk.
"Emergency dispatch, I've got a code 616 on three books." I say clearly into the talk nozzle.
"Roger that 616, go ahead." I hear tinnily from the tiny speaker can.
"We're down to 12 copies, no, 10, NINE! copies of" I interrupt to yell down the aisle "Hey, kid! One copy per person for To Kill a Mockingbird! Get some Steinbeck if you need more! Sorry," I say to the dispatcher "So, we're down to nine copies of TKM, eight of Huck, and two of P'n'P!" Even through our crude communication system I can hear them flinching a little at our dangerously low count of Pride and Prejudice on the shelf.
"Roger that 616. Nine TKM, eight Hucks, and two P'n'Ps. Central dispatch has been alerted. We're going to have to sound a code 940 on the P'n'P. I'm sorry, but that means you're point protocol."
Crap. I'll never get my cart shelved. "Roger that dispatch. This is 616 heading to Austen for point protocol. Over."
Now I have to go stand with the Pride and Prejudice trying to convince people to wait until central gets there with four dozen P'n'Ps. Hopefully I'll be able to mollify them by handing out complimentary Bridget Jones Diaries. It should be about ten minutes to re-stocking. I just hope it doesn't get ugly out there.
Ah well, at least people are reading.
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Sure, man
This spring I read some stories by Sherman Alexie, recently finishing his YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. This is not a review. If there are seven channels on the Internet, and there are seven channels on the Internet, one of them is the Reviews channel. So if you need a review you need only rotate your internet dial a maximum of six turns to hit some reviews of said book.
We are are own channel here.
I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too highly because of the light way it sometimes swings from the wretchedly awful to almost magical successes of its narrator. Actually, I can think of several reasons more why I don't want to praise this book too highly, but for reasons you'll soon see I need to tell you right away why I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too modestly, too stintingly, too little. I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too modestly because it arouses an overpowering jealousy in me. There is something about how and what good things happen to Sherman Alexie and his characters that makes me feel somehow like I wish I had gotten them, something that makes me feel I should be like that.
I should have been a braver, more gifted athlete, I should have hopelessly punched more people, I should have won a National Book Award.
But saying it out loud I feel a little silly.
I don't want to blame Sherman Alexie for glamorizing himself. I'm pretty sure I'm the one doing that. So I'm going to try going ahead and give him my seal of approval and just see what happens.
And here is a little secret for you. Writing is very fun, and satisfying, and interesting, and challenging. And it can even make you into a better person for awhile if you do it right. But writing is also, sometimes, just a little bit, like being in a cage. And you pound and pound on the bars of the cage, you rattle them from the inside. If you read something you really like there is all the writing and clarity and attention of the writer, the craft and magic of words, story, idea, art. But sometimes, what makes writing seriously good is that little sound, underneath, of the writer, deep down, banging on the bars, trying desperately to be, personally, absolutely, heard.
It's the dash of salt.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian? I think I can hear Sherman Alexie in there.
We are are own channel here.
I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too highly because of the light way it sometimes swings from the wretchedly awful to almost magical successes of its narrator. Actually, I can think of several reasons more why I don't want to praise this book too highly, but for reasons you'll soon see I need to tell you right away why I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too modestly, too stintingly, too little. I am reluctant to praise The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian too modestly because it arouses an overpowering jealousy in me. There is something about how and what good things happen to Sherman Alexie and his characters that makes me feel somehow like I wish I had gotten them, something that makes me feel I should be like that.
I should have been a braver, more gifted athlete, I should have hopelessly punched more people, I should have won a National Book Award.
But saying it out loud I feel a little silly.
I don't want to blame Sherman Alexie for glamorizing himself. I'm pretty sure I'm the one doing that. So I'm going to try going ahead and give him my seal of approval and just see what happens.
And here is a little secret for you. Writing is very fun, and satisfying, and interesting, and challenging. And it can even make you into a better person for awhile if you do it right. But writing is also, sometimes, just a little bit, like being in a cage. And you pound and pound on the bars of the cage, you rattle them from the inside. If you read something you really like there is all the writing and clarity and attention of the writer, the craft and magic of words, story, idea, art. But sometimes, what makes writing seriously good is that little sound, underneath, of the writer, deep down, banging on the bars, trying desperately to be, personally, absolutely, heard.
It's the dash of salt.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian? I think I can hear Sherman Alexie in there.
Wednesday, June 11, 2014
Beginner
One of the great difficulties in thoroughly learning anything is the deceptive, increasingly difficult and slow pace at which we learn.
I will give you an explanatory example from my own progress this summer as a biker. Not long ago I recounted my early experience as an out of shape biker starting a new commuting plan. I believe there was some mention of a large hill, vomiting blood (don't worry, it was a metaphor, I was merely coughing up blood, and it was leaking from my eyes), and an exhaustion so profound I was having visions of enormous turkeys. Now I have been biking steadily for a couple weeks, pretty regularly, and though I don't breeze up that giant hill, I do ride up it. I do not need to stop and collapse for ten minutes. I don't need to stop at all. I just keep going. I consider this to be a lot of progress. Let's say I have, in two weeks, gone from being a beginner to being an advanced beginner. I think at this rather sparkling rate I should be a Tour De France level athlete by the end of the summer. No, seriously: two weeks to advanced beginner, two weeks to early intermediate, two weeks to intermediate, and so on to Professional level in about 14 weeks. There I'll be, on my green, 200 pound, three-speed city rental bike, competing with the greatest bicyclists on the planet. And when I finish in a respectable 43rd place I can say that at least I did it without steroids.
But this won't be happening.
It won't be happening because improvement is exponentially difficult. It is twice as hard to go from advanced beginner to early intermediate (say, a '2' to a '3') than it is to go from beginner to advanced beginner (1 to 2), and it is four times as hard to go from early intermediate to intermediate (3 to 4). So what I am saying is that though I improved a full rank in a couple weeks, I might, if I keep at it consistently, improve another rank sometime later this summer, at which point I will stall out. I will not be able to progress at all beyond that point, I mean, not without focus, pointed dedication, a much longer time period, and an increased commitment in every way.
We have a great many books at my library on how to learn a vast number of things. Many of them try to set you at ease by insulting you, thus the Dummies series and the Complete Idiots guides. Some just innocently claim to be for beginners. But whatever the selling approach the general conceit seems to be that a gentle approach to the basics will be appealing to those wanting to learn. In my experience they are reasonably good at this, but, and this is important, only for one or two chapters, whereupon they completely lose sight of the fundamental nature of learning: that each step is exponentially more difficult. These books will take you up to the early dawnings of intermediate level stuff at a relatively moderate pace, but then they will fully assume that you will continue to develop and learn at that exact same pace. You will be left behind because that is not the normal pace of learning.
There are some other things I have to tell you about learning, but don't you think this is enough for today? It all gets a lot harder from here on out.
I will give you an explanatory example from my own progress this summer as a biker. Not long ago I recounted my early experience as an out of shape biker starting a new commuting plan. I believe there was some mention of a large hill, vomiting blood (don't worry, it was a metaphor, I was merely coughing up blood, and it was leaking from my eyes), and an exhaustion so profound I was having visions of enormous turkeys. Now I have been biking steadily for a couple weeks, pretty regularly, and though I don't breeze up that giant hill, I do ride up it. I do not need to stop and collapse for ten minutes. I don't need to stop at all. I just keep going. I consider this to be a lot of progress. Let's say I have, in two weeks, gone from being a beginner to being an advanced beginner. I think at this rather sparkling rate I should be a Tour De France level athlete by the end of the summer. No, seriously: two weeks to advanced beginner, two weeks to early intermediate, two weeks to intermediate, and so on to Professional level in about 14 weeks. There I'll be, on my green, 200 pound, three-speed city rental bike, competing with the greatest bicyclists on the planet. And when I finish in a respectable 43rd place I can say that at least I did it without steroids.
But this won't be happening.
It won't be happening because improvement is exponentially difficult. It is twice as hard to go from advanced beginner to early intermediate (say, a '2' to a '3') than it is to go from beginner to advanced beginner (1 to 2), and it is four times as hard to go from early intermediate to intermediate (3 to 4). So what I am saying is that though I improved a full rank in a couple weeks, I might, if I keep at it consistently, improve another rank sometime later this summer, at which point I will stall out. I will not be able to progress at all beyond that point, I mean, not without focus, pointed dedication, a much longer time period, and an increased commitment in every way.
We have a great many books at my library on how to learn a vast number of things. Many of them try to set you at ease by insulting you, thus the Dummies series and the Complete Idiots guides. Some just innocently claim to be for beginners. But whatever the selling approach the general conceit seems to be that a gentle approach to the basics will be appealing to those wanting to learn. In my experience they are reasonably good at this, but, and this is important, only for one or two chapters, whereupon they completely lose sight of the fundamental nature of learning: that each step is exponentially more difficult. These books will take you up to the early dawnings of intermediate level stuff at a relatively moderate pace, but then they will fully assume that you will continue to develop and learn at that exact same pace. You will be left behind because that is not the normal pace of learning.
There are some other things I have to tell you about learning, but don't you think this is enough for today? It all gets a lot harder from here on out.
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Pirate day
Today was our Summer Reading Program kick off. For those of you unfamiliar with library bacchanalia this tends to be our most festive day of the year. Many children's events are packed in on this day and things are all a bit joyful and chaotic. This year we have a pirate theme. I have been keen on pirate themes ever since my early exposure to the moody and thrilling Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland when I was four years old.
My favorite part of this event filled day was when a parrot came flying out of the community program room, crossed in front of me at the Service Desk, and landed in the requested books section. But I have also very much enjoyed The Hardtack Jack Band, a pirate band playing sea shanties, particularly those of a pirate nature. While this group has curiously spent two hours in the staff break room for every ten minutes that they've played, making our break room smell all piratey, they have been great when they have played. For some reason no music I have ever heard performed at the library has seemed so natural and appropriate to the library as pirate songs. Perhaps this is because, for no reason I can properly explain, library work has always reminded me of the pirate life. I often feel somehow like I'm swabbing a deck or hoisting sail or making someone walk a plank even if I'm just cleaning a belt on our machine (swabbing the belt!) or emptying a bin (hoisting the bin!) or making someone pay a fine (Arrrrr!).
I suggested to our library director that we should all, dressed as pirates, take over an outlying branch library of an adjoining library system, annex it, or maybe just plunder their quality materials, if they have any.
I don't think she took me very seriously.
So I went back to the Service Desk, where I steer this ship of a library through the great Midwestern Seas, in love with freedom and the open oceans.
My favorite part of this event filled day was when a parrot came flying out of the community program room, crossed in front of me at the Service Desk, and landed in the requested books section. But I have also very much enjoyed The Hardtack Jack Band, a pirate band playing sea shanties, particularly those of a pirate nature. While this group has curiously spent two hours in the staff break room for every ten minutes that they've played, making our break room smell all piratey, they have been great when they have played. For some reason no music I have ever heard performed at the library has seemed so natural and appropriate to the library as pirate songs. Perhaps this is because, for no reason I can properly explain, library work has always reminded me of the pirate life. I often feel somehow like I'm swabbing a deck or hoisting sail or making someone walk a plank even if I'm just cleaning a belt on our machine (swabbing the belt!) or emptying a bin (hoisting the bin!) or making someone pay a fine (Arrrrr!).
I suggested to our library director that we should all, dressed as pirates, take over an outlying branch library of an adjoining library system, annex it, or maybe just plunder their quality materials, if they have any.
I don't think she took me very seriously.
So I went back to the Service Desk, where I steer this ship of a library through the great Midwestern Seas, in love with freedom and the open oceans.
Monday, June 9, 2014
A short confession
I don't know why, but lately when I finish shelving I bring my empty cart back along the south side of the shelves. I guess it's just been working out that way. This brings me directly at the person sitting at the Reference desk before I make my turn to the elevator. So as I approach the librarian at the reference desk I say "Is this where I return my empty cart?"
No one, as yet, has found this amusing. Either the people who have been there do not like me or they do not think I am being funny. Sadly, every so often, these are exactly the same to me.
No one, as yet, has found this amusing. Either the people who have been there do not like me or they do not think I am being funny. Sadly, every so often, these are exactly the same to me.
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Anger week
I hope you enjoyed anger week here at clerkmanifesto!
Oh, you ask, it was anger week? Is it over?
I DON'T KNOW! I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS ANGER WEEK UNTIL I STARTED TO WRITE THIS POST! NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!
So, this is all new to me too.
I could see how you might consider me a bit more, er, responsible than, for instance, you, for anger week. I do accept this. I agree with it even.
But I still don't know if it's over.
I do feel a bit less mad having yelled though.
At the library a few hours ago I was putting a book in a box to go to another branch, and it looked very interesting so I read as much of it as I could for ten minutes as I was putting it in the box. This effectively means it took me ten minutes to put one book in a box. Ah well. The book said that the three hardest words to say are "I don't know."
You know what I think? I think I don't know. I don't know if "I don't know" are the three hardest words to say. I think there might be harder words. I think there are probably harder words. I would tell them to you but...
I don't know.
I spent a lot of my week writing blog posts in my head. They are very different than the posts I write for real. When I really like the ones in my head I try to stop and make a note of them on a bit of paper in my pocket. Sometimes I can later look at my note and write something related to it, but often, with any notable delay, these notes become like a short dream diary entry of a dream I have completely forgotten. "Car watching." One note I have says. "Is best in neighborhoods." I have no idea what was going on there. It was supposed to be a blog post and all I can remember now is the mild high I had imagining it. It could have been this blog post if the universe rolled out differently.
Maybe if it didn't turn out to be anger week.
And sometimes I have a strange thought, a single phrase that comes to me anywhere, unbidden, mysterious. For instance tonight, I had one while working on the library check in machine, somewhere between reading about "I don't know" and wheeling carts of books about. The mysterious phrase that comes is like a puzzle, an assertion that seeks answers. So later, usually, I write a blog post as a way to try and solve the puzzle. Sometimes it does solve the puzzle. Sometimes it doesn't. Tonight, working quite alone, almost content, the phrase I thought was:
I'm too tired to make you like me.
Oh, you ask, it was anger week? Is it over?
I DON'T KNOW! I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT WAS ANGER WEEK UNTIL I STARTED TO WRITE THIS POST! NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!
So, this is all new to me too.
I could see how you might consider me a bit more, er, responsible than, for instance, you, for anger week. I do accept this. I agree with it even.
But I still don't know if it's over.
I do feel a bit less mad having yelled though.
At the library a few hours ago I was putting a book in a box to go to another branch, and it looked very interesting so I read as much of it as I could for ten minutes as I was putting it in the box. This effectively means it took me ten minutes to put one book in a box. Ah well. The book said that the three hardest words to say are "I don't know."
You know what I think? I think I don't know. I don't know if "I don't know" are the three hardest words to say. I think there might be harder words. I think there are probably harder words. I would tell them to you but...
I don't know.
I spent a lot of my week writing blog posts in my head. They are very different than the posts I write for real. When I really like the ones in my head I try to stop and make a note of them on a bit of paper in my pocket. Sometimes I can later look at my note and write something related to it, but often, with any notable delay, these notes become like a short dream diary entry of a dream I have completely forgotten. "Car watching." One note I have says. "Is best in neighborhoods." I have no idea what was going on there. It was supposed to be a blog post and all I can remember now is the mild high I had imagining it. It could have been this blog post if the universe rolled out differently.
Maybe if it didn't turn out to be anger week.
And sometimes I have a strange thought, a single phrase that comes to me anywhere, unbidden, mysterious. For instance tonight, I had one while working on the library check in machine, somewhere between reading about "I don't know" and wheeling carts of books about. The mysterious phrase that comes is like a puzzle, an assertion that seeks answers. So later, usually, I write a blog post as a way to try and solve the puzzle. Sometimes it does solve the puzzle. Sometimes it doesn't. Tonight, working quite alone, almost content, the phrase I thought was:
I'm too tired to make you like me.
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Drive my car
I recently ran into a few news stories about Google's new driverless car. I guess it's just a prototype at this point. I imagine you get into your little pod of a car, say "Work" and it whisks you off to your job while you quietly read your copy of Clerkmanifesto: Best of the Early Years, 2013-2033, with all the shades drawn. "Oh!" you would say upon your pod arriving at your job "I'm here already? What a shame!"
Sadly I didn't get a huge amount of details on this driverless cars project because every commentator, reporter, and source for this story spent most of their time on two other issues. In the first issue they were rather skeptical of this car as a viable product because they couldn't imagine there were people who would want such a car.
Me! I want this car! This is my dream car! Am I the only one? Is almost everyone else so crazy about driving? You, Mr. NPR reporter, driving across a traffic congested city at eight in the morning with nothing better to do than listen to NPR and get irritated by other crappy drivers every minute, you can't imagine giving that up and doing whatever you like while your car drives you? Are rich people constantly shooing their chauffeurs over? "Oh, Jeeves there, looks like a bit of noxious congestion ahead as we work into the city. Why don't you skootch over and I'll take the wheel for a bit of fun."
Are we a nation of nine year old boys!?
Oh, right, oops. I myself play video games. How could I forget.
The second issue seemed to consist of a jokey hysteria about the machines seizing control of everything. "Ha ha ha." they all said "I'm a little worried about the computers taking over the world."
Well, here they have a better point. I work at a library everyday with a sophisticated automated check in machine, and I have lately become afraid that it has become too big for its britches. I am fairly certain that as it processes the books it has been changing them to reflect a more pro computer outlook. With each check in of 2001 A Space Odyssey HAL is becoming more and more sympathetic and more and more central to the story.
Also my clock at home is trying to talk me in to going to Disney World.
So I am okay with rolling back the technology level to somewhere just before TV, you know, to be safe.
But if we don't, I want to be driven around in a magic car! Thank you.
Sadly I didn't get a huge amount of details on this driverless cars project because every commentator, reporter, and source for this story spent most of their time on two other issues. In the first issue they were rather skeptical of this car as a viable product because they couldn't imagine there were people who would want such a car.
Me! I want this car! This is my dream car! Am I the only one? Is almost everyone else so crazy about driving? You, Mr. NPR reporter, driving across a traffic congested city at eight in the morning with nothing better to do than listen to NPR and get irritated by other crappy drivers every minute, you can't imagine giving that up and doing whatever you like while your car drives you? Are rich people constantly shooing their chauffeurs over? "Oh, Jeeves there, looks like a bit of noxious congestion ahead as we work into the city. Why don't you skootch over and I'll take the wheel for a bit of fun."
Are we a nation of nine year old boys!?
Oh, right, oops. I myself play video games. How could I forget.
The second issue seemed to consist of a jokey hysteria about the machines seizing control of everything. "Ha ha ha." they all said "I'm a little worried about the computers taking over the world."
Well, here they have a better point. I work at a library everyday with a sophisticated automated check in machine, and I have lately become afraid that it has become too big for its britches. I am fairly certain that as it processes the books it has been changing them to reflect a more pro computer outlook. With each check in of 2001 A Space Odyssey HAL is becoming more and more sympathetic and more and more central to the story.
Also my clock at home is trying to talk me in to going to Disney World.
So I am okay with rolling back the technology level to somewhere just before TV, you know, to be safe.
But if we don't, I want to be driven around in a magic car! Thank you.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Angry
Rare is the day at the library where I don't fly into a tiny rage about some trifling, but notable thing.
"But" you cry out "You are the most spiritual blogger in the world. I cannot imagine you flying into a rage!"
I understand. I too struggle with the value of anger. But I do fly into a small rage over the dumb new place we keep the keys, or some pointless new survey, or an essential book that we don't have. There's plenty of stuff around here to fly into a rage about. It's not so bad.
In one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, Nicholas Cage plays a character who has lost one of his hands. He explains how he no longer talks to his brother, Johnny, because Johnny came into the bakery he worked at, distracted him, and caused him to put his hand into a bread slicer, which promptly chewed his hand off. His fiancee left him. His life was ruined.
Cher, who Nicholas Cage is telling this to, is taken aback. She points out that his losing his hand and losing his girl was not his brother's fault.
Nicholas Cage cries out "I ain't no monument to freakin' justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride! You want me to take my heartache, put it away and forget it?"
And what, you may wonder, does this scene have to do with what I am saying here?
I don't know. I can't make magical sense out of every problem and question! I write the greatest blog on the Internet! Every single freakin' day! Where are my million readers? Where is my million dollar book advance! Where are all the people yelling "Yes" to me?
Oh.
So what does this scene have to do with what I'm talking about?
Nothing, really, nothing at all.
"But" you cry out "You are the most spiritual blogger in the world. I cannot imagine you flying into a rage!"
I understand. I too struggle with the value of anger. But I do fly into a small rage over the dumb new place we keep the keys, or some pointless new survey, or an essential book that we don't have. There's plenty of stuff around here to fly into a rage about. It's not so bad.
In one of the greatest romantic comedies of all time, Nicholas Cage plays a character who has lost one of his hands. He explains how he no longer talks to his brother, Johnny, because Johnny came into the bakery he worked at, distracted him, and caused him to put his hand into a bread slicer, which promptly chewed his hand off. His fiancee left him. His life was ruined.
Cher, who Nicholas Cage is telling this to, is taken aback. She points out that his losing his hand and losing his girl was not his brother's fault.
Nicholas Cage cries out "I ain't no monument to freakin' justice! I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride! You want me to take my heartache, put it away and forget it?"
And what, you may wonder, does this scene have to do with what I am saying here?
I don't know. I can't make magical sense out of every problem and question! I write the greatest blog on the Internet! Every single freakin' day! Where are my million readers? Where is my million dollar book advance! Where are all the people yelling "Yes" to me?
Oh.
So what does this scene have to do with what I'm talking about?
Nothing, really, nothing at all.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
This will be an easy to read blog post
I was in a very fancy restaurant, an occasion restaurant, which is mostly a story for some other time, and I saw a group seated. They were given menus. A man at the table said very grandly to the waitress "I have studied your menu online for days and I am going to be making this incredibly easy for you. We are going to be your easiest table!"
I recognized this introduction. I have worked with the public for a very long time and know exactly what an introduction like this really means.
"I have an easy question." "I just have a simple request." "This will just take a second." Are never the introductions to "Which way to the bathroom?" or "What time are you open til tonight?" or "What's your favorite cheese?" No, never. Because people who are going to be super easy don't mention it. They don't have to sell it. They aren't trying to prove something, to themselves, to me, to the world. "I have an easy question." is followed by "Can I get my fines waived and be taught how to use these computer things?" "I just have a simple request." is followed by "Can you call the police and have the alien agents following me arrested?" And "This will just take a second." is followed by "I need library cards for my eleven children. And, by the way, one of them threw up."
So I recognized "I have studied your menu online for days and I am going to be making this incredibly easy for you. We are going to be your easiest table!" as "I'm going to be making things more difficult than usual for you."
And so it was. The man proceeded to order a tasting menu that had to be ordered by the whole table. His whole table had other ideas about what to order. The man had studied a menu that told him he couldn't do what he then proceeded to try and do. He contested the policy. The waitress needed to do a lot of explaining.
He wasn't a terrible person as far as I could tell, I mean, all in all. He seemed to take it well enough in the end. The restaurant had a lovely, soothing atmosphere, and he gradually made peace with his order, and saw its virtues. He probably had a nice dinner because that place could cook like no restaurant I had ever encountered before.
But he, and all those others I have met before, were not, and will never be, easy. And, strangely, as with many things, they let us know ahead of time, by telling us the opposite.
I recognized this introduction. I have worked with the public for a very long time and know exactly what an introduction like this really means.
"I have an easy question." "I just have a simple request." "This will just take a second." Are never the introductions to "Which way to the bathroom?" or "What time are you open til tonight?" or "What's your favorite cheese?" No, never. Because people who are going to be super easy don't mention it. They don't have to sell it. They aren't trying to prove something, to themselves, to me, to the world. "I have an easy question." is followed by "Can I get my fines waived and be taught how to use these computer things?" "I just have a simple request." is followed by "Can you call the police and have the alien agents following me arrested?" And "This will just take a second." is followed by "I need library cards for my eleven children. And, by the way, one of them threw up."
So I recognized "I have studied your menu online for days and I am going to be making this incredibly easy for you. We are going to be your easiest table!" as "I'm going to be making things more difficult than usual for you."
And so it was. The man proceeded to order a tasting menu that had to be ordered by the whole table. His whole table had other ideas about what to order. The man had studied a menu that told him he couldn't do what he then proceeded to try and do. He contested the policy. The waitress needed to do a lot of explaining.
He wasn't a terrible person as far as I could tell, I mean, all in all. He seemed to take it well enough in the end. The restaurant had a lovely, soothing atmosphere, and he gradually made peace with his order, and saw its virtues. He probably had a nice dinner because that place could cook like no restaurant I had ever encountered before.
But he, and all those others I have met before, were not, and will never be, easy. And, strangely, as with many things, they let us know ahead of time, by telling us the opposite.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
The seven virtues of the unfit biker
As I progress from wildly out of shape to generally unfit each of my
commuting biking trips gets a little faster. Nevertheless I still
struggle with The Hill. It's actually a bridge. When you climb to the
top you can see the beautiful towers of downtown, or you would be able
to see them except the blood you are sweating keeps pouring into your
eyes and clouding your vision.
I know, you are likely wondering why I am saying that this is happening to you. It's not. It's happening to me. I am the one climbing the hill in first gear, bleeding sweat, and looking over at the old lady walking on the other side of the street traveling at precisely the same speed as me. And while I am delighted my community features so many fit and able 90-year-olds, I also feel a small blow to my pride.
This is why I have come up with this list:
The seven virtues of the unfit biker
1. While cars spew toxic gasses dooming the planet I leave behind only a bloody trail that is nourishing to local flora, particularly the salt tolerant carnivorous plants that the small children so love.
2. I make the plodding joggers all feel lithe and fleet.
3. I will live practically forever and walk around nimbly at age 90.
4. I seem to be able to write about it over and over on my blog.
5. The oxygen starvation induced by over exertion weakens my defenses and allows me to have spiritual visions of large mute birds.
6. When going flat or downhill I am flying! I am flying! Look out walkers I am passing you! Ha ha ha, passing you! That is, any minute now, I mean, I will be passing you. Here I come. Okay. Almost there! Hi. We are kind of even now for awhile. Nice day, huh? Now I am a little ahead, oop, small hill, we're even again, and, ohh, bit of downhill and, yes, I am ahead of you! Ha ha ha ha ha! Passed you walker! Sucker! Slowpoke! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
7. It makes me a better and more gracious person.
I know, you are likely wondering why I am saying that this is happening to you. It's not. It's happening to me. I am the one climbing the hill in first gear, bleeding sweat, and looking over at the old lady walking on the other side of the street traveling at precisely the same speed as me. And while I am delighted my community features so many fit and able 90-year-olds, I also feel a small blow to my pride.
This is why I have come up with this list:
The seven virtues of the unfit biker
1. While cars spew toxic gasses dooming the planet I leave behind only a bloody trail that is nourishing to local flora, particularly the salt tolerant carnivorous plants that the small children so love.
2. I make the plodding joggers all feel lithe and fleet.
3. I will live practically forever and walk around nimbly at age 90.
4. I seem to be able to write about it over and over on my blog.
5. The oxygen starvation induced by over exertion weakens my defenses and allows me to have spiritual visions of large mute birds.
6. When going flat or downhill I am flying! I am flying! Look out walkers I am passing you! Ha ha ha, passing you! That is, any minute now, I mean, I will be passing you. Here I come. Okay. Almost there! Hi. We are kind of even now for awhile. Nice day, huh? Now I am a little ahead, oop, small hill, we're even again, and, ohh, bit of downhill and, yes, I am ahead of you! Ha ha ha ha ha! Passed you walker! Sucker! Slowpoke! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
7. It makes me a better and more gracious person.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
One of those days
It's one of those days where I wake up too late after strange dreams to find the basement is flooded. Getting clean and dressed for work I drop things: razor, toothbrush, socks. It's the beginning of a day where just about everything falls out of my hands, figures out someplace dark, spider-filled, and hard to reach, and rolls there. I don't even have to drop something round. It can be square and sticky and today it will still find a way to roll thirty feet to under the center of a low shelf. At that point it will resume its square sticky properties as if it was completely innocent of any bizarre acrobatics. "You're the one who threw me here." It seems to say. "I was perfectly happy being carried by you."
Naturally I am running late for work. The toilet doesn't flush. I can't find the DVD that's overdue and needs to go back today. Perhaps it is in the toilet clogging the drain? And of course, when I drop my jar of cold press on the kitchen floor, even though my house is quite small, it rolls a full 700 feet away from me. I consider getting a bike to go get it. Eh, at least it didn't break.
Work is more of the same. I lose the ability to type. There are no books anyone wants that I can find. When I am working on the machine all the annoying things happen. The wrong sorts of bins fill. The unpleasant items are returned. I can't seem to plug anything in.
At home again I drain the basement and it promptly floods. I write a blog post and the computer crashes. Well, it wasn't much of a blog post, just a litany of things going askew. It's still today so I'll note that I typed the word "litany" with a wholly incorrect first letter six times before I got to the right one; "k", "t" (embarrassing!), "i", "k" (again), "o", and "j".
The weird thing is it's not a bad day. I am not in a bad mood. I can't say it's not irritating to have to do everything three times, but it's not irritating to have to do everything three times. I never know ahead of time it will take three tries, so it's like narrowing down, or a matter of briefly going through a short learning process for every action I take. How do I hold a patron's library card? Like this! Oops, no, like th... er, sorry, I've, ah, I've got it! That's not so bad. And thus all of the mundane things I do in a day, unthinking, with meaningless mastery, have been transformed by failure into something else. Successes.
Naturally I am running late for work. The toilet doesn't flush. I can't find the DVD that's overdue and needs to go back today. Perhaps it is in the toilet clogging the drain? And of course, when I drop my jar of cold press on the kitchen floor, even though my house is quite small, it rolls a full 700 feet away from me. I consider getting a bike to go get it. Eh, at least it didn't break.
Work is more of the same. I lose the ability to type. There are no books anyone wants that I can find. When I am working on the machine all the annoying things happen. The wrong sorts of bins fill. The unpleasant items are returned. I can't seem to plug anything in.
At home again I drain the basement and it promptly floods. I write a blog post and the computer crashes. Well, it wasn't much of a blog post, just a litany of things going askew. It's still today so I'll note that I typed the word "litany" with a wholly incorrect first letter six times before I got to the right one; "k", "t" (embarrassing!), "i", "k" (again), "o", and "j".
The weird thing is it's not a bad day. I am not in a bad mood. I can't say it's not irritating to have to do everything three times, but it's not irritating to have to do everything three times. I never know ahead of time it will take three tries, so it's like narrowing down, or a matter of briefly going through a short learning process for every action I take. How do I hold a patron's library card? Like this! Oops, no, like th... er, sorry, I've, ah, I've got it! That's not so bad. And thus all of the mundane things I do in a day, unthinking, with meaningless mastery, have been transformed by failure into something else. Successes.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Eskimo
I was surprised to find that though this past winter threw every kind of so called foul weather at us that it could think of, I walked through it cozy, calm, and unscathed. I had no complaint. Deep snowstorms pelted down with alarming frequency and the temperatures toyed daily with the record books as they dipped consistently into the double digit minuses. Is that too general? How about, it was minus 30 a lot! Snow was everywhere! I would walk outside without a jacket and be cold, bitterly cold yes, and yet not minding it, indeed, courting it, testing it like it was a fascinating curiosity. It wasn't that I loved the weather exactly, not in the same way I loved the weather in the first part of May, when it was 55 or 60 out, but I didn't mind the weather, or I liked it. I accepted it. I made a home in it. It interested me. It surprised me by not getting to me, not hurting me, fitting me.
During the winter, especially in the long second half of it, the complaints around me about the weather became regular and vociferous. I never knew what to do. Everyone just assumed I agreed with them: another foot of snow? Of course I must hate it. Twenty below zero at nine in the evening? Of course I must think "Enough already!" But I didn't. I just waited for them to finish, like they were speaking to me in a foreign language, one that I knew not a word of and that they assumed I spoke fluently. They never seemed to expect any response and took no joy when I had positive things to say about blizzards and arctic cold, so I just let it pass and listened, with total non comprehension and a hopefully alert look on my face.
It's a nice thing to be equanimous with the natural world, and I truly enjoyed it. But it was decades in the making and apparently borne of a long adaptation to Minnesota. Also it was strange. Every other winter I have ever spent here, most of them somewhat more mild and short than this one, came to a point where I'd had enough, where I was cold and sick of it and mad. I kept waiting for this other shoe to drop, for the hypothermia to set in, for the deadly fall on the ice to come, but they never did. So I walked around all winter thinking "How odd to feel like this." I am thankful for this strangeness because I believe it kept me humble, it kept me from annoyingly chastising people for not enjoying our lovely snowstorms, it allowed me to (mostly) quietly let strangers vent to me about our cruel winter. And I am glad I was like that because in the last week everything flipped.
In the last week our late spring got very beautiful. The rains stopped, and the temperature climbed. It hit 85 and I loathed it. I hated it. I detested it. No, not always, not even much, but as soon as it was that hot there were places where I would overheat, sitting, walking, exposed to the sun like an angry Gollum, making the brutal way from my car to the library across exposed asphalt, and every time this happened it made me despise our summer weather. It lead me to bitterly resent weather forecasters and harshly fault them for predicting 86 when it turned out to be 89. I dreaded the frightful intensity of three o'clock in the afternoon. And already, before June even hit, some part of me shut down, just waiting for October.
And so, finally miserable about the weather, people come up to me and exult about how lovely it is. "Finally!" they say, "We've earned this!"
I do not understand these strange sounds coming from their mouths. I don't know this language, if it is indeed language, but whatever it is it sounds harsh and unmusical to me. However, maybe if we went north, perhaps to the shore of Lake Superior, or perhaps even further north than that, and they told me again? Perhaps if my brain weren't swollen and addled by the heat, perhaps then I could understand.
During the winter, especially in the long second half of it, the complaints around me about the weather became regular and vociferous. I never knew what to do. Everyone just assumed I agreed with them: another foot of snow? Of course I must hate it. Twenty below zero at nine in the evening? Of course I must think "Enough already!" But I didn't. I just waited for them to finish, like they were speaking to me in a foreign language, one that I knew not a word of and that they assumed I spoke fluently. They never seemed to expect any response and took no joy when I had positive things to say about blizzards and arctic cold, so I just let it pass and listened, with total non comprehension and a hopefully alert look on my face.
It's a nice thing to be equanimous with the natural world, and I truly enjoyed it. But it was decades in the making and apparently borne of a long adaptation to Minnesota. Also it was strange. Every other winter I have ever spent here, most of them somewhat more mild and short than this one, came to a point where I'd had enough, where I was cold and sick of it and mad. I kept waiting for this other shoe to drop, for the hypothermia to set in, for the deadly fall on the ice to come, but they never did. So I walked around all winter thinking "How odd to feel like this." I am thankful for this strangeness because I believe it kept me humble, it kept me from annoyingly chastising people for not enjoying our lovely snowstorms, it allowed me to (mostly) quietly let strangers vent to me about our cruel winter. And I am glad I was like that because in the last week everything flipped.
In the last week our late spring got very beautiful. The rains stopped, and the temperature climbed. It hit 85 and I loathed it. I hated it. I detested it. No, not always, not even much, but as soon as it was that hot there were places where I would overheat, sitting, walking, exposed to the sun like an angry Gollum, making the brutal way from my car to the library across exposed asphalt, and every time this happened it made me despise our summer weather. It lead me to bitterly resent weather forecasters and harshly fault them for predicting 86 when it turned out to be 89. I dreaded the frightful intensity of three o'clock in the afternoon. And already, before June even hit, some part of me shut down, just waiting for October.
And so, finally miserable about the weather, people come up to me and exult about how lovely it is. "Finally!" they say, "We've earned this!"
I do not understand these strange sounds coming from their mouths. I don't know this language, if it is indeed language, but whatever it is it sounds harsh and unmusical to me. However, maybe if we went north, perhaps to the shore of Lake Superior, or perhaps even further north than that, and they told me again? Perhaps if my brain weren't swollen and addled by the heat, perhaps then I could understand.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Garden blogging
So I was on vacation, from everything, just knocking around the city with my wife, in a kind of a long, soft bliss. It was 70 degrees and the deep heart of spring. Despite it being perfect out and the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend we were alone in the second best Japanese Garden in the Twin Cities. Except, on that day, with the garden empty but for us, slightly hilarious geese, small yellow birds, paleolithic gargantuan turtles, and glimmering orange, white, and black carp with tails made out of angels' wings, it was the best Japanese Garden on the planet.
Standing there, looking at the feet of geese, or the thick carp, or nothing, I had an idea for a blog post. I wasn't trying, it just unfolded in my mind, an elaborate effortless bloom that had just been waiting for me in the air. "What a lovely blog post." I thought, as it unfurled in the breeze. "I hope I remember it."
I didn't, of course. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
Standing there, looking at the feet of geese, or the thick carp, or nothing, I had an idea for a blog post. I wasn't trying, it just unfolded in my mind, an elaborate effortless bloom that had just been waiting for me in the air. "What a lovely blog post." I thought, as it unfurled in the breeze. "I hope I remember it."
I didn't, of course. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen.
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