Wednesday, February 15, 2017
Humble
Man, people, I mean, totally.
I, just, you know, write this blog because I love it. It's the inner satisfaction, you know? And I share it with whoever, out in the public, just in case it will mean something to a few other people. Sure it's great that millions of other people respond strongly to it, and obsess over it, and read it every day, and study it, and all that. But that's not what I'm after. I'm simply after that cool, clear place of getting it all right for myself.
Great, if it means something to you. It's super nice of you to tell me, though of course you understand that it's physically impossible for me to respond to thousands of letters and emails each week. But bless you, absolutely.
But if you could cool it all a bit on the anger and disappointment on my behalf that would be great.
"You are the god of writing. It kills me that you aren't wildly famous!!!!" Is such a nice thought really, and thank you, from the bottom of my heart, but it's not a contest. It's just you and me out there on your computer. Enjoy, okay? It's not competition or proof. It's just witness.
"Why you aren't the richest, most published and acclaimed writer on the face of the Earth is a crime I will never fathom!" People tell me every single day. And I just want to say, hey. C'mon. Love comes from within.
Because hey. Springsteen wrote me last week. "I will open for you if you tour." He said. "The world needs your wisdom. Just you, on a stage, reading your blog posts, would be a strange revelation in itself, like the mighty prophets come again. Let me talk to my people. I admire you above all other artists in the world."
Bruce, hey, easy there Boss.
I'm not going to start carrying on about how I'm not wise. Maybe I am, and maybe I'm not, but if I am, at all, it's because I live close to my heart. This is a big universe. I can write, but no one can write into the fabric of the universe? Do you know what I mean?
No?
Yeah, well I guess it is kind of complicated.
Mary Oliver emailed me the other day: "That last one, about the robins, pierced me to the heart. Do you sell any t-shirts with your blog address on them?" And it truly touched me, you know? But, c'mon, Mary, Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize winning Poet Mary Oliver, please. So I wrote her back and I said:
"Emily Dickinson wrote: 'Fame is a fickle food, Upon a shifting plate'"
And Mary Oliver wrote back "But what does that mean?"
And I wrote back "I thought you would know. I have no clue. But it's awesome! Emily Dickinson was one of the greats! A giant!"
And Mary Oliver wrote back "Totally!"
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
My place among the birders
Though it is bitter and sometimes barren up here in Minnesota this time of year, the birds never disappear. There are always a few geese heading somewhere important in a small formation, low in the sky, honking as they go. The many crows are not mine to speak of this winter, but the astonishment of robins certainly were. Their rust bellied roosting in my neighborhood's trees, by the ten thousands, for two or three days, was a natural world event that burned a piece of love into my heart that will not soon dissolve.
Nevertheless, this winter the eagles went... somewhere. Living by the great Mississippi River Flyway I rarely go even a week or two without seeing some white-headed, sweet-hearted monster of a bird flinging about on the wilderness of air above me. But December went, and January went too, and though I was out along the river most of all those 62 days I didn't see a single Eagle.
Then, at the start of February, my wife and I crossed a local river bridge and plunged down a bike and walking path that cut through some woods. A fine bald eagle rose up to meet us, like as if we could have reached out and plucked him from the air. Our conversation, ever delightful, this one time dropped silent in mid sentence with the astonishment of the encounter. The bird wheeled up and away, leaving us with the brief and fabulous gift of itself.
Two days later I was walking alone to the University, and to work. I was on the river path, two or three miles north of where we had encountered that first bird, and there, a bald eagle again, swooping near and over me, rose up, said hello, so to speak, and headed out into the city.
Was this the same bird?
I think this was the same bird.
I have idly dreamed more than once of owning the birder's arsenal; the names of all the kinds of birds, something more than "There is a blue jay" or "There is a Robin". I have wanted to know the great scientific nomenclatures. "This is an American Avocet. This is Semipalmated Plover." But in that moment of seeing what was maybe the same eagle I had seen before, I had a deeper wish. I wished I had the names of the individual birds. I wished I could see to the pure individuality of each bird instead of their type. A cardinal in my yard can become, say, Theo, known to me in every detail and instantly recognized should I ever see him again. Each bird would be a whole story. Each bird would be its own name.
And this mighty and personable eagle who I will insist is just one bird because I want it to be and hope it is? If his name is not merely, along with all his kind, Bald Eagle, what will be his name?
I will call that bird Winter.
Monday, February 13, 2017
The standoff
So I was thinking today would be a good day to write about the historical importance of Clerkmanifesto and the things we can do to elevate its profile in the national debate. I thought you would maybe enjoy a strategy session and exploration of such themes as:
- How do we insert Clerkmanifesto into the academic canon?
- The maintenance of the Clerkmanifesto Wikipedia page.
- The path from seventeen to one billion regular Clerkmanifesto readers.
- What can other people do to change the world using Clerkmanifesto?
So what do you say?
No?
Really?
You want me to talk some more about the funny way scissors disappear and reappear at the library I work at?
Are you sure?
Sigh.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
A petty revenge
Once upon a time we library workers all just waited for everyone to leave the library when we closed. Now there are a few of us who are scheduled to stay late and get everything locked up, shut down, turned off, and, most of all, to make sure every last patron has cleared out of the library.
Unfortunately after everything is shut off and we've gotten the all clear from the librarians upstairs, after the bathrooms have been checked out and it's all over but the concluding chatting in the employee exit vestibule, there are one or two or three last patrons lingering in the lobby like barnacles. Almost invariable one of them has a cane and moves like Tim Conway did in those lovely old Carol Burnett Show sketches, where he was an old man moving in staccato, but agonizingly slow, tiny steps.
At closing time I head to the coffee shop exit and lock that door. Then I cross the library and go through our main lobby and lock our series of four entry doors. On the left is a special switch that turns off the handicapped door. When I flick that off it is a couple of minutes past closing. If some wheelchairer is heading towards me I'll wait to turn it off, but if there's no incoming then off it goes.
I take a possibly inordinate amount of joy when, at ten minutes after we've closed, some hobbled oldster, finally informed, usually by me, that he really does have to vacate the library, takes one last insulting 30 second poke at our lobby's free materials, and finally heads, in slow, crippled steps to the handicapped exit, hits the handicapped button, and comes up blank. Bewildered, betrayed even, he looks helplessly around. Then he has to claw and fight his way out of our heavy, now unpowered, doors.
It's a real highlight to any day.
That's sick, sure. But never forget, it's justified too.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
Three days of food
When I am at my job at the library and my thoughts don't turn to how my managers have wronged me, they frequently turn to lunch, or dinner, or whatever one wants to call the three hour afternoon meal I eat when I'm working. Because I work through the afternoon and well into the evening all my meals, Mondays through Wednesdays, are taken at work. They require a careful planning that frequently overmasters me. But ever I try to perfect it.
The key, for me, to three days worth of food, is that it be:
1. Mostly ready to go. I like things in jars. I rarely am willing to spare time for preparation at work, though I accept much is required at home.
2. Delicious.
3. Nutritionally sound.
4. Abundant. Six meals need to be covered by this group of provisions.
5. Affordable.
This all may seem simple enough to you. And, for your sake, I hope it is. But for me it is a difficult and complicated ever changing puzzle. As much as these five elements seem harmonious they have strange ways of conflicting when an attempted solution is assembled together. Surely you can see how 2. Delicious can come in conflict with 3. Nutritionally sound in a random example of, say, two dozen chocolate chip cookies, four fancy blue cheeses, a couple baguettes, and a pint of good gelato. Those fancy blue cheeses might put a dint in 5. Affordable as well. But there are other less obvious conflicts as well. Most notably I find that the more perfect I can get the first three items on my list then the more that item 4. Abundant seems to fail.
For instance let's look at what I have in the library fridge this week, my kale. I started out with two large bunches of organic Dinosaur Kale. That might have been an adequate amount had I, at home, in preparation, merely sauteed it in olive oil, with a bit of garlic, tamari, and lemon. But no. I carefully trimmed it all, tossed it in plenty of olive oil, meyer lemon, honey, salt, and liberal gratings of Parmesan Cheese. Then I laboriously slow roasted it at 170 to 200 degrees for a couple of hours until I had fantastically tasty, crispy, rich kale chips. The two bunches produced a quart and a half of this slightly ephemeral treat. I ate a half quart in roughly the time it's taking you to read this sentence. This left one quart. Ready to go? Check. Delicious? Check. Nutritionally sound? Check. Affordable? More or less, so, check. Abundant? No, I am afraid not. I am currently rationing it out like Charlie with his annual birthday bar of Wonka Chocolate.
What else do I have? I sliced and roasted four sweet potatoes in so much olive oil they're nearly fried. They came out extremely well, but in the same sense as the Kale Chips. Too good. Less than a full quart. Rationed out carefully to myself like they're caviar eggs. I brought two cheeses, a Boucheron and Bleu des Basques which struggled too in the category of abundance and were pretty questionable re my month's budget when it comes to affordability. As I write it is Tuesday night and they're gone. I also got a good deal on a few pounds of shrimp. I have a bowl of them each afternoon with some semi homemade cocktail sauce; fresh lemon juice, organic ketchup, and horseradish.
Why am I telling you all this?
I don't know. Please leave an answer in the comments section below to let me know.
Friday, February 10, 2017
I won a Nobel Prize, ask me anything : AMA
(special note: if you've received this via your email it will likely be formatted so horribly as to be largely unintelligible. I recommend, just this once at least, venturing over to clerkmanifesto.com directly if you want to view it as it is meant to be read.)
I Won a Nobel Prize, ask me anything: AMA
submitted by Feldenstein Calypso
Hi. I'm back for my third IamA. Here today to answer your great Reddit questions about the Nobel Prize for literature that I recently won. Ask me anything you want and I'll try to answer!
Proof: http://northwoodsmanifesto.blogspot.com/2017/02/proof.html
Update: Thanks everyone. This has been a lot of fun. Great questions, great community!
24,321 comments
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thefirstofmanyfakenames 109 points
Feldenstein Calypso {S} 243,695 points 36 hours ago
Fun. Weird. Exciting. Painful, Rewarding. Lots of free fancy buffet things they have a special name for over there. Just one, er, fiery speech.
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bigkinkadefan067 1609 points
. The thing is, who wouldn't want to win a Nobel Prize for Literature? But wonderfully there are plenty of them to go around- a new one roughly every year, and if you apply yourself to your writing maybe you can win one too! Harry Martinson won one. Why can't you? Just, a small piece of advice; There are specific ways to form a question and yours came out looking more like a statement. A tip off is that you had no question mark at the end, and that's a dead giveaway. But don't give up. Keep working at it and you'll get the hang of it. We're all pulling for you.
[–]waitwaitmeme 79 points
How did you first hear you'd won the Nobel Prize?
Feldenstein Calypso {S} 243,695 points 37 hours ago
[–]unique43068 11 points
How much money do you get?
[–]ordontwatchthem 62 points
I think he gets something like 1.4 million dollars.
[–]2manynamestocomeupwith 719 points
What authors did you and Dylan badmouth?
Feldenstein Calypso {S} 243,695 points 36 hours ago
It doesn't seem right to say.
Aw, but, well, what the hell, okay, I'll say just a couple.
Kazuo Ishiguro and Thomas Kinkade. We hate those guys.
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[–]butIpersevere4 76 points
Thomas Kinkade? Is he like that crappy Painter of Light guy? He writes?
Feldenstein Calypso {S} 243,695 points 35 hours ago
Sort of. He has some co-writer who does all the work and they used to produce Romance Novels "together". Kinkade mysteriously won the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature for them. Now that I have one of my own I can kind of see why Bob gets so worked up about it. But Neil's always teasing Bob about it.
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[–]doyounoticethese? 666 points
Neil? Neil Young?
[–]cuztheyrealotofwork 1 points
Yeah, I think so. I read something about Neil, Dylan, and Calypso tasting liqueurs together.
[–]butifyounoticehi 14 points
No, it's mixed cocktails. I read an article in Vanity Fair.
[–]IlikeaNegroni 3 points
They taste exotic cocktails together. There was an article somewhere.
[–]youwillnowbeslightlykinder 223 points
Link?
[–]youaregettingsleepy zzzz points
Here
[–]doyouevergetyourself 369 points
Your link is dead.
[–]intomorethanyoubargainedfor 514 points
I know the Nobel is supposed to be for life's work, but a lot of times there's sort of an iconic work, like Steinbeck and Grapes of Wrath, or Toni Morrison with Beloved, or Thomas Kincaid (and Katherine Spencer) with Home Song, A Cape Light Novel. Do you have a particular post that you think stands for your work in the Nobel Prize?
[–]itsallthisformattingugh 55 points
Crap, he's not answering. I really wanted to hear this one too!
[–]unique43069 11 points
Hey, big fan here. Thanks for your wonderful daily blog posts. They mean the world to me and all my friends who I insist read them and then I ask them about them every day no matter what. No one could be more deserving of a Nobel, in my opinion, than you. So my question, is it true about your acceptance speech to the Nobel Prize committee, or is that just a wild legend?
Feldenstein Calypso {S} 243,695 points 6 hours ago
Thank you for your kind words. It really keeps me going.
For good or ill it's all true. I still have a small burn scar on my wrist that tingles when it's very cold out. My tux is singed too.
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[–]Sullyprudhomme 36 points
What? What happened with the acceptance speech?
[–]Fredericmistral 23331 points
How were you burned?
[–]joseechegaray 14 points
What did you do to those Swedes?????!!!!!!!
[–]IstilllikeaNegroni 3 points
Tell us!!!
Thursday, February 9, 2017
Quiet in the stacks
The quiet library, especially when it comes to one with the heavy traffic and the large, modern, open plan of the one I work in, is at best a charming old archetype from yesteryear. Yes, millions of people might cozily think of the library as a hushed, almost somber place, but they are quickly, albeit somewhat reluctantly disabused of that notion if they actually venture into a real life modern library.
"Excuse me, but the woman next to me is breathing rather loudly and I can't concentrate!"
"I'm sorry. But she's on one of the computers, and Internet users are notorious mouth breathers."
"But this is supposed to be a library!"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is."
And even though the idea of the quiet library is a bit of an open joke to me, I am not immune to a fantasist's longing. On dreamy, snowy days I might become a little wistful for a library I have never seen nor worked in. In such a dream I am enveloped in a great, careful silence. I sit at a rich and heavy oak counter illuminated with beautiful old bankers' lamps. A patron approaches me almost reverently.
"Uh. I am thinking of buying a nice cheese this afternoon. Could you perhaps recommend something?" Their voice is so low I doubt I could hear it if any sound anywhere could compete with it, but there is nothing, only our whispered conversation and pure distilled library silence.
"Bleu des Basques." I say in a hushed but informed voice. "It's a French Basques sheep's milk blue, assertive, but thoughtful, delicate, deep and lovely."
"Thank you. Thank you." The patron intones gently, backing away like an indulged courtier before a King.
What's really happening at this time of my daydreaming is that a child is scream/crying so loudly it sounds like six insane cats are fighting to the death, at least what I can hear of it. It's hard to make out the screaming over the sound of the lady breathing out on Internet computer #98. She is truly the Queen of the mouth breathers.
There is, however, one last bastion of the quiet library. We had a group of deaf people in my library today. For them it was absolutely silent. But the funny thing was that silence sort of traveled with them. As I hand gestured and wrote with one of these people about her book renewal, like slow ripples in a pond the quiet spread out from us. It flowed through the people who were making and hearing no noise and then quieted the voices of those people conversing out on their edges. It promulgated a hush that flowed all the way through the stacks to the farthest corners of our library. And for a moment the wave reached out to its furthest expression and stilled. And, rallied by the deaf, for a few strange, precious moments we became the dream of some ancient library, returned.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
On bitterness
There are two major sources for bitterness in the workplace. Yesterday we discussed the one that I consider to be important and justified. Today we are going to tell you the one of them I feel to be fundamentally illegitimate.
The legitimate one was contained and expressed in the phrase: "That person makes my job more difficult."
The illegitimate one is expressed in the phrase, never spoken aloud or directly, as follows:
"That person is not suffering as much as me."
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
The difficult
There are two major sources for bitterness in the workplace. Today we are going to talk about the one of them I feel to be fundamentally legitimate. It is best expressed in the phrase:
"That person makes my job more difficult."
These people require attention. Located all along the vast, unholy hierarchical chain, they require an array of responses from passive aggressive ones all the way to open warfare. They may require you to compensate yourself in morally complex ways. You might have to pretend they don't exist, like with aggressive street marketers, or you may have to wage a battle of misinformation, lies, and sabotage just to keep them in check. You may have to watch them warily at all times, evading, eliding, and appeasing in an endless dance. You might just have to yell at them. You might even have to complain about them with your co-workers, over and over and over and over. But I think, ultimately, the best thing to do is to write a witty blog post about them.
Oh, you don't have a blog?
That's okay! You can just read mine! Tell your friends!
There is, however, one caveat.
If you think that practically everyone at your job makes your job more difficult, the problem may be with you.
I know I'm okay because when I add it all up I can only find 32 assorted co-workers in my library system that make my job more difficult.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Parable of the lake
Here's how it works:
You inherit a factory. Over the decades it produces a mildly toxic sludge in a small lake that is part of the factory's gated compound, but your factory is efficient by virtue of cut corners like being able to raw release your waste into your lake, and due to your pressure on the workforce to accept paltry wages, and it makes you more money. You get richer and richer. Eventually though you mostly make money from your money. The money you make on the factory becomes negligible. Yes the factory makes something useful and employs people, but it's future is questionable due to your poison lake and it isn't worth the trouble or risk anymore. You close it down.
After awhile of your factory just sitting there you get sick of it being useless. You want more money. You don't want to pay to clean up your sludgy lake. And you have an idea. You're good at marketing and know how to sell things. So you reopen your factory and you start to pump your lake sludge into jars. Weakened consumer protection laws make your gunk, with a bit of cleanup and tampering, just this side of legal. Your people are excellent at just this side of legal. Other very clever people design you some lovely nature friendly looking labels and packaging. Wildly suggestive health claims are made, manufactured, and planted all across the Internet, TV, and print. You even manage to slip bits of news you made up about it into neutral places.
Your sludge takes off. It has a beautiful name. It's natural, almost magical. It cures things.
Because it costs extremely close to nothing to make (you pull it out of your lake!), and because it sells for a lot and it looks beautiful, it makes you so much money that batting away the lawsuits of people sickened by it is like having to swat at a mosquito or two in paradise.
What does your lake sludge do? Does it cure cancer, shrink piles, make you young, make you virile, prevent all colds and flus, cause you to lose weight?
Yes. Though it is not for you to say. It is merely an issue for scientists. You can buy scientists too, as long as you don't need very good ones.
Now you are rich and famous and a little guru like, what with your magic elixir. Things are good. Until you start to feel sick. And old. And tired.
You go to Doctors. You go to everyone you can. You spare no expense. You eat right. You fast. You do yoga. You see someone.
Nothing helps.
Then, one day, ill and depressed, you are sitting in one of your offices. An assistant brings in a new case of your lake sludge so you can see a new product design. You look at it listlessly. You start to wonder. You open the case. You open a jar. You take off all your clothes and smear the gloop all over yourself. And you never stop, nine times a day, until the day you die.
Sunday, February 5, 2017
Donaters
I have been looking through the donations we get at the library since I first started here. They're endlessly fascinating. But mostly they're fascinating in the way I might find rummaging through a junkyard fascinating. Finding something unique or wonderful or valuable is profoundly rare. What we mostly get is useless drek in a range of conditions that runs from "almost destroyed" all the way up to "it looks mint but if you examine it closely you can see there's something not quite perfect about it". That last analysis may seem a bit picky to you and I suppose you're right when it comes to evaluating a hardcover copy of Danielle Steele's Bittersweet, but makes more of a difference when I'm turning over a signed first edition copy of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep. I've no doubt done the former many times. I've never done the latter. Perhaps I'm keeping in practice in an optimistic sort of way.
Yesterday we had an entire cart of donated CDs all gathered together. They were in excellent condition. But they were so awful and uninteresting that, to the detriment of this post, I can't recall a single title. Oh, I applied the titles to my brain, but they were so flat and dimensionless that they just dropped right off. Wait! Was there something by the Backstreet Boys? No, no, it was a Backstreet Boys like group. Does that help?
Anyway, looking over all of these CDs, plus poking around in two large sets of shelves full of forgotten nineties self help books, my 20 plus years of donation examinations finally produced a sudden, conclusive analysis:
Everyone with good taste is a hoarder.
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Happy clerk!
"Good afternoon. It's a beautiful day here at the library and I will do whatever I can to help you. Just say the word."
"Oh, uh. Hi. I wanted to use your e-book checkout system on your website."
"Absolutely! Wonderful. You are most welcome to it!"
"Well, it says I need my library card number. Can you give that to me?"
"One hundred percent yes! We will have you on your way in a moment. I just need the barcode off your library card."
"Right, see, I don't have my card with me. That's why I'm calling to see if I can get the number of my barcode to use online."
"Ah, yes, fantastic. Of course I can do that for you sir. If you would just read to me that long number off the back of your library card we will take care of it in an instant."
"I don't have the library card! I want you to tell me the number. If I could tell you the number I wouldn't need you to repeat it back to me!"
"I totally understand your unhappiness and anger sir, but it is a lovely day and I am just so happy you called the library. Please be assured that you and I are going to get to the bottom of this in a way that will satisfy every last wish of yours."
"Great. So what is my library card number?"
"Can I see your I.D. please, then I will look you right up and give you your number!"
"How could I possible show you my I.D. over the phone?"
"Hmm. I didn't consider that. You make such a wonderful and to the point question there sir. I admire your perspicacity!"
"You're not going to give me my library card number, are you?"
"I guarantee you I am. I would simply need the 14 digit number of your library account. I am ready anytime."
"Sir?"
"I am waiting here with a joyful expectancy!"
"Hello?"
"Hello?"
Friday, February 3, 2017
Talking politics
I have been up for a chat about politics for about 35 years now. Unfortunately I can get a bit bombastic and lecturey when I actually get to it. I would (and frequently have) describe(d) myself as "to the left of anyone". I take what I think is a generous and open minded view of people, say, two degrees to the right of me and am willing to chalk it up to a difference of opinion. Everything beyond that (so, in America that would include a huge chunk of the mainstream Democratic party and every last nasty shred of the Republican) to be under a haze of delusional brainwashing, fear, ignorance, evil, and scrabbling conformity. Yes, frequently a bit of all five.
Clearly any sensible person, even one who might safely be in close enough agreement with me, can see how it might not be that fun to talk politics with me. So I cautiously try to compensate for this by limiting my discussions about politics.
Well that strategy is shot.
Almost everyone I meet these days can't wait to talk politics. They haven't for these 35 years, but now, here they are, all ready to get right to it.
Okay.
So I listen to what they have to say and I think:
"Oh. Yikes. Is this what I sound like?"
Politics might be the hardest thing in the world to talk about well. But I nod and listen and agree. "Yes." I say. "You are right. It truly is storming shit out there right now. Mmm hmm." Because they are right. Everyone likes to be right every once in awhile. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't get carried away with it.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Not assuming the worst
Not assuming the worst is not the same as assuming the best.
I could not sustain my spirit in the face of the disappointments I would constantly encounter if I were assuming the best about the patrons I deal with at my library.
"I bet he's going to compliment me on how cleverly helpful I was in tracking down two dvds he wanted." I would think, only to be met with:
"Did you give me my library card back?" Asked suspiciously.
"Yes"
He skeptically rifles through his wallet some more, with an occasional distrustful glare in my direction. Then, suddenly "Oh. Here it is."
"Anything else I can do for you?"
"No."
Haven't I done enough already! I practically stole that guy's card!
But I always try to do my best to not assume the worst. My long experience has honed my instincts so that sometimes I can be pretty accurate in wanting to assume the worst, but not only can it uselessly set people on the defensive, but on the rare occasions where I was wrong, or can't verifiably prove I was right, it can make me look bad.
"I can't find my request that you said would be there." A patron might say to me.
My instinct says "That's probably because you barely listened to me when I told you how to find it and walked off before I was even finished." And I can still hold onto that in a little pocket in my mind, but with my open mind I'm going to assume maybe the patron looked correctly, but the book wasn't quite in the right place.
"Oh, maybe it got pushed back behind something." I go look. "Here it is!" I say brightly, finding it conspicuously in exactly the correct spot.
"Oh, the first initial of my first name. I see." The patron says. "I'm sorry that I made you go look."
"I'm just glad to have found it." And I am.
If I'd said, when he couldn't find it, "You probably just looked in the wrong place." I would only have set myself up for one of two unappealing results. If I found the book the patron would not feel so much guilty as they would feel faintly embittered. No one enjoys being proven wrong. And if I hadn't found it? It's too horrible to contemplate.
Today a man called and wanted to know why the computer wasn't letting him place a request on a Jeffrey Archer book. My deep library instincts said "Because you already have a hold on it and forgot you already did it." I did not think this because it is common, or a frequent issue, or the usual explanation. It was an odd guess and nearly a psychic one. I would have enjoyed showing off with such an inspired guess. But I doubt he would have been impressed or understood how clever I was being. And if I was wrong he would have enjoyed it a lot. Who wouldn't? No one enjoys a know-it-all clerk.
So I didn't assume the worst. "Let's take a look and see why you couldn't request it." It was a roll up our sleeves and the whole universe is before us approach. Oh what fun we could have playing detectives! And when the reason turned out to be that he'd already requested the item, well, what a surprise. He laughed at his folly and was on his way. And I'm still magic, either way.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Ice cubes
Ice cubes are one of the handiest items a person can keep in their freezer. Since the invention of...
Hey! Wait! Where are you going? I have a lot of interesting things to say about ice cubes.
You know, you shouldn't dismiss something until you try it. Maybe if you tried learning a little about the history of the ice cube you would enjoy a cocktail more and would look forward to a nice blog post about ice cubes and their various shapes and qualities.
I do not talk about ice cubes here, like, all the time! This is practically my first blog post ever about ice cubes!
Fine, but it's the first one since "Our friend, the ice cube" from January 11. But that one only touched briefly on the ice cube, and even so was super popular. Someone even commented: "Interesting stuff. Like your font. Check out my website toasterovenreviews!"
Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree about whether or not that was spam. I thought the comment concerning my font was awfully specific for it to be a mere generic spam comment. And either way, what about the comment a person wrote to my January 5 blog post "Say hello to the useful and friendly ice cube!" They commented:
"Keep the blog posts coming about ice cubes. I'm loving them!"
-Anonymous
I don't know what you're implying when you say "that comment was posted just in the last five minutes."
There are such things as coincidence, you know. And even if I did write that comment, someone has to, to represent all the unsaid feelings of positivity people have towards the things I say about ice cubes!
Well fine, but now we're out of time and we didn't even get to the start of what I wanted to say about ice cubes.
No, no hard feelings.
Cold drink?
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