Vintage pictures of the library

 

I'm so absorbed in the vast powers and capabilities of ChatGPT's new photo generator and editor capabilities that though I am accumulating huge amounts of images, I don't have time to polish them or even add them as extra posts here. But in the interest of letting you have a taste of the kinds of things I am working on, I do have a little series of library pictures (one of many, many series) that I will call the "The Daguerreotype Series". These are pictures of the library from the second half of the 1800's.

I was tempted to say "from back when I started" but that's a kind of a joke that's vastly older than these photographs pretend to be!

Anyway, here's our little trip down memory lane (if you're 150 years old). There are so many! And I'm sorry about the damage, but all of these pictures were metaphorically dug our of our oldest archives, stored in damp County basements for decades and decades. But despite all that, if you look carefully you will see that for all this time, libraries really haven't changed as much as we might think.

Clean up on aisle nine

 

I was at the front desk of my library when a large man, walking by in the distance with a robust container of orange soda, suddenly became self conscious. "Is it okay for me to have this soda in the library?" He asked.

I was very tempted to respond "Only if you don't spill it." But I held my tongue because I didn't think my cheek would get much play with him. I said he was allowed because, yes, he is allowed to have a covered drink in the library. But I'll admit something about his asking gave me misgivings.

Or presentiments?

Two minutes later the man was back.

"I spilled my drink in the bathroom. Can I have some towels or a mop?"

I gave him some towels.

"These aren't going to be enough." He said. "I spilled the whole thing."

Boy, I bet he was thirsty now!

I investigated the bathroom. The spill was partly under the stall and partly out from under the stall. It looked like a nuclear meltdown of some kind.

"I'll take care of it." I said. I did not believe there was any equipment or situation in which he would be able to take care of it himself. He had failed to inspire me.

He left contritely, but not quite contritely enough for my tastes. I think I needed him weeping with regret. But that's just me.

I went to the janitorial closet and got a mop and rolling bucket. There were two mops and buckets! I put soap and water in it. It all smelled... funny. And the squeegee part of the bucket didn't fit in the bucket very well.

I began mopping, and the third time I squeegeed out the liquid from the rancid mop the whole bucket toppled over.

I would not have described the process as "going great" so far.

I took the bucket back to the janitorial closet and got the other mop and bucket. Now I knew why there were two mops and buckets! One of them was just there to trick people!

Then I mopped, though it seems more accurate to say I sopped up orange soda mixed with vast amounts of soapy water and some ice. Then I wrung it out in the stable bucket contraption. I did this 30 times. There was a drain on the floor I could sort of sweep the liquid to, but it didn't work as well a the wringer contraption.

The floor was very wet and slippery when I'd finally had as much as I could take. I went looking for the "wet floor" sign. All the kings horses and all the king's men couldn't come up with the "wet floor" sign, though we all were sure we had one. Much later I found out from the night cleaner that it was tucked behind the trash can in the break room. But at the actual time of the wet floor I simply left the "Bathroom Closed for Maintenance" sign on the bathroom door until the floor air dried, for about half an hour. There's another bathroom upstairs, and a handful of specialty bathrooms here and there as well.

After I took the "Bathroom Closed for Maintenance" sign down, I told my story to a few co-workers, but it wasn't a really great "oral tradition" kind of a story.

It was more of a blog post.

 

More exciting completely random outtakes

 

History illustrated

 

Occasionally lately I have been using the clerk manifesto time machine to visit random blog posts from the same day in the history of clerkmanifesto. But today, while I am going to be showing you a historical gem from clerkmanifesto's past, we come at it from a different angle. I have been featuring a lot of quotes in pictures here over the past week. Some of these are new and some pulled out of clerkmanifesto. So today I have the post from which I took a quote, and a new picture featuring it.

First is our new picture:

And then here is the original post from which the quote came, back on June 22, 2022. It has the appropriately apt title of "Retrospective":

I suppose everything everywhere all averages out to explain everything.

Lately I have started cruising through some of my old blog posts. Apparently I am close to having written 3,500 of them! If that doesn't seem like a lot to you I suggest going and trying to read them all. That should bring you round to it pretty darn quick!

If you did, for some odd reason, attempt to plow through all my blog posts I think you might waffle between the same two reactions that I have:

1. Wow! These are terrific. Who can explain the perfidy of the Internet!

and

2. I guess I can see what people don't see in this.

Over ten years of writing here I have worn away my caring about either of these responses, as to a nub, like the toe of a sacred statue kissed to nothing.

Libraries: The Apocalypse

 

I just have the one picture, and though I said I was going to just put up pictures without comment during clerkmanifesto extra innings, so to speak, I have a hard time not commenting.

Thus the 5,000 posts of clerkmanifesto.

But what is my comment?

It is the answer to the question: Do people really pee in your sinks at the library?

Sure, probably. I don't know why not.

But then, I also don't know why they do.

Me, and also me

 

Surely I've told this story before, but there should be a provision for how many times I think of a story in relation to how many times I tell it. Like, if every once in a while I think of a story (and "story" in this context is a little grandiose, let's call it a trifling anecdote), but have already told said anecdote to you here, then probably I should be able to contain myself and maybe never tell that story again. But what if I think of the anecdote eleven times a week, every week? Maybe in that case, after eight years or so, I should get to tell the anecdote again, albeit with a long justifying preamble.

I think so.

To set the stage: 

One can return items from other library systems to my library. We take books from other libraries all across the greater metro area systems, put a slip in the book that identifies the system, and ship it to an agency that disperses the item to the appropriate system. It is mildly irritating to have a dozen books come in on the automated machine that the machine cannot recognize, and to have to take those items out of our exception bin, put a marked slip in every one of the items, and put those all in a red box we have along our "outgoing materials" wall. But it's all part of the game.

Which brings me to the Me, also Me.

Me, when 20 kids books that belong to another system come rolling through our check-in machine:

"Why can't these fucking people return their fucking books where they got them!"

Me, when a library patron asks "Can I return my Washington County library book to your library". ":

"Absolutely! Any time. No problem. You can return any item from any one of the public libraries in the metro area to us, and we'll send it back to the library it came from."

Adjustment to comments quote

 

It's a new picture, though you'll have seen the quote, and the first time you did there was also an elephant. But I added the word 'only' as I think it makes the meaning more clear. And a cat man on a railing. And it's just different in general.

I'm going to bed now.

1776 to 2025: The Apocalypse Series

 

Here are three pictures I have been working on. They are along the lines of my travel posters of Randy Newman's "Let's Drop the Big One and See What Happens". This one speaks to our own impending retirement emigration, albeit in a dark tone. But not that dark a tone, I mean, it has a kitten!

Photo fever!

 

Since I seem particularly obsessed with making complicated photographs involving fox and skunk, cats, the Clerk Manifesto Cafe, and clerkmanifesto quotes, I feel it behooves me to take measures to present them here without them overwhelming clerkmanifesto. I tried a frequent posting approach over the weekend, but now new pictures keep coming. I'm working on them almost in an assembly line fashion! But I have a new solution:

For an unspecified time, now only on clerkmanifesto, I will randomly post pictures, mostly without commentary, but these will be strictly extra to my normal daily morning post. This way I can put up the pictures I'm making as an addition to our usual adventures here on clerkmanifesto.

We'll see how that goes for awhile.

For today, here are the latest assortment of pictures I have. Future ones will go up without much commentary at random times.

Outtakes, bloopers, bonus features, and deleted scenes!

 

Despite my title today, which is mostly a bit of fun...

What's that?

Oh yes, we are going to have a good time here today! That's why the title is described as "a bit of fun".

Yes, I...

Really?

Thank you so much. That means a lot to me.

Anyway, we just completed an elaborate photo project involving ten pictures featuring famous Clerkmanifesto quotes. And now we have some ephemera from the project. Various pictures that had something to do with the quote pictures, but were sad that they didn't come into it. And so they wondered if maybe they could come into it now.

And I said yes.

Here is one picture that didn't come into it for instance:

Here is a picture that was from the cafe series preceding the quote series that also felt left out. And no wonder, he is really good!:

Finally, here is a bonus addition to the series, picture number 11, that comes from a quote that appeared in the process of telling you about one of the pictures! Actually, first I'd like to show you one of these without the characters:

And then here finally is the last of the series, a late final addition of the above quote. I am delighted to bow out with this one:

The last of the series

 

While we have been showing you this ten-part series featuring the famous quotes of clerkmanifesto, we have been on a three-a-day schedule.

That is a lot!

Today's picture, posted finally at our regular daily time, and restoring us to our normal clerkmanifesto schedule, concludes the series. Fortunately it is one of the pictures I like best. I'm pretty sure we're finished now, but a gallery of outtakes, bonus features, and additions could be in our future.