The tour

Clerkmanifesto is a far larger place than most people know. It is not the small room that many think they have wandered into. If this is your first time here you may imagine that you have stumbled into an abandoned closet. What was that shabby, anonymous door in some empty backroom of the Internet? What is this featureless, dimly lit text, presuming to talk to you. It can't be talking to you. You are anonymous out in Internet land. Prose can't see you.

I can't help the strange things you might choose to believe.

This little room is akin to C. S. Lewis's wardrobe. Step through. I will show you around.

The next room is a hall of mirrors. These are all a lot like funhouse mirrors. They do interesting distortions and sometimes one hardly knows what they're looking at. I know this room well, and love to jape around in here and play the fool. This, you might say, is the room of my jokes, which I like to keep to a modestly funny level because I can't figure out the trick of making them "very funny", my posturing, which I like as self aggrandizing as possible, and my nonsense. It's a big place, and colorful. Certainly some people think this is the whole clerkmanifesto. They might read and enjoy clerkmanifesto regularly, and never leave this room. Every once in awhile someone gets very mad at one of the mirrors, which is why a couple of them are shattered. Everyone has something it's not okay to joke about. Everyone. Sometimes people have felt trapped in this room, but the funny thing is there are hundreds of exits, huge vaulting, arched exits here. You need only look away from the mirrors to see them clearly.

Think of these first two rooms, the shabby closet, and the jester's hall of mirrors, like you might a medieval castle. The first would be the moat. The next is the walls. They are part of the castle indeed, but only when you are past them are you in the castle itself.

And so now we are through one of the many, many arches. If everyone would follow me through... Oh, I've lost everyone again haven't I? Except you. Well, thanks for staying near. I swear, this happens every tour. Who knows where everyone else has wandered off to. They could have taken any archway, and from this point on this place can go forever. Do you see those stairs? I'm not even sure there's a bottom.

I just better go make sure no one looks behind the curtain.

Here, take this arc lamp and meet me in the garden of enlightenment in half an hour. If you get lost, at every fork, take the easiest way. Oddly, you will eventually get there.

A shaggy snow story

I have adapted well to the Minnesota winter that is seen as ferocious by the world closer to the equator than us and is seen as agreeably mild to the few hardy souls and polar bears that live in colder climates. My adaptability grows each year, and less and less phases me. I look at an absolute six months devoid of green growing things, six months of death, as akin to eating the outer part of the Oreo first, saving the creamy center for last, and now I can't even tell if I don't maybe like the cookie part best. I stroll out in 40 below windchills in just a long sleeve shirt, no jacket, hat, or gloves, to experience the curious sensation of it. I casually risk crippling injuries on iced sidewalks as a matter of course. Unrelenting darkness, skin shredding dryness, having to spend 15 minutes scraping at the windows of my car just to be able to see out of it, having to spend half an hour getting dressed, having to think carefully about every encounter with being outside, are all mostly just curiosities to me where they used to be such irritations. They are just part of the joys of getting to live amid great flocks of penguins. 

I may be imagining the penguins, but whatever.

A co-worker of mine went on a vacation to Scottsdale, Arizona. Her tales of temperatures well into the eighties had me politely saying "How nice." But inside I was like Gollum, imagining in horror the burning sun beating relentlessly down upon me. "Ach! Hiss! It hurts us!" Yes, I was bitterly jealous, but merely of vacation. Vacation, leisure, whiling days away in cafes. Restaurants! Freedom! Adventure! But I was also thinking "Why Scottsdale? What about Stockholm, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Saint Petersburg?"

So give it to me; cold, darkness, ice, death, and the bitter life. I can take it. I can take it all. Well, I can take all but one thing, one thing that still makes it a bit difficult for me.

I will never, ever, ever, ever, be able to abide the maddening feeling of snow falling on my nose.

Infected by Internet

It is hard to stay aloof. The pernicious Internet sends its invasion of the body snatcher tendrils out into anyone who comes near. Everyone comes near. I am near. You are near.

Every day I unpack my lance and go tilting at the Internet. Everyone needs a hobby. But as I try and rid it of its demons, reform it, re-imagine it, it, immensely greater and more powerful than myself, works back on me and I am invaded. I am reformed.

How do I know?

I am on my morning walk. Across the street I see an ambulance. The ambulance is apparently from a consortium of three outer ring suburbs; Apple Valley, Lakeville, and Farmington. Because of that it has three big letters on the side and then, underneath, "Ambulance". So, the side of the ambulance reads thus:

ALF

Ambulance

I wish like mad I had a camera or phone or whatever so I could take a picture. I would post it to Instagram, though I only vaguely know what Instagram is, with the caption:

With his alien anatomy, of course he would need his own specialized ambulance!

In my heart of hearts I know this is only mildly amusing. Better and worse jokes come to me every day. But what taunts me is this: 

The Internet would love it! 

The Internet would love it, and oh how I long to please the Internet!

Unbeatable foe

I work at a library. You can catch anything here. I've gathered my share of colds, a few flus, maybe a couple of minor rashes I'd rather not think about. Self replicating things are streaming through this place. We had whooping cough recently, strep, some stomach thing once. There are even ideas out on our shelves that have found their way into peoples' brains, spread like fire, and died hard only at the line of some other idea. I see it all spread around here.

But there is no virus as powerful as asshole.

Asshole is a virus.

I catch it everyday. Easiest thing in the world. And we are all carriers.

Asshole is everywhere, quiet and loud. I hear it in every newscast, lurking in the background, and it comes up to me everyday and tosses its library card down on my desk. My co-workers come back to me at the phones and tell me stories of asshole. Oh all the asshole stories! Most of our books here have at least one in them, to set ringing in our ears. To make it real. Most of our jobs here have been touched by asshole, co-worker, boss, patron towing their virus through the world. Our families, our society, our neighborhood all invaded by the deadly strain. No amount of hand sanitizer can stop asshole. There is not enough hand sanitizer in the Universe.

It spreads better than any cold, hotter than Ebola, more clever than dandelions and relentless as a swarm of locusts. It's a snowstorm, a fire. What a genius it has. Here is its genius:

One encounters the virus of asshole and it irritates, it riles, it pinches. It makes a person crabby and tight. "Fine," you complain "If that's what generosity gets me, an open heart, naivety, if that's what the world is! I will put on the armor for this war of inches.

Asshole has no eloquence but this:  Asshole says "The only way to fight me is with myself."

And it's right. The way to kill a hydra is to cut it's head off. 

But that's fighting, and fighting belongs to asshole.

Love might kill it somehow. Generosity. But let's face it. The disease has spread too far. It is part of our DNA. We cannot win. Refusing it is hopeless. But what say we do it anyway? An enemy is an enemy, even if it is us.

Go

There he is, oh man think of it. What's he live on? He sure doesn't have a job. I think his brother helps him out. He's really into painting so he paints a lot. Most people don't like him. I wouldn't. His personality is abrasive, sullen, argumentative. He doesn't get my jokes. He's passionate, sure, but let me ask you, where do you put that when you just have errands to run around town, when you're getting dressed, or choosing a loaf of bread (he didn't mean to bark like that at the baker's apprentice)? Where do you put all that feeling when you're trying to get a decent nights sleep? Where do you put that when you're lonely. Sometimes... well, the painting and drawing helps, but it works you up too.

He's sure the paintings are good. His brother, who loves him, says so, and he sells paintings. But he doesn't sell his paintings as nobody exactly wants them. Some people really seem to like them though. He has a friend who is a very great, somewhat famous painter. This friend acts as if he likes his paintings, or maybe respects or admires them. But he never says outright.

The thing is he suspects he might be something like the greatest painter who ever lived. That's wrong isn't it? But is it wrong if it's true? He knows he is just like a crazy person when he thinks this: "I am the greatest painter in the world!" What on earth does that mean anyway? "Yeah, I'm the greatest painter in the world, painting today from a crazy house." He's had a breakdown or two. Anyway, isn't it love that matters?  He loves the sunlight. He loves the air and the color and feel of everything. But has this, has what he's doing, ever been done before, by anyone in all the world?

The strange thing is that he actually is the greatest painter who ever lived. At least him, or Caravaggio, or one of a half dozen people out there through history, depending on how you feel about it. The greatest, whatever that means. He doesn't know what it means and neither do you or I. But maybe someone should tell him that he is the greatest of all time anyway, before it's all too much. Before it's too late.

It is all too much. It is too late, by 125 years. At least for one crucial moment something was too much for him. He shot his way out. Was it knowing? Not knowing? "What is all this I made?" It's hard to be alone. Life happens on the street, a million miles under the stars. Nothing is ever a myth or a legend when it's happening. There are no stories on the ground in real time. It's boring, it's slow, it's beautiful, and it breaks your heart.

Life lessons from my co-workers

I returned to work after a few precious days off. I'm on a long haul now, at the library six days out of the next seven. To add insult to the injury my first day back is with a collection of my worst possible co-workers. It's rare to be isolated with this small and wildly inefficient subgroup, but it can happen, and it has, on quite a busy day. My dance card will be full.

I could be cranky. I could be bitter. I could rail against my fate. But what instead is to stop me from making something constructive from this difficult situation? Why can't I see if I can learn something from even these worst among us? I have nothing to lose in trying.

So I keep my eyes open. And this, today, is what I have learned:


1. Always go where you aren't needed.

2. Ignore those who seek you until they give up and find someone else. Then immediately offer them your full attentions.

3.  Never arrive, rather always leave from somewhere else.

4.  Answer questions incorrectly, but with confidence.

5.  Never provide solutions, only the illusion of solutions.

6.  There is no problem so minute that it cannot be broken into five steps.

7.  From each according to their needs. To each according to their abilities.

8.  Knitting your brow makes it look like you are thinking.

9.  Do it now, no matter how trivial it is, and how urgent the next thing.

10. Beware understanding. It is the leak that will tear down the dam.

A rising tide lifts all boats

I have been struck by this unfortunate pattern: when I become very absorbed in an endeavor I become more critical of others in that endeavor. 

I was once a painter. During those many years I found it hard to enjoy painting and other forms of visual art done especially by living people. I didn't tacitly think there was only so much painting love to go around, I just acted that way.

The other day I was in the library break room telling Marcus the teen librarian about yet another book. "It was great, but then she put this crappy paragraph in near the end. It ruined it for me." One paragraph! I have become a gigantically dissatisfied reader. One adjective can tip me over the edge, the awkward movement of a character, a glint in their eye, a plot flaw the size of a dime. God, writing is hard! How about a little pity?

Wait, no, writing isn't actually hard. It's like tumbling down a hill. You get weeds in your hair. It's a lark. Everything is a lark. Art is not a fierce and noble mission. We just want to make a little magic. There is plenty of love to go around. Rejoice writers, painters, musicians, dancers and poets and potters and drawers. We are all in this together.

So let us band together and fight our only enemy.

Book love

I was upstairs at my library shelving today when I was hit by the sudden, strange realization: I love books.

I forgive you for thinking "Well, obviously", but I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about the complicated reading, novel, storytelling, writing part of books, the center of books. For too long I have confused that love, particular and exacting, mercurial, discerning and eccentric, with my love of the book, the physical object, the rectangular thing seeking to engage my attention. It is these self selling packages of seductive promises that I almost unreservedly love. These unabashed siren calls to other worlds that fascinate me. I love their barely suggesting titles, their expressive fonts, and the color of the spine. I love the author photograph, the synopsis I wish would tell the whole story, the glowing quotes, and the picture worth a thousand words cover. I love the blocky heft and the riffleability, the moody color schemes, and the author's life summed up into four sentences. I love the publishing information page, the end papers, the introductory quote, the numbers of the pages, the prize announcements, the publisher's symbol, the wily subtitle, the discreet price, and the references to bestsellerdom. It's all such a feast! A feast of promise and information and expectation and illusion. Or it's like a present, there in its little box that's not a box, never entirely giving itself away but full of a thousand fascinating hints.

Though I am an open-minded and voracious reader you could convince me to try reading only a paltry percentage of all the books there are. And of those that I might agree to peruse at your excellent suggestion, I would, in the end, only fully read through a quite small selection.

But put a book in my hands, any book ever, of any genre or make or year or condition, and ask me to look it over?

With pleasure. Indeed, you needn't even ask.

How we get there

The new statistics on what I write about here have just rolled in from the clerkmanifesto combination signal tower, astrolabe and fly strip for stardust. This blog originally was mainly for the purpose of writing about working as a clerk at a library. I still do that some. But one fateful day when I was shelving books up in fiction I was bitten by an escaped, radioactive bookworm and developed unusual powers.

Some things changed.

I write about other things. Evolving, growing, mysterious things. And so, for example, if you have been wondering "Hey, aren't I reading a lot more about myself on this blog?" You would be correct. That subject indeed has become quite prominent here. But I don't want you to have to wonder about these things. I want you to be up to date. I want you to have a good grounding. I don't want you to wonder if anything you have read here is a figment of your imagination. Everything you have read here is a figment of your imagination.

These are the ten things I currently write about the most here on clerkmanifesto. For drama I have listed the subjects in ascending order, like angels, smoke, and snowflakes that are lighter than the air.


10. Weather

9. Food

8. Other

7. The Internet

6. The arts

5. Libraries and library life

4. The beasts of the air and ground

3. You

2. Me

1. Itself


But know you this: These are just the horses we ride. We are crossing the desert.

Vanity

I ran into a long time ago co-worker the other day at my library. Actually, and here's what work longevity will do for you, I ran into three former co-workers on that day, marking distinct geologic eras in the history of my library. None of them would have even known each other. Their time just layered up one on top of the other. Anyway, I hadn't seen this particular co-worker in three to five years so we caught up some. In the course of this catching up I brought up my blog.

You might be surprised, but when I'm talking to people who don't know about my blog I almost never bring it up. I know, here, on this blog, I bring up my blog constantly, relentlessly. In listing the current categories of what this blog is about, "itself" now holds the top ranking.

"Why wouldn't you tell these people?" You ask. "Wouldn't this be one of the best possible ways to spread your blog across the multiverse?"

You would think so. And so would I. But you can pretty much set your watch by whatever I would think would be true about this blog being precisely wrong. Though this is terribly irritating, it also has a comforting reliability about it. It's like if I am sure it must be 8:30 in the morning I need merely figure what time is the most distinctly different from 8:30 to ascertain the actual correct time. I think it is 8:30 in the morning therefore it must be 11:47 in the evening. I think it would make me famous, but telling people about my blog, even people who particularly like me, tends to be as effective a way to draw in new readers as, um, putting my blog on the Internet.

"Wow, a blog! I'll check it out, definitely. What's the address?" My acquaintance says because that's good manners and my acquaintance has perfectly nice manners. I write "clerkmanifesto.com" on a post it note. The note gets left laying on a nearby desk so I can give it to them again. They cram it in a pocket and find it two weeks later. Because they said they would, they do finally go to my blog. They don't land on one of the really great posts, whatever those are. Instead they land at this one. They get a very queasy, disturbed feeling as they read it. They quietly turn off their computer and have a lie down.

I'm not saying this isn't one of the really good posts. I mean, you're not wasting your time. Just, it's an advanced post. It will confuse neophytes.

But to return to this encounter, I told my former comrade in arms about clerkmanifesto because at that point in the conversation it was too relevant to not bring it up. My old co-worker said something like "What's it about?"

"Mostly itself." I answered honestly. "It's the greatest blog on the Internet." I added.

My former co-worker laughed and said "You always were modest."

Actually I am very modest and gracious wherever I feel appreciated. You watch, leave a warm comment about some post, say something nice to me, and I'm terribly humble and truly grateful, even awed. I can hardly believe it.

But otherwise I like to play the fool. I like to roar and dance about under the moon and cover myself with mud and flowers and put a few heads on stakes.

I am eager for visitors here, but they must be brave.

Updating our terms

Clerkmanifesto is updating our terms. By reading this you acknowledge acceptance of our updated terms and, in the case of dispute, agree to adjudication by a firm of independent lawyers who aren't actually lawyers and are actually just me. But if that sounds shady let me assure you that I pay myself nothing and so have no incentive to be anything less than impartial in all cases that go to adjudication. Of course, by reading this you are now legally obligated to my adjudication anyway, so it's rather a waste of time for me to try to justify myself. If you don't agree with that then we can take this issue to adjudication, which, as a precaution, I have just done. I have ruled in my favor.

That was not an easy decision to make and I feel I should receive at least a small stipend, but I suppose no stipend is the price one pays for impartiality.

By reading this you also agree to absolve me of any indemnity regarding anything, including the dreaded double indemnity, which always ends badly for everyone. I think the guy is shot and then ends up widowed, raising three boys. Barbara Stanwyck gets nosed out for her best chance at an Academy Award by Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight and has to accept an honorary Oscar from John Travolta which just isn't the same. And you can really tell. And was that Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, and Diane Keaton all sitting together?

You can at any time opt out of the terms of this contract by going back in time to just before you began reading this, but because you will then forget any knowledge of what you read here you will find yourself in the same position you were in when you first chose to read this with no reason to choose any differently than you did in the past. This could easily trap you in a time loop where you get to this part of our legal terms, travel back in time to forget them, and begin reading them again. For all you know this may be the millionth time you have read these, which is more even than me, and I'm an enormous fan. I'm just saying you might be better off just finishing reading my highly restrictive terms this time around.

It's not all bad news for you in these updated terms. The requirement that you memorize four clerkmanifesto blog posts has been reduced to three, and you are no longer legally liable for not snickering at my jokes when they're not actually funny.

You are however now required to read one of the following three books in the next two years: The Wizard of Earthsea, The Wee Free Men, or Uncle Boris in the Yukon. If the term "Blog" comes up in any conversation you are not in any way required to mention clerkmanifesto, but you are legally obligated to look seriously irritated until it does come up or the subject is changed. Also, in paragraph 7, sect. 7, prod. 11, line 2 the phrase "Automatically deducted from my checking account between two and four cents" should now read " The flower blooms for the fruit: when the fruit comes, the flower withers."

You don't have to believe everything I say, or agree with it, or think it's important. But according now to the terms of this contract, you will henceforth require alternatives.

Read it down

We have a program here at my library called Read It Down. Children can spend time reading as an alternative to paying their fines. They come read and get credits against their fines. I'm okay with the program. It's once a month, sends a few odd and mixed messages (pay for your mistakes with reading. "No! Anything but reading!"), but it is somewhat practical and enabling.

Recently a middle-aged man, not having read the fine print, or, really, the medium sized print either, announced to one of my colleagues that he wouldn't pay for his rental DVDs now. He would just do Read It Down later. When it was explained to him that Read It Down was for children he was bitter. "You mean I have to drag a child in here to read for me?" He asked incredulously, continuing to confuse as much as he could short of trying to breathe in the stapler.

No, no! No one needs to drag a child into our library! This is the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Library, we keep all the children in caves underneath the library where their ceaseless reading powers our budget. No adults need pay any fines because of this.

Or, wait, maybe we're The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas Library?

The weird thing is that, though I very much dislike this belligerent man and just wish he would go away, I think we actually should have Read It Down for adults exactly like him. I feel that this is precisely the kind of person who could be ennobled by being coerced into reading. He could have his heart opened. He could be shown the signposts to enlightenment. Just so long as I get to pick the reading material. Aye, I've got the two above stories lined up for him already, and a nice slew for after, too.

The challenge

Who dares to ride against me?

Who will challenge my title as the greatest writer on the Internet?

You? Will you risk the ignominious defeat discovered by the millions before you, with your precious, heartfelt, exacting prose left demolished and staked in the desert to be devoured by carrion birds and insects. Are you up for that, because it is coming.

Your novel may have been called the best of the decade by Time Magazine. You may hold an Oscar, a National Book Award, a Pulitzer, a Newbery, a Hugo, or a Booker Prize. You could even be a Nobel laureate who sells a million copies of everything you write. Major motion pictures may be made from every word you whisper. It is possible that every morning you set down to write at Mark Twain's old writing desk, in a seven million dollar beach home you bought from your voluptuous writing proceeds, while a personal assistant runs all your annoying errands.

Indeed, you may even have more than 25 regular readers.

But look around you. Success is nothing. The barest glance at history can tell you that it is for monsters and killers, scoundrels and compromisers, lottery winners and diseases. None of that success will avail you here on my ground. There is no judge you can trick, no outside arbiter, no rules to be better at, no advantage to exact. Popularity cannot save you. These are the unforgiving plains. There is nothing but wind and desolation and beauty and war cries. This is a place where even stone has been beaten and worn to sand. This is my land.

You cannot win here. Look into my eyes, my wild eyes. Look into the eyes of the greatest writer on the Internet. Look at my face. This is the face of success.

And it means nothing.

There is only the truth, and maybe a little love.

Substitute spirit animal

Another winter morning walk.

It was bitter and windy and the sky had that blue you usually have to go someplace wild to see. Birds, no chickens (except when they're chickens), were letting themselves be tossed about that sky like so many loose feathers. The sidewalks were coated in a freshly fallen layer of ice, but it was a rough ice, the texture of sandpaper, so one could walk on it with a mostly normal gait.

I traveled along collecting blog posts, which have surprisingly been left lying about all over my city, like the discarded wrappers from fast food or like old silver dollars from the 1800s, depending, I suppose, on how one feels about the resulting essay. A dog barked at me, and I killed it in my head. I lost track of time and distance.

And then I was near the spot along the river where I sometimes run into my spirit animal, a turkey who dispenses wisdom with such vigor that I tend to not quite catch any of it. Because I was thinking about the turkey I was also thinking it probably wouldn't show. That's how it usually works.

And indeed it did seem to go that way this time. I arrived in turkey land, the place where the local spirit turkeys hang out, to find just more path and ice and wind. But just as I felt a pang of disappointment, a great shadow swept slowly over me. I threw my head back searching the sky. For a moment there was nothing there and I was bewildered. Then, of a sudden, an enormous bald eagle, not seven feet above me, swept up and past my shoulder and, flung by the wind, rose all at once high into the sky.

It was a substitute spirit animal! My turkey had the day off!

The eagle was terribly beautiful, but it did not have a great deal of wisdom to impart. But that's how it is with substitutes: it's mostly just about them being there.

Party

I had this idea for a post about torque transmission systems in library shelving and particularly the new Perseus Alphabetization System that all the library trade magazines are going nuts over these days.

You would have learned a lot.

My first sentence was going to have been: 

The "R" preceding "L" in the Perseus Alphabetization System is undoubtedly brilliant but suffers from some integration flaws we can still fix if we hurry.

Just before I wrote that, though, I had a thought come leaping into my mind.

What about fun?

What about fun!!

I am no beat writer for Library Trends and Forecasters Weekly, or The Journal of Alphabetical Research and Design, or Library Systems Obscure Tech Today.

No, I'm just a simple blogger.

And as delighted as I am with your company, as pleased as I am that you are a reader, I am not here to keep you informed, up to date, or to make you a better person, a better clerk, librarian, or citizen. I am not here to advocate for up to date library technology resources, better shelving systems, or an enlightened Internet.

I am here to party.

I

Am here

To Partay!

I am here to get so drunk on words that I can't see straight, until I am laughing hysterically, stumbling madly through my blog, shooting wicked bon mots into the ceiling until the plaster is raining down like stardust, until I am falling down the stairs like a giggling ragdoll and vowels are pouring out of my ears, red and lush like rubies and slaughter in a glorious, terrible, drunken stream as my consciousness slips away amid gales of laughter and dancing.

We may also go bowling.

Lost stuff

One young man lost a phone. Lately it's often the phones. Why not? They're little and expensive and full of information. It's a good thing to freak out over. This kid, twenty or so, was convinced his chair ate it. The chair looked innocent to me, an amazing feat when one considers the hard life it has lived. Teams of people were brought in to poke at that poor chair. We hunted down our smallest worker who then forced her arm into a small gap in the back part of the seat of the chair in order to find nothing. Judging from her hard veterinary work you could easily see it would have taken a mallet to drive a phone into that gap. But the patron was not mollified. Something in people's desperation when they lose a valuable drives them mad and gives them a strange and vital energy. Ultimately the "Buildings" people were called upstairs. Before long they were disassembling the chair. All at the assertive patron's persistent instigation.

I am not always pitch perfect at when to say "no" to patrons. Sometimes my "No" is late and a bit licentious, and sometimes it cuts it all short. But I think my average is about right. For lost items I lean towards the early "No." I take losing things very hard myself, so being softer and more sympathetic would be more consistent, but that has to go up against all my experience. I have spent a lot of time looking hopelessly for patrons' items that I know I won't find. I don't mind looking when finding is possible, but when the desperate patron just wants me to keep looking for looking's sake, because they don't want to face the loss directly, I put my foot down. If that chair had been my call, if I were the point person on the chair I would have said "No. Enough." I knew it was not in the chair. I will look while hope is alive, but I don't like humoring.

It doesn't help that these intensely persistent people are never particularly nice about it. There's always a faint air of accusation. "My phone has gone missing in your library. What are you going to do about it?" Or "It's your chair that ate my phone!"  I helped a man today who lost his wallet. "I lost my wallet after you helped me. Do you have my wallet?"

"No. I'm terribly sorry." I look all over for it. I am looking in any possible spot. I am even humoring him. "No" I say "It hasn't shown up here. It's always worth checking back later." All of this is fine. Indeed I am even still sympathetic. But then he just stays there, staring at me. When he won't move on, my warmth starts leaking from me and pooling on the floor. "Do something" he seems to say in his futile occupying of my line. But there is nothing left to do. And there we are, at a stand still. If only his wallet would come join us.

Thankfully he returns to himself, with a visible effort of will, and he moves on. But it is not always like this.

A man left his expensive phone in his bag to go get a coffee yesterday. When he came back it was gone! He had many suspects, basically all the African Americans in the library, ample reason to stonewall him right there. He had staff members running to and fro. The police were brought in. He had elaborate theories. He wanted to see the video footage. His phone was called while staff walked by certain possible suspects, listening. I didn't have anything to do with that one, but if I had been around for any of it I would have put an egg in my shoe and beaten it as soon as I could. He was a "No" every chance you got as far as I was concerned. Some people just are. Let the manager have them as soon as possible because that's who it'll end up with anyway.

And did we find anything? I don't know about that wallet, but both the phones showed up. No one is operating a phone theft ring in our library. Our chairs have not developed a freakish taste for small electronics. The phones were in their respective bags all along. 

The library blurb

It is most famous as a way to sell prospective movies: the mash-up. For example: "It's Bad News Bears meets The Matrix. Plucky but troubled kids realize they're in a reality simulation with the help of a super cool pool cleaner." But, alas, movies have moved on from the mash-up and have become focused far more on the retell:

"It's Star Trek!"

"Yes, Star Trek meets what?"

"No, no, just Star Trek again, but new."

So the mash-up has had to go seek more fertile pastures. Fortunately they have found in books a happy home. One can hardly look at a book cover quote these days without seeing a mash-up. It's The Great Gatsby meets The Hunger Games! Man, I want to read that! Whatever it is, I mean. I read both of them and now presumably I can get all that quality in a single dose. I don't have time to read two books! I have a blog to write!"

"Oh, really, what kind of blog do you write?"

"It's sort of Bridget Jones Diary meets Bartleby, the Scrivener."

Who can resist the mash-up, especially if you're a book reviewer and you want to see yourself plastered onto book covers. But really, they're for anyone. They're so evocative, leading, suggestive, and, above all, economical. You can get your puny sentence to partake of whole beautiful novels and all the rich feelings they bring, but also you get to pretend to great creative insight through your juxtaposition of unlike things. It's like sticking a cherry bomb in a frog, irresistible!

Wait, did I just suggest that sticking a cherry bomb in a frog is irresistible? I'm pretty sure I can resist that. I'm nearly positive I can resist that!

Nevertheless, exploding frogs aside, the mash-up may be too valuable a tool to leave to narrative. It's just such a dynamic way to describe something. There I am at the library I work at. I am shelving.


Wait, what am I doing?

Ah, Shelving. It's, um, sort of Nineteen Eighty-Four meets The Little Prince.

  

Who will I be on the front desk with later? 

Well, she's like Pollyanna meets The Metamorphosis. 


 And where is it I work, how shall we mash-up my library?

How about Papillon meets Winnie the Pooh?

The Odyssey meets The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death?

War and Peace meets Go Dog Go?


Oh hell, in the end, just grab any two books off our shelves. That should be accurate enough.


 

The secret post

My hat off to you for finding this. I am very, very impressed. Of all the billions of people on the Internet (and there are over three billion people on the Internet!) only you, and perhaps a few other people, have managed to find this page. I have used all my craft and ingenuity to hide it as carefully as possible. Ultimately my goal was to conceal it so well that no one in the whole world could suss it out. But I guess with three billion people poking around out here there was bound to be at least one who was so damnably clever, so wily, adventurous, and daring that they smoked me out.

Well, welcome, you've earned it!

The genius of the Internet is in its ability to take everything of immediate interest, no matter how tiny, and bring it to breathtaking prominence. As Flannery O'connor so ably put it: Everything that rises must converge. And so the floor of the Internet is littered with content, new things in the trillions have been left there just in the time you've read this, but many are the restless eyes that search. And as each arresting item catches someone's eye it is raised up, and as each set of eyes on it doubles it raises up some more. So as this eye-catching, wildly attractive content rises and rises it is more and more visible, prominent, hard to miss, and alone. But as it raises up it requires more and more viewers to keep it aloft. Even with three billion of them, there are only so many sets of eyes.

But what catches the human eye? If you do not know, I say go stumble into the Internet for a few minutes. I can wait here. But I think you know. It must be familiar and unusual, visceral and conceivable. Conventional and new. And above all, it should be easy, terribly easy.

I have put no glinting sheen on this. There are no arresting images. No one is hawking it. No one here is famous or connected. It is not loud or amazing or a one in a million shot. There is nothing particularly easy about it. I nestled it into the quietest spot I could find, a thousand feet below the surface. I have slid it together with all the vast forgottens of the Internet, too numerous to count.

And yet here you are.

You are probably some kind of genius.

This Internet is mine

I am the cat of the Internet, roaming your fencelines in the night, making my solo rounds. When the dogs are all inside asleep I go my way, wherever I choose. Nothing can keep me out.

I am not the cat you click on. I am not that cat of the Internet. Pfui! No fluffy kitten I, no acrobatic indoor nutcase, or irritated dressable princeling. If you try and photograph me you'll find naught but a gray blur. I am not your cat, sleeping on your windowsill, eating your food, dancing your dance. I piss on your Internet in the night. This Internet has been abandoned and now it is my Internet and mine alone.

I eat meat I hunt myself: baby bunnies, songbirds, bugs, mice, whatever I can catch and I can catch anything. I am not particular so long as there is a bit of a chase and lunge. I always leave a smear of dark blood on the pavement so you will marvel at my prowess in the morning.

That three a. m. yowling is me, crying "I am the King of the Internet" Over and over and over again. You can depart from this message to you, this yowl, and you can roam your Internet for hours, like you're chasing a dancing bit of string, but you will never find so beautiful a yowl as mine here, piercing the night. I yowl until I am done yowling, or until a shoe comes flying out of a house. That's my shoe now. Everything out here is mine. This is my Internet.

I may be reviled and my name may be cursed, but what could that possibly matter to me? I have my domain and it is all I survey. I have my sweetheart at home, and I have my quick paws. Every once in awhile an admirer will set out a saucer of cream for me on a quiet porch. I drink it, my just due, if I feel like it. I hum in my body and I leap, gauge another note with my claws, graffiti like, a nuisance, beautiful, and I am away.

A puzzle

It is a conundrum, a puzzle, and it is very difficult to solve, but you're probably smart enough.

Here is the set up:

We work in tandem, a bunch of clerks, pages, whatever you call us. One of us works in one place for an hour or two, and then another of us comes along to replace the first. Some of these jobs are very diffuse. You arrive to do the job and it is impossible to tell if the person working there before you has been working very hard or has hardly been working at all. Some jobs are mostly at the whim of whatever comes to you at the time you are there. At the front desk, for instance, you are either busy or not, and it is beyond your control. But some jobs are very specific. Some jobs have very measurable work. There were two full bins here at the start of the hour, now there are none.

Here is the puzzling scenario:

The person before you, at the station you will be going to work at, has two bins. If they work very hard they will get both bins done. If they poke around on the Internet, and sit around chatting, and generally just do their own thing, they will get close to nothing done. If that person does the work and finishes the two bins, then, really, the fair thing is that when it's your turn you step up and work pretty hard too. They have set a standard worth living up to. It is time to step up to this high standard! The only problem is that now there is no work to do! On the other hand, if they have lazed about the whole time that they were over there, sitting around with all those still full bins, then, well, that's pretty disrespectful to you, and the whole stupid place you work at is falling apart anyway, and the hell with it, don't you deserve a little downtime? You do. You do deserve downtime! So you might as well do nothing. The only problem is that you're now totally backed up, and you really need to get to work, which is really too unfair for words.

In short: When it is right and good for you to work hard there is nothing much to do, and when you richly deserve to take it easy you are swamped.
 
Fortunately, as these are the two extremes, I am only faced with this terrible puzzle occasionally. There is, of course, one solution to it, and I am guessing you have already smoked it out:

You march right into your supervisors office, and you say, without equivocation or hesitation, "I have a terrible headache. I think I'd better go home."

And then you do.