Dear Hubbard Street Dance

Dear Hubbard Street Dance:

Lately I have been vying against artistic greatness. For one thing it's hardly ever there when it's supposed to be there. For another thing it's so much more rare than anyone suggests it is. And then to make itself more troublesome, even when it exists it appears mercurially, visible only to some and perhaps to them only for a time.

So on Thursday nights I go with my wife to The Riverview Cafe, our neighborhood cafe, and we watch their utterly scrappy, charming, expectation defying Open Mike Night. Wonderful things happen there. Battered out people stand up and sing weathered songs until their own guitar playing illuminates them from inside, like a candle hidden in hands. Ukeleles, harmonicas, bits of electronics, old people, people for whom nothing ever worked out, tired people, plucky people, working people, lost people, all out there, barely watched, on a flat stage all alone with their 4,000 hours of practice, making music for free. And it's surprisingly good music. It can go all the way to teetering onto being brilliant music. It walks regularly down the middle of the road of art, not dressed up, without fanfare, like the splash of artistic mastery is the god given right of every human being born to the gift and curse we refer to as The World.

I don't need a TV or a concert hall, CDs, books covered in glowing quotes, museums. Famous people are not required. We all have our own little bit of genius, eh Hubbard Street Dance?


And then I saw your dance company one Saturday night at the Northrup Auditorium. And oh, right there, greatness. Greatness, Hubbard Street Dance, just as I'd pleasantly forgotten it.

My Back Pages, Hope is the Thing With Feathers, Pluto and Proserpina, The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, The Entombment of Christ, one doesn't generally stumble upon these at the local cafe. Seven billion people in the world, you'd think this greatness stuff would sort of pile up. But no, one can hunt for a year and come up blank on greatness. One might even love art and still forget greatness in all its confusing depth, and then walk into a theater somewhere and see... you.

Here is a funny anecdote for you, Hubbard Street Dance. In all the many dance performances I have ever seen, my eye strained to pick out the best dancer on stage. There is that call to greatness again. How we hunger and how easily it ruins us! All those wonderful, wildly talented, hard working dancers, and I strain for something more. You, Hubbard Street Dance, come onto the stage, a group, pairs, solo, shifting, and for the first time in all my watching of any dance in my whole life my search ends. Like that, dissipated, a great solid thing like a puff of white steam disappearing into air. There, simply, on the stage, is the best dancer: 

All of them.

And there is the best dance, where there is no dancing, no move, no construction, no linking one part to another, nothing that betrays that it is dancing, that it is a dance. There is the best dance: where it is, for the first time I have ever seen, simply all one, whole, and unbroken.

I try more and more not to look for it. But I will take greatness when it comes, for rare and beautiful things cannot be slighted at the peril of our souls. And I will be grateful, and thank you.


Thank you,


F. Calypso

Cliffhanger

I was reading a kids book, Destiny, Rewritten, and just sort of starting to like it when we hit a crossroads. A book of poems in this book suddenly became essentially important, holding key information that had already been teased out to us for several pages. Then a Goodwill truck came in the story to pick up some old clothes, and my brain, of its own volition, said "That Goodwill man better not take that book!"

The Goodwill man took the book.

I said "No!" and stopped reading.

I'll admit I can be quite a fickle reader that way.

But still, if a reader can see a specific calamity coming, largely on the basis of knowing it would serve a plot need, and starve us of information, and keep us reading, there are only two graceful ways for the author to go.

1. Not have it happen.

We breathe a sigh of relief and learn that our author is generous. Generous! Instead of saying "I've only got a couple of things to give out so you'd better pay attention", the author says "I've got ideas and wonders galore, and I'm going to be handing them out all book long."

2. Have it happen, but have it happen so differently that it's all turned on its head. 

In this approach the reader says "Oh no!" and frets and worries, but then it finally happens and the reader says "Wait, that's not actually bad. What I've been fearing turns out to be a rescue!" This demonstrates that the author is not manipulating, rather they are working on a deeper level.


Theoretically, having closed this book so precipitously, Destiny, Rewritten could have been attempting to partake of path number two. But

1. As I said, I am a fickle reader.

2. I don't believe it, that's what they all say, and

3. I am trying to break myself of the habit of finishing books just to prove to myself that I don't like them.


Of course, the author could be using a mysterious third approach in this narrative situation. Though I know everything, I forget all of it all of the time. After all, the book is even called Destiny, Rewritten, implying a novel reworking of the fates. I'd hate to miss out on this author's clever solution to this ancient narrative device. I'll just go take another look at the book and give it one more little chance. 

Unless, oh no! 

Someone accidentally returned it to the library!











 

Candidate Interview: pro life choice

The third in our Presidential Candidate interviews:




MSM:  As a Presidential Candidate you are generally expected to weigh in on the abortion issue whether you will be able to do anything about it or not. What is your opinion on the legal status of abortion?

F. Calypso:  Once upon a time there were some old, beautiful trees that were going to be cut down to make way for a building.  So a group of people climbed into the trees and lived there to try and protect them. Then other people started wearing shirts that read "Against hippies in trees".  And I thought I would really like a shirt that said "Against people who are against hippies in trees".

MSM:  I'm not sure I understand.

F. Calypso:  I am passionately, unequivocally, fanatically against people who are pro life.

MSM:  And why is that?

F. Calypso:  Not a single one of them is telling the truth.

Sent by God

I know I occasionally make a fuss about being a prophet of the gods, but this pipeline to deities is not usually one I talk about in relation to my library work. So it may surprise you to hear that I have been sent by God to do library work for people. It was certainly a surprise to me, but a library patron told me so on the phone today. "You are a Godsend!" She said with gusto.

A Godsend!

What interaction led to me being proclaimed as a sending from God, functionally an Angel?

She called the library and had some items that were a day late. "I just got back from the hospital from major surgery." She said. "I can't get into the library today and was hoping you could renew my materials."

Earlier in the day I had a call from a woman with late materials whose husband had collapsed and was now in the hospital on a respirator. I renewed her items. I waived her accumulated fines. I was sympathetic. But I do believe in checking. So I made sure that woman didn't have lots of past waives in her record for things like "Hospital emergency". 

With this on my mind I was in a mood to be considerate and waive the fines from the current person's record. Though it may seem the simplest of decencies, waiving fines when no one is asking us to do so is incredibly rare. Here I was considering an astonishing two of these waives in one day. But I checked. I asked "Did you just get home from the hospital today?"

"No." She replied. "I've been home for a few days." And with that, my tiny thread of magnanimity broke. I wasn't not sympathetic, merely the high bar for an unsolicited waive was no longer quite met now that I knew she had been home for a day or two before her items were due. No big extras for her. I renewed her books, told her her late fine amount, and wished her a full and speedy recovery.

"You are a Godsend!" She proclaimed with genuine feeling.

Who, me?

Presidential Interview: Religious issues

MSM:  You have been on the record as saying that you were told by God to run for President?

F. Calypso:  Well, yes, that is so. I was told by a god to run for President wherein it was prophesized that I would lose, acquiring zero votes.

MSM:  God told you to run for President wherein you would receive no votes?

F. Calypso:  Yes, amazing, isn't it?

MSM:  Um.

F. Calypso:  Do you think I will get any votes?

MSM:  That's really not the subject of this...

F. Calypso:  It's a simple question. Will I get any votes for President?

MSM:  Okay. No. I don't think you'll get any votes.

F. Calypso:  So you agree that this god has prophesized the future! That's a god worth listening to.

MSM:  If I predicted it would be sunny today, and it turns out it's sunny, that doesn't make me a prophet.

F. Calypso:  Did you, in fact, yesterday predict it would be sunny today?

MSM:  As a curious matter of fact, yes, yesterday I did say that I understood it was supposed to be sunny today.

F. Calypso:  Wow!

MSM:  No, that's my...

F. Calypso:  I am enmeshed in a thrilling web of prophecies! Tell me what to do next!

MSM:  No! That's not, I'm not God.

F. Calypso:  Well of course not. No one is God. 

MSM:  I'm glad we...

F. Calypso:  You're obviously a god though. What do I do next? Do you have any lotto tips?

MSM:  I'm not a god! Look, what if I voted for you? Wouldn't that make the prophecy false and call your campaign into question?

F. Calypso:  It would have actually had to have happened, which it hasn't, oh god of... something.

MSM:  Fine, I'm voting for you. Just wait and see.

F. Calypso:  Yeah, that's how all these interviews seem to end up.

The gods of editing

My computer at home freezes up constantly and becomes increasingly unreliable. I am growing to fear it a little, not wanting to get sucked up in it, the endless cycles of rebooting and crashing, the involved research into fixes that take hours but don't work. More and more I hide from my computer.

I'm not sure that's so bad. I kind of like hiding from my computer.

But I do worry a little about taking care of this essential task: clerkmanifesto.

"How" You wonder "Can clerkmanifesto be so relentlessly excellent? It is so good and rich that I find I can hardly ever bear to read it. It's visionary power is frequently too much for my delicate mortal frame to absorb."

I find it hard to bear as well. The gods come down and I yell at them "No! Too much! Too damn much!" So they learn to make quick visits.

"You should add the word 'that' in that spot." The gods say, and they leave again.

"Say something like 'a bronze of turkey feathers'" The gods whisper. And then they're gone.

"Huh?" I ask. "Oh, yeah, 'a bronze', that's good. Hello? Hello?" Gone again. But I read through what I wrote and the gods are back "Whipped cream, gelato, peeling stucco, tattered antennas." They urge. Then they're gone before I can tell them to go away, or before I can ask them any uncomfortable questions.

The gods are all fools, but they're not fools.

So I guess I shouldn't worry too much. If the gods can't visit me during editing time, while I'm revisiting my upcoming posts for the fifteenth time, they'll just have to stay a bit longer with me while I'm working on the first drafts, and I'll have to struggle to wait a little longer before I chase them away.

The February blizzard

As I write I can see the swirls of a blizzard out the back windows of my library. The night is black, and white snow, illuminated alone by the tall parking lot lamps so that the snow itself is all that is visible, is picked up by gusts of wind and scattered into the sky futilely, flung only to fall and be flung some more. At this point it is hard to know how any new snow can ever reach the ground.

 The snow has been falling hard ever since the last thirty minutes of my walk, eight hours ago. The library is as quiet as a, as a, oh, how I wish I were so talented a writer that I could come up with a clever simile for that. Somewhere there is a world famous blogger who works in, and writes about a morgue, having the same problem tonight. They say "The morgue tonight is as quiet as a, as a..." And they too come up blank. Everything has already been said.

When I left on my walk this morning the birds tried to warn me. My neighborhood and the river were full of strange birds, hawks flinging through the trees of front yards, woodpeckers racing to fill their stomachs, unrecognizable flocks in efficient formations flinging off to somewhere else as fast as possible. The world was growing darker. Squirrels curled against the wind on high tree branches. Something was obviously up.

Then silence fell. Darkness fell. But no snow fell. The world was abandoned. Dogs cowered. I picked my way along the ice. I put on my hat. And suddenly, without any easing into it, snow gushed down. I don't know how to describe snow like that, not flakes, nor bits of ice. It did not float down, or swirl like it is doing now. The wind blew and the snow, just snow, with no other adjectives, fell. It fell like it was serious about it, and it covered everything.

It's been a gloriously pretty day out the windows. It's quiet as a ...  I've been here the whole time, at the library, leaning towards the window, watching. There is a spell on the city.

In an hour the spell will be broken. The shoveling will begin. I'll brush off the car. I'll scrape the ice. It will be a strange, slow journey home on what should be abandoned roads, but won't be. It's a big city. There's been far more snow than this in storms past, and Minnesotans are hardy. I'll make it home alive.

I'll try to ignore my broken computer at home. I'll crawl into bed. I'll dream of snow, and I'll wake to shovel it.

The problem branch

My library system has always had a "Problem Branch". You can easily determine which branch this is by asking the employees of my library system if they've ever worked at another branch. When it turns out that pretty much everyone hired in the last five years started out at one particular branch, that, right there, is your problem branch.

As openings come up through the system, staff from the problem branch leap on them as their opportunity to escape. Indeed, they will chew off their own foot to do so. But as the problem branch constantly cleaves off their ever disappearing staff members, they find that no one ever wants to fill their newly opened positions. And so all of their openings must all be filled by new hires from outside our system.

Our current problem branch currently has four openings. Normally I wouldn't much concern myself with the new hires for some other branch, but I know just how much of a problem our problem branch is. I understand I will be seeing most of those people, and working beside them, as soon as they can get here, which will always be as soon as they possibly can.

As newer employees these people have a very narrow frame of reference for library work. They also, more importantly, tend to be far more politic than us grizzled old timers. So when I ask them "How was it over at The Problem Branch?"

They say "It really wasn't that bad. I mean, not that bad." 

But then they fall quiet for bit, and look down, and something dark passes before their eyes, and we don't discuss it anymore.

My Presidential bid

MSM: What made you decide to run for President?


F. Calypso: I felt that my needs as a voter weren't being met by the current crop of candidates.


MSM: What needs are those?


F. Calypso: I'm very close to needing a new pair of boots, for instance.


MSM: Ha ha ha, but seriously.


F. Calypso: I need some new pants too?


MSM: Yes, but are there needs of National Significance you were hoping to see addressed?


F. Calypso: We are the world, as the song says.


MSM: I don't think that's what the song is about.


F. Calypso: Look, it hardly seems likely I could be elected President of America on some sort of communal Communist "What's best for us as a group" approach.


MSM: So you're campaigning for yourself as your constituency?


F. Calypso: I refuse to pander. I'm the real deal. I call them as I see them.


MSM: How do you see them?


F. Calypso: Hmm?


MSM: You said that you call them as you see them. How do you see them?


F. Calypso: I dunno. You show me and I'll call them.


MSM: Okay. Fair enough. What is your position on ISIS?


F. Calypso: (Singing)


I was thinkin’ about turquoise, I was thinkin’ about gold
I was thinkin’ about diamonds and the world’s biggest necklace
As we rode through the canyons, through the devilish cold
I was thinkin’ about Isis, how she thought I was so reckless

 
MSM: Er, excuse me. Is that supposed to be a Bob Dylan imitation?


F. Calypso: I like to think of it more as an homage, or sort of like The Bob Dylan Experience.


MSM: What does that have to do with the Islamic State?


F. Calypso: I dunno.

 
MSM: What would you do about ISIS and the threat they pose?


F. Calypso: Well, my neighborhood is more of an Agnostic sort of neighborhood. We don't have a lot of religious fanatics. We have much more serious problems that I don't see being brought up.


MSM: Such as?


F. Calypso: Icy sidewalks.


MSM: Icy sidewalks?


F. Calypso: I have yet to see any interviewer ask a candidate what they would do about icy sidewalks, killer of the elderly.


MSM:  Mea Culpa. What would you do as President about the problem of icy sidewalks?


F. Calypso: I would walk more carefully.


MSM: You have my vote.


F. Calypso: Yeah. These interviews always seem to end that way.

My dark predilection

Among our library regulars is a man who seems to have his share of problems. He carries around a collection of dirty bags filled with what are presumably all his belongings. He parks the bags on one of the comfy chairs in the fiction area for the whole day and sometimes tries to leave them overnight. He is the heaviest user of library hand sanitizer in the upper Midwest. He has had to be asked to put his shoes on a number of times. He's here every day and lingers as long as possible at closing time. 

He has not become endeared to me.

There are people in similar situations to his that I have become endeared to at this library, but no, not him.

This morning I was at the front desk and for whatever reason I received a lot of visits from the 40s to 70s demographic that like to come by for some light library business and much longer ritual chatting. One such gentleman, who I often talk about European travel with, was updating me on his plans. Then he said "You know that man with the bags upstairs?"

"Yes." I replied with faint trepidation.

"I feel so bad for him. I see him here all the time. I figure he's got to be homeless or something. So I put a ten dollar bill into one of his bags."

"Wow." I said, knowing I would never do anything like that in my life "That was incredibly kind of you."

He smiled the smile of the virtuous and went his way. I finished my stint at the front desk and went off to shelve in fiction. I worked my way, shelving, down the stacks and suddenly came upon a chair with all of that man's bags, sitting there, chilling out for the day. Our resident patron was there too, getting ready maybe for a shoeless doze.

I did not think to say "Hi." or "Do you need anything?" or "Can I get you some hand sanitizer?" or "Is everything going okay?"

No, what popped into my mind to say was "I'm sorry, but I dropped a ten dollar bill around here. Did you happen to see one?"

A matter of perspective

For much of the life of my blog I had seven, or twelve readers, and the terrible paucity of it pained me. I gnashed my teeth. I wondered what I was doing wrong. I wondered what the world was doing wrong. Time and again I would try new things, say new things, seek new readers, but each time I looked I would have seven, or twelve readers.

So I struggled for a long time. I said that I didn't care. I laughed at my anonymity. But I looked, and I had seven or twelve readers. And I knew, deep down, I still cared.

I told people to go away in a strategy of reverse psychology, and I had seven to twelve readers. I made a fuss, and I had seven to twelve readers. I wrote very clever things, and I had seven to twelve readers.

So I suffered. 

But I did not want to suffer. I knew that to have all the readers I wanted and needed and deserved I would have to set my desire free. Only in a state free of desire would all that I wanted come to me. So I freed myself of desire. I was enlightened. I was detatched and pure and full of love.

And here I am. 

So go ahead and ask me how many readers I have. Just ask away: How many readers do I have now?

I don't know, honestly, probably around nine.

To the person in charge

There was a recent endeavor to resolve a long standing issue with one of the smaller departments of our library. It was sensibly and responsibly conceived and put into action at a modest hierarchical level. Everyone pitched in for a bit and the results showed, a bit alarmingly, how useful and effective this project was. It was not designed to show anyone up. It was not slyly blaming anyone. It was just a thoughtful concept by someone taking action where action was needed. It is one of the things I like best about my library, that most of the time it is run on energy such as this.

But alas, the person sort of in charge of this small department took umbrage at the project, feeling control was being stripped from them, and they put a stop to it. And so it is done for now. But as it went it caused me to have the following reflections:


I understand lazy. I am not unfamiliar with lazy. I know how sweet it can be to shirk. I have indulged in the appealing sprawl of nothingness. I have not gotten around to things so many times in my life I have lost count in the same way I have lost count of my total number of lifetime sips of liquids. I can live with it. Sure, I am not inclined to count laziness as a virtue, and if I could rewrite my nature I would perhaps do so by putting in just a shred of laziness, for its appealing mouthal feel, rather than keeping my current two hearty scoops of laziness, in there now apparently for their sinful, health-be-damned richness.

I also understand controlling. Look at me here on clerkmanifesto, tyrant of all I survey. No collaborative effort here. I am patrolling every sentence and letter of well over a thousand essays like an angry and vengeful God. I am not above an overwhelming confidence and an abiding feeling that certain things should be exactly just so. Is this controlling characteristic as much a character flaw as laziness? Maybe. It wins a few points for the powers of its generative energies, and kept to one's absolutely personal domain it likely wreaks only a small amount of havoc. One might even say it even expresses a certain kind of antidotal quality to laziness. And so too, though I recognize the madness of its attempt at dominion, I accept my flawed tendency towards controlling as well.

But one cannot be both lazy and controlling together in the same arena. It makes you into a monster.

The week of the rough walk

Perhaps I tempted the fates when I recently wrote about my disappointments with ice and snow. Perhaps the trickster god of ice heard me and took petty vengeance, enlisting as it went the help of the usually sleepy and fluffy god of snow. I don't know, but it was a rough week for me out on the sidewalks of Minneapolis.

On Monday I stepped out onto the sidewalk in a freezing drizzle to find it skating rink slick. I was just saying here in this (metaphorical) space that when I grew up in Southern California I imagined in the Winter that one could skate along the sidewalks of Minnesota. So it was hard not to imagine that I was being mocked with the sudden appearance of rigorously iced sidewalks, though I doubt skates would have worked on those walks because the layer of ice was so invisible and thin that a skate would have sliced through it to the concrete below. My boots, however, were easily supported by this layer of ice, though, of course, not given the barest shred of traction. And so I walked four miles with a fierce, stiff-legged concentration, straining to keep the required perfect balance, and only flailing into near death experiences a half dozen times.

Then on Tuesday came the snow. I have no terrible complaint about walking in an inch or two of new snow, though it is hard work, much like walking in sand. No, what I hate, alas, is snow blowing in my face. And for an hour and fifteen minutes that's exactly what it did. No looking up for me. I must keep my chin tucked at all times, my eyes protected and blind to the world. Mainly my nose takes on the great brunt of elements, fielding all the many blowing bits of snowflake and ice. This makes my nose itch terribly so I have to wipe my scratching nose with my sleeve every twenty seconds.

Who knows what mocking disaster is next for me out walking my daily four miles of city, but I am duly chastened and will now attempt to appease the small god of ice with flattery:

Oh wonderful ice god, thank you for your humorous gift of ice. What a clever trick with water! While I recognize its jewel-like beauty, I love it best to cool drinks, especially, these days, cocktails, which I will drink in your honor. Please don't kill me. Please don't break any of my limbs. And do say hello for me to your good friend the god of snow.

Now not only angels have wings

 

I just overheard a librarian talking excitedly about a TV show, which is maybe a bad sign to begin with. She was referring to a small line from a character, and she said the line would warm any librarian's heart. The character, the librarian said, shows off a bit of useful, obscure knowledge and says "I'm old school, pre-Google."

Later that same night a librarian was looking for an old map our library system hasn't printed for at least twelve years. It showed a chart that revealed the distance between all of our branches. She wanted to know the distance between our branch and another. I briefly waxed nostalgic over those ancient distance grid maps I haven't seen in a decade, but then I walked over to one of our readily available computers and entered a few small pieces of information. "Eleven point two miles" I said. If she wanted to I could have given it to her in strict geographic distance, and I could also have told her in Sanskrit (११.२ मिलेस ).

There are so many, many things I dislike about the Internet, so many things wrong with it, and certainly I could spend the rest of my blog life exploring those horrible failures of our powers, imagination, and technology. But as far as the Internet taking away the bulky, obtuse project of looking up blunt information, as far as the Internet's ability as a reference tool, as far as the Internet making the research skills of a brilliantly trained 1950s style librarian, one with vast shelves of reference books at their command, available to pretty much anyone, anywhere, with the simplest of Internet connected devices and very modest Internet search skills, I cannot even imagine a valid complaint against it.

Here:

Twenty years ago a patron could have come to me at the front desk of the library and asked "You know in that old Richard Barthelmess movie about the freight company, what did Bonnie Lee's dad used to do?" 

And I would have said "They can help you with that at the reference desk."

Today if someone came and asked me "You know in that old Richard Barthelmess movie about the freight company, what did Bonnie Lee's dad used to do?"

 I would look it up in three seconds and say "He was a trapeze artist without a net." 

"Oh yeah." They would say. "I thought it was something dangerous like that. What was the name of that port they worked out of again?"

"Barranca." I would easily answer.

"Do you have a DVD of the movie?"

Three second search. "Unfortunately ours is out." I say. "I hate that. Shall I put it on hold for you? It should be here in a couple days."

"Okay, that would be great. One more thing." They would hesitate for a bit. "How do you cure Liver Cancer."

And I would reply "They can help you with that at the Reference desk upstairs." 

Enough is enough.

"Oh." They would say. "Upstairs?" 

No one seems to like to go upstairs unless they have to. 

"Never mind then." They say sadly. "Thanks for the help anyway."

And then I'd feel bad for them, so I'd cure their liver cancer anyway, with my Internet, new school.

Where we stand

I try not to discuss politics here. This is not due to my fear of offending, my lack of clarity, or any absence of interest on my part. It has to do with the ferociousness that comes upon me, the stripping of humor, and the righteousness that seizes me. So unless I can manage to come at my politics sideways, with delicacy, and, preferably, still possessed of a wry humor, I do my best to abstain.

But this is a big political year and I run a big time major American blog. So people are more frequently wondering just where I stand politically. And I thought if I could find a way to articulate simply the fundamentals of my politics, then you, my reader, can do or not do with it as you wish.

I have chosen a relative, yet absolute, barometer of my political position.

It is this:

No matter where you stand politically, I am to the left of that.

To all the funny people

My dear funny people,


This is a message to everyone because everyone, everywhere, sometimes wants to be funny. Even I like to sometimes be funny, like on peoples' birthdays and when there's weather out and stuff. And I have learned a few things, and you would think they would be funny, but they're not. Wouldn't it have been great if they were funny though, and we were having a really good time?

Yes it would. But this isn't that kind of a message.

I am here today to give you valuable information about being funny. This will not help you very much in all your future humorous endeavors, but still, you should know all these things I have learned. 

I warn you, they are a little grim. And then more grim when you think about them.


1. No matter how funny you become, no matter how many people you make laugh, or what a delightful riot you might be, there will still be times when you attempt to say something funny, and it won't be. It really really really won't be.

2. Every bit of humor is like a piece of orchard fruit; it slowly ripens, is perfectly ripe for but a single, delicate moment, and then it quickly begins to rot.

3. People laughing at your joke does not necessarily mean they think it's funny.


Now you know. But from pain, comes comedy. 

In the shadow of Vesuvius

Every day that I work at the library I work until closing time. I am well acquainted with closing time's technicalities and peculiarities, the way people linger and appear out of crevices seven minutes after we lock the doors, the look and feel of the place as we shut down, the eerie, appealing quiet and darkness of a library put to bed. And surely there are a dozen or two posts concerning these closing issues, all scattered across my voluminous history here.

But today I was making up a couple extra hours that I was short for a recent holiday, and so I was uncharacteristically here on a Sunday morning, preparing the building for its add-people-and-shake instant opening. I roamed the whole library turning hundreds of things on, picking hundreds of things up, and being generally fascinated by how the library looked.

As we leave the library at night it looks sleepy and settled, but I never realized what was obscured in that. Because in the morning, in the light of a fresh day, the library looks like the aftermath of the rapture. It looks like people were sucked up midstride. It looks like Vesuvius erupted without warning, every action of every patron frozen exactly as they were in the moment the library shut down. There are no bodies, fortunately, but there are carefully chosen books and DVDs, ready for check out just... abandoned, uncompleted. A scarf and backpack lie sadly together on the floor like a human being disintegrated into ash rather than make the effort of walking out of the building. There is a chair pulled out for a person to sit in, though no one is there. A notebook sits on the table before that absent person, half a sentence written, a pencil there almost seems to still be rocking back and forth, so fresh is its abandonment.

Who were these evaporating patrons? Were they beamed up? Do visitors from starships come to our library? Do they tell Scotty to beam them down.

"Scotty," They instruct. "Beam us down into the science area of non fiction. The library closes at 9:00 so just set it to auto beam us back up then."

"Are you sure? If we beam you back up at nine exactly then everything you're doing will be left behind." 

"Oh, don't worry." They reply. "There's plenty of warning for when the library closes. I'm sure we'll be all prepared and ready to go when it does."

Third thursday

My wife and I missed the open mike night at The Riverview Cafe for a museum event tonight, but at its heart it was all the same.

We are members at the Mia, which is also known as the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. It's a brilliant art museum in an all over sort of way, but is particularly excellent in its Asian Art collection and in the major traveling exhibitions it somehow succeeds in snagging. Currently up is Delecroix and his influence. You like Delecroix, don't you? Scads of Delecroix?

But we weren't there for that because tonight was acquisition night, the highlight of the member year for me. There were free drinks (I had two gin and tonics) and an incredibly tasty spread with cheeses, fruit (fantastic pineapple), little caprese things, and heaps of grilled vegetables with aioli. This was followed by the curators briefly presenting on the highlights of the museum's new purchases from the past year or so. It all put me in a very agreeable mood.

None of the new purchases were big deal ones, no matter how the curators were inclined to spin it. Which is to say that I, with my moderate art knowledge, hadn't heard of a single one of the acquired artists. But everything was certainly very good, excellent even. And so that is exactly where it was all the same as open mike night at The Riverview Cafe. Everyone was very good. Indeed, after the evening's presentation ended we dispersed out into the greater museum which was open as part of their Third Thursday event. On Third Thursday the Museum stays open late, has bars and live music. And here too it was just like I end up feeling at the Riverview Cafe. We wandered about, heard a band, and saw hundreds and hundreds of pieces of art, some casually and some under closer scrutiny. I become wonderstruck, a rube, some sort of Grandmother. "Oh my!" I exclaimed. "Everyone, through all of history, was so talented!"

The song of coughs

Alas, I fear for my health. Perhaps clean living will save me. Perhaps all that healthful, frigid air I have been breathing on my long, bracing, bitter, outdoor Winter walks will bolster my immune system. It will need a lot of bolstering today because I am working in what sounds like a tuberculosis ward.

I am upstairs this afternoon shelving in the fiction wing of the library. Deep, rattling, phlegmy coughs create a kind of chorus all around me. Sneezes, roars, saws, and hocking. Oh the hocking! What are they going to with that when they do manage to dredge it up? What have they touched? Where have they been? I try not to touch my own now surely germ laden hands to my face, but I am afraid I never mastered the exotic skill of not touching my face. Just thinking about not touching my face makes me want to make sure my face is still there. I can't see my face. If only I could just grab my nose or something.

Cough, cough, cough, cough,
cough, cough, cough, cough,
cough, cough, cough, cough,
cough, cough, cough, cough.

I picture the head nurse at the Infectious Diseases Ward of the local hospital turning away yet another ill and hacking, terribly diseased patient.

"I'm sorry Ma'am. We're going to have to discharge you from the Infectious Diseases Ward."

"But why!" Cries the sick woman amongst horrible throaty hacks.

"I'm afraid you're just too infectious for us here at the Infectious Diseases Ward."

"But where shall I go." Moans the piteously sick patient. "Where will I take my ragged, incessant cough and all of my hideous gobs of thick brown phlegm?"

"Well," Replies the nurse thoughtfully "How about the library?"

Not a bad idea. They do seem to fit right in here.

Illusions of snow

Knowing that so many school children in Southern climates use clerkmanifesto as their source for reports on what it's like to live in a cold climate, I have become acutely aware of my responsibility to tell the whole story. Enamored as I am with the bitter cold of Winter in Minnesota, and perhaps even more accurately, with my adaptability to it, I have dwelled greatly on the curious pleasures of the hard Winters here.

But that isn't the full picture. And because I was once a child growing up in sunny Southern California I want to be fair. I want the young people writing their reports to be apprised of some of the misleading things they will pick up out there in the Southlands about Minnesota and true Winter.

Curiously, the misinformation that children, such as the one I once was, hold about a climate like Minnesota is less connected to temperature and far more connected to all our glamorous snow and ice. And so today I am setting the record straight by telling you the illusions I carried, I think quite naturally, about snow and ice, and how they turned out to be disappointingly untrue. Any sensible third grader in, say, Scottsdale, Arizona, would naturally want to relocate to the Twin Cities, but they will need to disabuse themselves of these notions first before they can begin their glorious adaptation process.


1. Ice is a readily available, delightfully slippery, skateable surface.

There is so much wrong with this. Let me walk you through it.

A. Ice skating sucks. 

It's probably great if you grow up with it, but basically it is nothing like it looks on TV and in cartoons. Your feet at all times want to flop over onto your ankles, and the only reason they (sort of) don't is because your feet are locked in a vice like boot. Also, and this is surprisingly important, pushing off on ice does not allow you to glide giddily for ages, rather it allows you to glide for about three inches before you have to push off again.

B. There is hardly any ice skating. 

I know I said ice skating sucks. But even if you defy the odds and become a joyful skater with powerful ankles you will find there is hardly any actual ice skating here. My idea was that all the sidewalks would be skateable. Or how about my own local Mississippi River? If it's ten below zero for a week surely I should be able to go commute skating up the river like Russell Crowe in that thrilling opening shot of the Mystery Alaska movie? Nope. All ice is apparently ruddy and uneven and snow covered unless it's carefully created, crafted, tended, and polished. If you want to skate at all it will be at a very specific rink or park that you have to walk or drive to and sometimes even pay for the privilege of using. That's right, you may have to pay for ice, in Winter, in Minnesota!


2. Snow is slippery, sculptable, dry, packable, sleddable, skiable, fun!

The trick here is that snow has a lot of different qualities and conditions. When Charles Schulz or Bill Watterson draws snow in Peanuts or Calvin and Hobbes the snow partakes of qualities that snow actually has, but never at the same time.

A. Snow is dry or packable.

Want a nice fluffy snowball? Sorry, if the snow is light, dry, and fluffy it will be like trying to make a ball out of sand. For snowballs you will need wetter snow that will usually make cruel snowballs you have to be at least a little bit of an asshole to throw at someone. They will also leave your hands soaking wet and bitterly cold. Instant Karma. Also, if you want to build a Snowman, that nice thick layer of fluffy snow will resist forming any kind of a ball and will make for a frustrating project. You will need the heavier, wetter snow that's invariably thinner on the ground and that leaves you sopping and freezing, with a lumpy, misshapen, muddy, far smaller than anticipated Snowman.

B. Sledding is, actually, pretty fun.

But only on an inflatable sled, and if you're young and have no back problems, and only for about 20 minutes, and only if the snow is pretty fresh, and only if you can find a good hill, which can be hard to do here, because it is all pretty flat. 

C. What about cross country skiing?

As far as I can tell there are three days every two years that are good for cross country skiing, but you can only enjoy them if you make sure you're cross country skiing most of the other 727 days.


Other than that you'll love it. Good luck on your reports.