Me and my beanstalk

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking "Oh my god, this blog is so awesome!" 

And you're also thinking "Wait, how did he know that?" 

And then now you're thinking "Holy crap, this is like really, really, like, freakishly psychic!"

No?

Well, I can't be right all the time.

Now you're thinking "I was just trying to go to Amazon to buy some swizzle sticks. How on earth did I end up at this crazy blog?"

Shhhhhhhhh!

Shh.

i am trying to sneak up quietly on the internet. silent step by silent step, for six years, i have stealthily approached this behemoth, this almost inconceivable giant of an internet. it cannot hear me. i am so small and quiet. i am moving so slowly as to be undetectable. i am tiny, beneath notice. but one day soon, inch by inch i shall be close enough. and then... 

Pow!

The coup de grace! 

With one precise blow i will take out the whole of the internet! Mu ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!

"You don't like the Internet?" You wonder.

No. I just want to take it over. Then the whole of the Internet will be like this!

"The whole of the Internet will be like what?" You wonder.

Wrong some of the time.

How to fix a stapler, a correction

In yesterday's simple guide to staple repair I made a minor error that requires a small but important correction.

The following text:




Just follow this one easy method and even the most stapler and mechanically illiterate among you will have your staplers humming along like never before.

I have broken this simple method down into 22 basic, easy to understand steps.



1. Firmly grasp the manifold flange in your right hand.

2. Decouple the sprocket cylinder.

3. Turn on your Kinsey 3000 home forge system and dial to "7".

4. Prepare three measure-weight r-2's for proper induction.

5. Remove all staples, using pliers if necessary. Discard.

6. Put the staple hinge to your good ear and listen for a hum.

7. No hum? Go to step 11.

8. Brush the flange hinge in acetone or mineral oil.

9. Burn some toast.

10. Wave the stapler around in the smoke.

11. Induct the measure-weight r-2's until ideally pliable.

12. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down and read Descartes masterwork Meditations of First Philosophy. If in a hurry to staple, skim.

13. Make sure you have a few paperclips for just in case.

14. Attempt to mold the measure-weights into a standard "flange" fringe.

15. Hit the table in frustration and cry out "Tu me prends la tete!"

16. Solder stapler parts "seven" and "nine" lightly together at join knobs, something you would not have to do if stapler designers weren't idiots!

17. Put on your HazMat suit.

18. Split all the atoms in the gear sprocket spring, loosening the jibbit as you go.

19. Wait for the stapler base to cool as it will be as hot as the Sun for a short while. This is not a colorful turn of speech. Maybe go ahead and loosen your HazMat while waiting.

20. Dip your stapler in liquid hydrogen for a few seconds to "set" the new metals.

21. Add new staples to your stapler.

22. Staple stuff!



Should read instead as:


Whack your stapler very hard against an unbreakable surface.


I apologize for any confusion this slight omission may have caused. Good luck with your stapler!





  

How to fix a stapler

I have worked at a library for a quarter of a century. And for the whole of that time I have been the supplies person. So I have ordered a lot of staplers. Nevertheless I prefer to fix staplers rather than buy them. It's more respectful of the taxpayers and of the environment. And because I have fixed so many staplers over the years I have become extremely knowledgeable about the process. One might even say that I have mastered the art.

Fortunately the stapler is a simple device, strictly designed to do one basic thing: staple. Also fortunately, in the course of my vast stapler repair work, I have devised one extremely easy, fool-proofed method that will resolve any stapler problem, whether it be from parts failure or from the more common "Jam".

Just follow this one painless method and even the most stapler and mechanically illiterate among you will have your staplers humming along like never before.

I have broken this simple method down into 22 basic, easy to understand steps.



1. Firmly grasp the manifold flange in your right hand.

2. Decouple the sprocket cylinder.

3. Turn on your Kinsey 3000 home forge system and dial to "7".

4. Prepare three measure-weight r-2's for proper induction.

5. Remove all staples, using pliers if necessary. Discard.

6. Put the staple hinge to your good ear and listen for a hum.

7. No hum? Go to step 11.

8. Brush the flange hinge in acetone or mineral oil.

9. Burn a large smudge stick of white sage.

10. Wave the stapler around in the smoke.

11. Induct the measure-weight r-2's until ideally pliable.

12. Pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down and read Descartes masterwork Meditations of First Philosophy. If in a hurry to staple, skim.

13. Make sure you have a few paperclips for just in case.

14. Attempt to mold the measure-weights into a standard "flange" fringe.

15. Hit the table in frustration and cry out "Tu me prends la tete!"

16. Solder stapler parts "seven" and "nine" lightly together at join knobs, something you would not have to do if stapler designers weren't idiots!

17. Put on your HazMat suit.

18. Split all the atoms in the gear sprocket spring, loosening the jibbit as you go.

19. Wait for the stapler base to cool as it will be as hot as the Sun for a short while. This is not a colorful turn of speech. Maybe go ahead and loosen your HazMat while waiting.

20. Dip your stapler in liquid hydrogen for a few seconds to "set" the new metals.

21. Add new staples to your stapler.

22. Staple stuff!




Congratulations! You just saved yourself $6.99 on the cost of a new stapler! 

Please note this guide only works on the Bostitch Office B210R. 

For the Swingline Optima please see my post: How to fix any stapler. For the Paper Pro Compact Classic see my post: Stapler fixing in just a few simple steps. And for the Kokuyo Harinacs models see my series of monographs on modern Japanese staplers and their repair, published by Cambridge University Press but now out of print. Don't ask me why they're out of print, but one can usually find a few copies of them on Abe Books for astronomical prices. Good luck.

Dealing out of the back of the library

There are certain books, when they come through the donations, appear in the Friends Bookstore, or show up on a "weeded" cart, that I can't resist grabbing up. And so I do. I don't take them home. I squirrel them away in some locker, or some crevice of the work room at the library where I know no one will bother them. And then I try to remember that they're there, waiting until they're needed.

Today I came across The Wee Free Men, weeded from one of our smaller branches and headed apparently into our little bookstore. 

Now it's mine. 

Or not, exactly, mine.

I know too many librarians too well to really trust them. And I've been working in libraries too long to completely trust them either. Or maybe it's the culture I don't trust. What is admired and recommended today is forgotten in 20 years. I've seen it happen. The brilliant Adrian Mole Diaries were a bona fide publishing phenomenon in their day. I read them half a dozen times. I loved them wildly. When I started working here it would have been harder to find a library that didn't have The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 than one that did. If only I'd grabbed up a few of those ubiquitous copies from back then. Or maybe I did. But they're gone now. Like King of the Schnorrers another fading from memory masterpiece, or The Star Diaries, or The Magic Christian, it is now strictly a special request book as far as my reasonably large library system goes. I recommended Adrian Mole twice to people in the past couple of weeks. But it's a hard sell when one has to special order it through interlibrary loan. People want things now. It's hard enough to convince most people to read any recommendation in my experience, but if one can whip it off the shelf and put it right in their hot little hands, one stands a chance at least. And it's even more satisfying if one can say "Our library doesn't carry it anymore, but I just so happen to have one stashed away in the back room." Adding in something near a whisper "I'd like you to have it."

I am pretty satisfied with the library I work in, until I'm not. I have my own fair list of items that I'm convinced belong in this building for all people for all times. Many of those books are actually here most of the time already. I don't think I have to worry too much at this point about Left Hand of Darkness, Cats Cradle, The Chosen, Tortilla Flat, Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings. And at least for the time being , Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman, The Eyre Affair, the Lockwood books, and The Name of the Wind seem pretty safe. But I've got a pretty long list of things to keep an eye on, things I don't trust the world to hold in proper respect forever. Yes, absolutely, one can grab Wee Free Men now, but already not as readily as one should be able to for so exquisite a book. I don't know what will happen in 20 years. But hopefully I'll at least have a few copies of it socked away. And if you'll let me talk you into reading it, you can have one.

In which I reach out to a co-worker

I would perhaps not write this particular brief, pointed account if all my co-workers read this blog. I am sensitive to the feelings of others. But I am less sensitive to the feelings of others who do not read my blog. They're just so... disappointing. In the end how much respect have they actually earned?

But oddly this post, brief as its actual content may be, would be best applied if all my co-workers did read my blog. And so into this conundrum I say:

I take up perhaps more than my fair share of space in our work and break areas. I have commandeered drawers, cabinets, and sections of counters. I cook elaborate food that fills a many tens of thousands square foot library with odors more befitting a large, busy restaurant. Our break room kitchen is like a refuge to me from the storms of work-life.

So I try to be respectful of others. I am accepting of the various spaces likewise taken over by my co-workers for all their own inscrutable reasons. I do my best to share the many explicitly common spaces. I turn the other cheek to dishwashing and cooking habits I don't like. I make what peace I can with the minor peccadilloes of using in common a break room and work room with dozens of diverse people. I make every effort to understand or at least look the other way at those habits I would normally find... unpleasant. What's good for the goose...

But if for some reason you have decided to spend half or more of your lunch hour, every single day you work, walking "exercise" laps in our modest sized break room, while reading a junky novel, like you're the Captain of a Frigate on a transoceanic journey in the 1700's, pacing along the paltry deck, while people scatter before you, even though you are not on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and you are not a Captain, and the entire rest of the world is available to you for all your pacing and walking pleasure, all I can really say to you is:

"Seriously, what is your fucking problem!"

It's not a question.

Groundhog Day: A new beginning

Look, I don't mean to keep writing about Groundhog Day over and over again. It is the most insignificant of holidays. But somehow each day I wake up and find myself writing on it yet again. I wake up. Sonny and Cher are playing. I smash the clock radio. And I write about Groundhog Day.

The first time I wrote ahead of time about Groundhog Day. Since it had been opressively cloudy for months I felt secure in assuming that the groundhog would not see his or her shadow and that Winter would, accordingly, end soon. This somehow led to the Sun bursting out on Groundhog Day morning in a resplendent dazzle of Winter light, meaning the groundhog did see a shadow, and thus Winter was slated to continue for many weeks. I pronounced this okay because Winter is so pretty in the Sun. Of course, no sooner had I done this than the sky immediately covered in clouds again, like as if plastered over by an untalented, color-hating stucco craftsman. If you can call that craftsmanship.

So I thought "Great. Back to the drawing board." And I was condemned to write once more about Groundhog Day. And as I sat down to write my latest revision of my purgatorial Groundhog Day saga the clouds cleared once again. And there, what should have been obvious all along, was suddenly revealed to me:

I can control the weather with what I write!

Groundhog Day, a correction

To present clerkmanifesto in a clocklike fashion, with a new essay bursting onto the internet like an orange hit with a baseball bat each morning at 8:30 Central Time, there is always a certain amount of writing ahead of the moment of publication. And so when I wrote a post concerning Groundhog Day in Minnesota, and there had been 87 consecutive days of impenetrable, gloomy, and profoundly overcast Winter skies, I felt quite safe in blithely constructing my post around the idea that the groundhog, two days hence, would fail to see his shadow.

But Sunday dawned. Palindrome day. 02022020. Groundhog day. I stumbled out of the bedroom to look out on our city and the river, and I was blinded. It was so bright that it was like I'd never seen the sun. I did not recognize the blueness of the sky. This was because it was blue! The bald eagles circling the river were visible from miles away. Geese ceased their huddling on the river ice and took to the air to exult. Light, magical light, bounced and shone and glittered and illuminated.

And some groundhog, somewhere, looked down and saw a groundhog shaped shadow!

Because of all the incessant cloudiness I said Winter, according to the shadowless tradition, would end this Groundhog Day. But no, the groundhog saw his or her shadow and so Winter is set to continue for a long, long time.

Until the clouds broke I think this forecast would have been too much for me to bear. But oddly I feel calm and even a little happy. 

When Winter smiles, it's dazzling.

Groundhog Day

I haven't been at my most cheerful. And while we could accurately ascribe this to a wide range of influences, simple and complex, superficial and deeply psychological, one very common, obvious reason has presented itself. And who am I, in my weakened state, to spurn it?

The reason is darkness. Literal darkness is to blame for my sadness.

Did you know that The Earth is spinning towards The Sun? But slowly. It also angles itself towards The Sun in this part of the world now. Less slowly, but still taking its time.

During the short days I look out the windows and see a gloom of pale light. It has been one of our darkest, most cloudy Winters on record. Sometimes, especially at work, I forget to look out any window at all. The murky puddles of half-light do not much draw one's consideration. Early in the evenings I'll remember I am on a world, in a universe, and I'll look towards the windows.

Blackness.

This Winter there have been a number of problems with the parking lot lights at my library. Often they stay off all night. And when they do, our library, surrounded on three sides by parking lot, and on one side by a semi-glorious backyard wetland wilderness, is set off as if into an ocean, adrift in nothingness. It's kind of breathtaking. Like when there's a rainbow, or a magnificent sunset, when the the darkness hits us that hard we gather at the windows.

"It's amazing." We say.

"It's just so black out there."

"I hope no one dies from the lack of visibility."

It's so dark. 

Groundhog Day really is the least of all holidays. How does it go? If he sees his shadow, more Winter; if he doesn't...

No one has seen a shadow around here for months. Joy is just around the corner.

Review of Season One: Senate Impeachment Trial

I don't usually watch TV shows, but a few things drew my attention strongly to Season One of "Senate Impeachment Trial".


1. I'm interested in politics, but the real life version tends to be too depressing. An inspirational drama about the impeachment trial of a corrupt President seemed right up my alley.

2. I love legal dramas, and watching a show entirely expressed as a very formal trial seemed fascinating.

3. I'm a huge Adam Schiff fan and loved him in "Impeachment of the President", which can be seen as sort of a prequel to this show.

So I decided "What the hell." and gave this Internet Television Series a shot.

Sadly, it had a lot of problems. But first, let's talk about a few things I really liked!

1. Adam Schiff was great. Playing the clear spoken Atticus Finch/Mr. Smith goes to Washington character he was the soul and backbone of the show and a real hero to root for. Without him this show would have been pointless. Also it was extremely clever how they mainly surrounded him with an almost unbearable level of hypocrisy, incoherence, and evil so that when he finally appeared he and his close reasoning, simple logic, and sense of justice was a palpable and almost intense relief. This was a brilliant device.

2. I liked how the ultimate villain, "The President", never appeared in any way and was only referenced. He seemed so horrible and ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable, but that lack of realism kind of worked when he was merely obliquely referenced and left to our imaginations. I like how he was only expressed through craven and repulsive toadies.

3. Towards the end I was really invested and hoping for "The Presidents" removal from office. Despite myself I'm incredibly curious about season two.


Unfortunately there were a lot of problems with the show:

1. Too few characters! Having the judge read the Senators' questions offered a kind of gravity, but the Judge had no personality or any reason for being there except to read the questions that weren't even his own and to cut people off . It often felt like they were saving money by not having to pay actual actors to appear as Senators. It felt cheap. Also, what happened to that repulsive Dershowitz character? He was an interesting villain (though maybe a little overdrawn?) and seemed to disappear halfway through the season?

2. Hello? Where's the trial? I felt like maybe the production was underfunded? Just when it was getting really interesting and we finished the opening statements, the "Republicans" decided to have no witnesses or evidence. Was the show cancelled due to poor ratings? How could this be a trial in any real world situation? I know they were trying to make a point about the Republicans being corrupt, but the "no witnesses" thing seemed kind of unrealistic and stopped the show just as it was getting interesting. It also made the "Bolton" backstory go nowhere. If this "Bolton" was a Republican how could there have been not even a few Republican Senators who hadn't gone completely mad? My only guess or hope is that perhaps some big reveal is coming in the next season?

3. It was really dark. This might be my own fault. I was hoping for an uplifting escape from modern politics, but this was far more cynical and tragic than real life. I know it was meant as a kind of warning, but the "Republicans" supporting and protecting a President who bribed another country to help his reelection was maybe a little unrealistic? And there was a sense that the media surrounding it just sort of shrugged their collective shoulders. Maybe they were saying that the press is so lost in "He said she said" that all of truth, justice, and democracy could slip away in between their lines of dutiful reporting. But I kind of think the press would say something in such a grave scenario. These reporters in America are still real people with some integrity, at least some of them. In the end this "Trial" was all so cynical and hopeless. What was the point? Was it a warning, like, in Watergate, when they said it showed how the system worked, and so they are showing what happens when it doesn't? It's an interesting idea, but maybe not realistic enough. I can't really believe America, for all its many faults, could get this bad and I'm not sure they really make the case.


Conclusion:

I can't really recommend this show and if there is a season two, I don't know where they're going with it since they kind of closed down all their storylines. Will they go full dystopia as is the logical next step, or will they make more use of Schiff, their most compelling character? For all my questions and complaints I really am interested to see what happens next. Whatever the faults, they did get their hooks in on me with this grim production. If there is a season two (and I'm not sure this wasn't cancelled midseason and patched roughly to a final ending), and they pull this thing out of the fires of despair, my view of it could change. In some ways I think it merely needs a little more hope than they offered here in season one. But as it stands now I find it too soul destroying and darkly unrealistic to really recommend.



Two stars.

Machine instructions

My deep affection for my library's big, million dollar automated check in machine has been well established here. More than any human co-worker it has improved my work life, dramatically lessening the once brutal load of book processing that used to overwhelm my days. And it did all this while having no more, or less, peculiar quirks of personality than any of the flesh-based workers I spend my days with. Granted, the stories it tells are nowhere near as interesting as some of my more favored co-workers, but on the other hand its stories aren't as tedious as those of others. Plus, in its simple way, it can be good company.

Nevertheless our big automated check in machine has limitations. Having no thumbs it needs items fed into it one at a time. Also it gets super confused by books with shiny metallic book covers. It can't think and so needs very specific instructions. It finds loose, floppy items irresistible and gobbles and chews them up whenever it can. It can't lift, but can only push in a more two dimensional way, causing jams and pile ups. And finally, essentially, to my vastly over prefaced story here, it can't handle items beyond a certain size.

Because our machine can't handle items beyond a certain size, like tubs full of science projects, or bags of books and puppets, we put stickers on those items. The stickers say "THIS ITEM MUST BE RETURNED TO THE SERVICE DESK". And since these labels and stickers have evolved over the years, mostly in response to violations of its edict, they have become increasingly strident. 

Today a large nylon bag came bouncing down the machine. The machine kept trying to grab it and mash it up into its lovable, terrifying maw, but it couldn't quite get a grip on it. The lumpy thing full of toys and books made its way roughly to the exception bin. That's where the machine puts everything it can't eat and doesn't know what to do with. 

I took the bagged collection out of the bin. It had one of the most comically large, incandescently yellow signs I have ever seen plastered across the whole breadth of the object: "THIS ITEM MUST BE RETURNED TO THE SERVICE DESK".

 "THIS ITEM MUST BE RETURNED TO THE SERVICE DESK"

It made me laugh. After all that, it hadn't been returned to the service desk. 

I thought about putting a note on the patron's record saying:

 "Please return items with giant notes on them saying  'THIS ITEM MUST BE RETURNED TO THE SERVICE DESK' to the service desk."

But I didn't. 

Deep in my heart I knew we didn't have a big enough font. Deep in my heart I knew there was no font that could ever be big enough.

An ugly duckling story

It was a cold morning on the river, but over the weekend more moderate, for January, temperatures had melted some of the river ice. There was no broad shelf of shore ice for the geese to hang out on. Instead there was a strange layer of invisible, subsurface ice where they had gathered together. Rather than floating on the water the geese seemed to rest oddly on top of its wet surface, like Jesus geese. It looked cold and damp there to me, but as I gazed down on them I realized: What do I know about the comfort of geese?

Only a little. Maybe fifty percent.

And then I saw him! There was a grand, white bird sitting peaceably among the dark shapes of the other geese. A swan! A beautiful swan was living among all the geese like in some kind of a fairy-tale.

I was very excited.

But then it seemed too good to be true. We don't have swans in Minnesota. So I looked closer.

It wasn't a swan, rather it was a lone rock sticking out of the water that had been heavily covered in thick, fluffy, white snow.

Ah well.

Still, it was kind of lovely how these geese had raised it as their own.

Your guide to the Coronavirus

Thank you for coming here to get answers to all your many important questions about the Coronavirus. We are monitoring the situation closely and updating our information here on a round the clock basis.




Q.  Why should I come here for vital health information on Coronavirus? Wouldn't I be better off on the government's CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) website where they even have their own trademarked motto:

CDC 24/7: Saving Lives, Protecting People


A.  Yes, you should absolutely go to the CDC, if you're a Commie! But if you believe in our great, free market system, like an American, stay here! We have a motto too:

I'm a glass half full kind of guy even if it's actually empty.


Q.  So, my question is, do I have Coronavirus?


A.  Please register and enter your credit card information in the space below to continue

EMAIL  __________________________
PASSWORD ___________________
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NAME ON CREDIT CARD __________________________
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Q.   So, do I have the Coronavirus? My throat kind of itches.


A.   Ha ha ha ha. No, of course you don't have the Coronavirus! But I have to go wash my hands. And maybe burn down my website. But you'll probably be fine. Don't contact me again in any way for at least a year unless you're at a distance of a minimum of 100 miles. Drink plenty of fluids. Take care of yourself. We love you. Goodbye. 


Q.   What can I do to prevent getting Coronavirus?


A.   Well, the CDC recomm, er, I mean, my research shows that you should wash your hands a lot in warm, soapy water, then put gloves on, then another pair of gloves. Then wrap large, terrycloth bath towels around your gloved hands. Then make your way alone to a desert island, in the middle of the Atlantic, not the Pacific. Oh no, not the Pacific at all.


Q.   Is it Coronavirus, or THE Coronavirus?


A.   We're sort of waiting to see. Currently it's a novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV.


Q.   Should we panic?


A.   No. No, no, no. Ha ha. Just remain clam. Ha ha. The CDC has not even declared it an International Health Concern. Not yet at least, although I'm pretty sure they're going to on Thursday. But just remain calm. Remain calm and stop touching stuff. Everything is just fine.  Just don't touch it. Just leave your face alone, okay, and wash your hands. And stop coughing. Please stop coughing. Oh god, the coughing! Why? Whyyyyyy?????  We're all too young to die!!!

Ladies of the Canyon

After the initial enthusiasm of starting my series of The Hundred Greatest Albums, with each album individually being the single greatest album ever made, I tailed off for a bit. I am surprised now to find that it has been a month and a half since my last one. But during most of that time I have known that my next album was going to be this: Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon.

It's just that there was a lot to say.

Somewhere around the turn into the 1980's I was convinced of the abiding glory of all things and culture of the 1960's. One of the small benefits of this was that the used and slightly scratched albums of this era thickly populated the discount bins of the local record stores.

I was a teen of very little money, so this was an important detail. And Oz Records, on Topanga Canyon Blvd, had a bin of used records for ten cents each. 

Ten cents was cheap even back then. I could afford 10 cent records! I mean, not that I didn't still have to think about it. Dimes didn't grow on trees. Even now the little things aren't exactly for the taking.

But when I came upon a copy of Ladies of the Canyon for ten cents I didn't actually have to think about it very much. Mainly I just had to wonder if somehow it was in there by mistake.

I guess it wasn't since no one stopped me from buying it.

Now a question I have for myself is, how did I know that this was a special treasure that I was lucky to find? After all, it was my first Joni Mitchell album. What reference made me aware that this was an unbelievable find?

Through the murky shadows of time I can discern no clear answers. All I know is I excitedly took home my freakishly cheap treasure, hoping the scratches weren't too bad. I put it on the stereo, and listened. 

Destiny? Is all art destiny?

Though it was strange. Not like I would have thought it would be back then.

Her voice was so... soprano. Like a line held way up high. It wasn't like folk really, or pop, or rock. It was kind of old and modern. Even now it seems unique, belonging to nothing else, individual, like art is supposed to be.

The songs were so... understandable.

Even though they were kind of complex.

And because the voice was so high it didn't seem like they'd be so... tuneful. But wonderfully they were, I don't know, something past catchy, something, all, you know, up in your heart, cutting through everything else.

And every single song seemed to take you to another world and let you live a moment in another place.

At first these songs were like stories, or still lifes, but then they were all... feelings. Ecological disaster as a metaphor for lost love. Dreams of a better world, but almost like an elegy already, even as its dreamed and pined for. Something about what art is supposed to be but maybe is and maybe isn't. 

There's mostly piano in this album, and a spareness in how it's put together that feels like it's thought up idly, on the spot. But it's paired with immaculate, intricate, and wildly original vocals and phrasing that makes one realize that these are mastercrafted songs, woven with every thread accounted for, a work of absolute resounding genius.

Lately I, and at my house, we, have seen a few interviews with Joni Mitchell, and they are not really exactly pleasant, perhaps a bit painful to watch. There's something that's a little bitter, or hard. Something almost self-important but focused on all the wrong things. I'd rather throw those away if I can. Maybe, I hope, she, in her ambition for it, is at her worst talking about her work. Or maybe there is a terrible wedge between art and the people who make it. Maybe every great success pays a price. 

Maybe magic never belongs to us anyway.

Maybe Joni Mitchell taught me half of everything I know about that.




Willy

So you want to read a blog redux

Yesterday we established that what with all the time you spend on the Internet poking about and shopping and doing your job and stuff it might be nice to follow an engaging and educational blog.

We also established that while for a few weeks, 13 years ago, blogs were all the rage, there is, sadly, only one true blog left now. Which is sad, because blogs are so so good. Oh my god, they are like, soooo good! They are heaven! Blogs are amazing. Blogs make the Internet worthwhile! I would like to read one so much!

"Hey," You probably wonder, "Why don't you read that one blog that is still on the Internet?"

Because I have to write it!

Which is kind of its own fun, but...

Oh, I know, you can read it!

I mean, at least for a few days until you get tired of it.

So you want to read a blog!

So you were thinking "Hey, I'm on the Internet all the time looking for socks and doing my job and stuff, maybe I should have something regular to read for my entertainment and edification. Maybe I should read a blog!"

Welcome to 2008!

It's a wonderful, optimistic sort of year. There are tons of blogs! There are blogs to suit every possible interes...

Ooops. They're gone. Everyone lost interest. They are all gone.

Also, come to think of it, the planet is boiling, and the year is 2020 anyway. But those seven weeks back in 2008, the blog era, were wonderful. I get misty eyed thinking of it.

But don't despair! You can still read a blog. There is still, believe it or not, one left.

"One left!" You cry. "But it's hopeless. I'm already 12 years out of date on the Internet. How can I ever find the one, tiny blog left on the whole of the huge, sprawling, giant, impossible Internet?"

Hmmm. Good point.

The hardness of cash

One of the library patrons came up to me at the front desk of the library. "Can I pay for my fines with cash?" they inquired trepidatiously.

"Yes." I replied gravely. 

I don't joke about money. It's too delicate a subject.

I got their card and scanned it in. "You have $10.20 in late fees."

They handed me a twenty. "I have a twenty." They said.

"Thank you." I replied. "Would you like to donate the change to our cause this month: The Society to Encourage and Promote Illiteracy?"

"What?" They asked confusedly.

You see. This is why I never joke about money.

Between two midnights

As you know, I write here on clerkmanifesto every day. This doesn't mean I write one post during every calendar day, precisely between the two midnights, it just means that come 8:30 in the morning I have one of my brief essays available to be set free into the howling wilds of Internetland. I may on occasion write four different posts all on a Monday and then have them play out over the course of the rest of the week. Or often, in preparation for International vacations, I have been known to write dozens of essays all in a few desperate hours.

I write when I'm happy and I write when I'm sad. I write when I have something funny to say, and I write when I'm feeling very bitter, sometimes both at the same time. I write when I am just dying for the World to listen to me, and I write when I'm kind of happy just to be saying it all to myself. I write when I want to simplify beauty and when I want to puzzle out the small tragedies in my life. I write when I'm hungry, or at work, or can't sleep, or need to get back to myself. I write for free, and I write like it's some kind of job that I've given myself. I write for fun and I write to save the world. I write like I'm falling down a hill. I write because god told me to and because god told me not to.

I write an essay every day. I've been doing it for six or seven years now. I write when I have so many things to say that I have to just pick one or two. And I write when the deadline for next morning is coming up very soon and I can't think of a single thing to talk about.

But something always comes to me. 

Like now.

What am I reading?

Many people want to know: What am I reading?

Well, sometimes Marcus the former teen librarian asks me, on the somewhat rare occasions I see him, and two or three times a patron has inquired "What are you reading?" Yes, that's only two or three times over the course of 25 years working here, so just about once every eight years. But it's probably a tip of the iceberg thing and loads of people are going around simply dying to know what I'm reading. They're just too shy to ask.

Well today I have an answer, and nobody has to even ask!

I am reading How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry, or I'm planning on it. I'm bringing it home from the library tonight for the express purpose of reading it.

Why am I reading it?

I'm so glad you asked.

I was shelving up in the fiction area and an old lady needed help seeing if we had a book. I helped. Spoiler alert! We didn't have it. Curses! So then she wanted me to recommend a mystery for her. I told her I needed a point of reference; what mysteries has she liked in the past? Then she said "Have you ever read How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry! It's wonderful. You must read it!"

I said "Is it a mystery."

She said "No."

Then she said she really likes Dick Francis mysteries.

I love Dick Francis mysteries, so we enthused about them for a little while. Then I suggested Tony Hillerman based on the Dick Francis comments. She was really interested so she immediately dashed off to get something else entirely.

So I went back to shelving. Next up for shelving was a fiction book by Cristina Henriquez. I searched the shelf for its spot and there, staring right at me, was How to Find Love in a Bookshop by Veronica Henry!

Oh    My   God!

Who am I to laugh at destiny? Even if it's an extremely tiny bit of destiny.

So I figured I'd better try and read it.

It's supposed to be heartwarming.

Home in Minnesota

It was maybe eleven degrees out, which, by the time it hits mid January around here, isn't too bad, once one accounts for being cold. It was cold. I was cold. I even briefly considered putting on my mittens. I went so far as to think about zipping my coat. Eleven is cold.

I crunched along the snowy path and this time I didn't miss them. Down on the shore ice of the river all the geese in the world were gathered, or at least several hundred of them. They huddled unmoving on the ledge of frozen water, themselves gathered into dense, dark balls. Were they enjoying the warm air rising off the river and flowing over them? I guess so. When it gets really cold I sometimes see the geese floating in the last bits of open water on the river. And why not. If it's still liquid water it has to be at least 33 degrees, doesn't it? That's a whole lot warmer than minus five.

So I walked along in the cold, watching the geese who were doing absolutely nothing, and then suddenly I had an epiphany. It's January! This is actually where these geese have come to overwinter. We are their Winter home. We are their Florida! These geese are on the run from where it's really cold. Canada!

And with that, I kind of opened up. I breathed in the crisp air. I exulted. Seen in the proper context, we are a tropical paradise!

And then the wind picked up a gust of powdery snow and flung it in my face.

That's nothing. You should see what probably happens to people in Canada!

A theory of art

I love getting all objective about art as much as the next person. Actually I love it at least twice as much as the next person, and maybe even three times as much. Not only are there ongoing series running in this space with titles like "The Hundred Greatest Albums of All Time" and "Did I mention yet that Caravaggio is the best painter ever? Because I'm going to do it again right now!", but you might also have noticed all my book reviews, reviews of Romantic Comedies, and even my copious reviews of Italian Gelaterias, which are not infrequent visitors to this space, have their fair share of a tone I would describe as VOICE OF GOD. 

Well, it's about fifty-fifty VOICE OF GOD and "I'm really quite absurd", just to keep everyone on their toes.

Is everyone on their toes? 

At the large, near urban library where I work, across and to the right from the front desk of the library, there is a large, abstract painting on the wall there. It is of unparalleled ugliness.

Wait, I was just being dramatic to make my account really pop and because "unparalleled ugliness" is a very fancy thing to get to say. But it's not true and I'm kind of embarrassed. It is not a painting of unparalleled ugliness! It is a painting of pretty regularly paralleled ugliness. 

But, and to invoke the voice of god:

IT IS NOT A GOOD PAINTING!

No one could think it is a good painting. It is void of feeling, technique, invention, purpose, and understanding. And last week two library patrons walked by it and one stopped and said "I love that painting." It wasn't casual. She said it like she meant it!

And so, as I do whenever I encounter anything that threatens to tear my brain apart, I developed a theory. Don't worry. It's wasn't hard work. I develop theories like breathing. They come in. They go out. And before you know, wallah!, 2,500 theories and you can read them all, right here, at clerkmanifesto. Tell your friends.

On second thought, don't tell your friends. It's not really their sort of thing. Though I'm glad you like it.

Here is my theory:

Different people like different art.

The thing about Van Gogh is that maybe one of his paintings will have 60 percent of the people who look at it really liking it or loving it. That's a lot of people! And the painting in my library will maybe have one percent of one percent liking it. That's very few people. That difference makes one of the paintings wildly sought after and valuable, and appropriate for a museum. Whereas the other is wrongly mounted to the wall in a public library when, really, it belongs in the house of that one person who commented on it the other day, where she can sit and like it all by her lonesome.

Or, perhaps even more bluntly, Harry Potter is loved by so many people that they had to print 100 million copies of it and the author became one of the richest people in the world. Whereas I, for instance, think this blog post is notably better than the final book in Ms Rowling's series, but I'm nearly alone in that contention.

Does that make me wrong and everyone else right?

Yes, generally. 

But specifically, no.

No, no, no, no!

In fact, and here is the thing in the valuing of art that I kind of like: 

Whoever is making the argument, wins.