I have made it a point to do at least one fun and adventurous thing every weekend. These aren't hugely exciting moments, but I'm new here and low level characters can't go around tackling turasks. We have to be content with field mice and rabid bats until we level up a few times.
Saturday's goal was the library. And, as an aside, in my world it is pronounced 'liiiiiiiiiiii-berry!' with all the kid-in-a-candy-store inflection implied in an impending visit to a 6 story monument to Free Books For All! I love libraries.
I had never been to the San Francisco Library, but I was running out of DVDs to watch and until I wise up enough to put the "Books" line item in my monthly budget, the library is much safer than Barnes and Noble. Also, as you may remember, I am already in bookshelf debt, and I'm fast running out of interim storage space on my floor. So I set off in search of free books and obscure art documentaries.
I grew up in a suburb. Our library was three rooms of books over the local police station. I remember going in there every few days and talking to the same librarian every time. Most of my elementary school existence was in the library. It was probably about a mile and a half from our house, and I'd walk down there armed with a backpack to carry the eight or twelve books I'd eventually check out. I went back last winter in anticipation of a 4 day beach New Year's, and my librarian is still there. And she looks exactly the same as she did fifteen years ago. Big glasses, gray hair, and pink sparkle lipstick.
I was completely unprepared for the monolith I arrived at when I got off the subway. The lobby reminded me of the Louvre. After a lengthy library card acquisition process, I headed up to the fourth(!) floor to browse the DVD selection. I've been avoiding Blockbuster and Netflix thus far, and after watching an amazing cuban guitar concert (Nights of Fire, by Benise. Check it out) I decided I was in the mood for some art documentaries. The library coughed up a fascinating Andy Goldsworthy video and a Cirque du Soleil performance.
As I was leaving, I noticed a small alcove just inside the door, filled with books. For Sale. The library was selling books, and like a fool, I bought one. I take comfort in the fact that it was only one. I left the physics book on the shelf, along with a lot of cookbooks and an astonishing assortment of trashy beach novels.
The book that came home with me is a collection of travel essays, a genre of writing that has lately become fascinating to me. And this particular volume has, in addition to great essays, the single best cover photograph I have ever seen. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do it justice, but nevertheless, I give you I Should Have Stayed Home.
1 comment:
For travel writing, Paul Theroux is one of the best. He wrote a piece that would resonate with you about how Greece is pretty much ruined these days by no-nothing tour guides who get most of the history wrong. He does a special number on a tour guide he ran into at the site of the Oracle at Delphi. He alleges that much of Greece is populated by Turks anyhow. I think the piece was called "Aboard the Seabourne Spirit" or something. It's in that Sail Away collection I have somewhere around the house.
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