Archive of things to do with 'library'

• 04.06.08 Beach hotel:

  We’re at the beach for the weekend. Our hotel is book-themed. Each room is named after an author: we’re staying in the Lincoln Steffens room, decorated with a desk and typewriter; and we have photos on our wall: of a grimacing Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson looking like the missing butler from the Munsters. They really look as dead as they are. Teddy doesn’t look like his end was restful. There are photos of authors everywhere, the hallways are hung with them all up and down their length, so dense they are at most a half a foot apart. Photos are standing on the bookshelves, arranged in layered rows on the mantlepieces, and for sale in the gift shop as postcards.

  
  Tags: reading, travel, water, sink, library, weather, window.
• 11.27.07 Message in a bottle:

  Listening to the radio the other day I heard a program (sort of) about the 1977 Voyager spacecraft, launched into space with a golden record and other goodies; the hosts of the show talked to several moderately well-known people and asked what they would include. Philip Glass, for instance, would include Bach and Tuvan throat-singing (details unspecified); Neil Gaiman would include the The Wizard of Oz, among other things. Several of the folks interviewed included things it would be difficult to include on a gold record: mandarin oranges in syrup, or an entire meal at Chez Panisse. Naturally, this got me thinking…

  
  Tags: self, reading, personality, change, taste, travel, detail, project, boredom, philosophy, thinking, water, fear, library, future, letters, language, context, value, music, unfinished, rhythm, mood, pace, time, smell, idle, anxiety, performance, perception, concept, kaleidoscope, level, character, arrogance, navigation, politics, cicada, memory, dream.
• 01.07.07 Xomuzum:

  The three-week period I’m allowed to keep an interlibrary loan book out is usually just long that I can get interested again in whatever it was that induced me to order the book in the first place, three weeks before the book arrived; and then it’s time to check it back in, almost entirely unread.

  
  Tags: travel, siberia, turkey, research, library, central asia, music, mongolia, tuva, throat-singing, turkic, instruments, overtones.
• 01.04.07 Admonitory premonitory:

  There’s a guy I see around town from time to time, and I never like seeing him. Oh, he’s harmless, pretty nice guy, we’ve talked a few times. He always says hello when he sees me. But there’s always a sense I get, whenever we meet, that there’s something shameful between us, and we both know it.

  
  Tags: reading, psychology, work, shame, writing, dialogue, boredom, thinking, fear, research, temp, library, george gissing, failure, future, ghost.