Libraries and Museums

[walkitout]

Reading Basbanes' third book about books, book people and book places, I was irresistably drawn to my own local library, less than a mile away, where I attempted an interlibrary loan of the recent translation of part of Photius' The Bibliotheca. I don't know how that's going to turn out. My experience of interlibrary loan as a child was vast -- all libraries, to my mind, were magic portals to all other libraries. The delay could be long and there was no transparency to the process (not that I used that word that way back then), but eventually, the requested item would appear, stamped with words like University of Illinois, or Library of Congress, or some other mystical, far off repository of All Books Ever Written. Really. When my sister and I read ancient children's books acquired at garage sales, our response was to note down the other books by authors we liked, and, if the county library system didn't have them, submit interlibrary loan requests for all of them. Apparently this isn't typical of small children. But then I wasn't exactly a typical small child. I'm reminded of this, because I said exactly the same thing to Roland last night, pointing out that my first visit to an archive was to the National Archives at Sand Point to view recently declassified material about the development of nuclear weapons at Hanford for a History Day Project. I wrote an epic poem for it and got an Honorable Mention. I was fourteen at the time.

In any event, I'll be volunteering at that library, and hopefully in a position to shepherd through my request, and, if necessary, grease the wheels to make my library a magic portal. Seems like a worthy cause to me, anyway.

Brookline Library is a magic portal to local museums. You can check out passes to several. I went to the Currier today in Manchester. The current traveling exhibit is from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and its African American artists, including a few Jacob Lawrence pieces I had not yet seen, always a good thing. In the main holdings, today was also the first time I saw (or even heard of) Neil Welliver. Wow. Who knew. That is some truly wonderful work.

Tonight is the Charms and the Raveonettes at the big room at the Paradise. And some other band whose name I have already forgotten.

Comments

[poon.livejournal.com]

I dig the Raveonettes, hope that show is great! They played on KEXP a while back and sounded great live in the studio, so I imagine it'll be great live too. Enjoy.

(and our new library is set to open May 23, can't wait to see the innards)

Hey, I resemble that remark.

[rolandgo.livejournal.com]

Great show including the Rogers Sisters very dance-newwave thing.
After the show talking with Roy, a couple of rogues who saw the
Raveonettes in Northampton (probably the previous night) wandered by.
They wanted to talk about the sound & introduced themselves (sort of)
with a comment like, "hey, you're old like us." Shrug.
We told them of the dead spot at the front of the stage --
the zone of no vocals. They were then left to ponder the
option of standing directly in front of their Rock Idol or
backing up a few feet to hear her.

Afterwards we talked with Ellie Vee. She was pleased with
The Charms rumble set & wished we (Roy & I) had seen it.
She said she'd always aspired to be a good as the Lyres &
knew the set was that good from the first song. People
seemed really confused about why they came in *third*.
But except for the band that was confused by why they won,
nobody was hugely bent out of shape. These things happen
with the rumble judges. A lot of it is who's judging your
prelininary night.