library
If there were libraries for musical instruments and for furniture, that would be great. Just to have something for a while, and then be able to let it go again.
Will Oldham on Bonnie “Prince” Billy, ed. by Alan Licht (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012), 315.
There are 15 floors of stacks with 64 rows of books per floor, running about 25 feet each; 6 or 7 shelves in each row. Can you actually browse there, find books on your own, faced with the dark phalanxes? You can, once you get subject areas in your head. Having made enough spot searches, you grasp the logic of each floor. There are no signs to help you, only diagrams with codes and numbers. You can also create luck in any given spot: You turn your head to the opposing row of books. A different subject area can arise, perhaps only partly to do with your areas of interest. This is non-link-based browsing. You can discover, instead of being endlessly sought.
“Grazing in the Stacks of Academe,” The New York Times, June 26, 2012.
The library was quiet. It was busy but it was quiet and I thought it must be like this in a monastery where you had company and sympathy but your thoughts were your own. I looked up at the enormous stained-glass window and the beautiful oak staircase. I loved that building.
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? (New York: Grove Press, 2011), 127.
If the library disappears, then we’re really in trouble. A library is much more than a collection of books; it is a sanctuary, a symbol and both a model for community and its encouragement. Even those who make their living by nonverbal means know, as Keith Richards once declared, that “when you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is the great equalizer.” The Rolling Stones guitarist, not surprisingly, made the only public American appearance in support of his recent autobiography at the New York Public Library.
“Sanctuary Amid the Stacks,” Los Angeles Times, March 6, 2011.
What happened was pure magic. People from within the demonstrations broke out of the demonstrations and simply linked hands, and they said, “This is our library. Don’t touch it.”
“Egypt’s Jewel Of A Library Reopens, Thanks To Demonstrators,” by Selena Simmons-Duffin, NPR, Morning Edition, February 24, 2011.
I did have an amazing experience last year: I had the von der Heyden fellowship at the New York Public Library. It’s like The Price Is Right super mega-win for fiction writers. You get this office at the New York Public Library; it’s like nerd Valhalla. I had a real desk, with drawers that opened soundlessly…people would bring you cookies, you could order any book you wanted…now I’m back in my old Starbucks. It’s like a video game where you have a superpower for a little while and then it runs out.
Interview by Emily Gould, Good Reads blog, January 2011.