Libraries:Very Interesting Places Indeed!
Whenever I go to the downtown library, I always end up taking tons of photos, but there are so many interesting nooks and crannies to photograph so I just cannot help myself. These photos are from a couple of months ago.
In college I checked out a book of poetry by Richard Brautigan. Sandwiched between the pages was a folded piece of lined paper with a poem written on it. It was a poem about witches and birds (maybe?) and I think an ex-girlfriend. I wish I still had the poem but I lost it somewhere. I think the mystery poet was trying to write in Brautigan's style because the found poem was odd and short and a bit surreal like many Brautigan poems. I love finding evidence of past borrowers in library books. Once I borrowed a book in which some previous borrower had crossed out every curse word in the book. It was a very respectable swear-word protest, because the word's were crossed out lightly in pencil. But the person must have been staunchly against swear words, because the book's author certainly did not use curse words gratuitously. The swear words were mostly used as characterization because the only time they were used were in the dialogue of a particular character. The book was a large print version (I think I chose it because it had less holds on it) so this made me imagine that an old woman with bad eyesight had borrowed the book before me. I imagined her as a grandmother who kindly but sternly chided her children if they used any inappropriate words. Somewhere toward the end of the book I found a piece of stationary with a grocery list on it. The stationary was official church stationary and had the name of a church written on top. This was a fun find, because it was just more evidence of the previous reader. So, she was an old woman with poor eyesight who was very invested in her faith and good moral behavior such as not using swear words. Also, based on her grocery list I knew she liked milk.
In college I checked out a book of poetry by Richard Brautigan. Sandwiched between the pages was a folded piece of lined paper with a poem written on it. It was a poem about witches and birds (maybe?) and I think an ex-girlfriend. I wish I still had the poem but I lost it somewhere. I think the mystery poet was trying to write in Brautigan's style because the found poem was odd and short and a bit surreal like many Brautigan poems. I love finding evidence of past borrowers in library books. Once I borrowed a book in which some previous borrower had crossed out every curse word in the book. It was a very respectable swear-word protest, because the word's were crossed out lightly in pencil. But the person must have been staunchly against swear words, because the book's author certainly did not use curse words gratuitously. The swear words were mostly used as characterization because the only time they were used were in the dialogue of a particular character. The book was a large print version (I think I chose it because it had less holds on it) so this made me imagine that an old woman with bad eyesight had borrowed the book before me. I imagined her as a grandmother who kindly but sternly chided her children if they used any inappropriate words. Somewhere toward the end of the book I found a piece of stationary with a grocery list on it. The stationary was official church stationary and had the name of a church written on top. This was a fun find, because it was just more evidence of the previous reader. So, she was an old woman with poor eyesight who was very invested in her faith and good moral behavior such as not using swear words. Also, based on her grocery list I knew she liked milk.