On Textual Voyeurism
There's something truly interesting about libraries. The sort of dust and silence ambience goes in there somehow, of course, but that's not entirely it.
I've a particular spot just between the shelf of young-adult books, and the classics shelf. The two are put together presumably, because... who actually stops by to read classics aside from students?
There's a little nook with a shelf for leaning against. (If you're me, it's hard to sit for long periods of time without leaning, indeed. I've some of the most dreadful nervous posture a person can assume, I'm told...)
Likewise, there's a plug in the wall, which keeps things surprisingly simple when it comes to bringing your laptop in. (One of the small joys of bucephalus is his lightness and his smallness--he fits easily in one of those little flap-doozy bags about the size of a half-messenger bag.)
One of the small joys of the libraries is rifling through the books, but also...engaging in one of the curious little voyeurisms of looking for messages or notes left behidn by other people.
Today I got exquisitely lucky, and found a draft of a letter in the back of a book in the teen section, and, like a special sort of creep, took it, and stuck it in the back of my bag.
So few people write letters.
So few people actually make DRAFTS of letters, to girls, and then leave them with some mark-ups in the back of a book about an overachieving complaining girl backpacking through Mongolia.
Were this poor fellow looking about online, now would probably be about the time he'd want to fall through the floor straight into Hell.
(I know I would. I've actually found residual detritus from a few of my bookmarking ventures in this library before, too. Though with significantly more cramped, less-nice handwriting, and much less noble intentions, I'm afraid, since my notes to myself are largely inscrutiable to any exterior force or eye, or indeed, to myself if left long enough.)
But it's a rare and poignant find, to be preserved.
I revel in finding third and fourthand books in conditions of wear precisely because of these selfsame imprints. Few people annotate their reading outside fo school in any salient fashion. Fewer people leave such gentle, heartfelt bits of themselves in borrowed books to be found by hopeful strangers.
It's something of chance--that someone doesn't get there before you and toss the piece of "trash".
It's something of...interaction, too. When you meet a person firsthand, even in writing there's a sense of voice. When you observe the conversation fo another and find yourself intruding on some scene of sensitive-young-man attempting to awkwardly bolster his way and confidence through talking to a girl he's friends with and secretly likes...even the act of listening promotes paranoia in said feckless young man.
So...eavesdropping on a letter draft from a stranger which carries through a voice, but also an awkwardness with words that comes from infrequent youth...?
Who could help but want to cheer, and save the thing like a nasty voyeur?
Even long years of study have not left me so fortunate as to find such a scrap of personal writing detritus.
I'm considering transcribing it, so meaningful did I find that little scrap of otherwise disconnected liveliness.
...I thought maybe for once, I could note something nice and pleasant on my journal for once, rather than speaking of the growing firstion between myself and my family at joblessness and the like that brought me to the library.
Small things like this help more than can be known, sometimes, but...being so entirely disconencted would just make people worry more.
I wonder which thing I'd like to leave in a book someday for someone else to find. (And probably throw out.)
...Am I the only one here who likes collecting scraps of the lives of strangers? I get the feeling it's a weird habit...
I've a particular spot just between the shelf of young-adult books, and the classics shelf. The two are put together presumably, because... who actually stops by to read classics aside from students?
There's a little nook with a shelf for leaning against. (If you're me, it's hard to sit for long periods of time without leaning, indeed. I've some of the most dreadful nervous posture a person can assume, I'm told...)
Likewise, there's a plug in the wall, which keeps things surprisingly simple when it comes to bringing your laptop in. (One of the small joys of bucephalus is his lightness and his smallness--he fits easily in one of those little flap-doozy bags about the size of a half-messenger bag.)
One of the small joys of the libraries is rifling through the books, but also...engaging in one of the curious little voyeurisms of looking for messages or notes left behidn by other people.
Today I got exquisitely lucky, and found a draft of a letter in the back of a book in the teen section, and, like a special sort of creep, took it, and stuck it in the back of my bag.
So few people write letters.
So few people actually make DRAFTS of letters, to girls, and then leave them with some mark-ups in the back of a book about an overachieving complaining girl backpacking through Mongolia.
Were this poor fellow looking about online, now would probably be about the time he'd want to fall through the floor straight into Hell.
(I know I would. I've actually found residual detritus from a few of my bookmarking ventures in this library before, too. Though with significantly more cramped, less-nice handwriting, and much less noble intentions, I'm afraid, since my notes to myself are largely inscrutiable to any exterior force or eye, or indeed, to myself if left long enough.)
But it's a rare and poignant find, to be preserved.
I revel in finding third and fourthand books in conditions of wear precisely because of these selfsame imprints. Few people annotate their reading outside fo school in any salient fashion. Fewer people leave such gentle, heartfelt bits of themselves in borrowed books to be found by hopeful strangers.
It's something of chance--that someone doesn't get there before you and toss the piece of "trash".
It's something of...interaction, too. When you meet a person firsthand, even in writing there's a sense of voice. When you observe the conversation fo another and find yourself intruding on some scene of sensitive-young-man attempting to awkwardly bolster his way and confidence through talking to a girl he's friends with and secretly likes...even the act of listening promotes paranoia in said feckless young man.
So...eavesdropping on a letter draft from a stranger which carries through a voice, but also an awkwardness with words that comes from infrequent youth...?
Who could help but want to cheer, and save the thing like a nasty voyeur?
Even long years of study have not left me so fortunate as to find such a scrap of personal writing detritus.
I'm considering transcribing it, so meaningful did I find that little scrap of otherwise disconnected liveliness.
...I thought maybe for once, I could note something nice and pleasant on my journal for once, rather than speaking of the growing firstion between myself and my family at joblessness and the like that brought me to the library.
Small things like this help more than can be known, sometimes, but...being so entirely disconencted would just make people worry more.
I wonder which thing I'd like to leave in a book someday for someone else to find. (And probably throw out.)
...Am I the only one here who likes collecting scraps of the lives of strangers? I get the feeling it's a weird habit...