When I was six, I walked through the towering doors of what was then the Yesler branch of the Seattle Public Library (it has since been renamed the Douglass-Truth branch, in a fitting tribute to Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth). Using a short pencil chosen from the jar at the checkout desk I carefully etched my name on an application slip. The librarian, nameless and faceless to me these many years later, accepted my offering, filled out a manila-folder-tan library card, then pressed her stamp into the the blue ink pad in its flat metal box and imprinted the expiration date - the official seal of libraries everywhere - before handing it across to me.
This deserves a wide audience. The Washington Post? The times? Or perhaps the New Yorker. It has some of the features of a New Yorker essay such as beginning with a really narrow Focus on something specific, the application for the library card, and then expanding in perspective 2 something Universal. I wonder if you've been taking lessons from John McPhee
Well, that is very high praise, not the least of which is the reference to John McPhee. I won't say that I would sell my soul to be able to write like him, but I might part with a kidney. So yes, he is very much an influence. As for this piece about libraries, it would be better if I had not been trying to finish it while at the same time answering a litany of questions from a certain seven-year-old ("how do electrical switches work", "where does air come from?", "will the coronavirus be over by Christmas?"). I brought it to a close but after posting it I realized that it's only half written. The rest is still in my head. So it goes. It's done, and there are other things I want to write. But I do think that the point is worth making so maybe I'll come back to it later.
This deserves a wide audience. The Washington Post? The times? Or perhaps the New Yorker. It has some of the features of a New Yorker essay such as beginning with a really narrow Focus on something specific, the application for the library card, and then expanding in perspective 2 something Universal. I wonder if you've been taking lessons from John McPhee
Well, that is very high praise, not the least of which is the reference to John McPhee. I won't say that I would sell my soul to be able to write like him, but I might part with a kidney. So yes, he is very much an influence. As for this piece about libraries, it would be better if I had not been trying to finish it while at the same time answering a litany of questions from a certain seven-year-old ("how do electrical switches work", "where does air come from?", "will the coronavirus be over by Christmas?"). I brought it to a close but after posting it I realized that it's only half written. The rest is still in my head. So it goes. It's done, and there are other things I want to write. But I do think that the point is worth making so maybe I'll come back to it later.