Memory catalog

ometimes, months or years later, things come back to me that I once read in some book, some article, somewhere in the wide world. If I'm very lucky, I can track the fragmented memory to the source. Maybe I remember hearing the ocean wind whistling in my ears alongside the words that have pushed to the surface of my thoughts, or perhaps the context of surrounding material has remained, a preceding essay in a collection or the experience of an online newspaper. If I'm so lucky, I can usually find the original piece and catalog it more thoroughly for the next time (thereby guaranteeing that there will be no next time).

In this case, I had a thought bubble up about explaining the size of one's library to guests when they ask "So, you've read all of these?" What a silly question. It's usually posed by someone who has no library of their own, no understanding of the value of such a collection as insurance against dullness and the possibility of suddenly finding oneself with nothing to read. Sure, I have read a large number of the books on my shelves, and I keep them around as reminders of good times, comforting me with the knowledge that I absorbed something from each of them, and can easily open them up again as I please.

It's this last point that is relevant here. The book in question turned out to be A Passion for Books, appropriately enough. I brought this somewhat large paperback along on a solo bike trip last summer under the assumption that I would have time and energy left for reading after biking 60 miles a day. I did not. Nonetheless, I got through a couple of the essays and whatnot while in various B&Bs and the memory link stuck. The book, my friend, had traveled with me and formed that particular synaptical [sic!] connection while in the middle of strange lands (Western Maryland, you know) and unfamiliar furnishings.

Here now are the three passages by assorted authors from the Passion for Books collection which each mention (independently!) the arduous task of explaining one's library to unsuspecting visitors:

In the gradual growth of every student's library, he may – or may not – continue to admit literary friends and advisers; but he will be sure, sooner or later, to send for a man with a tool-chest. Sooner or later, every nook and corner will be filled with books, every window will be more or less darkened, and added shelves must be devised. He may find it hard to achieve just the arrangement he wants, but he will find it hardest of all to meet squarely that inevitable inquiry of the puzzled carpenter as he looks about him. "Have you really read all these books?" The expected answer is, "To be sure, how can you doubt it?" Yet if you asked him in turn, "Have you actually used every tool in your tool-chest?" you would very likely be told, "Not one half as yet, at least this season; I have the others by me, to use as I need them." Now if this reply can be fairly made in a simple, well-defined, distinctly limited occupation like that of a joiner, how much more inevitable it is in a pursuit which covers the whole range of thought and all the facts in the universe. The library is the author's tool-chest. He must at least learn, as he grows older, to take what he wants and to leave the rest. 

Books Unread by Thomas Wentworth Higginson (what a name)

In the two years I had been coming there, maybe two or three hundred days spent in that apartment from morning till night, I never saw anyone else there – no visitor, no delivery person, no handyman – no one. I asked Chaim about this on one of our walks (I later understood that great Yiddish writers simply do not have or permit visitors; then again, maybe it was the threat of coffee that kept everyone away), and he said something about not wanting people to think him strange for having too many books. I thought he was talking about the annoying line all book collectors endure: Have you read all of these books? I told him about Dr. Johnson's stock response: Yes, and some of them twice! Chaim stopped walking and looked at me disdainfully. "If anyone asks you if you've read all those books," he said, "it means you don't have enough books."

They Don't Call It a Mania for Nothing by Harold Rabinowitz (also the editor of Passion)

About the time of the discovery of America a book came out called The Ship of Fools, by one Sebastian Brant. In it was an attack on the book fool: a satire on the passion of collecting, in which the author said that the possession of books was but a poor substitute for learning. That phrase which the layman reader asks the book collector so often with a smirk of condescension, "So you really read them?" undoubtedly originated then. The real book collector, with suppressed murder in his heart, smiles acquiescence, assuming an apologetic air for his peculiar little hobby. His invisible armor is his knowledge, and he has been called a fool so often he glories in it. He can afford to have his little joke. So much for this threadbare gibe.

Talking of Old Books by A.S.W. Rosenbach (perhaps the most successful modern book collector of them all)

Another ode to bicycling

here must be a storm out at sea, on the bay, over bigger water. The field at Gravelly Point is speckled with seagulls, round white spots on the lush green (it's already been raining)(like golf balls). A single gull hovers in the wind over the trail, bored with picking through the grass. Every once in a while one of them cries out, that sound that puts me on the beach, on sand, in salt breeze. The roaring silence of wind in my ears is harshly broken by the roaring noise of jet engines overhead, a larger bird taking off, banking against the wind. Some of the gulls startle and scatter into the air en masse to land a few feet away. False start. A lone jogger jogs by, similarly startled to find this place so differently populated. Il n'y a pas des gens aujourd'hui, seulement les mouettes et le vent.

Into forever

There are two categories within the spectrum of the noises of man: primary and secondary. The primary are mostly found during the day, when the sun is out, and children are running and yelling, couples are talking idly over lunch, businessmen are debating over cell phones and conference tables.

The secondary are found at night, in the darkness and calm of the empty air. These are the sounds of what man has made, the hum of cars on the highway, the clatter of a train over the tracks, the hum of the metro cars, lit from within, boxes of light passing through the wastes of the night, the purr of jet engines idling on the runway, the roar of planes braking as they touch their tiny wheels to the ground (their true purpose is obvious in the disproportionality of these wheels).

One can feel part of the world when invisible and flying through the darkness, outside the machines and jets and buildings, the well-lit havens of humanity, isolated from the boundless darkness. The warm spring air is heady, and no matter how deeply each breath is drawn the lungs hunger for more.

The bicycle wheels turn frenetically under me as I soar over roads and paths, through the darkness, dodging cars and dips in the road, the gentle whir of gears the only indication of human presence. My muscles know no bounds in this darkness and in this air, thick with dreams from the somnolent crowds of the Earth, if I close my eyes and lift my arms, I might just become one with the clouds, the few pinpricks of light and the three-quarter moon casting shadows between streetlights. My soul grows in this night, spreading a disproportionate wingspan, fueled by all that I have yet to know, and growing beyond reasonable measure.

EDIT 4/16: I'm leaving this post up as an example of the writing process, but it needs some serious editing and revising before I'd be anything like happy with it. As it stands, it's simply representative of some thoughts from the other night, quickly scribbled and thrown to the masses (who have, thank goodness, largely ignored me). Also, those light blips across the airport sky in the photo are a plane taking off, not a random aberration. 

Biking the Capitol

I bike to work, and I run across huge flowing tracts of tourists, guys who look like they're prepared for the Tour de France, secret service SUVs tailgating each other across town, thousands of folding chairs piled on the mall, new traffic stops in new places every day, and occasionally fellow bikers who will chat as they pedal alongside.


I've been biking the ~6 miles each way for a couple of months now, and feel secure enough about the whole business to invest in a few bike accessories. Being pretty abysmal at any form of decision making, this is a slow process, but I'm heading in the right direction. My bike (a er, Raleigh SC30 (specs), approximately 10 years old by now, and dark green [my colour preferences don't change much]) has collected the following things I find quite necessary to happy cycling:

-A water bottle holder (transferred from my previous bike), which is a bit of a tight fit between the bars of my "girl bike", but holds:

-A small 16 oz water bottle (BPA free, FWIW) from REI, which also comes into work with me and gets hourly refills from the water cooler. Yay hydration.

-A rack over the back wheel (loaned from a friend until I muster up one of my own) upon which I bungee my hulking "purse" which is really more of a satchel and is fairly unique at this point. (see photo). Someday, I might like real saddlebags (panniers) but then there's the issue of carrying something that's clearly a bike bag when I use my bike to go out places. Not terribly fashionable, but socially acceptable.

-Front and back lights, which strobe and are detachable. The back one conveniently clips onto other things, like a belt, or the back of my bag which covers the bracket the light normally sits in. I use at least the rear flasher on overcast days, and the front light going home in the evenings.

-I even went so far as to replace my old helmet, which I had gotten with the bike years ago. A friend who used to work in the REI bike shop told me they should be replaced every three years, and while this may in part be a marketing ploy, 10 years is probably quite enough. I'm self-conscious enough to feel a bit dweeby in a helmet, but heck, even I think the stylish-looking people who don't wear them are incredibly foolish.

-A bike lock (yoinked from a friend) that reaches both wheels and whatever I'm locking on to. I don't leave my bike anywhere sketchy, and most of the time it's right near a police perch, so I don't worry much. Nonetheless, I do want my bike to be there, so I lock it up all the time. It lives in my living room when I'm home, which is a bit awkward, but better than outside.

-I've had a little computer that keeps track of mileage, time and so forth as long as I've had the bike, and it's well worth it. There's nothing like assigning numbers to something to make it more fun! (or to impress coworkers with how far you ride each day)

-And just today I finally found an acceptable pair of shorts to wear. Most bike-specific shorts are rather expensive ($50+) and have schmancy wicking, padding, muscle-supporting technology, all of which is rather more than I really need. So I ended up at American Apparel getting some nice, plain cotton work out shorts.

Despite all the potential for looking like an idiot while biking, I actually feel wonderful about it. I'm not wrecking the environment, I'm getting a decent amount of exercise almost daily, and even if it doesn't make a huge impact on my body, I feel pretty good about myself physically. I don't even feel bad showing up damp and out of breath at work every morning (although I will need to find the shower in my building if I want to continue this summer). Bookending my day with half-hour bike rides makes the 8.5 hours of work more bearable (don't get me wrong here, I like my job, but it's a lot of sitting inside with no window).


View Biking to Georgetown loop in a larger map

<> So yesterday I rode from home to Georgetown, parked, shopped, discovered I had bike grease everywhere, biked the rest of the way across town to the National Gallery Sculpture Garden, listened to jazz until there got to be too many people and not enough picnic to offset the crowd, biked up to Young Chow, biked back down to the Botanic garden and listened to the Army band on the West Front, then biked back home just before dark. A note for the future: biking at dusk bites because all the bugs come out and form clouds over the trail. ~15 miles, casually. < /brag >