The University Library: Silence, Graffiti, and Books

Yesterday, I stepped into another dimension, a bastion of solitude where the silence was nearly tangible - TANGIBLE!!! I had stepped into the University Library.

You'd think that - given my predilection for books and bookstores and libraries and old-book smells and quiet places - I would have been there already, but I hadn't. Don't ask why. There really is no good answer.
Anyhoo -

As I took in the library's silent splendor (2nd and 3rd floors only; the 1st floor is way too noisy) and acclimated to the comforting presence of books, I found myself a lonely place at which to plant myself for several hours. It was at this desk that I encountered a perplexing problem: graffiti.

I was in a library, not an out-of-business gas station. Why is there grafiti in a library? Why are there graffiti-drawing delinquents at the library? Oh, well - better in the library than on the streets. Some of the graffiti was vulgar, some was slightly motivational (see picture above), and some was pitiable ("I love Liz" and "I like Vivianna." Wow, Vivianna, not only is your boyfriend a graffiti-drawer, he only "like"s you, not "love," "LIKE." Liz's boyfriend may be a graffiti-drawer, but he "LOVE"s her.)

Surrounding me are aisles after aisles of bookshelf after bookshelf with . . . books? Hmmm . . . some are books and some are compilations of journals ("New England Journal of Medicine"-lovers rejoice!!). A quick check of the library catalog reveals that I'm not likely to find Barnes and Noble fare here. A search on Jim Butcher yields the following results: "Ecoutourism, NGOs And Development: A Critical Analysis" and "The Moralisation Of Tourism: Sun, Sand--And Saving The World?" Unless Jim Butcher moonlights as an article-capitalizing, tourism-writer, I don't think I'm going to find any authors I know here. But wait! A search on "H.P. Lovecraft" yields something promising - "Necromicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft," which has a status of "Lost and Paid" (probably lost by a graffiti-drawer), and "Supernatural Horror in Literature." Both these books are on the fourth floor. This is a surprise to me. I had no idea there was a fourth floor. Maybe I'd have known this if I took the elevator instead of the stairs.

As my time in the library for the day draws to a close, I realize two things about the silence in the library.

(1) The silence, the absolute lack of noise sucked away like light into a black hole, makes you forget that there is a louder, more stressful world beyond its walls. You can easily sit at one graffiti-engraved desk for hours and only by chance become aware of the passage of time when you happen to look up and see that the skies are pitch black and it is now well after 8:00 pm. Don't do this. Walking back to the dorm in the dark with the typhus-carrying cats is not cool.

(2) The silence makes you forget that there are people around you; consequently, you don't notice the person in the desk next to you until you've already begun singing "Je Suis un Homme" under your breath and have gotten to "a la guerre," at which point you shut up rather quickly. Don't ask me how I know.

The Right-brainer's Lament and the Importance of Art

I mentally walked through the National Gallery of Art this morning and I looked at my favorite paintings: the hunk of butter, the lady reclining on the pillows, the boy (who looks like a girl) with the broom, Van Gogh's portrait, the Da Vinci painting, and the one of that guy falling off the boat into the ocean with the shark. As I looked at them, I thought, "I really hate being right-brained. I'm hardwired for art and literature and mismatched colored socks. I'm hardwired for this (mentally gestures to the paintings on the walls) and not any of the important things that the world values - like science and math skills.

Where some people receive math problems and easily smooth them out as if they were wrinkles on a tablecloth, I receive math problems that are snarls and that grow worse and more tangled with every effort I put into solving them. Some people can clearly "see" math and logic problems. There's a big spotlight shining down on them and they deftly grasp how to work and solve them. I receive math and logic problems and I see words, words that take difficult minutes and seconds to state and restate and write down and draw diagrams for and solve (don't get on my case about my ridiculous use of "and"s. I decided a long time ago that I was going to stop caring about commas so much.) I can't do what they can do, but I can use art.

I can draw things that are real and things that aren't real. I can mash colors together on a canvas until they resemble something. I can decorate and design. I can make things pretty. But the world doesn't care about pretty. The world cares about science and industry and math - and rightly so; those are the more important things. I learned in Art History (thank you, Mrs. Russell!) that it wasn't until after civilization attended to the things that were more important (food, shelter etc.,) that it was able to really focus on other things like art.

But I think art is still important (no, I don't care that I started a sentence with "but"). Science and math and industry improve our quality of life and expand the boundaries of the world we live in, but is it enough to just live? To just exist? To work in steel buildings and drive our expensive cars and eat our casseroles and watch our TV and go to sleep and do it all again the next morning? No. There's more. And art allows people to show that "more." People have ideas, passions, feelings, a kaleidoscope within them that art - dance, painting, pottery, jewelry, architecture, embroidery, anything - unleashes. No, the artist might never be as highly valued as the scientist or the engineer, but that's okay.

As I mentally leave the National Gallery of Art and step back into my own world where there are chemistry problems to learn and metabolic processes to memorize, I realize that I'm actually happy to be right-brained. No, school isn't easier, but the world outside of it is a whole lot more colorful.