Burma Shave

Knew Friday that I needed some things, but too exhausted to fight crowds and now that the liquor store is open Sundays, and knowing town is deserted then, make the extra trip. A box of way out-dated can goods for the dumpster, a few supplies for the pantry, getting an edge on winter, a bonus load of firewood, whiskey. A leisurely drive, stop at the lake to admire the ragweed and wild mustard, the lovely blue phlox on Mackletree. A splendid sunny day, low humidity, cooler temps. The added joy of a set of temporary signs, spaced like the old Burma Shave signs, a hundred yards apart. Some rural roads are paved by a method called locally chip-and-seal, whereby hot asphalt is spread over the road bed then covered with a layer of limestone gravel which is rolled hard and smooth. The "hard" part actually takes a few days and for those days, the gravel flies a bit, you need to drive slowly and not tail-gate, and they can't repaint the lines until the surface is stable, thus the signs, in order, read: Fresh Tar, Loose Gravel, No Center Line, No Edge Lines, which I read as a poem. It's seems almost profound, and I repeat it as a mantra over and over. Dimwit. But not, as it turns out, in my special care of the piles of books. From "The Book On The Book Shelf": in 1968 at Northwestern University where an empty section of shelving was being moved and it fell, starting a domino effect that resulted in spilling 264,000 books. Or a similar incident, 1983, at the Records Storage Center of Ewing Township N.J., where an employee was killed under an avalanche of books. Deeply engrossed in the development of book furniture: the lectern, the chained books, the benches, the spilled ink-pots. Scrolls required a different storage, the first hand- lettered books were literally bound between boards, often inlaid with various precious and semi-precious stones, needed to be laid flat, very rare and valuable, needed to be chained. As books became more common, especially after moveable type was invented, storage became a problem. It still is, look at my house. So, book shelves, as we begin to know them. Public reading rooms, and the private spaces, the carrels, where one might copy a book or read in peace. My house is essentially a carrel with a kitchen. Lighting is a big issue, you have to be able to see to read, and before electric lighting, it was a serious problem. No candles, no lantern, everything is flammable (or inflammable) and it just wasn't done. Daylight was all. Dealing with apsidal church geometry was a pain in the ass, what you needed was a library. Eventually you end up with a specific building doing a specific thing. Carnegie covering his tracks. Always that distinctive fenestration, to allow light into the stacks, you notice the long narrow windows, the fire-proof stone. Wood, then cast iron, then enameled steel shelves. Fire is the enemy, always has been, always is, probably the way the world ends.

Tom

Or ice, I could take either way,
name your drink.