This weekend, the city felt different — foreign, almost. Maybe it was because of the sunshine and warmth, or maybe it was just that I'd been cooped up all week and was grateful to get outside for a little while. Whatever the reason, walking around felt like being somewhere else. I watched strangers dance with each other by the BART station, bought a burrito, then picked up some books from the library.
I know this is a silly thing to notice and I'll seem vaguely anti-lady by bringing it up, but: The exterior of the library has a dozen or so authors' names carved into its stone. Dickens, Twain, so on and so forth. But what's odd is that at the bottom of one list, it says geo. eliot.
The library was built in 1915, the same year T.S. Eliot published Prufrock. I like to think that some stuffy librarian didn't like this shady T.S. Eliot character's nonsensical yip-yap, and before those names were carved, he or she rushed out to send the construction crew this message: "No, wait! Make sure it says GEORGE, so they know we aren't talking about that sexually frustrated poet!"
In this daydream-history, the uptight librarian felt the need to tell the world that at the Mission District library, one could expect Serious Literature such as Middlemarch rather than looney-tunes silliness about singing mermaids and peach-eating. There's probably a logical explanation behind the geo. eliot, but this speculation is infinitely more dramatic and funny, no?
I know this is a silly thing to notice and I'll seem vaguely anti-lady by bringing it up, but: The exterior of the library has a dozen or so authors' names carved into its stone. Dickens, Twain, so on and so forth. But what's odd is that at the bottom of one list, it says geo. eliot.
The library was built in 1915, the same year T.S. Eliot published Prufrock. I like to think that some stuffy librarian didn't like this shady T.S. Eliot character's nonsensical yip-yap, and before those names were carved, he or she rushed out to send the construction crew this message: "No, wait! Make sure it says GEORGE, so they know we aren't talking about that sexually frustrated poet!"
In this daydream-history, the uptight librarian felt the need to tell the world that at the Mission District library, one could expect Serious Literature such as Middlemarch rather than looney-tunes silliness about singing mermaids and peach-eating. There's probably a logical explanation behind the geo. eliot, but this speculation is infinitely more dramatic and funny, no?
Labels: books
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