So Easy to Know

There was a time when, not being able to find the information I needed at my high-school library or the neighbourhood library (once it was an essay about John Barth, an author too obscure),  I would trudge to the bus stop, which dropped me off at the subway station, then dash to beat the closing doors, get jostled for nine stops, joining the baseball fans along the way, be deposited in the city’s core, with its smell of baked donuts from those pre-Starbucks grimy coffee shops, right at the intersection where ascended the metropolitan resource library.    

Photo by E. Medline

This was the hub of learning at the time, a place where facts were sequestered there and nowhere else.  Once through the vaulted doors, I would climb up the carpeted steps lined with greenery, nod at the semi-regulars I recognized, and wait in line for the librarian rather than bother with the tiny, tedious drawers of the card catalogue. Inevitably, the chairs at the pine tables would all be taken, and so I would hover and give the occupiers the evil eye until one of them relinquished their prized seat. I would lay out the tomes, having gratefully discovered them in the basement stacks, and pore over the pages, finding relevant passages that needed photocopying, because it was the rule, you couldn’t take out the books. (And stealing them was made near impossible.) Next, waiting in line for the exhausted photocopier, hoping it wouldn’t give out before my turn arrived, I would gather my nickels and dimes from my purse held in my teeth, and with my other hand juggling four hardbacks that I wouldn’t dare put down for fear they’d be carted away, and hoping the man in front of me had only a page to do. Finally, it was time to push the machine’s button that would mysteriously duplicate the words and spew out curls of greasy paper, the ink blurry and smelling of diesel.  John Barth, writer of the novel Giles Goat Boy, how I don’t remember anything about you, but you made me what I am today.   

Oh, that was just the beginning. When I arrived home, energizing myself perhaps with a green apple and a Coke, I would write out by hand a rough draft of the essay, crossing out lines, adding messy phrases on the side margins, re-writing a final copy in terrible longhand. By then, there was no more crossing out, but instead it was necessary to cover up entire paragraphs with Liquid Paper that, when dried, caused caking of the foolscap so that my excuse for an opus became a relief map. Only thirty years ago this was, when we worked harder for our bits and bytes of knowledge, in the same way it seems we worked harder for everything. (Yes, we rolled down our car windows, or could that have been earlier?) Mind you, we were forgiven more, as perfection wasn’t possible. We handed in what we had, there was no going back.   

And now to the point. Yesterday, I noticed a millipede crawling wave-like along the rocks, and wondered what exactly it was, as I am supposed to be a nature poet. No problem – how breezily I sat down at my computer and typed in three words – millipede, orange, black – and within minutes, maybe seconds, was informed the creature was called Narceus americanus, or North American millipede. The photo matched perfectly.   

 

Photo by E. Medline

 

Narceus americanus, gorgeous bottom-feeder of the forest floor, with its fiery racing stripes, monstrous mandible and feathery feet, this valuable arthropod, a crucial piece of the living chain.

Actually, Narceus americanus, you deserved a greater homage than an easy sit-down at a twenty-first century gadget. I could have travelled nine subway stops to find you out, spent all my nickels and dimes. I typed three words, and got the answer. There you were, the photo matched. Thank you, the Internet. So easy to know.

Narceus americanus, you segmented hard-bodied marvel, raking up dead leaves and spitting on your meal to soften it with chemistry. Little-noticed mass of grounded beauty, whether created by science or God.

Now I’m thinking of the demise of the library, so much in the news now, as these institutions are closing one by one, their future debatable. I am tempted, at the moment, to type in the words “John Barth” on Google Search. Should I do it, or by doing it, will the past be obliterated, like a species that evolved?