allen frost library: September 2024

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Friday, September 27, 2024

bears on the stairs

My Maine pilgrimage also took me to the Brunswick public library. (Long ago, I wrote an essay here, comparing Faulkner's story "The Bear" to Lynd Ward's book The Biggest Bear.) I missed last year's exhibition of Robert McCloskey's art, but the librarian directed me to the library stairs....

Old Books

Now here’s a place I’ve been dreaming about for years! Open the heavy door off Maine Street, these stairs were much creakier then.

Old Books

At the top of the steep stairway, look to the left. They redid the floors, yuck. The boards used to slant and dip all over, snapping so loud to walk on. I remember pale yellow paint. I think there was a dentist office back there!

Old Books

But at the top of the stairs, if you go straight ahead, at the end of the hall, is where Old Books lived.

Old Books

Open the door and you’d see shelves and stacks, a woman behind a piled-up desk, with a cat, and high on the wall over there, the Marx Brothers. I found a lot of treasures here.

Old Books

The way to Old Books will always remind me of the movie scene in Invasion of the Body Snatchers when our heroes hide inside a building just like it to shelter from the world.

Gulf of Maine

A familiar friend! Gulf of Maine books! I said hi to Gary and we talked about the Robert Sund book that Good Deed Rain published. I thanked him for having such a great bookstore.

these are the trees

Here’s your notorious author sidling as close as he dares to the English department. They didn’t have creative writing in those days, so my essays became strange versions of fiction, featuring Willie Mays, Patsy Cline, and Alice in Wonderland among others. The department was not keen. These are the trees where I posted my manifesto “Essay is a Saddle Sore” for my teacher to read.

Magic Island

I wrote a novel about the school years called Magic Island. There's a chapter in it about secretly climbing up the rickety ladder inside the church tower while a lecture was mumbling along below. Those are also the trees that Scott and I hung bicycles in.

The Library

A familiar dream. The school library where I worked. Like a rube, I went in and asked, "Where's the card catalog?" There used to be a fleet of them parked on the blue carpet. And also what happened to the big languid stairway that went to the second floor? And the newspaper room where I used to read The Village Voice on a stick? The ghost of Ichabod Crane escorted me out.