taxonomites | [Visual/Location] The Library is Open

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[Visual/Location] The Library is Open

This visual broadcast starts with a shot of Mayland Long sitting at a rather big desk, much too big for one person-- more of an extended counter. There is a brassy plaque stating INFORMATION on the counter, and a service bell as well.

"Good afternoon, Taxon," Long says, ever polite (ever stuffy). "I am not certain how many citizens are aware of the existence of the city's library-- I know that before Dr. Reid's departure, he was quite the publicist for this mighty fortress of information. I feel I have not lived up to the role in his absence.

"Permit me to rectify my lapse. The library is indeed open, and we have a delightfully extensive selection, to say nothing of a floorplan that Daedalus himself might have found intimidating.

"I would give a speech about how it is one's civic duty to support one's local library, or one's educational duty to improve one's mind, but truthfully my motivations are selfish: I find it dull to answer the queries of animated dolls as to where they might find this or that volume, especially since they only ever ask for the same three books."

Long punctuates this with a catlike yawn; he looks about to drift off into an afternoon nap. But he gestures with the hand not holding his tablet at the library all around him.

"There are activities, after a fashion. An art installation seems to change weekly. Some of them are better than others, to be sure. I myself do not care for splatter paintings. There is storytime at two o'clock, although I am giving serious consideration to banishing the normal narrator. One can only hear the thirty-fourth page of Curious George so many times, whatever the appeal of the Man with the Yellow Hat. I should much rather tell the story of The Tiger King's Skin Cloak, or perhaps The Frog Who Became Emperor..."

Another yawn, and Long shakes himself. "But I digress. Suffice to say the Library is open, to serve your needs. I am here most days, and if I am not, the other staff can at least help you locate books. Good day, Taxon."

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...there's a frog who became emperor? And and I thought a boy who became queen was cool.

[ Glitch: zooming right in on relevant info ]

[Long's smile is perhaps audible in his tone]

Certainly so. Married a princess, defeated invading armies, so forth and so forth. As frogs do. Perhaps you should attend storytime, Glitch.

Oh... [ that's a rapt little noise, and Glitch wants to ask MOAR but restrains himself ] I think I should! That'd be...two o'clock, right?

Two o'clock, yes. The Extras seem to hold their storytime every day, but I am perfectly delighted to tell them to vacate the premises so that I may tell proper stories.

Or at least ones that have not yet been repeated every day at two for the last eternity.

Well, i-it'd be new to me either way so I'll definitely be there. And...maybe sometime I could tell a story? About the gump or the woggle-bug, maybe.

[ he'd have to bring a book from home for that, no sense bungling his land's history. ]

I should love to hear a story from your land! About the gump, whatsoever that may be, or the, ah, the woggle-bug. Splendid.

Perhaps I can arrange to serve tea during.

I'll probably have to bring books along, so I don't get everything bungled. [ and thus part of the Northern Island's library became integrated into Taxon's. ]

Tea would be good. It's always nice to have a little something to sip while listening to stories.

Oh, please do! I regret not having returned to your most excellent library yet, this business with the Sanctuary and establishing myself here has taken time.

Certainly. I suppose children favor some sort of syrupy drink, though.

Well, ya know where to find it, and and you're always welcome to drop by.

[ aaaand shift to location because why not ]

At precisely twelve minutes after two o' clock, Glitch arrived at the library with am Ozian history book (written to be child-friendly) clutched to his chest. He gawked at the main room, quite impressed by it all.

"Hello? Mayland? I-I'm late, sorry." Two out of three Ozians are miserable at punctuality.

Long stood from behind the desk-- it was only polite-- and gave Glitch a courteous bow, although he was beaming as he did so.

"No matter. I decided to wait for you, as the likeliest appreciative audience I would have," he said, with a little gesture of his head that included the Extra children sitting around their Extra storyteller. It was not especially interesting to tell stories to children who responded exactly the same way to Curious George as they did to the Tiger King.

"What is that book you have there?" Priorities. He has them.

"Oh, well, that's very kind of you," Glitch grinned and bobbed his head. He glanced at the book he carried and frowned, then nodded. "And it's...a a history of my world, from the reign of Pastoria to Dorothy becoming a princess. Adapted for the young or young at heart."

He was clearly reciting from memory.

"Lots of adventures and invasions and witches, really."

Long's fingers twitched in an obvious desire to get at the book, but he cleared his throat and gestured at the little workstation area on his side of the counter-- where he had plugged in a hotplate and had a teapot resting atop it.

"The tea is ready and waiting-- Darjeeling. Would you like a cup?"

He was immensely pleased with his self-restraint in remembering hospitality first, book second.

"Afternoon, Mr. Long," comes Dick's slightly muffled voice. He has, in the course of his exploratory fumblings with the tablet, discovered the laptop setting and is now sprawled on his belly, the lower half of his face obscured by his crossed arms.

His wide eyes drink in the library's bright, polished interior. The bell and the official-looking plaque. It reminds him more of a church than a library.

He takes his time deciding on a question--he has a few, all of them tantalizing, and choosing one is like selecting a single piece of candy to eat. "Who's Daedalus?"

"Hello, Dick," Long responds solemnly, which probably only helps reinforce the church-vibe. But his brows arch at Dick's question, and he starts to smile, pleased.

"Ah, you don't know the story of Daedalus and Icarus? Of the fabled minotaur-- the fearsome creature half-bull and half-man and the great maze upon the island of Crete where the monster roared and raged amid the ever-twisting passageways?"

Long gestures slightly with one long-fingered hand as he speaks, as if to conjure the shapes of ancient Greek legends from mid-air.

"Well, then. A very long time ago-- ah, but no, I shouldn't. Perhaps if you came to the storytelling here."

Long is altogether too pleased with himself.

His face takes on a thoughtful cast, but Dick's expression isn't one of wonderment: instead he looks somewhere between troubled and puzzled, as if he's been presented with a group of strangers with familiar-looking faces whose names he's struggling to recollect.

Half-man, half-bull. Picturing that isn't an act of imagination.

"Okay," he says doubtfully, a whisper of disappointment in his voice.

Long arches a brow at the response-- as if the child had been threatened with a punishment, instead of promised a delightful tale.

"...there will be snacks?" he offers, not above bribery.

Dick nods several times in an unconvincing show of enthusiasm. The library, with its maze-like interior and permanent hush and air of sophistication, intimidates him, even over the tablet. He'd rather listen to stories outside, but he can't ask that, can't think of asking.

"Well. You don't have to, if you do not wish to," Long sighs, feeling he has failed. This, he muses, must be what normal librarians feel back in the regular world, trying to coax patrons to attend library events. He is now one of a noble and under-appreciated lineage of civil servants, stretching back perhaps to the library of Alexandria, and...

Well, or perhaps not, he amends, at the sight of Dick's solemn little face over the tablet.

"What are your favorite sort of stories, Dick?"

“'m sorry,” he says in his whisper of a voice. His gaze falters; he picks at one of the tablet's buttons. He considers the question carefully, the way he might examine a jagged piece of glass, but he doesn't know what Mr. Long wants him to say.

“Ones that could be true,” he says at last.

Long shrugs away the apology, and rests his chin on his palm as he studies Dick's face. After a few moments of thoughtful scrutiny, he breaks into a slow smile.

"That is really a very broad criteria, for there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the philosophies of Ford County, Illinois. But I suppose you mean history, things that have happened once and might happen again, if the right person were to be in the right place.

"I could tell you of Marco Polo, who at the age of seventeen set out to the East, and by camel and ship and horse and donkey and his own very sore feet traveled fifteen-thousand miles over the face of the earth, and met the great Kublai Khan and entered into service of the Chinese court; Marco Polo who returned home twenty-and-four years later to his beloved Venice of the thousand canals-- only to have his vessel captured by the Genoese and spend one more year languishing in a prison cell, close to home and yet so very far.

"Is that the sort of thing that you are asking for, when you say stories that could be true?"

Ain't nothin' wrong with Curious George.

[someone has to defend the Man in the Yellow Hat's honor]

To be sure there is not. I have no objection to the books the first, second, third, perhaps even fourth time. But it is all they read. And they only ever read the same page. It chafes, after enough times.

Now how the hell does a book chafe? Sorry if no one told you, but they're not for wearin'.

[A soft laugh in answer.]

I stand corrected! I will put aside my armor of volumes and tomes, and try to meet the world as I am-- but I will probably fail.

...no, I meant that they chafe as in... they grow boring. A mental chafing.

...oh.

[sorry, long. too many words that jason doesn't understand and out of context. you broke what brain he has.]

Edited 2011-07-15 19:51 (UTC)

I apologize, my manners are terrible today. I was only being very silly. ADo you enjoy reading, Mr. Stackhouse?

That don't matter. You don't read Curious George to yourself. You either read it to kids or get it read to you as a kid.

I have not been reading Curious George to myself; an Extra has been reading it to Extra children. ...have you never had perhaps the same song on the radio for what seemed to be the entire day, as you worked? It is like that.

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