Tag Archives: Hoboken bibliothèque

I Never Knew Love Like This Before

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Another new page, or perhaps a new chapter. Who knows? Maybe it’s still being written. Time was spent once again volunteering at the bibliothèque. It went well, the staff wish I could get hired full time, I wish I could get hired full time, but not right now I guess. It’s a good gig, I like them, they like me. Only time will tell. They’re good people, some true Hoboken characters. I spent the time today putting away books and CD’s and DV’s, and also helping out people looking for items which I was able to do since I had just put most of those items away.

As I was putting away some of the audio visual items, I started talking to a young man named Esteban. He had taken out Television- Marquee Moon last week and I checked it out for him last week, Today I asked him what he thought and he was it was too much of a guitar record, which he wasn’t looking for but liked it. I guess he didn’t have a Stan Bogdansky in his life enthusing about Tom Verlaine and company like I did back in the day. I still remember Stan singing Prove It as I waited so we could go to a show.

Esteban did ask me for some suggestions and I asked if he was into something rock and roll, or something more on the chill out side of things. He was interested in the chill out side so I suggested Brian Eno, Another Green World. Half instrumental, half with vocals. He recognized Eno as being the producer of U2 and I told him there was so much more. We talked about Talking Heads and he recognized Remain in Light, having taken it out previously. He knew Once In A Lifetime from a movie.

He almost took out Remain in Light again but found Speaking in Tongues which is good but definitely pales in comparison to Remain in Light. I described it as more of a ‘pop’ record and he sort of looked disdainful. I explained there was nothing wrong with pop music, that the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were considered pop when they started, and perhaps they still are pop 50 years later. He also expressed a fondness for Blonde on Blonde having taken it out a while ago, I Want You being his favorite song.

I made a remark about Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands being 17 minutes long, and he corrected me telling me it was actually 12 minutes. He asked how I knew so much about music and I explained I have friends (Harpy & Juan) and family (Frank & Annemarie) that turn me onto music all the time, plus I suggested getting Mojo and Uncut magazines. He never heard of those and was very excited when I told him that each month the latest issues of those magazines come with free CD samplers. Sometimes new stuff sometimes old stuff on the samplers but almost all of it is very good.

I guess I will have to volunteer next Wednesday at the bibliothèque so I can find out what Esteban thought of my suggestions. He seemed like a nice enough chap. There was another patron who is trying to get every record from Rolling Stone’s issue of the best 500 albums. That seemed a bit much, but then again it Rolling Stone which is better read nowadays for Matt Taibbi’s reporting rather than music coverage. Some of the bibliothèque staff saw a flier for the Hoboken Fair Rent Association benefit on October 25 at Maxwells and wanted to know if that was me listed on the flier. It is.

So right now I am walking a tight rope. The future is uncertain as well as unwritten and out of my hands.




07 Prove It

I Never Told You

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I just got back from 5 hours of volunteering at the local bibliothèque. I enjoy working with them, the ladies. They enjoy me working there, and being a male they seem to feel safer having a guy around. In this case, I am the guy or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof. And today it was all about doing whatever they wanted me to do. And so that meant putting a lot of items today. Notin the nonfiction department though. That resembles the office set from Being John Malkovich, a very low ceiling with only an inch between my head and the ceiling.

A good part of the time was in the Audio Visual room which is a mess. DVD’s and CD’s are kept in a very loose alphabetical sense. A through Z basically. Breaking it down further is near impossible since it is probably the most popular room and to maintain order someone would have to stay in there the whole time. But there isn’t anyone there the whole time and things fall out of order constantly. Then there are the people who hide DVD’s or CD’s to pick up later. They don’t get very far, at least not on my watch.

It was fairly busy, I worked with two women, Diane and Pat. Diane has seniority over Pat. I like them both very much. Diane was pulling for me to get in good with the library which I am doing with my volunteering. The last part of my time today was placing the items on hold for library patrons on the shrinking shelves. There is simply not enough room for all the books on hold and so some items have to be placed on the shelves an inch or two above the floor. And of course every time I situated myself on the floor, I had to get up since Pat or Diane needed to get by.

Finally at one point I was able to stand up as a patron walked in. She walked up to the counter and asked for an item that was on hold. I just said ‘Yay!’ and Diane and Pat lost it. Really laughing so hard for the next 20 minutes and in so doing the remaining time flew by. Apparently they just don’t have someone like me helping out. I am just glad I was able to help out and add some laughter to their day.

Now I am home, with Bill and waiting for the second debate. I hope it goes well for Obama, none of the narcolepsy that affected him during the last debate while Romney lied, lied and lied some more. And he got away with it since Obama did not point out his lies and backtracking and contradictory statements. Bill has been under the weather the past two days so to have him up and about is a good thing. Once again he worked really hard for about three weeks, driving, the day job and preparing for the reading last week, and also the Yankee game.

He was destined to crash as he usually does when he works for weeks on end. So his day was spent in bed today. I was out and about earlier, made the trip to the really big supermarket where I ran into my dear friend Ro Da. We talked for quite a while, his tales of woe, my tales of woe. Despite that it was great to see him as it always is. I’ve known him for almost 30 years which is a mind blower. He is a sweetheart and I certainly wish him on the very best.



Reminiscing