Library Adventures: April 17th and May 1st Double Feature

No outing for me today on account of my recovering from a wretched spring cold. Either colds have become worse or my immune system has deteriorated to garbage. I used to be able to sit upright, chain-sucking cough drops for hours on end while hammering out stories or drawing; anymore when I get sick, I want to curl up against a mound of pillows and let my thoughts turn to the sweet nothingness of death.

My brain still feels cold-fried, so my grip on words is weak and I cannot vouch for the quality *cough* of this post. Wait, cold-fried? Taken out of context, that wouldn’t make any sense. Maybe it doesn’t make sense at all. Maybe I’ll come back to this post a week from now, read it over in mounting embarrassment, and delete it. Or maybe my deep-cold-fried brain will remove all memory of this post and let it live to mortify me another day.

Anyway, while I pine for the outdoors or any building that isn’t my home or work, I can look back on the simple treasures I found at the Friends of the Library workroom during the last two trips.

April 17th

Look at that! I’ve seen Rooster Teeth stuff at the antique mall in Virginia Beach, but I never expected to see them in the FOL workroom. I’m not a Rooster Teeth fan, but the presence of these DVDs gives me some hope that I’ll run across another Vinesauce viewer in the wild.

Unlike Rooster Teeth or Vinesauce fans, you’ll always find a Trekkie somewhere. Looks like one was willing to give up this Star Fleet Technical Manual. *yoink*

I vaguely remember a special back in the 90s where Jonathan Frakes took viewers on a tour of the Enterprise set. The key detail that stands out the most in my frayed memory is where he presented a map of the ship and pointed to the only restroom in the entire place. I wonder if that was a joke for the special or if it’s something the show’s developers established in-universe to amuse themselves.

*yoink* again. These may or may not find their way back to the FOL workroom. I could always do with some nerd bribing goodies in my journeys.

May 1st

Anyone remember that Garfield special where they had different animation styles? Remember how the one with the piano made everyone cry? Now you can experience it all over again in comic form. Or rather, I will. Also, I hate the lights in this room. I can’t find anywhere that doesn’t throw white orbs onto book covers; even the shelves are barely safe from them.

Just an example of how we pack books for the sale. The boxes go onto tables so visitors can skim the titles at a glance. These books are from the humor/comics/manga section. Guess which title I sneaked in from the history/politics/military section.

Remember how I said that every trip to the FOL workroom gives a story? I found this one on the religion shelf. At first glance, it looks like a regular book with a homemade book cover. It brought back memories of grade school where we’d bring in brown shopping bags and spend a period, typically the first or second day of class, making book covers for our textbooks.

But the paper used here was a more high-quality material, like resume paper. Very opaque. I could barely make out what was underneath as I held the book to the overhead lights. Moreover, the cover had been glued to the real cover.

There it was, a bilingual Bible. Cyrillic and English. That’s a combination you don’t come across often in the Hampton Roads area. A book like this would have to be special ordered, or come from another country.

As for what the writing on the cover says, I haven’t a clue. When I used the translating app on my phone, it barely worked. Only a smidgen of the upper right half of the black letters could be translated, and only for a few seconds: It’s okay and safety.

I don’t know if those are indeed the words inscribed on the front. My interests in esoteric matters mostly deal with Hebrew-derived and Enochian rituals, but I understand that magic, though forbidden, is widespread in Islam. Those small translations make me think that perhaps this was a sigil or a blessing to protect the Bible or its owner from detection.

A part of me wants to think that its owner got all they could out of the book and decided to give it to another home. Maybe they were reading it for a college course and the rest of their household didn’t want to see the book itself. Maybe they were exploring Christianity and ultimately decided that it wasn’t a fit. Maybe they were a missionary who had gone to Russia or any of the surrounding countries and this was the Bible they used.

But going so far as to glue a homemade cover to a Bible means that the previous owner felt they had to conceal its true contents. People usually don’t do that unless they fear persecution or punishment. And that depresses me.

I picked this to cheer myself up. It should be good for a groan or two.

I borrowed this one out of curiosity. A recent discussion with some Chat members got me to thinking that I need to start researching tabletop games again, if only to learn how to make better engaging stories, whether they’re read or acted out. Hey, you also get a rare, blurry reflection of me in the book cover.

Yes, I said Chat members, as in people who participate in a Twitch stream chat. I rather enjoyed myself the few times I’ve been and I hope to become a regular if my schedule allows it.

(Considering I have the Vinesauce: The Questening project going on, I know you jumped to the obvious conclusion. No, it isn’t Vinny’s chat. For now, I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to solve.)

Why, yes, I would like foresee the doom and gloom awaiting me in the years ahead. Like any colds, flus, covid infections, or allergy attacks. I guess seeing if all my dreams come true is up there too, but my sinuses are too clogged up to care about anything else right now.

I do love old books like this one, and I think I’ll explore it in depth in a future post. Might be fun to try a few of the exercises.