LIBRARY

"...a mere labyrinth of letters..."
—Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel"





Structure, infrastructure, superstructure, foundation.
Repetition, slight variation, variation.
Symmetry and asymmetry.
Pattern.

Bend reality. Extend the narrative of "The Library of Babel" in one direction and you have the "bio-batteries" of The Matrix. Another direction, and you have the Internet. Still another, and you have volume, physical space, the Central Library of the Seattle Public Library System, 1000 Fourth Avenue in the heart of downtown Seattle.

Okay, so I'm playing rather loose with Borges' story. It is, however, what came to mind when I wandered through the Central Library. I made the decision to ride the elevator to the top public floor, number ten, and descend through the building via ramps and elevators. Peering upon the lower floors from the tenth floor; spiraling downward through the non-fiction stacks of floors nine, eight, seven, and six; floors containing their racks, racks containing their shelves, shelves containing their books, books containing their words and their orthographic symbols; floors and tables and chairs and cubicles and computers and cubbyholes abuzz with people—each of these scenes reminded me of the hexagonal chambers of the librarians of Babel, the wandering in search of knowledge, in search of meaning, in search of order, the Order.

It was as though wandering inside an enormous organism. The fourth floor, with its red hallways and corridors, and its pastel-colored meeting rooms tucked away from view, as the heart of this creature. The Mixing Chamber as its mind, its nervous system. The ramps, elevators, stairwells, and yellow-green escalators as arteries, veins, capillaries. I need to venture back into the belly of this beast. I can hear it calling to me.