Finally, it happened.
Someone walked into Avery and flashed me her Prada card** instead of her Columbia ID.
Very, very little known fact: your Prada card also functions as student ID at Avery.*
*I still asked for her Columbia ID because I am planning on working here over the summer and don't want to jeopardize my status because the Prada card thing is my own rule.
**I did a presentation last semester on Rem Koolhaas' Prada Epicenter in SoHo for my 21st Century Architects seminar, so I happen to be in the know on this: if one shops at Prada regularly, he or she can open an account with the store. All of their measurements and past purchases will be stored on the card. Whenever you enter the story, if an associate swipes it, it will, again, bring up what measurements you need for specific articles of clothing you want to try on, and also make suggestions of current season items you should check out based on your taste in accordance to past expenditures.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
I Think You're Buzzing
I could see him in the lobby while I was at door - I saw the shock (or rather, single strip) of gray hair behind the shoulder of the girl talking to me at the entrance. I pretended to be incredibly engrossed in her question: "Is C here?" "Uhhhhhhhh..." I trail off, knowing I'd have to look at him because I'd have to check his ID because he'd be showing it to me and expecting someone to check it because those are the rules. "Do you know C? Is he here?" Suddenly the ID is in my face and I'm in the middle of a long "Uhhhhhhh" but I manage to nod my head at him, as if to say, "sup." Yes, I mimed "sup" to NE, the 31-year-old master of Dadaism - the Jesus of Dadaism, if we're going to be all New Museum about it.
I don't know where NE has been this semester. He is on campus, teaching with Auntie Roz, as mentioned much, much earlier (ie the last time I blogged). He probably just makes his lesson plans with her over scotches-on-the-rocks at the Waverly Inn. Why I think they would frequent a bar that is co-managed by Graydon Carter, I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past Roz to be secretly boos with the Condé Nast crowd. In any case, I don't want to see NE because I feel like just saying "Hi" and asking "How are you" is too mundane for him.
But it happened anyway. NE decided that he could just take Avery books out of the library that he'd ordered from Offsite without actually checking them out to his office, so when he left the library he buzzed. I look up and want to gag a little because now I not only have to talk to him, but have to tell him he fucked up. "Oh heh heh hi heh heh I think you buzzed heh heh heh heh" I say. Smart as a whip, that one. He looks at the books, stumped as to why a library book that is non-circulating would ever set off an alarm. "They're RECAP," NE says. "That doesn't matter" I respond. "You have an office bar code, right? You have to check out books to your office and the library director has to sign off on it if you want to take these out of the library. And they have to remain sensitized." Finally, I said something accurate to him! With confidence! He sheepishly smiled at me and re-entered. Feeling cocky, I asked "How are you doing, generally?" "Fine. You?" "Good." "You're graduating, right? Are you excited?" "Yes." "What are you doing after school?" "Oh, odd jobs and interning at the ICP, a bit of freelance photography." He smirked and left, clearly offended that his Between the Still and Moving Image seminar did not get through to me that I should not dabble in the ahhhhhhts. Whatever, I already have a camera.
Then I helped an alumnae (female alum singular?) find her way to the AC section in the basement. "This is much better than when I was here. Before you had to walk down a winding, dark, musty staircase to get to the periodicals." How fantastic! Avery really did used to be a grotto at one time!
Off to the Vag, alas, alack.
I don't know where NE has been this semester. He is on campus, teaching with Auntie Roz, as mentioned much, much earlier (ie the last time I blogged). He probably just makes his lesson plans with her over scotches-on-the-rocks at the Waverly Inn. Why I think they would frequent a bar that is co-managed by Graydon Carter, I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past Roz to be secretly boos with the Condé Nast crowd. In any case, I don't want to see NE because I feel like just saying "Hi" and asking "How are you" is too mundane for him.
But it happened anyway. NE decided that he could just take Avery books out of the library that he'd ordered from Offsite without actually checking them out to his office, so when he left the library he buzzed. I look up and want to gag a little because now I not only have to talk to him, but have to tell him he fucked up. "Oh heh heh hi heh heh I think you buzzed heh heh heh heh" I say. Smart as a whip, that one. He looks at the books, stumped as to why a library book that is non-circulating would ever set off an alarm. "They're RECAP," NE says. "That doesn't matter" I respond. "You have an office bar code, right? You have to check out books to your office and the library director has to sign off on it if you want to take these out of the library. And they have to remain sensitized." Finally, I said something accurate to him! With confidence! He sheepishly smiled at me and re-entered. Feeling cocky, I asked "How are you doing, generally?" "Fine. You?" "Good." "You're graduating, right? Are you excited?" "Yes." "What are you doing after school?" "Oh, odd jobs and interning at the ICP, a bit of freelance photography." He smirked and left, clearly offended that his Between the Still and Moving Image seminar did not get through to me that I should not dabble in the ahhhhhhts. Whatever, I already have a camera.
Then I helped an alumnae (female alum singular?) find her way to the AC section in the basement. "This is much better than when I was here. Before you had to walk down a winding, dark, musty staircase to get to the periodicals." How fantastic! Avery really did used to be a grotto at one time!
Off to the Vag, alas, alack.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
WE ARE BACK.
Benelli just walked in to Avery. He has been absent this whole semester.
Clearly, this is a sign - I, a GA, will update.
For the record, Benelli is the only professor (so far) who gets a full name. Avery is his kingdom, and he represents everything this library does: architecture and sexy Italians.
Come upstairs, the weather's great now!
Clearly, this is a sign - I, a GA, will update.
For the record, Benelli is the only professor (so far) who gets a full name. Avery is his kingdom, and he represents everything this library does: architecture and sexy Italians.
Come upstairs, the weather's great now!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Weather in Avery, Part II
I decided I wasn't done talking about this. As a person who wears sweaters in 90-degree weather, I am overly attentive to indoor temperature settings and how they affect my well-being. And on the days that Avery is not humid and smelling of Chinese food (no one knows why), it is a bat cave. This is because art historians are cold-blooded and emaciated as a rule (hence the no food policy): nothing could be more banal and in-esoteric as basic human needs like food. And then there are the architects who are too engrossed in their pencils and their wardrobes to notice any atmospheric conditions or hunger. So perhaps it is only the books that suffer, because I am sure that the proper temperatures for book preservation are nowhere to be found at Avery, especially not in the stacks where the pages are practically steaming.
Sometimes, as a GA, you're at Door. The doors leading into the Avery atrium and then the library are automatic, like Butler's, and weigh about three tons, like Butler's. So anytime anyone opens them, they remain open for about thirty seconds, which, during the winter, can make you sick after sitting there for an hour, no matter how puffy your Patagonia is. The best is when the staff walks in (hot coffees in hand) and frowns and says, "It's freezing! How do you stand this?" For the amount I am making, I'm hanging by a thread, and it's not paying for my cold medications. (Next post: That Time I Asked For A Raise.) But my favorite is when the door won't close, in fact. People who don't come to Avery all day every day and who thus have no right to fuckin' be here don't know that the door is automatic and try to close it behind them as they are entering or exiting. I do no say anything to them. I do not help them. I just watch as they struggle, because they deserve to struggle. Because they do not belong here.
I'm sorry - I've been dealing with a lot of "Is the way this library is organized by like alphabetical order or something?" patrons as of late, and it's getting to me. The books find you here, not the other way around. If you can't handle it, then find your book at another Reserves.
To end, my boss at my art museum internship went to Columbia for grad school a few years ago. When I mentioned to her that I work at Avery, the first words out of her mouth were "Oh my God that place is freezing." Not was freezing, but is, presently; she knows it will never change. And it never will change. We are cold people and we like it that way. So even though the weather is changing to grossly optimistic sunshine, keep your sweater on if you're going to read Stokstad.
Sometimes, as a GA, you're at Door. The doors leading into the Avery atrium and then the library are automatic, like Butler's, and weigh about three tons, like Butler's. So anytime anyone opens them, they remain open for about thirty seconds, which, during the winter, can make you sick after sitting there for an hour, no matter how puffy your Patagonia is. The best is when the staff walks in (hot coffees in hand) and frowns and says, "It's freezing! How do you stand this?" For the amount I am making, I'm hanging by a thread, and it's not paying for my cold medications. (Next post: That Time I Asked For A Raise.) But my favorite is when the door won't close, in fact. People who don't come to Avery all day every day and who thus have no right to fuckin' be here don't know that the door is automatic and try to close it behind them as they are entering or exiting. I do no say anything to them. I do not help them. I just watch as they struggle, because they deserve to struggle. Because they do not belong here.
I'm sorry - I've been dealing with a lot of "Is the way this library is organized by like alphabetical order or something?" patrons as of late, and it's getting to me. The books find you here, not the other way around. If you can't handle it, then find your book at another Reserves.
To end, my boss at my art museum internship went to Columbia for grad school a few years ago. When I mentioned to her that I work at Avery, the first words out of her mouth were "Oh my God that place is freezing." Not was freezing, but is, presently; she knows it will never change. And it never will change. We are cold people and we like it that way. So even though the weather is changing to grossly optimistic sunshine, keep your sweater on if you're going to read Stokstad.
What Nice Weather?
Despite this Los Angeles weather that we are experiencing, amid still-melting piles of snow (I hate naturally occuring juxtapositions), Avery is still packed as ever. No one seems to notice that it is finally sunny and warm outside; they still file in wrapped in scarves and wool and ponchos billowing and calf-hugging boots and other things that seem uncomfortably sweaty. The stacks are like saunas, and because I have been so helpful at desk lately, I was punished today by having to shelf-read and shelve in those areas and was essentially running a fever by the end of my shift. The place also just smells like a fire, but that could be because I saw The Towering Inferno at MoMA this weekend and fire is on the brain. That's also how it works at Avery: sadistically. You do something good, you get physically punished for it.
Furthermore I used the scanners for the first time in there - they work fine, I don't know what y'all are bitching about!
Furthermore I used the scanners for the first time in there - they work fine, I don't know what y'all are bitching about!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
I Love It When You Say Titian
So it seems as though none of the books at Avery are good enough for the students nowadays. There were three carts of Offsite books that I mercilessly shelved today, so that by the time I was done I was covered in flecks of Italian manuscript covers (I'm so gentle) and, of course, dust. So much for my ever looking "put together" in public; mainly I look like I've just crawled out of a mouse hole. Speaking of places to live, if you have one, and are moving out in May, let me know or else I really be sleeping in the basement with the double folios.
As previously mentioned, NE is back in his spot on the 200s level (just to the left of the Reserves desk). I thought briefly, since he had been such a regular last semester, that perhaps he went on sabbatical, but then I remembered that a) he only just got his PhD, why would he be taking off again? and b) he's tag-team teaching Dada and Surrealism with Auntie Roz this semester! A friend and I are going to attend said graduate lecture one of these days, before graduating, in a surreal and altered state, and I bet him a dollar that I will be crying by the end of the class out of both euphoria and blinding terror. It would be the apex of my very slippery ascent up the phallic, phallic Art History mountain at Columbia. In any case, I was supposed to pick up and sort the 200 level but had to leave yet another mountain of books next to NE because I am too intimidated by his boyish grin and streak of gray in the front of his hairline: "Yes I got my PhD and Associate Professor status before I turned 30," it seems to scream. So I left him surrounded by random Ware books about sensuality and architecture and Tschumi.
My senior thesis seminar met tonight for the first round of thesis presentations, for which I could not mentally be present at for fear of suffering a panic-turned-heart attack. I was just seating myself behind a giant pillar at the corner of the table (thanks, Diana, for such architectural innovations as giant columns in seminar rooms) when all of a sudden Adrien Brody walks in! No, not the Adrien Brody (or at least not yet, you never know who will be the next commencement speaker!), but the Avery regular who kind of resembles him (it's the slicked-back but not Euro-trash hair) and who always, ALWAYS wears a black suit, or at least the blazer. And loafers. It's a throwback to that time when professors actually dressed like men. I'm even more surprised when RD introduces him as Prof K - not by his first name, but as Professor K. Evidently he's a Mellon Fellow and specializes in High Renaissance art. Then he starts talking at the end of one of the presentations and I burst out laughing because his accent is so French/German and I am a five-year-old and can't help but find it incredibly sexy, especially the way he says "Titian." Teeeeesh-anne. I think I might invite him to my presentation; I think his High Renaissance expertise will be most useful in my 20th-century, photography-centric, suddenly feminist thesis. There's got to be something there.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so please be careful not to slip and fall on your ass in the lobby - yes, the marble is hard to maneuver, but falling is not sexy, and people will just walk their Frye boots right over you.
Have your IDs ready,
GA
As previously mentioned, NE is back in his spot on the 200s level (just to the left of the Reserves desk). I thought briefly, since he had been such a regular last semester, that perhaps he went on sabbatical, but then I remembered that a) he only just got his PhD, why would he be taking off again? and b) he's tag-team teaching Dada and Surrealism with Auntie Roz this semester! A friend and I are going to attend said graduate lecture one of these days, before graduating, in a surreal and altered state, and I bet him a dollar that I will be crying by the end of the class out of both euphoria and blinding terror. It would be the apex of my very slippery ascent up the phallic, phallic Art History mountain at Columbia. In any case, I was supposed to pick up and sort the 200 level but had to leave yet another mountain of books next to NE because I am too intimidated by his boyish grin and streak of gray in the front of his hairline: "Yes I got my PhD and Associate Professor status before I turned 30," it seems to scream. So I left him surrounded by random Ware books about sensuality and architecture and Tschumi.
My senior thesis seminar met tonight for the first round of thesis presentations, for which I could not mentally be present at for fear of suffering a panic-turned-heart attack. I was just seating myself behind a giant pillar at the corner of the table (thanks, Diana, for such architectural innovations as giant columns in seminar rooms) when all of a sudden Adrien Brody walks in! No, not the Adrien Brody (or at least not yet, you never know who will be the next commencement speaker!), but the Avery regular who kind of resembles him (it's the slicked-back but not Euro-trash hair) and who always, ALWAYS wears a black suit, or at least the blazer. And loafers. It's a throwback to that time when professors actually dressed like men. I'm even more surprised when RD introduces him as Prof K - not by his first name, but as Professor K. Evidently he's a Mellon Fellow and specializes in High Renaissance art. Then he starts talking at the end of one of the presentations and I burst out laughing because his accent is so French/German and I am a five-year-old and can't help but find it incredibly sexy, especially the way he says "Titian." Teeeeesh-anne. I think I might invite him to my presentation; I think his High Renaissance expertise will be most useful in my 20th-century, photography-centric, suddenly feminist thesis. There's got to be something there.
It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so please be careful not to slip and fall on your ass in the lobby - yes, the marble is hard to maneuver, but falling is not sexy, and people will just walk their Frye boots right over you.
Have your IDs ready,
GA
Monday, February 22, 2010
It's Not Love It's Aestheticism
We have all heard the age-old complaint that there is "no dating at Columbia." Of course there's no dating at Columbia. We are surrounded by restaurants like Ollie's and bars like Pourhouse. We are generally neurotic and too exhausted to meet people. And we're all self-absorbed or, in some very special cases, so absorbed by theses that sexual drive becomes a mere LOL. But I have been witnessing more and more yet another phenomenon: The Avery Date.
The Avery Date is where the hypothetical "you" show up, receive text from hypothetical significant other asking where you are followed by a string of emoticons and shit, and you reply "Avery." Five minutes later sig other shows up (and I know who all of you are), and you go do your homework together - Columbia's version of foreplay. Think about it: it's completely quiet, it's called the friggin' Red Zone, every five minutes you and your date just stare silently at each other and do the footsie routine and try to get each other as excited as possible without making it obvious to your table partners (I have definitely seen this happen, while pretending to shelve books, but I won't tell. There's nothing about that sort of behavior on the red zone labels). And you get your work done, what could be sexier.
This post was random, and it's only because I'm in a rush (have class and need coffee first) and am in Butler, milling with the plebes. There are no dates here that I can see, only students who look like they have a migraine that is making them go blind. I'd hate to turn this blog into "The Avery vs Butler War," but there is a subtle war, to be dealt with later when I am not running late, not in Butler, and angry enough to type yell at all the people who return books from Butler to Avery because yeah you can do it but it's disrespectful.
Also: NE is back. 200s level just got hotter.
The Avery Date is where the hypothetical "you" show up, receive text from hypothetical significant other asking where you are followed by a string of emoticons and shit, and you reply "Avery." Five minutes later sig other shows up (and I know who all of you are), and you go do your homework together - Columbia's version of foreplay. Think about it: it's completely quiet, it's called the friggin' Red Zone, every five minutes you and your date just stare silently at each other and do the footsie routine and try to get each other as excited as possible without making it obvious to your table partners (I have definitely seen this happen, while pretending to shelve books, but I won't tell. There's nothing about that sort of behavior on the red zone labels). And you get your work done, what could be sexier.
This post was random, and it's only because I'm in a rush (have class and need coffee first) and am in Butler, milling with the plebes. There are no dates here that I can see, only students who look like they have a migraine that is making them go blind. I'd hate to turn this blog into "The Avery vs Butler War," but there is a subtle war, to be dealt with later when I am not running late, not in Butler, and angry enough to type yell at all the people who return books from Butler to Avery because yeah you can do it but it's disrespectful.
Also: NE is back. 200s level just got hotter.
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