4/100: Blue Lipstick and Communities
This article looks at Day 3 in a series of 100 visits detailing what happens at my local library
In 1997, Herbert Muschamp wrote a piece for the New York Times that profiled the newly opened Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain. Among other musings, he pondered the question of what constitutes a community:
What is a community at the end of the 20th century? A focus group, a concentration camp, a chat room on the Internet, an address book, a dance club, all those afflicted with a particular incurable disease, a gender, an age bracket, a waiting room, owners of silver BMW’s, organized crime, everyone who swears by a particular brand of painkiller and a two-block stretch of Manhattan on any weekday at lunch hour.
I love these interpretations. A community is a group of people who share an experience, any experience — and that’s it.
I started this series by suggesting that the sense of community at the library is in decline; I realize now I was just feeling left out. There is undoubtedly a sense of community here, belonging to it comes with, well, coming here.
Today I’ve parked myself in the History / Biography / Religion room. The mustachioed librarian nods to me when I walk in — it’s a step. He doesn’t say good morning, the way he does to some folks: a woman in a puffy purple coat, a man with a shock of curly white hair who carries an iced coffee in the dead of winter. I haven’t reached their status yet, but I’ll say goodbye to him on my way out — we’ll be on greeting terms before he knows it.
Vintage Tee from the Science and Tech room is in here today. I guess he also wanted a change of scenery. Maybe he got weirded out by me and my notebook earlier this week — too bad for him if that’s the case. For a second he looked puzzled to see me in such unfamiliar territory, and I’m sure my face betrayed the same surprise. Anyway, he’s banging away on his laptop now. There are two other young-ish men, both with long hair, at the table opposite me. Neither has opened a computer. One consults a pile of books on The Illiad that he’s pulled from the stacks, the other has spread out a slew of paper handouts that he cross-references with pencils and highlighters. Another man spins the giant globe in the corner, while a fifth patron types, or maybe games, on his phone, oversized headphones snug around his head.
The experience we all shared this morning began about an hour ago, when a woman with bright blue lipstick sauntered into the room. She slid to sit at an unoccupied table, and promptly took out her phone, her AirPods already nestled into her ears. She punctured the silence that hovered in the room with her giggles, which quickly evolved into a crescendo of cackles. Several times, she made this weird sound effect, like an eeeeeeeeeeeeek. Twice, she was given to outbursts — what the fuck are you yelling at me for??? — presumably directed at the person on the other end of the phone that she had previously laughed at/with.
It didn’t take long for Mustachio to give her a warning, which she did not heed, and so she was subsequently asked to leave, which she did.
The whole thing was annoying, and also sad. One has to wonder if some sort of mental health issue was at play. That’s what I was wondering, anyway. And I think Long-Hair #2 was too, for when we exchanged glances at her loud laughter, there was a sad smile that accompanied the exasperation in his expression. Vintage Tee gave a “thanks man” to Mustachio at Blue Lipstick’s departure.
It’s quiet now. I wonder if anyone else wonders where she went.
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