How to Travel With a Salmon and Other Essays (19 page)

8. The librarian must consider the reader an enemy, a waster of time (otherwise he or she would be at work), and a potential thief.

9. The reference librarian's office must be impregnable.

10. Loans must be discouraged.

11. Interlibrary loans must be impossible or, at best, must require months. The ideal course, in any event, is to ensure the impossibility of discovering the contents of other libraries.

12. Given this policy, theft must be very easy.

13. Opening hours must coincide precisely with local office hours, determined by foresighted discussions with trade union officials and the Chamber of Commerce; total closing on Saturday, Sunday, evenings and mealtimes goes without saying. The library's worst enemy is the employed student; its best friend is Thomas Jefferson, someone who has a large personal library and therefore no need to visit the public library (to which he may nevertheless bequeath his books at his death).

14. It must be impossible to find any refreshment inside the library, under any circumstances; and it must also be impossible to leave the library to seek sustenance elsewhere without first returning all books in use, so that, after having a cup of coffee, the student must fill out requests for them again.

15. It must be impossible on a given day to find the book one had been using the day before.

16. It must be impossible to learn who has a book that is currently out on loan.

17. If possible, no rest rooms.

18. Ideally, the reader should be unable to enter the library. If he does actually enter, exploiting with tedious insistence a right, granted on the basis of the principles of 1789, that has nevertheless not been assimilated by the collective sensibility, he must never ever—with the exception of rapid visits to the reference shelves—be allowed access to the sanctum of the stacks.

CONFIDENTIAL NOTE
: All staff must be affected by physical defects, as it is the duty of a public institution to offer job opportunities to handicapped citizens (the Fire Department is considering an extension of this rule to their ranks). In particular, the ideal librarian should limp, in order to lengthen the time devoted to receiving the call slip, descending into the basement, and returning. For personnel expected to use ladders to reach the shelves more than eight meters above the ground, it is required that missing arms be replaced by prosthetic hooks, for security reasons. Personnel lacking both upper limbs will deliver the requested volume by gripping it in their teeth (library regulations tend to prevent the delivery of volumes in a format larger than octavo).

1981

Central Park. The zoo. Some kids are playing near the polar bear tank. One dares the others to dive into the tank and swim alongside the bears; to force them to dive in, the challenger hides the others' clothes; the boys enter the water, splashing past a big male bear, peaceful and drowsy; they tease him, he becomes annoyed, extends a paw, and eats, or rather chomps on, two kids, leaving some bits lying around. The police come quickly, even the mayor arrives, there is some argument about whether or not the bear has to be killed, all admit it's not his fault; some sensational articles appear in the press. It so happens that the boys have Hispanic names: Puerto Ricans, perhaps black, perhaps newcomers to the city, in any event accustomed to feats of daring, like all slum kids who hang out in packs.

Various interpretations ensue, all fairly severe. The cynical reaction is fairly widespread, at least in conversation: natural selection, if they were stupid enough to mess with a bear, they got what they deserved; even when I was five, I had enough sense not to jump into a bear tank. Social interpretation: areas of poverty, insufficient education, alas, the subproletariat has a tendency to act on impulse, without thinking. But, I ask you, what's all this talk about insufficient education? Even the poorest child watches TV, or has read a schoolbook in which bears devour humans and hunters therefore kill bears.

At this point I began to wonder if the boys didn't venture into the pool precisely because they do watch TV and go to school. These children were probably victims of our guilty conscience, as reflected in the schools and the mass media.

Human beings have always been merciless with animals, but when humans became aware of their own cruelty, they began, if not to love all animals (because, with only sporadic hesitation, they continue eating them), at least to speak well of them. As the media, the schools, public institutions in general, have to explain away so many acts performed against humans by humans, it seems finally a good idea, psychologically and ethically, to insist on the goodness of animals. We allow children of the Third World to die, but we urge children of the First to respect not only butterflies and bunny rabbits but also whales, crocodiles, snakes.

Mind you, this educational approach is per se correct. What is excessive is the persuasive technique chosen: to render animals worthy of rescue they are humanized, toyified. No one says they are entitled to survive
even if,
as a rule, they are savage and carnivorous. No, they are made respectable by becoming cuddly, comic, good-natured, benevolent, wise, and prudent.

No one is more thoughtless than a lemming, more deceitful than a cat, more slobbering than a dog in August, more smelly than a piglet, more hysterical than a horse, more idiotic than a moth, more slimy than a snail, more poisonous than a viper, less imaginative than an ant, and less musically creative than a nightingale. Simply put, we must love—or, if that is downright impossible, at least respect—these and other animals for what they are. The tales of earlier times overdid the wicked wolf, the tales of today exaggerate the good wolves. We must save the whales, not because they are good, but because they are a part of nature's inventory and they contribute to the ecological equilibrium. Instead, our children are raised with whales that talk, wolves that join the Third Order of St. Francis, and, above all, an endless array of teddy bears.

Advertising, cartoons, illustrated books are full of bears with hearts of gold, law-abiding, cozy, and protective—although in fact it's insulting for a bear to be told he has a right to live because he's only a dumb but inoffensive brute. So I suspect that the poor children in Central Park died not through lack of education but through too much of it. They are the victims of our unhappy conscience.

To make them forget how bad human beings are, they were taught too insistently that bears are good. Instead of being told honestly what humans are and what bears are.

1987

Since the future of Native American culture at present seems dire, the sole possibility for the young brave bent on improving his social position is to appear in a Western movie. To assist him in this endeavor, we offer some essential guidelines, tips on correct behavior in both war and peace situations, to help him qualify as "movie Indian," thus providing as well a solution to the problem of underemployment among members of this beleaguered minority.

Before Attacking

1. Never attack immediately: make yourself visible at a distance a few days ahead of time, producing easily observed smoke signals, thus giving the stagecoach or the fort ample time to send word to the Seventh Cavalry.

2. If possible, appear prominently in small groups on the surrounding hills. Set up sentinels on totally isolated peaks.

3. Leave clear traces of your progress: hoofprints, smoldering campfires, feathers, and amulets allowing identification of tribe.

Attacking the Stagecoach

4. In any attack on a stagecoach, always follow the vehicle at a short distance or, better still, ride alongside it, to facilitate your being shot.

5. Restrain your mustangs, notoriously faster than coach horses, so you won't outstrip the vehicle.

6. Try to stop the coach single-handed, flinging yourself on the harness, so you can be whipped by the driver and then run over by the vehicle.

7. Never block the coach's advance in a large body. The driver would stop at once.

Attacking an Isolated Farm or a Circle of Covered Wagons

8. Never attack at night when the settlers might not be expecting you. Respect the tradition that Indians attack only in daytime.

9. Insist on making your presence known by giving the coyote cry, thus revealing your position.

10. If a white man gives the coyote cry, raise your head immediately to offer him an easy target.

11. Attack by circling the wagons, but never narrow your circle, so that you and your companions can be picked off one by one.

12. Never employ all your men in a circle, but progressively replace those that fall.

13. As you lack stirrups, manage somehow to entangle your feet in the reins, so that, when you are shot, you are dragged after your mount.

14. Use rifles, bought illegally, whose operation is unfamiliar to you. Take a considerable amount of time loading them.

15. Don't stop circling the wagons when the good guys arrive. Wait for the cavalry without riding out to confront it, then scatter at the first impact in total disorder to allow individual pursuit.

16. In preparing to attack an isolated farm, send only one man to spy on it at night. Approaching a lighted window, he must observe at length a white woman inside, until she has become aware of the Indian face pressed against the pane. Await the woman's cry and the exit of the men before attempting to escape.

Attacking the Fort

17. First of all, turn the horses loose at night. Do not steal them. Encourage them to disperse over the prairie.

18. In using a ladder during the assault, climb up it one man at a time. First allow your weapon to appear, then your head, slowly, and emerge only after the white woman has indicated your presence to a marksman. Never fall forward, inside the fort, but always backward, toward the exterior.

19. In shooting from a distance, assume a clearly visible position on the top of a peak, so that you can fall forward, to be shattered on the rocks below.

20. In the event of a face-to-face confrontation, wait before taking aim.

21. In the same situation, never use a pistol, which would resolve the confrontation at once. Only naked steel.

22. In the case of a sortie on the part of the whites, never steal the weapons of the slain enemy, only his watch. Wait in wonderment, listening to its tick, until another enemy arrives.

23. On capturing an enemy, do not kill him immediately. Tie him to a stake or confine him to a tent, awaiting the new moon, by which time others will come to free him.

24. In any event, you can be certain that the enemy bugler will be killed the moment the signal of the Seventh Cavalry is heard from afar. At this point the bugler inside the fort always stands up and returns the signal from the highest turret of the fort.

Further Instructions

25. In the event that the Indian village is attacked, rush from the tents in total confusion. Run around every which way, trying to collect weapons previously left in places of difficult access.

26. Check the quality of the firewater being sold by the peddlers: the sulfuric acid-to-whisky ratio must be three to one.

27. In the event of a train's passing, make sure there is an Indian hunter on board and ride alongside the train brandishing rifles and emitting cries of greeting.

28. In leaping from a roof to seize a white man from behind, always hold your knife in such a way that he is not immediately wounded but is allowed to engage in hand-to-hand struggle. Wait until the white man turns around.

1975

I don't know if you've ever happened to see a pornographic movie. I don't mean movies with some erotic content, a movie like
Last Tango in Paris
, for example, though even that, I realize, for many people might be offensive. No, what I mean is genuine por-noflicks, whose true and sole aim is to stimulate the spectator's desire, from beginning to end, and in such a way that, while this desire is stimulated by scenes of various and varied copulations, the rest of the story counts for less than nothing.

Magistrates are often required to decide whether a film is purely pornographic or whether it has artistic value. I am not one of those who insist that artistic value excuses everything; sometimes true works of art have been more dangerous, to faith, to behavior, to current opinion, than works of lesser value. But I believe that consenting adults have the right to consume pornographic material, at least for want of anything better. I recognize, however, that on occasion a court must decide whether a film has been produced for the purpose of expressing certain concepts or esthetic ideals (even through scenes that offend the accepted moral view), or whether it was made for the sole purpose of arousing the spectator's instincts.

Well, there is a criterion for deciding whether a film is pornographic or not, and it is based on the calculation of wasted time. A great, universal film masterpiece,
Stagecoach,
takes place solely and entirely (except for the beginning, a few brief intervals, and the finale) on a stagecoach. But without this journey the film would have no meaning. Antonioni's
L'avventura
is made up solely of wasted time: people come and go, talk, get lost and are found, without anything happening. This wasted time may or may not be enjoyable, but it is exactly what the film is about.

A pornographic movie, in contrast, to justify the price of the ticket or the purchase of the cassette, tells us that certain people couple sexually, men with women, men with men, women with women, women with dogs or stallions (I might point out that there are no pornographic films in which men couple with mares and bitches: why not?). And this would still be all right: but it is full of wasted time.

If Gilbert, in order to rape Gilbertina, has to go from Lincoln Center to Sheridan Square, the film shows you Gilbert, in his car, throughout the whole journey, stoplight by stoplight.