WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hullo. I'm welcomed stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.080 are here, Let's get into it. If you ask what 3 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.240 first returned me to the city library, I'll say it 4 00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:16.239 was sunlight. After so long teaching and class rooms with 5 00:00:16.280 --> 00:00:19.320 locked windows and ancient lines, I'd promised myself the pleasure 6 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:21.559 of real brightness on the page on my hands and 7 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:24.480 the dustmot swelling above a book spine. I could claim 8 00:00:24.480 --> 00:00:27.399 it was nostalgia or convenience, with some vague requirement for 9 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:29.399 better paper or a new scent of binding glue. But 10 00:00:29.480 --> 00:00:31.839 the honest truth is simpler retirement left me with ours. 11 00:00:31.839 --> 00:00:33.679 I finally want to dispense around it by the low 12 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:36.000 murmur of other quiet souls, each caught up in their 13 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:37.880 own sentences, as if we were all mine in the 14 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:40.880 same gentle clock. So on a Tuesday morning, with the 15 00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:43.399 day already opening, clear and warm, I descended the wide 16 00:00:43.439 --> 00:00:47.000 marble steps and stepped inside the library's glass vestibule. There's 17 00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.119 a draft when the outer doors close and the inner 18 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:52.079 ones open, A breath, almost like the building exhales and 19 00:00:52.119 --> 00:00:56.079 welcomes you home. It always feels somehow deliberate. My habit, 20 00:00:56.200 --> 00:00:59.640 even after decades, is unchanged. I took two lefts from 21 00:00:59.640 --> 00:01:01.920 the main not into a pair of students, starting in 22 00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:04.480 toward the computers, then dee to it through the fiction aisles. 23 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:06.799 The shelves are tall enough that you move in a 24 00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:09.840 corridor of paper in silence, broken only by distant footsteps 25 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:12.239 of the creak of a book cut My hands found 26 00:01:12.239 --> 00:01:15.640 old favourites automatically. I pulled the River's Turned from its 27 00:01:15.680 --> 00:01:19.200 usual place, a slim battered copy by the windows. The 28 00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.560 jacket was still the same, pale blue, painted with a 29 00:01:21.560 --> 00:01:23.879 wheat field in the black streak of the river at dusk. 30 00:01:24.519 --> 00:01:26.560 It's a novel that supposed to be about coming home, 31 00:01:26.680 --> 00:01:28.640 but I remember loving it for the subtle moments, the 32 00:01:28.680 --> 00:01:31.840 meandering friendships, the careful pacing, the way a single conversation 33 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:34.680 can hum in your mind for days. I settled into 34 00:01:34.719 --> 00:01:36.599 one of the sun warm reading chairs and of into 35 00:01:36.599 --> 00:01:38.719 the place I used to start, not the beginning, but 36 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:41.400 the delk half remark, where the main character finds herself 37 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:44.239 alone in the kitchen, listlessly stirranty, before sneaking out to 38 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:47.079 the river bank with the stalin flashlight. I read, and 39 00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:49.439 for a handful of blissome minutes, the old story returned, 40 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:52.120 but then halfway to her midnight walk a line made 41 00:01:52.159 --> 00:01:54.799 me pause. It was in the mouth of Missess Farley, 42 00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:57.640 the neighbor, chiding the heroine, with the quotation all hours 43 00:01:57.640 --> 00:01:59.640 a glass, and we keep winding them farther than they 44 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:02.480 will bend. And I stopped, then read the sentence again. 45 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:05.159 That was no hazy memory. Those words were from a 46 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:08.240 different book altogether. My mind furnished the source before I 47 00:02:08.240 --> 00:02:11.520 could object. The Glass Clock, the dreamy, sinister fantasy I'd 48 00:02:11.560 --> 00:02:14.639 read as a university student, years after first discovering The 49 00:02:14.719 --> 00:02:17.520 River's Turn the Lion was exactly refrained in the other 50 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:19.879 novels spoken by the clockmakers of printe in a town 51 00:02:19.879 --> 00:02:23.479 where no one as normally this didn't scan. I'd read 52 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:26.599 both books several times. The River's Turn was subtle, provincial, 53 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:29.560 nothing whimsical or self referential about it. The Glass Clock 54 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:33.400 was mythic, Shenre Bending said in Another Imagined Country entirely. 55 00:02:34.039 --> 00:02:37.400 I flicked a few pages forward. There it was courted 56 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:39.719 again during a river argument, as if the characters in 57 00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:42.879 this plain nineteen fifties English countryside had read it. Obscure 58 00:02:42.960 --> 00:02:46.879 contemporary fable across the Atlantic. I looked around almost expecting 59 00:02:46.919 --> 00:02:50.199 to see someone watching me. No one did. Some light 60 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.159 still poured through the tall windows. My palms pricked for 61 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:55.319 the curious unease, not fear, but the puzzle of a 62 00:02:55.319 --> 00:02:58.599 pattern out of place. I returned to the title and publisher. 63 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:00.879 This was the same edition I remember from my teens, 64 00:03:00.919 --> 00:03:04.120 same faded stamp logo on the copyright page. No mention 65 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:06.919 of a new preface or some shared annotation. Was this 66 00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:08.759 a trick of memory or a kind of in joke 67 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:12.120 between others I'd never noticed. I copied their glass hours 68 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:13.960 line in my note, but can close the book softly, 69 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:16.080 leaving my thumb between the pages, as if danker to 70 00:03:16.120 --> 00:03:19.039 the world I expected. Memory is a slippery thing. I 71 00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.960 know that as well as anyone. But when something fails 72 00:03:21.960 --> 00:03:24.479 to fit not just recollection but context, it marks the 73 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:28.520 start of a mathematical problem. Observe record test. I decided, 74 00:03:28.639 --> 00:03:30.599 sitting there in the hazy morning light, that I would 75 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:32.800 check the glass clock itself, just to see if my 76 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:35.400 recollections or the world had quietly shifted behind my back. 77 00:03:36.120 --> 00:03:38.280 The library, if you haven't been in a while, is 78 00:03:38.280 --> 00:03:41.400 both suit out of labyrinth and polite bureaucracy. Even the 79 00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:43.479 route from fiction to the reference desk is a kind 80 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:46.479 of navigation dependent on avoiding the persistent confusion of post 81 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:50.080 war renovations, mid century mizzanines, and the fact that one corridor, 82 00:03:50.120 --> 00:03:52.479 if you're in a rush, lands itself with entire new 83 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.599 shelving units that I swear expand by season. When people 84 00:03:55.639 --> 00:03:57.719 speak warmly of the city's library, and I wonder if 85 00:03:57.759 --> 00:03:59.960 it's really the books they mean, or the place itself 86 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:03.240 ours claims you neuronically to be bigger on the inside. 87 00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:06.039 You step from the molded columns of the reading atrium 88 00:04:06.039 --> 00:04:08.479 into the central hall of stagger ring echoing vault, dusted 89 00:04:08.520 --> 00:04:11.240 with light from windows thirty feet overhead. There are half 90 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:14.400 a dozen major reading rooms, each with its quirks. The 91 00:04:14.439 --> 00:04:17.160 skylight Hall at the library's heart is forever a few 92 00:04:17.160 --> 00:04:20.199 degrees warmer than the rest. The local History Hall is 93 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:22.680 tiled and cool up green stone, and always smells faintly 94 00:04:22.680 --> 00:04:25.639 of rain, even in July. In the stacks, floors don't 95 00:04:25.639 --> 00:04:29.040 always align logically, a well trodden joke among regulars. If 96 00:04:29.079 --> 00:04:30.839 you can draw a real map of the second floor, 97 00:04:30.879 --> 00:04:33.319 you are in your own shelf. The library has is 98 00:04:33.360 --> 00:04:37.279 the expected denizens. The laptop tothered university students, elderly pairs 99 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:40.399 working crosswords, children on schul trips, trailing stickered backpacks, the 100 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:43.839 eternally flustered parents reading news on their phones. There is 101 00:04:43.879 --> 00:04:47.079 also a steady stream of city wander Rosottis tutors, retired 102 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:49.360 civil servant who slipping for an hour or an afternoon, 103 00:04:49.399 --> 00:04:51.160 as if the library were a warm draft under a 104 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:53.800 las window, not just to destination, but a reminder that 105 00:04:53.839 --> 00:04:57.199 thinking in quiet company is still possible. I requented myself 106 00:04:57.199 --> 00:05:00.120 with the staff too. The front desk always belongs to 107 00:05:00.199 --> 00:05:03.560 Ms Leo, the formidable head librarian who manages the institutions 108 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:05.680 on predictabilities with little more than a look and a 109 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:09.439 wire band planner Brian and the even clerk is perennially cheerful, 110 00:05:09.519 --> 00:05:11.920 a failed novelist by rumor, with a memory for obscure 111 00:05:11.920 --> 00:05:15.519 reference numbers, and everyone's over g fees. Then there's a mess, 112 00:05:15.519 --> 00:05:18.920 wrote the reference librarian, nearly my age, always slightly hurried, 113 00:05:18.959 --> 00:05:21.800 gray hairclips severely classes are a chord and dear reader 114 00:05:21.800 --> 00:05:24.920 a student from one of my earliest years teaching secondary mathematics, 115 00:05:24.959 --> 00:05:27.079 though she claims not to remember my pensant for logic 116 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:30.120 puzzles and stickers. The joke one I hear most weeks 117 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:32.199 from old guard and newcomers alike is that the building 118 00:05:32.240 --> 00:05:36.160 is always under reconfiguration. Last year, the poetry shells briefly 119 00:05:36.199 --> 00:05:40.680 migrated to the periodical's annex. Some claim entire rooms move overnight, 120 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:43.199 or that certain corners only appear after closing time to 121 00:05:43.279 --> 00:05:47.240 night clerks and Sarniac students. I never indulge these stories much, 122 00:05:47.399 --> 00:05:49.800 though I sometimes played long for the benefit of nervous 123 00:05:49.839 --> 00:05:53.240 parents or board children. My own daily routine, finally sharpened 124 00:05:53.240 --> 00:05:55.279 by years of teaching and then blunted into new shape 125 00:05:55.319 --> 00:05:58.519 by retirement, has begun to orbit this building. Mornings are 126 00:05:58.519 --> 00:06:02.759 for reading novels, archives, whatever catch is my mood. Afternoons, 127 00:06:02.920 --> 00:06:04.759 when my eyes blur in my knees ache, I tend 128 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.879 my two small gardens at home, Tomaso's an Impatience, Baukinvillia, 129 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:10.040 and the sharp green weeds I can no longer bring 130 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:13.920 myself to pull. In the evenings, I do mathematics pencil paper, 131 00:06:13.959 --> 00:06:17.399 the old battered copy of Hardy's a mathematicians Apology, and sometimes, 132 00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:20.600 if I am feeling especially restless, an infinite chesswood puzzle 133 00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:23.360 or an uncracked crypto crossword from friends. But it is 134 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:25.920 the library that heathers all this together, the hub around 135 00:06:25.920 --> 00:06:29.199 which the rest orbits quietly. On this particular Tuesday, a 136 00:06:29.240 --> 00:06:31.959 week before the business about the intersections began to accelerate, 137 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:33.920 I flirted with the idea of a second coffee, but 138 00:06:34.000 --> 00:06:36.879 was called instead by that first curiosity, which, as any 139 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:39.959 teacher will confirm, is more potent than feen. I pressed 140 00:06:40.000 --> 00:06:41.720 the coll bell at the desk, and a mess roll 141 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:45.920 looked up from the catalog, smiling absently. You're a bit early, Miriam, 142 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:49.199 she said. Did your garden finally drive you up before lunch? 143 00:06:49.920 --> 00:06:53.240 I needed fresh air, I replied, and maybe fresh fiction. 144 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:55.360 Do you have the glass clock or is that one 145 00:06:55.439 --> 00:06:58.480 hiding in storageby? Without missing a beach? She tapped at 146 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:02.800 her terminal voice, carrying a practice rhythm fiction stacks aisle thirteen. 147 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:05.120 Is this nostalgia week? Or are you assembling a book 148 00:07:05.160 --> 00:07:08.720 club of one? Maybe just hunting for familiar phrases, I said, 149 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:12.600 keeping my tone light. You remember it? She shook her head, 150 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:15.680 sliding a green return stamp into its pad. Can't say 151 00:07:15.720 --> 00:07:18.480 I do. But if you need help tracing any secret messages, 152 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:21.360 let men know renovations, switched the lighting again, don't get lost. 153 00:07:21.959 --> 00:07:25.279 We both grinned the staff. For all the city's rumors 154 00:07:25.319 --> 00:07:28.439 are practical sorts. I'd always taken their stories about books, moving, 155 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:31.560 room shifting more as frameworks for local flavor than coded warnings. 156 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:35.079 Even when a place seems strange, it remained functional, welcome 157 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:38.199 into all kinds of quiet ambitions. I found the glass 158 00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:40.519 clock back in its usual shelf, navy blue cloth cover, 159 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:43.160 its title imprinted with the outline of a gear. The 160 00:07:43.199 --> 00:07:45.680 binding fell familiar, the kind of book that, even after 161 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:48.439 a decade, opens to the same slight crinkle. There was 162 00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:52.199 a satisfaction in matching memory to artifact. I leave quickly 163 00:07:52.199 --> 00:07:54.040 to the section with the line about glass and hours 164 00:07:54.079 --> 00:07:57.480 or refrain I remembered, but now I wanted confirmation There 165 00:07:57.519 --> 00:08:01.120 it was not only that, but a near identical passage. 166 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:03.680 All hours a glass and keep winding them farther than 167 00:08:03.720 --> 00:08:07.759 life intends. But then, several pages later, something I didn't expect, 168 00:08:07.800 --> 00:08:10.199 A boxed off anecdote about a river crossing at dusk, 169 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:12.959 the hero and lighting a stolen torch, footsteps sliding on 170 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.279 wet grass, details that could almost work a word from 171 00:08:15.319 --> 00:08:18.199 the river's turn. The phrasing was in a passing illusion. 172 00:08:18.279 --> 00:08:20.279 It was a clear to liberate retelling, as if the 173 00:08:20.279 --> 00:08:23.720 glass clock, a fantastical allegorical work, was quoting or responding 174 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:26.040 to a plot from the domestic, pre digital English novel. 175 00:08:26.600 --> 00:08:28.560 Even the idea matched to her shoes like boats in 176 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:30.560 the souder Earth. The line I silently recalled under one 177 00:08:30.560 --> 00:08:33.559 book's cover, now cropping up in the other, I fumble 178 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.320 for the library stamp on the inside cover, check the 179 00:08:36.360 --> 00:08:40.399 catalog sticker. Both books apparently acquired decades ago, neither circulating 180 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:43.279 more than a few times, since no indication that EI 181 00:08:43.279 --> 00:08:45.879 there was a new edition. Both seemed, at least at 182 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:48.679 first glance, to be original printings. But why were two 183 00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:52.399 unrelated works from different continents and literary scenes yoke their 184 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:55.759 language so openly and only inside these coppice in as 185 00:08:55.759 --> 00:08:59.240 the old teacher's dilemma, a MI misremembering. Have I in 186 00:08:59.279 --> 00:09:01.279 my own reading life? I forged a connection out of 187 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:05.039 pattern seeking or distant memory? Or does answer live somewhere else? 188 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.159 An editorial accident, an off oial connection. No biography or 189 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:11.279 jacket copy ever hinted at. I pressed my lips together, 190 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:13.399 set the books side by side, and wondered if some 191 00:09:13.440 --> 00:09:16.039 clever metitextual joke had slip past critical notice for all 192 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:19.519 these years. Still not trusting just myself, I returned to 193 00:09:19.519 --> 00:09:22.600 the desk, the two novels nested under my arm. Mess 194 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:25.480 Roe was marking with drawlls, her pencil tappy and impatient rhythm. 195 00:09:26.120 --> 00:09:28.879 Mss row I said, more formally, now, did you ever 196 00:09:28.919 --> 00:09:31.360 notice that the glass clock references the river scenes from 197 00:09:31.360 --> 00:09:34.279 the river's turn? She paused mid mark I was climbing. 198 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:38.399 Are you sure different authors, aren't they? I nodded, a 199 00:09:38.440 --> 00:09:41.600 different era, different continent. But listen, I rude her the 200 00:09:41.639 --> 00:09:45.120 lines side by side. She shrugged a half smile, forming, 201 00:09:45.879 --> 00:09:48.039 maybe you've got a good memory for echoes. They always 202 00:09:48.080 --> 00:09:50.039 felt a bit alike. Are you sure it wasn't always 203 00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:52.600 like that? The final line settled in my thoughts as 204 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:55.080 a gentle skepticism, but I wasn't convinced by her. Oh 205 00:09:55.120 --> 00:09:58.080 my own regal, This wasn't me a similarity. It was 206 00:09:58.120 --> 00:10:00.879 as if two books, each supposedly cl those systems were 207 00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:04.480 quietly leaking into each other. My fingers tingled with anticipation. 208 00:10:05.120 --> 00:10:08.240 A comfort of nostalgia evaporated, replaced by the old thrill 209 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:11.320 of mathematics. Here lay a contradiction, and contradictions are worried. 210 00:10:11.399 --> 00:10:14.240 Begin the next day, I decided, as one does when 211 00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:16.480 face with a curiosity at the limits of memory, to 212 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:19.720 test for pattern rather than accident. I began not with 213 00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:21.919 the river's tone or the glass clock, but a third 214 00:10:21.919 --> 00:10:23.799 book one Ey'd read as a young teacher and a 215 00:10:23.840 --> 00:10:26.519 small anchor back then. Prime Obsessions, a biography of the 216 00:10:26.600 --> 00:10:29.440 number theorist Kurt Mawler, whose passion for prime numbers had jumps, 217 00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:32.600 started my own fascination with mathematical riddles. I found it 218 00:10:32.679 --> 00:10:35.279 shelved as always spying, somewhat bowed from years of thumbing. 219 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:37.639 Late in the first third of the text, the author 220 00:10:37.720 --> 00:10:41.399 mentioned an obsession with patterns that defied expectation. Then in 221 00:10:41.399 --> 00:10:43.799 a section I remembered, well, a courted poem appeared the 222 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:46.399 hillside and spools into quite spirals, and under a blue 223 00:10:46.480 --> 00:10:50.200 vault we camped spaces left and fill. I paused, that 224 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:53.279 was not mathematics. It was unmistakably the closing lines to 225 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:55.639 a poem from Field Nutes by Night, a collection by 226 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:58.919 Glory Miles. The two books, to my knowledge, had never 227 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:03.480 been linked. Mallow's biography was precise, slightly archaic, English fire Dutch. 228 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:07.919 Australian biographer Myles's poetry was American contemporary at flinty and 229 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.639 short lined. I checked field Notes by night. The poem 230 00:11:11.720 --> 00:11:15.919 was that identical lines, no mention of Moller or mathematics. Again, 231 00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:18.679 the library copy of Prime Obsessions alone board the poem. 232 00:11:18.720 --> 00:11:20.720 A quick search through the digital version on my phone 233 00:11:20.720 --> 00:11:23.799 showed the expected poem as Prus at lunch with a 234 00:11:23.799 --> 00:11:26.200 friend to Julia, a fellow teacher, and left form citied. 235 00:11:26.200 --> 00:11:28.960 While that I asked to borrow her home annoitated Prime Obsessions. 236 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:32.200 Her copy, bought in nineteen eighty seven contained none of 237 00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:34.840 the poetry. A trip to the used bookshop yielded in 238 00:11:34.919 --> 00:11:39.559 nineteen fifties copy three broken signatures feigned underlining no poetry. 239 00:11:40.159 --> 00:11:44.399 Only the library's Prime Obsessions offered this hybrid passage. Curiosity 240 00:11:44.440 --> 00:11:47.080 now sharpened beyond person no nostalgia to inquiry ee as 241 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:49.799 someone was tampering with books and only within these brick walls, 242 00:11:49.960 --> 00:11:52.399 or the phenomenon belonged to the building itself, a property 243 00:11:52.399 --> 00:11:54.919 of the Scatters Shock Collection. It occurred to me to 244 00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:58.000 involve others, not simply to confirm my perceptions. But to 245 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.679 see if this oddness responded to other minds. His mathematics 246 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:04.120 so often does. The first conscript by merit of proximity 247 00:12:04.120 --> 00:12:08.399 in skepticism was mister Evans, a retired attorney, crossword divererty 248 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:11.320 and by reputation, a man whose memory from miniche. He 249 00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:14.279 made him a regular thread at Quiznai. At my invitation, 250 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:16.279 he arrived at Thursday with his leather case in the 251 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:20.720 slightly raised Ibra book swapping personalities. Now Miriam that, he said, 252 00:12:20.799 --> 00:12:23.480 folding his paper. I'll believe it when I see it. 253 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:27.559 We tested my findings. He started with the prime obsessions. 254 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:32.320 Nothing at first. I directed him specifically to the spiral's passage. 255 00:12:32.840 --> 00:12:36.720 He tapped the page. That's unusual. I handed him field 256 00:12:36.879 --> 00:12:39.639 Notes by Night, which he'd never read. He scanned the 257 00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:42.919 last page, then pursed his lips. While I know these 258 00:12:42.960 --> 00:12:46.879 lines aren't by Muller. Should we check for a publication error? Curiosity, 259 00:12:47.080 --> 00:12:50.559 once bidden, seems to enjoy division of labor. Evans, not 260 00:12:50.600 --> 00:12:53.720 content to let me chase literary references, check deeper. The 261 00:12:53.799 --> 00:12:56.279 next day, he waved me over by the fiction stand. 262 00:12:56.639 --> 00:12:58.879 Come look at this, he said, holding up a batter 263 00:12:58.919 --> 00:13:01.320 fan to see paperback Sword and Sorcery novel from the 264 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:04.279 late nineteen eighties. There's a legal footnote in the middle 265 00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:06.759 of a spellcusting scene in actual fully formed law citation. 266 00:13:06.919 --> 00:13:10.320 My word, Miriam, who's pranking us? He handed me the 267 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:14.080 book embedded in a hero's dialog. Several paragraphs ran in 268 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:17.399 the idiom of Blacksun's commentaries. Impossibly of a place we 269 00:13:17.440 --> 00:13:20.840 can pay printings the library's lone copy, Evans's personal edition, 270 00:13:20.919 --> 00:13:24.080 and an interlibrary loan. The anomaly only appeared here and 271 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:28.639 only in this building's printings. Our conspiracy theories grew. Avin's 272 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:31.559 aver the lawyer mat the time line. Maybe there's a 273 00:13:31.559 --> 00:13:34.919 secret binder hiding oddities as a hobby, he mused, Or 274 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:38.000 is an elaborate rare book club and joke. My instincts 275 00:13:38.039 --> 00:13:40.720 feared elsewhere? Why only here? Why only the books we 276 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:45.039 remember or check together? We drafted possibilities reading induced hallucination 277 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:49.480 rightily jest, proof of some quantum literary game. Needing more expertise, 278 00:13:49.720 --> 00:13:52.080 enlisted Sophia, a local literature grad I'd met at a 279 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:55.679 lecture on preditmeter. She arrived, coffee in one hand, no 280 00:13:55.759 --> 00:13:59.360 book in the other. Show me, she said, immediately professional. 281 00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:02.440 We gave her both the River's turn and the glass clock. 282 00:14:03.039 --> 00:14:05.879 She paged through, then shook her head, brow furrowed with amusement. 283 00:14:06.519 --> 00:14:09.080 These references aren't in any critical edition I've seen. I 284 00:14:09.200 --> 00:14:12.960 check bibliographies, interviews, even the author's letters for influences. Nothing 285 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.240 suggests cross talk. He skepticism grew more focused as she 286 00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.960 checked online date abasses and scholarly essays on her phone. 287 00:14:19.519 --> 00:14:21.879 There's no record of the author is interacting. It's not 288 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:25.559 an academic game or a literary feud. Sophia's eyes widened. 289 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:27.759 It's as if these books are aware of each other, 290 00:14:27.799 --> 00:14:30.720 but only here. With three had applied, we divided the 291 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:34.559 catalog and kept notes. Mister Evans ever thorough log genre 292 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:38.559 of publication, date, and edition. Sophie cross reference into textuality, 293 00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:41.960 looking for literary patterns, a chart at which pairings yielded 294 00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:45.080 the most explicit intersections as we began calling them, noting 295 00:14:45.080 --> 00:14:47.480 that the more systematic are reading, the more playful and 296 00:14:47.480 --> 00:14:50.000 direct the books became, as if responding to our attention. 297 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:54.200 Within days, a pattern emerged. The odd references were honore 298 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:57.639 blind detective stories, quote in cookbooks, natural histories, debating the 299 00:14:57.639 --> 00:15:02.039 fantasy novels, even the dates slip. Sophie flagged a biography 300 00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:03.960 of a living off a quoting a collection published ten 301 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:07.840 years after the biography was first printed. Sometimes the reference 302 00:15:07.960 --> 00:15:11.399 was subvert a direct quotation, at other times subtler response, dialog, 303 00:15:11.519 --> 00:15:15.639 thematic echoes, even competitive or corrective footnotes between texts. I 304 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:18.840 mapped our results every time two or more people read 305 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:21.279 related books in sequence or side by side, sometimes as 306 00:15:21.279 --> 00:15:24.919 little as ten minutes apart. The phenomenon intensified. When read 307 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:27.879 alone and in isolation, the books felt normal, But with 308 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:31.039 company which shared conversation, the anomaly spread a snatch of 309 00:15:31.080 --> 00:15:33.679 prose here at a fragment of poetry. Their entire passages 310 00:15:33.679 --> 00:15:37.919 and nested dialog titles even changed marginally between cards, responding 311 00:15:37.919 --> 00:15:41.120 to overlapping attention. On a whim, I compared the shelf 312 00:15:41.159 --> 00:15:45.240 locations and john reclusters. It seemed proximity mattered somewhat, but 313 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:48.240 not universally. Books on opposite ends of the library. Ccross 314 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:52.480 respond althose touching spines would not. Evans joke that perhaps 315 00:15:52.480 --> 00:15:54.960 the library's air was thick with literary pollen waiting to 316 00:15:54.960 --> 00:15:58.159 be cross fertilized by idle talk. Our discoveries shift to 317 00:15:58.159 --> 00:16:00.120 the scale. This was not a trick affecting just one 318 00:16:00.240 --> 00:16:02.360 or two novels, but no less than a property of 319 00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:05.360 the library's collection itself. The more we read, the more 320 00:16:05.440 --> 00:16:08.639 the books notice to one another, embedding, referencing, even contradicting, 321 00:16:08.679 --> 00:16:13.279 never outside, always within these walls, though Sophie breed one afternoon, 322 00:16:13.360 --> 00:16:15.759 as we compared side by side sentences, it's as if 323 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:19.120 the books are performing for us, almost playing even Evans. Ever, 324 00:16:19.159 --> 00:16:21.559 the skeptic began to treat these oddities not as errors, 325 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:24.159 but as evidence of a larger system. We have to 326 00:16:24.200 --> 00:16:26.440 assume there are rules, he said, even if the rules 327 00:16:26.440 --> 00:16:30.000 don't obey normal bibliography. I nodded, gratified, and unsettled in 328 00:16:30.039 --> 00:16:34.960 equal measure. The phenomenon's context driven, collective, and energuicably responsive. 329 00:16:35.639 --> 00:16:40.279 Armed with data, curiosity became shaer purpose. I charted editions, 330 00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:44.639 Soviet drafted tables of intersections. Evans diaground relationships in legal pads. 331 00:16:45.360 --> 00:16:48.279 We speculated what would happen with three or four or 332 00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:52.600 five simultaneous readings. Would the intersections keep multiplying, or would 333 00:16:52.600 --> 00:16:56.799 the libraries order reassert itself. My mathematical mind, which was 334 00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:00.000 this emergence of phase transition, books passing someone seen threshold 335 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.320 and becoming mutually aware. Days blowed into one another, as 336 00:17:03.320 --> 00:17:05.799 if meaning itself twisted gently each morning with the sunlight 337 00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:08.720 through the high windows. It was Evans who first pointed 338 00:17:08.720 --> 00:17:12.960 out a structural oddity, Celie's colored labels. He whispered standing 339 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:16.039 in the history section one Friday morning. Some older books 340 00:17:16.039 --> 00:17:18.680 were relabeled recently, but not according to content. It some 341 00:17:18.720 --> 00:17:22.799 other code. I looked underneath the usual g numbers, certain 342 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:26.319 volumes bore faded dots, red yellow, and bluted, sometimes with 343 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.680 numbers marked in soft graphic. I watched as mister Sola, 344 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:32.880 one of the library's senior workers, trundled by with a loca. 345 00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:35.799 He paused, picked three books seemingly at random from a 346 00:17:35.839 --> 00:17:38.440 return Bain, checked the spines and sorted them, some to 347 00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:40.200 the stacks, sum to his cut A few left in 348 00:17:40.240 --> 00:17:43.640 a narrow shelf labeled hold. His motions bore the familiarity 349 00:17:43.640 --> 00:17:46.720 of routine, but the criteria for his choices were opaque. 350 00:17:47.079 --> 00:17:49.519 I let myself watch him for nearly an hour after lunch, 351 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:52.559 as he made several trips, never following the same rate, twise, 352 00:17:52.839 --> 00:17:55.000 always feeding a handful of books to a side door 353 00:17:55.079 --> 00:17:58.720 marked staff only arcavendix. I'd never noticed this room before. 354 00:17:58.759 --> 00:18:02.720 That wasn't unusual. The billing offered new surprises, steadily emboldened 355 00:18:02.720 --> 00:18:05.279 by a tightening web of anomalies. I intercepted a mess 356 00:18:05.359 --> 00:18:08.160 row at the reference desk. Those colored dots. When did 357 00:18:08.200 --> 00:18:12.200 you all start using them? I asked, She hesitated, smile, 358 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.680 stiffening the old cataloging system backhog from before my time. 359 00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.480 I'm not sure it means much now, but mister Zola 360 00:18:18.519 --> 00:18:20.759 spends a lot of time moving those books around. Is 361 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:23.519 he in charge of the index? A mess ro checked 362 00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:27.319 her watch. He handles our cows, mostly rarely deals with patrons. 363 00:18:27.880 --> 00:18:31.319 The evasion was deliberate, if gentle. I found myself boyed 364 00:18:31.319 --> 00:18:33.559 not by paranoia, but by the distinct sense of having 365 00:18:33.559 --> 00:18:36.240 reached the edge of a partly visible game. The pattern 366 00:18:36.319 --> 00:18:38.759 was not random, The staff were not, after all ignorant. 367 00:18:39.400 --> 00:18:41.400 I understood, then, though only vaguely, that I had been 368 00:18:41.400 --> 00:18:44.240 shadow boxing with a mapped, manish set of intersections with 369 00:18:44.359 --> 00:18:47.559 rules known to someone, if not to me. That afternoon, 370 00:18:47.599 --> 00:18:49.960 I avoided my usual garden time and waited near the 371 00:18:49.960 --> 00:18:53.519 catalog rooms bay windows. I watched as mister zola Marriage 372 00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:55.519 glanced up and down the hall and then unlocked the 373 00:18:55.519 --> 00:18:58.680 staff only door. Through the crack, I glimpsed an old 374 00:18:58.680 --> 00:19:01.799 fashioned card catalog qua drawers, each fitted with a series 375 00:19:01.799 --> 00:19:05.400 of index cards marked in collars a neat, tiny handriton, notations, stoburs, 376 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:09.720 triangled and thrillingly what looked like mathematical operations, square root 377 00:19:09.880 --> 00:19:13.240 and phrases like one degrees intersection narrative a, two degrees 378 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:17.319 intersection the mad cometa, and three degrees lexkal response. Some 379 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:21.359 cards boor date spanning decades. Certain drawers were marked hot 380 00:19:21.400 --> 00:19:24.559 in red crayon, dormant in blue. The existence of this 381 00:19:24.599 --> 00:19:27.319 parallel catalog one not revealed to the Publican using a 382 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:29.640 system of insection and degree made the nature of the 383 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:34.039 library's audit clearer. Someone or several someones, attract this indixed it, 384 00:19:34.200 --> 00:19:36.240 measured it with the same curiosity, if not the same 385 00:19:36.240 --> 00:19:38.880 methods as we were. I scribbled in my notebook as 386 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:42.400 quickly as I could, feeling more excitement than murray. Nostalgia 387 00:19:42.480 --> 00:19:45.799 was gone, replaced by the old compulsion to uncover underlying structure. 388 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:49.039 Just as in mathematics, the library and its staff didn't 389 00:19:49.079 --> 00:19:53.400 simply observe literary oddities. They codified, annotated, and quite possibly 390 00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:56.799 curated the ongoing in dissection of texts, I returned to 391 00:19:56.799 --> 00:19:59.960 Evans and Sofia, outlining what I had seen. Sophie's fore 392 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:02.160 's response was to ask, why keep it secret? But 393 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:05.200 they guarding the source or don't they know either? Evans, 394 00:20:05.240 --> 00:20:07.839 thoughtful as ever, replied, if you don't know why something 395 00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:10.160 is happening, but you can map how it's happening, sometimes 396 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:13.559 that's enough. The library was no longer a sute of happenstance, 397 00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:17.400 though his order hidden, partial evolving, noted for years of observation, 398 00:20:17.640 --> 00:20:20.640 as rigorously tracked as prime numbers or poetic form. A 399 00:20:20.759 --> 00:20:23.960 small group, having pieced together evidence of codified anomaly, now 400 00:20:23.960 --> 00:20:26.880 found itself invited, if only by curiosity and necessity to 401 00:20:26.880 --> 00:20:30.279