“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue…”
Samuel Johnson: Rambler #106 (March 23, 1751)http://www.samueljohnson.com/writing.html

 I’m a little less than halfway through George Gissing’s New Grub Street (1891)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Grub_Street], a delightfully gloomy late Victorian novel about (among other things) the writer’s life and the uneasy relationship between art and commerce. It’s a remarkably well written, insightful and contemporary-feeling book, one that came highly recommended from friend of a friend. Interestingly enough, this book has been the subject of an issue of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor [”Grubstreet U.S.A.” American Splendor No. 11 - http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/08.21.03/splendor-0334.html].

I haven’t gotten to the end of it yet, so I can’t talk about the book with any real authority (not that I’ll be able to do so after reading it either). Nonetheless, I’d like to share with everyone a passage that I came across (in chapter VIII) that has to do with the main reading room of the British Museum. It provides a nice description of what I’ve oftened imagined to be the inner life of some of the people here at Mid-Manhattan (the ones with their heads down on the tables), and also offers a wonderfully inventive and funny riff on the maddening, almost mechanical way that the books here in The Library beget other books, which beget other books, which … 

I didn’t expect to find in books of this era a passage so light and grim at the same time - it’s sort of like the Sorcerer’s Appretice segment in Disney’s Fantasia, meets Thomas Malthus, meets Rube Goldberg, meets the Espresso Book Machine, meets …

You get the point. Here’s the passage:

“… The days darkened. Through November rains and fogs Marian [Yule, the daughter of (and researcher for) a bitter and somewhat unsuccessful writer/editor] went her usual way to the Museum, and toiled there among the other toilers. Perhaps once a week she allowed herself to stray about the alleys of the Reading-room, scanning furtively those who sat at the desks [for the young, up-and-coming writer Jasper Milvain], but the face she might perchance have discovered was not there.

One day at the end of the month she sat with books open before her, but by no effort could fix her attention upon them. It was gloomy, and one could scarcely see to read; a taste of fog grew perceptible in the warm, headachy air. Such profound discouragement possessed her that she could not even maintain the pretence of study; heedless whether anyone observed her, she let her hands fall and her head droop. She kept asking herself what was the use and purpose of such a life as she was condemned to lead. When already there was more good literature in the world than any mortal could cope with in his lifetime, here was she exhausting herself in the manufacture of printed stuff which no one even pretended to be more than a commodity for the day’s market. What unspeakable folly! To write — was not that the joy and the privilege of one who had an urgent message for the world?

Her father, she knew well, had no such message; he had abandoned all thought of original production, and only wrote about writing.

She herself would throw away her pen with joy but for the need of earning money. And all these people about her, what aim had they save to make new books out of those already existing, that yet newer books might in turn be made out of theirs? This huge library, growing into unwieldiness, threatening to become a trackless desert of print — how intolerably it weighed upon the spirit!

Oh, to go forth and labour with one’s hands, to do any poorest, commonest work of which the world had truly need! It was ignoble to sit here and support the paltry pretence of intellectual dignity. A few days ago her startled eye had caught an advertisement in the newspaper, headed ‘Literary Machine’; had it then been invented at last, some automaton to supply the place of such poor creatures as herself to turn out books and articles? Alas! the machine was only one for holding volumes conveniently, that the work of literary manufacture might be physically lightened. But surely before long some Edison would make the true automaton; the problem must be comparatively such a simple one. Only to throw in a given number of old books, and have them reduced, blended, modernised into a single one for to-day’s consumption. …”

One topic that I know everyone here at MML is into, and that I’d really like to get a good discussion started about, is something near and dear to everyone’s heart - in fact, according to staff at our Health Information Center, it is located directly below the cardiac muscle. The topic is food, and where to get a good cheap square meal in this neighborhood.

I myself have a few regular lunch stops, listed here in no particular order:

Curry Dream - 66 West 39th (btw. Fifth and Sixth, south side, close to Sixth) 212-810-4125 - friendly service, and knock-your-socks-off good Indian food. I am fond of the “Vegetable platter” ($6.95), which includes two curries (I usually get the sag paneer, and the chana masala), basmati rice, nan bread, and a delightful rice pudding.

Szechuan Gourmet - 21 West 39th Street (halfway btw. Fifth and Sixth, north side) 212-921-0233 - friendly service, and carefully prepared Szechuan-style food that can be as fiendishly hot as you may ask for. I usually go with the either the “Enchanted Pork” or the braised crispy tofu with chili sliced pork ($6.95). Lunch specials come with rice (I usually get brown), and soup or soda.

When I’m feeling carnivorous (and rich - usually after payday) I go to Berger’s On the Go Fine Foods and Catering - 2 East 39th Street (just off Fifth) 212-719-4173. Two things I usually get - pastrami on rye, and the matzah ball soup (~ $12.00).

When I’ve got a yen for raw fish, I go to Chiyoda Sushi at 16 East 41st (aka Library Way -http://www.grandcentralpartnership.org/what_we_do/beautify_library_way.asp ). It’s expensive (it usually takes me about $12.00 to get my fill) but no other take out place I’ve been to in the neighborhood serves anything quite as fresh and brine-kist, though I wish they didn’t only offer the soy sauce, ginger, & wasabi in those awful little plastic packages.

On the street, I’ve had excellent chicken and gyro platters ($4.25) from a Rafiqi’s Delicious Foods stand on the southside of 40th Street just west of Park Avenue, and decent platters from the guys on the northeast corner of Fifth and 40th, and the southeast corner of Madison and 41st.

Ratings for these and other stands can be found via Chowhound (http://www.chowhound.com/boards/18 ) and Street Grub (http://www.streetgrub.com/ ) among other Web sites. There are a number of more distant lunch spots that I don’t go to on a regular basis, but are worth an occasional trip, including the Wolf’s Bay Diner, the Diamond Dairy, the buffet at Ho Yip, the Cafe Edison (aka the Polish Tea Room), BBQ at Virgil’s, and cuban sandwiches at Margon Restaurant.

Lastly, a block away from MML, I’ve been a recent convert to Asia Culture Inc. (aka Heavenly Bamboo Pavilion) at 10 East 39th (halfway btw Fifth and Mad., southside of the street) 212-684-2100. Their kitchen got off to a rough start a few years back, but of late I have been really digging their tasty (though admittedly standard) noodle dishes, especially the chicken mei fun. Get this though - the lunch special, which includes soup or soda and a salad, is only $5.95!

Not does the Heavenly Bamboo Pavilion offer good food, but they also have great crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon-inspired decor and a happy hour special whose moves are unstoppable - $2.50 bottled beers!

Which is, I suppose, is yet another topic that we’re all interested in, that of where to go for drinks - naturally, only after our work day is done!

Any other suggestions for lunch here in the neighborhood? Breakfast? Dinner? Drinks?

Christmas has returned to Midtown again. We all know the holiday tableau – the brightly twinkling lights, the piping hot hot chocolate, the carefree skating in the park, and the happy shoppers thronging the streets overflowing with song and good will towards men. Being in Midtown is like living inside a snow globe.

And yet, to many New Yorkers, all this cheer feels terribly out of synch with an inescapable melancholy. Maybe it’s the incessant drone of canned X-mas tunes spooling out of the loutspeakers in Bryant Park, or the frozen spit on the sidewalk, or the way those happy shoppers never cease to get in the way (stupid tourists) when an underpaid New York working stiff is just trying to get a bite to eat (don’t they have anything better to do than trip you with their overstuffed shopping bags?). An inner grinch wants to shut out the lights, stop the music, and sleep straight through to April.

For those of you who might have these feelings, unless you’re a perennial misanthrope (and you know who you are), there very well may be a physiological reason. You may have at least a mild form of SAD – seasonal affective disorder.

Stuck where the sun doesn’t shine.

About this time of year it begins to hit you – the sun has left the City for parts south. It’s not so bad that there’s no daylight at all - New York’s not Anchorage, or Helsinki - but it’s bad enough so that unless you get up early (which many of us New Yorkers are constitutionally unable to do) you’re not going to get even a small drop of golden sunshine.

Does this sound like everyone you know?