About 2 years ago there was a major change at my lovely place of employment -- out went the Old Director (OD) and in came the new. The new fellow was much vaunted, real tech-savvy, vocal and strong. New Director (ND) had actually helped develop a piece of software that we consumed heavily and this implied that ND was relevant and valuable. OD was swell but perhaps ill-suited for the prominent Director position as he was burdened with a modicum of introversion. The daily trade was plied in the confines of his office and rarely did he speak, if at all, to the common folk that produced many of the real, tangible items that were consumed by the facility. Nevertheless, OD was both well-respected and well-liked. He allowed only a close coterie of esteemed folks - the upper echelon - to influence and provide council. But at the time, occupying a lower caste, I had to be content lapping at the meager drip of information which fell in my pan.
Then, one day, without warning, word spread that OD was to retire from his storied post. Since OD rarely communicated anything to the larger group, the advertisement for the ND was discovered in a vocationally relevant circular. Change was in the wind and would arrive in the Spring.
About a month or so before the arrival, there were a series of secret meetings amongst the mid and upper-level managers. It was crucial to strategize earlier rather than later. Would the pecking order be preserved, could new territory be up for grab? Old allegiences were strengthened and enemies were kept close. There would be alignment with the new power at all costs. Every ounce of data obtained about ND was parsed for clues and suggestions from the most heralded dissertation to the meagerest plea for help on a mailing list. And yours truly? I was cynical yet optimistic. I was hoping for my chance; a meritocracy.
Enter Spring. It was buzzing that a wholly new organizational chart had been devised. There was an endless queue of covert meetings between ND and the mid/upper level managers. Decisions were being made and, as far as I knew, the common folk that produced real things, such as myself, were never consulted. It was leaked that, at the behest of ND, a quasi-famous Industrial Psychologist (IP) had been hired to analyze the staff, make assessments, and present reportage and council to ND. It was at this point that I become uneasy and warn't too shy about it, neither.
IP had authored some books and wrote vignettes for public radio. IP was disarming enough, as I suspected would be the case. Each staff member was allotted one hour of couch time. Some folks strode in there thinking this was their big opportunity to be an instrument of change, some were paranoid and promised to present to IP an inpenetrable shell, and one particular clown read up on industrial psychology ahead of time, picked up a bit of argot, and sought to turn the tables. I wasn't interested in any of that. I resolved to be forthright and helpful but I wasn't in the mind to put my cards on the table, so to speak. I was more interested in listening to the type of language employed by IP and keen to identify the triggers that implored me to lower my guard and spill forth -- knowledge of those triggers and techniques could be useful.
Upon completion of all the interviews, IP anonymized and categorized the data into a series of talking points and presented it to the staff during a lively 2 hour group meeting. Common issues and concerns were bulletted and reviewed. I list some specimens that will become relevant later on here:
1. People's roles and responsibilties are either ill-defined and nebulous so as to mean nothing or they are too specific and thus constrictive.
2. People want a more transparent organization, one where decisions and logic are communicated and where input is encouraged and well-regarded.
3. People want the opportunity to become more involved, redefine their roles, and grow professionally.
To be continued...
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Mens Room
Here are things that piss me off in the mens room:
- Talking on cell phones, especially while in the stall
- People afraid to urinate at the urinal and use the toilet instead - worse when they leave the stall door open
- People that, given an entire row of empty urinals, chose the one next to yours
- People that can't urinate unless they keep flushing the urinal
- People that make a show of excessive shaking, tugging, and groaning upon completion
- People who drop pants and even worse, underwear, to the floor at the urinal
- People that stand and have a lengthy conversation after the business is finished
- People who leave the stall and don't wash their hands
- People who leave the door knob wet when they leave
CHEP 2009 - Prague
I've always wanted to go to Prague and it finally looks as if the planets are coming into alignment. I just submitted (3) abstracts for the CHEP conference which will be held 3/21-27, 2009. CHEP stands for Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics and it's an opportunity for folks such as myself to present papers and give lectures on both the mundane and extraordinary components of our own little computing context. This particular conference is held every (2) years, I think, and carries with it a bit more prestige than the bi-annual HEPiX meetings.
I've always had a romance for Prague -- I imagine it to be a labrynthine, stoney grey web of spires and mystery in the spirit of Kafka. In the 1991 Soderberg movie, Kafka, Prague was an intensely dark and murderous place. The movie rehashed many of Kafka's own themes: isolation, transformation, paranoia, and institutional oppression. I especially liked when the movie moves from black and white to full color once Kafka (Jeremy Irons) enters the Castle -- with all the appropriate elbows and winks to Dorothy in Oz.
Then I recall reading something about Einstein, Kafka, and Freud hanging out in Prague but I don't know if that's real or just a myth...
Anyway, here are the abstracts -- it took a minimal of effort to write them up -- if they get accepted then I'll craft something good.
Title: dCache Storage Cluster at BNL
Abstract content
Over the last (2) years, the USATLAS Computing Facility at BNL has managed a highly performant, reliable, and cost effective dCache storage cluster using SunFire x4500/4540 (Thumper/Thor) storage servers. The design of a discreet storage cluster signaled a departure from a model where storage resides locally on a disk-heavy compute farm. The consequent alteration of data flow mandated a dramatic re-construction of the network fabric.
This work will cover all components of our dCache storage cluster (from door to pool) including OS/ZFS file-system configuration, 10GE network tuning, monitoring, and environmentals. Performance metrics will be surveyed within the context of our Solaris 10 production system as well as those rendered during evaluations of OpenSolaris and Linux. Failure modes, bottlenecks, and deficiencies will be examined.
Lastly, we discuss competing architectures under evaluation, scaling limits in our current model, and future technologies that warrant close surveillance.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
KARASAWA, Mizuki (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
MCCARTHY, John (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Hardware and Computing Fabrics
Title: Building a Storage Cluster with Gluster
Abstract content
Gluster, a free cluster file-system scalable to several peta-bytes, is under evaluation at the RHIC/USATLAS Computing Facility. Several production SunFire x4500 (Thumper) NFS servers were dual-purposed as storage bricks and aggregated into a single parallel file-system using TCP/IP as an interconnect. Armed with a paucity of new hardware, the objective was to simultaneously allow traditional NFS client access to discreet systems as well as access to the GlusterFS global namespace without impacting production.
Gluster is elegantly designed and carries an advanced feature set including, but not limited to, automated replication across servers, server striping, fast db backend, and I/O scheduling. GlusterFS exists as a layer above existing file-systems, does not have a single-point-of-failure, supports RDMA, distributes metadata, and is entirely implemented in user space via FUSE.
We will provide a background of Gluster along with its architectural underpinnings, followed by a description of our test-bed, environmentals, and performance characteristics.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Hardware and Computing Fabrics
Title: Log Mining with Splunk
Abstract content
Robust, centralized system and application logging services are vital to all computing organizations, regardless of size. For the past year, the RHIC/USATLAS Computing Facility (RACF) has dramatically augmented the utility of logging services with Splunk. Splunk is a powerful application that functions as a log search engine, providing fast, real-time access to data from servers, applications, and network devices. Splunk at the RACF is configured to parse system and application log files, script output, snmp traps, alerts, and has been integrated into our Nagios monitoring infrastructure.
This work will detail our central log infrastructure vis-`a-vis Splunk, examine lightweight agents and example configurations, consider security, and demonstrate functionality. Distributed Splunk deployments or clusters between institutions will be discussed.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
RIND, Ofer (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Software Components, Tools and Databases
I've always had a romance for Prague -- I imagine it to be a labrynthine, stoney grey web of spires and mystery in the spirit of Kafka. In the 1991 Soderberg movie, Kafka, Prague was an intensely dark and murderous place. The movie rehashed many of Kafka's own themes: isolation, transformation, paranoia, and institutional oppression. I especially liked when the movie moves from black and white to full color once Kafka (Jeremy Irons) enters the Castle -- with all the appropriate elbows and winks to Dorothy in Oz.
Then I recall reading something about Einstein, Kafka, and Freud hanging out in Prague but I don't know if that's real or just a myth...
Anyway, here are the abstracts -- it took a minimal of effort to write them up -- if they get accepted then I'll craft something good.
Title: dCache Storage Cluster at BNL
Abstract content
Over the last (2) years, the USATLAS Computing Facility at BNL has managed a highly performant, reliable, and cost effective dCache storage cluster using SunFire x4500/4540 (Thumper/Thor) storage servers. The design of a discreet storage cluster signaled a departure from a model where storage resides locally on a disk-heavy compute farm. The consequent alteration of data flow mandated a dramatic re-construction of the network fabric.
This work will cover all components of our dCache storage cluster (from door to pool) including OS/ZFS file-system configuration, 10GE network tuning, monitoring, and environmentals. Performance metrics will be surveyed within the context of our Solaris 10 production system as well as those rendered during evaluations of OpenSolaris and Linux. Failure modes, bottlenecks, and deficiencies will be examined.
Lastly, we discuss competing architectures under evaluation, scaling limits in our current model, and future technologies that warrant close surveillance.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
KARASAWA, Mizuki (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
MCCARTHY, John (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Hardware and Computing Fabrics
Title: Building a Storage Cluster with Gluster
Abstract content
Gluster, a free cluster file-system scalable to several peta-bytes, is under evaluation at the RHIC/USATLAS Computing Facility. Several production SunFire x4500 (Thumper) NFS servers were dual-purposed as storage bricks and aggregated into a single parallel file-system using TCP/IP as an interconnect. Armed with a paucity of new hardware, the objective was to simultaneously allow traditional NFS client access to discreet systems as well as access to the GlusterFS global namespace without impacting production.
Gluster is elegantly designed and carries an advanced feature set including, but not limited to, automated replication across servers, server striping, fast db backend, and I/O scheduling. GlusterFS exists as a layer above existing file-systems, does not have a single-point-of-failure, supports RDMA, distributes metadata, and is entirely implemented in user space via FUSE.
We will provide a background of Gluster along with its architectural underpinnings, followed by a description of our test-bed, environmentals, and performance characteristics.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Hardware and Computing Fabrics
Title: Log Mining with Splunk
Abstract content
Robust, centralized system and application logging services are vital to all computing organizations, regardless of size. For the past year, the RHIC/USATLAS Computing Facility (RACF) has dramatically augmented the utility of logging services with Splunk. Splunk is a powerful application that functions as a log search engine, providing fast, real-time access to data from servers, applications, and network devices. Splunk at the RACF is configured to parse system and application log files, script output, snmp traps, alerts, and has been integrated into our Nagios monitoring infrastructure.
This work will detail our central log infrastructure vis-`a-vis Splunk, examine lightweight agents and example configurations, consider security, and demonstrate functionality. Distributed Splunk deployments or clusters between institutions will be discussed.
Presentation type (oral | poster)
Oral
Primary Authors:
PETKUS, Robert (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Co-authors:
SMITH, Jason (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
RIND, Ofer (Brookhaven National Laboratory)
Abstract presenters:
PETKUS, Robert
Track classification:
Software Components, Tools and Databases
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Social Bookmarking
There is simply too much information and interesting content on the web and not enough hours in the day to waste precious time in front of a monitor. I lead a productive work life and only allow myself small punctuations throughout the day for surfing. Now I've always been behind the trend so I'm beginning to explore vehicles that real technophiles had already spun and crashed years ago: social bookmarking sites.
It's a natural progression for yours truly. At first, many years ago, I'd set my home page to a web portal like Excite! or Yahoo, which I eventually customized to include the news and stock tallies, etc., and revisit throughout the day. Later on I made a ritual out of visiting a selection of bookmarked sites that offered the perspectives I sought during the day: NYTimes, Register, Onion, Slashdot. Then RSS and ATOM made this process simpler and more attractive since I could have information pushed rather than pulled.
But the problem was always the same -- unless I was willing to spend an inordinate amount of time spelunking the web, I would never be exposed to new and innovative sources of interest. This began to change when I began to utilize Del.icio.us and Google Reader. The great thing about Del.icio.us was that once I began to populate my account with all the random bookmarks I deemed valuable I was immediately exposed to others who were interested in the same thing. I could then browse the other, similarly categorized bookmarks these far-flung siblings had chosen to cherish. In effect, I was able to benefit from the research, googling and web-mining of others. I discovered virtual soul-mates who were prolifically bookmarking previously unknown and valuable web pages. I would parasitically attach myself to them via anonymous RSS subscription. For all I know they were attaching themselves to greater source. Perhaps every user of Delicious is merely a decomposer fed from a single autotroph.
Google Reader, a web-based aggregator, is a different animal. A user essentially populates their reader, an empty canvas, with a selection RSS and/or ATOM feeds (the selection is Google-vast), and reads articles through the interface. The application tracks and tallies what you have and haven't read, what you've labeled worthwhile, and begins to suggest new sources of information. The more you use the system, the more intelligent the suggestions. Again, this has had an impact on my daily consumption of information and I appreciate the exposure I receive to different sources of data.
There is something sinister about these tools. In effect, I am allowing myself to be observed and studied. I'm confident dissertations will be penned exploring the reduction of human psychology via web trend analysis. I imagine a superior advertising product will be engineered based on the information obtained when folks like me use a system such as this on a regular basis. But this is another matter.
Today, my attention has been drawn to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon. I've created accounts with both services and intend on giving them a full evaluation. Will these tools expose me to the information I seek with minimal work? Will I be able to reclaim more hours of the day and spend them away from a monitor? Will I be fed information that I don't necessarily want to read but am meant to read? Only time will tell.
It's a natural progression for yours truly. At first, many years ago, I'd set my home page to a web portal like Excite! or Yahoo, which I eventually customized to include the news and stock tallies, etc., and revisit throughout the day. Later on I made a ritual out of visiting a selection of bookmarked sites that offered the perspectives I sought during the day: NYTimes, Register, Onion, Slashdot. Then RSS and ATOM made this process simpler and more attractive since I could have information pushed rather than pulled.
But the problem was always the same -- unless I was willing to spend an inordinate amount of time spelunking the web, I would never be exposed to new and innovative sources of interest. This began to change when I began to utilize Del.icio.us and Google Reader. The great thing about Del.icio.us was that once I began to populate my account with all the random bookmarks I deemed valuable I was immediately exposed to others who were interested in the same thing. I could then browse the other, similarly categorized bookmarks these far-flung siblings had chosen to cherish. In effect, I was able to benefit from the research, googling and web-mining of others. I discovered virtual soul-mates who were prolifically bookmarking previously unknown and valuable web pages. I would parasitically attach myself to them via anonymous RSS subscription. For all I know they were attaching themselves to greater source. Perhaps every user of Delicious is merely a decomposer fed from a single autotroph.
Google Reader, a web-based aggregator, is a different animal. A user essentially populates their reader, an empty canvas, with a selection RSS and/or ATOM feeds (the selection is Google-vast), and reads articles through the interface. The application tracks and tallies what you have and haven't read, what you've labeled worthwhile, and begins to suggest new sources of information. The more you use the system, the more intelligent the suggestions. Again, this has had an impact on my daily consumption of information and I appreciate the exposure I receive to different sources of data.
There is something sinister about these tools. In effect, I am allowing myself to be observed and studied. I'm confident dissertations will be penned exploring the reduction of human psychology via web trend analysis. I imagine a superior advertising product will be engineered based on the information obtained when folks like me use a system such as this on a regular basis. But this is another matter.
Today, my attention has been drawn to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon. I've created accounts with both services and intend on giving them a full evaluation. Will these tools expose me to the information I seek with minimal work? Will I be able to reclaim more hours of the day and spend them away from a monitor? Will I be fed information that I don't necessarily want to read but am meant to read? Only time will tell.
The Farmingdale Library web site isn't entirely lame but alisweb.org is
Yesterday I mentioned how, at first blush, the Northport Library website looked superior to my local digs, the Farmingdale Library. You'll recall how I was smitten by the ability to manage your own account online. Then the final verdict that the NPPL site was really just a heap of bolus draped in semi-professional CSS glaze. Let's cover new ground and make some corrections.
The Farmingdale Library does allow patron account access. I can view material currently checked out, renew online, request inter-library loan (with email notification), and even opt into a system wherein all my activity is tracked for personal analysis (I opted). They use a system utilized by all libraries in Nassau County called the Automated Library Information System Web Catalog, or Alisweb.
This is what it looks like -- as you can see I'm overdue on a number of items.
Now I'm a severe library buff and so are my kids. There was a time many years ago when I would spend many hours and dollars in Borders-n-Barnes&Nobles. Strand was a mecca and old George Lenz in Huntington had all the literary gems (Faulkner, Proust, Joyce, Nabokov) in the ever-so-hip 8x5.2 sizing for $8-10. As a kid my room was stuffed wall to wall with bookcases, books piled 2-3 levels deep, falling off the shelves, and atop every piece of furniture.
Then everything changed when I had kids. Even before progeny one breathed her own air I began building a mini child library. Until I realized that the majority of my selections were flops: Daddy, I don't like this book. I simply cannot predict what my kids are going to like. The library changed this -- I've donated a significant portion of my collection and simply see no reason why I would ever need to purchase a book again. I'm really referring to recreational reading books here, not reference or professional volumes.
The public library evokes all the sentiment it held when I was in elementary school. Now I recall with embarrassment how I had all those $20 Stephen King hardcovers during junior and high school -- did I ever ever read one of those books more than once?
But I'm supposed to be speaking about alisweb. Cool idea -- horrible implementation. In order to access your account one needs to enter 1) username, 2) 14-digit library card barcode, and 3) 4-digit pin. The site doesn't support encryption which is real annoying but I figure it's not like I'm entering my bank account password. At worst, someone can request a bunch of books on my behalf and cause some annoyance for me. Otherwise, I'm not taking out how-to books on nail pipe-bomb or pvc silencer manufacturing so I go ahead, enter the information, close my eyes and inject my clear-text library genome straight into cyberspace.
Since it's not SSL, the Safari browser can't store the password and Firefox only stores the 4-digit pin -- I can remember the 4-digit pin, it's the 14-digit number that's the problem! Now get this: Every time you navigate away from "personal settings" and back again, you have to re-enter everything again -- including the 14-digit number! What a piece of garbage. I want to contact Innovative Interfaces, Inc. and tell them how uninnovative their interface is.
Here is my open letter to Innovatice Interfaces, Inc.:
Please consider SSL and credential management.
The Farmingdale Library does allow patron account access. I can view material currently checked out, renew online, request inter-library loan (with email notification), and even opt into a system wherein all my activity is tracked for personal analysis (I opted). They use a system utilized by all libraries in Nassau County called the Automated Library Information System Web Catalog, or Alisweb.
This is what it looks like -- as you can see I'm overdue on a number of items.
Now I'm a severe library buff and so are my kids. There was a time many years ago when I would spend many hours and dollars in Borders-n-Barnes&Nobles. Strand was a mecca and old George Lenz in Huntington had all the literary gems (Faulkner, Proust, Joyce, Nabokov) in the ever-so-hip 8x5.2 sizing for $8-10. As a kid my room was stuffed wall to wall with bookcases, books piled 2-3 levels deep, falling off the shelves, and atop every piece of furniture.
Then everything changed when I had kids. Even before progeny one breathed her own air I began building a mini child library. Until I realized that the majority of my selections were flops: Daddy, I don't like this book. I simply cannot predict what my kids are going to like. The library changed this -- I've donated a significant portion of my collection and simply see no reason why I would ever need to purchase a book again. I'm really referring to recreational reading books here, not reference or professional volumes.
The public library evokes all the sentiment it held when I was in elementary school. Now I recall with embarrassment how I had all those $20 Stephen King hardcovers during junior and high school -- did I ever ever read one of those books more than once?
But I'm supposed to be speaking about alisweb. Cool idea -- horrible implementation. In order to access your account one needs to enter 1) username, 2) 14-digit library card barcode, and 3) 4-digit pin. The site doesn't support encryption which is real annoying but I figure it's not like I'm entering my bank account password. At worst, someone can request a bunch of books on my behalf and cause some annoyance for me. Otherwise, I'm not taking out how-to books on nail pipe-bomb or pvc silencer manufacturing so I go ahead, enter the information, close my eyes and inject my clear-text library genome straight into cyberspace.
Since it's not SSL, the Safari browser can't store the password and Firefox only stores the 4-digit pin -- I can remember the 4-digit pin, it's the 14-digit number that's the problem! Now get this: Every time you navigate away from "personal settings" and back again, you have to re-enter everything again -- including the 14-digit number! What a piece of garbage. I want to contact Innovative Interfaces, Inc. and tell them how uninnovative their interface is.
Here is my open letter to Innovatice Interfaces, Inc.:
Please consider SSL and credential management.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Northport Library - Luminescent Orchestrii - old people
A friend told me that "Luminescent Orchestrii" would be playing at the Northport Public Library at 7PM. Since my 3-year old is learning to play the violin and the band includes (2) female violinists in the front perhaps I would be interested? Indeed I was. On their MySpace page, the group is self-described as "Gypsy Tango Klezmer Punk". I wasn't exactly enamored by the clips I heard but figured a group such as this is best appreciated live. I also hoped the exposure would broaden my daughter's appreciation of the violin, allowing her view it from a different lens.
Alas, the performance was cancelled at the last minute. I was maybe 10 minutes from the library, having rushed dinner before fumbling around the house for last minute essentials in a storm of panic and profanity. Which library is it at, Northport or East Northport? The libraries share the same website and pdf bulletin. There was no distinction made regarding the location of the performance.
/* Side note: at first blush I thought to myself, Wow, this library has a nice website -- much better than my local Farmingdale library. Look Honey, I hollered from the kitchen table excitedly, members can log in and track the books they've taken out! But that was a superficial assessment. The web site sucks. Basic information like, Calendar of Events, is obfuscated. Useful information is obtained by downloading a pdf of the most recent bulletin, a decoupage of clip art and goofy fonts. */
Another great tragedy is that I had my wife last-minute-cancel dinner with the mother-in-law in order to make the gig. The wife was appropriately disgusted about the cancellation suggesting this was yet another in a long series of atrocities committed by yours truly. The most fabled of all was when my mother-in-law took it upon herself to invite her son and his (2) rowdy boys to participate in a simple birthday ceremony I organized for my daughter that was intended for nuclear family consumption only. These are the sort of kids that were bound to put a damper on things -- a duo of sullen, surly boys that are completely unresponsive to authority. Anyway, I had to call up both mother and brother-in-law and do the uninviting that sad day. And from that moment on I ceased to be a team-player and was labeled capricious and tacky.
Back to tonight and Luminescent, my wife made it clear that since she was unhappy about the cancellation she would refuse to have fun and resolve herself to a disposition that was grey and mealy. After dinner and last minute panic, I call the library whilst driving and ask if Luminescent Orchestrii was playing that night. That was intended as a rhetorical question designed only to give context to my real question: Are they playing at the Northport or East Northport Library? But even this was a challenge. I'm at a red light, I'm running 15-minutes late, I have (2) addresses. I need to finger one of those addresses into the GPS before the light turns green and I have to drive on a dark highway. What, the Illuminati? is the response. No, Luminescent Orchestrii. Let me see, she says. Long long pause -- the other traffic light turns yellow -- my phone's low battery indicator beeps -- Hello, is anyone there? No, sir, I don't have any such event scheduled for tonight. Goddammit, I say, I know for a fact the band is playing but I need to know where -- put me on the phone with someone who knows things.
But like I said before, the band cancelled. I decided to go to the library anyway -- maybe go to the children's section and let the kids traipse about. Upon entering, I play dumb and ask the front desk attendant where Luminescent is performing and hear of the cancellation; a band member's mother had past away. However, another act has filled the void -- go downstairs and see. A gnarled finger, white as whale bone, points to a downward flight of stairs, the Ghost of Christmas-yet-to-come. I hear faint music and what sounds like a cow bell. We all follow the gaze of the specter and enter this room filled with old people. There may have been young people there but only the old ones stood out. They were that breed of old people I expect attend every free event offered at the library -- concerts, seminars, movie afternoons. Every fold out metal chair is occupied. The faces are disconsolate and drawn. They look at me with plaintive eyes because they are trapped in the midst of an incomprehensibly lame performance and for whatever reason felt obliged to sit and suffer. For the sake nobility? Who can say. I don't know the fellow's name, and even if I did probably wouldn't write it here to avoid offense, but he's a jolly Bert one-man-band sitting down with some home-made instrument resembling a pedal steel but not worth a tuppence in tone. He has a small drum set, too -- snare, bass, tom and ride cymbal. Unseen from my vantage, an incessant triangle or bell.
A woman came to my side and sympathetically whispered in my ear that this wasn't Luminescent Orchestrii and I didn't have to stay. Gee, thanks for the permission. When I left the room, I heard (2) library workers bemoaning the fact that everyone inside looked like prisoners, that they weren't obligated to stay, and were trying to work a strategy where they could make a non-offensive announcement giving people the freedom the leave. I laughed to myself. All those poor old folks. Under what circumstance would they deem it safe to leave?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
