The Awkward Pose

When John Adams described America as ‘a nation of laws, not men’ he was reacting against tyrannical royal rulers and imagining a country that would be sustained by a system of shared tenents that transcend individual personalities.  I have always thought that the most engaging aspect of the United States as a nation is that we have not been shaped by territorial borders, as most other countries are, but by our shared vision of this way of governing.  Over the past 200 plus years our country’s growth has been shaped as much by voluntary entry by groups seeking our system than by traditional military conquest (although there has been some of that as well).

There are times when the equanimity implicit in ‘a nation of laws, not men’ works against popular will.  That is why we need the Bill of Rights and groups like ACLU to defend it, although there are times when even the most open minded of us are appalled by the stances that group is obliged to take.  Still, every time we bend the concept of the rule of law for expediency, righteousness, or popularity, I am convinced that any short term gain we realize is ultimately undermined by deteriorating this elemental aspect of our nation. 

Over the past few years there have been many examples of our country shirking the requirements of acting as a nation of laws in every sphere of endeavor.  The scales of justice are not evenly balanced if you are a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay as opposed to one in Fort Leavenworth, if you are a homeless man accused of pedophilia as opposed to a priest, if you rob millions through shifty financial instruments as opposed to using a gun at a bank, or if you are Lindsey Lohan as opposed to just about anyone.  The strength of our system is that it relies on human judgment, and therein lies its weakness, as we will inevitably by swayed by societal norms, celebrity, and patriotic stirrings.

The counter to the intrinsic swaying of our system is the diversity of the press.  Imperfect as it is, the press plays an important role in framing both sides of challenging arguments.  Would things have been worse at Guantanamo without reporting? Would the Catholic Church still be protecting their perverted priests?  Would AGI still be sailing blind?  I fear so.  Even Lindsey Lohan may yet find public redemption. After all, look at Robert Downey, Jr.

So I want to know where is the counter argument to the euphoria surrounding the United States military action in Pakistan that murdered Osama Bin Laden?  The press reports appear to be only jubilant celebrations.  At University of Massachusetts, where my children attend, 2,000 students spilled out for a spontaneous riot the night the news hit, which a later email from administration to parents described as a patriotic outpouring. David Gergen, UMass’ commencement speaker, praised the student’s demonstration and hailed the military action without reservation.  Obama’s ratings are up.  Everyone is feeling good.

Except me.  Because I think a murder is a murder and an eye for an eye is the rule of Hammurabi, not the United States.  It is interesting to note that Old Testament statements about an eye for an eye (Exodus 21) are applied only among social equals; an owner who injures a slave does not receive the same disability.  Alternatively, Leviticus makes the case for a more universal legal code – one system of justice applied across all peoples (referred to as the alien and the citizen) but does not reference an eye for an eye as the appropriate system.  For what have we done by acting independent of law and murdering Bin Laden except put ourselves on the same playing field as the terrorists?  When we act like them, we legitimize them.

It would have been more difficult to capture Bin Laden, to try Bin Laden in an international court, to work through an arduous process to establish guilt and assign punishment.  Not that guilt would be have been difficult to prove.  The man was a demon and he took pride in letting everyone know it.  The reason for taking the legal road would not have been because guilt was in doubt, but because that is the way we are supposed to do it, even with someone as heinous as Bin Laden.  Laws do not only apply to nice people, they apply to all people.  And though International Law is not the same as our own, we should abide by it, at a minimum, and abide by our own if it is more stringent, because in theory it is what we truly believe in.

Instead we retaliated.  Blood flowed, adrenalin flowed.  We feel good.  Bin Laden is dead.  But we have lost our ability to proclaim a higher ground.  We chose force – efficient and exciting – over due process.  Now we wait for the counter retaliations. And how will we respond to those?

As Gandhi said, “an eye for an eye for an eye for an eye and the whole world is blind”.  Let us remain clear sighted.  Not because it is popular or satisfying, but because we have the responsibility to live by the high ideals our forefathers so wisely established.

It’s May Day, the blooms along Brattle Street are breathtaking, we had a Royal Wedding this week, replete with flowing trains and outrageous hats, and today I ate my first watermelon of the season.  Despite front page news of war and destruction, The Awkward Poser can find little tension in this world.  In honor of so much spring, I offer a puff piece on a place I love without reservation – The Boston Conservatory.

The Boston Conservatory is the little brother among Boston’s three major institutions of music.  The New England Conservatory opened after the Civil War in 1867 and its 750 students are part of an internationally known home of classical music and conducting.   Berklee College of Music opened after World War II with the express purpose of teaching the music of the times, and has grown to 4,000 students, focusing mostly on jazz and other contemporary forms.  The Boston Conservatory (TBC) is venerable (also dating to 1867) and smaller (650 students), though it offers a full complement of musical experience in orchestra, dance and theater.  TBC’s tagline – The Boston Conservatory Performs! – is accurate to the point.  Students at TBC are trained to make a living in every arena of live performance, and they do it with astonishing energy and ability.  Combined, the three schools can hardly be said to have campuses; they inhabit buildings intermingled in a wedge of Boston real estate between Mass Ave and The Fenway, Boylston to Huntington.  It is impossible to walk those streets without the sound of a saxophone or soprano wafting down from the brownstones; a magical quarter mile.

Although TBC is the jack of all trades of music schools, it is best known for its musical theater program, one of the few schools in the country to offer a specific degree in that form.  There are always a dozen or so TBC graduates in current Broadway shows; at present the stars of Memphis and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert are TBC alums.  I have attended their fall and spring musicals for over fifteen years; they rival any show in Boston and many in New York.  In an era when it is cost prohibitive to stage giant shows with huge choruses, TBC has the quality and quantity of talent to produce a Sweeney Todd or West Side Story without stint.

Four years ago I met Richard Ortner, President of TBC, and we became fast friends.  Richard introduced me to wider offerings of the school – the dance recitals, orchestra concerts and fully staged operas.  Suddenly my fall and spring evenings became full of student productions.  At the same time TBC has built a new theater and performance studio space.  It is no rival New England Conservatory’s famous Jordan Hall, still it is a fine space to experience live performance, and I am proud of my small role in its success.  But the essence of TBC, and why it is so special to me, cannot be witnessed on the main stage.  The wonder of the place happens in the Zack Box.

The Zack Box Theater is a black room in the basement of an old building.  It sits sixty people at most, and tickets to its shows are hotter than the Yankees at Fenway.  Most productions are advertised only through word of mouth or posters plastered on the bulletin boards around the school. Most Zack Box shows are student affairs.  Every senior and graduate student has to produce a show; they often write, direct and star in them as well.   They corral fellow students to perform, which means that many TBC students are in 3-5 shows per semester with Zack Box productions often conceived and executed in two to three weeks.

So how good can a two week student production be?  Excellent.  I saw the best production of Assassins ever at Zack Box, an inventive interpretation of Hair, and a jubilant production of Bat Boy.  I’ve attended premieres of original shows based on The Glass Castle and The Wally Show (a hilarious riff on Leave it to Beaver) that have legs strong enough to go on the road.  In addition to these performances, the Zack also hosts the annual Drag Show and staged readings of the musical theater classes.  Roger and Hammerstein’s Allegro, was recently presented as one in a series of shows mostly forgotten, yet the production had great spirit and represents an important link in theater history.  The fifteen year old Stephen Sondheim was the gofer on Allegro and many threads of later Sondheim triumphs course through the book and the score.

Good productions aside, the real treat of seeing so many shows at TBC is witnessing the same young actors test their range.  The chubby freshman from Dallas who was frightening as Samuel Byck, Nixon’s crazed assassin one week, turned up the next week shuffling through Guys and Dolls’ Fugue for Tinhorns; the alcoholic father of The Glass Castle sang a love ballad in the Freshman Revue; while the ever faithful Fifties mom from The Wally Show turned into the Acid Queen in The Who’s Tommy.

And then there are the parents, the siblings, the aunts who fly in from Phoenix and LA or drive up from Connecticut, filling the tiny venue in support of their children’s dreams.  The tireless support they give these kids in their uphill struggle to make a life in performance is inspiring; yet they are equally pleased when during intermission chat I acknowledge that I don’t know a soul in the cast; I attend because the productions are so good.  I provide important affirmation that their children’s talents are valued beyond family ties.

Still, my amazement at TBC transcends any of these specific experiences.  As I child I loved to sing and dance and I have some talent in each.  My fantasies were full of a life on stage, yet never once did I actually consider making those fantasies real.  They were too removed from the workaday world of our tract house, they required a leap of faith and support well beyond my parent’s ability to give, and ultimately I did not have the confidence to embark on such an uncharted course on my own.  It would be an overstatement to report this as regret, still I admit it is a dream that I allowed to whither unexplored.

So when I see those kids up there – the six foot four rail thin homosexual boy, the plump girl with Ethel Merman lungs, the absurdly handsome Adonis who would rather sing and dance than be a football star, and the leggy blonde who twists the lyric line of a soul tune – I see kids who were likely were outcasts in their high schools (at least, before the Glee phenomenon) but who have found a home at TBC.  A community that allows them to embrace their uniqueness, develops their live performance skills despite our digital age, and fosters their vibrant talent.  Some will make it to Broadway, a few will be stars, but my hat is off to all of them for their courage to try.

I spent today, Easter Sunday, with my children, who are both students at UMass Amherst.  During the day I was reminded of a class trip we took ten years ago to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.  May is Museum Month – go and visit, you never know what you might see.

May 2001

Let’s start with the statistics.  Fifty-four sixth graders from the Cambridge Public Schools embark on a class trip to the Museum of Fine Arts, an adjunct to their studies of ancient Egypt.  There are six teachers and ten parent chaperones.  The children reflect the diversity of the City; about 40% Black, 40% White and 20% shades of other origin.  One teacher is Asian, but the rest are white.  All the parents are white.  They have the kinds of jobs that allow time off in the middle of the day.  They choose to devote that time to their children.

The teachers have assigned the children into groups, one adult for every four children, but within minutes the children have reassigned themselves according to their own preferences. The Black kids hang together.  They fuse into a mega group that has the strength of numbers.  They are rowdy and mischievous; they test the adults at every turn, teacher and parent alike.  The white kids form smaller groups with more focused compulsions.  Three children play a continuous game of Dungeons and Dragons the entire day, with cursory connection to their fellow students.  Another group is likewise mesmerized by the card game, Magic.  The white children are quieter than the black children.  They are easier to manage, but equally uninterested in the museum’s collection of Egyptian artifacts.  Then there are the brown kids; Indian and Hispanic.  They are more recent arrivals.  Many know little English.  They hang together by default rather than common interest.  Finally, there are the odd balls; the kids with Special Ed plans who don’t fit with any social group because they cannot socialize.  They meander without regard to the world around them, oblivious of anyone else, possibly even themselves.  They are pinballs, aimlessly careening through a world where the flippers are the scorn of their fellow classmates; the bumpers are turning cars and subway trains.

I am a parent chaperone, assigned to the Dungeons and Dragons freaks and a lone boy prone to dart off the curb in an instant.  As we wait in line for the Museum staff, outside, in the back, in a cold place that signals these visitors are not important, I am discouraged by the divisions among the class.  I want all the children to get along, I want them to be friends, to appreciate each other’s differences and savor their similarities.  But there is no time to dwell on these ideals; I am too busy monitoring my buddy who’s prone to roam, giving warning to a boy hitting a girl in a provocative region with his newspaper, and rousing the D&D gang to move along.

We are assigned to a beautifully coiffed matron who can barely disguise her displeasure with our group. She speaks in hushed, museum tones. The children can barely hear her, and don’t much care.  I stand on the periphery of the circle, nudging the children closer.  After a few minutes they come upon something that resembles a picture from their books on Egypt and they take an interest.  A few start to answer the guide’s questions, proud peacocks showing off.  Enthusiasm would be too strong a word, but there is learning going on. 

One boy dawdles well behind the rest.  He takes no interest in the art work, but when we cross the grand stairs, I ask him if he’s ever been to the Museum before, he stands still, stretches his neck across the vaulted ceiling, and replies, “No.”  I realize not only has he never been to the Museum, he’s never been anywhere remotely like the Museum.  A few more prods and he admits that he has never been out of Cambridge.  He stands with his head back, mouth wide in amazement at the magnificent grand stair. How insignificant it must seem for him to focus on a particular artifact of art or history when the entire experience of traveling to this formidable place is so unprecedented.

The tour lasts barely an hour but the children’s attention span is even shorter.  On the way home, during our lunch stop, I realize there is one boy who flows easily among the disparate groups.  A white boy, big for his age, heavyset and smiley, with three earrings and spiked hair.  He jostles with the black kids, tells body part jokes with the white kids, even redirects the lost wanderers with a firm tug of their shoulders.

We shepard the children back to the subway.  I have no idea whether their knowledge of ancient Egypt has increased, but it has been a day out of the ordinary, a day they will remember.  Each will take something away from the experience, though we adults will never know what.

In the first three months of 2011 I know two people who died, three family members who were admitted to the ICU, and I lost count of the reported aches and flu’s flying around my orb. Blame it on the harsh winter, nuclear fallout from Japan, or just plain getting older, but everywhere I go the first point of conversation seems to be an organ recital of bodily complaints.  I am firmly planted in that demographic where personal health is a primary concern – eclipsing the career development and family issues that dominated earlier.  As far as I can tell, I’ll stay with this group until I die.

So far I am fortunate and don’t have much to add to the conversation, unless I perceive a person receptive to the virtues of yoga, in which case I can muster the missionary zeal of a Mormon.  Still it is probably no coincidence that amid all of this death and hospital visitation I read three health related books.  Each describes an aspect of how our society enhances / obstructs health. Together, they form a comprehensive view for thinking about our individual well being.

T.R. Reid’s, The Healing of America: A Global Search for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care is the most cogent presentation of the dysfunctional American healthcare ‘system’ I have read.  Mr. Reid, a journalist who has lived all over the world, takes his bum shoulder to a half dozen or more countries around the world, enters into their healthcare system and in the process of pursuing his personal diagnosis, observes and evaluates each system as a whole. He is offered surgery in the United States, physical therapy in France, herbal remedies in India and advice to persevere in Britain. In each case the therapeutic approach to his sore shoulder reflects the priorities of the system.

Of course, the shoulder is just a pretext for a more thorough analysis.  Mr. Reid succeeds where all others fail because he takes a broad view with few judgments (except the initial judgment that the US System – which gobbles up 14% GDP and leaves many untreated – is unsatisfactory).  He divides all health care systems into four categories:

Government funded universal care (Britain, United States Veteran’s Administration)

Single Payer System (Canada, United States Medicare / Medicaid)

Private Insurance (Germany, United States private insurance)

Pay as you go (India, United States uninsured)

Every other industrial country has determined that healthcare is a right and extends it to all citizens; but since the United States is unable to make that definitive statement, our system is a hodgepodge that includes all four delivery methods witnessed elsewhere.  It is this hodgepodge nature that results in the inefficiencies that make our system twice as expensive yet significantly less effective than others. Our private insurance companies spend 20% on administrative costs because it is in their interest to deny payment in the hope that a ‘heavy user’ will exit the system, winding up a pay as you go patient, who then will not be able to afford to pay and eventually join the Medicaid pool (while, along the way, loose his assets and likely declare bankruptcy).  In Germany, which has a 100% private insurance model, the insurers have no incentive to get someone off their books, if one company has an inordinate number of ‘heavy users’ premiums are redistributed among companies to level the load.  If the US can do that among major league baseball teams, why can’t we do it to provide equitable healthcare?

The book is full of equally illuminating perspectives about how a unified system – any system – is better than we what have now as a means to provide equal access, improved public health, and more rational delivery.

Ultimately Mr. Reid’s book is a policy piece, it inspires government action but, sore shoulder notwithstanding, it does not address how we can improve individual health.  Since we are what we eat, clues to that question are bountiful in Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Over the course of 500 + pages Mr. Pollen traces the origins of, prepares, and then eats four meals. 

The first is a fast food meal (McDonald’s, eaten in the car, of course).  This triggers an analysis of American industrial food production, which ultimately means corn, corn and more corn. The hazards of feedlot processing make a person never want to eat another McNugget, but the depth to which these amalgamated process have entered virtually every item on our supermarket shelves leaves one wondering what, if anything is safe to eat.

Next is the ‘health food’ meal purchased from Whole Foods and prepared at home.  Although the food is less chemically infused than the McDonald’s meal, the compromises that a national distribution network must make in order to serve the whims of people who want every type of food all year round make the roasted chicken Mr. Pollen prepares less sustainable than the bucolic images that hover above the beautifully groomed produce at Whole Foods lead us to believe.

The truly organic meal comes from a farm in Virginia where a fascinating dance of sun and grass, vegetables and animals, all in small doses, are guided through the landscape to create a sustainable ring of food production.   This is the most interesting and hopeful, portion of the book; the best endorsement for Community Supported Agriculture I have read.  Mr. Pollen does not postulate how to scale this up to feed a nation of 300 million, mostly urban, citizens, but having convinced me that the existing system is unhealthy and unsustainable to us and the animals we put in our service, I appreciate the glimmer this segment offers.

The last meal, in which Mr. Pollen goes hunter/gatherer and actually kills a wild pig and gathers his side dishes, provides more fantasy than useful analysis.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is an important read, though it suffers from being as overstuffed as the nation of eaters it addresses.  Mr. Pollen could shed 150 pages without losing an ounce of content.

Anticancer: A New Way of Life, by David Servan-Schreiber is the keystone book of the trilogy, fusing connections between our healthcare systems, our food, our behavior, and our individual health.  Like T. R. Reid, Mr. Servan-Schreiber balances the personal with the systemic. A neuropsychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh who suffered brain cancer, the author understands each side of the healthcare world.  His description of how colleagues treated him when he moved from being ‘Dr. Servan-Schreiber’ to ‘Cancer patient’ is reason enough to read the book, but there are many others.

First is the compelling case that cancer is tied to our environment and individual behaviors much more intimately than we, or the media, would like to believe.  Genetic predisposition? Only a 15% risk factor in developing cancer.  Smoking? Obesity? Lack of exercise? Stress?  All greater risk factors.

Then he outlines in clear tables, the good and the bad.  Best foods to counter cancer, worst foods to invite it in, best/worst cleaning supplies, toilet accessories, exercise regimens; you get the idea.

So, has all of this information changed my life?  Not really.  I have decided that money spent on better food is money well spent, so I buy more organics, even if they fall short of nirvana; my beef eating has dipped to less than three times a week; and I’ve stopped microwaving leftovers in plastic containers.  But I still love my soda and rarely pass up a cookie; no guilt there.

I don’t have any of the awful cancer indicators, like smoking or obesity, so if I develop cancer or another chronic disease, it will likely be due to larger environment causes or plain bad luck.  Trying to avoid that would require radical change and probably be futile; I have no intention of moving away from the city or refusing to ride in airplanes or tossing everything in my cupboard with ‘high fructose corn syrup’ on the ingredient label into the trash.

Mostly, I am absorbing this information, letting it linger, allowing my behavior to welcome the aspects that most resonate with me.  I enjoy reading these books for their own sake, even when what they teach me is that our world has evolved in ways bizarre.  If in the process I find tidbits that enhance my personal health, that’s just icing on the cake, which, as everyone knows, I am not inclined to pass up.

The main branch of the Cambridge Public Library has been open over a year.  The building has been heralded as a success both as a work of architecture (Boston Globe 11/10/2009) and for stimulating library use (over 4,000 items were checked out on opening day).  As a longtime Cambridge resident, member of the Cambridge Friends of the Library, and ardent library user, I looked forward to our new library and I acknowledge that everything said about the new library is true.  However, after using the library for some time, I find the praise superficial.  The new building is a stunning piece of architecture (William Rawn Associates) with its super-cool double glass curtain wall and other energy conscientious features, and it is set in clear relation to the superb restoration of the original building (Ann Beha Architects).  Yet, no commentary addresses what I see as the obvious question.  What should a contemporary library look like?  Should be a big, bright glass box, and if so, what does that say about our libraries and ourselves?

Three centuries of structures have graced the site of the Cambridge Public Library.

In 1889 the city opened a new library on a tract of land donated by philanthropist Frederick H. Rindge, a Romanesque beauty designed by Van Brunt and Howe that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  It is an elegant pile of rusticated granite, serious in both intent and execution, a public building in the truest nineteenth century sense in that it manages to both humble the individual by its imposing authority, yet ennoble that same individual through democratic access to the knowledge within.  The building has beautifully proportioned rooms with vaulted ceilings and carved woodwork.  The six story stack area with frosted glass floors literally surrounds the reader in a three dimensional world of books.  It also contains inscriptions and entablatures intended to instill moral backbone into Victorian man, including a full listing of the Ten Commandments.  We don’t condone such moralizing in our public buildings today, so the restoration sports a creative scrim that conceals the commandments from everyday view, since a condition of the philanthropist’s bequest that they remain in place in perpetuity.

In 1967 the city opened an addition to the original library, a squat box shunted to the back of the site that included a children’s room on a lower level and miscellaneous space above.  This has been demolished as part of the new library scheme, and all traces of twentieth century architecture have been erased through careful reconstruction of the 1889 exterior.

Now we have the 2009 addition with its gigantic glass wall and clear open spaces.  The new main entrance, not quite on axis with Trowbridge Street, leads to a trio of crisp, taut transaction desks where library staff process returns, provide reference, and check-out books.  The ceiling is uniformly high – sixteen feet at least, and the light is brilliant. An axis of bold red walls and ceiling define a spine that ties the original building to the new and incorporates the giant stairs that connect the principal levels. The addition is full of activity, very busy, very noisy, and unlike any library I’ve ever been in; which I believe, is the whole point.

The library complex is a conscious duality of composition.  Having disposed of the mid-twentieth century box that no one loved, the 1889 original, now referred to as the stone building, represents hierarchy and stability.  It is a collection of rooms, some cozy, some grand, with straightforward circulation links.  Even in areas where the functions have changed, like the former six story stacks that have morphed into the tall and narrow teen area, the stone building remains a collection of discrete spaces with identifiable character.

On the other hand, the 2009 building, referred to as the glass building, is open and democratic.  The entire first floor is one large space, unencumbered by spatial definition, and a wide array of activities, from conversations with the reference librarian, to using a computer, to eating a snack, to browsing new fiction, to checking out a book, to tucking into a chair with a magazine all take place in the same large space.

The internal organization of the glass building is, according to Susan Flannery, Director of the Library in comments at an open house for library supporters, derived from the book store experience.  The library is not organized by traditional Dewey Decimal classifications, but rather affinity groups that the library staff considers relevant, so a section called Hearth and Home that includes home repair as well as crafts, and foreign language tapes and travel books are collocated.  Theses affinity groups will morph over time to reflect changes in taste, just as they do at Borders.  As I listened to Susan explain this organization, what struck me was how arbitrary it appears.  True, the Dewey Decimal system of classification is not perfect, but it is universal, it is an actual system with consistency and logic.  However flawed, I prefer my library organized in a manner that I can learn and understand and depend upon, rather than by the staff’s perception of latest trends.

As I considered the possibility of collections in constant flux, I realized what I find wrong about the glass building.  An experience that is transparent and universal can not be unique, compelling or memorable.  By creating a space in which anything can occur, the glass building denies the opportunity for specific experience.  The ideal space to meet with a reference librarian is not standing at an open desk along major circulation spine.  The ideal space to do computer work is not in the center of a 6,000 square foot room.  The ideal space to nestle into a magazine is not along a glass wall exposed to every passerby.  By accommodating any kind of activity, the glass building does not accommodate any particular activity very well.

The argument that contemporary buildings take cues from the retail environment is prevalent in our society where consumer preferences are paramount.  As an architect who designs hospitals for a living, and one of the designers of an early medical ’mall’, at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical center back in 1991,  I know that successful retail formulae permeate design solutions for virtually every building type.  The parts and pieces of retail design are seductive – simple frameworks that can accommodate quick turnover with generous fronts for advertising and seductive but complicated passageways to draw consumers in and hold them as long as possible.  But why must this building type, designed to enhance consumerism, be the model for so many kinds of buildings?  Are we so impoverished as a society that we can no longer create buildings that aspire to anything beyond layouts that induce people to spend money?  There are good reasons why we don’t inscribe the Ten Commandments on our new library, but why is there nothing we can inscribe in its place?  Do we believe in anything with enough conviction to carve it into our buildings?  A hundred years from now, when it is time to make a wholesale transformation of the glass building, will we value it as much as stone building?  We will bother to find creative ways to repurpose the glass volume, or will the big box be deemed as irrelevant as the 1967 addition; will we demolish it?

The argument for the glass building is flexibility.  I disagree with the contention that open spaces make the best flexibility.  Few spaces were so strictly defined as old-fashioned vertical library stacks, and yet they were transformed into a teen area of great character; more interesting than any of the spaces offered in the glass building.  Similarly, at the open house for library supporters the library set out an array of pies from local bakeries.  Instead of serving dessert in the glass building, or even the transparent connector between the buildings that is lined with café tables, the pies were offered in the stone building’s reading room, a clubby space of excellent proportion that is conducive to the conviviality of sharing a sweet in a way the glass building will never be.

Technology abounds in the glass building; the double glass wall, the automatic shade devices, the daylight sensing fixtures.  Yet, for all its technically sophisticated components, it is old school in its operations.  If the point of technology is to enhance human experience, by freeing us from drudgery to enable deeper, more meaningful activities, why was so little thought given to the process of how people use the library?  These days when I go to the airport I am greeted by a phalanx of ticketing kiosks in front of staffed ticket counters.  The arrangement allows me to use technology if I choose, but also facilitates better interactions when I need to talk to actual people, who are not harried by mundane transactions.  The same concept could easily be applied to a library, where most of us simply need to check in or check out.  Unfortunately the glass building doesn’t offer anything new choices for customer interface.  Three immense desks – check-in, check-out, reference – line the primary circulation route in the middle of the vast space.  I don’t know how the staff tolerates the noise.  True, there are some computer check-out stations out of sight around a corner, apart from staff should something go wrong, and every time I have tried to use them, something has gone wrong.  The result is that the main desk areas are packed with lines of customers loaded with books and CD’s, waiting for a librarian to check them out by the same process we’ve known for generations.  A facility as sophisticated as the glass building deserves a comparable rethinking of its operations as it does of its exterior skin.

When I consider signature library spaces, two contrasting prototypes come to mind, the reading room and the study carrel. The best reading rooms, whether the Bates Room at the Boston Public Library, the main reading room at the New York Public Library, or the St. Genevieve Library in Paris, have impressive volume, walls lined with books below large scale windows that flood the space with daylight, and rows of sturdy tables with individual task lamps.  The rooms are enormous, yet they are clearly rooms.  They have shape and form; they define their human-scaled work spaces; they allow natural light from beyond, yet, since there are no direct views to the surrounding streets, patrons achieve shelter from the outside world.

The study carrel, on the other hand, is an intimate space for one, maybe two people, often lining an exterior wall with a peep window. Kahn’s library at Phillips Exeter is the most famous modern example.  In rare libraries, these spaces coexist, as in the reading room and adjacent alcoves of Trinity College Library, Dublin.  Where are these spaces in the new Cambridge Public Library? The main room in the stone building is a wonderful reading room on a community scale, and the booths in the teen area approximate individual carrels, but in the glass building there is nothing that approaches either.  With the exterior wall given over to technology; the zone that might have provided intimate nooks is instead crisp, clean and transparent.  And with so many things going on in one open space, there is no definition of reading ‘room’.  Distractions abound.

It is fair to say that the City of Cambridge has gotten the library it wished for.  It is an energetic, if overly literal response to the challenge of creating an accessible, open library.  But after a fifteen year planning process and $90 million, I can’t help but wonder if perhaps we should have reached for more.  Reached beyond innovative building technology to uncover innovative operations, reached beyond the simple notion that open equals flexible to create actual, confident spaces.  Rooms crafted with the conviction that our forefathers exemplified in the stone building.  The conviction that well-defined spaces enhance specific experience and, when necessary, can be repurposed with more character than amorphous, ‘flexible’ space.

We should have reached beyond a retail model for our library. A library is not a store; it is the antithesis of a store.  A library does not sell things for people to use and ultimately throw away.  A library lends things to people for free, with the implicit understanding that the items will be used as required and then returned for others to use as well. A library is the ultimate model of sustainability, an endless stream of knowledge recycled again and again through our community.  Could we have reached beyond the retail model to make our library more than open and accessible?  Is it too much to ask that our library also be aspirational?

There is a remarkable two page photograph in the NY Times Magazine (2/13/2011); the stone interior of a dim church, seven worshippers bundled in their winter coats dispersed among the pews, a sharp shaft of light descending on a balding, middle aged man, his puff-parka arms clenched tight to his body, his face twisted in deep frown.  The subsequent story is about the sex abuse scandal of priests in Ireland, that most Catholic of countries, and the havoc they are wrecking.

My mind flashed back a decade, to the days when the focus of the clergy abuse scandals was here in Boston, when every morning the Globe’s front page announced new revelations, new abuses, deeper cover-ups. 

I do not believe I was ever abused.  However, one morning, reading a lurid story that I could barely stomach yet not put down, the scent of the sacristy immediately after Mass filled my soul.  Forty years evaporated and I was a child of seven in a black cassock with a lace tunic, standing before the priest offering him the glass cruets with whatever water and wine remained.  The rituals of the sacristy were just as prescribed as Mass itself.  The priest accepted my offering.  He drank whatever was left in each vessel, lifted a linen cloth and wiped each clean, dried them, placed them on a shelf, the same spot every time.  I stood quiet.  I watched every move.  Housekeeping done, the priest turned to me.  “May I have your blessing, Father?”  I kneeled.  He placed his hands on my head.  “Bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” The pressure on my skull was deep, I buckled at the waist.  The room was silent, the congregation departed, the air thick with wafting streams of snuffed candles. The priest’s hands were warm and firm.  I was secure, the chosen, the fortunate altar boy offered a glimpse of the sacred. God was touching me.  And if the priest had any inclination to touch me further, I would have offered no resistance.

After that flash of memory, I understood the scandal in a deeper way. The crimes of the perpetrators are horrific.  But given the power they held over us, the power we yielded to them, the scars from the crimes are etched deeper then even the physical penetration.

So now, finally, it is Ireland’s turn to dredge up the crimes of men against children in sacristies and rectories. I say finally because Ireland is almost the end of the line.  There is no place more Catholic than Ireland, except perhaps the Vatican itself.  And I feel quite sure that even there, the day of reckoning will come.

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I wrote a WBUR commentary about a seminarian I met during the height of the clergy abuse scandal in Boston.  I have posted it as a companion piece.