11. Stacks of Stories, Stories of Stacks (Lo-Fi House)

Based on the chapter: 11. Stacks of Stories, Stories of Stacks by Brian Boyd from Stalking Nabokov. Lyrics: [Intro] Late stacks, soft light, Toronto in the rain A lecture in the dusk, and a playful brain Literature, libraries, culture in the air Stories in the shelves, dust floating everywhere I came to talk of futures, pasts, and play How the books pile up, how the minds make way How do stories stack up in the digital age? A pulse in the floor, a hand on the page [Verse 1] Others wrote on trains and butterflies and film Painting, Freud, politics, the edges and the rim But a whole volume on libraries, maybe that’s too far Or would it, in the hush, show us who we are? I was asked for a title, an abstract in advance But “work? I happened to feel like play,” a sidelong dance So I mixed the old with the new till the seams went wild A “grotesque hybrid,” grinning like a curious child Robarts in the winter, index cards in boxes Marginal pencil constellations, allusion paradoxes Day after day in the Reference Room glow Line by line through Ada, letting hidden rivers flow [Pre-Chorus] Some nights catalog drawers Some nights marbled boards and forgotten wars Some nights a carrel, a quiet mental meal And the stacks said, this is how memory feels [Chorus] Stacks of stories, stories of stacks We keep coming forward by carrying back “All happy scholars” lost in their way Mad in the margins, but we stay Stacks of stories, stories of stacks From card cabinets to glowing tracks Without the unruliness, without the play No hush, no order, no library [Instrumental] [Instrumental] [Verse 2] He wrote of Pnin in the Waindell shade Rubber gloves on the shelving, old Russia arrayed “Blissful stage of collecting his material” A little wagon rolling, the task ceremonial Nabokov loved Darwin, but not the whole machine Not the narrow iron hunger in the struggle scene He wanted “Homo poeticus” lighting up the mind “The world was made on a Sunday,” slow unwind Mimicry was magic, artful and sly A leaf, a moth, a prank for the human eye Some “waggish artist” in the shimmer of a wing Hidden design in every unnecessary thing [Build] But the beat keeps turning, and the science came through Cooperation rising where old assumptions grew Not only competition, not only teeth and speed But shared attention, shared intention, a deeply human need Eyes that show direction, infants checking eyes Pointing just to share a world, the first and strangest prize “This by itself is rewarding” That’s how the language starts Joint attention in the body Shared rhythm in the hearts [Drop] We want to know what others know We want to feel where others go We learn the world by leaning in By letting many voices spin Stories are the social light Tracks we follow through the night In every pattern, every art We practice being more than one heart [Verse 3] So why misinformation, why fiction, why the feint? Why scriptures, novels, make-believe, the holy and the quaint? Because art is high play, and play rewires the frame Chasing, tumbling, sound and color, story with a name We crave pattern in the weather, in the face, in the street Cause and effect, identity, the footsteps and the beat We make thought experiments, we stretch beyond the now We try on different minds and ask the future how But every gift has cost inside its shining sleeve To know false belief is to know we’re deceived So agency floods in where certainty grows thin Religion holds the panic, story gives it form again Music, dance, costume, ritual, shelter from the storm [Pre-Chorus] Then science comes slower, agentless and bare Testing what we cherish, stripping down the air But even then the stacks preserve The play, the doubt, the human nerve [Chorus] Stacks of stories, stories of stacks We keep coming forward by carrying back “Grandeur in this view of life” Even through the static, through the strife Stacks of stories, stories of stacks Memory bends and the future tracks Without the unruliness, without the play No hush, no order, no library [Bridge] Borges built Babel out into the Vastness Variants everywhere, brilliance and blankness But life doesn’t search every possible room It starts from what survives, makes another bloom Evolution needs to conserve to innovate DNA and daydream, both accumulate “Speak, Memory,” mother of the muses Every stored detail is what the future uses Libraries preserve “accumulated possibilities to date” Then open the doors and let imagination mutate [Verse 4] A Guide to Berlin, a tram in yellow light “Everything, every trifle, will be valuable” one night The conductor’s purse, the jolt, the old curved seat Posterity will find the ordinary sweet The Berlin Library stamp on the ninety-ninth page The Lethean ladder where hack books age