MAYBE A MAUPIN, THE TAPE LIBRARIAN AND ME
Although I whine and gripe about life and my life in particular, there are those moments, those 2% of waking hours for which to be grateful, stunned, thankful, joyous, if confused.
So it was that once upon a time I lived in San Francisco and some weirdness attended me. Small surprise, one reckons, given the city, I hear you say. Something about living on an earthquake zone creates certain gasses in the area as were produced in sibylline caves also. But I digress.
I worked for a large corporation in their computer department. Hard to believe in this day and age boys and girls, but we stored our data on magnetic tape wound around a 4-inch hub out to about a 10.5-inch diameter. This almost ½ mile or so of tape could hold about 50MB’s in today’s parlance.
The job processes of this large corporation required a large tape library and the library required a librarian to provide the correct tapes, file them away after use, clean, repair etc. I cannot remember the librarian’s name though I can visually recall her and hear again her breathy voice. It was a name both exotic and flowery, nothing as pedestrian as Beth or Chris. Although I think this name was an adopted one, a nom de scène in waiting, let’s call her Illiana.
We conversed at work, but briefly and often superficially all of us busy with our tasks. Yet she seemed way more intelligent and ambitious than her modest job title. And one day she asked me if I’d like to come over and see her place. Maybe a party, maybe not, the memory dims. I accepted and she gave me her address indicating it was over by Coit Tower.
I will explain more and better but let me interrupt just now and tell you that a lot of what I’ve just written and will say on this subject is a lie.
To continue: Even though Coit was the landmark, that fact may have made her location harder rather than easier to find, as the streets around the famous attraction were a veritable warren. I was lost easily, quickly and for a good while before I stumbled upon her doorway, lit gaily in the foggy, darkening San Francisco night. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being lost in your adopted city that you think you know. Twisting and turning, becoming more confused by the moment, I felt I’d entered an unknown twilight zone.
Her place was small and artsy with a few others there for a quiet, cozy evening snack and chat. Although I was charmed by her invitation and small glimpse into her life, I couldn’t stay long as my commute home made for a quick turn-around on a work night. While she may have been 15 blocks from our office, I was more like 15 miles. The company also confused me as I knew none of them, and we seem to have few common points upon which to connect.
That’s the end of that lie and so I’ll tell you something else. The above was 1969 or so. In 1974 while I was still living in SF, a local newspaper, The Pacific Sun started to run a thoroughly engaging serial by Armistead Maupin, not exactly a household name, but soon to become one, especially in SF. The SF Chronicle later picked up the serial and later still PBS aired a mini-series based on, as it was known, ‘Tales of the City’.
I looked forward to the Pacific Sun every week, and followed along as well as I could when the Chronicle picked it up. Then years later, when I watched the PBS rendition, what was there about the Maupin warren-like neighborhood that snuck into my memory bank yet tethered itself to nothing as far as I could tell? And the characters, did they not seem familiar to me? Well, of course, all good writers can insinuate their characters as part of their readers’ lives, nothing strange about that. But, that one lady, a main character, the one with the flowery name , , ,something about her . . .
And here is where I must reveal the lies I am telling. For all the above is an absolute mish-mash memory, of my visit to Illiana’s warren hovel with Armistead Maupin’s Tales confluenced inextricably in my mind. And much odder still, as I look back upon it, for all I know, it could have been AM himself at that small party that night! Illiana had nothing if not connections, involvements, schemes and fantastical dreams. We are all familiar by now with the reputed alter egos of librarians, and though usually they are the bookish ones, believe me, this tape librarian had one powerful alter-persona! Was I to have been a possible new recruit, new blood for some as yet to unwind Tale! Did they think an unmarried, lesbian, Midwestern hick might provide new spice? Did Illiana have sexual designs on me? I think she might have! I was absolutely blind to any sexual machinations at that time and for most of my life and would never have suspected anything other than a quiet get-together. No doubt drugs were also involved, San Francisco, the 60’s, remember? But as I didn’t use, much, my interlocutors would have summed me up as a hopeless naïf by that time and when I said I had to go home to get up and go to work the next day, knew I was of no worth. Nor did Illiana ever mention the evening or invite me back.
So. In sum, I have no idea what really happened, but believe I was interviewed as a possible entrant into a future Tale! That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.
So it was that once upon a time I lived in San Francisco and some weirdness attended me. Small surprise, one reckons, given the city, I hear you say. Something about living on an earthquake zone creates certain gasses in the area as were produced in sibylline caves also. But I digress.
I worked for a large corporation in their computer department. Hard to believe in this day and age boys and girls, but we stored our data on magnetic tape wound around a 4-inch hub out to about a 10.5-inch diameter. This almost ½ mile or so of tape could hold about 50MB’s in today’s parlance.
The job processes of this large corporation required a large tape library and the library required a librarian to provide the correct tapes, file them away after use, clean, repair etc. I cannot remember the librarian’s name though I can visually recall her and hear again her breathy voice. It was a name both exotic and flowery, nothing as pedestrian as Beth or Chris. Although I think this name was an adopted one, a nom de scène in waiting, let’s call her Illiana.
We conversed at work, but briefly and often superficially all of us busy with our tasks. Yet she seemed way more intelligent and ambitious than her modest job title. And one day she asked me if I’d like to come over and see her place. Maybe a party, maybe not, the memory dims. I accepted and she gave me her address indicating it was over by Coit Tower.
I will explain more and better but let me interrupt just now and tell you that a lot of what I’ve just written and will say on this subject is a lie.
To continue: Even though Coit was the landmark, that fact may have made her location harder rather than easier to find, as the streets around the famous attraction were a veritable warren. I was lost easily, quickly and for a good while before I stumbled upon her doorway, lit gaily in the foggy, darkening San Francisco night. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being lost in your adopted city that you think you know. Twisting and turning, becoming more confused by the moment, I felt I’d entered an unknown twilight zone.
Her place was small and artsy with a few others there for a quiet, cozy evening snack and chat. Although I was charmed by her invitation and small glimpse into her life, I couldn’t stay long as my commute home made for a quick turn-around on a work night. While she may have been 15 blocks from our office, I was more like 15 miles. The company also confused me as I knew none of them, and we seem to have few common points upon which to connect.
That’s the end of that lie and so I’ll tell you something else. The above was 1969 or so. In 1974 while I was still living in SF, a local newspaper, The Pacific Sun started to run a thoroughly engaging serial by Armistead Maupin, not exactly a household name, but soon to become one, especially in SF. The SF Chronicle later picked up the serial and later still PBS aired a mini-series based on, as it was known, ‘Tales of the City’.
I looked forward to the Pacific Sun every week, and followed along as well as I could when the Chronicle picked it up. Then years later, when I watched the PBS rendition, what was there about the Maupin warren-like neighborhood that snuck into my memory bank yet tethered itself to nothing as far as I could tell? And the characters, did they not seem familiar to me? Well, of course, all good writers can insinuate their characters as part of their readers’ lives, nothing strange about that. But, that one lady, a main character, the one with the flowery name , , ,something about her . . .
And here is where I must reveal the lies I am telling. For all the above is an absolute mish-mash memory, of my visit to Illiana’s warren hovel with Armistead Maupin’s Tales confluenced inextricably in my mind. And much odder still, as I look back upon it, for all I know, it could have been AM himself at that small party that night! Illiana had nothing if not connections, involvements, schemes and fantastical dreams. We are all familiar by now with the reputed alter egos of librarians, and though usually they are the bookish ones, believe me, this tape librarian had one powerful alter-persona! Was I to have been a possible new recruit, new blood for some as yet to unwind Tale! Did they think an unmarried, lesbian, Midwestern hick might provide new spice? Did Illiana have sexual designs on me? I think she might have! I was absolutely blind to any sexual machinations at that time and for most of my life and would never have suspected anything other than a quiet get-together. No doubt drugs were also involved, San Francisco, the 60’s, remember? But as I didn’t use, much, my interlocutors would have summed me up as a hopeless naïf by that time and when I said I had to go home to get up and go to work the next day, knew I was of no worth. Nor did Illiana ever mention the evening or invite me back.
So. In sum, I have no idea what really happened, but believe I was interviewed as a possible entrant into a future Tale! That’s my tale and I’m sticking to it.
posted by CHRIS at 5:47 PM
2 Comments:
Chris,
It may help you to know that my own life has become hopelessly entangled with Tales. I don't know whether it happened or I just wrote it.
However, I didn't arrive in SF until 1971.
I enjoyed reading your atmospheric piece.
All the best,
Armistead
WOW! Armistead! Thank-you so much for your response! and for enjoying my piece! I didn't notice a comment till just now and hadn't even expected one. I was pretty sure I had confused my reality with your Tales, but what a great conflation! It's one of my life's better memories. Thanks again, and thanks for the Tales.
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