Browsing the Shelves For Dummies*

"Randal, I'm the biggest idiot ever."

"Don't worry, Dante, even you can learn how to find a book."

Hello children, it's your friendly neighborhood librarian, Randal, and I have gathered you all here for a very special reason. I am going to sacrifice you to Nyarlathotep you little fucks show you that finding a book on the shelves all by your lonesome *pats head* isn't at all scary like being locked up in the moldy, rat-infested basement of a serial killer with nothing to subsist on but the chill, bitter sweat trickling off your brow, a stray, dirt-encrusted annelid and the horrifying knowledge that your rusty, agonizing end is nigh and there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it save uselessly praying for salvation to an indifferent universe but is actually as harmless as riding a bike so let's nip this scanning electron microscopic problem in the bud before we must resort to torches and pitchforks and iron maidens and I know none of us wants that.

Believe me, I hear your collective trepidation in those weary sighs, as I heard them every day this week, over and over and like over like ad nauseum like oh my god how like difficult and like permanently like scarring it like totally is especially that one time when you were ogling some hottie and got caught in the automatic door and shattered your pelvis and your spirit, but once you do learn the ins and outs of old-fashioned, time-tested research methodology, you never ever forget because you've since developed various psychoses that never ever let you even when you're grocery shopping and you drop kick that old lady because she took the last bag of sour cream and onion chips, the cantankerous old geezer, it was the voices in my head, don't blame me, officer.

1. Find your subject. Stand in front of the computing box and type, type, type. Don't forget proper spelling moran and try and minimize your acronyms. It's quite possible that you will see a prodigious list on the screen. Don't be alarmed now, for it's not a spring clean of your faults, young scholar. Roll over, how about some of what you hep cats dig the most, Beethoven.

2. Locate the call number. At this book depository, we use the Library of Congress system instead of Dewey Decimal for two primary reasons: first, we are great patriots and, second, Dewey, aside from having been a secret communist sympathizer and possibly a Muslim pedophile, got crushed by Truman, the only man in history with the sack to use nukes. Aha, The Beethoven Compendium: a guide to Beethoven's life and music. Don't forget to write down that call number! Or type it into your personal electro-device in between OMFG LOL sexting. Just don't send it to your ex or you'll end up in front of a judge or a .45. The naked pictures, not the call number.

ML410.B4 B26 1992

3. Decipher the call number. This part is extremely tricky, so patience and gird those loins, true believers.

As you can see, the beginning of the call number is in two parts. ML stands for Middle Level which is library jargon for Middle Kingdom, Midgard, Middle Earth, middle of the road, i.e., humanity's exact locale along the cosmic axis, so you know this particular book will be shelved somewhere here on planet earth. Praise the gods!


















The 410 is a mnemonic representing the Sack of Rome by the Visigoths way back in the fifth century. Your next step is to find a goth, preferably one who is visible, take him or her in your time machine and venture back to 410 CE --


















"Hi-ho, the derry-o, a time traveling we will go!"

and this part I cannot stress enough, after you've made a transatlantic flight, otherwise good luck finding your way across the ocean, but sure, ask those nice Iroquois if you can borrow a boat -- weave your way through wave after wave of bloodthirsty barbarians and senators peeing their togas each of whom are speaking in a tongue completely foreign to you unless you've taken Latin then good job Kreskin to find the key used to unlock the city's gates B4 heading north to Ravenna to find the emperor himself, who will exchange the key for *gasp* The Fabled Lost Treasure of Archimedes!













What arcane wizardry, what Luciferian legerdemain, what Saturnine sorcery can you perform with this amazing, astonishing, stupefying device?














Using only the materials at hand in fifth century Europe (timber, stone, iron, copper, mortar, garum, yum), you can construct your very own, completely flight-worthy, World War II-era B26 Marauder! Since you burned all the fuel in your time machine -- don't even waste a second looking for 1.21 gigawatts of electricity -- you'll need this airplane to finish your task. Almost there! Fly as fast as you can, fly, my pretty, fly and soon enough, you'll slingshot around the sun and end up all the way back in 1992, where you'll find, on our shelves, don't mind the grungy decor --












Wasn't that easy? Does anyone have a question? You, and then one more.

"What the hell do you need a goth for?"

You have any gold or precious gems? No? Then you're going to need something to barter your way through the barbarian horde. Plundering Germanic tribes don't take plastic.

"Do you think these rambling 'get off my lawn' posts are entertaining, you bitter old man?

No. Good luck, and happy reading!

*BYOTimemachine.