I'm writing this column in perhaps what is the single most dingy, and yet most revered and mythical place on our campus. It is surrounded by sexual urban legend, and frequented by Bowdoin students in their most academically diligent states. The most glorious sunny day in Maine would not be able to bring more than a few lonely rays of light into this place, and yet I'm never more motivated than when I'm here. Here, even Facebook can't find me.
Everyone knows and talks about the stacks, and yet somehow it happens that no one is ever here. If I had a quarter for every time I heard a student say, "Dude, I've got so much to do tonight. I'm gonna have to go lock myself in the stacks," I'd be able to do a lot more laundry (but let's not beat a dead horse with that one). This makes me wonder, where the heck is everyone? If this is used as one of the most common "nose to the grindstone" places at Bowdoin, why is it virtually always empty? Seriously, I just did a lap around the second floor. No one.
It's gotten to the point where, if someone else is on the same floor as me, I need to go elsewhere. I'll hear movement across the floor by someone other than myself, catch my breath in fear, see feet shuffle toward the door to walk about a quarter of a mile to the bathroom, and have to leave. And I can only assume others have been doing this as well, because whenever someone else is on a floor, they're the only one there. That means that only five people can comfortably study in the stacks at a time.
This scarcity, though, has its benefits. Frustrated workers can pace, sing, burp, fart, type, talk, and even make out as loudly as they want and they'll be no angry sighs to hinder them. In fact, I'm currently violently humming to the "OC Soundtrack" and pounding on the keyboard with full force (this authoritative typing is saved only for my most special of columns, by the way). Everything else in that list I'm not doing, but if I decided to, you would never know, now, would you?
Which is a not-really-very appropriate segueway into the next stacks intrigue: How many times has game of "10 Fingers" led to "never have I ever hooked up in the stacks"? Over the years, it seems like a lot of sexual activity has taken place on these fogged up floors. I look above me, to see if there's any sign of activity, but apparently this is not a popular Wednesday dinnertime occurrence. My guess is that the stacks have taken on a small hint of naughtiness ever since we all heard our parents giggle when our tour guides told us that the reason that the floors are fogged is so that no one could see up girls' skirts when the College went co-ed. Ooooooh.
(As an update, my theory was just proved: Someone came on to the second floor, looked around, saw me angrily typing and singing "Orange Sky," and left. Wuss.)
My question, however, to the kids who choose to mack in the stacks (hehe), is this: to my right are sitting 35 volumes of dusty, grimy "Deutsches Worterbuch von Grimm." I don't know what it means, but it doesn't sound friendly, and it smells even worse. To my left, "God Was Born in Exile." I can only guess with that one. Is this a particularly romantic atmosphere? Unless you've got some really strange thing going for German encyclopedias, my guess is no. And even aside from the sort of shady content of the stacks' volumes, it really isn't much to look at. Unless you're okay with a radiator, a stone-cold windowsill, a hardwood chair, a glass floor, or against some Cicero that looks like it hasn't been noticed since someone sneezed on it in 1978, your location options for putting down that extra finger in "Never Have I Ever" are pretty slim.
But sex-in-stacks aside, the appeal of this library is kind of a non-sequitor. It's not very cozy, although blasting hot air from the radiator sometimes, nor are the walls of cement and thunderous sounds of moving chairs very inspiring. Dungeon-esque as it seems, that very isolation really is the true draw of this place. There really are few other places where distraction is almost a non-option. There really is nowhere to go in the stacks, unless you want to go to the fourth floor and check out the biographies. The union seems about as distant as Bosnia. Even the bathroom's too far away to get up and move away from your work. You're pretty much stuck here until you have some really pressing need to leave.
I guess that really does explain why it is that no one ever comes here. If you drink a lot of water, you'll have to do a lot of walking. If you want atmosphere with your organic chemistry, this is not your place. But, if you go to the second floor, you'll probably be able to have a personal performance of "California."