An Academic World
June 29, 2005
We are spending our last couple of days in the Folger Guest House.. which is the slim red-painted building in the picture to the left. Luckily we will move only a couple of buildings away (to the yellow building in the picture), getting an actual apartment rented out by the Folger Library.
The guest house has been more like an inexpensive hotel than an apartment. There are four floors, with two small rooms on each floor.. and only one room per floor has an in-room bathroom.. a feature which we have been glad to have. The other occupant has a bathroom, but must walk out onto the landing to enter it. The kitchen and living area is on teh first floor and shared by all. Each morning there is a small crowd of people eating breakfast and talking, and when we eat dinner there are often a few people coming or going..
A couple of days ago there was a new person eating breakfast when Emily and I got there. He was middle-aged and of middle height. He is not too different from people one sees every day, although more alert.. and when one talks to him it is easy to see that he is thoughtful.. I mean, not just smart, but considered in his opinions. He turned out to be a Canadian who was spending a month at the Folger doing research for the Variorum edition of Othello. This is an edition that records every single textual deviation in the various quartos and folios of Shakespeare’s work. I noted that by the time he is done he will practically know Othello by heart.. but now that seems like an obvious thing to have said. He anticipates spending something like ten years on the project. I always wondered who tackled those kinds of projects..
Others in our building include Chris, who comes from the SUNY Potsdam. He is in the same NEH seminar that Emily is here for: “The Handwritten Words of Early Modern England.” His interest seems to be in marginalia.. and he has worked on Spencer and Donne. There is a girl.. Jane, I think.. who has recently arrived from England. She has a fellowship and gets to do her own work for a book she is writing on the writings of King James. Ann and Miles are the other married couple in the building. Ann is in the seminar, and her husband Miles is along for the ride.. somewhat like myself. They are from Lubbock, Texas.. and have a spirited and open sense about them which has endeared them to Emily. Ann’s interest is on the history of the book, and I think she identifies herself as a bibliographer.
Yesterday after the seminar was over we went to a house that the Folger rents from a local woman who travels to France every summer (to lead walking tours).. "We" being all the participants in the seminar, plus spouses, independent fellows, and Folger employees. It was one of those loose events where people wander into a room and grab some eats or a drink, and then wander in and out of various conversations. Neither of us feel comfortable in these settings.. but we did manage to find a group and offer some conversational tid-bits.
I was struck, looking around, at how this was a new social group for me. Almost everyone was at the beginning of their career.. they had either been hired somewhere, or about to go on the job market. It was a gathering of young faculty members.. and that is a group that both Emily and I are now about to enter.. although I cannot say that either of us are particularly thrilled to be surrounded by constant job machinations and professional angling.. but it is always amazing to find in this crowd a person to really talk with.. and relate to.. and that was the amazing thing about finding Emily last year.