So my fabulous writing group (of one) pointed out to me that I really needed to do research on jesters. Actually, what she said was that I must have done research, but it didn’t come through. Sorry! So she shamed me into it, pretty much. Because I haven’t really done any. Which is surprising, considering how much I like doing research. I mean, I really dig it. I remember back when I was a wee lass and went to the library for the first time and was taught about those huge, olive green index books of magazine articles. I swear, it felt just like finding the hidden treasure. Find the proper book for your topic, find the proper article, write down the name and secret number, give it to the librarian. Librarian disappears into the bowels of the library, communes with the oracle, and comes back with the exact article you need. If you’re lucky, it’s on micro-fiche and you get to go into the magic room where it’s turned into a legible copy of an old magazine. That’s some serious satisfaction.
I suppose I should be a little more irritated by how easy the Internet makes things these days, if that’s what I loved about doing research. Got a question? Just ask Google. Google will defer to Wikipedia and three seconds later you have your answer. No olive green tomes, no librarian, no oracle, and the answer may or may not be right (because, after all, it’s Wikipedia) but you have your answer. Like now, for example. Listening to Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” and she mentions Sister Sadie. OK. Who’s Sister Sadie? I’ve heard the name before. Hell, I even had a tall black guy in a trench coat call me that one day when I was walking outside my old apartment on Morrison. “Damn, girl, you look just like Sister Sadie!” What does that mean? What does Sister Sadie look like? Was it a compliment?
But I digress. Point being, I can just go to Google right now and find out all about Sister Sadie and Nina Simone. No mystery, no wondering, no speculating… BUT there are moments of satisfaction. Where research takes a bit more effort than I thought it would. One of the books I’d like to read is by Robert Armin, one of Lord Chamberlain’s Men who apparently took the role of the fool in Shakespeare’s plays and turned it from funny servant to court wit, and he wrote an advice book back in 1608. Fabulous! I’d love to read that. And with the Internet so handy, I’ll just Google it and… Oh wait. So nothing on Amazon. Nothing on Alibris. Nothing, nothing, nothing. But hold on. There’s one copy somewhere in Rhode Island for sale on Tom Folio for…oh, let’s see. Fifty dollars!?! And that’s not counting shipping and handling, of course. Well, I’ll bookmark that page and continuing looking. And then I find one at a library. Perfect! They have a program where I can check out the book and they’ll mail it to me and….are you kidding? The library is in Canberra. That’s right. Canberra. As in Australia. Seriously a WTF moment. They won’t send me the book, but they’ll make a copy of it for me and mail it to me for another…oh, around seventy-five dollars. Really? Let’s check out one last source…
And this is where the really humorous part comes in. The last place I check researches all of the libraries in your surrounding area. Top of the list? That’s right. Reed College. Reed College library has a copy. The place where I spent three years cramming in an English degree and have avoided like the plague for ten years has a copy available of the exact book I want. So now I go consult with the oracle myself. Establish my identity as an alumna, obtain the mystical ID card that will grant me access to the stacks (God, I do admit–I love the stacks in the Reed College library…), and withdraw the sacred text from its place on the shelf. Treasure found.