Bash Compactor: Fiction and Friction

“306.77086642: Gay men and sexual practices,” read one sign on the wall in the back room at Greenpoint’s Blackout Bar last Friday evening.

The number was not a bi-annual statistic of Pastor Eddie Long’s sexual conquests, but an actual Dewey Decimal system number, mounted for a fundraising party held by Qu(e)ry, an organization of queer librarians. Crowded with lens-wearing queer-leaning guys, girls and everything in between, a lot of singles drifted around with longing, if not somewhat myopic gazes.

Although not a librarian, NYU anthropology PhD student Robert Chang was one of several bespectacled wallflowers leaning against the sign, and admitted to having a soft spot for librarians. “I appreciate them, I am geeky.”

He also copped to having gotten a bit nasty in several libraries: “Never my home institution,” said the former Fulbright scholar, “but in a school upstate, I did get sexy near the dissertations.”

Just as most of the librarians present agreed with the fetish for sexy eye apparel, they also believe that the Dewey Decimal system is no longer en vogue with the hip set.

“I use the Library of Congress, since I work in an academic library,” said Julia, a Qu(e)ery volunteer who was using her reference librarian expertise and a laptop to predict people’s futures. “Dewey’s structure has some biases in it, so most academic libraries prefer LOC. You’re going to make me sound like an asshole!” Never! But she did clear up one thing about the bespectacled hipster fetish: “Really, it’s just like, I’m nearsighted. I need the glasses, people. We’re librarians. You want us nearsighted.”

Seeking some wisdom from someone outside of the field, I consulted heavily tattooed go-go boy (and pirate look-alike) Calvin Clamshell, who was sporting a full beard to offset his three nose piercings and rhinestone eyeliner. “The smell of musty old books can be sexy,” he told me, pausing from his gyrations. “Besides, isn’t there something inherently exhibitionistic about reading in public?” I pondered this as the tassel hanging from his crotch nearly whipped my face.

The evening’s main organizer, a bespectacled, white-button-down-complete-with-pocket-protector digital archivist called Amber Billey, shed the most light on the sexiness of librarians and why she and her polysexual crew of nerds were throwing the shindig (their second event, she pointed out).

“Librarians are sexy because we provide access to information. Information is powerful, and what is sexier than a little bit of power?” But seriously, have you ever felt sexy in a library?

“I graduated Pratt, and Debbie Does Dallas was shot in the Pratt Library. Personally, have I ever had a good time in a library? I’m just gonna say ‘Shhh!’”