J. Erik Jonsson Central Library, Dallas, Texas

One of the blogs I follow on Tumblr is called Architecture of Doom and honestly everyone should follow it because OMG, so much architecture, all of it Doooooom. Lots of cement, stark contours, and a gloomy sense of danger in every nook and spooky cranny. When I was researching libraries to visit during my tour, the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library would not have made the list, except the pictures featured architecture so doomy and gloomy I just had to add it.

Well, best laid plans, anyway.

I like Dallas and I love the downtown area--something I hope to inspect a little closer tomorrow. There's a spiky building and a building that looks like a butt in bicycle shorts, so clearly the city elders, planners, makers, and shakers are all my kind of nuts and I am down to document their glory. I really didn't get a good look at the J. Erik Jonsson library as I drove past trying to find parking, and once I was ready to go, I didn't really need to. I was pretty much done.


The best/worst part of the library is the subterranean parking garage located below the 8 story structure. The entrance is narrow and steep, so you go from bright sunny brilliance, to shaky, badly lit black in a second's time. Better yet, all the lights are not on. Some are, but not all of them. They are set to light up when the motion detector sees you, so you can see lights going on in the distance, which evokes instant memories of horror movies where the opposite happens and a blonde is running for her life (The Descent, that one with Sarah Michelle Gellar, I think). There's a brightly lit foyer to the elevator bay, and humans in security suits are there to restore some sense of normalcy, but it left me just a little unnerved and er, uncharmed.

The Elevators of Doom (dirty and kicked) took me to the first floor where a blank, bland sadness laid over every square inch of the place. It was as though the Designers of the DMV had a go at putting together this branch and were too uninspired to do anything more than their absolute worst. I took a quick turn around that floor, saw that it was not going to work for me, and headed back to the elevators.

The eighth floor was genealogy--I figured it might at least be semi abandoned and I would be able to find an outlet. It was miles cleaner and brighter than the main floor, and a lot less depressing. I found a cubicle (among rows of cubicles, none occupied) and set about setting up my desk for the day.

Have I mentioned how heavy my bag is when I am lugging around the full compliment of notebooks, phone, wallet, keys, chargers, laptop, etc.? Last night I hurled some stuff out of the bag to make it less awful when going in the mall and later the restaurant, one of which was the charger for my laptop. Which I then covered up with my jacket and left behind in the car. Because YES.

I turned on my laptop, saw I had about 40 minutes, and made a decision: I didn't really want to sit in a cubicle all day anyway, so it was time to cut my losses and head over to Fort Worth to see how one of their local libraries suited my needs (spoiler alert: I've been here all day, writing my little heart out).

On the elevator back down, someone was stopping on the 4th floor, so I decided to have a look just to see if anything would be compelling enough to make me come back up. Nope! But I do believe I found the Weird Floor with the Haunted Painting. Since this was the Fine Arts section of the library, there were listening kiosks with what looked like car CD decks installed. Weirder yet, they had these clear umbrella objects suspended over them, which of course made me think of A Clockwork Orange, which is exactly the sort of thing you should be thinking about in the bowels of the Library of Doom, far from the Elevator of Doom down to the Garage of Doom.

On my way out, I saw a strange painting that I documented at my peril (and now yours, since I am adding it to this blog) because it is probably haunted and will add vinegar to our dreams the farther we take her into our memory banks, every day becoming darker and darker, until we find ourselves alone, probably in a parking lot, and in the wind she whispers heeeyyyy yyallll. And touches your shoulder and then you die. Or just run away. We'll see what happens.

Look, I am sure she was a very nice lady, And she did some nice things for the city and died tragically from a carpet cleaning incident. Her name is Margaret Virginia Jones and she looks just like Eve, don't ya think?

Speaking of "y'all"--I started using it today and can't seem to stop myself. It's a thing I do; it is not about mockery. It is about mimicry, and not the mean sort. I've done it since childhood and still do it semi-consciously today. And let's be real: Kansans are all about the y'all, y'a'll all.

It is not my desire to get smirky or mock the J. Erik Jonsson library. It is, after all, the central, downtown library, so has gotten the most use and abuse from the citizenry of Dallas since it opened its doors in 1982. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like much (if any) money has been put into its upkeep, refurbishment, or modernization except for the mandatory computer installment and internet upgrades. The layout is funky and bones are good--it has the potential to be a phenomenal space for learning and enrichment, if only those makers and shakers would cough up the dough.