And hello! I haven’t popped up in your inboxes in a minute, and as usual the world feels worlds different than whatever the last time was. I hope you’re hanging in there, and whether this ends up signaling the restart of a beautiful friendship or merely the fly-by of a rare distant comet, thanks for reading.

We had spent the daytime at a very lovely birthday party for a 1-year-old community nibling at a bar in Prospect Heights, and as the grandparents departed, the “Happy Birthday” chalk signage switched to a new name, and an unclaimed tequila shot failed to find a home amongst one of the bartenders, I started making a ruckus about the Night in the Library. Actually, I had started making a ruckus earlier, to anyone who would listen, pulling up the schedule on my phone and shouting “Werner Herzog! Therapy dogs! Tarot readings with Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours featuring Nicole Kidman!” as my finger slid the Brooklyn Public Library Presents website past their day-drinking eyeballs. Many in our party were compelled, and though few saw it in the cards for their evening, our friend Briana said she was game. Around 6:45pm, I tugged her arm and said “Let’s leave now, so we arrive there early!” It was a 12-minute walk to the Central Library entrance — where we found a line stretching two blocks down.

I hadn’t been to the Night in the Library before, but when it came across my attention a few weeks ago and aligned with my time in New York, I was convinced it was the move. And I’m here to tell you I was correct. It’s not hard to analyze why: a free, all-ages, all-night, music-festival-style lineup of talks, workshops, performances, and “experiences” at the public library is exactly the kind of third-space dreambaby that those of us distraught about fascism and capitalism have been horny for for years now — or at least we’re aware that it’s, like, a good thing that everyone needs more of if we’re not all just going to slowly embitter each other and die. Forgive me for being the person who experiences the good thing after reading thinkpieces about it, and then goes to everyone who has read the selfsame thinkpieces to say “guys, I tried it, it really was good!” BUT! Holy public bathrooms, it was good.

If you can believe it, the goodness started in line. For the Brooklyn-familiar who may appreciate some geographical texture, Briana and I landed east of the OY/YO sign in front of the Brooklyn Museum, and it took an hour and fifteen minutes for us to get into the library. As we inched forward, scores and scores of people continued to join the line growing endlessly behind us. Werner Herzog was the keynote speaker and supposed to go on at 7:15pm; while everyone seemed to quickly gather we wouldn’t make it inside in time to see him, it was remarkable how easily the mood of the line seemed to land not on crankiness but on…I almost want to say awe? Jollyness, at the very least. It wasn’t too cold, and the sun was setting just ahead of all of us, and those who needed had their vapes and cigarettes let alone their friends to pass the time; and more than that, I think some small part of everyone was giddily thinking look how many people showed up for this all-night event AT THE LIBRARY!

Inside it was chaos, by which I mean it was very, very well-attended. The cavernous entrance and lobby of the Brooklyn Public Library Central branch was filled with music and people, and the stairways going both upstairs and down, as well as the side wings and glass-walled classrooms lining the edges of the first and second floor, were all simply packed. Briana bee-lined for the therapy dogs as I stood around grinning.

Upon realizing nearly every scheduled session was at capacity unless you showed up early (all very music festival style, as I said before), we started generally wandering, first toward food and beverage, which had taken over the Youth Wing of the library. I bought a coffee, a cookie, and some coconut shrimp. In line for the shrimp, we chatted up some early 20-somethings who referred ruefully to their endeavors in AI and law school, and also comforted us that Werner Herzog had been essentially impossible for them to understand due to a mix of accent and acoustics, so no need for FOMO (always a nice reminder coming from those younger than oneself). The food and beverage Youth Wing was circuitous and unmapped, and I felt comradely every time someone stopped to ask where I’d found coffee. Many people were drinking coconut water out of actual whole green coconuts, though I never found the station where those came from.

I’d been set on attending the tap dance workshop at 9pm, but it was too crowded to see and also seemingly not really a workshop, so Briana and I wandered deeper in and landed at the poetry station. The idea was to write not haikus but "pi-kus,” as in poems in 3-1-4 structure for syllables-per-line. (That’s right; in my enthusiasm for storytelling I skipped basic context: this year’s Night in the Library was themed The Philosophy of Mathematics and held on 3/14 aka Pi Day. It also ran specifically until 3:14am, for Significance. Lots of the sessions were generally mathematically themed, but not intimidatingly so.) Then you could take your poem to a professional calligrapher who would write it in beautiful script on a special postcard. Okay!! We sat down and wrote a lot of poems.

The poetry station ended up being a site of additional intergenerational flux. As we were scribbling, some younger folks wandered up and asked us how the whole thing worked. As Briana and I explained, they gazed closely at our faces. Then, one of them said, “Can I ask you guys a question? What would you say to your 26-year-old self as a piece of advice to help set them up for success?” This led to an extended and endearing exchange that I felt at once reflected millennial fear of irrelevance, gen z fear of pity, and the healing powers of — forgive me, but it’s true — realizing we actually have a lot in common. Our chat traversed the day they’d spent in Brighton Beach getting sunburned, the formative early adulthood they’d spent in quarantine, and the modest but honest shreds of advice Briana and I could come up with (be gay, community over ambition, do whatever you can to make it easy to spend time with people you like being around, and if you can find a way to make enough money that isn’t horrible or too stressful, that really, really helps). I don’t remember how we said goodbye.

The night meandered onward. Can’t believe I’m sharing this on the internet but real talk I had to take a shit in the middle of it all, and spent the whole time texting Briana anxiously about whether I was causing a line (there were 3 stalls in the upstairs bathroom, but still). While shitting I overheard a conversation between two folks who had just been in the session titled “The Burden of Being Undiagnosed” about their own experiences being undiagnosed and how the talk had been validating. Overhearing this, I felt moved.

Around 11:45pm, we stepped out for a cigarette. We shared our smokes with others mingling outside, and took a few folks’ photos in front of the light-up signage. Eventually Briana decided to head home, and I went back in for the midnight meditation.

It was delightful, but I wasn’t sure what to do with myself after it ended, so I stood around looking at all the people in the Grand Lobby who still hadn’t gone home. Then I realized there was a concert starting at 12:30am, so I bought a seltzer and headed down to watch it.

It was while I was sitting in the concert that I started to realize the whole night was a lot like a mushroom trip. I had to pee a little, and thought from this of the moments in the hours of a trip where you notice your body’s humble needs, poking into the astral plane to remind you that they as well are along for the ride in the great mystery. It had been such a long night, and I felt so many things at least once. I thought I was going to cry, but didn’t. (In that way it was less trip-like.)

Around 1:30am I tried to call it quits, and texted my partner as much. Instead I went to the bathroom and then found myself drawn magnetically into the Languages & Literature Wing. Here, amongst stacks of DVDs and romance novels, three men were debating the importance of definitions on a panel about Mathematical Anarchy. The room was packed.

Finally, at 1:53am, I walked out the door. But then I went back inside, telling myself I just needed to Shazam the song that had been playing as I’d left.