A live public art installation where college football stadium bleachers are set up for people who think no one uses public libraries anymore to attend and observe the hundreds and thousands of people walking in and out of libraries all day. Witnessing the library for its interdisciplinary nature and wealth of a higher ideal, The Federal Reserve Chief, is secretly flipped by one of the library’s unidentifiable special ops team members who was planted years ago on Wall St as a hedge fund manager. Unassumingly seated next to Jerome Powell in the stands, the country’s lead monetary authority becomes so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of the library as a vital civic democratic institution, that it is feared he may need to be removed from the attendees to not blow the whole operation. With pennant, soda, and popcorn in hand, Mr. Powell grins from ear to ear watching the halftime show festivities. The show is absolutely wild. Some love it, some don’t bother. Some people stay for a couple of minutes, some stay for a quarter, but there is the US Federal Reserve Chief Officer championing his way from his seat, down to the field, marching across the sidelines to the 50-yard line, towing a giant printing press with money already filing out. He reaches the referee, firmly nods, asks for the microphone, looks directly into the television monitor, and says to the watchful citizenry, “We begin today, not later, not next week or next year. A new dawn of Public Library Funding is underway in America.” The crowd goes wild. No one loses. Everyone wins. The scoreboard keeper can barely keep up, the points flip higher and higher like a cartoon jackpot slot machine. We can do even more.
Jack C. Buck is the author of the collections Deer Michigan and Gathering View. For more of his writing visit jackcbuck.com