When Elitism Is Good, It's Very, Very Good Indeed

[liz_marcs]

Many, many thanks to silent_ic_river for linking me to this article about Jay S. Walker, founder of Priceline.com and founder of Walker Digital.

Actually, the Wired article isn't about him so much. It's actually about his private library.

It may come as no surprise that, according to the Wired article, Walker's house was built specifically to house his private library. It probably wouldn't shock you to know that Walker's wife sits on the board of directors for their town's library association.

Below is one of the overviews of the library. And yes, that really is Sputnik, the real Sputnik, in the foreground.


Photo from Wired, "Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library". Photo by Andrew Moore

Here's a quote from that article:

Walker shuns the sort of bibliomania that covets first editions for their own sake — many of the volumes that decorate the library's walls are leather-bound Franklin Press reprints. What gets him excited are things that changed the way people think, like Robert Hooke's Micrographia. Published in 1665, it was the first book to contain illustrations made possible by the microscope. He's also drawn to objects that embody a revelatory (or just plain weird) train of thought. "I get offered things that collectors don't," he says. "Nobody else would want a book on dwarfs, with pages beautifully hand-painted in silver and gold, but for me that makes perfect sense."

What excites him even more is using his treasures to make mind-expanding connections. He loves juxtapositions, like placing a 16th-century map that combines experience and guesswork—"the first one showing North and South America," he says—next to a modern map carried by astronauts to the moon. "If this is what can happen in 500 years, nothing is impossible."

Amen.

Here's another picture, this one of the seating area in Walker's private library.


Photo from Wired, "Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library". Photo by Andrew Moore


It's nice to know that the traditional eccentric cultural elitist still lurks in the corners of New England. Our landscape is littered with the legacies of such people, and we are all the richer for it.

Under the cuts are two more pictorial examples of the good kind of elitism that have benefited people in Massachusetts over the past century or two.



The Higgins Armory Museum is the largest private collection of historical arms and armor. And it all started because one rich industrialist had a passion for the stuff. Programs include everything from "how to make armor" classes to "how to use medieval weaponry." Below is a photo of the "combat wing" of the museum.


Photo from the Higgins Armory Web site.




You sort of have to see it to believe the reality of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The whole museum is a monument to what happens when eccentric people get lots and lots of money. For a start, they can make it part of the will that their house full o' treasure can never, ever be re-arranged after they die and if you do, you lose the house to Harvard University (which really, really wants it). Oh, and all people named "Isabella" can visit the museum for free in perpetuity.

The photo below is just from the courtyard and doesn't even begin to do the place justice. The house itself is quite literally an all-day affair just to see it. To absorb it would take several visits more.


Photo from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Web site.



So, remember, when certain parties take slaps against "elitism" (whatever the hell that means), included in those shots is good elitism, the kind of elitism that educates, informs, transmits information, refines mental acuity, raises the tone of discourse, and makes subjects and materials that would normally be out of reach accessible to those who wish to learn more.

I rather think it's very important point to remember. It's especially important to remember whenever people people get on their "jus' reg'lar folks" high horse so they can bash all elitists, uncaring whether the elitists in question are selfish snobs (the bad kind of elitist) or rich eccentrics excited about a subject and want to leave a legacy behind them for future generations (the good kind of elitist).

Comments

[silent-ic-river.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going to be linking right back at ya. :) You took my ZOMG and made it AMAZING with lots and lots of WIN!

[darkhavens.livejournal.com]

OMG bookporn! I'm a little overcome. *fans self*

You don't think he'd notice mind if I just moved in and spent the rest of my life browsing, do you? I could happily die of old age having never left the confines of that room.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

The Gardner is really kind of creepy in the upstairs rooms with those hoary fireplace covers and the bloody religious paintings. I love it the same way I love Edward Gorey. Though the empty frames that are missing stolen paintings are just depressing.

Also bizarre and sinister in Boston? The strange red frescoes on the top floor of the BPL.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

You mean the Sargent murals? I love those. i love the McKim building so much.

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

YES! We were wandering around there one night after listening to Terry Pratchett speak and the library was about to close. We wandered up a poorly lit stair case and at the top were all these extremely dark red murals. And then a giant antique printing press. Also an alarm went off and scared the hell out of us.

I keep meaning to go back and look at them again.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

They just (okay, like, four years ago) restored everything up there. There's a room with these random dioramas, and the Fine Arts room with the card cataloges (!) and the other rooms with all sorts of art just all over the place.

I found the Copley branch by accident the day I moved to Boston and when my parents and sister were hear from my graduation from Suffolk last summer I took them to the McKim building and my sister looked around with her jaw on the floor and said, "You get to study here????"

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

All we could see were what looked like rivers of blood. I had heard they cleaned them and I have been meaning to go back.

Yeah, the BPL is amazing. Also the Boston Atheneum is stunning.

When I was in grad school I used to go to the main research library of the NYPL (the big one with the lions outside) just to do homework. I always felt so productive there.

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

*drooooools* Saw this linked on someone else's website last night, and am just... I mean... yeah.

*wipes off mouth*

I waaaant this. I doooooo.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I love people with a passion.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

The Gardner Museum is one of my favourite museums anywhere - it is so eccentric and eclectic. Wonderful!

[xxmagex.livejournal.com]

Sputnik? Now that is impressive

[undeny.livejournal.com]

That is so amazing. I'm completely turned on by the library.

[jenbooks.livejournal.com]

One wall. Just one wall of bookshelves like that. That's all I ask.


/me whimpers

[omegar.livejournal.com]

my ideal house (You know when i win €130 million on the lottery) has always included a library with comfy seating and big windows for the views. This however is spectacular.

makes me jealous.

[sunnyd-lite.livejournal.com]

Liz - ahh the Gardner Museum. That was a fun day, heck that was a fun trip!

And I love her previsos in the will.

Walker library

[ponders-life.livejournal.com]

Oooooooh! Thank you for sharing the photos of the Walker private library! I love how the Wired reporter described it as "the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride." :)

::wipes drool off chin::
::adjusts mental plans for dream house accordingly::

[painfulblue.livejournal.com]

I think I just had an orgasm looking at that library. I would kill *KILL* for a private library like that. And I would lock myself inside and do nothing but read until I was dead.

[iyalode.livejournal.com]

OMG! This is like my equivalent of catnip. Floor to ceiling bookshelves = sexiest thing evah!

[aseneth.livejournal.com]

I stumbled on the Gardner one snowy day a number of years (OK, quite a few years) ago, with absolutely no idea what to expect. It was one of the most wondrous experiences of my life, stepping from cold, dirty-snowy Boston into the warm, lush interior with all that wonderful art, all much more accessible than in most museums (though the arrangement was admittedly somewhat quirky).

It's definitely worth a visit or three if you're in the area.

And I second all the lusting after the library. If I had something like that I'd never get anything else done, though.
Thinking of Boston and libraries, I've always wanted a library patterned after the Naumburg rooms in the Fogg Museum. Sigh.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Oh wow! thanks for sharing. I too have a serious lust for libraries!

The local library (I'm here caring for my elderly Mom) is a LEEDS Silver certified building and quite beautiful and contemporary.

But I love the strange and unusual ones and the eccentric (rich) people who build them!

[chriself.livejournal.com]

Can I confess to a surfeit of book jealousy? I think my own library would be a monument to dog-eared paperbacks. And I love the idea that my namesake would be able to enter free of charge!