Topic 43: The Dilettante

Carol:

Confessions of  A …

Dear Readers,

Okay, so sometimes in the pursuit of a unique approach to the daily theme topic, I  cheat.  I  hit the Google button, grab  Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations or The Concise Heritage Dictionary in search of quick ideas  Not so today. I have foregone my usual intellectual crutches and am speaking from the heart of a sham-- oops, that was yesterday,  I mean dilettante.

Yesterday morning the dog walk crew gathered  at my house for coffee; the honor of pulling topic #43 went to our uphill friend Jim. This morning, since the dog-walking coffee drinkers now knew the topic, they were curious to hear what I wrote  about. I still had not written my daily theme, and I told a  little white lie, “It’s all in my head. I know what I want to say about dilettantes, just haven’t gotten it on paper yet.” I didn’t want to admit I was stalled, actually avoiding the topic in hopes that something clever would just pop into my head.

Then, Marilyn said that she didn’t know what the word meant, an admission no dilettante would ever make. Lively discussion ensued,  in between Jim yelling at his old white lab Cody to get his nose out of the candy bag and Peggy pointing at Halloween photos of her adorable granddaughters--our conversations rarely take a straight path to anything.  Eventually, we talked about the "Emperor’s New Clothes", snobby people at cocktail parties, and poseurs. My brain now overstuffed with ideas, I headed for home with the full intention of researching and writing about…. Governesses.

Governesses? Well, my thinking was that dilettantes are people who know a little bit about a lot of things (I didn’t have to use my dictionary to come up with that one), which was true of  19th century governesses,  whose task was to set their charges on the path towards fitting into a world of polite conversation, gentile manners  and sophisticated one-upsmanship. I guess you might say that the primary role of many governesses was to raise cultivated dilettantes who could speak a little French, play a little Mozart, dance a little gavotte. And you thought I was calling the governesses dilettantes!

In the short drive down the hill, I rejected the topic of governesses. I was tired of running to Google, of half-baked research, of twisting ideas to fool the reader. Topic #42 was still haunting me. I had actually dared to write 500 words about a poet, culture, religion, and century I knew nothing about. And I did it using the dilettante’s favorite research tool, the Google button. I had traded depth and substance for style and trickery. I had shammed Shams. 

So, here goes. I AM a fraud, an intellectual poseur. I did NOT know who the composer of Coppelia was, I did NOT know what year Hans Christian Andersen wrote his fairy tales, and I did NOT know that The Musee Granet refused to exhibit  Cezanne’s paintings. I never heard of Shams until I googled the word. Oh, the shame…. And relief… of finally coming clean and admitting:

Megan:

The Dilettante Librarian

I was going to be an art major in college, but I couldn’t get into a drawing class my first semester so I took creative writing instead. Those are the only two interests I’ve ever really had – and not so much on the art side. I like painting and drawing, have a modest ability in recreating objects (but not people – except in cartoon form) but any inspiration, any ability to paint with meaning, left me a long time ago.  I’m ok with that.

I wouldn’t have been a successful art major, because it turned out I didn’t like art history. My lowest grade in college was an Asian art history class. I thought we’d be studying sculptures of people "doing it," but it was mostly about how to distinguish different Buddhas depending on his hat style and hand position. The instructor pronounced the Himalayan mountains  “Hee-mall-yawn”. That may be the correct pronunciation, but I found it distracting and that’s all I remember about the class. I also remember crying all through the final because my best friend was having emergency life-saving surgery at that exact moment and I knew I was failing the exam. The painting of a mandala I did for extra credit, which kept me from failing the class completely, now hangs in my mom’s office. Upside down. She’s worse at interpreting Asian art than I am.

Anyway, I took creative writing instead and those were pretty much the only classes I got A’s in, and definitely the only time I felt confident in college. Or ever again.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it, or even if I wanted to pursue an MFA. I used to sit in the Mills College Library, when I worked the 9pm – midnight shift and look up things on the Internet, explore the databases and try to find something that interested me for more than a few minutes.  Or I spent the time I was working writing stories. Occasionally someone would come up to my desk and ask me a question. Annoyed at the interruption, I would smile sweetly and say, “I really have no idea. Why don’t you ask the librarian?” The librarian didn’t work that shift.

I don’t remember the exact moment that I decided to become a librarian. I was still only thinking about it when I realized I could go to Library School in England. But it seemed like it would be a low-stress, quiet job that would give me plenty of time to write. So, of course my very first professional job was the highest-stress, loudest job and required me to sign the Official Secrets Act.

I also got to find out what happens when assistants say, “I don’t know. Ask the librarian.”  In the course of looking up the answers to everyone’s random questions, I’ve learned a little bit about a lot of different things – and I’ve discovered one more thing I like to do: answer questions. Unless I’m writing, in which case I’d rather you didn’t bug me right now.
                      

 
Note to future employers: This, as with most of my essays, is meant to be humorous and should not be taken as a reflection of my work ethic. I was good at my job, and I'll be good at your job.