JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Some years ago, we remodeled our house, adding a second-story bedroom

atop our garage. The centerpiece of this room is a floor-to-ceiling

built-in bookcase that is the first thing I see when I wake up each

morning. Almost every day, I lay in bed for a few minutes warming myself

before this bookcase.

It’s jammed with books, put there in no orderly fashion but demanding to

be read. There are many I have never read and probably never will, but I

will always bask in their presence alone.

Books have two quite different and independent functions in my life.

First, of course, is the knowledge, the beauty, the excitement, the

enlightenment, the sheer pleasure to be found in their printed words.

But almost as important to me is their physical presence. That’s why I’m

grateful for new books, even though there are a dozen on my nightstand

I’ve not yet begun -- and God knows how many stuffed in our bookcases.

The new books enrich my life by just being there. I can pick them up,

riffle their pages, smell them, wonder what lies in store, caress them.

This is the function of books that seems to be lost to the new

generations of computer addicts. You can read a book on a screen, but you

can’t touch its soul.

These thoughts come to mind because of a mailing I received the other day

pushing something called the INET Library, modestly referred to as

“Resource Center to the World.” The press release goes on to say: “INET

Library is like having an entire public library at home.”

This idea depressed me considerably, despite the fact that a very large

part of my working life is spent in research, and I’m perfectly aware of

the reach of the Internet in tracking down information quickly and

efficiently -- providing, of course, you know how to work these suckers.

But the thought of a computer replacing a public library somehow catches

for me the loss of grace in our society.

Wandering the stacks in a library, feeling the books while you look for

the one you want is a visceral, sensual experience that no amount of

machines can ever replace.

When talk at dinner parties turns to breathless new technology and I

express these feelings, I’m quite aware that I come on as a fossil,

resistant to change and progress. It isn’t true, but I can’t help that. I

don’t resist the change. I’m just not ready to see it push aside the

graceful amenities that enrich our lives.

Music, especially, puts me to the test.

Last Friday, my wife called me from work, excited. She told me that she

had just been given two tickets to “Chicago” at the Performing Arts

Center and we could have a free night on the town.

I was disappointed with the production of “Chicago” we had seen in London

and wanted very much to see it with better dancers. So we went off

enthusiastically to see the show. Even went out to dinner first.

We got there early to study the Playbill, and I sensed that the audience

was not the usual crowd I see at the Performing Arts Center. Lots of

sweatshirts and short skirts.

Then I settled in to read the Playbill and couldn’t find the cast notes

or breakdown of musical numbers. I remember telling my wife that it was

the first time I’d ever seen the members of a pit orchestra recognized by

name in the program. All the while, I was conscious that the curtain was

up and a good deal of what looked like machinery was visible in the

shadows at the rear of the stage.

I’m not sure at what point it finally got through to me that we were not

seeing the musical “Chicago,” but rather a rock group of the same name.

My wife, who is much younger, should have known better and didn’t.

I was trapped in dead center of the theater and faced with an indefinite

period of rock music. It didn’t help that the man sitting next to us said

there would be no intermission.

I was wearing my hearing aids, and the first blast from the stage sent a

lightning bolt through my head. By the time I got the hearing aids off, I

was afraid my head would be coming off, too. But then I knew there was no

way out, and I decided to listen.

The first thing to come very clear was the remarkable musicianship of the

seven members of the group. I have no idea where “Chicago” falls in the

lexicon of rock eminence, but they had a full house that was with them

all the way -- including me by the end of the evening.

I had enormous trouble with the volume -- which I will never quite

understand and will probably produce several generations of deaf people

-- and I was indifferent to the vocals which tended to be shouted rather

than sung.

But the rest of it I liked better and better as the evening progressed.

And I was already converted before they came out for their first encore

and damned if they didn’t play “In the Mood.”

They managed to make a horn, a saxophone and a trombone sound like the

whole brass section in the Glenn Miller Band. And they transported me

back to the Paramount Theater in Fort Wayne, Ind., where we danced in the

aisles while the Miller band played four-a-day in between movies.

So I guess we all simply have to dance to our own drummer.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a Santa Ana Heights resident. His column runs

Thursdays.