Since far too often we only publicly say nice things about people when they are dead I’ve decided to randomly pick a Facebook friend every day and say something nice about them.
June 24, 2019
Today's person: Isabelle Vernersson!
So I think it was on a George Orwell tour in Barcelona - because that’s a thing. As we were walking about the narrow alleys and along the still bullet-pocked from the Spanish Civil War walls I ended up talking to a very nice couple from Sweden. They were both very smart, very friendly... and almost too interesting. I mean they were different from your average Orwell tour-taking tourist. He had the assurance and sense of humor of a fun professor, but she had something else...
Luckily we exchanged Facebook info and became friends, and that’s how I got to know the completely unexpected Isabelle.
The Cosplaying Librarian.
Oh she’s smart, political, and of course very literate... and a cosplaying librarian. With her partner - Fredrik Andersson, the cosplaying professor - she travels to events in Europe and the US with costumes that are ingenious, unique, and brilliantly political.
Like her steampunk adventurer with a bandolier of tampons. Or her giant sword/pen. I don’t know if the young people who patronize her library have any idea of the ever-impending detonation of beautiful and dynamic creation that just stamped the return date in their book. Probably not. If they did I think the library would be overflowing with the fascinated, and the inspired.
Isabelle openly lives the life you wish your favorite teacher secretly lived - a bold anime heroine whose wit is a sharp as her sword/pen, and who travels the world looking for adventure. If I’d had a teacher or librarian like her the weird and exciting part of my life would have started much earlier.