Not long ago I had time to kill during the daylight hours in New York City, so I did what I usually do: I went to a public library.

Not just any public library, the main branch. It’s technically called the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building thanks to a very wealthy guy trying to buy good PR, but the only ones who call it that are reading from a mapping app.

New name aside, it’s still one of the coolest places in an endlessly exciting city, and somehow remains free. There are exhibits in there that would make showcase museums in most other cities jealous, plus several dazzling public reading rooms that feel like you’ve entered a bookish paradise.

Up on the third floor in the main space’s antechamber (no other way to describe it), there is an in situ work of art — a remnant from a not-so-distant past, but also a portal to another world. It is part of the remaining infrastructure of the old-fashioned book retrieval system, which relied upon PNEUMATIC TUBES!!!!

Beneath the main branch of the NYPL are 125 miles of bookshelves. It extends underground, beneath most of Bryant Park. Anyone with a library card can request to have someone walk down a corridor, crouch and/or strain their neck and go “where is it wheeeeeere is it ah here it is” and get any book, no questions asked. You don’t even have to say please. And years ago, it involved this steampunk relic.

I am old enough to have experienced it firsthand. You’d look up the book you want, get the number, write it on a piece of paper, and a person behind a desk would stick in a little canister and SCHTUNKKK, down it would go. Incredible!

You’d then get a number and sit on a bench in the next room. Eventually your book would come up via dumbwaiter. (This part of the process hasn’t changed, actually.)

For a brief time the tubes were replaced by fax machines. Then they switched to AOL Instant Messenger. (I saw this with my own eyes.) I am not sure what they use now. Frankly, I don’t want to know. I want the tubes back.

Why am I telling you this? Because even though those tubes are retired (and they worked hard for about a century, they deserve the rest!), I love that they are still there. When the AI apocalypse comes and all digital systems must be taken offline, air pressure and brass will be ready to get us our printed materials without fail.

While few things are as cool as the NYPL’s pneumatic tubes, artifacts from another life are around us everywhere. Maybe there’s something cool in your hometown? I’d love to know what that is.

Jordan Hoffman, Communications Officer

The January 1981 interview with producer Phil DeGuere is a fascinating look at a cinematic road not taken. More importantly, it includes concept art from the legendary illustrator Neal Adams. Lodestar readers should hit this link to the late artist’s website to see the images I do my best to describe to Dave on the archive section of this week’s podcast.

Click the “Listen” button below to hear more, and subscribe to The STARLOG Podcast on any podcasting platform.

This week’s guest on The STARLOG Podcast is filmmaker and mind-scrambler Rodney Ascher.

My bet is that you saw or at least read about some of his feature-length documentaries like Room 237, The Nightmare, A Glitch in the Matrix, and Ghost Boy. Each one of them explores a fascinating subculture or disturbing experience that addresses fundamental issues about consciousness and phenomenology. But always with a visual verve and a much-needed sense of humor.

Rodney is a deep thinker but also a trickster, and no one has ever built a resume quite like his. Our conversation touches on everything from Toho monsters to Ingmar Bergman, as well as whether or not Elon Musk believes he lives in “base reality.”

The new episode of The STARLOG Podcast, like the ones before it, is on whatever podcasting platform you prefer. Or you can just click the little “listen” button below.

SCI-FI

The new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is among the most controversial, but amidst all the message board missives something has been heretofore overlooked. As writer Emmet Asher-Perrin writes at Reactor, the interplanetary fashion of the SNW crew is telling an important story.

SCIENCE

Say what you will about Elon Musk’s SpaceX (and say it loud!), one can’t ignore that the recent pre-dawn Falcon 9 Starlink launch was timed perfectly to make a spectacle over the New York City skyline. If you missed it, check out this video for strictly aesthetic reasons.

CULTURE

Two years ago a now anonymous Redditor asked what was the biggest city/civilization in science fiction. The conversation continues… and goes to some unexpected places. Click to read more.

ETHICS

Interdisciplinary artist and advocate Rasheedah Phillips goes deep in this nuanced interview about AI and reimagining practical concepts of historical and cultural archives. Give yourself a few minutes for some mind-blowing ideas. Read and/or listen to the interview here.