I entered the library at around 11.45 PM, after some trouble with my ID. I was wearing sunglasses. I descended the stairs toward Gov Docs and encountered the other people at the door to Gov Docs. Our expectation that no one would find us there was verified when we ascended to find darkness. I climbed to the 5th floor with the others and unpacked my things: a computer and my books. In the solace and comfort of the library late at night, I had hoped to get some work done. I didn’t do work. I retrieved a book from the poetry room, I returned to a circle and shared poetry. I read America and I read “Cambridge” by Frank O’Hara. In that poem ol’ Frank, sitting next to his window feeling the doldrums of winter and the sublime pressure to write in the wake of other poets, talks about a lonely building he sees across the street through the rain. “I will go there,” he says.

The incident at Lamont library was unfortunate. It is true that we knew it was against the rules. This was likely part of the attraction of trying to sleepover. But it wasn’t the explicit impetus at all, nor was that ever discussed. (I won’t get into a meditation on the rules which Rousseau and Foucault and others have already done). If we thought our actions would be hurting anyone, or anything, we would absolutely not have done it. Perhaps “actions” here is an inappropriate word; it misses part of the reasons for this, which is to say, few reasons, and none of them having to do necessarily with “action”, at least to the extent that “action” connotes force or usefulness or implies reaction. We did willfully try to evade those closing the library, and by chance we succeeded. But beyond that we did nothing but sit around on the 5th floor of Lamont library and talk, read to each other, share things, stories. We made dances. This was not intended as a political statement, though it can be taken that way—of course, we had no intention of broadcasting this incident because we gave it no purpose outside of ourselves. And that to us was an important purpose.

With a fair dose of levity, we seriously considered the staying-in-the-library as an alteration to the standards of our everyday life at Harvard, that which is often defined by hermetic learning spaces; we sought to transform or invert such a space, and by extension, the mindsets attendant with that space, into a place of no time and no place, where for a time we could both learn and exist together. Our first rule was to find books that we wanted to read to each other and do so. We did. We shared poems (Amichai, Ginsberg, Wright) and we learned things (about the construction of underwater tunnels, about the argonauts, C.S. Lewis, aboriginal sexual practices of the tropics). Some people took notes. Later we shared stories. (Clarification: We were not using fire. We did not have a video camera.) We wanted to exist together without restraints, as anyone does; that we chose the library at Harvard as a sort of “rebellion” or freeing I think shows that our interest was modest and harmless, and that our freeing was meant to be both completely useless (to anyone but ourselves) but also productive and constructive of a new mode of being at Harvard.

I understand that none of my explanations may matter, and may seem ludicrous, or silly, or uninteresting in the context of safety concerns, security concerns and the like. But I hope it does, if not to the process, at least to the people reading this.

I am somewhat ashamed to be in this position. Despite my behavior in this incident, my appreciation for the library system’s buildings, its staff and its books is evidenced by the thousands of times my ID number has floated through the computer system, and the monumental towers of books scattered around my room, intimidating and inspiring me.

Our intent was benign and my, and our, last-minute decision to do this, took into account things that have always been important to me, and I trust the rest of my friends, when my behavior is in some way questionable: whether my action would hurt others, whether I would damage others’ property, whether I would be irresponsible.

While the decision to do this was somewhat spontaneous, it was not exactly rash, made in the heat of the moment, in the way that one makes a decision to throw a punch. (Also: I should say that my capacity for careful, analytical problem solving is not fantastic, as evidenced by my EC10 grade and my math SAT score, which you no doubt have already examined.) I like to think of myself as a considerate, respectful and fair person, and I’d like to think that those qualities informed my quick decision to stay in the library after hours.

To some extent they did, but to other extents, they did not. They most certainly did not.

We love the library and we wanted to have it to ourselves. Love was there, but selfishness too.

Mostly though

Love,
MILO CONNEAU