The Mopery

The Library

Press a spine and it opens: what the book is, what we think of it, and where to borrow it before anybody suggests buying it. Nothing on these shelves is a book our own pages already argue from — that shelf is up the field in the Hermitage. This is a shop, and a shop stocks what it likes.

Every borrow link points at a catalogue record whose id was resolved against Open Library’s own search, and the library and shop links are searches rather than product pages. That is deliberate: a product id typed from memory is a reader sent confidently to the wrong book, which has happened in this repository before and is written down in data/mopery.json so it does not happen again.

Paint It Black

One song, one screen, and a great many people who have decided it should be played on a cello. Jagger and Richards wrote it in 1966; everything under the first entry is somebody answering the arrangement Danny Elfman and Chris Bacon wrote for a girl with a cello in a window. Tuning is not playing. While the screen is off you can walk the whole list and nothing at all leaves this page.

1. The Rolling Stones Official lyric video 3:46 Put this on — The Rolling Stones, three minutes forty-six The record. Cut in 1966 and put out on Aftermath, with Brian Jones playing the sitar line that everybody else on this screen has to find a way around. ABKCO holds the catalogue, so this is the one entry here on its rights holder's own channel. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on ABKCOVEVO
2. Wednesday Addams The cello scene, from the Netflix series 4:43 Put this on — Wednesday Addams, four minutes forty-three The arrangement from the first episode of Wednesday, scored by Danny Elfman and Chris Bacon, which is the reason every other version below this one exists. AN UNOFFICIAL UPLOAD, and the channel says so itself in the first line of its own description. Here because it is the recording everybody means, and named for what it is rather than dressed up as an official release. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on The Wizard
3. The Cello Doll Solo cello, in costume 2:59 Put this on — The Cello Doll, two minutes fifty-nine One player, one cello, and the Elfman and Bacon arrangement taken apart and put back together by somebody who wanted to see what it could do. Her own description credits the show's composers before she credits herself, which is more than most covers manage. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on The Cello Doll
4. Brooklyn Duo Cello cover 2:09 Put this on — Brooklyn Duo, two minutes nine The shortest thing on this screen and the plainest. No costume, no set, no candles: two minutes of a cello and a piano finding out that the tune holds up without any of it. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on Brooklyn Duo
5. Julia Kim Viola, arranged by the player 2:22 Put this on — Julia Kim, two minutes twenty-two A VIOLA, not a cello, whatever the title says — the channel is a violist's and the arrangement is hers. She notes that she took it for an exercise in string crossings before she noticed what it was, which is the single most string-player sentence on this page. She gives the sheet music away. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on Julia Kim Viola 줄리아킴 비올라
6. Amadeus Two violins, cello and piano 4:38 Put this on — Amadeus, four minutes thirty-eight A quartet — Andreea Runceanu and Bianca Gavrilescu on violins, Patricia Cimpoiașu on cello, Laura Lazarescu on piano — filmed at the Ghergani estate in Romania, in an arrangement by Xenti Runceanu. The most furniture of any version here, and the only one shot in a house that looks like this room. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on Amadeus - The Electric Piano Strings Quartet
7. Prime Orchestra A Wednesday medley, not only this song 7:32 Put this on — Prime Orchestra, seven and a half minutes A full orchestra playing through the series' music live, and the tune arrives inside something larger rather than on its own. Labelled here as a medley because it is one: its own title says so, and a screen promising a cover and delivering a suite would be the same broken promise as a runtime nobody printed. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on PRIME ORCHESTRA
8. Imperial Orchestra A Wednesday number from a cinema-medley show 6:43 Put this on — Imperial Orchestra, six minutes forty-three The biggest version on the screen by a distance — a stage orchestra with a chorus, filmed as part of a touring cinema-music show. Like the one above it this is a Wednesday number rather than a cover of the single, and it is the last thing in the running order because after it there is nowhere louder to go. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards · performed on Imperial Orchestra

The Raven

Eighteen stanzas, six lines each, and a bird that only knows the one word. Poe published it in January 1845 and it has been out of copyright for longer than most countries have had copyright. All twenty-six of Gustave Doré’s engravings are here, standing at the lines they illustrate, and so are three leaves of an 1865 printing. Set the whole thing in whichever voice you want: the picker holds every typeface on this street, which is the one place here where borrowing all of them is the joke rather than the failure.

There is also a facsimile of the poem in Poe’s own hand, six leaves of it, at the Library of Congress — and it is a link rather than a copy. That facsimile was printed in 1949 for an exhibition at Yale and carries “reproduction prohibited without permission” along the foot of its own first leaf. The poem is Poe’s and free; that printing of it is somebody else’s object. The difference between it and the 1865 book above is one line of metadata, and it is the whole difference between showing you something and pointing at it.

Read it in IM Fell English — Oxford, 1670s Spectral Cormorant Garamond — the Faery Yurt Crimson Pro — the Faery Yurt Instrument Serif Yeseva One — the Jungle Room Fraunces — the Solarpunk Hermitage Bree Serif — The Latibulum Bitter — the Campgrounds Cardo — the Oracle Deck Vollkorn — the Doomscroll Cinzel — the Oracle Deck Special Elite — the Zine Table Courier Prime Atkinson Hyperlegible — the Pebble Board Space Grotesk Karla — The Den Cabin — the Jungle Room Nunito — The Latibulum Sora — the Solarpunk Hermitage Barlow — Club Chronic Josefin Sans — the Pebble Board Caveat — the Faery Yurt Gloria Hallelujah — the Pebble Board Rock Salt — the margins Permanent Marker — Club Chronic UnifrakturMaguntia — the Doomscroll’s masthead Monoton — The Chappell Shrikhand — Pink Pony Club Bungee — the street Bungee Shade — the street Titan One — the Playhouse Alfa Slab One — the Campgrounds Archivo Black Anton — Club Chronic Ultra — The Den VT323 — Hear Queer Here Press Start 2P — the Arcade

Edgar Allan Poe · first published January 1845 · engravings by Gustave Doré, 1884

Doré’s edition printed the poem straight through and the plates after it, each captioned with the lines it illustrates. Here every plate sits at the lines its own caption quotes, which is our decision about reading rather than a reproduction of that book’s layout. The captions are his edition’s, word for word — which is how you can see that its text is not quite the one set below it.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door;
This it is and nothing more.”

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you”—here I opened wide the door—
Darkness there and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
Merely this and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is and this mystery explore—
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
’Tis the wind and nothing more.”

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he,
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then the ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if its soul in that one word he did outpour
Nothing farther then he uttered; not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered: “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of ‘Never—nevermore.’”

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er
_She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
Is there—_is_ there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

“Be that our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul has spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadows on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Further in

Two more rooms, neither of which looks anything like this one and neither of which looks like the other.

House rules

• Nothing plays until you press play. The screen is a picture of a screen until you ask for a video. Tuning through the list with the set off sends nothing anywhere.
• Borrowing comes before buying. Every book here has a route that costs nothing, and it is the first link on the card.
• Nobody wrote these but the people who wrote them. Every cut on that screen names Jagger and Richards, because eight of them are covers and the performer’s name is the draw.
• The dark is not the mood, it is the lighting. Turn the dial down and the candles stop moving; the room stays exactly as dark, exactly as legible, and exactly as full.