The Curator

USER: Raven | POSTED 11-6-1990 23:03:58

SUBJECT: The Curator

Well, that was strange and unsettling.

So, if you've been following along with my adventures with the Book of Love, you know that somehow my grand-boss, the Curator of the Phillips Museum, knows that I borrowed the book. And that I accidentally cast a spell out of it, and became entangled with Inanna, and had to drive out to Ohio for a ritual to straighten things out. In fact, he called me there - on a number I never gave him - to let me know that as long as I brought the book right back after the ritual, everything would be ok.

So after my fourteen-hour drive home, I go to the museum, intending to put the book back. I like my job, and I'm pretty sure that the book is now non-functional anyway - although I'm not testing any of the spells to find out. I pull into the parking lot, and head to the staff entrance, and there is the Curator, holding the door for me and smiling. Like he knew exactly when I was going to be there. He chatted politely enough as we went in and put the book into the safe, and he asked me about my cat, and my sister, and my health. And his questions were...well, they are the kind of questions that indicate the person asking knows a lot about the subject already. One might say that the questioner is intimately familiar with the subject, in fact. And that's strange, since I don't talk about my personal life at work, and I don't ever have conversations with the Curator directly - at least, not until this week.

Horatio assures me that there isn't another user from my area dialing into the BBS, and I haven't said anything about the book anywhere else. And some of the things he knows aren't things I have mentioned here anyway, so this whole thing has raised a lot of questions for me. And it got me thinking about all the other odd things about the Curator, things that I've mostly been ignoring. I'm in a bit of muddle about it all - it has been a *long* couple of days - so I'm going to just lay it all out here and see what you guys think. And if the Curator is reading this - no disrespect sir, but of course I'm wondering about all this.

Let's see. He lives in the museum - that's not too weird, there is an apartment for the Curator, and I've seen other places with similar arrangements. I've heard he never leaves the building, though, which is a bit stranger. And he doesn't just run the Phillips Museum - he's the owner. The building, the collection, everything, is his personal property. That's pretty weird.

I don't know his name. As far as I can tell, nobody does - he's just "The Curator", or sometimes "The Curator of the Phillips Museum". That is probably the weirdest thing, but you'd be amazed how it slips by - people just use the title in conversation, and it never comes up and you just assume you've never heard it. But I've been there for a few years now, and it has never come up in my hearing. I'm going to ask around, casually, with some coworkers - but it's not on any document I have, or in any articles about the museum I could check since I got home - not many, but it's still strange, right?

He speaks *a lot* of languages. As in, I've never encoutered a situation where he was presented with a language he couldn't read and speak. I'm pretty good with languages, and the collection at the museum has texts from maybe fifty or more, mostly ancient dialects or dead languages. And no matter which one it is, he can read it. We present the new acquisitions to him in a monthly meeting (my boss and I) and he's always able to read anything we bring in. I have seen him read Latin (Classical and Church), Ancient Greek, Sanskrit, Sumerian, French, Arabic, German, Mandarin, and a bunch of others. Maybe I should ask him to look at the Voynichese stuff and see what he says.

Ok. So writing it all out, it doesn't seem like it is all that much, I guess. He's highly educated, very rich, very smart, and ridiculously well-informed. And a recluse who never tells anyone his name. That doesn't have to be something supernatural...but in total, it still sets off alarm bells for me. How about you guys? ANy thoughts?

.d88b. 88 88 8bd8' 88' g8_RAVEN_88g 88 88 88 d88b d8888b

USER: Horatio | POSTED 12-6-1990 2:25:58

SUBJECT: RE: The Curator (Raven)

Yeah, that sounds pretty freaky to me. Especially the lack of a name. I suppose it could all be just run-of-the-mill crazy, but something doesn't feel right. The only up side is that he doesn't seem to be dangerous? Maybe check in at the public library, look at old newspapers for when the museum was opened, look for rumors or something. What do your coworkers say about him?

************************ * "There are more * * things in heaven and * * earth, Horatio, than * * are dreamt of in * * your philosophy." * * * * -Hamlet * * Act 1, Scene 5 * * ---------------------* * Horatio * * System Operator * * Threshold BBS * ************************