Tom Rudloff and The Antiquarium

Tom Rudloff, who was the owner/operator of The Antiquarium, passed away two days ago. It was long a cultural landmark of Omaha, a used bookstore, art gallery, and gathering place for intellectuals (really, anyone who loved ideas) located in the Old Market until relocating to Brownville, Nebraska ten years ago. I found out from a retrospective linked to from Facebook:

http://aksarbent.blogspot.com/2016/05/antiquariums-tom-rudloff-dead-at-76.html

I wish I had been the one to write the above, but I never could have. I didn't know Tom - I didn't so much as know his name, although had I passed him on the street I would have recognized him in an instant, and I would like to believe that he would have recognized me - at least, a long time ago. If the Antiquarium has been in Brownville for ten years now, then I have spent ten years procrastinating a visit, and that shameful action has cost me the very opportunity to do something that I should have done - something, indeed, that I had no right not to do, for the pull I felt to that place and the neglect I gave it. Of all my character flaws, I suspect I will go to my grave most regretful for my predisposition, under conditions of ambiguity, towards inaction. It has not served me well.

I spent a lot of time in the Old Market once I was old enough to drive, and not yet old enough to get into real trouble. I wandered through the Antiquarium on my fair share of days, and evenings, and nights. The Antiquarium WAS my bookstore, the bookstore I thought of when I thought of the word, the bookstore to which my mind drifted when first I read Borges, the bookstore that I endlessly missed when I worked part time at Barnes and Noble.

I may not have bought more than ten books, total, from the place. I was overwhelmed by it. It modified, in me, the very notion of knowledge. I knew it was there for the taking. Yes, my whole life before the Antiquarium, I had believed that knowledge was scarce and had to be dug up, like gold. After wandering those narrow aisles, I was convinced: no, knowledge was everywhere, and had only to be chosen, to be filtered down to something manageable. So how would I filter it? Dammit, I didn't know what books to buy! One of the shames (among many) of my teenage years is that I filtered it most often by NOT trying, by not touching the books upon the shelves, and then by not entering the store at all. I thought I hadn't failed because I hadn't tried. How complete and tragic a misconception that was.

For posterity's sake, two memories of the place: first, to walk in upon a conversation occurring around the coffee table by the front window, and be welcomed to join. Of course I was - everyone was. I was a stupid high school student but at least I was intellectually honest and my mind was open. I declined to join every time - because I was shy - a disability I still haven't gotten over.

Second, an art exhibit in the high-ceilinged room upstairs - utilizing a motif, among other items, of dolls and prescription drugs. I interpreted many of the pieces as a reaction to the Iraq war, and others to American modernity more broadly. That exhibit imbued me with a potent and vivid notion - modernism as a disease - that I still carry with me - indeed, one that is a core part of my beliefs. It touched me the way few art exhibits have ever done.

If only I had gone there more often - and if only I had lingered to listen to a few conversations, perhaps even opened my mouth a few times.

The lesson of Tom's passing, for me, is the same as all passings - make the most of your time, because it is finite. It is only intensified, for the immensity of the opportunity I have missed. Whatever opportunities you are passing up out of habit - maybe you are passing them up because you've been passing them up, already, for so long - remember that every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.