Friday, July 24, 2009  Daydream, believer?   What happened at
the archives yesterday? Well, I took 1200mg of Ibuprofen
(accidentally on an empty stomach) to take care of a suspect
back ache. About an hour into my research things started to
become strange. The somewhat creepy, but entirely charming
archivist, Herr Jakobi, approached me requesting with urgency
that I give him two documents dealing with Chile in late 1972,
right before the coup. The files had nothing too outlandish in
it, but some details of CIA contacts with the right wing
opposition. Unfortunately, I was working on one of them. Jakobi
explained that a gentleman needed to see them right away and
pointed in the direction of a young guy sitting by the
computers. Fire red hair, muscular, with a sarcastic facial
expression that was all, 'I'm not your average historian'. At
this point, frantic and unnecessary questions began to
monopolize my thoughts. 'Why did he need to see these files so
urgently? Surely Historians are never in a rush?', 'What's i