In a 1,700-square-foot space on Knight Street in Norwalk, Remy Chevalier is saving the world, one book at a time.
The one-click-at-a-time method of world salvation is faltering, as he sees it, in part because much global wisdom prior to the 1990s was never uploaded to the Web and likely never will be.
That means insights on river rejuvenation that were successfully employed from the era when rivers were open sewers and even caught fire are ignored as rivers are remade today. Gold of late rules headlines as a shiny investment; at Chevalier”™s Aquarium Steampunk Reading Room, it has a darker environmental and social legacy that is bereft of any ”™49er mythmaking.
The Aquarium, in business 35 years and at 10 Knight St. four years, is a repository for such information, much of it “green” and much donated by publishers who have supported Chevalier”™s efforts with review copies and unsold copies.
“My interest is environmental,” Chevalier said, seated on one the storefront”™s two low-slung couches. “The major cause of environmental collapse is the energy we use. The less energy we use, the better.” The lights on the ceiling, he noted, are energy-saving LED.
The sign out front reads The Aquarium, which relates to a Cold War brain center more than a place for tropical fish. And it could close unless Chevalier”™s crowd funding appeal is met. He needs about $2,000 per month to open the door. He is listed now with the crowd funding website Indiegogo.com.
Architects, designers, environmentalists and engineers constitute much of his clientele. “They drill my brain for information,” he said. “They cannot find what I have here. Unlike surfing the Web, touching and holding the reading material inspires.” He said the site would make a great college research facility but that college students are directed to their own research facilities.
There is a section devoted to oil and one on global warming. There is a women and feminist section and a bounty of periodicals with topics like “grow your own mushrooms” and on the health impact of tiny manufactured particles called nanomaterials (in your chewing gum and meat packaging).
Chevalier”™s love of books and periodicals does not, however, come with an aversion to technology. He is editor-at-large for Electrifying Times, a national newsletter/magazine dedicated to electric, hybrid and fuel-cell cars (electrifyingtimes.com). He is an eager conversationalist on solid-state gases and ion propulsion. This being the Internet age, he carries an iPad and deftly calls up videos on ion propulsion, Tesla propulsion and a snapshot back in time on the eastern plains of New Mexico, where he interviewed archaeologists for a Route 66 documentary.
His love of technology does not come at the loss of his humanity. He appears comfortably rumpled at 61 in a sport coat, but no tie. He admires organic rum and, keeping his cool-cat bona fides intact, his store is affiliated with Midwest publisher Adventures Unlimited, purveyors of open-minded books on, for example, UFOs, abominable snowmen and the lost years of Jesus in India.
Scientific topics at Aquarium span composting, desert farming and ion propulsion. Many publications chart pollution, one with the title “Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things.” Chevalier said the space constitutes the largest independent green marketing and research site in the country.
“Much here is not available anywhere else,” Chevalier said from among the loosely structured stacks and bookcases that constitute the floor-to-ceiling reading room. “You really have to come in for a week and start at the door before making it all the way through,” he said, still carrying the French accent of his youth.
“If you ask someone for information today, all they do is Google it or look it up on Wikipedia,” he said. “But there is so much information that never makes it to the Web.” He cited an in-shop book on cleaning up rivers: what works and what doesn”™t from the days when rivers were industrial dumps. Chevalier cited a regional river cleanup project, saying the engineers would have been well served to investigate his resources on the topic.
The publications are serious enough (and occasionally countercultural enough) that children are not welcome at The Aquarium, but Chevalier helps them still. He donates all youth-themed materials to the Westport and Weston libraries.
The store has never embraced the Dewey Decimal System, but there is a method to the seeming madness. Chevalier pointed to one section, saying, “Every book here is devoted to one glacier, one river, one park. “It”™s very specific,” he said of his system. “Most of these publications saw 3,000 to 5,000 prints. I”™d be surprised if 100 people actually read them.
“But they are tools,” he said. “It can be overwhelming to walk in here. There are gold mines of ideas not to be found anywhere on the Web. What you see here has taken 35 years to accumulate. Even when you can find them, these titles in a large collection would be very spread out. I have 200 titles specific to just the green movement.”
One problem? “I”™ve been trying to get universities and colleges interested. But they tell me they cannot promote what is off campus. That means they cannot promote me as a resource and I have no access to the student population. Some find me on their own, but this would be an excellent university resource.
“Here you can discover things you did not even know were available to you.”
Good Luck Remy…