Imagine that your local public library is inhabited by an undiscovered race of tiny people. They’ve hidden themselves in the racks, tucked behind books and magazines, amidst history and fiction, new media and old. If you’re lucky, you might spy them — or at least their tiny homes, which are filled with minuscule beds, microscopic stools, itty-bitty flowers and furniture fashioned out of found objects such as board game pieces and one-use spice bottles.

And these little folks need help. You have been cast as a “Teeny Tiny Beings Residential Specialist,” charged with finding the micro-humans new homes. It appears the librarians — giants, like us, at least to the microscopic persons — have been moving things around.

Welcome to the Bureau of Nooks and Crannies, a new exploration-focused, play-inspired experience found inside the Lincoln Heights branch of the Los Angeles Public Library system. It is but one of many, as the Bureau of Nooks and Crannies soon will be found in libraries in Atwater Village, Baldwin Hills, Chatsworth, Pacoima and Vernon, each location home to a different game-like endeavor designed to get guests to view their local libraries — and the world outside of them — a little more imaginatively.

If in Lincoln Heights we’re tasked with lending a hand to hidden, fictional mini-humans, in Atwater Village we’re asked to fantasize that we’re ghosts, friendly haunts who treat books as entryways for thoughtful, personal reflections.

As I moved through the Atwater branch pretending to be a spirit, I was instructed to shut my eyes and trace my fingers along a shelf. Then, I was to open a random book and let my fingers land on a page. Without looking at the cover, I found I settled on a passage about finding emotional balance. I wrote it down, knowing I would need it later.

All Bureau of Nooks and Crannies experiences spring from the mind of Andy Crocker, an L.A.-based artist who specializes in theatrical, experience-driven entertainment, having previously collaborated with the likes of Walt Disney Imagineering and Cedar Fair’s theme parks. Beginning Aug. 16, guests will be able to check out a box filled with instructions and ephemera, such as magnifying glasses, and explore a fanciful tale.

While the boxes can’t leave the library, the quests, geared for all reading ages, can be completed in less than an hour. None are difficult; we’re simply tasked with being creative.

Artist Andy Crocker, a local game designer/theatrical director, with her immersive experience at the Atwater Village branch library.

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Some ask us to find books and passages that can inspire us. Others lead us to hollowed-out encyclopedias, home to ghostly index cards full of contemplative prompts that compel us to compose a life’s story in a few sentences. That’s where that passage I jotted down came in handy. To Crocker, each is an individual art piece, and each aims to place us into a meditative state.

“I love puzzles and I love games,” Crocker says. “But this, in particular, I was really trying to design an experience as art. The world is very stressful. The library makes me feel at peace and curious and in control of my time. I love that it’s a public space where I can also have a private moment. We can be alone together. To me, that is sacred.”

They’re games — mostly. But we’re more like mischievous researchers rather than puzzle solvers, tasked to wander a library and hunt for camouflaged narratives, each one prodding us to pause, ponder and pretend. Some branches tackle big-picture themes — looking decades into the future or grappling with lost loves. Moments will delight us, such as finding a not-so-hidden illuminated mail drop. Others inspire introspection.

We may be prompted, for instance, to consider what makes a good home, or challenged to imagine how we may perish. In Lincoln Heights, I suggested a residence be hidden behind a section on Eastern philosophy — dreaming the pocket-sized humans would find the history gratifying, and sensing the thick I Ching book could hide a fancy mini-pad. In Atwater, my ghost in its mortal form had a melancholic ending, dying of a broken heart but finding solace in the wonder of thousands of books.

A peek inside one of Andy Crocker’s mini dioramas as part of her Bureau of Nooks and Crannies experiences for the Los Angeles Public Library system.

(Alex Choate)

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I was out in the world and among company, but with a chill and inventive task, especially one with an invented history, I felt a calming sense of community. This is the power of play.

“It’s guided meditation through play,” Crocker says. “I can’t meditate, but I can find a sense of serenity and presence when I’m in a playful state. It’s a guided meditation through imagination. I really believe that play is one of the most accessible entry points to presence, and I believe that presence is important to caring about the world.”

The Bureau of Nooks and Crannies is part of a residency program the library established in partnership with the nonprofit Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Participants receive a $20,000 honorarium. Crocker’s work is guaranteed to run at least through early December, although Todd Lerew, the foundation’s director of special projects, says branches are free to leave the experiences up longer.

Crocker also has created two audio installations, one dedicated to downtown’s Central Library and another that works with all 72 branches. The audio portion is a soothing, slow guided walk through the libraries, a meditation that asks us to look and touch rather than breathe deeply. Her projects, says Lerew, are designed for guests to rediscover a “sense of wonder.”

Completists will discover that Crocker’s six installations are a connected world. The imagined Bureau is dedicated simply to items — or emotions or creatures — that hide in plain sight, be it a small unseen population, a ghost or a lost love. The tiny folks of Lincoln Heights, for instance, send letters to the itty-bitty residences of the Pacoima branch. Crocker notes some during playtesting have gone deep when analyzing her hidden dioramas.

Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times features columnist, imagines a ghost story for himself at the Atwater Village branch library in Los Angeles.

“It’s very whimsical and sweet, but folks who have played it have asked if it’s asking questions about gentrification or who is invisible in the world or how we use our privilege to help others,” Crocker says. “Some people are just like, ‘Whee! Tiny things!’ Both are 100% acceptable.”

The beauty of Crocker’s installations is their open-ended nature, which comes from centering them around prompts rather than puzzles. Her inspiration was twofold. One, watching her young daughter wander the library with wide eyes and wanting adults to remember that surprise. And two, as she was creating the experiences she was reading the work of author and professor Ruha Benjamin, specifically the recent “Imagination: A Manifesto.”

“She talks about how if you can’t imagine a better world, we’re in big trouble,” Crocker says. “Working your imagination muscles in a comforting, energizing way, I think, is important. One of the threads among all my work, whether it’s for thousands of people at a time at a theme park, or one person at a time at a library, my goal is to offer imagination assistance.”

Crocker’s Bureau of Nooks and Crannies is a reminder that such aid is freely available. One needs only a library card.

“So, tell me about yourself” are the first words you hear in the film Sebastian, delivered softly but directly by a nervous man trying to avoid monotone.

For anyone who’s ever dated or used hookup apps before, the awkward tension is recognizable enough to send a shiver of embarrassment down your spine.

“What do you want to know?” responds the voice of a much younger man, in a tone that suggests he really wants to know why the other man is interested.

What follows, only two minutes into the film’s nearly two-hour runtime, are the intense sights and sounds of lovemaking that seems so real it will have you checking the movie’s rating. Although this sexual encounter between two men is clearly not love, it isn’t a quick anonymous hookup either. It’s a transaction.

The young man who calls himself Sebastian is a sex worker for the digital age — meeting clients online and making their dreams come true for an hour or two in real life. Sebastian’s name is actually Max, and he isn’t really after money. Rather, he’s mining his experiences for stories.

“He’s kind of desperate to get this debut novel,” said Sebastian’s writer and director Mikko Mäkelä, but Max’s desperation threatens to unravel his ambitions.

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe spoke with Mäkelä and star Ruaridh Mollica about what the film has to say about authenticity, sex and different generations of queer men.

No big deal

Mikko Mäkelä’s own journey of self-discovery led him to Sebastian. He told NPR that when he first moved to London after finishing university, he was inspired by the matter-of-fact stories his friends told about sex work.

“It really seemed to be becoming almost another option in London’s gig economy,” Mäkelä said. “The threshold to going into sex work seemed to really have lowered and I really wanted to craft a portrait of a character for whom sex work is a choice rather than something done out of a lack of them.”

Mäkelä said that he wasn’t interested in creating yet another sex worker drama focused on trauma — but that he didn’t want Max to be void of conflict either. In fact, the character’s dueling lives threaten to overwhelm him throughout the film.

Ruaridh Mollica said he felt the conflict brewing within his role from the very first reading.

“That’s why he decides to do it under the alias of Sebastian at the start. And I think once you decide to keep it a secret, it’s almost like [it] kind of festers and it becomes harder and harder to admit it,” Mollica said. “I don’t think Max wanted to feel judged or was in a position with himself where he felt comfortable enough, and like, self-accepting enough to be judged.”

Mäkelä said he wants the audience to question their own biases as Max does in the film.

“I think there is definitely a lot of hypocrisy around that idea where the [publishing] industry might, you know, fetishize those stories, but … a publisher might still judge the writer who is also a sex worker,” he said.

Framing every sex worker as a victim, backed into a corner, isn’t always accurate or interesting (something Max eventually finds out in the film). Neither is a film where the sex seems unrealistic, Mäkelä said.

Sex should be real and shameless

Queer viewers — especially those who identify as male — will be struck by how true-to-life the sex scenes are in Sebastian. The movements, sounds and, er, shall we say “mechanics,” are so accurate you may question whether there’s any pretending at all.

“The sex scenes were such an integral part of the story that they had to be thought of in just the same way as [the] building blocks of character,” director Mäkelä told NPR. “I think it’s really important to continue to provide for representation of queer sex where certainly, you know, there is more and more in [the] media, but … it’s not always realistic.”

Mäkelä identifies as gay himself, and his star Ruaridh Mollica said the 35-year-old writer/director’s script was already quite thorough. Still, Mäkelä enlisted the help of intimacy coordinator Rufai Ajala.

“It’s also important to work with a queer intimacy coordinator who would, you know, kind of understand the anatomy in [a] detailed way to make sure that those scenes did ring true to two queer audience members,” Mäkelä said. “And it was also really important to have a range of sex scenes with different clients and kind of see different body types … and ages.”

In Sebastian, Ruaridh Mollica plays an aspiring novelist who turns to sex work to gather material.

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Sebastian is actor Ruaridh Mollica’s biggest role, and having to be close-to-nude for much of the film made it a challenging one. He said having an intimacy coordinator like Ajala on-set was crucial.

“I think intimacy coordinators are so important nowadays,” Mollica told NPR. “They will just set you up with the other actor and you’ll do all these experiences and workshops of safe touches and going through each other’s bodies with each other in a very respectful way, and building boundaries and just feeling safe and comfortable. After about half an hour, you would feel so relaxed and trusting with your co-actor.”

Mollica said that, beyond the intimacy coordinators, he was just lucky to have such talented and gracious scene partners, including character actor Jonathan Hyde.

Ageism among queer men

Mollica vividly recalls working with Hyde, who plays the one client his character meets who actually steals his heart.

“Jonathan Hyde is one of the most wonderful people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. He was just such a silly, fun guy,” Mollica told NPR. “He gave his whole heart to those scenes and really almost brought this energy into the air of like, ‘no, let’s, let’s live this and be real here.’ We all dropped our guard and just got to be a part of it. And I think those scenes are some of the most powerful because of that.”

Hyde’s character Nicholas is an older literature professor who’s recently lost his partner of 29 years. He is almost immediately vulnerable with Mollica’s much younger Sebastian, and what starts as a transactional relationship soon develops into something sweet.

“I really wanted through that encounter for Max to be surprised and the audience to be surprised as well,” Mäkelä said. “I really wanted to challenge Max in what his preconceptions about sex work had been, and and what his experiences thus far had been.”

Jonathan Hyde in Sebastian.

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And the surprise, in part, is that Max (or Sebastian) isn’t expecting to fall in love with a man so much older than he is. Because, well, as Mäkelä put it: “I think the gay community can be and generally is quite horribly ageist.”

“I think maybe on a subconscious level, even I was wanting to kind of work against those preconceptions. Like Max says as well, outside of these meetings, there might not really be many other venues in which these characters would have anything to do with one another,” he said.

In the film, Max is steadfast in including the love story between him and Jonathan Hyde’s character in his novel, even if the publishers aren’t convinced. Because as he says in the film “they’re transmitting queer history and culture and that’s something I want to talk about.”

In the end, actor Ruaridh Mollica said he’s learned as much about acting as he has about himself from becoming Sebastian.

“I feel so much more confident in myself after that. And even my body confidence, you know, having to be practically naked on set every day and knowing that’s going to be released and it really has just been a complete self-acceptance of my sexuality,” said Mollica, who identifies as queer. “You know, it’s something that I was open about with people around me, but not something I had talked about so publicly before.”

Sebastian is playing in select theaters now.