As much as I love pictures (I have a problem posting a blog entry with words alone and love to see pictures elsewhere, too), I love letters and the infinite possibility of words and sentences. Every book represents to me the times that I've felt the binding and paper on my fingers and have been thrust into another world by the squiggles on the page.I also have a soft spot for blank paper, for the possibility of filling the pages with brilliant sketches and words.
The picture, before I continue this ramble, is from inside The Arthouse at Jones Center on Congress Avenue. They are doing a show on a collaboration between Ballet Austin, the artist Trenton Doyle Hancock and the composer Graham Reynolds called Cult of Color: Call to Color. Trenton Doyle Hancock's art is an elaborate story. He has written some of the story on the window of the museum, writing backwards on the inside. I found it very compelling. Especially taking pictures of the street through the words. I like pictures of letters and words!
I've been going through books with a vengeance. It's slow work. I look up availability of the book through online sources and what the editions and prices are. If I haven't read the book (the majority I'm afraid) I have to flip it open and read bits of it. If I feel I'd like to read it any time soon, I have trouble tossing it. If I decide to keep the book, I try to catalog it in my database and on Library Thing. I am leaving a lot of them on my database even though we are giving them away. That way the info is there should I decide I need to order a copy at a later time.
But back to blank paper. I found a box full of blank books plus a few more that were partially full of scribbles. Even though I have all these that I either bought or other people gifted me with because they know I'm a sucker for them if I see some cool ones in a store I have trouble resisting. Weird, huh? Of course the notebooks written in and the lined tablet sheets filled with doodles or notes are hard to discard. Some I've transcribed and managed to eliminate. I've even scanned a few. If I were a famous writer or artist, someone down at the Harry Ransom Center would have to carefully catalog them one day. But I'm not. Famous. Or a writer or artist. So they are just cubic feet of 'stuff' I suppose. Where am I going with all this? I'm not sure. I've been working on this entry sporadically over two days and I don't seem to know where I'm going! So I think I'll wind it up by saying that a blank book, not yet written in, is like starting life all over again.
2 comments:
This doesn't have much to do with your actual post other than it is a thought that occurred to me while reading it. All this disposing of stuff will give you the opportunity to start new accumulations in and for your new place.
And don't say you won't!
We are already buying new things that 'work' in the condo. And that's been the story of all our remodels. So, yeah. This isn't a divestment down to a back pack to roam the world like we talked about in our youth but never did. (Well, I kind of did it once, but I kept sending home souvenirs.)
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