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100 Books

100 Books

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Three (ahem) years ago I published a post on Decluttering Books. I still haven’t finished reading the Felt—Fluxus, Joseph Beuys, and the Dalai Lama by Chris Thompson. Which isn’t necessarily an inditement on the book, but a reflection of how tough it is to get into the long form these days. Besides that pesky pandemic, there have been re-readings of Sherlock Holmes (perhaps the 19th re-reading?), Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (definitely worth a deep dive, Armada by Ernest Cline (better known for Ready Player One), and countless mysteries.

At the time of this writing, on the solstice, I can’t think of a book that has grabbed my soul out of my heart and made me want to pass it on to everyone I know. That doesn’t mean I haven’t read one, it might mean I wasn’t paying attention.

What I have been doing is letting go of (gasp!) some books. 100 to be precise. 92 books donated to the wonderful, delightful free libraries scattered about town, and 7 books sold for the princely sum of $10 each.

Each book donated did feel like it was stealing a bit of my soul or character or something like that. Now that’s it done, I can hardly recall the titles. The whole process took about 3 months.

Not sold or donated yet. Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky – Heritage Press, 1949
Obsession Vs Method

Obsession Vs Method

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Or when does a methodical approach become obsessive madness?

I’m a slightly (ahem) obsessive type. Let me re-frame that and say “I’m a deep diver”. So when I decide to photograph obsolete objects hanging around my studio for 30 days…. 365 days later it becomes probably 900+ images, 365 blog posts, a lot of research on various arcane things… and well you see what I mean.

And yet.

I picked up a book from the library recently “The Archive Carpet” by Michael Hetherington. Anything with the word archive in it is bound to catch my eye.

It open with
“AUTHOR’S NOTE
Beginning on November 17, 1995, I wrote a fragment of fiction every day for 2,500 in a row, ending on Thanksgiving Sunday in October 2002. (I continued writing these daily sentences for another 3,500 days in a row…)”

Mr. Hetherington I take my obso hat** off to you and relinquish my crown of obsession.

Or do I? Later

I’ve only read the first few pages, hence this is a micro review, and there can be no macro when you are reading fragments.

It’s very funny. I don’t know what I expected. But it did make me laugh out loud a few times.

Update

A month or so later, one voyage, and several books consumed found via those cute little free libraries, I had to return this book to avoid fines and hadn’t finished it. Maybe it was just too deep.

Vacillate Oscillate Swing

Vacillate Oscillate Swing

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Bumped into a situation recently — or should I say the Universe presented me with the opportunity; — which has me going back and forth, vacillating between knowing what to do, not knowing what to do, and basically being stuck in analysis paralysis.

This indecisive moment is familiar – is it the more largely the territory of introverts?

What happened is I met someone by chance. She’s a lovely person. A creative entrepreneur like moi. And in the course of chatting, I found out her website doesn’t work. … I ostensibly still “do websites”. I put that in quotation marks as, well, back in the day it meant something specific. Now it can mean anything from being a developer banging out a specific piece of code to fix the unruly widget that refuses to cooperate, to a Mad-Men style agency filling in all the blanks – and promising the SEO nirvana that will make your business bloom so splendidly it will outshine the sun.

I’m mixing metaphors, but they do that too when they talk Marketspeak.

Her issue is something that as soon as she mentioned, my brain was immediately leaping into action and trying to solve. And sure enough, I did solve it (partially) .

My quandry is this. Do I just email the gal and give her the information “for free” (I didn’t disclose I was anywhere near the tech field – call it introversion, call it caution); do I “pitch” my services at a modest fee (through our convo I found out how much she paid for her original site (hint, not very much); or do I write a blog article outlining the steps to solve her issue. They involve a degree of technical knowledge and patience, and familiarity with certain tools.

It made me realize, I’m still struggling with pricing. WTF? And although one year (was it 2016?) I chose VALUE as my word of the year, it hasn’t hooked deeply into my soul or geek brain yet.

And now I’ve spent 25 minutes typing out this stream of consciousness all because I’m afraid to ask for what I’m worth. Or is it afraid to hear a NO?

Vacillation, oscillation. Swinging back and forth until the pendulum stops and a clear path is shown.

Decluttering Books

Decluttering Books

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Was getting ready to Marie Kondo* some more books, to schlep them to the bookstore (one that specializes in rare books) and get the princely sum of $12.50 for which expeditionary result would likely be $150 worth of chiropractic fees lugging rare dusty tones to said store.

Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky – Heritage Press, 1949

But before I embark on the actual lugging, I start to read one of the philosophy books I bought on a trip to New York 8 years ago.
Felt—Fluxus, Joseph Beuys, and the Dalai Lama by Chris Thompson. The title was what plucked those American dollars ($27.50 + tax) out of my pocket . BTW this is not a review. I’ve only read the first 20-30 pages. It’s quite dense. One of those academic books that unless you’re in grad school, or a scholar, might sit on your shelf for quite a few moons, only imbuing you with its gifts via some kind of dust telepathy.

But I did reach a section – FRIVOLITY AND DANGER – where he mentions the philosopher Levinas’s work Totality and Infinity -“is very much an elaboration of a particular passage from Dosotyevsky’s novel…” which is lo and behold one of the dusty tomes – Brothers Karamazov that I’ve set aside to earn peanuts.

So I immediately rebel against letting go of all the dust. And I start to finally read the Brothers Karamazov, except I’m reading on my phone, not the actual precious paper tome. A limited edition I may ad. Published before I was born.

Which opens a vortex in the universe and creates a parallel reality where I am selling my artwork for $18,000 a pop.

Another option is to re-print the book (it must be in the public domain ?) with my own illustrations because hey, I think all these things might benefit from being revised by a gal’s touch such as mine.

But first I’ll have to finish the BK. Either on my phone, or in the tome.

p.s. I know that Marie Kondoing books is heresy to some. And I was in that camp for a long time. Recently though, I don’t have the shelf space, could use the extra cash, and want to either engage in the knowledge or liberate myself from the unfinished list. After all, it’s now a free download.

Fabulous illustration by Frit Eichenberg. I would need to do something completely different.
My First Block

My First Block

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This is one of those nonsense, test posts. Since upgrading to Gutenberg, it’s time to check out those pesky blocks in a safe environment. So far, I’m not thrilled with the way it handles HTML. Other than that, it seems, on the surface, much easier for clients (aka non techies) to update content and “design” it. Generally a good thing.

Ceci n’est pas un bloc. Ceci est un bloc.

Ceci est une table.12
La table est bleu.34

Cover Block