Stuff
I have a suspicion that the less we've got, the more we value what we do have. Belongings require a lot of maintenance, much more than most of us realize. Books and art especially are problematic. I value books, mainly for the treasures inside them, but my bookshelves are filled with books that I've read and will never look at again, books I've started and won't finish, and books I keep meaning to read and never will. Meanwhile, I keep acquiring books that get added to the pile. Ideally we should actually own at most ten books, and all the rest should be passed around to the world. Recently I bought one of my ideal ten, What Am I Doing Here? by Abner Dean (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Dean). It's a slender volume of cartoons, though cartoons isn't the right word. They are philosophical and metaphorical musings, appealling at once to intellect and emotion. A copy was in my parents' library when I was a kid, and I spent hours contemplating it. I'd long ago forgot about it, but recently Dean was brought to my attention, and I located a copy through Amazon. If I'm ever homeless, it will be with me, part of my stuff.
posted by John M Crowther @ 7:32 AM
5 Comments:
The one book I'd keep if I were ever homeless would be The Dot and The Line, by Norton Juster.
I don't know it, Kate. Tell me more.
The Dot and The Line was one of the thousands of books I was surrounded by as a child. I used to look at the illustrations long before I learned to read, and once I had learned, would look at and read it again and again. I'm not nearly good enough with words to do the story justice.
Although deceptively simple, as an adult I realize how profound the book is. Maybe it helped form my paradigm, or maybe it resonates so much with me because it verbalizes what I feel, but don't really know how to say: that some of the most creative and amazing people never realize their potential, because social conventions stifle them. And also how easy it is to overlook those people if you don't take the time and trouble to see them as they truly are.
Here is a link to YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmSbdvzbOzY. This animated short won an Academy Award for best animated short.
My wife was an abner dean fan. My go to book is Hirschfeld,On Line. I was startled to learn that those beautiful sweeping lines were not free hand. Rather, they were meticulously laid out and revised in pencil. roger
One of my ten books, Roger, is "Hirschfeld, Art and Recollections From Eight Decades." It's signed by him to me and Carla.
Very well said, Kate.
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