And So It Goes...

In the days before everything in our lives went online, displaying our vast collection of books was a convenient way for us to flex. You know, covering all of the available wall space in the house with those black aluminum bookshelves nearly toppling under the weight of the Derrida and Foucault? Later upgraded to Ikea shelving. Our friends most certainly must have been impressed! They kept coming over to our house after all. 

But wait, there's more to it... Let me explain. At some point pretty early on, I quit pretending I had much interest in French philosophy and converted from hoarding scholarly works to cookbooks. I don't really cook from them in the typical way, not wanting to get 'em dirty. But I've read through them all and in fact, that's how I learned to cook. What I'm saying is, I think that good food was important, too. 

Sadly, these days, with all the specialized eating, I tend to shy away from doing that much fancy cooking. Fortunately, our walls are now more or less completely covered with our art. And so it goes...

Two books to lift your spirits

I've been on a bit of a book acquisition kick lately. Mostly older books that are long out of print but that can still be found for not a lot of money from used bookstores and online auction houses. I typically find out about these books in a completely random way, which adds to the overall sense of enjoyment. I generally prefer to pick up a well worn copy of the book first, even if a few pages are missing or if there are a marks or even an inscription, just to see if I bond with the photographer. If there is no synergy, I can just pass the book along to someone else.

One of my favorite acquisitions this year was "A World Through My Window" by Ruth Orkin. The collection of photographs is exactly what you'd expect from the title, but you have to bear in mind that Ruth had a pretty amazing window on Central Park West. So the views are generally pretty spectacular. But still, documenting the goings on over a period of several decades resulted in an impressive body of work that should inspire any one. I found out some interesting things about the photographer, such as the fact that she bicycled from Los Angeles to New York in the 1930s.

I'm far from the madding crowds of NYC, but several of our windows are interesting to me. The first image was taken with the Polaroid SX-70 using their currently available black and white emulsion. Expensive, but the results can be very lovely indeed.