Tag Archives: books

Shelfies

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Harpo and I were on a mission not to pay rent. We succeeded (mostly) from May 2013 – to November 2016, subleasing for about 4 months from friends, otherwise we sleeping outside or house sitting. We stayed in a lot of houses. I took photos of bookshelves; and every home, every collection, is a metaphor and a way of being.

The intimacy of a book collection, the utensils in the kitchen,  contents of a backpack, and altar, or a shrine extend the image of our personal myth. It’s something about the entanglement with language – the romance of the unsaid – but also narrative form. A desire to explain ourselves, a poem made of objects, a mirror.

#shelfies

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Always entertaining to see the Veganomicon next to Bosch..

As Harpo and I continue our itinerant lifestyle – moving between one home to another, always sleeping in someone else’s bed each night – I’ve started recording people’s bookshelves. I still have a small collection of books stashed at my folk’s place – as objects, books have been one of the hardest for me to completely give up. I managed to whittle my collection of hundreds down to a handful after many moves between 2007 – 2010, and now that’s dwindling even further. But I still love books as physical objects, and as a habit always look as someone’s bookshelf first when invited into their home – books represent not just what we read, but our ideology, hopes and dreams. Hence my latest series of #shelfies …

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Love those typesetters. Also, designers always have the best books next to tattooers I suppose

 

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A great collection – intro to writing (I think I had this book in college), Solnit & Bachelard, and home improvement…

 

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I love the Gary Snyder sneaking in…

 

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Another Veganomicon. I wish everybody had this book. I got my first copy from the delightful Pol Rosenthal, who also taught me lots about cooking stuff, and eating it too