You can tell something about a man by his library: Bibles baseball bibliographies Pope Koufax Macintosh Graves and Belzer Buber and Goebbels chap books, for charity, and love monographs biographs autographs photos and films-- a woodifice of an almanac, an organic headstone, a prebituary-- and relationships, many hardback many softcover more than a few inexpensive paperbacks some intimate some fleeting some foreign some in translation some one night stands some open yet and some still stand as vestal virgins who allow me to hold them and open them now and again
> You can tell something about a man by his library: > Bibles baseball bibliographies Pope Koufax Macintosh > Graves and Belzer Buber and Goebbels > chap books, for charity, and love > monographs biographs autographs photos and films-- > a woodifice of an almanac, an organic headstone, a prebituary-- > and relationships, > many hardback many softcover more than a few inexpensive paperbacks > some intimate some fleeting some foreign some in translation some one > night stands > some open yet and some still stand as vestal virgins > who allow me to hold them and open them now and again
> -- > Stuart Leichter
obpoem:
closing books ............................
after the last page some you want to re-read to avoid that final swat others you stroke back on the shelf, cannot imagine to ever enjoy another work - then those which end before they begin, leaving you nothing but a hangover
I like the idea of books as relationships. Prebituary is a keeper but do you write that yourself? We used to have them on file for famous people at the newspaper.
Joy
On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 01:12:14 -0500, sleic...@nb.net (Stuart Leichter) wrote:
>Trite Fitting Books on Shelves
>You can tell something about a man by his library: >Bibles baseball bibliographies Pope Koufax Macintosh >Graves and Belzer Buber and Goebbels >chap books, for charity, and love >monographs biographs autographs photos and films-- >a woodifice of an almanac, an organic headstone, a prebituary-- >and relationships, >many hardback many softcover more than a few inexpensive paperbacks >some intimate some fleeting some foreign some in translation some one >night stands >some open yet and some still stand as vestal virgins >who allow me to hold them and open them now and again
In article <u33m6u4e990qu36dfd561umo3jcunvn...@4ax.com>,
penelope@<removeANTISPAMdevice>evolvingbeauty.com wrote: > I like the idea of books as relationships. Prebituary is a keeper but > do you write that yourself? We used to have them on file for famous > people at the newspaper.
Well, no, the personal library can simply serve as a prebituary either by analogy or metaphor. But now you've made me realize that the first line is pre-redundant, so I suppose my entire fallacy is wrong. Happy Valentine's Day.--SL
> On Sat, 09 Feb 2002 01:12:14 -0500, sleic...@nb.net (Stuart Leichter) > wrote:
> >Trite Fitting Books on Shelves
> >You can tell something about a man by his library: > >Bibles baseball bibliographies Pope Koufax Macintosh > >Graves and Belzer Buber and Goebbels > >chap books, for charity, and love > >monographs biographs autographs photos and films-- > >a woodifice of an almanac, an organic headstone, a prebituary-- > >and relationships, > >many hardback many softcover more than a few inexpensive paperbacks > >some intimate some fleeting some foreign some in translation some one > >night stands > >some open yet and some still stand as vestal virgins > >who allow me to hold them and open them now and again
> You can tell something about a man by his library: > Bibles baseball bibliographies Pope Koufax Macintosh > Graves and Belzer Buber and Goebbels
Old Madison Ave. Joe G? Didn't know he had anything published except his diaries--The guy who brought us "Wring around the collar of the jew," and "I'd Rather Fight the whole world than switch?" There are those in my business who think of Old Madison Ave Joe as their Pappy.
> chap books, for charity, and love > monographs biographs autographs photos and films-- > a woodifice of an almanac, an organic headstone, a prebituary-- > and relationships, > many hardback many softcover more than a few inexpensive paperbacks > some intimate some fleeting some foreign some in translation some one > night stands > some open yet and some still stand as vestal virgins > who allow me to hold them and open them now and again
Sorry I missed this the first time around. Nifty, as usual, but I'm sure your falacy is correct. Vermeer, the painter, was obsessed by this concept---his portraits are a study in attaching what is in the background to the subject of the portrait. If the head is surrounded by the frame of the library shelf in the backgound he was trying to communicate to the viewer that the subject was an intellectual. A wall map might indicate a leader. A white wall, as in "Girl at the Window" a virgin, or someone who is pure. The technique of "grounding" in portrait painting was enriched and raised to a new level by Vermeer. What surrounds the subject expresses who the subject is, inside.
Home is where the heart is, and we tend to surround ourselves with what is in our hearts. Cluttered in our hearts, as in your case, and, it is true, in mine too. Maybe you could have made it even more ecclectic by presenting more contrast: Ibsen and King, Plato and Charles Schultz, Rand and Duchamp, Albee and Sophocles. Eh. Then again, maybe not. However--more "B's" would have been interesting.
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