Sunday, August 23, 2020

Some People Hate Books

 


The minimalist movement in home decor led by Marie Kondo certainly has its benefits. You should clear out all the detritus, debris and old crap from time to time. I just have a really hard time discarding a book. I have a bunch I have been trying to throw out or give away for a while now, but I just can't seem to do it.

By the way, the most glaring error in the above photoshop (and it seems to be a rule that in every photoshop meme there has to be at least one grammatical error) is in the quote. It should read "Ideally, keep fewer than 30 books." Not less. Less refers to unquantifiable amounts: less water in the glass, less sand on the beach. But fewer swimmers in the water and dollars in the bank. Quantifiable amounts are fewer, not less. It's a common mistake.

I have more than thirty books just on music theory. I think I have around thirty books just by thriller writer Dick Francis. A house with fewer than thirty books I would regard as an intellectual wasteland.

And now, here is a piece by Japanese composer Jō Kondo.


6 comments:

Dex Quire said...

...I swear we were separated at birth ... guitar...music... and now not just a book lover but a not-getting-rid-of-books lover ... amazing ... I discover piles that I have put in a corner and when I discover them it is like re-discovering them ... why would I want to get rid of them ... they're family ....

Bryan Townsend said...

🤓

Sometimes I have the sinking feeling that I may feel closer to some fictional characters than I do to people I meet every day.

Maury said...

Does Marie have her quotas on womens clothes we could look at?

Bryan Townsend said...

I'm afraid to check!

Dex Quire said...

I know what you mean about certain fictitious characters seeming so conversant with daily life ... I suspect there are a few of Balzac's characters wandering about (or owning small shops) in my South Seattle neighborhood ... while I'm at it, let me recommend a novel to you that I believe you might like: "The Dissertation" by R.M. Koster; yes it is a novel in the form of a dissertation, but it takes off from that rather staid form into the stratosphere ... it is the fictional biography of Leon Fuertes, fictional president of a fictional Central American country called 'Tinieblas'; as told by his son, Carlos Fuertes, whose academic research takes him on many adventures in this world and the ... I'd better not say more ... wonderfully written, a great unheralded, underground classic ....

Bryan Townsend said...

It's been a long, long time since I read any Balzac! Still working my way through Proust.

Thanks for the recommendation! Sounds interesting.