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Unpacking the Office
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 1984
It's only taken me about 5 months, but I've finally started unpacking the office.
There's a reason it's taken me so long, 4 moves in the past 3 years, I'm loathe to ornament any of my surroundings with the slightest permanence.
But it has to be done, there are projects that will require me be somewhat organized, have a desk, a place to work, and so I begin.
The Office, without a doubt, is the coolest room in my house.
First there are the boxes of books. Now there is no way I'll be able to unpack even the smallest portion of the books I'll need, so I go through a few of the opened boxes and pick out a few I think I might need. Unread books command their own shelf. Later, when I renovate I'll fill the closet with shelves and unpack more of them.
There's the printing boxes to be hung and filled with curios, this takes a number of efforts, like me they seem to resist any attempts at permanent installation, after a few false starts they're hung and filled with precariously balanced curios and knick-knacks. There are paintings hung all over the wall, more paintings, pictures, more curios to be dusted and displayed, antlers, clocks, microscopes, rosaries, voodoo and ju-ju dolls, artifacts, fossils, the list is endless. It's like Christmas, unpacking these countless things I'd forgotten I even have.
Eventually it begins to come together. There's about a half dozen boxes filled with papers and notebooks - scraps of ideas, poems, drawings for when I learn to draw (better!), art ideas, treatments for plays and movies. These will be sorted through - one at a time, reduced, notes without illustrations will be ripped from their binding and transcribed - in an equally loose and disorganized fashion, onto the computer. It's psychic baggage, almost 25 years of not-writing to be organized and not-typed onto the computer; it's grueling, this, like moving: To move someone else's belongings requires but trivial time and strength; to move ones own stuff demands Herculean effort.
But there's a vague resolve to get this dealt with this year. This will be the year. Meanwhile I go downstairs, loot amongst the many boxes for the possessions I believe I've mislaid, help to find them and help them to find their place in the office.
Vivian Maier, street photographer and nanny
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 2302
Zero
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 1751
Now it seems like a simple enough thing, the invention of or discovery of zero. And if you're me, where the sum of your bank account/groceries/life savings/investments/ is nil, then it's a logical enough extension to assign it a value. But really - think about it - that point where all quantities become equal - where you can compare all things - for zero apples is indeed equal to zero oranges, and think of how much our current number systems, computing, banking - depend upon the number zero, and maybe you'll realize that it's not such a small discovery. Or invention - (another post - are numbers and their inherent laws invented or discovered?). But as my mind certainly isn't up to fathoming the intricacies and nuances of such accounting, here are a few sites to lead your thinking on:
"Without the notion of zero, the descriptive and prescriptive modeling processes in commerce, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and industry would have been unthinkable."
Link: Wikipedia on the Number Zero
Link: Zero Saga
NIghtwatching - Peter Greenaway
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 1816
A downloaded discovery (and he has more films that I'm not aware of and so will be on the Greenaway kick for a while) - "Nightwatching". It takes the premise that Rembrandt inserted clues that would identify a murderer in his famous Night Watch - and the entire film - par for Greenaway, reflects Rembrandt's use of darkness and light. Now reviews for this are mixed - and for the most part unkind - and Greenaway is not a director you would want to walk in on accidentally. But if you see it, knowing his previous work and style and expecting the density of ideas, the graphic sexuality, the rich, sumptuous imagery, then you probably won't be disappointed.
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