Constant Curation
A Sunday essay about the different artefacts from the constant curation of the cultural trophy hunting that fills my soul, and shelves!
I live in a state of constant curation. I reckon it started as a collector of action figures. When I was into Smurfs, then Transformers, Star Wars for a bit, and definitely Masters of The Universe, I had to make choices around which would be displayed, and where; how. That’s a mild autism trait I notice now; was always less about playing with the toys than having them — lining them up. To count and collect was the game. To line them up and list them off was to imagine a whole galaxy of stories. I didn’t need to write them, nor attempt to act them out. I just knew they existed. By having the things, the stories were happening — or had happened. I was there to catalogue the ongoing existence.
Indoor Gardening: Collecting little collections
The compulsion to collect is something I have lived with my whole life. I could collect up all of my collections in a tally, but it would take a while. Music and books are the lifelong obsessions in that regard. But it possibly started with my collection of Smurfs. The tiny toys were a dollar or two, pocket-money was earned and I’d get a Smurf or…
And that carried over to books, to tapes, CDs, records, VHS tapes, DVDs. And then of course all of that physical media — with the exception of VHS tapes (a genuine R.I.P.) — has been filtered out of my house, and then ferried back in.
These items take turns in the curated spotlight.
Currently, I’ve put all my music books in one space, finally. But the collection is too big to shelve, so I’m working on how that will be displayed, and where that will live.
I’m Doing All I Can To Be A Bio Man
I’m only a bookcase or two away from being a hoarder, I thought, as I piled all the music books into once place in the hallway, to find them a new home. A new home within my house I mean. I’m not quite ready to give them all up yet. This is after the super-cull, which arrived on the back of many others. I would estimate owning a thousand or more music b…
Last year the focus was short story writing, so I created a separate bookshelf for volumes and anthologies. I still have them all together, but they’re not out on their own now. I don’t need to live with them as heavily, so they’ve integrated back into the main collection.
So the current display is books about movies, books inspired by film, and about film. Novelisations, biographies. It’s in part to stimulate the ongoing conversation with my son, who is movie obsessed! It’s also for me. Not just because I am movie obsessed. But because it’s time to give that area of my brain a further workout; time for that interest to shine.
I’ve been doing some reading into the idea of the polymathic brain. And by ‘doing some reading’, of course I mostly mean watching reels on Instagram.
I’ve always had all sorts of competing and complimentary hyperfocus areas. I’ve also been a trophy hunter of cultural artefacts. It requires a lot of dusting. Beyond that it’s not really hurting anyone. Which is excellent.
