…of the Be Careful What You Wish For Department:
We’re clearing some stuff out in preparation for a garage sale. Aside from that, we’ve got a lot of stuff in boxes which we’ve never been able to take out of boxes — because of all the stuff on our shelves, stuff which we once imagined might be important than has ultimately come to pass.
So what are we looking at here in this photo?
These are the shredded galleys of my half-dozen tech-reference books. If you think you just can’t imagine ever wanting to shred something like galleys from books you actually wrote and published… well, feel free to re-think that. :)
Sounds like a very refreshing process.
So what have you filled those shelves with instead?
(You could take your shredded paper to friends children with small pets or the pet shop. I don’t want to sound flip but it might feel satisfying to know that your now unloved tech-reference books have become bedding or nests for small well loved creatures. A kind of full circle thing?)
Can I borrow some of those shredded papers to pack up the stuff I buy at your garage sale?
fg: Well, the shelves are pretty huge. They’re built into the wall, and each “shelf” is actually a wooden box maybe 30 inches or so square, and about a foot deep. The whole thing looks kind of like this:
Currently three of those boxes are completely empty, and a fourth nearly so. In the empty ones I’ve put a handful of large-ish decor items, with room around them (and above them, if I can figure that out) for books. For instance, in one there’s a foot-tall plaster armadillo on his back legs, holding a basket of potpourri, and there’s a big matted-but-unframed photo in another.
If I were of an artistic bent myself, I might view the shreds of paper as the start of an interesting papier-mache project. Maybe a big book, or a full-size puppet head for Halloween. But thanks for the other ideas — I’ll think about them!
Squirrel: If someone shows up at the garage sale and asks us to pack her purchases with “the shredded paper in that big garbage bag upstairs,” I will fall over in a dead faint.
(It’s only fair to mention, though, that because Saturday morning is my big block of writing time during the week, I probably won’t be actually on hand for the sale going on downstairs. The Missus has enlisted my stepson’s help in my presumed absence.)
Jump back!
I’m jealous you’re organized to be pulling off a garage sale and clearing out bookshelf space (as mentioned in your kicks). I really need to do that. I was relieved to read that you had boxes sitting around for many years, though. We have an entire room like that.
Hey, I take scissors to my novels all the time! Though I’ve sold my shredded bits of work, and it sells better than the actual writing…
Listen, I have a couple of boxes of books here with the name John on them…are they okay to send to the yard sale? Or is the shredder in order!!!
Sounds very cathartic John. I used to use rejection letters/drafts for kindling – maybe you could get one of those firebrick moulds and keep you and the Missus toasty over the winter :)
I really dig your shelf drawing. I now know more about your book/”foot-tall plaster armadillo on his back legs, holding a basket of potpourri” display unit than I know about my own book storage situation. It maybe time for me to go though mine for a mighty reshuffle too.
Wish me luck, Beijing launch tonight.
Kate: Wonderful to see you here again!
But you’ve touched on a sore point for both The Missus and me: that this house, unlike the previous one which we’d rented, has no fireplace. Not even a good place to put one. But now you’ve got me thinking that I could save a bundle on the cost of charcoal (if people didn’t mind eating flakes of the WIP with their fish and steaks and corn and potatoes).
Jules: Oh, I bet the number of still-packed boxes here would easily dwarf anything you’ve got. Not, Lord knows, that our house is that big or that the still-packed contents of those boxes are particularly special or worth keeping. No, we’re both just
marta: So, you’re saying… what? You’re saying you want the contents of that garbage bag? Done! Thank you! The local curbside-recycling-pickup crew thanks you, too!
cynth: The Missus would take the view, I’m sure, that if I haven’t missed look at any of those books for a dozen years or more, then I — cough, I mean we certainly don’t need to look at them, period.
But I know, or think I know, that those books came from the old homestead, is that right? In which case, well, who knows what treasures (or at least triggers) of nostalgia lies in those boxes?
IF — and I’m not saying this could or should happen, mind you — IF we got a phone call or a doorknob notice to the effect of “This is the Greyhound bus company, and here at the terminal we’ve got two boxes weighing a total of 80 pounds with your address on the outside”… well, we couldn’t turn them away, could we? Especially with the (granted, merely alleged) approach of cold weather. That would be cruel!
Helen: If you’ve lived anything remotely like a peripatetic life, I bet you’ve got boxes of books in a half-dozen places around the globe. (I can still tick off the titles of books which I know I left on ex-girlfriends’ shelves decades before The Missus entered my life, and wonder if it would be bad form to ask if I could have them back.)
Time-zone arithmetic being what it is, I’m not sure what tense to use in extending congratulations and best wishes — and asking for a report, here or elsewhere — about the book launch. But consider all of them rendered (or in the offing, if that’s appropriate)!
(And the London launch is coming up in a couple of weeks, right?)
Thank you, yes, The London book launch is on the 3rd November at the phoenix Arts Club, Charing Cross Road, 6.30pm. Any friend of your is welcome.
@John
what if someone could tell you how you could have a fireplace?
brudder: Ha ha, I should have known better than to say that someplace where you might read it. :)
“What if?” you ask. I’d be academically interested in knowing there were reasonable alternatives which didn’t involve things like running a chimney from a freestanding fireplace through glass, say. (Or, for that matter, running a chimney straight up through a 20-foot-high ceiling.)
I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s all simple as long as we use a gas fireplace. Or maybe even a fireplace with artificial logs and orange randomly-flickering LEDs. All of which would make it “simple” only in its own right. Because, you see, there’s a pre-existing laundry list of OTHER stuff: ceiling fans, decking in need of replacement, pulling up the carpets and installing wood(ish) floors…
Hence the academic interest. :)
All: Just in case you’re wondering what Helen and I are going on about up there, it’s the publication of and launch events for her newest book, Mrs. West’s Hats.
For information about the book itself, see its page on the soloshowpublishing.com site.
Helen’s had one launch event already, in Beijing last week. (A few photos available at her site.)
She’s also got one coming up in London on November 3, at the Phoenix Artist Club. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood — I know I would!