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'BLACK JACKET': Sadness isn't sadness; It's happiness in a black jacket Death isn't death; It's life
"We
(women)
are just as obsessed and infatuated as men. We
love music just as hard. It's just that we don't
exhibit that obsession, that love, through an
alphabetised record collection. You want to know
how I store my records? I put the ones next to
each other that I think would be friends. I
suppose that you could call that emotional; I
call it womanly."
I guess that
you could say that it's unlikely that the Arctic
Monkeys would have much in common with Bach,
although I would imagine that Schoenberg and
Shostakovich would have quite a lot to talk
over. Obviously though this idea has much wider
application. And, as such, it calls into
question the liberty of our woman librarians
who, despite I believe being in the majority
must, one assumes, have been forced by their
male colleagues into filing books in
alphabetical order rather than placing together
books which would feel comfortable with each
other.
One could for
instance imagine the works of Molière and
Shakespeare having discussions late into the
night about the difficulty of using verse in
plays or, maybe, the books commenting on gritty
contemporary life written by Emile Zola and
Charles Dickens discussing whether publication
in weekly episodes was the way forward to
maximise profits. Religious books would
certainly need to be classified by religion, but
also by the sect they represented, otherwise
there would be war on the shelves, with books
attempting to burn others of contrary view.
Works by narcissistic academics, who had been
sworn enemies for years, would need to be kept
forcibly apart to preserve the peace and
tranquillity of the library. The Mills and Boon
books, however, would go away together in pairs
for romantic week-ends and then would come back,
some still together, perhaps with their
newly-born short stories, and others who will
never speak to each other again. Ever! And so
the shelves would need to be completely
re-organised every week.
This same
idea could equally apply to many other things in
life. Why do we have houses numbered in strict
sequence? Why not group numbers according to the
colour of the woodwork or whether the windows
have been replaced with double-glazed units?
Now, I appreciate that we men have the
reputation of being obsessed by lists much more
than women. After all, there are very few women
who engage in train-spotting, and how many are
able to recite all the winners of the FA Cup for
the last 40 year? Or indeed would want to? But
there are also many men for whom such activities
are not central to their lives. And there are
just a few women who are obsessed by other
things, such as their handbags or the lives of
the stars.
Of course,
the whole question of storing things is now
under attack. Marie Kondo, the Japanese author
and advocate of minimalism has a Netflix series
which is called ‘Tidying Up’. She wishes us to
remove the clutter from our lives, saying that
there are numerous benefits to be derived from
doing this. Apparently there are psychological
advantages – we become more contented and less
prone to depression, although I’m not quite sure
where where the evidence is for this. I assume,
however, that if we take her advice we can all
downsize and so put some money in the bank as
well. She suggests deciding within 30 seconds
whether or not we truly love the item in
question. If we do, then we should keep it but
if not it should be binned. A bit
extreme? What
would happen if the first object that I wanted
to put in the bin was the bin itself? After all,
I’m not a great lover of bins.
I suppose though that she is talking about such things as trinkets, clothes and shoes, the ephemera of life. Even here, though, it seems to me that there is a problem. I have no particular love for my socks or indeed my shirts, but they are necessary if I wish to go out in the British climate. What should I do? In fact, though, Miss Kondo does not seem to have persuaded many people actually to throw things out. Ironically, what she has achieved instead is an increase in tidiness, but only through inadvertently persuading us to purchase and use more things - the sale of storage boxes was up by 47% and baskets by 24% last month and demand for stackable shoe racks has risen by more than 500%. What has been
rather more controversial is her demand that we
limit ourselves to 30 books – this on the basis
that we don’t need or read more than this
number. I have to confess that I don’t read time
and again all of the books I have,
but, just like the Guardian writer quoted and
her CDs, I have an emotional attachment to them.
It would certainly take more than 30 seconds to
decide whether or not I loved them or could bin
them. I have, of course tried Kindle, but like
many others, I do not think that it has the same
feel or indeed convenience. Not
being able actually to see the last page is for
some reason something which I find
problematic. I suppose that I need the end
actually to be in sight. Whatever the
reason, the result is that the sale of books has
in
fact gone back up and the number of downloads
has decreased.
Something
similar has happened with vinyl discs and even
cassette tapes, but to a much lesser extent .
The reality, however, is that, these days, I no
longer need to concern myself about the order of
my CD collection. It is becoming less and less
important as more advanced technology takes over
- everything now can be on your phone or tablet.
And that is good for both men and women of
whatever persuasion. For although it can list the
music in alphabetical order, pieces can equally
easily be grouped together in any other way - so
that, for instance, they can feel good about
each other. Or, there is always the shuffle
option - where pieces are played completely at
random – ideal for those anarchists who wish to
lose all order from their lives.
Paul Buckingham February 2019 |
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