I recognize myself in Max's pace, but seem to have all these
'volunteer' things to do that keep me from even attempting the sorting
yet. Must.Do.That.SOON.
Caught it well, Max.
Doug
Quoting "Stephen Vincent" <[log in to unmask]>:
> I like the honesty (and acquired wisdom!) of this piece very much,
> Max. I am variously surrounded by similar. Recently I was told to
> hire a college kid to help sort the archive. "They won't get caught
> up in it. What they can do in an hour will take you ten hours."
>
> Yet, there was this curious question as I raised (emptied) my (92
> year old" mother out of her kitchen chair the other evening, "Who
> will fill this absence."
>
> Her poor son, it appears, will be writing away, capturing those
> kinds of words as such - when interesting, at least - to fill the
> 'absence."
>
> Tidy or not!
>
> Stephen V
> http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
>
>
>
> Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Tidying myself away
>
> Actuarially, the paper says,
> I should live another ten years or so,
> my wife a further twenty or thirty.
>
> Therefore it is befitting
> I should consider her future
> and prepare to … tidy myself away.
>
> No woman wants to come home
> from her man’s funeral
> to a house empty of him
> but chocker with the clutter
> of the person just disposed of.
>
> We all know widows choking still
> over the old boy’s shoes, hats,
> trousers, jackets and coats.
> They can’t face meeting them
> on some codger kitted-out
> at the local op-shop.
> Best if I prune my wardrobe now
> to some bare necessities.
>
> When at retirement I packed up
> my old office, I trashed – well,
> as much as I could bear to:
> quite a few files, unsorted clippings,
> unread publishers’ catalogues.
>
> I called in three book-dealers:
> one by one they scanned the shelves,
> made their slim selections –
> ‘most of this stuff’s unsellable –
> nothing’s deader than old critics’,
> paid me chickenfeed, trundled away.
>
> Browsing in their shops these days,
> I’m often drawn to familiar book-spines,
> check the prices – unsellable, these too?
> So far I’ve held back from rescuing them.
>
> At home in the garage, meanwhile,
> stand grim metal cabinets I said I’d sift,
> once I’d reconciled to their deadness –
> old lecture scripts, ‘research’ ingredients
> gathered from afar, never baked.
>
> More unsorted notes and clippings,
> from which once I thought to analyse,
> anatomise, synthesise
> where culture was drifting.
>
> It was me that was drifting.
> Have I stopped clipping?
> And printing out clues from websites?
> I’m not that retired.
>
> In my little office off the garage
> the dogs have just enough space to snooze;
> the rest – cartons of once necessary
> items, yet to be sorted,
> like the boxes the op-shop workers find
> on Mondays on the pavement.
>
> Classics on cheap paper that long waited
> my freedom – Proust, late James
> still expecting in fine my late nod.
> Tapes of great portent
> for superseded tape-players.
>
> Signed copies of books by five decades
> of half-talented acquaintances.
> My own unsold books.
> If a fire swept through here,
> what a mercy. But first,
> I’d better do some sorting,
> trashing. Ideally, all will be dispersed
> the day this old body is tidied away.
>
> Max Richards
>
> Doncaster, Victoria
>
> Wednesday 30 July 2008
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Alberta T6G 0B9
That’s not a cross look it’s a sign of life
Frank O’Hara
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