Gotham Diary:
Bear With!
15 November 2013
There won’t be much of an entry today, because I spent the entire afternoon moving books from one bookshelf to another, and vice versa, with the incomparable help of Ray Soleil, who dealt with my impatience as if he were a god above, serenely free of the anxieties that made me worry about where my books were.
Kathleen came into the room after work and said that she couldn’t tell what was different, but she was joking. Of course she couldn’t tell; she pays no attention to the arrangement of books in the blue room, and she’d be an idiot if she did. So the idea that she might know was very funny. Ray said the same thing, however: when we were done, and all the immense piles of books that had covered tables and desk during the project had found places in the bookshelves, he couldn’t see what we had acccomplished. But I saw it, and so clearly: all the novels, magnificently organized in the bookshelf that happens to be hard to get to, row upon magnifcent row! While the “artistic” books, about music (at least thirty titles about Mozart), art, poetry, cooking even and even philosophy (The New Organon — why?) are all tucked into the breakfront behind my writing table — while, while, while. They’re all completely disorganized; we just threw them onto the empty shelves. But they’ll be easy to arrange, and I look forward to the settlement.
Books: what do you do with them?
Bear with!