A closer look at the pornography of existence

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Travel Light

There has got to be a way for us to go through life without carrying all this junk around.

Every move is painful; packing and unpacking millions of little items we'll probably never need again. Putting enormous boxes in a truck and filling it until it's ready to explode.

There is something you need to know about me. I am, as a delicate ex-girlfriend would say, a "pack rat". Well, not really. I like the term, with all its white trash implications. I'm not about to have a yard sale and offer up baby clothes & motor parts. I have accumulated lots of movies over the years because I consider myself a eurotrash scholar. These motherfuckers can be really hard to find, most of them have never been released domestically on DVD, and when I began "collecting" them, the VHS medium was beginning his slow descent into discontinuation. So of course, all the video rental stores were discarding what we, among collectors, like to call "grosses pochettes", or big boxes for those of you not in the know.

I have been a "trader" for a long time. That kinda implies piracy, but maybe not. It's in a "flou juridique", really. So here I am, stuck with thousands of VHS tapes, wondering what the hell to do with them.

Another problem : I'm a bibliophile. I suffer from some kind of compulsive curiosity and there are lots of stuff I want to read. So of course I buy lots of books. And once I have paid for them, and they're in my hands, I know there's no hurry in reading them : they're mine !! So I put them on a shelf and forget all about them. Then I look for something else to read, and I buy some more. And so on.

Being a DJ is also problematic, especially when you work with vinyl. These 12" are big, and heavy ! I bought some shelves at Ikéa last year and made sure my LP's would fit in there. However, since I keep buying some new 12" - the point here being that I have to be "on the edge of new music" - I'm starting to run out of shelving space ! And there's a thing with vinyl : it's really hard to sell them afterwards. Less & less DJ's are using them, and when a song has passed its prime time, honestly, nobody wants it !

I also like to keep up with current affairs, and have my favorite magazines. Among them MacLean's (for the canadian content) and the New Yorker (because, frankly, it's the best magazine ever). Problem is... they're weeklies. And with my studies and the big stash of books I have accumulated, plus the books that I borrow at the public library, I can't bring myself to keep up with all that !

So... am I a pack rat ? I'll never know. But I wish I could travel light !

3 Comments:

Blogger Bruce Benson said...

You should have a yard sale... you're well located for that... just cross the street and invade the park with your "grosses pochettes" and stuff. Once you get your car back, maybe you could pay your neighbors the squeedgees in "grosses pochettes" too, they could clean your car for you.

Also: It's funny 'cause I have the exact opposite "disorder"... whenever I feel like I have too much stuff that just sits there being useless I go thru these frenzies where I just *have to* get rid of everything. I'm slowly learning to not buy too much stuff like CDs or DVDs, 'cause in the end I always get rid of'em.

I should read up on minimalism, and you should read up on "rangement".

2:03 AM

 
Blogger Clifford Brown said...

Yeah, we should both read up on bienséance.

About your "disorder", it's funny you should mention it, because I remember you selling all your stuff at one point. I was still with Marilou at the time and she begun to be real worried about you; she figured that if you were getting rid of all your material possessions, you were probably planning on killing yourself !!

As much as the idea horrified me, I never sided with her and decided to let you indulge in your mania, under a close watch, however !

5:04 PM

 
Blogger Bruce Benson said...

I never considered doing such a thing, but I am a chronic "démagasineur". Maybe I'm feeling guilty for not being enough of a socialist? Anyhow, I never considered it, even with the "malaise" I'm going thru now… If I remember correctly, I would have to wait until I'm 35 before becoming a statistic. I didn't know Marilou would've cared, but that's the thing about old friends... you don't miss'em 'til you miss'em.

3:01 PM

 

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