book collection for intellectual superheores

Walter Benjamin on book collecting

O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg,’s “Bookworm.” For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector – and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be – ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them. So I have erected one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones, before you, and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting. [thanks dj]

Books not Bombs, tomorrow!

The “Books not Bombs” National Day of Action is tomorrow, the 4th. I’d love to say I was planning something, but I just heard about it. While the action is fairly wide in scope, the USA PATRIOT Act is definitely on the agenda.