On Nostalgia and the Nature of Archives (Ch. 2)
Privyet friends -
So much for the punctuality promised in the first newsletter! In response to the critiques and wonderfully helpful feedback to the first round, I've decided to include more original writing (see 'My Dearest Alexandra') and fewer (but more detailed) points. Enjoy!
On Books and Book Inscriptions:
One of my favourite collections on the internet, Book Dedications compiles wonderful, heartfelt, and esoteric inscriptions found scribbled inside second-hand books. An act of bibliophilic voyeurism, these oft-intimate excerpts give us short glimpses into the life of the reader. These capture the exchange of tomes to fix relationships once soured, wisdom passed from father to son, and parting messages in paperbacks exchanged between pals now oceans apart. Some interesting combinations of the choice of book, the context of its gifting, and the inscribed message are here, here, and here.
A writing piece I composed in 2020 attempts to derive a narrative from such interconnected inscriptions. The writing experiment is titled 'My Dearest Alexandra' and is temporarily hosted here.
Here's a lovely painting by the German romanticist Carl Spitzwerg titled 'The Bookworm':
On Archives
In a marvellous crossover in the Guardian, Orhan Pamuk responds to photographs by Dayanita Singh. The mesmerizing monochrome photographs capture the atemporal timelessness, the silent stillness, and the bureaucratic black-box that is the Indian archives. Amidst silverfish and sheaves, dust and disintegrating datasets, these archives of our crowded country are a spectacle of administration and ambience. Pamuk deftly describes: 'Indian archives – places capable of turning even the healthiest person into an asthmatic – also acquire their characteristic scent from the flooding that follows monsoons. Waterlogged folders, when left to their fate, will start spreading a peculiar smell of mushrooms and damp. If the files are taken out one by one (a near-impossible task) and put out to dry in the sun, a smell we might describe as river muck and fish slime will soon materialise.'
George Kennan captures the pleasures and pains ('the experience') of 'writing history'. An informal reflection on the job of the historian, as they trawl through archives, isolates at their desk, and debates at their conferences.
On the use of archives in the era of the internet. The neo-detectives at Bellingcat, in a stupendous display of online geolocation and chronolocation, use new tech to investigate old photographs. Using open-source resources and reverse image searches, they pinpoint the (previously unknown) location and authors of 21 photographs from the Rijksmuseum. I'm convinced, given enough time and resources, the wizzes at Bellingcat will use newspaper archives, linguistic clues in letters and social media posts to somehow geolocate the exact position of El Dorado.
On Inspiration
Victor Hugo (as is typical) was eccentric with his bursts of wisdom - even at the family dinner table. From Mason Curry's Daily Rituals, "At family dinners Hugo felt compelled to hold forth on philosophical subjects-pausing only to make sure his wife had not fallen asleep, or to write something down in one of the little notebooks he carried everywhere he went. Hugo's son Charles-one of the three Hugo children who became writers themselves-described the scene: 'As soon as he has uttered the slightest ideas anything other than 'I slept well' or 'Give me something to drink'-he turns away, takes out his notebook and jots down what he has just said. Nothing is lost. Everything ends up in print"
If anyone is inspired to purchase a little notebook for inspired writing (or to cosplay Hugo) I strongly recommend the MUJI Passport Memo (particularly over the famed Fieldnotes Memo.)
Sarah Fletcher eloquently discusses the contagion that is 'inspiration,' as it infects the writer, spreads to their head and guides their pen-nib to the ink-pot (or fingers to the keyboard) in a hypnotic state of hyper-creativity. This 'Defence of Inspiration' seems most appropriate, especially in this day and age where routine and regime have come to be expected from us all, even from the Bohemian starving and tortured artist.
On tortured artists, I would be remiss if I didn't share yet another magical Spitzwerg 'The Poor Poet':
Verse, in closing:
Bukowski asks, 'so you want to be a writer?'
An excerpt:
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
(All errors are my own, and a by-product of editing this on the road)
BM