A most forlorn sight

One of the most miserable things I have ever seen is the empty bookshop that used to be Borders of Charing Cross Road. I walked past it last week. I used to pop in, whenever I was in London, just to wander about on the off-chance that something would catch my eye. Invariably something would. That is the deceptive danger of bookshops; I almost always find something I need – where no need existed before I entered.
Soon the shop will be turned into something else – says a sign taped to the window – but for now it is a hollow, unlit shell containing empty shelves; there was not a book in sight. There is something particularly empty about empty bookshelves. Especially those that you have never known to be anything other than full of books. So far as I could see, there was not even one torn or damaged book left lying on the floor. All had vanished.
It is not that the shelves were merely empty. It was much more than that: they were missing all the words and ideas that used to be contained inside the books they used to carry. All those words and ideas that used to be laid out in such a way as to make them readily accessible and sometimes quite irresistible.
Now, no words or ideas remain. As such, the shop has become a vacuum.

Dreamlines

Visit the Dreamlines website.

(My Dreamline images are now kept at: sjlewisprojects.)

The Frankfurt School

One of the intentions of the Frankfurt school of social thinkers was to write philosophy in short, poetic aphorisms rather than as long elaborate treatises. This is an interesting idea to explore. Given the breadth of philosophical enquiry, it does not necessarily follow that one writing style fits all objects of investigation. However, at the moment only the traditional forms of extended prose seem to be used. What might the short, poetic style – aphoristic or otherwise – have to offer?

Harmonograph - 1

(My harmonograph images are now kept at: sjlewisprojects.)

Seeing and looking

'One can travel this world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see.'

Giorgio Morandi

Line Walk

(The lines have taken a walk here at sjlewisprojects.)

The Basic Idea

I am an inveterate note maker and scribbler - on bits of paper, in computer files, in the cloud etc. Similarly, I am a collector of things - tangible things, objet d'internet, things that I just find interesting. Every so often these get sifted, filed away or discarded. Sometimes, as I do this, I think that it is a pity that nobody else gets to share in what I have found appealing.

So, rather than simply collect a plethora of notes and images in various forms that would go largely unseen by anybody else but me - and eventually be lost to all - I thought that I would blog some of them instead. That way my loose thoughts and ideas - and anything else that I think worth keeping - can be collected into one convenient place; both convenient for me to access - because, importantly, blogs are 'taggable' - and convenient for me to share.

This, then, is something of an open repository of stuff that simply appeals to me or concerns me in one way or another. Please, don't be put off by any apparent lack of organization or structure. Embrace it instead. (Alternatively, you can always use the tags.)