The Dead Fish Museum December 10, 2009
Posted by randydeutsch in architect types, career, creativity, essence, fiction, identity, possibility, questions, transformation.Tags: Amazon.com, architecture books, Between Fire and Sleep, carpe diem, Criterion Collection, Crooked Cucumber, Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis, poetry books, Science is Fiction, True to Life
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That’s right, the Amazon.com shopping cart. The button with a shopping cart in the upper right hand corner of the home page on the Amazon website.
For most of us there’s an accumulation of items we’ve put on the Cart over the years under the wishful words Shopping Cart Items – To Buy Now.
My current subtotal is $1850.20
With this Important Message: Please note that the price of The Dead Fish Museum has increased from $11.25 to $11.70 since you placed it in your Shopping Cart.
I don’t recall what The_Dead_Fish_Museum is – or why I placed it on my Cart. Or when. Which is the point of this post.
First a bit of back story. The other week I helped a friend out – made some suggestions on Skype about her in-progress house design in Revit – and she rewarded me by email with a generous gift card to be used at my favorite World’s Largest Online Bookseller.
It was the nicest gift I have ever gotten. In part because it was unexpected. In part because having helped was its own reward. In part because it was exactly what I wanted. And yet…
Critiquing someone’s design is hardly work. File under Joy, not Labor. And overlooking the questionable ethics of accepting rewards for performing work voluntarily and deciding whether to spend the loot on me, my family, or even on my friend, I immediately went to the Amazon.com website to shop.
That’s when I realized that I have 67 items in my Cart. I started adding to the Cart several years ago, around the time Amazon stopped removing items from the Cart and allowed them to accumulate, naturally, as they do in my basement and attic.
So, with the funny money (14 digit Gift Retrieval Code) in hand, I went shopping.
Rummaging through the items on my Cart, going back in time, is like slicing through a tree of your life to observe in the rings you’ve accumulated over the years; whether they reveal a harsh or mild winter followed by a barren or fruitful spring.
The Cart represents a timeline – of what it was you wanted, what once caught your eye or imagination, what you once desired. And unlike Amazon’s Wish List, the Cart is meant only for your eyes alone (and in rare instances, such as this, those belonging to readers of this post.)
Running down the list of items in my Cart inevitably patterns emerge. I have a tendency for example to look at – and place in my Cart – Buddhism books in the late fall. Every late fall. And poetry to help me get through the Siberian expanses of winter.
Every winter.
What follows are a few items in my Cart, annotated from memory of why they are there, what I was thinking at the time I placed them in my Cart. Things I couldn’t afford at the time or saved for when I came into some cash. Things that speak to me.
Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painleve DVD
Both my kids currently want to become marine biologists, if not entirely sure what that means. This Criterion Collection of short films set to the musical score of Yo La Tengo might be something we can share on cold winter days. The x-ray image of a seahorse on the cover is enticing. But will my kids watch it with me? If they wander off after one or two short films, do I really need to watch 21 short films about fornicating sea creatures? Verdict: Maybe the library will get it…
True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney by Lawrence Weschler
I cannot imagine a better use for a book, or time better spent. Verdict: Buy it.
Between Fire and Sleep: Essays on Modern Polish Poetry and Prose by Mr. Jaroslaw Anders
After 9/11 irony was dead, and humor was all but annulled. Poetry alone seemed to speak to those who needed consoling and Polish poetry spoke the most clearly and deeply, especially Stefan Garczyński, Zbigniew Herbert, Czesław Miłosz and of course Wisława Szymborska. Now that the urgency has passed, it would be nice to know how they manage to work their magic on us. Verdict: “Nice to know” is not reason enough to purchase.
Secrets in a Box (Adventures in Art) – Joseph Cornell
Verdict: Wait
Crooked Cucumber: The Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki by David Chadwick
The story of how Buddhism came to America. Verdict: It’s late fall…Buy it.
Lewis.Tsurumaki.Lewis: Opportunistic Architecture
A good-for-you book. Nurturing. I would get this for myself when I felt the need to return to what it was that truly matters to me. When it’s no longer about keeping the lights on and paying the bills, showing up at the train platform every morning in my rain slicker. When I finally get around to purchasing this book it’ll be to honor the architect of old, to benchmark how far I’ve wandered off the path, or how long I’ve remained on it, to remind myself where the path is and how I stay the course. Verdict: Jury’s still out…
These, along with The Dead Fish Museum, are some of the things in my Cart. What’s in your Cart?
Do you see recurring patterns? Long lost interests or secret fascinations that were put on hold to take care of more urgent – but no less important – matters at hand? With the holidays ahead – and the promise of at least some downtime – what would you pluck from your list? Carpe diem translates literally not as seize the day but rather “pluck from the day.” What will you pluck from your cart to enliven, to enrich your day?
Architects 2Zebras 
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