Musings on Material Culture

Since returning to Hometown to continue with treatment, I’ve been studying le décor of my childhood home. My parents remodel, renovate and update on a fairly regular basis it looks far more stylish and livable than when we first moved in 20+ years ago. Each time I return home, there are new features à gogo (galore). Furthermore, as a homeowner back in Host Country, I’ve been pondering what furnishings to get when (not if) I return. We don’t have a picture wall where the ghosts of family portraits past cast their chilling gaze upon us. Rather, family members have a set of objects that are repeated in many rooms. Par exemple, my mother LOVES scented candles and places a few in each room (mine was spared due to intense pyrophobia). My contribution is books – lots of them. Books in English, books in French, coffee table books, novels, old textbooks, books I loved, books I was never able to finish. Taken individually they look like your typical bric-à-brac, but in small ensembles create visually and intellectually intriguing arrangements. I’ve been using my Kindle for PC the last few months due to space restrictions on travel. While I enjoy the cheaper price of books and increased storage capacity, I’m reluctant to abandon material books for many reasons (importance of print culture, easy annotation, impracticality of traveling in bush taxis with laptops, etc.) Now I have another: it’s very satisfying to have a record of where my intellectual interests and whims have taken me. Books that fit into a themed collection (my 17th century French biographies from later high school), a genre (travel guidebooks) or are just interesting outliers (Jon Hein’s Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad) illustrate a lot more of who I am than I’m usually willing to admit.