The Book Collection That Devoured My Life

...is an article by Luc Sante, writing in the WSJ. A few things I especially liked:

Primarily ... books function as a kind of external hard drive for my mind -- my brain isn't big enough to do all the things it wants or needs to do without help.
[...]
If you allow yourself to really feel and absorb the style of a good writer, you will take in his or her vocabulary, frame of reference, sense of humor, and at least temporarily make it your own. It is a bit like the stories of cannibals eating their adversaries' brains in order to acquire their strengths and skills, only with books no one gets hurt.
[...]
Many books are screwy, a great many are dull, some are irredeemable, and there are way too many of them, probably, in the world. I hate all the fetishistic twaddle about books promoted by the chain stores and the book clubs, which make books seem as cozy and unthreatening as teacups, instead of the often disputatious and sometimes frightening things they are. I recognize that we now have many ways to convey, store, and reproduce the sorts of matter that formerly were monopolized by books. I like to think that I'm no bookworm, egghead, four-eyed paleface library rat. I often engage in activities that have no reference to the printed words. I realize that books are not the entire world, even if they sometimes seem to contain it. But I need the stupid things.

what I did outside

( We cut because we know it's boring :) )

near-to-me crafty folk...

I have a round pillow form, 10" or so across. It has actual feathers in it, or at least it's bleeding some feathers, which would imply feathers further in.

Anyone want it?

(The cover it had fell apart at the seams while I was washing it. The seam allowance was tiny AND the edges are unraveling so I'm not going to try resewing it.)