Tuesday, May 31st, 2011

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The FFL tempts me. Someone draws my attention to an online auction of Yoshitoshi prints at ridiculously low prices (some; so far.) And I think, I might buy some of those; I could at least bid; but... but... Sight unseen is always dangerous with hanga, and I'm wondering how something that cheap could be original, and what shape they're in if they are. But even so... My Yoshitoshi prints were bought at a specific time (fall of 1985 to spring of 86-- how odd that it was in fact so short a period) for a specific reason-- an embodiment of the Japan I'd never seen at that time. That's over now; buying from nostalgia for a brief season that ended a quarter of a century ago is not a good idea. (Mind, if I won a lottery tomorrow I might fly down to New York in pursuit of Hasuis, but that's different. That's nostalgia for a place I saw.)

From the other non-grasping side, someone else is going on a bookfast. "I can read books. I'd better read books! But I can't borrow any from the library or download any unless I had a pre-existing hold on it.... And I can't buy any!" And in my case, I can't pick any off people's front lawns, which is how I scored Ackroyd's Chatterton, Bruce Chatwin's The Viceroy Of Ouidah, and The Oxford Book of Lies this afternoon. I mean, I *should* read all the stray books I've acquired over the years, as well as rereading all the books I've forgotten in the last 30. One might turn up gems amid the (let's face it) run-of-the-mill dreck.
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