ragbag:

roy g. biv has a posse

laura, my former badminton adversary, recently linked to a very interesting guardian article on the topic of bookshelf arrangement. she then asked her readers how they chose to arrange their bookshelves. i answered that i (after a long period of introspection) finally arrived upon a chromatic system.

this drew a certain amount of incredulity from some mutual friends who impugned me privately and asked if i was goofing or being 1000‰ honest the way that i usually am. as evidenced above (and with this as precedent) you can see that my record of always telling the truth remains without pimple or blackhead. with my  honour restored, let me tell you: the benefits of such a system are numerous:

1. utility: as i am a visual learner, in many cases it is the cover rather than the author (or even sometimes) title of a book that i can recall, thus a chromatic index proves very useful when i need to locate an old tome.
2. æsthetics: as exhibited by my dolce & gabana® trousers, rolodex™ wrist-watch, and armani® hair gel, i am all about looking good. and what is more visually appealing than a rainbow? answer: books arranged like a rainbow. another answer less germane: naked babes.
3. ragbaggedness: as the very soul of this blog shows, i get an extreme charge out of random juxtapositions. a system of index that eschews subjects helps to create such serendipital collisions. consider: tin tin living in the same neighborhood as lucky jim, or the new-found meaning of goya’s caprichos when they are being absorbed by bakhtin and his dialogic imagination.

in conclusion, another thing that i arrange chromatically is the drawer where i keep my underpants.

In order of organizational priority: (1) Genre/Category, (2) Author, (3) Size

Posted at 3:02pm.