It’s winter, time to work on our collections. Let’s face it, a lot of us here in the cinematic Hudson Valley have too many spaces: sheds – outbuildings, damp basements, attics – areas crying out for rows of autographed baseballs or vintage ceramic ashtrays. (I myself have a two-car garage and only one car.)
Not every group of similar objects is a collection. I call these haphazard groupings “selections.” Most of us have a selection of spices on a rack (mine is craftily concealed on a Lazy Susan in a cabinet), shirts and pants hanging in a closet, books lounging in bookcases. We have accumulations, aggregations, piles of similar objects. But I wouldn’t call them collections. A collection, to my mind, should be useless.
I realize many people reading this have collections of Grateful Dead tee shirts, which are technically usable but so rarely worn by us to be essentially decorative.
One definition of a collection is “too many of the same thing.” We all need a salt shaker, but if you have 45 salt dispensers – some in the shape of the pyramid at Machu Picchu or the Taj Mahal – you probably have a collection.
You know it’s a collection if you acquire items you don’t really like because they’re necessary to the integrity of your display. Usually a collection has a “prize“ item.
When I was twelve years old in 1965, I was a true collector: I had binders full of stamps from Burma, Mozambique, Italy; a coin collection; a mineral collection; a leather case full of marbles; a tower of comic books; a battalion of toy soldiers (almost all plastic); a winsome display of “Disneykins“ – miniature Disney characters that cost 59 cents each.
At some point in adolescence, I casually cast aside all my collections – around the same time I began inhaling the enticing fumes of the marijuana plant. Now I have mostly “anti-collections”: items I’m perfectly willing to give away. For example, I still read comic books – perhaps more now than when I was a child (and I don’t mean those pretentious “graphic novels”). I’ve been blessed with friends who work in the comics industry, who are happy to lay some of their extra illustrated treasures on me. (Lately I’m particularly fond of Savage Dragon.) But when I’m done with them, I pass them on to nine-year-old kids I know, or set them on the counter at Family of Woodstock.
I want others to read these literary gems. Why should they grow moldy in my garage?
When my wife and I used to rent out our house on Airbnb, some of our guests praised my record collection. I was literally stunned to read this term. I didn’t have a collection, just albums I found at Formerly Yours (the thrift shop here in Phoenicia, with a generous “free table“), some platters I stole from my father (including the fabulous bird, a Charlie Parker compilation from 1955), and a few records my sister didn’t commandeer when I went off to college. When you’re staying at an Airbnb, a disparate stack of 33 RPM recordings looks like “a collection,” I suppose.
And so my life remained, until 2009, when I discovered a cache of bookmarks in a white wire rack in my “study,” in between scrap paper and postage stamps. “This will be a collection – my last collection,” I decided.
This array of book markers was not intentional. It accumulated over time, incrementally, inconspicuously, and now I have 48!
When I just counted them I discovered that I have one set of “doubles,” from the London Review of Books. “Doubles” was the word we used for duplicate baseball cards when I was a kid. That’s another collection I had, come to think of it!) And I follow my principles. I never use these bookmarks to actually mark a book.
I guess my favorite is the one with a photo of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and the line: “I met the best minds of my generation and they all turned out to be dumb…” (I’m not encouraged to use the last word in this magazine.)
Now we’ve reached the part of the essay where I advise you how to become a collector. There are four factors: time, space, money, passion.
If you have lots of money, lots of space, but no time, I suggest you invest in Airstream trailers, those bulbous, silvery, distinctly American living spaces first manufactured in 1936. (I guess I’ve always secretly wanted to own a fleet of them.)
If you have a fair amount of money, lots of time, and almost no space, start buying pocket watches, which must be elaborately cleaned, polished, and even repaired.
If you have no money, no time, no space, gather the silver foil inside discarded cigarette packs you find on the street. (I once saw a picture of Ken Kesey’s massive aluminum-foil collection, shaped into a ball, on his porch, in People magazine. That may be inspiring me here.)
Or collect bookmarks! Write to me care of this newspaper and I’ll send you my extra London Review of Books marker to get you started. It’s an appealing maroon color, and essentially brand-new!
Join the family! 
