December 3, 2021:

When I build my library.

The many bright, vibrant windows will be of treated glass to prevent sunlight fading the books.

Bookshelves along the four walls will be short, like those in a children’s library, so that artworks and portraits can decorate the walls. These will be my own colorful abstract and travel photos, printed to poster size, hung between windows; while the portraits will be of people who interest me or who I admire: Kafka, Joyce, Kollontai, Serge, Robert Johnson, Lenin, Ellington, Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd with Harvey; The Beatles, Marx, Kate Chopin, Kate Bush, the Stones, the Who, Trotsky, Diogenes, Plotinus, Elmore James, Althusser. Also poster size, to be visible throughout the room.

Bookshelves in rows through the center of the room will be tall, but topped with green plants for color and for life.

The space will have two distinct levels. The tall shelves live on the upper level, a half staircase above the reading area which holds two or three comfortable couches, one or two reclinable chairs, a mini-fridge with cold drinks and snacks, two or three small indoor trees, adjustable reading lamps, an excellent sound system which will usually be off, a MacBook for writing and Internet, another for composing or playing back music. The space is large, open, cheerful, lighted, friendly, and comfortable.

The books are organized by the main themes of my life, or of my brain I should perhaps say. Such as it is. Literature; Philosophy; History; Science; Business and Silicon Valley history; Games; Religion; Languages; Children's books; Psychology and Psychoanalysis; Film; Music; Art; Mythology and fairy tales; Programming and Technology; Utopia; Reference; works by friends or people I know. The Reference shelves will include a handful of complete collections I’ll never have time to read: the Loeb Classics; the Standard Edition of Freud; Marx & Engels Collected Works; Lenin’s Collected Works; a few others. There may or may not be shelves for my vinyl albums: I haven’t removed them from their boxes in 50 years, they’re probably all warped. But maybe not.

Should the shelves be colored by theme? Perhaps they should all be spotless white, like the walls, so that the room’s color accents can be added by artworks, area rugs, and plants. Or maybe they should be painted by subject: blue for Literature, purple for Philosophy, and so on. I dunno. That would be colorful, but would feel pedantic.

I will have read all the books. I buy them, read them, mark them up, dogear them, add them to the appropriate shelf. Apart from the Reference collection: no unread volumes. They will be in multiple languages. Aside from my native English there will be French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Latin and Greek. All read, all dogeared, all marked up.

Someone will all too soon inherit a fuckuva cool place to hang.