Colony. Onward.

There are quite a few places I've always passed by

and never went into in midtown like

the peep shows and XXX video stores,

the men's hat shop where the New York Times building now sits,

and Colony.

Mostly I didn't go to those places because

I didn't think I'd feel comfortable,

so I maybe stared as I passed by

and that's all.

Oftentimes in the last few years,

I passed by Colony.

They sold music scores and bought CD collections. 

(I think it was something like it had to be at least 300 CD or more

that you had to sell to them

or something like that.

Now that's a collection.)

I love the idea of records,

but we have so many books to transport already

whenever we move.

(I've lived eight places in the last eleven years:

4 dorm rooms,

4 apartments.)

We nearly always end up with more boxes of books than any

of our other belongings.

Collecting another set of things

that can easily be transported,

saved, used, and organized,

like records,

seems ridiculous.

Maira Kalman's piece from the New Yorker a few weeks ago

below drives home the point:

"So where are we? . . . No more paper?"

Like Fats on her wall,

we have Murakami, Wallace, Rowling, Pynchon, and Batali and others,

plus tons of children's books, lining our shelves 

to build walls in our small apartment.

A house room of paper.

"No time to mourn the past.

Onward . . ."