Things Left in Books Collection
Anonymous readers left these lovely bits and pieces inside books as place markers or sentimental tokens, but we have no record of where these pieces of ephemera were found. Without the book as context, they lose meaning. It is our policy now to leave these traces of readership in place.
You can see these items in person as part of our current exhibition, The Living Book: New Perspectives on From and Function on display through January 5th, 2018.
hi
all i want for christmas is clear skin
the sun is shining // can’t believe that less than 2 days ago I was frantically trying to phone all my friends and family to figure out if they were alive
Louise Bourgeois - Oedipus, 2003
Yoko Ono’s Cleaning Pieces
CLEANING PIECE I
Write down a sad memory.
Put it in a box.
Burn the box and sprinkle the ashes in the field.
You may give some ashes
to a friend who shared the sadness.
CLEANING PIECE II
Make a numbered list of sadness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone, each time there is sadness.
Burn the list, and appreciate the mount of stones for its beauty.
Make a numbered list of happiness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone, each time there is happiness.
Compare the mount of stones to the one of sadness.
CLEANING PIECE III
Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months
See what happens to your life.
CLEANING PIECE IV
Write down everything you fear in life.
Burn it.
Pour herbal oil with a sweet scent on the ashes.
CLEANING PIECE V
Let a list of arbitary names come into your mind as you go to sleep.
Say “bless you” after each name.
Do this with speed, by keeping a constant rythm,
so, in no way, you would hesitate to bless them.
(Source: arson-fella)
on a brighter note i saw two samoyeds in the forest this morning