A Personal Annotated Bib

learning from las vegas 

expanse, where does expanse come from 

when do we want expanse

Riddled with the notes of who I can only assume are my father’s (as he is a diligent notetaker), Jean-Paul Sartre’s 'I Loathe My Childhood and All That Remains of It...'., is a worn, yellowed Penguin pocket book. Akin to holding the hand of your elderly grandmother, it lies frail in my hands and I twist my mouth into a smile thinking of the life this little book has lived. Its state drew me to it for, like an endured body, the book carries with it not only the words and livings of Sartre but has also absorbed contexts of the 70’s, of my dad before he was dad, of England to Spain, of trains and urgencies. My own handling of the book is relative for I only skim the pages to find the moments of underlined phrases, to try and understand what may have been going through the head of someone I did not know. Like a puzzle. 

The pages are dense, filled with seemingly unending words set in Monotype Garamond. Direct, serious, one and done. The cramped text reads straight through, leaving little time for breath or for pauses of consideration. All dad could do was make note through underlines. But, it all adds up for the quick read meets the book’s size (and it’s worn appearance) to suggest its reader is likely a traveler, a commuter. Stuffed in the back pocket as the train arrives, to be pulled out once comfortably seated en route to the reader’s destination. I can only believe this is certainly the case for my dad for the underlined phrases are scraggly, riddled with the bustle of the train, and one the recto and verso sides of the back cover are embellished with notes; “urgent” dad writes, “fully furnished apartment.” and on the back, “3076281 tienda. 31343(5overridedby7)5 casa.” Hurriedly enclosed by a circle. 

And now,  'I Loathe My Childhood and All That Remains of It...' retires on the shelf, hidden and likely unaddressed for many years. The yellowing of the pages due to oxidation smell poignantly of age, and as I (tried to gently) open the book, the cover separated from its contents. One and done and on to the next and kept in the growing collection of the growing traveler. For it meant something to them. And now, a dad with age, has his own library to look upon and within this library is ‘I Loathe My Childhood and All That Remains of It...'. This copy is a character of its own and I believe the type and astute directness inseparable from the handwritten “urgent” notes. Upon the page do these contexts exist together to create a work of spatial dimensionality and considerations of intergenerational time. 

cha ching 

1 million dollar bills

slippity slide 

ready to step of the toe outside of the premises and with severity and control its time to commit to being how 

and it is the time of how that we are meant to explore right now the space of now where we acts so proud and lose some control but real in back in with tender moments with people you are not so sure about 

im gonna be a real two generations and francis said to me the other day you know i dont think we age, or at least we get to decide when we age and i said you know francis i agree with you if i want to wear the hat from then i will and if i want to wear my fuzzy socks with the flowers on it i will and if i want to shimmy or pretend i wont actually mind and that i would love to give smoochies i will too but…..  i also want to tell francis that i dont think that either of us are all the time.. but i think she knows that because we’re always there together we definitely feel going in and out and performing the I.

nah ah 

oh i am loving the book 

oh yes

quite yes