A couple years ago in San Francisco, a friend and I stumbled across an antique storefront's going-out-of-business sale in a warehouse in SOMA. It always fascinates me to think about how all these strange objects from across huge swaths of time and space and culture can end up sitting side-by-side, to consider their converging histories. Maybe a thing is a new arrival to the shelves and crates, just recently pulled from circulation, or maybe it's been sitting there since the beginning, waiting to be recognized for something - usefulness, beauty, novelty, curiosity - once again. I found a couple of black cloth, gold-stamped photo albums in less than fair condition, pasted full of black and white images from the ~1900s-1930s. That potentially permanent recorded evidence of so many single moments in time, with all the context packed into those pieces of paper, is a time capsule, proof of existence, for whatever that's worth. The doers - the picture takers and takees - felt it valuable enough to record, and I have a strong reverence any figment of personal creativity actualized, for the inspiration potential of any publicized idea. I bought the albums, a few dozen memories of ancient strangers, with the intention of cleaning them up a bit and giving them a place to stay for a while.
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Even in the midst of a cross-country move, when I ought to be thinning out my collection for my back's sake, I can't help but be sucked in by book in need. This little volume is not only falling apart but appears to have been put back together incorrectly at some point: The accordion-fold of photos has cracked, yellowing tape across each seam, and based on the orientation of the first page, whoever did this 'restoration' refolded the photos in the opposite direction, causing several to crease and tear over time. I'm fairly certain I'll be able to clean them up nicely and strengthen the insert from the back with strips of kozo paper. The acidic paper of the booklet may be more difficult to repair, but it's strong enough yet that bringing the book to a handleable state shouldn't be a problem. |