willhines.net

I visited my friend Ryan McGinness, an artist, yesterday at his studio which occupies a full floor of a building in Chinatown. Although Ryan is an easy-going and friendly fellow he is tyrannical when it comes to keeping his workplace free of clutter. It is immaculately spartan, well-organized and frankly, beautiful. Neat stacks of blank CD-roms sit next to a bulletin board area where no piece of paper is overlapping another. His desk is mostly empty, except for a few squared-off stacks of papers. Sunbeams poured in through the windows and bathed the space in clean, uninterrupted light. Then I came home to my apartment, which demonstrates the wanton disarray of the library of a serial killer.

I’m a stringsaver, especially when it comes to books, CDs and DVDs. Lots of people are like this. I know that *I* am like this because my books, CDs and DVDs are my friends. I am happy to see them and remember the time I read/saw/heard them. I like knowing that This Year’s Model is always just a step away, as is Love and Death and One Hundred Years of Solitude or for that matter, Fantastic Four #232 (John Byrne’s first issue).

But you know what? That’s pointless! I don’t re-read and re-watch everything I own. Average time I read any given piece of printed matter, even the ones I dearly love: one. The few things I re-read could easily fit on 1/4 of a bookshelf.

So I decided I would throw out or store everything I own, hoping to achieve some portion of the order I saw in my friend’s studio. I went to The Container Store, bought ten sturdy book boxes with lids, a stainless steel garbage can (a brand called “SimpleHuman,” which sounded too much like 1984-esque doublespeak to resist), and a cloth booklet to hold DVDs.

Then I tore through my closets and cabinets, trying to dispose of things I no longer need before I get to the onerous task of choosing which books to store. I have found some ridiculous things, including:

• 2 glitter-covered signs spelling out “Citizen Nuts”, which Mitch and I used in our sketch show THREE years ago.
• Five(!) kickballs
• An unassembled file cabinet
• An unassembled bookshelf, which was taking up space… on a bookshelf
• Four suits I last wore in 1996
• Four big cardboard boxes filled with wire hangars
• Three shoeboxes filled with mix tapes — actual tapes — from 1994 and earlier. First tape, first song: “Avalon” by Roxy Music.
• Four empty shoeboxes
• A bag of change
• Six phone books
• Seven different rolls of Scotch tape

I had to call NYC’s info line (311) to find how to throw these things out. A stereo: on “bulk day” only. Huge stacks of wire hangars? Recyclable, so you put them in clear bags and in the proper colored bin. Big wooden signs that spell out “Citizen Nuts”? I forgot to ask.

My room is of course now more cluttered than ever. But it’s just a transition to better things, I hope.