WANTED: ‘strange things that are considered valueless’

such are the things collectors like (according to benjamin).

you could think of illuminations by walter benjamin as being two books - a book of collecting, translating, story- telling, mechanically reproducing (printing), and a book of engagement with the key writers/ poets of the era - kafka, proust, baudelaire, ending with the angel of the future.

there is always something foolish about collecting (horsemouth bibliophile knows this) - as of all this stuff is going to be buried with you when you are gone, or set up as a museum, as if it is not in fact junk already. benjamin collected children’s books - like the opies. 

both benjamin (writing on leskov in the story-teller) and victor serge (in the beginning of our power) have the metaphor of the seeds from pharoah’s tomb germinating - where did they get this? from the newspapers? or from the same book? horsemouth wonders.

horsemouth is on the train back to his folks in the wilds of herefordshire (where it will be reliably grey instead of unreliably sunny). he’s brought some sheet music and some financial stuff (in case he gets bored) - because (as benjamin says) ‘boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience’.

how much boredom there is in the modern world unamused is another matter.