I got an interesting email from one of our main-man commenters—The Illustrious Gnou—the other day. And it went a little something like this (hit it!):

RE: Collecting
I want to read this guy’s book. Therefore, I think you will want to read this guy’s book.

The book, as it turns out, is The Museum of Innocence, and—needless to say—it’s been added to my running Amazon tab. They don’t even call me ‘valued customer’ anymore. Emails from the AMZ come addressed to Norm. That’s how we rolls.

But! Also! Now, of course—ever since watching the above video a couple times—I can’t get my mind off what tragic event in my life has led to my passion for collecting. I can’t think of anything, but maybe that means the prognosis is even worse…Gasp!

Note: These are not mine. I just think they’re totally boss. Mine aren’t as cool as these.

I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot lately, and this video (and Orhan Pamuk’s message in general) just sort of brought it to the surface. Basically, I’ve been developing a theory that I don’t collect more than anybody else, rather, it just SEEMS like I do because I’m constantly looking for patterns in all my shit. So I can talk about it.

That of course could or could not be true, but it’s what I’m telling myself lately. Sure, there are certain things that I go to great lengths to amass (Kaiju, HST First Editions, etc.) but there’s other shit that I ‘collect’ which is totally effortless and laid back. Coffee mugs. Bottle caps. Buttons.

I dabble in so much of this ‘little’ stuff, that I start to tell myself that ‘real’ collectors would dismiss shit like my Hot Wheels and my M.U.S.C.L.E.S. and my marbles because I didn’t really have to sacrifice much to get them. Do you think that’s true?

In order for your collection of something to be cool, do you need to have bent over backwards in order to build it? To that end, is my ‘collection’ of 60s-70s paperback gay/lesbian/smut cover jpegs real? Is a collection really a collection if it’s infinitely copy-able; infinitely replaceable?

I had this conversation with someone else last week about my coffee mugs. She had been following me on Twitter and made mention of my Mug Shots, specifically wondering at the vastness of my collection.

I straight got CEREBRAL on that shit, and started talking about how cool it is when one can convince oneself to think that a 5 dollar mug or a 75 cent matchbox car is just as cool and worthy of collecting as a 150 dollar Dokugan.

And that’s really where I was slapped in the face with my own sickness. Most people don’t give a shit about any of that shit. So, to come full circle: what is it about me that makes me want to collect this stuff? And further, what is it about me that makes me want to tell you about it?

Hmm. (Chill baby baby chill baby baby wait.)

- Hateball