Monday, December 12, 2022

The absolute zen of sorting out the shelves



All the young people at work make fun of me for still having loads of physical media, including books and DVDs, because they're all put their trust in mega-corporations to keep providing streaming copies of everything forever. Good luck with that, young 'uns.

So even though the age of the DVD has come and gone, and even though I have got a lot harsher on what I actually keep, there's still a few hundred on the bookshelves, and hundreds more in storage, taking up needless space in our cramped living spaces.

But they're a good few hundred movies on display. One glance at a single shelf is enough to remind me of the most brilliant, stylish and moving things I've ever seen in a film. That's always worth taking up a bit of space

I recently realised I hadn't really tided up the shelves for a few years, so things were all over the place, and putting them in order was as enormously satisfying as always.

I had to do the whole lot because a couple of years ago I put all in order of director, but that didn't work out at all because I could never fucking remember who made The President's Analyst, so I compromised by just taking all the Lynch, Kubrick, Tarantino and Coen Brothers films and putting them on their own special little shelf and put the rest back in good old alphabetical order.

I did it at home while the babies were napping, and it was just incredibly relaxing, just taking the time to put everything in the right place.

It also took hours and was a genuine pain in the arse, but it was also a small thrill I just don't get with messing around with digital files. It reminds me what I have and what I thought was worth saving, and I see it reflect my personality back at me. 

Plus when one of my pals bemoans he can't find the original Piranha on any of his streaming services, I get to lend him my own precious hard copy, and that sends the smug levels through the roof.

Unless all the digital clouds burst and everybody loses everything, I expect to take plenty more shit on the amount of physical media I cling to like a relic from the 20th century. But I don't care. They still do it for me.

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