The E-Sylum:  Volume 9, Number 23, June 4, 2006, Article 31

BOOK: IN FLAGRANTE COLLECTO - CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF COLLECTING

So why do we collect?  Every one of us could articulate a different
set of reasons for why we've been attracted to our hobby.  A new
book by a New York University art professor explores the collecting
impulse.  Below are excerpts from the book's promotional web pages,
but my favorite description appeared in a review by W.O. Goggins
in the June 2006 issue of Wired magazine:  "In Flagrante Collecto
can help anyone survive, ahem, 'collectile dysfunction'  Part
cultural anthropology, part memoir, this encyclopedia of obsession
does for collecting what Darwin did for natural selection.
Visually, it's The Origin of the Species by way of Andy Warhol."

"In Flagrante Collecto explores and catalogues our impulse to
acquire the incidental miscellanea of the past. From author Marilynn
Gelfman Karp's perspective, collecting is a calling, not a choice,
and in this book she examines the impulse to acquire and its modus
operandi, describing the essential reasons why anyone collects
anything from gold coins to fingernail parings."
inflagrantecollecto.info

"According to author Marilynn Gelfman Karp, collecting is a calling;
and those who are driven to collect unloved objects are the purest
collectors of all. In this literary and sophisticated celebration
of humble objects, Karp shares her passionate insights on what she
calls the "rapture of the capture."

In Flagrante Collecto is a vividly illustrated book that is equal
parts cultural history, personal memoir, and coffee table objet
d'art. The 1000 color photographs that fill this book tell stories
of lost and found objects. Ignored by many, these figural matchbooks,
 buttons, erasers, cigar rings, pictorial seed packets, and other
items are hunted and gathered with Ahab-like tenacity at flea
markets, antique shops, and collectible shows worldwide."
hnabooks.com/index.php/d///0810955407/

Dick Johnson adds: "Novelist Anatole France once said: "It is good
to collect things, but it is better to go on walks."  So walk on
over to the coin shop and buy something!"

  Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

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