A little while ago I looked for ‘minimalism’ at the local library. I got quite an interesting selection of books. Short recap here: 

• 'The Briefcase' by Hiromi Kawakami, a novel
• 'The Japanese House' by Noboru Murata and Alexandra Black, a coffee table book
• 'Goodbye things' by Fumio Sasaki, a guide to living the minimalist life
• ‘Minimalism’ by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemu. I haven’t reviewed it here. Maybe this is supposed to be an introduction to the concept of minimalism, as it’s safe to say it’s rather superficial. It’s not a practical guide to minimalism nor is it exploring deeper meaning behind the concept.

The last ‘minimalism’ book I’ve read is ‘Weg ermee’ (English translation would be ‘Get rid of it’) by Dennis Storm. His book seemed rather popular the library, but naturally I had no idea who he was (a TV presenter).

One of the main themes in the book is ‘Living at home as if you were travelling’. It’s a concept mentioned by Fumio Sasaki as well, but he did it so casually, a reader will almost miss it. Dennis Storm is far less extreme than Fumio Sasaki.

In this small book Dennis Storm describes the qualities of a good hotel room and how that should be enough. Other themes are sustainability, reducing the amount of choices you have to make and quality over quantity. Writing is short and to the point, you can finish this book in about two hours.

Words to live by no doubt, but harder to put into practice than it would seem for most of us. I think a hotel room is too extreme, especially for example if you cook at home. I try and abide by Saint Alton Brown's mantra, of no "uni-taskers," or items that only serve one function in the kitchen. He made exception for a fire extinguisher, but I go a tad bit farther and rationalize a rice cooker. I do a lot of Chinese and other Asian cooking and it's convenient to have rice made while I do the main course, it's automatic and I don't have to pay attention to it. But you still need a lot of things if you take cooking seriously.

Right now I'm trying to finish two books before I get into recent purchases, first the biography of Pancho Barnes the aviatrix, and second Ed Wood's collection of his pulp magazine stories. They are quite a hoot, lurid as can be of course, as was typical for pulp detective and true crime magazines at the time. Better than his movies, but I notice he writes in very short sentences, the use of commas is almost unheard of, semi-colons seem to be treated like garlic to a vampire. Quite the opposite of my favorite writer Gene Wolfe, one of his novels had a single sentence that was a bit over a page long!

Let's just say Ed Wood was writing for a significantly less erudite audience and leave it at that...

Agreed. I think he meant the hotel room analogy in a metaphorical kind of way though, as he later mention trimming unnecessary cutlery in the kitchen cupboard.

Personally I don't like the word minimalism. Some people would use the word intentionality instead. I don't particularly like that either, but it does reflect how one can make certain decisions, for instance the way you rationalize your rice cooker, so in that way intentionality might be a better word.

One of my fondest minimalist/intentionality moments was when an elderly lady rang my doorbell to ask if I wanted to make a donation to a certain charity. After I opened the door she noticed my interior (the part that was visible to her) and asked me if I just moved in or was about to move out. I told her I'd been living there for a number of years. She then replied that she asked because my apartment looked so empty. I told her I could discard at least half of what I owned and not really notice it. She thought for a few seconds and then said: "Well, how much does one need anyway?"

That story reminds me so much of when I first moved into our last house, my wife and I. She was at home and I was at work and this woman from the neighborhood dropped by to do a welcome, bit late we'd been there months. She looked around and told my wife "Oh, I see you haven't decorated yet." Grrrr.

One of the things that I have problems with is getting rid of things. One is getting around to cleaning out, I just did a major run in the bedroom with socks and clothes, and need to do more in the closet. I only need one pair of dress pants now for example. For weddings and funerals, and the occasional symphony concert. But I have way way more old electronics and such, but the technologist in me can't just throw them away, and selling them not only brings little money but is a hassle. I should probably donate them, even though I'm not in a bracket to benefit from deducting it from my taxes. For example, I probably have 50 pairs of RCA cables!

On a related note, I have now officially given up on MasterLinking my house. The Beolink Wireless 1's stopped working with my new alarm system stomping on them. I pulled both BL2000s and now I need to get rid of them too. Plus all the Wireless 1's. I'm running a little Tibo box I got from Steve at Sounds Heavenly with my BL8000s in the dining room, and am using the Beolit 15 in the master bedroom. So, add more electronics that are surplus to requirements.

Jeff how has your alarm system impacted on your Masterlink ?

I have just finished reading The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Fistenberg. Its about the effects of radio waves etc on people animals plants and insects.

I think it is an important and well researched read. 

You will be going back to Masterlink if you read this Jeff

I was setup using Beolink Wireless 1's as running wires in this house is problematic. Previously they worked most of the time, occasionally the microwave would blow them offline but not always and restarting the music fixed it. With the new alarm, about every 45 sec to a minute the Wirelless 1's shut down and then immediately restart, so the speakers shut down and then turn back on almost immediately, but it interrupts the music. I know the alarm is on 2.4 GHz and definitely interferes with the Wireless 1, which was never a product noted for its stability anyway.

Jeff wrote:

One of the things that I have problems with is getting rid of things. One is getting around to cleaning out, I just did a major run in the bedroom with socks and clothes, and need to do more in the closet. I only need one pair of dress pants now for example. For weddings and funerals, and the occasional symphony concert. But I have way way more old electronics and such, but the technologist in me can't just throw them away, and selling them not only brings little money but is a hassle. I should probably donate them, even though I'm not in a bracket to benefit from deducting it from my taxes. For example, I probably have 50 pairs of RCA cables!

One of the ways to deal with the issue of not being able to throw away things is to work out how much money it costs to store them. This concept is written about by Fumio Sasaki, Marie Kondo and Dennis Storm. Dennis Storm mentions a friend who needed a room fo about 10 square meters to store junk. Houses his friend was looking at were about € 4,000 per square meter, so the junk room would cost about € 40,000 in additional mortgage. Not worth it, if the junk is only word a couple of hundred of Euros.

50 pairs of RCA cables probably don't take up that much space and would be cheaper to store, though. 😁

I finished 'Trance' the first novel in the Alex Madison series by Adam Southward. While the premise of the book sounds interesting - a criminal who uses some type of mental control over his victims - I can't help but feeling I've read this somewhere before. The protagonist is a self centered psychologist. The other main characters appear to be a little flat. The book could have been a little shorter as well. Overall I was a bit disappointed, but maybe the sequel - which is called 'Pain' - is better.

beocool wrote:

I finished 'Trance' the first novel in the Alex Madison series by Adam Southward. While the premise of the book sounds interesting - a criminal who uses some type of mental control over his victims - I can't help but feeling I've read this somewhere before. The protagonist is a self centered psychologist. The other main characters appear to be a little flat. The book could have been a little shorter as well. Overall I was a bit disappointed, but maybe the sequel - which is called 'Pain' - is better.

Sounds sort of like the Hannibal Lechter stuff, especially the TV series.

As for storage space, that'd be a better metric if I didn't own my house outright and if it was a smaller house. 🙂 I figure I've got over 3000 sq ft to play with, not counting the catacombs under the house. How many RCA cables does one need?  5 pair? 10 pair? I figure I need to keep all the assorted B&O connector paraphernalia just in case as a lot of it is harder to find. But I also have 5 cassette decks! More than I have cassettes. Craziness!