Yesterday I received Christmas gifts from my cousin in Germany. This is what fills me with guilt every year. Not the fact that I choose drink over Midnight Mass, or that I forego the donation to the Salvation Army in order to buy myself a cup of coffee instead. It's the fact that every year, without fail, my cousin sends us Christmas gifts, even though they may come after Christmas, and every year I just plain forget about her.
If I am to make one New Years Resolution this coming 2010, its to make a concerted effort to be better to my favourite cousin and let her know just how appreciated and loved she is by us all. Because really, I can be such a thoughtless shit.
What doesn't help the case is that my cousin never fails to give great presents. This year, she bought me a beautiful purple silk shawl/scarf (which I cannot wait to show off next winter), a lip gloss in a pink disco ball container, and a 2010 diary.
And what a diary this is.
A small black diary, where each week runs across two pages. I open the cover to find a small message: In case of loss, please return to:_(obviously my address would go here)_____
And then: As a reward $:________.
Really! I had never seen anything like this in a diary before. Bizarre. As for the value, I wouldn't know what to put in it. I mean, the year hasn't even started yet, so should I lose this diary, then the value would be nothing. This is purely based on a functional level, the diary immediately has sentimental value attached the moment it was in my hands, but you can't really put a price on sentimental value, and if you did, then the there's really nothing of sentiment in it at all.
But if we base this on a purely functional value, then that value would certainly change through out the year. When the new year starts, perhaps the value would be $1.00, as it is the height of summer, and there's really nothing filling my days excepted going to the beach or escaping the heat by sitting in air- conditioned comfort and reading. This value may stick for about 3 months, until March hit, and uni starts again. But until the important dates of assessments, group presentations, and internship reports are given to me, the value could be anywhere from $20- 30...and even then that may be an over statement, because I might not rely heavily on my diary until mid year, when I really need to take note of all due dates, and figure out how to balance the sudden work load. By that stage my dairy could value anywhere between $50- to possibly $100, depending on exactly when in the mid year I had lost my diary and how much trauma I would be in on account of me being without it.
Once the mid year craziness is over, however, the diary would then be of little consequence to me. I would be on holidays again and the value would depreciate back to the single dollar value until uni or another work commitment had started again, and I would be depending on this book to be a personal compass of sorts.
I don't think the makers at Moleskine thought this through when adding the reward option on the front cover. Perhaps I should print out the above thoughts and paste them in. That way it won't be awkward should I lose this diary, and the finder gives back to seeker.
Turning the page. Personal Data:
Name:
Surname:
home address:
telephone:
mobile:
email:
business address:
telephone fax ect:
family doctor...blood group..allergies......
vaccinations. Yes. Seriously. Vaccinations. Next to that there's a "valid until."
Identity card no...valid until....passport number...car plate...drivers licence.
They forgot to ask if I was micro-chipped and spade.
Flipping through the pages I come across a tiny bit of paper stuffed in a hidden compartment of the dairy. I thought, at first, it was some sort of warranty, which was invalid to me as the dairy would have been purchased in Germany and therefore no replacement could possibly be issued here should the dairy be damaged. Upon second look, I realized that this paper was not a warranty, but instead this little gem:
The History of a Legendary Notebook
"Moleskine is the heir of the legendary notebook used for the past two centuries by great artists and thinkers, including Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemmingway, and Bruce Chatwin. This trusty, pocket- sized travel companion held their sketches, notes, stories, and ideas before they became famous images or beloved books.
In his book "Songlines", Bruce Chatwin tell us the whole story of his favourite notebook, which he nicknamed 'Moleskine'. In 1986, the original manufacturer--a family operating in Tours-- closed down forever: "Le vari molekine n'est plus" are the lapidary words he puts into the mouth of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie--also a legendary spot-- where Chatwin stocked up on the notebooks. The English writer- traveller bought up all the "Moleskines" that he could find, but they were not enough.
In 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought the legendary notebook back to life under the name "Moleskine", thus restoring a sold tradition, renewing notebookism, and sensing that mobile technologies needed to be accompanied by essential self- standing analog tools.
As the reverent keeper of an extraordinary tradition, the legendary notebook once again began travelling the globe. Capturing reality on the move, preserving details, impressing the unique aspects of experience upon paper: Moleskine is a reservoir of ideas and feelings, a battery that stores discoveries and perceptions without depletion.
Today Moleskine is culture, travel, memory, imagination and personal identity, both analog and digital. It is a brand identifying a family of notebooks, journals, planner and guidebooks, with different functions, complying with a free mindstyle, both basic and emotional, and connected with the digital world through a huge network of websites, blogs, groups, virtual archives in the Internet.
The adventure of Moleskine continues to widen, and its still- blank pages will tell us the rest."
In short:
Here is the diary. Not long from receiving this we will all make the inevitable discovery. Same shit, different day.
Happy New Year.
No comments:
Post a Comment