29-01-2011

Compiling an ABC of traces of use, inspiration toward a first chapter on the status quo of research into marginalia and book ownership. A list of lemma's. The accompanying descriptions will follow.

27-01-2011

Back to book business after over a month of activity elsewhere.

Among other things a visit to the Baliem Valley on Indonesian West Papua. I now have an impression of what the Papuans were doing in the 16/17th century as this was probably more or less the same thing they are doing today. Life in the Baliem Valley has hardly evolved since the Stone Age, not even since the valley was discovered in 1938. Of course visiting westerners introduced the obligatory T-shirts and jeans, but these are mere accessories for tribal gear.


A visit to a remote mountain valley without books or signposts, where schoolteacher Simson wears his tribal headset with snazzy sweat shorts and teaches his pupils elementary stuff about the world beyond. A world one day's walk and forty-five minutes by airplane from their village, a world they might never visit. 
A valley where tourists leave marginalia on rocks.