Lists and Curating

Aldous Huxley at the beginning of Heaven and Hell argues for the work of gathering:

However lowly, the work of the collector must be done, before we can proceed to the higher scientific tasks of classification, analysis, experiment and theory making.

I am reminded of the memes that circulate often among blogs, memes that call for the generation of lists. A list is an itinerary. A list maker is in a sense a map maker. Huxley's is a fitting beginning to an essay about the transporting properties of art.

As a species of curating, list making is also a type of caring.

And so for day 601
05.08.2008