taking and keeping notes

I'm nowhere near as compulsive about note-taking as I used to be, but it's still my default setting. I was reminded of my jottings during the matches in Bercy a year ago...





... while reading this bit over at Mary's:

Last night I lay down with the second volume of Susan Sontag's notebooks, As consciousness is harnessed to flesh and, I confess, I was surprised that it really was a notebook, phrases and words jotted down, with the editor valiantly attempting to point out which parts were written in the margins and who was meant by her initialing scheme. I found it nearly impossible to read.

In an odd way, it made me glad to have this journal and my paper one. There were certainly some wonderful phrases and ideas in Sontag's notes and I hope she developed those in her for-public works. I'm glad to have both, to play here and on paper in separate ways, with different stakes, and be able to transition from one to the other.

Over the weekend, I also read Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling. The opening paragraph is a winner:

As humans, we've invented a lot of things. Most of these inventions are stupid and pointless (the Pet Rock; Count Chocula cereal; abstinence as a form of birth control). A lot of them are fun (video games; board games; head games). Some of them are convenient and make our lives easier (cheese graters; beer widgets; toilet brushes). And, every so often, a Truly Great Invention comes along that changes our culture and the very way we live on this planet (irrigation; the printing press; beer).