posted
I am not color blind and have good visual memory yet I can't recall the color of a quarter of my books. Mainly because I pay very little attention to the spine or cover. They don't matter to me at all.
Oddly enough, nearly every book that I can remember the color of is black.
Moon is a Harsh Mistress Starship Troopers Enders Game Cosm Nightfall Neverware Forever War Pastwatch All the Twilight books (yes, I do have them. Please forgive me). All black. Hm.
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quote:Originally posted by Aerin: I don't believe that. Just like we read by recognizing the shape of words before we read the letters, we recognize books on the shelf by the color before we read the spines.
You do. Not everybody's minds are wired in exactly the same way.
I can recall the colors of some of my books, but certainly not a majority of them. Plus, there are lots of books that I've had many copies of over the years. I couldn't begin to tell you what color my *current* copy of Dune is, for example.
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posted
That's incredibly bizarre. It's like you're explaining how you don't remember what language the book is written in.
This does explain why so many don't seem to care that the place they live in isn't arranged/painted/designed well or don't care that their public bookcases are a mess. Maybe they don't notice.
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Or they have places that are arranged/painted/designed to their tastes rather than yours and have bookshelves that are beautifully ordered for them.
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My mother always told me not to judge a book by its cover.
I arrange my bookshelf by type of paper used, and then by font.
I had to cut up Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow because the emails were in another font from the body of the book. It was very sad, but it had to be done!
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I can tell the difference between taste I don't share and no effort at all.
I had just always assumed that people who clearly made no effort at all chose to do so because other things were more important. Totally fair. Now I see that it is possible it is that they can't tell the difference.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: My mother always told me not to judge a book by its cover.
I arrange my bookshelf by type of paper used, and then by font.
I had to cut up Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow because the emails were in another font from the body of the book. It was very sad, but it had to be done!
quote:Originally posted by Aerin: I can tell the difference between taste I don't share and no effort at all.
I had just always assumed that people who clearly made no effort at all chose to do so because other things were more important. Totally fair. Now I see that it is possible it is that they can't tell the difference.
It seems to me that arranging books by genre, author, date of publication, and so forth would require at least as much effort as arranging them by colour.
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Clearly I need to take into account other people's opinions when it comes to the convenience of carrying pepper spray, but there is only one logical way to organize books, and any who do not follow it are just lazy or don't know any better.
posted
I can tell when something is attractively arranged when I'm looking at it. I just can't picture it in my head when I'm not.
Heck, if you asked me what color my husband's hair is right now I couldn't tell you. I mean, I know it's brown, but that's an intellectual abstraction. If you asked if it has reddish tinges, or if it has much gray in it, or if it's closer to black-brown or blonde-brown I couldn't answer. (Of course now I'm going to make a mental note of that when he gets home, so I will know, intellectually. I still won't be able to "see" it in my head, though.)
On the other hand I can generally pull the correct book off the shelf without looking, because my arms know the angle and distance they extended when they put it there. I don't need to know what something looks like, because I know where it is. I have great muscle-memory. Back before cell phones with programmed numbers I could dial any of my friends without actually calling to mind the numbers because my fingers knew the motions.
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posted
Well I don't know about you, but when I'm feeling down I stroll over to my book case and grab a blue-covered book. If I'm frustrates, it's red. (That's also the 'feelin' randy!' section.)
---- (Is this an actual position? People who don't arrange their books by *color* do so because they lack a sense of aesthetic? That's just so strange an idea I can't help but think she's not serious.)
I'm just wondering, how does one tell the difference between a taste one doesn't share (it would be hard to tell just what that taste *was*, since you don't share it!) and no effort at all? How do you look at something someone else has done and say, "I can tell you didn't arrange that according to any kind of system."
For example, if you went by Kristy's old shelf, you might say, "I can tell no effort was used at all to arrange this." And you'd be flat-out wrong.
As for books on shelves, when I see a book before I can read the title, I think either hardcover or paperback. I neither note nor care about the color, unless it's somehow especially striking. I couldn't tell you the color of the covers of four books I got less than 13 hours ago, holding them in my hands.
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posted
I have a hard time remembering colors and shades. Usually I can't remember what color someone wore that day, or what color a house was, etc. I rarely pay attention to a book's color unless it's very striking. I couldn't tell you with much accuracy the color of my own house. That's been a problem before when I've gone to the paint store.
I rely quite a bit on visual memory, but it's more spatial. My desk at work is various levels of mess, but I can find things quickly on it because I recall where it was in relation to other things. I can find my way around in the dark pretty well and usually find lost things by calling up a memory of where I set them down or where I saw them.
Organizing books by color would drive me absolutely nuts. Not because I don't like color, but because it would be meaningless to me.
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posted
I'm quite sure she wasn't saying that everyone who doesn't arrange books by color lacks aesthetic sense.
I believe she was saying that this new (to her) information about how different people's brains process and store information about color sheds light on why some people might put a lower emphasis on interior decorating in general. And I think she's probably right.
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When I move into a new place or a new office, the first thing I do is put art on the walls. I spent an uncomfortable month in my treehouse not sleeping well until I got the color of the living room correct.
Being a room where color and balance and composition are not taken into account is like hearing a beeping noise just in range pinging incessantly. It is wildly uncomfortable.
My clothes are all black, gray, white, red, and shades of the blue-green spectrum so everything harmonizes together, more or less, even in my closet. I hide the orange-covered books in the bookcase with frosted glass doors because they are garish and ugly. My kitchen is all white with open shelves, black textiles, black dishes, and blue and green glasses and serving ware. It feels like home.
I'm not obsessive about it and it isn't OCD, because it isn't a sense of control and order. It's because color matters, and a place that doesn't have a deliberate color plan feels... transitional to me. It's not horrible, but it's clearly temporary, and you're not actually home and finished moving in until the colors are arranged.
I think that's why I like oil painting so much - I'm not good at drawing, but oil painting is (can be) all color and texture to create a scene or an emotion. I like beauty, and that spills out in all kinds of ways.
Including me being able to describe the appearance of a book I've read as a dominant traits. Name a book I own, and I can tell you what color the cover is, therefore, where it is shelved.
It's easier to keep organized because the target for a where a book should go is larger. It's easier to hit "green shelf, light green side" or "black and white bookcase" on the fly than it is to hit "non-fiction, historical narrative, in the correct alphabetical order". Therefore, faster and easier to reshelve means fewer books lying around waiting to be organized.
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posted
"Aesthetic sense" is also very subjective. For example, it is popular now to have matching furniture - "room sets". I can see how this would look tastefully designed and "put together" to a lot of people. I, on the other hand, prefer to have furniture that "goes" (at least to me) but doesn't match. I can see how this would look thrown together with no effort to some people, but it is carefully planned to suit my particular taste. I like the way it looks. A mix of colours on my bookshelves is not only more useful to me, it is more attractive. To me.
That neither my books or my furniture are dusted can be put down to apathy or laziness.
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posted
Nonsense. I'm guessing you don't like it when a high-pitched beep never ends and you can hear it in your office, or when you are wearing an itchy sweater that gives you a rash, or when your food tastes like it was made with spoiled milk. That doesn't make you obsessive either.
---
Someone who equates a conciousness of color with "room sets" doesn't know what the former is.
Posts: 232 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Aerin: Your like, dislike and attitudes about color are your opinion, which you are welcome to have, but in no way shape or form does it mean that your opinion on the matter is factually better then anyone's opinion on the matter.
Thinking that your opinion is the one and only true concept and anyone who disagrees is wrong or less knowledgeable is the definition of snobbery.
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dkw: My post was response to Aerin's suggestion that her consciousness with color is factual and not opinion (unlike the "room sets").
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posted
Read it again. You've got it wrong. And you're so belligerent and insulting about it I'm not going to bother telling you how. Talking to someone so rude and defensive is not something I'm interested in.
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Come on! Belligerent and insulting is my posting style, surely you wouldn't want me to give up something that close to my heart? Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Quit bickering- I find the actual conversation interesting. Aerin- have you looked into your sense versus other people's before? It sounds like you perceive colors in a very different way than I do and different than I have heard described before. Is this like a variation of synthesia?
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I don't think it is that extreme - isn't synesthesia where you percieve the information from one sense organ in ways more appropriate to information from another? (Sounds have color, etc.). I don't have that.
I am just am really in tune (more sensory metamorphical language) to color and somewhat less so to composition. If I used this power for something beyond myself I might try to make a living off of it, but I make a living in other ways and use it mostly to create a peaceful home and a wardrobe I like. And to find my books. Posts: 232 | Registered: Jul 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Aerin: [QB] When I move into a new place or a new office, the first thing I do is put art on the walls. I spent an uncomfortable month in my treehouse not sleeping well until I got the color of the living room correct. [
Being a room where color and balance and composition are not taken into account is like hearing a beeping noise just in range pinging incessantly. It is wildly uncomfortable.
That. Is. Fascinating. I've never heard of anyone whose brain worked quite like that, and yet...I like a space that I occupy to be aesthetically appealing, and when I do get around to making it so it's as though there were a background susurrus that I hadn't been aware of until it stopped. I would imagine that this is the faintest ghost of the same thing that you experience. The "noise" is so faint with me, though, that making it cease isn't a priority.
quote:Including me being able to describe the appearance of a book I've read as a dominant traits. Name a book I own, and I can tell you what color the cover is, therefore, where it is shelved.
I wonder how common this is. It seems to me like it must be rare, but at the beginning of this discussion it seemed to you that it must be a ubiquitous human quality. I'd love to have good data about this, but I don't imagine it's been studied.
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Well, to be fair, the living room started out as plain beige like the rest of the house (I HATE that color. It just looks dirty to me.), and so I painted it as quickly as possible without checking a sample. The dark teal that was so pretty in the store was hideous and shiny on the large wall, despite being a matte paint. Then it was light blue, and that made my living room look like the inside of a breath mint. Then it was gray, but too dark a gray (fortunately, with the gray I started painting samples first). Finally I settled on a light gray that's perfect with the amount of light and which complements but doesn't interupt the spectrum of blue and green the furniture and cushions are in and off-set the pale sunshine-colored dining room.
That dark teal was REALLY bad. It only stayed for about three days. My reaction against the dark teal was what brought on the Lifesaver pale blue.
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posted
So neat! I love hearing the rationale behind how people arrange things/decorate things! (Not sarcasm. I'm completely engrossed in this discussion.)
I always arranged books by the following criteria, in order of importance:
Authors' books stay together always, unless there's some non-fiction they wrote.
Authors I really like get moved to very prominent locations on the shelf, author's I don't like or am ashamed for people to know I read go to the bottom or to a hidden place.
The beginning and end slots of an author's section will be filled by a hardcover that they wrote, with paperbacks being in the center insofar as that's possible. If there are more than 2 hardcovers, the others must be either at the ends of the section, interspersed tastefully in the "paperback" center, or used to bookend series.
Series by an author stay together, and in chronological order of story.
After this, I make sure, as far as it is possible, that every book is sitting next to another book of a different color. This way, every book "pops" and I can find things more easily.
*Edited to remove an apostrophe* *Edited to remove another apostrophe*
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: Series by an author stay together, and in chronological order of story.
Huh--that's interesting to me. Not order of publication or recommended reading order? Magician's Nephew before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? If you read Steven Brust, how do you handle his Dragaera books?
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quote:Originally posted by Aerin: Well, to be fair, the living room started out as plain beige like the rest of the house (I HATE that color. It just looks dirty to me.), and so I painted it as quickly as possible without checking a sample. The dark teal that was so pretty in the store was hideous and shiny on the large wall, despite being a matte paint. Then it was light blue, and that made my living room look like the inside of a breath mint. Then it was gray, but too dark a gray (fortunately, with the gray I started painting samples first). Finally I settled on a light gray that's perfect with the amount of light and which complements but doesn't interupt the spectrum of blue and green the furniture and cushions are in and off-set the pale sunshine-colored dining room.
That dark teal was REALLY bad. It only stayed for about three days. My reaction against the dark teal was what brought on the Lifesaver pale blue.
quote:Originally posted by Emreecheek: Series by an author stay together, and in chronological order of story.
Huh--that's interesting to me. Not order of publication or recommended reading order? Magician's Nephew before The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? If you read Steven Brust, how do you handle his Dragaera books?
With chronicles of Narnia, it would depend mostly on how they were numbered on their spines. But, still, I'd very likely place them in chronological order. If somebody hadn't read them before, I'd never let them read Magician's Nephew first, but as I've read them, I would know exactly which book I wanted to start with.
But, generally, things in my bookshelf are things I have read, so I place them in an order consistent with how I conceptualize them - Which is often by the content of their world, rather than by things distinctly from the outside world (Such as publishing dates or publishing houses) Posts: 196 | Registered: Jun 2009
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posted
The chronology of the story vs. the published date is always a tough decision for me. I normally go with the first because it's how I file the stories in my mind. Sometimes that's not true though, if I get into a series before prequels (or whatever) are written: then I remember it in published order. Plus, published order appeals more to my sense of how it should be. Though if I don't know already when something was published the like 18 different copyright dates in every book can screw me up anyway and cause me to mess that up. Someone should do something about that.
I also order my movies by director which I enjoy but can cause issues. Like when a series has multiple directors, or outside cases like Judd Apatow films which I associate together but are normally directed by someone else. However, since I've finally put my full collection into an Excel list I think next time I arrange my movies I'll stick strictly to director since it should be easy to find that way (I can sort my list be genre if I want and get to what I need. Or length for that matter, something I find very useful to have on a sortable list).
Arranging by color sounds ... very disturbing to my OCD, though I see how it could just be a different manifestation.
posted
Published order is almost always more satisfying to me than chronological order. Especially when the series was written over decades, and authors conception of the characters or world changed significantly during that time.
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: Published order is almost always more satisfying to me than chronological order. Especially when the series was written over decades, and authors conception of the characters or world changed significantly during that time.
quote:Originally posted by Aerin: That's incredibly bizarre. It's like you're explaining how you don't remember what language the book is written in.
This does explain why so many don't seem to care that the place they live in isn't arranged/painted/designed well or don't care that their public bookcases are a mess. Maybe they don't notice.
This is quite true. I'm nearly 30, and my home pretty much still looks like a college dorm room. I have a mix match of things every which way, and buy almost nothing new. It drives my mother NUTS, because it isn't decorated, and it's cluttered. However, for me, as long as it's functional, it simply doesn't matter. It isn't even that I think something else is more important so I'm making a conscious decision... it simply doesn't bother me!
I mean, I can look at a room and decide whether I like the way it's decorated or not, but it doesn't actually make me feel any different, and I don't even think about it unless I'm consciously deciding "Do I find this to be aesthetically pleasing?"
I also have a horrible memory for colors and even distinct features. You could ask me about the color of a persons eyes that I've known for YEARS, and unless I've made a specific note of it, I wouldn't be able to tell you. In fact, even with my own child, if I try to focus in on anything specific (from my memory) about his appearance, it sort of blanks out. I'd make a terrible eye witness!
Strangely enough I have a relatively good verbal memory, and can often recall the way things were stated word for word. It was very useful in college as long as professors would test over what they actually lectured on. If they tested over things you had to read... well, not so great.
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quote:This is quite true. I'm nearly 30, and my home pretty much still looks like a college dorm room.
I put enough value on the cleanliness of my environment that I actually have a maid. I also go through something like 20-30 issues of things like architectural digest when I'm trying to hammer out a new, organized color scheme for my living environment. I have careful appreciation for color going on in spades. It does not come coupled with the discomfort / emotive reactions to the suitability of color in an environment that I'm seeing described here.
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