Since returning from California, I’ve spent most free moments researching, photographing, and posting books for sale or donation. The time spent in a newly-bought mostly empty house changed something in my head. Or, more precisely, pushed it through a threshold it had been milling about the last few years.

It’s about my relationship to objects of value. I slashed the prices of my artwork as low as I can a few years ago and have had few regrets about it. Now it’s time to apply a similar strategy to things in my home that I no longer need.

I started with electronics a couple months ago. I had pretty good success unloading old cellphones, a camera, and a projector. I moved on to gig posters and have now settled in on the books. It’s what I have most of by far.

A couple years back I did a pretty significant cull, then removed the dust jackets from the ones I aimed to keep. Thankfully, I didn’t throw those away. Because now that I’m trying to sell the books, these extraneous appendages improbably add value. I dig out the crate from below my work table and set about redressing the tomes, one by one.

This process is an outgrowth or side effect of my time at Tangible. Learning the used-book racket from one of the masters has reconfigured my relationship to books. I like helping people find what they’re looking for or introducing them to things they may not know about, but the desire to keep anything for myself has almost entirely vanished. Joe talks about once having an entire library at home and gradually feeding it all back into the store. A similar thing is happening to me.

It’s not entirely about raising funds, though the extra money doesn’t hurt. It’s more about making passive objects active again, about giving them a purpose they no longer serve here.

I invite nobody over so there’s nobody to impress with the treasures I’ve gathered over decades. I used to be reluctant about parting with art books, thinking I’d return to them for reference or inspiration. But at this point, most sit on the bookshelf gathering dust, unopened, for years at a stretch.

As soon as I began taking them out and piling them in stacks by my armchair, queued to be looked up, it’s as if they woke from their slumbers. Now there’s a reason and direction. They will all hopefully find new homes in which they’ll be loved and appreciated.

And I’ll have empty shelves and a pile of cash.

I talked to novelist Eugene Marten, then to Mallory about two versions of The Wicker Man, and sat through a completely unnecessary stage adaptation of Network.