Labyrinths of the Familiar

Why contrive to re-create labyrinths and instead simply acknowledge that the information torrent within which we find ourselves is one already? All that need be done is to foreground the reality of this familiar context. 

Rather, how about acknowledging and leveraging the labyrinth within which we already find ourselves? Course shells and other human interaction are labyrinthine enough. The task is to ascribe meaning to their myriad manifestations.

In Letter to a Future Lover, Ander Monson creates a labyrinth in miniature, composed from the human amendments (errata, underlines, tears, hairs) and any bundle of pages he encounters. This includes library books from shelves as far-flung as Biosphere 2, to the tossed manuscripts of a well-loved professor, to a card catalogue repurposed as scrap. These are biblio-rejects—books that smell of loneliness, books that flop open like happy pups at the touch of Monson’s hand.

via http://brooklynquarterly.org/review-letter-to-a-future-lover/