a minor discursion from trust law this morning with geoff, concerning types of work furniture for masochists.

from the subject of glenn gould’s chair (which, geoff informs me, has its own dedicated facebook page (!)) and its relationship to his eccentric public persona we moved onto another piece of furniture with cult status, namely emily dickinson’s austere writing desk. geoff says that her 18 square inches is smaller than the last plank left intact on gould’s chair while he was using it, and that there is something plainly self-punishing about the two of them. indeed the photo of gould’s chair was as startling as the dickinson desk (which i’d seen in houghton when i first arrived at grad school.)

it occurs to me that perhaps if i got myself a desk like emily’s it may well aid concentration and i could get more work done. partly because one would have to affect a rigid and upright posture and of course, this bodily mimicry would convey the necessity of a corresponding mental decorum and moral rectitude (for by pretending to be, we become) and encourage virtuous application to the task before one, and partly because with such confined space one would by default have nothing but the thing one is supposed to be working on before one.

as it is, i am entirely of the “sprawling table” persuasion when it coms to work: papers and books all over not only the tabletop but also the bed and floor. (i also like to lie down on the floor completely encircled by sheafs of papers and piles of books, but admittedly that was more appropriate to paper writing mode when i was a lit student and wanted my sources within reach than if i were working on a legal hypo.)

on the subject of glenn gould, open culture has a recording of his last goldberg variations performance. the question remains, gentle reader, do you prefer the 1955 or 1981?