Category: Collecting & listmaking

  • Thank you for watching my TEDx Talk.

    Thank you for watching my TEDx Talk.

    I was invited to speak at TEDxVienna 2022. What an amazing experience—a thrill and a privilege. The talk was called “How to Find Attention, Mindfulness, and Creativity in the Ordinary”. It was all about paying attention and “collecting with photography”, framing these activities as a way to use and grow your attention and mindfulness, and […]

  • We’re on The New Yorker’s ‘100 Best Lists of all Time’

    We’re on The New Yorker’s ‘100 Best Lists of all Time’

    Check it out: The New Yorker made a list of the 100 best lists of all time and our “The Ultimatest Grocery List” made the cut. Woot! Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

  • Watch Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday, July 1

    Watch Jimmy Kimmel Live on Thursday, July 1

    Not much else to say besides, “HOLY COW.”

  • ‘The Curators’ by Coudal Partners

    Coming soon to theaters? Maybe not, but it’s double awesome nonetheless.

  • Big-ass link roundup

    7 awesome links, just for you — exploding tacos, sandwich puzzles, butt sniffers and more!

  • My List, My Life

    Here’s something new: An essay by a guest bogger!

  • BOODSCHAPPENLIJSTJES!

    OK, I know I need to get back into a groove posting things here. So. This is a start: Check out these collections of shopping lists from the Netherlands!

  • Famous lost words: Finding art (and joy) in scraps of memory

    Here’s a fun article by Mackenzie Dawson in today’s New York Post: Book inscriptions, grocery lists, Post-it notes — one man’s trash is truly another man’s treasure. Particularly if that man’s trash is really weird. For example, a dated photo that features an older woman standing proudly next to a Christmas tree – which is […]

  • And ye shall know us by the lists we make

    “A crop of Web sites allows people to create and share lists on everything from a baby’s nap schedule to an action-figure collection. Following are five sites that aim to help people get organized.” This article also mentions a couple list-related books that are in the works, including mine!

  • TO-DO LIST book deadline approaching

    Now that I’m pretty much done with my grocery lists book, maybe y’all can help out the cool folks at TO-DO LIST. They’re also putting a book together and the deadline for submissions is September 15. Head on over and send yours in!

  • listography: your life in lists

    “The place to share creative lists of every kind: wishlists, top tens, autobiographical, photo lists, favorites, to-do lists, and more!”

  • Museum of Beverage Containers & Advertising

    “The Museum of Beverage Containers and Advertising had its grand opening on Friday, April 3, 1987 in Millersville, Tennessee. Many hours were spent prior to the opening of the Museum in putting together the world’s largest collection of soda and beer cans along with an abundance of other memorabilia and advertising.” (Thanks Coudal!)

  • Getting lost in ‘FOUND’ magazine

    “Laura Kwerel, a radio producer who works in a suburban Washington coffee shop, fell hard for FOUND when she read the third issue of the magazine — a hodgepodge of love-themed finds. The accumulated weight of the voices made her cry. ‘I was overwhelmed … ,’ Ms. Kwerel e-mailed Rothbart last year. ‘I realize now […]

  • How do I love lists? Let me list the ways

    “My addiction to list-making began in college. When heading home for the weekend, I’d create an itinerary of what I wanted to do, from visiting family to dancing with friends. Over the years the addiction grew. I’m almost embarrassed to admit how much I relish the opportunity to make a list.”

  • Admirable Collections

    “Admirable Collections around the ‘net“

  • Building a Smarter To-Do List, Part I

    “Since new folks visit 43F each day, I thought it might be valuable to return to one of our most popular evergreen topics to review some ‘best practices’ for keeping a good to-do list.”

  • Here are the reasons why we hate having the to-do list

    “Throughout time, we have wondered who invented the wheel. We have glorified Edison for inventing the light bulb, Bell for the phone and Salk for the polio vaccine. But who invented the ‘to-do’ list? My hunch is the man who invented it was killed by, well, just about anybody. It was just one of those […]

  • Collecting is autobiographical

    “It all began with a Roman coin minted in 49 B.C. and depicting two clasped hands. Brian Burke, then a teacher of Latin and English at Germantown Academy in Philadelphia, bought the coin in 1974 as a teaching aid. ‘As a teacher, I was always trying to make the abstract concrete,’ he says. A year […]

  • Why do people collect things?

    “Most people collect and display something in their lives. It might be a collection of family snaps stuck into an album, or holiday souvenirs arranged on a mantlepiece, assembled and displayed without any thought of being a ‘collector’. Other people form collections for a specific purpose: Old Masters for investment, or memories ‘collected’ on tape […]

  • The Museum of Food Anomalies

    What happens when your cereal looks like or Munch painting, or your funnel cake looks like a seahorse? It ends up here: “Welcome to the first exhibition of the Museum’s collection. We’ve selected a handful of defining works from the archives to supply a proper introduction to the Art of Food Anomalies without overwhelming one’s […]