Wow, that is some kind of procrastinating. 
Hmm... this will certainly change the way I look at emptying the lint trap. And lint clay? Half of me finds that cool, and half of me finds it creepy. I did print out the recipe for lint-paper, however... And yes, now I need to get down to work, too!
I admit that I've always been fascinated by dryer lint. It's really soft, has these wonderful mixed colors, and so forth. I've often contemplated what might be done with it because it always seems wrong to let it go to waste. And yet part of the fascination, I think, is that it is nevertheless completely useless (socially if not in actuality). It is also a trace of history, reminding us that our clothes are being consumed in wear. Moreover, that the best part of the fabric, the soft fuzziness, is being consumed most quickly. Very quickly, the fabric regresses to the mean. In that sense the lint is also above all the trace of the new, what is no longer.
jwb
I've always loved that part of Cat's Eye, which I should add is probably my favorite novel of all time. I've often had the same kind of thought when I empty my lint filter! (Sadly, the current lint filter seems to shred the results somehow.)
That's also one of my favourite books, though never enough to make lint actually fascinating. Firestarting is cool, though.
I LOVE Cat's Eye! It's definitely my favorite Atwood novel. And yes . . . ever since I read it for the first time many years ago, I can never empty the lint trap in the dryer without thinking about the artist whose medium was dryer lint. I feel profoundly validated/understood today!
I have been to a restaurant (in Montpelier, VT I believe) once where dryer lint art decorates the walls.
I didn't feel too good about eating in the midst of other people's lint. But conceptually it was interesting.
Did the linked artist begin working in lint before or after the advent of Cat's Eye?
See, I really *am* understood by my blog friends. Never again will I wonder whether my random thoughts are just too ephemeral even for a blog . . .
I've always wished I could preserve the thick, soft "blanket" that is created when you don't clean the filter for several loads ...
Ah, Cat's Eye. Atwood's best. And the best portrayal of what it means to grow up as a girl that I have ever read.
This is making me want to read it again.
oh, i think that's one of the greatest things about blogging. whether we aim to or not, we find out that we're often not alone in having what might otherwise seem like weird hopes and fears etc.
i used to work at a major specialty dry cleaner that produced a lot of dyer lint, and the workers there would fight over it for craft projects. i always wondered if atwood somehow found out about that place.
I love drier lint. It's one of the things I miss about having a drier; air-dry just doesn't do it. So instead I have dust rhinos (which always remind me of when I was taking ju-jitsu, and once a month the students would clean the place and find huge wads of lint in the corners, from all the tugging and throwing and slamming ourselves into the mat). I'm also reminded of some story I read once about a person who had never done laundry before, and later proudly told his friend (who owned the drier) about carefully replacing "that delicate filter thingie" after a load.
I've never really wanted to make something of lint, though, because I like it just as it is.
(And, yes, there is nothing too trivial for blogging. We're all a bunch of freaks together. )
Rana
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