About

      In the grand scheme of the universe, archives have little meaning or significance; I have no answer for this cold fact.  But at a subjacent level, where one can touch others and be touched by them, there is potential and hope for the meaning and significance that such touching might provide.  And so I gravitate toward archival activities: collecting, curating, and sharing; all three are personally gratifying, the first two as balm, craving the touch; the third as duty of offer to others.
      Even on this human-scale level, at either end of the touch spectrum, archival activities face, and perhaps always faced, crises.  I am a visitor from the 20th century, trained in research methods that support deep understanding and appreciation, and so out of step with the times, where I perceive crises of superficiality, abdication of intellectual rigor, and outsourcing of, among other things, common sense!  I have no interest in contributing to this crisis, and so, I totally own whatever finickiness comes through, never a mere figment of perception.
      I am not only a collector and curator, I am a creator, a polymathic content generator.  I posit that the fruits of creative activities also can support deep understanding and appreciation.  They are likewise channels for touching and being touched.  I “get” the notion of aggregators and re-packagers, but I’m wary of the extent to which they contribute to the current crisis.  Converting my creations to click-bait tuned for consumption by the attention-deficit distracted lacks dignity, and is diametrically opposed to my interests.
      Ypsigro (pronounced “ip-see-grow”) is an archaic (Byzantine) name for a hamlet within modern-day Castelbuono, in Sicily’s Palermo province.  Archivally (not creatively), Ypsigro translates as “the cool place”.  Via Ypsigro intersects Via Benedettini near where Anna Bertola, my paternal grandmother, spent her childhood.  I had the profound privilege of walking these streets.