At first I thought they were just some random, thematically similar books painted together, but when I thought of it as a person’s “portrait” (idealized or otherwise) it took on another dimension.

For a while, I’ve been documenting people’s bookshelves as a form of portraiture; you can actually learn a lot about folks by their books’ covers. Now, I’m working on a series of “ideal” bookshelves: sets of favorites—mine or someone else’s—amalgamated in a picture, even if they don’t usually live on shelves anywhere near each other.

It does give me pause, wondering whether a sight like that, books grouped together on a shelf, will one day appear as quaint as a shelf full of records, cassettes, or VHS tapes—after having finally been obsoleted by the Kindle, the iPad, their descendants.

I was taken by how similar the word for “peace” is in Hebrew and Arabic, not just the sound of the words, but the very letter shapes themselves.

It’s funny to say, but it’s true. The things I blog about tend to be the things I’m most interested in. I love this policy. For one it’s flexible. As my interests change, so goes the blog. For another, it allows for diversity. I can post a photo of a car, followed by something technical, followed by something about cheese, followed by something I cooked, followed by something I did outside, without batting an eye. I frequently look back at what I’ve posted and think to myself, “Damn, this is such a great blog! I love this stuff.”

I would go so far as to say that having this blog has made my life more interesting, because I’m often motivated to do something unusual or kind of wacky by virtue of its inherent blogability. The generally positive feedback I receive in return creates a virtuous circle which leads me to seek out yet more off the beaten path adventures—to blog about.

Many people advise would-be bloggers to focus on a single subject and stick with it. I applaud the people who are able to do this well, and there are some very good, and very lucrative subject-specific blogs out there. But man, forcing me to narrow my focus down beyond just “stuff I like” would be disastrous. I would lose interest.

I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who likes the exact same combination of things as I do, but at the same time there doesn’t have to be even one person with the same taste as mine. That’s not the point. The whole difference between blogging and just keeping a journal is the intent to share. As I see it, the value of Justinsomnia is not only in the individual post, it’s also in the sometimes surprising difference between posts. You might have stumbled upon my blog searching for something technical or food-related, and if you’re tickled by the fact that my interests extend beyond that one thing, hopefully you’ll continue to follow along.

Even though blog writing is closely related to newspaper column writing in function, I actually tend to view Justinsomnia more as an ongoing, interactive art project. Each post is like a small canvas that I can fill with words, photos, code, and occasionally even sound and video. Anyone on the internet can interact with my posts by leaving a comment, which actually changes the very nature of the work, particularly in the “eyes” of the search engines. Over time trends emerge in my posts, not unlike Eric Tabuchi’s Typologies, and it wouldn’t surprise me if at some point in the future there aren’t exhibitions dedicated to the blog post as work of art.

Industry by Ralph Stackpole in front of the old Pacific Coast Stock Exchange, at 301 Pine St (and Sansome) in San Francisco