The first couple minutes of Quincy—the 2018 documentary about Quincy Jones, co-directed by his daughter Rashida—are really a quite striking prologue. The shots are simple enough: There’s the obligatory survey of so many record plaques and iconic portraits posted on so many walls of Quincy’s mansion in Bel-Air.
An amber-colored glass paperweight sits in my nightstand drawer. It used to belong to my dad, who recently died, and to his grandmother before him. It’s shaped like a cube, with delicate flowers painted on each side, and it’s heavy in my palm. But I rarely pick it up, because I have no papers that need weighing down. The object occupies valuable space that might otherwise be used for a book, tissues, or anything else that I actually use. Still, I keep it, along with a few other pieces of what you might call “sentimental clutter”—personally meaningful yet impractical objects: a box of old birthday cards, a chipped seashell, a loyalty card for a café that no longer exists.
