One of my favorite Roz Chast cartoons shows a woman dumping out the high-falutin' contents of a filing cabinet drawer — 16th century art, or something like that — to make room for a new drawer ...

In 2002, Vermont architect Bren Alvarez acquired 11 disused filing cabinets, which she stacked one on top of the other, creating a single 40-foot-plus column of 38 metal drawers. The resulting ...