Little Infinity

There are so many articles about the Kindle—about how cute it is, or convenient, or horrible. There's even an article lamenting how it's diminished cultural snobbery. And, of course, there's the long Nicholson Baker article from the New Yorker. Having read twentysomething articles about the Little White e-Book, I decided to stop reading about it.

And then I found, late, this brilliant article with this alluring title: "The Book That Contains All Books." The article is sharper than most on the subject of Kindles, talks about codices (most don't), and at the ends says something worth repeating:

Kindle 2 isn't really about what we may or may not want as readers and writers. It's about what the book wants to be. And the book wants to be itself and everything. It wants to be a vast abridgment of the universe that you can hold in your hand. It wants to be the transbook.

Ugly word "transbook" aside and whether a book actually wills to be something, Marche's comments remind me of that shining example of the short story, "The Library of Babel" by Jorge Luis Borges. The eternal librarian shuffles through the book-filled hexagonal rooms, which altogether create the Library (another word for Universe), which may or may not be infinite, and all the while he fritters away the hours looking for a book that contains all books.

The "discovery" of this perfect compendium, writes the weary librarian-narrator, would be "the capital fact in history." In it there would be

Everything, the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogue of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.

There's something strangely elegant in how the imagination coincides, just even in part, with today's technology. I maintain that the librarian, should he get word of the Kindle, would jump off the side of the great honeycomb Library in the sky—or laugh. To expect a precious "silky vade mecum" all this time!—and then find a bit of plastic jammed with sequences of 0's and 1's instead. I wonder what footnote might Borges append to his story now.

(P.S. On a related note, here's an interesting interview of Umberto Eco on lists from an issue of Der Spiegel. In his thinking, even the laundry list is a "cultural achievement." So are grocery lists and menus. I guess I'm on the slow curve in life for not being a list-maker!)

Like Totally Annoying

It's official: If you want to annoy approximately 45% of the population, just throw "whatever" around more often. According to a recent Marist college poll, this is the word which wins the prize for annoying Americans the most. With so many overused and annoying phrases to choose from, how did "whatever" win out (at least over the top five presented in this poll)? Maybe it was just the tone the pollster used or whatever.

"Whatever" is one of the closest idiomatic equivalents to rolling the eyes, telling the world (well, not like the whole world, maybe just America) that we really couldn't care less. Not just that we couldn't care less about the conversation we throw the word into, but that we do not care enough to better express ourselves: either because we lack the ability or the initiative for the necessary effort.

Granted we all have our diction pet peeves, but at the end of the day, there is not much we can do other than use these cliches a bit less ourselves, you know.

Fancy Pants

When K'barbic and I went for a constitutional the other day, we strode by Talbot's. Now, I don't have anything against Talbot's. I worked there the summer between by sophomore and junior years, and the people working and shopping there were exceedingly nice. But, as I noticed in the Talbot's store window, and then in the catalog shipped to my home, Talbot's has a new ad campaign ... featuring Katharine Hepburn and Grace Kelly.

Why?

Just because Katharine rocked pants, and Grace did sometimes, too. Talbot's says it has a new “pant fit initiative” featuring “re-invented, re-interpreted and re-inspired” styles. The new catalog opens with a black-and-white spread of the ladies, one angular, one curvy, and both in crisply pleated pants. Here's the one of KH:










Okay, fine. But here are the pants Talbots is selling:











I don't see the connection. Do you? If anything, they look more like Audrey Hepburn's pants, just in stonewashed khaki.

If Talbot's wants to take this strange new ad campaign to the next level, I suggest that sales representatives greet customers not with today's "Hello, how are you?" but an "Ohhh, how do you do?" Say it with that old money Hepburn drawl, too, with hand imperially extended, and you're nearly on the set of Adam's Rib, whose poster features—yes—pants:

Footnote:

K'barbic broke her little piggy toe on Saturday.

This little piggy had insurance...

After you have adopted your hypo-allergenic micro pig, take a look at the top insurers for animals. Here at TBATC, although no one can doubt our enthusiasm for our four-legged friends, we were remiss and did not duly celebrate "Pet Health Insurance Month." In a September article, The Smart Set discussed the matter of pet health insurance. Although today we are all about piglets, I'm sure there is ample health coverage for the family capybara as well.

This little piggy ...

Here's another reason to be an Anglophile: Micro Pigs.

They are Britain's latest craze in the pet world and it's easy to see why: When piglets, they fit in the hollow of a tea cup. When full grown, they're only about a foot tall. Plus, they are great for people with pet allergies. If only the Obamas had gotten a Micro Pig. If only.

The London Telegraph reports on how breeders make the pigs so petite:

The pigs are crosses of Miniature Pot Bellied pigs with Tamworths, Kune Kunes and Gloucester Old Spots to create their tiny, colourful Micro Pigs, which are sold for between £195 and £700.

The size of the piglets get smaller with every litter with Peanut the piglet believed to be one of the tiniest adult pigs in Europe.

And while we're on the subject of piglets, did you see this item?

What We Haven't Been Blogging

Keastland and I realize there has been a lapse in our recent postings. To assure our readers that our keyboards are still getting exercise, here are our two most recent pieces for TWS. We have each taken looks at our cultural heritage: Keastland's reflection on family and Texas by looking at the work of Buck Schiwetz and K'barbic's love for the California cult classic, In-N-Out Burger.