The Wheels Within Wheels

I’m still in the thrall of one insatiable desire, which hitherto I have been neither able nor willing to check. … I cannot get enough books. It may be that I have already more than I need, but it is with books as it is with other things: success in acquisition spurs the desire to get still more. … Books delight us through and through, they talk with us, they give us good counsel, they enter into a living and intimate companionship with us. … Now do you, as you hold me dear, commission trustworthy and competent men to go through Tuscany for me, examining the book-chests of the religious and of other studious men, searching for things that might serve to alleviate or to increase my thirst. And although you know in what streams I fish and in what woods I hunt, nevertheless, to avoid error I enclose a list of the things I chiefly desire; and that you may be the more eager, let me tell you that I am sending similar requests to friends in Britain, France, and Spain. So then, in order that none may surpass you in faithfulness and diligence, do your best — and farewell.

From a letter from Petrarch to the Dominican friar Giovanni dell’Incisa in 1346. This translation by Ernest Hatch Wilkins quoted in Introduction to Manuscript Studies by Raymond Clemens & Timothy Graham, who go on to say that if Petrarch “could not acquire the books he wanted by purchase or gift, he would arrange to have them copied by professional scribes. It has been estimated that by the end of his life he had accumulated a personal collection of some 200 volumes” (64).

All told, my library is probably double the size of Petrarch’s, and I’ve put (comparatively) little effort into finding the books I want or for which I experience a passing whim. I’d imagine Petrarch’s head would a-splode if he walked into the library at Brown, which contains over 2,000,000 volumes. Let’s take a minute to cheer for the spread of printing technology and literacy over the past 600 years! Whoo-hoo!!

Stacked pear salad

• Bosc pear(s)
• Baby arugula
• Sloppily chopped pecans (lots)
• Craisins (lots and lots)
• Liberal application of feta cheese
• Mild vinaigrette (4 squirts lemon juice, 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 tsp basil, salt & pepper)

Slice off bottom of Bosc pear. Chop into thirds. Sandwich pinches of salad between pear bits. Arrange more salad artfully around pear. Optional: drizzle entire creation with honey. Serve with great pomp and not a little snootiness.

Pro-tip: do not buy enormous Bosc pears as I did. Your guests will feel compelled to eat the entire pear. Do not allow your elegant dinner to become “Bruce Bogtrotter: Pear Edition.”

I found the original recipe at Once Upon a Plate.

I’ve switched my concentration focus (again) to an emphasis in medieval and early modern literatures and cultures. It’s anybody’s guess if I’ll change for a fourth time before I graduate. In any case, one reason why I switched was because I’m taking so many awesome classes this semester that focus in that period, one of which is “Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Interpretation.” Paleography is the study of manuscripts and ancient handwriting. So I’ll be studying the different kinds of scripts, where they’re from, what they imply about the author, what other things like bindings and ruling can tell me, and several issues in the field, like theories of authorship. I’ll also be doing weekly transcriptions, most of which will probably be in Latin or Old English, languages which constitute two of my other classes this semester.

I am, as today’s youth might say, “totally psyched.”

If you don’t soon tire of me talking about paleography, you can get even more at the National Archives website on Palaeography, which is an incredible site that teaches you all about different scripts and even has a transcription game, which I have been mocked in the past for playing. For more manuscripts, you can check out the Fine Rolls of Henry III, whence I got the above image clip, dated in the 13th century. Yeah, I have no idea what it says either, but get back to me at the end of the semester and I might be able to both transcribe and translate for a small fee of Nutter Butters and you calling me “Dr. Robin, Master of the Lost Arts” for the rest of the day.

Google Books already has loads of public domain books online, and they’re working to get other out-of-print and currently in-print books up, too. Last November, Google settled a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and others, and the company began to work “closely with these industry partners to bring even more of the world’s books online”. (More here from Google.) The lawsuit focused mainly on author revenue, I believe, but there’s currently a ton of controversy over the implications of letting a company like Google take control of the world’s largest digitized library. The amended settlement will be finalized on February 18 of this year.

Author Nick Harkaway has posted a Google Book 10-second Primer on his blog. It sums things up quite nicely. Here’re a few snippets:

Pro:
Access: vast library of rare and out-of-print books made available (initially only in US)
New Readers: books – and hence authors – get new readers.
Preservation: orphan works, which otherwise might actually be lost, are returned to circulation.
Revenue: authors and publishers make money on titles which otherwise might be essentially defunct.

Con:
Monopoly: Google and only Google get use of orphan works (new settlement attempt to deal with this still requires congressional intervention – if congressional approval for reworking copyright easy to get, why not do it in the first place?). Effective monopoly on written culture around world for last hundred years. Not a public service, not orphan works being moved to public domain: this is one company establishing probably uncatchable lead over any competition. Consider possible downside: new management decide to gouge consumer. Imagine biggest reference library in the world, w. unique titles, in hands of your least favourite corporate baron. See the problem?

According to the Open Book Alliance, which is a group of companies (including Yahoo and Amazon, of course) championing an open and competitive digitization of the world’s library, here are some important, pertinent dates:

January 28, 2010 Deadline for authors to opt out of the settlement
January 28, 2010 Deadline to file objections and/or amicus briefs
February 4, 2010 Deadline to file notice of intent to appear at Fairness Hearing
February 4, 2010 Dept. of Justice response
February 11, 2010 Plaintiffs move for final approval
February 18, 2010 Final Fairness Hearing
March 31, 2011 Deadline to claim Books and Inserts

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I’m all for the digitization of all the world’s books, too, but I have come to fear Google, to be honest. It already controls too much of my internet experience. The power this young company wields is awesome, in the original sense of the word. They’re the only ones who have the tools and money to digitize everything, but I’m not so sure they should, at least not yet. The purpose behind Google Books is a weird combination of public service, which they tout no end, and extraordinary money-making scheme, a topic on which they are a bit quieter.

On the other hand, I’ve already used a bunch of digitized books on Google for school projects, and I know I wouldn’t have had access to them otherwise. And obviously, no codex has a good search function, does it? How many times have I given up on finding a passage in a book that I only remembered “snippets” of?

Well, we’ll see what happens next month. This will be a very interesting year for the publishing industry. The Google Books finalized settlement, the e-reader phenomenon, the rumored Apple Tablet which might be revealed this week… The experience of reading a book is changing so radically!! What will reading be like in 10, 50, 100 years? I don’t know, but I’m excited to find out. What do you think about all this, hmm?

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o’clock is a scoundrel.

—Dr. Samuel Johnson

I’m coming soon, Providence. I’m coming back to your shining asphalt and your barelimbed trees so please wait up for me and keep your streetlights blazing late.

I recently (finally) watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the 1990 Tom Stoppard film with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth. It was quite brilliant, rather theatrical, and often hilarious:

Rosencrantz: Another curious scientific phenomenon is the fact that the fingernails grow after death, as does the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard.
Guildenstern: But you’re not dead.
Rosencrantz: I didn’t say they only started to grow after death. The fingernails also grow before birth — though not the beard.
Guildenstern: What?
Rosencrantz: Beard! What’s the matter with you?
(pause)
Rosencrantz: The toenails, on the other hand, never grow at all.
Guildenstern: The toenails on the other foot never grow at all.

I am such a sucker for lines like that. And for intelligently written movies that allow room for inanities (Beard. Beard!). And also for Tim Roth:

I don’t know what it is, but there’s something about Tim Roth that is strangely attractive to me. Maybe it’s the earring? Nah, I’ve liked him since I saw Reservoir Dogs, and I think his ears are unpierced in that one. (Phew. Could have ended up with a long string of boyfriends with a penchant for flesh tunnels EW.) I think perhaps it’s that every character I’ve seen Roth play is a troubled, unpleasantly likable sort — the bad boy/good heart formula that is so conventionally appealing.

Or maybe it’s that he’s so good at accents. I am a sucker for accent skills, too, it’s true.

I’ve made a new blog layout! It features me

1. drinking tea,
2. wearing my Pannikin shirt, and
3. lurking in the corner,

which are three things I do quite often. Note that I have also added a list of categories and an archive by month at the foot of this page. Now you can easily access my very first blog entry (at least on this website) and its first comment, which was from, apparently, a cat.

(It should also be noted, Christina & Christine, that the spillage originally on aforementioned Panni shirt has magically disappeared from the photograph. Although the slight bird I was giving you has not.)

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In any case, here is a song by Benedetti & Svoboda, my very favorite guitar duo. Their music is available for purchase on iTunes. I highly recommend Echoes of Spain, whence the following song came:

Tempestad

I watched Cléo de 5 à 7 (lovely French film, set in 1962 Paris) today. All I can think about is this dress. Look at that swingy silhouette. Look at those contrasting pleats. Il faut que j’aie cette robe, tout simplement.

And I wouldn’t say no to a platinum blonde pageboy, either.

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Postscript: I was confused by the title vs. the plot, since I’d learned that a cinq à sept was a euphemism for French businessmen stopping by their mistresses’ apartments before going home to their wives on a weekday. But in Cléo it just literally follows her from 5:00 to 7:00 in the evening. So there’s that.

I forget where I found this picture. Somewhere on Flickr, probably. I just love what everyone’s wearing on their feet. Look at all those wingtips! Look at those T-straps + ankle socks! I wish more dances like this existed. (Or that I knew about them.)

Okay, this is awkward, um… maybe nobody’s told you yet, but it seems you have forgotten to put on your pants this morning. All seventy of you. It happens to the best of us! Next time why don’t you try putting up a reminder list by the door so you see it on the way out: cell phone, house keys, lunch bag, pants. It works for me. Got it? All right. Best of luck, then.