Golem XIV and the Eskimo Canard
Whose error?
“The vocabulary of Evolution is like the Eskimos’ vocabularly–narrow in its richness; they have a thousand designations for all varieties of snow and ice…” (Lem, Imaginary Magnitude, 164).
What Journal Is He Talking about?
“In the U.S., there is a periodical published by scientists and intended strictly for the cognoscenti, some specialists. It abounds with parodies, in-jokes (mostly nonsensical), and crazy ideas, entirely inaccessible to outsiders.”
Lem. “Twenty Two Answers and Two Postscripts.” SFS 13 (1986): 251.
The early days of Philosophy of Science had a strange and often funny column called “A New Budget of Paradoxes” by “W.M.M.,” but that clearly isn’t it.
April 1, 2005
“Liane sped down a wide avenue lined with a few stunted old cypress trees, and he heard him close at his heels. He turned into an archway, pulled his bronze ring over his head, down to his feet. He stepped through, brought the ring up inside the darkness. Sanctuary. He was alone in a dark magic space, vanished from earthly gaze and knowledge. Brooding silence, dead space…
He felt a stir behind him, a breath of air. At his elbow, a voice said” (64).
The mnz Pattern
At the end of The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel finds that Iucounu has undergone some changes. A creature from Achernar, kin to his own daimon Firx, has infected him. Now Firx, residing in Cugel’s liver or thereabouts, is unable to control Cugel’s behavior except by the negative reinforcement of internal excruciations. Iucounu, however, has managed to have the creature take over his nervous system.
The parasite uses his host to communicate with Cugel in some odd ways. “You will never learn to walk ceilings standing on your hands”; “You may now tender me the keys to the bread locker”; “I will pawn you my gold watch and chain”; “It is all one, and no longer of consequence, since all must now transpire in the ‘mnz’ pattern”; “the eluctance here is of a different order than of ‘sspntz’”; “much here puzzles me; it was never thus on Achernar” (280-282).
Codex Sinaiticus Digitization Initiative
From The Economist.
I found this to be curious:
According to Scot McKendrick, curator for classical, Byzantine and biblical manuscripts at the British Library, only four researchers in the past 20 years have been allowed access to those parts of the original that are in London.
Danish Break-Dancing
An early and definitive source is Lisbet Torp’s “‘Hip Hop Dances’: Their Adoption and Function among Boys in Denmark from 1983-84.” Yearbook for Traditional Music. 18 (1986): 29-36.
Three Books of Shame
Here’s the game we’re playing.
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Lem’s Summa Technologiae. Ok, it’s never been published in English; but I could work my way through the German or finally learn Polish. What better place to start?
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Waugh’s biography Edmund Campion. To quote Carl, “classic. Total classic.”
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Le Carre’s The Naive and Sentimental Lover. I once claimed to have read this, falsely. It, along with the most recent book, is the only Le Carre I haven’t read, though I do own it.
Resolution
I have decided to derive the 230 space groups using Hamiltonian quaternions.
Problems with the ODNB
This Guardian article points out some unpopularities, but there’s no mention of the fact that there’s still no Olaf Stapledon entry.
It’s still on my Amazon wish list, linked over to the right there, and please feel free to start gifting anytime now, please.
Thirty Flasks of Shame
“He was ill-informed about foreign affairs—he did not read newspapers— but that suited the State Department well enough.”
Coetzee on Faulkner.