Off the Mark

All week

DeLillo, D. (1986). White noise, Contemporary American fiction., 326. New York: Penguin Books.

I didn’t say it. The computer did. The whole system says it. It’s what we call a massive data-base tally. Gladney, J. A. K. I punch in the name, the substance, the exposure time and then I tap into your computer history. Your genetics, your personals, your medicals, your psychologicals, your police-and-hospitals. It comes back pulsing stars. This doesn’t mean anything is going to happen as such, at least not today or tomorrow. It just means you are the sum total of your data. No man escapes that (141, emphasis mine).

They travel through the air. What like, birds? Why not tell them magic? They travel through the air in magic waves. What is a nucleotide? You don’t know do you? Yet these are the building blocks of life. What good is knowledge if it just floats in the air? It goes from computer to computer. It changes and grows every second of every day. But nobody actually knows anything (149, emphasis mine).

Swift, J. (1996). Gulliver’s travels (Unabridged [ed.].). Mineola N.Y.: Dover Publications.

My little Friend Grildrig; you have made the most admirable Panegyrick upon your Country. You have clearly proved that Ignorance, Idleness, and Vice are the proper Ingredients for qualifying a Legislator. That Laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose Interest and Abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some Lines of an Institution, which in its Original might have been tolerable; but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by Corruptions. It doth not appear from all you have said, how any one Perfection is required towards the Procurement of any one Station among you; much less that Men are ennobled on Account of their Virtue, that Priests are advanced for their Piety or Learning, Soldiers for their Conduct or Valour, Judges for their Integrity, Senators for the Love of their Country, or Counsellors for their Wisdom. As for yourself (continued the King) who have spent the greatest Part of your Life in travelling; I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many Vices of your Country. But, by what I have gathered from your own Relation, and the Answers I have with much Pains wringed and extorted from you; I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth (92-93).

Reading these two satires on the so-called civilized world and commentaries on the human condition at the same time is a most rewarding experience, despite the centuries that lie between them. While they may be addressing different aspects of these topics they are still highly complementary.

Tuesday, 18 Mar 2008

Shiga, J. (2007). Bookhunter, 1. Portland, Or.: Sparkplug Comic Books.

I don’t read many graphic novels but this was kind of cute. The idea of gun-toting, radioactive dye tracing, SWAT team-like book hunters is kind of funny.

 

Well, as long as one doesn’t dwell on it too much.

 

Highly recommended. Very fast read.

Wednesday - Saturday, 19 - 22 Mar 2008

Cataloging Policy and Support Office. March 15, 2007. Library of Congress Subject Headings. Pre- vs. Post-Coordination and Related Issues. Report for Beacher Wiggins, Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access Directorate, Library Services, Library of Congress.

Found at Cataloging Futures.

Saturday, 22 Mar 2008

The León manifesto. (2007)., Knowledge Organization, 34(1), 6-8.