Nothing much going on, so I'll regale you with my favorite set of index entries.
Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire begins with a 999 line poem by the Robert Frost-like American poet John Shade. The rest of the novel consists of scholarly apparatus, mostly footnotes to the poem concocted by the manuscript's erratic editor, Charles Kinbote, which tell the story of Charles the Beloved, the recently and most unfairly deposed king of Zembla ("a distant northern land").
The chatty index includes the following widely dispersed references to where the Zemblan crown jewels were hidden to keep them out of the hands of Communist revolutionaries.
The chatty index includes the following widely dispersed references to where the Zemblan crown jewels were hidden to keep them out of the hands of Communist revolutionaries.
From Kinbote's Index to Pale Fire:
- Andronnikov and Niagarin, two Soviet experts in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.
- Crown Jewels, 130, 681; see Hiding Place.
- Hiding Place, potaynik (q.v.)
- Niagarin and Andronnikov, two Soviet "experts" still in quest of a buried treasure, 130, 681, 741; see Crown Jewels.
- Potaynik, taynik (q.v.)
- Taynik, Russ., secret place; see Crown Jewels.
In 1986, inspired by Pale Fire, I wrote a computer manual that included (of course) the index entries:
- Infinite Loop; see Loop, Infinite
- Loop, Infinite; see Infinite Loop
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33 comments:
yes, we get it:
you read, you read important and significant literature.
We get it.
you're a smart guy who can do statistical analysis
we get it
you're also cultured.
we get it.
Steve:
Back in 1956 or '57, after completing the questions in a test (forget which Bio course), found myself wih spare minutes, Reviewing, my eye lighted on my directions for the Gram staining technique, whhere one of the instructions was to "immerse for 30seconds."
In an idle attempt at a bit of levity, I asterisked the instruction and a footnote at ther end of the test paper:
* Thirty seconds can be best remembered as the time it takes light to travel 5580000 miles.
A few days later, my prof remarked, with a smile, that he'd enjoyed my useful suggestion.
Years later, I happened upon a lab manual used at that school--written by that same prof. And,paging through it, I came on instructions for the Gram stain, including my "useful" footnote.
Ah, Nabokov. Probably the most overrated 20th Century Lit writer. Can't stand his work or his 'Classical Liberalism' which, in reality, was simply Buckley conservatism. It really bothers me whenever I see his name come up next to the likes of Vonnegut, Woolf, Orwell, Kerouac and the other proper greats.
This sounds crazy and I suppose you mean it as a joke. But it's a real problem. I had to index a book last year and I quickly discovered I often couldn't tell which was more important when you had two words. For example, if you wanted to know about "laughter in Macbeth" in a book on all of Shakespeare's plays, should you list the entry under laughter, under Macbeth, or both? I doubly listed almost all of these, meaning I put entries for both. I'm not sure if the index is too long or not but it should help you find anything you need.
That said, a quick search on Google books will find you almost anything faster than the index I did, which took almost a week of working full time.
On a separate note, Steve, I awoke this morning reflecting on technologies that have changed humanity. The one that strikes me as the most unappreciated of the last 200 years is the cut-and-paste function of the contemporary computer. Imagining blogging in real time without it is only the tip of the iceberg. I mean, you can instantly copy entire scanned books with it. I rate it higher than even search technology in terms of time saved (and people put out of business). What do you think? Seems like there's room for a good reflective essay here....
Surely the jewels are here:
"Kobaltana, a once fashionable mountain resort near the ruins of some old barracks now a cold and desolate spot of difficult access and no importance but still remembered in military families and forest castles, not in the text."
OT: any thoughts on the taxi stabbing?kid worked for interfaith tolerance org, goes to Afghanistan, comes back, rides in NYC cab, asks cabbie if he's muslim, stabs cabbie, falsely claims to be Jewish...schizo?
Keyboard error, press F1 to continue
Duh. I missed the point earlier in my comment about the book I indexed. Now I see the joke. Nice. (And further evidence that coffee clears the brain.)
Way off-topic [I think?], but Amy Mickelson is substantially hotter than Elin Nordegren.
We're talking sizzlin' hot - ouch!
Also, in this photo, Michael Jordan definitely has that "If she'll put out for one brother, then maybe she'll put out for another brother" shit-eating grin on his face...
Wanna bet that he's been phoning her since the break-up?
Probably Charles Barkley has been ringing her up, too.
This is as apt a post as any to make this remark, which has been in the back of my head for a while.
To all of you anonymi who leave comments - especially those who are responding too other comments: Have you noticed that comments here are not time-stamped? So the person you are addressing can't use a salutation like, to anomymous at 12:53. Instead, one must tiresomely count ans write something like Dear anonymous #14 or tiresomely quote some of your comment to identify you.
OK, you don't want to take personal credit for your trenchant insights. I can relate. But make up a moniker for yourself. Protect your identity by making something up that nobody would ever associate with you. Like Truth does. OK?
Dear Mr. Sailer !
I generally assume that you are pretty busy. But if "Nothing much going on", why not do this loop:
PRECIOUS - see Six Academy award nominations and two awards.
ACADEMY AWARDS and nominations - see PRECIOUS
I am not trying to imply that those nominations were justified. You, dear Mr. Sailer, as nobody else, can explain, if they were, and why (or why not), and if the movie sheds light on Charles Murray's 1984 book "Losing Ground".
As always, fascinated by your work,
your truly, Florida resident.
LOL
Nice one for the geeks there Steve
recursion, n.: see recursion.
Google "recursion" and read the question Google asks you.
Does Niagarin die going over a waterfall in a barrel?
It's Nabokov. Can't be an accident.
Increasingly, Steve your columns have acted like madeleines on me, kicking off long buried memories.
I first read Nabokov when I was a 21 year old driving teacher. I carried a copy of Lolita in my car to read snippets of it between lessons. I was stunned by the beauty of the language but a little afraid that the students would think I was reading pornography.
I read Pale Fire and Pnin too, but they never had quite the impact of Lolita.
Until I discovered Nabokov my favorite novelist had been Maugham whom I also loved for the beauty of his English prose. I felt then that because unlike Nabokov and Maugham, English was not my second language I would never be a great English language novelist. Well, that much has proven true.
Writing computer manuals reminded me of Jeff Raskin who died a few years ago. Jeff was the smartest guy I ever knew. He first became prominent by writing Apple's first manual.
This was at a time when personal computers had no manuals. My Commodore PET came with no documentation whatsoever. It was a kind of computer game. I played - "What the hell is this thing I bought?"
Jeff later harassed Steve Jobs into going to Xerox PARC where he saw the GUI, the mouse, and other marvels. That's why Jeff is known as the father of the Macintosh. That and because he was the Mac project manager. Jobs gave himself the management job for the Lisa.
Jeff was primarily an engineer but I hired him as a conductor - he came with his own orchestra of period instruments. When he broke his leg he invented and built a hybrid wheelchair with a gasoline engine that he drove on public streets to his teaching job at Stanford. He invented wonders casually.
But it was his language skills that had gotten him started. English language skills I mean, he also spoke Chinese.
Albertosaurus
Yeah, "Kobaltana" is a great entry.
Postmodernism has its moments.
Tangential: How can any publisher have published Dan Brown after Eco's 'Focault's Pendulum'?
david rudisha just broke the track world record at 800 meters. the old record was 1:41 and rudisha also went 1:41 but a little faster.
800 is the distance that has improved the least in the last 30 years. sebastian coe ran 1:41 in 1980! which has to rank as one of the greatest runs in history.
i'm not clear on why the 800 is so far behind the other distances in terms of improvement of the field, but there's no doubt it is the race improving the slowest. essentially no improvement in 30 years.
michael phelps just swam the fastest 100 meters of the year, 48.1, making me wonder if he will enter and win the 100 meters at london. can he beat cesar cielo from brazil at sprinting? meanwhile ryan lochte is dominating phelps at some of phelps' best events and is poised to overtake him as the best swimmer in the world.
Can't resist throwing in the old IBM PC-era joke, for the one or two out there who haven't heard it before:
Q: Why couldn't the programmer ever get out of the shower?
A: Because he was following the instructions on his shampoo bottle - "Lather, Rinse, Repeat".
i just got back from colorado where i helped one of my long time friends run the leadville 100. 100 miles of running in the rocky mountains. it took more than 24 hours of continuous running. the book "Born to Run" by chris mcdougall is based on this race. this is the book where the author talks about the tarahumara indians from mexico coming to colorado to race.
i was up there for 4 days and learned a lot about ultra distance running just in that short time. would be willing to make a post about this or chat with steve if he wants.
after seeing what guys like matt carpenter and anton krupicka can do, i'm not so sure that it's certain the best kenyans would automatically win this race if they entered it. would definitely like to see what they can do off the track and off the road though. how good are they at climbing mountains?
lance armstrong does the mountain bike version of this race, he won in 2009 but actually got beat in 2008.
Jody, the Kenyan tribe that participates in long distance running originates from the hilly highlands in the west of that country.
I'm sure they'd do just fine.
Le sigh said..."It really bothers me whenever I see his name come up next to the likes of Vonnegut, Woolf, Orwell, Kerouac and the other proper greats."
Other proper greats? Good god, even your sense of humor (only you would probably prefer I spell it "humour") is creepy.
Sort of on topic/recursive.
How do you keep an Irishman occupied for hours?
Give him a sheet of paper with "Please Turn Over" written on both sides.
Google "recursion" and read the question Google asks you.
Nice!
Way off-topic [I think?], but Amy Mickelson is substantially hotter than Elin Nordegren.
I'd happily show any of those ladies my...er...backswing. I wouldnt want the bloke on the right to show up though, that would put me right off.
"OK, you don't want to take personal credit for your trenchant insights. I can relate. But make up a moniker for yourself. Protect your identity by making something up that nobody would ever associate with you. Like Truth does. OK?"
No.
Anonymous said..."yes, we get it:
you read, you read important and significant literature.
We get it.
you're a smart guy who can do statistical analysis
we get it
you're also cultured.
we get it."
Speak for yourself. That's not what I got. I got "I take my fun where I find it and in this instance, I found the inspiration for it in Nabokov's Pale Fire."
yeah to be honest this was a weak Hofstadter attempt
Didn't Nabokov call this index game Word Golf?
Andrew:
LOL upon googling "recursion."
Once in high school our physics class was given a short diagnostic test to gauge our familiarity with the sorts of things that'd be useful in teaching special relativity. One such question was "About how fast is the speed of light?"
After thinking for a few seconds to ensure I wasn't about to give an egregiously wrong answer, I wrote down "about 1/8 AU/min".
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