You know, I could write a book. And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox

2008-06-27-dscn4451
Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

I met this guy - and he looked like might have been a hat check clerk at an ice rink. Which, in fact, he turned out to be. And I said: Oh boy. Right again. Let X=X. You know, it could be you. It's a sky-blue sky. Satellites are out tonight. Let X=X. You know, I could write a book. And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox. Cause I can see the future and it's a place - about 70 miles east of here. Where it's lighter. Linger on over here. Got the time? Let X=X. I got this postcard. And it read, it said: Dear Amigo - Dear Partner. Listen, uh - I just want to say thanks. So...thanks. Thanks for all the presents. Thanks for introducing me to the Chief. Thanks for putting on the feedbag. Thanks for going all out. Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife. and uh - Thanks for letting me autograph your cast. Hug and kisses. XXXXOOOO. Oh yeah, P.S. I - feel - feel like - I am - in a burning building - and I gotta go. Cause I - I feel - feel like - I am - in a burning building - and I gotta go.

Gotta love Laurie Anderson, hugs and kisses. XXXXOOOO

Growing dodo collection

A postcard from London joins my collection.

Smithsonian Digitization Fair

About to begin.

Ars longa, shelf space brevis

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Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

I've run into the problem of Newtonian physics in that space cannot expand infinitely, specifically, shelf space for books. I've been in denial about this, boxing books and tucking them into closets and storage areas, but the time came to face it, there was no more room for books in the house.

There are still a lot left, hundreds and hundreds, but also looking down the line where the future is shorter than the past (for mortal me that is) and also realizing that there were many books that I would probably, well, face it, never read again, why keep them around (especially when there are new items coming in?)

So, what do do? Wait, a solution! I got a Kindle, so, that means that I can still keep some of those odd books in my immediate life (like, the lesser works of Thomas Hardy) and those brilliant Dickensian door stops (Bleak House). As well as those curious baubles like the works of Verne, Wells, etc.

I was a bit like a kid in a candy store: every single novel, poem, etc. by Thomas Hardy for $4.97; all of Austen; Nicomachean Ethics!

Lots and lots more. Of course, there are lots of titles you still can't get in ePub (Faulkner, Nabokov, Camus), but it's just a matter of time.

And for those not on Amazon for free or low cost, there are uncorrected ePub version of many titles at the Internet Archive and elsewhere. Speaking of the Internet Archive, I'm looking forward to the "Books in Browsers" meeting later in October.

Will I miss those slowly burning (acidifying) copies of Hardy? Yes. Will I miss the glorious Penguin editions with their cover art? Yup.

So, off these (and a bunch more) either to friends, the library book sale, Goodwill, and yes, sadly, the trash (for those whose perfect bindings are no longer so and whose pages ex-foliate with each tender turn).

So, as some of these are disentombed from boxes where they've lived for the past number of years, I say ave atque vale. And see you on the Kindle.

Avocado Bubble Tea

At the Eden Center

AACR II, Buh-bye

AACR II, Buh-bye
Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

Doing some more office cleaning ... or purging as my office moving consultant calls it ...

World Traveller

Doing some cleaning and came across this old boarding pass for BA 217, LHR to IAD, from the 1990s!. I'm "World Traveller" on the stub.

QotD: I find myself affected with various ideas which I know I have not caused

I find myself affected with various ideas which I know I have not caused. And they couldn’t cause themselves or cause one another, nor could they exist on their own, because they are wholly inactive, transient, dependent beings. So they have some cause other than me and other than themselves; all I claim to know about this is that it is the cause of my ideas. And this thing, whatever it is, I call ‘matter’.

George Berkeley. Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713). The Library of Liberal Arts, New York, 1954. p.60.

Cisco Telepresence

Future keepsgettong closer!

Obama-Bieber '12

Obama-Bieber '12
Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

This is so wrong, it shows a complete ignorance of the Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution. Bieber is neither old enough nor born in the U.S., hence ineligible to be Vice President.

Wolf Trap

To see The Sound of Music

Stately, plump, Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead ...

Coffee stained, dog eared, cover bent, now imperfect binding, ungathered gatherings slipping out rearranged the word. Yes I said yes no more the vintage cover black long ell suggestive You now new replaces worn scraps and scribbles from Security National Bank and faded receipts.

So long Ulysses, no not forever, just to my falling apart and many read copy, Vintage Books edition, published and printed in 1961, born the same year as me. Replaced with a newer copy ...

Flipping through one last time, I find some scribbles, notes, and underlines:

• "He was a man they say invented barbed wire" p. 155, p. 207
• Had I served God as I served Art, He would have not have left me like this
• Sons of Ireland , p. 329-30
• "We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the black 47. Their mudcabins and shielings by the roadside were laid low by the batterinram and the Times rubbed its hands and told the whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as redskins in America" p 329.
• From the Night Town episode: "The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron p. 471
• "Rhymes and Reasons. Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth?" p. 138

And so now, together with Molly, "...and yes I said yes I will Yes"

Cruising Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia

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Originally uploaded by martin_kalfatovic

The weather was clear, so we thought we'd take a chance aboard the Risky Business for a two hour cruise.

Captain Chris gave us a great ride and we got to see some very interesting sites, including the beds of the famous Indian Point mussels!

Don't miss it!


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