The Invisible Library

So, it turns out that the kid arrested for writing a Zombie story, didn’t in fact include any zombies in the story. He did however, arrange to acquire stolen weapons and ammunition and write a scene describing people being shot. Then he lied to the press about the details. Thanks, William Poole for making me, and a lot of other people sensitive to free speech issues, feel like fucking tools. Now, the next time someone does have their creativity stifled unjustly, we’ll have to work extra hard to justify our defense of them, all the while shouting, “I don’t see any Zombies here!”

The King of Zembla pointed me to this conversation at Swans.com between Joe Bageant, Phil Rockstroh and John Steppling. Some rather bright fellows, I must say, wondering aloud about the world around us. It’s long, fraught with introspection and a vocabulary as vast as the night. I highly recommend it. An excerpt, to drive you there:

…Reading requires empathy and, again, eros. The rising of the cosmic johnson of joyous excess and potentially depth-engendering intimacies — not the spurious dick of Thanatos that corporatism wags in our faces. Death has always been with us — though in recent times he’s hired a PR firm to disguise his age-old agenda. The mere sight of his true face depresses sales potential in nearly every demographic group. You see: The sight of too many flag draped coffins will ruin the profit potential of a very lucrative war. Too much reading of poetry and literature could destroy the pharmaceutical industry. What would Paxil do to Bryronic yearning…to Whitmanesque eros…to Blakean numinosity?

English as She is Spoke, by Jose de Fonesca and Pedro Carolino.

In the mid nineteenth century, hoping to cash in on the craze for language phrase books for travelers, da Fonesca decided to fill a much needed gap and write a book translating common words and phrases from Portuguese to English. That he spoke not a word of English was not a hindrance. The intrepid da Fonesca had at his disposal a Portuguese to French phrase book and a French to English dictionary. The result is one of the strangest, most unintentionally hilarious books ever written, in which we learn how to “Craunch the marmoset,” and that ,”All hairs dresser are newsmonger.”