The Invisible Library

There are libraries and then there are the shrines that super nerds build:

 Nothing quite prepares you for the culture shock of Jay Walker’s library. You exit the austere parlor of his New England home and pass through a hallway into the bibliographic equivalent of a Disney ride. Stuffed with landmark tomes and eye-grabbing historical objects—on the walls, on tables, standing on the floor—the room occupies about 3,600 square feet on three mazelike levels. Is that a Sputnik? (Yes.) Hey, those books appear to be bound in rubies. (They are.) That edition of Chaucer … is it a Kelmscott? (Natch.) Gee, that chandelier looks like the one in the James Bond flick Die Another Day. (Because it is.) No matter where you turn in this ziggurat, another treasure beckons you—a 1665 Bills of Mortality chronicle of London (you can track plague fatalities by week), the instruction manual for the Saturn V rocket (which launched the Apollo 11 capsule to the moon), a framed napkin from 1943 on which Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined his plan to win World War II. In no time, your mind is stretched like hot taffy.

My only question is, does he need a librarian?

Via Cory Doctorow @ Boingboing.

Woke up this morning with a ridiculous headache. Guess that’s what I get taking a shot every time McCain said, “My friends.” I kid! I didn’t watch the debates last night because then Elvira would be scooping what was left of my brain off the living room walls this morning and that’s just not a nice thing to do to your wife.But! I’m feeling much better now, so there’s that.

Aparently, by having my hea dina bucket of ice last night, I missed McCain refereing to Obama as That One, which as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you isn’t racist at all. I mean, it’s not like an elderly old coot who joined the Navy before it was even integrated would have any lingering racial tics, so nothing to worry about!

Then of course McCain seems to be unable to tell the difference from an overhead projector and a plantarium projector.  But come on! the man still remembers when you had to quary giant slabs of stone and arange them in a circle on a field in order to see anything in the sky, so give the guy a break. Science isn’t important these days anyway.

And of course there are still people who, three weeks out, are undecided. really? You just can’t make up your mind, huh? these guys have only been campaginign for18 months, so i could understand how youmight not have had time to find any appreciable difference between a creeky old white dude who has voted with Bush 90% of the time and this guy. So yeah, tough decidion there. Needs more study. We’ll get back to you real soon, once we’ve finsihed sniffing this glue.

I’m going back to bed. Wake me when Preisdent Obama is ready to give his acceptance speach.