Archives & Manuscript Collections

1995 recommendation from Judy Schiff, I believe, on locating Archives & Manuscript Collections via directory maintained by Columbia.

Yale Judaica

This exhibit by Nanette was designed for Yale's Tercentennial celebration, and gives a lot of interesting historical information on how the collectino developed over time. Also, lots of great illustrations.Tercentennial Page 1

Hal Draper

Hal Draper's "Ms. Fnd in a Lbry" (1961)

As information and its surrogates become microscopically small, the tools for retrieval, such as catalogs, indexes, and bibliographies, become macroscopically huge.

Bks disappeared after being reduced to micros, then supermicros, then vowels eliminated to reduce bulk by 33%, then streamline multiple copies (consolidate all supermicros into single storage facility), then into a single drawer. Anyone could access any text by means of a farraginous ("composed of a variety of substances" --Am Her. D.) diffuser.

Facility planted in ocean to save space. Then dispensed with "representational records" in favor of "punched supermicros" heralding new era of "abstract recs" or "Rx". Then "notched electron". Then "chipped quantum" Then "nudged quantum".

Then pizzicated ("plucked"?) quanta, where Rx's subsist in hyperbolic tensor systems sharing same spatial and temporal coordinates, in the empty space freed up between electrons and nucleus.

Thus could Rxs be placed in a single drawer. Eventually, a circular cross reference requires Bibliothecal Excellency Mlvl Dwy Smth to locate an actual bx or at least Rx in order to straighten out the refs. It simply can't be found, it turns out, which causes the entire system, and entire civilization, to collapse.

I thought there was a full-text version of this available somewhere on the Internet, but I can't seem to find it.

Home Improvement

Crashed through table I was standing on, while trying to install new fixtures on lighting track. Need to be more careful, since I also broke a class bowl yesterday while vacuuming.

Didn't think it would be so complicated, but clearly one needs to research compatibility. The fixtures we inherited are "Classics Flatback 30's" 9430WH Matte White. Maybe order replacements from Lightolier website?

[2004 09 27]
Garage remote control

Films

Watched Ken Loach's "Sweet Sixteen" last night.

Martin Compston is great as delinquent Liam, waiting desperately for the release of his mother Jean (Michelle Coulter) from prison, maintaining good opinion of her despite much evidence to the contrary.

Locale: Greenock in Scotland, overun by junkies, but still in beautiful area overlooking North Atlantic coast.

Liam often on verge of redeeming himself, but circumstances keep dragging him down.

Thought it was a great film. Not exactly uplifting, but inspiring in depicting innocence that endures in miserable hopeless world.

Touches similar issue to Tim Blake Nelson's "The Grey Zone." Some times there are only choices between bad options. Hard to judge someone, when you haven't been in their place.

In "Grey Zone," Sonderkommandos are forced to operate Auschwitz gas chambers and crematoria, and they like Liam are trying to survive with their innocence intact.

Watched Andrej Wajda's Korczak Sunday night. Story of doctor who ran Jewish orphanage, even after all its children were transported to Warsaw Ghetto and then to death camp. Well acted. Depressing.

On his website, Wajda writes that the initial reaction to his film in 1990 at Cannes was a standing ovation.

"By the next morning," he writes, "the review in Le Monde had tranformed me into an anti-Semite, and none of the major film distributors would agree to circulate the film outside Poland. My good intentions were useless."

In any case, Best Video has the New Yorker Films video release.

Chai Society

This is an interesting article about Shmully and Ben, written by Paul Bass of the New Haven Advocate. New Haven Advocate: Ben & Shmully Talk

Toastmasters

We now have an online sign-up sheet.

[2003 10 23]
The New Haven Register published an article today on Yale Toastmasters