Umberto Eco

Lists

1.) Lists fascinate.

5.) A new review of Umberto Eco’s The Infinity of Lists.

Inside is a Chinese encyclopedia created by Borges. Inside the encyclopedia:

There the world’s animals are divided into “(a) those that belong to the emperor; (b) embalmed ones; (c) those that are trained; (d) suckling pigs; (e) mermaids; (f) fabulous ones; (g) stray dogs; (h) those that are included in this classification; (i) those that tremble as if they were mad; (j) innumerable ones; (k) those drawn with a very fine camel’s-hair brush; (l) etcetera; (m) those that have just broken the flower vase; (n) those that at a distance resemble flies.”

3.) Somewhere sinks a cruise ship named Fun with Puns.

10.) Lists shimmer in their making. Like the distance run, or Yeat’s dancer (also the dance) the list is its own doing/undoing. The runner and the run the same, a cloud, a tributary, an experience and an artifact. The making doesn’t wait for a list to appear; the list is the making and the thing. The list is the listing is the list.

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January 16th, 2010 / 12:20 pm