Two quick ones …
Matthew Yglesias posted on empirical support for the “plurality of worlds” argument a week or so ago. Chad Orzel goes through the math of what this implies. If we exist in an infinite (but deterministic) universe, Matthew would have to travel an average of 10 to the power of 1028 meters (sic) to find an identical copy of himself. One could make all sorts of sneering remarks about how far one might have to travel to find, say, a version of Steven den Beste that was in touch with reality. However, this is a polite, well mannered blog, which doesn’t go in for cheap shots unless they’re really funny. And as I can’t come up with anything better than standard smartass comments, I’ll forebear.
H.D. Miller on the fascinating and mysterious Voynich Manuscript, a document that emerged in the 16th century, written in code and an as-yet unidentified language. Miller is a serious historian, and gives us the straight facts but the Manuscript has also attracted a fair number of cranks and charlatans in its time. It’s a sort of anti-Rosetta Stone: because it’s incomprehensible, you can impose any theory you want on it. Secrets of the Ancients? Saucer Cult ceremonies? How-to guides on golem construction ? Could all be in there somewhere. John Sladek did a characteristically witty demolition job on Voynich nutcases in his general survey of New Age nonsense, The New Apocrypha
And while we’re on the subject of crankery, can’t resist linking to my all-time-favorite conspiracy theory - the Lizard People slave camps beneath Denver Airport
Posted by Henry at May 19, 2003 10:01 PM | TrackBackI understood that the VM was originally represented by the canonical mysterious stranger as a manuscript of Bacon’s.
The mysterious manuscript is a favorite trope of mine, as a former student of codicology and a current vulgarizer of the analogies “marginalia:text::blog:media” and media:blog::authoritative text:the Lachmannian method.” The Brazilian writer Rubem Fonseca has a wonderful, brainy novel in this vein about a lost MS of Isaac Babel, “the Cossack-Jew,” turned around to reflect on the ironies of Brazil’s quasi-official ideology of carnivalesque democracy and “mestiçagem.”
I am also touched and surprised to find myself listed as a “scholar-blogger” here.
In fact, I’m someone who completed doctoral course work and then, observing friends with doctorates visiting the MLA year after year and living as they did as undergraduates into their 30s and 40s, made what I thought, as a specialist in medieval Arabic-to-Latin translation and literature, was a prudent decision. The books, however, I kept: cheap entertainment. I mainly work as a journalist and technical translator now (Arabic, Romance languages). But I thank you for your Oz-like humbuggery in bestowing the cap and gown upon this man of straw.
My latest project, blogalization.org, is actually the one I am more serious about, the Eyeball having evolved into a personal sandbox for experiments in Kraussian satire and learning to write good idiomatic Brazilian Portuguese (since nobody translates the other way, practically, these days, except Microsoft & Co., who are even localizing for Català now). If it interests you, could you point your readers (your other readers, now) in that direction instead? The visual navigation feature is something I especially would be grateful for feedback on: blogalization.org/enter/navmonkey.html.
Regards,
Colin Brayton
Posted by: cbrayton at May 19, 2003 10:56 PMblogroll duly amended!
My two favorite mysterious lost manuscript novels are Jan Patocki’s “Saragossa Manuscript,” and Charles Maturin’s “Melmoth the Wanderer” (which has a couple of them floating around in there). Kraussian satire is something that I’m less familiar with - I’ve had a copy of “In these great times” staring at me from my bookshelf for years, inducing extreme feelings of guilt, but haven’t had the courage to do more than skim one or two pieces.
And talking of scholars of mediaeval Arabic and mysterious texts, have you read Robert Irwin’s “The Arabian Nightmare?” On my top 20
(enough about interesting books - must go work on my own, infinitely dull one)
Posted by: Henry at May 19, 2003 11:55 PMA coward mistakes oppression for peace.
Posted by: Kolker Danielle at February 28, 2004 08:03 AM