From the introduction to Ordinary Mysteries, the Common Journals of Nathaniel and Sofia Hawthorne:

…the relation between allegory and mundane realism in Hawthorne undergoes a change in the notebooks that he and Sophia produced collaboratively. There, for the first time, the allegorical and the mundane occupy the same space, revealing themselves to be continuous with one another in the manner of a Mobius strip… the common journals inaugurate a form of self-allegorization that is evidently a function of their address to someone other than the author.

This actually includes images of the original notebook with it’s tidy illegible lines of script beside the transcription. Unfortunately the scroll bar is missing on the mobile interface which renders the rest of it pretty much useless. It’s not so pleasant to sit in front of the computer to read. Do you hear me, Google Books? I am bothered.

Wired has a story in which AI is used to place the organization of the Indus Script squarely within the range of spoken language while IBM announces a sort of a Deep Blue for playing Jeopardy. The best thing about that article is the seven meanings of I never said she stole my money. That kept my household busy for hours and got me poking through a curious article on Artificial Intelligence and Metaphors of Mind.

I am enjoying The Manual of Detection. It has an calm, atmospheric quality that I think may make it a candidate for the bedtime/detection reread pile, though I wish I hadn’t read somewhere that it feels a little like Paul Auster on a good day. It’s full of twins, doppels, and clocks, and I half imagine I’m missing a lot of referential play as I read at a normal, sleepy pace. I’m only half way through. Will report back.

Russell Davies’ notes on Notes From Walnut Tree Farm (via Magical Nihilism) and then from there on to Daytum, which is not quite as silly as it is spelled. The best entries are for things like Hates, Guilts, and Thankfulnessess. This seems like a sort of brilliant way to plow through a moment of ennui, to document oneself inside out until the documentation begins to sketch the outline of some other person whom you can step outside of and ta-da! suddenly find yourself someone/somewhere else. I’m sure someone is hard at work cataloguing the range of species of procrastination.

Okay, I think you’re right. Who knows where to start on Etsy, since browsing is a nightmare. Here are some pretty, girly things: a creamy handbag, a simple grey dress, a woven wool table runner, and a set of envelopes made from an atlas. Also, I once bought my tiny nephew a nice felt mustache which proved popular.

Cody Trepte’s binary cross-stitch: Alan Turing once knit himself a pair of gloves.

And a little more Merce Cunningham, this time in a very beautiful collaboration with artist Daniel Arsham, who gouged away layers of the set. You can see the curls of scrap on the floor behind the dancers.