Reminder

One.

In fact rarely are any of these images considered in terms of their composition and semantic intent. They are merely news, a happy intersection of event and opportunity. It hardly helps that photographs in general also take only a fraction of a second to acquire.

It is incredible how so many people can constantly misread speed to mean ease. This is certainly most common where photography is concerned. However simply because anyone can buy a camera, shutter away, and then with a slightly prejudiced eye justify the product doers not validate the achievement. Shooting a target with a rifle is accomplished with similar speed and yet because the results are so objective no one suggests that marksmanship is easy …

Perhaps this is why any observer will feel a slight adrenal rush when pondering the picture. Though they probably assume subject matter is the key to their reaction, the real cause is the way the balance of objects within the frame involves the beholder. It instantly makes a participant out of any witness.

Zampanò, The Navidson Record.

Two.

Second: There are twenty-five orthographic symbols. That discovery enabled mankind, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general theory of the Library and thereby satisfactorily solve the riddle that no conjecture had been able to divine—the formless and chaotic nature of virtually all books. One book, which my father once saw in a hexagon in circuit 15-94, consisted of the letters M C V perversely repeated from the first line to the last. Another (much consulted in this zone) is a mere labyrinth of letters whose penultimate page contains the line O Time thy pyramids. This much is known: For every rational line there are leagues of senseless cacophony, verbal nonsense, and incoherency. (I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the “vain and superstitious habit” of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of the palm of one’s hand…. They will acknowledge that the inventors of writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but contend that that adoption was fortuitous, coincidental, and that books in themselves have no meaning. That argument, as we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.)

Jorge Luis Borges, ‘The Library of Babel,’ Andrew Hurley translation.

Three.

1 Nan konmansman, tout moun sou latè te pale yon sèl lang, yonn te konprann lòt. 2 Apre yo pati soti kote solèy leve a, yo rive nan yon plenn nan peyi Chenea. Yo moute kay yo la, yo rete. 3 Lè sa a, yonn di lòt. Mezanmi, vini non! Ann fè brik. Ann kwit yo nan dife. Se konsa, yo pran brik sèvi wòch pou bati kay, yo pran asfat sèvi mòtye. 4 Apre sa, yo di. Annou wè! Ann bati yon gwo lavil pou nou rete ak yon gwo gwo kay tout won byen wo ki rive jouk nan syèl la. Konsa tout moun va respekte nou, yo p’ap ka gaye nou toupatou sou latè. 5 Seyè a desann pou l’ wè lavil la ansanm ak gwo kay won moun yo t’ap bati a. 6 Epi li di. Koulye a, gade! Yo tout fè yon sèl pèp. Yo tout yo pale yon sèl lang. Gade sa yo konmanse ap fè. Talè konsa y’ap pare pou yo fè sa yo vle. 7 Bon. N’ap desann, n’ap mele lang yo. Konsa, yonn p’ap ka konprann sa lòt ap di. 8 Se konsa Seyè a gaye yo toupatou sou latè. Yo sispann bati lavil la. 9 Se poutèt sa yo rele lavil la Babèl, paske se la Seyè a te mele lang tout moun ki rete sou latè, li fè yo pati, li gaye yo toupatou sou latè.

Bib La, Jenèz 11:1-9.