been_there
Joined: 28 Oct 2003
Posts: 284
Location: 127.0.0.1
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 Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 10:10 am Post subject: the School of Compartive Irrelevance |
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Appropo of Nothing, a short excerpt from Umberto Eco to get your day off to a good start:
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�Listen, Jacopo, I thought of a good one: Urban Planning for Gypsies.�
�Great,� Belbo said admiringly. �I have one, too: Aztec Equitation.�
�Excellent. But would that go with Potio-section or the Adynata?�
�We�ll have to see,� Belbo said. He rummaged in his drawer and took out some sheets of paper. �Potio-section...� He looked at me, saw my bewilderment. �Potio-section, as everybody knows, of course, is the art of slicing soup. No, no,� he said to Diotallevi. �It�s not a department, it�s a subject, like Mechanical Avunculogratulation or Pylocatabasis. They all fall under the heading of Tetrapyloctomy.�
�What�s tetra...?� I asked.
�The art of splitting a hair four ways. This is the department of useless techniques. Mechanical Avunculogratulation, for example, is how to build machines for greeting uncles. We�re not sure, though, if Pylocatabasis belongs, since it�s the art of being saved by a hair. Somehow that doesn�t seem completely useless.�
�All right, gentlemen,� I said, �I give up. What are you two talking about?�
�Well, Diotallevi and I are planning a reform in higher education. A School of Comparative Irrelevance, where useless or impossible courses are given. The school�s aim is to turn out scholars capable of endlessly increasing the number of unnecessary subjects.�
�And how many departments are there?�
�Four so far, but that may be enough for the whole syllabus. The Tetrapyloctomy department has a preparatory function; its purpose is to inculcate a sense of irrelevance. Another important department is Adynata, or Impossibilia. Like Urban Planning for Gypsies. The essence of the discipline is the comprehension of the underlying reasons for a thing�s absurdity. We have courses in Morse syntax, the history of antarctic agriculture, the history of Easter Island painting, contemporary Sumerian literature, Montessori grading, Assyrio-Babylonian philately, the technology of the wheel in pre-Columbian empires, and the phonetics of the silent film.�
�How about crowd psychology in the Sahara?�
�Wonderful,� Belbo said.
Diotallevi nodded. �You should join us. The kid�s got talent, eh, Jacopo?�
�Yes, I saw that right away. Last night he constructed some moronic arguments with great skill. But let�s continue. What did we put in the Oxymoronics department? I can�t find my notes.�
Diotallevi took a slip of paper from his pocket and regarded me with friendly condescension. �In Oxymoronics, as the name implies, what matters is self-contradiction. That�s why I think it�s the place for Urban Planning for Gypsies.�
�No,� Belbo said. �Only if it were Nomadic Urban Planning. The Adynata concern empirical impossibilities; Oxymoronics deal with contradictions in terms.�
�Maybe. But what courses did we put under Oxymoronics? Oh, yes, here we are: Tradition in Revolution, Democratic Oligarchy, Parmenidean Dynamics, Heraclitean Statics, Spartan Sybaritics, Tautological Dialectics, Boolean Eristic.�
I couldn�t resist throwing in �How about a Grammar of Solecisms?�
�Excellent!� they both said, making a note.
�One problem,� I said.
�What?�
�If the public gets wind of this, people will show up with manuscripts.�
�The boy�s sharp, Jacopo,� Diotallevi said. �Unwittingly, we�ve drawn up a real prospectus for scholarship. We�ve shown the necessity of the impossible. Therefore, mum�s the word. But I have to go now.� |
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