Glacial Errata, No. 63

[The results of our recent bibliomancy experiment! A little over 30 people responded, though only the first five are here. Of everyone who replied, only 3 people chose the bookcase on the right, and over two-thirds of people chose the 3rd or 4th shelf on the left. Curious!]

One: Dan F.

“One must keep everything to oneself except the knowledge of things.”

(Michel Leiris, Operatics, trans. Guy Bennett)

Two: Robert A.

“In any case, the perception of divine punishment rested on a shared understanding of sanctity and the nature of saints: saints were capricious, powerful, severe, jealous of their rights, and quick to reward or punish those who either trespassed or denied them.”

(Patrick J. Geary, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages)

Three: Pål D.

“Another example: there are shayks of this type who will be seated in the lodge with a group of those who frequent it, each of whom will ask him to provide him with something for which he has a fancy. That thing will then arrive, exactly as the man described it.”

(Jamāl Al-Dīn ‘Abd Al-Rahīm Al-Jawbarī, The Book of Charlatans, ed. Manuela Dengler, trans. Humphrey Davies)

Four: Mary E.

“Paranoia is, then, a social dynamic that absorbs the heterogeneity of a hyper-connected society and a disorderly world and reduces it to the homogeneity of a pre-existing controllable knowledge—just as it was for Deleuze and Guattari.”

(Enrico Monacelli, The Great Psychic Outdoors: Lo-Fi Music and Escaping Capitalism)

Five: Isabel S.

“The width increased from above downwards so that the material hung in folds, the front and back pieces being joined by a straight seam across the shoulders.”

(C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington, The History of Underclothes)