(no subject)
'"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 Avunculogratluation or Pylocatabasis. They all fall under the heading of Tetrapyloctomy."
"What's tetra . . . ?" I asked.
"The art of splitting a hair four ways. This si 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 Irrelaveance, 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 funciton; its purpose is to inculate a sense of irrelevance. Another important department is Adynata, or Impossibilia. Like Urban Planning for Gypsies. The essense of the discipline is the comprehension of the underlying reasons for a thing's absurdity. We have courses in Morse syntax, the history of antartic 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 pocked 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 impossiblities; 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, Spartain Sybaritics, Tautological Dialects, Boolean Eristic."
I couldn't resist throwing in "How about a Grammar of Solecisms?"
"Excellent!" they both said, making anote.
"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."'
'"Our Diotallevi thinks he's Jewish."
"What do you mean, 'thinks'?" Diotallevi said, annoyed. "I am Jewish. Do you have anything against that, Casaubon?"
"Of course not."
"Diotallevi is not Jewish," Belbo said firmly.
"No? And what about my name? Just like Graziado or Diosiacontè. A traditional Jewish name. A ghetto name, like Sholom Aleichem."
"Diotallevi is a good-luck name given to foundlings by city officials. Your grandfather was a foundling."
"A Jewish foundling."
"Diotallevi, you have pink skin, you're practically an albino."
"There are albino rabbits; why not albino Jews?"
"Diotallevi, a person can't just decide to be a Jew the way he might decide to be a stamp collector or a Jehovah's Witness. Jews are born. Admit it! You're a gentile like the rest of us."
"I'm circumcised."
"Come on! Lots of people are circumcised, for reasons of hygeine. All you need is a doctor with a knife. How old were you when you were circumcised?"
"Let's not nitpick."
"No, let's. Jews nitpick."
"Nobody can prove my grandfather wasn't Jewish."
"Of course not; he was a foundling. He could have been anything, the heir to the throne of Byzantium or a Hapsburg bastard."
"He was found near the Portico d'Ottavia, in the ghetto in Rome."
"But your grandmother wasn't Jewish, and Jewish descent is supposed to be matrilineal . . ."
Both are from Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, which I started this morning. Actually, it was the first of the above passages in combination with a stalkee's review that made me get it from the library. Very funny.
Speaking of funny, I was reading The Truth last night. I went into hysterics every time Otto screamed. He's awesome. I finished the book with a "Wow," for some reason; maybe I'll figure it out when I read it again. It's very similar to my favourite, Going Postal. Speaking of which, I need to get that out again, now that I'll recognise all the built-up jokes.
I still want to be like Vetinari; even more now, really. But screw 'when I grow up.' I want to be like him now. He's freaking awesome.
Guess who my favourite Discworld character is?
EDIT: Oh yeah. Another incidental or three. My new piano's arriving today, I got several brand new books on Tuesday, and on that same day Thimothy got an electric guitar. Oh dear.