http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/. I do not even have to google “Blinky Morgan” myself…

“Back in the spring, Dr. Tesla was able to achieve readings on his transformer of up to a millions volts. It does not take a prophet to see where this is headed. He is already talking in private about something he calls a ‘World-System’, for producing huge amounts of electrical power that anyone can tap in for free, anywhere in the world, because it uses the planet as an element in a gigantic resonant circuit. He is naïve enough to think he can get financing for this, from Pierpont, or me, or one or two others. It has escaped his mighty intellect that no one can make any money off an invention like that. To put up money for research into a system of free power would be to throw it away, and violate – hell, betray – the essence of everything modern history is supposed to be.” (…) “If such a system is ever produced,” Scarsdale Vibe was saying, “it will mean the end of the world not just’ as we know it’ but as anyone knows it. It is a weapon Professor, surely you see that – the most terrible weapon the world has seen, designed to destroy not armies or matériel, but the very nature of exchange, out Economy’s long struggle to evolve up out of the fish-market anarchy of all battling all to the rational systems of control we enjoy at present.”

Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, p. 33/34

Handy info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World’s_Columbian_Exposition.

Reading through the description it’s immediately clear that this is Pynchon-area…

Jeez… Against the Day is already included in the “See Also”.

I’m on page 31.

… I can join in the fun — it has arrived. IT has arrived. Against the Day. I’ve got it in my hands & can start reading….!

“To me, book is a tool for marketing the online writer, not the other way round.” Sez Finnish writer Leevi Lehto at http://nypoesi.net/?id=tekst&no=33. [Via http://jilltxt.net.]

So after the crazy schedule of last week — with a (2 day) workshop Social Software in Arnhem, a full Ubiscribe-day in Maastricht and a public lecture in Groningen — involving lots of travelling and intensive working hours… I collapsed. Flu? Virus? Just worn out? Spent friday till monday in bed, not being able to do anything. Only on monday I did a bit of reading and watching googlevideo-BBC-documentaries.

So sorry I was not here & sorry the comments were kept ‘on hold’ so long.

Now it’ll be only writing. (Five days less than I had hoped).

Last days in Maastricht, before I return to Amsterdam.

Picture showing me at the Mediamatic RFID-workshop, having a headache. Rob calls it “Arie hit by the implications of it all”.

Zondagavond: Maastricht – Amsterdam, halverwege tot de ontdekking komen dat je fietssleutels in je winterjas zitten die je niet aan hebt vanwege de uitzonderlijk hoge temperaturen. Geen zin in de tram na 2-en-een-half uur trein, 50 minuten wandelen naar huis. Maandagochtend: 7.15 – 8.05 lopen van huis naar het station. 8.17 trein naar Arnhem, die is te laat, waarmee je eigenlijk al weet dat je te laat op het werk (gastles) zult zijn. Trein is vol, je staat maar gelukkig kom je een kennis tegen (Paul van de Rock Supplies, wat de reis veraangenaamt en verkort). 9.45 aankomst (20 minuten te laat) op Arnhem. 10.00 stoptrein naar Presikhaaf. 10.15 voor de klas. 15.58 stoptrein Nijmegen. Stoptrein Roermond. Stoptrein Maastricht. Aankomst 18.45. Lopen naar de Jan van Eyck. 19.10 Aankomst.

Donderdagavond. Terug naar Maastricht. In de afgelopen 4×24 uur zo’n beetje 24 uur reistijd (rekenend van zondagavond 19.00 tot vanavond 19.00). Dinsdagavond: Maastricht – Amsterdam. Woensdagochtend Amsterdam – Groningen. Woensdagavond Groningen – Amsterdam. Donderdagochtend: Amsterdam – Arnhem Presikhaaf. Donderdagmiddag Arnhem Presikhaaf – Maastricht (Kanne). En bijna elke trein reed met (kleine) vertraging.