“In the writings of Erasmus and others who cultivated this practice [of keeping a commonplace book], the image of the bee as a clever borrower and collector had positive connotations.”

“In his De Copia (1512) Erasmus wrote: ‘The student, diligent as a little bee, will flit about through all the gardens of authors and will attack all the little flowerlets from whence he collects some honey which he carries into his own hive; and, since there is so much fertility of material in these that they are not all able to be plucked off, he will select the most excellent and adapt it to the structure of his own work.'” p. 66

Richard Yeo, ‘ A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopaedia (1728) as “the Best Book in the Universe”‘, in Journal of the History of Ideas 64.1 (2003) p. 61-72

“[Ann Blair] argues that historians have paid disproportionate attention to what she calls “literary reading” and not enough to other modes of encountering and engaging textual materials ranging from browsing and skimming to buying and collecting to annotating, cutting and pasting, and dog-earing. For Blair these other modes of acting upon texts are important in all historical moments, but in situations where readers feel themselves overwhelmed by information, they become all that much more crucial and telling.” p. 1

“According to her [Ann Blair] argument, an explosion of book production during the early modern period led to the development of a broad discourse on modes of textual practice. In some instances the problem of “information overload” led to a new emphasis on readerly “diligence” as in the cases of the theologians Francesco Sacchini and Johann Heinrich Alsted. In other instances, the same problem led to new theories and practices of consultative and instrumental reading such as those of Francis Bacon or Samuel Johnson.” p. 1/2

“In a world of rapid change, quick access to knowledge becomes as important as knowledge itself. During the early modern period, the encyclopedia survived by adaptation. If the Medieval encyclopedia aimed to reflect the universe itself, more and more, the early modern encyclopedia aimed to reflect the possibilities of knowing a changing universe of representation.” p. 4

“… during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries factors such as an increasing production and dissemination of books, developing networks of scientific communication, discoveries and innovations in the sciences, and new economic relationships all conspired to produce such quantities of new information that a substantial reorganization of the intellectual world was required. (…) by the end of the seventeenth century, it was widely understood that “representing and ordering the world” would be “impossible unless the representations themselves were put in order.”” p. 6

From Daniel Rosenberg, ‘Early Modern Information Overload’, in Journal of the History of Ideas 64.1 (2003) p. 1-9

The area around Kanne — where I live this year — is cycling country. Every day groups of cyclist pass by my apartment. Almost every week there’s a ‘toertocht’ (organized cycling tour) in the area, starting from Oupeye, Bilzen, Tongeren, Vlijtingen etc. In Belgium these rides are — apparently — marked out by spraying signs on the road. Especially at the few places where one can cross the Maas (Meuse) and the Albertkanaal, the road is full of these signs, some old, some new. Riding around the area one comes across the signs everywhere and often I follow the signs for some kilometers.

I’d like to make a full catalogue of all the different signs. I’m a worthless photographer, luckily this is a fairly easy subject. I’m uploading the pictures at my hardly used Flickr-account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ariealt/.

Klein ochtendrondje, “om het zuur uit de benen te rijden”. 10.00 – 11.30. Bewolkt, kans op buien, vrij koud. Kanne – Lanaye – Lixhe – Moelingen – Vise – Mons – Bombaye – Dalhem – Vise – kanaal – Kanne

From the excellent music-blog http://destination-out.com/, I learn that Ornette Coleman’s current band is a three bass-affair. Two acoustic basses & one electric. Plus Denardo on drums. The live recordings from his Carnegie Hall performance — although taped from somewhere in the audience — make you believe that this band is even better than his early sixties quartets… Awesome.

(A friend of mine used to play in a Frisian hardcore-punk band with a line-up of three basses and a drummer — I still have a demo-tape. They were called Slaghuuske (sp?).)

Yes, having 3 basses makes sense.

Leonardo Sciascia, De Raad van Egypte (1963) — Dutch translation of Il Consiglio d’Egitto, buy it here: http://www.serenalibri.nl/romans.php. Sciascia continues to amaze me. This is a short historical novel, based on facts, set in Sicily (of course) at the end of the 18th century. A ‘fake translation’ of an Arabic manuscript about the history of Sicily disturbs the balance of power.

James Boswell, Life of Johnson (well, abridged version, until halfway and the rest via the index). Picked up a few old Penguin pockets, apart from this one also Selected Writings of Samuel Johnson. Why would I be interested in Samuel Johnson? Because he operated, euhm.. wrote at a moment when the press was changing, growing, becoming popular; when a General Reading Publick emerged. And because he was a voracious reader.

In Boswell’s Life Johnson comes across as, well, exactly the journalist type — spending to much time in the Coffee-House, talking too much, with controversial opinions. A quite unsympathetic conservative knowitall. But that’s Boswell’s fault as well, I understand — he met Johnson very late in his life, after Johnson did all the hard writing work — sort of defining modern journalism, modern criticism, etc.

This seems to be a good introduction to Samuel Johnson: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/.

Texts here: http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/18th/j.html#johnson

“As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.”

Wrote Denis Diderot, Encyclopédie, 1755

Verslechterende weersvoorspellingen (kun je dat zo zeggen?) voor de rest van de week. Dus: een lange tocht. Plan: richting Selfkant, Schinveldse Bossen, Brunsummer Heide. Plekken waar ik nog niet ben geweest. Bewolkt, maar het bleef droog — tot Klimmen. Daarna motregen, overgaand in een kleine bui en vervolgens gewoon neerkletterende regen. 19 graden. Weinig wind. Uitstekend fietsweer (ja, ook met die regen op het einde). Tot Tüddern volgde ik de fietsknooppunten — een succes, vlakbij Geleen rijd je steeds over schitterende weggetjes. Daarna reed ik half op goed geluk half navigerend op de — uitstekende — Duitse fietsroutes langs een beekje en door het landbouwgebied. Best aardig. Tot bij Koningsbosch. Toen had ik er genoeg van, sloeg een grote weg in. Vervolgens vanaf Mindergangelt over de — weer prachtige — fietspaden door het natuurgebied van de Rodebach en de Schinveldse Bossen. Tot Brunssum. En toen raakte ik de routes kwijt (hier en daar ontbreekte wel eens een bordje). Reed heen en weer en snapte niet meer welke kant ik op moest. Zo verloor ik een half uurtje. Vond toch de goede weg. En de rest van de route was maar matig. De Brunsummer Heide is aardig, maar niet meer. Daarna volgt een vrij vervelend stuk. Vanaf Voerendaal kun je weer mooie routes opzoeken, maar ik koos voor de snelste weg terug. Vanaf Klimmen begon de regen.

Kanne – Maastricht – Rothem – Meerssen – Waterval – Uelestraten – Klein Genhout – Spaubeek – Thull – Oirsbeek – Windraak – Doenrade – Hillensberg – Süsterseel – Tüddern – Höngen – Havert – Isnebruch – Ijzeren Bos – Koningsbosch – Mindergangelt – Schinveldse Bos – Brunssum (v.v.) – Brunsummer Heide – Heerlen – Voerendal – Klimmen – Valkenburg – Houthem – Geulhem – Berg – Maastricht – Kanne.

Pff, ook dit stuk staat niet op mijn scans…

Een beetje sombertjes door de laaghangende soms donkergrijze bewolking, 20 graden, later flink wat kouder. Toch, ideaal fietsweer. 17.00 – 21.15. Vanaf Libeek de fietsknooppunten gevolgd. Eigenlijk was ik nog helemaal niet in dit deel van Limburg geweest, en ja, het Geleenbeekdal is best mooi, het bos bij Sweikhuizen prachtig, maar het trekt me toch minder dan de provincie Luik, niet eens omdat er minder klimwerk is, vooral omdat het overal wel heel Nederlands is en heel netjes. Voorbij de Fromberg ken ik zelfs de plaatsnamen niet…

Kanne – Lanaye – Lixhe – Moelingen – Mesch – Moerslag – Libeek – Mheer – Banholt – Reijmerstok – Gulpen – Wijlre – Fromberg – Winthagen – Kunrade – Voerendal – Weustenrade – Brommelen – Vaesrade – Thull alwaar de Alfa-brouwerij staat – Stammenderbos – Daniken – Munstergeleen – Daniken – Sweikhuizen – Stammenderbos – Spaubeek – Klein Genhout – Kelmont – Ulestraten – Waterval – Meerssen – Rothem – Maastricht – Kanne

Oftewel, vanaf Libeek: 80 – 81 – 82 – 83 – 85 – 58 – 57 – 54 – 55 – 25 – 24 – 38 v.v. 24 – 37 – 22 – 21 – 20 – 19 – 9 – 13 – 8 – 2 – 1 – 12

“… consider … the arts of transmission in the broad sense of the phrase as Bacon used it—namely, as the whole of the procedures that circulate, record, and organize knowledge.”

“David Hume declared explicitly that the fundamental advantage of the printing press seemed to be the potential to continuously improve and amend books in various editions.”

“On all of these levels it is interesting to note that the turning point is not the introduction of the printing press but much earlier, in the eleventh century, when the use of images became more complex and when the separation of words and efficient forms of punctuation became common. Various research instruments like verbal concordances (word indexes) and material concordances (subject indexes) were developed, overcoming even the mistrust for conventional cataloguing systems like alphabetical order, which bore no relation to the ultimate order of the world. The printing press was introduced into a foment of active experimentation with the forms of presentation and the organization of manuscripts, which were innovations connected with mostly autonomous developments like the increase and consequent standardization of available books. Collectively, these developments created a favorable environment for the consolidation and the success of the typographical innovation.”

“Terence Cave speaks of a discovery of the reader in the sixteenth century, based on a circular and indeterminate relationship between the writer and the reader; 31 the writer writes so as to compel the reader to elaborate his or her own autonomous perspective, that is, to presuppose his or her active role. A practice of generative reading is thus stabilized, where the text is used as material to be interpreted according to criteria and interests completely foreign to the one writing.” [See: See Terence Cave, “The Mimesis of Reading in the Renaissance,” in MIMESIS: From Mirror to Method, Augustine to Descartes, ed. J. Lyons and S. Nichols (Hanover, N.H., 1984), pp. 149–65.]

“[T]he medieval allegorical reading aimed at identification with, and not at detachment from, the perspective presented in the text (which was not that of the writer, but on a noncontingent and nonsubjective level).”

[Then, comparing the age of mass media with the age of the internet:]

“Where there was anonymity there is now personalization, where there was unilaterality there is interactivity, where there was the mass there is individual configuration, and above all, where there was an instrument expected to be as not noisy as possible, to not interfere with the message, there is now a machine used precisely to process information.”

“Computers and only computers are able to radically loosen the unity of communication in the search for new forms that mostly had not been considered by the one who produced the information.”

“Features that are perfectly casual from the point of view of the one drafting them, such as recurrent constructions and the redundancy present in lists or directories, are used by the computer in order to achieve effective ways of processing, with unpredictable results (think of compression techniques or the work of search engines).”

“In this case, information is valuable not because of what it conveys by itself (everyone builds their own information from their own perspective) but because it selects possibilities–a place from which one can start, like a computer does, to create more and more complex forms. Information then has value only as a precondition for a further decomposition into elements, which leads to recombination into forms.”

Elena Esposito, ‘ The Arts of Contingency’, in Critical Inquiry 31, 2004, http://www.uchicago.edu/research/jnl-crit-inq/features/artsstatements/arts.esposito.htm.