Comments on: Letters of Acceptance

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:25:33 +0000

Oh, “fun size” was very big when I was a kid in the 70s, esp. w/r/t candy like M&Ms and Snickers bars, etc. Especially at Easter and Hallowen.

By: MacD

MacD — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:09:54 +0000

I don’t remember seeing anything called “fun size” until the last 5 years or so…pretty much predating IJ. But I, too, vote soap.

By: TripleMcSlice

TripleMcSlice — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:53:44 +0000

To rip off your Wiki cross-reference entirely:

“With this apocryphal quotation of Josiah Royce, Borges describes a further conundrum of when the map is contained within the territory, you are led into infinite regress:

“‘The inventions of philosophy are no less fantastic than those of art: Josiah Royce, in the first volume of his work The World and the Individual (1899), has formulated the following: “Let us imagine that a portion of the soil of England has been levelled off perfectly and that on it a cartographer traces a map of England. The job is perfect; there is no detail of the soil of England, no matter how minute, that is not registered on the map; everything has there its correspondence. This map, in such a case, should contain a map of the map, which should contain a map of the map of the map, and so on to infinity.” Why does it disturb us that the map be included in the map and the thousand and one nights in the book of the Thousand and One Nights? Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote be a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictions.’”

By: TripleMcSlice

TripleMcSlice — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:49:25 +0000

Nice one, Miker. In that vein, it seems like “map” alludes to a character’s worldview, perspective, interpretive framework—his/her “lens” in other words…

Great Concavity (/Convexity) indeed!

By: Ozma

Ozma — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:46:02 +0000

I’ve decided that map is consciousness. But maybe that doesn’t work. I’ll have to check.

By: Miker

Miker — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 02:01:07 +0000

Just remember-- the map is not the territory!

By: TW Andrews

TW Andrews — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:42:08 +0000

Agreed. I thought the insight about people wanting less interaction in their communication was clever, but found the passages about the lengths people would go to to avoid having to be seen when answering their video phones to be a bit hackneyed.

The grandfatherks monolog was absolutely one of the best things I’ve ever read though.

By: Jaime

Jaime — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:52:22 +0000

I really liked that part too, especially since it tied in to the much sadder and rougher story of yrstruly, Poor Tony and C. That combination of heartbreak and zany comedy seems to be a recurring theme…

By: Dawn

Dawn — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:58:07 +0000

I adored the bit about the external artificial heart: “She stole my heart!” Literally laughed out loud at that one!

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:30:19 +0000

In a burst of either cosmic symmetry or the simple ability to see what’s right in front of me, I have noticed today that my office [I'm a pediatrician] is littered with Trial-Sized Dove Bars for patients to take home.