Status Updates From The Gold Bug Variations

There's a similar dance to find a common denominator language for conversation. Observe clothes, ported books, license plate. Try a few mumbled words. I overheard two men in the Liège (Luik, Luttich) railway station conclude, after halting negotiation, that their strongest common language was Latin.

To have been a virgin post-doc then! I exhumed the Watson-Crick paper that had touched off the wholesale gold rush. The primary sources still exhale the atmosphere of intellectual dizziness, the articles thick with a sense that someone would soon crack the complete caper and seize the ne plus ultra of the research world, the riddle of life.

Tooney Blake, dark, mid-height, a youthful forty, is at the piano doing a terrifyingly down-tempo version of "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." Only he's missed the point of the song: "Potato, potato, tomato, tomato," all pronounced exactly the same.

Librarian is a service occupation, gas station attendant of the mind. In an earlier age, I might have made things. Now I only make things available. Another BLit in the bulge of the late-capitalist job curve.

A few pages in and it's already clear I am going to have to concentrate hard when reading this one!