Recalling Sam The Record Man Spins

TOK: Writing the New Toronto, Book 7 presented by Diaspora Dialogues was designed by The Office of Gilbert Li whose page layout (lots of white space at the bottom and bunching of type at the top) took a little getting used to. However, striking are the illustrations that accompany the texts. In particular, the one for Irving Ellman's "The Poet's Voice" recalls in its design the huge signs that adorned Sam The Record Man and spun out their radiating light. The story of course features visiting the store. In lieu of a quotation from the story, here is a scan of the illustration that doesn't quite do it justice since the book has illustrations on the left and the title/author on the right of the spread for each of the texts. Difficult to reproduce the pairing. Nonetheless, here is the visual homage to Sam's.



And so for day 934
04.07.2009

Hugo on Voltaire and in passing on Christ

I had somehow come to know of the shortest verse in the Bible. It is only much much later that I have learnt of the rejoinder.

The shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible is only two words long. Here, in its intense entirety, is the Gospel According to St. John, 11:35: "Jesus wept." Victor Hugo, taken with the image of the tearful Christ, elaborated in 1878: "Jesus wept; Voltaire smiled. Of that divine tear and of that human smile is composed the sweetness of the present civilization." It is said that nowhere in the New Testament does Jesus smile.

John Robert Colombo in the preface to Worlds in Small. One of course must be careful not to read that Voltaire smiled because Jesus wept.

And so for day 362
11.12.2007