Theory of Everything: I feel uninformed
This happened a while ago in Copenhagen, when my friend Andreas and his friend Marie were visiting. We are in a corner bar called Café Falken. Not the one in Frederikberg, the one on Christianshavn, which has no reference to it at all on the Internet — up until now, that is. The place had mostly old people in it. *Authentic* written all over it.
So me and mine were there, *bourgeoising* it all up, like cats do milk.
– “[Theory of Everything](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything)” is the shit, says Andreas.
– Sure, but at which conference was it released? counters Marie, citing three or four examples of heroics in physics.
This launches a long back-and-forth on physics, of which I know next to nothing. Good lesson to me. Techno-babble can kill.
I learnt that one can not understand [string theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory) to any meaningful extent, without getting high-level math first. The abstractions just turn into playful imagery, not explanations.
But the above links can lead you and me, dear reader, to more information on the subject of TOE. And, maybe, at the end of the day, this information can be turned into understanding. But do not count on it.
Another thing I remember was that Marie was interested in [primitivism](http://www.primitivism.com/), as preached by [John Zerzan](http://www.primitivism.com/zerzan.htm). Myself, I am an armchair eco-philosopy reader, it’s a bit like collecting records. The books are on import, extremely expensive, from small pubslihers, in small print runs. Very seldom one meets another collector, and it was nice meet another eco-geek. (I’d like to point out that eco-geeks of that level are bookworms, mostly.)
You just summed up my approach to books as well. It´s a bloody good set of criteria to get a good collection of books.
Just wanted to let you know that my essay passed through the academic digestion and that I in a couple of weeks can add librarian to my collection of titles.
Ah! The Return of the Librarian! Welcome back to the fold. I hope you stay with us, and move more southwards. How long are they keeping you so near the Arctic Circle, and when do you get your own library?
Do you maintain a homepage, a personal log of any kind? Is that of any interest to you? Blogspot are pretty good at dishing out free Blogger blogs.
I have now claimed a small part of blogspot: ondbibliotekarie.blogspot.com
This will most probably be a temporary blog while I try to get a friend of mine to set up something more permanent on his server.