day 88 – four books that have a lot to say about lists.

“Order is, at one and the same time, that which is given in things as their inner law, the hidden network that determines the way they confront one another, and also that which has no existence except in the grid created by a glance, an examination, a language; and it is only in the blank spaces of this grid that order manifests itself in depth as though already there, waiting in silence for the moment of its expression.” Michel Foucault, The Order of Things

“These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; sons were born to them after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras…” Genesis 10:1

“The following day, Bioy called me from Buenos Aries. He told me he had before him the article on Uqbar, in volume XLVI of the encyclopedia. The heresiarch’s name was not forthcoming, but there was a note on his doctrine, formulated in words almost identical to those he had repeated, though perhaps literally inferior. He had recalled: Copulation and mirrors are abominable. The text of the encyclopedia said: For one of those gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or (more precisely) a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are abominable because they multiply and disseminate that universe.” Jorge Luis Borges, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

“Categorization is not a matter to be taken lightly. There is nothing more basic than categorization to our thought, perception, action, and speech.”  - George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things