First of all, yayyyy Dr. Chapelle for blogging! :)

Last night, instead of practicing for my IASAS Cultural Convention (this music/art exchange) audition today - the schedule of which I'd only learned of yesterday - I finally picked up 'Library of Babel.' (yes, I am ashamed that I hadn't touched it earlier) I remember, at one point Jacob threw out a discussion question about hexagons in the piece - and as irrelevant as it sounds now, this is what I think:

The first thing that came to my mind was that the number 6 is the smallest perfect number, as the Pythagoreans deemed it. But perhaps more relevant is that the regular hexagon is the regular polygon with the greatest number of sides that makes a tessellation. (correct me if I'm wrong, Eunice, Adam, or anyone else...) A tessellation so that the people of the library had reason to believe at one point that their world was "perhaps an infinite number of hexagonal galleries." (79) This is where I begin to stretch things, but maybe it might make sense. It did last night. As we know it's impossible to construct a tessellation out of circles; yet "the mystics claim that to them ecstasy reveals a round chamber." (80) The hexagon, as the regular polygon with the largest number of sides that fits into a tessellation on its own, is the closest thing they can get to a circle within the limits of their dimension. Borges dubs man "the imperfect librarian" (80) - to a [forced] extent the library's structure parallels the imperfect struggle for perfection. Perhaps, the divine forces that created the library were imperfect themselves? I don't know.

Okay, I'm done talking. But the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is not - labor quote:

"Congratulations. You have arrived."
- arrivals lobby of the international flights airport, Manila, Philippines.

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [3:34 AM]

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