The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise

I've had various Georges Perec books on my list for a while now, so when I discovered this long story at the library I jumped on the chance to check out his style.  It's a droll sixties take on 'computational literature' which narrates, in a single 50 page long sentence, all the possible paths through the satirical corporate flowchart associated with the titular question.  While the lack of any punctuation or capitalization is off-putting at first, I found myself quickly falling into the rhythm of the text.  In fact, at some point it become a strange sort of breathless page turner, despite the fact that it seems mathematically impossible to write a good story given the constraints.  While the text is very repetitious, Perec's comic wit and timing turn every repeated phrase into a new punchline. After such a masterful display of making something out of nothing I'll surely be reading more Perec in the near future.  

So It Was Said

As a result of SPUDS book club I discovered that you can order Sutta Central's new translations of all the Pali Cannon materials via the print on demand service Lulu.  This particular handsomely produced little volume is a translation of the Itivuttaka, which consists of 112 short sayings from the Buddha, each accompanied by a verse commentary.  It's not the most compelling part of the Pali Cannon that I've read, since it's frequently just a list of things that are not helpful and things that are helpful in practice.  But there are some interesting and puzzling moments thrown in there.  My favorite was number 49, which describes something that might sound either insipid or tautological, but turns out to be incredibly profound: "And how do those with vision see? It's when a mendicant sees what has come to be as having come to be."