How Google Worked in 1931
Click the sketch to enlarge.
UPDATE: The enlarged photo is no longer private. Alternatively, you can see it on Dave’s page. – A.S.
Bing!
Meet The Flockers: Derrick Mosley
To obtain the relevant biographical information:
1. Take the Metra South Shore Electric Line from the so-called Millennium Station to the 55th-56th-57th Street Station, on a snowy day in late January, between 9:00 and 11:00 in the morning. Be certain to dress warmly, as the weather will be extremely cold. When you arrive at the platform, begin walking toward the stairs that lead to the 57th Street underpass, while looking to the west, away from the wind. Stop at Istria to have a coffee, if you wish. If you look across the street and slightly to your right, you will notice a curious three-story red-brick building with an incongruous Richardsonian-Romanesque limestone base. Cross the street toward this building after checking for traffic; flex your fingers in your mittens to keep them warm. Exhale, and watch the plume of breath form a tiny cumulus. Watch the curb on the other side, as it’s really quite high, for some reason. Once you’re on the sidewalk, begin walking west.
2. The next building you notice on your left will be a depressing single-story structure made of plate glass, cinnamon-colored brick and either limestone or concrete, with a rounded corner, and a green-and-yellow sign reading Powell’s Books Bought & Sold. Take a moment to look up into the white sky, notice the negative color of the falling flakes, the non-sound of the morning, the leafless tops of trees.
3. You also notice a window-unit air-conditioner above the door.
4. Is it after 11:00? Walk in immediately, shaking from the cold. If not, go back to Istria, wait until 11:00 over more coffee, while reading your copy of Paul Ricoeur’s Memory, History, Forgetting. Don’t worry about seeming to read it ostentatiously, as if you have something to prove. After all, everybody does. The sunburst in the seafoam green cover reminds you of summer seen through the lens of November. Suddenly, you feel as if you’re about to cry, but try to keep your composure. There. Eleven? Back to Powell’s.
5. Proceed to the left, and walk to the south-east corner of the store, where you will find a window, and the yellow Springer-Verlag spines of the Mathematics section. If you’re lucky, you will be able to find a complete edition of the Principia Mathematica, by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead, the 1927 edition in blue cloth. Volume IV consists of the biography of Derrick Mosley in symbolic form, but, due to its numerous antimonies, it never really sold.
descent, and then oblivion
