Updated: Never — Philip's Blog

Trying to avoid buying the new Harry Potter book for philosophical reasons, my dangerous idle mind went looking for other things to read. After a couple of hours of reading boring drivel, I stumbled upon a little masterpiece which I feel deserves a posthumous nomination for a Nobel prize in literature.

Cantatrix sopranica L., or Experimental demonstration of the tomatotopic organization in the Soprano is a mock scientific paper describing the yelling reaction in sopranos when tomatoes are thrown at them.

This jewel was written by Georges Perec, a famous (or at least infamous) master of constrained writing. I had previously read his books La disparition and La vie mode d'emploi, but I was not aware of this paper.

Needless to say, I was very amused. :-) Every geek should read this. It's much more interesting than Harry Potter. No monsters though.

http://pauillac.inria.fr/~xleroy/stuff/tomato/tomato.html

Be sure to read the references.