Two things and a thing about two.

A day or two ago, two different emails advised me that something that I wrote reminded them of "The Substance of Style," the Virginia Postrel book that just came out in paperback, so I decided I ought to buy the book. As longtime readers know, I can't stand to buy just one thing. If I have one thing to buy, I become a prowling beast of a consumer, in search of a second thing to buy. The nearest book that appealed to me, in the Sociology section at Borders, was Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," which either is or is not related to the themes in "The Substance of Style," though I'm sure if my life depended on it I could come up with a theory about why they are about the same thing. Postman's book dates back to 1985 and so, as it predicts the future, I presume it completely fails to account for our absorption into cyberspace, but I'm interested in Chapter 10 – "Teaching as an Amusing Activity" – and as I said, I needed a second book in order to be able to buy the first book.

And speaking of two, this is my second post of the day offering up raw material for anyone who would like to work on the theory Althouse is a bit insane about numbers.