I still haven't found the name of the flappers in Swift's Book Three of Gulliver's Travels, but I did find the correct name of the country: Laputa, not Lakota. That's not too bad for not having read it for 65 years. Right now I have to dash off to meet a friend to wander around the AGO. I'm not at all educated when it comes to art. I knew an art critic who dismissed people like me, that is, people who say "I don't know anything about art but I know what I like" when what they are really saying is "I don't know anything about art but I like what I know." I have a daughter who is really knowledgeable and gifted and I would love to get inside her head to understand what she understands and to see what she sees. It doesn't work that way. No shortcuts. SOW if I don't stop rambling I'm going to be late for my friend. No shortcuts. Of course, now I want to look up shortcuts and see where it comes from. Does anyone know? Off the top of your head? Anon,anon, sir.

In Jonathan Swift's travel book, Gulliver's Travels, the account of his third voyage, to Lakota, I think, left us with the searing memory of the Struldbrugs, people who never died, immortal but not competent or healthy and deprived of most of their rights. That's another discussion. I'm thinking now of the noise-makers, attendants with flapping balloons who reminded people of what they were saying or doing - something like that. I'm in bed in the early morning (4 a.m.) and I'm not getting up to find my copy of the book. My memory will have to serve for now. I thought of this because I have been making lists and checking Stats Canada for some bits of information and thinking this is NOT a paperless society, except that, considering all we have to remember and file and hang onto, I guess it is. I mean, what if our personal flapping noise-maker had to carry it all for us? So I write noodges to myself everyday. I cling to paper, scribbling on the other side of used copy paper, torn into note-sized pieces, easing my consumption conscience. Others, younger than I and less conscientious (?) carry little electronic pads, the present-day equivalent of the flappers. (I'll look them up, soon.) But then what? You have to follow up on the directives, paperless or not, adding more noodges as you go through the day. I'll make a note of Gulliver's Travels and go back to sleep. I hope.