a performance dialogue

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

one two three...lots


Two piles of books sit on the stage. The librarian moves over to the first pile and starts to stack them one on top of the other. He counts them as he stacks "One, two, three, lots, lots, lots, lots". When he finishes he moves over to the second pile and starts to stack these books counting as he works: "one, two, three, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots." The piles look the same size. But are they? He pushes one pile of books towards the other until they are side by side. He then counts up the sides of the piles using both hands: "one, two, three, lots, lots, lots, lots." After a while one hand runs out of books and the librarian keeps counting "lots, lots, lots" up the bigger pile. Happy that the second pile is a bigger sort of lots than the first, he picks it up and staggers through to the next hexagon.

4 comments:

Dorothy Ker said...

How does this continue?

Dorothy Ker said...

There's a sense in which your pile of books (if you double click on them you can make the images on the blog larger)is the 'first library': the library that unlocks the shape of the universe.

kate said...

"How does this continue?"

Lots more lots.........

Dorothy Ker said...

Is it also a kind of nightmare, a characterisation of the tyranny of infinity?

Is there a character (is it Marcus?) that carries piles of books from one hexagon to another? Perhaps he eventually ends up with an 'infinite number' of piles or an 'infinitely high' pile?