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CHOPSTICKS_OF_THE_MIND

                                                               May 16, 2010

   A passage marked with an old tab I
   placed-- who knows when-- in the                     It's colored
   Elliot Paul book "Hugger-Mugger in                   pink, in violation
   the Louvre" (1940):                                  of the code.

                                                                 TABS
     "Only last week they authorized the use of typewriters
     in the Department of Justice.  Typewriters, mind you,
     those soulless instruments responsible for half the
     sloppy writing and thinking of today.  The wise Chinese
     use chopsticks, Mademoiselle Montana, not because such
     a resourceful people could not invent a small shovel
     for cramming food into their mouths.  Indeed, not!
     Chopsticks require slow eating and that means good
     digestion, health, economy, and above all a mind clear
     as crystal.  A typewriter, mademoiselle, slays the
     identity, confuses the ears with clattering noises,
     frustrates the flow of reason by mechanical defects. Do
     you see in this office a single one of those bothersome
     machines?  Why, I would discharge after thirty years of
     service my good clerk, M. Camphre, if I even caught him
     using a fountain pen.  Our forefathers wrote immortal
     prose and reached profound decisions without mechanical
     claptrap to addle their brains.  A quill, mademoiselle.
     That's the ideal writing instrument.  A balm to the
     intellect." -- the lawyer, Maitre Ronron, speaking to
     Miriam Leonard, -- p. 174



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