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 The latest issue of Opium -- a hip, San Francisco literary magazine -- features an unusual new short story. The piece, printed on the publication's cover and created by artist/journalist Jonathon Keats, is only 9 words long. But don't let that fool you: It will take a good 1,000 years to read.
The cover is printed in a double layer of standard black ink, with an incrementally screened overlay masking the nine words. Exposed over time to ultraviolet light, the words will be appear at different rates, supposedly one per century. "The precise quantity of ink covering each word is different, so that the words will appear one at a time," Keats said. "Provided that your copy of Opium is kept out in the open, and regularly exposed to sunlight over 1,000 years to be read progressively by the next dozen or so generations.
Why the gimmick? "Like most people, I live my life in a rush, consuming media on the run," said Keats, who has copyrighted his mind, tried to pass a Law of Identity and attempted to genetically engineer God. "That may be fine for reading the average blog," he said, "but something essential is lost when ingesting words is all about speed. My thousand-year story is an antidote. Given the printing process I've used, you can’t take in more than one word per century. That's even slower than reading Proust."
In case you're wondering, the first word in the story is "Time." Hopefully, that will be enough to sustain reader interest until the second word appears... sometime in the summer of 2109. [Hat tip: Wired] One person has commented on this article. Quote(1) UntitledJune 20th, 2009 | 7:50pm Sorry, Brian, but now that I see that Zoe has changed her avatar picture, I insist that you do so as well.
Mainly because every time I see your current one I find it hard to take seriously anything written by Hans Gruber, the terrorist boss from Die Hard. |
