RUPERT FINALLY GETS IT

The nickle finally dropped for Rupert Murdoch regarding the demise of the printed newspaper, which as I've said I will not lament overly, especially when everyone gets their daily news fix from sleek little handhelds, as opposed to, for example, the woman beside me on the train this morning who as I was visibly seeking to nod off in cozy modern commuter comfort actually made a quite passable tambourine out of her daily gazette, beating it heartily to the tune of When the Saints Come Marching In I think it was, trumpets, tuba and bass drum strongly implied.

As to the tambourine technique, you have to have been in Japan and seen the way train commuters read their newspapers, using the street version of fast Fourier transformation (which reduces the number of computations needed for N points from 2N² to 2N lg N, where lg is the base-2 logarithm). The complex method was developed way back when commuters were advised to leave their sweaters at the office so as to make more room on the trains. Seriously. (Since world population is expected to double in the next few decades, though, it might be advisable to start leaving your sweaters at the office.)

Under such literally social pressure, the commuters learned to fold their open newspaper further in half lengthwise, then crosswise and so on till it was down to the size of the article they sought to read and could do so overhead if needed, which process, involving the several dozen perusable articles throughout the paper, necessitated complexly unfolding and refolding several meter-square surfaces a few hundred times or so in a complex newsy-noisy origami that wasn’t particularly bothersome back in the days when everyone was standing and rocking together on the way to work anyhow, but now that the trains are bigger and there’s more room and spacious seats in which to doze off, the pros still fold their papers the old way, as the woman next to me did this morning - such a petite woman, capable of fronting Louie Armstrong –

Until she got up and was replaced by one of my favorite commuter types, the sniffer (not safe for mealtime), who doesn’t need a newspaper to keep everyone awake. (The only ones in the car always sit next to me, by some attraction I cannot fathom and so put an end to; I think they actually ask the conductor, is Brady in this car? - SNIFF -) I shouldn’t say ‘everyone,’ though, because as a foreigner not fully trained in these niceties I’m actually the only one who is kept awake or distracted by tambourines and nostrils. But there is a solution. Maybe those sleek and silent e-newspaper handhelds will have tissue dispensers, Rupert?


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