Filed Replies, Vol. 10
From D. Okafor, Lagos:
I submitted a photograph of my uncle's market stall awning last spring. It is very wide. I have heard nothing back. Is the submission desk still operational?
The submission desk is operational in the sense that it exists and is located adjacent to the broken coffee machine (broken since March, the March being March 2018 if we count from the first written complaint, which I do). Your photograph was received, logged, and placed in the Pending Physical Evidence queue, which is processed in the order submissions were received, with the current front of queue being a 1996 Buick entry that arrived during the second Clinton administration. I have flagged your awning photograph under Memo 1986-04 criteria, meaning it requires a secondary girth measurement before catalogue consideration. If your uncle could provide a horizontal span in meters, taken at full extension, not bunched, I will move it forward. This is all I can promise.
From R. Quintero, Guadalajara:
I would like to nominate the concept of "potential energy" for inclusion. A compressed spring has more thiccc in it than a loose spring. This seems obvious to me.
The Founding Charter (1974), available at /about/documents/founding-charter/, specifies that subjects must be physically measurable by an independent third party using instruments available at the time of submission. Potential energy is not a shape. I understand the intuition; I have worked here seventeen years and I have had it myself, usually around 4 p.m. on a Thursday. But the Silhouette Test, adopted under Amendment 1991-08 at /about/documents/amendment-1991-08/, requires that a subject cast a definitive shadow, and a compressed spring's shadow is simply a compressed spring, which we already have on file under a perfectly serviceable 1987 entry. Filed objection to the theoretical-subject sub-queue, for the third time this fiscal year.
From P. Stein, Milwaukee:
I understand Teddy has been working on the Saturn V brief since 2011. Given that the Saturn V is unambiguously thiccc, what is the holdup?
The Saturn V is not in dispute. Its girth credentials are, I would argue, beyond challenge, and I would further argue they were beyond challenge in 2011, 2014, 2017, and each subsequent year in which the brief has been "nearly ready." The holdup is Teddy, who has refiled the brief under three separate subject-class headings since January, most recently reclassifying it from Engineered Conveyance to Architectural Structure on the grounds that it "mostly just stood there." I have submitted a correction memo to the records desk. The credenza in my office currently holds four iterations of the Saturn V brief, two of which are stapled with a Swingline 747, which is the correct stapler, and two of which are not, which tells you something about the provenance of those drafts. I expect resolution in Q3 of a year I have not yet selected.
From T. Bellingham, Edinburgh:
Given that the G7 nations cannot agree on a baseline tariff framework, do you think international trade coordination is simply too complex to be governed by rules?
A tariff is a girth criterion, simply applied at the border rather than at the point of submission. The problem with current international trade coordination is the same problem I documented in the Style Guide sections I through III, which is that the parties have not agreed on a unit of measurement before beginning the assessment, so each nation is conducting its own Silhouette Test using a different light source and calling the resulting shadow a policy. This produces exactly the chaos you'd expect, which is to say the same chaos produced every time a junior cataloguer - and I name no names, but the Saturn V brief is sitting on my credenza - decides that reclassification is a substitute for completion. The G7 would benefit from a founding charter, a senior cataloguer with genuine authority, and a coffee machine that works. I note that none of them have these things.
From C. Adler, Portland:
My neighbor insists her sourdough starter "counts" because she has been feeding it since 2009 and it has grown considerably. I am asking on her behalf, involuntarily.
The Atlantic Giant Decision of March 2009, Precedent 2009-03, at /about/documents/atlantic-giant-2009/, does confirm that cultivated and selectively bred subjects are eligible under section II.4, provided growth is continuous, documented, and attributable to intentional stewardship rather than neglect or ambient moisture. Your neighbor's starter clears that bar in principle. The question I would put to her, and which I would require answered in writing before any catalogue consideration, is whether "grown considerably" survives the Silhouette Test, or whether it is simply a jar that has been in her kitchen for seventeen years and smells like something I recognize from this office but cannot locate. A volume measurement, in milliliters, taken at peak activity, submitted to the records desk with a timestamp, would be a start. Constance will acknowledge receipt and park it somewhere until Q3.