cac.ophony.org

Two interesting articles from the web:

1) a brief piece on an epistolary novel made up of text messages of the sort you can get on your cell phone (via AP via Yahoo!):

Text Message Novel Published in Finland
By JARI TANNER, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 24, 1:09 PM ET

HELSINKI, Finland - A novel whose narrative consists entirely of mobile phone text messages has been published in Finland.

“The Last Messages” tells the story of a fictitious information-technology executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.

His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.

“I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think,” said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland.

Sari Havukainen, spokeswoman at Finnish publishing house Tammi, said the company is considering translating the book into other languages.

The taciturn Finns, keen on all mobile gadgets, have wholeheartedly accepted text messages as a tool to communicate even in most private matters. Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen recently made tabloid front pages after reportedly having broken up with his girlfriend with a text.

and 2) a longer article from the Christian Science Monitor on new forms of scholarly publishing and the supposedly imminent death of your father’s scholarly journal. Here’s the tagline: “Publishing research to blogs and e-books is so easy, some are wondering if peer-reviewed journals are on their way to obsolescence.”

Enjoy.