📚APR 2026 Cosmicomics #4 ALL AT ONE POINT
Original topic subject: 📚APR 2026 Cosmiccomics #4 ALL AT ONE POINT
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1DebiCates
Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino translated by William Weaver, collection first published 1965.
Discussion links:
Introduction
The Distance of the Moon
At Daybreak
A Sign in Space
All at One Point (This page)
Without Colors
Games Without End
The Aquatic Uncle
How Much Shall We Bet?
The Dinosaurs
The Form of Space
The Light-Years
The Spiral
Final Thoughts
Discussion links:
Introduction
The Distance of the Moon
At Daybreak
A Sign in Space
All at One Point (This page)
Without Colors
Games Without End
The Aquatic Uncle
How Much Shall We Bet?
The Dinosaurs
The Form of Space
The Light-Years
The Spiral
Final Thoughts
2DebiCates
This is a shorter short story. Qwfwq and et al--and I mean ET AL--are at the cusp and very beginnings of the Big Bang. Time doesn't exist yet, so no telling how long they are there, all part of one point, all the entities like Qwfwq, all the known and unknown "things" that make up the universe, time, space, all of it. In one point, undifferentiated.
Again, Calvino makes it humorous. Living all at one point, there is the crowding issue for one, the clash of personalities for another. Like the group's prejudice against "immigrants," the Z'Zus, which made no sense since everything was there all at one point and space and time didn't exist yet. But the "point" is made: that kind of prejudice is silly and harmful. We are all one. (Then and now.)
There's something, though, on which no one disagrees That is their love for Mrs. Ph(i)NK0 (Look at that, LT allows subscripts in html! Of course it does, silly me.) Since everyone is one, they have all slept with her. They are her, she is them. For some reason this one soft entity (a pink one?) fills them all with good feelings. Dare I say, she is the "element" love.
When she, in a moment of flowing generosity announces, "Boys! The noodles I would make for you!" the universe of things and time and space simultaneously begins.
Later Carl Sagan would say in the 1980s, ""If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." I always liked that, but now I think I like Calvino's noodles better.
The Big Bang singularity theory of infinite density and heat contained in a single point is the part of that theory that doesn't hold water, so to speak. In 1979 (15 years after this book by Calvino) Alan Guth came up with a solution to resolve some of the issues with the Big Bang, resolving things that should be true if the Big Bang was true, but are not.
But that is a different story. You can read about the problems with the Big Bang and the alternate theory of the period of the "cosmic inflation" here, on Forbes (honestly most of it above my head): https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/21/the-big-bang-wasnt-the-b...
Mmm, homemade noodlessssss.....they look a little like spiral galaxies, don't they?
Again, Calvino makes it humorous. Living all at one point, there is the crowding issue for one, the clash of personalities for another. Like the group's prejudice against "immigrants," the Z'Zus, which made no sense since everything was there all at one point and space and time didn't exist yet. But the "point" is made: that kind of prejudice is silly and harmful. We are all one. (Then and now.)
There's something, though, on which no one disagrees That is their love for Mrs. Ph(i)NK0 (Look at that, LT allows subscripts in html! Of course it does, silly me.) Since everyone is one, they have all slept with her. They are her, she is them. For some reason this one soft entity (a pink one?) fills them all with good feelings. Dare I say, she is the "element" love.
When she, in a moment of flowing generosity announces, "Boys! The noodles I would make for you!" the universe of things and time and space simultaneously begins.
Later Carl Sagan would say in the 1980s, ""If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." I always liked that, but now I think I like Calvino's noodles better.
The Big Bang singularity theory of infinite density and heat contained in a single point is the part of that theory that doesn't hold water, so to speak. In 1979 (15 years after this book by Calvino) Alan Guth came up with a solution to resolve some of the issues with the Big Bang, resolving things that should be true if the Big Bang was true, but are not.
But that is a different story. You can read about the problems with the Big Bang and the alternate theory of the period of the "cosmic inflation" here, on Forbes (honestly most of it above my head): https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/21/the-big-bang-wasnt-the-b...
Mmm, homemade noodlessssss.....they look a little like spiral galaxies, don't they?
3AnishaInkspill
>2 DebiCates:, nice, my book says tagliatelle but noodles has a much nicer ring to it
