Inventive sports in Madrid, Spain have made extremely trivial history by performing the tiniest writing ever done, copying the first paragraph of Cervantes’ Don Quixote onto a silicon chip. The physicists, apparently fighting their own windmills in the effort, wrote the letters so small they claim the entire novel could be copied onto the tips of six human hairs, though they didn’t name anyone who volunteered to do so. Whether the hair would belong to Grace Jones or David Lee Roth, they didn’t offer—surely they realize hair is quite relative.

“What a fantastic feat!” exclaimed book critic and hair enthusiast Alameda Ramirez, also of Madrid. “It’s an amazing step forward for people who like to copy things really small onto objects not paper.”

The physicists performed the chip-writing as part of a 400th anniversary celebration of Cervantes’ classic work, and those involved are very insistent no beer was involved. The group used a very expensive atomic force microscope for their frivolity. While some stuffy scientist-types were enthusiastic about the possible use of the microscope for writing more information on smaller chips and revolutionizing the computer industry, intellectual literary-types were more excited about the possibility for easier-to-store books.

“If you could fit all of Don Quixote onto six hairs, imagine how much you could write on someone’s entire head?” librarian Marcos Gally thought out loud. “Assuming you didn’t kill them in the process, of course. I could carry the entire annotated works of Shakespeare and all the great plays of the twentieth century, in all languages, in my hairbrush. I wouldn’t necessarily be able to read them. Which is my second point—we need to get to work on microscopic bifocals right away.”

His colleague, bookstacker Londo, agreed. “Yes, but sad that intellectuals like John Malkovich and Michael Stipe would get no books at all. While Pamela Anderson would have them in abundance.”

Both then agreed the complete conversion from paper books to hair books should wait at least until better transplant options became available.

Most appealing about the tiny writing possibilities, according to literary historian Bernadette Fopps, is making the wealth of the world’s literature available in the least expensive format ever.

“A library of every piece of printed material ever, from the Bible in Esperanto to the latest issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, could easily fit into most modern handbags. That is, if you didn’t mind a purse full of hair. But of course, not everyone is going to want a copy of everything. Personally, as a fan of early twentieth century British psychological literature, I would relish the opportunity to have a complete catalogue of George Orwell’s fiction on a single pubic hair. Though, maybe that’s more appropriate for the work of Henry Miller—I’m not the one to make those kinds of decisions.”

A few detractors weren’t ready to get on board the small hair writing train just yet. Such as author Tom Clancy.

“I’m as prone to mistakes as the next guy,” said the Hunt for Red October author. “If I get to page 435 and Jack Ryan is about to knock out the bad guy, and I have a few type-O’s, is my editor going to be able to correct those mistakes? ‘Cause I’m not going to pluck a new hair and start over. I love my craft, but there are limits, you know?”

Also reluctant to embrace the idea was Denny’s waiter Christian Meams: “The last added frustration I need on my job is someone’s reading a copy of the latest Michael Chabon book, they forget about it, and I get blamed for bringing them the burger with the novel in it.”

the commune news would love to see the day we can publish our latest issue on an eyelash—this website shit ain’t free, you hear? Truman Prudy is unmistakably British, and we assume he prefers the smell of dusty old books—something he’s wearing is giving off that dusty smell.
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