David F GliddenandClaude Opus 4.8
3f9a89b00c
Basic Memory v0.21.6 first sync over the live memory dir (steward-authorized live-dir trial, Option A 2026-06-06): adds permalink: to frontmatter, refolds long YAML description lines, strips final newlines. Bodies untouched — verified via full diff classification. From this commit forward, any diff in claude/memory shows only what Basic Memory or the session writes. Trial design: MemPalace untouched as incumbent; git status check on this dir at every wrap; end-of-day evaluation (recall quality, sync robustness, rebuild-from-files, malformed-file behavior). Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
62 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
62 lines
5.1 KiB
Markdown
---
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name: ARC chamber-library — Auerbach Mimesis acquisition debt
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description: RESOLVED 2026-05-20 ~10:25 — steward provided a clean PDF source (22MB,
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Xerox-scanned + Acrobat-Distilled, 530 pages, valid text layer); pdftotext + custom
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heading-promotion produced a clean MD with all 20 chapters as H1. Filed at traditions/critical_modernity/literary_criticism/mimesis-auerbach.md.
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The .mobi failure is preserved below as forensic record + the conditions under which
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mojibake sources should be rejected.
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metadata:
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type: project
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originSessionId: 2026-05-20-conversion-session
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permalink: claude-memory/project-arc-mimesis-acquisition-debt
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---
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# Auerbach *Mimesis* — acquisition debt — RESOLVED 2026-05-20
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**RESOLVED 2026-05-20 ~10:25.** Steward provided a clean PDF source at `/Users/davidglidden/Documents/___The Library [ePub_AWZ3]/New texts may 2026/Mimesis_Dargestellte_Wirklichkeit.pdf` (22MB, Xerox DSMR + Acrobat Distiller 5.0.5, 530 pages, valid text layer). Pipeline: `pdftotext` (clean German text extraction) + `/tmp/clean_mimesis.py` (heading promotion + running-head/page-number cleanup, generalised and saved to `chamber-library/scripts/clean_pdf_running_heads.py`). Output: 17,375 lines / 210,079 words / 21 H1 (20 chapters Die Narbe des Odysseus → Der braune Strumpf, + Register). Filed at `traditions/critical_modernity/literary_criticism/mimesis-auerbach.md`. The original .mobi failure is preserved below as forensic record.
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---
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# Original memo — .mobi source failure (forensic record)
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## What happened
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During the 2026-05-20 conversion session (8 texts staged for §4 *Overlap and Resolution* prose authoring), 7 converted clean. Auerbach's *Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur* (German .mobi, 51MB) failed:
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- **Calibre `ebook-convert`** raised `SplitError: Could not find reasonable point at which to split: index.html Sub-tree size: 322 KB` — the .mobi packages all content in a single oversized HTML file with no split markers.
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- **With `--flow-size=0`** (skip splitting), Calibre produced a 1.1MB EPUB, but the body content is **mojibake** — encoding artifacts from a scan-OCR pipeline that didn't produce clean text. Sample (page-mid): `«10g°ªÖ¼¸'»péjÕÊ€›) ÝÉÞßmžxË!ýô...` — not Auerbach's German prose.
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- **`pandoc -t gfm-raw_html`** on the Calibre EPUB produced 8628 lines / 32,738 words of mostly-mojibake text. 32K words is also very short for Mimesis (the actual book is hundreds of thousands of words), confirming the .mobi was primarily scanned page-images with broken OCR.
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The .mobi's 51MB size is consistent with embedded high-resolution page scans + poor OCR text layers.
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## What's needed
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A clean source for Auerbach *Mimesis* — one of:
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1. **German EPUB** from Suhrkamp Taschenbuch (paperback edition, well-typeset, clean text layer)
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2. **English translation (Trask, Princeton 1953)** EPUB — equally load-bearing for §4 prose authoring since the §4 supplementary-authority work cites Auerbach methodologically, not in a specific-language register
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3. **Internet Archive scan with verified text layer** if it exists in their collection — would need pdftotext / docling round-trip test before commitment
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## Why this matters
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Auerbach is the named supplementary authority for the Gloss ⇌ Readings threshold (per the steward's three-threshold notes 2026-05-20):
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> *"Erich Auerbach in Mimesis — every chapter is a textbook case of the threshold case, beginning as gloss on a passage and modulating into reading of an epoch. Watching him cross the threshold paragraph by paragraph is itself a methodological education."*
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For §4 prose, this means: if §4 wants direct-quoted Auerbach demonstration of the gloss → readings crossing, the chamber-library doesn't have a clean source. Either the §4 prose works from the steward's notes + general knowledge of Auerbach's method (acknowledged honestly per `feedback-pandoc-epub-suppress-raw-html.md` source-quality discipline), or Auerbach acquisition runs before §4 authoring.
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## Recommendation
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Defer Auerbach to a separate small acquisition task (post-§4 prose authoring). The §4 prose can name Auerbach as supplementary authority and quote from the steward's notes; when a clean Auerbach source lands in chamber-library, §4 can be revised in a small follow-on commit per the Live-State Discipline (spec text records what IS).
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## Cross-references
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- Three-threshold notes shared by steward 2026-05-20 morning (in conversation prior to conversion session)
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- `feedback-pandoc-epub-suppress-raw-html.md` — source quality determines retrieval quality
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- `project-epub-repair-pipeline.md` — the pipeline that worked for 6 of 7 conversions today
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- `feedback-articulate-toolchain-fit-before-executing.md` — per-text toolchain-fit diagnosis (in this case, the .mobi source itself failed before any toolchain question)
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- 2026-05-20 conversion session result: 7 of 8 staged texts converted clean (Palimpsestes, Seuils, Citadelle, Exercices, Philosophie, Austin, Szondi)
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## Filing
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This memo lives alongside the other `project-arc-*-pending.md` files; entered into MEMORY.md if/when steward authorizes elevating to active acquisition task. |