the minutes of the committee
selected rulings, entered in the register as handed down
The museum's affairs are governed by its standing committees: the accession committee, which decides what enters the collection, and the nomenclature committee, which decides what to call it once it has. The minutes below are excerpted from the register; each ruling remains in force at the premises where it was handed down.
first sitting
matters of definition
In the matter of Kumano, being a journey and not a city: the committee ruled that four hundred and fifty-seven works distributed along a pilgrimage way constitute an annex, and that the statutes, which speak of cities, would simply have to walk it off.
In the matter of the Maldives, being an archipelago: the committee, fresh from Kumano and in no mood to subdivide, ruled the atolls one annex, administered by seaplane.
In the matter of Singapore, being simultaneously a city, a state, and a country: the committee agreed to find this restful.
In the matter of Longyearbyen, being a city, a town, or a company settlement: the committee ruled the question immaterial — eighty-seven works constitute an annex whatever the place calls itself.
In the matter of airports: asked whether an airport is a city (Oslo), the committee declined to rule and requested that no one ask. Asked subsequently whether an airport can be a country (Warsaw-Chopin, holding the whole of Poland), the committee turned off the lights. Informed that its largest holding in the eighth degree east stands airside at Milan-Malpensa, the committee requested that the eighth degree, of all places, not do this to it.
second sitting
matters of geography
In the matter of the westernmost annex: the title was awarded to Lisbon, the committee having reasoned that beyond it lay only the Atlantic, and the Atlantic had produced no encounters. The paperwork of Vancouver corrected the geography; Gabriola Island corrected it again within five days. The committee, twice corrected on this axis and thrice on the other, commissioned a globe.
In the matter of the easternmost annex: awarded to Brisbane — the first ‑most to be decided using the new globe, and it is hoped the last to require it.
In the matter of the northernmost annex: the title passed from Tromsø to Longyearbyen to Ny-Ålesund in the course of a single July, the archipelago appearing determined to test the committee's definitions. The committee upheld the final claim, declared its appetite for the question exhausted, and has since retired from the region's superlative economy entirely — a retirement it maintains even against Hammerfest, which advertises. The matter is closed. The committee has asked that the word final be minuted.
→ the Tromsø, Longyearbyen, and Ny-Ålesund Annexes · field stations
In the matter of the lowest-lying annex: held for a season by the Maldives, nowhere more than a few metres above the sea. Reviewing elevations in the course of other business, the committee awarded the title to Rotterdam ex officio, ruling that an annex partly beneath the sea outranks one merely close to it. Rotterdam accepted without ceremony and cycled on.
third sitting
matters of accession
In the matter of the proto-8 of Chermsideøya, authored by moss and algae and admittedly incomplete: the committee, mindful of the latitude and of a growing season measured in weeks, ruled that nature made a valiant effort and that allowances would be made.
In the matter of non-human colleagues generally: the 8 grown into a tree-knot at Sofia and the survey stones of 1898 are carried in the register as loans from colleagues working on longer schedules. No recall has been scheduled.
In the matter of the photographer's shadow at Melbourne, which arrives making a peace sign: ruled part of the work.
In the matter of the door knocker at Palma, an 8 assembled from hardware by nobody in particular: admitted without discussion.
In the matter of the dust ghost at Lesbos, an 8 surviving only as its own absence: accessioned, following local precedent, as a fragment.
In the matter of the Cyrillic suffix at Sofia (8г., carved and gilded): ruled that the 8 survives translation.
In the matter of green. That green warranted a room of its own has been the settled view of the committee for longer than these minutes record. The room having now been opened, the committee declines to revisit a question it does not regard as ever having been open, and has since fixed the boundaries of green by ruling. Having hung the doubtful degrees at either end and looked at them, the committee finds that green begins at 60°, the lime end below it reading as yellow, and ends at 189°, beyond which it concedes to cyan. The ruling is entered as the museum’s own and binds no one else.
In the matter of the date of the Zürich accession, being the eighth of the ninth: examined for signs of intent; the committee declined to rule.
fourth sitting
matters of conduct
In the matter of the crêpe (Paris), folded into a passable 8 by the practitioner's own hand: struck from the record under the axioms — a made 8, however accomplished, is not a found one. The committee thanks the practitioner for volunteering the confession, and has asked that breakfast remain distinct from fieldwork in future. This constitutes the museum's first formal deaccession.
In the matter of Fontainebleau, an 8 encountered on the practitioner's own watch, at ten kilometres' altitude, while overflying a business school of personal significance: the committee ruled that French airspace is France, that its definitions say nothing about altitude, and that it declines to correct the omission retroactively. It wishes it recorded that it regards the submission as being in poor taste — noting, for consistency with the crêpe, that poor taste is not fabrication, and only one of the two is grounds for deaccession. The nostalgia is acknowledged, and was not accessioned.
In the matter of the twenty-fourth country (Germany): the milestone was marked by adjourning for lunch.
The committee sits continuously and is never in session. Correspondence may be addressed to the offices; replies issue as rulings, without appeal, and occasionally without being asked for. The committee's decisions are final, particularly the ones it has reversed.