Thursday, August 29

Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Chanel and other luxury brands burn unsold products

I'm a proud owner of not-a-single luxury brand and bought a Brazilian brand white sneaker I had to buy instead of the almost compulsory Adidas Stan Smith.
Models have died due to the skinny dictatorship that makes them anorexic and consuming cocaine to have "energy", slavery or force labor, the insanity of burning unsold products and I'm sure that there are numerous little dirty secrets in the fashion industry that are against my ethics and conscience. 
Furthermore Chanel raised the prices of it's goods while it's quality as all the leather luxury brands decreased.
A second hand item is more valuable than the new one.
Isn't it ironic that if one buys a brand new handbag pays more for less quality turning this item into a kind of legal fake good made by the company?
Or maybe it is me.

Why fashion brands destroy billions’ worth of their own merchandise every year
An expert explains why Burberry, H&M, Nike, and Urban Outfitters destroy unsold merch — and what it says about consumer culture.
By Chavie Lieber Sep 17, 2018, 8:00am
Source: Vox.

The British luxury brand Burberry brought in $3.6 billion in revenue last year — and destroyed $36.8 million worth of its own merchandise.
In July 2018, the brand admitted in its annual report that demolishing goods was just part of its strategy to preserve its reputation of exclusivity.
Shoppers did not react well to this news. People vowed to boycott Burberry over its wastefulness, while members of Parliament demanded the British government crack down on the practice. The outrage worked: Burberry announced two weeks ago it would no longer destroy its excess product, effective immediately.
Yet Burberry is hardly the only company to use this practice; it runs high to low, from Louis Vuitton to Nike. Brands destroy product as a way to maintain exclusivity through scarcity, but the precise details of who is doing it and why are not commonly publicized. Every now and then, though, bits of information will trickle out. Last year, for example, a Danish TV station revealed that the fast-fashion retailer H&M had burned 60 tons of new and unsold clothessince 2013.
In May 2018, Richemont, the owner of the jewelry and watch brands Cartier, Piaget, and Baume & Mercier, admitted that in an effort to keep its products out of the hands of unauthorized sellers, it had destroyed about $563 million worth of watches over the past two years. Whistleblowing sales associates and eagle-eyed shoppers have pointed out how this practice happens at Urban Outfitters, Walmart, Eddie BauerMichael KorsVictoria’s Secret, and J.C. Penny.
The fashion industry is often cited as one of the world’s worst polluters — but destroying perfectly usable merchandise in an effort to maintain prestige is perhaps the dirtiest secret of them all. To find out why this practice is so widespread and what conservation-minded shoppers can do to fight back, I spoke with Timo Rissanen, an associate dean at Parsons School of Design and a professor of fashion design and sustainability at the school’s Tishman Environment and Design Center. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Chavie Lieber

Why do brands have to destroy perfectly good merchandise?

Timo Rissanen

The simplest answer across the board is that today, quantitatively, there’s more stuff than there ever has been before. Fashion cycles have also gotten shorter because of the internet and fast fashion, so there’s a push to constantly put new merchandise out on the market. So when you combine these two, we are now literally at a place where we no longer have anywhere for this stuff to go other than up a chimney.
The underlying business model now includes immense pressure to constantly replenish merchandise. When I was a fashion student 20 years ago, we had four seasons, as well as [specialty ones like] Resort and Cruise. Now the turnover is faster than ever. Global population has gone up too, and so has the number of garments that a person buys per year. A couple years ago, we were at 20 garments per person each year. Today, in the United States, an average person buys about 68 garments per year.

Chavie Lieber

Is it just clothing that gets destroyed?

Timo Rissanen

No, this is not limited to apparel. I saw a few months ago that Amazon was being called out in Germany for destroying tons of returned items, like mattresses, washing machines, dishwashers, and cellphones.

Chavie Lieber

What are the methods of destroying merch?

Timo Rissanen

Burning and shredding are the main ones. The third option is simply landfilling, but most companies do incineration so that they can claim the incinerators capture the energy. Burberry has insisted it’s recycling the clothing into energy, except the energy that is recouped from burning clothing doesn’t come anywhere near the energy that was used to create the garments.

Chavie Lieber

Where does the actual destroying happen?

Timo Rissanen

A lot of it is done in India. There’s one town in India, Panipat, that specializes in shredding, and there’s a horrendous short film that documents women shredding clothes that are brand new. The film shows the women speculating that water in the West must be so expensive, and that people can’t afford to do their laundry, and so that’s why it’s cheaper for them to throw stuff out. Hearing that is really uncomfortable. Incineration happens everywhere, from America to Sweden.

Chavie Lieber

What are some of the environmental impacts of destroying excess inventory?

Timo Rissanen

The most obvious one is the carbon emission from burning. We should be moving away from all forms of burning. Polyester now accounts for about 60 percent of the total fiber market, and it comes from oil. So you could make the case that when we burn polyester, we are burning oil. There is a contribution to CO2 that is happening there, and there’s also a ton of chemicals and finishings embedded in clothing and textiles through the dyeing. When this stuff is burned, it filters into the air.
But really, where it gets insane is thinking about clothes that were never worn in the first place. The fabric was made, the garments were made, the labor was put in, and then the stuff gets burned. It represents all kinds of different waste across the system.

Chavie Lieber

Do fashion brands have to disclose that they are doing this?

Timo Rissanen

No, although I know that the UK has been having quite active discussions about it right now. But on the whole, there is no requirement to report this. For Burberry, I think it was a number of shareholders who started making noise about it, and that’s how it got into a more broad discussion. I have no doubt that the brand would rather it not be out in the open.

Chavie Lieber

Why can’t excess inventory be recycled or reused?

Timo Rissanen

Some of it can be. Different kinds of garments are easier than others. One way to recycle clothing is to shred it and to turn it into insulation, and there are fabrics that are quite good at being turning into new fiber, spun into yarn, and then woven into clothes. But the minute you start mixing fibers, like polyester with cotton, the options for recycling become more limited. Then there’s the obstacles of buttons and zippers. Before a garment can be put through a shredder, all the buttons and zippers must be removed, and that takes manual labor. With any kind of waste management like this, there’s a cost attached to it, and it’s often cheaper just to destroy it.

Chavie Lieber

Why can’t the clothing be donated?

Timo Rissanen

Historically, a lot of the donations have gone to Africa, Latin America, South America, and to some countries in Asia. But in the last couple of years, a number of African countries, like Kenya and Uganda, have actually banned the importation of secondhand clothing from the West. It suppresses their own textile and apparel industry, since they can’t compete with the volume and the very low price of the secondhand goods.

Chavie Lieber

Why don’t brands sell off their extra merchandise at sample sales?

Timo Rissanen

Some brands do sample sales, but companies like Louis Vuitton and Chanel just incinerate their samples. I remember when Parsons was doing a student project in 2009, and Louis Vuitton supplied samples that were going to be incinerated. I watched students cut up perfect Louis Vuitton garments, which they used to make blankets that were auctioned off for charity, and I had a visceral reaction because they really should have remained as garments. It’s not a slight on the students, but there’s a huge investment that has gone into those garments, and all of that was lost.

Chavie Lieber

What is the theory for luxury brands destroying their extra merch?

Timo Rissanen

They see discounts and donating as a way to devalue their brand. They want to control how and where and at what price their goods are sold. You can go to a place like Century 21 in New York and you’ll find certain brands have their stock there that’s two or three seasons old and heavily discounted. Some brands are clearly fine with that, and others are not.

Chavie Lieber

Wouldn’t they rather earn a profit than nothing at all? Wouldn’t Chanel prefer to mark down its $3,500 bag by $300 and still make $3,000?

Timo Rissanen

This is where we get to the thing that nobody wants to talk about: The retail price of a luxury product has nothing to do with its actual value. When you buy something from Chanel or Gucci and you pay full retail, that money is actually paying for the massive advertising campaigns. If Chanel destroys a dress it tried to sell for $1,200, it hasn’t really lost $1,200. I don’t think Chanel even paid $100 [to make] that dress. And the money they’d lose would probably just be recouped through fragrances.

Chavie Lieber

As someone who is a part of the fashion world, can you understand the argument for destroying things in order to save a company’s prestige factor?

Timo Rissanen

No. I cannot. We have arrived at a point where I think we need to have some very honest conversations about what type of values this industry has.

Chavie Lieber

Do you think companies will follow in Burberry’s footsteps and stop destroying their merch?

Timo Rissanen

I think so. I do think it will take some time because we are talking about a whole system, and it will not come to a halt because of a little bit of bad publicity. But I do think that being called out forces brands to take a look at what’s happening and start to have conversations about what they can do about it.

Chavie Lieber

What can shoppers do?

Timo Rissanen

On a very simple level, figure out which things bring you the most satisfaction and then buy those things. We are all prone to impulse-buying, which is what I’d encourage to limit. I also recommend buying secondhand if you are interested in environmental impact

Wednesday, August 28

Amazon forest and Brazilians are being murdered



There is English subtitle in this video that explains how the 60% part of Amazon that is in Brazil has been vampirized for decades by Brazilian government policies of exporting it's richest sources as commodities for nations which couldn't care less about other people's countries.
Very informative with historical explanations.
Notice that Rita, the owner of the channel, is a drag and it is a great example of the empowerment of "minorities" through exercising full citizenship.
Those who belong to identity politics groups must start thinking about being part of the society discussing all issues.
Boy from an Amazon Tribe on giant lily pads during an excursion up the Amazon River. Source: here.

Friday, August 23

Brazil under a psychopath presidency: "genocidal policies" against indigenous people


“If I become President there will not be a centimeter more of indigenous land, that is my answer.”

It was already during the campaign that Bolsonaro said some of his policies. Those who voted for him either agree or thought he was not serious.



Thursday, August 22

Unprecedented Burning of Amazon Forest under Bolsonaro's era


Brazilians are extremely concerned with brutality of Bolsonaro's "presidency" - it is hard to accept he is the president - in numerous levels.
He is destroying Brazil by giving our resources, ending educational system, health system... it is hell.
However, we don't need to be invaded like the Harvard teacher Stephen M. Walt proposed seconded by Paul Graig.

We also are quite aware that the 60% of the Amazon rainforest part that is in Brazil belongs to the country.
US want to take control of Amazon for a long time. During Lula's presidency he made quite clear that the Amazon is Brazilian but it seems that Trump must be remembered of that period.

It is quite convenient to US and it's allies the burnings that have been  deliberately happening. The discussion "Whose forest is this, anyway?" will be put on the table again.
This time we don't have Lula. He was imprisoned with the help of Washington because he was going to win the elections and surely would never let Brazil loses it's sovereignty and dignity.

Lula is a political prisoner, more precisely a US political prisoner.
After the car wash operation Washington helped to be conducted to put in the presidency a US poodle Brazil has a doormat in the presidency that will give for free what US wants.
It is just a battle. This will be a long war - the victims are poor people who is being killed in the most incredible rate during Bolsonaro's militia era. The number of deaths is higher than a country in war.
We will take our country back. Argentina is an inspiration to Brazilians.




Tuesday, August 20

What is behind Hong Kong protest: America’s “Hybrid War” against China has Entered a New Phase

America’s “Hybrid War” against China has Entered a New Phase
By Christopher Black
Global Research, August 15, 2019

(Excerpt)
"The latest phase in this hybrid warfare is the insurrection being provoked by the US, UK, Canada and the rest in Hong Kong, using tactics designed to provoke China into suppressing the rioters with force to amplify the anti-Chinese propaganda, or pushing the “protestors” into declaring Hong Kong independent of China and then using force to support them.

Mitch McConnell, an important US senator implicitly threatened just such a scenario in a statement on August 12th stating that the US is warning China not to block the protests and that if they are suppressed trouble will follow. In other words the US is claiming that it will protect the thugs in black shirts, the shirts of fascists. This new phase is very dangerous, as the Chinese government has time and again stated, and has to be handled with intelligence and the strength of the Chinese people.
There is now abundant evidence that the UK and US are the black hand behind the events in Hong Kong. When the Hong Kong Bar association joined in the protests the west claimed that even the lawyers were supporting the protests in an attempt to bring justice to the people. But the leaders of that association are all either UK lawyers or members of law firms based in London, such as Jimmy Chan, head of the so-called Human Civil Rights Front, formed in 2002 with the objective of breaking Honk Kong away from China, such as Kevin Lam, a partner in another London based law firm, and Steve Kwok and Alvin Yeung, members of the anti-China Civic Party who are going to meet with US officials next week."
(read entire article here)

Monday, August 19

Is Transparency International a serious organization or is it just sense of humor?

I just visited Transparency International site for a friend of mine told me that the Car Wash Operation was the winner in 2015 of the "Anti-Corruption Award".
As one of the criteria for ineligibility is "Individuals or organisations of questionable integrity or goals." 
It seems the members who are in charge of the nomination are not paying attention on their own criteria: "The action should recognise the longevity of commitment to fighting corruption."

As "The Intercept" leaks shows, Sergio Moro, the former judge now Minister of Justice -  his intentions were political with no commitment to fight corruption and Deltan Dallagnol are extremely corrupted.
Deltan Dallagnol is a rich guy and only thought about being famous to make more money and have power.
Well, it is not up to me to explain why someone should or should not receive a prize.

But how ironic an anti-corruption award for these criminals that will face justice in a near future being corruption one of the crimes, 

Monday in Brazil as a shithole

 Monday.
Brazilians wonder what kind of shit, he loves this word, will Bolsonaro say and do.
What is said is what people talk about though the consequences of what is done is far more evil. Indecorous to say the least.

Sunday, August 18

Cake recipe instead of article?


During Brazilian dictatorship when  censorship didn't approve an article the newspaper "Folha da Tarde" published a cake recipe or a part of the poem "The Lusiads".
I felt like posting a recipe today.
Anything to do with algorithms?
Na!


The Best Vanilla Cake Recipe
A classic vanilla cake recipe, made completely from scratch! Ditch the box mixes — you’ll love how easy, moist and fluffy this homemade vanilla cake is! Go here, this first recipe Google gave me.

Friday, August 16

Revealed: rampant deforestation of Amazon driven by global greed for meat


Investigation exposes how Brazil’s huge beef sector continues to threaten health of world’s largest rainforest
Source: The Guardian.
Transporting livestock in Terra do Meio, in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, in the Amazon state of Pará. Photograph: Joao Laet/The Guardian
‘We must not barter the Amazon rainforest for burgers and steaks’
Animals farmed is supported by
About this content





"The cows grazed under the midday Amazon sun, near a wooden bridge spanning a river. It was an idyllic scene of pastoral quiet, occasionally broken by a motorbike growling on the dirt road that cuts through part of the Lagoa do Triunfo cattle farm to a nearby community.
But this pasture is land that the farm has been forbidden to use for cattle since 2010, when it was embargoed by Brazil’s government environment agency Ibama for illegal deforestation. Nearby were more signs of fresh pasture: short grass, feeding troughs, and salt for cattle.
The vast 145,000-hectare (358,302-acre) farm is one of several owned by the company AgroSB Agropecuária SA – known in the region as Santa Bárbara. Located in an environmentally protected area, Lagoa do Triunfo is more than 600km (372 miles) from the capital of the Amazon state of Pará on the western fringes of Brazil’s “agricultural frontier” – where farming eats into the rainforest. To get there takes hours of driving along dirt roads and a ferry ride from nearby São Félix do Xingu, a cattle town accessible only by plane until a few decades ago.
AgroSB supplies cattle to JBS, the world’s biggest meat packing company and single biggest supplier of beef, chicken and leather globally, with 350,000 customers in more than 150 countries.
A joint investigation by the Guardian, Repórter Brasil and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that during 2018, the Lagoa do Triunfo farm delivered hundreds of heads of cattle to other farms also owned by AgroSB for fattening. Cattle was sent from those farms to slaughter in JBS plants.
Embargos are imposed for environmental violations, such as farmers or landowners cutting down trees and deforesting illegally, and serve both as a punishment and protective measure to allow land to recover. Between 2010-2013 at least 12 areas of land on Lagoa do Triunfo were embargoed, and Ibama fined AgroSB more than $18m (£14m) – at current rates – for deforestation on the Lagoa do Triunfo farm.
Our investigative team visited land clearly demarcated as embargoed on government websites, and found cows grazing there. A farm worker said cattle were allowed to roam in areas employees knew were embargoed. “You can’t cut down the vegetation,” the employee said. “The vegetation grows and we work the cattle inside.” The Guardian is withholding their name in case of retaliation.
Work by NGO Trase, seen exclusively by our team, this week reveals the extent to which the international demand for beef is driving deforestation, with thousands of hectares of Amazon being felled every year to provide meat for world markets.
AgroSB is a powerful farming empire owned by the Opportunity group, co-founded by Daniel Dantas, a controversial businessman Bloomberg described as the “bad boy” of Brazilian finance. It owns half a million hectares across Pará and has long attracted controversy. Over the past decade, AgroSB has been accused of illegal deforestation, keeping workers in slave-like conditions, and spraying a community occupying one of its farms with pesticides – accusations it has strongly denied.
Scandal has also surrounded JBS, which is supplied by AgroSB. In 2017, following an Ibama investigation, the meat company was fined $7.7m for buying cattle from farms with embargoed areas, including another farm owned by AgroSB. The company pledged to stop buying cattle from the farm.
That same year, Joesley Batista, CEO of its controlling company, almost brought down the government of President Michel Temer after secretly recording him appearing to endorse bribery – Temer was indicted but never tried and has always denied the charges, claiming the recording was edited. Joesley and his brother Wesley, then JBS CEO, admitted an extensive web of bribery in a plea bargain deal.
In an email, a spokesman for AgroSB said any deforestation had occurred before the company acquired Lagoa do Triunfo in 2008. “AgroSB does not carry out deforestation in order to increase its area, but rather it recovers degraded areas. This brings social and environmental progress for all, because in the same area it is possible to produce more, without deforestation, in respect to the environment,” the spokesman said.
“AgroSB’s business model is anchored in the acquisition of degraded open and pastured areas, which are fertilised, reclaimed and transformed into high-intensity pastures or grain plantations – which increases food production per hectare and also captures carbon dioxide (CO2) of the atmosphere in the plantations and in more than 250,000 hectares of forests (legal reserve) maintained on its properties.” He pointed out that: “There is no irregularity in the marketing/transfer of livestock.”
He said just 7% of the farm was embargoed, and added that as AgroSB have been successful in appealing against some of the other embargos on their land, the company believes it will also overturn the embargos on Lagoa do Triunfo.
The ‘wild west’ fringe of the Amazon rainforest
With a population of 125,000 and more than two million cattle, the town of São Félix do Xingu covers an area bigger than Scotland. Cattle farming fed its growth from remote Amazon outpost to busy town, and there are clear signs of wealth here.
Just outside town, big money was being splashed at a horse racing meet in a field full of 4x4s. As two jockeys spurred their horses down the rudimentary race track, a commentator bellowed and men waved wads of cash as their bets came in.
There was more than $35,000 in prizes over two days of racing, said Valdiron Bueno, owner of two agricultural supplies shops and the race organiser. Bueno built his business more than 20 years after arriving here with just the clothes on his back. “It wasn’t easy. I cried a lot,” he said.
São Félix do Xingu was mostly forest when Arlindo Rosa, now president of the town’s union of rural producers, arrived in 1993. “There was practically none of this farming … there was no highway, there was nothing,” he said. “People came from outside with the spirit to raise cattle,” said his vice-president, Francisco Torres, who arrived in 1987.
Both men were critical of what they saw as overzealous environmental controls. Torres criticised Ibama as a “fines industry”, borrowing a phrase from President Jair Bolsonaro, who has dismantled environment protection and enjoys support from farmers like these. “How are you going to work if you can’t deforest an area, principally a small one?” said Rosa.
But the embargos do not appear to have affected AgroSB’s business, the Guardian and Réporter Brasil investigation found.
A JBS spokesman said: “The facts pointed out do not correspond to the standards and processes adopted by the Company”, indicating an independent 2018 audit that showed that “more than 99.9% of JBS’s cattle purchases meet the company’s socio-environmental criteria and the ‘Public Livestock Commitment’” – a deal signed between big cattle companies and Greenpeace in 2009. It was followed in 2011 by an agreement JBS and other meat companies signed with federal prosecutors not to buy cattle directly from embargoed or illegally deforested areas.
A spokesman told the Guardian via email: “JBS has a responsible purchase policy for raw materials and does not purchase animals from farms involved in deforestation of native forests, invasion of indigenous reserves or environmental conservation areas, or that are embargoed by the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama).”
The independent audit found the company had made impressive progress in tightening up procedures and shutting out farms with areas embargoed by Ibama. However, although the system excludes farms that have embargoed areas, the audit noted that other farms owned by the same company may still sell to JBS. It concluded that: “Indirect suppliers of cattle to JBS are not yet checked systematically, since JBS has not yet managed to adopt auditable procedures for its indirect suppliers.”

Official state documents seen by the Guardian and Repórter Brasil show that from January to October 2018, Santa Bárbara delivered at least 296 cattle from the Lagoa do Triunfo farm to its Espiríto Santo farm in Xinguara, in the same state.
Between July and December 2018, Santa Bárbara sent least 1,977 cattle from the Espiríto Santo farm to two JBS slaughterhouses in Pará. In January at least 936 cattle were sent from the Espírito Santo farm to JBS’s slaughterhouse in Redenção in Pará.
Throughout 2018, Santa Bárbara also sent at least 729 cattle from the Lagoa do Triunfo farm to be fattened at its Porto Rico farm in Xinguara. In April 2018, 36 cattle from the Porto Rico farm were sent to slaughter at JBS’s plant in Tucumã in Pará.
Growing international demand for beef has become a key driver in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, with new figures seen by our team revealing the full extent of deforestation directly linked to a handful of major food corporations. Beef linked to deforestation is exported globally, including to key markets in the east Asia and Europe.
An investigation by Trase has uncovered how up to 5,800 sq km of forest is being felled in the Amazon and other areas annually to be converted into pasture used for cattle farming, with livestock from deforested areas found to be supplying abattoirs producing beef for global markets.
The latest data shows that deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has been on the rise since 2012. Between August 2017 and July 2018, about 7,900 sq km was destroyed.
In the most comprehensive study of its kind ever produced, Trase used customs, agricultural, sanitary inspection, and deforestation data to map Brazilian cattle exports from the international markets which consume them back to the more than 3000 municipalities where the cattle were raised. Trase is an independent supply-chain transparency initiative, developed by the Stockholm Environment Institute and the UK-based NGO Global Canopy.
The analysis includes data on “indirect” suppliers, which are often intermediate farms that don’t sell directly to abattoirs, but supply other farms which may truck cattle to slaughter. This is a “previously invisible” part of the beef chain, say researchers, which is not monitored for deforestation risks.
The supply chain “map” was then cross-referenced with official datasets on pasture expansion, deforestation rates and figures on regional cattle production in order to calculate a deforestation “risk” associated with specific companies and the main international export markets.
Because of the high volume of Brazilian beef shipped to China and Hong Kong, these markets are associated with the highest amount of deforestation in total – between 17,400 and 26,400 hectares per year – according to the analysis. The EU also imports more than $600m worth of beef from Brazil each year. And that will increase if the EU and member states approve a new trade deal with Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to gradually let 99,000 tonnes of low-tariff South American beef into Europe every year.
Erasmus zu Ermgassen, lead researcher at Trase, said that while some slaughterhouses monitor their direct suppliers, none monitor their indirect suppliers. “There is enormous potential to use land more efficiently and sustainably in the Brazilian beef sector, and to improve rural livelihoods by investing in cattle ranching on existing pasturelands.”
This article was amended on Monday 8 July to correct the figures for deforestation associated with China and Hong Kong

Tuesday, August 13

Machado de Assis - The Greatest Writer Ever Produced in Latin America according to Susan Sontag





I found yesterday "Better than Food" channel on YouTube where Clifford Lee Sargent talks about books, an audio review.
I'm feeling revenged. I can read the original and you English native speakers, and readers, have to read the translation or translations for some books need at least two translations because there are particularities that is not possible to achieve in one translation. Another translator do another version and if we are a huge admirer of the book we end up reading both. James Joyce's Ulysses have two Brazilian/Portuguese translations.

Machado de Assis is among the greatest Brazilian writers. But he has many competitors. The best produced in Latin American?
I love Susan Sontag but I have to disagree since the continent have produced numerous great writers. Actually I don't like "the best" concept. 

"The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas" is one of my favorites of the diverse work of Machado de Assis. He wrote short novels, poems, screenplays, chronicles,  was a translator and had his work divided in two phases: a romantic and a realistic.

The experiment with typographic notation is something that surprised me and I remember the first time I saw it. On chapter 55 there is "The old dialogue between Adam and Eve" (image is below) where the conversation is given by lines and dots punctuated with question marks and exclamations.
I hope that after listening to Clifford "audio review" you feel like reading the book.