THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING ADDRESS BOOK

NUMBERS, NUMBERS, EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A SPACE TO THINK

As one of those quaintly Jurassic old fogies who still keep an address book--more portable than a palmtop, after all--I recently came across a problem: my little book was filling up even though my Christmas-card list was not. In short, the number of my friends was not increasing, but the number of numbers of my friends definitely was. How do I call you? Let me count the ways (even a Catholic hermitage I sometimes have to contact now has two telephone numbers, a fax number and an E-mail address involving the words monks and contemplation).

I'm not, I hasten to point...

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