I am frequently amazed to discover that songs which I had believed to have been original are actually covers. It turns out, for instance, that TMBG’s “Istanbul (not Constantinople)” is a cover of a song from the 1950s.

Ironically, one might argue that Istanbul is itself a cover of Constantinople–and that argument (unifying form and content) reminds me of the language games played by Salt: Grain of Life, a book asserting that its very structure resembles the culinary crystal it purports to discuss.