Plato's Diamond From The Unknowable (1999),
by Gregory J. Chaitin, who has written extensively about his constant,
which he calls Omega:
"What is Omega? It's just the diamond-hard distilled and crysta…
Our Judeo-Christian Heritage:
Two Sides of the Same Coin
On this date in 1897, Joseph Goebbels was born. Related reading: The
Calvin College Propaganda Archive and
Prince Ombra.
Cabaret
Joseph Go…
Morte d'Arthur From On All Hallows' Eve, by
Grace Chetwin:
"Please continue your account of Morgan le Fay."
"People think of her as bad. They say that she tried to murder her
brother, King Arthur of t…
Midnight in the Garden
From a Nina Simone Lyrics site:
Pack up all my cares and woe, here I go, singing low,Bye-bye
Blackbird.Where somebody waits for me, sugar's sweet, so is she,Bye-bye
Blackbird.No one here can love…
Wrestling Pablo Picasso
Aster on aGreek Vase
Picasso by Karsh
Wrestling ErnestHemingway
The old men know when an old man dies. -- Ogden Nash
ART WARS:Picasso's Birthday
From an art quotes website:
Dore Ashton's Picasso on Art --
"We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize
truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand."…
Trinity The last two days were eventful on
the obituary front. See below for a reasonably holy trinity of lives:
Richard Helms as the Father, Derek Bell as the Son, and Adolph Green as
the Holy Spirit. See…
Green Music
From the online New York Times, Oct. 24, 2002:
Adolph Green, Broadway Playwright, Dies at 87By RICHARD SEVERO dolph
Green, the playwright, performer and lyricist who in a six-decade
collaboration with Bet…
Death of a Chieftain
New York Times, Oct. 24:
Derek Bell, Harpist of the Chieftains, 66, Is Dead
Derek Bell rehearsing for a 1998 St. Patrick’s Day concert in New York.
"Derek Bell, the versatile harpist …
A (Very Brief) Course ofModern Analysis In
honor of today's anniversary
of the 1873 birth of Edmund Taylor Whittaker, here are some references
to a topic that still interests some mathematicians of today.
From A Cours…
Bright Star
From the website of Karey Lea Perkins:
"The truth is that man's capacity for symbol-mongering
in general and language in particular is…intimately part and parcel of
his being human, of his perceiving and …
In Memoriam
From the New York Times of Oct. 23, 2002:
Richard M. Helms Dies at 89; Dashing Ex-Chief of the C.I.A. Associated
Press Richard M. Helms, a former C.I.A. director, died today. By
CHRISTOPHER…
Eleven Years Ago Today...
On October 23, 1991, I placed in my (paper) journal various entries
that would remind me of the past... of Cuernavaca, Mexico, and a girl I
knew there in 1962. One of the entries dealt with a b…
Introduction to Harmonic Analysis
From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar for Oct. 22:
The French actress Catherine Deneuve was born on this day in Paris in
1943.... The Beach Boys released the single “Good Vibrations” on…
Birthdays for a Small Planet
Today's birthdays:
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1929 Frances FitzGerald, 1940 Carrie Fisher, 1956
The entry below, "Theology for a Small Planet," sketches an issue that
society has failed to a…
Theology for a Small Planet
THE HARVARD DIVINITY BULLETIN for Fall 1989 contained a special
section, "Theology for a Small Planet," with a number of short articles
by divinity school faculty and others addressing enviro…
ART WARS:
Music for Henry HomerTheBrave has provided a link to an excellent Tom
Tomorrow strip dealing with Ford's Feb. 23, 1997, commercial-free
sponsorship of "Schindler's List" on TV. To honor Henry Fo…
What is Truth? My state of mindbefore
reading theNew York Times My state of mindafter reading theNew York
Times
In light of the entry below ("Mass Confusion," Oct. 19, 2002), some
further literary reflecti…
Mass Confusion
From Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac:
"It's the birthday of [novelist] John le Carré, born David John
Moore
Cornwell, in Poole, England (1931).... His father was a con artist who
wanted his two sons …
Readings for the Oct. 18Feast of St. Luke
A fellow Xangan is undergoing a spiritual crisis. Well-meaning friends
are urging upon her all sorts of advice. The following is my best
effort at religious counsel, meant more …
Slieve na mBan
The view in the entry below is from Slievenamon or Slieve/Sliabh na
mBan, a mountain in County Tipperary.
From an interview with Dr. Mary McAuliffe, an historian who specializes
in women's history of th…
To the Green Lady of Perelandra
View from the slopes of Slieve na mBan
In honor of the relationship between theology and literature, of the
Green Lady of C. S. Lewis, and of... John Flood BA, MA (NUI), Ph.D.
(Dubli…
Garden Party Revisited
From the Archives: On this date in 1992, "Sinead O’Connor was booed off
the stage at a show honoring Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden (famous
for booing folks off the stage)....
…
"History is a nightmare from which I am
trying to awake"-- James Joyce
in Ulysses
"Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this
day light such a candle in England as I trust by God's grace shal…
Hitler's Still Point
For the views of the noted philosopher Adolf Hitler on the Roman
Catholic Church, click here.
Are the hams silent now, Clarice? See also
my Xanga entry of August 3, 2002.
From the Archives:
On this date in 1971, "Rick Nelson was booed off the stage when he
didn’t stick to all oldies at the seventh Annual Rock ’n’ Roll Revival
show at Madison Square Garden, New York. He tried to slip in s…
Going His Way
October 14 in history:
1888 Katherine Mansfield, author, is born.
1977 Bing Crosby, singer/actor (Going My Way), dies.
"He was given up to his dream. What did garden-parties and baskets and
lace frocks …
Two Literary Classics(and a visit from a
saint)
On this date in 1962, Edward Albee's classic play, "Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway.
George and Martha by Edward Albee George and Ma…
She's a...Twentieth Century Fox
Columbus DayDinner DanceDate: Sat Oct 12, 2002Time: 6:30pm-???Italian
American Clubof Southern Nevada2333 East Sahara Ave.,Las Vegas, NV
89104Live music by Boyd Culter's 5-Piece b…
The Fourth Man:In Lieu of Rosebud, Part III
Posted on Fri, Oct. 11, 2002Carlos Castañeda, who led El Nuevo
Herald,
dies at 70 BY TERE FIGUERASCarlos Castañeda, the publisher
emeritus of
El Nuevo Herald whose passionat…
In Lieu of Rosebud, Part II*
Posted on Fri, Oct. 11, 2002 Bernard Ridder dies at 85Publisher built
newspaper empire
BY MARTIN MERZER
Bernard H. Ridder Jr., once one of the nation's most influential
publishers and …
Happy National Depression Day!
Welcome to Hilbert's Hotel...
Moray Eel Desk Clerk by Ralph Steadman(missing drawing from Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas)15"x 22". Edition of 50. $175 "Although it's
always crowded, y…
In Lieu of Rosebud...
On this date in 1985, Orson Welles died ...sitting at his typewriter,
working on the next day's script changes for his movie,"The Other Side
of the Wind."-- Louis Bülow, The Third Man and Orson…
Annie's Song
In honor of Apollo (see entries below) and of the Red Mass celebrated
tonight on the TV drama "The West Wing," this site's music is, for the
time being, Bach's Mass in B minor (BWV.232) § 17. Et in s…
ART WARS:
Apollo and Dionysus
From the New York Times of October 9, 2002:
Daniel Deverell Perry, a Long Island architect who created the marble
temple of art housing the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in
Wi…
To Apollo On this date in 28 B.C. the Temple
of Apollo was dedicated on the Palatine Hill in Rome.
Horace, Odes, XXXI
Frui paratis et valido mihi,Latoe, dones et precor integraCum mente nec
turpem senectamDeg…
Starflight Theme On Graham Greene's novel
The Human Factor:
"Greene, always the master of economy, never wrote a tighter or more
beautifully focused novel." -- Steve Robertson
"The main character is Maurice…
Music for R.D. Laing
In honor of the birth in Scotland on this date in 1927 of R. D. Laing,
author of The Facts of Life, this site's music is today taken from the
classic film "The Piano."
Laing F…
Twenty-first Century Fox
On Sunday, October 6, 1889, the Moulin Rouge music hall opened in
Paris, an event that to some extent foreshadowed the opening of Fox
Studios Australia in Sydney on November 7, 1999. The Fox ce…
The Message from Vega
"Mercilessly tasteful" -- Andrew Mueller,review of Suzanne Vega's"Songs
in Red and Gray"
Zen holy day:
Bodhidharma Day
Epigraph to Chapter 23 of Contact, by Carl Sagan:
We have not followed cunningly devised fables....-- II Peter 1:16
Song lyric:
It's still the same old story....-- Herman Hupfeld, 1…
ART WARS:The Agony and the Ya-Ya
Today's birthdays: Charlton Heston Anne Rice Patti LaBelle
To honor the birth of these three noted spiritual leaders, I make the
following suggestion: Use the mandorla as the Ne…
Style
A memorial to jazz pianist Ellis Larkins, who died on Michaelmas.
Literary Landmarks
From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar for Oct. 3:
"On this day in 1610, Ben Jonson's funniest comedy The Alchemist was
entered into the Stationer's Register. It involves a servant who when
the masters ar…
A Crackpot with Power
The following is an greatly abbreviated version of a sci.math group
thread on an attempted proof of the four-color theorem.
Chip Eastham 2000-10-13 : There is a nicely presented approach to pr…
Who's on First?
To Lucero on October First, 2002:A Poem by Homero Aridjis
ES TU NOMBRE Y ES TAMBIÉN OCTUBRE...Es tu nombre y es
también octubre
es el diván y tus ungüentos es ella tú la joven de
las turbaciones y
son l…