Irish Fourplay
"...something I once heard Charles M. Schulz say, 'Don't worry about
the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.'"
— William F. House
"Forewarned is four-armed."
— Folk sayin…
John O'Hara's Birthday
"We stopped at the Trocadero and there was hardly anyone there. We had
Lanson 1926. 'Drink up, sweet. You gotta go some. How I love music.
Frère Jacques, Cuernavaca, ach du lieber August. Al…
Poetic Justice:The Peacock Throne
Yesterday was the death day of two proponents of Empire: George III (in
1820) and Robert Frost (in 1963). Lord Byron argued that the King
slipped through heaven's gate unobserved while…
Inaugural Address for Cullinane
College(undelivered): The Prisoner
Cullinane College was scheduled to open its doors officially on January
29, 2003. The following might have been an appropriate inaugural a…
State of the Communion
Relevant readings:
Definition of the communion of saints in the Catholic Encylopedia — "In
that communion there is no loss of individuality, yet such an
interdependence that the saints are …
As promised last December 6...
Leadbelly Under the Volcano
From a website on Malcolm Lowry's novel Under the Volcano:
"This image of impending doom recurs in the movie at the local theater,
'Los Manos …
Our Town:No There There?
Paul Newman, scheduled for his last performance in "Our Town" today,
said in 1961:
"With that fifteen hundred, I could have beat him. That's all I needed
Charlie...You'd love to keep me hustl…
Steps
John Lahr on a current production of "Our Town":
"The play's narrator and general master of artifice is the Stage
Manager, who gives the phrase 'deus ex machina' a whole new meaning. He
holds the script, he sets …
After the Dream: A sequel to the previous
note,"Through a Soda-Fountain Mirror, Darkly"
From John Lahr's recent review of "Our Town":
"We all know that something is eternal," the Stage Manager says. "And
it ain't …
Through a Soda-Fountain Mirror, Darkly
For Piper Laurie on Her Birthday
"He was part of my dream, of course —but then I was part of his dream,
too!"
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter XII ("Which Dr…
Cartoon Graveyard, or Betty and the Third
Eye
I need a photo opportunity I want a shot at redemption Don't want to
end up a cartoon In a cartoon graveyard — Paul Simon
The New York Times, Jan. 21, 20…
Diablo Ballet
Thanks to Meghan for the following:
not going, not coming,rooted, deep and stillnot reaching out, not
reaching injust resting, at the centera single jewel, the flawless
crystal dropin the blaze of its bri…
Shine On, Robinson Jeffers
"...be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.There is the trap that catches noblest spirits,
that caught — they say — God, when he walked o…
Literature and Geography
"Literature begins with geography." — Attributed to Robert Frost
The Maori Court at the Wanganui Museum
"Cullinane College is a Catholic co-educational college, set to open in
Wa…
The Walk to Paradise Garden
The Braidwoods
The Walk toParadise Garden
The New York Times, Friday, Jan. 17, 2003:
Mr. and Mrs. Braidwood By STUART LAVIETES Robert J. Braidwood, a
University of Ch…
ART WARSAt the Still Point
"At the still point, there the dance is."
— T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets
Humphrey Carpenter in The Inklings, his book on the Christian writers
J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Will…
Mean Streets
The title of tonight's "The West Wing" episode, "The Long Goodbye,"
refers to a phrase that the sentimental do-gooders of the Democratic
party apparently now use to refer to senility. I find the phrase of…
Conversations in Hell
Part I: Locating Hell
"Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto che tu vedrai le genti
dolorose c'hanno perduto il ben de l'intelletto."
— Dante, Inferno, Canto 3, 16-18
"We…
Remarks on Day 14 of the Year of Our Lord
2003
On this date —
Alfred Tarski was born in 1902 in Warsaw, and
Kurt Friedrich Gödel died in 1978 in Princeton.
What is Truth?
"What is called 'losing' in chess may consti…
Day 14 —
The More I Learn
My heart's been cared forMy heart's been usedIt only makes me more
confusedJust when I'm sure I've gotten wiseThat's when I realizeThe
more I learnThe less I understand about loveIt'll drive y…
Long Winter Evening
Humphrey Bogart took The Big Sleep on this date in 1957. As his
character said in that film, "I don't mind if you don't like my
manners. I don't like them myself. They're pretty bad. I grieve over…
Ask Not...
For you it's goodbye,For me it's to cry,"For whom the bell tolls"...
— The Bee Gees
The Bells of Notre Dame(Recall Julia Ormond in the 1995 "Sabrina.")
JAN. 12, 2003, N. Y. TIMES…
METROPOLITAN ART WARS:
The First Days of Disco
Some cultural milestones, in the order I encountered them today:
From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar:
"On this day in 1963, Whiskey-A-Go-Go—believed to be the first disco…
Something Wonderful
In keeping with this evening's earlier entry "Story," and with W. M.
Spackman's discussion of Greek equivalents of the word "wonderful" in
Homer and Sophocles in his book On the Decay of Humanism (p.…
Story
"How much story do you want?" — George Balanchine
While researching yesterday's entry on Balanchine, Apollo, and the nine
Muses, I came across this architect's remarks, partially quoted
yesterday and continued he…
Balanchine's BirthdayToday seems an
appropriate day to celebrate Apollo
and the nine Muses.From a website on Balanchine's and Stravinsky's
ballet, "Apollon Musagete":In his Poetics of Music
(1942) Stravinsky says: "Summ…
Work in Progress
From the website "Conrad Hall Looks Back and Forward to a Work in
Progress" on a cinematographer who died on Jan. 4, 2003 (see today's
earlier entry):
"Hall concentrated on writing an original script…
In the Labyrinth of Memory
Taking a cue from Danny in the labyrinth of Kubrick's film "The
Shining," today I retraced my steps.
My Jan. 6 entry, "Dead Poet in the City of Angels," links to a set of
five December 21, 20…
Into the Woods
From the Words on Film site:
"The proximal literary antecedents for Under the Volcano are Dante
Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, especially The Inferno, on the one hand, and
on the other, the Faust legend as e…
Song of Bernadette
JEAN KERR STARS IN... BROADWAY BABY!
In memory of Broadway's Jean Kerr —
Recall the ending of the classic film "Michael."
See also this review of a Bernadette Peters conce…
Can You See?
I finally got around to watching "Minority Report" on DVD. My favorite
part is scene 16, which takes place in a sort of high-tech fantasy park
— rather like Hollywood itself. Rufus T. Riley, the hacker wh…
Dead Poet in the City of Angels Lyricist
Eddy Marnay died Friday, Jan. 3, 2003.Relevant Log24.net entries:
January 3, 2003 November 7, 2002 September 12, 2002 December 21, 2002
Certain themes recur in these e…
Doctorow's Epiphany E. L. Doctorow is 72
today.
In the Garden of Adding...
The above is a phrase from The Midrash Jazz Quartet in Doctorow's novel
City of God.
Tonight's site music is "Black Diamond."
William T.…
Culinary Theology
A comment on "Whirligig," the previous entry:
When I hear 'red mill,' I think Red Mill.
Red MillBurgers
Posted 1/5/2003 at 5:10 amby HomerTheBrave.
From my favorite theologian, Jimm…
Whirligig
Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Twelfth Night. Act
v. Sc. 1.
Twelfth night is the night of January 5-6.
Tonight is twelfth night in Australia; 4 AM Jan. 5in New York City is 8
PM Jan. 5 …
ART WARS:
The Reader Over Your Shoulder
Recommended: The Reader Over Your Shoulder: A Handbook for Writers of
English Proseby Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, London, Jonathan Cape,
1943.See also last night'…
Opening of the Graves
Revelation 20:12 I saw the dead, the great and the small,standing
before the throne, and they opened books.
The Dead —
The Great: On January 4, 1965,T. S. Eliotdied.
The Small:
On January 4, …
A Darker Side of C. S. Lewis
Known for his fairy-story series "The Chronicles of Narnia," C. S.
Lewis had a more serious — some might say darker — side.
His portrayals of science and scientists in That Hideous Streng…
The Shanghai Gesture:An Exercise in
Synchronicity
"A corpse will be transported by express!" — Under the Volcano, by
Malcolm Lowry (1947)
Dietrich Minogue For Dietrich, see the reference below;For M…
Tolkien is Eleventy-One Today! In observance
of this milestone, some links:
The Tolkien Society's Birthday Toast 2003 Inklings Resources and Site
List Review of Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings Alt.…
Faces of the Twentieth Century:The Harvest
Continues
"I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes,Down all that glory in the
heavens to glean our Saviour;And, éyes, héart, what
looks, what lips
yet gave you aRapturous love…
ART WARS:
That Old Devil Moon
Kylie Minogue From The New York Times, Wed., Jan. 1, 2003:
Richard Horner, 82, Broadway Producer, Is Dead
Richard Horner, a Broadway theater owner and producer who won…