Project for theNew Century
"A bully can be stopped, and so can a mob. It takes one person with the
courage and a resolute voice."
-- Tim Robbins, speech to National Press Club, April 15, 2003
Resoluteness is a necessa…
On the Beach
On this date in 1954, the first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus,
was commissioned.
Related reading in today's New York Times:
Obituary of Marshall N. Rosenbluth, physicist who helped develop the
H-b…
Magic Hawaii
Today, the birthday of singer Jerry Lee Lewis, is also the feast of St.
Michael and All Angels.
In honor of Lewis:
Killer Radio, an entry of July 31, 2003, that contains the following...
"When the ligh…
Declaring Victoryand Going Home Elia
Kazan1909-2003
Spirit of East St. Louis
On Miles Davis and Philly Joe Jones:
Miles said to Jones, "I think this is it." Jones agreed having said of
the group, "The first time we played together…we just looked around at
each other a…
Time is a Weapon
"Time is a weapon, it’s cold and it’s cruel."
— Max D. Barnes song lyric,sung by Ray Price(See Aug. 1, 2003, entry.)
3:57 was the time of yesterday afternoon's entry,
Aloha.
The Frid…
A Mass forRosh Hashanah
In memory of playwright Herb Gardner, who died on Wednesday, Sept. 24,
2003, in honor of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, which begins at
sunset today, and in celebration of T. S. Eliot's birt…
In Memory of Playwright Herb Gardner eBay
item 3243620848: "Up for
auction is a Hawaiian hula girl music box. It plays 'Tiny Bubbles' and
spins around. It is approx. 12" tall and the top part of the body is
made of h…
Bel Canto
The conclusion of tonight's season-opening episode of "The West
Wing"was a picture of President Bartlet receiving the Host at Mass.
Related material:
The Source:
Tips On Popular Singingby Frank Sinatrai…
Intelligence Test
At left:ReutersOffersIQ Test
Today's British Intelligence Awardgoes to Reuters news agency:
Key Phrase Was Droppedfrom UK Iraq DossierTue September 23, 2003 12:33
PM ET By Katheri…
What Is Poetry?
Today in History
Happy birthday, Ronna.
Contrapuntal Structure
Click here for a web page based on my Sept. 16 entry The Form, the
Pattern.
The Mysteries of 26
My entry of May 26, 2003 —
Many Dimensions — Why 26? —
dealt with the question of whether this number, said to be of
significance (as a number of dimensions) in theoretical physics, has
any purely …
Happy Ending
From yesterday morning:
"At three o'clock in the morningEurydice is bound to come into
it."—Russell Hoban,The Medusa Frequency
For June Carter Cash as Eurydice,see The Circle is Unbroken.
Let us …
Time's Breakdown
"... even if we can break down time into component Walsh functions,
what would it achieve?"
-- The Professor, in "Passing in Silence," by Oliver Humpage
"Being is not a steady state but an occultin…
The Form, the Pattern
"...the sort of organization that Eliot later called musical, in his
lecture 'The Music of Poetry', delivered in 1942, just as he was
completing Four Quartets: 'The use of recurrent themes is as na…
Time
Words move, music movesOnly in time....
-- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
It is time that beats in the breast and it is timeThat batters against
the mind, silent and proud,The mind that knows it is destroyed by
time.…
All the King's Horses
Johnny Cash's funeral was today.
Today is also the feast day of the Protestant saint Robert Penn Warren.
Here is how Stanley Kubrick mightmake a memorial stone for Cash.
"He isthe outl…
Two More Skewed Mirrors
Background: Previous three entries andThe Crucifixion of John O'Hara.
From The New Yorker,issue dated Sept. 22, 2003...John Updike on John
O'Hara —
And yet the ultimate units of society, the …
Skewed MirrorsReadings on Aesthetics for
theFeast of the Triumph of the Cross
Part I —
Bill Moyers and Julie Taymor
Director Taymor on her own passion play (see previous entry), "Frida":
"We always write stories of …
The Graces of Paranoia
The New Yorker on Mel Gibson's filmed passion play:
How did he know that God wanted him to make "The Passion"?
Gibson in "Signs"
"There are signals," he said. "You get signals. Signs. 'Sig…
For the Man in Black
Lyrics: Arizona Star
"Shinin' like a diamond she had tombstones in her eyes."
A picture: Salma Hayek and Julie Taymor
A book: Dark Ladies, by Fritz Leiber
This offers a gentler form of the a…
Into the Sunset
I just learned of Johnny's Cash's death. On Google News, the headline
was Johnny Cash rides into sunset. The source was the Bangkok Post.
"Don't you know thatwhen you play at this levelthere's no ord…
Commentaryon the two previous entries
On 4:04:08:
"Je ne connais que deux sortes d’êtres immuables sur la terre:
les
géomètres et les animaux; ils sont conduits par deux
règles invariables
la démonstration et l’instinc…
Particularity
Walter J. Ong
Particularity
Upon learning of the recent death of Walter J. Ong, S. J., philosopher
of language, I ordered a copy of his book
Hopkins, the Self, and GodUniversity of Toron…
4:04:08
The title refers to my entry of last April 4,
The Eight,
and to the time of this entry.
From D. H. Lawrence and the Dialogical Principle:
"Plato's Dialogues...are queer little novels....[I]t was the greatest…
Now for the grand finale... Edward Teller Is
Dead at 95;Fierce Architect of H-Bomb
Two links...
Patrick's Rune at Shane Ross's Caltech site
Patrick's Rune at S. H. Cullinane's Harvard site
.…
Sept. 9, 2003,NY Times Screenshot
Andthe HitsJust KeepOn Coming "Clean. Fast.Professional."
"Dr. Jose Barchilon, a psychoanalyst and educator who studied the
unconscious roots of creativity and mental illn…
"Words are Events"
— Walter J. Ong, S. J.
Gisele Marie Louise Marguerite La Fleche,
better known as Gisele MacKenzie, star of "Your Hit Parade," died on
Friday, September 5, 2003. The American Heritage® …
Olympic Style
For Dr. Mary McClintock Dusenbury,Radcliffe College Class of 1964,who
shares an August 22 birthday withthe late Leni Riefenstahl —
Three occurrences of the samesangaku (temple tablet):
August 19, 2003,…
Reply to Lucifer
The New York State Lottery evening number for Saturday, September 6,
2003, was 666.
See last year's entries for Mary Shelley's birthday,
The Number of the Beast and
A Chain of Links. These were w…
Story Theory
The conflict between the Euclidean, or "diamond" theory of truth, and
the Trudeau, or "story" theory of truth, continues.
On this, Hugh Grant's birthday, let us recall last year's log24 entry
for this date…
Goodbye and Hello
Larry RodgersThe Arizona RepublicAug. 24, 2003 12:00 AM:
"If any musician can look death in the eye and smile, it's
California-based songwriter extraordinaire Warren Zevon."
From April 7, 2003:
Apri…
Pre- and Post-Cognition
Majority Report:
From A Matter of Life and Death,
an entry from Sept. 13, 2002, linked to in last night's ART WARS notes:
"In the sun, Dante and Beatrice find themselves surrounded by a circ…
ART WARS Sept. 1, 2003:
Sir Terry Frost Dies
A noted English abstract painter died at 87 on Monday, September 1.
From a memorial essay on Sir Terry Frost, born in 1915, in The Daily
Telegraph: "He was educated at …
Horse Sense
Mathematicians are familiar with the emblem of Springer Verlag, the
principal publisher of higher mathematics.
Ferdinand Springer, son of Julius Springer, founder of Springer Verlag,
"was a passionate chess…
Pictures for Kurosawa
Five years ago on this day, director Akira Kurosawa died.
The above pictures are offered as a remembrance of Kurosawa and also of
Charlotte Selver, who died on Augu…
The Tempest
A tropical storm over Florida (lower left)and a hurricane at Bermuda
(upper right)at 3:15 p.m. EDT on Friday, Sept. 5, 2003:
"Wind over Water"
as described by William Shakespeare in 1611.
"Wind over Wat…
For Grace Paley:An Enormous Changeat the
Last Minute(of September 5)
Hexagram 59 of the I Ching comprises the trigrams for wind and water
(as in the environmental art of Feng Shui). The name of the hexagram,…
Da Capo
"The story bent and climbed and went into weird areas. For instance, at
one time Simon Peter was a cave-dweller; at another, he only appeared
in other characters' dreams...." — Keri Hulme on The Bone People
…
Recommended Reading for Cullinane College:
Trifecta The Pegasus Prize The Bone People Alchemical Kubrick 2001 The
Diamond Archetype The Deceivers The Demolished Man To Ride Pegasus
"The Talented…
Epitaphs
The late philosopher Donald Davidson (see previous entry) had a gift
for titles. For example:
"The Folly of Trying to Define Truth"(Journal of Philosophy June 1996,
pp. 263-278) and
"A Nice Derangement of Ep…
Monolith
"Music can name the unnameableand communicate the unknowable."
— Quotation attributed to Leonard Bernstein
"Finally we get to Kubrick's ultimate trick.... His secret is in plain
sight.... The film is the mon…
Reciprocity
From my entry of Sept. 1, 2003:
"...the principle of taking and giving, of learning and teaching, of
listening and storytelling, in a word: of reciprocity.... ... E. M.
Forster famously advised his reader…
One Ring to Rule Them All
In memory of J. R. R. Tolkien, who died on this date, and in honor of
Israel Gelfand, who was born on this date.
Leonard Gillman on his collaboration with Meyer Jerison and Melvin
Henriksen in…
The Unity of Mathematics,
or "Shema, Israel"
A conference to honor the 90th birthday (Sept. 2) of Israel Gelfand is
currently underway in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The following note from 2001 gives one view of the co…