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Mathematicians mean something different by the phrase "block design."
A University of London site on mathematical design theory includes a link to my diamond theory site, which discusses the mathematics of the sorts of visual designs that Professor Pope is demonstrating. For an introduction to the subject that is, I hope, concise, simple, and objective, see my diamond 16 puzzle.
The Number of the Beast "He's a Mad Scientist and I'm his Beautiful Daughter." For more on this theme, see my Journal Note of December 21, 2001. See also the film classic "Forbidden Planet," and the play "The Tempest," by William Shakespeare, on which it is based.
The New York midday lottery number for Monday, August 26, 2002, was 666, the biblical "number of the beast." For the beast's Friday response to the calling of its number by New York State on Monday, see
Posted 8/30/2002 at 12:12 PM |
For Mary Shelley, on her birthday: A Chain of Links The creator of Frankenstein might appreciate the following chain of thought. The Extropy Institute: International Transhumanist Solutions Why Super-Human Intelligence Would Be Equivalent To Precognition, by Marc Geddes:
Internet Movie Database page on "Minority Report" IMDb page on "Minority Report" author Philip K. Dick IMDb biography of Philip K. Dick, where our chain of links ends. Here Dick says that "The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." On the other hand, Dick also says here that "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." These two quotations summarize, on the one hand, the cynical, relativistic nominalism of the postmodernists and, on the other hand, the hard-nosed realism of the Platonists. What does all this have to do with "the geometry of multiple dimensions"? Consider the famous story for adolescents, A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. The author, a well-meaning Christian, tries, like all storytellers, to control her readers by controlling the meaning of words. The key word in this book is "tesseract," a term from multi-dimensional geometry. She insists that a tesseract has mystic properties and cannot be visualized. She is wrong (at least about the visualizing). See The Tesseract: A look into 4-dimensional space, by Harry J. Smith. See also the many revealing comments in Harry J. Smith's Guestbook. One of Smith's guests remarks, apropos of Smith's comments on St. Joseph, that he has his own connection with St. Augustine. For a adult-level discussion of Augustine, time, eternity, and Platonism, see the website Time as a Psalm in St. Augustine, by A. M. Johnston. See also the remark headlining Maureen Dowd's New York Times column of August 28, 2002, Saint Augustine's Day: "I'm with Dick." Whether the realist Dick or the nominalist Dick, she does not say. As for precognition, see my series of journal notes below, which leads up to two intriguing errors in an Amazon.com site on the "Forbidden Planet" soundtrack. The first two audio samples from this soundtrack are (wrongly) entitled "Birdland" and "Flamingo." See also the West Wing episode rebroadcast on Wednesday, August 28, 2002, C. J. Cregg (Allison Janney), who models a black Vera Wang dress in that episode, has the Secret Service codename Flamingo.
Posted 8/30/2002 at 2:30 AM |
For the feast day of St. Ingrid Bergman: Like Shakespeare, Ingrid Bergman was born and died on the same date... In her case, August 29. To honor her performance in "Spellbound," here is a copy of the first crossword puzzle ever published.
One might also compare an eerie sound clip from the Oscar-winning score of "Spellbound" with a weird clip from "Selim," by the World Saxophone Quartet. The latter is from the album "Selim Sivad" (Miles Davis backwards). One reviewer claims that this album displays "astonishing, telepathic group interplay." This may or may not be true; if the services of a psychiatrist are required to help decide the issue, let us hope she is as attractive as Saint Ingrid. The above remarks are, of course, intended as a partial antidote to the music inevitably associated with Bergman... "As Time Goes By." (Please do not play it again, Sam.) Of course, the World Saxophone Quartet may be too powerful an antidote... It reminds one, as does the greatly superior weird music from the "Forbidden Planet" soundtrack, of Monsters from the Id. From such monsters, let us pray to Saint Ingrid for deliverance. Posted 8/29/2002 at 4:40 PM |
Bird's Birthday
Clint Eastwood on how his life might have gone differently:
Posted 8/29/2002 at 5:02 AM |
The Cobra Strikes High praise for Allison Janney, TV star:
For C. J. Cregg on Saudi Arabia, click here. For Maureen Dowd (nicknamed "The Cobra" by President George W. Bush) on Saudi Arabia, Posted 8/28/2002 at 2:43 PM |
Requiem for a Critic
A 1999 Mike Melillo Trio album, "Bopcentric," includes the above compositions.
From sleeve notes by Orrin Keepnews at
From The New York Times of August 28, 2002:
Posted 8/28/2002 at 1:24 PM |
Music of the Dark Lady Two journal notes below deal with the general mythology of the Dark Lady. This note, more personal, deals with a particular incarnation of this Lady that certain songs from this 1981 album remind me of.
She draws me in For sample sound clips of the above, click here. For a summary of the August 27 note below, see the quote from William Congreve on the cover of the September 2002 Vanity Fair magazine:
Posted 8/28/2002 at 3:49 AM |
The Hero and the Dark Lady From a Fictionwise eBooks summary of Mike Resnick's novel The Dark Lady... Leonardo, an art historian of the far future, is given a mission...
Leonardo's research reveals the link between the artists of the Dark Lady: human men who voluntarily risk their lives. If she appears to men who court death, she may be their Angel of Death ... or, as Leonardo hopes, the female of an ancient... legend--The Mother of All Things." Today, August 27 (or tomorrow, according to some accounts), is the date of death of a great actor, Robert Shaw, who died at 51 in 1978. If in real life he was anything like the brave men he played... King Henry VIII, SPECTRE assassin Red Grant, Panzer commander Colonel Hessler, and shark hunter Captain Quint... he, if anyone, deserved to be greeted in heaven by the Dark Lady. For a more scholarly treatment of the Dark Lady, see this Princeton University Press site. Posted 8/27/2002 at 1:31 AM |
Meditation on the Dark Lady: Doble-V + Doble-V = W.W.
From Carole A. Holdsworth, Dulcinea and Pynchon's V:
Posted 8/26/2002 at 11:59 PM |
A link for the August 26 birthdays of Rufino Tamayo and Julio Cortazar: Homage to Thelonious Sphere Monk. See also "Sphere" in Pynchon's V. Posted 8/26/2002 at 4:45 AM |
Cruciatus in Crucem From Battlefield Vacations, Edinburgh: On the film "Braveheart" -- If you've ever wondered about what exactly "drawn and quartered" means, there's a good demonstration at the end. From my journal note of June 28, 2002:
Page 162 of the May 2002 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine --
"Cruciatus in crucem."
-- President Jed Bartlet, The West Wing (Episode 2.22 , “Two Cathedrals,”
original airdate May 16, 2001, 9:00 PM EST) For the Latin meaning of this phrase, see
For the complete script of this episode, see
See also my journal note of August 3, 2002, "The Cruciatus Curse," below. Posted 8/24/2002 at 2:33 PM |
August 23: Feast Day of St. William Wallace and The William Wallace Directory Page. Posted 8/23/2002 at 9:56 AM |
As Blake Well Knew From The New York Times: Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, whose contributions to the mathematical logic that underlies computer programs and operating systems make him one of the intellectual giants of the field, died on [August 6, 2002] at his home in Nuenen, the Netherlands. He was 72.... Dr. Dijkstra is best known for his shortest-path algorithm, a method for finding the most direct route on a graph or map.... The shortest-path algorithm, which is now widely used in global positioning systems and travel planning, came to him one morning in 1956 as he sat sipping coffee on the terrace of an Amsterdam cafe. It took him three years to publish the method, which is now known simply as Dijkstra's algorithm. At the time, he said, algorithms were hardly considered a scientific topic. From my August 6, 2002, note below: ...right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew... -- Malcolm Lowry, 1947, Under the Volcano Posted 8/13/2002 at 12:37 PM |
Here's Your Sign Last night, reading the 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture by Octavio Paz, I was struck by the fact that he was describing, in his own life and in the life of his culture, what might best be called a "fall from grace." I thought of putting this phrase in a journal entry, but decided that it sounded too hokey, in a faux-pious sort of way -- as, indeed, does most Christian discourse. I was brought up short when I read the morning paper, which, in a review of the new Mel Gibson movie "Signs," described Gibson's character's "fall from grace" in those exact words. The Paz lecture dealt with his childhood, which seemed to him to take place in a realm without time:
Paz also mentions the Christian concept of eternity as a realm outside time, and discusses what happened to modern thought after it abandoned the concept of eternity. Naturally, many writers have dealt with the subject of time, but it seems particularly part of the Zeitgeist now, with a new Spielberg film about precognition. My own small experience, from last night until today, may or may not have been precognitive. I suspect it's the sort of thing that many people often experience, a sort of "So that's what that was about" feeling. Traditionally, such experience has been expressed in terms of a theological framework. For me, the appropriate framework is philological rather than theological. Paz begins his lecture with remarks on giving thanks... gracias, in Spanish. This is, of course, another word for graces, and is what prompted me to think of the phrase "fall from grace" when reading Paz. For a less academic approach to the graces, see the film "Some Girls," also released under the title "Sisters." This is the most profoundly Catholic film I have ever seen. A still from "Some Girls":
Posted 8/8/2002 at 4:24 PM |
In honor of Pope Callistus III, and all of whom died on this date: A lavender love butterfly vignette...
and a But seriously... A few words in memory of a great mathematician, André Weil, who died on August 6, 1998:
There is a link on the Grand Finale site above to a site on British Columbia, which to Lowry symbolized heaven on earth. See also my website Shining Forth, the title of which is not unrelated to the August 6, 1993 encyclical of Pope John Paul II. Posted 8/6/2002 at 11:23 PM |
August 6: Feast of the Metamorphosis Adapted from Brief Exhortations: Geneva Bible: Romans 12:2 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed [metamorphosized] by the renewing of your f mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Geneva Bible: Matthew 17:2 And was b transfigured [metamorphosized] before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. Geneva Bible: Mark 9:2 1 And after six days Jesus taketh [with him] Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured [metamorphosized] before them. where it is used of the transfiguration of Jesus. It is used in biology with reference to the change of the worm to the butterfly.Note by S. H. Cullinane, August 6, 2002: For more on the Geneva (Shakespeare's) Bible, see Michael Brown's Introduction. Posted 8/6/2002 at 8:07 PM |
Veritatis Splendor Black Holes Conclusion of the Nobel Prize lecture of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on December 8, 1983:
White Holes Statement by Karol Wojtyla on August 6, 1993:
Wojtyla, who apparently prefers folk-tales to truth, may appreciate the website White Hole Theory at the World University Library. Is the Pope Catholic? The World University Library furnishes an answer to the question that has long troubled many: Is the Pope Catholic? According to Catholic.com,
Upon comparing the contents of the World University Library with the contents of Wojtyla's 1993 statement, it becomes apparent that the World University Library is catholic (i.e., universal), but the Pope is not. Posted 8/6/2002 at 12:24 PM |
Elliptic Curves and Modular Forms and the introductory work, Function Theory, Geometry, Arithmetic, by Henry McKean and Victor Moll Posted 8/5/2002 at 11:47 PM |
After the Fall "We're in a war of words." -- Andy Rooney, undated column
I've heard of affairs that are strictly plutonic, -- Marilyn Monroe, modeling a Freudian slip You may have noticed at Strike Force Centre or at StrikeForce.dk that "After the Fall" will be released as a Team Deathmatch map for Strike Force. Today's birthday: Fiddler Mark O'Connor. Q - What was that "haunting" melody and where does it come from? A - The piece used as the theme music for The Civil War is called "Ashokan Farewell." Q - How do you get to Ashokan? A - Take a left at Beaverkill Road. Recommended listening: "The Devil Comes Back to Georgia," "House of the Rising Sun," and "Ashokan Farewell," on Posted 8/5/2002 at 10:59 PM |
Celebrity War Room "What would bug the Taliban more than seeing a gay woman in a suit surrounded by Jews?" -- Ellen DeGeneres at the 2001 Emmy awards
How about seeing Judy Davis in a sequel to The Hot Rock.... Afghanistan Banana Stand Posted 8/5/2002 at 7:54 PM |
History, said Stephen.... -- To really know a subject you've got to learn a bit of its history.... We both know what memories can bring; All sorts of structures that can be defined for finite sets have analogues for the projective geometry of finite fields.... Clearly this pattern is trying to tell us something; the question is what. As always, it pays to focus on the simplest case, since that's where everything starts. In the beginning was the word.... -- The Gospel according to Saint John The anonymous author of John makes liberal use of allegory and double-entendre to illustrate this theme. Born yesterday: Logician John Venn. Venn considered three discs R, S, and T as typical subsets of a set U. The intersections of these discs and their complements divide U into 8 nonoverlapping regions.... -- History of Mathematics at St. Andrews Who would not be rapt by the thought of such marvels?.... -- Saint Bonaventure on the Trinity Posted 8/5/2002 at 12:12 AM |
versus One year ago today, Lorenzo Music, the voice of Carlton the doorman on Rhoda, died. His eulogy from Valerie Harper:
Today's birthday: Logician John Venn. Appearing for the story theory... Flannery O'Connor:
Appearing for the diamond theory... Mary McCarthy and G. H. Hardy: From the Hollywood Investigator:
Don't forget "a," as in "a people is known" --
And a closing rebuttal from the story theory... Martin Heidegger and Dean Martin: Words of wisdom from Martin Heidegger, Catholic Nazi:
And from Dean Martin, avatar of anti-art :
Posted 8/4/2002 at 2:52 PM |
Miss Sauvé for the Sunday following Corpus Christi Day, 2002:
-- Friar Francisco Nahoe, OFM Conv. From James Joyce A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man Why was the sacrament of the eucharist instituted under the two species of bread and wine if Jesus Christ be present body and blood, soul and divinity, in the bread alone and in the wine alone? Does a tiny particle of the consecrated bread contain all the body and blood of Jesus Christ or a part only of the body and blood? If the wine change into vinegar and the host crumble into corruption after they have been consecrated, is Jesus Christ still present under their species as God and as man? From The Gazette, Montreal, of Sunday, August 20, 1995, page C4: "Summer of '69," a memoir by Judy Lapalme on the death by accidental drowning of her 15-year-old younger brother:
American Literature Web Resources:Flannery O'ConnorShe died on August 3, 1964 at the age of 39. In almost all of her works the characters were led to a place where they had to deal with God’s presence in the world. She once said "in the long run, a people is known, not by its statements or statistics, but by the stories it tells. Fiction is the most impure and the most modest and the most human of the arts." Flannery OConnor - Southern Prophet: ... When a woman wrote to Flannery O'Connor saying that one of her stories "left a bad taste in my mouth," Flannery wrote back: "You weren't supposed to eat it." Posted 8/3/2002 at 10:42 PM |
The Cruciatus Curse Today's birthday -- Martin Sheen Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. Posted 8/3/2002 at 8:07 PM |
Death of a Cut-up The dark philosopher William S. Burroughs died five years ago today. Part of his legacy is the "cut-up" technique. See William S. Burroughs and Cut-up, where it is noted that
and Cut-ups and the Internet, where it is noted that
The idea of hypertext (the "ht" in "http://," for "HyperText Transfer Protocol://") is not unrelated to the concept of the "cut-up"... See Time Line and Contents at The Electronic Labyrinth. Also from "The Electronic Labyrinth":
See also the writings of Eric Olson on the collage method of psychotherapy, the subject of "Aesthetics of Madness," my July 30, 2002, web journal entry below. Posted 8/2/2002 at 5:53 PM |
Double Day... August 2, 2002 "Time cannot exist without a soul (to count it)." -- Aristotle The above quotation appears in my journal note of August 2, 1995, as an epigraph on the reproduced title page of The Sense of an Ending, by Frank Kermode (Oxford University Press, 1967). August 2, 1995, was the fortieth anniversary of Wallace Stevens's death. On the same date in 1932 -- seventy years ago today -- actor Peter O'Toole was born. O'Toole's name appears, in a suitably regal fashion, in my journal note of August 2, 1995, next to the heraldic crest of Oxford University, which states that "Dominus illuminatio mea." Both the crest and the name appear below the reproduced title page of Kermode's book -- forming, as it were, a foundation for what Harvard professor Marjorie Garber scornfully called "the Church of St. Frank" (letters to the editor, New York Times Book Review, July 30, 1995). Meditations for today, August 2, 2002: From page 60 of Why I Am a Catholic, by Gary Wills (Houghton Mifflin, 2002):
From page 87 of The Third Word War, by Ian Lee (A&W Publishers, Inc., New York, 1978):
From "Seventy Years Later," Section I of "The Rock," a poem by Wallace Stevens:
From page 117 of The Sense of an Ending:
From "Today in History," by The Associated Press:
Part of the above statement is the usual sort of AP disinformation, due not to any sinister intent but to stupidity and carelessness. Burroughs actually died in Lawrence, Kansas. For the location of Lawrence, click on the link below. Location matters. From page 118 of The Sense of an Ending:
From the Billie Holiday songbook:
From page 63 of The New Yorker issue dated August 5, 2002:
Posted 8/2/2002 at 3:24 PM |
Stephen King's Seattle Rose From http://www.janeellen.com/musings/quakerose.html: On February 28, 2001 (Ash Wednesday)....
From http://archives.skemers.com/2200/nl2130.txt: Subj: Re: SKEMERs Letter #2124 (Rose Red, HIA DVD, Insomnia Editions)
The one they played most (even at the end) was Theme From a Summer Place. It's from a movie called (tada) A Summer Place, released in the late 50s. I've never seen it, but the song is familiar. ~Chris
See also http://autumn.www1.50megs.com/sunset.html: This site offers a sunset reflected in gently rippling water, with "Theme from a Summer Place" playing in the background. Complete lyrics to "Summer Place" and "A Lover's Concerto" (discussed below) are collected along with other "Songs of Innocence" at http://www.geocities.com/lyricalmusings/60s.htm. The reader may supply his own Songs of Experience... My own personal favorite is the fictional rendition, in the recent novel The Last Samurai, of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" in the style of Percy Faith. This note was suggested by a search for quotations from the composer Igor Stravinsky that ended at Jane Ellen's collection of quotes on music and the arts at http://www.janeellen.com/quotations.html. Roll over, Stravinsky. Posted 8/1/2002 at 1:31 PM |