From The Unknowable (1999), by Gregory J. Chaitin, who has written extensively about his constant, which he calls Omega:
Charles H. Bennett has written about Omega as a cabalistic number. Here is another result with religious associations which, historically, has perhaps more claim to be called the "diamond-hard essence" of mathematical truth: The demonstration in Plato's Meno that a diamond inscribed in a square has half the area of the square (or that, vice-versa, the square has twice the area of the diamond). From Ivars Peterson's discussion of Plato's diamond and the Pythagorean theorem:
From "Halving a Square," a presentation of Plato's diamond by Alexander Bogomolny, the moral of the story:
From "Renaissance Metaphysics and the History of Science," at The John Dee Society website: Galileo on Plato's diamond:
Roger Bacon on Plato's diamond:
It is perhaps appropriate to close this entry, made on All Hallows' Eve, with a link to a page on Dr. John Dee himself. Posted 10/31/2002 at 11:07 PM |
Our Judeo-Christian Heritage: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Posted 10/29/2002 at 9:57 PM |
From On All Hallows' Eve, by Grace Chetwin:
In honor of Grace Chetwin, this site's music is now a theme more suitable for All Hallows' Eve. Posted 10/26/2002 at 11:59 PM |
Midnight in the Garden From a Nina Simone Lyrics site: Pack up all my cares and woe, For more on the eight-point star of Venus, Posted 10/26/2002 at 12:00 AM |
Wrestling Pablo Picasso The old men know when an old man dies. Posted 10/25/2002 at 7:59 PM |
From an art quotes website: Dore Ashton's Picasso on Art -- "We all know that Art is not truth.
"You have to believe we are magic."
"A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it." -- Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace Posted 10/25/2002 at 12:00 PM |
Trinity
The last two days were eventful on the obituary front. See below for a reasonably holy trinity of lives:
See also Bonaventure's the graves list for Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Posted 10/25/2002 at 1:11 AM |
xx Posted 10/25/2002 at 12:00 AM |
Green Music From the online New York Times, Oct. 24, 2002: Adolph Green, Broadway By RICHARD SEVERO |
Death of a Chieftain Derek Bell, Harpist of the Chieftains, 66, Is Dead
In honor of Bell, this site's music is, the following classic tune by Turlough O'Carolan, Posted 10/24/2002 at 9:11 AM |
A (Very Brief) Course of 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 Course of Modern Analysis, by E. T. Whittaker and G. N. Watson, Fourth Edition, Cambridge University Press, 1927, reprinted 1969: Section 20.7 "...the fact, that x and y can be expressed as one-valued functions of the variable z, makes this variable z of considerable importance... z is called the uniformizing variable of the equation.... When the genus of the algebraic curve f(x,y) = 0 is greater than unity, the uniformisation can be effected by means of what are known as automorphic functions. Two classes of such functions of genus greater than unity have been constructed, the first by Weber...(1886), the second by Whittaker...(1898)...." The topic of uniformisation of algebraic curves has appeared frequently lately in connection with Wiles's attack on Fermat's Last Theorem. See, for instance, Lang's 1995 AMS Notices article
For a deeper discussion of uniformisation in the context of Wiles's efforts, see "Elliptic curves and p-adic uniformisation," by H. Darmon, 1999. For a more traditional approach to uniformisation, see "On the uniformisation of algebraic curves," by Yu. V. Brezhnev (24 May, 2002), which cites two of Whittaker's papers on automorphic functions (from 1898 and 1929) and a 1930 paper, "The uniformisation of algebraic curves," by J. M. Whittaker, apparently E. T. Whittaker's son. Posted 10/24/2002 at 6:00 AM |
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 knowing, of his very consciousness…" -- Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1975 Today's New York Times story on Richard Helms, together with my reminiscences in the entry that follows it below, suggest the following possibility for symbol-mongering:
This comparison is suggested by the Spanish word "Lucero" (the name, which means "Bright Star," of the girl in Cuernavaca mentioned two entries down) and by the following passage from Robert A. Heinlein's classic novel, Glory Road:
The C.I.A. star above is from that organization's own site. The star of Venus (alias Aster, alias Ishtar) is from Symbols.com, an excellent site that has the following variations on the Bright Star theme:
See also my notes The Still Point and the Wheel and Midsummer Eve's Dream. Both notes quote Robinson Jeffers: "For the essence and the end -- Robinson Jeffers, "Point Pinos and Point Lobos," Place the eightfold star in a circle, and you have the Buddhist Wheel of Life: Posted 10/23/2002 at 8:00 PM |
In Memoriam From the New York Times of Oct. 23, 2002: Richard M. Helms Dies at 89;
Needless to say, that didn't last. I encountered this story this afternoon, after writing the entry below this morning. The site I described there, http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/, reads as though it were compiled by an intelligence officer, and may serve as a small memorial to Helms. Posted 10/23/2002 at 5:04 PM |
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 book by Arthur Koestler, The Challenge of Chance. A search for links related to that book led to the following site, which I find very interesting: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/. This is a commonplace-book site, apparently a collection of readings for the end of the century and millennium. No site title or owner is indicated, but the readings are excellent. Accepting the challenge of chance, I reproduce one of the readings... The author was not writing about Cuernavaca, but may as well have been. From Winter's Tale, Harcourt Brace (1983):
Posted 10/23/2002 at 6:35 AM |
Introduction to From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar for Oct. 22:
In honor of Deneuve and of George W. Mackey, author of the classic 156-page essay, "Harmonic analysis* as the exploitation of symmetry† — A historical survey" (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (New Series), Vol. 3, No. 1, Part 1 (July 1980), pp. 543-698), this site's music is, for the time being, "Good Vibrations."
For more on harmonic analysis, see "Group Representations and Harmonic Analysis from Euler to Langlands," by Anthony W. Knapp, Part I and Part II.
* For "the simplest non-trivial model for harmonic analysis," the Walsh functions, see F. Schipp et. al., Walsh Series: An Introduction to Dyadic Harmonic Analysis, Hilger, 1990. For Mackey's "exploitation of symmetry" in this context, see my note Symmetry of Walsh Functions, and also the footnote below.
† "Now, it is no easy business defining what one means by the term conceptual.... I think we can say that the conceptual is usually expressible in terms of broad principles. A nice example of this comes in form of harmonic analysis, which is based on the idea, whose scope has been shown by George Mackey... to be immense, that many kinds of entity become easier to handle by decomposing them into components belonging to spaces invariant under specified symmetries."
-- The importance of mathematical conceptualisation, by David Corfield, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge Posted 10/22/2002 at 1:16 AM |
Birthdays for a Small Planet Today's birthdays:
The entry below, "Theology for a Small Planet," sketches an issue that society has failed to address since the fall of 1989, when it was first raised by the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. In honor mainly of Ursula K. Le Guin, but also of her fellow authors above, I offer Le Guin's solution. It is not new. It has been ignored mainly because of the sort of hateful and contemptible arrogance shown by
Here is an introduction to the theology that should replace the ridiculous and outdated Semitic religions. "Scholarly translators of the Tao Te Ching, as a manual for rulers, use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist 'sage,' his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for 2500 years. It is the most lovable of all the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous and inexhaustibly refreshing. Of all the deep springs, this is the purest water. To me it is also the deepest spring." Tao Te Ching: Chapter 6translated by Ursula K. Le Guin The valley spirit never dies The mystery, Forever this endures, forever. Posted 10/21/2002 at 12:01 AM |
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 environment and theology. From The Harvard Divinity Bulletin, XIX, 3 (1989): " While Angels Weep..." Timothy C. Weiskel ...We continue to strut and prance about with a sense of supreme self-importance as if all creation were put in place for our benefit.... From where does such arrogance come? How can our beliefs be so far out of touch with our knowledge? How can we maintain such an inflated sense of personal, collective and species self-importance? .... The answer, in part, is that Western religious traditions have generated and sustained this petty arrogance.... Western cultures have come to believe religiously in their own power, importance and capacity to dominate and control nature. Some religious groups have transcribed and elaborated creation myths which serve to ennoble and authorize this illusion of domination. In these myths a supreme and omnipotent God figure (usually portrayed as male) is said to have created humankind and enjoined this species to be "fruitful and multiply" and "subdue" the earth. Moreover, it is often a feature of these traditions that selected human groups come to feel entitled, empowered or specially ordained by such a God to be his "chosen people." Through their actions and history, it is believed, this God allegedly manifested his intent for the planet as a whole. In short, human groups created God in their own image and generated divine narratives that accorded themselves privileged status in the whole of creation.... ...science itself has become the cornerstone of modern mankind's religiously held belief in human control. In our era, this kind of arrogant science, like the self-important religious traditions of the past, must be questioned.... In short, we all stand in need of a theology for a small planet. Posted 10/21/2002 at 12:00 AM |
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 Ford, founder of Ford Motor Co. and author of which includes a chapter titled Jewish Jazz Becomes Our National Music, this site's music is now Rhapsody in Blue. For more on art and power, see the article on Cardinal Richelieu by Deborah Weisgall in today's New York Times. Posted 10/20/2002 at 3:17 AM |
What is Truth?
In light of the entry below ("Mass Confusion," Oct. 19, 2002), some further literary reflections seem called for. Since this is, after all, a personal journal, allow me some personal details... Yesterday I picked up some packages, delivered earlier, that included four books I had ordered. I opened these packages this morning before writing the entry below; their contents may indicate my frame of mind when I later read this morning's New York Times story that prompted my remarks. The books are, in the order I encountered them as I opened packages,
Taken as a whole, this quartet of books supplies a rather powerful answer to the catechism question of Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?"... The answer, which I pray will some day be delivered at heaven's gate to all who have lied in the name of religion, is, in Jack Nicholson's classic words, You can't handle the truth! Posted 10/19/2002 at 9:47 AM |
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 to be lawyers because he thought it would come in handy. He sent them to boarding school, where they learned to speak and act like members of the British upper-class, but when they went home they knew they might have to bail him out of jail, or spend the holidays with a bunch of crooks. He learned German and became a spy, but said he 'never did anything to alter the world order.'" From The New York Times of Oct. 19, 2002: "...victims of sexually abusive priests expressed despair and outrage yesterday at the Vatican's refusal to endorse the American bishops' zero tolerance policy.... 'This certainly sends the whole thing into wild confusion,' said Thomas C. Fox, publisher of The National Catholic Reporter, an independent newsweekly that helped uncover the church's sexual abuse problem nearly two decades ago. 'It seems we haven't moved anywhere in finding a resolution, and that makes it terribly, terribly painful. It's like this nightmare simply won't end.'" Other classic Catholic quotations... 1. "He ain't heavy, he's my brother." 2. "What is truth?" 3. "Writers often cry 'Truth! Truth at all costs!' Some are sincere. Others are hypocrites. They use the truth, distort it, exploit it, for an ulterior purpose. Let us consider the case of John Cornwell...." -- Inside the Vatican John Cornwell recently wrote a classic study of the Roman Catholic Church, Hitler's Pope* (Viking Press, October 1999). According to the Daily Catholic and to Inside the Vatican, Cornwell is the brother of of spy novelist John le Carré (born David Cornwell). An article in the Jerusalem Post, however, seems to say that the spy novelist had only one brother, whose name was in fact Tony, not John. A Sydney Morning Herald article confirms this version of the Cornwell family history. Finally, once one learns from the Sydney article that David Cornwell's father's name was Ronnie, a perfected Google search reveals a Literary Encyclopedia article that seems to demonstrate conclusively that the Roman Catholic sources cited above lied about John Cornwell's family background. Of course, this may be wrong... Those who wish may investigate further. * (I personally prefer Hitler's own remarks on the Church's "static pole," but tastes differ.) Posted 10/19/2002 at 7:47 AM |
Readings for the Oct. 18 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 for the friends than for the woman in crisis. Part I... Wallace Stevens From Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Ox Emblematic of St. Luke. It is one of the four figures which made up Ezekiel's cherub (i. 10). The ox is the emblem of the priesthood.... The dumb ox. St. Thomas Aquinas; so named by his fellow students at Cologne, on account of his dulness and taciturnity. (1224-1274.) From Wallace Stevens, "The Latest Freed Man": It was how the sun came shining into his room: Part II... The Rosy Cross Readings:
Part III... Stevens Again A major critical work on Wallace Stevens that is not unrelated to the above three works on the Rosicrucian tradition: Leonora Woodman, Stanza My Stone: Wallace Stevens and the Hermetic Tradition, West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press, 1983 From the Department of English, Purdue University: Leonora Woodman came to Purdue in 1976. In 1979, she became Director of Composition, a position she held until 1986.... At the time of her death in 1991, she was in the midst of an important work on modernist poetry, Literary Modernism and the Fourth Dimension: The Visionary Poetics of D.H. Lawrence, H.D., and Hart Crane. For more on Gnostic Christianity, see
Posted 10/18/2002 at 5:55 AM |
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 the medieval period in Ireland: "It seems that there were no witchcraft trials in the Gaelic Irish areas. There isn't a tradition of witchcraft in the Gaelic Irish communities because people believed in magical women.... Another interesting thing about the... case was that it happened in Slieve na mBan, where the barrier between this world and the next is thinnest. Slieve na mBan means the 'mountain of women.'" From Finn's Household in Part II Book I of and of the Fianna of Ireland, "Where do you come from, little one, yourself and your sweet music?" said Finn. "I am come," he said, "out of the place of the Sidhe in Slieve-nam-ban...." Posted 10/17/2002 at 8:42 AM |
To the Green Lady 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. (Dublin) ... this site's music is now Caoine Cill Chais, The Lament for Kilcash. Posted 10/17/2002 at 5:04 AM |
Garden Party Revisited From the Archives: On this date in 1992,
The crowd was acting in disapproval of O’Connor’s tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on 'Saturday Night Live' October 3, 1992." Go mbeidh rincí fada ag gabháil timpeall, Posted 10/16/2002 at 6:29 PM |
"History is a nightmare "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 shall never be put out." Posted 10/16/2002 at 4:20 AM |
Hitler's Still Point For the views of the noted philosopher Adolf Hitler on the Roman Catholic Church, click here. Posted 10/16/2002 at 3:45 AM |
Are the hams silent now, Clarice? See also my Xanga entry of August 3, 2002. Posted 10/15/2002 at 9:10 PM |
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 some of his new material and the crowd did not approve. The negative reaction to his performance inspired Nelson to write his last top-40 hit, 'Garden Party,' which hit the top-ten about a year after the Madison Square Garden debacle. 'Garden Party,' ironically, was Nelson’s biggest hit in years." "With a little effort, anything can be shown to connect with anything else: existence is infinitely cross-referenced." -- Opening sentence of Martha Cooley's The Archivist
Actor Pat O'Brien died on this date in 1983. "A man in Ireland, who came in contact with a Bible colporteur, at first repulsed him. Finally he was persuaded to take a Bible and later he said: 'I read a wee bit out of the New Testament every day, and I pray to God every night and morning.' When asked if it helped him to read God's Word and to pray, he answered: 'Indade it does. When I go to do anything wrong, I just say to myself, "Pat, you'll be talking to God tonight." That keeps me from doing it!'" colporteur Posted 10/15/2002 at 2:10 PM |
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 matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful.... Happy ... happy ... All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content." -- Katherine Mansfield, "The Garden Party" In honor of Mansfield, Crosby, and other authors and singers, this site's music is now a midi rendition of Rick Nelson's classic. Posted 10/14/2002 at 11:11 PM |
Two Literary Classics On this date in 1962, Edward Albee's classic play, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" opened on Broadway.
As I was preparing this entry, based on the October 13 date of the Albee play's opening, after I looked for a picture of Marshall's book I thought I'd better check dates related to Marshall, too. This is what I was surprised to find: Marshall (b. Oct. 10, 1942) died in 1992 on today's date, October 13. This may be verified at The James Edward Marshall memorial page, A James Edward Marshall biography, and Author Anniversaries for October 13. The titles of the three acts of Albee's play suffice to indicate its dark spiritual undercurrents: "Fun and Games" (Act One), A theological writer pondered Albee in 1963: "If, as Tillich has said of Picasso's Guernica, a 'Protestant' picture means not covering up anything but looking at 'the human situation in its depths of estrangement and despair,' then we could call Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? a 'Protestant' play. On any other definition it might be difficult to justify its religious significance except as sheer nihilism." It is a great relief to have another George and Martha (who first appeared in 1972) to turn to on this dark anniversary, and a doubly great relief to know that Albee's darkness is balanced by the light of Saint James Edward Marshall, whose feast day is today. For more on the carousel theme of the Marshall book's cover, click the link for "Spinning Wheel" in the entry below. Posted 10/13/2002 at 10:55 PM |
She's a...
In honor of this dance, of Columbus, and of Joan Didion, this site's music for the weekend is "Spinning Wheel." For the relevance of this music, see Chapter 65 (set in Las Vegas) of Didion's 1970 novel Play It As It Lays, which, taken by itself, is one of the greatest short stories of the twentieth century. The photograph of Didion on the back cover of Play It (taken when she was about 36) is one of the most striking combinations of beauty and intelligence that I have ever seen. She's the queen of cool Play It As It Lays is of philosophical as well as socio-literary interest; it tells of a young actress's struggles with Hollywood nihilism. For related material, see The Studio by Didion's husband, John Gregory Dunne. A review of Dunne's book: "Not since F. Scott Fitzgerald and Nathanael West has anyone done Hollywood better." High praise indeed. Posted 10/12/2002 at 3:26 PM |
The Fourth Man: El Nuevo Herald, dies at 70 Carlos Castañeda, the publisher emeritus of El Nuevo Herald whose passionate belief in a free press helped guide several newspapers across Latin America, died Thursday morning in Lisbon, Portugal. He was 70.
Arthur Koestler's somewhat more respectable mystical thoughts about infinity may be found here. Related material: my September 5 entry, Arrow in the Blue. Added ca. 10 to 11:40 p.m. October 11, 2002: A review of Castaneda seems in order... the bad Carlos, not the good Carlos. (The bad Carlos being, of course, the bullshit artist who apparently died in 1998, and the good Carlos the publisher who died yesterday.) From the LiveJournal site of fermina -- Today's Public Service Message:
My comment: From a review of Carlos Castaneda's last book, The Active Side of Infinity: "We wind up learning something more of Castaneda but not much at all about the active side of infinity, which is mystically translated as 'intent.' It appears that we ought to live with intent, never forgetting that we will die, regardless. Death (and the knowledge of it) should thus inform all of our actions and relationships, providing a perspective and enforcing our humility. This is hardly an original idea, and it can't justify wading through Castaneda's welter of self-indulgence, which might translate better to a bumper-sticker adage." Hmm... What adage might that be? As for the good Carlos, see "In Lieu of Rosebud, Part II," below... As was said of Saint Francis Borgia, whose feast is celebrated on the day good Carlos died, he
Posted 10/11/2002 at 5:10 PM |
In Lieu of Rosebud, Part II* Bernard Ridder dies at 85 BY MARTIN MERZER Bernard H. Ridder Jr., once one of the nation's most influential publishers and the inheritor and protector of a family tradition of newspapering, died Thursday night. He was 85.... ''If there is one thing he instilled in me,'' [his son] Peter Ridder said, "it was to be honest. If you don't know the answer, say so.'' His father had been publisher of the St. Paul newspapers; his grandfather, Herman Ridder, launched the family business in 1875 as publisher of The Catholic News in New York. Though six-foot-five and with a commanding presence, he also was known as an honest, compassionate man and boss. A private memorial service will be held at a date to be determined, the family said. In lieu of flowers, relatives suggested a contribution to a charity of the donor's choice. Karl J. Karlson of The St. Paul Pioneer Press contributed to this report. * For "In Lieu of Rosebud, Part I," see my entry of October 10, 9:44 a.m., below. My contributions: Harry Lime -- "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock ..." It is with good reason that Spain and the Church venerate in St. Francis Borgia a great man and a great saint. The highest nobles of Spain are proud of their descent from, or their connexion with him. By his penitent and apostolic life he repaired the sins of his family and rendered glorious a name, which but for him, would have remained a source of humiliation for the Church. His feast is celebrated 10 October. The New York Times of October 11, 2002 -- This year's winner of the Nobel Prize for literature is Imre Kertész, a writer on Auschwitz. http://auschwitz.dk/Orson.htm -- In honor of Orson Welles and Bernard Ridder (who both died on October 10), of Imre Kertész (who won a Nobel Prize on October 10), and of the parent site of the Third Man site, this site's music is now the Third Man Theme. Posted 10/11/2002 at 5:35 AM |
Happy National Depression Day! Welcome to Hilbert's Hotel... Moray Eel Desk Clerk by Ralph Steadman "Although it's always crowded, "Some of our patrons have
Posted 10/10/2002 at 11:22 PM |
In Lieu of Rosebud... On this date in 1985, Orson Welles died
From a review of "Leaving Las Vegas" -- a film starring Nicolas Cage that includes a tribute to Welles:
To me, the musical equivalent of "Rosebud" in this film is a song that Sting sings on the soundtrack, "Angel Eyes," which of course was rendered to perfection in Vegas by Sinatra long before Cage and Sting. One visual equivalent, in turn, of "Angel Eyes," is to me a sketch for a painting I did in 1976. This has been likened to the many eyes of an angelic creature named Proginoskes in a novel for children and adolescents by Madeleine L'Engle. Perhaps the dark cynicism of Leaving Las Vegas (the book) might be somewhat counterbalanced by the looney religiosity of A Wind in the Door, L'Engle's novel. At any rate, here are links to the "Angel Eyes" © 1976 Steven H. Cullinane Also, "Angel Eyes" is now the background music for this site; one night of the Bach midi was enough. Posted 10/10/2002 at 9:44 AM |
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) from the Classical Guitar Midi Archives. Posted 10/9/2002 at 11:36 PM |
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 Williamstown, Mass., died Oct. 2 in Woodstock, N.Y.... He was 97. From The Birth of Tragedy, by Friedrich Nietzsche (tr. by Shaun Whiteside): Chapter 1.... To the two gods of art, Apollo and Dionysus, we owe our recognition that in the Greek world there is a tremendous opposition, as regards both origins and aims, between the Apolline art of the sculptor and the non-visual, Dionysiac art of music. Chapter 25.... From the foundation of all existence, the Dionysiac substratum of the world, no more can enter the consciousness of the human individual than can be overcome once more by that Apolline power of transfiguration, so that both of these artistic impulses are forced to unfold in strict proportion to one another, according to the law of eternal justice. Where the Dionysiac powers have risen as impetuously as we now experience them, Apollo, enveloped in a cloud, must also have descended to us; some future generation will behold his most luxuriant effects of beauty. Notes:
Posted 10/9/2002 at 5:01 PM |
See also "Everything is found Posted 10/9/2002 at 2:40 AM |
"The main character is Maurice Castle, the head of the Africa station for a branch of British intelligence.... [the] writing is sparse and neat rather than languid or flowery...." From Chapter I: "Castle could see that telling the truth this time had been an error of judgement, yet, except on really important occasions, he always preferred the truth. The truth can be double-checked." On fiction and truth: Here is a short story that is The story is also true.
This problem embodies the "starflight" theme; As the example of Nabokov shows, a taste for truth (as in chess or geometry) may accompany a taste for fiction. This applies also to Krabbé, as shown by the following reviews of his novel The Cave: New York Times Library Journal Posted 10/8/2002 at 4:08 AM |
Comment to Wakariyasui, translated I do not understand your phrase "the angel and the stone" (though I like it). Yes, many feel something is missing, and that their life is not complete. But also they are wise if they are suspicious of "vision." Many visions are, of course, false. --A fellow wanderer. Posted 10/7/2002 at 4:10 PM |
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."
From the 1991 4th draft of Jane Campion's screenplay for
Posted 10/7/2002 at 3:50 AM |
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 ceremonies included, notably, Kylie Minogue singing "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend."
For the mathematical properties of the red windmill (moulin rouge) figure at left, see Diamond Theory. Posted 10/6/2002 at 4:40 AM |
The Message from Vega "Mercilessly tasteful"
Posted 10/5/2002 at 11:30 PM |
Zen holy day: Bodhidharma Day Epigraph to Chapter 23 of Contact, by Carl Sagan:
Song lyric:
From Chapter 23 of Contact, by Carl Sagan:
Moonlight and love songs, See also my journal note Posted 10/5/2002 at 12:00 PM |
ART WARS: Today's birthdays:
To honor the birth of these three noted spiritual leaders, I make the following suggestion: Use the mandorla as the New Orleans Mardi Gras symbol. Rice lives in New Orleans and LaBelle's classic "Lady Marmalade" deals with life in that colorful city. What, you may well ask, is the mandorla? This striking visual symbol was most recently displayed prominently at a meeting of U.S. cardinals in the Pope's private library on Shakespeare's birthday. The symbol appears in the upper half of a painting above the Pope. From Church Anatomy: The illustration below shows how Barbara G. Walker in her excellent book "The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" describes the mandorla.
For further details on the mandorla (also known as the "ya-ya") see my June 12, 2002, note The Ya-Ya Monologues.
A somewhat less lurid use of the mandorla in religious art -- the emblem of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, taken from the website of St. Michael's Church in Charleston -- is shown below.
Posted 10/4/2002 at 4:17 AM |
Style A memorial to jazz pianist Ellis Larkins, Posted 10/3/2002 at 4:33 PM |
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 are away sets up a necromantic shop, tricking all and everyone." From Literary Calendar for tomorrow, Oct. 4: "1892 -- Robert Lawson, the only author/illustrator to win both the Caldecott Award and the Newbery Award—both coveted awards in the United States for children's literature, is born." As a child I was greatly influenced by Robert Lawson's illustrations for the Godolphin abridgement of Pilgrim's Progress. Later I was to grow up partly in Cuernavaca, Mexico, an appropriate setting for The Valley of the Shadow of Death and other Bunyan/Lawson themes. Still later, I encountered Malcolm Lowry's great novel Under the Volcano, set in Cuernavaca. Lowry's novel begins with an epigraph from Bunyan. For the connection with Ben Jonson, see Pete Hamill's article "The Alchemist of Cuernavaca" in Art News magazine, April 2001, pages 134-137. See also my journal note of April 4, 2001, The Black Queen. Posted 10/3/2002 at 1:06 PM |
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.
The author of this attempted proof, Ashay Dharwadker, is now an editor of the following Open Directory Project categories: Science: Math: Combinatorics and I agree with "Default," Eppstein, and Varney. As "Default" notes, the proof is invalid, since it does not even use the hypotheses of the theorem. I pointed this out in November 2000 in a sub-page of a website in the Open Directory combinatorics category, I also agree with Eppstein that Dharwadker's writing seems "designed to confuse." Finally, I strongly agree with Varney that Dharwadker is a crackpot. I reluctantly arrived at this conclusion only last night, after learning that
Posted 10/2/2002 at 9:52 AM |
Comment to Wakariyasui:
Posted 10/1/2002 at 1:31 AM |
Who's on First? To Lucero on October First, 2002: ES TU NOMBRE Y ES TAMBIÉN OCTUBRE... Es tu nombre y es también octubrees el diván y tus ungüentos es ella tú la joven de las turbaciones y son las palomas en vuelos secretos y el último escalón de la torre y es la amada acechando el amor en antemuros y es lo dable en cada movimiento y los objetos y son los pabellones y el no estar del todo en una acción y es el Cantar de los Cantares y es el amor que te ama y es un resumen de vigilia de vigilancia sola al borde de la noche al borde del soñador y los insomnios y también es abril y noviembre y los disturbios interiores de agosto y es tu desnudez que absorbe la luz de los espejos y es tu capacidad de trigo de hacerte mirar en las cosas y eres tú y soy yo y es un caminarte en círculo dar a tus hechos dimensión de arco y a solas con tu impulso decirte la palabra. Posted 10/1/2002 at 12:25 AM |