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.'" "Forewarned is four-armed." — Folk saying
Today in Australia is February First, the feast of St. Bridget. As several websites note, St. Bridget is a combination of Christian saint and Goddess figure... rather like St. Sara (patron saint of Gypsies, also known as Kali) or like Sara Pezzini in the classic TV series "Witchblade." "Aww... Irish foreplay." — Sara Pezzini in Witchblade, Episode 6 "Mighty in the gift of purity "Brace yourself, Bridget." — Definition of Irish foreplay
For futher details, see The Swastika Goddess, the history of Jews and the Roman Catholic Church, and the history of Irish neutrality in World War II. Postscript of 11 PM — The Goddess Bridget in Literature The Goddess Bridget (or Brigid) is incarnated in two classic works of American literature —
Posted 1/31/2003 at 6:20 PM |
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. All languages. A walking Berlitz. Berlitz sounds like you with that champagne, my sweet, or how you're gonna sound.'" — John O'Hara, Hope of Heaven, Chapter 11, 1938 "And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." "Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the PARIS, — James Joyce, conclusion of Finnegans Wake "Using illustrative material from religion, myth, and culture, he starts with the descent of the dove on Jesus and ends with the poetic ramblings of James Joyce." — Review of a biography of the Holy Spirit Illustration added at 3:21 AM Feb. 3, 2003: Firefall Available for $220 from Posted 1/31/2003 at 6:20 AM |
Poetic Justice: 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 a friend distracted St. Peter with bad poetry. We may imagine, on this dark night of the soul, Frost performing a similar service. Though poets of the traditional sort may still perform such services in Heaven, here on earth they have been superseded by writers of song lyrics. An example, Roddy Frame (formerly of the group "Aztec Camera"), was born on yesterday's date in 1964. A Frame lyric:
Namely:
The Back Door to Heaven For poetic purposes, we may think of surreptitious entry into Heaven as being conveniently accomplished through a portal like the above back door, which is that of a small hotel in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This is not your average Motel 6 back door. As a former New York Times correspondent has written,
This small hotel (or its heavenly equivalent), whose gardens are inhabited by various exotic birds, including peacocks, may still be haunted by the late Shah, who apparently styled himself "King of Kings and Emperor of the Peacock Throne." Of course, the ghost of the King of Kings, after entering the garden of Paradise, may not be able to resume his former human shape. He might still, however, be among those greeted by his fellow Emperor, George III, with the famous words *For more on alchemy and Cuernavaca, see Posted 1/30/2003 at 2:45 AM |
Cullinane College was scheduled to open its doors officially on January 29, 2003. The following might have been an appropriate inaugural address. From The Prisoner: Comments "When the President asks for a vote, he says: 'All in favor.' But he never asks for those opposed. (Though it appears that none will be opposed -- and though he says its a democratic assembly, it is hardly that. The President even says that the society is in a 'democratic crisis,' though without democracy present, it's just a sham.) #48/Young Man sings 'Dry Bones,', which is his rebellion (notice its chaotic effect on 'society'). But then the song gets taken over, 'polished,' and sung by a voice-over (presumably set up by #1). Does this mean that society is stealing the thunder (i.e. the creative energy) of youth, and cheapening it, or does it mean that youth is just rebelling in the same way that their fathers did (with equal ineffectiveness)? Perhaps it is simply a comment on the ease with which society can deal with the real rebellion of the 1960's, which purported to be led by musicians; one that even the Beatles said was impossible in 'Revolution.'" President: Guilty! Read the Charge! #48 is guilty, of something, and then the society pins something on him." The Other Side of the Coin
Excerpt from the poem that Robert Frost (who died on this date in 1963) meant to read at the 1961 inauguration of John F. Kennedy:
I greatly prefer Robinson Jeffers's "Shine, Perishing Republic":
See also the thoughts on Republic vs. Empire in the work of Alec Guinness (as Marcus Aurelius and as Obi-Wan Kenobi). Posted 1/29/2003 at 6:09 PM |
State of the Communion Relevant readings:
Posted 1/28/2003 at 7:11 PM |
As promised last December 6... Leadbelly Under the Volcano
See also the obituary of John Browning, pianist, who died January 26. Historical postscript: Huddie Ledbetter ("Leadbelly") was, according to some accounts, born on January 21, the date of Irene Diamond's death. He died on December 6, the feast day of Saint Nicholas. Posted 1/27/2003 at 3:47 PM |
Our Town: Paul Newman, scheduled for his last performance in "Our Town" today, said in 1961:
For another view of Oakland, see
Gertrude Stein on Oakland, California: Well, maybe a little pool room.... Posted 1/26/2003 at 5:55 PM |
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 the scene, he serves as an interlocutor between the worlds of the living and the dead, calling the characters into life and out of it; he is, it turns out, the Author of Authors, the Big Guy himself. It seems, in every way, apt for Paul Newman to have taken on this role. God should look like Newman: lean, strong-chinned, white-haired, and authoritative in a calm and unassuming way—if only we had all been made in his image!" — The New Yorker, issue of Dec. 16, 2002 On this date in 1971, Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, died.
"Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful.... First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our Director.... When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed.... We were now at Step Three." — Alcoholics Anonymous, also known as "The Big Book," Chapter 5 Postscript of 5:15 AM, after reading the following in the New York Times obituaries: "Must be a tough objective," says Willie to Joe as they huddle on the side of a road, weapons ready. "Th' old man says we're gonna have th' honor of liberatin' it." "The old men know when an old man dies." — Ogden Nash Posted 1/24/2003 at 4:30 AM |
After the Dream: A sequel to the previous note, From John Lahr's recent review of "Our Town":
The conclusion of Lewis Caroll's Through the Looking Glass: In a Wonderland they lie, Ever drifting down the stream -- An apt setting for a realistic production of "Our Town" would be Randolph, N.Y., a rather timeless place that a few years ago even had a working soda fountain of the traditional sort. Yesterday's note was prompted in part by an obituary of a young girl who attended St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Randolph. This is the reason for tonight's site music, "After a Dream," by Fauré. See also Piper Laurie's recent film, St. Patrick's Day. Posted 1/23/2003 at 1:11 AM |
Through a Soda-Fountain Mirror, Darkly For Piper Laurie on Her Birthday
— Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass, Chapter XII ("Which Dreamed It?") quoted as epigraph to a script for the film Pleasantville, which features a soda fountain from the 1950's.
— Caroline Palmer's review of "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" The above quotations are related to the 1952 film Has Anybody Seen My Gal?, in which James Dean makes a brief appearance at a 1920's soda fountain. The film is chiefly notable for displaying the beauty of Piper Laurie, but a subplot is also of iterest. Charles Coburn, a rich man visiting incognito a timeless town* rather like Pleasantville or Riverdale, takes up painting and is assisted by the young Gigi Perreau, who, as I recall, supplies him with the frame from a Circe Soap ad displayed in a shop window. For more on a fictional rich character and Circe — indeed, enough for a soap — see my note of January 11, 2003, "The First Days of Disco," and the sequel of January 12, 2003, "Ask Not." In the manner of magic realism, the adventures in the earlier entry of Scrooge McDuck and Circe are mirrored by those in the later entry of C. Douglas Dillon and Monique Wittig. For a less pleasant trip back in time, see the later work of Gigi Perreau in Journey to the Center of Time (1967). One viewer's comment:
Happy birthday, Miss Laurie. *Rather, in fact, like "Our Town." Here is John Lahr on a current production of that classic: "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 the scene, he serves as an interlocutor between the worlds of the living and the dead, calling the characters into life and out of it; he is, it turns out, the Author of Authors, the Big Guy himself. It seems, in every way, apt for Paul Newman to have taken on this role. God should look like Newman: lean, strong-chinned, white-haired, and authoritative in a calm and unassuming way—if only we had all been made in his image!" — The New Yorker, issue of Dec. 16, 2002 If Newman is God, then Miss Laurie played God's girlfriend. Nice going, Piper. Posted 1/22/2003 at 1:44 PM |
Cartoon Graveyard, I need a photo opportunity
One of my favorite movie scenes is the entry into paradise, through a looking glass, of Kilgore Trout (played by Albert Finney) in "Breakfast of Champions." Trout encounters a beautiful (indeed, angelic) maiden on the other side of the looking glass and asks of her, "Make me young again." His wish is granted. Those who wish to may imagine — through a glass, darkly — a great artist's entry into heaven with the aid of the very popular website Betty and Veronica. PARENTAL ADVISORY: The "Betty and Veronica" link above is more suited to Kilgore Trout's usual publisher, The World Classics Library, than to, say, the Harvard Classics. Since Betty and Veronica have been attending Riverdale High for about 60 years now, I think we can assume they are 18 by this time, and can appear in an adult website. Their cartoonish appearance may be helpful to newcomers to paradise; it does not mean, as Paul Simon fears, that the afterlife consists only of cartoon characters. For further details, see I Corinthians 13:11-13. Posted 1/21/2003 at 11:42 PM |
Diablo Ballet Thanks to Meghan for the following: not going, not coming, — Shih Te (c. 730) It turns out that Shih Te ("Foundling") was the sidekick of Han Shan ("Cold Mountain"). Here are some relevant links: Thoughts of Robert Frost (see past two days' entries) lead to "Two Tramps in Mud Time," which in turn leads to Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder splitting wood in The Dharma Bums. This in turn leads, via a search on "Kerouac" and "axe," to the sentence
in Big Sur. Kerouac taught me when I was 16 and he is still teaching me now that I am 60. Searching for "Eglevsky ballet" leads to this site on André Eglevsky, his work, his life, and his children. A further search leads to his daughter Marina Eglevsky, who stages dance for the Diablo Ballet.
Those who feel the above is too "arty" for them may nevertheless appreciate the movie by the same name: "Born to Dance" (1936), starring Eleanor Powell and James Stewart. In the larger metaphorical sense, of course, Powell and Eglevsky are both part of the same dance... at the "still point" described so well by Shih Te. "just resting, at the center
Postscript of 1/25/03: See also the obituary of Irene Diamond, ballet patron, for whom the New York City Ballet's "Diamond Project" is named. Diamond died on January 21, 2003, the date of the above weblog entry. Posted 1/21/2003 at 5:09 PM |
Shine On, Robinson Jeffers "...be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, Robinson Jeffers died at Big Sur, California, on January 20, 1962 — a year to the day after Robert Frost spoke at the Kennedy inauguration. "The poetry of Robinson Jeffers shines with a diamond's brilliance when he depicts Nature's beauty and magnificence. His verse also flashes with a diamond's hardness when he portrays human pain and folly." "Praise Him, He hath conferred aesthetic distance "Across my foundering deck shone "In the last two weeks, I've been returning to Hopkins. Even in the 'world's wildfire,' he asserts that 'this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,/Is immortal diamond.' A comfort." "There's none but truth can stead you. Christ is truth." "The rock cannot be broken. It is the truth." "My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably On this date in 1993, the inauguration day of William Jefferson Clinton, Audrey Hepburn died. "...today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully...." "So, purposing each moment to retire,
"Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame." "The last words from the people in the towers and on the planes, over and over again, were 'I love you.' Over and over again, the message was the same, 'I love you.' .... Perhaps this is the loudest chorus from The Rock: we are learning just how powerful love really is, even in the face of death." "Then I'll get on my knees and pray See also my note, "Bright Star," of October 23, 2002. Posted 1/20/2003 at 5:00 PM |
"Cullinane College is a Catholic co-educational college, set to open in Wanganui (New Zealand) on the 29th of January, 2003." The 29th of January will be the 40th anniversary of the death of Saint Robert Frost. New Zealand, perhaps the most beautiful country on the planet, is noted for being the setting of the film version of Lord of the Rings, which was written by a devout Catholic, J. R. R. Tolkien. Here is a rather Catholic meditation on life and death in Tolkien's work:
Personally, I prefer Clint Eastwood's version of this dialogue:
For other New Zealand themes, see Alfred Bester's novels The Stars My Destination and The Deceivers. The original title of The Stars My Destination was Tyger! Tyger! after Blake's poem. For more on fearful symmetry, see the work of Marston Conder, professor of mathematics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Posted 1/19/2003 at 4:30 PM |
x Posted 1/18/2003 at 11:59 PM |
The Walk to Paradise Garden
The New York Times, Friday, Jan. 17, 2003:Mr. and Mrs. BraidwoodBy STUART LAVIETES Robert J. Braidwood, a University of Chicago archaeologist who uncovered evidence of the beginnings of agriculture and the subsequent rise of civilization in the Middle East, died on Wednesday [Jan. 15, 2003] in Chicago. He was 95. From close to the beginning of his career, Dr. Braidwood worked in partnership with his wife, Linda S. Braidwood, also an archaeologist. She died several hours later on Wednesday in the same hospital. She was 93. The couple lived in LaPorte, Ind. Related reading:
Posted 1/17/2003 at 4:23 AM |
ART WARS "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 Williams, says that "Eliot by his own admission took the 'still point of the turning world' in Burnt Norton from the Fool in Williams's The Greater Trumps." Carpenter says Williams maintained that
"The sun is not yet risen, and if the Fool moves there he comes invisibly, or perhaps in widespread union with the light of the moon which is the reflection of the sun. But if the Tarots hold, as has been dreamed, the message which all things in all places and times have also been dreamed to hold, then perhaps there was meaning in the order as in the paintings; the tale of the cards being completed when the mystery of the sun has opened in the place of the moon, and after that the trumpets cry in the design which is called the Judgement, and the tombs are broken, and then in the last mystery of all the single figure of what is called the World goes joyously dancing in a state beyond moon and sun, and the number of the Trumps is done. Save only for that which has no number and is called the Fool, because mankind finds it folly till it is known. It is sovereign or it is nothing, and if it is nothing then man was born dead." — The Greater Trumps, by Charles Williams, Ch. 14 If we must have Christians telling stories, let them write like Charles Williams. Note that although Williams says the Fool Tarot card has no number, it is in fact often numbered 0. See See also Sequel — about the work, life, and afterlife of Stan Rice, husband of Anne Rice (author of The Vampire Chronicles) — and the following story from today's N.Y. Times:
The death and arrival at heaven's gate Posted 1/16/2003 at 5:05 PM |
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 more interest as it is used in the work of Raymond Chandler, where it has more to do with alcoholism than with Alzheimer's. Another memorable phrase from Chandler is found in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder":
The phrase also occurs in the works of C. S. Lewis in an extended parable about Heaven and Hell: The Great Divorce, Chapter One: "I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street. Evening was just closing in and it was raining. I had been wandering for hours in similar mean streets, always in the rain and always in evening twilight. Time seemed to have paused on that dismal moment when only a few shops have lit up and it is not yet dark enough for their windows to look cheering. And just as the evening never advanced to night, so my walking had never brought me to the better parts of the town." The most interesting part of this very interesting tale is summarized in an article on the work of Lewis:
It is perhaps not completely irrelevant that Humphrey Bogart, who played Chandler's detective "who is not himself mean," loved chess and was born on Christmas Day. A related religious meditation: "Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley." in The Silver Crown, by Joel Rosenberg Posted 1/15/2003 at 11:11 PM |
Conversations in Hell Part I: Locating Hell "Noi siam venuti al loco ov' i' t'ho detto "We have come to where I warned you From a Harvard student's weblog: Heard in Mather I hope you get gingivitis You want me to get oral cancer?! Goodnight fartface Turd. Turd. Turd. Turd. Turd. Make your own waffles!! Blah blah blah starcraft blah blah starcraft blah starcraft. It's da email da email. And some blue hair! Oohoohoo Izod! 10 gigs! Yeah it smells really bad. Only in the stairs though. Starcraft blah blah Starcraft fartface. Yeah it's hard. You have to get a bunch of battle cruisers. 40 kills! So good! Oh ho ho grunt grunt squeal. I'm getting sick again. You have a final tomorrow? In What?! Um I don't even know. Next year we're draggin him there and sticking the needle in ourselves. " ... one more line / unravelling from the dark design / spun by God and Cotton Mather"
Part II: The Call of Stories From a website on college fund-raising: • “The people who come to us bring their stories. They hope they tell them well enough so that we understand the truth of their lives.”—Robert Coles, Harvard professor, The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination • “If there’s anything worth calling theology, it is listening to people’s stories, listening to them and cherishing them.”—Mary Pellauer, quoted in Kathleen Norris’ Dakota: A Spiritual Geography From a website on "The West Wing": THE LONG GOODBYE In a special episode guest written by playwright Jon Robin Baitz, C.J. (Allison Janney) reluctantly returns to Dayton, Ohio, to speak at her 20th high school class reunion..." From a website illustrating language in Catholic religious stories: "Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio, the Sisters of the Precious Blood is a Catholic religious congregation..." From a Catholic religious story by J. R. R. Tolkien: "It shone now as if verily it was From a website on Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials:
From the same website, a short story:
19th October 1946." Part III: My Story For a different story, see my weblog of 19th October 2002:
Posted 1/15/2003 at 5:55 PM |
Remarks on Day 14 of 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 constitute winning in another game." Cited in "A Note on Wittgenstein's 'Notorious Paragraph' about the Gödel Theorem," by Juliet Floyd (Boston University) and Hilary Putnam (Harvard University), Journal of Philosophy (November 2000), 45 (11): 624-632. See also Juliet Floyd's "Prose versus proof : Wittgenstein on Gödel, Tarski and truth," Philosophia Mathematica 3, vol. 9 (2001): 901-928, and Juliet Floyd's "The Rule of the Mathematical: Wittgenstein's Later Discussions." PhD Dissertation, Harvard University, 1990. Abstract in Dissertation Abstracts International (June 1991), 51 (12A): 4146-A: "My thesis aims to defend Wittgenstein from the charges of benighted arrogance traditionally levelled against him." Romeo: O, she doth teach Ludwig Wittgenstein, Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (revised edition, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978) Posted 1/14/2003 at 5:55 PM |
Day 14 — My heart's been cared for — Ronna Reeves, 1992 Posted 1/14/2003 at 4:07 PM |
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 them long winter evenings." He may at times have been short on manners, but never on style. Perhaps his spirit will revisit the City of Angels on this long winter evening, as the film industry seems to need a refresher course in that subject. Here is a scene that seems tailor-made for his reappearance. Yale Club of Southern California January 14, 2003 Yale in Hollywood entertainment mixer."
"It's rumored Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were investors in this hipster minimalist-decor bar. If you want their Tuesday night all-you-can-eat sushi for $9.95, call to make a reservation. The Continental is located at 8400 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, (323) 782-9717." Mmmm... Blue booze and sushi! Posted 1/14/2003 at 5:28 AM |
Added Jan. 13, 2003 (feast day of St. James Joyce): For more on feminism and mythology, see
For the rest of the Dillon story, In this case, the victory of the alphabet over the goddess may have been rather short-lived. Here is Miss Audrey Hepburn (the original film Sabrina) as a very credible — and victorious — goddess: See also the journal entries below. Posted 1/12/2003 at 4:17 PM |
METROPOLITAN ART WARS: The First Days of Disco Some cultural milestones, in the order I encountered them today: From Dr. Mac's Cultural Calendar:
From websites on Whit Stillman's film, "The Last Days of Disco": Scene: Manhattan in the very early 1980's. Alice and her friend Charlotte are regulars at a fashionable disco. "Charlotte is forever giving poor Alice advice about what to say and how to behave; she says guys like it when a girl uses the word 'sexy,' and a few nights later, when a guy tells Alice he collects first editions of Scrooge McDuck comic books, she..." "... looks deep into his eyes and purrs 'I think Scrooge McDuck is sexy!' It is a laugh-out-loud funny line and a shrewd parody, but is also an honest statement." (Actually, to be honest, I encountered Thomson first and Ebert later, but the narrative sequence demands that they be rearranged.) The combination of these cultural landmarks suggested that I find out what Scrooge McDuck was doing during the first days of disco, in January 1963. Some research revealed that in issue #40 of "Uncle Scrooge," with a publication date of January 1963, was a tale titled "Oddball Odyssey." Plot summary: "A whisper of treasure draws Scrooge to Circe." Further research produced an illustration:
Desiring more literary depth, I sought more information on the story of Scrooge and Circe. It turns out that this was only one of a series of encounters between Scrooge and a character called Magica de Spell. The following is from a website titled "Magica's first appearance is in 'The Midas Touch' (US 36-01). She enters the Money Bin to buy a dime from Scrooge. Donald tells Scrooge that she is a sorceress, but Scrooge sells her a dime anyway. He sells her his first dime by accident, but gets it back. The fun starts when Scrooge tells her that it is the first dime he earned. She is going to make an amulet...." with it. Her pursuit of the dime apparently lasts through a number of Scrooge episodes. "...in Oddball Odyssey (US 40-02). Magica discovers Circe's secret cave. Inside the cave is a magic wand that she uses to transform Huey, Dewey and Louie to pigs, Donald to a goat (later to a tortoise), and Scrooge to a donkey. This reminds us of the treatment Circe gave Ulysses and his men. Magica does not succeed in transforming Scrooge after stealing the Dime, and Scrooge manages to break the spell (de Spell) by smashing the magic wand." At this point I was reminded of the legendary (but true) appearance of Wallace Stevens's wife on another historic dime. This was discussed by Charles Schulz in a cartoon of Sunday, May 27, 1990: Here Sally is saying... Who, me?... Yes, Ma'am, right here. This is my report on dimes and pennies... "Wallace Stevens was a famous poet... "Most people do not know that Elsie was the model for the 1916 'Liberty Head' dime." "Most people also don't know that if I had a dime for every one of these stupid reports I've written, I'd be a rich person." Finally, sitting outside the principal's office: I never got to the part about who posed for the Lincoln penny. I conclude this report on a note of synchronicity: The above research was suggested in part by a New York Times article on Ovid's Metamorphoses I read last night. After locating the Scrooge and Stevens items above, I went to the Times site this afternoon to remind myself of this article. At that point synchronicity kicked in; I encountered the following obituary of a Scrooge figure from 1963... the first days of disco:
(See yesterday's two entries, "Something Wonderful," and "Story.") Two reflections suggest themselves: "I need a photo opportunity. Ending up in a cartoon graveyard is indeed an unhappy fate; on the other hand... It is nice to be called "sexy." Added at 1:50 AM Jan. 12, 2003: Tonight's site music, in honor of Mr. Dillon Posted 1/11/2003 at 6:24 PM |
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. 6), tonight's site music is "Something Wonderful," from "The King and I."
Mrs. Vining died on November 27, 1999, at the age of 97. From a web page on Mrs. Vining: "Friends report that even in her last years, around the time of her birthday [Oct. 6] a sleek diplomatic limousine would pull up at Kendal, and disgorge the Japanese ambassador, often accompanied by a large spray of sumptuous flowers, for a courtesy call on behalf of her former pupil, now the emperor." Posted 1/10/2003 at 11:11 PM |
Story "How much story do you want?" While researching yesterday's entry on Balanchine, Apollo, and the nine Muses, I came across this architect's remarks, partially quoted yesterday and continued here:
Checking this out yesterday, I came across the following at a Yale University Art Gallery site:
Exploring and gathering examples myself today, I received a book in the mail — W. M. Spackman's On the Decay of Humanism (Rutgers University Press, 1967) — and picked up a second-hand book at a sale — Barbara Michaels's Stitches in Time (Harper Collins Publishers, 1995). The Spackman book includes the following poem at the end: In sandarac etui for sepulchre — Alexander B. Griswold, Princeton '28, in the From a synopsis of Michaels's Stitches in Time:
Although Stitches in Time is about a quilt — stitched, not spun — Griswold's line "an ancient spell, cast when the shroud was spun" is very closely related to the evil spell in Michaels's book. The above events display a certain synchronicity that Wallace Stevens might appreciate, especially in light of the following remark in a review of Stitches in Time:
Stevens might reply,
Finally, those who prefer stories to the more formal qualities of pure dance (ballet) pure mathematics (see previous entry), pure (instrumental) music, and pure (abstract, as in quilt designs) art, can consult the oeuvre of Jodie Foster — as in my Pearl Harbor Day entry on Buddhism. An art historian named Griswold — perhaps that very same Griswold quoted above — might have a thing or two to say to Jodie on her recent film "Anna and the King." In the April, 1957, issue of The Journal of the Siam Society, Alexander B. Griswold takes issue with Broadway's and Hollywood's "grotesque caricature" of Siamese society, and ultimately with Anna herself:
See also The Diamond 16 Puzzle for some quilt designs. Posted 1/10/2003 at 8:15 PM |
Balanchine's Birthday Today seems an appropriate day to celebrate Apollo and the nine Muses. From a website on Balanchine's and Stravinsky's ballet, "Apollon Musagete":
Another website invoking Apollo:
In accordance with these remarks, here is the underlying structure for a ballet blanc: This structure may seem too simple to support movements of interest, but consider the following (click to enlarge): As Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, paraphrasing Horace, remarks in his Whitsun, 1939, preface to the new edition of the Oxford Book of English Verse, "tamen usque recurret Apollo." The alert reader will note that in the above diagrams, only eight of the positions move. Which muse remains at the center? Consider the remark of T. S. Eliot, "At the still point, there the dance is," and the fact that on the day Eliot turned 60, Olivia Newton-John was born. How, indeed, in the words of another "sixty-year-old smiling public man," can we know the dancer from the dance? Posted 1/9/2003 at 4:48 PM |
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 and another based on Wild Palms, a William Faulkner novel. He was determined to direct his own films based on those scripts. Hall explained that just once in his life he wanted to control the process of making a film from beginning to end. It's still a work in progress.... If he discovered Aladdin's magic lantern, and had only one wish which could be granted, Hall says he would use it to bring Wild Palms to the screen." Crazy Protestant Drunk An Amazon.com review of Faulkner's novella Wild Palms: ***** "A Great Introduction to Faulkner" Reviewer: Stephen M. Bauer from Hazlet, N.J., July 7, 2002 — I love this guy Faulkner. I read another half chapter of The Wild Palms on the train. Never read anything by him before. Faulkner's characters don't sit around and examine their navel. They just Do. Yes act on their passions they Do. His characters are not beautiful people. They have scars, injuries, poverty, depraved morals, injustices, suffering upon suffering. What makes The Wild Palms beautiful is the passion of people living life right on the bone. A married woman is planning on abandoning her husband and two kids and running away with another man. The other man asks her what about her two kids. On page 41, she answers, "I know the answer to that and I know that I cant change that answer and I dont think I can change me because the second time I ever saw you I learned what I had read in books but I never had actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the value of love is the sum of what you have to pay for it and anytime you get it cheap you have cheated yourself." No Catholic saint-mystic ever said it better. Pretty good for a crazy Protestant drunk. "The oral history of Los Angeles
See also "For the Green Lady of Perelandra, Posted 1/8/2003 at 11:59 PM |
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, 2002, entries. In the last of these, "Irish Lament," is a link to a site appropriate for Maud Gonne's birthday — a discussion of Yeats's "Among School Children." Those who recall a young woman named Patricia Collinge (Radcliffe '64) might agree that her image is aptly described by Yeats:
This meditation leads in turn to a Sept. 20, 2002, entry, "Music for Patricias," and a tune familiar to James Joyce, "Finnegan's Wake," the lyrics of which lead back to images in my entries of Dec. 20, 2002, "Last-Minute Shopping," and of Dec. 28, 2002, "Solace from Hell's Kitchen." The latter entry is in memory of George Roy Hill, director of "The Sting," who died Dec. 27, 2002. The Dec. 28 image from "The Sting" leads us back to more recent events — in particular, to the death of a cinematographer who won an Oscar for picturing Newman and Redford in another film — Conrad L. Hall, who died Saturday, Jan. 4, 2003. For a 3-minute documentary on Hall's career, click here. Hall won Oscars for "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "American Beauty," and may win a posthumous Oscar for "Road to Perdition," last year's Irish-American mob saga:
In keeping with this Irish connection, here is a set of images.
"Like a chess player, he knows that to win a tournament, it is sometimes wise to offer a draw in a game even when you think you can win it." — Roger Ebert on Robert Duvall's character in "A Civil Action" Director Steven Zaillian will take part in a tribute to Conrad L. Hall at the Palm Springs International Film Festival awards ceremony on Jan 11. Hall was the cinematographer for Zaillian's films "A Civil Action" and "Searching for Bobby Fischer." "A Civil Action" was cast by the Boston firm Collinge/Pickman Casting, named in part for that same Patricia Collinge ("hollow of cheek") mentioned above. See also "Conrad Hall looks back and forward to a Work in Progress." ("Work in Progress" was for a time the title of Joyce's Finnegans Wake.) What is the moral of all this remembrance? An 8-page (paper) journal note I compiled on November 14, 1995 (feast day of St. Lawrence O'Toole, patron saint of Dublin, allegedly born in 1132) supplies an answer in the Catholic tradition that might have satisfied Joyce (to whom 1132 was a rather significant number):
Posted 1/8/2003 at 4:17 PM |
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 embodied in the dramatic poem Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the play Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe."
Tonight's site music is "Children Will Listen," Stephen Hawking is 61 today. See also this review of Lewis's That Hideous Strength
Posted 1/8/2003 at 12:00 AM |
Song of Bernadette In memory of Broadway's Jean Kerr — Recall the ending of the classic film "Michael." See also this review of a Bernadette Peters concert:
Posted 1/7/2003 at 4:00 PM |
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 who works there, asks Anderton, "You brought a precog... here?" When the reality sinks in, he exclaims "Jesus Christ!," falls to his knees, crosses himself, and asks "Are you reading my mind right now?" A Brief History of Time
"Is it now?"
Posted 1/7/2003 at 2:45 AM |
Dead Poet in the City of Angels Lyricist Eddy Marnay died Friday, Jan. 3, 2003. Certain themes recur in these entries. To describe such recurrent themes, in art and in life, those enamoured of metaphors from physics may ponder the phrase For an illustration of at least part of the Another name for the implicate order is, of course, the Tao: "The Chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time." — C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man Posted 1/6/2003 at 12:00 PM |
Doctorow's Epiphany
E. L. Doctorow is 72 today. 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. Noon, S.J., Chapter 4 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University Press, 1957:
From Stanley Kubrick's The Shining:
Posted 1/6/2003 at 12:00 AM |
Culinary Theology A comment on "Whirligig," the previous entry:
From my favorite theologian, Jimmy Buffett: "Well good God Almighty, Chorus: For some, paradise — or at least the gateway to paradise — is at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. From a one-act version (p. xvi) of "MISS JELKES: Is this the menu? (She has picked up a paper on the table.) SHANNON: Yes, it's the finest piece of rhetoric since Lincoln's Gettysburg Address." "Cheeseburger In Paradise, Puerto Vallarta, opened for business on November 7, 1999." — The same date, mentioned in last night's "Whirligig" entry, that Fox Studios Australia opened in Sydney with a song by Kylie Minogue.
Posted 1/5/2003 at 3:36 PM |
Whirligig Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. Twelfth night is the night of January 5-6. Tonight is twelfth night in Australia; 4 AM Jan. 5 An October 6 entry: 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. An October 5 entry: The Message from Vega "Mercilessly tasteful" In accordance with the twelfth-night
One can approach these symbols in either a literary or a mathematical fashion. For a purely mathematical discussion of the differences in the two symbols' structure, see Diamond Theory. Those who prefer literary discussions may make up their own stories.
"Plato is wary of all forms of rapture other than reason's. He is most deeply leery of, because himself so susceptible to, the literary imagination. He speaks of it as a kind of holy madness or intoxication and goes on to link it to Eros, another derangement that joins us, but very dangerously, with the gods."
— Rebecca Goldstein in The New York Times,
December 16, 2002 "It's all in Plato, all in Plato; bless me,
what do they teach them at these schools?" — C. S. Lewis in the Narnia Chronicles
Posted 1/5/2003 at 12:12 AM |
ART WARS: The Reader
See also last night's entry on "Red Dragon" and Posted 1/4/2003 at 7:26 PM |
Revelation 20:12 The Dead — The Great: On January 4, 1965, The Small: On January 4, 1991,
of the tom-tom...." colporteurn. itinerant seller or giver of books, Now you has jazz. — Cole Porter, lyric for "High Society," Posted 1/4/2003 at 3:33 PM |
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 Strength give an accurate picture of moral degeneracy in that subculture. The hero of Lewis's "space trilogy," of which That Hideous Strength is the conclusion, is a philologist — a student of language. In keeping with Lewis's interest in philology and in fairy stories, and with the fact that today is Jacob Grimm's birthday, here are some philological observations related to the word "middle" — as in the "middle earth" of Lewis's friend Tolkien, or in "middle kingdom," the Chinese name for China.
From a page on a pilot of the USAF China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC) Air Transport Command Group: The significance of the chung on the plane is explained here. Suggested as an insignia by General Claire Chennault in 1942, it may be imagined to have signified — as on the mah jong tile — success or achievement in this area as well. Let us hope that philologists and fairy-tale students
like Grimm and Lewis — rather than followers of the religion of
scientism — continue to inspire and guide those who must fight for our
values. Posted 1/4/2003 at 3:33 AM |
The Shanghai Gesture: "A corpse will be transported by express!" — Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry (1947)
For Dietrich, see the reference below;
From The New Yorker magazine,
Given the above, a believer in synchronicity
"It has a ghastly familiarity, "It's a gesture, dear, not a recipe."
Posted 1/3/2003 at 11:59 PM |
In observance of this milestone, some links:
Posted 1/3/2003 at 3:33 PM |
Faces of the Twentieth Century: "I walk, I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes, — Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Hurrahing in Harvest"
"Cowboy, take me away. See
Posted 1/2/2003 at 2:45 AM |
From The New York Times, Wed., Jan. 1, 2003:
According to one source, the O'Neill revival opened on December 28, 1973 — the same date on which the life of one of its producers was later to close. From a CurtainUp review:
According to the Internet Broadway Database, this revival, or resurrection, took place officially not on December 28 — the date of Horner's death — but, appropriately, a day later. At any rate, O'Neill's title, along with my weblog entry of December 28, 2002, "On This Date," featuring Kylie Minogue, suggests the following mini-exhibit of artistic efforts:
For further details on Kylie, Mexico, tequila, and For today's site music, click "Old Devil Moon" here.
Posted 1/1/2003 at 4:24 PM |