Types of Ambiguity 1. Oscar: military phonetic for the letter 'O' 2. "... this symbol among the Greeks was more circle than dot, but among those in India, more dot than circle." -- Robert Kaplan, The Nothing That Is: 3. A bindi is an auspicious mark worn by young girls and women. Bindi is derived from bindu, the Sanskrit word for dot. It is usually a red dot made with vermilion powder which is worn by women between their eyebrows on their forehead. Considered a symbol of Goddess Parvati, a bindi signifies female energy.... -- Indian Customs & Traditions 4. Sometimes I feel so reckless and wild -- Shawn Colvin of Vermillion, SD, 5. Hamlet Do you think I meant country matters? 6. Macbeth ".... a tale 7. Enter a Messenger. Posted 2/29/2004 at 3:22 PM |
Vita Brevis "In many ways, the arts are the highest achievements of man." -- Harvard President ''We intensively train children in the Arts and ritual because deep down we know that these are the only things that really MATTER. This is what we must share first with the young, in case they DIE." -- Lucy Ellmann, Dot in the Universe, Posted 2/29/2004 at 3:28 AM |
Inner Truth Inner Truth: Outer Style:
"Everything I learned, -- Joan Didion, Nov. 2001 interview Spindler died on Friday, Feb. 27, 2004. For related material, see Truth and Style: ART WARS at Harvard and Posted 2/28/2004 at 7:00 PM |
Truth and Style From today's New York Times obituary for Amy M. Spindler, former fashion critic of The New York Times and style editor of its magazine, who died yesterday at 40: "Anna Wintour, the editor in chief of Vogue, whom Ms. Spindler regarded as a competitor when she became style editor of The Times Magazine, in 1998, said: 'She took criticism in a new direction. She wasn't afraid to tell the "I don't believe in truth. I believe in style." Again from Spindler's obituary: "In a front-page article on Sept. 5, 1995, she [Spindler] noted a new piety on parade, marked by store windows and catalogs full of monastic robes, pilgrim's boots and dangling crosses. Perhaps, she wrote, 'the financially strained fashion industry is seeking salvation from Perhaps.
See also For even more context, see Posted 2/28/2004 at 1:00 PM |
ART WARS at Harvard "The VES [Visual and Environmental Studies] department is still recovering, both internally and in public perception, from the firing of former chair Ellen Phelan in spring 2001. Phelan, a distinguished painter who brought in top New York artists, was replaced by Kenan Professor of English Marjorie Garber, an English scholar with no formal background in the practice of visual arts." Here's more on Phelan and art at Harvard (rated R for colorful language). See also Strike That Pose.
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The Oscar for best picture goes to... The Best PictureAldous Huxley, 1925"... And when at last one has arrived at San Sepolcro, what is there to be seen? A little town surrounded by walls, set in a broad flat valley between hills; some fine Renaissance palaces with pretty balconies of wrought iron; a not very interesting church, and finally, the best picture in the world. The best picture in the world is painted in fresco on the wall of a room in the town hall.... Its clear, yet subtly sober colours shine out from the wall with scarcely impaired freshness.... We need no imagination to help us figure forth its beauty; it stands there before us in entire and actual splendour, the greatest picture in the world. The greatest picture in the world…. You smile. The expression is ludicrous, of course." Yet not as ludicrous as the following Cheesy Consolation
Maureen Dowd on "I went with a Jewish pal, who tried to stay sanguine. 'The Jews may have killed Jesus,' he said. 'But they also gave us 'Easter Parade.' " -- New York Times, Feb. 26, 2004 For a truly cheesy Easter parade at Harvard University, see Posted 2/26/2004 at 1:01 PM |
Modernism as a Religion In light of the controversy over Mel Gibson's bloody passion play that opens today, some more restrained theological remarks seem in order. Fortunately, Yale University Press has provided a From a review by Adam White Scoville of Iain Pears's novel titled An Instance of the Fingerpost: "Perhaps we are meant to see the story as a cubist retelling of the crucifixion, as Pilate, Barabbas, Caiaphas, and Mary Magdalene might have told it. If so, it is sublimely done so that the realization gradually and unexpectedly dawns upon the reader. The title, taken from Sir Francis Bacon, suggests that at certain times, 'understanding stands suspended' and in that moment of clarity (somewhat like Wordsworth's 'spots of time,' I think), the answer will become apparent as if a fingerpost were pointing at the way." Recommended related By others: Inside Modernism: Relativity Theory, Cubism, Narrative, Thomas Vargish and Delo E. Mook, Yale University Press, 1999 Signifying Nothing: The Fourth Dimension in Modernist Art and Literature
By myself: The Crucifixion of John O'Hara The Da Vinci Code and Symbology at Harvard Material that is related, though not Connecting Physics and the Arts Posted 2/25/2004 at 2:00 PM |
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Solving for X On the Hudson Review, whose longtime editor Frederick Morgan died on Friday, Feb. 20, 2004: "The first issue featured... poetry by Wallace Stevens...." -- NY Times 2/23/04 A search on "Wallace Stevens" "Hudson Review" yields a reference to Jarman, Mark. A further search on "Mark Jarman" leads to The Excitement, a poem in which X himself makes an appearance:
We may imagine Granddad as played by the recipient of last night's Screen Actors Guild lifetime achievement award: "This is the peak for me." Posted 2/23/2004 at 3:00 PM |
"What modern painters are trying to do, Those who have clicked
Also perhaps relevant:
Posted 2/22/2004 at 8:53 AM |
Finite Relativity Today is the 18th birthday of my note "The Relativity Problem in Finite Geometry." That note begins with a quotation from Weyl: "This is the relativity problem: to fix objectively a class of equivalent coordinatizations and to ascertain the group of transformations S mediating between them." -- Hermann Weyl, The Classical Groups, Princeton University Press, 1946, p. 16 Here is another quotation from Weyl, on the profound branch of mathematics known as Galois theory, which he says "... is nothing else but the relativity theory for the set Sigma, a set which, by its discrete and finite character, is conceptually so much simpler than the infinite set of points in space or space-time dealt with by ordinary relativity theory." -- Weyl, Symmetry, Princeton University Press, 1952, p. 138 This second quotation applies equally well to the much less profound, but more accessible, part of mathematics described in Diamond Theory and in my note of Feb. 20, 1986. Posted 2/20/2004 at 3:24 PM |
The Da Vinci Code The protagonist of the recent bestseller The Da Vinci Code is Robert Langdon, "a professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University." A prominent part in the novel is played by the well-known Catholic organization Opus Dei. Less well known (indeed, like Langdon, nonexistent) is the academic discipline of "symbology." (For related disciplines that do exist, click here.) What might a course in this subject at Harvard be like?
Exercise for Symbology 101: Describe the symmetry Having reviewed yesterday's notes Extra credit: Relate the above astrological Happy metaphors! Posted 2/20/2004 at 12:00 AM |
What is Poetry, Part II -- Excerpts from Gombrich and the Kato on Gombrich "... according to Gombrich, an image is susceptible to become a target for 'symbol detectives'.... But the hidden authorial intention... ([for example]... astrology, recalling the famous warning of Panofsky [1955: 32]), almost always tends to become a reproduction of the interpreter's own ideological prejudice. Not to give into the irrationalism such psychological overinterpretation might invite.... we have to look for the origin of meaning... in... the social context.... The event of image making is not the faithful transcription of the outside world by an innocent eye, but it is the result of the artist's act of selecting the 'nearest equivalence'... based on social convention...." Kato on Gadamer "For [Gadamer], picture reading is a process where a beholder encounters a picture as addressing him or her with a kind of personal question, and the understanding develops in the form of its answer (Gadamer 1981: 23-24; Gadamer 1985: 97,102-103). But, it must be noted that by this Gadamer does not mean to identify the understanding of an image with some sort of 'subsumption' of the image into its meaning (Gadamer 1985: 100). He insists rather that we can understand an image only by actualizing what is implied in the work, and engage in a dialogue with it. This process is ideally repeated again and again, and implies different relations than the original conditions that gave birth to the work in the beginning (Gadamer 1985: 100). What matters here for Gadamer is to let the aesthetic aspect of image take its own 'Zeitgestalt' (Gadamer 1985: 101)." Example (?) -- the Zeitgestalt See, too, Kato's References: Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1981. "Philosophie und Literatur: Was ist die Literatur?," Phänomenologische Forschungen 11 (1981): 18-45. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1985. "Über das Lesen von Bauten und Bildern." Modernität und Tradition: Festschrift für Max Imdahl zum 60. Geburtstag. Ed. Gottfried Boehm, Karlheinz Stierle, Gundorf Winter. Munchen: Wilhelm Fink. 97-103. Panofsky, Erwin. 1955. Meaning in the Visual Arts: Papers in and on Art History. New York: Anchor. Posted 2/19/2004 at 9:22 PM |
Five Easy Pieces
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Diamonds and Whirls New applets have rotating 3D versions of the diamond and whirl cubes in Block Designs. Posted 2/18/2004 at 7:20 PM |
Story "Oh, Sara!" she whispered joyfully. "It is like a story!" "It IS a story," said Sara. "EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a story-- I am a story." -- Frances Hodgson Burnett, For further details, see Why Narrative? Posted 2/18/2004 at 12:25 PM |
Hard Core, Part II: In memory of St. Katharine Hepburn, From The Times, UK, Feb. 18, 2004: Straw denies Britain's Foreign Secretary "said that there were no plans to set up a small body within the EU to take control of its affairs. However, he told a news conference at the Foreign Office that it made sense for the three biggest economies to work 'collaboratively' on matters of common interest.... At tonight’s summit Mr Blair, Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, and President Chirac of France will discuss initiatives to co-ordinate and strengthen the EU’s industrial policy.... German commentators regard the summit as a sea-change in British policy towards Europe — a signal that London’s main aim is no longer to split Paris and Berlin." Posted 2/18/2004 at 11:11 AM |
Hard Core From USATODAY.com, Diamond at heart of star
"It's the mother of all diamonds," said astronomer Travis Metcalfe, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.... The biggest diamond on Earth is the 530-carat Star of Africa, part of the Crown Jewels of England. It was cut from a 3,100-carat gem*, the biggest ever found. Posted 2/17/2004 at 4:35 PM |
Black History Month Posted 2/17/2004 at 1:20 PM |
Gestalt Update Updated Block Designs page with material on Gestalt aesthetics and the work of James J. Gibson. Posted 2/16/2004 at 8:19 PM |
Export Janet. "... on behalf of the From the CNN transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight, Friday the 13th of February, 2004... DOBBS: Joining us tonight... Steve Forbes, the editor and chief of "Forbes".... Mark Morrison, managing editor of "Businessweek"........ MORRISON: We'd all like to see more job creation and less exporting of jobs. But coming to the right answer as to achieving that, what policy changes, can we make? We don't want to go down a protectionist road. FADE OUT; BACKGROUND SOUND: Posted 2/14/2004 at 1:11 PM |
Profile in Courage: Bush Distances Himself from Aide Thursday, February 12, 2004 1:23 PM ET
"The (economic) numbers are good. But I don't worry about numbers, I worry about people," Bush told students and teachers at a high school in Pennsylvania -- a pivotal state in this year's election and one of the hardest hit by factory job losses during his presidency. Without mentioning by name the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, Gregory Mankiw, Bush said he was concerned "there are people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas" and vowed to "act to make sure there are more jobs at home" by keeping taxes low and by retraining displaced workers. Bush offered no new initiatives to curb outsourcing and aides said he opposed restrictions on free trade. "You can fool all of the people -- Art Buchwald Posted 2/12/2004 at 10:02 PM |
The Smoking Stovepipe "What appears to have happened is this. Sometime soon after 9-11, the neocons persuaded the president that invading Iraq was the next crucial step in winning the war on terror and evil in which Divine Providence had chosen him to be the Churchill of his generation. And if the country and Congress were unconvinced of the need for war, it was his job to convince them. And here is where the administration began to cross the line. To persuade us that Saddam was a mortal threat to which the only recourse was war, they needed evidence. But, apparently, there was little or no hard evidence to be had. No smoking guns.... First, they decided on war. Then they sent everyone out on a global scavenger hunt to find the evidence to prove we had no alternative but war. And though the information that came back was suspicious and the sources suspect, at least it pointed, as desired, in the right direction. And, so, the hawks fed it to their propagandists in the press and 'stovepiped' it to the White House, where it soon began to appear in the statements and speeches of the president and his War Cabinet." -- Patrick J. Buchanan, Feb. 11, 2004
Happy birthday, Abie baby. "Every totalitarian leader claims that, in himself, he is nothing at all: His strength is only the strength of the people who stand behind him, whose deepest strivings only he expresses. The catch is, those who oppose the leader by definition not only oppose him, but they also oppose the deepest and noblest strivings of the people." -- a column opposing the president at foreignpolicy.com. Posted 2/12/2004 at 12:00 PM |
On Exporting Jobs The liberal view: "Outsourcing raises American productivity, gives our economy a boost, increases foreign demand for U.S. products and leaves us better off." -- Nicholas D. Kristof "Perot Systems, the computer services company founded by former presidential candidate Ross Perot, is all set to add about 3,500 jobs in India and move into two new facilities there this year." -- Times of India, Feb. 7, 2004 The conservative view: As noted by Pat Buchanan in yesterday's entry, the conservative view is strongly anti-free-trade. This view currently seems best defended, not by Buchanan and Perot's largely defunct Reform Party, but instead by the Communist Party... in, for instance, its incarnation as the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). See the Committee's World Socialist Web Site for details. See particularly the World Socialist account of demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Miami last year: Legal observer details police violence Supporters of free-trader John Kerry might consider taking the Communists a bit more seriously this year. There is no credible challenge to Bush from the right, but a challenge to Kerry from the disgruntled left -- in the form of write-ins, stay-at-homes, and votes for obscure leftist candidates -- could tip a close election in Bush's favor... as Nader did in 2000. Posted 2/11/2004 at 10:15 AM |
George W. Bush, Part I:
Part II: A search on liberal "free trade" leads to the following quote: "One of the central concepts of classical liberal economic thought is the superiority of free trade over protectionism." Therefore George W. Bush, by courageously advocating free trade despite its political unpopularity, is a classic liberal. Part III: Context for the above quote: The Liberal Agenda for the 21st Century George W. Bush's free-trade policy Part IV: The Conservative Alternative... Patrick J. Buchanan, author of "The Death of Manufacturing" and A Republic, Not an Empire. "Let it be said: George Bush is beatable. He has no explanation and no cure for the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs at Depression rates, no plan to stop the outsourcing of white-collar jobs to Asia, no desire or will to stop the invasion from Mexico. Yet, he remains a favorite against Kerry, because Kerry has no answers, either. Both are globalists. Both are free-traders. Both favor open borders. Again, it needs to be said: There is no conservative party in America." -- Patrick J. Buchanan, Feb. 2, 2004 Not yet, there isn't. Posted 2/10/2004 at 12:07 PM |
Hermes and Folded Time Yesterday's entry on painter Ward Jackson and the philosopher Gadamer involved what is called hermeneutics, or the art of interpretation. Gadamer was a leader in this field. The following passage perhaps belabors the obvious, but it puts hermeneutics clearly in context. From Daniel Chandler's Semiotics for Beginners:
Related material: From Michalinos Zembylas on Michel Serres:
There is also an interesting connection with Guiraud's work. As quoted above, Guiraud wrote that "...a hermeneutics is a grid supplied by the receiver; a philosophical, aesthetic, or cultural grid which he applies to the text." Serres describes Hermes as passing through "folded time." Precisely how time can be folded into a grid is the subject of my note The Grid of Time, which gives the context for the Serres phrase "folded time." For more on hermeneutics and Gadamer's "joy of knowledge," see Ian Lee in The Third Word War on "understanding the J.O.K.E." (the Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedia). Posted 2/9/2004 at 6:36 PM |
The Quality of Diamond On February 3, 2004, archivist and abstract painter Ward Jackson died at 75. From today's New York Times: "Inspired by painters like Piet Mondrian and Josef Albers, Mr. Jackson made austere, hard-edged geometric compositions, typically on diamond-shaped canvases."
On February 3, the day that Jackson died, there were five different log24.net entries: Parallels with the Helguera exhibit: Florence Foster Jenkins: Janet Jackson in (2) above. Giulio Camillo: Myself as compiler of the synchronistic excerpts in (5). Friedrich Froebel: David Wade in (4). The last Shakers: Christopher Alexander and his acolytes in (1). Ward Jackson: On Feb. 3, Jackson became a permanent part of Some thoughts of Hans-Georg Gadamer
As noted in entry (3) above "All the world's a stage." Posted 2/8/2004 at 2:00 PM |
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Scholarship vs. Bullshit "Examples are the stained-glass windows of knowledge." -- Vladimir Nabokov An example of scholarship: An example of bullshit: Further background: Noble lies and perpetual war: Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, and Iraq. Posted 2/7/2004 at 1:00 PM |
Government by Crackpots Morning briefing: Paul Krugman on Laurie Mylroie in today's New York Times... Peter Bergen in the Washington Monthly... Laurie Mylroie: The Neocons' and Cecil Adams in the Chicago Reader on... Leo Strauss and Posted 2/6/2004 at 7:35 AM |
Quantum Logic: A memorial to the late Alan Bullock, Bullock died on Groundhog Day. From an obituary: "Hitler: a Study in Tyranny was published in 1952 with the aphorism from Aristotle: ‘Men do not become tyrants in order to keep out the cold.’ In the same year Alan Bullock took up his appointment to the oddly-named office of ‘Censor’ of St. Catherine’s Society – a male society, constitutionally part of the University, with a handful of tutors and no residential accommodation. Ten years later it became a College...."
Explaining what these Catherine wheels symbolize seems an appropriate task for Oxford philosophers. From the St. Catherine's College site: "The College's motto - Nova et Vetera (the new and the old) - sums up its unique quality among Oxford colleges." See also today's previous entry, prompted by a recent MIT Press book on philosophy and quantum theory. Posted 2/5/2004 at 2:56 PM |
Affirmation of Place and Time: This morning's meditation: "Let us talk together with the courage, humor, and ardor of Socrates. In that long conversation, we may find ourselves considering something Plato's follower Plotinus said long ago about 'a principle which transcends being,' in whose domain one can 'assert identity without the affirmation of being.' There, 'everything has taken its stand forever, an identity well pleased, we might say, to be as it is.... Its entire content is simultaneously present in that identity: this is pure being in eternal actuality; nowhere is there any future, for every then is a now; nor is there any past, for nothing there has ever ceased to be.' Individuality and existence in space and time may be masks that our sensibilities impose on the far different face of quantum reality." -- Peter Pesic, Seeing Double: Shared Identities in Physics, Philosophy, and Literature, MIT Press paperback, 2003, p. 145 A search for more on Plotinus led to sites on the Trinity, which in turn led to the excellent archives at Calvin College in Grand Rapids. A search for the theological underpinnings of Calvin College led to the Christian Reformed church: "Our emblem is The triangle, as a symbol of "the delta factor," also plays an important role in the semiotic theory of Walker Percy. A search for current material on Percy led back to one of my favorite websites, that of Percy expert Karey Perkins, and thus to the following paper: The "East Coker" Dance For a rather different, but excellent, literary affirmation of place and time -- in Grand Rapids, rather than East Coker -- see, for instance, Michigan Roll, a novel by Tom Kakonis. We may, for the purposes of this trinitarian meditation, regard Percy and Kakonis as speaking for the Son and Karey Perkins as a spokesperson for the Holy Spirit. As often in my meditations, I choose to regard the poet Wallace Stevens as speaking perceptively about (if not for, or as) the Father. A search for related material leads to a 1948 comment by Thomas McGreevy, who "... wrote of Stevens' 'Credences of Summer' (Collected Poems 376),
A devout Roman Catholic, he added, 'And I think my delight in it is of the Holy Spirit.' (26 May 1948)." An ensuing search for material on "Credences of Summer" led back, surprisingly, to an essay -- not very scholarly, but interesting -- on Stevens, Plotinus, and neoplatonism. Thus the circle closed. As previous entries have indicated, I have little respect for Christianity as a religion, since Christians are, in my experience, for the most part, damned liars. The Trinity as philosophical poetry, is, however, another matter. I respect Pesic's speculations on identity, but wish he had a firmer grasp of his subject's roots in trinitarian thought. For Stevens, Percy, and Perkins, I have more than respect. Posted 2/5/2004 at 12:00 PM |
Retiring Faculty The following is related to From my paper journal, a Xeroxed note, composed entirely of cut copies
Sources: Harvard Alumni Gazette, local newspaper, a volume of the poems of T. S. Eliot, David Wade's Pattern in Islamic Art, and a paperback novelization of Pale Rider Posted 2/3/2004 at 7:11 PM |
Theory of Design For an introduction, see Pattern in Islamic Art, by David Wade. For a deeper look that is related to the previous three log24 entries, see Goppold's Posted 2/3/2004 at 6:16 PM |
Lila Robert M. Pirsig, Lila, 1991 Bantam hardcover, p. 111: "... Quality 'is' morality. Make no mistake about it. They're 'identical.' And if Quality is the primary reality of the world then that means morality is also the primary reality of the world." -- Quoted at "This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play." -- Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, Third Edition, Updated, 1991, Shambhala paperback, pp. 87-88, quoted here "All the world's a stage." Posted 2/3/2004 at 1:44 PM |
Speaking Globally On Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl: "I don’t expect much but I am hoping that the whole episode rekindles a discussion in the country about the incredible double standard there is in the popular culture. Adults complain about the prevalence of teen sex, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, and lack of respect for appropriate authority but then place those very behaviors in front of children in the form of talented, attractive and highly paid role models. This is not a sensible approach. Speaking globally, this culture is asking for its own demise." -- Warren Throckmorton, 2/3/04 Posted 2/3/2004 at 1:35 PM |
The Quality with No Name And what is good, Phædrus, -- Epigraph to Brad Appleton discusses a phrase of Christopher Alexander: "The 'Quality Without A Name' (abbreviated as the acronym QWAN) is the quality that imparts incommunicable beauty and immeasurable value to a structure.... Alexander proposes the existence of an objective quality of aesthetic beauty that is universally recognizable. He claims there are certain timeless attributes and properties which are considered beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to all people in all cultures (not just 'in the eye of the beholder'). It is these fundamental properties which combine to generate the QWAN...." See, too, The Alexander-Pirsig Connection. Posted 2/3/2004 at 11:11 AM |
From Re Joyce, Posted 2/2/2004 at 11:30 AM |
New web page: Posted 2/1/2004 at 8:37 PM |
Note for St. Brigid's Day Posted 2/1/2004 at 11:07 AM |