Monday February 28, 2005
The Meaning of 3:16

From The New Yorker, issue dated Feb. 28, 2005:

"Time Bandits," by Jim Holt, pages 80-85:
"Wittgenstein once averred that 'there can never be surprises in logic.'"
"Miss Gould," by David Remnick, pages 34-35:
"She was a fiend for problems of sequence and logic.... Her effect on a piece of writing could be like that of a master tailor on a suit; what had once seemed slovenly and overwrought was suddenly trig and handsome."
Suddenly:

See Donald E. Knuth's Diamond Signs, Knuth's 3:16 Bible Texts Illuminated, and the entry of 3:16 PM today.

Trig and handsome
:

Remnick on Miss Gould again:

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“http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050228-MissGould.gif” cannot be
displayed, because it contains errors.
Miss Gould,
photo from
Oberlin site

"She shaped the language of the magazine, always striving for a kind of Euclidean clarity-- transparent, precise, muscular."

Figure from           
3/16 2004:           

Intersecting altitudes
Einstein on Time cover

Einstein on his
"holy geometry book" --

"Here were assertions, as for example the intersection of the three altitudes of a triangle in one point, which-- though by no means evident-- could nevertheless be proved with such certainty that any doubt appeared to be out of the question. This lucidity and certainty made an indescribable impression upon me."

The image
“http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050228-Graveyard.jpg” cannot be
displayed, because it contains errors.

   "I need a photo opportunity,   
      I want a shot at redemption...."

Posted 2/28/2005 at 7:00 PM

Monday February 28, 2005
All Alone at the
End of the Evening...


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So put me on a highway...


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Posted 2/28/2005 at 3:16 PM

Monday February 28, 2005

Terrain

On the 77th annual Academy Awards:

"... in the Sarabande of Suite 6 Ma's phrasing suggests we are in the same spiritual terrain as Beethoven's late quartets."

-- Thomas May

Amen.

For more on Bach, quartets, and film, see Eight is a Gate and 8/8/04.

Posted 2/28/2005 at 1:23 AM

Sunday February 27, 2005
Necessity

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Above: Detail from the
New York Times obituary page
of Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005:

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 "The form, the pattern"
-- T. S. Eliot

"We symbolize logical necessity
with the box (box.gif (75 bytes))...."
-- Keith Allen Korcz

"4 x 4 = 16"
-- Anonymous

"Es muss sein!"
-- Beethoven

Posted 2/27/2005 at 3:00 PM

1 Comments
hello random propz...um..nice xanga?
Posted 3/5/2005 at 4:38 PM by Devilindaheart

Saturday February 26, 2005
Four Quartets

"The form, the pattern"
-- T. S. Eliot

"4 x 4 = 16"
-- Anonymous

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Related material:
The Form, the Pattern
and
  1. Opus   18 no. 1:
    String Quartet No.  1 in F major
  2. Opus   18 no. 2:
    String Quartet No.  2 in G major
  3. Opus   18 no. 3:
    String Quartet No.  3 in D major
  4. Opus   18 no. 4:
    String Quartet No.  4 in C minor
  5. Opus   18 no. 5:
    String Quartet No.  5 in A major
  6. Opus   18 no. 6:
    String Quartet No.  6 in B flat major
  7. Opus   59 no. 1:
    String Quartet No.  7 in F major "Rasumovsky 1"
  8. Opus   59 no. 2:
    String Quartet No.  8 in E minor "Rasumovsky 2"
  9. Opus   59 no. 3:
    String Quartet No.  9 in C major "Rasumovsky 3"
  10. Opus   74:        
    String Quartet No. 10 in E flat major "Harp"
  11. Opus   95:        
    String Quartet No. 11 in F minor "Serioso"
  12. Opus 127:        
    String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major
  13. Opus 130:        
    String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major
  14. Opus 131:        
    String Quartet No. 14 in C sharp minor
  15. Opus 132:        
    String Quartet No. 15 in A minor
  16. Opus 135:        
    String Quartet No. 16 in F major
Posted 2/26/2005 at 1:23 PM

Friday February 25, 2005

Mr. Holland's Week,
continued

"Philosophers ponder the idea of identity: what it is to give something a name on Monday and have it respond to that name on Friday regardless of what might have changed in the interim. Medical science tells us that the body's cells replace themselves wholesale within every seven years, yet we tell ourselves that we are what we were.

The question is widened and elongated in the case of the Juilliard String Quartet."

-- Bernard Holland in the New York Times,
    Monday, May 20, 1996

"Robert Koff, a founding member of the Juilliard String Quartet and a concert violinist who performed on modern and Baroque instruments, died on Tuesday at his home in Lexington, Mass. He was 86....

Mr. Koff, along with the violinist Robert Mann, the violist Raphael Hillyer and the cellist Arthur Winograd, formed the Juilliard String Quartet in 1946...."

-- Allan Kozinn in the New York Times,
    Friday, February 25, 2005

"One listened, for example, to the dazed, hymnlike beauty of the F Major's Lento assai, and then to the acid that Beethoven sprinkles all around it. It is a wrestling match, awesome but also poignant. Schubert at the end of his life had already passed on to another level of spirit. Beethoven went back and forth between the temporal world and the world beyond right up to his dying day."

-- Bernard Holland in the New York Times,
    Monday, May 20, 1996

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now.

-- T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Related material: Elegance and the following description of Beethoven's last quartet.

Program note by Eric Bromberger:

String Quartet in F major, Op. 135
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Born December 16, 1770, Bonn
Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

This quartet - Beethoven's last complete composition - comes from the fall of 1826, one of the blackest moments in his life. During the previous two years, Beethoven had written three string quartets on commission from Prince Nikolas Galitzin, and another, the Quartet in C-sharp minor, Op. 131, composed between January and June 1826. Even then Beethoven was not done with the possibilities of the string quartet: he pressed on with yet another, making sketches for the Quartet in F major during the summer of 1826.

At that point his world collapsed. His twenty-year-old nephew Karl, who had become Beethoven's ward after a bitter court fight with the boy's mother, attempted suicide. The composer was shattered: friends reported that he suddenly looked seventy years old. When the young man had recovered enough to travel, Beethoven took him - and the sketches for the new quartet - to the country home of Beethoven's brother Johann in Gneixendorf, a village about thirty miles west of Vienna. Here, as he nursed Karl back to health, Beethoven's own health began to fail. He would get up and compose at dawn, spend his days walking through the fields, and then resume composing in the evening. In Gneixendorf he completed the Quartet in F major in October and wrote a new finale to his earlier Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 130. These were his final works. When Beethoven return to Vienna in December, he took almost immediately to bed and died the following March.

One would expect music composed under such turbulent circumstances to be anguished, but the Quartet in F major is radiant music, full of sunlight - it is as if Beethoven achieved in this quartet the peace unavailable to him in life. This is the shortest of the late quartets, and many critics have noted that while this music remains very much in Beethoven's late style, it returns to the classical proportions (and mood) of the Haydn quartets.

The opening movement, significantly marked Allegretto rather than the expected Allegro, is the one most often cited as Haydnesque. It is in sonata form - though a sonata form without overt conflict - and Beethoven builds it on brief thematic fragments rather than long melodies. This is poised, relaxed music, and the finale cadence - on the falling figure that has run throughout the movement - is remarkable for its understatement. By contrast, the Vivace bristles with energy. Its outer sections rocket along on a sharply-syncopated main idea, while the vigorous trio sends the first violin sailing high above the other voices. The very ending is impressive: the music grows quiet, comes to a moment of stasis, and then Beethoven wrenches it to a stop with a sudden, stinging surprise.

The slow movement - Beethoven carefully marks it Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo - is built on the first violin's heartfelt opening melody; the even slower middle section, full of halting rhythms, spans only ten measures before the return of the opening material, now elaborately decorated. The final movement has occasioned the most comment. In the manuscript, Beethoven noted two three-note mottoes at its beginning under the heading Der schwer gefasste Entschluss: "The Difficult Resolution." The first, solemnly intoned by viola and cello, asks the question: "Muss es sein?" ("Must it be?"). The violins' inverted answer, which comes at the Allegro, is set to the words "Es muss sein!" ("It must be!"). Coupled with the fact that this quartet is virtually Beethoven's last composition, these mottoes have given rise to a great deal of pretentious nonsense from certain commentators, mainly to the effect that they must represent Beethoven's last thoughts, a stirring philosophical affirmation of life's possibilities. The actual origins of this motto are a great deal less imposing, for they arose from a dispute over an unpaid bill, and as a private joke for friends Beethoven wrote a humorous canon on the dispute, the theme of which he then later adapted for this quartet movement. In any case, the mottoes furnish material for what turns out to be a powerful but essentially cheerful movement. The coda, which begins pizzicato, gradually gives way to bowed notes and a cadence on the "Es muss sein!" motto.

Posted 2/25/2005 at 10:53 AM

Thursday February 24, 2005
Three Days

Religious symbols that might
have been appropriate for
February 20, 21, and 22:

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Recall that this is Black History Month,
and that the octagon has a special
religious significance (here and here).

The second and third symbols
are derived from the first symbol,
which is itself derived from
a well-known commandment on
the New York Times obituary page:

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Posted 2/24/2005 at 12:00 PM

1 Comments
you are very smart! =)
Posted 2/25/2005 at 9:38 AM by chcbrunettebabe

Thursday February 24, 2005

It's Quarter to Three
(continued)


I could tell you a lot
But you gotta be true to your code....

Posted 2/24/2005 at 2:45 AM

Tuesday February 22, 2005
The Past as Prologue:
Grand Rapids Revisited


For some background, see the
Log24 entries of Feb. 18-20, 2005,
which include the following illustration:

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John Constantine,
cartoon character, and
Donald E. Knuth,
Lutheran mathematician

".... recent books testify further to Calvin College's unparalleled leadership in the field of Christian historiography. More than anyone else, the historians at Calvin (along with their Dutch Reformed publishers at Eerdmans) have led the way in first-rate thinking about the relationship between faith and history. One does not need to be a Calvinist, or a historian for that matter, to appreciate this thinking and its influence on a wide variety of intellectuals. I say this as a Lutheran who must confess in all honesty that his own American Lutheran tradition cannot hold a candle to the Calvinists in Grand Rapids...."

-- Douglas A. Sweeney,

 History Wars: 

Taking a Shot at Redemption


Posted 2/22/2005 at 2:20 PM

2 Comments
Yes, but did he smoke?
Posted 3/10/2005 at 8:39 AM by BlueCollarGoddess
"Why that pipe is a lucky pipe," said the old man, examining it closely. "Smoked by John Calvin himself, if I am not mistaken. You should keep this pipe all your days and hand it down to your children."
-- A Gift from Saint Nicholas
Posted 3/10/2005 at 2:32 PM by m759

Tuesday February 22, 2005
A Shot at Redemption

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Hunter S. Thompson, photos
from The New York Times

Excerpt from Fritz Leiber's
"Damnation Morning," 1959:

"Time traveling, which is not quite the good clean boyish fun it's cracked up to be, started for me when this woman with the sigil on her forehead looked in on me from the open doorway of the hotel bedroom where I'd hidden myself and the bottles and asked me, 'Look, Buster, do you want to live?'"

"I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard."

See also
Posted 2/22/2005 at 12:48 PM

Monday February 21, 2005

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Posted 2/21/2005 at 2:45 AM

Monday February 21, 2005
Spider

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"You are Spider Jerusalem.

Spider is THE journalist of the future. He smokes, he does drugs, and he kicks ass. The drugs are going to eventually kill him but not before he gets his way. And his way is the demise of the failed American dream. Although full of hate, he cares about his city. All he wants to bring the world is truth. Spider Jerusalem, conscience of the City. Frightening thought, but he's the only one we've got."

-- What Gritty No Nonsense Comic Book Character are You? brought to you by Quizilla

The following references to the Fritz Leiber story "Damnation Morning" seem relevant:
Posted 2/21/2005 at 1:09 AM

Sunday February 20, 2005
Hunter Thompson
commits suicide


"Fear and Loathing" author dead at 67


Posted 2/20/2005 at 11:47 PM

1 Comments

February 21, 2005

holiday.

no work.

something to do with dead presidents.

salute to the professional scum, those who hang onto the political ladder long enough to reach the “top” of the heap... hanging on for the chance to live like well-fed swine and live in a big white house... long enough to reach the top, to control the levers that send souls to some war in some godforsaken land for a brutal existence... a place where they all shoot first and ask questions later.. or never ask questions... oh, wait,,, this is not Viet Nam... this is not the 60s, I am not in a Los Angeles suburb dodging the draft... it is 2005, and the clouds outside are filled with rain, sleet and snow... a dark sky in a dark world where everything is as crazy as 40 years ago...

ah.. the holiday, the “no work” syndrome... getting up, tanking down a day and a half worth of caffeine, prowling around the house... a bit of cleaning and vacuuming, but still, there is something in the air that has nothing to do with which cockaroacha is ruling the political system.. there is something different in the air today... upstairs in this hi-tech bridge, I push the button on the wall that automatically sets in motion the CD player downstairs with whatever is loaded up...

outside, the sky opens up like a weeping orphan in the back alley of heaven... cold, little spits of ice and hail... the caffeine is kicking in, I actually decide to scrub the upstair floors... but MUSIC.. . I need some music, some something, so the button is pushed, the CD kicks in somewhere down in the massive audio video center... oh, lord, deliver me something, I cant remember what CD is in there... “excitable boy.” yeppers, W arren Zevon pops up like an emotional ring master... ‘Get busy, you excitable boy...”

shuffling through the CD, the first comes up third, just like the fourth one came up first...

SPLENDID ISOLATION

I DON'T NEED NO ONE

SPLENDID ISOLATION

IM PUTTING TIN FOIL ON THE WINDOWS

LYING DOWN IN THE DARK TO DREAM

I DON'T WANT TO SEE THEIR FACES

I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THEM SCREAM

so, whoaaa... what is this mood? why this CD, why this song? this is not the sixties, or the seventies, this is the goddamned next frigging millennium, where all answers come faster than the speed of a printing press, faster than the scrip writers of CNN... this is the time when all knowledge is instant , when we drown in so much data that we scramble in the torrent, trying to grab a small tree trunk floating by, hoping it carries us to a life of greater simplicity... to crawl up on the dry sand of a shore on some deserted island... one without news, or computers, or instant knowledge of all things great and USELESS... just wanting the keyboard to write all of this down, cause that is the only way we can figure things out... writing in silence in a simple world, living a simpler life... ah, but the torrent drags us along as we dog paddle with nostrils barely above the mad waters filled with strange water creatures nibbling at our heals... jaheeeezus , where is that tree trunk that will carry us away from the swirl of everything the tidepools are filled with... crap, possessions, STUFF... the vortexes called JOB and CAREER that whip us around, pulling down to the tip of the inverse water tornado...

SEND LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY...

IM A DESPERATE MAN

SEND LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY

THE SHIT HAS HIT THE FAN

Go Warren, set this crazy tone for a crazy day that lets us drink away a Monday to honor the dead presidents... dark and stormy skies and dark and stormy edges of reality... how did Mr. Zevon end up in the player at the right time of the right day, and WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN, this excitable boy, this SPLENDID ISOLATION, the desperate cry for LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY???

well, by mid morning, the mopping is done, ZEVON is on repeat, and the fridge has NO FRIGGING BEER in it... just a sack full of frozen brownies... too early, not enough of a reason... but jeeeeeze, a beer on this cold, circling day still would be just about right...

well, fire up the internet, instead, and see who is doing what to someone else, and why this person or this group, or political party/system is rationalizing stupid, violent wars here and there...

but wait...

internet screen home page pops up

‘HUNTER THOMPSON.. SELF INFLICTED GUN SHOT... DEAD”

splendid isolation...

that is where it ends, you wild assed fucker??? WHAT KIND OF SHIT IS THIS, YOU SELF PITYING TRAITOR???? you, describing the indescribable world so wired that your fingers must have been the size of an overstuffed buon gusto sausage, chuncked up from writing a the speed of light..

AND YOU DIDN'T GIVE A SHIT IF IT WAS ABOUT THE HELL’S ANGELS OR HUBERT HUMPHREY... you always hit the sick nail on the head with your drug infested hammer...

WHACKWHACK WHACK... finally someone who could look at Nixon or Muskie or Sonny Barger and describe the weirdness with an avalanche of words... worlds fueled with hi octane rocket fuel for the brain... you never slowed down, you never failed to see the ugly, funhouse twisted truth in anything or everything... a sinking boat off the Hawaiian islands, a fat tire convertible speeding through the dessert wastelands of Nevada with enough funny stuff to land you in a dark, cold prison for ... well, a whole lot of friggin years, I mean, so many years that THREE STRIKES inmates would pity you... enough drugs for a judge to say, “Well, Dr. Thompson, you are going to spend so much time in jail that you will meat the great grandson of your warden.. you will be there so long that we will have invented drugs that never let you die... we will give you what you always quested for... the eternal trip, the one that never ends, and you will know that you will always be there longer than Michael Jackson in the next cell.. you will be there so long that you will watch the medical staff bring in alien surgeons to the Jackson cell, surgeons who will transform him from the white woman he/she is into, well, I don't know, Hunter, what would it be? would you be in jail so long that the medical profession could take Michel and change him into,,, WHAT, HUNTER???? some Asian hermaphrodite? a misshapen ape? maybe he will want to be a giraffe or a kangaroo... “just elongate my neck, , please.. and, oh yeah, can I have a pouch?”

yeah, Hunter, that la bamba convertible racing through the desert with enough jail time to see all that, that is what you had, that is what you did, and you DODGED the bullet... nothing like a whacked out loudmouth in Las Vegas to draw attention... so wild-assed, everyone must have figured it was a TV stunt... so you got away with that, and then you wrote about it, then you got a truck load of money, a crazy, on-call overweight Samoan lawyer, and the ability to buy a huge ranch in ASPEN and have enough money to buy enough arms, bazookas and assorted improvised explosive devices to supply an insurgent uprising in Colorado..

well, there you go... lawyers, guns and money... a freedom to take the written language into places where earthling have never imagined such wild things...

AND YOU GODDAMNED FUCKHEAD... you who mouthed off to the sheriffs as they raided your private ranch looking for something so terrible that they could silence your whacked out hallucinogenic outlook on almost everything... you drove yourself into this splendid isolation... well... you aren't going to walk out with a whimper you little piss-ant... I need some fuel to deal with this..

and it is only noon...............................................

ok, a quick trip to the hardware store to order “stuff,” and next door to the grocery store for a case of beer... skies still oscillating between small patches of blue and black-gray downpours...

back at the bridge, a bit of salami and marinated mozzarella cheese, and a beer.. scanning the bookshelf, pulling off the shelf my copy of SONGS OF THE DOOMED...

pop....... first cold beer... but wait, there is a little voice coming from the freezer, the bottom shelf, way in the back, where the last of the batch of brownies is whispering... “psst.. let us out, let us share this experience with you... remember the white rabbit, the sign that said “EAT ME”

well, ok...

then it is time for the computer, another beer, and, well, what the heck, maybe one more as the brownies go “well, here we GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

then it is to the computer to try and capture the feeling of this.. well, what is it?

or, what are THEY?

a bunch of feelings... and a DOCTOR HUNTER S. THOMPSON attitude...

(wait... Mr.. Zevon is on replay.. time to switch, with limited options, because most of the CD’s are packed away.... so, lets see what we have to choose form.. oops. oh yeah,, PINK FLOYD...) yeppers, the pot bubbles, the ingredients are thrown in, the mozzarella, the beer, the salami, the brownies, the music, the earphones, the funeral skies that weep outside, and THAT GODDAMNED STICKMAN, that ferret on a chain, gnawing at the metal in a desperate bid for freedom, the master of all things, the word master, the attitude master who puts a gun to his own head...

shit, the superman of literature wilting away like a dog pissing on a toadstool in the blistering heat of a Nevada afternoon... so that's it, you self indulgent funny house mirror, you and BRAUGHTIGAN... buying into the worthlessness of everything..

(oh, wait... I forgot to switch the CDs... but wait,,, the next one has Thompson's name all over it):

POOR POOR PITIFUL ME

I’D LAID MY HEAD ON THE RAILROAD TRACKS

well, you pissed-on withering little toadstool, maybe you should have TRIED the railroad tracks..

“but the railroad don't run no more.”

but no, you chose the “bullet special train,” the one that never stops running, the one that doesn't give you the chance to wake up the next morning to sing along

OH OH PITIFUL ME

WELL, PINK FLOYD IS STILL SITTING ON THE SIDE..

TIME TO CHANGE RIGHT NOW

ONE OF THESE DAYS

TUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

well, Dr. Thompson, maybe you should have listened to more Pink Floyd, maybe you should have had bigger speakers and fewer bazookas out at the ranch.... maybe you should have stayed with your fingers glued to the keyboard, maybe you should never have wandered away... MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR OBSESSION WITH GONZO JOURNALISM... but nooooooooooooooooooooooo, you had to sink into that dark hole of your soul where.. well, I guess you felt that infinite sadness, that thing so strong you felt compelled to just step over the edge into that dark, rancid swamp of fear called NOTHINGNESS... that was your fear, perhaps??? the fear of not trying that one, big irreversible journey? is that what this was all about?

SHIT!! I should have figured it out,,, this is some kind of paid writing assignment... ok, you phony little perverted religious hack.. that's what it was, right, Dr. Thompson?.. which one was it? THE CATHOLIC TIDINGGS?? the MORMON GAZETTE? which magazine dangled a big fat ADVANCE and a guaranteed check for a story on...

THE AFTERLIFE, FROM THE FINGERS OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON

there we, go, finally, after bouncing around the last 5 pages like a glob of silly putty in a defective bumper car.... this is it, the only way to explain your SAD-ASSED SELL OUT SUICIDE...

I mean, come on, Hunter, a stupid bullet through the head??? how creative, you brain-addled simpleton... if you take the assignment, if you are going to hook up your afterlife keyboard and transmit back and tell us about what it is REALLY like out there, if you decided to let your electric-shock fingers hot wire us the truth of the afterlife... if you really planned to tell us the answer to our ultimate, emotional question...... “does God prefer beer, wine, or a shot of whiskey.” well, if that is what you decided to do well then, for God’s sake, don't forget (oh, wait, yeah, you already DID FORGET, you half-baked, half brained, half witted, half-a-loaf, half pint pin head, you forgot, THE JOURNEY IS HALF THE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

remember in the sweltering sun of the Nevada Dessert with a couple of underage hitchhiking girls and a truck full of mental explosives??? well, HUNTER, think about it, THAT was one great part of the story, the trip to the desserts of Vegas to write about some pointless drunken road race through the cactus... it wasn't the road race, now, was it, Dr, Thompson??? it was that screaming, out of control speed train through the rock and sand, the anticipation of, well, I’ll bet it was the anticipation that ANYTHING might happen on that chemical roller coaster you launched outside of Barstow... that was the trip to the destination, which is and was its own trip... cruising in the magic Cadillac, a fat pocket full of “advance payment” cash to write SOMETHING about some slot car race in the sand with 30,000 drunken spectators.. that is what you anticipated, in a fogged out sort of way, as you aimed that cruise-mobile into the heartland of America... LAS VEGAS... just like a one man grateful dead concert on the strip... a pallet of possibilities, virtually all of which should have earned you a GO TO JAIL.. GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL card... oh, the anticipation.. how long did it take for you to get from Barstow to Vegas??? about a hundred pages, about a thousand years????????????? and everything , all things great, small and twisted with a lemon lay before your eyes like the dessert bar at the end of an “all you can eat” buffet.... that is what stretched ahead of you... and before all that, there was the journey...

so what did you do for this assignment, the big 2005 assignment, the one where you got to plunge into the great unknown and tell us what heaven/nirvana/limbo/hell is like??? what was that journey like, what creative new vehicle did you pick?

A GODAMNED STUPID BULLET TO THE HEAD.... you dumb-fuck, that was as stupid as a car battery filled with nail polish... that was as pointless as your fat bank account and house payment... that was as creative as a K-mart shopping spree, that was as pathetic as a presidential debate... jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezusHchrist, Hunter, a stupid-assed GUN??? why not a grenade shoved up your ass... how about a self -performed frontal lobotomy with complications??? how about being buried up to your neck in radioactive waste? how about having some earphones duct-taped to your ears with a layer of superglue, and being forced to listen to Jerry Fallwell attacking the little purple Teletubbie faggot promoting cartoons...

so don't you get it, you rutting little rodent? you blew it BIG TIME... shitty little bullet to the head... so , lets say you decided it would be violent... you shoulda thought BIGGER... like a remote-launched SAM heat-seeking missile and you down-wind with a road flare stuck between your cheeks... with Ralph Steadman sitting under the pine trees, capturing the visual aspect of it all.. a big red, white and blue send off.. but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo... best you could come up with was a stupid GUN TO THE HEAD..

so, let me know what you found, but, really, you blew it BIG TIME...

lovingly,

your BIG TIME fan,

SPOOKYTRUTH

Posted 2/22/2005 at 8:39 PM by spookytruth

Sunday February 20, 2005
Relativity Blues

Today, February 20, is the 19th anniversary of my note The Relativity Problem in Finite Geometry.  Here is some related material.

In 1931, the Christian writer Charles Williams grappled with the theology of time, space, free will, and the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (anticipating by many years the discussion of this topic by physicists beginning in the 1950's).

(Some pure mathematics -- untainted by physics or theology -- that is nevertheless related, if only by poetic analogy, to Williams's 1931 novel, Many Dimensions, is discussed in the above-mentioned note and in a generalization, Solomon's Cube.)

On the back cover of Williams's 1931 novel, the current publisher, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan, makes the following statement:

"Replete with rich religious imagery, Many Dimensions explores the relation between predestination and free will as it depicts different human responses to redemptive transcendence."

One possible response to such statements was recently provided in some detail by a Princeton philosophy professor.  See On Bullshit, by Harry G. Frankfurt, Princeton University Press, 2005.

A more thoughtful response would take into account the following:

1. The arguments presented in favor of philosopher John Calvin, who discussed predestination, in The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, by Marilynne Robinson

2. The physics underlying Einstein's remarks on free will, God, and dice
 
3. The physics underlying Rebecca Goldstein's novel Properties of Light and Paul Preuss's novels  Secret Passages and Broken Symmetries

4. The physics underlying the recent so-called "free will theorem" of John Conway and Simon Kochen of Princeton University

5. The recent novel Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson, which deals not with philosophy, but with lives influenced by philosophy -- indirectly, by the philosophy of the aforementioned John Calvin.

From a review of Gilead by Jane Vandenburgh:  
"In The Death of Adam, Robinson shows Jean Cauvin to be the foremost prophet of humanism whose Protestant teachings against the hierarchies of the Roman church set in motion the intellectual movements that promoted widespread literacy among the middle and lower classes, led to both the American and French revolutions, and not only freed African slaves in the United States but brought about suffrage for women. It's odd then that through our culture's reverse historicism, the term 'Calvinism' has come to mean 'moralistic repression.'"
For more on what the Calvinist publishing firm Eerdmans calls "redemptive transcendence," see various July 2003 Log24.net entries.  If these entries include a fair amount of what Princeton philosophers call bullshit, let the Princeton philosophers meditate on the summary of Harvard philosophy quoted here on November 5 of last year, as well as the remarks of November 5, 2003,  and those of November 5, 2002.

From Many Dimensions (Eerdmans paperback, 1963, page 53):
"Lord Arglay had a suspicion that the Stone would be purely logical.  Yes, he thought, but what, in that sense, were the rules of its pure logic?"
A recent answer:

Modal Theology

"We symbolize logical necessity
with the box (box.gif (75 bytes))
and logical possibility
with the diamond (diamond.gif (82 bytes))."

-- Keith Allen Korcz,
(Log24.net, 1/25/05)

And what do we           
   symbolize by  The image “http://www.log24.com/theory/images/Modal-diamondbox.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. ?

"The possibilia that exist,
and out of which
the Universe arose,
are located in
     a necessary being...."

-- Michael Sudduth,
Notes on
God, Chance, and Necessity
by Keith Ward,
Regius Professor of Divinity
at Christ Church College, Oxford
(the home of Lewis Carroll)

Posted 2/20/2005 at 2:20 PM

Saturday February 19, 2005
Highway

From previous Log24.net entries:

Eight is a Gate:

"There is no highway in the sky."
-- Quotation attributed to
Albert Einstein.
(See Gotthard Günther's website
"Achilles and the Tortoise, Part 2".) 

"Don't give up until you
Drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky."
--  America, 1974    

In Hoc Signo:

"So put me on a highway...."
-- The Eagles, 1975  

Stephen Yablo, draft of
"A Paradox of Existence,"
Nov. 8, 1998, section heading:

"III. Quine's way or the highway"

From that section:

"Burgess & Rosen begin their book A Subject with No Object with a relevant fable:
Finally, after years of waiting, it is your turn to put a question to the Oracle of Philosophy...you humbly approach and ask the question that has been consuming you for as long as you can remember: 'Tell me, O Oracle, what there is. What sorts of things exist?' To this the Oracle responds: 'What? You want the whole list? ...I will tell you this: everything there is is concrete; nothing there is is abstract....'
Suppose we continue the fable a little. Impressed with what the Oracle has told you, you return to civilization to spread the concrete gospel. Your first stop is at [your school here]...."

The Concrete Gospel
of Donald E. Knuth:

In Hoc Signo
(from yesterday),
continued --

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050219-Signo.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

This holy icon
appeared at
N37°25.638'
W122°09.574'
on August 22, 2003,
at the Stanford campus.

See also
Cognitive Blending
and the Two Cultures
.

Posted 2/19/2005 at 4:01 PM

1 Comments

and show me a sign

take it to the limit one more time

Posted 2/20/2005 at 10:1 AM by Margita

Friday February 18, 2005

In Hoc Signo

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050218-Highwater.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Sources:

Hellblazer: Highwater,
from a graphic-novel
series that is the source
of Keanu Reeves's latest
spiritual adventure --


The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050218-Poster.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Another source...
The home page of Donald E. Knuth.

For those who prefer a more
  ecumenical spiritual experience,
there is
  Knuth's collection of --

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050218-Signs.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors..

"When there's nothing to believe in
Still you're coming back,
you're running back
You're coming back for more

  So put me on a highway...."
-- The Eagles, 1975  


Posted 2/18/2005 at 3:33 PM

1 Comments

Well.  Not only are you brilliant, but you also read minds. 

Thank you.  I was wondering about the origins of this "Constantine".

Posted 2/18/2005 at 11:6 PM by BlueCollarGoddess

Thursday February 17, 2005
Modal Theology

"We symbolize logical necessity
with the box (box.gif (75 bytes))
and logical possibility
with the diamond (diamond.gif (82 bytes))."

-- Keith Allen Korcz,
(Log24.net, 1/25/05)

And what do we           
   symbolize by  The image “http://www.log24.com/theory/images/Modal-diamondbox.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. ?

On the Lapis Philosophorum,
the Philosophers' Stone -

"'What is this Stone?' Chloe asked....
'...It is told that, when the Merciful One
made the worlds, first of all He created
that Stone and gave it to the Divine One
whom the Jews call Shekinah,
and as she gazed upon it
the universes arose and had being.'"
- Many Dimensions,
by Charles Williams, 1931
(Eerdmans paperback,
April 1979, pp. 43-44)

"The lapis was thought of as a unity
and therefore often stands for
the prima materia in general."
- Aion, by C. G. Jung, 1951
(Princeton paperback,
1979, p. 236)

"Its discoverer was of the opinion that
he had produced the equivalent of
the primordial protomatter
which exploded into the Universe."
- The Stars My Destination,
by Alfred Bester, 1956
(Vintage hardcover,
July 1996, p. 216)

"The possibilia that exist,
and out of which
the Universe arose,
are located in
     a necessary being...."

-- Michael Sudduth,
Notes on
God, Chance, and Necessity
by Keith Ward,
Regius Professor of Divinity
at Christ Church College, Oxford
(the home of Lewis Carroll)

See also
The Diamond Archetype.

For more on modal theology, see

Kurt G
ödel's Ontological Argument
and
 The Ontological Argument
 from Anselm to Gödel.


Posted 2/17/2005 at 1:00 PM

1 Comments
This is so far over my head I would have to go back to school, major in math, science and philosophy just to begin to understand this post. But there is the God factor, of which I'm very attracted to and that makes me want to know more. Don't mind me I'll make my way through here. :-)
Posted 2/17/2005 at 3:1 PM by NickyJett

Wednesday February 16, 2005
Fahne Hoch

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050216-Fahne.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Nicole Bengiveno in
The New York Times


Posted 2/16/2005 at 1:25 AM

Tuesday February 15, 2005
Answer

"Are you now, or have you ever been?"

-- Question posed to Philip Johnson,
entry of Feb. 12

"In the case of the Cartesian question, the answer is affirmative, and metaphysics has produced, in the four hundred years since, nothing much better than this. It is not only interesting but supremely practical. What could be more useful than having the means of convincing oneself that one exists whenever the question should arise?"

-- Rebecca Goldstein,
   Properties of Light

"... a nightshirted boy trying desperately to awake from the iridescent dizziness of dream life. Its ultimate vision was the incandescence of a book or a box grown completely transparent and hollow. This is, I believe, it: not the crude anguish of physical death but the incomparable pangs of the mysterious mental maneuver needed to pass from one state of being to another."

-- Vladimir Nabokov,
Transparent Things

"Le terme que l'on traduit par dédicace est en japonais ekô, littéralement 'se tourner vers'. Il est composé de deux idéogrammes, e qui signifie 'tourner le dos, se tourner, revenir en arrière' et , 'faire face, s'adresser à'."

-- La dédicace universelle:
  une causerie d'Eric Rommeluère

e: Tournant le Dos

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050215-Light.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

kô: Faisant Face

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050215-Goldstein.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Rebecca
Goldstein

For more on Goldstein, see
The New York Times,
Feb. 14, 2005, and
Eight is a Gate,
Dec. 19, 2002.

Posted 2/15/2005 at 5:28 PM

Monday February 14, 2005
Valentine

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050214-Valentine.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Posted 2/14/2005 at 3:21 PM

1 Comments
Happy Valentine's Day! {v}
Posted 2/14/2005 at 4:18 PM by NickyJett

Sunday February 13, 2005

Eight is a Gate,
continued

"The eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is called 'Chet' (rhymes with 'let') and has the (light scraping) sound of 'ch' as in 'Bach.'"

-- The Letter Chet    

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050213-Chet.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

-- Akhlah.com    

Posted 2/13/2005 at 8:00 PM

1 Comments
very cute :-)
Posted 2/19/2005 at 3:43 PM by Margita

Sunday February 13, 2005
Eight is a Gate

"The old men know
when an old man dies."
-- Ogden Nash

"Heaven is a state,
a sort of metaphysical state."
-- John O'Hara, Hope of Heaven, 1938

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050213-Three.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

But in a larger sense...

Mais il y a un autre sens dans la dédicace que je trouve plus profond encore. Il s'agit de se dédier soi-même. Le terme que l'on traduit par dédicace est en japonais ekô, littéralement "se tourner vers". Il est composé de deux idéogrammes, e qui signifie "tourner le dos, se tourner, revenir en arrière" et , "faire face, s'adresser à".

Dans l'école Tendai, on explique que ce terme possède trois sens:

- tourner le dos (e) aux phénomènes et faire face () au principe;
- tourner le dos (e) au soi et faire face () aux autres;
- tourner le dos (e) aux causes et faire face () aux effets.

On pourrait dire regarder l'essentiel, regarder autrui et regarder le futur. Le terme évoque un retournement. Il s'agit d'aller à rebours de nos fonctionnements habituels, de bouleverser nos attitudes, se détourner de l'égocentrisme pour aller dans le sens de l'ouverture, ne plus se fourvoyer dans l'erreur mais s'ouvrir à la clarté.

Ekô a bien dans les textes bouddhistes un double sens, c'est à la fois dédier quelque chose comme la récitation d'un texte mais également se dédier soi-même. Dans cette deuxième attitude, c'est soi-même, tout entier, corps et esprit, qui est l'objet de la dédicace. Plus qu'on donne, on se donne. On trouve les deux sens chez Dôgen qui n'ignore pas le "transfert des mérites" mais qui sait que ekô se confond avec la voie de l'éveil. Il y a par exemple ce passage dans le Shôbôgenzô Zuimonki:

"Dans le bouddhisme, il y a ceux qui sont foncièrement doués d'amour et de compassion, de connaissance et de sagesse. Pour peu qu'ils étudient, ceux qui en sont dépourvus les réaliseront. Ils n'ont qu'à abandonner le corps et l'esprit, se dédier (ekô) dans le grand océan du bouddhisme, se reposer sur les enseignements du bouddhisme et ne pas rester dans les préjugés personnels."
[Buppô ni wa, jihi chie mo yori sonawaru hito mo ari. Tatoi naki hito mo gaku sureba uru nari. Tada shinjin o tomoni hôge shite, buppô no daikai ni ekô shite, buppô no kyô ni makasete, shikiyoku o son zuru koto nakare.]
(Shôbôgenzô zuimonki, Edition populaire, cinquième cahier, première causerie)

Le français ne peut véritablement rendre la subtilité du choix des mots de Dôgen qui utilise des figures de style typiquement chinoises comme le chiasme, l'opposition et l'appariement. Il emploie des verbes d'état d'une part : se reposer, rester, de l'autre des verbes d'action, abandonner (hôge su, lit. "laisser choir"), se dédier (ekô su, lit. "se tourner vers", qui a presque ici le sens de "se jeter"). Réaliser l'amour, la compassion, la connaissance et la sagesse nécessite une transformation, une conversion, un saut dans l'ailleurs. Ce dynamisme permet de quitter le soi égocentré pour entrer dans la dimension de l'éveil, ce que Dôgen appelle ici le bouddhisme.

Ce retournement, ekô, possède une double dimension, à la fois interne et externe. D'un point de vue intérieur, nous nous dédions à l'éveil, d'un point de vue extérieur, nous nous dédions aux autres. Mais l'intérieur et l'extérieur sont comme les deux faces d'une même feuille de papier.

-- La dédicace universelle:
une causerie d'Eric Rommeluère

Posted 2/13/2005 at 2:00 PM

Saturday February 12, 2005
Resurrection Blues

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050212-Rehearsing.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Posted 2/12/2005 at 1:00 PM

Saturday February 12, 2005

Memorial

For Abraham, Arthur, and Murray


Posted 2/12/2005 at 12:00 AM

Friday February 11, 2005

Portfolio Analysis

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050211-Miller.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

For more on portfolio analysis, see
Michael J. Best and Tribute.

Posted 2/11/2005 at 11:07 AM

Friday February 11, 2005

The Blues
and the
Abstract Truth

An obituary of jazz artist Jimmy Smith, who died on Mardi Gras, leads, via his album Got My Mojo Workin', to a 1961 album of Oliver Nelson that in turn suggests the following quotation:

"After this it was noised abroad that Mr. Valiant-for-truth was taken with a summons by the same post as the other, and had this for a token that the summons was true, 'That his pitcher was broken at the fountain.' (Eccles. 12:6) When he understood it, he called for his friends, and told them of it. Then said he, I am going to my Father’s; and though with great difficulty I have got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it. My marks and scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the river-side, into which as he went, he said, 'Death, where is thy sting?' And as he went down deeper, he said, 'Grave, where is thy victory?' (1 Cor. 15:55) So he passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side."

-- John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

"And all the trumpets sounded..."

For example:


Windows
Media
Real
Player
Yearnin'
Listen Listen
Stolen Moments
Listen Listen
Cascades
Listen Listen

These clips are from
the Amazon.com page
for the Oliver Nelson album

The Blues and the Abstract Truth.


Posted 2/11/2005 at 2:09 AM

1 Comments
cool
Posted 2/19/2005 at 3:44 PM by Margita

Tuesday February 8, 2005
The Crimson Passion

(last year's Mardi Gras drama)
continues with...

The Usual Suspects

(See previous entry.)

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050208-Trinity.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

The theme of last year's drama
is still valid:

"The teenagers aren't all bad.
I love 'em if nobody else does.
There ain't nothing wrong
with young people.
Jus' quit lyin' to 'em."

-- Jackie "Moms" Mabley   

Posted 2/8/2005 at 11:32 PM

Tuesday February 8, 2005
New from the
Oscar-winning producer,
director, and screenwriter

of "A Beautiful Mind" -

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050208-Crowe.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

With apologies to Dan Brown...

"The Divine Proportion...

is an irrational number and
the positive solution
of the quadratic equation

x2 - x - 1 = 0,

which is (1+Sqrt(5))/2,
about 1.618034.

The Greek letter 'phi'
(see below for the symbol)
is sometimes used
to represent this number."

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050208-pentagon2.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

-- Don Cohen  

For another approach to
the divine proportion, see

Best Picture.

"The rogue’s yarn that will run through much of the material is the algebraic symmetry to which the name of Galois is attached and which I wanted to introduce in as concrete and appealing a way as possible....

Apart from its intrinsic appeal, that is the reason for treating the construction of the pentagon, and our task today will be to acquire some feel for this construction.  It is not easy."
 
-- R. P. Langlands, 1999 lecture (pdf) at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in the spirit of Hermann Weyl

Posted 2/8/2005 at 10:00 AM

Sunday February 6, 2005

The Equation

David Thomson on The Last Tycoon in The Guardian on 1/29/05:

"There's a passage in the book, early on, where Cecilia's narration says: 'You can take Hollywood for granted like I did, or you can dismiss it with the contempt we reserve for what we don't understand. It can be understood, too, but only dimly and in flashes. Not half a dozen men have ever been able to keep the whole equation of pictures in their heads.'....

That phrase stuck in my head: The Whole Equation was a title, waiting to have its book written.  And the book might be all the more intriguing (and difficult to do) because Fitzgerald had never been able to give us the equation itself, a tidy little e=mc2.  That equation was as elusive as magic: it was a vision, a power, a passion, a kind of perfection that could change the world."

David Thomson's book The Whole Equation was published recently.

Posted 2/6/2005 at 3:33 PM

Friday February 4, 2005

Fountainhead


The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050204-Dominique7.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Dominique and
Dominique

Sources:

A blog entry on The Fountainhead,
  a 1949 film featuring archltect
Howard Roark and his patroness,
Dominique Francon,
and a web page on
architecture patroness
Dominique de Menil,
who, with her husband,
commissioned
a house in Houston

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050204-MenilGarden.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.


in 1948 from
architect Philip Johnson.

Related material:

"Architecture is a dangerous profession,
because it is a poisonous mixture
of impotence and omnipotence,
in the sense that the architect
almost invariably harbors
megalomaniacal dreams
that depend upon others,
and upon circumstances,
to impose and
to realize those
fantasies and dreams."

-- Rem Koolhaas,
Conversations With Students,
quoted at http://www.treyf.com

Posted 2/4/2005 at 7:00 PM