In memory of Kurt Kreuger
(see previous entry) The Reluctant Dragon in today's Hagar the Horrible: Those who prefer higher culture may consult The Dragon in the Gate: Studies in the Poetry of G. M. Hopkins, by Elisabeth Wintersteen Schneider. Schneider's title comes from a description of Hopkins's poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland." "This epic poem was described by perhaps his closest friend, Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, as, 'the dragon folded at the gate to forbid all entrance' to the appreciation of his other works. More favorable is the opinion of the most thorough of Hopkins's critics, W. H. Gardner, who described it as a great symphony or overture, introducing his other works and not forbidding them." -- "Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins: Priest and Poet," by Bro. Anthony Joseph Posted 7/31/2006 at 3:17 PM |
For the feast of Final Arrangements,
"Now you has jazz."
Related material: A Log24 entry commemorating Posted 7/31/2006 at 2:00 AM |
"You can do what you want
Abe, but the next time you
see me comin' you better run."
Today's online New York Times: "On Highway 61 outside of Natchez, Mississippi, stands Flashback to July 2004:
Campaign Song "All things return to the One. -- Zen koan, epigraph to -- attributed to Robert Frost
Posted 7/30/2006 at 2:02 PM |
History From "Today in History," by The Associated Press-- On this date (July 30): "In 1864, during the Civil War, Union
forces tried to take Petersburg, Va., by exploding a mine under
Confederate defense lines; the attack failed." Men ask the way to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail. Posted 7/30/2006 at 2:56 AM |
Dark Fields of the Republic Today's birthday: Ken Burns Charley Reese on the republic: "The republic died at Appomattox, and it's been empire ever since." Charley Reese on Lincoln: "Washington and Jefferson created the republic; Lincoln destroyed it." In closing...
A link in memory of Donald G. Higman, dead on Feb. 13, 2006, the day after Lincoln's birthday: On the Graphs of Hoffman-Singleton and Higman-Sims (pdf) His truth is marching on. Posted 7/29/2006 at 5:01 PM |
Big Rock Thanks to Ars Mathematica, a link to everything2.com: "In mathematics, a big rock is a result which is vastly more powerful than is needed to solve the problem being considered. Often it has a difficult, technical proof whose methods are not related to those of the field in which it is applied. You say 'I'm going to hit this problem with a big rock.' Sard's theorem is a good example of a big rock." Another example: Properties of the Monster Group of R. L. Griess, Jr., may be investigated with the aid of the Miracle Octad Generator, or MOG, of R. T. Curtis. See the MOG on the cover of a book by Griess about some of the 20 sporadic groups involved in the Monster: The MOG, in turn, illustrates (via Abstract 79T-A37, Notices of the American Mathematical Society, February 1979) the fact that the group of automorphisms of the affine space of four dimensions over the two-element field is also the natural group of automorphisms of an arbitrary 4x4 array. This affine group, of order 322,560, is also the natural group of automorphisms of a family of graphic designs similar to those on traditional American quilts. (See the diamond theorem.) This top-down approach to the diamond theorem may serve as an illustration of the "big rock" in mathematics. For a somewhat simpler, bottom-up, approach to the theorem, see Theme and Variations. For related literary material, see Mathematics and Narrative and The Diamond as Big as the Monster.
"The rock cannot be broken. It is the truth." -- Wallace Stevens, "Credences of Summer" Posted 7/29/2006 at 2:02 PM |
For a spider figure of
an (apparently) different sort, see Log24 on the morning after the demise of Hunter S. Thompson, and the links given there. Posted 7/29/2006 at 2:45 AM |
11:11 Posted 7/27/2006 at 11:11 PM |
Real Numbers:
720, 513
(NY Lottery today)
"Was there really a cherubim waiting at the star-watching rock...? Was he real? What is real?" -- Madeleine L'Engle, A Wind in the Door, quoted at math16.com 7/20: Real 5/13: A Fold in Time Posted 7/27/2006 at 9:29 PM |
Number Sense The NY lottery numbers for yesterday, 7/26, Jung's birthday, were 726 (mid-day) and 970 (evening). We may view these numbers as representing the Jungian "sheep" and Freudian "goats" of yesterday's entry Partitions. For the Jungian coincidence of 726 with 7/26, recall the NY lottery number 911 that was drawn on 9/11 exactly a year after the destruction of the World Trade Center. For more on this coincidence, see For Hemingway's Birthday: Mathematics and Narrative Continued (July 21, 2006). For 970, Google reveals a strictly skeptical (i.e., like Freud, not Jung) meaning: 970 is the first page of the article "Sources of Mathematical Thinking," in Science, 7 May 1999: Vol. 284. no. 5416, pp. 970 - 974. That article has been extensively cited in the scholarly literature on the psychology of mathematics. Its lead author, Stanislas Dehaene, has written a book, The Number Sense. What sense, if any, is made by 726 and 970? The mid-day number again (see Hemingway's birthday) illustrates the saying "Time and chance happeneth to them all." The evening number again illustrates the saying "Though truth may be very hard to find in the pages of most books, the page numbers are generally reliable." -- Steven H. Cullinane, Zen and Language Games These sayings may suit the religious outlook of Susan Blackmore, source (along with Matthew 25:31-46) of the sheep/goats partition in yesterday's entry on that topic. She herself, apparently a former sheep, is now a goat practicing Zen. Update of later the same evening-- On Space, Time, Life, the Universe, and Everything: Note that the "sheep" number 726 has a natural interpretation as a date-- i.e., in terms of time, while the "goat" number 970 has an interpretation as a page number-- i.e., in terms of space. Rooting, like Jesus and St. Matthew, for the sheep, we may interpret both of today's NY lottery results as dates, as in the next entry, Real Numbers. That entry may (or may not) pose (and/or answer) The Ultimate Question. Selah. Posted 7/27/2006 at 5:09 PM |
Venus at St. Anne's Symbol of Venus "What do they Today is the Posted 7/26/2006 at 7:20 PM |
"Mistakes are inevitable and may be either in missing a true signal or in thinking there is a signal when there is not. I am suggesting that believers in the paranormal (called 'sheep' in psychological parlance) are more likely to make the latter kind of error than are disbelievers (called 'goats')." -- "Psychic Experiences: Psychic Illusions," by Susan Blackmore, Skeptical Inquirer, 1992 "... a drama built out of nothing
but numbers and imagination" -- Freeman Dyson, quoted in Log24 on the day Mosteller died From Log24 on Mosteller's last birthday, December 24, 2005:
"Only gradually did I discover
what the mandala really is: 'Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind's eternal recreation'" (Faust, Part Two) -- Carl Gustav Jung, born on this date
Posted 7/26/2006 at 1:44 PM |
Jung's Birthday, 5 AM: Posted 7/26/2006 at 5:00 AM |
Jung's Birthday, 4 AM: Jung on the Trinity and Quaternity Posted 7/26/2006 at 4:00 AM |
Jung's Birthday, 3 AM: The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity Posted 7/26/2006 at 3:00 AM |
Shine on, you... Tom Stoppard and an ad for a concert in Pribor, Czech Republic, birthplace of Sigmund Freud Related material: and the five Log24 entries ending on this date last year. Chapter 24 By Syd Barrett, Dead Poet: A movement is accomplished in six stages And the seventh brings return. The seven is the number of the young light It forms when darkness is increased by one. Change returns success Going and coming without error. Action brings good fortune. Sunset. -- From the 1967 album "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" Posted 7/24/2006 at 3:17 PM |
Discourse Analysis Edward Rothstein in today's New York Times, reviewing Evil Incarnate (Princeton University Press): "... the most decisive aspect of the myth is that it is, literally, a myth. Every single example of evil he gives turns out to be evil imagined: there is, he says, no evidence for any of it. Evil, he argues, is not something real, it is a 'discourse,' a 'way of representing things and shaping our experience, not some force in itself.'" Related material: A review (pdf) by Steven G. Krantz of Charles Wells's A Handbook of Mathematical Discourse (Notices of the American Mathematical Society, September 2004): "Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary is a remarkable and compelling piece of writing because of its searing wit and sardonic take on life. Bierce does not define any new words. He instead gives deadly interpretations of very familiar words. Wells's book does not fit into the same category of literary effort." For literary efforts perhaps more closely related to Bierce's, see Mathematics and Narrative and the five Log24 entries ending on this date last year. Posted 7/24/2006 at 1:00 PM |
Dance of the Numbers, continued: Partitions Freeman Dyson on the role of the "crank" in the theory of partitions: "'Each step in the story is a work of art,' Dyson says, 'and the
story as a whole is a sequence of episodes of rare beauty, a drama
built out of nothing but numbers and imagination.'" -- Erica Klarreich in Paraphrase of Freeman Dyson's remarks in The New York Review of Books, issue dated May 28, 1998: "Theology is about words; science is about things."
"What is 256 about?" For the role played by 8-sets and by 23 (today's date) in partitions of a different sort, see Geometry of the 4x4 Square. Posted 7/23/2006 at 2:56 PM |
Mary Magdalene (Portrait by Nikos Kazantzakis and Martin Scorsese): "Magdalene lay on her back, stark naked, drenched in
sweat, her raven-black hair spread out over the pillow and her arms
entwined beneath her head. Her face was turned toward the wall
and she was yawning. Wrestling with men on this bed since dawn
had tired her out."
-- Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ Related material:
Time and Chance (See yesterday's entry.) Time: NY lottery mid-day today: 606 (See morning of 6/6.) Chance: NY lottery this evening: 017 (See Art Wars: Just Seventeen.) Posted 7/22/2006 at 9:00 PM |
For Hemingway's birthday: Mathematics and Narrative, continued "We know many little things about the relation between mathematics and narrative, but lack one big comprehensive insight." -- John Allen Paulos (pdf) "On Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002-- 9/11/02-- the New York State lottery numbers were 911, an eerie coincidence that set many people to thinking or, perhaps more accurately, to not thinking." -- John Allen Paulos "Time and chance happeneth to them all." -- Ecclesiastes 9:11 Posted 7/21/2006 at 1:00 PM |
Bead Game Those who clicked on Rieff's concept in the previous entry will know about the book that Rieff titled Sacred Order/Social Order: My Life among the Deathworks. That entry, from Tuesday, July 18, was titled "Sacred Order," and gave as an example the following figure: (Based on Weyl's Symmetry)
For the use of this same figure to represent a theatrical concept--
"It's like stringing beads on a necklace. By the time the play ends, you have the whole necklace."-- see Ursprache Revisited (June 9, 2006). Of course, the figure also includes a cross-- or "deathwork"-- of sorts. These incidental social properties of the figure (which is purely mathematical in origin) make it a suitable memorial for a theatre critic who died on the date of the previous entry-- July 18-- and for whom the American Theatre Wing's design awards, the Henry Hewes Awards, are named. "The annual awards honor designers... recognizing not only the traditional design categories of sets, costumes and lighting, but also 'Notable Effects,' which encompasses sound, music, video, puppets and other creative elements." --BroadwayWorld.comFor more on life among the deathworks, see an excellent review of the Rieff book mentioned above. Posted 7/20/2006 at 2:00 AM |
Sacred Order In memory of Philip Rieff, who died on July 1, 2006:
Related material:
and For details, see the That essay says Rieff had "a dense, knotty, ironic
style designed to warn off
impatient readers. You had to unpack his aphorisms carefully. And this
took a while. As a result, his thinking had a time-release effect."
Good for him. For a related essay (time-release effect unknown),
see Hitler's Still Point: A Hate Speech for Harvard.
Posted 7/18/2006 at 1:00 PM |
Today is the feast of St. James McNeill Whistler. "Nature contains the elements of color and form of all pictures-- as the
keyboard contains the notes of all music-- but the artist is born to pick, and choose, and group with science, these elements,
that the result may be beautiful-- as the musician gathers his notes, and
forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos, glorious harmony." -- Whistler, "The Ten O'Clock" Posted 7/17/2006 at 6:06 PM |
Mathematics and Narrative continued... "Now, at the urging of the UC Berkeley cognitive linguist George Lakoff, liberal America's guru of the moment, progressive Democrats are practicing to get their own reluctant mouths around some magical new vocabulary, in the hope of surviving and eventually overcoming the age of Bush." -- Marc Cooper in The Atlantic Monthly, April 2005, "Thinking of Jackasses: The Grand Delusions of the Democratic Party" Cooper's "now" is apparently still valid. In today's New York Times, the leftist Stanley Fish reviews Talking Right, by leftist Geoffrey Nunberg: "... the right's language is now the default language for everyone. On the way to proposing a counterstrategy (it never really arrives), Nunberg pauses to engage in a polite disagreement with his fellow linguist George Lakoff, who has provided a rival account of the conservative ascendancy. Lakoff argues that Republicans have articulated-- first for themselves and then for others-- a conceptual framework that allows them to unite apparently disparate issues in a single coherent worldview ... woven together not in a philosophically consistent framework but in a narrative 'that creates an illusion of coherence.' Once again, the Republicans have such a narrative-- 'declining patriotism and moral standards, the out-of-touch media and the self-righteous liberal elite ... minorities demanding special privileges ... disrespect for religious faith, a swollen government'-- but 'Democrats and liberals have not offered compelling narratives that could compete' with it. Eighty pages later he is still saying the same thing. 'The Democrats need a compelling narrative of their own.'" Lakoff is the co-author of a book on the philosophy of mathematics, Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being. From Wikipedia's article on Lakoff: "According to Lakoff, even mathematics itself is subjective to the human species and its cultures: thus 'any question of math's being inherent in physical reality is moot, since there is no way to know whether or not it is.' Lakoff and Rafael E. Nunez (2000) argue at length that mathematical and philosophical ideas are best understood in light of the embodied mind. The philosophy of mathematics ought therefore to look to the current scientific understanding of the human body as a foundation ontology, and abandon self-referential attempts to ground the operational components of mathematics in anything other than 'meat.'" For a long list of related leftist philosophy, see The Thinking Meat Project. Democrats seeking narratives may also consult The Carlin Code and The Prime Cut Gospel. Posted 7/16/2006 at 3:17 PM |
Ein Bild From 6/6/6: Und was fur ein Bild des Christentums ist dabei herausgekommen? From this date last year: Adapted from cover of German edition of Cold Mountain Posted 7/15/2006 at 3:26 PM |
Today's birthday: Linda Ronstadt is 60. "Elegant as a slow blues." -- Review of a writer by Rolling Stone Just send me black roses White rhythm and blues And somebody who cares when you lose Black roses, white rhythm and blues Black roses, white rhythm and blues -- Linda Ronstadt song by J. D. Souther, from Living in the USA, 1978 Posted 7/15/2006 at 12:00 AM |
Assigned Names and Numbers "What do you hear when you listen?" "Like the wind in a thousand wires." -- "Fee-5," a character in Alfred Bester's 1975 The Computer Connection From Robert A. Heinlein's 1963 Glory Road: "I have many names. What would you like to call me?" From the Web: (Former Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Happy birthday, Star. Related material: Log24, July 14-15, 2004 Posted 7/14/2006 at 12:00 AM |
Longest Day's Journey BY BOB THOMAS, LOS ANGELES July 13, 2006 (AP)-- Red Buttons, the carrot-topped burlesque comedian who became a top star in early television and then in a dramatic role won the 1957 Oscar as supporting actor in "Sayonara," died Thursday [July 13, 2006]. He was 87. --San Francisco Chronicle Sayonara. Posted 7/13/2006 at 5:45 PM |
A child, or Maurits Escher:
Posted 7/13/2006 at 4:00 PM |
Today's birthday: Harrison Ford "The forest here at the bottom of the canyon is mostly pine, with a few aspen and broad-leafed shrubs. Steep canyon walls rise way above us on both sides. Occasionally the trail opens into a patch of sunlight and grass that edges the canyon stream, but soon it reenters the deep shade of the pines. The earth of the trail is covered with a soft springy duff of pine needles. It is very quiet here. Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found not only in Zen literature but in the tales of every major religion."-- Robert Pirsig Related material: "Canyon Breeze" as played at myspace.com/montanaskies "... a point of common understanding between the classic and romantic
worlds. Quality, the cleavage term between hip and square, seemed to be
it. Both worlds used the term. Both knew what it was. It was just that
the romantic left it alone and appreciated it for what it was and the
classic tried to turn it into a set of intellectual building blocks for
other purposes."-- Robert Pirsig
For such building blocks, see
myspace.com/affine. The background music there is the same, by Montana Skies. Posted 7/13/2006 at 12:00 PM |
x Posted 7/13/2006 at 12:00 AM |
Band Numbers "Some friends of mine are in this band..." -- David Auburn, Proof Seven is Heaven, Eight is a Gate, Nine is a Vine. -- The Prime Powers Posted 7/12/2006 at 9:00 AM |
Not Crazy Enough? Some children of the sixties may feel that today's previous two entries, on Syd Barrett, the Crazy Diamond, are not crazy enough. Let them consult the times of those entries-- 2:11 and 8:15-- and interpret those times, crazily, as dates: 2/11 and 8/15. This brings us to Stephen King territory-- apparently the natural habitat of Syd Barrett. See Log24 on a 2/11, Along Came a Dreamcatcher, and Log24 on an 8/15, The Line. From 8/15, a remark of Plato: "There appears to be a sort of war of Giants and Gods going on..." (Compare with the remarks by Abraham Cowley for Tom Stoppard's recent birthday.) From 2/11, two links: Halloween Meditations and We Are the Key. From Dreamcatcher (the film and the book): For Syd Barrett as Duddits, see Terry Kirby on Syd Barrett (edited-- as in Stephen King and the New Testament-- for narrative effect): "He appeared as the Floyd performed the song 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond.' It contains the words: 'Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun. Shine on you crazy diamond. Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.'
At first, they didn't recognise the man, whose head and eyebrows
were shaved....
But this was the 'crazy diamond' himself: Syd Barrett, the subject
of the song.... When Roger Waters saw his old friend, he broke down.... Rick Wright, the keyboards player, later told an interviewer: ... 'Roger [Waters] was in tears, I think I was; we were both in tears.
It was very shocking... seven years of no contact and then to walk in
while we're actually doing that particular track. I don't know -
coincidence, karma, fate, who knows? But it was very, very, very
powerful.'" "I refer here to Plato's utilisation in the Meno of graphic austerity as the tool to bring to the surface, literally and figuratively, the inherent presence of geometry in the mind of the slave." Posted 7/11/2006 at 9:11 PM |
Rock 'n' Roll
"In Tom Stoppard's new play 'Rock 'n' Roll,' showing in the West End, he [Syd Barrett] is
portrayed in the opening scene, and his life and music are a recurring
theme."
-- Terry Kirby, Syd Barrett: The Crazy Diamond, in The Independent of July 12 Keynote "Each scene is punctuated with a rock track from such acts as the Velvet Underground, the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd. Songs by Floyd's lost founder, Syd Barrett, are the keynote for Stoppard's theme that rock music sounded the death knell for repression but also heralded a freedom filled with its own perils." -- Ray Bennett, today's review of a new play, "Rock 'n' Roll," by Tom Stoppard Related material:
Dance of the Numbers, for Tom Stoppard on his birthday, July 3, 2006, and Knock, Knock, Knockin', from yesterday. Posted 7/11/2006 at 8:15 PM |
Pink Floyd co-founder Syd Barrett dies "Pink Floyd's 1975 track 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond,' from the album 'Wish You Were Here,' is widely believed to be a tribute to Barrett."-- Reuters Posted 7/11/2006 at 2:11 PM |
An obituary in this morning's New York Times suggests a flashback. The Times says that Paul Nelson, 69, a music critic once famously ripped off by the young Bobby Zimmerman, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment last Wednesday. Here is a Log24 entry for that date. (The obituary, by Jon Pareles, notes that Nelson "prized hard-boiled detective novels and film noir.")
Posted 7/10/2006 at 2:48 AM |
Today's birthday: Tom Hanks, star of "The Da Vinci Code" Ben Nicholson
and the Holy Grail Part I: A Current Exhibit A. Diamond Theory,
a 1976 preprint containing, in the original version, the designs on the
faces of Nicholson's "Kufi blocks," as well as some simpler
traditional designs, and
Part III: The Leonardo Connection See Modern-Day Leonardos, part of an account of a Leonardo exhibit at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry that includes Ben Nicholson and his "Kufi Blocks."
Part IV: Nicholson's Grail Quest
"I'm interested in locating the holy grail of the minimum means to express the most complex ideas." -- Ben Nicholson in a 2005 interview Nicholson's quest has apparently lasted for some time. Promotional material for a 1996 Nicholson exhibit in Montreal says it "invites visitors of all ages to experience a contemporary architect's search for order, meaning and logic in a world of art, science and mystery." The title of that exhibit was "Uncovering Geometry." For web pages to which this same title might apply, see Quilt Geometry, Galois Geometry, and Finite Geometry of the Square and Cube. * "Square Kufi" calligraphy is used in Islamic architectural ornament. I do not know what, if anything, is signified by Nicholson's 6x12 example of "Kufi blocks" shown above. Posted 7/9/2006 at 11:00 AM |
For Kevin Bacon's birthday New Game: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Roderick MacLeish, author of the classic Prince Ombra, died at 80 on Saturday, July 1, 2006. From an obituary: "'When I think back over my career, I know that my father was a tremendous inspiration,' said his son, an attorney who represented abuse victims in a settlement with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston." Related material: Log24 entries of May 31 and June 1, 2006, and the remarks of Raymond Chandler on wainscoting in The Big Sleep. See also the following: Posted 7/8/2006 at 2:01 PM |
ART WARS continued
Posted 7/7/2006 at 7:00 PM |
Born (some say) on this date: Yul Brynner Mate in 6 (White moves.) (White: Ke8, Nd7, Be5,
Log24, July 3, 2006: "... There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn't solve it, like a lot of my problems. I reached down and moved a knight.... "Is a puzzlement!" "In this way we are offered a formidable lesson for every Christian community." Posted 7/7/2006 at 9:00 AM |
State and Church Today's birthdays: George W. Bush and Sylvester Stallone, born on the same day 60 years ago. Two birthday quotations from Kathleen Parker: "Verily, I say unto you - Whatever." "No, wait, how about this: 'Yo, Christ Buddy!'" -- Orlando Sentinel column written for release July 1, 2006 Parker's column, on recent Presbyterian interpretations of the Holy Trinity, is titled "I believe in Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe." What about Shemp? Posted 7/6/2006 at 12:25 PM |
Mexican leftist's lead slips in election recount "The winner will take over from Fox on December 1, inheriting a divided nation and a fierce war against drug smuggling gangs." Muy buena suerte. Posted 7/6/2006 at 2:45 AM |
What Song the Sirens Sang "Wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say..." "Suitcases filled with cash had changed hands in the four-star Hotel Hassler in Rome." -- F. Mark Wyatt, recently deceased career CIA officer, quoted in this morning's New York Times The New York Times, with its usual lack of clarity about dates, says Wyatt died "on Thursday." Presumably this was Thursday a week ago-- June 29, 2006, the Feast of Saint Peter. Posted 7/6/2006 at 2:12 AM |
Solemn Dance Virgil on the Elysian Fields: Some wrestle on the sands, and some in play(See also the previous two entries.) "The cover of this issue of the Bulletin is the frontispiece to a volume of Samuel de Fermat’s 1670 edition of Bachet’s Latin translation of Diophantus’s Arithmetica. This edition includes the marginalia of the editor’s father, Pierre de Fermat. Among these notes one finds the elder Fermat’s extraordinary comment [c. 1637] in connection with the Pythagorean equation -- Barry Mazur, Gade University Professor at Harvard Mazur's concluding remarks are as follows:
"But however you classify the branch of mathematics it is concerned
with, Diophantus’s Arithmetica can claim the title of founding
document, and inspiring muse, to modern number theory. This brings us
back to the goddess with her lyre in the frontispiece, which is the
cover of this issue. As is only fitting, given the passion of the
subject, this goddess is surely Erato, muse of erotic poetry." Mazur has admitted, at his website, that this conclusion was an error: "I erroneously identified the figure on the cover as Erato, muse of erotic poetry, but it seems, rather, to be Orpheus." "Seems"? The inscription on the frontispiece, "Obloquitur numeris septem discrimina vocum," is from a description of the Elysian Fields in Virgil's Aeneid, Book VI: His demum exactis, perfecto munere divae, PITT:It is perhaps not irrelevant that the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's next role would have been that of Orfeo in Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice." See today's earlier entries. The poets among us may like to think of Mazur's own role as that of the lyre: Posted 7/5/2006 at 11:07 PM |
Dance of the Numbers continued-- A music review: "... in the mode of a film noir murder mystery" "For Bach, as Sellars explains, death is not an exit but an entrance." Seven is Heaven, Eight is a Gate, Nine is a Vine. Posted 7/5/2006 at 7:35 PM |
Entertainment from today's New York Times From the obituary of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died at 52 on Monday, July 3, 2006, at her home in Santa Fe: "If she rarely spoke of her private life, few artists have brought such emotional vulnerability to their work, whether it was her sultry portrayal of Myrtle Wilson, the mistress of wealthy Tom Buchanan in John Harbison's 'Great Gatsby,' the role of her 1999 Metropolitan Opera debut, or her shattering performances several years ago in two Bach cantatas for solo voice and orchestra, staged by the director Peter Sellars, seen in Lincoln Center's New Visions series, with the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music, Craig Smith conducting. In Cantata No. 82, 'Ich Habe Genug' ('I Have Enough'), Ms. Hunt Lieberson, wearing a flimsy hospital gown and thick woolen socks, her face contorted with pain and yearning, portrayed a terminally ill patient who, no longer able to endure treatments, wants to let go and be comforted by Jesus. During one consoling aria, 'Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen' ('Slumber now, weary eyes'), she yanked tubes from her arms and sang the spiraling melody with an uncanny blend of ennobling grace and unbearable sadness." from Nov. 6, 2003 Today's birthday: Posted 7/5/2006 at 3:00 PM |
And now, from the author of Sphere... CUBE
He beomes aware of something else... some other presence. "Anybody here?" he says. I am here. He almost jumps, it is so loud. Or it seems loud. Then he wonders if he has heard anything at all. "Did you speak?" No. How are we communicating? he wonders. The way everything communicates with everything else. Which way is that? Why do you ask if you already know the answer? -- Sphere, by Michael Crichton, Harvard '64 "... when I went to Princeton things were completely different. This chapel, for instance-- I remember when it was just a clearing, cordoned off with sharp sticks. Prayer was compulsory back then, and you couldn't just fake it by moving your lips; you had to know the words, and really mean them. I'm dating myself, but this was before Jesus Christ." -- Baccalaureate address at Princeton, Pentecost 2006, reprinted in The New Yorker, edited by David Remnick, Princeton '81 Related figures:
For further details, see Solomon's Cube and myspace.com/affine. For further details, see Jews on Buddhism and Adventures in Group Theory. "In this way we are offered a formidable lesson for every Christian community." Pope Benedict XVI on Pentecost, June 4, 2006, St. Peter's Square. Posted 7/5/2006 at 12:25 PM |
Culture War The New York Times, August 6, 2003, on its executive editor Bill Keller: "'It is past time for our magnificent coverage of culture and lifestyles, so essential to our present allure and to our future growth, to get the kind of attention we routinely bestow on hard news,' Mr. Keller wrote in an e-mail message to the staff." The
New York Times, June
25, 2006,
Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep: "I went over to a floor lamp and pulled the switch, went back to put off the ceiling light, and went across the room again to the chessboard on a card table under the lamp. There was a problem laid out on the board, a six-mover. I couldn't solve it, like a lot of my problems. I reached down and moved a knight, then pulled my hat and coat off and threw them somewhere. All this time the soft giggling went on from the bed, that sound that made me think of rats behind a wainscoting in an old house. Posted 7/3/2006 at 11:07 PM |
For Tom Stoppard on his birthday: "For I remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there (though my understanding had little to do with all this); and by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet." -- Abraham Cowley, Essays, 1668 Posted 7/3/2006 at 7:35 PM |
Requiem for a Clown Into the Sunset, Part I: Into the Sunset, Part II: Requiem for a clown: "At times, bullshit can only be countered with superior bullshit." -- Norman Mailer See also 10/13. Posted 7/3/2006 at 10:13 AM |
Posted 7/2/2006 at 8:00 PM |
Related material: The obituary of Jaap Penraat in today's New York Times-- "Hudson Talbott, a longtime friend of Mr. Penraat's who wrote a children's book about his experiences (Forging Freedom: A True Story of Heroism During the Holocaust) said his research indicated there was a daredevil aspect to the missions. 'The feeling I get is that he
just loved the idea of putting one over on the Nazis,' Mr. Talbott said
in an interview with The Albany Times Union. 'It wasn't a joke, or a
game, but clearly there was something about fooling them that was an
important aspect of this.'" --Douglas Martin in today's New York Times Log24, Jan. 6-8, 2006, and Jaap's Puzzle Page. Posted 7/2/2006 at 6:29 PM |
The Rock and the Serpent In a search for a title to express the contrast between truth and lies, an analogy between the phrases "Crystal and Dragon" and "Mathematics and Narrative" suggests a similar phrase, "The Rock and the Serpent." A web search for related titles leads to a book by Alice Thomas Ellis: Serpent on the Rock: A Personal View of Christianity. (See a review.) (This in turn leads to an article on Ellis's husband, the late Colin Haycraft, publisher.) For an earlier discussion of Ellis in this weblog, see Three Eleanors (March 12, 2005). That entry brings us back to the theme of truth and lies with its link to an article from the Catholic publication Commonweal: Getting to Truth by Lying. Christians who wish to lie more effectively may consult a book by the author of the Commonweal article: For a more sympathetic view of suffering stemming from Christian narrative, see (Click on cover for details. See also Log24 entries on Guy Davenport, who wrote the foreword.) Posted 7/2/2006 at 9:29 AM |
Zen and the Art
continued: Zen and The Art. Related material: Open House Day at Cullinane College and Log24, June 1-15. Posted 7/1/2006 at 11:55 AM |
Hong Kong Day See Hong Kong July 1 marches, Thousands March for Democracy in Hong Kong. and Hong Kong flags, previous and current. Related material: the previous two entries. Posted 7/1/2006 at 9:00 AM |