Log24

Out for Blood
____________________

Dedication added on
Oct. 4, 2004, 2:10 PM:
To Jacques Levy,
who died on Sept. 30, 2004.
Levy directed “Red Cross,”
a Sam Shepard play that is
said to be about
“the vampire quality
of language.”
_____________________

Kerry “shouldn’t be looking to score
technical points like this is
Harvard-Yale debate society.”

— Chris Lehane, quoted in
today’s Washington Post

From today’s Harvard Crimson:

Ben and Jerry:

“I know I’m in the minority,
but I like Bush.”

— Jerry Bruckheimer,
quoted in the
New York Daily News
of April 11, 2004

Zeros

Related reading:

“Love is strong as death.”

Related viewing:

Today is the birthday of
Deborah Kerr and also
Translators’ Day.

Midnight in the Garden

“With a little effort,
anything can be shown
to connect with anything else:
existence is infinitely

cross-referenced.”

— Opening sentence
of Martha Cooley’s
The Archivist

 Example:
Mozart’s K 265,
the page number 265,
and a story by George MacDonald.

Romantic Interaction
continued…

(See previous entry.)

From today's Harvard Crimson:

"Pudding Show Features
Wild West Theme"

From yesterday's entry,
a tribute to Olivia Newton-John:

"At the still point,
there the dance is."
— T. S. Eliot

Xanadu (1980)

For related material, see

Balanchine's Birthday (1/9/03)
and Deep Game (6/26/04).

Romantic Interaction

(See previous entry.)

"At the still point,
 there the dance is."
— T. S. Eliot 

For Olivia Newton-John
on her birthday,
at 1:11:11 pm EDT

"Keep me suspended in time with you;
Don't let this moment die.
I get a feeling when I'm with you
None of the rules apply.
But I know for certain
Goodbye is a crime;
So love if you need me,
Suspend me in time."

— Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu

Time and Chance

“Time and chance happeneth to them all.”

— Ecclesiastes 9-11

“With the passage of time, everyone participated in the ever-increasingly secret lottery.”

— Summary of Borges’s Lottery

The winning evening lottery number for Sunday, September 19, 2004, and for Thursday, September 23, 2004, in the State of Grace (Kelly) was

408.

See a 9/20/04 story about 408

and a 1/4/03 story about Grace and jazz.

From the latter:

Now you has jazz.

— Cole Porter, lyric for “High Society,”
set in Newport, Rhode Island, 1956

Note that yesterday’s entries dealt with “the jazz church” and that Sunday, Sept. 19, 2004– the first of the “408” days above– was the date of death of Ellis Marsalis Sr., patriarch of a family of jazz musicians.  The second of the “408” days above– yesterday– was Ray Charles’s birthday.

In Ray We Trust
June 28, 2004 cover
by Eric Palma  

(See New Gold Standard: Cultural Capital)

Aluminum, Your Shiny Friend

(Continued)

Citicorp Center Vital Statistics: Location: New York, NY Completion Date: 1977 Cost: $175 million Height: 915 feet Stories: 59 Materials: Steel Facing Materials: Aluminum, reflective glass

Click photo for larger image.

“From the very beginning, the Citicorp Center (today, the Citigroup Center) in New York City was an engineering challenge. When planning for the skyscraper began in the early 1970s, the northwest corner of the proposed building site was occupied by

The church allowed Citicorp to build the skyscraper under one condition: a new church would have to be built on the same corner, with no connection to the Citicorp building and no columns passing through it.

How did the engineers do it? They set the 59-story tower on four massive columns, positioned at the center of each side, rather than at the corners. This design allowed the northwest corner of the building to cantilever 72 feet over the new church.”

Source: PBS, Building BIG.

Citigroup (NYSE:C) is said to be the largest financial services conglomerate in the world. 

For more on the close relationship between churches and banks, see the works of T. S. Eliot and a description of the City of London,

The Square Mile.

For more on Eliot, architecture,  and another Harvard man, use links in the previous entry.

Church Architecture

In memory of Harvard-trained
architect Edward Larrabee Barnes

From Martha Cooley’s The Archivist,
April 1999 paperback, page 301:

For related design issues
at Harvard, click here.

First Idea and Last Night

In memory of Saint Norman Cantor, an author of “stunning heartlessness” — my kind of historian — who died on Saturday, September 18, 2004…

a link to Log24.net entries of that date.

Give ’em Hell, Norman.

Above: recommended videos
from the date of Cantor’s death

“Dante’s hell was intended to be a shocking literary device. The Divine Comedy is not a work of theology or a spiritual treatise any more than James Joyce’s Ulysses is a sociological study of Dublin.”

— Norman F. Cantor
   Hollywood, Florida

Man and His Symbols

5:01:22

Sunday Shul

From this date last year:

“Time’s a round.”

Today’s Hebrew lesson:

From Wikipedia—

“In the Bible, Gershom (גרשם “Expulsion”…) was the firstborn son of Moses and Zipporah.”

He was circumcised by Zipporah, hence saving Moses from God’s wrath.

This article is a stub.”

A search for information on circumcision by zipper yields the following gem:

“Doctor Paul M. Fleiss, MD, MPH, is assistant clinical professor of Pædiatrics at the University of Southern California Medical Center. He is the author of numerous scientific articles published in leading national and international medical journals. Paul M. Fleiss is a Jewish Intactivist — one who promotes genital integrity of children while opposing genital mutilation of children. He is also a convicted felon, having been convicted in connection with his daughter Heidi Fleiss’s activities in running a prostitution ring.”

— Wikipedia

Today’s German lesson:

Properties of an image
on a German web page:

The First Idea

From aldaily.com,
a service of
The Chronicle of
Higher Education:

Peekaboo:

Wallace Stevens on “The First Idea”

Patty-cake:

Language, Poetry, Philology

“A specialist in Homer’s Odyssey and early Greek lyric poetry, Joseph Russo is the only American classicist among six international scholars to provide commentary for Oxford University Press’ three-volume edition of the epic poem.”

— Introduction to an inaugural lecture, “Language, Poetry, Philology, and ‘The Stateliest Measure,'” at Haverford College given by Joseph Russo on Feb. 26, 1999

Soul at Harvard

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Click on pictures for details.

Playing God

Interview in TIME Magazine, issue dated Sept. 6, 2004:

“Ellen DeGeneres has been cast as God in a remake of the 1977 George Burns film Oh, God!…

TIME: What do you think God’s house is like?

DeGeneres: There’s a coffee table with two magazines — Teen People and Guns & Ammo.”

… and a TV with two videos:

Click on pictures for details.

The Fullness of Time

“In the fullness of time,
educated people will believe
there is no soul
independent of the body,
and hence no life after death.”
 — Francis Crick

11:59 PM: The Last Minute

For the benefit of Grace (Paley, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute), here are the September 15 lottery numbers for Pennsylvania, the State of Grace (Kelly):

Midday: 053 Evening: 373.

For the significance of the evening number, 373, see Directions Out and Outside the World (both of 4/26/04).  In both of these entries, and others to which they are linked, the number 373 signifies eternity.

The two most obvious interpretations of the midday number, 53, are as follows:

• As a famous number of tones in musical harmonic analysis (i.e., tuning theory), as opposed to mathematical harmonic analysis ( The Square Wheel, 9/14/04), and
• as a reference to the year 1953– a good year for Grace Kelly and the year of the classic film From Here to Eternity (the latter being signified, as noted above, by yesterday’s evening lottery number in the State of Grace).

“Time and chance
happeneth to them all.”
Ecclesiastes 9-11

On Translation

From Illuminations, by Walter Benjamin, translated by Harry Zohn:

“If there is such a thing as a language of truth, the tensionless and even silent depository of the ultimate truth which all thought strives for, then this language of truth is– the true language.  And this very language, whose divination and description is the only perfection a philosopher can hope for, is concealed in concentrated fashion in translations.  There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.  But despite the claims of sentimental artists, these two are not banausic.  For there is a philosophical genius that is characterized by a yearning for that language which manifests itself in translations: ‘Les langues imparfaites en cela que plusieurs, manque la suprême: penser étant écrire sans accessoires, ni chuchotement mais tacite encore l’immortelle parole, la diversité, sur terre, des idiomes empêche personne de proférer les mots qui, sinon se trouveraient, par une frappe unique, elle-même matériellement la vérité.’*  If what Mallarmé evokes here is fully fathomable to a philosopher, translation, with its rudiments of such a language, is midway between poetry and doctrine.  Its products are less sharply defined, but it leaves no less of a mark on history.”

* “The imperfection of languages consists in their plurality, the supreme one is lacking: thinking is writing without accessories or even whispering, the immortal word still remains silent; the diversity of idioms on earth prevents everybody from uttering the words which otherwise, at one single stroke, would materialize as truth.’

— Stéphane Mallarmé / Crise de vers

(The Benjamin is from a copy of Illuminations I purchased exactly 12 years ago, on Sept. 15, 1992.)

x

September Morn

“Now is the time for turning. The leaves are beginning to turn from green to red to orange. The birds are beginning to turn and are heading once more toward the south. The animals are beginning to turn to storing their food for the winter. For leaves, birds and animals, turning comes instinctively. But for us, turning does not come so easily.”

— President Clinton,
Prayer Breakfast,
September 11, 1998

x

x

Philosophy

For Samira Bellil,

who died in Paris on
Friday, Sept. 3, 2004… 

From the link at
Symmetry and Change
in the Dreamtime,
Part 8, Friday,
Sept. 3, 2004,
Noon…

Under heaven 
thunder rolls…

Log24 on Sept. 10, 2002—

Three songs from Sept. 10
in various preceding years–

“Good morning little schoolgirl
Good morning little schoolgirl
Can I come home with
Can I come home with you“

— Rod Stewart, Sept. 10, 1964

“Tell your mamma, girl, I can’t stay long
We got things we gotta catch up on
Mmmm, you know
You know what I’m sayin’ “

— Neil Diamond, Sept. 10, 1966

“A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing“

— The Byrds, Sept. 10, 1965

Further verses from the Byrds
seem appropriate on this, the day
of Samira Bellil’s funeral:

To everything, turn, turn, turn,
there is a season, turn, turn, turn…

Tournante

“It’s not even called rape. They call it
a tournante, or pass-round.
The banality is deliberate:
a joint, a girl – same difference.”

… and a time to every purpose
under heaven.

“… The kind of school where teacher
Fabrice Genestal kept hearing
the word “tournante” and didn’t click
what it meant, till he and Sillam
sat the kids down in after-school
workshops, and got talking.”

— Metropolitan Police Service, London

A Story of Sorts

Sometimes one’s journal entries seem to be telling a story…

This was the case for Log24 entries of Tuesday through Friday last week.  Unfortunately, the story they told is about as coherent as Finnegans Wake.

Anyone interested can find the story, put into chronological order and prefaced with a summary, at

Symmetry and Change
in the Dreamtime.

Symmetry and Change
in the Dreamtime

Notes from the Journal
of Steven H. Cullinane

Summary:

Aug 31 2004  07:31:01 PM	Early Evening, Shining Star
Sep 01 2004 09:00:35 AM	Words and Images
Sep 01 2004 12:07:28 PM	Whale Rider
Sep 02 2004 11:11:42 AM	Heaven and Earth
Sep 02 2004 07:00:23 PM	Whale Road
Sep 03 2004 12:00:54 AM	Cinderella’s Slipper
Sep 03 2004 10:01:56 AM	Another September Morn
Sep 03 2004 12:00:25 PM	Noon
Sep 03 2004 01:13:49 PM	De Nada
Sep 03 2004 03:17:13 PM	Ite, Missa Est

Symmetry and Change, Part 1…

Early Evening,
Shining Star

7:31:01 PM ET

Hexagram 01
The Creative:

The Image

The movement of heaven
is full of power.

Click on picture
for details.

The Clare Lawler Prize
for Literature goes to…

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 2…

Words and Images

9:00:35 AM ET

Hexagram 35
Progress:

The Image

The sun rises over the earth.

For
James Whale
and
William French Anderson —

Words
In the Spirit of
Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs:

Stay for just a while…
Stay, and let me look at you.
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you.
Standing in the door…
Stay with me a while.
I only want to talk to you.
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves again.

Look at what you’ve done…
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl…

— Neil Diamond

Images
In the Spirit of
September Morn:

The Last Day of Summer:
Photographs by Jock Sturges

“In 1990, the FBI entered Sturges’s studio and seized his work, claiming violation of child pornography laws.”

Related material:

Bill’s Diamond Theory

and

Log24 entries of
Aug. 15, 2004.

Those interested in the political implications of Diamond’s songs may enjoy Neil Performs at Kerry Fundraiser.

I personally enjoyed this site’s description of Billy Crystal’s remarks, which included “a joke about former President Clinton’s forthcoming children’s book — ‘It’s called The Little Engine That Could Because It Could.'”

“Puff, puff, woo, woo, off we go!” 

Symmetry and Change, Part 3…

Whale Rider

12:07:28 PM

Hexagram 28
Preponderance of
the Great:

The Image

The lake rises
above the trees.

Cullinane College News:

“Congratulations to Clare Lawler, who participated very successfully in the recently held Secondary Schools Judo Championships in Wellington.”

For an explanation of this entry’s title, see the previous two entries and

Oxford Word
(Log24, July 10, 2004) 

Thursday, September 2, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 4…

Heaven and Earth

11:11:42 AM ET

Hexagram 42
Increase:

The Image

Wind and thunder:
the image of Increase.

“This time resembles that of
the marriage of heaven and earth”

“What it all boiled down to really was everybody giving everybody else a hard time for no good reason whatever… You just couldn’t march to your own music. Nowadays, you couldn’t even hear it… It was lost, the music which each person had inside himself, and which put him in step with things as they should be.”

— The Grifters, Ch. 10, 1963, by
James Myers Thompson

“The Old Man’s still an artist
with a Thompson.”
— Terry in “Miller’s Crossing”

For some of “the music which
each person had inside,”
click on the picture
with the Thompson.

It may be that Kylie is,
in her own way, an artist…
with a 357:

(Hits counter at
The Quality of Diamond
as of 11:05 AM Sept. 2, 2004)

For more on
“the marriage of heaven and earth,”
see
Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star. 

Thursday, September 2, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 5…

Whale Road

7:00:23 PM

Hexagram 23
Splitting Apart:

The Image

The mountain rests
on the earth.

“… the plot is different but the monsters, names, and manner of speaking will ring a bell.”

— Frank Pinto, Jr., review of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf 

Other recommended reading, found during a search for the implications of today’s previous entry, “Hexagram 42”:

Water Wings.

This excellent meditation
on symmetry and change
comes from a site whose
home page
has the following image:

Friday, September 3, 2004

 Symmetry and Change, Part 6…

Cinderella’s Slipper

12:00:54 AM ET

Hexagram 54
The Marrying Maiden:

The Image

Friday, September 3, 2004  

Symmetry and Change, conclusion…

Ite, Missa Est

3:17:13 PM ET

Hexagram 13
Fellowship With Men:

The Image

Heaven together with fire.

“A pretty girl —
is like a melody —- !”

 For details, see
A Mass for Lucero.

Symmetry and Change, Part 9…

De Nada

Helen Lane

1:13:49 PM ET

Hexagram 49
Revolution:

The Image

"I sit now in a little room off the bar at four-thirty in the morning drinking ochas and then mescal and writing this on some Bella Vista notepaper I filched the other night…. But this is worst of all, to feel your soul dying. I wonder if it is because to-night my soul has really died that I feel at the moment something like peace. Or is it because right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew, and though I may not take it, sometimes lately in dreams I have been able to see it? …And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell. It is not Mexico of course but in the heart."

— Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

Symmetry and Change, Part 8…

Noon

12:00:25 PM ET

Hexagram 25
Innocence:

The Image

Under heaven
thunder rolls.

Symmetry and Change, Part 7…

Another September Morn

10:01:56 AM ET

Hexagram 56:
The Wanderer

The Image

Fire on the mountain,
Run boys run…
Devil’s in the House of
The Rising Sun!

Symmetry and Change, Part 6…

Cinderella’s Slipper

12:00:54 AM ET

Hexagram 54
The Marrying Maiden:

The Image

Symmetry and Change, Part 5…

Whale Road

7:00:23 PM

Hexagram 23
Splitting Apart:

The Image

The mountain rests
on the earth.

“… the plot is different but the monsters, names, and manner of speaking will ring a bell.”

— Frank Pinto, Jr., review of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf 

Other recommended reading, found during a search for the implications of today’s previous entry, “Hexagram 42”:

Water Wings.

This excellent meditation
on symmetry and change
comes from a site whose
home page
has the following image:

Symmetry and Change, Part 4…

Heaven and Earth

11:11:42 AM ET

Hexagram 42
Increase:

The Image

Wind and thunder:
the image of Increase.

“This time resembles that of
the marriage of heaven and earth”

Symmetry and Change, Part 3…

Whale Rider

12:07:28 PM

Hexagram 28
Preponderance of
the Great:

The Image

The lake rises
above the trees.

Cullinane College News:

“Congratulations to Clare Lawler, who participated very successfully in the recently held Secondary Schools Judo Championships in Wellington.”

For an explanation of this entry’s title, see the previous two entries and

Oxford Word
(Log24, July 10, 2004)

Symmetry and Change, Part 2…

Words and Images

9:00:35 AM ET

Hexagram 35
Progress:

The Image

The sun rises over the earth.

For
James Whale
and
William French Anderson —

Words
In the Spirit of
Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs:

Stay for just a while…
Stay, and let me look at you.
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you.
Standing in the door…
Stay with me a while.
I only want to talk to you.
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves again.

Look at what you’ve done…
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl…

— Neil Diamond

Images
In the Spirit of
September Morn:

The Last Day of Summer:
Photographs by Jock Sturges

“In 1990, the FBI entered Sturges’s studio and seized his work, claiming violation of child pornography laws.”

Related material:

Bill’s Diamond Theory

and

Log24 entries of
Aug. 15, 2004.

Those interested in the political implications of Diamond’s songs may enjoy Neil Performs at Kerry Fundraiser.

I personally enjoyed this site’s description of Billy Crystal’s remarks, which included “a joke about former President Clinton’s forthcoming children’s book — ‘It’s called The Little Engine That Could Because It Could.'”

“Puff, puff, woo, woo, off we go!”