Log24

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Sunday October 31, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:12 pm
Dead On:
A Triple Play

 

From today’s New York Times, in reverse order:

Vaughn Meader, Star as Kennedy Mimicker, Dies at 68
Vaughn Meader was a comic who attained instant celebrity in 1962 with his record “The First Family,” a dead-on spoof of President John F. Kennedy and his entourage.

James Rousmaniere, 86, Skilled Yachtsman, Dies
James A. Rousmaniere was a socially prominent yachtsman and professional fund-raiser.

Sister Nancy Salisbury, 74, Headmistress, Dies
Sister Nancy Salisbury was the longtime headmistress of New York’s oldest independent school for girls, the Convent of the Sacred Heart..

For more background, see the Log24.net entry of 3 AM Friday, the date of Meader’s death. See also a Boston Globe obituary that quotes John F. Kennedy: “Vaughn Meader was busy tonight, so I came myself.”

Note that Rousmaniere was John F. Kennedy’s roommate at Harvard.

Note, too, that Kennedy’s daughter Caroline attended Sister Salisbury’s school.

A memorial Mass for Sister Salisbury will be held on Monday, November 22, 2004, at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, 980 Park Avenue, at 5:30 pm.  

What does all this Camelot portend?   I do not know, but the following quote seems appropriate.

Flores, flores para los muertos.”

Tennessee Williams, 1947

Friday, October 29, 2004

Friday October 29, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:12 pm

Song

"Each epoch has its singer."
Jack London, Oakland, California, 1901

"Anything but the void. And so we keep hoping to luck into a winning combination, to tap into a subtle harmony, trying like lock pickers to negotiate a compromise with the 'mystery tramp,' as Bob Dylan put it…."
— Dennis Overbye, Quantum Baseball,
    New York Times, Oct.  26, 2004

"You said you'd never compromise
With the mystery tramp,
    but now you realize
He's not selling any alibis
As you stare into
    the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to
    make a deal?"
— Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone

"About a century ago scientists began to realize that beneath the too, too solid veneer of what had passed for reality for 2,000 years there was some pretty funny and fuzzy business going on….

Most of us, I suspect, would rather believe that the devil is running things than that no one is in charge, that our lives, our loves, World Series victories, hang on the whims of fate and chains of coincidences, on God throwing dice, as Einstein once referred to quantum randomness….

[But] we are people, with desires and memories and a sense of humor – not Ping Pong balls."
— Dennis Overbye, Quantum Baseball,
    New York Times, Oct.  26, 2004

"You can be replaced by some Ping Pong balls and a dictionary."
Anonymous source, March 29, 2001

Friday October 29, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:00 am
From the late
Bob Davidoff
and Lester Lanin,
an arrangement of
the Red Sox anthem:

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Friday October 29, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:48 am

Tasteful Tunes, continued:
Bush Does Garland

Paul Krugman in
today’s New York Times:

“On Monday The Wall Street Journal confirmed an earlier report that in 2002 the military drew up plans for a strike on the base of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in an area of Iraq not under Saddam’s control. But civilian officials vetoed the attack – probably because they thought it might undermine political support for the war against Saddam. So Mr. Zarqawi, like Osama, was given the chance to kill another day.”

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The winds grow colder
And suddenly you’re older –
And all because of
    the man that got away.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Thursday October 28, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:11 pm

Hell Freezes Over
department:

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In honor of this event, here is a recording of Sinatra singing “Sweet Caroline” (RealAudio, 782K) on the Fourth of July, 1974, aboard the U.S.S. Midway at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Sunday October 24, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:00 pm
Bring ‘Em On

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Iraqi Soldiers Found Dead
Nearly 50 bodies were found, many killed execution style with gunshots to the back of the head.

Why America Is Losing Fallouja
Misjudgment, disagreement and shifting strategy fan the flames.

— Today’s LA Times

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Saturday October 23, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:15 pm

Date of Infamy,
continued

Today’s New York Times Sports:

“The weapons were bought by the police department for the Democratic National Convention this summer but were not used then.”

Photos of
Oct. 21, 2004:

Reporting
for duty

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Thursday, October 21, 2004

Thursday October 21, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:00 pm

A Date Which Will
Live in Infamy

Log24.net Sunday,
December 7, 2003

Annals of Education:

Eyes on the Prize

Dialogue from
“Good Will Hunting” —

Will:    He used to just put a belt,
          a stick, and a wrench
          on the kitchen table
          and say, “Choose.”

Sean: Gotta go with the belt, there.

Will:   I used to go with the wrench.

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Today’s saint’s day:
St. Ursula

Today’s birthday:
Ursula K. Le Guin

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Today’s Scripture:

Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle Maintenance

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Chapter 20:

“Then, on impulse, Phædrus went over to his bookshelf and picked out a small, blue, cardboard-bound book. He’d hand-copied this book and bound it himself years before, when he couldn’t find a copy for sale anywhere. It was the 2,400-year-old Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu. He began to read….

Phædrus read on through line after line, verse after verse of this, watched them match, fit, slip into place. Exactly. This was what he meant. This was what he’d been saying all along, only poorly, mechanistically. There was nothing vague or inexact about this book. It was as precise and definite as it could be. It was what he had been saying, only in a different language with different roots and origins. He was from another valley seeing what was in this valley, not now as a story told by strangers but as a part of the valley he was from. He was seeing it all.

He had broken the code.

He read on. Line after line. Page after page. Not a discrepancy. What he had been talking about all the time as Quality was here the Tao, the great central generating force of all religions, Oriental and Occidental, past and present, all knowledge, everything.”

Thursday October 21, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:28 am

Wooing

“Cheering from Red Sox fans could be heard in the ninth, and when pinch-hitter Ruben Sierra grounded to second baseman Pokey Reese for the final out at 12:01 a.m., Boston players ran onto the field and jumped together in a mass huddle.

‘The greatest comeback in baseball history,’ Red Sox owner John Henry proclaimed.”

Boston Red Sox Make History,
   AP 10/21/04

Film dialogue:

Will
So, when did you know, like,
that she was the one for you?

Sean
October 21st, 1975.

Will
Jesus Christ.
You know the f—in’ date?

See also the previous entry,
of 12:00:31 AM ET.

Thursday October 21, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

Today’s birthdays:

See Oct. 21, 2002.

Monday, October 18, 2004

Monday October 18, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 3:33 pm

Counting Crows
on the Feast of St. Luke

"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, who was awarded
a Nobel Prize on this date in 1962

"She went to the men on the ground and looked at them and then she found Inman apart from them. She sat and held him in her lap. He tried to talk, but she hushed him. He drifted in and out and dreamed a bright dream of a home. It had a coldwater spring rising out of a rock, black dirt fields, old trees. In his dream, the year seemed to be happening all at one time, all the seasons blending together.  Apple trees hanging heavy with fruit but yet unaccountably blossoming, ice rimming the spring, okra plants blooming yellow and maroon, maple leaves red as October, corn crops tasseling, a stuffed chair pulled up to the glowing parlor hearth, pumpkins shining in the fields, laurels blooming on the hillsides, ditch banks full of orange jewelweed, white blossoms on dogwood, purple on redbud.  Everything coming around at once.  And there were white oaks, and a great number of crows, or at least the spirits of crows, dancing and singing in the upper limbs.  There was something he wanted to say."

— Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

"FullnessMultitude."
 

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Sunday October 17, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:00 am

Last Bell

And there is always one last light
   to turn out
   and one last bell to ring
And the last one out of the circus
   has to lock up everything.

Mrs. Potter’s   Lullaby

No se puede vivir sin amar.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Saturday October 16, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 3:09 pm

Up the River

The careful reader will note that the previous entry has two parts.

Part I, “Spain,” links to the home page of a Spaniard named Jesús.

Part II, “Take This Cup,” links to a page about a poet named César.

I found Jesús in a search for images of “Apocalypse Now” prompted in turn by earlier entries.

I knew of César from library browsing.

This afternoon, I looked at the home page of the site where I found the essay on César; this in turn led to another essay:

The Necessity For Story

by  Frederick Zackel

While it’s a story that’s never been written, a suggested title– Indiana Jones Sails Up The River Of Death–

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shows how readily we as individuals or we as a culture can automatically visualize a basic story motif. We may each see the particular elements of the story differently, but almost instantaneously we catch its drift.

The hero sails up the river of death to discover what lies within his own heart: i.e., how much moral and physical strength he has.

Indiana Jones sails up the River of Death.

We are following Indiana Jones up the River of Death. We’re going to visit with Colonel Kurtz. (You may not want to get off the boat.)

No, I am not mixing up metaphors.

These are the Story.

For what it’s worth, the birthday of Jesús is April 9… See the entry of April 9, 2003, “Hearts of Darkness.”

The birthday of César is March 16.  See the entry of March 16, 2003,  on the letter A… Here is the logo of the site where I found both César and “The Necessity For Story”–

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Saturday October 16, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:24 am

Spain
Take This Cup

Saturday October 16, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 4:09 am

4:09 AM:

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The natives are restless tonight.

Saturday October 16, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 3:09 am
This just in…

From today’s New York Times:

Bruce Palmer, who played bass guitar for Buffalo Springfield… in the 1960’s, died on Oct. 1 in Belleville, Ontario. He was 58.

Stop, children, what’s that sound?
3:09:00 AM.

“… y el no estar del todo en una acción
— Homero Aridjis

Saturday October 16, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 am

Midnight in the Garden
continued

Umberto Eco,
Foucault’s Pendulum,
page 176:

Here, too, you entered through a little garden…

Amparo drew me aside as we went in.  “I’ve figured it out,” she said.  “That tapir at the lecture talked about the Aryan age, remember?  And this one talks about the decline of the West.  Blut und Boden, blood and earth.  It’s pure Nazism.”

“It’s not that simple, darling.  This is a different continent.”….

If the outside was seedy, the inside was a blaze of violent colors.  It was a quadrangular hall, with one area set aside for the dancing of the cavalos.  The altar was at the far end, protected by a railing, against which stood the platform for the drums, the atabaques.  The ritual space was still empty….

Atabaque – a large tom-tom
that is used in Afro-Brazilian
religious celebrations”

The Sounds of Samba
at Yale

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Atabaque

“Of African origin, and made of jacarandá wood in a conical shape. A calfskin head covers the top of the drum. It is used a lot in capoeria and candomblé and umbanda rituals all over Brazil. There are three kinds of atabaques: Rum, Rumpi, and Lê. Rum has the deepest sound and is a solo drum; Rumpi has a medium sound, and Lê is the highest. These three hold the beat.”

Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom….

— Cole Porter, “Night and Day

Your feats end enormous,
    your volumes immense,
(May the Graces I hoped for
    sing your Ondtship song sense!),
Your genus its worldwide,
    your spacest sublime!
But, Holy Saltmartin,
    why can’t you beat time?

In the name of the former
    and of the latter
    and of their holocaust. Allmen.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Friday October 15, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:48 pm
The Eight and the Six
(See yesterday’s entry)

Today’s lottery numbers
in Pennsylvania
(State of Grace):

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Nite and Day….

with an apology
to St. Cole Porter,
whose feast is today.

Friday October 15, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:11 pm
Snow Jobs

In memory of C. P. Snow,
whose birthday is today

“Without the narrative prop of
High Table dinner conversation
at Cambridge, Snow would be lost.”
— Roger Kimball*

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“It was a perfectly ordinary night
at Christ’s high table, except that
Hardy was dining as a guest.”
— C. P. Snow**

“666=2.3.3.37, and there is
no other decomposition.”
— G. H. Hardy***

* The Two Cultures Today

** Foreword to
A Mathematician’s Apology

*** A Mathematician’s Apology

Oct. 15, 2004, 7:11:37 PM

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Thursday October 14, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:14 pm

Star Wars,
continued

The Eight

Lest the reader of the previous entry mistakenly take Katherine Neville’s book The Eight more seriously than Fritz Leiber’s greatly superior writings on eightness, here are two classic interpretations of Leiber’s “spider” or “double cross” symbol:

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Aristotle:
The 4 elements and
the 4 qualities
(On Generation and
Corruption, II, 3
)

 

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Richard Wilhelm:
The 8 trigrams
(Understanding
the I Ching
,
154-175)

The Six

Less impressive, but not
completely without interest,
is the six-pointed star:

This symbol consists of
two triangles

representing
male and female,
fire and water,
up and down,
etc., etc., etc.

For some deeper properties
of the number eight, see a
Log24.net entry of 4/4/03.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Wednesday October 13, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:56 pm

Show Business
according to Fritz Leiber

(Leiber's "Changewar" is my
favorite mythology.)

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From the Changewar story
"No Great Magic" (1963) Part V:

Even little things are
turning out to be great things
and becoming intensely interesting.
Have you ever thought about
the properties of numbers?

— The Maiden

"I've had this idea– it's just a sort of fancy, remember– that if you wanted to time-travel and, well, do things, you could hardly pick a more practical machine than a dressing-room and a sort of stage and half-theater attached, with actors to man it…."

For the remainder of this section
of Leiber's story, see

Show Business.

Related material:
The previous entry,
The Eight, and
Now We See Wherein
Lies the Pleasure
.

Wednesday October 13, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:23 am
Naturalized Epistemology,
continued…

They Smile

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When They Are Low

From today’s New York Times:

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Wednesday October 13, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:07 am

Narrative Theory

12:07:51 AM

An alternate version of
the previous entry’s illustration:

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Hexagram
51:

Shock,
Shock
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Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Tuesday October 12, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:11 pm
Time and Chance

Today's winning lottery numbers
in Pennsylvania (State of Grace):

Midday: 373
Evening: 816.

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Tuesday October 12, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:10 pm
Urn

"Almost every famous chess game
is a well-wrought urn
in Cleanth Brooks’ sense."

— John Holbo,
Now We See
Wherein Lies the Pleasure
,
July 12, 2004

"The well-wrought urn
contained mortal ashes."

— Geoffrey Hartman
(See previous entry.)

Tuesday October 12, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 4:30 pm

The Last Enemy
(See April 30)

  

"I was also impressed… by the intensity of Continental modes of literary-critical thought….

On the Continent, studies of Hölderlin and Rousseau, of Poe, Baudelaire, Mallarmé and Rilke, of Rabelais, Nietzsche, Kafka, and Joyce, challenged not only received ideas on the unity of the work of art but many aspects of western thought itself. Derrida, at the same time, who for nearly a decade found a home in Yale's Comparative Literature Department, expanded the concept of textuality to the point where nothing could be demarcated as 'hors d'œuvre' and escape the literary-critical eye. It was uncanny to feel hierarchic boundaries waver until the commentary entered the text—not literally, of course, but in the sense that the over-objectified work became a reflection on its own status, its stability as an object of cognition. The well-wrought urn contained mortal ashes."

— Geoffrey Hartman, A Life of Learning

In memory of
Jacques Derrida and James Chace,
both of whom died in Paris on
Friday, Oct. 8, 2004… continued…
(See previous three entries.)

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Orson Welles


Mate in 2
V. Nabokov, 1919

"The last enemy
that shall be destroyed is death."
— Saul of Tarsus, 1 Cor. 15:26

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Knight move,
courtesy of V. Nabokov:

Nfe5 mate

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Knight:

Sir John Falstaff
(See Chimes at Midnight.)

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Sunday October 10, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:35 pm

Introduction to Aesthetics

“Chess problems are the
hymn-tunes of mathematics.”
— G. H. Hardy,
A Mathematician’s Apology

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G. H. Hardy in
A Mathematician’s Apology:

“We do not want many ‘variations’ in the proof of a mathematical theorem: ‘enumeration of cases,’ indeed, is one of the duller forms of mathematical argument.  A mathematical proof should resemble a simple and clear-cut constellation, not a scattered cluster in the Milky Way.

A chess problem also has unexpectedness, and a certain economy; it is essential that the moves should be surprising, and that every piece on the board should play its part.  But the aesthetic effect is cumulative.  It is essential also (unless the problem is too simple to be really amusing) that the key-move should be followed by a good many variations, each requiring its own individual answer.  ‘If P-B5 then Kt-R6; if …. then …. ; if …. then ….’ — the effect would be spoilt if there were not a good many different replies.  All this is quite genuine mathematics, and has its merits; but it just that ‘proof by enumeration of cases’ (and of cases which do not, at bottom, differ at all profoundly*) which a real mathematician tends to despise.

* I believe that is now regarded as a merit in a problem that there should be many variations of the same type.”

(Cambridge at the University Press.  First edition, 1940.)

Brian Harley in
Mate in Two Moves:

“It is quite true that variation play is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the soul of a problem, or (to put it more materially) the main course of the solver’s banquet, but the Key is the cocktail that begins the proceedings, and if it fails in piquancy the following dinner is not so satisfactory as it should be.”

(London, Bell & Sons.  First edition, 1931.)

Sunday October 10, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:48 pm

Starflight

In memory of
Jacques Derrida and James Chace,
both of whom died in Paris on
Friday, Oct. 8, 2004, and of
Orson Welles, who died
on this date in 1985

 

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Orson Welles

Mate in 2 

V. Nabokov, 1919

"The black king has three white flight squares, without mates being provided for these flights, which suggests giving him a fourth. 1. Bg2 therefore presents itself, especially when you notice that it prepares mates for all the flights, and for the king remaining on its original square.

1. Bg2

Kxc6 2. Nfe5 mate
Ke6   2. Nd4  mate
Kc4   2. Nd2  mate  
Ke4   2. Nd4  mate  
fxg3  2. Ng5  mate

The five variations together are the theme,  'starflight.'  (With orthogonal squares it is called plus- or cross-flight.)"

Open Chess Diary, 1999,
   by Tim Krabbé, Amsterdam

See also the entries of
Oct. 8, 2002 and
Oct. 8, 2004, and
related remarks on
the "double cross," or
"king's moves" symbol:

For an appropriate bishop, see

Riddle.
 

Saturday, October 9, 2004

Saturday October 9, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 6:40 pm

Derrida Dead

Jacques Derrida, the Algerian-born, French intellectual who became one of the most celebrated and unfathomable philosophers of the late 20th century, died Friday at a Paris hospital, the French president’s office announced. He was 74.”

— Jonathan Kandell, New York Times

“There is no teacher but the enemy.”

— Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game,
   Tor paperback reprint, 1994, p. 262

Saturday October 9, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:22 am

Belief

KERRY: “I’m going to be a president who believes in science.”

KERRY: “I’m a Catholic – raised a Catholic. I was an altar boy. Religion has been a huge part of my life, helped lead me through a war, leads me today.”

BUSH: “Trying to decipher that.”

Friday, October 8, 2004

Friday October 8, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:07 pm

Behush the Bush

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James Joyce statue, Zurich

“There’s where. First.
We pass through grass
behush the bush to.”
— Final page of
Finnegans Wake

“… we all gain an appreciation of how each of us can provide readings that others are blind to and how each of us is temporarily blind to other feasible readings. Reading the text becomes a communal act of discovery….

No one has much to say, for now, about the grass reference….”

Reading Finnegans Wake (1986)

The phrase “snake in the grass” seems relevant, as does the opening of Finnegans Wake:

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s….

Related material:

Joyce and Tao,

Why Me?,

Serpent’s Tail Publishing,

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and, for Matt Damon,
whose birthday is today —

The Joyce Identity.

Thursday, October 7, 2004

Thursday October 7, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 6:30 pm

Absolute Full Spin Mode

In today’s news:

Kerry… said Bush and Cheney
were in ‘absolute full spin mode.'”

Today’s midday
California lottery number:

525.
Related material–
5/25, 2003:

Star Wars and
Matrix of the Death God

For similar theological remarks,
see yesterday’s
Spin the Numbers.

Thursday October 7, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:33 pm

Prize

This years’s Nobel Prize for literature goes to Elfriede Jelinek.

Related material:

  1. No Pain, No Gain
    on the film of Jelinek’s autobiographical novel about a masochist, The Piano Teacher
  2. Charles Rosen
    “When I was writing a review of Alban Berg‘s correspondence, I remarked to an elderly and very distinguished psychoanalyst that I was surprised by how many of Schoenberg’s students seemed to enjoy being so badly treated and humiliated by him. She replied, ‘I have no time to explain this just now, but I can assure you that there are a great many masochists and not nearly enough sadists to go around.'”
  3. And so —
    The Wisdom of Ann Coulter

Thursday October 7, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:00 am

Metaphysics, cont.

Logocentrism is… described by Derrida as a ‘metaphysics of presence.'”

1:00:00 AM:

Hickory dickory dock…

Wednesday, October 6, 2004

Wednesday October 6, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:17 pm

3:17:20 PM

Spin the Numbers

IN NOMINE PATRIS

Today’s midday
Ohio lottery number:
224

ET FILII…

2/24 Log24.net entry:

The Crimson Passion

ET SPIRITUS SANCTI…

“Heraclitus…. says:
‘The ruler whose prophecy
occurs at Delphi
oute legei oute kryptei,
neither gathers nor hides,
alla semainei, but gives hints.'”
An Introduction to Metaphysics,
by Martin Heidegger,
Yale University Press paperback,
1959, p. 170

“The lord whose oracle is in Delphi
neither indicates clearly nor conceals,
but gives a sign.”
Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God,
Doubleday, 1998, p. 50

AMEN.

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Tuesday October 5, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:28 pm

The Joyce Identity,
or Treadstone vs. Blarneystone

From The Bourne Identity:

ABBOTT: Can you really bring him in?
CONKLIN: I think we’re past that, don’t you? What, do you have a better idea?
ABBOTT: Well, so far, you’ve given me nothing but a trail of collateral damage from Zurich to Paris. I don’t think I could do much worse.

Joyce’s grave
in Zurich

Ward Abbott,
Dick-Cheney-like
head of
Treadstone

Plaque, Rue de
l’Odeon, Paris
 

CONKLIN: Well why don’t you go upstairs and book a conference room. Maybe you can talk him to death.

Tuesday October 5, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

Tea Privileges

On Janet Leigh,
 who died Sunday:

The Manchurian Candidate

MARCO — What’s your last name?

ROSIE — Chaney.  I’m production assistant for a man named Justin who had two hits last season.  I live on 54th Street, a few doors from the Modern Museum of Art, of which I’m a “tea privileges” member,  no cream.  I live at 53 West 54th Street, apartment 3B.  Can you remember that?

MARCO —  Yes.

ROSIE — El Dorado 5-9970.  Can you remember that?

MARCO —  Yes.

On the redesigned
Museum of Modern Art,
11 West 53rd Street:

“… the ultimate judgment will have to wait: Taniguchi himself told a MoMA curator who’d complimented him that considering the building without the art in it is like admiring the tea cup without the green tea. Next month the museum will have art on the walls and crowds in the galleries—and then the tea ceremony will begin.”

— Cathleen McGuigan, Newsweek,
    issue dated Oct. 11, 2004

Related material:

Review of A Man and His Art, a book of paintings by Frank Sinatra:

“… he’s a solid abstractionist with an excellent eye for color, composition and geometric precision.”

Booklist (Jan. 15, 1992)

“Blue Eyes took his Sunday painting seriously.”

Eric Banks in Artforum Magazine,
    September 2004

See also
Art Wars.

Monday, October 4, 2004

Monday October 4, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:15 pm

Today’s birthday: Anne Rice.

Vampire Quality

To Jacques Levy, cont. 

and

to Richard Avedon, cont.

 Levy directed “Red Cross,”
a Sam Shepard play that is
said to be about
the vampire quality
of language
.”
_____________________

From Under the Volcano,
Chapter II:

Hotel Bella Vista
Gran Baile Noviembre 1938
a Beneficio de la Cruz Roja.
Los Mejores Artistas del radio en accion.
No falte Vd.

Jesse McKinley in today’s New York Times:

“In a surprise entry to the fall season, Sam Shepard – actor, playwright and sexagenarian heartthrob – has written a new, sharp-elbowed farce….

The play, ‘The God of Hell,’ was written over the summer by Mr. Shepard, 60, who wanted to stage it before the Nov. 2 election….

In a telephone interview on Friday, Mr. Shepard said that the play was ‘a takeoff on Republican fascism, in a way,’ and that he thought it would be more pertinent if seen during the presidential campaign.”

John Kerry by
Richard Avedon

 
Devil’s
Advocate

See The Script:
“Vanity is definitely my favorite sin.”

Friday, October 1, 2004

Friday October 1, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:23 pm

Ig Nobel
Literature Prize:

Copies of
Lord of the Last Days
and Lepanto

Aridjis

Chesterton

to John Kerry

for his blind support of scientism
as well as his ignorance of geography.

Related material:
Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star.

Friday October 1, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:07 pm

Ig Nobel
Geography Prize

Background from David Brooks (NYT Magazine, Aug. 29, 2004):

“The war on Islamic extremism….
This has been miscast as a war on terror, but terror is just the means our enemies use. In reality, we’re fighting a war against a specific brand of Islamic extremism, a loose federation of ideologues who seek to dominate the Middle East and return it to the days of the caliphate.

We are in the beginning of this war, where we were against Bolshevism around 1905 or Fascism in the early 1930’s, with enemies that will continue to gain strength, thanks to the demographic bulge in the Middle East….”

On last night’s Ig Nobel ceremony at Harvard:

“Coming a week before their more noble cousins are announced in Stockholm, the awards have become a keenly contested, globally reported event.”

The Guardian, Oct. 1 

From the Bush-Kerry debate last night:

Kerry: The president just talked about Iraq as a center of the war on terror. Iraq was not even close to the center of the war on terror before the president invaded it.”

As David Brooks has pointed out, the so-called war on terror is actually a war on an Islamic extremism that seeks to dominate the Middle East.  The United States government may deny, and Kerry may decry, the strategy of building permanent bases at the very center of the Middle East, Iraq (shown above), but such a strategy seems not without merit if the long-term strategic interests of the United States are placed ahead of political considerations.

Kerry’s apparent ignorance of such a strategy’s merits entitles him to this year’s Ig Nobel prize in geography– the above map.

Friday October 1, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

Dedication added on
Oct. 4, 2004, 2:25 PM:

To Richard Avedon, who died
on Oct. 1, 2004.  He said that
 “All photographs are accurate.
None of them is the truth.”

On originality– See
the comments.
_______________________

Originality Prize

A bag of Fritos to John Kerry…

“Kerry contributed most of the night’s fairly original phrases, including the suggestion that invading Iraq in retaliation to Sept. 11 was like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor.”

— Noel Holston at Newsday.com

Log24.net illustration following Whoopi Goldberg’s “bush” remarks and John Mellencamp’s “bandito” song at a Kerry fundraiser last summer:

Reba, Fritos, and Bandito

Log24.net two years ago on this date:

… y el no estar del todo en una acción
y es el Cantar de los Cantares
y es el amor que te ama

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