Log24

Friday, November 30, 2007

Friday November 30, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

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Friday November 30, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:01 am

x

Friday November 30, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:14 am

x

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Thursday November 29, 2007

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:00 pm
A Long Story

 
From today's online NY Times:
Obituaries in the News
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Published: [Wednesday]
November 28, 2007
Filed at 11:10 p.m. ET

Gennie DeWeese

 

BOZEMAN, Mont. (AP) — Gennie DeWeese, an artist known for her landscape paintings and woodblock prints whose works are displayed at museums across the Northwest, died Monday [November 26, 2007]. She was 86.

 

DeWeese died at her studio south of Bozeman. Dahl Funeral Chapel confirmed her death.

 

Her first oil painting was of her dog, done when she was 12 years old.

 

In 1995, DeWeese received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from Montana State University, and she received the Montana Governor's Award for the Arts.

Robert M. Pirsig in
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

(April 1974) —

"The rhetoricians of ancient Greece were the first teachers in the history of the Western world. Plato vilified them in all his works to grind an axe of his own and since what we know about them is almost entirely from Plato they’re unique in that they’ve stood condemned throughout history without ever having their side of the story told. The Church of Reason that I talked about was founded on their graves. It’s supported today by their graves. And when you dig deep into its foundations you come across ghosts."

I look at my watch. It’s after two. "It’s a long story," I say.

"You should write all this down," Gennie says.


Quod erat
demonstrandum.

Star and Diamond: A Tombstone for Plato

For more information,
click on the black monolith.

Related material:

In the Details
and
Deep Beauty.

Thursday November 29, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:44 am

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Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Tuesday November 27, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:07 am
A Story of Sorts:
Deep Beauty

Tuesday November 27, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:23 am

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Tuesday November 27, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:22 am

x

Tuesday November 27, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

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Sunday, November 25, 2007

Sunday November 25, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:44 am
Final Club

Paul Roche on the set of Oedipus the King, and Norman Mailer, in NY Times obituaries Nov. 25, 2007

Related material:

A phrase from
Moses, Sophocles, and the
Oedipal Robert A. Heinlein:

Stranger in a Strange Land

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Saturday November 24, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:06 am
Standards

“The undermining of
standards of seriousness
is almost complete.”
Susan Sontag

Doonesbury 11/23/07:
 
http://www.log24.com/log/pix07A/071123-Doonesbury34.gif

For standards of comedy,
see Angels in Arabia.

For standards of tragicomedy,
see Molly Ivins on the owner
of Condé Nast Publications:

Murray Kempton once observed,
‘I think Si Newhouse has
lost his moral compass
since Roy Cohn died.'”
Molly Ivins

“Lovely.
Just lovely.”
 

 

 


Devil’s Advocate

Happy Holidays from Roy Cohn,
Mike Nichols, Al Pacino, and Elvis:

http://www.log24.com/log/pix07A/071124-MurrayElvis.jpg

“Thousands have impersonated Elvis Presley over the years. Now, Bill Murray offers his own indelible tribute to the king of rock ‘n’ roll– on the cover of Condé Nast’s new music/movie magazine, Movies Rock.

The magazine, which covers music and its impact on filmmaking, launches in November as a supplement in the December subscriber issues of 14 Condé Nast publications.”

Friday, November 23, 2007

Friday November 23, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:24 am
Another Pattern

“It seems, as one becomes older,
That the past has another pattern,
and ceases to be
      a mere sequence….”

— T. S. Eliot, Harvard ’10

Quoted in Log24 on
November 11, 2003

A search at the New York Times
for the subject of the previous entry
reveals another aspect of that date:

What Happened Before the Big Bang?

“…trying to imagine how the universe made its ‘quantum leap from eternity into time,’ as the physicist Dr. Sidney Coleman of Harvard once put it. Some physicists speculate that on the other side of the looking glass of Time Zero is another…”

November 11, 2003

– By DENNIS OVERBYE
– Technology – 819 words

Related material:

Peter Woit in his weblog
on Nov. 12, 2007:

“Is it a good idea for physicists to appear on a radio show discussing what happened before the big bang, or does the lack of any evidence about this or of a convincing model mean that this is just inherently too speculative a topic to be sold as serious science to a wide audience? Should one perhaps leave this topic to the Bogdanovs?”

Or to T.S. Eliot,
Annie Dillard, and
William Shakespeare?
 
For more on the date
11/11, see
Plato, Pegasus, and
the Evening Star.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Thursday November 22, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:44 am
Aspects of Symmetry

For theoretical physicist
Sidney Coleman,

Sidney Coleman (photo from Harvard  home page)

who died on Sunday
(Nov. 18, 2007)

A comment at Peter Woit’s weblog today:

T says (3:43 AM today)

I still don’t quite understand what *EXACTLY* Sidney Coleman contributed that merits such deep reverence for him after his demise; was he like Weinberg – i.e. a very intuitive and thoughtful field theorist – or Feynman – a highly creative and original thinker; or simply a good teacher who taught at (world-famous) Harvard – and hence his stature?

My reply (4:26 AM today, awaiting moderation):

T: The following quotes may be of interest.

“Sidney Coleman comes as close as any active physicist to assuming the mantle of Wolfgang Pauli as a trenchant critic of research and as an expositor of ongoing developments in theoretical physics.” –Book review of Aspects of Symmetry

“He has… played the role of Wolfgang Pauli of his generation; he liked to disprove ideas, and he was also a genius in explaining things to others.” –Lubos Motl

Related material:

Faust in Copenhagen

and

Kernel of Eternity

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Wednesday November 21, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

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Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Tuesday November 20, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:44 am
Death on a Friday

and the
Magic of Numbers

PA Lottery Friday, Nov. 16, 2007: Midday 717, Evening 419

Above: PA Lottery on
Friday, November 16th,
the date of death
for noted leftist attorney
Victor Rabinowitz

“Mr. Rabinowitz was a member
of the Communist Party
from 1942 until the early 1960s,
he wrote in his memoir,
Unrepentant Leftist (1996).
He said the party
seemed the best vehicle
to fight for social justice.”

The New York Times,
 Nov. 20, 2007

Related material:

7/17,
4/19,
and
 Friday.

From the Harvard Crimson on Friday:

“Robert Scanlan, a professor of theater
who knew Beckett personally,
directed the plays….
He said that performing Beckett as part of
the New College Theatre’s inaugural series
represents an auspicious beginning.”

From Log24 on 4/19–
Drama Workshop“–
a note of gratitude
from the Virginia Tech killer:

“Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ,
to inspire generations of the weak
and the defenseless people.”

“It’s not for me. For my children,
for my brothers and sisters…
I did it for them.”

Manifesto of Cho  

Party on, Victor.

For further drama, see

The Crimson Passion.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Monday November 19, 2007

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:56 pm
Lament for a DJ

In memory of Philadelphia DJ Hy Lit, who died on Saturday at 73:

"Chuck Berry didn't need prompting to insert, in his 'Sweet Little Sixteen,' the lines 'Well, they'll be rockin' on Bandstand, Philadelphia, P.A.' I remember 'Bandstand' before it was 'American…' It started in 1952, when Walter Annenberg, whose Triangle Publications owned the WFIL radio and television stations, suggested an afternoon TV dance party…."

— Richard Corliss, TIME magazine, July 14, 2001

Related material: Back to the Future (Log24 on Sunday)

Monday November 19, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:45 am

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Monday November 19, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:09 am

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Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sunday November 18, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:07 pm

x

Sunday November 18, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:02 am
For Martin Scorsese
on his birthday, from
the New York Lottery:

Words and Music

Words:
In the Details

"It was only in retrospect
 that the silliness became profound.
The players were becoming possessors
of 'a truth with implicit powers
of good and evil,' Gino Segrè writes
in Faust in Copenhagen

And 'the devil… was in the details.'"

— George Johnson of
The New York Times,
quoted in Log24 on 6/23.

Music:
A Black Berry

"Her wall is filled with pictures,
she gets 'em one by one…."

Chuck Berry, quoted
in Log24 on 2/13.

NY Lottery Nov. 17, 2007: Midday 623, Evening 213

Related material:
Yesterday's Log24 entry

BlackBerry with pictures from Log24

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Saturday November 17, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:24 am
Every Picture Tells a Story.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Friday November 16, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:07 pm
Sacralizing the Place:
Love, Age, and a Face

Yesterday evening was, according to today’s Harvard Crimson, “the opening night of three usually neglected works by Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. The three plays, originally produced in April 2006 to commemorate what would have been Beckett’s 100th birthday, were part of the inaugural series for the New College Theatre. Robert Scanlan, a professor of theater who knew Beckett personally, directed the plays…. He said that performing Beckett as part of the New College Theatre’s inaugural series represents an auspicious beginning. ‘I personally think it sacralizes the place to perform Beckett here,’ he said.”

“The first play, ‘Words and Music,’ displayed the frustrations of the creative process: a writer, Joe, and Bob, a character personified by [a] musical trio, worked with and against each other to create art.

The duo first tried to capture love through words, but Joe’s attempts quickly descended into clichés.

Then, Joe and Bob tried to capture age, but they failed there too.

Finally, they tried to capture ‘the face’– a vision of a lost love. While they were able to achieve some meaning, this soon came to an abrupt end when the elderly man who’d been leading their creative endeavor simply stood up and walked away.”

BONNIE J. KAVOUSSI

Related material:

Log24 on
Holy Thursday 2006
:
the alleged centenary
of Beckett’s birth

Catholic Tastes

Pasta Monster Gets
Academic Attention

(Today’s NY Times)

An Elderly Man

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Sunday November 11, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:00 pm
The Missing Link

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Wednesday November 7, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 pm

Aesthetics for Jesuits,
continued from
St. Ignatius Loyola's Day

"Highly instructive and readable"

Description of Dorothy Sayers's The Mind of the Maker on page 106 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University Press paperback, 1963, by William T. Noon, Society of Jesus

Related material:

Wednesday November 7, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am

z

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Tuesday November 6, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:25 pm
The Third Person

Of Modern Art


The New York Times
November 6, 2007

More on the Career of
the Genius Who Boldly
Compared Himself to God

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI

“Picasso… once said…

‘… No wonder his [Picasso’s] style is so ambiguous. It’s like God’s. God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style. He just keeps on trying other things. The same with this sculptor….’

The comparison to God, like the use of the third person, was deliberate, of course.”

Of Modern Poetry

The poem of the mind
    in the act of finding
What will suffice ….
                            … It has
To construct a new stage.
    It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor,
    slowly and
With meditation, speak words
    that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear
    of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it
    wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible
    audience listens,
Not to the play, but to
    itself, expressed
In an emotion as of
    two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one.
   The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark….

— Wallace Stevens in
    Parts of a World, 1942


Of Modern Metaphysics

“For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First, [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity.”

— Concluding speech of St. Michael the Archangel in a 1937 play, “The Zeal of Thy House,” by Dorothy Sayers, as quoted in her 1941 book The Mind of the Maker. That entire book was, she wrote, an expansion of St. Michael’s speech.

Related material:

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Sunday November 4, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:00 pm

x

Sunday November 4, 2007

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 3:00 am

Talking of Michelangelo:

High Concept

On this date in 1948, T. S. Eliot
won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The 4x4 square

 Non ha l’ottimo artista in se alcun concetto,
Ch’un marmo solo in se non circoscriva
Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva
La man che ubbidisce all’intelletto.
(The best artist has in himself no concept
in a single block of marble not contained;
only the hand obeying mind will find it.)
— Michelangelo, as quoted
by Erwin Panofsky in

Idea: A Concept in Art Theory

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Saturday November 3, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:00 pm
The Answer

"Our existence is
beyond understanding.
Nobody has an answer."

Anthony Hopkins

"Si me de veras quieres,
deja me en paz."

Lucero Hernandez

Related material:

outis.blogspot.com

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