Log24

For Brother Taylor:

Bobbie Gentry is 64 today.

“It was the third of June,
another sleepy, dusty Delta day….”

Third of June, 2007

Third of June, 2008

From Josephine Klein, Jacob’s Ladder: Essays on Experiences of the Ineffable in the Context of Contemporary Psychotherapy, London, Karnac Books, 2003–

Page 14 —
Gerard Manley Hopkins

“Quiddity and haeccity were contentious topics in medieval discussions about the nature of reality, and the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins would have encountered these concepts during his Jesuit training. W. H. Gardner, who edited much of Hopkins’s work, writes that

in 1872, while studying medieval philosophy… Hopkins came across the writing of Duns Scotus, and in that subtle thinker’s Principles of Individuation and Theory of Knowledge he discovered what seemed to be a philosophical corroboration of his own private theory of inscape and instress. [Gardner, Gerard Manley Hopkins: Poems and Prose, Penguin, 1953, p. xxiii]

In this useful introduction to his selection of Hopkins’s work, Gardner writes that Hopkins was always looking for the law or principle that gave an object ‘its delicate and surprising uniqueness.’ This was for Hopkins ‘a fundamental beauty which is the active principle of all true being, the source of all true knowledge and delight.’ Clive Bell called it ‘significant form’; Hopkins called it ‘inscape’– ‘the rich and revealing oneness of the natural object’ (pp. xx-xxiv). In this chapter, I call it quiddity.”

My comment on a discussion of elliptic curves and modular forms at Secret Blogging Seminar, about 10 PM tonight:

Update of about 10:45 PM tonight:

A reply by the author of the discussion, Scott Carnahan:

I don’t think anyone doubted that there is a connection between elliptic curves and modular forms on the level I described above. However, the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture refers to a more advanced idea about a deeper connection.

Carnahan then gives a one-paragraph summary, definitely not popularized, of the deeper connection.

Keyes

"I say high, you say low,
you say why,
and I say I don't know.
Oh, no.
You say goodbye
and I say hello."

— Hello Goodbye *

Thanks to NBC Nightly News tonight for a story on the following:

Manhattanhenge is an evening when "the Sun sets in exact alignment with the Manhattan grid, fully illuminating every single cross-street…."

Full Sun on grid:
Friday, July 11–
8:24 PM EDT

Related material from the late
Tom Disch on St. Sarah's Day:
 

* Walter Everett, in The Beatles as Musicians , has a note on the song "Hello Goodbye"–

"189. The extra-long coda… was referred to as the 'Maori finale' from the start…."

  (Updated Feb. 27, 2013, to replace an incorrect reference in the footnote
   to a book by Stanley Cavell instead of the correct book, by Walter Everett.)

x

"A devoted father, Smith passes on his philosophy of life to his children through chess, among other things.

'My father taught me how to play chess at seven and introduced beautiful concepts that I try to pass on to my kids. The elements and concepts of life are so perfectly illustrated on a chess board. The ability to accurately assess your position is the key to chess, which I also think is the key to life.'

He pauses, searching for an example. 'Everything you do in your life is a move. You wake up in the morning, you strap on a gun, and you walk out on the street– that's a move. You've made a move and the universe is going to respond with its move.

'Whatever move you're going to make in your life to be successful, you have to accurately access the next couple of moves– like what's going to happen if you do this? Because once you've made your move, you can't take it back. The universe is going to respond.'

Smith has just finished reading The Alchemist, by the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho: 'It says the entire world is contained in one grain of sand, and you can learn everything you need to learn about the entire universe from that one grain of sand. That is the kind of concept I'm teaching my kids.'"

Line 678 of The Bacchae —

From a Brandeis class’s translation (2006):

Messenger:

[677] Our feeding herds of cattle were just climbing
[678] above the treeline when the sun
[679] sent forth its rays to warm the earth.

Related review by Charles Isherwood in today’s New York Times:

“A god deserves a great entrance. And Dionysus, the god of wine and party boy of Mount Olympus, whose celebratory rituals got the whole drama thing rolling in the first place, surely merits a spectacular one….”

Line 506 of The Bacchae —

From a 1988 translation (pdf) by Matthew A. Neuburg—

Dionysus:

[506] You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re doing, who you are.

Translator’s note:

506 The state of this line in the MSS has driven editors to despair; in particular, the first of the things Pentheus is said not to know is, in Greek, “what you are living,” which seems doubtful Greek. Many emendations have been proposed; I accept here DODDS’s emendation, but I have a feeling we’re missing something.

In memory of
Senator Jesse Helms, R-NC:

“I’m a church beside the highway
       where the ditches never drain,
I’m a Baptist like my daddy,
       and Jesus knows my name.”

— Mary Chapin Carpenter