Log24

Related material:

Frank J. Prial on the late singer Tony Martin—

— and, on Jan. 1, 2005, on beverage marketing:

Every picture tells a story.

Happy birthday to Hilary Swank.

"There is no question about what arithmetic is for
or why it is supported. Society cannot proceed
without it. Addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division, percentages: though not all citizens can
deal fluently with all of them, we make the
assumption that they can when necessary.
Those who cannot are sometimes at a disadvantage.

Algebra, though, is another matter."

— Underwood Dudley in the Notices of the
American Mathematical Society, May 2010:
"What Is Mathematics For?" 

A less nuanced remark from the American
Mathematical Society (AMS) today—

"The answer to the recent Op-Ed piece
in The New York Times  entitled
'Is Algebra Necessary?'
is resoundingly YES!"

— Eric Friedlander, AMS president

* A review of philosophical terminology—

"The distinction between necessary truth
and contingent truth is a version of Leibniz 's 
distinction between truths of reason and truths
of fact. A necessary truth must be true and
could not be false, whatever way the world is. 
It is true in itself. A contingent truth, on the other 
hand, depends upon the empirical world and might 
have been false had the world been different." 

— The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy

On painter Karl Benjamin of Claremont, California,
who reportedly died on Thursday—

He played them music
and everything was concentrated and timeless
and all were artists 'til the bell rang.

Another remark from Claremont—

"'Once upon a time' used to be a gateway to
a land that was inviting precisely because
it was timeless, like the stories it introduced
and their ageless lessons about the human condition."

– Dorothea Israel Wolfson, 
   Claremont Review of Books, Summer 2006

Benjamin was a professor emeritus at Pomona College.

The end of the beginning of the London Games 
suggests other games —

Shadows (July 14) —

A Game of Shadows — "You know my methods."

Related religious material —

The Feast of Saint  Jude,  2011.

(Continued from July 22)

Manhattan, July 22, 2012 — "Once upon a time, in a quiet corner
of the Middle East, there lived a shepherd named Gyges.  Despite
the hardships in his life Gyges was relatively satisfied with his meager
existence. Then, one day, he found a ring buried in a nearby cave."
Read more…

"I want you on the Swansea lathe today."
— Boss of the Christ figure in "The Machinist" (2004)

Related material in this journal—

Dylan Thomas and Modern Times—

IMDb trivia page on "The Machinist" (2004)—

"The time of 1:30 AM is significant throughout the movie.
Trevor often notices something out of the ordinary at this time.
During the 1 hour 30 minute mark in the movie,
the major plot twist is revealed."

As for the date  1/30… See Tolkien on telepathy.

(Backstory: The Gospel According to Father Hardon )

(Continued)

Part I:

Christian Bale as a Spanish Christ-parody in "The Machinist" (2004)

Part II:

"The expression 'the devil is in the details'
is turned on its head in the exhibit 'The Sacred Made Real'
at Washington's National Gallery of Art…." 
— Catholic News Service, 2010

Part III:

Tonight's New York Times  obituaries

Part IV:

"My goodness, there must be a hole in this glass."
— Maria in "The Machinist" (2004)

Wilson Pickett and the Holy…

L'Chaim

For those who like puzzles—

What film's page at IMDb recommends
the following "also liked" choices?

The Interpreter (2005), Identity (2003), The Game (1997),
The Ghost Writer (2010), The Machinist (2004), The Number 23 (2007)

A similar puzzle: Related Books

"Always with a little humor"
— Manchurian Candidate

"Sound of a Theorem"

In Memoriam

Ding

"One ring to bring them all…"
— J. R. R. Tolkien, Catholic author

Today in History, July 22, by The Associated Press—

"In 1934, bank robber John Dillinger was shot to death
by federal agents outside Chicago's Biograph Theater,
where he had just seen the Clark Gable movie
'Manhattan Melodrama.'"

From a  Manhattan Melodrama—

"Follow the Ring" 

Piatigorsky died on Sunday, July 15. Notes in this  journal from that date—

• A July 15 update within a post of Sunday, July 8, and
• Converse.

Backstory—

• The Purloined Diamond,
• July 16 , and
• Lozengy Argent and Gules.

Colin Moynihan on the late Alexander Cockburn—

"His attachment to left-wing journalism— and controversy—
was forged very early on. His father, Claud Cockburn, while
covering the Spanish Civil War for The Daily Worker , joined
the Republican forces fighting the rebellion of Francisco
Franco. (Claud Cockburn, under a pseudonym, also wrote
novels, including Beat the Devil , which was made into a
film with Humphrey Bogart and which his son used as the
title of his column in The Nation .)"

A video linked to in this evening's earlier post suggests
an antidote to the film oeuvre  of Guillermo del Toro—
in particular, to Pan's Labyrinth.

For a leftist who wrote well—

Here's your ticket, pack your bags,
            time for jumpin' overboard 
Transportation is here 

—Talking Heads lyric

The New York Times  online front page
update of 10:11 this morning provides
a sort of antidote to Saturday morning
cartoons.

The update's time suggests a check
of this  journal's most recent post
with the date  10/11. It turns out
to be a meditation on art and
the speed of perception.

Related material:

A linked-to post, Twenty-Four.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/
la-pn-romney-colorado-shooting-is-
unspeakable-tragedy-20120720,0,1226295.story 

Romney: Colorado shooting is 'unspeakable tragedy'

By Seema Mehta 
July 20, 2012, 11:15 a.m.


BOW, N.H.—Hours after a shooter killed a dozen people
in a Colorado cinema, Mitt Romney scrubbed a scheduled
campaign rally Friday and instead offered his somber
condolences and prayers to the victims and their 
families.

“Our hearts break with the sadness of this unspeakable
tragedy. Ann and I join the president and first lady
and all Americans in offering our deepest condolences
to those whose lives were shattered in a few moments, 
a few moments of evil in Colorado,” Romney told a few
hundred people gathered at a lumber yard here.

“I stand before you today not as a man running for 
office but as a father and grandfather, a husband, an
American. This is a time for each of us to look into 
our hearts and remember how much we love one another 
and how much we love and how much we care for our great
country. There’s so much love and goodness in the heart
of America.”

Romney, wearing a navy blue suit and blue tie, spoke
for four minutes. The trademark campaign banners with
slogans such as “Believe in America” or “Obama’s Upside-
Down Economy” were gone, leaving a handful of American
flags as the backdrop. Before Romney spoke, Father 
Christian Tutor, an Anglican Catholic priest, led a 
prayer. ...

Caped Crusader

See also related juvenile humor, as well as Aurora in this  journal.

For those who prefer fiction:

"Many Dimensions  (1931) — An evil antiquarian illegally purchases
the fabled Stone of Suleiman (Williams uses this Muslim form
rather than the more familiar King Solomon) from its Islamic guardian
in Baghdad and returns to England to discover not only that the Stone
can multiply itself infinitely without diminishing the original, but that it
also allows its possessor to transcend the barriers of space and time."

— Wikipedia article on the author Charles Williams

A Passage to India… With Slides and Chanting

"Why art thou here, 
Come from the farthest Steppe of India?"

— Midsummer Night's Dream 

"After graduating, Mr. Franken headed for Harvard,
while Mr. Davis chose the University of the Pacific
in Stockton, Calif., because, he said, he had heard
that it had a foreign study program in India, where
he hoped to smoke opium. (They did, and he did.)"

— Obituary of Saturday Night Live  writer Tom Davis
by Douglas Martin in this evening's online New York Times

"Frances Alenikoff, a dancer, choreographer and visual artist
whose performances often interwove movement with slides,
film, speaking, tape recordings and chant, died on June 23
in Southampton, N.Y. She was 91."

— Margalit Fox, online NY Times of July 8, 2012

Click for up-to-date context from the Times.

Connoisseurs of hermeneutics will find that interpretations
of three of the above numbers are not hard to come by.

Consider, say, dates, post numbers in Log24, times, and so forth.

For the fourth number, 0131, try the following search:

http://www.m759.net/wordpress/?s=0131.

"History, Stephen said…."

For a black widow —

See history in today's Boston.com
and Waldorf in this journal.

I need a photo opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard

— Paul Simon

See also the name Romanova
and the name Anastasia.

Éxito

Or: The Death of Ivan Illich

See For David Lavery and the prequel Art Isn't Easy. 

"Time for you to see the field."

— GitHub

— Got

(Continued.)

Jaws for Frank

Part I: October 8, 2010

Above: Frank Langella in "Starting Out in the Evening" Right: Johnny Depp in "The Ninth Gate"

Part II: Noon Today

"The rest is the madness of art."

See also Patterns in the Carpets
and Saturday's Shadows.

The New York Times  online opinion today—

"Merit has been traditionally equated with intelligence, industriousness, educational attainment, creativity and competency. In a meritocracy, formal qualifications provide opportunity, position is no longer ascribed by birth, and rewards flow to those who excel.

The rise of meritocratic competition as the preeminent means of social stratification in America has been hailed as a welcome advance because it replaced a society dominated by an upper class dependent on inherited wealth and status. The transition to meritocracy has, however, had unintended consequences. In the business sector, particularly, other less benign qualities emerge as essential to meritocratic success: aggressiveness, ruthlessness, dominance-seeking, victimizing behavior, acquisitiveness and the disciplined pursuit of self-interest." 

— Journalism professor Thomas B. Edsall discussing remarks last December by Mitt Romney

Note the subtle shift here from "merit" to "meritocracy." Romney used the former word, not the latter.

Note also this sentence, aimed particularly at meritocratic New York Times  readers—

"In a meritocracy, formal qualifications provide opportunity… and rewards flow to those who excel."

Edsall lies. In a meritocracy, rewards flow to those who rubber-stamp "formal qualifications." See particularly Walter Kirn on meritocracy.

Edsall is pandering to Times  readers. Romney was pandering to a different group—

A tribute to Richard D. Zanuck in the style of Tim Burton—

Part I

Part II

Part III

The above Zanuck interview on Dark Shadows
was published on Midsummer Eve, June 23, 2012.

Also from June 23, 2012—

Related material— Russell on Hardy.

From this journal on June 19, 2012—

Walter Gropius on space—

"Was ist Raum, wie können wir ihn
 erfassen und gestalten?"

Walter Gropius,

The Theory and
Organization of the
Bauhaus  (1923)

A book published on the same date—
June 19, 2012:

"… what Chalmers called the convergence of coincidence—
a force majeure of unrelated events that shaped one's life,
that perhaps defined the concept of life itself.
He believed in the power of that force."

— The Cryptos Conundrum , by Chase Brandon

See also Chase Brandon in Sunday's Huffington Post .

"I wrote another book."
— Robert De Niro as Harlan Kane

A Story That Works “There is the dark, eternally silent, unknown universe; there are the friend-enemy minds shouting and whispering their tales and always seeking the three miracles — that minds should really touch, or that the silent universe should speak, tell minds a story, or (perhaps the same thing) that there should be a story that works, that is all hard facts, all reality, with no illusions and no fantasy; and lastly, there is lonely, story-telling, wonder-questing, mortal me.” – Fritz Leiber in “The Button Molder“

Dichtung ist Stiftung.

For a White House daughter…

See Sweater and Light.

From this evening's Capitol Fourth—

She goes off with a great big bang
Boys I tell ya it's a beautiful thing

Related material— Big Bang  in this journal—

Detective Cruz enters Planck's Constant Café in "The Big Bang."

    See also Symbology, The Lost Cornerstone, and Now, Here's My Plan.

A story in two parts —

Part I (April 1986) and Part II (June 2012).

—Rhodes, I want you to get to know people like that.
 I'd like to sort of take you under my wing and educate you.

—Shucks, General, I'm just a country boy.

"And when I think about the values
that are important to me today,
I think first about meritocracy."

— Robert Diamond, Colby College '73, now
Chair of the Colby College Board of Trustees, in a
commencement address on Sunday, May 25, 2008

Other remarks on that Sunday —

• "Caught up in circles…"
• Wechsler Cubes
• Hall of Mirrors
• Sermon

Related material from Colby—

See also an MAA report on Gouvea from June 6, 2012.

Images from a Google search suggested by
last night's post Coming to Meet, by the recent
film "Archie's Final Project," and by a Thursday,
June 28, 2012, Times Higher Education  piece, 
"Raiders of the Lost Archives"—

    Log24, December 8, 2008 —

"Let the fingers do the research."
          — Archive Raiders

"High summer holds the earth." 

— James Agee, quoted in a post by University Diaries
linked to here on Thursday.

See also For Taylor and Country Strong.

* A phrase from the quoted Agee poem

Hexagram 44:
Coming to Meet

"This hexagram indicates a situation in which
the principle of darkness, after having been eliminated,
furtively and unexpectedly obtrudes again from within
and below. Of its own accord the female principle
comes to meet the male. It is an unfavourable and
dangerous situation, and we must understand and
promptly prevent the possible consequences.

The hexagram is linked with the fifth month
[June-July], because at the summer solstice
the principle of darkness gradually becomes
ascendant again."

— Richard Wilhelm 

To counteract the principle of darkness—

The Uploading (Friday— St. Peter's Day, 2012),

Thor's Light Bulb Joke, and …

 .