“I need a photo opportunity….” — Paul Simon

See “Charles Williams” + Witchcraft  in this journal.

Williams was one of the Inklings, a group of Christian
writers that included C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien.

See also Kurtz in this  journal.

Two items from this morning’s news:

“Sasaki Roshi trained for years in a distinctively strict style of Zen
that he transplanted to the U.S. His students rose at 3 a.m.
for chanting, exhausting hours of meditation and one-on-one
meetings with their teacher, who would pose impenetrable
koans, riddles like: ‘When you see the flower, where is God?'”

For a mathematician’s example of an alleged Zen ideal, see the feast day
this year of St. Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Wikipedia article:

Reductionism is a philosophical position
which holds that a complex system is nothing but
the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be
reduced to accounts of individual constituents.^[1]

 1.  See e.g. Reductionism in the Interdisciplinary
Encyclopedia of Religion and Science.

 “The Website of the Interdisciplinary Encyclopedia on
Religion and Science  is edited by the Advanced School
for Interdisciplinary Research (ADSIR), operating at the
Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome….”

For a reductionist Holy Cross, see yesterday’s noon post.

This post was suggested by…

• The word “zeppelin” in this journal
• This evening’s post “Actual Talent“

“Oh, the humanity!” — Reporter’s comment

“Just a lying rhyme for seven!” — Playwright Tom Stoppard on Heaven

Related material in this journal:  Lying Rhyme and Happy Birthday.

This is a post in memory of artist Otto Piene, who reportedly died
at 86 on Thursday, July 17, 2014, in Berlin.

*For the title, see Alternate Reality, a post of Saturday, July 19, 2014.
See also Piene and paradigms, and Paradigm Shift from the date of death
for Piene and Hartsfield.

Wernher von Braun

See also The Zero Theorem in this journal.

Click on the above video for a theological remark by Clint Eastwood.

“Zero is a group of artists founded by Heinz Mack and
Otto Piene….” — Wikipedia

“The title ZERO was the result of months of search
and was finally found more or less by chance.
From the beginning we looked upon the term
not as an expression of nihilism – or a dada-like gag,
but as a word indicating a zone of silence and of
pure possibilities for a new beginning as at the
count-down when rockets take off-  zero is the
incommensurable zone in which the old state turns
into the new.”

— Otto Piene, 1964

(Where Entertainment Is God , continued)

In memory of artist Otto Piene — a news item from last May
at the ZERO Foundation website on an exhibition that closes tomorrow —

2014-05-15
Today is the opening of the exhibition ZERO — Zwischen Himmel und Erde
in Friedrichshafen. The Zeppelin Museum is showing wonderful artworks
all related to heaven and earth by various ZERO artists
such as Piene, Mack, Uecker, Klein, Luther, and Manzoni.
ZERO – Zwischen Himmel und Erde
Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen
15.05. – 20.07.2014
www.zeppelin-museum.de

“Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar”
— Song lyric from previous post

“In a technologically advanced 1939, the zeppelin Hindenburg III
arrives in New York City, mooring atop the Empire State Building.”

— Wikipedia on the first scene of the 2004 film
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow“

From The Thin White Duke:

“When I was living in my apartment in Berlin,
I would sing this at breakfast every morning.”

Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar
Oh, don’t ask why, no, don’t ask why
For we must find the next whiskey bar

Or if we don’t find the next whiskey bar
I tell you we must die, I tell you we must die
I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die

Read more:  David Bowie – Alabama Song Lyrics | MetroLyrics

See also…

“Wir trauern um Otto Piene, der unerwartet am 17.7 in Berlin gestorben ist.” 

The Los Angeles Times  on entertainer Elaine Stritch,
who died yesterday (Thursday, July 17, 2014):

“She made few apologies in her career, describing herself as
a ‘Catholic, diabetic, alcoholic, pain in the ass.'” — David Ng

“Band of angels, lead me home.” — Song lyric

Detail:

Scene from 3:10 to Yuma  (1957)

Related material:

Continued from August 20, 2013

In honor of Sam Peckinpah, the closing shot of his last film:

“Am I still on?” — Ending line of  The Osterman Weekend  (1983)

At the end of today’s previous post, Sequel,
there is a tribute to jazz great Charlie Haden,
who died yesterday.

A darker requiem, for another musical figure
who also died yesterday:

Related material:  Prequels to this post—
Willkommen  (June 27) and yesterday’s Back to 1955.

Click image below for the clearer original.

“Paradigm Talent Agency are supporting with casting.

Emperor  is described as a look at a debauched world
of wealth, sex, manipulation and treason.”

— The Hollywood Reporter : “Cannes: Adrien Brody
to play Charles V in Lee Tamahori‘s ‘Emperor,'”
2:54 AM PST May 19, 2014, by Scott Roxborough

Related material from Santa Cruz, California:

“On or about or between 11/22/2013 and 11/24/2013….”

Related material from this journal:

“Fiction,” a post of St. Cecilia’s Day, 11/22/2013.

See, too, yesterday’s noon post “Nowhere” and
the April 27-28, 2013, posts tagged Around the Clock.

The Decline and Fall of Augustus Gibbons?

An essay linked to here on the date of Kuhn’s
death discussed the film “Good Will Hunting”:

“You can be sure that when an experienced movie director
like Gus Van Sant selects an establishing shot for the lead
character, he does so with considerable care, on the advice
of an expert.”

Establishing shots —

1. From a post of January 29, 2014:

2. From a post of April 12, 2011:

Parting shot —

From another post of January 29, 2014:

Note Watson‘s title advice.

(Continued)

And now for the musical!

From Ben Brantley’s July Fourth review of a British play —

“The friction and the possibilities of fusion” —

“Rubbin’ sticks and stones together
makes the sparks ignite…
Skyrockets in flight!”

“If you can bounce high, bounce for her too.”

– F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Oh, pretty baby…” — Frankie Valli at A Capitol Fourth  last night.

Related material — Mira Sorvino in The Great Gatsby .

“Jersey girls are tough.” — Garfield.

Continues…

“A physicist who played a central role in developing
the theory of supersymmetry – often known as SUSY –
has died.”

— Times Higher Education , July 3, 2014

In honor of the above physicist, Bruno Zumino,
here are two sets of Log24 posts:

Structure, May 2-4, 2013 (the dates of a physicists’ celebration
for Zumino’s 90th birthday)

Hallmark, June 21, 2014 (the date of Zumino’s death)

The Los Alamos Vision

“Gates said his foundation is an advocate for the Common Core State Standards
that are part of the national curriculum and focus on mathematics and language
arts. He said learning ‘needs to be on the edge’ where it is challenging but not
too challenging, and that students receive the basics through Common Core.

‘It’s great to teach other things, but you need that foundation,’ he said.”

— T. S. Last in the Albuquerque Journal , 12:05 AM Tuesday, July 1, 2014

See also the previous post (Core Mathematics: Arrays) and, elsewhere
in this journal,

“Eight is a Gate.” — Mnemonic rhyme:

Mathematics vulgarizer Keith Devlin on July 1
posted an essay on Common Core math education.

His essay was based on a New York Times story from June 29,
“Math Under Common Core Has Even Parents Stumbling.”

An image from that story:

The Times  gave no source, other than the photographer’s name,
for the above image.  Devlin said,

“… the image of a Common Core math worksheet
the Times  chose to illustrate its story showed
a very sensible, and deep use of dot diagrams,
to understand structure in arithmetic.”  

Devlin seems ignorant of the fact that there is
no such thing as a “Common Core math worksheet.”
The Core is a set of standards without  worksheets
(one of its failings).

Neither the Times  nor whoever filled out the worksheet
nor Devlin seemed to grasp that the image the Times  used
shows some multiplication word problems that are more
advanced than the topic that Devlin called the
“deep use of dot diagrams to understand structure in arithmetic.”

This Core topic is as follows:

For some worksheets that are  (purportedly) relevant, see,
for instance…

http://search.theeducationcenter.com/search/
_Common_Core_Label-2.OA.C.4–keywords-math_worksheets,
in particular the worksheet
http://www.theeducationcenter.com/editorial_content/multipli-city:

Some other exercises said to be related to standard 2.OA.C.4:

The Common Core of course fails to provide materials for parents
that are easily findable on the Web and that give relevant background
for the above second-grade topic.  It leaves this crucial task up to
individual states and school districts, as well as to private enterprise.
This, and not the parents’ ignorance described in  Devlin’s snide remarks,
accounts for the frustration that the Times  story describes.

… From Sidney Poitier, in honor of  the late Paul Mazursky:

Masonic coda:

“All in all…” — Pink Floyd