“There are dark comedies. There are screwball comedies.
But there aren’t many dark screwball comedies.
And if Nora Ephron’s Lucky Numbers is any indication,
there’s a good reason for that.”
— Todd Anthony, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Perhaps another indication — De Palma's Body Double .
"Like a rose under the April snow . . . ." — Streisand
"The Demolished Man was a novel that had fascinated De Palma
since the late 1950s and appealed to his background in mathematics
and avant-garde storytelling. Its unconventional unfolding of plot
(exemplified in its mathematical layout of dialogue) and its stress on
perception have analogs in De Palma's filmmaking." — Wikipedia
This, together with the Cuernavaca balcony in Deschooling MIT, is
perhaps enough of a clue for mystified theologians on St. Peter's Day.
In memory of actress Linda Cristal — The New York Times today —
“After a modest film career, followed by guest roles on television,
Ms. Cristal auditioned for ‘The High Chaparral,’ a western
developed by David Dortort, the creator and producer of ‘Bonanza.’
In her telling, it was a memorable occasion.”
Judy Carne and Hoss in NBC’s “Bonanza,” a nemesis of
CBS Sunday programming.
The New York Times on “Bonanza” in 2010 —
“Mr. Dortort oversaw production of the show for most of its run. In addition
to telling stories based on historical events involving the Comstock Lode and
the oncoming Civil War, the show dealt with themes like racial prejudice and
religious tolerance. Mostly, though, its drama, and its popularity, were because
of its focus on the Cartwrights and their tightknit bond.
‘What is the message?’ Mr. Dortort said. ‘Love is the message.’
David Solomon Katz was born in Brooklyn to Jewish immigrant parents from
Eastern Europe on Oct. 23, 1916, and grew up in a neighborhood famous for
the gangsters of Murder Inc. …”
Detail from the Norwegian webpage in the previous post —
Related material in this journal — Chariot Race and Vajrayana.
For the shirt, see Norwegian artist Josefine Lyche in
Related material — A pyramid by Lyche and erotic Picasso:
Those who enjoy the occult may be entertained by the number 347 in
“Pablo Picasso. Suite 347.” That number appeared in this journal,
notably, on Christmas Eve 2005 as a page number from the classic
The Club Dumas , a novel by Arturo Perez-Reverte.
Or: Kipling and the Temple of Doom
See also Kipling and The Temple.
This post was suggested by a remark of Holland Cotter in The New York Times
on April 19, 2012 —
“An 18th-century Jain diagram of the cosmos turns the universe
into a kind of salvational board game. “
Hence . . .
The previous post, and Wallace Stevens, suggest a search
in this journal for “The Trials of Device.” That search yields,
among other images, the following —
The Mephisto Waltz author, Fred Mustard Stewart, reportedly died
on February 7, 2007. A check of that date in this journal yields . . .
This is not John Belushi, whose cover of
Frankie Laine’s “Rawhide” was memorable,
but Laine himself.
Some Frankie Laine lyrics quoted here on Stewart’s death date:
“Times when I know you’ll be lonesome,
times when I know you’ll be sad
Don’t let temptation surround you,
don’t let the blues make you bad”
— “We’ll Be Together Again,”
Frankie Laine,
March 30, 1913 —
February 6, 2007
Mephisto fans may prefer Sting’s version of the phrase
“we’ll be together.” See Complex Reflection, April 20, 2012.
“There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell….”
| Harvard University Press on a book, Persons and Things, it published on March 31, 2010 Moving effortlessly between symbolist poetry and Barbie dolls, artificial intelligence and Kleist, Kant, and Winnicott, Barbara Johnson not only clarifies psychological and social dynamics; she also re-dramatizes the work of important tropes—without ever losing sight of the ethical imperative with which she begins: the need to treat persons as persons. In Persons and Things , Johnson turns deconstruction around to make a fundamental contribution to the new aesthetics. She begins with the most elementary thing we know: and reveals that their claims upon us are fraudulent. Johnson revolutionizes the method by showing that the inanimate thing exposed as a delusion is central to fantasy life, that fantasy life, however deluded, should be taken seriously, and that although a work of art “is formed around something missing,” this “void is its vanishing point, not its essence.” She shows deftly and delicately that the void inside Keats’s urn, Heidegger’s jug, or Wallace Stevens’s jar forms the center around which we tend to organize our worlds. The new aesthetics should restore fluidities between persons and things. In pursuing it, Johnson calls upon Ovid, Keats, Poe, Plath, and others who have inhabited this in-between space. The entire process operates via a subtlety that only a critic of Johnson’s caliber could reveal to us. |
I prefer the more straightforward insanity of Operators and Things .
Barbara Johnson reportedly died on Aug. 27, 2009. See that date
in other posts now tagged Autistic Enchantment. (That phrase is
the sort of sneering tag one may expect from deplorable academics.)
“But for all its success, Mr. Webb largely distanced himself
from ‘The Graduate,’ which featured a Buck Henry and
Calder Willingham screenplay . . . . ”
— Harrison Smith in The Washington Post yesterday
Related material —
“the liberation of the plastic elements.”
“I appreciate simple, iconic and timeless forms —
things that can adapt or serve multiple purposes
and avoid being easily labelled. At the same time,
I love parts and fragments that reveal how things
move or work. Mostly, anything that tells its
own story and isn’t generalized or clad in some
sort of ornamental icing.”
— Charlottesville, VA, architect Fred Wolf, who seems
to have been associated with the business name
“Gauss LLC ” in Charlottesville.
Posts tagged Space Writer include —
.
The conclusion of an obituary for a former resident of Laurel Canyon —
“He would go to all these old junk shops and buy
black-and-white photos of nobody actors,’’
Mr. Klein said. “He didn’t want stills of the stars.
He said, ‘Actors that never made it — that’s
the real Hollywood.’ ’’
— Guy Trebay in The New York Times , June 23
Related music and art — Posts tagged Hollywood Nights.
The director of the 2007 film “The Number 23” reportedly died today.
In his memory — An image that appeared in the Leary link of last night’s
post on “a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell” —
"In July, 1960, having just received a doctorate from Harvard
and a research and training fellowship from the National Institute
of Mental Health, I drove, together with my wife, Sandylee,
from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Cuernavaca, Mexico."
— Michael Maccoby, June 26, 2014,
"Building on Erich Fromm's Scientific Contributions"
This is the Michael Maccoby of . . .
First published, with a less lurid cover, in 1958 by Arlington Books
of Cambridge, Mass.
What appears to be that 1958 edition, with the Maccoby introduction,
is available as a PDF —
http://paragoninspects.com/articles/pdfs/temp/operators_and_things.pdf .
Some Harvard-related material — See Leary and 6 Prescott .
“A love story of epic, epic, epic proportion” — Kristen Stewart on “Equals”
“Some things are more equal than others.” — Adapted from Orwell
Thursday, June 4, 2020
InternationaleFiled under: General — m759 @ 12:52 AM Edit This “We are proud to be part of an international community — Jill Pipher, President of the American Mathematical Society, The theme song — “The Internationale“ |
* See the previous post
and . . .
* Title suggested by a New York Times report of a death on April 1.
In memory of an actor who in films played Bilbo Baggins,
but on the stage was most closely identified with works by
Harold Pinter, especially “The Homecoming.”
A search for Pinter in this journal yields, as well as the playwright,
some posts tagged The Pinterest Directive. These include . . .
Related image — The square and circle pictured here yesterday —
| Maria Shriver, a contributor for NBC’s “TODAY,” remembered her aunt as an “extraordinary woman.”
Smith “had a great career on behalf of this country as ambassador to Ireland promoting peace there and also started very special arts for people with intellectual disabilities,” Shriver said on the 3rd hour of “TODAY.” “So I take solace in the fact that she is joining every other member of her family up in heaven. So it’s nice for her,” she added. Smith was born on Feb. 20, 1928, in Boston, Massachusetts to Rose and Joseph Kennedy. |
Related graphic design:
Feb. 20 square and June 17 Circle.
Related entertainment: “The Foreigner” (2017 film) and . . .
The New York Times reports a May 24 death —
“Arriving in Harlem, he worked as a painter and carpenter,
earning a high school equivalency diploma and enrolling at
Columbia University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree
in mathematics. He was on his way.”
— John Leland
See also a post of April 10, 2018, in this journal and,
more generally, all posts tagged Dimensión de Arco .
Galore Magazine , September 2017 issue —
In this shoot, Jaime takes us through the many sides
of her personality — inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins —
and reflects on her life in the spotlight so far.
Related Wikipedia article suggested by the Galore icons above —
See also this journal on the above date — August 29, 2017.
“For the first thirty years of its history, Columbia was known as King’s College.”
— History of the University Identity
Hence the crown favicon—
“When people talk about the importance of the study of ‘symmetry’
in mathematics, physics, and elsewhere, they often make the mistake
of only paying attention to the symmetry groups. The structure you
actually have is not just a group (the abstract ‘symmetries’), but an
action of that group on some other object, the thing that has symmetries.”
— Peter Woit of Columbia on June 9, reviewing a Quanta Magazine article
* From earlier posts in this journal containing the title phrase.
Monday, January 8, 2018
TimeFiled under: Uncategorized — m759 @ 12:00 AM
|
“Mr. Caplan, an essayist, professor, lecturer and consultant on design,
died on June 4 in his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
He was 95.” — Penelope Green in The New York Times today.
This journal on that date —
Related cultural icons —
” James, Alec. Alec, James.”
The above Nat Friedman is not to be confused with
the Nat Friedman of “Hyperseeing,” discussed here June 12.
“One game is real and one’s a metaphor.
Untold times this wisdom’s come too late.
Battle of White has raged on endlessly.
Everywhere Black will strive to seal his fate.
Continue a search for thirty-three and three.
Veiled forever is the secret door.”
— Katherine Neville, aka Cat Velis, in The Eight,
Ballantine Books, January 1989, page 140
Related literary remarks —
The Old Man and the Bull
The Old Man and the Topic
See as well the Log24 post “In the Labyrinth of Memory”
(January 8, 2003).
The title refers to the previous post and to a Log24 post of
March 24, 2016 — the date of creation of the Steem blockchain.*
* This blockchain led to the Steemit social networking platform. See a sample
page from that platform. That page suggests a related discussion… Was it
“Looney Toons” or “Looney Tunes”?
“Magic mirror on the wall. . .”
Related material on amnesia —
The Mandela Effect in a 2020 film. . .
. . . and in a web page from 9/15/2016.
Benchley reportedly died on Feb. 11, 2006. See Log24 on that date.
Candle from Sense8 , Season 1, Episode 1: “Limbic Resonance” —
“At the still point….” — T. S. Eliot
This post was suggested by the date — Jan. 2, 2019 —
of a YouTube video —
. . . and by a Log24 post, “Wolf as Lamb,” on that date.
… Not to mention strange fruit .
From a review for a dirty computer —
“… a spooky motel straight out of Twin Peaks.”
A street view for the late William Sessions.
Some may prefer the Count to X street view. See as well . . .
Liz Elverenli on the writers of “I Am Not Okay with This”
(Instagram, Jan. 18, 2019) —
“We went full Twin Peaks.”
Perhaps not full Twin Peaks . . .
Update of 11:22 PM ET —
A “Not Okay” line from Episode 1.03, “The Party’s Over” —
00:00:31,573 –> 00:00:34,159
Something just didn’t feel right.
I prefer the Jacky St. James illustration of this sentiment:
Egon Schiele fans other than Elverenli may agree.
“It’s showtime, folks!” — Opening scenes of “All That Jazz.”
Click the above image for some related history.
See also An Epic for Kristen .
“Just as these lines that merge to form a key
Are as chess squares; when month and day are four;
Don’t risk another chance to move to mate.
One game is real and one’s a metaphor.
Untold times this wisdom’s come too late.
Battle of White has raged on endlessly.
Everywhere Black will strive to seal his fate.
Continue a search for thirty-three and three.
Veiled forever is the secret door.”
— Katherine Neville, aka Cat Velis, in The Eight,
Ballantine Books, January 1989, page 140
“One game is real and one’s a metaphor” —
See the title as a tag.
The title was suggested by
Gilpin as Crystal in The Hunt —
In memoriam —
Friedman co-edited the ISAMA journal Hyperseeing . See also . . .
See too the other articles in Volume 40 of Kybernetes .
Related material —
Compare and contrast the discussion of the geometry
of the 4×4 square in the diamond theorem (1976) with
Nat Friedman’s treatment of the same topic in 2001 —
From the same film — the Digital Rights Management (DRM) variant —
As am I.
The above images are from a film directed by Tony Leech.
I prefer the version of Ashlynn Yennie directed by Jacky St. James.
From a search in this journal for Spacek —
"Honesty's the best policy."
— Miguel de Cervantes
"Liars prosper."
— Anonymous
— Epigraphs to On Writing:
A Memoir of the Craft,
by Stephen King
|
Lavender Blue, Dilly, Dilly, Lavender Green… |
|
* A title suggested by the previous post.
"For every kind of vampire,
there is a kind of cross."
— Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
"Sometimes I hit London."
— Saying ascribed to Wernher von Braun
Inscribed Carpenter's Square:
In Latin, NORMA
“Where past and future are gathered” — T. S. Eliot
From a recent film —
From the Museum of Modern Art —
From this journal 10 years ago today —
“X marks the spot” — Indiana Jones.
Indiana Jones’s love interest in “The Last Crusade” was Alison Doody.
See as well . . .
Howdy, Doody.
* For the title, see Wikipedia (not Billie Holiday).
"Like the castle in its corner
In a medieval game"
— Steely Dan, Dirty Work, 1972
“Nine is a very powerful Nordic number.“
— Katherine Neville, author of The Eight
“For us, it’s no joke.” — The Pointer Sisters
See as well “The Aristocrats.“
“Mr. Lowery’s view that news organizations’ ‘core value
needs to be the truth, not the perception of objectivity,’
as he told me, has been winning in a series of battles,
many around how to cover race.”
— Ben Smith in the print New York Times this morning
“Christ is truth.” — St. Gerard Manley Hopkins
See also The Diamond Chariot in posts tagged September Samurai.
This post was suggested by a May 28 death —
Related image —
“Don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.”
See also a 2012 Canadian comedy and the following post
from the opening date of a different Canadian comedy . . .
A film not unrelated to the screen career
of Sophia Lillis: Inside Daisy Clover.
I prefer Inside the White Cube.
Kate Beckinsale plays a young Harvard Medical School graduate
working on a doctoral thesis in “Laurel Canyon” (2002).
From the subtitles of the opening scene —
8
00:01:06,713 –> 00:01:08,632
Oh, God.
9
00:01:08,799 –> 00:01:12,886
Oh, Lord. Oh, Jesus.
“When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves
that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act.”
— Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions , Step Six
From the New York Times obituary this afternoon
of a talented French comic —
“They performed in notorious sketches
like ‘The Flirt,’ a slow dance with a
back-and-forth inner dialogue….”
The site of another slow dance . . .
From a short story by Stephen King (Harper’s , March 2020) —
“ ‘Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being
the exact nature of our wrongs,’ ” Jack said, making quote marks
with his fingers.
Quote marks I prefer —
See as well the short story “The Beckinsale Letter.”
Some remarks in the current Times Literary Supplement
related to the Pythagoreans were linked to in the previous post.
Related remarks —
Related picture —
Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box
Religion is the smile on a dog
— Edie Brickell, 1986
See also mentions of Justin E. H. Smith in this journal, including . . .
“… Western academic philosophy will likely come to appear
utterly parochial in the coming years if it does not find a way
to approach non-Western traditions that is much more rigorous
and respectful than the tokenism that reigns at present.”
— Justin E. H. Smith in the New York Times philosophy
column “The Stone” yesterday
For example—
“We are proud to be part of an international community
dedicated to learning, teaching, and to the search for solutions.”
— Jill Pipher, President of the American Mathematical Society,
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Flashback to November 22, 2004 —
Charles Williams on the
Salem witchcraft trials:
“The afflicted children continued to testify; there entered into the cases
what was called ‘spectral evidence,’ a declaration by the witness that
he or she could see that else invisible shape before them, perhaps hurting them.
It was a very ancient tendency of witnesses, and it had occurred at a number of
trials in Europe.”
— Witchcraft , Meridian Books, Inc., New York,
1959 (first published 1941), page 281
See also Litsky’s obituary from All Saints’ Day, 2018.
Litsky reportedly died on October 30, 2018 — Devil’s Night.
See also Aloha.
But see as well . . .
Click to enlarge the above story by Paul Meyer, Dayton sports writer.
The New Republic , June 1, 2020 —
“Ehrenreich is a writer of structure:
Her work moves level by level,
starting at the surface of
our most obvious inequalities
before pulling back to reveal
the subtleties of systemic failure.”
Sure she is. Sure it does.
“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” — Joan Didion
See Lippincott’s obituary in today’s online New York Times.
From IACSCW Journal , Issue 1, Winter 2013 ,
Published on Mar 14, 2014 —
http://chinaandthewest.org/ —
Related material —
* Update at 10:45 AM EDT —
A title check yields a comedian’s book.
I prefer Wallace Stevens . . .
See Thunderstorms of Yucatan.
“The Valley Spirit never dies.”
See also Boogie Nights of the Golden Circle —
“The message was clear: having a finite frame of reference
creates the illusion of a world, but even the reference frame itself
is an illusion. Observers create reality, but observers aren’t real.
There is nothing ontologically distinct about an observer, because
you can always find a frame in which that observer disappears:
the frame of the frame itself, the boundary of the boundary.”
— Amanda Gefter in 2014, quoted here on Mayday 2020.
See as well the previous post.
Related material —
“The message was clear: having a finite frame of reference
creates the illusion of a world, but even the reference frame itself
is an illusion. Observers create reality, but observers aren’t real.
There is nothing ontologically distinct about an observer, because
you can always find a frame in which that observer disappears:
the frame of the frame itself, the boundary of the boundary.”
— Amanda Gefter in 2014, quoted here on Mayday 2020.
See as well, in a post from the date of Hunter Thompson’s death :
“Today, February 20, is the 19th anniversary of my note
The Relativity Problem in Finite Geometry.”
See lowroad62.
“If you are a Scottish lord then I am Mickey Mouse!”
— The butler at Brunwald Castle (below).
"Looking for what was, where it used to be"
— Wallace Stevens, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction," I
"It Must Be Abstract," X
"X marks the spot" — Indiana Jones
Click the above image for a country song.
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