Log24

Friday, March 1, 2024

Elegy in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:16 am

See also this journal on February 24, 2024:  Wittenborn.

Friday, August 11, 2023

Some Cartoon Graveyards are Better than Others.

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:29 pm

Saturday, June 10, 2023

Rhetoric from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:26 pm

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

Elegy in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:59 pm

Cartoonist obit published 2023-05-10T22:29:03.000Z

See also posts now tagged Parable.

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Whistling Past a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 7:40 am

Thursday, May 5, 2022

Annals of a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:39 am

In memory of a comic-book artist —

His views on physics at

http://web.archive.org/web/20060805085915/
http://nealadams.com/PhysicsOfGrow.html

and a New Yorker  cartoon from
his reported date of death — April 28 —

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

For a Cartoon Graveyard . . . “Angels in the Architecture”

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:40 pm

A different sort of scourge


 

The Source:

Friday, January 28, 2022

Escape from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:55 am

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

Sunday, November 29, 2020

Sunday Morning in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 9:29 am

For the Dr. Seuss School of
Neuropsychopharmacology —

From the school itself —

Related material — Pilgrim's Progress  in this  journal and . . .

an image from Log24 on December 8, 2012

IMAGE- Cover image for a free mixtape, 'Lawrence Class - The Diamond Theory,' that contains images from Steven H. Cullinane's 'Diamond Theory.'

See as well "To Think That It Happened on Prescott Street"
and related posts.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Breadcrumbs from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:54 pm

The title was suggested by the previous post.

See as well posts now tagged Crumbs.

Breadcrumbs for a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:36 am

Spears reportedly died on Nov. 6.  See this  journal on that date.

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Memorial from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 8:45 pm

From the New York Times  obituary today of a cartoonist
who reportedly died on June 30, 2020 —

 

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Philosophy in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:04 pm

But seriously …

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Plan 9 in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:59 am

In memory of Gahan Wilson, "too cool for  school" —

Monday, September 23, 2019

Reflections in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 11:58 am

Images from this  journal related to the above cartoon —

(Click images for related posts.)

Hard Candy on Good Friday 2006

A sketch adapted from Girl Scouts of Palo Alto —

Sunday, May 12, 2019

The Collective Unconscious in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:00 pm

Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst
in "Spider-Man 2" (2004) —

Spoilers for another Kirsten Dunst film,
"Midnight Special" (2016) —

"When they all finally reach their destination —
a deserted field in the Florida Panhandle…." 

" When asked about the film's similarities to the 2015 Disney movie 
Tomorrowland , which also posits a futuristic world that exists in an
alternative dimension
, Nichols sighed. 'I was a little bummed, I guess,'
he said of when he first learned about the project. . . . 'Our die was cast.
Sometimes this kind of collective unconscious that we're all dabbling in,
sometimes you're not the first one out of the gate.' "

From another obituary for
the "Spider-Man" screenwriter —

“When I die,” he liked to say, “I’m going to have written
on my tombstone, ‘Finally, a plot!’”

— Robert D. McFadden in The New York Times

Monday, April 29, 2019

Theology in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:00 pm

See as well . . .

http://www.walterkaufmann.com/articles/1970_Prologu_Ich_Du.pdf .

Like Decorations in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:24 pm

(Continued.)

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

A death on the date of the above New Yorker piece — Oct. 15, 2018 —

See as well the Pac-Man-like figures in today's previous post
as well as the Monday, Oct. 15, 2018, post "History at Bellevue."

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Fiction in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 10:02 am

Jonathan Franzen on fiction —

"Fiction is storytelling, and our reality arguably consists of
the stories we tell about ourselves."

Or stories we are told by others

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Like Decorations in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:00 pm

(Continued)

Two visions of happy neurons:

This post was suggested by a link in today's New York Times

"Simon Denny, the New Zealand artist whose work incorporates
board games, intervenes by introducing his own pieces into an attic of
the late-18th-century Haus zum Kirschgarten, already filled with
'old historical dollhouses, board games, chess games' and the like …."

Thursday, January 4, 2018

For a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 4:56 am

“… the horizon is not the limit of meaning,
but that which extends meaning
from what is directly given
to the whole context in which it is given,
including a sense of a world.”

— David Vessey,
Gadamer and the Fusion of Horizons

(Quoted here on Saturday, June 4, 2005.)

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Comedy from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:19 pm

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Voices from a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:38 pm

The previous post illustrated 
"Decorations for a Cartoon Graveyard."

A search for Psychonauts in
this journal yields

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06/060326-Smith.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

In other news

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Like Decorations in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 4:00 am

Continued from April 11, 2016, and from

A tribute to Rothko suggested by the previous post

For the idea  of Rothko's obstacles, see Hexagram 39 in this journal.

Monday, March 20, 2017

Silvers’s Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:05 pm

Rothko by Levine, December 1978

"Some cartoon graveyards 
  are better than others.
"

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Lyrics for a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:01 pm

"Try the grey stuff, it's delicious
Don't believe me? Ask the dishes"

— Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"

Related material —

Friday, April 1, 2016

Blackboard Jungle Continues

Filed under: Uncategorized — m759 @ 12:00 AM

See also the previous post and the usual suspects.

Happy birthday to Saoirse Ronan.

Monday, April 11, 2016

Like Decorations in a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 10:48 pm

From Sunday evening's In Memoriam post —

The "from Princeton" remark in the previous post came  from
Princeton, but originated with a retired professor in Rochester,
NY, one Joseph Neisendorfer.

Another remark by Neisendorfer, from his weblog —

Those familiar with the chapter on Galois in the
Eric Temple Bell classic Men of Mathematics  
will know that the words quoted above by
Neisendorfer are definitely not  those of Albert Einstein.

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Remarks on a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:45 am

For Crimson Jill

The graveyard of the title is from a song by Paul Simon.

Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY
9:48 a.m. EST February 24, 2016

"By popular demand, Facebook is going beyond the ubiquitous thumbs-up button with a new shorthand to express your thoughts and feelings.

Acknowledging that 'like' isn't the right sentiment for every occasion, the giant social network is offering new options. Reactions, five emoting emojis, are rolling out to Facebook's more than 1.5 billion users around the globe starting Wednesday.

With a click of a button, you can choose from new emotions when commenting on a status update. Hold the 'like' button on mobile or hover over the like button on desktop and five animated emoji pop up. Tap on love, haha, wow, sad or angry to express your reaction. …"

The "remarks" of the title —

The "Crimson Jill" link above leads to a Harvard Gazette
article dated March 24, 2015. A meditation from the 
Church of Synchronology appeared here  on that date.

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Line for a Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:27 pm

Continued from the Oct. 1 post Cartoon Graveyard and from
the Aug. 30 post Lines ("Drop me a line.") —

Charlize Theron in 'Mad Max: Fury Road' says 'Redemption.'

A related song  for Imperator Furiosa
may be found in the previous post.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:09 pm

(Continued)

The following horrific images —

— were suggested by two pieces I read yesterday in 
     The Harvard Crimson

"On Belonging and 'Steven Universe'" and
"Wise Words from the King."

See also a more realistic daydream, starring Amy Adams,
in the previous post, Ornamental Language.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Cartoon Graveyard

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:01 am

Whitehead and Russell, 'Logicomix' page 181

For some background, see "Cartoon Graveyard" and "Many Dimensions."

Friday, September 24, 2010

Cartoon Graveyard continued

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:30 am

The New York Times  today—

Stuart E. Hample,
Humorist and Cartoonist,
Dies at 84

NY Times Enlarge-This Icon Enlarge This Image



"Dread & Superficiality:
Woody Allen as Comic Strip"/Abrams

Mr. Hample, who was also a playwright and performer,
wrote “The Silly Book” and was the co-author of
“Children’s Letters to God.”

Hample died on Sunday.
 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Macbeth and the Black Arts

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 10:51 am

“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

Rhymin' Simon's lyrics seem particularly appropriate
in the case of the actor below, who reportedly died
on October 31 — Halloween — last year.

Earlier last October . . .

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Yom Kippur 2023 (Ending at Nightfall Mon. Sept. 25) —
Boozin’ N Schmoozin’

Filed under: General — m759 @ 5:00 am

Earlier in this  journal . . .

Crossing Pico Boulevard . . . 

♫  "I like to walk in the shade, with the blues on parade . . . ."

— Adapted from the great American songbook.

 

Meanwhile, in a cartoon graveyard . . .

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The Junction Function

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:27 pm

A function (in this case, a 1-to-1 correspondence) from finite geometry:

IMAGE- The natural symplectic polarity in PG(3,2), illustrating a symplectic structure

This correspondence between points and hyperplanes underlies
the symmetries discussed in the Cullinane diamond theorem.

Academics who prefer cartoon graveyards may consult …

Cohn, N. (2014). Narrative conjunction’s junction function:
A theoretical model of “additive” inference in visual narratives. 
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science
Society
, 36. See https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2050s18m .

Saturday, July 29, 2023

Whistling Past Yankee Bush

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:07 am

"Don’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.” — Paul Simon

"Or tangled up in blue." — Steven H. Cullinane

Monday, July 17, 2023

Harry G. Frankfurt, May 29, 1929 – July 16, 2023

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 12:38 pm

See as well this  journal on the morning of July 16,
and also "Cartoon Graveyard."

“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

Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Pathmark Award

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 10:49 am

"Some cartoon graveyards are better than others."

Friday, June 24, 2022

Groundwork

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:53 pm

See as well a more complete rendition of the above text.

"Some cartoon graveyards are better than others."

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

Multiversity News

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 4:08 pm

“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 Lawrence, Kansas, in a Log24 search for August 2, 2002.

Related material: Text Tiles  posts and, also from Lawrence, Kansas . . .

 

Thursday, January 14, 2021

Redemptive Ephiphanic Impression

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 8:04 pm

“ Harry decides his chief peacetime duty is to use his
gift for gab to further his ‘overriding purpose,’ namely:
‘By recalling the past and freezing the present he could
open the gates of time and through them see all
allegedly sequential things as a single masterwork
with neither boundaries nor divisions.’ Once he opens
these gates, Harry will flood his audience with his
redemptive epiphanic impression that ‘the world was
saturated with love.’ ”

— Liesl Schillinger, review of Mark Helprin’s novel
In Sunlight and in Shadow  in The New York Times ,
Oct. 5, 2012

“I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”

— Rhymin’ Simon

See as well Kristen Stewart in the
film version of . . .

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111209-Breaking_Dawn_cover.jpg

Sunday, December 6, 2020

Theology for St. Nicholas

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 3:36 pm

From a cartoon graveyard —

See as well a father, a son, and a (sort of) ghost:

Richard K. Guy in “A Cross for von Sydow,”
his son, M. J. T. Guy, and Mirror Guy.

Saturday, November 28, 2020

To Thine Own Self Be Trieu

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:07 am

From a post of June 12, 2018 —
Like Decorations in a Cartoon Graveyard —

More-recent neuronal art —

Friday, October 18, 2019

Vibe for Ray Bradbury

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:22 pm

On writer Kate Braverman, who reportedly died on Sunday, October 13:

" She wears floor-length black skirts, swirling black coats,
and black stiletto boots;  the San Francisco Chronicle  once
described her vibe as 'Morticia Addams gone gypsy.' " 

Katy Waldman in The New Yorker , Feb. 22, 2018

"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, song lyric

For a Braverman photo opportunity, see the dark corner
at lower right in the previous post.

Monday, August 26, 2019

“I need a photo opportunity” — Paul Simon

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:01 pm

Photo Opportunity , courtesy of Leni Riefenstahl — Click to enlarge.


 

From Paul Simon's dreaded Cartoon Graveyard

 

The Riefenstahl publication above was suggested by . . .

Sunday, July 14, 2019

American Pie Continues.

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:34 am

From Pi Day 2017

"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard."
 

“God’s plan for man in this world is Adam and Eve,
not Adam and Steve.”

— The late William E. Dannemeyer, who reportedly
died at 89 on July 9, 2019.

Hollywood offers a second opinion —

"Zoolander 2" film script

— The garden of Eden.
The birthplace
of Adam and Eve
and Steve.
— Steve? Who's Steve?
— Steve is
the original supermodel.
The first of the purebloods.

Friday, June 7, 2019

Photo Opportunity

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

A post for those who, like Paul Simon,
fear and loathe cartoon graveyards 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/obituaries/
rudolf-von-ribbentrop-dead.html

Sunday, May 26, 2019

Burning Bright

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 12:00 am

Gell-Mann's 'eightfold way' as 'a mosaic of simple triangular building blocks' — George Johnson, 1999

Compare and contrast with . . .

The Brightburn Logo:

Related material from the May 12 post

"The Collective Unconscious
in a Cartoon Graveyard
" —

"When they all finally reach their destination —
a deserted field in the Florida Panhandle…." 

" When asked about the film's similarities to the 2015 Disney movie Tomorrowland , which also posits a futuristic world that exists in an alternative dimension, Nichols sighed. 'I was a little bummed, I guess,' he said of when he first learned about the project. . . . 'Our die was cast. Sometimes this kind of collective unconscious that we're all dabbling in, sometimes you're not the first one out of the gate.' "

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

The Toronto Plot*

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:00 pm

* A title for Harlan Kane, suggested by obituaries
from The New York Times  (this afternoon) and from
CBC News (on May 14, below) . . .

. . . as well as by illustrations shown here on May 13 and by
a screenwriter quoted here on May 12 —

“When I die,” he liked to say, “I’m going to have written
on my tombstone, ‘Finally, a plot!’”

— Robert D. McFadden in The New York Times

Another quote that seems relevant —

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

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

7-Up

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:00 pm

"Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard" 
— Paul Simon

Thursday, November 15, 2018

Nocciolo

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:15 am

"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

From the previous post

From a cartoon graveyard —

See also, in this  journal, Smallest Perfect and Nocciolo .

Friday, August 24, 2018

The Wandelweiser Manifesto

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:35 pm

Or:  Signpost of Change

From a cartoon graveyard

http://www.log24.com/log/pix18/180824-Outre_Tinkering-NYer-Aug-27-2018-issue-p84.jpg

Backstory

Alex Ross on Wandelweiser, September 2016

Thursday, July 19, 2018

A Shot at Redemption

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:07 am

“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

From a cartoon graveyard on yesterday's date in 1957 —

For the photo opportunity of the Paul Simon song, see
my former sixth-grade teacher on that same 1957 page.

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Cube Theory

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:00 pm

For Greta Gerwig and Saoirse Ronan —

See also a Log24 post from the above Cube Theory date —
April 12, 2016 — Lyrics for a Cartoon Graveyard — as well as . . .

'Loop De Loop,' Johnny Thunder, Diamond Records, 1962

Thursday, January 4, 2018

For T. S. Eliot

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 5:01 am

“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

Monday, September 11, 2017

New Depth

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 9:48 pm

A sentence from the New York Times Wire  discussed in the previous post

NYT Wire on Len Wein: 'Through characters like Wolverine and Swamp Thing, he helped bring a new depth to his art form.'

"Through characters like Wolverine and Swamp Thing,
he helped bring a new depth to his art form."

For Wolverine and Swamp Thing in posts related to a different
art form — geometry — see …

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Sequel (In Memory of Tobe Hooper)

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:05 pm

“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 John Collier's short story "The Lady on the Grey."

Note that the title of the previous post was "Black Well,"
almost the same as that of Tanner's graphic novel above.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Sermon:

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:00 am

Decorations for a Cartoon Graveyard, Continued .

See also some remarks by Wallace Stevens
from a 2016 post "For Crimson Jill."

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Hedwig and the Square Inch

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:58 am

'Mix: Hedwig's Theme Variations'- YouTube

From "In the Park with Yin and Yang" (May 10, 2017) —

Decorations for a Cartoon Graveyard

In Memoriam —

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Practically Cubist

Filed under: General — m759 @ 3:45 am

From an Anthony Lane movie review in the April 8, 2013,
issue of The New Yorker

"When the Lord God forbade his worshippers to bow down
before any graven image, [Rosario] Dawson’s face was
exactly the kind of thing He had in mind. No other star can
boast such sculptured features—except Vincent Cassel,
who is pretty damn graven himself. When the two of them
make love, in 'Trance,' one strong bone structure pressed
against another, it’s like a clash of major religions. What if
they had a family? The kids would be practically Cubist."

As for the other film Lane reviewed in that issue, "Blancanieves" —

See Snow White + Cube in this  journal.

See as well a related cartoon graveyard, also from April 8, 2013.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

In the Park with Yin and Yang

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 10:35 pm

In memory of an art dealer who 
reportedly died on Sunday, May 7—

Decorations for a Cartoon Graveyard

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Pocket Universe

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:00 am

I first encountered the title phrase, of more significance in art than
in science, yesterday in a review of a book by Sydney Padua

"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell." — "Hotel California"

"Some cartoon graveyards are better than others." — Log24

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Middle March:

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:02 pm

The Key to All Mythologies  in a Cartoon Graveyard

This is a sequel to yesterday's post Review, which
suggested a look at Lévi-Strauss's The Raw and The Cooked  
in Derrida's “Structure, Sign, and Play," and then a look at the

Financial Times  of February 26, 2010

"The metaphor for metamorphosis no keys unlock."

Steven H. Cullinane, November 7, 1986

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

In Adam’s Fall / We Sinnèd All

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 11:18 am

Backstory for Westworld —

"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard."

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Requiem for an Actress

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:15 pm

The New York Times  this evening on the late Rita Gam:

"After generally being typecast in supporting roles
in two dozen films for what Life described as
'her sultry face and insinuating voice,' she recalled
in 1992, 'I looked into the black pit at 40 and
wondered, what do I do for an encore?' "

See also Sidney Lumet in this journal as well as
"Some cartoon graveyards are better than others."

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Redemption

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:48 pm

(Continued)

“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

A portion of the above photo appeared on the cover of
a German edition of a book by the winner of the 2015 Nobel
Prize in Literature, Svetlana Alexievich. The German title, 
Der Krieg hat kein weibliches Gesicht , is closer to the Russian
original than is the title of an English translation, War's Unwomanly Face .  
Further book and photo information —

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Logo Design

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:11 pm

See also today's previous post and Cartoon Graveyard.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

A Shot at Redemption

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:00 pm

(Continued.)

“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

Photo opportunity
for the late John Bayley and Iris Murdoch —

From a cartoon graveyard, in memory of
a British artist who reportedly died yesterday: 

Against Dryness —


Cartoon by Martin Honeysett

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Photo Opportunities

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:50 pm

I need a photo opportunity….” — Paul Simon

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Photo Opportunity

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 2:02 pm

"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

Pinocchio: 'Multiplane Technicolor'

"The theory of poetry, that is to say, the total of the theories of poetry, often seems to become in time a mystical theology or, more simply, a mystique. The reason for this must by now be clear. The reason is the same reason why the pictures in a museum of modern art often seem to become in time a mystical aesthetic, a prodigious search of appearance, as if to find a way of saying and of establishing that all things, whether below or above appearance, are one and that it is only through reality, in which they are reflected or, it may be, joined together, that we can reach them. Under such stress, reality changes from substance to subtlety, a subtlety in which it was natural for Cézanne to say: 'I see planes bestriding each other and sometimes straight lines seem to me to fall' or 'Planes in color…. The colored area where shimmer the souls of the planes, in the blaze of the kindled prism, the meeting of planes in the sunlight.' The conversion of our Lumpenwelt  went far beyond this. It was from the point of view of another subtlety that Klee could write: 'But he is one chosen that today comes near to the secret places where original law fosters all evolution. And what artist would not establish himself there where the organic center of all movement in time and space– which he calls the mind or heart of creation– determines every function.' Conceding that this sounds a bit like sacerdotal jargon, that is not too much to allow to those that have helped to create a new reality, a modern reality, since what has been created is nothing less.

— Wallace Stevens, Harvard College Class of 1901, "The Relations between Poetry and Painting" in The Necessary Angel   (Knopf, 1951)

For background on the planes illustrated above,
see Diamond theory in 1937.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Through the Vanishing Point*

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 9:48 am

Marshall McLuhan in "Annie Hall" —

"You know nothing of my work."

Related material — 

"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

It was a dark and stormy night…

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11/110420-DarkAndStormy-Logicomix.jpg

— Page 180, Logicomix

A photo opportunity for Whitehead
(from Romancing the Cube, April 20, 2011)—

IMAGE- Whitehead on Fano's construction of the 15-point projective Galois space over GF(2)

See also Absolute Ambition (Nov. 19, 2010).

* For the title, see Vanishing Point in this journal.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Saturday Morning Cartoon

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:00 am

"A Saturday morning cartoon is the colloquial term
for the animated television programming that has
typically been scheduled on Saturday mornings
on the major American television networks from
the 1960s to the present…." —Wikipedia

Martin Gardner in the Notices of the
American Mathematical Society 
,
June/July 2005:

“I did a column in Scientific American 
on minimal art, and I reproduced one of
Ed Rinehart’s [sic ] black paintings. 
Of course, it was just a solid square of
pure black.”

Black square 256x256

Click on picture for details.

For a cartoon graveyard

IMAGE- LA Times obits for two Saturday Night Live writers

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

For Black Widow

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:56 pm

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.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

The Hallowed Crucible

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:30 pm

(Continued)

A meditation suggested by the April 20 post Complex Reflection
and by the life and April 20 death of a scientist who worked
at Los Alamos (home of the Monte Carlo method) and at
the Santa Fe Institute (home of complexity theory).

IMAGE- The NY lottery results for midday April 20, 2012, were 0286 and 823.

A search for 286 in this journal yields "Yet Another Cartoon Graveyard."

That June 1, 2008, post linked to poem  286 in a 1919 anthology.

Here is that poem, together with poem 823.

Together, these poems may be regarded as a meditation on
Simone Weil and her brother André Weil or, 
more abstractly, on Love and Death.

Happy birthday to Al Pacino.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Shine On

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:20 pm

"I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard." — Rhymin' Simon

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11C/111124-LesDaniels.jpg

Camp Necon 2001

See also Uncertainty and More Uncertainty.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Shot at Redemption

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:59 am

"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

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11A/110501-NYTobits0752AM300w.jpg

For Sabato's photo opportunity, click here.

The link is to a weblog post in Spanish published
on St. Thomas Becket's Day, 2010.

See also Helen Lane in this journal. Lane translated
Sabato's "On Heroes and Tombs."

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Hilarious

Filed under: General — m759 @ 9:00 am
 

Hilarious in his high city
you see him cantering just as he please,
the lava up to here.

Anne Carson's new translation of
the "Ode to Man" from Sophocles' Antigone

http://www.log24.com/log/pix10B/100814-Aug6PIsm.jpg

Where Art Thou?

One possible answer—

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

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

To a Stand-Up Philosopher

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:28 am

Simon Says

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

NY Review of Books 2010 David Levine calendar cover with cartoon of James Joyce

See also the page linked to on
Becket’s Day last year,
as well as…

University Diaries on the Kennedy Center Honors televised Dec. 29, 2009-- with photo of James Joyce on stamp

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Saturday November 8, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 8:28 am
From a
Cartoon Graveyard

 “That corpse you planted
          last year in your garden,
  Has it begun to sprout?
          Will it bloom this year? 
  Or has the sudden frost
          disturbed its bed?”

— T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land

Wikipedia:

“In the Roman Catholic tradition, the term ‘Body of Christ’ refers not only to the body of Christ in the spiritual realm, but also to two distinct though related things: the Church and the reality of the transubstantiated bread of the Eucharist….

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, ‘the comparison of the Church with the body casts light on the intimate bond between Christ and his Church. Not only is she gathered around him; she is united in him, in his body….’

….To distinguish the Body of Christ in this sense from his physical body, the term ‘Mystical Body of Christ’ is often used. This term was used as the first words, and so as the title, of the encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi of Pope Pius XII.”

Pope Pius XII
:

“83. The Sacrament of the Eucharist is itself a striking and wonderful figure of the unity of the Church, if we consider how in the bread to be consecrated many grains go to form one whole, and that in it the very Author of supernatural grace is given to us, so that through Him we may receive the spirit of charity in which we are bidden to live now no longer our own life but the life of Christ, and to love the Redeemer Himself in all the members of His social Body.”

Related material:

Log24 on this date in 2002:

Religious Symbolism
at Princeton

as well as

King of Infinite Space

Coxeter exhuming Geometry

and a
“striking and wonderful figure”
 from this morning’s newspaper–

Garfield brings to the fridge a birthday cupcake for the leftover meatloaf. Nov. 8, 2008.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Friday September 5, 2008

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:45 am

For Mike Hammer

Block That Metaphor

“Michael Hammer, an engineer and author on management who helped popularize the ‘re-engineering’ movement in the 1990s, died Thursday [Sept. 4, 2008].

A spokesman for Mr. Hammer’s consulting firm, Hammer and Co., said Mr. Hammer died from cranial bleeding that began Aug. 22 while he was vacationing in Massachusetts. He was 60 years old.

Mr. Hammer was the co-author of the bestselling management book Reengineering the Corporation and founder and president of Hammer and Co., Cambridge, Mass.”

The Wall Street Journal

“An engineer by training, Hammer focused on the operational nuts and bolts of business.

Hammer’s relentless pursuit of ‘why?’ drove his entire career. ‘My modus operandi is simple,’ he once wrote, ‘though not always easy to carry out. I take nothing at face value. I approach all business issues and practices with the same skepticism: Why?’

A funeral will be held at 9:30 a.m. Friday, Sept. 5 in Stanetsky Memorial Chapel, 1668 Beacon St., Brookline. Interment will follow at the Shaarei Tefillah Section of the Chevra Shaas Cemetery at Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries in West Roxbury.”

web.mit.edu

Related material:

From Feb. 12:

Shoe: 'Mort's Mortuary,' Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008

From today:Outside the Box

The late Michael Hammer, engineer: 'Outside the Box'

“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

Bill Melendez, Peanuts animator, in NYT obituaries Friday, Sept. 5, 2008

Friday, July 11, 2008

Friday July 11, 2008

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:00 pm
AND MORE LOGOS:

"Serious numbers will
always be heard."
Paul Simon  

http://www.log24.com/log/pix08/080711-DowLg.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix08/080711-NYSE.jpg

http://www.log24.com/log/pix08/080711-HSBClogo.jpg

The HSBC Logo Designer —

Henry Steiner

He is an internationally recognized corporate identity consultant. Based in Hong Kong, his work for clients such as HongkongBank, IBM and Unilever is a major influence in Pacific Rim design.

Born in Austria and raised in New York, Steiner was educated at Yale under Paul Rand and attended the Sorbonne as a Fulbright Fellow. He is a past President of Alliance Graphique Internationale. Other professional affiliations include the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Chartered Society of Designers, Design Austria, and the New York Art Directors' Club.

His Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in the Global Marketplace was published by Thames and Hudson (1995).

Yaneff.com

 

Related material
from the past

Wittgenstein and Fly from Fly-Bottle

Fly from Fly Bottle:

Graphic structures from Diamond Theory and from Kyocera logo

Charles Taylor,
"Epiphanies of Modernism,"
Chapter 24 of Sources of the Self
  (Cambridge U. Press, 1989, p. 477) —

"… the object sets up
 a kind of frame or space or field
   within which there can be epiphany."

Related material
from today —

Escape from a
  cartoon graveyard:

http://www.log24.com/log/pix08/080711-BabyBlues.jpg

Friday, July 4, 2008

Friday July 4, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 8:00 am
REDEMPTION

"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

From Log24 on June 27, 2008,
the day that comic-book artist
Michael Turner died at 37 —

Van Gogh (by Ed Arno) in
The Paradise of Childhood

(by Edward Wiebé):

'Dear Theo' cartoon of van Gogh by Ed Arno, adapted to illustrate the eightfold cube


Two tomb raiders: Lara Croft and H.S.M. Coxeter

For Turner's photo-opportunity,
click on Lara.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Thursday July 3, 2008

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:00 am
Highs and Lows

From today’s New York Times:

This week, we the people of North America are staging two celebrations. The Fourth of July is the 232nd birthday of the United States….

In Canada, today, another ceremony will mark the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, the first permanent settlement in New France.

Paul Simon on religion:

“I need a photo opportunity,      
I want a shot at redemption….”

Log24 on August 8, 2002

The cast of “Some Girls,”
a film set in Quebec City:

The cast of 'Some Girls'

“Don’t want to end up a cartoon
in a cartoon graveyard.”

Sally Forth on the Bicentennial and the Starland Vocal Band: 'Well, the mid-70s were a period of highs and lows.'
Amen, sister.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Friday June 27, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 8:07 am
Deadpan


Obituary in today’s New York Times
of New Yorker cartoonist Ed Arno:
“Mr. Arno… dealt in whimsy
and deadpan surrealism.”

In his memory:
a cartoon by Arno combined
with material shown here,
under the heading
From the Cartoon Graveyard,”
 on May 27, the date of
Arno’s death —

'Dear Theo' cartoon of van Gogh by Ed Arno, adapted to illustrate the eightfold cube

Related material:

Yesterday’s entry.  The key part of
that entry is of course the phrase
the antics of a drunkard.”

Ray Milland in
“The Lost Weekend”
(see June 25, 10:31 AM)–

“I’m van Gogh
painting pure sunlight.”

It is not advisable,
 in all cases,
to proceed thus far.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Tuesday June 24, 2008

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 1:00 pm
Random Walk with
X's and O's

Part I: Random Walk

NY Lottery June 23, 2008: Mid-day 322, Evening 000

Part II: X's

3/22:

Actor contemplating the Chi-rho Page of the Book of Kells

"Shakespeare, Rilke, Joyce,
Beckett and Levi-Strauss are
instances of authors for whom
chiasmus and chiastic thinking
are of central importance,
for whom chiasmus is a
generator of meaning,
tool of discovery and
  philosophical template."
 
— Chiasmus in the
Drama of Life

Part III: O's —

A Cartoon Graveyard
in honor of the late
Gene Persson

Today's Garfield

Garfield cartoon of June 24, 2008

See also
Midsummer Eve's Dream:

"The meeting is closed
with the lord's prayer
and refreshments are served."

Producer of plays and musicals
including Album and
The Ruling Class

Lower case in honor of
Peter O'Toole, star of
the film version of
The Ruling Class.

(This film, together with
O'Toole's My Favorite Year,
may be regarded as epitomizing
Hollywood's Jesus for Jews.)

Those who prefer
less randomness
in their religion
 may consult O'Toole's
more famous film work
involving Islam,
as well as
the following structure
discussed here on
the date of Persson's death:

5x5 ultra super magic square

"The Moslems thought of the
central 1 as being symbolic
of the unity of Allah.
"

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Sunday June 15, 2008

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:01 am
“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

J. D. Salinger, 1951

Nine Stories, by J. D. Salinger

Sunday June 15, 2008

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 7:00 am

A Cartoon Graveyard

Shoe cartoon,  Sunday, June 15, 2008

Click to enlarge.

Shoe cartoon, detail, Sunday, June 15, 2008

From Fathers' Day Meditation:

I Ching hexagram 48, The Well

For further details,
click on the well.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Sunday June 1, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 2:14 pm
Yet Another
Cartoon Graveyard

The conclusion of yesterday’s commentary on the May 30-31 Pennsylvania Lottery numbers:

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow:

“The fear balloons again inside his brain. It will not be kept down with a simple Fuck You…. A smell, a forbidden room, at the bottom edge of his memory. He can’t see it, can’t make it out. Doesn’t want to. It is allied with the Worst Thing.

He knows what the smell has to be: though according to these papers it would have been too early for it, though he has never come across any of the stuff among the daytime coordinates of his life, still, down here, back here in the warm dark, among early shapes where the clocks and calendars don’t mean too much, he knows that’s what haunting him now will prove to be the smell of Imipolex G.

Then there’s this recent dream he is afraid of having again. He was in his old room, back home. A summer afternoon of lilacs and bees and

286”

What are we to make of this enigmatic 286? (No fair peeking at page 287.)

One possible meaning, given The Archivists claim that “existence is infinitely cross-referenced”–

Page 286 of Ernest G. Schachtel, Metamorphosis: On the Conflict of Human Development and the Psychology of Creativity (first published in 1959), Hillsdale NJ and London, The Analytic Press, 2001 (chapter– “On Memory and Childhood Amnesia”):

“Both Freud and Proust speak of the autobiographical [my italics] memory, and it is only with regard to this memory that the striking phenomenon of childhood amnesia and the less obvious difficulty of recovering any past experience may be observed.”

The concluding “summer afternoon of lilacs and bees” suggests that 286 may also be a chance allusion to the golden afternoon of Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. (Cf. St. Sarah’s Day, 2008)

Some may find the Disney afternoon charming; others may see it as yet another of Paul Simon’s dreaded cartoon graveyards.

More tastefully, there is poem 286 in the 1919 Oxford Book of English Verse– “Love.”

For a midrash on this poem, see Simone Weil, who became acquainted with the poem by chance:

“I always prefer saying chance rather than Providence.”

— Simone Weil, letter of about May 15, 1942

Weil’s brother André might prefer Providence (source of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society.)

Andre Weil and his sister Simone, summer of 1922(Photo from Providence)

 

Related material:


Log24, December 20, 2003–
White, Geometric, and Eternal

A description in Gravity’s Rainbow of prewar Berlin as “white and geometric”  suggested, in combination with a reference elsewhere to “the eternal,” a citation of the following illustration of the concept “white, geometric, and eternal”–

For more on the mathematical significance of this figure, see (for instance) Happy Birthday, Hassler Whitney, and Combinatorics of Coxeter Groups, by Anders Björner and Francesco Brenti, Graduate Texts in Mathematics, vol. 231, Springer, New York, 2005.

This book is reviewed in the current issue (July 2008) of the above-mentioned Providence Bulletin.

The review in the Bulletin discusses reflection groups in continuous spaces.

For a more elementary approach, see Reflection Groups in Finite Geometry and Knight Moves: The Relativity Theory of Kindergarten Blocks.

See also a commentary on
the phrase “as a little child.”

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Tuesday May 27, 2008

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:00 pm
From the
Cartoon Graveyard

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

The above is from
The Paradise of Childhood
,
a work first published in 1869.

For the late Thelma Keane,
wife of “Family Circus
cartoonist Bil Keane of
Paradise Valley, Arizona:

I need a photo-opportunity,

Thelma Keane, real-life 'Family Circus' mother
I want a shot at redemption.*
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”
— Paul Simon
*                         
St. Barnabas on the Desert, Paradise Valley, Arizona

Mrs. Keane died May 23
(St. Sarah’s Eve)
according to
The Washington Post.
Related material:
Log24 on May 23,
Saints in Australia.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Sunday May 18, 2008

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 2:02 pm

From the Grave

DENNIS OVERBYE

in yesterday's New York Times:

"From the grave, Albert Einstein
poured gasoline on the culture wars
between science and religion this week…."

An announcement of a
colloquium at Princeton:

Cartoon of Coxedter exhuming Geometry

Above: a cartoon,
"Coxeter exhuming Geometry,"
with the latter's tombstone inscribed

"GEOMETRY

  600 B.C. —
1900 A.D.
R.I.P."

Page from 'The Paradise of Childhood,' 1906 edition

The above is from
The Paradise of Childhood,
a work first published in 1869.

"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

Einstein on TIME cover as 'Man of the Century'

Albert Einstein,
1879-1955:

"It is quite clear to me that the religious paradise of youth, which was thus lost, was a first attempt to free myself from the chains of the 'merely-personal,' from an existence which is dominated by wishes, hopes and primitive feelings.  Out yonder there was this huge world, which exists independently of us human beings and which stands before us like a great, eternal riddle, at least partially accessible to our inspection and thinking.  The contemplation of this world beckoned like a liberation…."

Autobiographical Notes, 1949

Related material:

A commentary on Tom Wolfe's
"Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died"–

"The Neural Buddhists," by David Brooks,
 in the May 13 New York Times:

"The mind seems to have
the ability to transcend itself
and merge with a larger
presence that feels more real."

A New Yorker commentary on
a new translation of the Psalms:

"Suddenly, in a world without
Heaven, Hell, the soul, and
eternal salvation or redemption,
the theological stakes seem
more local and temporal:
'So teach us to number our days.'"

and a May 13 Log24 commentary
on Thomas Wolfe's
"Only the Dead Know Brooklyn"–

"… all good things — trout as well as
eternal salvation — come by grace
and grace comes by art
and art does not come easy."

A River Runs Through It

"Art isn't easy."
— Stephen Sondheim,
quoted in
Solomon's Cube.

For further religious remarks,
consult Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
and The Librarian:
Return to King Solomon's Mines.

Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Wednesday January 3, 2007

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:32 am
The Wanderer:
 
11:32:56

“What on earth is
a concrete universal?”
Robert M. Pirsig  

Hexagram 56

“James Joyce meant Finnegans Wake to become a universal book. His universe was primarily Dublin, but Joyce believed that the universal can be found in the particular. ‘I always write about Dublin,’ he said to Arthur Power, ‘because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world’ (Ellmann 505). He achieved that goal in Ulysses by making Bloom a universal wanderer, the everyman trying to find his way in the labyrinth of the world.” —The Joyce of Science

Related material:

From A Shot at Redemption

The Past as Prologue:
Grand Rapids Revisited

Constantine (cartoon) and Donald Knuth

John Constantine,
cartoon character, and
Donald E. Knuth,
Lutheran mathematician

“…. recent books testify
further to Calvin College’s
unparalleled leadership
in the field of
Christian historiography….”

“I need a photo opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”

A photo opportunity —

Photo op for Gerald Ford

and a recent cartoon:

Cartoon of Gerald Ford with halo

History, said Stephen….

From Calvin College,
today’s meditation:

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Tuesday December 19, 2006

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 9:00 am
Joseph Barbera
at the Apollo


The 3x3 Grid

Click on picture
for related symbolism.

“This is the garden of Apollo,
the field of Reason….”
John Outram, architect

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

In memory of Joseph Barbera–
co-creator ot the Flintstones–
who died yesterday, a photo
from today’s Washington Post:

Joseph Barbera in Washington Post

Playing the role of
recording angel —

Halle Berry as
Rosetta Stone:

Halle Berry as Rosetta Stone

Related material:

Citizen Stone
and
Putting the X in Xmas.”

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Tuesday August 8, 2006

Filed under: General — m759 @ 12:00 am
Clown

“I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”

Mel Gibson in
“Conspiracy Theory”

                                           Hence it was,
Preferring text to gloss, he humbly served
Grotesque apprenticeship to chance event,
A clown, perhaps, but an aspiring clown.   
 
The Comedian as the Letter C

Related material:

Mental Health Month, Day 27

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

Tuesday August 1, 2006

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:56 pm
Highway 1
Revisited

Log24 illustration for 'Highway 1 Revisited'

John Constantine,
cartoon character, and
Donald E. Knuth,
Lutheran mathematician

“I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard.”

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06A/060801-Gibson.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Mel Gibson,
7/28/06,
photo by
Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department

This meditation is prompted by memories of suicidal alcoholics Hunter S. Thompson and Ernest Hemingway, as well as by the title of Mel Gibson’s latest project, “Apocalypto.”

A search on Gibson’s film title leads to this quotation:

“And what does apocalypse mean? It means revelation: apocalypto means to open up and to show the truth. But it also means absolute violence, so the apocalypse is a violent revelation and a revelation of violence and immediately you see the relevance of this.”

Interview with Rene Girard in the June 1996 issue of UCLA’s Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology

It is by no means clear that “apocalypse” means “violence,” let alone “absolute violence,” except in the Christian tradition.

For apocalyptic Christian violence, see “Apocalypse and Violence: The Evidence from the Reception History of the Book of Revelation” (pdf), by Christopher Rowland of Oxford University.

As for “the relevance of this,” see the definition of “generative anthropology” (GA) at

anthropoetics.ucla.edu/purpose.htm:

“The originary hypothesis of GA is that human language begins as an aborted gesture of appropriation representing–and thereby renouncing as sacred– an object of potential mimetic rivalry. The strength of our mimetic intelligence makes us the only creatures for whom intraspecific violence is a greater threat to survival than the external forces of nature. Human language defers potential conflict by permitting each to possess the sign of the unpossessable object of desire– the deferral of violence through representation.”

Compare with the remarks of Jung on Transformation Symbolism in the Mass:

Antecedents and parallels are found for the ritual of the Christian religious Mass in Aztec, Mithraic and pagan religious practices. “The Aztecs make a dough figure of the god Huitzilopochtli, which is then symbolically killed, divided and consumed….”

Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11. 2nd ed., Princeton University Press, 1969. (pp. 222-225)

Mel Gibson’s interest in religion and violence is well known.  His film “Apocalypto,” scheduled for release on Dec. 8, 2006, deals with human sacrifice among the Maya, rather than the Aztecs or Jews.  (Cf. Abraham and “Highway 61 Revisited.”)

It seems unlikely that Mel will learn more about these issues in his recovery program. Too bad.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Tuesday November 22, 2005

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 4:23 am

Cartoon Graveyard
(continued)

From yesterday’s New York Post:

By LARRY CELONA, JOHN MAZOR and DAN MANGAN

November 21, 2005 — The former tour manager for superstars Paul Simon and Billy Joel was stabbed to death yesterday by his prostitute girlfriend on his 57th birthday less than a block from Gracie Mansion, cops said.

“It looked like a horror movie in there,” said an NYPD detective after seeing the blood-drenched bed in the couple’s sixth-floor studio at 530 East 89th St., where cops say music producer Danny Harrison was stabbed twice in the chest with a long butcher knife by his live-in lover just before 1 p.m.

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

Below: cartoonist Lou Myers,
who also died on Sunday, Nov. 20,
with a horse from yesterday’s entry.

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051121-Horse.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

“... and behold: a pale horse.
And his name, that sat on him,
was Death. And Hell
followed with him
.”

Johnny Cash

Related material:
Log24 entries of
Sept. 15, 2003.

 

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Saturday October 29, 2005

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 1:00 pm

For Kate Jackson on her birthday:
 
Drop-Dead Gorgeous

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

 

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051029-Cameron2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

"The idea that this Sad Geezer may fancy a cartoon character is, of course, ludicrous (even if she is drop-dead gorgeous…)."

Aeon Flux – An Introduction

"Dr. Cameron was also interested in how chemical elements are formed inside stars, a field known as nucleosynthesis."

Today's New York Times.

We are stardust
    (billion year-old carbon)
We are golden
    (caught in the Devil's bargain)

Joni Mitchell,
lyrics on the album
"Ladies of the Canyon"

Related material:

The upcoming film
of Aeon Flux

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051029-Flux1.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

and

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051029-Laurel.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

as well as…

Dark Ladies

and

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051029-Kate12.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Kate Jackson in
Satan's School
for Girls
.

"The association
is the idea. "

The Third Word War

Saturday, September 10, 2005

Saturday September 10, 2005

Filed under: General — m759 @ 8:23 pm

x

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
The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/050910-Graveyard2.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Related material:

Nine Gates to the
Temple of Poetry

and
Law Day 2001:
The Devil and Wallace Stevens

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Tuesday February 22, 2005

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 12:48 pm
A Shot at Redemption

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05/050222-T2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Hunter S. Thompson, photos
from The New York Times

Excerpt from Fritz Leiber's
"Damnation Morning," 1959:

"Time traveling, which is not quite the good clean boyish fun it's cracked up to be, started for me when this woman with the sigil on her forehead looked in on me from the open doorway of the hotel bedroom where I'd hidden myself and the bottles and asked me, 'Look, Buster, do you want to live?'"

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

See also

Monday, July 12, 2004

Monday July 12, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 10:31 pm
Character and Values

In response to this morning’s Wizard-of-Id example (see 1:22 PM entry) of a political Bob-Hope-style Christian wisecrack (a style more apt to make me gag than laugh), some further quotations:

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

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04A/040712-Rockefeller.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

The Washington Post on the gigolo candidate in Boston Monday:

“In a lunch speech to more than 1,000 women who had donated $500 to $2,000 to his campaign or the Democratic Party, Kerry was joined on stage by his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry….  He focused his comments on improving health care and creating more jobs — notions that he said ‘are not Democratic values. They’re not Republican values. They are American values.’ “

Let us pass over Kerry’s ignorance of the difference between desiderata (things considered desirable) and values (principles, standards, or qualities considered desirable).

A definition of “values” in a different sense, one that might appeal to the late St. Laurance Rockefeller, dead on 7/11, who majored in philosophy at Princeton:

“In an artistical composition, the character of any one part in its relation to other parts and to the whole — often used in the plural: as, the values are well given, or well maintained.”

Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, 1913

Rockefeller is, I hope, now in a place where he can discuss this definition with Bach as it applies to, say, that composer’s “Goldberg Variations.”

Here below, another sort of Goldberg Variations seems appropriate to the times we live in …

The following composition was inspired by Whoopi Goldberg’s remarks at last Thursday’s Radio City Music Hall Democratic Party fund-raiser.

Democratic Political Art:
Motherhood and Apple Pie

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04A/040712-Ikex3.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Sources:

Ike Turner, Bad Dreams album,
Mom’s Apple Pie album (X-rated),
and Log24 entries of
July 9-10 and July 12.

Update of 3:17 AM July 13, 2004:

A place in Heaven next to St. Laurance
seems to have been reserved:

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04A/040713-Obits.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Sunday January 18, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 10:12 am

A Living Church

"Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. But imagine what it would be to live with such men still living. To know that Plato might break out with an original lecture to-morrow, or that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church is a man always expecting to meet Plato and Shakespeare to-morrow at breakfast. He is always expecting to see some truth that he has never seen before."

— G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

C. P. Snow on G. H. Hardy in the foreword to A Mathematician's Apology:

"… he had another favourite entertainment.  'Mark that man we met last night,' he said, and someone had to be marked out of 100 in each of the categories Hardy had long since invented and defined.  STARK, BLEAK ('a stark man is not necessarily bleak: but all bleak men without exception want to be considered stark')…."

S. H. Cullinane on religion and Hollywood:

"If the incomparable Max Bialystock were to remake 'Up Close and Personal,' he might retitle it 'Distant and Impersonal.'  A Google search on this phrase suggests

a plot outline for Mel Brooks & Co."

In memory of
producer Ray Stark,
an excerpt from that plot outline:

The Oxford University Press summary of

God:
Myths of the Male Divine,
by David Leeming and Jake Page

"They [Leeming and Page] describe the rise of a male sky God as 'the equal to, the true mate, of Goddess, who was still associated with Earth.' In the Iron Age, the sky God became more aggressive, separating from the Goddess and taking his place as the King God, as Zeus, Odin, and Horus. Ultimately he emerged as the creator, a more distant and impersonal force. Here Leeming and Page also illuminate an important trend–a sense that the divine is beyond gender, that it permeates all things (as seen in the Chinese Tao and En Sof of the Kabbalah). They see a movement in the biography of God toward a reunion with the Goddess."

As for the Goddess, see

Art Wars: Just Seventeen

(December 17, 2002). 

Stark, a saint among Hollywood producers, died yesterday, January 17.  If, as Chesterton might surmise, he then met Plato and Shakespeare in Heaven, the former might discuss with him the eternal Platonic form of the number 17, while the latter might offer the following links on Stark's new heavenly laptop:

Cartoon Graveyard and

Art Wars: At the Still Point

This concludes the tribute to Stark.  For a tribute to Bleak, click here.

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Tuesday January 21, 2003

Filed under: General — m759 @ 11:42 pm

Cartoon Graveyard,
or Betty and the Third Eye

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

The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2003:

One of my favorite movie scenes is the entry into paradise, through a looking glass, of Kilgore Trout (played by Albert Finney) in “Breakfast of Champions.”  Trout encounters a beautiful (indeed, angelic) maiden on the other side of the looking glass and asks of her, “Make me young again.”  His wish is granted.  Those who wish to may imagine — through a glass, darkly — a great artist’s entry into heaven with the aid of the very popular website Betty and Veronica.

PARENTAL ADVISORY:

The “Betty and Veronica” link above is more suited to Kilgore Trout’s usual publisher,  The World Classics Library, than to, say, the Harvard Classics.  Since Betty and Veronica have been attending Riverdale High for about 60 years now, I think we can assume they are 18 by this time, and can appear in an adult website.  Their cartoonish appearance may be helpful to newcomers to paradise; it does not mean, as Paul Simon fears, that the afterlife consists only of cartoon characters. 

For further details, see I Corinthians 13:11-13.

Saturday, January 11, 2003

Saturday January 11, 2003

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 6:24 pm

METROPOLITAN ART WARS:

The First Days of Disco

Some cultural milestones, in the order I encountered them today:

From Dr. Mac’s Cultural Calendar:

  • “On this day in 1963, Whiskey-A-Go-Go—believed to be the first discotheque in the world—opened on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles with extraordinary hype and fanfare.”

From websites on Whit Stillman’s film, “The Last Days of Disco”:

Scene: Manhattan in the very early 1980’s.

Alice and her friend Charlotte are regulars at a fashionable disco.

Roger Ebert:

“Charlotte is forever giving poor Alice advice about what to say and how to behave; she says guys like it when a girl uses the word ‘sexy,’ and a few nights later, when a guy tells Alice he collects first editions of Scrooge McDuck comic books, she…”

Bjorn Thomson:

“… looks deep into his eyes and purrs ‘I think Scrooge McDuck is sexy!’ It is a laugh-out-loud funny line and a shrewd parody, but is also an honest statement.”

(Actually, to be honest, I encountered Thomson first and Ebert later, but the narrative sequence demands that they be rearranged.)

The combination of these cultural landmarks suggested that I find out what Scrooge McDuck was doing during the first days of disco, in January 1963.  Some research revealed that in issue #40 of “Uncle Scrooge,” with a publication date of January 1963, was a tale titled “Oddball Odyssey.”  Plot summary: “A whisper of treasure draws Scrooge to Circe.”

Further research produced an illustration:

 

Desiring more literary depth, I sought more information on the story of Scrooge and Circe. It turns out that this was only one of a series of encounters between Scrooge and a character called Magica de Spell.  The following is from a website titled

Duckburg Religion:

“Magica’s first appearance is in ‘The Midas Touch’ (US 36-01). She enters the Money Bin to buy a dime from Scrooge. Donald tells Scrooge that she is a sorceress, but Scrooge sells her a dime anyway. He sells her his first dime by accident, but gets it back. The fun starts when Scrooge tells her that it is the first dime he earned. She is going to make an amulet….”

with it.  Her pursuit of the dime apparently lasts through a number of Scrooge episodes.

“…in Oddball Odyssey (US 40-02). Magica discovers Circe’s secret cave. Inside the cave is a magic wand that she uses to transform Huey, Dewey and Louie to pigs, Donald to a goat (later to a tortoise), and Scrooge to a donkey. This reminds us of the treatment Circe gave Ulysses and his men. Magica does not succeed in transforming Scrooge after stealing the Dime, and Scrooge manages to break the spell (de Spell) by smashing the magic wand.”

At this point I was reminded of the legendary (but true) appearance of Wallace Stevens’s wife on another historic dime.  This was discussed by Charles Schulz in a cartoon of Sunday, May 27, 1990:


  

Here Sally is saying…

Who, me?… Yes, Ma’am, right here.

This is my report on dimes and pennies…

“Wallace Stevens was a famous poet…
His wife was named Elsie…”

“Most people do not know that Elsie was the model for the 1916 ‘Liberty Head’ dime.”

“Most people also don’t know that if I had a dime for every one of these stupid reports I’ve written, I’d be a rich person.”

Finally, sitting outside the principal’s office:

I never got to the part about who posed for the Lincoln penny.


I conclude this report on a note of synchronicity:

The above research was suggested in part by a New York Times article on Ovid’s Metamorphoses I read last night.  After locating the Scrooge and Stevens items above, I went to the Times site this afternoon to remind myself of this article.  At that point synchronicity kicked in; I encountered the following obituary of a Scrooge figure from 1963… the first days of disco:

The New York Times, January 12, 2003

(So dated at the website on Jan. 11)

C. Douglas Dillon Dies at 93;
Was in Kennedy Cabinet

By ERIC PACE

C. Douglas Dillon, a versatile Wall Street financier who was named secretary of the Treasury by President Kennedy and ambassador to France under President Eisenhower, and was a longtime executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, died Friday [Jan. 10, 2003] at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. Mr. Dillon, who lived with his wife on Jupiter Island in Hobe Sound, Fla., was 93.

Mr. Dillon was born to wealth and influence as the son of the founder of Dillon, Read & Company, an international banking house. Mr. Dillon was widely respected for his attention to detail — he had a reputation for ferreting out inconspicuous errors in reports — and his intellect, which his parents began shaping at an early age by enrolling Mr. Dillon in elite private schools.

Mr. Dillon is said to have been able to read quickly and to fully comprehend what he read by the time he was 4 years old. At the Pine Lodge School in Lakehurst, N.J., Mr. Dillon’s schoolmates included Nelson, Laurance and John Rockefeller III. Mr. Dillon later graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and sharpened his analytical powers on Wall Street.

Strapping and strong-jawed, Mr. Dillon sometimes seemed self-effacing or even shy in public, despite his long prominence in public affairs and in business. He served over the years as chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, president of Harvard University’s board of overseers…”

Et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.

(See yesterday’s two entries, “Something Wonderful,” and “Story.”)

Two reflections suggest themselves:

“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

Ending up in a cartoon graveyard is indeed an unhappy fate; on the other hand…

It is nice to be called “sexy.”

Added at 1:50 AM Jan. 12, 2003:

Tonight’s site music, in honor of Mr. Dillon
and of Hepburn, Holden, and Bogart in “Sabrina” —
 “Isn’t It Romantic?”

 

Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Wednesday January 8, 2003

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:17 pm

In the Labyrinth of Memory

Taking a cue from Danny in the labyrinth of Kubrick’s film “The Shining,” today I retraced my steps.

My Jan. 6 entry, “Dead Poet in the City of Angels,” links to a set of five December 21, 2002, entries.  In the last of these, “Irish Lament,” is a link to a site appropriate for Maud Gonne’s birthday — a discussion of Yeats’s “Among School Children.”

Those who recall a young woman named Patricia Collinge (Radcliffe ’64) might agree that her image is aptly described by Yeats:

Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat

This meditation leads in turn to a Sept. 20, 2002, entry, “Music for Patricias,” and a tune familiar to James Joyce, “Finnegan’s Wake,” the lyrics of which lead back to images in my entries of Dec. 20, 2002, “Last-Minute Shopping,” and of Dec. 28, 2002, “Solace from Hell’s Kitchen.”  The latter entry is in memory of George Roy Hill, director of “The Sting,” who died Dec. 27, 2002.

The Dec. 28 image from “The Sting” leads us back to more recent events — in particular, to the death of a cinematographer who won an Oscar for picturing Newman and Redford in another film — Conrad L. Hall, who died Saturday, Jan. 4, 2003. 

For a 3-minute documentary on Hall’s career, click here.

Hall won Oscars for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “American Beauty,” and may win a posthumous Oscar for “Road to Perdition,” last year’s Irish-American mob saga:

“Tom Hanks plays Angel of Death Michael Sullivan. An orphan ‘adopted’ by crime boss John Rooney (Paul Newman), Sullivan worships Rooney above his own family. Rooney gave Sullivan a home when he had none. Rooney is the father Sullivan never knew. Too bad Rooney is the

Rock Island
branch of Capone’s mob.”

In keeping with this Irish connection, here is a set of images.

American Beauty
© Suzanne Harle 1997

Conrad L. Hall

 

A Game of Chess

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

“Like a chess player, he knows that to win a tournament, it is sometimes wise to offer a draw in a game even when you think you can win it.”

Roger Ebert on Robert Duvall’s character in “A Civil Action”

Director Steven Zaillian will take part in a tribute to Conrad L. Hall at the Palm Springs International Film Festival awards ceremony on Jan 11.  Hall was the cinematographer for Zaillian’s films “A Civil Action” and “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” 

“A Civil Action” was cast by the Boston firm Collinge/Pickman Casting, named in part for that same Patricia Collinge (“hollow of cheek”) mentioned above.

See also “Conrad Hall looks back and forward to a Work in Progress.”  (“Work in Progress” was for a time the title of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake.)

What is the moral of all this remembrance?

An 8-page (paper) journal note I compiled on November 14, 1995 (feast day of St. Lawrence O’Toole, patron saint of Dublin, allegedly born in 1132) supplies an answer in the Catholic tradition that might have satisfied Joyce (to whom 1132 was a rather significant number): 

How can you tell there’s an Irishman present
at a cockfight?
     He enters a duck.
How can you tell a Pole is present?
     He bets on the duck.
How can you tell an Italian is present?
     The duck wins.

Every picture tells a story.

Hall wins Oscar for “American Beauty”

 

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Tuesday December 17, 2002

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:06 am

Not Amusing Anymore

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

From The New York Times, Dec. 16, 2002

(See yesterday’s notes) —

John Patrick Naughton
for The New York Times

Rebecca Goldstein
remembers discovering Plato
at the age of 12 or 13
in Will Durant’s
‘Story of Philosophy’
and feeling
‘that I was out beyond myself,
had almost lost all touch with
who I even was, and it was . . .
bliss.'”

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