Log24

The title phrase is from Art Wars and various posts in this journal.

"Go ahead," he said; he handed her three Chinese brass coins
 with holes in the center. "I generally use these."

— The Man in the High Castle , quoted here on Nov. 14, 2003

See also Tangled Tale, Yonda Lies the Castle, and a gathering in Dublin today.

Thesis —

A 1911 essay by T. E. Hulme,
"Romanticism and Classicism" —

"There is a general tendency to think that verse means
little else than the expression of unsatisfied emotion.
People say: 'But how can you have verse without sentiment?'
You see what it is: the prospect alarms them. A classical revival
to them would mean the prospect of an arid desert and the death
of poetry as they understand it, and could only come to fill the gap
caused by that death. Exactly why this dry classical spirit should
have a positive and legitimate necessity to express itself in poetry
is utterly inconceivable to them."

Antithesis —

A 1961 reaction against Hulme,
"Against Dryness" —

"Against the consolations of form, the clean crystalline
work, the simplified fantasy-myth, we must pit the
destructive power of the now so unfashionable naturalistic
idea of character.

Real people are destructive of myth, contingency is
destructive of fantasy and opens the way for imagination."

— Iris Murdoch, January 1961

Synthesis —

See the title in this journal.

See too .  .  .

and, exploring Burroway's "nature of identity" …

Backstory:  Verhexung  and Ein Kampf .

Prequel: The Verhexung  quote above is from Wittgenstein's section 109 
in Philosophical Investigations . The search result shown links to a page
containing part of the preceding  Wittgenstein section —

For another look at "crystalline purity" and language, see the previous
two posts, Logic and Fruit Loom.

Wallace Stevens, “Country Words” —

“What is it that my feeling seeks?
I know from all the things it touched
And left beside and left behind.
It wants the diamond pivot bright.”

See also Sequel, Lumet's "a full half-hour" and Tribute.

Friday evening’s post Musement dealt with Iris Murdoch’s
phrase “the clean crystalline work.”

For dirty bloody work see the life of Don Reitz, who
reportedly died at 84 on March 19.

From the New York Times  obituary of philanthropist
Fred Kavli, who died on Thursday, November 21—

” In 2005, when Mr. Kavli announced that
he planned to start the prizes, he recalled
skiing in the Norwegian mountains as a boy.

‘At times,’ he told a gathering in New York,
‘the whole sky was aflame with the Northern Lights
shifting and dancing across the sky down to the
white-clad mountaintops. In the stillness and
loneliness of the white mountains, I pondered the
universe, the planet, nature and the wonders of
man. I’m still pondering.’ “

“And we may see the meadow in December, icy white
and crystalline….” — Johnny Mercer, lyrics to Lionel
Hampton and Sonny Burke’s “Midnight Sun”

* Lyche

For Emil Artin—

“And we may see
the meadow in December,
icy white and crystalline.”

— Johnny Mercer, “Midnight Sun”

"Perfect, genuine,
complete, crystalline, pure."

See also The Cruciatus Curse.

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

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

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

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

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

Time Travel

“Since thirty mornings
    are required to make
A day of which we say,
    this is the day
That we desire, a day of
    blank, blue wheels,

Involving the four corners
    of the sky,
Lapised and lacqued
    and freely emeraldine
In the space it fills,
    the silent motioner

There, of clear, revolving
    crystalline;
Since thirty summers
   are needed for a year
And thirty years,
   in the galaxies of birth,

Are time for counting
   and remembering….”

— Wallace Stevens,
   “Of Ideal Time and Choice,”
   in The Necessary Angel, 1951

“When it’s time to railroad,
  people start railroading.”

— Robert A. Heinlein in
   The Door into Summer, 1957

“Everybody’s doin’
 a brand new dance now…”

— Kylie Minogue, 1987-88

Happy birthday, Kylie.

“Heaven– Where Is It?
  How Do We Get There?”

To air on ABC
Tuesday, Dec. 20
(John Spencer’s birthday)

Fred Stein, 1945

“And we may see
the meadow in December,
icy white and crystalline.”

The Cruciatus Curse

Today’s birthday — Martin Sheen

Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure.