Meditations for October 20 :
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, April 21, 2023
A Poem for Parfit
This post was suggested
by a Chinese birthday:
|
In the box-style I Ching
Art is represented
And of course
The combination of these |
See as well Parfit in this journal and in
an April 12 New Statesman article —
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Wednesday, January 1, 2020
A Hexagram for Pauli*
Pictorial version
of Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View)
* See Pauli in the Dec. 30
post Number and Time.
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Tuesday, August 20, 2013
The 20
In memory of author Elmore Leonard—
A graphic symbol and a search for "Nowhere"*
in this journal yield…
|
Pictorial version |
"Cotton Mather died
— Wallace Stevens, |
* See previous post.
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Meet Max Black (continued)
Background— August 30, 2006—
In the 2006 post, the above seventh symbol 110000 was
interpreted as the I Ching hexagram with topmost and
next-to-top lines solid, not broken— Hexagram 20, View .
In a different interpretation, 110000 is the binary for the decimal
number 48— representing the I Ching's Hexagram 48, The Well .
“… Max Black, the Cornell philosopher, and
others have pointed out how ‘perhaps every science
must start with metaphor and end with algebra, and
perhaps without the metaphor there would never
have been any algebra’ ….”
– Max Black, Models and Metaphors,
Cornell U. Press, 1962, page 242, as quoted
in Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors,
by Victor Witter Turner, Cornell U. Press,
paperback, 1975, page 25
The algebra is certainly clearer than either I Ching
metaphor, but is in some respects less interesting.
For a post that combines both the above I Ching
metaphors, View and Well , see Dec. 14, 2007.
In memory of scholar Elinor Ostrom,
who died today—
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Sunday, February 5, 2012
Sunday Morning
CBS Sunday Morning 's piece on
the number pi today suggested…
Hexagram 20, Contemplation/View,
from the website Rightreading.com
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Sunday, May 22, 2011
Asterisk*
A year ago today—
Art Space
|
Pictorial version |
|
| “Space: what you damn well have to see.” – James Joyce, Ulysses |
|
* See Vonnegut.
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Friday, April 8, 2011
Concepts of Space
Part I — Roberta Smith in today's New York Times —
"… the argument that painting may ultimately be about
little more than the communication of some quality of
light and space, however abstract or indirect."
– Review of "Rooms With a View" at the Met
|
Pictorial version |
|
“Space: what you damn well have to see.”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
Part II — Window from A Crooked House
"Teal lifted the blind a few inches. He saw nothing, and raised it a little more—still nothing. Slowly he raised it until the window was fully exposed. They gazed out at—nothing.
Nothing, nothing at all. What color is nothing? Don't be silly! What shape is it? Shape is an attribute of something . It had neither depth nor form. It had not even blackness. It was nothing ."
Part III — Not So Crooked: The Cabinet of Dr. Montessori
An April 5 Wall Street Journal article on Montessori schools, and…
A cabinet from Dr. Montessori's own
explanation of her method
Part IV — Pilate Goes to Kindergarten and The Seven
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Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Time and Chance (continued)
Accidental Time and Space
New York Lottery today— midday 987, evening 522.
Time
The midday 987 may be interpreted as "…nine, eight, seven, …."—
"The countdown as we know it, 10-9-8-u.s.w.,
was invented by Fritz Lang in 1929 for
the Ufa film Die Frau im Mond . He put it into
the launch scene to heighten the suspense.
'It is another of my damned "touches,"' Fritz Lang said."
Space
The evening 522 suggests the date 5/22. From that date last year—
Art Space (2:02 AM EDT)
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Pictorial version |
|
“Space: what you damn well have to see.”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
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Friday, June 4, 2010
ART WARS continued
Today's New York Times—
Art Review
Painting Thin Air, Sometimes in Bright Blue
(“Yves Klein: With the Void, Full Powers”
runs through Sept. 12 at the Hirshhorn.)
Related material—
Search this journal for klein + paris.
See also Art Space (May 22, 2010)—
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Pictorial version |
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Saturday, May 22, 2010
Art Space
From an interview with artist Josefine Lyche (see previous post) dated March 11, 2009—
– Can you name a writer or book, fiction or theory that has inspired your works?
– Right now I am reading David Foster Wallace, which is great and inspiring. Others would be Aleister Crowley, Terence McKenna, James Joyce, J.L Borges, J.D Ballard, Stanislaw Lem, C. S. Lewis and Plato to mention some. Books, both fiction and theory are a great part of my life and work.
This journal on the date of the interview had a post about a NY Times story, ”Paris | A Show About Nothing."
Related images—
|
Pictorial version |
|
“Space: what you damn well have to see.”
– James Joyce, Ulysses
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Thursday, May 20, 2010
View
Pictorial version
of Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View)
Related material:
A Handful of Dust
by J. G. Ballard
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Saturday, March 7, 2009
Saturday March 7, 2009
One or Two Ideas
|
From James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:
he hearth and began to stroke his chin. –When may we expect to have something from you on the esthetic question? he asked. –From me! said Stephen in astonishment. I stumble on an idea once a fortnight if I am lucky. –These questions are very profound, Mr Dedalus, said the dean. It is like looking down from the cliffs of Moher into the depths. Many go down into the depths and never come up. Only the trained diver can go down into those depths and explore them and come to the surface again. –If you mean speculation, sir, said Stephen, I also am sure that there is no such thing as free thinking inasmuch as all thinking must be bound by its own laws. –Ha! –For my purpose I can work on at present by the light of one or two ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas. –I see. I quite see your point. |
Besides being Mondrian's birthday, today is also the dies natalis (in the birth-into-heaven sense) of St. Thomas Aquinas and, for those who believe worthy pre-Christians also enter heaven, possibly of Aristotle.
Pope Benedict XVI explained the dies natalis concept on Dec. 26, 2006:
"For believers the day of death, and even more the day of martyrdom, is not the end of all; rather, it is the 'transit' towards immortal life. It is the day of definitive birth, in Latin, dies natalis."
The Pope's remarks on that date
were in St. Peter's Square.
were in St. Peter's Square.
Pictorial version
of Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View)
The square may be regarded as
symbolizing art itself.
(See Nov.30 – Dec.1, 2008.)
symbolizing art itself.
(See Nov.30 – Dec.1, 2008.)
In honor of
Aristotle and Aquinas,
here is a new web site,
illuminati-diamond.com,
with versions of the diamond shape
made famous by Mondrian —
— a shape symbolizing
possibility within modal logic
as well as the potentiality of
Aristotle's prima materia.
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Monday, December 1, 2008
Monday December 1, 2008
A Version of
Heaven's Gate
Heaven's Gate
in memory of
G. H. Hardy,
who died on
this date in 1947
C. P. Snow on Hardy:
"He was living in some of the best intellectual company in the world– G.E. Moore, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Trevelyan, the high Trinity society which was shortly to find its artistic complement in Bloomsbury."
For a rather different artistic complement, see the previous entry.
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Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Tuesday December 26, 2006
Today in History
by The Associated Press:
Today is Tuesday, Dec. 26, the 360th day of 2006. There are five days left in the year. The seven-day African-American holiday Kwanzaa begins today. This is Boxing Day.
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Sunday, September 10, 2006
Sunday September 10, 2006
And the
"Meet Max Black"
Award goes to…
"For the Aeron and other designs,
Mr. Stumpf won this year’s
National Design Award
in Product Design,
which is to be presented
posthumously on Oct. 18
by the Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum
in Manhattan."
— Today's New York Times
Stumpf died on August 30,
the date of the Log24 entry
"The Seventh Symbol."
Related material:
From
Geometry of the I Ching,
a chessboard:
From the
National Design Museum:
From Log24 on the
date of Stumpf's death,
Pictorial version of
Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View)
See also
Fearful Symmetry
and
Symmetry Framed.
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Monday, December 26, 2005
Monday December 26, 2005
Language Game on
Boxing Day
Boxing Day
In the box-style I Ching
Hexagram 34,
The Power of the Great,
is represented by
.
Art is represented
by a box
(Hexagram 20,
Contemplation, View)
.
And of course
great art
is represented by
an X in a box.
(Hexagram 2,
The Receptive)
.
“… as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually
in its stillness”
“… at the still point,
there the dance is.”
— T. S. Eliot
 A Jungian on this six-line figure: “They are the same six lines that exist in the I Ching…. Now observe the square more closely: four of the lines are of equal length, the other two are longer…. For this reason symmetry cannot be statically produced and a dance results.” |
For those who prefer
technology to poetry,
there is the Xbox 360.
(Today is day 360 of 2005.)
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Sunday December 11, 2005
For Rita Moreno
on Her Birthday:
on Her Birthday:
Sex and Art in
a Chinese Poem
In the box-style I Ching
Hexagram 34,
The Power of the Great,
is represented by
.
Art is represented
by a box
(Hexagram 20,
Contemplation, View)
.
And of course
great art
is represented by
an X in a box.
(Hexagram 2,
The Receptive)
.
The combination of these
three symbols may be viewed
as “Power in a Box,” or,
according to some scholars,
“The Art of Great Sex.”
From Xinhua News Agency tonight:
Xbox 360 meets
cold shoulder in Japan.
But in another time and place…
Thursday, March 10, 2005
Thursday March 10, 2005
Final Arrangements
(continued)
(continued)
Macalester College on Don Celender:
“An Art History prize fund
has been established in his name.
Contributions can be sent to
the Macalester Art Department.”
In today’s Art History competition,
Glenn Davis is, of course,
the first runner-up,
and is represented below
by the X.
(Hexagram 34,
The Power of the Great)
Art itself is represented
by the box.
(Hexagram 20,
Contemplation, View)
Women’s History Month
is represented by
the X in a box.
(Hexagram 2,
The Receptive)
The winner of the
Art History competition
is Jodie Foster, for
combining astrophysics
with interpretive dancing.
“… as in a great work of art, there is,
written small, the artist’s signature….
Standing over humans, gods, and demons…
there is an intelligence that
antedates the universe.”
— Carl Sagan,
Contact
“Dr. Kinsey, Dr. Arroway;
Dr. Arroway, Dr. Kinsey.”
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Monday, September 20, 2004
Monday September 20, 2004
Pi continued:
(see 9/15/04)
Renegade mathematician Max Cohen (Sean Gullette, left) and the leader of the Kabbalah sect, Lenny Meyer (Ben Shenkman) have a chance encounter on a Chinatown street corner.
The Magic Schmuck
"Confucius is said to have received only one inappropriate answer, i.e., hexagram 22, GRACE — a thoroughly aesthetic hexagram. This is reminiscent of the advice given to Socrates by his daemon — 'You ought to make more music' — whereupon Socrates took to playing the flute. Confucius and Socrates compete for first place as far as reasonableness and a pedagogic attitude to life are concerned; but it is unlikely that either of them occupied himself with 'lending grace to the beard on his chin,' as the second line of this hexagram advises. Unfortunately, reason and pedagogy often lack charm and grace, and so the oracle may not have been wrong after all."
— Carl Jung, Foreword to the I Ching
Yesterday, class, in keeping with our morning German lesson, our evening (5:01:22 PM ET) entry was Hexagram 22, Pi (pronounced "bee"). The Chinese term pi may be translated in various ways… As ornament, as adornment, or as in a German web page:
| I-Ching 22 | Pi | Der Schmuck |
The Wilhelm translation of pi is "grace." This suggests we examine yesterday's evening lottery number in the State of Grace, Pennsylvania:
408.
As kabbalists know, there are many ways of interpreting numbers. In keeping with the viewpoint of Ecclesiastes — "time and chance happeneth" — let us interpret this instance of chance as an instance of time… namely, 4/08. Striving for consistency in our meditations, let us examine the lessons for…
4/08 2003 — Death's Dream Kingdom —
and 4/08 2004 — Triple Crown.
From the former:
"When smashing monuments, save the pedestals; they always come in handy."
From the latter:
"The tug of an art that unapologetically sees itself as on a par with science and religion is not to be underestimated…. Philosophical ambition and formal modesty still constitute Minimalism's bottom line."
In keeping with the above, from
this year's Log24.net
Rosh Hashanah service…
A Minimalist
Pedestal:
|
|
For a poetic interpretation
of this symbol, see
Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View).
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Wednesday, September 15, 2004
Wednesday September 15, 2004
High Holy
Hexagram
7:11:20 PM
|
|
For a poetic interpretation
of this symbol, see
Hexagram 20,
Contemplation (View).
For a religious interpretation
suited to the High Holy Days,
see the film
.
“The truth is that man’s capacity for symbol-mongering in general and language in particular is so intimately part and parcel of his being human, of his perceiving and knowing, of his very consciousness itself, that it is all but impossible for him to focus on the magic prism through which he sees everything else.”
— Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle
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