Related drama — Holland Tale, Odious Evening Colors,
The Blue Monkey Diamond, and . . .
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"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
Tuesday, April 15, 2025
Space Trip
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Wednesday, April 29, 2020
Curtis at Pilsen, Thursday, July 5, 2018
For an account by R. T. Curtis of how he discovered the Miracle Octad Generator,
see slides by Curtis, “Graphs and Groups,” from his talk on July 5, 2018, at the
Pilsen conference on algebraic graph theory, “Symmetry vs. Regularity: The first
50 years since Weisfeiler-Leman stabilization” (WL2018).
See also “Notes to Robert Curtis’s presentation at WL2018,” by R. T. Curtis.
Meanwhile, here on July 5, 2018 —
| Simultaneous perspective does not look upon language as a path because it is not the search for meaning that orients it. Poetry does not attempt to discover what there is at the end of the road; it conceives of the text as a series of transparent strata within which the various parts—the different verbal and semantic currents—produce momentary configurations as they intertwine or break apart, as they reflect each other or efface each other. Poetry contemplates itself, fuses with itself, and obliterates itself in the crystallizations of language. Apparitions, metamorphoses, volatilizations, precipitations of presences. These configurations are crystallized time: although they are perpetually in motion, they always point to the same hour—the hour of change. Each one of them contains all the others, each one is inside the others: change is only the oft-repeated and ever-different metaphor of identity.
— Paz, Octavio. The Monkey Grammarian |
The 2018 Log24 post containing the above Paz quote goes on to quote
remarks by Lévi-Strauss. Paz’s phrase “series of transparent strata”
suggests a review of other remarks by Lévi-Strauss in the 2016 post
“Key to All Mythologies.“
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Saturday, February 22, 2020
Remembering Speechlessly
"Remembering speechlessly we seek
the great forgotten language . . . ."
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"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
See also other posts now tagged Transparent Things.
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Thursday, July 5, 2018
Paz:
Some context for what Heidegger called
das Spiegel-Spiel des Gevierts
From Helen Lane's translation of El Mono Gramático ,
a book by Nobel winner Octavio Paz first published
in Barcelona by Seix Barral in 1974 —
|
Simultaneous perspective does not look upon language as a path because it is not the search for meaning that orients it. Poetry does not attempt to discover what there is at the end of the road; it conceives of the text as a series of transparent strata within which the various parts—the different verbal and semantic currents—produce momentary configurations as they intertwine or break apart, as they reflect each other or efface each other. Poetry contemplates itself, fuses with itself, and obliterates itself in the crystallizations of language. Apparitions, metamorphoses, volatilizations, precipitations of presences. These configurations are crystallized time: although they are perpetually in motion, they always point to the same hour—the hour of change. Each one of them contains all the others, each one is inside the others: change is only the oft-repeated and ever-different metaphor of identity.
— Paz, Octavio. The Monkey Grammarian |
A related 1960 meditation from Claude Lévi-Strauss taken from a
Log24 post of St. Andrew's Day 2017, "The Matrix for Quantum Mystics":
"In Vol. I of Structural Anthropology , p. 209, I have shown that
this analysis alone can account for the double aspect of time
representation in all mythical systems: the narrative is both
'in time' (it consists of a succession of events) and 'beyond'
(its value is permanent)." — Claude Lévi-Strauss
I prefer the earlier, better-known, remarks on time by T. S. Eliot
in Four Quartets , and the following four quartets
(from The Matrix Meets the Grid) —
.
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Thursday, March 1, 2018
The Movement of Analogy: Hume vs. Paz
Hume, from posts tagged "four-set" in this journal —
"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions
successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away,
and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.
There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity
in different, whatever natural propension we may have
to imagine that simplicity and identity."
Paz, from a search for Paz + Identity in this journal —
|
"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
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Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Conceptual Minimalism
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"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
See also AS IS.
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Thursday, October 19, 2017
And Howe
The Harvard Crimson , Feb. 28, 2017 —
Cambridge City Councillors formally requested that the Cambridge
Historical Commission consider designating the Abbott Building in
Harvard Square as a historical landmark at its weekly meeting Monday.
. . . .
“There are only a few gems that give the really Square character.”
Councillor Dennis J. Carlone said. “And in the heart of the square,
it’s this building.”
See as well the cover of
The Monkey Grammarian ,
a book by Octavio Paz —
A related NPR book review yesterday —
"Like Curious George , another vaguely imperialist children's classic —
which Prose refers to frequently — the simian hero of Mister Monkey
gets into trouble in his new urban environment."
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Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Prose
New York Times review of a new novel by Francine Prose —
"Mister Monkey . . . . is also Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god . . . ."
— Cathleeen Schine in in the above October 17 review.
A related book —
See as well The Monkey Grammarian in this journal.
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Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Status Symbols
"Status: Defunct" …
As is now its owner, who reportedly
died at 80 on Sunday, October 15, 2017.
In memoriam —
Excerpts from Log24 posts on Sunday night
and yesterday evening —
.
" … listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go"
— e. e. cummings
Some literary background —
|
"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
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Thursday, October 6, 2016
Key to All Mythologies…
According to Octavio Paz and Claude Lévi-Strauss
"Poetry…. conceives of the text as a series of transparent strata
within which the various parts—the different verbal and semantic
currents— produce momentary configurations as they intertwine
or break apart, as they reflect each other or efface each other.
Poetry contemplates itself, fuses with itself, and obliterates itself
in the crystallizations of language. Apparitions, metamorphoses,
volatilizations, precipitations of presences. These configurations
are crystallized time…."
— Octavio Paz in The Monkey Grammarian (written in 1970)
"Strata" also seem to underlie the Lévi-Strauss "canonic formula" of myth
in its original 1955 context, described as that of permutation groups —
I do not recommend trying to make sense of the above "formula."
Related material —
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Monday, August 8, 2016
A Point of Identity
For a Monkey Grammarian (Viennese Version)
|
"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane
|
A logo that may be interpreted as one-eighth of a 2x2x2 array
of cubes —
The figure in white above may be viewed as a subcube representing,
when the eight-cube array is coordinatized, the identity (i.e., (0, 0, 0)).
Shown below are a few variations on the figure by VCQ,
the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology —
(Click image to enlarge.)
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Sunday, July 3, 2016
Articulation
Notes for a monkey grammarian —
"Visual forms— lines, colors, proportions, etc.—
are just as capable of articulation ,
i.e. of complex combination, as words.
But the laws that govern this sort of articulation
are altogether different from the laws of syntax
that govern language. The most radical difference
is that visual forms are not discursive .
They do not present their constituents successively,
but simultaneously, so the relations determining
a visual structure are grasped in one act of vision."
— Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key
See also Langer's New Key in this journal.
Related material —
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Friday, July 1, 2016
Transparent Core
"At the point of convergence the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that identity alone may shine forth.
The illusion of motionlessness, the play of mirrors of the one:
identity is completely empty; it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core the movement of analogy begins all over
once again." — The Monkey Grammarian by Octavio Paz,
translated by Helen Lane
A more specific "transparent core" —
See all references to this figure
in this journal.
For a more specific "monkey grammarian,"
see W. Tecumseh Fitch in this journal.
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Sunday, May 10, 2015
Language Animal Farm
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Friday, May 8, 2015
Spielraum
Review:
Illustrating the Spiegel-Spiel des Gevierts
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"At the point of convergence
by Octavio Paz, translated by |
Friday December 5, 2008
|
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Tuesday, May 5, 2015
Paz
|
"At the point of convergence
by Octavio Paz, translated by |
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Sunday, December 23, 2012
Digital Recreation
Denzel Washington in Deja Vu (2006), directed by Tony Scott—
See also Tony Scott and four and a half days ago* —
Japanese character
for "field"
Related material from five days ago—
|
"At the point of convergence by Octavio Paz, translated by |
* More precisely, what will be 4.5 days ago at 3:09 AM ET.
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Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Monkey Grammar
For a modern Adam and Eve—
W. Tecumseh Fitch and Gesche Westphal Fitch,
editors of a new four-volume collection titled
Language Evolution (Feb. 2, 2012, $1,360)—
Related material—
|
"At the point of convergence
by Octavio Paz, translated by |
The "play of mirrors" link above is my own.
Click on W. Tecumseh Fitch for links to some
examples of mirror-play in graphic design—
from, say, my own work in a version of 1977, not from
the Fitches' related work published online last June—
See also Log24 posts from the publication date
of the Fitches' Language Evolution—
Happy birthday to the late Alfred Bester.
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