Log24

In memory of ballet designer
Yolanda Sonnabend, who
reportedly died at 80 on Nov. 9,
see posts on Apollo, Ballet Blanc,
maps of New Haven, etc., etc., etc.

"Got to keep the loonies on the path."

— Lyrics to Dark Side of the Moon

For those who, like Tom Stoppard, prefer the dark side—

Not quite so dark—

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you."

— Lyrics to Dark Side of the Moon

This journal ten years ago, on August 25, 2003—

"A view of New Haven, say…." —

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

A similar version of this Apollonian image —

  Detail:

Related material for the loonies:

"the spirit's alchemicana."

The title was suggested by this evening's 4-digit NY lottery number.

"… the rhetoric might be a bit over the top."

According to Amazon.com, 2198 (i.e., 2/1/98) was the publication
date of Geometry of Vector Sheaves , Volume I, by Anastasios Mallios.

Related material—

The question of S.S. Chern quoted here June 10: —
"What is Geometry?"— and the remark by Stevens that
accompanied the quotation—

"Reality is the beginning not the end,
Naked Alpha, not the hierophant Omega,
of dense investiture, with luminous vassals."
— Wallace Stevens,
“An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” VI

The work of Mallios in pure mathematics cited above seems
quite respectable (unlike his later remarks on physics).
His Vector Sheaves  appears to be trying to explore new territory;
hence the relevance of Stevens's "Alpha." See also the phrase
"A-Invariance" in an undated preprint by Mallios*.

For the evening 3-digit number, 533, see a Stevens poem—

This meditation by Stevens is related to the female form of Mallios's Christian name.

As for the afternoon numbers, see "62" in The Beauty Test (May 23, 2007), Geometry and Death, and "9181" as the date 9/1/81.

* Later published in International Journal of Theoretical Physics , Vol. 47, No. 7, cover date 2008-07-01

“When New Haven was founded, the city was laid out into a grid of nine squares surrounded by a great wilderness.
    Last year [2000] History of Art Professor Emeritus Vincent Scully said the original town plan reflected a feeling that the new city should be sacred.
    Scully said the colony’s founders thought of their new Puritan settlement as a ‘nine-square paradise on Earth, heaven on earth, New Haven, New Jerusalem.'”

— Yale Daily News, Jan. 11, 2001

“Real and unreal are two in one:
    New Haven
 Before and after one arrives….”

 — Wallace Stevens,
    “An Ordinary Evening
     in New Haven,” XXVIII

See also Art and Man at Yale.