* For the title, see "A Marriage of Heaven and Hell."
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Parts of a World
Bruce Reynolds, chief architect of
the Great Train Robbery, who reportedly
died today:
"We all have our benchmarks….
it’s the same madness, I suppose,
that drives people to bivouac on
the north face of the Eiger."
For the Eiger in this journal, see "Parts of a World."
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Monday, June 25, 2012
Design (continued)
The New York Times this morning reports the death
last Tuesday (June 19, 2012) in Boston
of Gerhard Kallman, a Brutalist architect
born in Berlin in 1915.
Some Log24 images from the date of his death—
The above view shows the south side of Kirkland Street (at Quincy).
A more appealing architectural image, from the other side
of Kirkland Street—
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Monday, April 23, 2012
Mate in Six
In memory of Mike Wallace—
- An April 8 post noting the death of Wallace—
a NY Times obituary notice with ad at top— "The North Face"
- An April 21 post noting the death of Charles Colson,
reportedly at at 3:12 PM on Saturday, April 21, 2012,
with ad at top— "Discover New Horizons"
- An April 21 post linking to a 3/12 post (this date being
suggested by the reported time of Colson's death)
that has a review of the film "The Ninth Configuration"
- An April 22 post with six lines that some might
interpret as meeting on a horizon, two lines that might
be interpreted as meeting at a "depth horizon," and
a ninth line that emerges from the other eight
- An April 23 post that combines a passage from
"The Ninth Configuration" with a detail from
the North Face ad that appeared above Wallace's
NY TImes obituary on April 8 and again above
Colson's obituary on April 23
- "The game's…"
See also Knight Moves.
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Sunday, April 8, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2006
Saturday January 7, 2006
Strange Attractor
(See also the star as a
"spider" symbol in the
stories of Fritz Leiber.)
For Heinrich Harrer,
who died today…
Harrer was one of the 1938 team that first climbed the north face (the Nordwand, also called the Mordwand, or "death" face) of the Eiger.
Wikipedia on the north face of the Eiger:
"A portion of the upper face is called 'The White Spider,' as snow-filled cracks radiating from an ice-field resemble the legs of a spider. Harrer used the name for the title of his book about his successful climb, Die Weisse Spinne (translated… as The White Spider)."
"Connoisseur of Chaos,"
by Wallace Stevens,
from Parts of a World (1942):
III
After all the pretty contrast of life and death
Proves that these opposite things partake of one,
At least that was the theory, when bishops' books
Resolved the world. We cannot go back to that.
The squirming facts exceed the squamous mind,
If one may say so . And yet relation appears,
A small relation expanding like the shade
Of a cloud on sand, a shape on the side of a hill.
V
The pensive man . . . He sees that eagle float
For which the intricate Alps are a single nest.
Related material:
- Trevanian on "the meadow" in Shibumi,
- Trevanian on "the meadow that tilts up toward the north face" in The Eiger Sanction,
- Johnny Mercer on the meadow (Dec. 18 and 20, 2005), and
- Nine is a Vine, Christmas Eve, 2005.
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