Log24

Express

You've got to make him
Express himself
Hey, hey, hey, hey
— Madonna  

Humboldt's Gift:

Related material on trains:

Davenport's Express
and End of Days.

Related material on 162:

Dogma Part II: Amores Perros,
The Matthias Defense,
The Still Point and the Wheel,
  Mark, and Confession.

Related material on
self-expression:

Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell,   SciFi channel, 7 PM tonight

Jenny O'Hara

"This world is not conclusion;
a sequel stands beyond."
— Emily Dickinson

“My wife took, unnoticed, this picture, unposed, of me in the act of writing a novel…. The date (discernible in the captured calendar) is February 27, 1929. The novel, Zashchita Luzhina (The Defense), deals with the defense invented by an insane chess player….”
— Vladimir Nabokov, note to photograph following page 256 in Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, Vintage International paperback, August 1989

— Quoted in The Matthias Defense

From a site titled Meaning of the Twentieth Century —

“Freeman Dyson has expressed some thoughts on craziness. In a Scientific American article called ‘Innovation in Physics,’ he began by quoting Niels Bohr. Bohr had been in attendance at a lecture in which Wolfgang Pauli proposed a new theory of elementary particles. Pauli came under heavy criticism, which Bohr summed up for him: ‘We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that is not crazy enough.’ To that Freeman added: ‘When a great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer, himself, it will be only half understood; to everyone else, it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope!’ “

— Kenneth Brower, The Starship and the Canoe, 1979, pp. 146, 147

It is my hope that the speculation, implied in The Matthias Defense, that the number 162 has astonishing mystical properties (as a page number, article number, etc.) is sufficiently crazy to satisfy Pauli and his friend Jung as well as the more conventional thinkers Bohr and Dyson.

— Log24.net, Feast of St. Mark, 2003

See also The Black Queen and The Eight.
 
In accordance with the theology of the previous entry, based on Zein’s list of the most common Chinese characters, here are some meanings of

[si4] {sì} /to watch/to wait/to examine/to spy/
[si4] {sì} /to seem/to appear/similar/like/to resemble/
[si4] {sì} /until/wait for/
[si4] {sì} /rhinoceros indicus/
[si4] {sì} /four/
[si4] {sì} /(surname)/wife of older brother/
[si4] {sì} /Buddhist temple/
[si4] {sì} /6th earthly branch/9-11 a.m./
[si4] {sì} /stream which returns after branching/
[si4] {sì} /place name/snivel/
[si4] {sì} /offer sacrifice to/
[si4] {sì} /hamper/trunk/
[si4] {sì} /plough/ploughshare/
[si4] {sì} /four (fraud-proof)/market/
[si4] {sì} /to feed/
[si4] {sì} /to raise/to rear/to feed/
[si4] {sì} /team of 4 horses/
[si4 bai3 wan4] {sì bǎi wàn} /four million/
[si4 bai3 yi4] {sì bǎi yì} /40 billion/
[si4 cao2] {sì cáo} /feeding trough/
[si4 cao3] {sì cǎo} /forage grass/
[si4 chu4] {sì chù} /all over the place/everywhere and all directions/
[si4 chuan1] {sì chuān} /Sichuan province, China/
[si4 chuan1 sheng3] {sì chuān shěng} /(N) Sichuan, a south west China province/
[si4 de5] {sì de} /seem as if/rather like/
[si4 fang1] {sì fāng} /four-way/four-sided/
[si4 fen1 zhi1 yi1] {sì fēn zhī yī} /one-quarter/
[si4 fu2] {sì fú} /servo/
[si4 fu2 qi4] {sì fú qì} /server (computer)/
[si4 ge4 xiao3 shi2] {sì gè xiǎo shí} /four hours/
[si4 hu5] {sì hu} /apparently/to seem/to appear/as if/seemingly/
[si4 hu5 hen3 an1 quan2] {sì hu hěn ān quán} /to appear (to be) very safe/
[si4 ji1] {sì jī} /to watch for one's chance/
[si4 ji4] {sì jì} /(n) the four seasons/
[si4 liao4] {sì liào} /feed/fodder/
[si4 lun2 ma3 che1] {sì lún mǎ chē} /chariot/
[si4 men2 jiao4 che1] {sì mén jiào chē} /sedan (motor car)/
[si4 mian4 ba1 fang1] {sì miàn bā fāng} /in all directions/all around/far and near/
[si4 mian4 ti3] {sì miàn tǐ} /tetrahedron/
[si4 miao4] {sì miào} /temple/monastery/shrine/
[si4 nian2] {sì nián} /four years/
[si4 nian2 qian2] {sì nián qián} /four years previously/
[si4 nian2 zhi4 de5 da4 xue2] {sì nián zhì de dà xué} /four-year university/
[si4 qian1] {sì qiān} /four thousand/4 000/
[si4 shi2] {sì shí} /forty/40/
[si4 shi2 duo1] {sì shí duō} /more than 40/
[si4 shi2 liu4] {sì shí liù} /forty six/46/
[si4 shi2 san1] {sì shí sān} /43/forty three/
[si4 shi4 er2 fei1] {sì shì ér fēi} /(saying) appeared right but actually was wrong/
[si4 tian1] {sì tiān} /four days/
[si4 xiao4 fei1 xiao4] {sì xiào fēi xiào} /(saying) resemble a smile yet not smile/
[si4 xue3] {sì xuě} /snowy/
[si4 yang3] {sì yǎng} /to raise/to rear/
[si4 yang3 zhe3] {sì yǎng zhě} /feeder/
[si4 yuan4] {sì yuàn} /cloister/
[si4 yue4] {sì yuè} /April/fourth month/
[si4 yue4 shi2 qi1 hao4] {sì yuè shí qī hào} /April 17/
[si4 zhi1] {sì zhī} /(n) the four limbs of the body/
[si4 zhou1] {sì zhōu} /all around/

— ktmatu.com Chinese-English dictionary

April 1 at Noon

“Philosophers ponder the idea of identity: what it is to give something a name on Monday and have it respond to that name on Friday.”

— Bernard Holland, C12, N.Y. Times, 5/20/96

From Nov. 24, 2002:

Searched the web for “Joyce and Aquinas” “William T. Noon“.  Results 1-5 of about 15:

Dogma
… Dogma, theological” — entry in the index (paper, not marble) to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale U. Press 1957, 2nd printing 1963, page 162. …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-20-dogma.html – 9k 

The Matthias Defense
… Contemplatio: aesthetic joy of, 54-5″ — index to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale University Press, second printing, 1963, page 162. …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-22-matthias.html – 6k 

Wag the Dogma
… One economy would be to teach the trivium using only one book — Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon (Yale, 1957), which ties together philology, logic, and …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-04-06-wag.html – 6k 

Shining Forth
… Please go away, Paz begged silently…. “De veras! It’s so romantic!”. — Let Noon Be Fair William T. Noon, SJ, Chapter 4 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-15-shining.html – 10k 

Midsummer Eve’s Dream
… notions… The quidditas or essence of an angel is the same as its form. (See William T. Noon, SJ, Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957). …
m759.freeservers.com/1995-06-23-midsummer.html – 12k

See also Monday’s entry.

Cross-Referenced

†

Shortly after midnight on the night of April 22-23, I updated my entry for Shakespeare's birthday with the following quotation: 

"With a little effort, anything can be shown to connect with anything else: existence is infinitely cross-referenced."

— Opening sentence of Martha Cooley's The Archivist

About 24 hours later, I came across the following obituary in The New York Times: 

"Edgar F. Codd, a mathematician and computer scientist who laid the theoretical foundation for relational databases, the standard method by which information is organized in and retrieved from computers, died on Friday…. He was 79."

The Times does not mention that the Friday it refers to is Good  Friday.  God will  have his little jokes.

From Computerworld.com:
1969: Edgar F. "Ted" Codd invents the relational database.	1969: Edgar F. “Ted” Codd invents the relational database. 1973: Cullinane, led by John J. Cullinane, ships IDMS, a network-model database for IBM mainframes. 1976: Honeywell ships Multics Relational Data Store, the first commercial relational database.

For a better (and earlier) obituary than the Times's, see The San Jose Mercury News of Easter Sunday.  For some thoughts on death and the afterlife appropriate to last weekend, see The Matthias Defense.

† The Exorcist, 1973
 

In honor of
William F. Buckley’s birthday

Results of a Google search –

Searched the web for “Joyce and Aquinas” “William T. Noon“.  Results 1-5 of about 15:

Dogma
… Dogma, theological” — entry in the index (paper, not marble) to Joyce and Aquinas,
by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale U. Press 1957, 2nd printing 1963, page 162. …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-20-dogma.html – 9k – Nov. 23, 2002 – Cached – Similar pages

The Matthias Defense
… Contemplatio: aesthetic joy of, 54-5″ — index to Joyce and Aquinas, by William
T. Noon, SJ, Yale University Press, second printing, 1963, page 162. …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-22-matthias.html – 6k – Nov. 23, 2002 – Cached – Similar pages

Wag the Dogma
… One economy would be to teach the trivium using only one book — Joyce and Aquinas,
by William T. Noon (Yale, 1957), which ties together philology, logic, and …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-04-06-wag.html – 6k – Nov. 23, 2002 – Cached – Similar pages

Shining Forth
… Please go away, Paz begged silently…. “De veras! It’s so romantic!”. — Let Noon
Be Fair William T. Noon, SJ, Chapter 4 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University …
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-15-shining.html – 10k – Nov. 23, 2002 – Cached – Similar pages

Midsummer Eve’s Dream
… notions… The quidditas or essence of an angel is the same as its
form. (See William T. Noon, SJ, Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957). …
m759.freeservers.com/1995-06-23-midsummer.html – 12k – Nov. 23, 2002 – Cached – Similar pages

The Boys from Uruguay

If one were to write a “secret history” of the twentieth century, one possible organizing theme might be the religious struggle between worshippers of the Semitic deity (variously known as Yahweh, God, and Allah) and worshippers of the Aryan deities… notably, the Aryan god of music, light, and reason, Apollo.

(See my jounal notes of Monday, Sept. 2, 2002, below.)

In perhaps the best academic website I have ever seen, Karey L. Perkins quotes Walker Percy:

“The truth is that man’s capacity for symbol-mongering in general and language in particular is…intimately part and parcel of his being human, of his perceiving and knowing, of his very consciousness…”

The greatest symbol-monger of the twentieth century was, of course, Adolf Hitler. His use of the Aryan sun-wheel symbol rose to the level of genius. Of course, it ultimately failed to win the approval of the sun god himself, Apollo, who is also the god of reason.

Since symbol-mongering cannot be avoided, let us hope that it can be done in a somewhat more reasonable way than that of the National Socialist movement. Two examples suggest themselves.

1. From Peggy Noonan’s column of Friday, Sept. 6:

   The cross, the heart, and the flag.

2. From Karey Perkins’s website:

   A brain, a heart, and courage. 

On this Rosh Hashanah, the cross as a symbol of intelligence may be offensive to some worshippers of Yahweh. Let them read The Archivist, a novel by Martha Cooley, and then my journal note The Matthias Defense.

They might also contemplate the biblical quotation in the musical “Contact” broadcast from Lincoln Center on September 1, 2002: “Let there be light!”

Three Jews named Paul have been associated with light…

1. Saul of Tarsus, who later assumed an alias.

2. Paul Newman, whose performance in “The Verdict” continues, indirectly, to trouble Cardinal Law of Boston.

3. Paul R. Halmos, a personal hero of mine ever since I saw his Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces and Measure Theory as an ignorant young undergraduate browsing the bookstores of Harvard Square.

In accordance with the “secret history” theme mentioned above, the struggle between Aryan and Semitic religions may also be viewed in the light of the struggle between Christianity and Communism. Hitler exploited this viewpoint very successfully, pretending to be the champion of the Christians against the godless Reds. Peggy Noonan also successfully uses this strategy. Both Hitler and Noonan manage to ignore the fact that Christianity is itself one of the Semitic religions, and that at least two of its three deities are Jewish.

As for me, I rather identify with the young Hitler clone at the end of the film “The Boys from Brazil.” Forced to decide between Gregory Peck and Sir Laurence Olivier, he sides with Olivier. His reason? Peck lied.

In a similar situation, forced to decide between Peggy Noonan and the Jew Halmos, I would probably side with Halmos. Halmos, who should, if not a saint, be at least dubbed a knight, does not, unlike the great majority of the damned human race, lie.

See Halmos’s memoir, I Want to Be a Mathematician. In particular, see the single index entry “communist by allegation” and the 29 entries under “Uruguay.”

Happy birthday to Elia Kazan and Peggy Noonan, and a happy and prosperous New Year to should-be-Sir Paul R. Halmos.