“That’s pom, not porn, Magoo.”
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Tom-Tom
“Like the beat, beat, beat
of the tom-tom….”
— Cole Porter, 1932
n. itinerant seller or giver of books,
especially religious literature.
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Saturday, September 27, 2014
Diabolically Complex Riddle
Steve Chawkins in the Los Angeles Times
Friday, September 26, 2014, 12:09 PM LA time —
"Tom Tombrello, a Caltech physics professor for more than
50 years and an inspiration for freshmen who had to grapple
with diabolically complex riddles to enter his legendary class
on scientific thinking [Physics 11], has died. He was 78.
Tombrello collapsed Tuesday [Sept. 23, 2014] on a bus
between terminals at London's Heathrow airport, his wife,
Stephanie, said. The cause of his death has not yet been determined….
… Tombrello accepted only a handful of students for each year's
session of Physics 11."
How many students is a handful?
Related material from this journal on the day of the professor's death:
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Sunday, December 23, 2012
In a Nutshell…
The Kernel of the Concept of the Object…
according to the New York Lottery yesterday—
From 4/27
From 11/24
A page numbered 176
A page numbered 187
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Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Here, Too
Today's midday NY lottery number was 176.
An occurrence of that number in this journal—
Umberto Eco,
Foucault’s Pendulum, page 176:
Here, too, you entered through a little garden…
Here is a picture of 176.
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Saturday, January 29, 2011
Cold Open
"The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."
— Joseph Conrad in Heart of Darkness
Some background—
An image from yesterday's search
God, TIme, Hopkins
"We got tom-toms over here bigger than a monster
Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla Bla"
— "Massive Attack"
"I'm just checking your math on that. Yes, I got the same thing."
"Live… Uh, check that… From New York, it's Saturday Night! "
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Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Metaphysics of Quality
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Thursday, March 17, 2005
Thursday March 17, 2005
Midnight Drums for Larry
The Harvard Crimson, March 16:
"Voting by secret ballot in a Faculty meeting at the Loeb Drama Center, 218 faculty members affirmed a motion put on the docket by Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory ’82, stating that 'the Faculty lacks confidence in the leadership of Lawrence H. Summers.' "
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences:
Professor Matory is "a renowned expert on Brazil and on the Yoruba civilization of West Africa, which is world famous for its religious complexity and artistic creativity. He is equally noted for his study of such Latin American religions as Haitian 'Vodu,' Brazilian Candomblé, and Cuban Santería…."
The Harvard Crimson, January 7, 2005:
"I came here with the goal of dancing with Larry Summers, and I did it," Chinwe U. Nwosu ’08 said. "He’s a great dancer."
"Now I can say that 'Bootylicious' is our song," she added.
"Atabaque – a large tom-tom
that is used in Afro-Brazilian
religious celebrations"
— The Sounds of Samba
at Yale
— From Log24.net, Oct. 16, 2004:
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Saturday, October 16, 2004
Saturday October 16, 2004
Midnight in the Garden
continued
|
Umberto Eco, Here, too, you entered through a little garden… Amparo drew me aside as we went in. “I’ve figured it out,” she said. “That tapir at the lecture talked about the Aryan age, remember? And this one talks about the decline of the West. Blut und Boden, blood and earth. It’s pure Nazism.” “It’s not that simple, darling. This is a different continent.”…. If the outside was seedy, the inside was a blaze of violent colors. It was a quadrangular hall, with one area set aside for the dancing of the cavalos. The altar was at the far end, protected by a railing, against which stood the platform for the drums, the atabaques. The ritual space was still empty…. |
“Atabaque – a large tom-tom
that is used in Afro-Brazilian
religious celebrations”
— The Sounds of Samba
at Yale
“Of African origin, and made of jacarandá wood in a conical shape. A calfskin head covers the top of the drum. It is used a lot in capoeria and candomblé and umbanda rituals all over Brazil. There are three kinds of atabaques: Rum, Rumpi, and Lê. Rum has the deepest sound and is a solo drum; Rumpi has a medium sound, and Lê is the highest. These three hold the beat.”
Like the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom….
— Cole Porter, “Night and Day“
|
Your feats end enormous, In the name of the former |
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Saturday, January 4, 2003
Saturday January 4, 2003
Opening of the Graves
Revelation 20:12
I saw the dead,
the great and the small,
standing before the throne,
and they opened books.
The Dead —
The Great:
On January 4, 1965,
T. S. Eliot
died.
The Small:
On January 4, 1991,
T. S. Matthews,
author of
Great Tom:
Notes Towards the Definition
of T. S. Eliot,
died.
|
From the website of the Redwood Library and Athenæum, Newport, Rhode Island:
The Library of a 20th-Century Redwood is the delighted recipient of part of the personal library of Thomas Stanley Matthews ([Jan. 16] 1901- [Jan. 4] 1991), a shareholder from 1947 until his death and a generous benefactor. Matthews, who summered in Middletown for over 50 years, began his journalism career with The New Republic, where he served as assistant editor between 1925 and 1927 and as an associate editor between 1927 and 1929. He was then hired as books editor at Time, where over the next 20 years he held the positions of assistant managing editor, executive editor, and managing editor. In 1949 he succeeded the magazine's founder, Henry Luce, as editor. Upon retiring in 1953, he moved to England. Matthews edited The Selected Letters of Charles Lamb (1956), for which he wrote the introduction. He published two volumes of memoirs, Name and Address: An Autobiography (1960) and Jacks or Better (1977; published in England as Under the Influence); two volumes of poetry; The Sugar Pill: An Essay on Newspapers (1957); O My America! Notes on a Trip (1962); Great Tom: Notes Towards the Definition of T. S. Eliot (1974); a volume of character sketches, Angels Unawares: Twentieth-Century Portraits (1985); and eight volumes of aphorisms, witticisms, and verse. Shortly before his death, Matthews expressed the desire that all his books be left to Redwood Library…. [including] books by Seamus Heaney, Louis MacNeice, Ezra Pound, Laura Riding, Edward Arlington Robinson, W. H. Auden, e. e. cummings, and Robert Graves. Of particular interest are the 16 volumes by Graves, most of them autographed by the author…. |
— Cole Porter, 1932
n. itinerant seller or giver of books,
especially religious literature.
Now you has jazz.
— Cole Porter, lyric for "High Society,"
set in Newport, Rhode Island, 1956
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