See a related obituary from Saint Michael's.
This is for a mathematics professor who reportedly died on March 13.
See as well this journal on that date and the night before.
See a related obituary from Saint Michael's.
This is for a mathematics professor who reportedly died on March 13.
See as well this journal on that date and the night before.
Today's previous post suggests:
Not amused …
The above Los Angeles Film School poster publicizes an event
on December 13, 2014 (St. Lucia's Day). Also on that date —
"Grim Pen" and other posts in this journal.
The Guardian ‘s summary today of the new film “Arrival” —
“I have been agnostic about this kind of movie recently,
after the overwrought disappointments of Christopher
Nolan’s Interstellar and Jeff Nichols’s Midnight Special.
But Villeneuve’s Arrival is both heartfelt and very entertaining.”
— Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian today
As is Amy’s.
The Cumberbatch Conundrum
A quote from Benedict Cumberbatch in this journal
on Nov. 15 last year:
"… this film’s been up my ass
for the last five years.”
The quote, in connection with today's previous post,
suggests a check of this journal five years ago.
The check yields a paper at the new research site InvenZone.
And now for the musical!
From Ben Brantley’s July Fourth review of a British play —
“These two redefine the laws not just of chemistry but also of physics, with each coming across as both immovable object and irresistible force…. I was always aware of how ineffably, achingly attracted each was to the other, and of the diametrically opposed ways in which that attraction became flesh…. … His Tom is all flying edges and angles, a perpetually moving and hungry soul who never pauses in the pursuit of his appetites…. … this Kyra is a formidably centered presence, the still counterpoint to Tom’s charming, full-court-press animation…. … The friction and the possibilities of fusion between Kyra and Tom— who must be together and cannot be together— make ‘Skylight’ one of the most intelligently sentimental love stories of our time.” |
“The friction and the possibilities of fusion” —
“Rubbin’ sticks and stones together
makes the sparks ignite…
Skyrockets in flight!”
“What’s on the program?”
— Seymour Glass to Sybil in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”
Related material from yesterday afternoon…
… and from this morning:
From Between Two Worlds (Feb. 25, 2007) —
Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider (2007):
More recently, Nicolas Cage as Big Daddy (2010):
The New York Times as a guide for the perplexed:
“Go back to the flaming skull, Dad.”
"In City-Now, there's no time reference,
so you can't trace things."
— "Entertainment," by M. A. Foster, first published in 1981
in New Voices 4 , edited by George R. R. Martin, reprinted
in Foster's Owl Time: A Collection of Fictions (DAW, 1985)
"Motifs bleed off the edge of one Pynchon canvas
onto the next." — Review of Bleeding Edge in
tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Book Review
A RIDDLE for the Church of St. Frank:
AN ANSWER:
The red carpet is prepared for the 2013 Oscars at the Dolby Theatre.
For film and TV director Ted Post, who
reportedly died on Tuesday, Aug. 20.
See that day's post "Conversations with
an Empty Chair" and today's NY Times—
A May 27, 2013, Washington Post story by Ellen Nakashima:
Confidential report lists U.S. weapons system designs
compromised by Chinese cyberspies
Related entertainment:
From Ayn Sof (January 7, 2011):
"You're gonna need a bigger boat." — Roy Scheider in Jaws
"We're gonna need more holy water." — Season of the Witch
Liam Neeson (right) and Taylor Kitsch
"… the clocks were striking thirteen…"
"Entertainment continued," a Log24 post last year on this date, suggests…
A reading from Richard Kearney's Strangers, Gods and Monsters (Routledge, 2003)—
Neither earth nor air nor fire nor water… perhaps a Fifth Element ?
www.themenwhostareatgoatsmovie.com
Colorado Springs Gazette
movie reviewer Brandon Fibbs yesterday:
“Much of this is genuinely amusing.
So why then am I not laughing?”
"I guess I found my future through Billy Name’s eye.
I saw his pictures of the Warhol Factory when I was
in college and thought, 'Oh that’s the place to get to.
Everyone is so beautiful and it looks brilliant and
complicated – art, music, film, but most of all a kind
of wild life.' It looked like the future as I imagined it."
— The late Glenn O'Brien in The Guardian
on November 8, 2014. O'Brien reportedly
died at 70 yesterday, Friday (April 7) morning,
in Manhattan.
"… through Billy Name's eye …."
Then there is Kurt Seligmann's eye …
The above-mentioned Billy Name appeared in this journal
in July 2016 in the post "Coterie (for Philip Rieff)." Also
featured in that post was artist Kurt Seligmann.
A Google Search sidebar on Seligmann today:
Synchronology check of this journal on the above Guardian date:
Saturday, November 8, 2014
At 11:59*
|
See also an 11:59 PM ET post on Thursday, April 6, titled
"Where Entertainment Is God (continues)."
Some related entertainment:
I do not recommend any of the above entertainments,
but they do supply some background for the article
"Fantasy and the Buffered Self" (which is recommended.)
Three approaches to The World as Myth…
From Heinlein's 1985 The Cat Who Walks Through Walls … The World as Myth is a subtle concept. It has sometimes been called multiperson solipsism, despite the internal illogic of that phrase. Yet illogic may be necessary, as the concept denies logic. For many centuries religion held sway as the explanation of the universe- or multiverse. The details of revealed religions differed wildly but were essentially the same: Somewhere up in the sky-or down in the earth-or in a volcano-any inaccessible place- there was an old man in a nightshirt who knew everything and was all powerful and created everything and rewarded and punished… and could be bribed. "Sometimes this Almighty was female but not often because human males are usually bigger, stronger, and more belligerent; God was created in Pop's image. "The Almighty-God idea came under attack because it explained nothing; it simply pushed all explanations one stage farther away. In the nineteenth century atheistic positivism started displacing the Almighty-God notion in that minority of the population that bathed regularly. "Atheism had a limited run, as it, too, explains nothing, being merely Godism turned upside down. Logical positivism was based on the physical science of the nineteenth century which, physicists of that century honestly believed, fully explained the universe as a piece of clockwork. "The physicists of the twentieth century made short work of that idea. Quantum mechanics and Schrodringer's cat tossed out the clockwork world of 1890 and replaced it with a fog of probability in which anything could happen. Of course the intellectual class did not notice this for many decades, as an intellectual is a highly educated man who can't do arithmetic with his shoes on, and is proud of his lack. Nevertheless, with the death of positivism, Godism and Creationism came back stronger than ever. "In the late twentieth century -correct me when I' m wrong, Hilda-Hilda and her family were driven off Earth by a devil, one they dubbed 'the Beast.' They fled in a vehicle you have met, Gay Deceiver, and in their search for safety they visited many dimensions, many universes… and Hilda made the greatest philosophical discovery of all time." "I'll bet you say that to all the girls!" "Quiet, dear. They visited, among more mundane places, the Land of Oz-" I sat up with a jerk. Not too much sleep last night and Dr. Harshaw's lecture was sleep-inducing. "Did you say 'Oz'?" "I tell you three times. Oz, Oz, Oz. They did indeed visit the fairyland dreamed up by L. Frank Baum. And the Wonderland invented by the Reverend Mr. Dodgson to please Alice. And other places known only to fiction. Hilda discovered what none of us had noticed before because we were inside it: The World is Myth. We create it ourselves-and we change it ourselves. A truly strong myth maker, such as Homer, such as Baum, such as the creator of Tarzan, creates substantial and lasting worlds … whereas the fiddlin', unimaginative liars and fabulists shape nothing new and their tedious dreams are forgotten. …. |
Friday, November 6, 2009
Where Entertainment is God (continued)
|
(Where Entertainment Is God , continued)
In memory of artist Otto Piene — a news item from last May
at the ZERO Foundation website on an exhibition that closes tomorrow —
2014-05-15
Today is the opening of the exhibition ZERO — Zwischen Himmel und Erde
in Friedrichshafen. The Zeppelin Museum is showing wonderful artworks
all related to heaven and earth by various ZERO artists
such as Piene, Mack, Uecker, Klein, Luther, and Manzoni.
ZERO – Zwischen Himmel und Erde
Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen
15.05. – 20.07.2014
www.zeppelin-museum.de
“Oh, show me the way to the next whiskey bar”
— Song lyric from previous post
“In a technologically advanced 1939, the zeppelin Hindenburg III
arrives in New York City, mooring atop the Empire State Building.”
— Wikipedia on the first scene of the 2004 film
“Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow“
The title is from this morning's previous post.
From a theater review in that post—
… "all flying edges and angles, a perpetually moving and hungry soul"
… "a formidably centered presence, the still counterpoint"
A more abstract perspective:
See also Desargues via Galois (August 6, 2013).
For a place where entertainment is not God* —
This post was suggested by a passage in the Prasna Upanishad :
“That person who is to be known,
he in whom these parts rest,
like spokes in the nave of a wheel,
you know him,
lest death should hurt you.”
See Sept. 9, 2003.
* There are other sorts of places.
(Where Entertainment Is God, continued)
Related material: A Log24 post from the release date,
September 10, 2013, for the DVD of "Delete"—
(Where Entertainment Is God , continued)
Yesterday's evening numbers in the New York Lottery
were 007 and 3856. You are free to supply your own
interpretation of the former. The latter may, if you like,
be interpreted as post 3856, The Illuminati Stone .
Some context:
(Click for a larger, clearer image.)
"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
Kernel — See Nocciolo.
Glow — See Moonshine and Moonshine II.
See also Cold Open (Jan. 29, 2011) and
Where Entertainment is God (Aug. 25, 2013).
Some webpages at finitegeometry.org discuss
group actions on Sylvester’s duads and synthemes.
Those pages are based on the square model of
PG(3,2) described in the 1980’s by Steven H. Cullinane.
A rival tetrahedral model of PG(3,2) was described
in the 1990’s by Burkard Polster.
Polster’s tetrahedral model appears, notably, in
a Mathematics Magazine article from April 2009—
Click for a pdf of the article.
Related material:
“The Religion of Cubism” (May 9, 2003) and “Art and Lies”
(Nov. 16, 2008).
This post was suggested by following the link in yesterday’s
Sunday School post to High White Noon, and the link from
there to A Study in Art Education, which mentions the date of
Rudolf Arnheim‘s death, June 9, 2007. This journal
on that date—
The Fink-Guy article was announced in a Mathematical
Association of America newsletter dated April 15, 2009.
Those who prefer narrative to mathematics may consult
a Log24 post from a few days earlier, “Where Entertainment is God”
(April 12, 2009), and, for some backstory, The Judas Seat
(February 16, 2007).
Where Entertainment is God continues…
Excerpts from "Today in History," Today's Birthdays: Thought for Today: "The crisis of yesterday |
And the joke of yesterday?
Related material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qiyama
(Rhetorical question on the NY Times online front page,
10:01 PM May 23, 2012, in teaser for "The Stone" column
about Philip K. Dick, "Sci-Fi Philosopher")
Perhaps The Last Airbender ?
The NY Times philosophy column "The Stone" is currently about gnosticism
and science fiction.
The Last Airbender is about an avatar who is master of the four elements
air, water, earth, and fire. For a more sophisticated approach to gnosticism
and the four elements, see Irenaeus: Against Heresies.
See, too, Elements Diamond in this journal.
Where Entertainment is God
(Continued from April 4 and April 8)
"Hot dog… I'm a winner either way."
— Mary Chapin Carpenter
(Where Entertainment is God, continued)
Related material— The Nexus (Jan. 8, 2010).
That post contains the following—
"A Nexus is a place equidistant from the five elements as explained in the TV series Charmed . Using this as a point of reference, it is quite possible that there could be several Nexus points of power scattered throughout the world, though rare."
— Nexus (Charmed) in Wikipedia
Happy birthday, Alyssa Milano.
Where Entertainment is God (continued)
On the re-editing of a news story by The New York Times—
"…in the original versions of a Times report by Jeremy W. Peters, [the new executive editor, Jill Abramson] flatly declared: 'In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion.'" —The Daily Beast
The Times this afternoon—
See also a follow-up from last June
to this morning's "lost in space" quote—
NYT quote removal sparks web buzz
"It's obvious that an editorial decision was made to 'rectify' a quote that made the Times look foolish."
Not so, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told POLITICO. “Space was clearly a consideration.”
The previous posts, Design and Solomon's Labyrinth,
refer, respectively, to concepts of Tits ("buildings") and
of Thompson (imagining a future Origin of Groups ).
This suggests a review of Norway's 2008 Abel Prize,
presented to Thompson and Tits on May 20, 2008.
Poster display before the 2008 Abel Prize ceremony—
A poster of sorts in this journal on the same day, May 20, 2008—
Bright Star – … Todo lo sé por el lucero puro – Rubén Darío Image adapted from |
Related material— Epiphany Revisited, Four Winds,
and Where Entertainment is God (continued).
Where Entertainment is God (continued)
MTV.com on an event last night in Chicago—
"He ended the night with a poem, which read,
'I stand before you oh captain oh captain
to most humbly praise you for this radical ripple
this single cast stone….'"
Related material:
Today's New York Times obituaries
and Ed Harris in "The Rock"—
See also in this journal "The Rock" and "Time in the Rock."
"'It is always
Nice to see you'
Says the man
Behind the counter"
– Suzanne Vega, "Tom's Diner"
Where Entertainment Is God continues...
New York Lottery today— Midday 710, Evening 563.
This suggeests a scientific note from the date 7/10 (2009) and the page number 563 from Dec. 29—
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society , October 2002, p. 563:
“To produce decorations for their weaving, pottery, and other objects, early artists experimented with symmetries and repeating patterns. Later the study of symmetries of patterns led to tilings, group theory, crystallography, finite geometries, and in modern times to security codes and digital picture compactifications. Early artists also explored various methods of representing existing objects and living things. These explorations led to… [among other things] computer-generated movies (for example, Toy Story ).”
– David W. Henderson, Cornell University
For a different perspective on Toy Story , see the Dec. 29 post.
Other entertainments — The novel Infinite Jest and two versions of "Heeere's Johnny !" —
From Stanley Kubrick and from today's New York Times :
See also All Things Shining and the lottery theology of Jorge Luis Borges.
Where Entertainment Is God
(continued)
Google News at about 7:37 PM —
The Eiger Sanction, by Trevanian –
"Because CII men worked in foreign countries without invitation, and often to the detriment of the established governments, they had no recourse to official protection. Organization men to the core, the CII heads decided that another Division must be established to combat the problem. They relied on their computers to find the ideal man to head the new arm, and the card that survived the final sorting bore the name Yurasis Dragon. In order to bring Mr. Dragon to the United States, it was necessary to absolve him of accusations lodged at the War Crimes Tribunal concerning certain genocidal peccadillos, but CII considered him worth the effort." |
The title of the previous entry, "Where Entertainment is God," comes (via Log24, Nov. 26, 2004) from Frank Rich.
The previous entry dealt, in part, with a dead Jesuit whose obituary appears in today's Los Angeles Times. The online obituaries page places the Jesuit, without a photo, beneath a picture of a dead sitcom writer and to the left of a picture of a dead guru.
"Walter John Burghardt was born July 10, 1914, in New York, the son of immigrants from what is now Poland. He entered a Jesuit seminary in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., at 16, and in 1937 received a master's degree from Woodstock College in Maryland. He was ordained in 1941." He died, by the way, on Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008.
The reference to Woodstock College brings to mind a fellow Jesuit, Joseph T. Clark, who wrote a book on logic published by that college.
From a review of the book:
"In order to show that Aristotelian logicians were at least vaguely aware of a kind of analogy or possible isomorphism between logical relations and mathematical relations, Father Clark seizes at one place (p. 8) upon the fact that Aristotle uses the word, 'figure' (schema), in describing the syllogism and concludes from this that 'it is obvious that the schema of the syllogism is to serve the logician precisely as the figure serves the geometer.' On the face of it, this strikes one as a bit far fetched…."
— Henry Veatch in Speculum, Vol. 29, No. 2, Part 1 (Apr., 1954), pp. 266-268 (review of Conventional Logic and Modern Logic: A Prelude to Transition (1952), by Joseph T. Clark, Society of Jesus)
November 2004–
Controversial "Desperate Housewives"… ranks No. 5 among all prime-time shows for ages 12-17. ("Monday Night Football" is No. 18.) This may explain in part why its current advertisers include products like Fisher-Price toys, the DVD of "Elf" and the forthcoming Tim Allen holiday vehicle, "Christmas With the Kranks." Those who cherish the First Amendment can only hope that the Traditional Values Coalition, OneMillionMoms.com, OneMillionDads.com and all the rest send every e-mail they can to the F.C.C. demanding punitive action against the stations that broadcast "Desperate Housewives." A "moral values" crusade that stands between a TV show this popular and its audience will quickly learn the limits of its power in a country where entertainment is god. — "The Great Indecency Hoax," a New York Times column by Frank Rich quoted in Log24 on Nov. 26, 2004 |
The entertainment continues. A rabbi's obituary in today's New York Times (see previous entry) served as ad-bait for "Joshua," a Fox Searchlight film opening July 6.
A search for a less sacrilegious memorial to the rabbi yields the following:
The "Project MUSE" link above
works only at
subscribing libraries.
It seems that here, too,
the rabbi is being
used as bait.
For a perhaps preferable
reference to bait, in the
context of St. Peter as
a "fisher of men," see
the Christian "mandorla"
or "vesica piscis,"
a figure hidden within
the geometry of Rome's
St. Peter's Square–
which, despite its name,
is an oval:
For the geometric
construction of the
Roman oval, see
"ovato tondo" in
Rudolf Arnheim's
The Power of the Center.
For a less theoretical account
of the religious significance
of the mandorla, see
the 2001 film
The Center of the World.
“Yolanda King founded and led Higher Ground Productions, billed as a ‘gateway for inner peace, unity and global transformation.'” —New York Times
“Yolanda King’s Lecture Performances are tailored to suit your company’s immediate need for a critical and timely message delivered with a high-level of entertainment value.” —Higher Ground Productions
From the five log24 entries
ending with “Dinner Theater?”
(linked to in yesterday afternoon’s
Perspective on the News):
“A ‘moral values’ crusade
that stands between a TV show
this popular and its audience
will quickly learn the limits
of its power in a country
where entertainment is god.”
Dinner Theater?
“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 in the New York Times of Monday, May 20, 1996
From an entry of last Monday,
“Lynchburg Law” —
Critic Frank Rich in Wednesday’s Times on a recent televised promotion:
“… it was a manufactured scandal, as over-the-top as a dinner theater production of ‘The Crucible.’ “
From a Friday, Nov. 19, entry:
“the Platonist… is more interested in deriving an abstraction of the object into a universal….”
— Radu Surdulescu, Form, Structure, and Structurality
From El Universal online today:
“Meanwhile, [Mexico] continued to deal with the savagery of Tuesday night’s televised lynchings, with some saying the media had exploited the occurrence.
‘This is a new and worrisome phenomenon,’ security analyst José Reveles said in an interview… ‘It’s like the evil offspring of all the violent exploitation in the media.’ ‘It was Fuenteovejuna,’ he said, referring to the work by the Spanish golden age playwright Lope de Vega in which an entire town covers up the slaying of a corrupt official.”
Frank Rich has the last word:
“A ‘moral values’ crusade that stands between a TV show this popular and its audience will quickly learn the limits of its power in a country where entertainment is god.”
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