Saturday evening's post Diamond Globe suggests a review of …
Iain Aitchison on symmetric generation of M24 —
* A Greek version for the late John SImon:
«Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος».
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Sacramental Geometry:
The Dreaming Jewels continued
"… the icosahedron and dodecahedron have the same properties
of symmetry. For the centres of the twenty faces of an icosahedron
may be joined to form a regular dodecahedron, and conversely, the
twelve vertices of an icosahedron can be placed at the centres
of the faces of a suitable dodecahedron. Thus the icosahedral and
dodecahedral groups are identical , and either solid may be used to
examine the nature of the group elements."
— Walter Ledermann, Introduction to the Theory
of Finite Groups (Oliver and Boyd, 1949, p. 93)
Salvador Dali, The Sacrament of the Last Supper
Omar Sharif and Gregory Peck in Behold a Pale Horse
Above: soccer-ball geometry.
See also …
See as well
"In Sunlight and in Shadow."
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Monday, April 13, 2015
Unorthodox Easter
(A sequel to yesterday's Orthodox Easter posts)
This morning's Google News —
The New York Times on the late Günter Grass —
"Many of Mr. Grass’s books are phantasmagorical
mixtures of fact and fantasy, some of them inviting
comparison with the Latin American style known as
magical realism. His own name for this style was
'broadened reality.'"
From p. xii of the 2005 second edition of a book discussed
in yesterday's Orthodox Easter posts —
(Click image to enlarge.)
Early editions of The Heart of Mathematics include
Gary Larson's legendary Hell's Library "Far Side" cartoon.
Books in Hell's Library include Big Book of Story Problems ,
More Story Problems , and Even More Story Problems .
— Adapted from a review of the 2000 first edition
See also Mathematics and Narrative in this journal.
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Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Deep End (continued)
Latin Lesson
Details in an etymology linked to here Monday, June 3,
in a post titled The Deep End —
"… mid-15c., from Middle French pensée … from
fem. past participle of penser 'to think,' from
Latin pensare 'consider'…."
A remembrance of the late, great, Esther Williams,
who died early today:
After marrying Lamas, she retired from public life.
Williams explained in a 1984 interview, "A really terrific guy
comes along and says, 'I wish you'd stay home and be
my wife,' and that's the most logical thing in the world for a Latin.
And I loved being a Latin wife — you get treated very well.
There's a lot of attention in return for that sacrifice."
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Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Stitch
"Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment
of our intelligence by means of our language." — Wittgenstein
"You've got to pick up every stitch…
Must be the season of the witch."
— Donovan song at the end of Nicole Kidman's "To Die For"
Today's morning post, Rubric, suggests a check
of Alexander Bogomolny's tweets:
Clicking the hint leads to Bogomolny's Ambiguities in Plain Language:
See also, in this journal, alea (which appears within the derived word "aleatory").
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Sunday, April 8, 2007
Sunday April 8, 2007
Midnight in the Garden
continued from Sept. 30, 2004
continued from Sept. 30, 2004
Tonight this journal had two Xanga footprints from Italy….
At 11:34 PM ET a visitor from Italy viewed a page containing an entry from Jan. 8, 2005, Splendor of the Light, which offers the following quotation–
From an essay on Guy Davenport—
"A disciple of Ezra Pound, he adapts to the short story the ideogrammatic method of The Cantos, where a grammar of images, emblems, and symbols replaces that of logical sequence. This grammar allows for the grafting of particulars into a congeries of implied relation without subordination. In contrast to postmodernists, Davenport does not omit causal connection and linear narrative continuity for the sake of an aleatory play of signification but in order to intimate by combinational logic kinships and correspondences among eras, ideas and forces."
— "When Novelists Become Cubists: The Prose Ideograms of Guy Davenport," by Andre Furlani
The visitor from Italy may, of course, have instead intended to view one of the four earlier entries on the page. In particular, the visitor may have seen
The Star
of Venus
"He looked at the fading light
in the western sky and saw Mercury,
or perhaps it was Venus,
gleaming at him as the evening star.
Darkness and light,
the old man thought.
It is what every hero legend is about.
The darkness which is more than death,
the light which is love, like our friend
Venus here, or perhaps this star is
Mercury, the messenger of Olympus,
the bringer of hope."
— Roderick MacLeish, Prince Ombra.
At 11:38 PM ET, a visitor from Italy (very likely the 11:34 visitor returning) viewed the five Log24 entries ending at 12:06 AM ET on Sept. 30, 2004.
These entries included Midnight in the Garden and…
A Tune for Michaelmas
The entries on this second visited page also included some remarks on Dante, on time, and on Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano that are relevant to Log24 entries earlier this week on Maundy Thursday and on Holy Saturday.
Here's wishing a happy Easter to Italy, to Francis Ford Coppola and Russell Crowe (see yesterday's entry), and to Steven Spielberg (see the Easter page of April 20, 2003).
Image courtesy of
Hollywood Jesus:
When you wish
upon a star…
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Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Wednesday December 21, 2005
For the feast of
St. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
The Diamond
as Big as
the Monster
as Big as
the Monster
From Fitzgerald’s The Diamond as Big as the Ritz:
“Now,” said John eagerly, “turn out your pocket and let’s see what jewels you brought along. If you made a good selection we three ought to live comfortably all the rest of our lives.”
Obediently Kismine put her hand in her pocket and tossed two handfuls of glittering stones before him.
“Not so bad,” cried John, enthusiastically. “They aren’t very big, but– Hello!” His expression changed as he held one of them up to the declining sun. “Why, these aren’t diamonds! There’s something the matter!”
“By golly!” exclaimed Kismine, with a startled look. “What an idiot I am!”
“Why, these are rhinestones!” cried John.
From The Hawkline Monster, by Richard Brautigan:
“What are we going to do now?” Susan Hawkline said, surveying the lake that had once been their house.
Cameron counted the diamonds in his hand. There were thirty-five diamonds and they were all that was left of the Hawkline Monster.
“We’ll think of something,” Cameron said.
Related material:
“A disciple of Ezra Pound, he adapts to the short story the ideogrammatic method of The Cantos, where a grammar of images, emblems, and symbols replaces that of logical sequence. This grammar allows for the grafting of particulars into a congeries of implied relation without subordination. In contrast to postmodernists, Davenport does not omit causal connection and linear narrative continuity for the sake of an aleatory play of signification but in order to intimate by combinational logic kinships and correspondences among eras, ideas and forces.”
— When Novelists Become Cubists:
The Prose Ideograms of Guy Davenport,
by Andre Furlani
“T.S. Eliot’s experiments in ideogrammatic method are equally germane to Davenport, who shares with the poet an avant-garde aesthetic and a conservative temperament. Davenport’s text reverberates with echoes of Four Quartets.”
“At the still point,
there the dance is.”
— T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets,
quoted in the epigraph to
the chapter on automorphism groups
in Parallelisms of Complete Designs,
by Peter J. Cameron,
published when Cameron was at
Merton College, Oxford.
“As Gatsby closed the door of
‘the Merton College Library’
I could have sworn I heard
the owl-eyed man
break into ghostly laughter.”
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Saturday, January 8, 2005
Saturday January 8, 2005
Splendor of the Light
The Beginning of a Story
by Guy Davenport
Lo Splendore della Luce a Bologna
“The locomotive bringing a trainload of philosophers to Bologna hissed and ground to a standstill in the long Appenine dusk to have its headlamps lit and to be dressed in the standards of the city and the university.”
Related material:
The train wreck at 12:50 pm local time (6:50 AM EST) Friday, Jan. 7, 2005, 25 miles north of Bologna.
A northbound freight train collided with a passenger train traveling south from Verona to Bologna.
From an essay on Davenport I found Friday morning, well before I learned on Friday afternoon (Eastern Standard Time) of the train wreck:
“A disciple of Ezra Pound, he adapts to the short story the ideogrammatic method of The Cantos, where a grammar of images, emblems, and symbols replaces that of logical sequence. This grammar allows for the grafting of particulars into a congeries of implied relation without subordination. In contrast to postmodernists, Davenport does not omit causal connection and linear narrative continuity for the sake of an aleatory play of signification but in order to intimate by combinational logic kinships and correspondences among eras, ideas and forces.”
— “When Novelists Become Cubists:
The Prose Ideograms of Guy Davenport,”
by Andre Furlani
The Prose Ideograms of Guy Davenport,”
by Andre Furlani
See also
Friday’s Log24 entries and
Davenport’s Express.
Comments Off on Saturday January 8, 2005
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Tuesday May 20, 2003
Raiders of the Lost Matrix
“In general, a matrix… is something that provides support or structure, especially in the sense of surrounding and/or shaping. It comes from the Latin word for ‘womb,’ itself derived from the Latin word for ‘mother,’ which is mater [as in alma mater].” — Wikipedia
For a mystical interpretation of the above matrix as it relates to the Hebrew words at the center of the official Yale seal, see Talmud.
