(Continued from Sousa vs. Boulez, Epiphany 2016)
From Sigla (December 22, 2014) —
"Time is irrelevant in these matters.
Joyce and the monastic brethren who
painted their manuscript ornaments
a thousand years ago were working on
the same project. There was a pattern
to be abstracted…."
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God
From Sigla (December 22, 2014) —
"Time is irrelevant in these matters.
Joyce and the monastic brethren who
painted their manuscript ornaments
a thousand years ago were working on
the same project. There was a pattern
to be abstracted…."
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God
Or: Chessboard continued
"Time is irrelevant in these matters.
Joyce and the monastic brethren who
painted their manuscript ornaments
a thousand years ago were working on
the same project. There was a pattern
to be abstracted…."
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God
"How often in the course of a lifetime
is the third eye, our organ for detecting
the hidden luster of the front door key,
capable of opening? Up to now, this has
not been investigated. And why should it be?
One single time is enough, and then
all the cold shark eyes of the world
start to look a touch friendlier.
Time is irrelevant in these matters.
Joyce and the monastic brethren who
painted their manuscript ornaments
a thousand years ago were working on
the same project. There was a pattern
to be abstracted from the confused mesh
of tangled lines that was the reality
of the world, a pattern that would have
staying power, a pattern to which one could
say Yes. Every now and then a work
succeeded in accomplishing such a task,
and the heavens opened once more.
On February 2, 1922, for example…."
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God
"The theme for the National Catholic Schools Week 2013
is 'Catholic Schools Raise the Standards.' The annual
observance starts the last Sunday in January and runs
all week, which in 2013 is January 27 to February 2."
"After all, tomorrow is another day." —Scarlett O'Hara,
quoted here in a post of May 9, 2005.
"Dr. Tomorrow is another guy ." —A comment on that post.
The Dr. Tomorrow link leads to a page promoting something
called the Institute of Noetic Sciences. This in turn leads to
the 2009 Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol .
For related material in this journal, see
Raiders of the Lost Dingbat.
As for raising the standards, see the conclusion of
Adolf Holl's The Left Hand of God —
This morning's exercise in lottery hermeneutics is unusually difficult.
Yesterday was Bloomsday (the date described in
James Joyce's Ulysses ) and the New York Lottery numbers were…
Midday numbers: 3-digit 181, 4-digit 9219.
Evening numbers: 3-digit 478, 4-digit 6449.
For 181 and 9219, see the following—
"With respect to every event, we must ask
which element has been subjected directly to change."
— Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics
(New York, The Philosophical Library, Inc., 1959), page 181
That Saussure page number was referenced in the following thesis
on James Joyce's other major novel, Finnegans Wake—
The thesis is from the University of Vienna (Universität Wien ).
The word Wien , in the derived form denoting an inhabitant of that city,
figured prominently in yesterday's news.
As for the evening numbers—
478 perhaps signifies the year 478 BC,
cited in Lawrence Durrell's Sicilian Carousel as the year
the ruler Gelon died.
For the evening 6449, note that the poem by Wallace Stevens quoted
here on June 15 in A for Anastasios deals with "the river of rivers"…
perhaps signifying time.
Interpreting 6449 chronologically yields 6/4/49.
The film artist John Huston, discussed in an essay from that date,
might appreciate the representation of the ancient Sicilian
river god Gelas as a man-headed bull on a coin from
around the year 478 BC.
For some perceptive remarks about Durrell, see the
article by Nigel Dennis in LIFE magazine's Nov. 21, 1960
issue (with cover noting Kennedy's victory in that year's
presidential election).
All of the above may be viewed as an approach to the aesthetic
problem posed by Dennis in yesterday's Bloomsday post—
"The problem that arises with this sort of writing is
one of form, i.e. , how to make one strong parcel
out of so many differently shaped commodities,
how to impose method on what would otherwise
be madness."
"The world has gone mad today…." — Cole Porter
For some related remarks, see page 161 of
Joyce's Catholic Comedy of Language *
by Beryl Schlossman (U. of Wisconsin Press, 1985)
and James Joyce in the final pages of The Left Hand of God
by Adolf Holl.
* Update of July 6, 2011—
This title is a correction from the previous title
given here, Moral Language by Mary Gore Forrester.
Google Books had Schlossman's content previewed
under Forrester's title.
"Like all men of the Library,
I have traveled in my youth."
— Jorge Luis Borges,
The Library of Babel
"Papá me mandó un artículo
de J. G. Ballard en el que
se refiere a cómo el lugar
de la muerte es central en
nuestra cultura contemporánea."
— Sonya Walger,
interview dated September 14
(Feast of the Triumph of the Cross),
Anno Domini 2006
Sonya Walger,
said to have been
born on D-Day,
the sixth of June,
in 1974
Walger's father is, like Borges,
from Argentina.
She "studied English Literature
at Christ Church College, Oxford,
where she received
a First Class degree…. "
"… un artículo de J. G. Ballard…."–
A Handful of Dust, by J. G. Ballard
(The Guardian, March 20, 2006):
"… The Atlantic wall was only part of a huge system of German fortifications that included the Siegfried line, submarine pens and huge flak towers that threatened the surrounding land like lines of Teutonic knights. Almost all had survived the war and seemed to be waiting for the next one, left behind by a race of warrior scientists obsessed with geometry and death.
Death was what the Atlantic wall and Siegfried line were all about….
… modernism of the heroic period, from 1920 to 1939, is dead, and it died first in the blockhouses of Utah beach and the Siegfried line…
Modernism's attempt to build a better world with the aid of science and technology now seems almost heroic. Bertolt Brecht, no fan of modernism, remarked that the mud, blood and carnage of the first world war trenches left its survivors longing for a future that resembled a white-tiled bathroom. Architects were in the vanguard of the new movement, led by Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus design school. The old models were thrown out. Function defined form, expressed in a pure geometry that the eye could easily grasp in its entirety."
"This is the garden of Apollo,
the field of Reason…."
— John Outram, architect
(Click on picture for details.)
Related material:
3:17:20 PM
Spin the Numbers
IN NOMINE PATRIS…
|
Today’s midday |
ET FILII…
|
2/24 Log24.net entry: |
ET SPIRITUS SANCTI…
|
|
“Heraclitus…. says:
‘The ruler whose prophecy
occurs at Delphi
oute legei oute kryptei,
neither gathers nor hides,
alla semainei, but gives hints.'”
— An Introduction to Metaphysics,
by Martin Heidegger,
Yale University Press paperback,
1959, p. 170
“The lord whose oracle is in Delphi
neither indicates clearly nor conceals,
but gives a sign.”
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God,
Doubleday, 1998, p. 50
AMEN.
The Zen of Abraham
Today’s Zen Chautauqua, prompted by the fact that this is Abrahamic week at the real Chautauqua, consists of links to
Happy Birthday, Kate and Kevin.
The real Chautauqua’s program this week is, of course, Christian rather than Zen. Its theme is “Building a Global Neighborhood: The Abrahamic Vision 2004.” One of the featured performers is Loretta Lynn; in her honor (and, of course, that of Sissy Spacek), I will try to overcome the fear and loathing that the Semitic (i. e., “Abrahamic”) religions usually inspire in me.
To a mathematician, the phrase “global neighborhood” sounds like meaningless politico-religious bullshit — a phrase I am sure accurately characterizes most of the discourse at Chautauqua this week. But a Google search reveals an area of
This article includes the following:
Given the sophistication of his writing, I am surprised at Schlansker’s Christian background:
A good omen for the future is the fact that Schlansker balances the looney Semitic (or “Abrahamic”) teachings of Christianity with good sound Aryan religion, in the form of the goddess Themis.
Themis, often depicted as “Justice”
For those who must have an Abraham, Schlansker’s paper includes the following:
A Themis figure I prefer to the above:
For more on religious justice
at midnight in the garden of
good and evil, see the Log24
entries of Oct. 1-15, 2002.
For material on Aryan religion that is far superior to the damned nonsense at Chautauqua, New York, this week, see
Jane Ellen Harrison’s Themis: a Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion, with an excursus on the ritual forms preserved in Greek tragedy by Gilbert Murray and a chapter on the origin of the Olympic games by F. M. Cornford. Rev. 2nd ed., Cambridge, Cambridge U.P., 1927.
Those who prefer the modern religion of Scientism will of course believe that Themis is purely imaginary, and that truth is to be found in modern myths like that of Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, illustrated below.
Jodie Foster (an admirer of
Leni Riefenstahl) and the
opening of the 1936 Olympics
“Heraclitus…. says: ‘The ruler whose prophecy occurs at Delphi oute legei oute kryptei, neither gathers nor hides, alla semainei, but gives hints.'”
— An Introduction to Metaphysics, by Martin Heidegger, Yale University Press paperback, 1959, p. 170
“The lord whose oracle is in Delphi neither indicates clearly nor conceals, but gives a sign.”
— Adolf Holl, The Left Hand of God, Doubleday, 1998, p. 50
Meditation for Friday the 13th
The 1946 British film below (released as “Stairway to Heaven” in the U.S.) is one of my favorites. I saw it as a child. Since costar Kim Hunter died this week (on 9/11), and since today is Friday the 13th, the following material seems relevant.
|
Kim Hunter in 1946 |
R.A.F pilot and psychiatrist
Alan McGlashan |
Alan McGlashan has practiced as a psychiatrist in London for more than forty years. He also served as a pilot for the R.A.F. (with MC and Croix de Guerre decorations). |
The doctor in “A Matter of Life and Death” addresses a heavenly court on behalf of his patient, R.A.F pilot David Niven:
 |
In the film, David Niven is saved by mistake from a fated death and his doctor must argue to a heavenly court that he be allowed to live. |
In a similar situation, I would want Dr. Alan McGlashan, a real-life psychiatrist, on my side. For an excerpt from one of my favorite books, McGlashan’s The Savage and Beautiful Country,
As Walker Percy has observed (see my Sept. 7 note, “The Boys from Uruguay”), a characteristic activity of human beings is what Percy called “symbol-mongering.” In honor of today’s anniversary of the births of two R.A.F. fighter pilots,
Sir Peter Guy Wykeham-Barnes (b. 1915) and author
Roald Dahl (b. 1916),
here is one of the better symbols of the past century:
The circle is of course a universal symbol, and can be made to mean just about whatever one wants it to mean. In keeping with Clint Eastwood’s advice, in the soundtrack album for “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” to “accentuate the positive,” here are some positive observations on a circle from the poet (and perhaps saint) Dante, who died on the night of September 13-14:
In the sun, Dante and Beatrice find themselves surrounded by a circle of souls famous for their wisdom on earth. They appear as splendid lights and precious jewels who dance and sing as they lovingly welcome two more into their company. Their love for God is kindled even more and grows as they find more individuals to love. Among the blessed souls are St. Thomas Aquinas and one of his intellectual “enemies”, Siger of Brabant, a brilliant philosopher at the University of Paris, some of whose teachings were condemned as heretical. Conflicts and divisions on earth are now forgotten and absorbed into a communal love song and dance “whose sweetness and harmony are unknown on earth and whose joy becomes one with eternity.”
Dante compares their dance and song to God’s bride on earth, the Church, when she answers the morning bells to rise from bed and “woo with matins song her Bridegroom’s love.” Some critics consider this passage the most “spiritually erotic” of all the one hundred cantos of the Comedy. It is the ending of Canto 10, verses 139-148.
— Fr. James J. Collins, “The Spiritual Journey with Dante V,” Priestly People October 1997
The above material on Dante is from the Servants of the Paraclete website.
For more on the Paraclete, see
See also the illustration in the note below.
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