"You probably couldn't come up with a more stinging metaphor for how
fame, for all its sensation and glitter, ultimately becomes a tombstone."
The black rectangle below is
known as the "end-of-proof symbol,"
"Halmos," or "tombstone."
* See the previous post, "Raiders of the Lost Box."
The director of the 2007 film “The Number 23” reportedly died today.
In his memory — An image that appeared in the Leary link of last night’s
post on “a combination of Kafka and Joyce, with a touch of Orwell” —
For more amusement from Toronto, see today's Toronto Sun .
Related material — Last Sunday's post in this journal
In 1978, Harvard moved a structure known as the Morton Prince House
from Divinity Avenue to Prescott Street, where it occupies the former Hurlbut
Parking Lot, which was the vista from my 1960-61 freshman room.
From the Log24 post "Very Stable Kool-Aid" —
|
A Letter from Timothy Leary, Ph.D., July 17, 1961
Harvard University July 17, 1961
Dr. Thomas S. Szasz Dear Dr. Szasz: Your book arrived several days ago. I've spent eight hours on it and realize the task (and joy) of reading it has just begun. The Myth of Mental Illness is the most important book in the history of psychiatry. I know it is rash and premature to make this earlier judgment. I reserve the right later to revise and perhaps suggest it is the most important book published in the twentieth century. It is great in so many ways–scholarship, clinical insight, political savvy, common sense, historical sweep, human concern– and most of all for its compassionate, shattering honesty. . . . . |
|
Morton Prince, a Boston neurologist, founded the Journal of Abnormal Psychology in 1906 as an outlet especially for those who took a psychogenic view of neurotic disorders. Through experiments with hypnotism, he added appreciably to knowledge of subconscious and coconscious mental processes; The Dissociation of a Personality (Prince, 1905) still ranks as a classic. He early saw that studying normal people in the depth and detail with which one studied patients could make significant contributions to our whole understanding of human nature. Before his death he established and briefly directed the Harvard Psychological Clinic, devising the research environment out of which presently sprang major contributions to the study of personality.
— "Who Was Morton Prince?," by R. W. White, |
See as well Who Was R. W. White?
The New York Times today reports the death at 90 of
Peggy Mellon Hitchcock, who arranged for Timothy Leary's
accomodation at the Hitchcock Estate, on April 9, 2024 . . .
Also on April 9 —
A rather different Hitchcock image —
This is from a Log24 search for Hitchcock Cube.
"Before time began . . ." — Optimus Prime.
Requiem for a Poodle Skirt . . .
"… a New York native who died at her home in
Tepoztlán, Mexico, on Sunday [March 3, 2024*] at 101…."
Related material from this journal: Leary and . . .
*
Posts tagged Ministry of Culture.
These include . . .
(From “Raiders of the Lost Coordinates,” Feb. 17, 2021.)
From other posts tagged Tetrahedron vs. Square —
"There is such a thing as a 4-set."
— Saying adapted from a 1962 young-adult novel.
Illustration (central detail a from the above tetrahedral figure) —
A Harvard Variation
from Timothy Leary —
The topics of Harvard and Leary suggest some other cultural
history, from The Coasters — "Poison Ivy" and "Yakety Yak."
Or: Geometric Logic Continued
Part I: Mystic Twaddle —
Part II: Meanwhile, on that same date —
Part III: Back at Harvard —
A link from the above post, infra —
“Some Harvard-related material — See Leary and 6 Prescott .”
"In July, 1960, having just received a doctorate from Harvard
and a research and training fellowship from the National Institute
of Mental Health, I drove, together with my wife, Sandylee,
from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Cuernavaca, Mexico."
— Michael Maccoby, June 26, 2014,
"Building on Erich Fromm's Scientific Contributions"
This is the Michael Maccoby of . . .
First published, with a less lurid cover, in 1958 by Arlington Books
of Cambridge, Mass.
What appears to be that 1958 edition, with the Maccoby introduction,
is available as a PDF —
http://paragoninspects.com/articles/pdfs/temp/operators_and_things.pdf .
Some Harvard-related material — See Leary and 6 Prescott .
Two of the thumbnail previews
from yesterday's 1 AM post …
Further down in the "6 Prescott St." post, the link 5 Divinity Avenue
leads to …
|
A Letter from Timothy Leary, Ph.D., July 17, 1961
Harvard University July 17, 1961
Dr. Thomas S. Szasz Dear Dr. Szasz: Your book arrived several days ago. I've spent eight hours on it and realize the task (and joy) of reading it has just begun. The Myth of Mental Illness is the most important book in the history of psychiatry. I know it is rash and premature to make this earlier judgment. I reserve the right later to revise and perhaps suggest it is the most important book published in the twentieth century. It is great in so many ways–scholarship, clinical insight, political savvy, common sense, historical sweep, human concern– and most of all for its compassionate, shattering honesty. . . . . |
The small Morton Prince House in the above letter might, according to
the above-quoted remarks by Corinna S. Rohse, be called a "jewel box."
Harvard moved it in 1978 from Divinity Avenue to its current location at
6 Prescott Street.
Related "jewel box" material for those who
prefer narrative to mathematics —
"In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test , Tom Wolfe writes about encountering
'a young psychologist,' 'Clifton Fadiman’s nephew, it turned out,' in the
waiting room of the San Mateo County jail. Fadiman and his wife were
'happily stuffing three I-Ching coins into some interminable dense volume*
of Oriental mysticism' that they planned to give Ken Kesey, the Prankster-
in-Chief whom the FBI had just nabbed after eight months on the lam.
Wolfe had been granted an interview with Kesey, and they wanted him to
tell their friend about the hidden coins. During this difficult time, they
explained, Kesey needed oracular advice."
— Tim Doody in The Morning News web 'zine on July 26, 2012**
Oracular advice related to yesterday evening's
"jewel box" post …
A 4-dimensional hypercube H (a tesseract ) has 24 square
2-dimensional faces. In its incarnation as a Galois tesseract
(a 4×4 square array of points for which the appropriate transformations
are those of the affine 4-space over the finite (i.e., Galois) two-element
field GF(2)), the 24 faces transform into 140 4-point "facets." The Galois
version of H has a group of 322,560 automorphisms. Therefore, by the
orbit-stabilizer theorem, each of the 140 facets of the Galois version has
a stabilizer group of 2,304 affine transformations.
Similar remarks apply to the I Ching In its incarnation as
a Galois hexaract , for which the symmetry group — the group of
affine transformations of the 6-dimensional affine space over GF(2) —
has not 322,560 elements, but rather 1,290,157,424,640.
* The volume Wolfe mentions was, according to Fadiman, the I Ching.
** See also this journal on that date — July 26, 2012.
"Freshman Seminar Program Department Administrator Corinna S. Rohse
described the program’s courses, which allow students to study subjects
that vary from Sanskrit to the mathematical basis for chess, as
'jewel-like: small and incredibly well-cut.' "
— The Harvard Crimson , Dec. 10, 2008
For remarks related to Sanskrit, chessboard structure, and "jewel-like"
mathematics, see A Prince of Darkness (Log24, March 28, 2006).
See also Walsh Functions in this journal and …
Lecture notes on dyadic harmonic analysis
(Cuernavaca, 2000)
Compare and contrast these remarks of Pereyra with the following
remarks, apparently by the same Corinna S. Rohse quoted above.
* Location of the Harvard Freshman Seminar program in the 2008
article above. The building at 6 Prescott was moved there from
5 Divinity Avenue in 1978. When the seminar program was started
in the fall of 1959, it was located in a house at 8 Prescott St. (In
1958-1959 this was a freshman dorm, the home of Ted Kaczynski.)
From a New York Times book review of a new novel about
Timothy Leary that was in the Times online on April 10 —
"Most of the novel resides in the perspective
of Fitzhugh Loney, one of Leary’s graduate students."
"A version of this article appears in print on ,
on Page 10 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline:
Strange Days."
For material about one of Leary's non -fictional grad students,
Ralph Metzner, see posts now tagged Metzner's Pi Day.
Related material —
The reported publication date of Searching for the Philosophers' Stone
was January 1, 2019.
A related search published here on that date:
* Title suggested by two of Ralph Metzner's titles,
The Expansion of Consciousness and The Unfolding Self .
"Clog, therefore, purple Jack and crimson Jill." — Wallace Stevens
|
"A 1991 PBS documentary called Dancing Outlaw introduced the world to the life and times of gas-huffing, vengeance-seeking, tap-dancin’ Jesco White. White Lightnin’ , which premiered recently at Sundance, is British director Dominic Murphy’s reportedly more surreal take on this fabled Appalachian anti-hero. While not locked in reform school, work camps, or the psych ward, the young Jesco White learned his special breed of clog dancing from his father, who was eventually killed in a random act of hillbilly violence. In White Lightnin' Jesco picks up his daddy’s tap shoes and hits the road, where he comes to grips with the art, addiction, and madness that have plagued his violent life story. And somewhere along the way he meets his wife, played by none other than Carrie Fisher. While David D’Arcy speaks almost fondly of White Lightnin' s redneck-exploitation (he was probably stretching for other ways to describe this “hillbilly slasher saga”), Dennis Harvey was less enchanted by the film’s 'pretentious glimpse of hillbilly hell.' Most early reviews are apprehensive about the film’s distribution chances unless its grotesque lyricism finds a niche market. But I can't imagine this, being the first film written by the co-founders of Vice Magazine , not generating more distribution steam in the near future. If anyone knows how to generate buzz it is those guys." — MLeary review, January 28, 2009, 12:58 AM |
The New Yorker , issue dated Feb. 9, 2015 —
"After trying magic mushrooms in Cuernavaca, in 1960,
Leary conceived the Harvard Psilocybin Project, to study
the therapeutic potential of hallucinogens. His involvement
with LSD came a few years later."
Related viewing —
The Washington Post on yesterday's presidential Sunday—
"Accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and daughters
Sasha and Malia on the mild, overcast morning,
Obama walked through Lafayette Square
to St. John’s Episcopal Church.
The Rev. Michael Angell delivered a sermon
from John 6 about the extended metaphor
of eating Jesus’ flesh….
The Obamas, all wearing shades of blue,
participated in Holy Communion before
motorcading back to the White House."
In related news—
" We praised him and then we ate him,
all courtesy of a generous catering budget
from film director Tony Scott."
— "Death in the Center Ring:
Timothy Leary's High Dive,"
by Douglas Rushkoff, May 13, 2008
See also…
From the screenplay of "The Number 23"—
INT. NATHANIEL'S INSTITUTE, STAIRWELL – NIGHT
Agatha climbs a dark staircase. Layers of dust
testify to years of neglect.
INT. 3RD FLOOR CORRIDOR – CONTINUOUS
Agatha finds ROOM 318. A rusting door plaque reads,
"DR. SIRIUS LEARY, M.D. PSYCHIATRY."
For related material, see "Leary + Cuernavaca" and "Prime Cut."
Happy belated 2/3 birthday to Walter Sparrow.
Related material— Two other occurrences of "318" in this journal—
in another horror story, "The Sweet Smell of Avon,"
and in a quote from the Feast of St. Nicholas, 2010—
"When Novelists Become Cubists," by Andre Furlani—
"A symbol comes into being when an artist sees that
it is the only way to get all the meaning in.
Genius always proceeds by faith" (312).
The unparaphrasable architectonic text
"differs from other narrative in that the meaning
shapes into a web, or globe, rather than along a line" (318).
[The references are to page numbers in
Guy Davenport's The Geography of the Imagination .]
From “This Week’s Hype II,” a post at Peter Woit’s physics weblog this afternoon, a comment—
TedUnger says:
March 17, 2011 at 5:34 pm
“… there’s been nothing from these CERN scientists
except some lousy boring data on physics!
They better at least give us some time travel or else!
You know that is what Joe Public is thinking.”
The commenter’s identity is not clear. Even less clear is the identity of his subject, Joe Public.
For some remarks on time travel from literature rather than science, see “Damnation Morning” in this journal.
Erin O’Connor’s St. Patrick’s Day post this morning says,
“[Roddy] Doyle’s take on the Irish struggle for independence,
A Star Called Henry , has a lovely touch of magical realism.”
Note that the remarks by Henry Baker in this morning’s post here were dated Thursday, 11 September 1913.
Related material—
Yet they were of a different kind
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.
William Butler Yeats, “September 1913“
or, Deja Vu All Over Again
Top two obituaries in this morning's NY Times list–
|
David Simons, Who Flew High Dr. Simons, a physician turned Air Force officer, had sent animals aloft for several years before his record-breaking flight. James Aubrey, who Portrayed the Hero Mr. Aubrey portrayed Ralph in the film version of the William Golding novel and had a busy career on stage and television in England. |
Simons reportedly died on April 5,
Aubrey on April 6.
This journal on those dates–
April 5 —
Monday, April 5, 2010Space Cowboys
Google News, 11:32 AM ET today–
Related material: Yesterday's Easter message, |
April 6 —
Tuesday, April 6, 2010Clue
See also Leary on Cuernavaca, Team Daedalus"Concept (scholastics' verbum mentis)– theological analogy of Son's procession as Verbum Patris, 111-12" –Index to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, Society of Jesus, Yale University Press 1957, second printing 1963, page 162 "Back in 1958… [four] Air Force pilots were Team Daedalus, the best of the best." –Summary of the film "Space Cowboys" "Man is nothing if not labyrinthine." –The Vicar in Trevanian's The Loo Sanction\ |
|
"At the moment which is not of action or inaction |
See also Leary on Cuernavaca,
John O'Hara's fleeting reference
to Cuernavaca in Hope of Heaven,
and Cuernavaca in this journal.
From Google today, some excerpts from the result of the search “define:nexus”–
|
| This search was suggested by a book review in today’s New York Times that mentions both the Harvard classic The Varieties of Religious Experience and some religious experiences affecting my own Harvard class– that of 1964.
Cuernavaca, Mexico, in August 1960 was the site of what Harvard’s Timothy Leary later called the deepest religious experience of his life. For some other experiences related to Harvard and Cuernavaca, see a search on those two terms in this journal. The book under review is titled “The Harvard Psychedelic Club.” My own experiences with the Harvard-Cuernavaca nexus might more appropriately be titled “The Harvard Alcoholic Club.” |
Against the Day
is a novel by Thomas Pynchon
published on Nov. 21, 2006, in
hardcover, and in paperback on
Oct. 30, 2007 (Devil's Night).
Perhaps the day the title
refers to is one of the above
dates… or perhaps it is–
|
The Candlebrow Conference in Pynchon's Against the Day: The conferees had gathered here from all around the world…. Their spirits all one way or another invested in, invested by, the siegecraft of Time and its mysteries. "Fact is, our system of so-called linear time is based on a circular or, if you like, periodic phenomenon– the earth's own spin. Everything spins, up to and including, probably, the whole universe. So we can look to the prairie, the darkening sky, the birthing of a funnel-cloud to see in its vortex the fundamental structure of everything–"  Quaternion by S. H. Cullinane "Um, Professor–"…. … Those in attendance, some at quite high speed, had begun to disperse, the briefest of glances at the sky sufficing to explain why. As if the professor had lectured it into being, there now swung from the swollen and light-pulsing clouds to the west a classic prairie "twister"…. … In the storm cellar, over semiliquid coffee and farmhouse crullers left from the last twister, they got back to the topic of periodic functions…. "Eternal Return, just to begin with. If we may construct such functions in the abstract, then so must it be possible to construct more secular, more physical expressions." "Build a time machine." "Not the way I would have put it, but if you like, fine." Vectorists and Quaternionists in attendance reminded everybody of the function they had recently worked up…. "We thus enter the whirlwind. It becomes the very essence of a refashioned life, providing the axes to which everything will be referred. Time no long 'passes,' with a linear velocity, but 'returns,' with an angular one…. We are returned to ourselves eternally, or, if you like, timelessly." "Born again!" exclaimed a Christer in the gathering, as if suddenly enlightened. Above, the devastation had begun. |
Yesterday's entry contained the following unattributed quotation:
"One must join forces with friends of like mind."
As the link to Leap Day indicated, the source of the quotation is the I Ching.
Yesterday's entry also quoted the late Terence McKenna, a confused writer on psychosis and the I Ching. Lest the reader conclude that I consider McKenna or similar authors (for instance, Timothy Leary in Cuernavaca) as "friends of like mind," I would point rather to more sober students of the I Ching (cf. my June 2002 notes on philosophy, religion, and science) and to the late Scottish theologian John Macquarrie:
Macquarrie's connection in this journal to the I Ching is, like that book itself, purely coincidental. For details, click on the figure below.
The persistent reader will
find a further link that
leads to an entry titled
"Notes on the I Ching."
"A colour is eternal. It haunts time like a spirit. It comes and it goes. But where it comes it is the same colour. It neither survives nor does it live. It appears when it is wanted."
From an obituary of a biographer of Emily Dickinson, Richard B. Sewall, who died on Wednesday, April 16, 2003:
"Descended from a line of Congregational ministers dating back to the Salem of the witch trial era, Mr. Sewall was known for infusing his lectures with an almost religious fervor."
Riddle
What is the hardest thing to keep?
For one answer, see my entry of April 16, 2003. For commentary on that answer, see the description of a poetry party that took place last April at Sleepy Hollow, New York.
See, too, the story that contains the following passages:
"As to the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and book of dreams and fortune-telling….
The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue, and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow."
Update of 11:55 PM April 21, 2003,
in memory of
Nina Simone:
See also the last paragraph of this news story,
this website, and this essay,
or see all three combined.
From the entry of midnight, October 25-26, 2002:
Make my bed and light the light,
I'll arrive late tonight,
Blackbird, Bye-bye.
For more on the eight-point star of Venus,
see "Bright Star," my note of October 23, 2002.
Powered by WordPress
