Log24

See Source + Michener and The Source (Dec. 29, 2014).

Bogus religion from a bogus "research lab" —

This was quoted approvingly in a recent book by
Joseph Jaworski, Source  (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 
1st ed. Jan. 11, 2012, pp. 2-3).

Jaworski, a lawyer-turned-guru,
in 1980 founded a cult for executives
called the American Leadership Forum.

A synchronicity cult I prefer —
the Roman Catholic Church:

(Title purloined from Marie-Louise von Franz.)

BCE/CE — A game with three letters … See Michener Game.

BC/AD — A game with four letters … See Eddington Game.

ABCDE — A game with five letters … See Simplex.

From a review by Dara Horn of …

Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, & Other Literary Essays
by Cynthia Ozick
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 224 pp., $25

"… the credo that has emerged throughout her career:
against idolatry, yes, but also in favor of the particular,
context, rootedness, the profound archaeological wells
from which no writer can be removed without removing
his or her greatest powers.

For Ozick herself, that archaeological well is not only Anglo-
American literature, but the far deeper well of Judaism." 

— "Cynthia Ozick:  Or, Immortality,"
Jewish Review of Books , Fall 2016

See also Michener's The Source  in this journal.

The two wheel-like circles in this morning's previous post
suggest a review of some related (fictional) art —

See as well Jews on Fiction.

Transit Authority

In memory of
Stanley Kubrick
(overlooked in
yesterday's memorial)

"'Wherever you come near
the human race, there's layers
and layers of nonsense,'
says the Stage Manager in
Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town.'"

— Today's sermon
    from Frank Rich

For more layers, see
James A. Michener's
The Source.

To a
Dark Lady*

“Something inside
is telling me that
I’ve got your secret.
Are you still listening?
Fear is the lock, and laughter
the key to your heart….

… you are what you are.
And you make it hard,
and you make it hard….”

— Stephen Stills Songbook

* Suggested by…

  (1) A Harvard Crimson opinion piece
       of Oct. 12, “A Psychosexual Sham”
  (2) Remarks on the sin of masturbation
        (Ask Father Hardon)
  (3) Shem was a sham…. (FW I.7, 170).

  See also the Crimson on Jack Nicholson
  and Log24 on a food joke.

  “Ours is a very gutsy religion, Cullinane.”
    — The Source, by James A. Michener
  
   Tell it to James Joyce.

From James A. Michener‘s The Source:

“Trouble started in a quarter that neither Uriel nor Zadok could have foreseen.  For many generations the wiser men of Zadok’s clan had worshipped El-Shaddai with the understanding that whereas Canaanites and Egyptians could see their gods directly, El-Shaddai was invisible and inhabited no specific place.  Unequivocally the Hebrew patriarchs had preached this concept and the sager men of the clans accepted it, but to the average Hebrew who was not a philosopher the theory of a god who lived nowhere, who did not even exist in corporeal form, was not easy to comprehend.  Such people were willing to agree with Zadok that their god did not live on this mountain– the one directly ahead– but they suspected that he did live on some mountain nearby, and when they said this they pictured an elderly man with a white beard who lived in a proper tent and whom they might one day see and touch.  If questioned, they would have said that they expected El-Shaddai to look much like their father Zadok, but with a longer beard, a stronger voice, and more penetrating eyes.

Now, as these simpler-minded Hebrews settled down outside the walls of Makor, they began to see Canaanite processions leave the main gate and climb the mountain to the north, seeking the high place where Baal lived, and they witnessed the joy which men experienced when visiting their god, and the Hebrews began in subtle ways and easy steps to evolve the idea that Baal, who obviously lived in a mountain, and El-Shaddai, who was reported to do so, must have much in common.  Furtively at first, and then openly, they began to climb the footpath to the place of Baal, where they found a monolith rising from the highest point of rock.  Here was a tangible thing they could comprehend, and after much searching along the face of the mountain, a group of Hebrew men found a straight rock of size equal to the one accorded Baal, and with much effort they dragged it one starless night to the mountain top, where they installed it not far from the home of Baal….”

Rabbi Chitrik died on
Valentine’s Day, 2006,
having had a heart attack
on Feb. 8, 2006–

Grammy Night.

The above monolith is perhaps more
closely related to El-Shaddai than to
Madonna, Grammy Night, and Baal.
It reflects my own interests
(Mathematics and Narrative)
and those of Martin Buber
(Jews on Fiction):
 

“Among Buber’s early philosophical influences were Kant’s Prolegomena, which he read at the age of fourteen, and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.  Whereas Kant had a calming influence on the young mind troubled by the aporia of infinite versus finite time, Nietzsche’s doctrine of ‘the eternal recurrence of the same’ constituted a powerful negative seduction.  By the time Buber graduated from Gymnasium he felt he had overcome this seduction, but Nietzsche’s prophetic tone and aphoristic style are evident in Buber’s subsequent writings.”

— Plato.stanford.edu

Martin Buber

Rabbi Chitrik