Log24

"Design is how it works ." — Steve Jobs.  See interality.org.

Not  by Don DeLillo —

Those apt to be seduced by language, either secular or religious,
might note that the author of the Point Omega book above is also
the author of  Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power —

Hemingway fans might note as well a website whose background
image memorializes the Catholic fallen of the Spanish Civil War:

See also Straightforward + Overarching.

A Phrase That Haunts

From this journal on August 23, 2013 —

Illustration from a New York Times  review 
of the novel Point Omega —

From the print version of The New York Times Sunday Book Review
dated Sept. 13, 2015 —

The online version, dated Sept. 11, 2015 —

From the conclusion of the online version —

On the above print  headline, "Wrinkles in Time,"
that vanished in the online version —

"Now you see it, now you don't"
is not a motto one likes to see demonstrated
by a reputable news firm.

Related material:  Jews Telling Stories.

Fareed Zakaria in an online Aug. 21
New York Times  book review —

" Most intellectuals think ideas matter.
In one of his most famous and oft-­quoted lines,
John Maynard Keynes declared, 'Practical men
who believe themselves to be quite exempt from
any intellectual influence are usually the slaves
of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority,
who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy
from some academic scribbler of a few years back.'

Scott L. Montgomery and Daniel Chirot concur,
arguing that ideas 'do not merely matter; they matter
immensely, as they have been the source for decisions
and actions that have structured the modern world.' 
In The Shape of the New: Four Big Ideas and How
They Made the Modern World , Montgomery and
Chirot make the case for the importance of four
­powerful ideas, rooted in the European Enlightenment,
that have created the world as we know it.
'Invading armies can be resisted,' they quote
Victor Hugo. 'Invading ideas cannot be.' "

* Related material: Point Omega , a book
   by Don DeLillo, in this journal.

Why "Omega?"

Omega is a Greek letter, Ω , used in
mathematics to denote a set on which
a group acts. 

“Am I still on?” — Ending line of  The Osterman Weekend  (1983)

"… as though echoing the road's vanishing point
up ahead…." — Album review, 2002

See Vanishing Point in this journal.

See as well Rolling Stone  four days ago
on Stevie Nicks in 1976:

Keep in mind, the audience has
no idea who Stevie Nicks is.

Continues…

Update of 9:29 PM ET (Click to enlarge.) —

Adapted from a Facebook page.

In memory of radio personality Steve Post,
a link to some remarks on the date of his death.

And I'd  like to thank the heroine of Finale —

*  The title refers to a 2009 sculpture by Lyche —

   For a related shape, see today's noon post.

"We tried to create new realities overnight…."
— Point Omega, quoted here in the post
Devising Entities (July 3, 2010)

See also last night's Meditation as well as the earlier posts
Language Game and The Subject Par Excellence.

Thanks to Nora Ephron for "The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut"
(New Yorker  of July 5, 2010).

How to type a capital Omega—

Number Lock on, Alt key down, then numeric keypad
(or, on laptop, fn-style numbers on letter keys) 234.
Alt key up. Result: Ω.  Number Lock off.

Related poetic flight of fancy—

The most recent occurrence of 234 in the New York Lottery was on
August 6, 2008, the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Clicking on the Transfiguration link in this journal's post
for that date leads to an article on poet Paul Mariani.

Tracing a quotation in that article leads to…

The date of Mariani's poem, 24 August 2002, leads to a post in this journal
related to Mariani's "Loyola's Company" and to "that language only
light and diamonds know."

Related material: last night's Omega at Eight.

Related Log24 posts …

See Vox Lux and Mathieu Omega.

Related book cover …

Α, ϴ, Ω 

Alpha,    Theta,    Omega

Related line: 

"Falls  the  Shadow."
 

Also from a Culture Desk  of sorts:

Related art — Background colors for the letters in the NPR logo —

From today's New York Times  obituary of a pioneering filmmaker —

"In 1948, he enrolled at the University of Toronto 
to study political science and economics.
The avant-garde filmmaker Maya Deren taught
a workshop at the university one semester and
he became her lighting assistant. She encouraged
him to abandon economics and make movies instead."

Deren previously appeared here on Sunday, March 31, 2019:

For some wide-screen non-illusion, see . . .

Related material —

"Omega is as real  as we need it to be." — The Osterman Weekend

See also related material in The New Yorker  and the National Review .

“Omega is as real  as we need it to be.”
— Burt Lancaster in “The Osterman Weekend”

From AntiChristmas 2010 —

Above: Art Theorist Rosalind Krauss and The Ninefold Square

   For Krauss:

      Grid View                                                List View

Continues.

Continues.

The previous post  displayed a photo from November 2014.

Remarks quoted here  in November 2014 —

“Before time began, there was the Cube.”
— Optimus Prime

Or:  Je repars .

From Wallace Stevens —

"Reality is the beginning not the end,
Naked Alpha, not the hierophant Omega,
Of dense investiture, with luminous vassals."

— “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” VI

Mathematician Hanfried Lenz reportedly died in Berlin on June 1, 2013.

This journal that weekend —

From a news article featured on the American Mathematical Society
home page today —

A joint Vietnam-USA mathematical meeting in Vietnam on
June 10-13, 2019:

This  journal on June 12, 2019:

See also the Twentieth of May, 2008 —

Welcome to the Garden Club, Pilgrim.

… τοῦ γὰρ ἀεὶ ὄντος ἡ γεωμετρικὴ γνῶσίς ἐστιν.

… for geometry is the knowledge of the eternally existent.

See also the previous post — "Artifice of Eternity" —

and the June 23, 2010, post "Group Theory and Philosophy."

The above title is that of a facetious British essay linked to in the previous post.
It suggests a review . . .

“. . . some point in a high corner of the room . . . .”

     — Point Omega

Click on the book cover below for posts tagged "Haiku."

Simplicity  (Click for some complexity.)

Complexity  (Click for some simplicity.)

A passage from the 2011 book Idea Man  that was suggested by
a recent New Yorker  article on the book's author, the late Paul Allen —

Left-click image to enlarge.

See a review of the new Anne Tyler novel Clock Dance
in today's  online New York Times .

For a more abstract dance, see Ballet Blanc .

"A blank underlies the trials of device." — Wallace Stevens

In memory of a TV gunslinger who reportedly died Thursday, August 3, 2017 . . .

From this journal on that day (posts now tagged Dark Tower Theology) —

"The concept under review is that of the Holy Trinity.
  See also, in this  journal, Cube Trinity.
  For a simpler Trinity model, see the three-point line  …"

"Would that it were so simple."

… And a memorable Houston lawyer who reportedly died today
at 90 at his home in Trinity, Texas —

"Da hats ein Eck . "

See as well Sunday Review and Clooney Omega in this journal.

A post suggested by remarks of J. D. Salinger in 
The New Yorker  of November 19, 1955 —

See also Polarity in this journal.

* A phrase adapted, via Salinger,
from a poem by Sappho—

Ἴψοι δὴ τὸ μέλαθρον,
     Υ᾽μήναον
ἀέρρετε τέκτονεσ ἄνδρεσ,
     Υ᾽μήναον
γάμβροσ ἔρχεται ἶσοσ Ά᾽ρευϊ,
     [Υ᾽μήναον]
ανδροσ μεγάλο πόλυ μείζων
     [Υ᾽μήναον]

RSS feed screenshot of 1:53 AM ET today —

"The Osterman Weekend" (1983) —

“Am I still on?” — Ending line of  The Osterman Weekend  (1983)