The title is taken from a book for ages 8-12 published
on Shakespeare's birthday, April 23, 2013.
Also from that date, a note for older readers—
… Half a dozen of the other —
For further context, see all posts for the cruelest month of this past year.
* Secrets : A sometimes dangerous word.
"To enlarge this contemplation unto all the mysteries and secrets,
accomodable unto this number, were inexcusable Pythagorism…."
— Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia: Urn Burial
Or using his research and their tools.
Compare and contrast —
Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless warrs and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring amidst the noise Thir embryon Atoms.... ... Into this wilde Abyss, The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds, Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, Pondering his Voyage.... -- John Milton, Paradise Lost , Book II
This journal on Wednesday —
"… And the secrets of the strange days
will be one with the deep's secrets . . . ."
— H. P. Lovecraft manuscript
* See Elemental in this journal.
Book description at Amazon.com, translated by Google —
|
Las matemáticas como herramienta
Mathematics as a tool by Raúl Ibáñez Torres Kindle edition in Spanish, 2023 Although the relationship between mathematics and art can be traced back to ancient times, mainly in geometric and technical aspects, it is with the arrival of the avant-garde and abstract art at the beginning of the 20th century that mathematics takes on greater and different relevance: as a source of inspiration and as a tool for artistic creation. Let us think, for example, of the importance of the fourth dimension for avant-garde movements or, starting with Kandisnky and later Max Bill and concrete art, the vindication of mathematical thinking in artistic creation. An idea that would have a fundamental influence on currents such as constructivism, minimalism, the fluxus movement, conceptual art, systematic art or optical art, among others. Following this approach, this book analyzes, through a variety of examples and activities, how mathematics is present in contemporary art as a creative tool. And it does so through five branches and the study of some of its mathematical topics: geometry (the Pythagorean theorem), topology (the Moebius strip), algebra (algebraic groups and matrices), combinatorics (permutations and combinations) and recreational mathematics (magic and Latin squares). |
From the book ("Cullinane Diamond Theorem" heading and picture of
book's cover added) —
Publisher: Los Libros de La Catarata (October 24, 2023)
Author: Raúl Ibáñez Torres, customarily known as Raúl Ibáñez
(Ibáñez does not mention Cullinane as the author of the above theorem
in his book (except indirectly, quoting Josefine Lyche), but he did credit
him fully in an earlier article, "The Truchet Tiles and the Diamond Puzzle"
(translation by Google).)
About Ibáñez (translated from Amazon.com by Google):
Mathematician, professor of Geometry at the University of the Basque Country
and scientific disseminator. He is part of the Chair of Scientific Culture of the
UPV/EHU and its blog Cuaderno de Cultura Cientifica. He has been a scriptwriter
and presenter of the program “Una de Mates” on the television program Órbita Laika.
He has collaborated since 2005 on the programs Graffiti and La mechanica del caracol
on Radio Euskadi. He has also been a collaborator and co-writer of the documentary
Hilos de tiempo (2020) about the artist Esther Ferrer. For 20 years he directed the
DivulgaMAT portal, Virtual Center for the Dissemination of Mathematics, and was a
member of the dissemination commission of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society.
Author of several books, including The Secrets of Multiplication (2019) and
The Great Family of Numbers (2021), in the collection Miradas Matemáticas (Catarata).
He has received the V José María Savirón Prize for Scientific Dissemination
(national modality, 2010) and the COSCE Prize for the Dissemination of Science (2011).
"Getting to Wow! is the entrepreneur's practical guide
to crafting a clear, compelling, credible pitch."
Shoe, Easter 2003
Musical accompaniment by Del Shannon —
"I wonder" — at 0.44 in the following video . . .
There's a world where I can go
Tell my secrets to
In my room
In my room (in my room)…
— Beach Boys, 1963
Continued from April 12, 2022.
"It’s important, as art historian Reinhard Spieler has noted,
that after a brief, unproductive stay in Paris, circa 1907,
Kandinsky chose to paint in Munich. That’s where he formed
the Expressionist art group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) —
and where he avoided having to deal with cubism."
— David Carrier,
Remarks by Louis Menand in The New Yorker today —
"The art world isn’t a fixed entity.
It’s continually being reconstituted
as new artistic styles emerge."
(Adapted from Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Eleventh Edition (1911), Crystallography .)
"Before time began, there was the Cube."
— Optimus Prime
See as well Verbum (February 18, 2017).
Related dramatic music —
"Westworld Season 4 begins at Hoover Dam,
with William looking to buy the famous landmark.
What does he consider to be 'stolen' data that is inside?"
In memory of Ed Wood:
"Such a brilliant director, a fucking powerhouse…."
— Recent Instagram comment
"Twilight was theatrically released on November 21, 2008;
it grossed over US$393 million worldwide. It was released
on DVD March 21, 2009 and became the most purchased
DVD of the year." — Wikipedia
See also November 21, 2008, in posts tagged Olaf Gate.
Related material —
As inquisitions go, I prefer the Holy Office of Philip Pullman.
Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless warrs and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring amidst the noise Thir embryon Atoms.... ... Into this wilde Abyss, The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds, Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, Pondering his Voyage.... -- John Milton, Paradise Lost , Book II
The title is from Sir Thomas Browne:
"To enlarge this contemplation unto all the mysteries and secrets,
accomodable unto this number, were inexcusable Pythagorisme,
yet cannot omit the ancient conceit of five surnamed the number
of justice; as justly dividing between the digits, and hanging in
the centre of Nine . . . ."
"Separately." — Ben Franklin
From the online New York Times this morning —
"Origin is Mr. Brown’s eighth novel. It finds his familiar protagonist,
the brilliant Harvard professor of symbology and religious iconography
Robert Langdon, embroiled once more in an intellectually challenging,
life-threatening adventure involving murderous zealots, shadowy fringe
organizations, paradigm-shifting secrets with implications for the future
of humanity, symbols within puzzles and puzzles within symbols and
a female companion who is super-smart and super-hot.
As do all of Mr. Brown’s works, the new novel does not shy away from
the big questions, but rather rushes headlong into them."
— Profile of Dan Brown by Sarah Lyall
See also yesterday's Log24 post on the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.
"According to Thelemic legend, in 1918 Aleister Crowley
came into contact with a interdimensional entity
named Lam, who by the way is a dead ringer for
the popular conception of the 'alien grey '
depicted on the cover of Whitley Strieber's Communion ."
Related material —
"Robert Langdon stood mesmerized at the glass portal,
absorbing the power of the landscape below him."
Also …
"Ting-a-ling." — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Continued from Black Friday …
"Tell me no secrets, tell me some lies."
— Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
(Continued from 10:09 AM today)
The quotation below is from a webpage on media magnate
Walter Annenberg.
Annenberg Hall at Harvard, originally constructed to honor
the Civil War dead, was renamed in 1996 for his son Roger,
Harvard Class of ’62.
www.broadcastpioneers.com/
walterannenberg.html —
“It was said that Roger was ‘moody and sullen’
spending large parts of his time reading poetry
and playing classical music piano. It had been
reported that Roger attempted suicide at the
age of eleven by slitting his wrists. He recovered
and was graduated Magna Cum Laude from
Episcopal Academy in our area. For awhile,
Roger attended Harvard, but he was removed
from the school’s rolls after Roger stopped doing
his school work and spent almost all his time
reading poetry in his room. He then was sent to
an exclusive and expensive treatment center
in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. At that facility,
Roger became more remote. It was said that he
often didn’t recognize or acknowledge his father.
On August 7, 1962, Roger Annenberg died from
an overdose of sleeping pills.”
A more appropriate Annenberg memorial, an article
in The Atlantic magazine on June 25, notes that…
“Among those who ended up losing their battles
with mental illness through suicide are
Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Vincent van Gogh,
John Berryman, Hart Crane, Mark Rothko, Diane Arbus,
Anne Sexton, and Arshile Gorky.”
Scene I:
"Pinter's particular usage of reverse chronology
in structuring the plot is innovative…."
— Wikipedia on the play "Betrayal," a version of which
opens tonight
Scene II:
Reverse Chronology in Wikipedia —
"As a hypothetical example, if the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk
was told using reverse chronology, the opening scene would depict
Jack chopping the beanstalk down and killing the giant. The next
scene would feature Jack being discovered by the giant and climbing
down the beanstalk in fear of his life. Later, we would see Jack running
into the man with the infamous magic beans, then, at the end of the film,
being sent off by his mother to sell the cow."
Scene III:
Dialogue for Scene III —
"Sell the damn cow, Jack."
Epilogue: Jack + Jill.
Profile picture of "Jo Lyxe" (Josefine Lyche) at Vimeo—
Compare to an image of Vril muse Maria Orsitsch.
From the catalog of a current art exhibition
(25 May – 31 August, 2013) in Norway,
I DE LANGE NÆTTER —
|
Josefine Lyche
Keywords (to help place my artwork in the (See also the original catalog page.) |
Clearly most of this (the non-highlighted parts) was taken
from my webpage Diamond Theory. I suppose I should be
flattered, but I am not thrilled to be associated with the
(apparently fictional) Vril Society.
For some background, see (for instance)
Conspiracy Theories and Secret Societies for Dummies .
In memory of Paul Sussman, author of archaeological
mystery novels about Egypt—
|
"… the sacred symbols of the cosmic elements — Thrice-Great Hermes: Excerpts and Fragments , |
Sussman's last novel, not yet published, was
Sussman, 45, reportedly died suddenly on May 31, 2012.
A perhaps relevant thought—
"A world of made
is not a world of born— pity poor flesh
and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical
ultraomnipotence."
– e. e. cummings, 1944
Related material from the June 30 Washington Post—
"Wizardly in his abilities and appearance—
he had a scraggly, gray beard—
Mr. Morris was the digital gatekeeper
of the American government’s computer secrets."
See also audience participation features at The New York Times—
In today's Wall Street Journal , Peter Woit reviews a new book on dark matter and dark energy.
For a more literary approach, see "dark materials" in this journal.
Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless warrs and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring amidst the noise Thir embryon Atoms.... ... Into this wilde Abyss, The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds, Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, Pondering his Voyage.... -- John Milton, Paradise Lost , Book II
Related material:
1. The “spider” symbol of Fritz Leiber’s short story “Damnation Morning”—
2. Angels and demons here and in the Catholic Church.
3. The following diagram by one “John Opsopaus”—
Murphy's Last Stand
In memory of Walter F. Murphy, a leading constitutional scholar and McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton from 1968 to 1995. Murphy was also the author of a bestselling 1979 novel, The Vicar of Christ. He died at 80 on Tuesday, April 20, 2010, quod vide.
His novel, according to this morning's New York Times, "tells the story of an American who fights valiantly in the Korean War (as Professor Murphy did), becomes chief justice of the United States, resigns to become a monk and is eventually elected the first American pope." An eventful tale.
For a good review of Murphy's novel, see "The Doomed Hero." This review, and yesterday's Log24 Law Day post, which mentions the concept of "the mighty music of the innermost heaven," suggest revisiting a Log24 post of August 28, 2009 and a hymn by Brian Wilson—
 Send "In My Room" Ringtone to Cell
There's a world where I can go In this world I lock out Do my dreaming and my scheming lie awake and pray Now it's dark and I'm alone |
Southern Comfort
"Jim’s appetite for booze and drugs was legendary. In fact, one of the secrets of his success was that he kept taking pictures after all the other photographers went to bed.
What’s most striking about his photographs is how even in the most chaotic moments he finds clarity and candor. Jim’s photographs are remarkable for the ease with which they convey something deep and real about their subjects….
What comes across is a deep empathy for the musicians he photographed, and an ability to capture their pride and sense of purpose, even when circumstances were less than ideal. I love the shot of… Johnny Cash, heavy and brooding before his 1968 performance at Folsom Prison, with the guard tower looming over his shoulder."
Unauthorized copy from Marshall's gallery—
"Recently, over scotches in one of Jim’s favorite New York bars, I asked what he sees in this collection of his work. 'How the fuck should I know?' he said. 'I was there. I took some photographs. This is them….'"
In Memoriam… The classic film Asphalt Jungle and a hymn for Hunter S. Thompson that will do as well for Sterling Hayden, Marshall, and Cash.
A sermon for the father of Kal-El.
See also related material in this journal
on Vegas and on Maniacs.
| Detail of arts page, New York Times, Wednesday morning: (Click ad for more on the Monday night death of Dash Snow.) |
Hurt yet?
_________________
Update of 5:01 AM:
Lavery Hits
Literary Jackpot
From the top right of
this morning's online
New York Times front page:
Click on voodoo doll
for further details.
See also…
1. Monday's link to a
Wallace Stevens poem,
"Snow and Stars"
2. The conclusion of this
morning's Times obituary
for artist Dash Snow, which
gives his daughter's name…
"Secret."
3. David Lavery's excellent
analysis of the classic
Conrad Aiken story
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow."
Dark Materials
Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound, Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth, And time and place are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal Anarchie, amidst the noise Of endless warrs and by confusion stand. For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring amidst the noise Thir embryon Atoms.... ... Into this wilde Abyss, The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave, Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire, But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds, Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while, Pondering his Voyage.... -- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II
Pennsylvania Lottery today: Mid-day 504, Evening 628. Related material: Today’s previous entry and entries of Happy birthday, Thomas Jefferson: “… God to a nation — “To what serves Mortal Beauty?,” (Quoted here on Aug. 29, 2006) |
Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society,
Volume 31, Number 1, July 1994, Pages 1-14
Selberg’s Conjectures
and Artin L-Functions (pdf)
M. Ram Murty
Introduction
In its comprehensive form, an identity between an automorphic L-function and a “motivic” L-function is called a reciprocity law. The celebrated Artin reciprocity law is perhaps the fundamental example. The conjecture of Shimura-Taniyama that every elliptic curve over Q is “modular” is certainly the most intriguing reciprocity conjecture of our time. The “Himalayan peaks” that hold the secrets of these nonabelian reciprocity laws challenge humanity, and, with the visionary Langlands program, we have mapped out before us one means of ascent to those lofty peaks. The recent work of Wiles suggests that an important case (the semistable case) of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture is on the horizon and perhaps this is another means of ascent. In either case, a long journey is predicted…. At the 1989 Amalfi meeting, Selberg [S] announced a series of conjectures which looks like another approach to the summit. Alas, neither path seems the easier climb….
[S] A. Selberg, Old and new
conjectures and results
about a class of Dirichlet series,
Collected Papers, Volume II,
Springer-Verlag, 1991, pp. 47-63.
Zentralblatt MATH Database on the above Selberg paper:
“These are notes of lectures presented at the Amalfi Conference on Number Theory, 1989…. There are various stimulating conjectures (which are related to several other conjectures like the Sato-Tate conjecture, Langlands conjectures, Riemann conjecture…)…. Concluding remark of the author: ‘A more complete account with proofs is under preparation and will in time appear elsewhere.'”
Related material: Previous entry.
| Odile Crick with her husband, Francis H.C. Crick, in Cambridge, England. Mrs. Crick, an artist, illustrated the work of her husband, whose team received a Nobel Prize for its DNA research. |
| Photo Credit: Courtesy Of The Salk Institute For Biological Studies |
“Her graceful drawing of the double-helix structure of DNA with intertwined helical loops has become a symbol of the achievements of science and its aspirations to understand the secrets of life. The image represents the base pairs of nucleic acids, twisted around a center line to show the axis of the helix. Terrence J. Sejnowski, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, where Francis Crick later worked, said: ‘Mrs. Crick’s drawing was an abstract representation of DNA, but it was accurate with regard to its shape and size of its spacing.
‘The models you see now have all the atoms in them,’ Sejnowski said. ‘The one in Nature was the backbone and gave the bare outline. It may be the most famous [scientific] drawing of the 20th century, in that it defines modern biology.'”
By Gino Segrè
Illustrated. 310 pp.
Viking. $25.95.
“As though their knowledge of the quantum secrets came with the power of prophecy, some three dozen of Europe’s best physicists ended their 1932 meeting in Copenhagen with a parody of Goethe’s ‘Faust.’….
It was only in retrospect that the silliness became profound. The players were becoming possessors of ‘a truth with implicit powers of good and evil,’ Gino Segrè writes in ‘Faust in Copenhagen,’ his inventive new book about the era. And ‘the devil… was in the details.'” –George Johnson
This week’s entries
on Pauli and Faust,
the entries of
June 3 through June 6,
and the five entries
ending on April 7, 2005,
with “In the Details“
(Title of an interview with
the late Paul Halmos, mathematician)
From a 1990 interview:
“What’s the best part of being a mathematician? I’m not a religious man, but it’s almost like being in touch with God when you’re thinking about mathematics. God is keeping secrets from us, and it’s fun to try to learn some of the secrets.”
I personally prefer Annie Dillard on God:
“… if Holy the Firm is matter at its dullest, Aristotle’s materia prima, absolute zero, and since Holy the Firm is in touch with the Absolute at base, then the circle is unbroken. And it is…. Holy the Firm is in short the philosopher’s stone.”
Some other versions of
the philosopher’s stone:
This last has the virtue of
being connected with Halmos
via his remarks during the
“In Touch with God” interview:
See also the remark of Halmos that serves as an epigraph to Theme and Variations.
has also served
at least one interpreter
as a philosopher’s stone,
and is also the original
“Halmos tombstone.”
This album contains
Planned Obsolescence:
science
is truth for life
watch religion fall obsolete
science
will be truth for life
technology as nature
science
truth for life
in fortran tongue the
answer
with wealth and prominence
man so near perfection
possession
it’s an absence of interim
secure no demurrer
defense against divine
defense against his true
image
human conflict number five
discovery
dissolved all illusion
mystery
destroyed with conclusion
and illusion never restored
any modern man can see
that religion is
obsolete
piety
obsolete
ritual
obsolete
martyrdom
obsolete
prophetic vision
obsolete
mysticism
obsolete
commitment
obsolete
sacrament
obsolete
revelation
obsolete
Secrets of the I Ching
(Album title, 10,000 Maniacs)
Time of this entry: 2:56:37
Question suggested by the
lottery in the state of Grace
(Kelly) on the night Sinatra died:
Answer: 37.
In other words…
For details, see Log24,
11 AM Sunday, October 16:
Philip K. Dick Meets Joan Didion
From the ending of
The Man in the High Castle:
Juliana said, “I wonder why the oracle would write a novel. Did you ever think of asking it that?” ….
“You may say the question aloud,” Hawthorne said. “We have no secrets here.”
Juliana said, “Oracle, why did you write The Grasshopper Lies Heavy? What are we supposed to learn?”
“You have a disconcertingly superstitious way of phrasing your question,” Hawthorne said. But he had squatted down to witness the coin throwing. “Go ahead,” he said; he handed her three Chinese brass coins with holes in the center. “I generally use these.”
She began throwing the coins; she felt calm and very much herself. Hawthorne wrote down her lines for her. When she had thrown the coins six times, he gazed down and said:
“Sun at the top. Tui at the bottom. Empty in the center.”
“Do you know what hexagram that is?” she said. “Without using the chart?”
“Yes,” Hawthorne said.
“It’s Chung Fu,” Juliana said. “Inner Truth. I know without using the chart, too. And I know what it means.”
From the ending of
Play It As It Lays:
I lie here in the sunlight, watch the hummingbird. This morning I threw the coins in the swimming pool, and they gleamed and turned in the water in such a way that I was almost moved to read them. I refrained.
One thing in my defense, not that it matters. I know something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you. I know what “nothing” means, and keep on playing.
Why, BZ would say.
Why not, I say.
Legacy Codes
“In writing The Legacy Codes, the term itself became the play’s central metaphor. In newspaper accounts of the Wen Ho Lee case, the classified legacy codes which caused the uproar were described as computer simulations of plutonium explosions. The term is also used by computer experts for any archaic codes which are still necessary to run complex computer programs. For me the term can also be interpreted as the DNA genetic code, it can be interpreted as what is passed on in families regarding culture, family secrets, genetic traits. It also can relate to how people and institutions want to be remembered in the future.”
The Legacy Codes opens at 7 tonight in Manhattan.
The Unity of Mathematics,
or “Shema, Israel”
A conference to honor the 90th birthday (Sept. 2) of Israel Gelfand is currently underway in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The following note from 2001 gives one view of the conference’s title topic, “The Unity of Mathematics.”
Reciprocity in 2001by Steven H. Cullinane
|
For four different proofs of Euler’s result, see the inexpensive paperback classic by Konrad Knopp, Theory and Application of Infinite Series (Dover Publications).
Evaluating Zeta(2), by Robin Chapman (PDF article) Fourteen proofs!
Zeta Functions for Undergraduates
Reciprocity Laws
Reciprocity Laws II
Recent Progress on the Langlands Conjectures
For more on
the theme of unity,
see
In Memoriam
From the New York Times of Oct. 23, 2002:
Richard M. Helms Dies at 89;
Dashing Ex-Chief of the C.I.A.
 Associated Press Richard M. Helms, a former C.I.A. director, died today. |
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
WASHINGTON Oct. 23 — “Richard Helms, a former director of central intelligence who defiantly guarded some of the darkest secrets of the cold war, died today of multiple myeloma. He was 89. An urbane and dashing spymaster, Mr. Helms began his career with a reputation as a truthteller….” |
Needless to say, that didn’t last. I encountered this story this afternoon, after writing the entry below this morning. The site I described there,
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2740/,
reads as though it were compiled by an intelligence officer, and may serve as a small memorial to Helms.
Birthdays for a Small Planet
Today's birthdays:
The entry below, "Theology for a Small Planet," sketches an issue that society has failed to address since the fall of 1989, when it was first raised by the Harvard Divinity Bulletin.
In honor mainly of Ursula K. Le Guin, but also of her fellow authors above, I offer Le Guin's solution. It is not new. It has been ignored mainly because of the sort of hateful and contemptible arrogance shown by
Here is an introduction to the theology that should replace the ridiculous and outdated Semitic religions.
"Scholarly translators of the Tao Te Ching, as a manual for rulers, use a vocabulary that emphasizes the uniqueness of the Taoist 'sage,' his masculinity, his authority. This language is perpetuated, and degraded, in most popular versions. I wanted a Book of the Way accessible to a present-day, unwise, unpowerful, and perhaps unmale reader, not seeking esoteric secrets, but listening for a voice that speaks to the soul. I would like that reader to see why people have loved the book for 2500 years.
It is the most lovable of all the great religious texts, funny, keen, kind, modest, indestructibly outrageous and inexhaustibly refreshing. Of all the deep springs, this is the purest water. To me it is also the deepest spring."
Tao Te Ching: Chapter 6
translated by Ursula K. Le Guin
The valley spirit never dies
Call it the mystery, the woman.
The mystery,
the Door of the Woman,
is the root
of earth and heaven.
Forever this endures, forever.
And all its uses are easy.
Zen holy day:
Bodhidharma Day
Epigraph to Chapter 23 of Contact, by Carl Sagan:
We have not followed cunningly devised fables….
— II Peter 1:16
Song lyric:
It’s still the same old story….
— Herman Hupfeld, 1931
From Chapter 23 of Contact, by Carl Sagan:
“You mean you could decode a picture hiding in pi and it would be a mess of Hebrew letters?”
“Sure. Big black letters, carved in stone.”
He looked at her quizzically.
“Forgive me, Eleanor, but don’t you think you’re being a mite too… indirect? You don’t belong to a silent order of Buddhist nuns. Why don’t you just tell your story?”
Moonlight and love songs,
never out of date….
See also my journal note
for Michaelmas, 2002,
“Pi in the Sky.”
ART WARS:
The Agony and the Ya-Ya
Today's birthdays:
To honor the birth of these three noted spiritual leaders, I make the following suggestion: Use the mandorla as the New Orleans Mardi Gras symbol. Rice lives in New Orleans and LaBelle's classic "Lady Marmalade" deals with life in that colorful city.
What, you may well ask, is the mandorla? This striking visual symbol was most recently displayed prominently at a meeting of U.S. cardinals in the Pope's private library on Shakespeare's birthday. The symbol appears in the upper half of a painting above the Pope.
From Church Anatomy:
The illustration below shows how Barbara G. Walker in her excellent book "The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" describes the mandorla.
|
The Agony Based on a novel by Irving Stone, this 1965 movie focuses on the relationship between Michelangelo (Charlton Heston) and Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison), who commissioned the artist to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
|
Vesica piscis Mandorla, "almond," the pointed-oval sign of the yoni, is used in oriental art to signify the divine female genital; also called vesica piscis, the Vessel of the Fish. Almonds were holy symbols because of their female, yonic connotations. Christian art similarly used the mandorla as a frame for figures of God, Jesus, and saints, because the artists forgot what it formerly meant. I. Frazer, G.B., 403 |
The winner of the self-promotion award
at the third annual Latin Grammys
last night was…
Stella!
 |
An Awfully Big Adventure is the story of Stella, a headstrong, starry-eyed young teenager whose passion for the theatre leads her into a grownup world of sex and secrets, menace and manipulation. |
|
|
Girl, you’re a hot-blooded woman-child And it’s warm where you’re touchin’ me But I can tell by your tremblin’ smile You’re seein’ way too much in me – Mac Davis, 1972 |
In honor of the September 8 birthdays of
From a website on Donna Tartt‘s novel The Secret History…
“It is like a storyteller looking up suddenly into the eyes of his audience across the embers of a once blazing fire…
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…the reader feels privy to the secrets of human experience by their passage down through the ages; the telling and re-telling. A phrase from the ghost in Hamlet comes to mind: ‘I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / |
This work of literature seems especially relevant at the start of a new school year, and in light of my remarks below about ancient Greek religion. One should, when praising Apollo, never forget that Dionysus is also a powerful god.
For those who prefer film to the written word, I recommend “Barton Fink” as especially appropriate viewing for the High Holy Days. Judy Davis (my favorite actress) plays a Faulkner-figure’s “secretary” who actually writes most of his scripts.
Tartt is herself from Faulkner country. For her next book, see this page from Square Books, 160 Courthouse Square, Oxford, Misssissippi.
Let us pray that Tartt fares better in real life than Davis did in the movie.
As music for the High Holy Days, I recommend Don Henley’s “The Garden of Allah.” For some background on the actual Garden of Allah Hotel at 8080 Sunset Boulevard (where “Barton Fink” might have taken place), see
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