"Like the circles that you find
in the windmills of your mind"
See also, in this journal, "An Awfully Big Adventure."
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Saturday August 30, 2008
Poetry and Politics* —
Movie-Teller
"… maybe it was McCain's role as 'movie-teller' that he cherishes most– the man who used to narrate the plots of films to his fellow PoWs in the compound. 'I must have told a hundred movies,' says McCain. 'Of course I don't know a hundred movies– I made them up.'"
— The Guardian, quoted here on McCain's birthday, August 29, 2006. (McCain's birthday nine years earlier was the date of Judgment Day in "Terminator 2.")
A story from McCain's
birthday this year:
"Hail Sarah!"
— Newsweek
"At the still point,
there the dance is."
— Four Quartets
"… the Four Quartets themselves appear, in all their complexity, as the poetry of simple civic virtue– the poetry of a poet trying to read the writing of the law that has become all but illegible. This, you may say, has nothing to do with poetry. On the contrary, it is one of the few truly hopeful signs that this civic virtue could once more be realized poetically."
— Erich Heller, quoted here
on August 25, 2008
(Feast of St. Louis)
|
Related material:
St. Sarah's Day,
See also the remarks of St. Augustine and others on time (August 28 entry) and, from May 24, a song hook thanks to Cyndi Lauper: |
* Also known as smoke and mirrors.
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Saturday, November 16, 2019
Logic in the Spielfeld
"A great many other properties of E-operators
have been found, which I have not space
to examine in detail."
— Sir Arthur Eddington, New Pathways in Science ,
Cambridge University Press, 1935, page 271.
The following 4×4 space, from a post of Aug. 30, 2015,
may help:
The next time she visits an observatory, Emma Stone
may like to do a little dance to …
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Friday, November 15, 2019
Operators
Easy E
Not So Easy: E-Operators
"A great many other properties of E-operators
have been found, which I have not space
to examine in detail."
— Sir Arthur Eddington, New Pathways in Science ,
Cambridge University Press, 1935, page 271.
(This book also presents Eddington's unfortunate
speculations on the fine-structure constant.)
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Monday, February 25, 2019
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Saturday, January 26, 2019
In Memory of a Composer
who reportedly died early today in Paris, a tribute from
those who wrote the English lyrics for "Windmills of Your Mind" —
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Installasjon
The above cryptic search result indicates that there may
soon be a new Norwegian art installation based on this page
of Eddington (via Log24) —
See also other posts tagged Kummerhenge.
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Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Decorated
For those who prefer more elaborate decorations —
1. A Facebook image from last August …
2. The Facebook glider suggests a tune from "The Thomas Crown Affair"
(1968) that appeared in a Dec. 16, 2018 post on Christianity and
"interlocking names"—
The revised lyrics describe a square space.
3. An even more elaborate square space:
the Dance of the Snowflakes from
Balanchine's version of The Nutcracker —
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Sunday, December 16, 2018
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Opening Credits
From Log24 on Friday, Nov. 16 —
This evening's New York Times on an opening-credits designer,
Pablo Ferro, who reportedly died at 83 on Friday, Nov. 16 —
An example of Ferro's later work in film —
Musical accompaniment from Sunday morning —
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Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Logos
Musical accompaniment from Sunday morning —
Update of Nov. 21 —
The reader may contrast the above Squarespace.com logo
(a rather serpentine version of the acronym SS) with a simpler logo
for a square space (the Galois window ):
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Sunday, November 18, 2018
Space Music
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Tuesday, April 5, 2011
ART WARS continued
Escape from Kitsch Mountain
"Why you gotta be so mean?" — Taylor Swift (see last night)
This song includes, as part of the hook, the recurring phrase
"Someday I'll be livin' in a big ol' city."
From a big ol' city—
Rituals
A Return to Kitsch Mountain
By AUSTIN CONSIDINE
Published in The New York Times on January 16, 2009
As my girlfriend, Larissa, and I approached Gatlinburg, Tenn., this fall, I did my best to prepare her. She hadn’t been to Gatlinburg before, but I had. I understood the town’s complicated reputation both as a gateway to some of the most beautiful country in the United States— the Great Smoky Mountains National Park— and as a flamboyant capital of kitsch….
… It turned out that by 8 or 9 p.m., it was way too late to find a dinner show. The next morning, we had the opposite problem. By the time we woke up and wandered into Gatlinburg, it was noon. All the pancake houses were closed, and I was desolate. I had been thinking about those pancakes since the night before. So we did a little more sightseeing on foot.
Looking at Gatlinburg’s strip with adult eyes, I wondered how much self-awareness was at work there. It would be easy for a city slicker to assume this place misses its own punch lines. In truth, I decided, it merely embraces that special brand of conscious kitsch that forms its own American kind of authenticity. With all its absurdities, Gatlinburg knows what it is and proclaims it loudly, from one flashing signboard to the next….
From Gatlinburg—
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Thursday August 28, 2008
Associations
for the writer
known as UD
for the writer
known as UD
|
"Have liberty not as the air within a grave Or down a well. Breathe freedom, oh, my native, In the space of horizons that neither love nor hate."
— Wallace Stevens, |
A related visual
association of ideas —
("The association is the idea"
— Ian Lee, The Third Word War)
|
by John Braheny
"Hook" is the term you'll hear most often in the business and craft of commercial songwriting. (Well, maybe not as much as "Sorry, we can't use your song," but it's possible that the more you hear about hooks now, the less you'll hear "we can't use it" later.) |
See also UD's recent
A Must-Read and In My Day*
as well as the five
Log24 entries ending
Sept. 20, 2002.
More seriously:
The date of The New Yorker issue quoted above is also the anniversary of the birth of Wallace Stevens and the date of death of mathematician Paul R. Halmos.
Stevens's "space of horizons" may, if one likes, be interpreted as a reference to projective geometry. Despite the bleak physicist's view of mathematics quoted above, this discipline is– thanks to Blaise Pascal— not totally lacking in literary and spiritual associations.
* Hey Hey
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Tuesday February 13, 2007
Modern Times
vs. City Lights
vs. City Lights
"Modern Times, his first album since Love and Theft, debuted at No. 1
on the US pop charts last September. At 65, Dylan became the oldest
living person to achieve this feat." –New Zealand Herald, Feb. 12
From an entry of
October 29, 2004:
|
"Each epoch has its singer."
"Anything but the void. And so we keep hoping to luck into a winning combination, to tap into a subtle harmony, trying like lock pickers to negotiate a compromise with the 'mystery tramp,' as Bob Dylan put it…."
"You said you'd never compromise |
In today's meditation for
the Church of Peter Gabriel,
Dennis Overbye plays
the role of Jack Horner.
(See Overbye on Sagan in today's
New York Times, Sagan on Pi,
and Pi Day at Harvard.)
For more on Jack Horner, see
The Rise and Fall
of Popular Music,
by Donald Clarke,
Chapter One.
For two contrasting approaches
to popular music, see two artists
whose birthdays are today:
In other Grammy news–
At the end of Sunday's awards,
"Scarlett Johansson and Don Henley
put themselves in the pole position
to star in a remake of 'Adam's Rib'
with the following exchange:
Henley: So you're recording
your first album?
Johansson: Yeah. Do you
have any advice for me?
Henley: No."
"Her wall is filled with pictures,
she gets 'em one by one…."
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Saturday, September 23, 2006
Saturday September 23, 2006
Tequila!
for Kylie
“Time disappears
with tequila.
It goes elastic,
then vanishes.”
From today’s AP
“Obituaries in the News“–
for Kylie
“Time disappears
with tequila.
It goes elastic,
then vanishes.”
From today’s AP
“Obituaries in the News“–
|
Danny Flores HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Danny Flores, who played the saxophone and shouted the word ”tequila!” in the 1950s hit song ”Tequila!”, died Tuesday [Sept. 19, 2006]. He was 77. Flores, who lived in Westminster, died at Huntington Beach Hospital, said hospital spokeswoman Kathleen Curran. He died of complications from pneumonia, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reported. The man sometimes called the ”godfather of Latin rock” was born in Santa Paula but grew up in Long Beach. By age 5, he was playing guitar in church and at 14 he was a member of a trio that performed Mexican music. In 1957, Flores was in a group that recorded some work with rockabilly singer Dave Burgess. One of the songs was based on a nameless riff Flores had written. He played the ”dirty” saxophone part and repeatedly growled the single-word lyric: ”Tequila!” ”Tequila!” went to No. 1 on the Billboard chart and won a Grammy in 1959 for best rhythm and blues performance. Flores continued to play it for the next 40 years. |
Related material:
“Echoes (Aug. 11)” —
— and
Two-Bar Hook
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Friday, December 27, 2002
Friday December 27, 2002
Another Opening of Another Show
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
— Peter Pan
|
|
On this date in 1904, “Peter Pan” opened to great applause at the Duke of York’s theatre in London. A cinematic sequel, “An Awfully Big Adventure,” is illustrated at left and below. I have always felt this film’s soundtrack should include the classic Mac Davis song “Girl, you’re a hot-blooded woman-child….” |
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