Log24

See also Plan 9 from Yale
and Galois Desargues.

Continued from August 2, 2019
( a date suggested by the following search ) —

An image from “The 7/11 Meditation” ( Log24  on August 2, 2019 ) —

The search suggested above on 7/11, 2018, yields . . .

"The style of Ich und Du  is anything but sparse and unpretentious,
lean or economical. It represents a late flowering of romanticism
and tends to blur all contours in the twilight of suggestive but
extremely unclear language. Most of Buber’s German readers
would be quite incapable of saying what any number of passages
probably mean. 

The obscurity of the book does not seem objectionable to them:
it seems palpable proof of profundity. Sloth meets with awe
in the refusal to unravel mysteries."

— Walter Kaufmann, 1970 prologue to I and Thou

Revisiting August 31, 2006 —

"It's not the twilight zone no,
it's not the twilight zone
Yes it's just a party phone,
pure
honeycomb,
honeycomb,
honeycomb"

— Van Morrison, "Twilight Zone,"
     in The Philosopher's Stone

From last evening's online New York Times —

"Mr. Hamner moved to California in 1962
and got his first break when 'The Twilight Zone'
accepted two of his story ideas. His eight scripts
for the series included 'The Hunt,' about a man
who is dead but does not realize it until his hunting
dog prevents him from wandering into hell . . . ."

— William Grimes

Hamner reportedly died on Thursday, March 24.
See this journal on that date.

From The New York Times —

4^TH NIGHT FREE

From this journal —

Sunday, November 5, 2006

"I say high, you say low,
you say why,
and I say I don't know.
Oh, no.
You say goodbye
and I say hello."

— Hello Goodbye *

Thanks to NBC Nightly News tonight for a story on the following:

Manhattanhenge is an evening when "the Sun sets in exact alignment with the Manhattan grid, fully illuminating every single cross-street…."

Full Sun on grid:
Friday, July 11–
8:24 PM EDT

Related material from the late
Tom Disch on St. Sarah's Day:
 

* Walter Everett, in The Beatles as Musicians , has a note on the song "Hello Goodbye"–

"189. The extra-long coda… was referred to as the 'Maori finale' from the start…."

  (Updated Feb. 27, 2013, to replace an incorrect reference in the footnote
   to a book by Stanley Cavell instead of the correct book, by Walter Everett.)

Twilight Kingdom

"What he cannot contemplate is the reproach of

    … that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom,

when at length he may meet the eyes…."

— On "The Hollow Men"

" … unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom"

Related readings from unholy scripture:

A.  The "long twilight struggle" speech of JFK

B.  "The Platters were singing 'Each day I pray for evening just to be with you,' and then it started to happen.  The pump turns on in ecstasy.  I closed my eyes, I held her with my eyes closed and went into her that way, that way you do, shaking all over, hearing the heel of my shoe drumming against the driver's-side door in a spastic tattoo, thinking that I could do this even if I was dying, even if I was dying, even if I was dying; thinking also that it was information.  The pump turns on in ecstasy, the cards fall where they fall, the world never misses a beat, the queen hides, the queen is found, and it was all information."

— Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis, August 2000 Pocket Books paperback, page 437

C.  "I will show you, he thought, the war for us to die in, lady.  Sully your kind suffering child's eyes with it.  Live burials beside slow rivers.  A pile of ears for a pile of arms.  The crisps of North Vietnamese drivers chained to their burned trucks…. Why, he wondered, is she smiling at me?"

— Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise,  Knopf hardcover, 1981, page 299

The image and A, B, C are from Log24 on June 4, 2004.
 

Party Phone

for Van Morrison
on his birthday

Honey Blonde She's as sweet as   tupelo honey She's an angel   of the first degree. She's as sweet as   tupelo honey Just like honey, baby,   from the bee. — Van Morrison, 1971

From March 24, 2006:

"It's not the twilight zone no,
it's not the twilight zone
Yes it's just a party phone,
pure
honeycomb,
honeycomb,
honeycomb"

— Van Morrison, "Twilight Zone,"
in The Philosopher's Stone

Feel lucky?
Well, do you?

  This entry was inspired by the following…
1.  A British blogger’s comment today.  This man, feeling like a miserable failure himself, was cheered up by the following practical joke: “If really fed up you could try putting in, miserable failure, (no quote marks) into Google and pressing the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button.”

2. The page, excerpts from which are shown  above, that you get if you put lucky (no quote marks) into Google and press the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

3. My own entries of May 31 on Language Games and of June 1 on language and history,  Seize the Day and One Brief  Shining Moment.

4.  The related June 1 entry of Loren Webster, Carpe Diem, on the Marilyn Monroe rose.  Images from Carpe and Shining are combined below:

5.  The fact that the “day” to be seized in Language Games is numbered 22, and that on day 22 of November 1963,  the  following died:

C. S. Lewis
John F. Kennedy
  Aldous Huxley.

6. The fact that November 22 is the feast of  Cecilia, patron saint of music.

7. Yesterday’s entry about the alignment of stars, combined with the alignment of Venus with Apollo (i. e., the sun) scheduled for June 8.

All of the above suggest the following readings from unholy scripture:

A.  The “long twilight struggle” speech of JFK

B.  “The Platters were singing ‘Each day I pray for evening just to be with you,’ and then it started to happen.  The pump turns on in ecstasy.  I closed my eyes, I held her with my eyes closed and went into her that way, that way you do, shaking all over, hearing the heel of my shoe drumming against the driver’s-side door in a spastic tattoo, thinking that I could do this even if I was dying, even if I was dying, even if I was dying; thinking also that it was information.  The pump turns on in ecstasy, the cards fall where they fall, the world never misses a beat, the queen hides, the queen is found, and it was all information.”

— Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis, August 2000 Pocket Books paperback, page 437

C.  “I will show you, he thought, the war for us to die in, lady.  Sully your kind suffering child’s eyes with it.  Live burials beside slow rivers.  A pile of ears for a pile of arms.  The crisps of North Vietnamese drivers chained to their burned trucks…. Why, he wondered, is she smiling at me?”

— Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise,  Knopf hardcover, 1981, page 299

Götterdämmerung

As our celebration of Wagner’s May 22 birthday draws to a close, let us recall that on this date in 1966 the Beatles released “Paperback Writer” in the US.   Perhaps our most notable paperback writer is now Stephen King; in honor of a recurring theme in his Hearts in Atlantis, our site music today is “Twilight Time.”

Mean Streets

The title of tonight’s “The West Wing” episode, “The Long Goodbye,” refers to a phrase that the sentimental do-gooders of the Democratic party apparently now use to refer to senility.   I find the phrase of more interest as it is used in the work of Raymond Chandler, where it has more to do with alcoholism than with Alzheimer’s.

Another memorable phrase from Chandler is found in his essay, “The Simple Art of Murder“:

“…down these mean streets a man must go
who is not himself mean….”

The phrase also occurs in the works of C. S. Lewis in an extended parable about Heaven and Hell:

The Great Divorce, Chapter One:

“I seemed to be standing in a busy queue by the side of a long, mean street. Evening was just closing in and it was raining. I had been wandering for hours in similar mean streets, always in the rain and always in evening twilight. Time seemed to have paused on that dismal moment when only a few shops have lit up and it is not yet dark enough for their windows to look cheering. And just as the evening never advanced to night, so my walking had never brought me to the better parts of the town.”

The most interesting part of this very interesting tale is summarized in an article on the work of Lewis:

“In the last chapter, Lewis sees a great assembly of motionless figures standing… around a silver table, watching the actvities of little figures that resembled chessmen:

‘And these chessman are men and women as they appear to themselves and to one another in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of these same men and women.'”

It is perhaps not completely irrelevant that Humphrey Bogart, who played Chandler’s detective “who is not himself mean,” loved chess and was born on Christmas Day.

A related religious meditation:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.”

— Karl Cullinane

in The Silver Crown, by Joel Rosenberg

Great Dream of Heaven

The title is that of Sam Shepard’s new book of short stories.  It is relevant to several of my recent journal entries.

This author’s own title also seems relevant.  Here is an excerpt from a web page on The Church of the Good Shepherd:

“This is the oldest church in Beverly Hills, and over the years, this small house of worship has been the local parish church for most of the Catholic movie stars who live in Beverly Hills…. It has seen numerous celebrity weddings and funerals. Although the church’s interior is modest (it seats just 600), and its decor surprisingly simple, the Church of the Good Shepherd has been featured in several Hollywood films: most notably, it was the location for the funeral scene in the 1954 version of ‘A Star is Born.'”

Today’s Birthday: Emily Dickinson

Complete Poems, 1924 

Part Four: Time and Eternity

LXXXIII

This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond….

Born Yesterday: Kirk Douglas 

From Douglas’s Climbing the Mountain: My Search for Meaning (Simon & Schuster, 1997) —

“Selling artwork, devoting time to charitable causes, writing novels, are all worthwhile means of occupying your time when good scripts aren’t coming your way.  But then, in the spring of 1993, one did.

It was called Wrestling Ernest Hemingway, a story of a growing friendship betwen two old men dealing with the twilight of their lives…. It was brilliant….

I called my agent… “So make the deal.”

A long pause.  “But the director wants to meet you.” ….

…. My agent called the next day. “She really likes you, Kirk… but… ah,” he started to stutter.

“What?”

“She wants Richard Harris.”

In the film of
Wrestling Ernest Hemingway 
as finally made,
Richard Harris dies on
Hemingway’s birthday.

Dead on October 25, 2002,
Picasso’s Birthday:

Actor Richard Harris  

A journal entry of October 25, 2002:

Wrestling Pablo Picasso

The old men know when an old man dies.
— Ogden Nash

A description of the title story
in Sam Shepard’s Great Dream of Heaven:

“Two old men who share a house are as close as a married couple until a competition to wake up first in the morning and a mutual fascination with a Denny’s waitress drive them apart.”

Meditation for the Feast of
Saint James Dean

From a Xanga journalist in the wee small hours:

For your consideration:

I think I’ll stick with Olivia Newton-John, the cast of “Grease,” and the school zone.