"Godard, in the final analysis, expands the Warburgian programme
of iconology into that of a cinematographic iconology of the interstice."
— The author of the essay quoted in the previous post.
"Godard, in the final analysis, expands the Warburgian programme
of iconology into that of a cinematographic iconology of the interstice."
— The author of the essay quoted in the previous post.
See also An Epic for Kristen .
See as well the previous post.
"Serve in Heaven …
or reign in Hell?
Which is it to be?"
— David in "Alien: Covenant" (2017)
Other mythological tales —
From University of Chicago Press in 1984:
"Drawing on Hegel, Nietzsche, Derrida,
and others, Mark Taylor extends—and
goes well beyond—pioneering efforts. . . . "
—G. Douglas Atkins,
Philosophy and Literature
Update at noon on May 16 —
"Follow the Blood Arroyo to the place
where the snake lays its eggs."
— Westworld, Season 1, Episode 2,
air date October 9, 2016
This suggests a review of Derrida + Serpent
in this journal.
“That corpse you planted
last year in your garden,
Has it begun to sprout?
Will it bloom this year?
Or has the sudden frost
disturbed its bed?”
— T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land“
Click the book for a video.
The character who dies in the above scene was not
played by Robert Vaughn (also in the film), but by
Brad Dexter, who reportedly died on Dec. 12, 2002.
The title refers to a Log24 post of 9:45 AM ET Sunday, Oct. 2.
From the "Westworld" post of Sunday, Oct. 2 —
"It was rather like watching a play."
QED.
On a new HBO series that opens at 9 PM ET tonight —
Watching Westworld , you can sense a grand mythology unfolding before your eyes. The show’s biggest strength is its world-building, an aspect of screenwriting that many television series have botched before. Often shows will rush viewers into plot, forgetting to instill a sense of place and of history, that you’re watching something that doesn’t just exist in a vacuum but rather is part of some larger ecosystem. Not since Lost can I remember a TV show so committed to immersing its audience into the physical space it inhabits. (Indeed, Westworld can also be viewed as a meta commentary on the art of screenwriting itself: brainstorming narratives, building characters, all for the amusement of other people.) Westworld is especially impressive because it builds two worlds at once: the Western theme park and the futuristic workplace. The Western half of Westworld might be the more purely entertaining of the two, with its shootouts and heists and chases through sublime desert vistas. Behind the scenes, the theme park’s workers show how the robot sausage is made. And as a dystopian office drama, the show does something truly original. — Adam Epstein at QUARTZ, October 1, 2016 |
"… committed to immersing its audience
into the physical space it inhabits…."
See also, in this journal, the Mimsy Cube —
"Mimsy Were the Borogoves," "… he lifted a square, transparent crystal block, small enough to cup in his palm– much too small to contain the maze of apparatus within it. In a moment Scott had solved that problem. The crystal was a sort of magnifying glass, vastly enlarging the things inside the block. Strange things they were, too. Miniature people, for example– They moved. Like clockwork automatons, though much more smoothly. It was rather like watching a play." |
"And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts,
there are only good and bad things and black and white
things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere."
— John Steinbeck, author's epigraph to The Pearl
From the Season 4 finale of Westworld :
uploading Dolores's pearl at Hoover Dam —
For those who prefer greater theological simplicity . . .
Optimus Prime on a different Hoover Dam figure, that of
the AllSpark: "Before time began, there was the Cube."
Simplifying even more . . .
“A set having three members is a single thing
wholly constituted by its members but distinct from them.
After this, the theological doctrine of the Trinity as
‘three in one’ should be child’s play.”
– Max Black, Caveats and Critiques: Philosophical Essays
in Language, Logic, and Art , Cornell U. Press, 1975
As above, Black's theology forms a cube.
Westworld Season 4 Episode 8 (Finale)
Christina: Where am I?
Read more at: |
From a college botany laboratory in the 1915
D. H. Lawrence novel The Rainbow —
"Suddenly she had passed away into
an intensely-gleaming light of knowledge."
A later passage in the same novel, under
a metaphorical Tree of Life —
"She passed away as on a dark wind, far, far away,
into the pristine darkness of paradise, into the original
immortality. She entered the dark fields of immortality."
Some will prefer . . .
For further context, see posts tagged Screw Theory.
Modernism, Fiction and Mathematics
by Nina Engelhardt
(Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture)
From a review by Johann A. Makowsky in
Notices of the American Mathematical Society,
November 2020, pp. 1589-1595 —
"Engelhardt’s goal in this study is to put the interplay
between fiction and mathematical conceptualizations
of the world into its historical context. She sees her work
as a beginning for further studies on the role of mathematics,
not only modern, in fiction in the wider field of literature and
science. It is fair to say that in her book Nina Engelhardt does
succeed in giving us an inspiring tour d’horizon of this interplay."
Another such tour —
On the title of Westworld Season 4 Episode 5, "Zhuangzi" —
A song for Teddy: "Across my dreams, with nets of wonder . . ."
See Zhuangzi also in the 2022 Black Rock CIty manifesto, "Waking Dreams" . . .
A song whose melody was used in
Westworld, Season 4, Episode 1 —
"Singin' in the old bars
Swingin' with the old stars
Livin' for the fame
Kissin' in the blue dark
Playin' pool and wild darts
Video games"
In memory of a video game executive
who reportedly died on June 22, 2022 —
* Adapted from a book title.
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?"
"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?"
For further details, see Log24 on May 16,
Sketch for a Magic Triangle.
https://blacklistdeclassified.net/2022/04/15/
%f0%9f%94%b4-script-916-helen-maghi/ —
Red: If I may offer some counsel –
“Do not go where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path
and leave a trail.”
In the spirit of that, I bring an unusual case….
This post is in honor of Thandiwe Newton,
who left a Westworld trail —
Vide Bulk Apperception.
* Cf. a post from Day 3 of 2022.
The title phrase is from the Friday update at the end of
Thursday's "New-Age Trinity" post.
It comes from a November 2017 doctoral thesis at Harvard.
Related philosophical insights —
"Bulk apperception" in this journal, inspired by Maeve of Westworld:
The above Vanity Fair article was republished on the Web by VF
on September 3, 2013. See also this journal on that date.
Related religious remarks —
* “Bulk apperception” is a phrase from Westworld. See Log24 notes.
“Don’t forget the portcullis, Dutch Boy!”
"Even when some parts of the show don’t feel like they’re working,
the production is always top notch and eye-popping. The score, too,
is top notch here, but it’s the use of Pink Floyd’s 'The Dark Side of
the Moon' that resonates most."
— Kevin Lever on the Westworld May 3 Season 3 finale
Image from Log24 posts tagged Spectral Valhalla —
"I need a photo opportunity, I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard."
– Paul Simon
From the previous post —
From a cartoon graveyard —
See also, in this journal, Smallest Perfect and Nocciolo .
On the recent film "Justice League" —
From DC Extended Universe Wiki, "Mother Box" —
"However, during World War I, the British rediscovered
mankind's lost Mother Box. They conducted numerous studies
but were unable to date it due to its age. The Box was then
shelved in an archive, up until the night Superman died,
where it was then sent to Doctor Silas Stone, who
recognized it as a perpetual energy matrix. . . ." [Link added.]
The cube shape of the lost Mother Box, also known as the
Change Engine, is shared by the Stone in a novel by Charles Williams,
Many Dimensions . See the Solomon's Cube webpage.
See too the matrix of Claude Lévi-Strauss in posts tagged
Verwandlungslehre .
Some literary background:
Who speaks in primordial images speaks to us
as with a thousand trumpets, he grips and overpowers,
and at the same time he elevates that which he treats
out of the individual and transitory into the sphere of
the eternal. — C. G. JUNG
"In the conscious use of primordial images—
the archetypes of thought—
one modern novelist stands out as adept and
grand master: Charles Williams.
In The Place of the Lion he incarnates Plato’s
celestial archetypes with hair-raising plausibility.
In Many Dimensions he brings a flock of ordinary
mortals face to face with the stone bearing
the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name, the sign of Four.
Whether we understand every line of a Williams novel
or not, we feel something deep inside us quicken
as Williams tells the tale.
Here, in The Greater Trumps , he has turned to
one of the prime mysteries of earth . . . ."
— William Lindsay Gresham, Preface (1950) to
Charles Williams's The Greater Trumps (1932)
For fans of what the recent series Westworld called "bulk apperception" —
For the title, see Child Buyer in this journal.
Algul Siento , campus atop a mesa, from the new film "The Dark Tower"
"Follow the Blood Arroyo to the place
where the snake lays its eggs."
— Westworld, Season 1, Episode 2,
air date October 9, 2016
"Googlaa pluplu." — Finnegans Wake
"Not far downstream was a dry channel
where the river had run once . . . ."
— Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It
See also the previous post and posts tagged Riverrun.
From a post of March 16, 2017 —
"Bulk apperception" is defined in the Westworld script
as "basically, overall intelligence." The phrase is apparently
unique to Westworld.
These two words do, however, nearly occur together
in at least one book — Andrew Feffer's The Chicago
Pragmatists and American Progressivism :
"Old men ought to be explorers" — T. S. Eliot
"All on a Saturday night" — Johnny Thunder, 1962
Update of 8:25 PM ET on March 18 —
"Analysis." — Dr. Robert Ford in "Westworld"
"Master theorist and conceptual genius."
— Jon Pareles, front page, online New York Times tonight
(A sequel to the previous post, Narrative for Westworld)
"That corpse you planted last year . . . ." — T. S. Eliot
Circle and Square at the Court of King Minos —
Harmonic analysis based on the circle involves the
circular functions. Dyadic harmonic analysis involves …
For some related history, see (for instance) E. M. Stein
on square functions in a 1982 AMS Bulletin article.
"By groping toward the light we are made to realize
how deep the darkness is around us."
— Arthur Koestler, The Call Girls: A Tragi-Comedy ,
Random House, 1973, page 118
"Dear boys — We’re going to have some fun, aren’t we?"
— Maeve in "Westworld," Season 1, Episode 6,
after her "bulk apperception" has been upgraded
to the maximum.
"Bulk apperception" is defined in the script as "basically,
overall intelligence." The phrase is apparently unique to "Westworld."
These two words do, however, nearly occur together in
at least one book — Andrew Feffer's The Chicago Pragmatists
and American Progressivism :
"Backstories do more than amuse guests.
They anchor the hosts.
It's their cornerstone.
The rest of their identity is built around it, layer by layer."
— Elsie Hughes in "Westworld," Season 1, Episode 3,
"The Stray," at 30:09
See also cornerstone in the Bible.
Dr. Robert Ford (Anthony Hopkins) earlier in that same episode —
Goes to Feynman, Epstein, and Kaplan
“A self-replicating swarm of predatory molecules
is rapidly evolving outside the plant.”
— Amazon.com synopsis of Michael Crichton’s
2002 novel Prey
Washington Post online today —
Nobel Prize in chemistry is awarded
for molecular machines
” The physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman
gave a seminal lecture on the subject in 1959,
envisioning a ‘great future’ in which ‘we can arrange
the atoms the way we want; the very atoms,
all the way down.’ ” — Sarah Kaplan
“How do we write small?”
Related material quoted here on Sunday morning, Oct. 2, 2016 —
” Westworld is especially impressive because it builds two worlds
at once: the Western theme park and the futuristic workplace.
The Western half of Westworld might be the more purely
entertaining of the two, with its shootouts and heists and chases
through sublime desert vistas. Behind the scenes, the theme park’s
workers show how the robot sausage is made. And as a dystopian
office drama, the show does something truly original.”
— Adam Epstein at QUARTZ, October 1, 2016
Powered by WordPress