Tuesday, June 11, 2024
A Smooth Process . . . Indiscrete Rota
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Monday, June 10, 2024
Art Logos
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For a Green* Apartment: “Speak, Memory.”
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Sunday, December 14, 2014
Sermon
"In digital circuit theory, combinational logic
(sometimes also referred to as time-independent logic)
is a type of digital logic which is implemented by
Boolean circuits, where the output is a pure function of
the present input only."
— Wikipedia, quoted in this morning's previous post as
commentary on Nabokov's phrase "combinational delight"
"Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered."
— T. S. Eliot in Four Quartets
"I confess I do not believe in time."
— Vladimir Nabokov in Speak, Memory
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Saturday, December 13, 2014
Combinational Delight
For St. Lucia's Day —
A book that links the title of today's previous post,
Narrative Metaphysics, with Nabokov's "combinational delight."
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Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sunday School
Apollo and the Tricksters
From The Story of N (Oct. 15, 2010)—
Roberta Smith on what she calls "endgame art"—
"Fear of form above all means fear of compression— of an artistic focus that condenses experiences, ideas and feelings into something whole, committed and visually comprehensible."
Margaret Atwood on tricksters and art—
"If it’s a seamless whole you want, pray to Apollo."
Here is some related material In memory of CIA officer Clare Edward Petty, who died at 90 on March 18—
A review of a sort of storyteller's MacGuffin — the 3×3 grid. This is, in Smith's terms, an "artistic focus" that appears to be visually comprehensible but is not as simple as it seems.
- The Pope in Plato's Cave (Sept. 16, 2006)
- A search for "einsatz" in this journal
- True Grid (Jan. 8, 2011)
- The Hesse configuration revisited (a post initially from the date of Petty's death, but later much reworked)
The Hesse configuration can serve as more than a sort of Dan Brown MacGuffin. As a post of January 14th notes, it can (rather fancifullly) illustrate the soul—
" … I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight…."
— Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
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Friday, March 25, 2011
Combinatorial Delight
See Margaret Atwood in this journal.
This link was suggested by the phrase "combinatorial* delight" in last night's quote from Nabokov, which also appears in Douglas Glover's review essay, "Her Life Entire," in Books in Canada , Volume 17, Number 7, October 1988—
Cat's Eye is Atwood's seventh novel. It is dense, intricate, and superb, as thematically diverse and complex as anything she has written. It is what you might expect from a writer at mid-career, mid-life: a portrait of the artist, a summation of what she knows about art and people. It is also an Atwoodian Under the Volcano , a vision of Toronto as Hell.
See also Under the Volcano and Toronto in this journal.
"Right through hell there is a path." –Under the Volcano
* Update: Corrected on Dec. 13, 2014, to "combinational delight."
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Thursday, March 24, 2011
Signs and Symbols
" … I feel I understand
Existence, or at least a minute part
Of my existence, only through my art,
In terms of combinational delight;
And if my private universe scans right,
So does the verse of galaxies divine
Which I suspect is an iambic line.
I'm reasonably sure that we survive
And that my darling somewhere is alive…."
— Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
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