Log24

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Focus!

A sequel to Dude!

See also "Triangles are Square."

Monday, March 16, 2015

Dude!

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 1:26 pm

Twelve years ago on this date —

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Annals of Philosophy

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 9:00 am

AVATAR:

The Legend of Bhagavan


"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
Bhagavad Gita 11:32 as translated by
J. Robert Oppenheimer

J. Robert Oppenheimer, January 1, 1947

LIFE magazine photo, Jan. 1, 1947

African-American Golf Pioneer Bill Powell Dies at 93 on New Year's Eve, 2009

Powell died on New Year's Eve– the day before yesterday. Yesterday's post was dedicated to Will Smith in his role as golf caddy Bagger Vance. In the novel from which the Smith film was taken, "Bagger Vance" is an anglicized form of the term "Bhagavan" from the Bhagavad Gita. In the Gita, "Bhagavan" refers to Krishna– an incarnation, or avatar, of the god Vishnu.

Let us hope that when, on the last day of the old year, Powell met the Reaper, he appeared as neither fearsome Krishna nor grim Oppenheimer, but rather as the kinder, gentler Bagger Vance.

See also "Bhagavad Gita" in this journal.

Friday, January 1, 2010

1001

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 11:11 am

For Will Smith

"How much for a dream?"

"Five dollars, guaranteed."

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Saturday December 17, 2005

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 1:01 pm
For Trevanian:
 
Fade to Black

"…that ineffable constellation of talents that makes the player of rank: a gift for conceiving abstract schematic possibilities; a sense of mathematical poetry in the light of which the infinite chaos of probability and permutation is crystallized under the pressure of intense concentration into geometric blossoms; the ruthless focus of force on the subtlest weakness of an opponent." 

— Trevanian,
    Shibumi  

  "'Haven't there been splendidly elegant colors in Japan since ancient times?'

'Even black has various subtle shades,' Sosuke nodded." 

— Yasunari Kawabata,
    The Old Capital

"The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with everything, transcending bounds, limitless." 

— Yasunari Kawabata,
    Nobel lecture, 1968 

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04A/040627-Prize.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Sunday June 19, 2005

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 4:00 am
ART WARS:
Darkness Visible
“No light, but rather darkness visible
 Serv’d only to discover sights of woe”
John Milton, Paradise Lost,
Book I,  lines 63-64

From the cover article (pdf) in the
June/July 2005 Notices of the
American Mathematical Society–

Martin Gardner


A famed vulgarizer, Martin Gardner,
summarizes the art of Ad Reinhardt
(Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt,
  Dec. 24, 1913 – Aug. 30, 1967):

“Ed Rinehart [sic] made a fortune painting canvases that were just one solid color.  He had his black period in which the canvas was totally black.  And then he had a blue period in which he was painting the canvas blue.  He was exhibited in top shows in New York, and his pictures wound up in museums.  I did a column in Scientific American on minimal art, and I reproduced one of Ed Rinehart’s black paintings.  Of course, it was just a solid square of pure black.  The publisher insisted on getting permission from the gallery to reproduce it.”

Related material
from Log24.net,
Nov. 9-12, 2004:

Fade to Black

“…that ineffable constellation of talents that makes the player of rank: a gift for conceiving abstract schematic possibilities; a sense of mathematical poetry in the light of which the infinite chaos of probability and permutation is crystallized under the pressure of intense concentration into geometric blossoms; the ruthless focus of force on the subtlest weakness of an opponent.”

— Trevanian, Shibumi

“‘Haven’t there been splendidly elegant colors in Japan since ancient times?’

‘Even black has various subtle shades,’ Sosuke nodded.”

— Yasunari Kawabata, The Old Capital

An Ad Reinhardt painting
described in the entry of
noon, November 9, 2004
is illustrated below.

Ad Reinhardt,  Greek Cross

Ad Reinhardt,
Abstract Painting,
1960-66.
Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

The viewer may need to tilt
the screen to see that this
painting is not uniformly black,
but is instead a picture of a
Greek cross, as described below.

“The grid is a staircase to the Universal…. We could think about Ad Reinhardt, who, despite his repeated insistence that ‘Art is art,’ ended up by painting a series of… nine-square grids in which the motif that inescapably emerges is a Greek cross.

Greek Cross

There is no painter in the West who can be unaware of the symbolic power of the cruciform shape and the Pandora’s box of spiritual reference that is opened once one uses it.”

— Rosalind Krauss,
Meyer Schapiro Professor
of Modern Art and Theory
at Columbia University

(Ph.D., Harvard U., 1969),
in “Grids”

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04B/041109-Krauss.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Krauss

 
In memory of
St. William Golding
(Sept. 19, 1911 – June 19, 1993)

Friday, November 12, 2004

Friday November 12, 2004

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 2:56 am

Dark Zen

The above link is in memory of
Iris Chang,
who ended her life at 36
on Nov. 9, 2004.

A central concept of Zen
is satori, or “awakening.”
For a rude awakening, see
Satori at Pearl Harbor.

Fade to Black

See, too, my entries of
Aug. 1-7, 2003,
from which the following is taken:

“…that ineffable constellation of talents that makes the player of rank: a gift for conceiving abstract schematic possibilities; a sense of mathematical poetry in the light of which the infinite chaos of probability and permutation is crystallized under the pressure of intense concentration into geometric blossoms; the ruthless focus of force on the subtlest weakness of an opponent.”

— Trevanian, Shibumi

” ‘Haven’t there been splendidly elegant colors in Japan since ancient times?’

‘Even black has various subtle shades,’ Sosuke nodded.’ “

— Yasunari Kawabata, The Old Capital

An Ad Reinhardt painting
described in the entry of
noon, November 9, 2004 —
the date given
as that of Chang’s death —
is illustrated below.

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix04B/041112-Reinhardt.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Ad Reinhardt,
Abstract Painting,
1960–66.
Oil on canvas, 60 x 60 inches.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Friday, August 1, 2003

Friday August 1, 2003

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 4:03 pm

For All Time

“… and the Wichita lineman is still on the line…”

(Reflection on a member of the Radcliffe Class of 1964 who lived near Wichita and now has her own home page… While listening to a song on my “home on The Range – KHYI 95.3FM, Plano, Texas.”)

Readings for a seminar we never really finished:

“…that ineffable constellation of talents that makes the player of rank: a gift for conceiving abstract schematic possibilities; a sense of mathematical poetry in the light of which the infinite chaos of probability and permutation is crystallized under the pressure of intense concentration into geometric blossoms; the ruthless focus of force on the subtlest weakness of an opponent.”

— Trevanian, Shibumi

” ‘Haven’t there been splendidly elegant colors in Japan since ancient times?’

‘Even black has various subtle shades,’ Sosuke nodded.’ “

— Yasunari Kawabata, The Old Capital 

Powered by WordPress