Today’s birthday:
Deborah Kerr 

From Dr. Mac’s Cultural Calendar:

“Film star Deborah Kerr was born on this day in 1921.
Her signature film is Night of the Iguana.”

Is he kidding?

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.

Angel Night

In honor of Ellis Larkins, jazz musician, who died on Sunday, September 29, 2002, the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels, here is the best midi rendition I can find of the classic melody “Angel Eyes.”

(This entry was actually made on October 3, 2002, but I had saved a place for it on Michaelmas.  The midi is from Wesley Dick’s Juke Box page.  For some classic New Orleans funeral music, go to Dick’s home page.)

New from Miracle Pictures
– IF IT’S A HIT, IT’S A MIRACLE! –

Pi in the Sky
for Michaelmas 2002

“Fear not, maiden, your prayer is heard.
Michael am I, guardian of the highest Word.”

— A Michaelmas Play

Contact, by Carl Sagan:

Chapter 1 – Transcendental Numbers

  In the seventh grade they were studying “pi.” It was a Greek letter that looked like the architecture at Stonehenge, in England: two vertical pillars with a crossbar at the top. If you measured the circumference of a circle and then divided it by the diameter of the circle, that was pi. At home, Ellie took the top of a mayonnaise jar, wrapped a string around it, straightened the string out, and with a ruler measured the circle’s circumference. She did the same with the diameter, and by long division divided the one number by the other. She got 3.21. That seemed simple enough.

  No one had ever called Ellie stupid before and she found herself bursting into tears….

  After school she bicycled to the library at the nearby college to look through books on mathematics. As nearly as she could figure out from what she read, her question wasn’t all that stupid. According to the Bible, the ancient Hebrews had apparently thought that pi was exactly equal to three. The Greeks and Romans, who knew lots of things about mathematics, had no idea that the digits in pi went on forever without repeating. It was a fact that had been discovered only about 250 years ago. How was she expected to know if she couldn’t ask questions? But Mr. Weisbrod had been right about the first few digits. Pi wasn’t 3.21. Maybe the mayonnaise lid had been a little squashed, not a perfect circle. Or maybe she’d been sloppy in measuring the string. Even if she’d been much more careful, though, they couldn’t expect her to measure an infinite number of decimals.

  There was another possibility, though. You could calculate pi as accurately as you wanted. If you knew something called calculus, you could prove formulas for pi that would let you calculate it to as many decimals as you had time for. The book listed formulas for pi divided by four. Some of them she couldn’t understand at all. But there were some that dazzled her: pi/4, the book said, was the same as 1 – 1/3 + 1/5 – 1/7 + …, with the fractions continuing on forever. Quickly she tried to work it out, adding and subtracting the fractions alternately. The sum would bounce from being bigger than pi/4 to being smaller than pi/4, but after a while you could see that this series of numbers was on a beeline for the right answer. You could never get there exactly, but you could get as close as you wanted if you were very patient. It seemed to her

a miracle

 Cartoon by S.Harris

that the shape of every circle in the world was connected with this series of fractions. How could circles know about fractions? She was determined to learn

calculus.

  She had caught a glimpse of something majestic.

Chapter 24 – The Artist’s Signature

  The anomaly showed up most starkly in Base 2 arithmetic, where it could be written out entirely as zeros and ones. Her program reassembled the digits into a square raster, an equal number across and down. Hiding in the alternating patterns of digits, deep inside the transcendental number, was a perfect circle, its form traced out by unities in a field of noughts.

  The universe was made on purpose, the circle said. In whatever galaxy you happen to find yourself, you take the circumference of a circle, divide it by its diameter, measure closely enough, and uncover

a miracle

— another circle, drawn kilometers downstream of the decimal point. There would be richer messages farther in. It doesn’t matter what you look like, or what you’re made of, or where you come from. As long as you live in this universe, and have a modest talent for mathematics, sooner or later you’ll find it. It’s already here. It’s inside everything. You don’t have to leave your planet to find it. In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist’s signature. Standing over humans, gods, and demons… there is an intelligence that antedates the universe. The circle had closed. She found what she had been searching for.

Song lyric not in Sagan’s book:

Will the circle be unbroken
by and by, Lord, by and by?
Is a better home a-waitin’
in the sky, Lord, in the sky?

“Contact,” the film: 

Birthday of T. S. Eliot, 
George Gershwin,
and Olivia Newton-John

Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
— T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

In time the Rockies may crumble
Gibraltar may tumble
They’re only made of clay….
— Ira Gershwin

In honor of Tom and George (not to mention Olivia) the muse of dance, Terpsichore, suggests that today we recall Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron as they dance by the Seine in “An American in Paris.”

Today is also the birthday of Martin Heidegger, author of Being and Time.  In honor of Heidegger and his girlfriend Hannah Arendt, I looked for a rendition of “Our Love is Here to Stay” on the glockenspiel,  but could not find one.  The birthday song “Las Mañanitas” will therefore have to do for Tom, George, Olivia, and Martin, as well as Michael and Catherine (see Sept. 25 note below).

Birthday of Michael Douglas
and Catherine Zeta-Jones

To honor Michael’s adventures in “Romancing the Stone” (filmed near Veracruz, Mexico) and  Catherine’s impressive performance as the daughter of Zorro, this site’s background music is now the Mexican birthday song, “Las Mañanitas,” as performed at

Classical Guitar Midi Archives.

For the lyrics, courtesy of Dale Hoyt Palfrey,

click here.

De las estrellas del cielo
quisiera bajarte dos:
una para saludarte
y otra para decirte adiós.

From the stars of the heavens
I would like to bring down two:
One to say hello to you
And the other to say goodbye.

Update of September 28:

In honor of Degas, of the petite danseuse Leslie Caron, and of the opening this Sunday of the permanent sculpture exhibition at the National Gallery, this site’s background music has been changed, at least for the weekend, to Gershwin. 

The Group

“When shall we four meet again?”

This phrase was suggested by a recent weblog entry recounting how the author hesitated to meet for lunch with three of her friends because, while acquainted in pairs, the four had never met before as a group.  It was not clear how the previous relationships would play out in this larger context.  The author suggested that her readers see the introduction to Orson Scott Card’s Speaker for the Dead  for details.  I did, and found the following:

“The idea of community…. This was not easy.  Most novels get by with showing the relationships between two or, at the most three characters.  This is because the difficulty of creating a character increases with each new major character that is added to the tale.  Characters, as most writers understand, are truly developed through their relationships with others.  If there are only two significant characters, then there is only one relationship to be explored.  If there are three characters, however, there are four relationships: Between A and B, between B and C, between C and A, and finally the relationship when all three are together.”

This implies that when four people meet, there are 11 relationships going on:  six from pairs, four from triplets, and one from the quartet.

It gets worse…

“Even this does not begin to explain the complexity — for in real life, at least, most people change, at least subtly, when they are with different people.  The changes can be pretty major….

So when a storyteller has to create three characters, each different relationship requires that each character in it must be transformed, however subtly, depending on how the relationship is shaping his or her present identity.  Thus, in a three-character story, a storyteller who wishes to convince us of the reality of these characters really has to come up with a dozen different personas, four for each of them.”

Therefore when four people meet, there are actually 44 personas to account for.  This makes the stateroom scene from “A Night at the Opera” look underpopulated.

See also my journal note “Metaphysics for Tina.”

Music for Patricias

On this date in 1892, actress/author Patricia Collinge was born in Dublin, Ireland.  She is not to be confused with the Patricia Collinge of

In honor of both Patricias, the backgound music of this site is no longer “Baby, Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me.”  It is, instead,

a tune that fans of James Joyce may recognize.

William Golding
and the Lost Boys

Author William Golding was born on this date in 1911.

Theater review,
‘The Terrible Tragedy of Peter Pan’
at House Theatre in Chicago

By Chris Jones

“J. M. Barrie’s famous 1904 tale of Peter Pan and the Lost Boys is fertile ground for post-modern exploration.”

See also the Stephen King novel

Hearts in Atlantis.

(Forget the movie, which does not even mention William Golding.)

For a somewhat more cheerful variation on the Lost Boys theme, see the new

Kingdom Hearts game.

Of course, mature audiences might react to this Disney production by recalling the classic question, “Why did Mickey Mouse divorce Minnie Mouse?”

See also the

Lord of the Flies game

at the Nobel Prize Foundation site.

The winner of the self-promotion award
at the third annual Latin Grammys
last night was… 

Stella!

	An Awfully Big Adventure is the story of Stella, a headstrong, starry-eyed young teenager whose passion for the theatre leads her into a grownup world of sex and secrets, menace and manipulation.
	Girl, you’re a hot-blooded woman-child And it’s warm where you’re touchin’ me But I can tell by your tremblin’ smile You’re seein’ way too much in me – Mac Davis,      1972

Tierra y Cielo:
Meditations on the initials TC

Heaven and Earth in Heidegger

Cuando imaginamos algo en la tierra, este algo también se encuentra bajo el cielo, ante los divinos y junto a los mortales. Esta unidad de ellos designamos la Cuaternidad….

…Heiddeger nos presenta un ejemplo para aplicar la reflexión: un puente….

El puente coliga según su manera cabe sí tierra y cielo, los divinos y los mortales; es una cosa y lo es en tanto que la coligación de la Cuaternidad que hemos caracterizado antes. El puente coliga la Cuaternidad de tal modo que hace sitio a una plaza. Pero sólo aquello que en sí mismo es un lugar puede abrir espacio a una plaza. Antes del puente, hay muchos sitios que pueden ser ocupados por algo. De entre ellos uno se da como un lugar, y esto ocurre por la propia presencia del puente. Luego, el lugar se da por el puente. El puente es una cosa, coliga la Cuaternidad, pero coliga en el modo de otorgar (hacer sitio a) a la Cuaternidad una plaza.

See also

HEIDEGGER AND HÖLDERLIN
ON TIERRA Y CIELO

and my note of September 5,

“ARROW IN THE BLUE.”

God Is Her Co-Pilot

On the soundtrack album of "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,"  Clint Eastwood advised us to "eliminate the negative."  As a sequel to the extremely negative note below, written at midnight on the night of September 13-14, 2002, the following is my best attempt, on this very dark night of the soul, to eliminate the negative.  

Some of us are old enough to recall that the beloved Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco, died on September 14, 1982 — exactly 20 years ago —  from injuries she suffered in a car accident the day before.  The following photo recalls happier days of driving the Riviera, in the 1955 film "To Catch a Thief."

This note's title, combined with the photo, suggests that I have a mystical vision of Cary Grant as God.  I can think of worse people to play God.  The best I can do tonight to eliminate the negative is transcribe  the remarks I made in a (paper) journal entry in 1997.  (By the way, I realize that ordinary people are just as important as movie stars, but the latter are more suitable for public discussion.)

In memoriam: Robert Mitchum and James Stewart 

Eternal Triangles (July 3, 1997)

Every civilization tells its own story about the relations between heaven and earth.  Some of the best stories — those of Lao Tsu, the Greek poets, and Buddha — are now almost 26 centuries old.  Some even older stories — those told by the Jews — have enabled our current civilization, led by Charlton Heston as God, to outlast Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.  However, recent claims of Absolute Truth for these stories (The Bible Code) are disturbing.  Perhaps it is time — at least for Robert Mitchum and James Stewart — to meet a kinder, gentler God.

I propose Cary Grant — specifically, as seen in "The Grass is Greener" (1960) with Mitchum and Deborah Kerr, and in "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) with Stewart and Katharine Hepburn.  If we imagine Grant as God, then these films reveal a very old, always entertaining, and sometimes enlightening version of the Trinity:  God and Man as rivals for the Holy Spirit — as played by Deborah, by Kate, and (in heaven) by Grace.  Such a spirit, at work in the real world, may have influenced two of this century's better Bibles:

1. The Oxford Book of English Prose (1925, reprinted through 1958), and

2. "LIFE — The 60th Anniversary Issue" (October 1996)

From (1), for Mitchum's memorial, Deborah might pick "The Basket of Roses" (pp. 1057-1060).  From (2), for Stewart's memorial, Kate might select the page of LIFE's covers for 1941 — and all that page implies.

Finally, Grace, in the Highest society (beyond Bibles) might recall the following telegraphic catechism:

Q. — How old Cary Grant?
A. — Old Cary Grant fine.  How you?

Meditation for Friday the 13th

The 1946 British film below (released as “Stairway to Heaven” in the U.S.) is one of my favorites.  I saw it as a child. Since costar Kim Hunter died this week (on 9/11), and since today is Friday the 13th, the following material seems relevant.

The doctor in “A Matter of Life and Death” addresses a heavenly court on behalf of his patient, R.A.F pilot David Niven:

In the film, David Niven is saved by mistake from a fated death and his doctor must argue to a heavenly court that he be allowed to live.

In a similar situation, I would want Dr. Alan McGlashan, a real-life psychiatrist, on my side.  For an excerpt from one of my favorite books, McGlashan’s The Savage and Beautiful Country,

click here.

As Walker Percy has observed (see my Sept. 7 note, “The Boys from Uruguay”), a characteristic activity of human beings is what Percy called “symbol-mongering.”  In honor of today’s anniversary of the births of two R.A.F. fighter pilots,

Sir Peter Guy Wykeham-Barnes (b. 1915) and author

Roald Dahl (b. 1916),

here is one of the better symbols of the past century:

The circle is of course a universal symbol, and can be made to mean just about whatever one wants it to mean.  In keeping with Clint Eastwood’s advice, in the soundtrack album for “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” to “accentuate the positive,” here are some positive observations on a circle from the poet (and perhaps saint) Dante, who died on the night of September 13-14:

In the sun, Dante and Beatrice find themselves surrounded by a circle of souls famous for their wisdom on earth. They appear as splendid lights and precious jewels who dance and sing as they lovingly welcome two more into their company. Their love for God is kindled even more and grows as they find more individuals to love. Among the blessed souls are St. Thomas Aquinas and one of his intellectual “enemies”, Siger of Brabant, a brilliant philosopher at the University of Paris, some of whose teachings were condemned as heretical. Conflicts and divisions on earth are now forgotten and absorbed into a communal love song and dance “whose sweetness and harmony are unknown on earth and whose joy becomes one with eternity.”

Dante compares their dance and song to God’s bride on earth, the Church, when she answers the morning bells to rise from bed and “woo with matins song her Bridegroom’s love.” Some critics consider this passage the most “spiritually erotic” of all the one hundred cantos of the Comedy. It is the ending of Canto 10, verses 139-148.

— Fr. James J. Collins, “The Spiritual Journey with Dante V,” Priestly People October 1997

The above material on Dante is from the Servants of the Paraclete website.

For more on the Paraclete, see

The Left Hand of God.

See also the illustration in the note below.

ART WARS   September 12, 2002

John Frankenheimer's film "The Train" —

Und was fur ein Bild des Christentums 
ist dabei herausgekommen?

In memory of Kim Hunter,
who died on 9/11, 2002:

A transcription of a journal note from 1996…

“Bush once joked that he picked Sununu because his surname rhymed with “deep doo-doo.” — Dan Goodgame, Time magazine, May 21, 1990	For a time, Sununu wrote stories and poems for children. Concord lawyer Ned Helms recalls that when his wife fell ill, Sununu gave her a book of poems that he said he enjoyed, by Sylvia Plath.
Do do that voodoo that you do so well. One summer when I played in a small stock company, after the last curtain had come down we would clear the stage and then put on records of Viennese waltzes. We’d dance wildly, joyfully… — Madeleine L’Engle, Victoria Magazine, November 1995	We’re arranging to have the children baptized on Sunday afternoon, March 25, by the way. Although I honestly dislike, or rather, scorn the rector. I told you about his ghastly H-bomb sermon, didn’t I, where he said this was the happy prospect of the Second Coming and how lucky we Christians were compared to the stupid pacifists and humanists and “educated pagans” who feared being incinerated, etc., etc. I have not been to church since. I felt it was a sin to support such insanity even by my presence. — Sylvia Plath, March 12, 1962. Amen.
[The bathroom door opens and Stella comes out. Blanche continues talking to Mitch.] Oh! Have you finished? Wait — I’ll turn on the radio. [She turns the knobs on the radio and it begins to play “Wien, Wien, nur du allein.” Blanche waltzes to the music with romantic gestures. Mitch is delighted and moves in awkward imitation like a dancing bear. Stanley stalks fiercely through the portieres into the bedroom. He crosses to the small white radio and snatches it off the table. With a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out the window.]	Colby’s nickname among some of his subordinates at CIA is said to be “The Bookkeeper.”
Alabama plans female chain gangs Friday, April 26, 1996, story: MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Montgomery prison system is preparing to snap shackles around the ankles of women prisoners, creating female chain gangs in the state that revived male leg-iron crews last year.	I will try to finish my novel and a second book of poems by Christmas. I think I’ll be a pretty good novelist, very funny — my stuff makes me laugh and laugh, and if I can laugh now it must be hellishly funny stuff. — Sylvia Plath, October 12, 1962
	An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew, A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. There’s a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. 1962 — Everybody’s doin’ a brand new dance now; I know you’re gonna like it if you give it a chance now… So come on, c’mon, and do the locomotion with me!

Doonesbury, morning of
9/11, 2001:

The Sound of Hanging Rock

On this date, director Robert Wise was born in Winchester, Indiana.   Credits include

“Born to Kill,”
“I Want to Live,” and
“The Sound of Music.” 

“Director Robert Wise suggests that we all share a collective dark side.” — Robert Weston

According to various Web sources, 

• On this date in 1964, Rod Stewart records his first song, “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.”

  Good morning little schoolgirl
  Good morning little schoolgirl
  Can I come home with
  Can I come home with you
  Tell your mama and your papa
  I once was a schoolboy too

• On this date in 1965, The Byrds begin recording “Turn! Turn! Turn!” 

  A time of war, a time of peace
  A time of love, a time of hate
  A time you may embrace
  A time to refrain from embracing

• On this date in 1966, Neal Diamond sings his first chart song, “Cherry Cherry.”

  Tell your mamma, girl, I can’t stay long
  We got things we gotta catch up on
  Mmmm, you know
  You know what I’m sayin’

With the exception of The Byrds, the above music seems to reflect the spirit of Pan, a god discussed in my September 9 notes below.

For a perhaps more accurate rendition of the spirit of Pan, see the classic Australian film

Picnic at Hanging Rock.

“From the opening shot of Hanging Rock, lovingly framed by cinematographer Russell Boyd, accompanied by the strains of the pan flute played by Gheorghe Zamfir, the film sets its elegant, restrained tone….”