Log24

From a writer's requiem—

"Algis points out that at the end of each story, there should be a moment of validation, a place where a person in authority makes some sort of statement that lets the reader know that the story has reached its conclusion." —David Farland, June 9, 2008

Paraphrase of a version by an anonymous reader at Amazon.com (see previous post)—

"… someone who has no other vested interest in the story… steps forward and says 'He's dead, Jim' or 'Who was that masked man?'"

Moments of validation from today's midday NY Lottery— 4639 and 575.

For "He's dead, Jim," see April 6, 1939* (4/6/39) at St. Joseph's Church in Springfield, Mass.

For "Who was that masked man?," see the Mark of Zorro in Post  575.

* This was a Maundy Thursday, not the Good Friday indicated in the linked narrative.

From a short story:

"In the desert you can remember your name,
'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain."

— America

See also June 12, 2005,  September 11, 2007, and Something Anonymous.

"A New York Jew imitates D. H. Lawrence at his peril."

Continued from this morning's "The Game"—

"Relativism is not always a coherent way of responding to the rejection of a certain class of facts.  When we decided that there were no such things as witches, we didn’t become relativists about witches.  Rather, we just gave up witch talk altogether, except by way of characterizing the attitudes of people (such as those in Salem) who mistakenly believed that the world contained witches, or by way of characterizing what it is that children find it fun to pretend to be on Halloween."

— New York Times  philosophy column "The Stone" today

"What you mean we ?" — Tonto, Crossan, Quilty, et cetera

Continuing this afternoon's meditation on Hollywood
endings, recall the ending of the 1966 David Niven
version of Casino Royale—

"Eventually, Jimmy's atomic pill explodes, destroying Casino Royale
along with everyone inside…. Sir James and all of his agents then
appear in heaven, with angel wings and harps and Jimmy Bond is
shown descending into the fires of hell." — Wikipedia

This evening's NY Lottery numbers are 169 and 1243.

An occurence of 169 in this journal on June 18, 2008—

  As for 1243, see Post  1243 and a recent obituary.

"Nixon  has no Rosebud."

— Master's thesis on an Oliver Stone film
    (Dan B. Butler, May 2006)

New York Lottery this afternoon: 643 and 8974.

Venus and Mars Realigned (continued from July 20) …

A review —

“The story, involving the Knights Templar, the Vatican, sunken treasure,
the fate of Christianity and a decoding device that looks as if it came out of
a really big box of medieval Cracker Jack, is the latest attempt to combine
Indiana Jones derring-do with ‘Da Vinci Code’ mysticism.”

— The New York Times

A related Google image search yields more Cracker Jack prizes.

"We tell ourselves stories…." * — Joan Didion

President Lindberg**

in "The Fifth Element"

Priest Vito Cornelius: I… have… a different theory to offer you, sir.

President Lindberg: You have twenty seconds.

See "Finale."

* See also Friday morning's post.

** Today's New York Times—
   "A version of this op-ed appeared in print
   on July 23, 2011, on page A19 of the New York
   edition with the headline: The Great Evil." —

"Some mathematicians are birds, others are frogs.
Birds fly high in the air and survey broad vistas of
mathematics out to the far horizon. They delight in
concepts that unify our thinking and bring together
diverse problems from different parts of the
landscape. Frogs live in the mud below and see
only the flowers that grow nearby. They delight in
the details of particular objects, and they solve
problems one at a time. I happen to be a frog, but
many of my best friends are birds. The main theme
of my talk tonight is this. Mathematics needs both
birds and frogs. Mathematics is rich and beautiful
because birds give it broad visions and frogs give it
intricate details. Mathematics is both great art and
important science, because it combines generality
of concepts with depth of structures. It is stupid to
claim that birds are better than frogs because they
see farther, or that frogs are better than birds
because they see deeper. The world of mathematics
is both broad and deep, and we need birds and
frogs working together to explore it.

This talk is called the Einstein lecture…."

— Freeman Dyson, Notices of the American
Mathematical Society , February 2009

The Didion reading was suggested by the "6212" in yesterday evening's New York Lottery.

(For the title, see the previous post.)

Compare and contrast—

Background on the film "The Ninth Gate"—

Click to enlarge:

Pop-sci background, courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures, for the film

"Another Earth"—

Click to enlarge.

Update of 2:48 PM July 20th—

See Peter Woit's July 19th post "Questions About the Multiverse."

"A New York Jew imitates D. H. Lawrence at his peril."

Frank Langella at Cannes

See also The Ninth Gate and Spider Women.

* For the title, do a search in this journal.

See 603 and 3449.*

“The meeting is closed
with the Lord’s Prayer
and refreshments are served.”

* Courtesy of the NY Lottery.

Posts suggested by the New York Lottery today at midday— 632 and 2750.

Note the song linked to a quotation in the latter post—

Click on the link or the quote for the song.

Press Release — Los Angeles, July 18, 2011—

Former Two and a Half Men  star Charlie Sheen is planning his return to series television in Anger Management , a new sitcom loosely based on Revolution Studios’ 2003 hit comedy feature of the same name….

… in the series inspired by the film… a mild-mannered, non-confrontational man is ordered to attend group anger management sessions led by a therapist who could probably use some anger management himself.

“I chose Anger Management  because, while it might be a big stretch for me to play a guy with serious anger management issues, I think it is a great concept,” Sheen said.

See also Daimon in this journal.

Operation Condor

See Tombstones, Crucible, Sunday in the Park, The Condor, and…

Continued from December 28, 2010.

The above RSS version of a quilt enthusiast's obituary contains an ad asking

"DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?
Flex your brain muscles with the
Ultimate Problem Solver Challenge."

Perhaps… Perhaps not.