"So, there is one place
where modernism triumphs.
As in the cases of the pyramids
and the Taj Mahal, the Siegfried line
and the Atlantic wall, death always
calls on the very best architects."
– J. G. Ballard,
"A Handful of Dust"
Monday, February 29, 2016
“Architect of the Oblique”
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Film Philosophy
"Dreams can easily and unexpectedly turn into nightmares."
— Oscar speech by J. J. Abrams last night
Related material —
|
"The static boxes were an invention of Grandfather Horn. They generated a tiny cloud of meaningless brain waves. Without such individual thought-screens, there was too much danger of complete loss of individual personality— once Grandfather Horn had 'become' his infant daughter as well as himself for several hours and the unfledged mind had come close to being permanently lost in its own subconscious. The static boxes provided a mental wall behind which a mind could safely grow and function, similar to the wall by which ordinary minds are apparently always enclosed." — "The Mind Spider," by Fritz Leiber |
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Sunday, February 28, 2016
High Concept:
Daily Globe Meets Daily PlaNet
Office scene from "Spotlight," a 2015 film about The Boston Globe
Detail of the above office scene
A photo from the Web of Mount Baker and Bellingham WA
that may or may not match the "Spotlight" picture's location.
Update of 1 AM on March 3, 2016 —
A much better match for the "Spotlight" office picture is this image of
Mount Illimani and La Paz, Bolivia, from dreamstime.com.
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“How did that play out?”
From the screenplay for the 2015 film "Spotlight" —
Related material —
The death today of an Irish actor noted for a British sitcom:
Frank Kelly, Father Ted's foul-mouthed priest, dies aged 77.
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Saturday, February 27, 2016
Pontifex ex Machina…
This time it's personal.
"Mr. Clark's designs built a bridge … ."
— The New York Times today on a computer designer
who reportedly died on Monday, Feb. 22, 2016.
\From Log24 on the reported date of Mr. Clark's death —
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All Over Again
The previous three posts —
— suggest a review of a post from April 11, 2015:
Michael Starbird on Mathematics —
In Starbird's philosophical fable, the "fifth element" is change .
See also the recent post White Mischief.
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Back to the Blackboard
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Friday, February 26, 2016
A Manifesto for Mira
From the February 2016 article in the previous post —
"Over a century has passed since the publication,
in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro on 20 February 1909,
of a frontpage article by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti which
came to be known as the Manifesto of Futurism ."
This suggests a review of the 20 February 2009 posts now tagged
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The Manifest O
"The Manifesto of Futurism Revisited" —
Related material — "Manifesto" in this journal —
more specifically, "Manifest O."
The phrase GET SPIKED BY EMAIL* above suggests a review of
"Something in the Way She Moves" and "Marissa and the Dropbox."
See also …
Marissa Mayer, not amused —
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Overarching
"The study of social memory allows scholars to
understand how different memories form within
a collective group, thus exploring the societal
and ideological elements of disparate groups
that form the over-arching memory of Melkisedeq."
— The Melkisedeq Memoirs , by Cale Staley,
2015 master's thesis at the University of Iowa
Elements of groups that I prefer —
"Right through hell
there is a path…."
— Malcolm Lowry,
Under the Volcano
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Literacy Test
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Thursday, February 25, 2016
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
The Media Message
See a link referencing The Gutenberg Galaxy (a Catholic's 1962 view of literacy)
in a Log24 post yesterday suggested by a New York Times obituary.
A different obituary this evening in that newspaper describes a Jew's 1979 view
of literacy. See "Elizabeth Eisenstein, Historian of Movable Type, Dies at 92."
Related material — McLuhan in Eisenstein's The Printing Press as an Agent
of Change , Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Eisenstein reportedly died on January 31, 2016. Synchronologists may
consult some media-related material reposted here on that date —
Fittingly, the Times concludes Eisenstein's obituary as follows —
"This article will be set in 8.7 point Imperial and printed on
one of several presses, including the Goss Colorliner."
For a perhaps more interesting printing press related to change,
see Despedida in this journal.
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Remarks on a Cartoon Graveyard
For Crimson Jill
The graveyard of the title is from a song by Paul Simon.
|
Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY "By popular demand, Facebook is going beyond the ubiquitous thumbs-up button with a new shorthand to express your thoughts and feelings. Acknowledging that 'like' isn't the right sentiment for every occasion, the giant social network is offering new options. Reactions, five emoting emojis, are rolling out to Facebook's more than 1.5 billion users around the globe starting Wednesday. With a click of a button, you can choose from new emotions when commenting on a status update. Hold the 'like' button on mobile or hover over the like button on desktop and five animated emoji pop up. Tap on love, haha, wow, sad or angry to express your reaction. …" |
The "remarks" of the title —
The "Crimson Jill" link above leads to a Harvard Gazette
article dated March 24, 2015. A meditation from the
Church of Synchronology appeared here on that date.
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Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Burying the Lede
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Revolutionary
From a New York Times obituary today —
"The Rev. Fernando Cardenal, a son of privilege
who embraced Latin America’s poor as a revolutionary
priest and brazenly defied Pope John Paul II’s order to
quit Nicaragua’s leftist cabinet in the 1980s, died on
Saturday in Managua. He was 82."
Photo caption from the same obituary —
"Fernando Cardenal in 1990. As education minister of
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas in the 1980s, he
oversaw a sweeping campaign credited with reducing
illiteracy to 13 percent from 51 percent."
This alleged literacy improvement makes him sound like
a Protestant revolutionary.
For a Catholic view of literacy, see The Gutenberg Galaxy .
See also the post Being Interpreted (Aug. 14, 2015) —
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Award
An interview in Smashpipe today
deserves a Smiley award.
Related material: "Paul Winchell" in this journal.
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White Mischief
From a post of Christmas Eve, 2012 —
|
Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Recorded and edited By Aniela Jaffé, From pages 195-196:
“Only gradually did I discover what the mandala really is:
* Faust , Part Two, trans. by Philip Wayne (Harmondsworth,
… Gestaltung, Umgestaltung,
Jung’s “Formation, Transformation” quote is from The speaker is Mephistopheles. |
"Mephistopheles is not your name…" — Sting lyric
"You see, technically, chemistry is the study of matter,
but I prefer to see it as the study of change :
Electrons change their energy levels.
Molecules change their bonds.
Elements combine and change into compounds.
But that's all of life, right? It's the constant, it's the cycle.
It's solution, dissolution. Just over and over and over.
It is growth, then decay, then transformation! .
It is fascinating, really."
— Walter White, Season 1, Ep. 1, "Pilot"
more or less as quoted in huffingtonpost.com
See also Gestaltung in this journal.
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Both Sides Now
(Continued from the link in the previous post to
a Feb. 20 NY Times essay on the brain's two sides)
From a webpage on Galois geometry —
|
Postscript From a 2002 review by Stacy G. Langton of Sherman Stein's book on mathematics, How the Other Half Thinks : "The title of Stein's book (perhaps chosen by the publisher?) seems to refer to the popular left brain/right brain dichotomy. As Stein writes (p. ix): 'I hope this book will help bridge that notorious gap that separates the two cultures: the humanities and the sciences, or should I say the right brain (intuitive, holistic) and the left brain (analytical, numerical). As the chapters will illustrate, mathematics is not restricted to the analytical and numerical; intuition plays a significant role.' Stein does well to avoid identifying mathematics with the activity of just one side of the brain. He would have done better, however, not to have endorsed the left brain/right brain ideology. While it does indeed appear to be the case that the two sides of our brain act in rather different ways, the idea that the right brain is 'intuitive, holistic,' while the left brain is 'analytical, numerical,' is a vast oversimplification, and goes far beyond the actual evidence." |
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Monday, February 22, 2016
Schoolgirl Problems…
and versions of "Both Sides Now"
See a New York Times version of "Both Sides Now."
I prefer a version by Umberto Eco.
Related material for storytellers and the Church of Synchronology —
This journal on the date of the above shooting script, 03/19/15.
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Sunday, February 21, 2016
Phone Logic
" 'This is a new category (of device) we’re talking about,'
said Andy Nuttall, HP’s director of mobility strategy.
HP introduced the device Sunday ahead of this week’s
Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, Spain."
— Matt Day in The Seattle Times today
See also the previous post and the recent film "The Intern."
"Buckle up!" — Harlan Kane
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The Masonic Mandorla
A post for Tom Hanks and Dan Brown
Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer delivers a keynote
during the Yahoo Mobile Developers Conference on February 18,
2016, at Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco, California.
Credit: Stephen Lam
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Orson Card
The title is from the name of a character in a new novel.
The title is also the name of a noted author.
Related material from April 2, 2009 —
|
"It seems, as one becomes older, — T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets
"Note that at first, you can see the 'arrow of time.' — "The Ehrenfest Chains," by Kyle Siegrist, ex. 16 |
For a different Orson, click on "the direction of time."
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Cards
Reposted from an excellent weblog —
|
A blog on the nature of note-taking. Thursday, April 2, 2009 I came across a recent post on Nabokov's Index Cards by Michael Leddy, which I found interesting. Nabokov wrote with Index Cards not so much because they allowed associative progression (or because they were somehow like precursors of hypertext for him), but rather because he had such a clear vision of what he meant to create that he could start anywhere in describing it: "The pattern of the thing precedes the thing. I fill in the gaps of the crossword at any spot I happen to choose. These bits I write on index cards until the novel is done. My schedule is flexible but I am rather particular about my instruments: lined Bristol cards and well-sharpened, not too hard, pencils capped with erasers." "… Since this entire structure, dimly illumined in one's mind, can be compared to a painting, and since you do not have to work gradually from left to right for its proper perception, I may direct my flashlight at any part or particle of the picture when setting it down in writing. I do not begin my novel at the beginning I do not reach chapter three before I reach chapter four… This is why I like writing my stories and novels on index cards, numbering them later when the whole set is complete. Every card is rewritten many times …" "find a quiet spot (pace the booming surf and rattling wind) where to write. This I do on scrambled index cards (my text existing already there in invisible lead) which I gradually fill in and sort out, using up in the process more pencil sharpeners than pencils; but I have spoken of this in several earlier questionnaires" Posted by MK at 8:52 PM Labels: Index cards, Writing |
From the date of the above Taking Note post, a post from this weblog
seems a suitable sermon for the Church of Synchronology.
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Saturday, February 20, 2016
Spacey
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For the United Church of Synchronology*
"Everything clear so far?"
— Review by Anthony Burgess of the 1989 translation
by William Weaver** of Umberto Eco's 1988 novel
Il Pendolo di Foucault
* A fictional institution in a just-published novel
** Weaver reportedly died on Nov. 12, 2013.
Synchronologists may consult that date
in this journal.
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