Log24.com Journal Archives of Steven H. Cullinane Music for Pegasus   My RSS Feed ARCHIVES The most recent entries may be found at right or here or here. 2008 2008 Jun 16-30 2008 Jun 01-15 2008 May 16-31 2008 May 01-15 2008 Apr 16-30 2008 Apr 01-15 2008 Mar 01-31 2008 Feb 16-29 2008 Feb 01-15 2008 Jan 01-31 2007 2007 Dec 01-31 2007 Nov 01-30 2007 Oct 16-31 2007 Oct 01-15 2007 Sep 16-30 2007 Sep 01-15 2007 Aug 16-31 2007 Aug 01-15 2007 Jul 16-31 2007 Jul 01-15 2007 Jun 16-30 2007 Jun 01-15 2007 May 16-31 2007 May 01-15 2007 Apr 16-30 2007 Apr 01-15 2007 Mar 16-31 2007 Mar 01-15 2007 Feb 16-28 2007 Feb 01-15 2007 Jan 16-31 2007 Jan 01-15 2006 2006 Dec 16-31 2006 Dec 01-15 2006 Nov 16-30 2006 Nov 01-15 2006 Oct 16-31 2006 Oct 01-15 2006 Sep 16-30 2006 Sep 01-15 2006 Aug 16-31 2006 Aug 01-15 2006 Jul 16-31 2006 Jul 01-15 2006 Jun 16-30 2006 Jun 01-15 2006 May 01-31 2006 Apr 16-30 2006 Apr 01-15 2006 Mar 16-31 2006 Mar 01-15 2006 Feb 16-28 2006 Feb 01-15 2006 Jan 16-31 2006 Jan 01-15 2005 2005 Dec 16-31 2005 Dec 01-15 2005 Nov 16-30 2005 Nov 01-15 2005 Oct 01-31 2005 Sep 01-30 2005 Aug 16-31 2005 Aug 1-15 2005 Jul 16-31 2005 Jul 1-15 2005 Jun 16-30 2005 Jun 10-15 2005 Jun 1-9 2005 May 16-31 2005 May 1-15 2005 Apr 16-30 2005 Apr 1-15 2005 Mar 1-31 2005 Feb 1-28 2005 Jan 1-31 2004 2004 Dec 1-31 2004 Nov 1-30 2004 Oct 16-31 2004 Oct 1-15 2004 Sep 16-30 2004 Sep 1-15 2004 Aug 16-31 2004 Aug 1-15 2004 Jul 16-31 2004 Jul 1-15 2004 Jun 17-30 2004 Jun 01-16 2004 May 16-31 2004 May 01-15 2004 Apr 16-30 2004 Apr 01-15 2004 Mar 16-31 2004 Mar 01-15 2004 Feb 16-28 2004 Feb 01-15 2004 Jan 16-31 2004 Jan 01-15 2003 2003 Dec 16-31 2003 Dec 01-15 2003 Nov 16-30 2003 Nov 01-15 2003 Oct 16-31 2003 Oct 01-15 2003 Sep 16-30 2003 Sep 01-15 2003 Aug 16-31 2003 Aug 08-15 2003 Aug 01-07 2003 Jul 24-31 2003 Jul 16-23 2003 Jul 01-15 2003 Jun 16-30 2003 Jun 01-15 2003 May 16-31 2003 May 01-15 2003 Apr 16-30 2003 Apr 01-15 2003 Mar 16-31 2003 Mar 01-15 2003 Feb 16-28 2003 Feb 01-15 2003 Jan 16-31 2003 Jan 08-15 2003 Jan 01-07 2002 2002 Dec 16-31 2002 Dec 01-15 2002 Nov 16-30 2002 Nov 01-15 2002 Oct 16-31 2002 Oct 01-15 2002 Sep 16-30 2002 Sep 01-15 2002 Aug 16-31 2002 Aug 01-15 2002 Jul 16-31 June-July 2002 Before June 2002 Related Sites Three Days of the Saint, 2002 12/6: Santa vs. the Volcano 12/7: Satori at Pearl Harbor 12/8: Architecture of Eternity Some may feel that the Saint in question is Philip Berrigan, who joined Saburo Ienaga and Ivan Illich on Dec. 6, 2002. Others may feel that the Saint is Don Ameche, who died on Dec. 6, 1993. "Things change." -- SHC 12/9/02 Sequel Stan Rice died on Dec. 9, 2002. A poem of his tells what happened next. Eight is a Gate Hollywood producer dies Dec. 14, meets Bach at Heaven's Gate. Realistic comedy. The Diamond Project Notes on dance, mortality, and "the still point" on the date of Irene Diamond's death. Immortal Diamond, or NASA Meets Jesus Thoughts on John O'Hara and G. M. Hopkins for James Joyce's birthday. Blackbird Singing The Fred Rogers memorial koan. Art Wars LeWitt vs. Witt Stone, not Wood best describes St. Peter The Word in the Desert O'Hara's Crucifixion Art Wars: Fahne Hoch and Thorny Crown Unity and Reciprocity in mathematics The Quality of Diamond Da Vinci Code , Crimson Passion, Cubist Crucifixion. Truth and Style The Line Bush Mutiny Symmetry and Change A Shot at Redemption Mathematics and Narrative The Judas Seat My other sites Finitegeometry.org Finitegeometry.org/sc The Diamond 16 Puzzle Notes on Finite Geometry The Diamond Theorem The Geometry of Qubits Diamond Theory Diamond Theory in 1937 Galois Geometry A Four-Color Theorem Latin-Square Geometry Walsh Functions The Fano Plane Revisualized The MOG Inscapes The Diamond Theory of Truth Logos and Logic Literary-Philosophical Puzzle Notes A Mathematician's Aesthetics Reflection Groups in Finite Geometry A Reflection Group of Order 168 Reflection Groups: The Missing Link Geometry of the I Ching The Diamond Archetype Modal Theology The Eightfold Way and Solomon's Seal Crystal and Dragon in Diamond Theory Poetry's Bones Time Fold War of Ideas The Proof and the Lie Lemniscate to Langlands Symmetry Groups Block Designs Finite Relativity Cognitive Blending Geometry of the 4x4 Square Visualizing GL(2,p) Pattern Groups Ideas and Art Jung's Imago Theme and Variations The Geometry of Logic Space-Time and a Finite Model Quilt Geometry Duality and Symmetry Polster on Pictures Kaleidoscope The Dharwadker Files Certified Crank Favorite Books The Practical Cogitator Style The Reader Over Your Shoulder The Oxford Book of English Prose Fancies and Goodnights Other Online Commonplace Books David Lavery Peter J. Cameron A. M. Kuchling Constant Reader Identity Theory J. Jacobs M. Magnus Anonymous Sites I Read: Bloglines list Some Recent Entries (These may not be the most recent entries. If there are more recent entries, they may be found here or here.) Sunday, July 13, 2008  12:24 PM Star Quality: Christ's High Table C. P. Snow in A Mathematician's Apology: FOREWORD "It was a perfectly ordinary night at Christ's high table, except that Hardy was dining as a guest. He had just returned to Cambridge as Sadleirian professor, and I had heard something of him from young Cambridge mathematicians. They were delighted to have him back: he was a real mathematician, they said, not like those Diracs and Bohrs the physicists were always talking about: he was the purest of the pure. He was also unorthodox, eccentric, radical, ready to talk about anything. This was 1931, and the phrase was not yet in English use, but in later days they would have said that in some indefinable way he had star quality." Perhaps now also at Christ's high table-- Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister, Evelyn Keyes, who died on July 4, 2008: "... the memory of Evelyn Keyes looking at herself on the screen, exclaiming: 'There's star quality! Look at those tits!'" Evelyn Keyes in 99 River Street See also "Supper at Eight" and Irreconcilable Differences. Sunday, July 13, 2008  12:06 PM Annals of Philosophy: Footprint Sweden 608410039/philosophy-w... 7/13/2008 11:55 AM O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day, When first the shaft into his vision shone Of light anatomized! Euclid alone Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they Who, though once only and then but far away, Have heard her massive sandal set on stone. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay Sunday, July 13, 2008  11:00 AM Today's Sermon:   See also St. Peter's Day, 2005, and Michiko Kakutani on tribal delusions. Saturday, July 12, 2008  10:31 AM In the Details: Advertisement "God is like Me, only more so." -- Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself Context: See also Context-Sensitive Theology. Friday, July 11, 2008  9:11 PM The Lottery Theater presents: Ready When You Are, C. B. For related material, see "Goodbye and Hello" from 9/08, 2003 and "Requiem for a Storyteller" from 9/08, 2007, as well as "Raiders of the Lost Stone" from 6/23, 2007 and "George Carlin Dies" from 6/23, 2008. See also today's previous entries. Friday, July 11, 2008  7:11 PM The 7/11 Alignment: De Haut en Bas continued from July 3 "I say high, you say low, you say why, and I say I don't know. Oh, no. You say goodbye and I say hello." -- Hello Goodbye * Thanks to NBC Nightly News tonight for a story on the following: Manhattanhenge is an evening when "the Sun sets in exact alignment with the Manhattan grid, fully illuminating every single cross-street...." Full Sun on grid: Friday, July 11-- 8:24 PM EDT Related material from the late Tom Disch on St. Sarah's Day: Saturday, May 24th, 2008 9:15 pm What I Can See from Here I face east toward the western wall Of a tall many-windowed building Some distance off. I don't see the sunset Directly, only as it is reflected From the facade of that building. Those familiar with Manhattan know How the evening sun appears to slide Into the slot of any east/west street, And so its beams are channeled Along those canyon streets to strike Large objects like that wall And scrawl their anti-shadows there, A Tau of twilight luminescence At close of day. I've seen this For some forty years and only tonight Did I realize what I had been looking at: The way god tries to say good-bye. -- Tom Disch * Stanley Cavell, in The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy, has a note on the song "Hello Goodbye"-- "189. The extra-long coda... was referred to as the 'Maori finale' from the start...." Friday, July 11, 2008  1:00 PM Serious Numbers, continued: AND MORE LOGOS: "Serious numbers will always be heard." -- Paul Simon   The HSBC Logo Designer -- Henry Steiner He is an internationally recognized corporate identity consultant. Based in Hong Kong, his work for clients such as HongkongBank, IBM and Unilever is a major influence in Pacific Rim design. Born in Austria and raised in New York, Steiner was educated at Yale under Paul Rand and attended the Sorbonne as a Fulbright Fellow. He is a past President of Alliance Graphique Internationale. Other professional affiliations include the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Chartered Society of Designers, Design Austria, and the New York Art Directors' Club. His Cross-Cultural Design: Communicating in the Global Marketplace was published by Thames and Hudson (1995). -- Yaneff.com Related material from the past -- Fly from Fly Bottle: Charles Taylor, "Epiphanies of Modernism," Chapter 24 of Sources of the Self   (Cambridge U. Press, 1989, p. 477) -- "... the object sets up  a kind of frame or space or field    within which there can be epiphany." See also Talking of Michelangelo. Related material from today -- Escape from a   cartoon graveyard: Friday, July 11, 2008  9:00 AM Annals of Philosophy: LOGOS "Religions are hardy." -- TIME magazine, issue dated July 14 "I confess I do not believe in time." -- Vladimir Nabokov   "I can hardly do better than go back to the Greeks." -- G. H. Hardy Figure 1: The Greeks Figure 2: The Irrational Thursday, July 10, 2008  12:00 PM His and Hers: Something From the current issue of TIME: "Religions are hardy. 'Many a time we have gotten all ready for the funeral' of one faith or another, 'and found it postponed again, on account of the weather or something.'" -- Mark Twain Twain was raised as a Presbyterian (the Calvinist tradition). This year's Twain award for humor went to George Carlin, raised in the Catholic tradition. On learning he had won the Twain award, Carlin said, "Thank you, Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people." Today's Birthdays: Born July 10, 1509 -- John Calvin His people: see The Authority of Narrative. Born July 10, 1984 -- Maria Julia Mantilla Her people: see  Catholic Tastes. Wednesday, July 9, 2008  8:00 PM Translation, continued: Ah! Bright Wings A poem by the late Thomas Disch: Sundays at the Colosseum I think you always had to be a little juiced to enjoy the show. Or Jewish!     I never attended without a flask of red, and would salute the dying singers--     martyrs they called themselves-- when the lions drew first blood.     The songs went on until either terror or death had silenced the last of them. I doubt we would have gone so religiously if it weren't for the singing. Sometimes we'd even sing along. Circuses aren't the same these days.     Pity. -- From Disch's weblog on Friday,    May 23, 2008, at 8:26 AM Related material on a novel by Disch: "On Wings of Song, published in 1979, tells the story of a repressive Amesville, Iowa, in the 21st century. The main character, Daniel Weinreb, tries to master the art of song and flight, 'driven by the knowledge that some have attained flight, their spirits separated from their physical bodies and propelled on the waves of their own singing voices-- literally born on wings of song.'" -- Jocelyn Y. Stewart in a Los Angeles Times obituary of July 8, 2008 See also the Log24 entries for  the date of Disch's poem--  St. Sarah's Eve-- and for  the evening of July 8. Wednesday, July 9, 2008  8:28 AM Review: God, Time, Epiphany 8:28:32 AM Anthony Hopkins, from All Hallows' Eve last year: "For me time is God, God is time. It's an equation, like an Einstein equation." James Joyce, from June 26 (the day after Anti-Christmas) this year: "... he glanced up at the clock of the Ballast Office and smiled: -- It has not epiphanised yet, he said." Ezra Pound (from a page linked to yesterday morning): "It seems quite natural to me that an artist should have just as much pleasure in an arrangement of planes or in a pattern of figures,   as in painting portraits...." From Epiphany 2008: An arrangement of planes: From May 10, 2008: A pattern of figures: See also Richard Wilhelm on Hexagram 32 of the I Ching: "Duration is a state whose movement is not worn down by hindrances. It is not a state of rest, for mere standstill is regression. Duration is rather the self-contained and therefore self-renewing movement of an organized, firmly integrated whole, taking place in accordance with immutable laws and beginning anew at every ending. The end is reached by an inward movement, by inhalation, systole, contraction, and this movement turns into a new beginning, in which the movement is directed outward, in exhalation, diastole, expansion." -- The Middle-English     Harrowing of Hell...     by Hulme, 1907, page 64 Tuesday, July 8, 2008  9:34 PM The Final Hit: Translation to a Higher Plane New York State Lottery this evening: 737. "Don't know when    I'll be back again." -- Peter, Paul, and Mary -- the final hit Tuesday, July 8, 2008  3:17 PM Final Arrangements, continued: And the Templeton Prize   goes to... Click on image for further details. Tuesday, July 8, 2008  1:14 PM The Holy Spook continued: New York Lottery mid-day today: 672 -- The Middle-English     Harrowing of Hell...     by Hulme, 1907, page 64 Tuesday, July 8, 2008  3:33 AM Annals of Poetry continued: Translation Yesterday's entry discussed T.E. Hulme-- a co-founder, with Ezra Pound, of the Imagist school of poetry. Recent entries on randomness, using the New York Lottery as a source of examples, together with Hulme's approach to poetry discussed yesterday, suggest the following meditation-- what Charles Cameron might call a "bead game." Part I: Ezra Pound on Imagism (from Gaudier-Brzeska,* 1916): Three years ago in Paris I got out of a "metro" train at La Concorde, and saw suddenly a beautiful face, and then another and another, and then a beautiful child’s face, and then another beautiful woman, and I tried all that day to find words for what this had meant to me, and I could not find any words that seemed to me worthy, or as lovely as that sudden emotion. [....] The "one image poem" is a form of super-position, that is to say, it is one idea set on top of another. I found it useful in getting out of the impasse in which I had been left by my metro emotion. I wrote a thirty-line poem, and destroyed it because it was what we call work "of second intensity." Six months later I made a poem half that length; a year later I made the following hokku-like sentence: -- "The apparition of these     faces in the crowd:  Petals, on a     wet, black bough." I dare say it is meaningless unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought. In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant† when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective. Part II: Eleanor Goodman on translation (in a July 7, 2008, weblog entry, "Pound and Process: An Introduction"): "... all translations exist on an axis. Indeed, they exist in a manifold of many axes intersecting. One axis is that of foreignness and familiarity. One axis is that of structural mimicry, another of melodic mimicry. And one axis is that of semantic fidelity." Goodman's use of the word "manifold" here is of course poetic, not mathematical. Part III: New York Lottery, mid-day on July 7, 2008: 771. Part IV: A Google search on manifold 771 reveals that 771 is, according to Google's scanners, an alternate form (a "translation," via structural mimicry) of a script version of the letter M. (See Part V below.) Part V: Long version of a  one-image poem -- "Random apparition:   manifold translated." This poem summarizes the relationship (See Part IV above) of the (apparently) random number 771 to the rather non-random concept of a linear manifold: [Such lines and planes have not been, in mathematical language, "translated."] -- Paul R. Halmos, Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces, Princeton University Press, 1948 Short version of the    above one-image poem --  771: * Gaudier-Brzeska created the artifact shown of the cover of Solid Objects, a work of literary theory by Douglas Mao. For more on that artifact and on the New York Lottery, see Sermon for St. Peter's Day. "It is not in the premise that reality/ Is a solid...." --Wallace Stevens † "I was like, Oh My God." --Poet Billy Collins at Chautauqua Institution, morning of July 7, 2008 Monday, July 7, 2008  7:00 AM On Dryness, continued: Classicism Last evening's entry referred to a 1961 essay by Iris Murdoch titled "Against Dryness."  Murdoch's use of "dryness" as a literary term is taken from a 1911 essay by T. E. Hulme, "Romanticism and Classicism." Hulme says that "There is a general tendency to think that verse means little else than the expression of unsatisfied emotion. People say: 'But how can you have verse without sentiment?' You see what it is: the prospect alarms them. A classical revival to them would mean the prospect of an arid desert and the death of poetry as they understand it, and could only come to fill the gap caused by that death. Exactly why this dry classical spirit should have a positive and legitimate necessity to express itself in poetry is utterly inconceivable to them." Related philosophy from Hollywood: Bentley: ... What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you personally to the desert? Lawrence:  It's clean. Bentley:  Well, now, that's a very illuminating answer. Sunday, July 6, 2008  9:00 PM On Dryness: "Hancock" Powers to the Top of July Fourth Box Office -- This evening's online   New York Times New York Lottery Sunday, July 6, 2008: Mid-day 307 Evening  921 Log24  3/07: Symbols: Log24  9/21: "The consolations of form, the clean crystalline work" -- Iris Murdoch,  "Against Dryness" Will Smith on Chess Will Smith The Independent, 9 July 2004: "A devoted father, Smith passes on his philosophy of life to his children through chess, among other things. 'My father taught me how to play chess at seven and introduced beautiful concepts that I try to pass on to my kids. The elements and concepts of life are so perfectly illustrated on a chess board. The ability to accurately assess your position is the key to chess, which I also think is the key to life.' He pauses, searching for an example. 'Everything you do in your life is a move. You wake up in the morning, you strap on a gun, and you walk out on the street-- that's a move. You've made a move and the universe is going to respond with its move. 'Whatever move you're going to make in your life to be successful, you have to accurately access the next couple of moves-- like what's going to happen if you do this? Because once you've made your move, you can't take it back. The universe is going to respond.' Smith has just finished reading The Alchemist, by the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho: 'It says the entire world is contained in one grain of sand, and you can learn everything you need to learn about the entire universe from that one grain of sand. That is the kind of concept I'm teaching my kids.'" Related material: "Philosophers' Stone" and other entries of June 25, 2008 Sunday, July 6, 2008  9:00 AM Today's Sermon: The Pursuit of Happyness "Remember that we deal with Mary Chapin Carpenter -- cunning, baffling, and powerful." -- Saying adapted from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous "I'm Pabst Blue Ribbon, American." -- The Telegraph, May 7, 2008 Former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms was city editor at the Raleigh Times. See the Fourth of July. See also last Thursday. Saturday, July 5, 2008  8:00 AM The Lottery Theater presents... The Bacchae by Euripides New York Lottery on the Fourth of July:   Mid-day 678 Evening 506 These numbers may be interpreted as references to a current Lincoln Center play -- The Bacchae, by Euripides. Line 678 of The Bacchae -- From a Brandeis class's translation (2006): Messenger: [677] Our feeding herds of cattle were just climbing [678] above the treeline when the sun [679] sent forth its rays to warm the earth. Related cartoon by Ed Arno (See yesterday morning's Log24 and entries of June 27): Related review by Charles Isherwood in today's New York Times: "A god deserves a great entrance. And Dionysus, the god of wine and party boy of Mount Olympus, whose celebratory rituals got the whole drama thing rolling in the first place, surely merits a spectacular one...." Line 506 of The Bacchae -- From a 1988 translation (pdf) by Matthew A. Neuburg-- Dionysus: [506] You don’t know what you’re saying, what you’re doing, who you are. Translator's note: 506 The state of this line in the MSS has driven editors to despair; in particular, the first of the things Pentheus is said not to know is, in Greek, “what you are living,” which seems doubtful Greek. Many emendations have been proposed; I accept here DODDS’s emendation, but I have a feeling we’re missing something. AMEN. Friday, July 4, 2008  11:30 AM For the Fourth of July... In memory of Senator Jesse Helms, R-NC: "I'm a church beside the highway        where the ditches never drain, I'm a Baptist like my daddy,        and Jesus knows my name." -- Mary Chapin Carpenter Friday, July 4, 2008  8:00 AM ART WARS continued: REDEMPTION "I need a photo-opportunity, I want a shot at redemption. Don't want to end up a cartoon In a cartoon graveyard." -- Paul Simon From Log24 on June 27, 2008, the day that comic-book artist Michael Turner died at 37 -- Van Gogh (by Ed Arno) in The Paradise of Childhood (by Edward Wiebé): For Turner's photo-opportunity, click on Lara. Thursday, July 3, 2008  7:11 PM ART WARS continued: De Haut en Bas "... this hard prize, Fully made, fully apparent,      fully found" -- Wallace Stevens, "Credences of Summer" Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro in "The Score" The Prize: Thursday, July 3, 2008  11:00 AM For Champlain at Cap Diamant: Highs and Lows From today's New York Times: This week, we the people of North America are staging two celebrations. The Fourth of July is the 232nd birthday of the United States.... In Canada, today, another ceremony will mark the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, the first permanent settlement in New France. Paul Simon on religion: "I need a photo opportunity,       I want a shot at redemption...." Log24 on August 8, 2002 -- The cast of "Some Girls," a film set in Quebec City: "Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard." Amen, sister. Thursday, July 3, 2008  7:59 AM Catholic Koan: Blasphemous Thoughts about Thor Commonweal on Gopnik on Chesterton: "Gopnik thinks Chesterton’s aphorisms are better than any but Oscar Wilde’s, and he describes some of them as 'genuine Catholic koans, pregnant and profound.' For example: 'Blasphemy depends on belief, and is fading with it. If anyone doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.'" Pregnant and Profound: Douglas Adams on Thor Kate felt quite dizzy. She didn't know exactly what it was that had just happened, but she felt pretty damn certain that it was the sort of experience that her mother would not have approved of on a first date. "Is this all part of what we have to do to go to Asgard?" she said. "Or are you just fooling around?" "We will go to Asgard... now," he said. At that moment he raised his hand as if to pluck an apple, but instead of plucking he made a tiny, sharp turning movement.The effect was as if he had twisted the entire world through a billionth part of a billionth part of a degree. Everything shifted, was for a moment minutely out of focus, and then snapped back again as a suddenly different world. -- The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul See also The Turning: "A theorem proposed betwen the two--" -- Wallace Stevens, "The Rock" From The History of Mathematics, by Roger Cooke "... point A In a perspective that begins again At B...." -- Wallace Stevens, "The Rock" Wednesday, July 2, 2008  12:00 PM Review: Let Noon Be Fair "The serpent's eyes shine As he wraps around the vine" -- "The Garden of Allah" A Good Year -- Last summer's journal Related material: Cover illustration: Spies returning from the land of Canaan with a cluster of grapes.  Colored woodcut from Biblia Sacra Germanica, Nuremberg, Anton Koberger, 1483. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Wednesday, July 2, 2008  8:28 AM The Last Target: Bull's-Eye On this date in 1961, Ernest Hemingway shot himself. The Talented Patricia Highsmith "Yes, oh, God, Robin was beautiful. [....] A sort of first position in attention, a face that will age only under the blows of perpetual childhood. The temples like those of young beasts cutting horns, as if they were sleeping eyes. And that look on a face we follow like a witch-fire." -- Djuna Barnes, Nightwood Related material: The Languages of Addiction, Ch. 13: The Barnes Complex See also The Garden of Eden. Wednesday, July 2, 2008  3:33 AM Annals of Religion: Sacerdotal Jargon Wallace Stevens, from "Credences of Summer" in Transport to Summer (1947): "Three times the concentred      self takes hold, three times The thrice concentred self,      having possessed The object, grips it      in savage scrutiny...." In memory of the former first lady of Brazil, who died on June 24 -- Emily Dickinson: Till Summer folds her miracle -- As Women -- do -- their Gown -- Or Priests -- adjust the Symbols -- When Sacrament -- is done -- Symbols of the thrice concentred self: The circular symbol is from July 1. The square symbol is from June 24, the date of death for the former first lady of Brazil. Wallace Stevens quotes Paul Klee: "'... what artist would not establish himself there where the organic center of all movement in time and space-- which he calls the mind or heart of creation-- determines every function.' Conceding that this sounds a bit like sacerdotal jargon, that is not too much to allow...." -- "The Relations between Poetry and Painting" in The Necessary Angel (Knopf, 1951) Tuesday, July 1, 2008  3:33 AM Annals of Poetry: THE USUAL SUSPECT   Click image to enlarge. Related material: The three Log24 entries from the date of Macke's death