2001-12-21... Story Theory and the Number of the Beast
To Esther at the winter solstice.

2001-05-01... Law Day 2001: The Devil and Wallace Stevens
For Law Day, May 1, two texts with discussions of Lucifer (neither starring Al Pacino).

2001-04-27... Nine Gates to the Temple of Poetry
Rilke and Stevens, along with Sellers and Sorvino, perform a rite of spring.

2001-04-24... Heaven's Gate
Mel Brooks and Herman Wouk celebrate the April 24 birthdays of Barbra Streisand and Shirley MacLaine.

2001-04-12... Pilate, Truth, and Friday the Thirteenth
What would Jesus do... Cram for tomorrow's big test?

2001-04-06... Wag the Dogma
In observance of Barry Levinson's birthday, a modest proposal to help reconcile two heretical offshoots of Judaism -- the Freemasons and the Roman Catholic Church.

2001-04-04... The Black Queen
James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Malcolm Lowry, and Dante join the annual April 4 tribute to one of the greatest bad novels of the twentieth century -- The Eight, by Katherine Neville.

2001-03-29... Heaven, Hell, and Hollywood
John O'Hara, Nathanael West, and Joan Didion observe the March 29 birthdays of Eric Idle and Elle Macpherson.

2001-03-28... Naturalized Epistemology
Zenna Henderson, Huston Smith, and Irving Berlin celebrate the March 28 birthday of Reba McEntire.

2001-03-24... The Still Point and the Wheel
T. S. Eliot and Robinson Jeffers celebrate the March 24 birthday of Curtis Hanson, director of "L.A. Confidential" and "The Little Dragons."

2001-03-22... The Matthias Defense
Vladimir Nabokov, Stephen Sondheim, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce join in a chorus of "Putting It Together."

2001-03-20... Dogma Part II: Amores Perros
This note celebrates the March 20 birth of Holly Hunter and death of Isaac Newton. It was inspired, in part, by the article in The New York Times Magazine of Sunday, March 18, on the new Mexican film "Amores Perros."

2001-03-17... Dogma: A Sermon for St. Patrick's Day
Realism triumphs over nominalism on St. Patrick's Eve.

2001-03-16... Random Thoughts for St. Patrick's Eve
Pope John Paul II delivered his encyclical "Veritatis Splendor" on August 6, 1993 -- The Feast of the Transfiguration. Here, in honor of the King of Comedy, Jerry Lewis, who turns 75 today, is my own encyclical.

2001-03-15... Shining Forth
Bright star and dark lady -- the story continues. This note commemorates the opening of "My Fair Lady" on Broadway on March 15 in 1956, and the wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Montreal on March 15, 1964.

2001-03-10... Harmony, Schoenberg, and The Last Samurai
Helen DeWitt's remarks on Schoenberg in The Last Samurai and a recent New Yorker profile of composer John Adams remind me of a note I wrote in 1996.

2001-03-08... The Giant of Nothingness
The latest buzz from the worshipers of Science was anticipated by Wallace Stevens in 1948.

2001-03-06... Bester's God: The Anima Mundi
A God for those who dislike the usual Hebrew folk-tales.

2001-03-05... A Contrapuntal Theme
Evidence for life after death from Dorothy Sayers and Vladimir Nabokov.

2001-02-21... The God-Shaped Hole
Borges on metaphors, with the "god-shaped hole" as an example.

2000-03-09... Is Nothing Sacred?
Nothingness, nihilism, lunacy, Robert Lowell, and Vermeer.

1999-11-11... Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star
Plato's realism, and also his poems to Aster, are defended against the remarks of W. V. Quine in his 1948 essay, "On What There Is."

1999-06-25... On Linguistic Creation
Naming-Day in Eden (in memory of Willard van Orman Quine).

1999-02-22... Quotations for Chairman George
For Washington's birthday, a meditation on Fire in the Lake.

1998-04-22... Deep Thoughts
For country music's Academy Awards night, a meditation on the significance of the number "373."

1997-08-07... Biblical Proportions
Fritz Leiber's story about the significance of the number 8, and the 8-rayed asterisk, suggests some more intriguing numbers.

1996-11-19... Natural Temperament
Comparison of the 34-tone scale with the standard 12-tone scale.

1996-10-23... The Harmony Problem
The problem that the 12-tone scale of Western music attempts to solve.

1995-08-26... Why Me?
Princeton theologian Elaine Pagels asks the perennial question.

1995-08-02... Strike That Pose
Belief in truth, belief in style, and murder at Harvard.

1995-06-23... Midsummer Eve's Dream
Adam and Eve, as played by Heinz and Elaine Pagels.

1993-06-23... Midsummer Night's Prologue, or Good Will Writing
Peter Quince finally punctuates his prologue.

Page created March 5, 2001.