The Citizen Kane of Horror

Notes on Mathematics and Narrative

Background—

The Burning Man in Bester's classic The Stars My Destination,
The not-so-classic Hitler Plans Burning Man, and
The cult film The Wicker Man

Commentary on The Wicker Man—

Originally The Wicker Man was not well-received by critics in the UK. It was considered
to be bizarre, disturbing, and uncomfortable, with the hasty editing making the story confusing
and out of order…. Today this movie is considered a cult classic and has been called
the “Citizen Kane of horror films” by some reviewers. How did this film become a cult classic?

Real estate motto— Location, Location, Location.

Illustration— The fire leap scene from Wicker Man, filmed at Castle Kennedy—

From August 27—

In today's New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviews a summer thriller
by Kevin Guilfoile. The Thousand is in the manner of Dan Brown's
2003 The Da Vinci Code or of Katherine Neville's 1988 The Eight .

From the review—

What connects these disparate events, it turns out, is a sinister organization
called the Thousand, made up of followers of the ancient Greek mathematician
and philosopher Pythagoras (yes, the same Pythagoras associated with
the triangle theorem that we learned in school).

As Mr. Guilfoile describes it, this organization is part Skull and Bones,
part Masonic lodge, part something much more twisted and nefarious….

The plot involves, in part,

… an eccentric artist’s mysterious masterwork, made up of thousands of
individually painted tiles that may cohere into an important message….

Not unlike the tiles in the Diamond Theory cover (see yesterday's post)
or, more aptly, the entries in this journal.

A brief prequel to the above dialogue—

In lieu of songs, here is a passage by Patrick Blackburn
more relevant to the art of The Thousand—

See also the pagan fire leaping in Dancing at Lughnasa.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Reflection

m759 @ 5:24 PM

From the American Mathematical Society today—

Richard Kane (1944-2010)
Tuesday October 5th 2010

Kane, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, died October 1 at the age of 66. He received his PhD from the University of Waterloo in 1973 under the direction of Peter Hoffman. Kane authored approximately 30 research papers and the texts The Homology of Hopf Spaces and Reflection Groups and Invariant Theory. He served as president and vice-president of the Canadian Mathematical Society and was the recipient of the Society's first David Borwein Distinguished Career Award in 2004 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2006. Kane was a member of the AMS since 1991. Read more about his life in an online obituary.

Richard Michael Kane

I added a link to a review of Kane's book on reflection groups to the Wikipedia article on that topic on August 20, 2005.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

The Rising…

m759 @ 11:00 AM

Notes on Mathematics and Narrative, continued

"the Citizen Kane of horror films"
– Sarah Lawless quoting other reviews
in Saga of the Wicker Man,
cited here on September 7

"Frivolous as a willow on a tombstone"
– Robert Stone on "our secret culture" in A Flag for Sunrise

"world's wildfire, leave but ash"
– Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.,
quoted here on October 4

Happy birthday, Britt.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Critic’s Picks

m759 @ 7:20 PM

TCM SPOTLIGHT: CRITIC'S PICKS

8:00 PM	Citizen Kane
10:15 PM	Seventh Seal, The

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Geometry and the Evening Star

m759 @ 7:20 PM

An ancient symbol of Venus, the Evening Star—

For some background, see Anti-Christmas (June 25), 2008 and The Devil and Wallace Stevens.

A purely mathematical version of the same figure—