Saturday, November 09, 2002

Shine On, Dylan Thomas!   (See preceding entry)    The Born sea Praised the sun The  finding  one And   upright   Adam Sang     upon     origin! O the  wings of the  children! The woundward flight of the ancient Young  from  the  canyons  of  oblivion! The  sky stride of  the always  slain In    battle!   the    happening Of  saints  to  their  vision! The world winding home! And the whole pain Flows open  And  I   Die.    - Dylan Thomas    11:00 pm

Saturday, November 09, 2002

Birthdate of Hermann Weyl Weyl Plato's Diamond Result of a Google search Nov. 9, 2002... Searched the web for weyl symmetry. Result 1 of about 15,400...  Category:  Science > Math > Algebra > Group Theory  Weyl, H.: Symmetry. Description of the book Symmetry by Weyl, H., published by Princeton University Press. ... pup.princeton.edu/titles/ 865.html - 7k - Nov. 8, 2002 Sponsored Link Symmetry Puzzle New free online puzzle illustrates the mathematics of symmetry. m759.freeservers.com/puzzle. html Quotation from Weyl's Symmetry: "Symmetry is a vast subject, significant in art and nature. Mathematics lies at its root, and it would be hard to find a better one on which to demonstrate the working of the mathematical intellect." In honor of Princeton University, of Sylvia Nasar (see entries of Nov, 6), of the Presbyterian Church (see entry of Nov. 8), and of Professor Weyl (whose work partly inspired the website Diamond Theory), this site's background music is now Pink Floyd's "Shine On,     You Crazy Diamond."      Updates of Friday, November 15, 2002: In order to clarify the meaning of "Shine" and "Crazy" in the above, consult the following -- "Shine" ... The Shining, by Stephen King "Crazy" ... The Hollow Man, by Dan Simmons  To accompany this detailed exegesis of Pink Floyd, click here for a reading by Marlon Brando. For a related educational experience, see pages 126-127 of The Book of Sequels, by Henry Beard, Christopher Cerf, Sarah Durkee, and Sean Kelly (Random House paperback, 1990). Speaking of sequels, be on the lookout for Annie Dillard's sequel to Teaching a Stone to Talk, titled Teaching a Brick to Sing.  4:44 am Comments on this post: Hermann said: My work always tried to unite the truth with the beautiful, but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful. It seems that the two of you have the same agenda. Thanks! Posted 11/9/2002 at 11:38 am by oOMisfitOo Oddly enough, something approximating the term 'pink floyd' is the name of a moon orbiting a planet in our solar system. I was there for the last holidays. Good place. Posted 11/9/2002 at 7:52 pm by AlienVisitor Having just discovered that I have been called a "pathological liar" at my Diamond Theory Forum website, I hesitate to endorse Weyl's remark in the first comment above. But I do appreciate the comment. Posted 11/10/2002 at 4:19 am by m759 In regards to your forum: Someone forgot to "Think before they posted", eh? . . . Now, my son is in need of a quote from someone of academic stature in regards to Robert Frost's "The road not taken". They are discussing which poem to use for their graduation ceremonies and this is one of the three they have suggested. He likes this one, and his English assignment is to provide *academic support* in the form of quotes from scholars that will promote his feeling that this poem should be used. You may lie if you wish.  I won't mind at all.  Posted 11/12/2002 at 2:07 am by oOMisfitOo Sorry. I have no academic stature. Although the real R. T. Curtis kindly referred to me in the forum as "professor," I have no Ph.D. and have never been employed by a college or university, except briefly as a graduate teaching assistant. I may, in some sense, be a "scholar," but I'm certainly not a scholar of poetry and have no wish to pose as one. Good luck, though... I do like Frost. Posted 11/12/2002 at 5:08 am by m759 Good enough.  Jots down, "Steven Cullinane, man of outstanding mental stature, mathematical wizardry and synchronistic wit states emphatically that he does like Frost and wishes us Good Luck in the poetry selection." --- Posted 11/14/2002 at 2:19 am by oOMisfitOo truth is truth, tautalogous and true; what beauty is, that's the thing to know Posted 11/16/2002 at 1:51 am by TheYoungScholar To a young scholar: Guqin Go Calligraphy Painting Posted 11/16/2002 at 8:16 am by m759 Thanks for the Fermina link. The "duck flies at midnight" walkie-talkie bit was worth the price of admission alone. And I'll have to try some Jim Thompson. - WFH Posted 11/18/2002 at 6:47 pm by william_f_house By the way....I left an apology for you in the comments back at my page. - WFH Posted 11/19/2002 at 10:14 am by william_f_house Noted and accepted, WFH. Also noted: the 11/19/02 9:49 a.m. comment on your 11/18/02 4:54 p.m. entry. Contrary to that comment, I do usually like reading your weblog. Posted 11/19/2002 at 10:47 am by m759 Thanks Steven. And please....I don't mind it when people don't like something I've written. That's part of what the experience of writing is all about to me. Reaction....good and bad (now, "indifferent" is one I don't deal so well with). Again, thanks. Posted 11/19/2002 at 2:08 pm by william_f_house

Friday, November 08, 2002

Religious Symbolism at Princeton In memory of Steve McQueen ("The Great Escape" and "The Thomas Crown Affair"... see preceding entry) and of Rudolf Augstein (publisher of Der Spiegel), both of whom died on November 7 (in 1980 and 2002, respectively), in memory of the following residents of The Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church Established 1757 SYLVIA BEACH (1887-1962), whose father was pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, founded Shakespeare & Company, a Paris bookshop which became a focus for struggling expatriate writers. In 1922 she published James Joyce's Ulysses when others considered it obscene, and she defiantly closed her shop in 1941 in protest against the Nazi occupation. KURT GÖDEL (1906-1978), a world-class mathematician famous for a vast array of major contributions to logic, was a longtime professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, founded in 1930. He was a corecipient of the Einstein Award in 1951. JOHN (HENRY) O'HARA (1905-1970) was a voluminous and much-honored writer. His novels, Appointment in Samarra (1934) and Ten North Frederick (1955), and his collection of short stories, Pal Joey (1940), are among his best-known works. and of the long and powerful association of Princeton University with the Presbyterian Church, as well as the theological perspective of Carl Jung in Man and His Symbols, I offer the following "windmill," taken from the Presbyterian Creedal Standards website, as a memorial: The background music Les Moulins de Mon Coeur, selected yesterday morning in memory of Steve McQueen, continues to be appropriate. "A is for Anna." -- James Joyce 3:33 am

Thursday, November 07, 2002

16 Years Ago Today: Endgame Metaphor for Morphean morphosis, Dreams that wake, transform, and die, Calm and lucid this psychosis, Joyce's nightmare in Escher's eye. At the end there is a city With cathedral bright and sane Facing inward from the pity On the endgame's wavy plane. Black the knight upon that ocean, Bright the sun upon the king. Dark the queen that stands beside him, White his castle, threatening. In the shadows' see a bishop Guards his queen of love and hate. Another move, the game will be up; Take the queen, her knight will mate. The knight said "Move, be done.  It's over." "Love and resign," the bishop cried. "When it's done you'll stand forever By the darkest beauty's side." Dabo claves regni caelorum.  By silent shore Ripples spread from castle rock.  The metaphor For metamorphosis no keys unlock. -- Steven H. Cullinane, November 7, 1986 Accompaniment from "The Thomas Crown Affair": Michel Legrand, "Les Moulins de Mon Coeur" Lyrics by Eddy Marnay: Comme une pierre que l'on jette Dans l'eau vive d'un ruisseau Et qui laisse derrière elle Des milliers de ronds dans l'eau.... 5:24 am Comments on this post: You inspire me. I am quite in awe of you.  You are something like my dreams.  Coherent, yet always on the edge of something I feel like I should know, but cannot quite grasp.  Synchronistic. I shall continue on ... it's bound to sink in at some point.  Posted 11/8/2002 at 1:26 am by oOMisfitOo

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

The Times They Are A-Changin' Trivia quiz on tonight's "West Wing" -- What do you feed a stolen goat? 10:00 pm Comments on this post: Honestly, since the end of Northern Exposure, I swore never to immerse myself in good television drama again. Erm ... even Great television drama.  I don't have the answer. (I am not above watching old "Upstairs/Downstairs" re-runs on the BBC or PBS though . . .) Posted 11/8/2002 at 1:31 am by oOMisfitOo

Wednesday, November 06, 2002

Today's birthdays: Mike Nichols and Sally Field. Who is Sylvia? What is she?  From A Beautiful Mind, by Sylvia Nasar: Prologue Where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. -- WILLIAM WORDSWORTH John Forbes Nash, Jr. -- mathematical genius, inventor of a theory of rational behavior, visionary of the thinking machine -- had been sitting with his visitor, also a mathematician, for nearly half an hour. It was late on a weekday afternoon in the spring of 1959, and, though it was only May, uncomfortably warm. Nash was slumped in an armchair in one corner of the hospital lounge, carelessly dressed in a nylon shirt that hung limply over his unbelted trousers. His powerful frame was slack as a rag doll's, his finely molded features expressionless. He had been staring dully at a spot immediately in front of the left foot of Harvard professor George Mackey, hardly moving except to brush his long dark hair away from his forehead in a fitful, repetitive motion. His visitor sat upright, oppressed by the silence, acutely conscious that the doors to the room were locked. Mackey finally could contain himself no longer. His voice was slightly querulous, but he strained to be gentle. "How could you," began Mackey, "how could you, a mathematician, a man devoted to reason and logical proof...how could you believe that extraterrestrials are sending you messages? How could you believe that you are being recruited by aliens from outer space to save the world? How could you...?" Nash looked up at last and fixed Mackey with an unblinking stare as cool and dispassionate as that of any bird or snake. "Because," Nash said slowly in his soft, reasonable southern drawl, as if talking to himself, "the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously." What I take seriously: Introduction to Topology and Modern Analysis, by George F. Simmons, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1963  An Introduction to Abstract Harmonic Analysis, by Lynn H. Loomis, Van Nostrand, Princeton, 1953 "Harmonic Analysis as the Exploitation of Symmetry -- A Historical Survey," by George W. Mackey, pp. 543-698, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, July 1980 Walsh Functions and Their Applications, by K. G. Beauchamp, Academic Press, New York, 1975 Walsh Series: An Introduction to Dyadic Harmonic Analysis, by F. Schipp, P. Simon, W. R. Wade, and J. Pal, Adam Hilger Ltd., 1990 The review, by W. R. Wade, of Walsh Series and Transforms (Golubov, Efimov, and Skvortsov, publ. by Kluwer, Netherlands, 1991) in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, April 1992, pp. 348-359 Music courtesy of Franz Schubert. 2:22 pm Comments on this post: I used to harbor fantasies that John was my biological father. shhhhhh ... don't tell anyone. Posted 11/8/2002 at 1:43 am by oOMisfitOo

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

Kylie on Tequila From a web page on Kylie Minogue: Turns out she's a party girl who loves Tequila: "Time disappears with Tequila. It goes elastic, then vanishes." From a web page on Malcolm Lowry's classic novel Under the Volcano:  The day begins with Yvonne’s arrival at the Bella Vista bar in Quauhnahuac. From outside she hears Geoffrey’s familiar voice shouting a drunken lecture this time on the topic of the rule of the Mexican railway that requires that  "A corpse will be transported by express!" (Lowry, Volcano, p. 43). Kylie Finney   Well if you want to ride you gotta ride it like you find it. Get your ticket at the station of the Rock Island Line. -- Lonnie Donegan (d. Nov. 3) and others     The Rock Island Line's namesake depot  in Rock Island, Illinois     See also the preceding entry. 6:29 am

Tuesday, November 05, 2002

Back to You, Kylie From the 440 International Archives: 1988 - And speaking of music trivia (thanks to http://www.rockdate.co.uk Rockdate Diary): "The Loco-Motion", by Kylie Minogue hit #4 on the "Billboard Hot 100" this day, the song became the first to reach the top-5 in the U.S. for three different artists (Little Eva in 1962, Grand Funk in 1974). Click here for a nicely done vibraphone-midi version of "Locomotion."  To honor Kylie's unforgettable video of that classic, this site's music is now one of my childhood favorites. Kylie, 1988 Down by the Station Down by the station early in the morning, See the little puffer bellies all in a row. See the engine driver pull the little throttle: Puff, puff, Toot! Toot! Off we go! As Sinatra said, "Whatever gets you through the night, baby." 2:56 am

Sunday, November 03, 2002

Music to Read By In honor of Roger Cooke's review of Helson's Harmonic Analysis, 2nd Edition, today's site music is "Moonlight in Vermont." 12:00 am Comments on this post: There's a Captain Beefheart song called 'Moonlight In Vermont,' and it's a little, uh, different from this version. Posted 11/3/2002 at 1:26 am by HomerTheBrave That's "Moonlight on Vermont"... Click here for a discussion of the lyrics. I see Beefheart is even older than I am. His music is typical talentless sixties' bullshit. Posted 11/3/2002 at 2:19 am by m759 But thanks for sharing. Posted 11/3/2002 at 2:22 am by m759 The quality of this recording is exceptional for a midi. Where do you find these? Posted 11/3/2002 at 6:05 pm by oOMisfitOo Various places. For where I found this one, click on the song title link. Posted 11/3/2002 at 6:21 pm by m759

Saturday, November 02, 2002

Día de los Muertos Today is All Souls' Day, the Day of the Dead in Mexico. This site's music for today, in honor of Rufino Tamayo, is "Luna y Sol." 12:00 am

Friday, November 01, 2002

ART WARS: Art Director of "Harvey" Dies at 95 9:40 am Comments on this post: "The challenge of producing a credible result with very little money is a real test of creativity not only for the director, but for the rest of the crew as well,'' Juran once said. ``There was always the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles with mirrors, smoke, and ingenuity.'' Sounds like the story of my life. Posted 11/3/2002 at 6:07 pm by oOMisfitOo

Friday, November 01, 2002

All Saints' Day In memory of Ellis Larkins and other departed souls, this site's music, taken from the website of Wesley Dick, is now the music of All Saints' Day. 12:00 am