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Sunday, June 15, 2003 |
Readings for Trinity Sunday For more on the structure For theology in general, see |
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Sunday, June 15, 2003 |
The Irish Cliffs of Moher Who is my father in this world, My father's father, Go back to a parent before thought, They go to the cliffs of Moher Rising out of present time This is not landscape, And the sea. This is my father A likeness, one of (Collected Poems, 501-02) |
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Saturday, June 14, 2003 |
Indiana Jones In memory of Bernard Williams, Oxford philosopher, who died Tuesday, June 10, 2003. "...in... Truth and Truthfulness [September, 2002], he sought to speak plainly, and took on the post-modern, politically correct notion that truth is merely relative..." "People have always longed for truths about the world -- not logical truths, for all their utility; or even probable truths, without which daily life would be impossible; but informative, certain truths, the only 'truths' strictly worthy of the name. Such truths I will call 'diamonds'; they are highly desirable but hard to find.... A new epistemology is emerging to replace the Diamond Theory of truth. I will call it the 'Story Theory' of truth: There are no diamonds. People make up stories about what they experience. Stories that catch on are called 'true.' The Story Theory of truth is itself a story that is catching on. It is being told and retold, with increasing frequency, by thinkers of many stripes.... My own viewpoint is the Story Theory...." -- Richard J. Trudeau, The Non-Euclidean Revolution, Birkhauser Boston, 1987 Today is the feast day of Saint Jorge Luis Borges (b. Buenos Aires, August 24, 1899 - d. Geneva, June 14, 1986). From Borges's "The Aleph": "The Faithful who gather at the mosque of Amr, in Cairo, are acquainted with the fact that the entire universe lies inside one of the stone pillars that ring its central court.... The mosque dates from the seventh century; the pillars come from other temples of pre-Islamic religions.... Does this Aleph exist in the heart of a stone?" ("Los fieles que concurren a la mezquita de Amr, en el Cairo, saben muy bien que el universo está en el interior de una de las columnas de piedra que rodean el patio central.... la mezquita data del siglo VII; las columnas proceden de otros templos de religiones anteislámicas.... ¿Existe ese Aleph en lo íntimo de una piedra?") From The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Un cofre de gran riqueza * A coffer of great richness See also the figures obtained by coloring and permuting parts of the above religious symbol. Lena Olin and Harrison Ford
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Friday, June 13, 2003 |
Born on this date: "Surely some revelation Behold a Pale Horse: In Slouching Towards "The oral history of Los Angeles Today's site music, a piano rendition of "Speak Low," from "One Touch of Venus," was suggested by Ms. Hollywood has an essay in the April 2003 Princeton journal Theology Today. My own theological interests (besides those expressed in the "black triangle" link above) are much closer to those in a 2001 First Things essay, The End of Endings. |
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Wednesday, June 11, 2003 |
From yesterday's New York Times: As Spinoza noted, "If a triangle could speak, it would say... that God is eminently triangular." — "Giving God a Break" by Nicholas D. Kristof The figure above is by "The film's personal, impious God embodies some central premises of black theology." — Samuel G. Freedman on Morgan Freeman as God in "Bruce Almighty"
Django Okay, okay, |
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Tuesday, June 10, 2003 |
The Triangular God From the New York Times of June 10, 2003: As Spinoza noted, "If a triangle could speak, it would say... that God is eminently triangular." — "Giving God a Break," by Nicholas D. Kristof Related material: From "The Cocktail Party," Act One, Scene One, by T. S. Eliot: UNIDENTIFIED GUEST [Sings]: Tooryooly toory-iley [Exit.] JULIA: Edward, who is that dreadful man? From T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950 (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1952), page 144: "The end is where we start from." From the end of that same book: "And me be-in' the One-Eyed Ri-ley" For more on this song, see Reilly's Daughter (with midi tune), See also my previous journal entry of and the perceptive analysis of the Shakti-Shiva symbol that I quoted on May 25, 2003. Here is a note from Sept. 15, 1984, for those who would like to See also Block Designs from the Cabinet of Dr. Montessori and Sacerdotal Jargon. |
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Sunday, June 08, 2003 |
Of Time and the River Today is the feast day of Saint Gerard Manley Hopkins, "immortal diamond." "At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the artist works and lives and has his being--the reward he seeks--the only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern whence all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity." "entered the university at Chapel Hill at fifteen 'an awkward, unhappy misfit.' By the time he graduated, he was editor of the college newspaper...." Jeff MacNelly, who died on this date in the Year of Our Lord 2000, "in 1977 started drawing the comic strip 'Shoe'.... The strip was named in honor of the legendary Jim Shumaker, for whom MacNelly worked at the Chapel Hill Weekly." From my Monday, June 2, 2003 entry: Two quotations from "The Diamond Project": "We all know that something is eternal," the Stage Manager says. "And it ain't houses and it ain't names, and it ain't earth, and it ain't even stars—everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings." "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame." Here are some other thoughts from the same date, but a different time, fictional time, Faulkner time: Where the shadow of the bridge fell I could see down for a long way, but not as far as the bottom. When you leave a leaf in water a long time after a while the tissue will be gone and the delicate fibers waving slow as the motion of sleep. They dont touch one another, no matter how knotted up they once were, no matter how close they lay once to the bones. And maybe when He says Rise the eyes will come floating up too, out of the deep quiet and the sleep, to look on glory. — William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury The concluding link from my June 2, 2003, entry furnishes a clue to the timelessness of Quentin Compson's thoughts above: Glory... Song of Songs 8. 7-8 From the King James Bible's rendition of the Song of Songs: 8:7 Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. For Quentin Compson's thoughts on his little sister Caddy, consult the online hypertext edition of
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Saturday, June 07, 2003 |
For the birthday of Miss Jessica Tandy Wien, Wien, nur du allein The web page where I found today's midi of "Wien, Wien, nur du allein" offers a view of the pulpit of the Stephansdom in Vienna. From Hermann Weyl's Symmetry: "Here (Fig. 41) is the gracefully designed staircase of the pulpit of the Stephan's dome in Vienna; a triquetrum alternates with a swastika-like wheel." The closest to Weyl's Figure 41 that I can find on the Web is located here. Perhaps Stanley Kowalski had a lower opinion than Blanche DuBois of swastika-like wheels.
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Friday, June 06, 2003 |
"Philosophers ponder the idea of identity: what it is to give something a name on Monday and have it respond to that name on Friday." From my entry of Monday, June 2, 2003: William Holden and Martha Scott From a website titled Child of a Voice: "The Talmud says, even in a time when there is no more prophecy there can still be the Daughter of a Voice.
The Tosefot explain: this is like the sound the echo of a hammer makes when it strikes something, and the sound echoes back from mountains. Not the Voice, but a daughter, a child of it. Not the sound but the echo of a sound. Not the prophecy from God in its purest way, but in a less pure way. Now because of our sins there is no more prophecy but in a time when there is no prophecy there can be Daughter of a Voice." Copyright Abraham Mezrich 2003 From a July 1999 review of a novel: "The good news is that this is perhaps Ben Mezrich’s finest thriller. The irony is that he used a pen name on it." The From an interview "Mezrich, the author of several critically acclaimed thrillers, came to Boston from Princeton, New Jersey, by way of Harvard University, where he graduated – magna cum laude, mind you – in 1991.... In his Boston apartment.... prominently exhibited was a paperback biography of local boy made good Matt Damon."  |
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Thursday, June 05, 2003 |
Regime Change Departing New York Times executive editor "Remember, when a great story breaks out,
Returning Good Will's From the date "Good Will Hunting" was released:
Postscript of June 5, 2003: "...while the scientist sees everything that happens in one point of space, the poet feels everything that happens in one point of time ... all forming an instantaneous and transparent organism of events...." 7:11 pm | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Wednesday, June 04, 2003 |
Fearful Meditation, Part II — "Where is Evelyn Waugh when you need him?" "Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell — Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Click on pictures for details. |
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Tuesday, June 03, 2003 |
Fearful Meditation — A follow-up to yesterday
O fearful meditation! Where, alack, — Shakespeare, Sonnet 65 Pop Culture's answer:
"Flashes of fire,
Click on the album title "0304" for details. A different answer:
Click on the date "03/04" for details. |
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Monday, June 02, 2003 |
Solomon's Seal — A follow-up to my May 28 entry, From the New York Times of May (Mental Health Month) 31, 2003: Martha Scott,
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