Friday, April 15, 2005  7:11 AM

Leonardo Day

Click on the above for details.

Related material
from Log24.net:

---

Saturday, December 27, 2003  10:21 PM

Toy

"If little else, the brain is an educational toy.  While it may be a frustrating plaything -- one whose finer points recede just when you think you are mastering them -- it is nonetheless perpetually fascinating, frequently surprising, occasionally rewarding, and it comes already assembled; you don't have to put it together on Christmas morning.

The problem with possessing such an engaging toy is that other people want to play with it, too.  Sometimes they'd rather play with yours than theirs.  Or they object if you play with yours in a different manner from the way they play with theirs.  The result is, a few games out of a toy department of possibilities are universally and endlessly repeated.  If you don't play some people's game, they say that you have 'lost your marbles,' not recognizing that,

while Chinese checkers is indeed a fine pastime, a person may also play dominoes, chess, strip poker, tiddlywinks, drop-the-soap or Russian roulette with his brain.

One brain game that is widely, if poorly, played is a gimmick called 'rational thought.' "

-- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Sol LeWitt
June 12, 1969:

"I took the number twenty-four and there's twenty-four ways of expressing the numbers one, two, three, four.  And I assigned one kind of line to one, one to two, one to three, and one to four.  One was a vertical line, two was a horizontal line, three was diagonal left to right, and four was diagonal right to left.  These are the basic kind of directions that lines can take.... the absolute ways that lines can be drawn.   And I drew these things as parallel lines very close to one another in boxes.  And then there was a system of changing them so that within twenty-four pages there were different arrangements of actually sixteen squares, four sets of four.  Everything was based on four.  So this was kind of a... more of a... less of a rational... I mean, it gets into the whole idea of methodology."

Yes, it does.
See Art Wars, Poetry's Bones, and Time Fold.

Friday, December 26, 2003  7:59 PM

ART WARS, St. Stephen's Day:

The Magdalene Code

Got The Da Vinci Code for Xmas.

From page 262:

When Langdon had first seen The Little Mermaid, he had actually gasped aloud when he noticed that the painting in Ariel's underwater home was none other than seventeenth-century artist Georges de la Tour's The Penitent Magdalene -- a famous homage to the banished Mary Magdalene -- fitting decor considering the movie turned out to be a ninety-minute collage of blatant symbolic references to the lost sanctity of Isis, Eve, Pisces the fish goddess, and, repeatedly, Mary Magdalene.

Related Log24 material --

December 21, 2002:

A Maiden's Prayer

The Da Vinci Code, pages 445-446:

"The blade and chalice?" Marie asked.  "What exactly do they look like?"

Langdon sensed she was toying with him, but he played along, quickly describing the symbols.

A look of vague recollection crossed her face.  "Ah, yes, of course.  The blade represents all that is masculine.  I believe it is drawn like this, no?"  Using her index finger, she traced a shape on her palm.

"Yes," Langdon said.  Marie had drawn the less common "closed" form of the blade, although Langdon had seen the symbol portrayed both ways.

"And the inverse," she said, drawing again upon her palm, "is the chalice, which represents the feminine."

"Correct," Langdon said....

... Marie turned on the lights and pointed....

"There you are, Mr. Langdon.  The blade and chalice."....

"But that's the Star of Dav--"

Langdon stopped short, mute with amazement as it dawned on him.

The blade and chalice.

Fused as one.

The Star of David... the perfect union of male and female... Solomon's Seal... marking the Holy of Holies, where the male and female deities -- Yahweh and Shekinah -- were thought to dwell.

Related Log24 material --

May 25, 2003:
Star Wars.
 

---

Concluding remark of April 15, 2005:
For a more serious approach to portraits of
redheads, see Chen Yifei's work.

Thursday, April 14, 2005  8:00 AM

Saturday, April 9, 2005  11:59 AM

Saturday, April 9, 2005  7:59 AM

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice McDermott said she most admires the way that Mr. Bellow carefully structured his novels and short stories.

"He's a writer's writer," she said.... "There's a classical shape to everything he writes, and that gives his novels and stories an air of inevitability...."

.... In spite, or perhaps because, of all the praise, Mr. Bellow also had detractors....  Critic Alfred Kazin thought the author had become a "university intellectual" with "contempt for the lower orders."

Even Ms. McDermott said she had to "park my feminism at the door" while reading Mr. Bellow's work.

"Despite all my resistance to his characters' worldview, through his prose he's able to let you enter fully into the life of this white, Jewish intellectual who has a skewed view of women," she said.

"That's what you're supposed to do as an artist. We're not here to stick a mirror on you. Anybody can do that," [Julie] Taymor said. "We're here to give you a more cubist or skewed mirror, where you get to see yourself with fresh eyes. That's what an artist does. When you paint the Crucifixion, you're not painting an exact reproduction...."

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

Thursday, April 7, 2005  7:26 PM

In the Details

Wallace Stevens,
An Ordinary Evening in New Haven:

Details:



The above may be of interest to students
of  iconology -- what Dan Brown in
The Da Vinci Code calls "symbology" --
and of redheads.

The artist of Details,
"Brenda Starr" creator
Dale Messick, died on Tuesday,
April 5, 2005, at 98.


AP Photo
Dale Messick in 1982

For further details on
April 5, see
Art History:
The Pope of Hope

Thursday, April 7, 2005  9:00 AM

Amen.

Related material:

In memory of Jesus of Nazareth,
the "true vine,"
who, some historians believe,
died on this date:

The Crucifixion of John O'Hara.

In memory of the Anti-Vine:



See Dogma and
Heaven, Hell,
and Hollywood.
 
Related material:

The Usual Suspects

and

Thursday, December 26, 2002:

Holly for Miss Quinn 

Tonight's site music is for Stephen Dedalus
and Miss Quinn, courtesy of Eithne Ní Bhraonáin. 

Miss Quinn

Holly

Eithne

Thursday, April 7, 2005  12:00 AM

From Maureen Dowd's New York Times column of June 9, 2002:

"The shape of the government is not as important as the policy of the government. If he makes the policy aggressive and pre-emptive, the president can conduct the war on terror from the National Gallery of Art."

To order, see the
Amazing Music Box & Gifts Company.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005  12:00 PM

Paratext:

A Birthday Gift for Barry Levinson
(born April 6, or maybe June 2, 1942)

The following excerpts from page 162*
in three different books
with Catholic backgrounds�
may or may not prove useful
to a film director.

Locution: Narrative Form   162 satires, forgeries, fakes parody illocutionary stance documentary novel pseudofactual fiction authorial reading history of the book Illocution: Pocket Catholic Dictionary 162 wisdom (sapientia) understanding (intellectus) knowledge (scientia) fortitude or courage (fortitudo) counsel (consilium) piety or love (pietas), and fear of the Lord (timor Domini)  Perlocution: The Nick Tosches Reader 162 Never play the pizza man for a fool.

� The seven items in the list from the

Pocket Catholic Dictionary are from the
definition of "Gifts of the Holy Spirit."

* The page number 162 may be regarded,
in honor of the late Saul Bellow
(see previous entry), as
Humboldt's Gift.

Wednesday, April 6, 2005  2:45 AM

"A corpse will be transported by express!"
— Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry (1947)

Tuesday, April 5, 2005  10:10 PM

Tuesday, April 5, 2005  8:00 PM

Tuesday, April 5, 2005  3:17 PM

At the Vatican on
Shakespeare's Birthday

(See Log24.net,
Oct. 4, 2002)

See also the iconology --
what Dan Brown in
The Da Vinci Code
  calls "symbology" --
of Pandora's Box
at Log24.net,
March 10, 2005:

"Notice how the Pope turns out to be
at the center of the breaking and
redefining of the Classical system."

"Derrida on Plato on writing says 'In order for these contrary values (good/evil, true/false, essence/appearance, inside/outside, etc.) to be in opposition, each of the terms must be simply EXTERNAL to the other, which means that one of these oppositions (the opposition between inside and outside) must already be accredited as the matrix of all possible opposition.' "

-- Peter J. Leithart

See also

Skewed Mirrors,
Sept. 14, 2003

"Evil did not  have the last word."
-- Richard John Neuhaus, April 4, 2005

Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the PARIS, 1922-1939

"There is never any ending to Paris."
-- Ernest Hemingway

For the first word, see Louis Armand on
Lethe, erinnerung, and riverrun.

See also the following passage,
linked to on the Easter Vigil, 2005:

You will find to the left of the House of Hades
    a spring,
And by the side thereof standing
    a white cypress.
To this spring approach not near.
But you shall find another,
    from the lake of Memory
Cold water flowing forth, and there are
    guardians before it.
Say, "I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven;
But my race is of Heaven alone.
    This you know yourselves.
But I am parched with thirst and I perish.
    Give me quickly
The cold water flowing forth
    from the lake of Memory."

Tuesday, April 5, 2005  1:28 AM

In the current historical situation,
who is Isaac and who is the goat?

“Anyone can create a pretty little bamboo garden in the world. But I doubt that the gardener would succeed in incorporating the world in his bamboo grove.”

Monday, April 4, 2005  4:04 AM

From a site titled Meaning of the Twentieth Century --

"Freeman Dyson has expressed some thoughts on craziness. In a Scientific American article called 'Innovation in Physics,' he began by quoting Niels Bohr. Bohr had been in attendance at a lecture in which Wolfgang Pauli proposed a new theory of elementary particles. Pauli came under heavy criticism, which Bohr summed up for him: 'We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that is not crazy enough.' To that Freeman added: 'When a great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer, himself, it will be only half understood; to everyone else, it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope!' "

-- Kenneth Brower, The Starship and the Canoe, 1979, pp. 146, 147

It is my hope that the speculation, implied in The Matthias Defense, that the number 162 has astonishing mystical properties (as a page number, article number, etc.) is sufficiently crazy to satisfy Pauli and his friend Jung as well as the more conventional thinkers Bohr and Dyson.

[si4] {sì} /to watch/to wait/to examine/to spy/
[si4] {sì} /to seem/to appear/similar/like/to resemble/
[si4] {sì} /until/wait for/
[si4] {sì} /rhinoceros indicus/
[si4] {sì} /four/
[si4] {sì} /(surname)/wife of older brother/
[si4] {sì} /Buddhist temple/
[si4] {sì} /6th earthly branch/9-11 a.m./
[si4] {sì} /stream which returns after branching/
[si4] {sì} /place name/snivel/
[si4] {sì} /offer sacrifice to/
[si4] {sì} /hamper/trunk/
[si4] {sì} /plough/ploughshare/
[si4] {sì} /four (fraud-proof)/market/
[si4] {sì} /to feed/
[si4] {sì} /to raise/to rear/to feed/
[si4] {sì} /team of 4 horses/
[si4 bai3 wan4] {sì bǎi w� n} /four million/
[si4 bai3 yi4] {sì bǎi yì} /40 billion/
[si4 cao2] {sì cáo} /feeding trough/
[si4 cao3] {sì cǎo} /forage grass/
[si4 chu4] {sì chù} /all over the place/everywhere and all directions/
[si4 chuan1] {sì chuān} /Sichuan province, China/
[si4 chuan1 sheng3] {sì chuān shěng} /(N) Sichuan, a south west China province/
[si4 de5] {sì de} /seem as if/rather like/
[si4 fang1] {sì fāng} /four-way/four-sided/
[si4 fen1 zhi1 yi1] {sì fēn zhī yī} /one-quarter/
[si4 fu2] {sì fú} /servo/
[si4 fu2 qi4] {sì fú qì} /server (computer)/
[si4 ge4 xiao3 shi2] {sì gè xiǎo shí} /four hours/
[si4 hu5] {sì hu} /apparently/to seem/to appear/as if/seemingly/
[si4 hu5 hen3 an1 quan2] {sì hu hěn ān quán} /to appear (to be) very safe/
[si4 ji1] {sì jī} /to watch for one's chance/
[si4 ji4] {sì jì} /(n) the four seasons/
[si4 liao4] {sì li� o} /feed/fodder/
[si4 lun2 ma3 che1] {sì lún mǎ chē} /chariot/
[si4 men2 jiao4 che1] {sì mén ji� o chē} /sedan (motor car)/
[si4 mian4 ba1 fang1] {sì mi� n bā fāng} /in all directions/all around/far and near/
[si4 mian4 ti3] {sì mi� n tǐ} /tetrahedron/
[si4 miao4] {sì mi� o} /temple/monastery/shrine/
[si4 nian2] {sì nián} /four years/
[si4 nian2 qian2] {sì nián qián} /four years previously/
[si4 nian2 zhi4 de5 da4 xue2] {sì nián zhì de d�  xué} /four-year university/
[si4 qian1] {sì qiān} /four thousand/4 000/
[si4 shi2] {sì shí} /forty/40/
[si4 shi2 duo1] {sì shí duō} /more than 40/
[si4 shi2 liu4] {sì shí liù} /forty six/46/
[si4 shi2 san1] {sì shí sān} /43/forty three/
[si4 shi4 er2 fei1] {sì shì ér fēi} /(saying) appeared right but actually was wrong/
[si4 tian1] {sì tiān} /four days/
[si4 xiao4 fei1 xiao4] {sì xi� o fēi xi� o} /(saying) resemble a smile yet not smile/
[si4 xue3] {sì xuě} /snowy/
[si4 yang3] {sì yǎng} /to raise/to rear/
[si4 yang3 zhe3] {sì yǎng zhě} /feeder/
[si4 yuan4] {sì yu� n} /cloister/
[si4 yue4] {sì yuè} /April/fourth month/
[si4 yue4 shi2 qi1 hao4] {sì yuè shí qī h� o} /April 17/
[si4 zhi1] {sì zhī} /(n) the four limbs of the body/
[si4 zhou1] {sì zhōu} /all around/

Sunday, April 3, 2005  11:11 PM

689

[fú] blessing, good fortune

Sunday, April 3, 2005  3:26 PM

Wager

Pennsylvania Lottery Daily Number
for yesterday evening,
Saturday, April 2, 2005:

613

Related material:

From 6/13 2004 --

An 8-rayed star:



Another 8-rayed star:



St. Peter's Square in Rome
 
From 6/13 2003 --

A link to a 2001 First Things essay,

The End of Endings:

"Here is the heart of the matter:

The underwriting of Hebraic–Hellenic literacy, of the normative analogue between divine and mortal acts of creation, was, in the fullest sense, theological. As was the wager (pronounced lost in deconstruction and postmodernism) on ultimate possibilities of accord between sign and sense, between word and meaning, between form and phenomenality. The links are direct between the tautology out of the Burning Bush, that 'I am' which accords to language the privilege of phrasing the identity of God, on the one hand, and the presumptions of concordance, of equivalence, of translatability, which, though imperfect, empower our dictionaries, our syntax, our rhetoric, on the other. That 'I am' has, as it were, at an overwhelming distance, informed all predication. It has spanned the arc between noun and verb, a leap primary to creation and the exercise of creative consciousness in metaphor. Where that fire in the branches has gone out or has been exposed as an optical illusion, the textuality of the world, the agency of the Logos in logic—be it Mosaic, Heraclitean, or Johannine—becomes 'a dead letter.'

That passage bears rereading."

-- Richard John Neuhaus quoting
   George Steiner's Grammars of Creation
   (Yale University Press, April 1, 2001)

Saturday, April 2, 2005  11:07 AM

Lucky (?) Numbers

"Mystery surrounds the death of young actor River Phoenix.... The actor... was declared dead at 1:51 a.m. PT Sunday. Phoenix died about 50 minutes after collapsing in front of the Viper Room, a new club on the Sunset Strip...."
-- Karen Thomas, USA Today,
    Monday, November 1, 1993

On the night of October 30-31, 1993, also known as Devil's Night, there was a full Hunter's Moon and the Pennsylvania Lottery number was 666.
-- Steven H. Cullinane, 03/20/01

"Do Catholics believe that when you die your soul goes up in the sky? To heaven, if they go to heaven?"
-- Hope of Heaven, by John O'Hara (1938),
    Carroll & Graf paperback, 1985, page 162

Friday, April 1, 2005  12:00 PM

Searched the web for "Joyce and Aquinas" "William T. Noon".  Results 1-5 of about 15:

Dogma
... Dogma, theological" -- entry in the index (paper, not marble) to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale U. Press 1957, 2nd printing 1963, page 162. ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-20-dogma.html - 9k 

The Matthias Defense
... Contemplatio: aesthetic joy of, 54-5" -- index to Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon, SJ, Yale University Press, second printing, 1963, page 162. ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-22-matthias.html - 6k 

Wag the Dogma
... One economy would be to teach the trivium using only one book -- Joyce and Aquinas, by William T. Noon (Yale, 1957), which ties together philology, logic, and ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-04-06-wag.html - 6k 

Shining Forth
... Please go away, Paz begged silently.... "De veras! It's so romantic!". -- Let Noon Be Fair William T. Noon, SJ, Chapter 4 of Joyce and Aquinas, Yale University ...
m759.freeservers.com/2001-03-15-shining.html - 10k 

Midsummer Eve's Dream
... notions... The quidditas or essence of an angel is the same as its form. (See William T. Noon, SJ, Joyce and Aquinas, Yale, 1957). ...
m759.freeservers.com/1995-06-23-midsummer.html - 12k

See also Monday's entry.

Friday, April 1, 2005  11:32 AM

Friday, April 1, 2005  12:00 AM

For graphic-novel fans:

The Cruellest Month