From the journal of Steven H. Cullinane...
2007 April 16-30
Monday, April 30, 2007
6:24 PM
Structural Logic continued:
Structure and Logic
The phrase "structural logic" in yesterday's entry was applied to Bach's cello suites. It may equally well be applied to geometry. In particular:
"The
aim of this thesis is to classify certain structures which are, from a
certain point of view, as homogeneous as possible, that is which have
as many symmetries as possible."
-- Alice Devillers, "Classification of Some Homogeneous and Ultrahomogeneous Structures," Ph.D. thesis, Université Libre de Bruxelles, academic year 2001-2002
Related material: 
The above models for the corresponding projective spaces may be regarded as illustrating the phrase "structural logic."
For a possible application of the 16-point space's "many symmetries" to logic proper, see
The Geometry of Logic.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
7:00 AM
Structural Logic
Rite 
"The
coffin of the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich seen inside
Christ the Savior Cathedral during a farewell ceremony in Moscow,
Sunday, April 29, 2007. Hundreds of Russians on Sunday came to bid
final farewell to the great cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich
who won world fame for his masterly play and his courage in defending
human rights. Rostropovich, who fought for the rights of Soviet-era
dissidents and later triumphantly played Bach suites below the
crumbling Berlin Wall, died Friday at age 80. (AP Photo/Mikhail
Metzel)" --
AP News
"His graceful accounts of the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello
illuminated the works’ structural logic as well as their inner
spirituality." --Allan Kozinn in Friday's New York Times
Saturday, April 28, 2007
11:07 PM
Times and Chance continued:
Cubism 
See last year's
entries for
5/10 --
My Space 
and for
2/23 --
Cubist Epiphany
"This is a crazy world and
the only way to enjoy it
is to treat it as a joke."
-- Robert A. Heinlein,
The Number of the Beast
Friday, April 27, 2007
9:48 PM
Roll Credits
Production Credits: Thanks to the
Pennsylvania Lottery for
today's suggestion of links
to the dates 9/15 and 6/06--
-- and to
Hermann Weyl for the illustration
from 6/06 (D-Day) underlying the
following "gold medal"
from 9/15, 2006:
.
Friday, April 27, 2007
1:00 PM
Valentine
It's still the
same old story...
From today's online
New York Times:
Photo by Carol T. Powers
for The New York Times
Also in today's online Times:
"Mstislav Rostropovich,
a cellist and conductor who was renowned not only as one of the great
instrumentalists of the 20th century, but also as an outspoken champion
of artistic freedom in Russia during the final decades of the Cold War,
died in Moscow today. He was 80 and lived in Paris, with homes in
Moscow, St. Petersburg, London and Lausanne, Switzerland....
Mr. Rostropovich... was widely known by his diminutive, Slava (which means glory in Russian)...."
Related material:
I. "Established on 8 November 1943, the Order of Glory (Orden Slavy - Орден Славы) was an Order (decoration) of the Soviet Union.... The Order of Glory... was modelled closely upon the Tsarist Cross of St. George...." --Wikipedia
II. Also on the 8th of November, in 2006 and 2002: Grave Matters and Religious Symbolism at Princeton.
III. "Mr. Rostropovich will be buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery, where on Wednesday his friend, Boris Yeltsin, post-Soviet Russia’s first president, was laid to rest." --New York Times
IV. "A graveyard smash." --Bobby (Boris) Pickett, who died Wednesday.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
10:30 PM
The Crimson Passion continues...
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
9:00 AM
Memorial
Monday, April 23, 2007
10:15 PM
Exit Strategy, continued
Monday, April 23, 2007
2:45 AM
ART WARS for Shakespeare's Birthday
Ben Brantley in this morning's New York Times:
"Television mows down a titan in 'Frost/Nixon,' the briskly entertaining new play by Peter Morgan*
about the 1977 face-off between its title characters, the British talk
show host (as in David) and the former American president (as in
Richard M.)....
Structured as a prize fight between two starkly
ambitious men in professional crisis, 'Frost/Nixon' makes it clear that
the competitor who controls the camera reaps the spoils."
Another application of this
"control the camera" philosophy:
the multimedia manifesto of
the Virginia Tech author of
"Richard McBeef"
(a play excerpted above).
(of "Frost/Nixon," not of "Richard McBeef")--
"[The
author] had a particularly difficult time connecting with his peers...
due in large part to the language barrier, which made communication
with classmates nearly impossible. Though standing apart from the pack
can at times be a deeply troubling experience for a youngster, it
provided the imaginative [author] with a unique perspective not
afforded to the vast majority of his peers."
Sunday, April 22, 2007
8:31 PM
Welcome to the Cave
Built
continued from
March 25, 2006
In honor of Scarlett Johansson's recent London films "Match Point" and "Scoop," here is a link to an entry of Women's History Month, 2006,
with a discussion of an exhibition of the works of artist Liza Lou at
London's White Cube Gallery. That entry includes the following
illustrations:
Sunday, April 22, 2007
11:09 AM
Shine On continued:
Shine On, Hermann Weyl --
"Be on the lookout for
Annie Dillard's sequel to
Teaching a Stone to Talk, titled
Teaching a Brick to Sing."
William Butler Yeats --
"Poets and Wits about him drew;
'What then?' sang Plato's ghost.
'What then?'
'The work is done,'
grown old he thought,
'According to my boyish plan;
Let the fools rage,
I swerved in naught,
Something to perfection brought';
But louder sang that ghost,
'What then?'"
Duet
Scarlett Johansson --
"Let's give 'em somethin'
to talk about,
A little mystery
to figure out"
(Saturday Night Live,
April 21, 2007)
Plato's ghost --
"The clothes she wears,
the sexy ways,
Make an old man wish
for younger days
She knows she's built
and knows how to please
Sho 'nuff can knock
a strong man to his knees
She's a brick... house...
Mighty mighty,
just lettin' it all hang out
She's a brick... house...
The lady's stacked
and that's a fact,
Ain't holdin' nothin' back.
Shake it down,
shake it down now" |
Saturday, April 21, 2007
8:23 PM
Shine On
Epigraphs to
The Shining:
Friday, April 20, 2007
10:31 PM
Speech and Multispeech
Speech
In Grand Rapids today...
"...
Bush spoke and answered audience questions for nearly 90 minutes inside
East Grand Rapids High School in suburban Grand Rapids....
After leaving the school, Bush's motorcade stopped at the Gerald R.
Ford Presidential Museum in downtown Grand Rapids, where he stood
silently for a few moments after placing a bouquet of white roses at
Ford's burial site on the museum grounds. The 38th president, who grew
up in Grand Rapids, died Dec. 26 at age 93."
Friday, April 20, 2007
11:07 AM
Columbine Day
Icons
Part I
The Library of Congress
Today in History, April 20:
"American sculptor Daniel Chester French was born in Exeter, New Hampshire on April 20, 1850. His colossal seated figure of Abraham Lincoln presides over the Lincoln Memorial. Reared in Cambridge and Concord, Massachusetts, he was embraced by members of the Transcendentalist community including Ralph Waldo Emerson. Author and fellow Concord resident Louisa May Alcott encouraged young French to pursue a career as an artist. Louisa's sister, artist May Alcott, was his early teacher. French studied in Boston and New York prior to receiving his first commission for the 1875 statue The Minute Man.
Standing near the North Bridge in Concord, in the Minute Man National
Historical Park, this work commemorates events at the North Bridge, the
site of 'the shot heard 'round the world.' An American icon, images
derivative of The Minute Man statue appeared on defense bonds, stamps, and posters during World War II." |
Saturday, April 14, 2007 4:30 AM The Sun Also Sets, or...
This Way to
the Egress
Continued from April 12:
"I have only come here
seeking knowledge,
Things they would not
teach me of in college...."
-- Synchronicity lyrics
Quoted in Log24,
Time's Labyrinth continued:
"The
sacred axe was used to kill the King. The ritual had been the same
since the beginning of time. The game of chess was merely a
reenactment. Why hadn't I recognized it before?"
-- Katherine Neville,
The Eight,
Ballantine reprint, 1990,
|
"Know the one about
the Demiurge and the
Abridgment of Hope?"
-- Robert Stone,
A Flag for Sunrise,
Knopf, 1981,
the final page
|
Thursday, April 19, 2007
12:06 AM
Drama Workshop
Acting Out
From the Library of Congress:
On April 19,
1775, troops under the command of Brigadier General Hugh Percy played
"Yankee Doodle" as they marched from Boston to reinforce British
soldiers already fighting the Americans at Lexington and Concord. Whether sung or played on that occasion, the tune was martial and intended to deride the colonials:
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him
And so we will John Hancock.
(CHORUS)
Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Mind the Music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
There are numerous conflicting accounts of the origin of "Yankee
Doodle." Some credit its melody to an English air, others to Irish,
Dutch, Hessian, Hungarian and Pyrenean tunes or a New England jig....
"Yankee Doodle" was well known in the New England colonies before
Lexington and Concord but only after the skirmishes there did the
American militia appropriate it. Tradition holds that the colonials
began to sing it as they forced the British back to Boston on April 19, 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord. It is documented that the Americans sang the following verse at Bunker Hill:
Father and I went down to camp,
along with Captain Good'in,
And there we see the men and boys
as thick as hasty puddin'.
From 30 Rock:
"Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.''
"It's not for me. For my children, for my brothers and sisters... I did it for them.''
From Log24:
Eureka!
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
2:00 PM
Playwriting Class
Monday, April 16, 2007
4:01 PM
Happy Birthday, Benedict XVI...
The Abridgment of Hope
Part I: Framework
From Log24,
Here's Your Sign,
Aug. 8, 2002--
"Paz
also mentions the Christian concept of eternity as a realm outside
time, and discusses what happened to modern thought after it abandoned
the concept of eternity.
Naturally, many writers have dealt with the subject of time, but it seems particularly part of the Zeitgeist
now, with a new Spielberg film about precognition. My own small
experience, from last night until today, may or may not have been
precognitive. I suspect it's the sort of thing that many people often
experience, a sort of 'So that's what that was about' feeling. Traditionally, such experience has been expressed in terms of a theological framework."
Part II: Context
From Ann Copeland,
"Faith and Fiction-Making:
The Catholic Context"--
"Each of us is living out a once-only story which, unlike those
mentioned here, has yet to reveal its ending. We live that story
largely in the dark. From time to time we may try to plumb its
implications, to decipher its latent design, or at least get a glimmer
of how parts go together. Occasionally, a backward glance may suddenly
reveal implications, an evolving pattern we had not discerned, couldn't
have when we were 'in' it. Ah, now I see what I was about, what I
was after."
Part III: Context Sensitivity
From Wikipedia--
Another definition of context-sensitive grammars defines them as formal grammars where all productions are of the form
 Such a grammar is also called a monotonic or noncontracting grammar because none of the rules decreases the size of the string that is being rewritten. If
the possibility of adding the empty string to a language is added to
the strings recognized by the noncontracting grammars (which can never
include the empty string) then the languages in these two definitions
are identical. |
Part IV: Abridgment
"Know the one about the Demiurge and the Abridgment of Hope?"
-- Robert Stone, A Flag for Sunrise, Knopf, 1981, the final page, 439
Also from Stone's novel, quoted by Ann Copeland in the above essay:
You after all? Inside, outside, round and about. Disappearing stranger, trickster. Christ, she thought, so far. Far from where? But why always so far? "Por qué?" she asked. There was a guy yelling. Always
so far away. You. Always so hard on the kid here, making me be me right
down the line. You old destiny. You of Jacob, you of Isaac, of Esau. Let it be you after all. Whose after all I am. For whom I was nailed. So she said to Campos: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." (416) |
