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:

New models of some small finite spaces

In Devillers's words, the above spaces with 8 and 16 points are among those structures that have "as many symmetries as possible." For more details on what this means, see Devillers's thesis and Finite Geometry of the Square and Cube.

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

Rostropovich at Christ the Savior Cathedral

"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

PA Lottery April 28, 2007: Midday 510, Evening 223

See last year's   
entries for 5/10 --

My Space


4x4x4 cube

and for 2/23 --

Cubist Epiphany

4x4x4 cube


"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--

PA lottery April 27, 2007: Midday 915, Evening 606

-- and to
Hermann Weyl
for the illustration
from 6/06 (D-Day)
underlying the
following "gold medal"
from 9/15, 2006:

Medal of 9/15/06
.

Friday, April 27, 2007  1:00 PM

Valentine

It's still the
same old story...


From today's online
New York Times:

Jack Valenti, Confidant of
President and Stars, Dies


The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07/070427-Valenti2.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

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.

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07/070427-Valentine.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

"There is never any
ending to Paris...."
-- Ernest Hemingway,  
A Moveable Feast 
 

Wednesday, April 25, 2007  10:30 PM

The Crimson Passion continues...

Religion at Harvard
continued from
Devil's Night, 2006


Harvard Crimson, April 24-25, 2007

Click image to enlarge.


Related material:

I
Yesterday morning's entry
(on David Halberstam)
with its link to Log24
entries of 2005 on

II
The Way of the Pilgrim
(Nov. 28-29, 2005),
and

III
Orville Schell, dean of Berkeley's
Graduate School of Journalism,
on a dinner following a lecture
by Halberstam at Berkeley
on Saturday night, April 21:

"No one wanted to leave.
It was kind of like
the Last Supper."


See also
The Crimson Passion.


Tuesday, April 24, 2007  9:00 AM

Memorial

Quote

Pilgrim's Progress and David Halberstam

"You're a persistent cuss, Pilgrim."
-- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 

Related material:

Log24, Nov. 28-29, 2005


Monday, April 23, 2007  10:15 PM

Exit Strategy, continued

David Halberstam dies in car crash

Halberstam wrote
 
The Best and the Brightest.


Monday, April 23, 2007  2:45 AM

ART WARS for Shakespeare's Birthday

Understanding Media
continued from Nov. 28, 2003


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."

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07/070423-Langella.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

Another application of this
"control the camera" philosophy:
the multimedia manifesto of
the Virginia Tech author of
"Richard McBeef"
(a play excerpted above).
 
The New York Times on the author
  (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:

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06/060325-WhiteCube.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

This work might aptly be
  retitled "Brick Shithouse."

Related material:

The artist's self-portrait

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06/060325-LizaLouSelfPortrait.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

See also this morning's entry --

"She's a brick... house...
The lady's stacked
   and that's a fact,
Ain't holdin' nothin' back."

-- and last year's entry
on this date:

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix06/060422-Johansson1.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

"Her wallet's filled with pictures,
She gets 'em one by one."

The bricks and "white cube"
above and in this morning's entry
may be contrasted with the
bricks of Diamonds and Whirls
and the cube of On Beauty.

  Poetic allusions such as these
may help provide
entertainment in the afterlife
for Beavis, Butt-Head, and
other inmates of Plato's Cave:

The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix07/070328-PlatoCave.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

"The Garden of Eden is behind us
and there is no road back to innocence;
we can only go forward."

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh,
Earth Shine, p. xii


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 Talktitled
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:


The image “http://www.log24.com/log/pix05B/051231-Shining.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

-- Stephen King

Daisy May Erlewine

Shine on... shine on...  
There is work to be done
     in the dark before dawn
There is work to be done
    so you've got to shine on

-- Daisy May Erlewine of
    Big Rapids, Michigan

Related material:

Shine On, Hermann Weyl
and
the five Log24 entries of
Saturday, April 14, 2007



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."


Multispeech

Mich. Lottery Apr. 20, 2007: Day 019, Night 001

For the meaning of the lottery icons
above, see this morning's entry and
an entry that it links to --
Time's Labyrinth continued --
of March 8, 2007.

For the meaning of multispeech,
see the entries of
All Hallows' Eve, 2005:

Tesseract on the cover of The Gameplayers of Zan
 
"There is such a thing
as a tesseract."
-- A Wrinkle in Time 


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."


Part II:

Entertainment Weekly,

November 7, 2003 --

Keanu Reeves, Entertainment Weekly, Nov. 7, 2003

Part III:

Log24 on the anniversary of
Lincoln's assassination --


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


Part IV:

Log24 entry of

November 7, 2003
--

Nixon's the One button

-- and a
student play from
Virginia Tech:

Play by Virginia Tech student

Part V:


Symmetry
for Beavis and Butt-Head

and
The Rhetoric of Scientism:

It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought,
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you'll be taught.

-- Oscar Hammerstein,
"Getting to Know You"


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:

James Cagney and Herald Square peace march ad

Eureka!

Max Bialystock discovers a new playwright


Wednesday, April 18, 2007  2:00 PM

Playwriting Class

Vigil

Candlelight vigil at Virginia Tech, April 17, 2007

Andrew Russell, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Candlelight vigil at Virginia Tech,
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

VA lottery April 17, 2007: Day 826, Night 102.

Virginia Lottery, Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Candlelight Vigil, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

"I love those Bavarians... so meticulous."

-- "In the Garden of Allah"

Click on images to enlarge.


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 Log24's
Language Game,
Jan. 14, 2004--


Ludwig Wittgenstein,
Philosophical Investigations:
373. Grammar tells what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar.)

From Wikipedia--

Another definition of context-sensitive grammars defines them as formal grammars where all productions are of the form

a yields b where the length of a is less than or equal to the length of b

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)