Round Lights

A link for the August 26 birthdays of

Rufino Tamayo and Julio Cortazar:

Homage to Thelonious Sphere Monk.

See also "Sphere" in Pynchon's V. 

Cruciatus in Crucem

From Battlefield Vacations, Edinburgh:

On the film "Braveheart" --

If you've ever wondered about what exactly "drawn and quartered" means, there's a good demonstration at the end.

August 23: Feast Day of St. William Wallace

See The Great Man Himself

and The William Wallace Directory Page.

As Blake Well Knew 

From The New York Times:

Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, whose contributions to the mathematical logic that underlies computer programs and operating systems make him one of the intellectual giants of the field, died on [August 6, 2002] at his home in Nuenen, the Netherlands. He was 72....

Dr. Dijkstra is best known for his shortest-path algorithm, a method for finding the most direct route on a graph or map....

The shortest-path algorithm, which is now widely used in global positioning systems and travel planning, came to him one morning in 1956 as he sat sipping coffee on the terrace of an Amsterdam cafe.

It took him three years to publish the method, which is now known simply as Dijkstra's algorithm. At the time, he said, algorithms were hardly considered a scientific topic.

From my August 6, 2002, note below:

...right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew...

-- Malcolm Lowry, 1947, Under the Volcano

Here's Your Sign

Last night, reading the 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture  by
Octavio Paz, I was struck by the fact that he was describing, in his
own life and in the life of his culture, what might best be called a
"fall from grace."

I thought of putting this phrase in a journal entry, but decided
that it sounded too hokey, in a faux-pious sort of way -- as, indeed,
does most Christian discourse. 

I was brought up short when I read the morning paper, which, in a
review of the new Mel Gibson movie "Signs," described Gibson's
character's "fall from grace" in those exact words. 

    The Paz lecture dealt with his childhood, which seemed to him to take place in a realm without time:

"All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence.
Space transformed itself ceaselessly. The beyond was here, all was
here: a valley, a mountain, a distant country, the neighbours' patio."

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.

For me, the appropriate framework is philological rather than
theological.  Paz begins his lecture with remarks on giving
thanks... gracias, in Spanish.   This is, of course, another word for graces, and
is what prompted me to think of the phrase "fall from grace" when
reading Paz.    For a less academic approach to the
graces, see the film "Some Girls," also released under the title "Sisters."  This is the most profoundly Catholic film I have ever seen.

A still from "Some Girls":

Family Values

In honor of

Pope St. Sixtus II,

Pope St. Hormisdas,

Pope Callistus III, and

Pope Paul VI,

all of whom died on this date:

Bouncing butterflies...

A music box butterfly tune...

A lavender love butterfly vignette...

Bob Lind himself sings...

If you remember something there

That glided past you,

Followed close by heavy breathing,

Don't be concerned.  It will not harm you;

It's only me, pursuing something

I'm not sure of.

and a

Grand Finale!

But seriously...

A few words in memory of a great mathematician, André Weil, who died on August 6, 1998: 

"I wonder if it is because to-night my soul has really died that I feel at the moment something like peace. Or is it because right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew, and though I may not take it, sometimes lately in dreams I have been able to see it?"

-- Malcolm Lowry, 1947, Under the Volcano

There is a link on the Grand Finale site above to a site on British Columbia, which to Lowry symbolized heaven on earth. See also my website Shining Forth, the title of which is not unrelated to the August 6, 1993 encyclical of Pope John Paul II.

August 6: Feast of the Metamorphosis

Adapted from Brief Exhortations:

Geneva Bible:

Romans 12:2 ² And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed  [metamorphosized]  by the renewing of your ^f mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

The word "transformed" is from the Greek word " metamorphe," (to transform or change) and is found only in the above verse, in Matthew 17:2 ...

Geneva Bible:

Matthew 17:2  And was ^b transfigured  [metamorphosized]  before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

and in Mark 9:2 ...

Geneva Bible:

Mark 9:2 ¹
And after six days Jesus taketh [with him] Peter, and James, and John,
and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he
was transfigured  [metamorphosized]  before them.  

where
it is used of the transfiguration of Jesus. It is used in biology with
reference to the change of the worm to the butterfly.

Note by S. H. Cullinane, August 6, 2002:

For more on the Geneva (Shakespeare's) Bible, see Michael Brown's Introduction.

Veritatis Splendor

Black Holes 

Conclusion of the Nobel Prize lecture of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on December 8, 1983:

The mathematical theory of black holes is a subject of immense complexity; but its study has convinced me of the basic truth of the ancient mottoes,

The simple is the seal of the true

and

Beauty is the splendour of truth.

White Holes

Statement by Karol Wojtyla on August 6, 1993: 

The splendour of truth shines forth in all the works of the Creator and, in a special way, in man, created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26).

Wojtyla, who apparently prefers folk-tales to truth, may appreciate the website White Hole Theory at the World University Library. 

Is the Pope Catholic?

The World University Library furnishes an answer to the question that has long troubled many:  Is the Pope Catholic?

According to Catholic.com,

The Greek roots of the term "Catholic" mean "according to (kata-) the whole (holos)," or more colloquially, "universal."

Upon comparing the contents of the World University Library with the contents of Wojtyla's 1993 statement, it becomes apparent that the World University Library is catholic (i.e., universal), but the Pope is not.  

What is Truth?     In honor of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Niels Henrik Abel, a partial answer:

Elliptic Curves and Modular Forms 

and the introductory work,

Elliptic Curves: 

Function Theory, Geometry, Arithmetic, 

by Henry McKean and Victor Moll

After the Fall

"We're in a war of words."

-- Andy Rooney, undated column 

Photo credit - Graham Kuhn

I've heard of affairs that are strictly plutonic,
But diamonds are a girl's best friend!

-- Marilyn Monroe, modeling a Freudian slip 

You may have noticed at Strike Force Centre or at StrikeForce.dk that "After the Fall" will be released as a Team Deathmatch map for Strike Force.

-- Plutonic Design

Today's birthday:  Fiddler Mark O'Connor.

A Ken Burns Catechism

Q - How do you get to Ashokan?

A - Take a left at Beaverkill Road.

Recommended listening:

 "The Devil Comes Back to Georgia," 

"House of the Rising Sun," and

"Ashokan Farewell," on

Mark O'Connor's Heroes album.