Practice, Man, Practice
Andrew Carnegie | Born today: Born yesterday or today, depending on |
for the time being, to honor Patti LaBelle's performances
at Carnegie Hall.
Month: November 2002
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The Artist's Signature
This title is taken from the final chapter of Carl Sagan's novel Contact.
"There might be a game in which paper figures were put together to form a story, or at any rate were somehow assembled. The materials might be collected and stored in a scrap-book, full of pictures and anecdotes. The child might then take various bits from the scrap-book to put into the construction; and he might take a considerable picture because it had something in it which he wanted and he might just include the rest because it was there.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief
“Not games. Puzzles. Big difference. That’s a whole other matter. All art — symphonies, architecture, novels — it’s all puzzles. The fitting together of notes, the fitting together of words have by their very nature a puzzle aspect. It’s the creation of form out of chaos. And I believe in form.”
— Stephen Sondheim, in Stephen Schiff, Deconstructing Sondheim,” The New Yorker, March 8, 1993, p. 76
"All goods in this world, all beauties, all truths, are diverse and partial aspects of one unique good. Therefore they are goods which need to be ranged in order. Puzzle games are an image of this operation. Taken all together, viewed from the right point and rightly related, they make an architecture. Through this architecture the unique good, which cannot be grasped, becomes apprehensible. All architecture is a symbol of this, an image of this. The entire universe is nothing but a great metaphor."
— Simone Weil, sister of Princeton mathematician André Weil, First and Last Notebooks, p. 98
This passage from Weil is quoted in
Gateway to God,
p. 42, paperback, fourth impression,
printed in Glasgow in 1982 by
Fontana Books
"He would leave enigmatic messages on blackboards,
signed Ya Ya Fontana."
— Brian Hayes on John Nash,
The Sciences magazine, Sept.-Oct., 1998
"I have a friend who is a Chief of the Aniunkwia (Cherokee) people and I asked him the name of the Creator in which
he replied... Ya Ho Wah. This is also how it is spoken in Hebrew. In my native language it is spoken
Ya Ya*,
which is also what Moses was told
at the 'Burning Bush' incident."
— "Tank" (of Taino ancestry), Bronx, NY, Wednesday, April 17, 2002
From a website reviewing books published by
Fontana:
"Master and Commander (Patrick O'Brian)"
1/17/02: NEW YORK (Variety) - Russell Crowe is negotiating to star in 20th Century Fox's "Master and Commander,'' the Peter Weir-directed adaptation of the Patrick O'Brian book series.
Hmmm.
*For another religious interpretation of this phrase, see my note of October 4, 2002, "The Agony and the Ya-Ya."
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In honor of
William F. Buckley's birthday
Results of a Google search -
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 - Nov. 23, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
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 - Nov. 23, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
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 - Nov. 23, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
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 - Nov. 23, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
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 - Nov. 23, 2002 - Cached - Similar pages
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Pie
"According to the Bible, the ancient Hebrews had apparently thought that pi was exactly equal to three."
"The three men I admire the most,
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.*"
Those days are not entirely forgotten in Texas.
*November 22 is the feast day of
Saint Cecelia, celebrated by Chaucer
in the Second Nun's Tale.
Trivia quiz: What is the world's
most popular piece of music? -
Trinity
On this date in 1963...
- Father: C. S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man),
- Son: John F. Kennedy ("Grace under Pressure" -- displayed, not written), and
- Holy Spirit: Aldous Huxley (The Perennial Philosophy)
all died.
On the bright side:
On this date, Tarzan (John Clayton III, the future Lord Greystoke) was born and Ravel's "Bolero" was first performed.
- Father: C. S. Lewis (The Abolition of Man),
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In memory of Arthur T. Winfree:
Time, Eternity, and Grace
Professor Arthur T. Winfree died on November 5, 2002.
He was the author of "The Geometry of Biological Time."
- Charles Small (see the earlier entry "Hope of Heaven," November 21):
"I've always been enthralled by the notion that Time is an illusion, a trick our minds play in an attempt to keep things separate, without any reality of its own. My experience suggests that this is literally true...."
- Kylie Minogue in my November 5 entry:
"Time disappears with Tequila.
It goes elastic, then vanishes."
- Octavio Paz on his childhood in Mexico
(Nobel Prize lecture):
"All time, past or future, real or imaginary, was pure presence."
- A colleague on Professor Winfree:
"He just wanted to get to the truth."
- Octavio Paz, condensed and translated
Nobel Prize lecture:
"Gracias."
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Pray
This brief heading echoes the title of the latest novel by Michael Crichton, perhaps the best-known member of the Harvard College class of 1964. In honor of that class and of Q (see the preceding entry), here is a condensed excerpt from a passage of Plato quoted by Q:
Socrates. 'Should we not, before going, offer up a prayer to these local deities?’
'By all means,’ Phaedrus agrees.
Socrates (praying): ‘Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, grant me beauty in the inward soul, and that the outward and inward may be at one!....
That prayer, I think, is enough for me.’
Phaedrus. ‘Ask the same for me, Socrates. Friends, methinks, should have all things in common.’
Socrates. ‘So be it…. Let us go.’
In accordance with this prayer, and with the coming of summer to Australia, that land beloved of Pan, this site's music now returns to the theme introduced in my note of September 10, 2002, "The Sound of Hanging Rock."
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