Presbyterian Poets Society

The Wrinkle in Time link in my previous entry led to a sermon for St. Andrew's day, 2003, at the Riviera Presbyterian Church in Miami.

I belong to no church, but have a vague recollection of being confirmed in the Presbyterian church in early adolescence.  That ceremony meant nothing to me then, and means nothing to me now.  It was the culmination of fitful attendance at Presbyterian Sunday School, which I recall, reluctantly, only as a course of training in ugliness, lies, and stupidity.

There seems, however, to be a paradox here.  The same religion I so detested seems to have inspired in others works of beauty, truth, and intelligence.    

To wit, three poets, each with a Presbyterian background:

Robinson Jeffers

Wallace Stevens

Marianne Moore.

It may be that I am becoming reconciled to the religion that was urged upon me in my youth... becoming, at last, a Riviera Presbyterian.

For more details,
click on the above picture.

Literary Archaeology

"Mrs. Who's spectacles shone out
at them triumphantly,
'And the light shineth in darkness;
and the darkness
comprehended it not.' "
-- A Wrinkle in Time

See, too,

Shining Forth and

 The Shining of May 29.

To Be

A Jesuit cites Quine:

"To be is to be the value of a variable."

-- Willard Van Orman Quine, cited by Joseph T. Clark, S. J., in Conventional Logic and Modern Logic: A Prelude to Transition,  Woodstock, MD: Woodstock College Press, 1952, to which Quine contributed a preface.

Quine died in 2000 on Xmas Day. 

From a July 26, 2003, entry,
The Transcendent Signified,
on an essay by mathematician
Michael Harris:

Kubrick's monolith

Harris's slab

From a December 10, 2003, entry:

Putting Descartes Before Dehors

      

"Descartes déclare que c'est en moi, non hors de moi, en moi, non dans le monde, que je pourrais voir si quelque chose existe hors de moi."

-- ATRIUM, Philosophie

For further details, see ART WARS.

The above material may be regarded as commemorating the March 31 birth of René Descartes and death of H. S. M. Coxeter.

For further details, see

Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star.

The Horn at Midnight

(See the two previous entries.)

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4:

HORATIO

I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET

No, it is struck.

HORATIO

Indeed? I heard it not:
    then it draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held
    his wont to walk.

A flourish of trumpets,
and ordnance shot off, within

What does this mean, my lord?

............................................

HORATIO

Look, my lord, it comes!

Enter Ghost

HAMLET

Angels and ministers of grace
    defend us!
___________________________

In memory of
Peter Ustinov and Alistair Cooke

 

From today's New York Times:

Mr. Cooke's daughter contacted Mr. Cooke's biographer to inform him of her father's death at midnight [on the night of March 29-March 30, 2004].

ANGEL 

On Peter Ustinov, also from the New York Times:

"He received [an Emmy for his role] as Socrates in 'Barefoot in Athens' in 1966."

The Times on "Barefoot in Athens":

"Socrates falls from grace, and becomes the lone voice of democracy amongst the corruption of his fellow Athenians in this television adaptation of Maxwell Anderson's play."

MINISTER OF GRACE

On Alistair Cooke in today's Times:

"At Jesus College, Cambridge, Mr. Cooke edited a literary magazine, put on plays and acted in them as a co-founder of the Cambridge Mummers, and pursued a rigorous social life....

Quiller-Couch taught him about writing."

GRACE

For more on Jesus College, Quiller-Couch, Socrates, and grace, see

The Circle is Unbroken.

Something is Rotten

See Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4.

"... the administration's reaction to Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies provides more evidence of something rotten in the state of our government."

-- Paul Krugman as Marcellus
 in today's New York Times

Krugman is among those now using the ominous phrase "abuse of power."  He closes with a Nixon-related thought:

"Where will it end?  In his new book, Worse Than Watergate, John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, 'I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy.' "

Banach's Birthday

"A mathematician is a person who can find analogies between theorems; a better mathematician is one who can see analogies between proofs and the best mathematician can notice analogies between theories. One can imagine that the ultimate mathematician is one who can see analogies between analogies."

-- Stefan Banach, according to MacTutor.

The quotation is perhaps taken from Through a Reporter's Eyes: The Life of Stefan Banach, by Roman Kauza (a.k.a. Roman Kaluza).

"What we today call 'Banach spaces' are called 'spaces of type (B)' in Banach's book." -- Sheldon Axler

American Heaven

Headlines from today's Google News:

Singer Jan Berry, 62; Half of Surf Music Duo

Screeching for heaven at Mach 7

March 25 news story:

"The promise of 70 virgins in paradise and the equivalent of about $20 was all it took to convince a Palestinian teenager to turn himself into a suicide bomber..."

A more modest paradise, from a Jan Berry obituary today:

With Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, William Jan Berry co-wrote the lyrics for "Surf City" with its lines about taking the station wagon to a place where there are "two girls for every boy."*

* Theological footnote for feminists:
In some other regions of American Heaven, there may be two boys for every girl.

Real Enemies, Part II

"Even paranoids have real enemies."
-- Saying attributed to Delmore Schwartz

Hamas leader says Bush
is the 'enemy' of God and Islam

-- Headline, USA Today, March 28, 2004

Real Enemies, Part I

"Even paranoids have real enemies."
-- Saying attributed to Delmore Schwartz

According to the Washington Post and Newsday today, the President's persecutors now include

Paul O'Neill,
   formerly Bush's Treasury Secretary

Richard A. Clarke,
   formerly Bush's counterterrorism chief

Rand Beers,
   Bush's counterterrorism chief after Clarke

Flynt Leverett,
   former member of the Bush national security staff

Richard Foster,
   Bush Medicare accountant

John DiIulio,
   former director of Bush's faith-based initiatives

"Others who have fallen out of favor over Iraq include former economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni and former Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Shinseki. All voiced concerns about either the expense or number of troops needed to occupy Iraq. All were treated dismissively by the White House. All are gone, but their estimates proved accurate....

Not every White House attempt at damage-control works. Last summer, White House officials tried to pin the blame on CIA Director George Tenet for not waving Bush off his State of the Union claim that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons.

Political analysts rushed to proclaim Tenet a goner, but those obituaries proved premature."

-- Tom Raum in Newsday today

President Queeg

"Over the weekend, Richard A. Clarke, Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator, said Bush focused too little attention on al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and too much on Iraq afterward.

Clarke detailed his allegations in a book released yesterday. In it, he echoes criticism of Bush's judgment and fixation on Iraq that were leveled by former Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill in his book, which was published in January."

-- Jim VandeHei, Washington Post,
    March 23, 2004

"Pity poor George Bush. For some reason, he has been beset by delusional aides who, once they leave the White House, write books containing lies and exaggerations and -- this is the lowest blow of all -- do not take into account the president's genius and all-around wisdom."

-- "Bush, Clarke and A Shred of Doubt,"
    Richard Cohen, Washington Post,
    March 23, 2004

 

"He was no different than any officer in the wardroom -- they were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn.

... Naturally, I can only cover these things from memory...  If I've left anything out, why, just ask me specific questions and I'll be glad to answer them... one-by-one..."

-- The Caine Mutiny

(With apologies to Paul Krugman... See Krugman's column on President Queeg from March 14 last year -- abstract or full text.)