Ennui

May there be
an ennui
   of the first idea?
What else, prodigious scholar,
   should there
be?

-- Wallace Stevens,
   "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction"

Related material: The Line.

Order and Ennui

Meanwhile, back at the Institute for Advanced Study:

May 25, 4:40 PM --
Research Seminar
(Simonyi Hall Seminar Room) --
Pirita Paajanen,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem:
Zeta functions of
finitely generated infinite groups

Some background cited by Paajanen:

M.P.F. du Sautoy, "Zeta functions of groups: The quest for order versus
the flight from ennui," Groups St Andrews 2001 - in Oxford, Volume 1,
CUP 2003.

Those who prefer the showbiz approach to mathematics (the flight from ennui?) may enjoy a website giving further background from du Sautoy.

Exhibit A:
A science vulgarizer in today's New York Times--

In the Quest for Coolness, Science Could Really Use a Vito Corleone

"Somewhere out there, more elusive than a snow
leopard, more vaunted in its imagined cultural oomph than an Oprah book
blurb, is the Science Movie.

You
know, the film that finally does for science and scientists what 'The
Godfather' did for crime and what 'The West Wing' did for politics,
accurately reproducing the grandeur and grit of science while ushering
its practitioners into the ranks of coolness."

-- Dennis Overbye

Exhibit B:

John Updike's review in the May 22 New Yorker of a new novel by Michel Houellebecq, The Possibility of an Island--

"Nor is Houellebecq.... entirely without literary virtue.  His four novels-- Whatever (1994), The Elementary Particles (1998), and Platform
(2001) are the three others-- display a grasp of science and
mathematics beyond that of all but a few non-genre novelists."

A character in the new novel-- "a lengthy exercise in futuristic science fiction"-- writes that

"The dream of all men is to meet little sluts who are
innocent but ready for all forms of depravity-- which is what, more or
less, all teenage girls are."

Exhibit C:
A mathematician hopes for more exciting vulgarizations of his subject--

"I would hope that clever writers might point out how mathematics is
altering our lifestyles and do it in a manner that would not lead
Garfield the Cat to say 'ho hum.'"

-- Philip J. Davis, "The Media and Mathematics Look at Each Other" (pdf), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, March 2006

Exhibit D:
Today's Garfield--

Exhibit E:
Log24 entry of May 18, a parody of "Contact," a 1997 film that vulgarized science--

Exhibit F:
Gilbert and Sullivan, "The Mikado"--

"(With great effort) How de do, little girls, how de do? (Aside) Oh, my protoplasmal ancestor!"

Coda

"It might be asking too much
to make us cool."
-- Science vulgarizer   
Dennis Overbye

Robert De Niro as the
young Vito Corleone

From pbs.org:

"In 1940 Dunham and her company
appeared in the black Broadway musical, 'Cabin in the Sky,' staged by
George Balanchine, in which Dunham played the sultry siren Georgia
Brown...."

From the Library of Congress:

"George Balanchine and Katherine Dunham were, in effect,
co-choreographers of the dances in the show, at least for those in
which she and her dancers appeared. When choreographing for dancers
trained in techniques other than classical ballet, Balanchine's habit
was to respect their expertise and their personal style, to allow them
as much creative input as they wished to make, and then to arrange
their steps, combinations, and movements into a unified choreographic
composition. Dunham found this method of collaboration quite agreeable,
and she and Balanchine enjoyed a particularly amicable working
relationship.

The story of Cabin in the Sky centers on Little Joe, a
kindhearted but morally ambivalent Everyman, who is stabbed in a
dispute over a crap game, dies and is bound for Hell, but is saved by
his good wife's prayers and given extra time on earth to qualify for
admission to Heaven. Dooley Wilson played Little Joe...."