From a summary of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness:

“The human can never know being as it truly is,
for to do that, one would have to be the thing itself. To know a
rock, we have to be the rock (and of course, the rock, as a being-in-itself,
lacks consciousness). Yet the being-for-itself sees and intuits the
world through what is not present. In this way, the being-for-itself,
already wholly free, also possesses the power of imagination. Even
if absolute beauty (to Sartre, the absolute union of being and consciousness)
cannot be apprehended, knowing it through its absence, as in the
way one feels the emptiness left by a departed loved one, is its
own truth.”

– Anonymous author at sparknotes.com

H.S.M. Coxeter’s classic
Introduction to Geometry (2nd ed.):

“A severely underrated Scope western, shot in breathtaking mountain
locations near Cuernavaca. Widmark, Gary Cooper and Cameron Mitchell are
a trio of fortune hunters stranded in Mexico, when they are approached
by Susan Hayward to rescue her husband (Hugh Marlowe) from a caved-in
gold mine in Indian country. When they arrive at the ‘Garden of Evil,’
they must first battle with one another before they have to stave off
their bloodthirsty Indian attackers. Widmark gives a tough, moving
performance as Fiske, the one who sacrifices himself to save his
friends. ‘Every day it goes, and somebody goes with it,’ he says as he
watches the setting sun. ‘Today it’s me.’ This was one of the best of
Hollywood veteran Henry Hathaway’s later films. With a brilliant score
by Bernard Herrmann.”

Click image to enlarge.

The “Boy’s Life” illustration is of an Arthur C. Clarke story, “Against the Fall of Night.” This, according to the review quoted below, was Clarke’s first story, begun in 1936 and first published in 1948. The title is from a poem by A. E. Housman, “Smooth Between Sea and Land.” See Log24 on the Feast of St. Mark, 2003.

From a book review by Christopher B. Jones:

“Against the Fall of Night describes well how it often takes youth to bring forth change. The older mind becomes locked in a routine, or blocks out things because it has been told that it shouldn’t think or talk about them. But the young mind is ever the explorer, seeking out knowledge without the taboos placed on it by a rigid society. Alvin is a breath of fresh air in the don’t-look-over-the-wall society of Diaspar.

Myths play a big role, and an interesting religious overtone pervades the story with a long since departed being whose origins are unknown and who played an important part in Earth’s past. Parallels to Jesus can easily be drawn, and the forecast shown for the longevity of religions in general seems to me to be rather accurate….

Finally, when Alvin uncovers part of the truth he has been looking for, he learns of the dangers and stagnation that can befall a xenophobic society. There are still a few such societies in the world today, and this characteristic almost always comes with negative effects– even if it has been cultivated with the intention to protect.”

An example of such a xenophobic society is furnished by the Hadassah ad currently running in the New York Times obituaries section: “Who will say Kaddish in Israel?”

Another example:

Tom Stoppard, in the London Times of Sunday, March 16, 2008, on the social unrest of forty years ago in 1968–

“Altering the psyche was supposed to change the social structure but, as a
Marxist, Max knows it really works the other way: changing the social
structure is the only way to change the psyche. The idea that ‘make love,
not war’ is a more practical slogan than ‘workers of the world unite’ is as
airy-fairy as the I Ching.”

Airy-fairy, Jewey-phooey.

Clarke’s 1948 story was the basis of his 1956 novel, The City and the Stars. In memory of the star Richard Widmark, here are two illustrations from St. Mark’s Day, 2003:

Housman asks the reader
to tell him of runes to grave
or bastions to design
“against the fall of night.”

Here, as examples, are
one rune and one bastion.

Neither part of this memorial suits the xenophobic outlook of Israel. Both parts, together, along with his classic film “The Long Ships,” seem somehow suited to the non-xenophobic outlook of Richard Widmark. As for the I Ching… perhaps Widmark has further voyages to make.

The previous entry was inspired (see the “In the Details” link) by the philosophical musings of Julie Taymor… specifically, her recollection of Balinese dancers–

“… they were performing for God. Now God can mean whatever you
want it to mean. But for me, I understood it so totally. The detail….

They did it from the inside to the outside. And from the outside
to the in. And that profoundly moved me then. It was… it was the most
important thing that I ever experienced.”

– Julie Taymor,
“Skewed Mirrors” interview

Here is some further commentary on the words of that entry–

On the phrase “Within You Without You”– the title of a song by George Harrison:

“Bernard’s understanding of reality connects to this
idea
of ‘flow’: he sees reality as a product of consciousness. He rejects
the
idea of an ‘outer’ world of unchanging objects and an ‘inner’ world of
the
mind and ideas. Rather, our minds are part of the world, and vice
versa.”

– Adrien Ardoin, SparkNote on
    Virginia Woolf’s The Waves

On “Death and the Apple Tree”– the title of the previous entry– in The Waves:

“The apple tree Neville is looking at as he overhears the servants at
the school discussing a local murder becomes inextricably linked to his
knowledge of death. Neville finds himself unable to pass the tree, seeing it
as glimmering and lovely, yet sinister and ‘implacable.’ When he learns that
Percival is dead, he feels he is face to face once again with ‘the tree
which I cannot pass.’ Eventually, Neville turns away from the natural world
to art, which exists outside of time and can therefore transcend death. The
fruit of the tree appears only in Neville’s room on his embroidered curtain,
a symbol itself of nature turned into artifice. The apple tree image also
echoes the apple tree from the Book of Genesis in the Bible, the fruit of
which led Adam and Eve to knowledge and, therefore, expulsion from Eden.”

– Adrien Ardoin, op. cit.

Today’s New York Times on the late “fifth Beatle” Neil Aspinall, who died Easter night in Manhattan:

“… he played tambura (an Indian drone instrument) on ‘Within You Without You‘….”

Continuing the search within Antigone for the mid-day number, 874, we find…

“Power (kratos), for one who is concerned with power (kratos), is in no way to be transgressed.”

– Antigone, lines 873-874, Leinieks, op. cit. p. 69

Both passages from Sophocles seem not unrelated to yesterday’s entry for the Ides of March and to last night’s opening routine on “Saturday Night Live.”

The above word deina (formidable, wonderful, awesome) in the latter context suggests the following meditation:

Related material:

The Log24 Pi Day 
mantra from 
 Roger Zelazny –
“center loosens,  
forms again elsewhere.”