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Soul of the Party, continued:

Back to School

Canto I:

NY Times-- 'Soul' of a Party Is Memorialized

Canto II:

Friday, August 28, 2009,
in this journal

Annals of Religion:

Rites of Passage

“Things fall apart;
the centre cannot hold….“

Part I:

“Inside the church,
the grief was real….”

Canto III:

Sunday, August 30, 2009,
in The New York Times

“Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Facebook, the online social grid, could not command loyalty forever.”

– Virginia Heffernan, “Facebook Exodus,” NY Times Magazine, Sunday, August 30, 2009

Canto IV:

Click for details.

Canto V:

Dorm Room Feng Shui: 'YOU ARE HERE'

Soul of the Party, continued:

Back to the Garden

The previous entry dealt with an artist who died last Wednesday (August 26).

Dominick Dunne, producer of the film version of “The Boys in the Band,” also died last Wednesday.

In his memory, four readings:

1. “Pilot Fish,” by Hemingway

2. Self-profile by Stephen Vider, author of “American Mystic” (see previous entry)

3. “Party Animal,” Vider’s essay on “The Boys in the Band” published on Sinatra’s birthday, 2008

4. Back to the Garden of Forking Paths (also on Sinatra’s birthday, 2008)

Related material
from last Sunday morning:

“‘Soul’ of a Party Is Memorialized“
–New York Times online front page

and
“In the Details.”

The following illustration from
August 16th may also be relevant:

Click cover to enlarge.
Annals of Religion:

Ask a Stupid Question

continued from
last Wednesday…

Log24 on August 26–

“Did you see more glass?”

Wednesday, August 26,
was the date of death
for Hyman Bloom.

Bloom, described in
today’s New York Times
as “a painter of the
mystical,” died at 96.

Bloom often painted portraits of imaginary rabbis; an article titled “American Mystic” describes

“… the mesmerizing paradox at the heart of the rabbi portraits– they remember keepers of a tradition in a method that tradition expressly forbids. As Bloom explains, age and illness endowing his voice with a hoarse, prophetic quality, ‘Jewish culture has nothing to do with painting. That’s a rule, “Thou shalt not make an image of anything in the air or on the earth.”‘”

– Stephen Vider, Tablet Magazine, February 28. 2007

Related material:

An entry in this journal linked to twice on the date of Bloom’s death–

Art and Man at Yale–

and an illustrated entry from this journal on the date of the “Mystic” article–

Elements of Geometry.

“So, there is one place
where modernism triumphs.
As in the cases of the pyramids
and the Taj Mahal, the Siegfried line
and the Atlantic wall, death always
calls on the very best architects.”

— J. G. Ballard,
“A Handful of Dust“
Black Rock song…

A Crown for Varnedoe

Oh, and while the King
was looking down
The Jester stole
his thorny crown….

– Don McLean
Annals of Aesthetics:

Coronation
by Doctorow

“And crown thy good
with brotherhood….”

Click image to enlarge.

Brotherhood
according to Doctorow:

The Collyer Brothers
Meet Flower Power

Related material –

Blame It On Toby:
Today’s Theology:

Nine is
a Vine
In the Details:

“‘Soul’ of a Party
Is Memorialized”

– NY Times online
front page, 7:37 AM

Personally, I prefer
the life of the party:

“Oh, children,
catch me if you can!”

– Aslan in
The Chronicles of Narnia

“We haven’t had
that spirit here since…”

– Hotel California

Click to enlarge –
Today’s Sermon:

Working Backward

Continued from
December 10, 2005:

“Death itself would start
working backward.”

– Aslan in
The Chronicles of Narnia
For the Senator:

Continued from
Father’s Day
last year–

“For further details,
click on the well.”

From the above link:

James Hillman —

“The kind of movement Olson urges is
an inward deepening of the image,
an in-sighting of the superimposed
levels of significance within it.
This is the very mode that Jung
suggested for grasping dreams–
not as a sequence in time,
but as revolving around
a nodal complex.”

And from Feb. 29, 2008:

and the following day:

– Heraclitus
Catch-8:

Ba Gua = 8 Sections.
Gua Ba = Section 8.