Log24

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Remembering Speechlessly

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 1:54 pm

"Remembering speechlessly we seek
the great forgotten language . . . ."

— Thomas Wolfe 

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane 


See also other posts now tagged Transparent Things.

Thursday, July 5, 2018

Paz:

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 1:44 pm

Some context for what Heidegger called
das Spiegel-Spiel des Gevierts

From Helen Lane's translation of El Mono Gramático ,
a book by Nobel winner Octavio Paz first published
in Barcelona by Seix Barral in 1974 —

Simultaneous perspective does not look upon language as a path because it is not the search for meaning that orients it. Poetry does not attempt to discover what there is at the end of the road; it conceives of the text as a series of transparent strata within which the various parts—the different verbal and semantic currents—produce momentary configurations as they intertwine or break apart, as they reflect each other or efface each other. Poetry contemplates itself, fuses with itself, and obliterates itself in the crystallizations of language. Apparitions, metamorphoses, volatilizations, precipitations of presences. These configurations are crystallized time: although they are perpetually in motion, they always point to the same hour—the hour of change. Each one of them contains all the others, each one is inside the others: change is only the oft-repeated and ever-different metaphor of identity.

— Paz, Octavio. The Monkey Grammarian 
(Kindle Locations 1185-1191). 
Arcade Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

A related 1960 meditation from Claude Lévi-Strauss taken from a 
Log24 post of St. Andrew's Day 2017,  "The Matrix for Quantum Mystics":

The Matrix of Lévi-Strauss —

"In Vol. I of Structural Anthropology , p. 209, I have shown that
this analysis alone can account for the double aspect of time
representation in all mythical systems: the narrative is both
'in time' (it consists of a succession of events) and 'beyond'
(its value is permanent)." — Claude Lévi-Strauss

I prefer the earlier, better-known, remarks on time by T. S. Eliot
in Four Quartets , and the following four quartets
(from The Matrix Meets the Grid) —

.

Thursday, May 3, 2018

Multifaceted . . .

Filed under: General — Tags: , — m759 @ 2:56 pm

. . . Con Figuras de Espantar

"He Who Searches  is multifaceted in structure …"

Publisher's description of a Helen Lane translation
of "Como en la Guerra ," by Luisa Valenzuela
Also by Valenzuela —

Related material — An obituary from The Boston Globe  today
on the April 5 death of Borinsky's translator, and . . .

"He Who Searches" may consult also posts tagged Date.

Thursday, March 1, 2018

The Movement of Analogy: Hume vs. Paz

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 11:00 am

Hume, from posts tagged "four-set" in this journal —

"The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions
successively make their appearance; pass, repass, glide away,
and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations.
There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity
in different, whatever natural propension we may have
to imagine that simplicity and identity."

Paz, from a search for Paz + Identity in this journal —

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane 

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Conceptual Minimalism

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: — m759 @ 10:08 am

 

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane 

See also AS IS.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Status Symbols

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 2:02 pm

"Status: Defunct"  

As is now its owner, who reportedly
died at 80 on Sunday, October 15, 2017.

In memoriam —

Excerpts from Log24 posts on Sunday night 
and yesterday evening

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11/110203-Scholia.jpg.

" … listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go"

— e. e. cummings

Some literary background —

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane 

Monday, August 8, 2016

A Point of Identity

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 6:00 pm

For a  Monkey Grammarian  (Viennese Version)

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by Helen Lane 

A logo that may be interpreted as one-eighth of a 2x2x2 array
of cubes —

The figure in white above may be viewed as a subcube representing,
when the eight-cube array is coordinatized, the identity (i.e., (0, 0, 0)).

Shown below are a few variations on the figure by VCQ,
the Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology —
 

(Click image to enlarge.)

Friday, July 1, 2016

Transparent Core

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:28 pm

"At the point of convergence the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that identity alone may shine forth.
The illusion of motionlessness, the play of mirrors of the one:
identity is completely empty; it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core the movement of analogy begins all over
once again." — The Monkey Grammarian  by Octavio Paz,
translated by Helen Lane 

A more specific "transparent core" —

See all references to this figure
in this journal.

For a more specific "monkey grammarian," 
see W. Tecumseh Fitch in this journal.

Friday, May 8, 2015

Spielraum

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , — m759 @ 9:30 am

Review:

Illustrating the Spiegel-Spiel des Gevierts

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth. 
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by
Helen Lane 

 

Friday December 5, 2008

m759 @ 1:06 PM
 
Mirror-Play of
the Fourfold

For an excellent commentary
 on this concept of Heidegger,

View selected pages
from the book

Dionysus Reborn:

Play and the Aesthetic Dimension
in Modern Philosophical and
Scientific Discourse

(Mihai I. Spariosu,
Cornell U. Press, 1989)

Related material:
the logo for a
web page

Logo for 'Elements of Finite Geometry'

– and Theme and Variations.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Paz

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 11:35 am

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth. 
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by
Helen Lane 

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Digital Recreation

Filed under: General — Tags: — m759 @ 2:29 am

Denzel Washington in Deja Vu  (2006), directed by Tony Scott—

Click to enlarge.

IMAGE- Denzel Washington in 'Deja Vu' (2006)

See also Tony Scott and four and a half days ago* —

  
Japanese character
       for "field"

Related material from five  days ago

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth. 
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by 
Helen Lane (Kindle edition of 
2011-11-07, Kindle locations 
1207-1210).

* More precisely, what will be 4.5 days ago at 3:09 AM ET.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Monkey Grammar

Filed under: General,Geometry — Tags: , , — m759 @ 2:29 am

For a modern Adam and Eve—

W. Tecumseh Fitch and Gesche Westphal Fitch,
editors of a new four-volume collection titled
Language Evolution  (Feb. 2, 2012, $1,360)—

Related material—

"At the point of convergence
the play of similarities and differences
cancels itself out in order that 
identity alone may shine forth. 
The illusion of motionlessness,
the play of mirrors of the one: 
identity is completely empty;
it is a crystallization and
in its transparent core
the movement of analogy 
begins all over once again."

— The Monkey Grammarian 

by Octavio Paz, translated by
Helen Lane (Kindle edition of
2011-11-07, Kindle locations
1207-1210).

The "play of mirrors" link above is my own.

Click on W. Tecumseh Fitch for links to some
examples of mirror-play in graphic design—
from, say, my own work in a version of 1977, not from
the Fitches' related work published online last June—

See also Log24 posts from the publication date
of the Fitches' Language Evolution

Groundhog Day, 2012.

Happy birthday to the late Alfred Bester.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Quarantine Story

Filed under: General — Tags: , , — m759 @ 11:02 pm

A link in the previous post to Delos in this journal mentions physicist John Cramer.

His daughter Kathryn's weblog mentions the following story—

Graffiti in the Library of Babel  • David Langford

—from her forthcoming anthology Year's Best SF 16 .

From the Langford story—

"'I suppose we have a sort of duty…' Out of the corner of her eye Ceri saw her notes window change. She hadn't touched the keyboard or mouse. Just before the flatscreen went black and flickered into a reboot sequence, she saw the coloured tags where no tags had been before. In her own notes. Surrounding the copied words 'quarantine regulations.'"

Related material from this journal last Jan. 9

"Show me all  the blueprints."
 – Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Aviator" (2004)

http://www.log24.com/log/pix10B/100724-InceptionBlocks.jpg

DiCaprio in "Inception"

In the "blueprints" link above, DiCaprio's spelling of "Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E" is of particular interest.

See also a search for Inception in this journal.

A post on a spelling bee at the end of that search quotes an essay on Walter Benjamin—

This blissful state between the world and its creator as expressed in Adamic language has its end, of course, in the Fall.  The “ignorance” introduced into the world that ultimately drives our melancholic state of acedia has its inception with the Fall away from the edenic union that joins God’s plan to the immediacy of the material world.  What ensues, says Benjamin, is an overabundance of conventional languages, a prattle of meanings now localized hence arbitrary.  A former connection to a defining origin has been lost; and an overdetermined, plethoric state of melancholia forms.  Over-determination stems from over-naming.  “Things have no proper names except in God.  . . . In the language of men, however, they are overnamed.”  Overnaming becomes “the linguistic being of melancholy.”7

7 Walter Benjamin, “On Language as Such and On the Languages of Man,” Edmund Jephcott, tr., Walter Benjamin , Selected Writings , Volume I:  1913-1926 , Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, eds., Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 73.

Compare and contrast with a remark by a translator mentioned here previously

I fancy, myself, that this self-consciousness about translation dates approximately from the same time as man's self-consciousness about language itself. Genesis tells us that Adam named all the animals (just as in Indian tradition the monkey-god Hanuman invented grammar by naming all the plants in the Garden of Illo Tempore). No doubts, no self-consciousness: "Whatever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof." (Genesis II, 19). But after the expulsion from Paradise I see Adam doubting  the moment the possibility occurs that another name might  be possible. And isn't that what all translators are? Proposers, in another language, of another name ?

— Helen Lane in Translation Review , Vol. 5, 1980

Delos

Filed under: General,Geometry — m759 @ 6:00 pm

The late translator Helen Lane in Translation Review , Vol. 5, 1980—

"Among the awards, I submit, should be one for the entire oeuvre  of a lifetime "senior" translator— and  one for the best first  translation…. Similar organization, cooperation, and fund-finding for a first-rate replacement for the sorely missed Delos ."

This leads to one of the founders of Delos , the late Donald Carne-Ross, who died on January 9, 2010.

For one meditation on the date January 9, see Bridal Birthday (last Thursday).

Another meditation, from the date of Carne-Ross's death—

Saturday, January 9, 2010

 

1982 Again

m759 @ 1:00 PM

Rock's top 40 on Jan. 9, 1982

Positional Meaning

m759 @ 11:32 AM

"The positional meaning of a symbol derives from its relationship to other symbols in a totality, a Gestalt, whose elements acquire their significance from the system as a whole."

– Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols , Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 1967, p. 51, quoted by Beth Barrie in "Victor Turner."

To everything, turn, turn, turn …
– Peter Seeger

The Galois Quaternion:

The Galois Quaternion

Click for context.

See also Delos in this journal.

Shot at Redemption

Filed under: General — m759 @ 7:59 am

"I need a photo-opportunity,
I want a shot at redemption.
Don't want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard."
— Paul Simon

http://www.log24.com/log/pix11A/110501-NYTobits0752AM300w.jpg

For Sabato's photo opportunity, click here.

The link is to a weblog post in Spanish published
on St. Thomas Becket's Day, 2010.

See also Helen Lane in this journal. Lane translated
Sabato's "On Heroes and Tombs."

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Saturday July 4, 2009

Filed under: General — m759 @ 2:00 am

     Helen Lane, translator

     Helen Lane

Sunday, September 5, 2004

Sunday September 5, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 4:00 pm

Symmetry and Change
in the Dreamtime

Notes from the Journal
of Steven H. Cullinane

Summary:

Aug 31 2004 
07:31:01 PM
Early Evening,
Shining Star 
Sep 01 2004
09:00:35 AM
Words
and Images
Sep 01 2004
12:07:28 PM
Whale Rider
Sep 02 2004
11:11:42 AM
Heaven
and Earth

Sep 02 2004
07:00:23 PM
Whale Road

Sep 03 2004
12:00:54 AM

Cinderella’s
Slipper
 
Sep 03 2004
10:01:56 AM
Another
September Morn

 

Sep 03 2004
12:00:25 PM

Noon

Sep 03 2004
01:13:49 PM

De Nada

Sep 03 2004
03:17:13 
PM

Ite, Missa Est 


Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 1…

Early Evening,
Shining Star

7:31:01 PM ET

Hexagram 01
The Creative:

 

The Image

Heaven

Heaven

The movement of heaven
is full of power.

Click on picture
for details.

The Clare Lawler Prize
for Literature goes to…

Under the Volcano,
Chapter VI:

“What have I got out of my life? Contacts with famous men… The occasion Einstein asked me the time, for instance. That summer evening…. smiles when I say I don’t know. And yet asked me. Yes: the great Jew, who has upset the whole world’s notions of time and space, once leaned down… to ask me… ragged freshman… at the first approach of the evening star, the time. And smiled again when I pointed out the clock neither of us had noticed.”

For the thoughts on time
of another famous man,
from Mexico, see the
Nobel Prize acceptance speech
of Octavio Paz,
In Search of the Present.”


Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 2…

Words and Images

9:00:35 AM ET

Hexagram 35
Progress:

The Image

Fire

Earth

The sun rises over the earth.

From Aug. 18, 2004:

“Oh, my Lolita. I have only words
to play with!” (Nabokov, Lolita)

“This is the best toy train set
a boy ever had!”
(Orson Welles, after first touring
RKO Studios, quoted in Halliwell)

“As the quotes above by Nabokov and Welles suggest, we need to be able to account for the specific functions available to narrative in each medium, for the specific elements that empirical creators will ‘play with’ in crafting their narratives.”

Donald F. Larsson

For
James Whale
and
William French Anderson —

Words
In the Spirit of
Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs:

Stay for just a while…
Stay, and let me look at you.
It’s been so long, I hardly knew you.
Standing in the door…
Stay with me a while.
I only want to talk to you.
We’ve traveled halfway ’round the world
To find ourselves again.

September morn…
We danced until the night
      became a brand new day,
Two lovers playing scenes
      from some romantic play.
September morning still can
      make me feel this way.

Look at what you’ve done…
Why, you’ve become a grown-up girl…

— Neil Diamond

Images
In the Spirit of
September Morn:

The Last Day of Summer:
Photographs by Jock Sturges

In 1990, the FBI entered Sturges’s studio and seized his work, claiming violation of child pornography laws.”

Related material:

Bill’s Diamond Theory

and

Log24 entries of
Aug. 15, 2004
.

Those interested in the political implications of Diamond’s songs may enjoy Neil Performs at Kerry Fundraiser.

I personally enjoyed this site’s description of Billy Crystal’s remarks, which included “a joke about former President Clinton’s forthcoming children’s book — ‘It’s called The Little Engine That Could Because It Could.'”

“Puff, puff, woo, woo, off we go!” 

 


 

Wednesday, September 1, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 3…

Whale Rider

12:07:28 PM

Hexagram 28
Preponderance of
the Great:

The Image

Lake

Wind

The lake rises
above
the trees.

 

Cullinane College News:

“Congratulations to Clare Lawler, who participated very successfully in the recently held Secondary Schools Judo Championships in Wellington.”

For an explanation of this entry’s title, see the previous two entries and

Oxford Word
(Log24, July 10, 2004) 


Thursday, September 2, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 4…

Heaven and Earth

11:11:42 AM ET

Hexagram 42
Increase:

The Image

Wind

Thunder

Wind and thunder:
the image of Increase.

“This time resembles that of
the marriage of heaven and earth”


Kylie


Finney

Well if you want to ride
you gotta ride it like you find it.
Get your ticket at the station
of the Rock Island Line.
Lonnie Donegan (d. Nov. 3)
and others
The Rock Island Line’s namesake depot 
in Rock Island, Illinois

“What it all boiled down to really was everybody giving everybody else a hard time for no good reason whatever… You just couldn’t march to your own music. Nowadays, you couldn’t even hear it… It was lost, the music which each person had inside himself, and which put him in step with things as they should be.”

The Grifters, Ch. 10, 1963, by
James Myers Thompson

“The Old Man’s still an artist
with a Thompson.”
— Terry in “Miller’s Crossing

For some of “the music which
each person had inside,”
click on the picture
with the Thompson.

It may be that Kylie is,
in her own way, an artist…
with a 357:

(Hits counter at
The Quality of Diamond
as of 11:05 AM Sept. 2, 2004)

For more on
“the marriage of heaven and earth,”
see
Plato, Pegasus, and the Evening Star


Thursday, September 2, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 5…

Whale Road

7:00:23 PM

Hexagram 23
Splitting Apart:

The Image

Mountain

Earth

The mountain rests
on the earth
.

“… the plot is different but the monsters, names, and manner of speaking will ring a bell.”

— Frank Pinto, Jr., review of Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf 

Other recommended reading, found during a search for the implications of today’s previous entry, “Hexagram 42”:

Water Wings.

This excellent meditation
on symmetry and change
comes from a site whose
home page
has the following image:


Friday, September 3, 2004

 Symmetry and Change, Part 6…

Cinderella’s Slipper

12:00:54 AM ET

Hexagram 54
The Marrying Maiden:

 

The Image

Thunder


Lake
See
The hundredletter
thunderwords of
Finnegans Wake


“… a Thoreau-like retreat
by a nearby lake….
Both men have
a ‘touch of the poet’….
The symmetry is perfect.”

Friday, September 3, 2004  

Symmetry and Change, Part 7…

Another September Morn

10:01:56 AM ET

Hexagram 56:
The Wanderer

 

The Image

Fire


Mountain

Fire on the mountain,
Run boys run…
Devil’s in the House of
The Rising Sun!
 


Friday, September 3, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 8…

Noon

12:00:25 PM ET

Hexagram 25
Innocence:

The Image

Heaven


Thunder

Under heaven
thunder rolls.
 


Friday, September 3, 2004

Symmetry and Change, Part 9…

De Nada

Helen Lane

1:13:49 PM ET

Hexagram 49
Revolution:

The Image

Lake


Fire
 Fire in the lake:
the image of Revolution
.

“I sit now in a little room off the bar at four-thirty in the morning drinking ochas and then mescal and writing this on some Bella Vista notepaper I filched the other night…. But this is worst of all, to feel your soul dying. I wonder if it is because to-night my soul has really died that I feel at the moment something like peace. Or is it because right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew, and though I may not take it, sometimes lately in dreams I have been able to see it? …And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell. It is not Mexico of course but in the heart.”

— Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano 


Friday, September 3, 2004

Symmetry and Change, conclusion…

Ite, Missa Est

3:17:13 PM ET

Hexagram 13
Fellowship With Men:

The Image

Heaven


Fire

Heaven together with fire.

“A pretty girl —
is like a melody —- !”

 For details, see
A Mass for Lucero


Friday, September 3, 2004

Friday September 3, 2004

Filed under: General — m759 @ 1:13 pm

Symmetry and Change, Part 9…

De Nada

Helen Lane

1:13:49 PM ET

Hexagram 49
Revolution:

The Image

Lake



Fire

 

 Fire in the lake:
the image of Revolution
.

"I sit now in a little room off the bar at four-thirty in the morning drinking ochas and then mescal and writing this on some Bella Vista notepaper I filched the other night…. But this is worst of all, to feel your soul dying. I wonder if it is because to-night my soul has really died that I feel at the moment something like peace. Or is it because right through hell there is a path, as Blake well knew, and though I may not take it, sometimes lately in dreams I have been able to see it? …And this is how I sometimes think of myself, as a great explorer who has discovered some extraordinary land from which he can never return to give his knowledge to the world: but the name of this land is hell. It is not Mexico of course but in the heart."

— Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano

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