Log24

Happy Birthday to Bill Murray (61) and Stephen King (64).

A book first published by Doubleday in 1979:

From Fritz Leiber's 1959 sci-fi classic "Damnation Morning" —

She drew from her handbag a pale grey
gleaming implement that looked by quick turns
to me like a knife, a gun, a slim sceptre, and a
delicate branding iron— especially when its tip
sprouted an eight-limbed star of silver wire.

“The test?” I faltered, staring at the thing.

“Yes, to determine whether you can live in the
fourth dimension or only die in it.”

See also Philanthropic Numerology (St. Luke's Day, 2012).

(Continued from yesterday evening)

On Max Bialystock's Spider-Man Godspell Seminar—

"… for surrealism to be entertaining
onstage, it must be shaped into
some kind of satisfying form."

— Charles Isherwood
    in today's New York Times

(RSS:  Wed, 16  May  2012  00:37:17 GMT)

From Fritz Leiber's 1959 story "Damnation Morning" —

She drew from her handbag a pale grey gleaming
implement that looked by quick turns to me
like a knife, a gun, a slim sceptre, and a delicate
branding iron— especially when its tip sprouted
an eight-limbed star of silver wire.

“The test?” I faltered, staring at the thing.

“Yes, to determine whether you can live
in the fourth dimension or only die in it.”

See notes related to the discussion of the torus within the hypercube
in Thomas F. Banchoff 's 1996 text Beyond the Third Dimension  .
The hypercube torus is more intelligible in the light of an
animation at the weblog post "Gleaming the Hypercube"—

(Animation source: MIQEL.com)

Microsoft plans Windows 8 compatibility with mobile devices

"This won't be just another upgrade. Windows 8 is nothing less than the linchpin to Microsoft's strategy for keeping Windows relevant— if not resurgent— as the shift to the post-PC computing era unfolds.

'The stakes are huge,' says Charles King, principal analyst at research firm Pund-IT. 'The company must play outside its comfort zone, but if Microsoft succeeds, the potential opportunities could be significant.'"

— Byron Acohido in USA TODAY this evening

Yesterday's 7:20 AM Google News—

From Cliff Robertson's 1958 TV classic "Days of Wine and Roses"—

From Fritz Leiber's 1959 sci-fi classic "Damnation Morning" —

She drew from her handbag a pale grey gleaming implement
that looked by quick turns to me like a knife, a gun,
a slim sceptre, and a delicate branding iron— especially when
its tip sprouted an eight-limbed star of silver wire.

“The test?” I faltered, staring at the thing.

“Yes, to determine whether you can live in the fourth dimension or only die in it.”

For Ms. Julie and the Pope

For Ms. Julie:

Nuevas Banderas in this journal…

Click on image
for details.

See also Balakrishnan's Last Problem—

For the Pope:

Now playing; click poster for details.

See also "Damnation Morning" in this journal—

She drew from her handbag a pale grey gleaming implement
that looked by quick turns to me like a knife, a gun, a slim
sceptre, and a delicate branding iron—especially when its
tip sprouted an eight-limbed star of silver wire.

“The test?” I faltered, staring at the thing.

“Yes, to determine whether you can live in the fourth
dimension or only die in it.”

— Fritz Leiber, short story, 1959

* For a time-leap from Leiber's 1959 to Hollywood's 2011, see yesterday's
  Marginal Remarks,  "The God particle ?" and a different Banderas.

Week Seven – Imagine…

Friday, August 14, 2009 @ 10:45 a.m.

“Amphitheater – George Kembel –

George Kembel is a co-founder and currently the executive director of the Stanford d.school, also known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University….”

Background:

“Plattner is said to be the 11th richest man in Germany with an estimated fortune of 5 billion USD, according to Forbes….

Plattner is a major owner of the San Jose Sharks hockey team….”

Jumping the Shark San Jose Sharks logo

VS.

Gleaming the Cube Andy Kessler, May 22, 2007

See also recent Log24 entries.
Kessler died of a wasp sting
on Monday, August 10, 2009.

Some philosophical background
for those who prefer Native American
religions to the Abrahamic religions
promoted at Chautauqua:

On the Gleaming Way,
by John Collier.
Chapter One:
 “Native American Time.”

24

The Star
of Venus

“He looked at the fading light
in the western sky and saw Mercury,
or perhaps it was Venus,
gleaming at him as the evening star.
Darkness and light,
the old man thought.
It is what every hero legend is about.
The darkness which is more than death,
the light which is love, like our friend
Venus here, or perhaps this star is
Mercury, the messenger of Olympus,
the bringer of hope.”

— Roderick MacLeish, Prince Ombra

Related material:

The Devil and Wallace Stevens,

Journey of the Magi,

and

Hexagram 24:

“The time of darkness is past.
The winter solstice brings
the victory of light.”

Cartesian Theatre

From aldaily.com today:

"If my mind is a tiny theatre I watch in my brain, then there is a tinier mind and theatre inside that mind to see it, and so on forever… more»"

This leads to the dream (or nightmare) of the Cartesian theatre, as pictured by Daniel Dennett.

From websurfing yesterday and today…

The tiny theatre of Ivor Grattan-Guinness:

"… mathematicians often treat history with contempt (unsullied by any practice or even knowledge of it, of course)."

— The Rainbow of Mathematics

The contempt for history of the Harvard mathematics department (see previous entry) suggests a phrase….

A search on "Harvard sneer" yields, as the first page found, a memorial to an expert practitioner of the Harvard sneer… Robert Harris Chapman, Professor of English Literature, playwright, theatrical consultant, and founding Director of the Loeb Drama Center from 1960 to 1980.

Continuing the Grattan-Guinness rainbow theme in a tinier theatre, we may picture Chapman's reaction to the current Irish Repertory Theatre production of Finian's Rainbow.  Let us hope it is not a Harvard sneer.

In a yet tinier theatre, we may envision a mathematical version of Finian's Rainbow, with Og the leprechaun played by Andrew P. Ogg.  Ogg would, of course, perform a musical version of his remarks on the Jugendtraum:

"Follow the fellow who follows a dream."

Melissa Errico
in Finian's Rainbow

"Give her a song like…. 'Look to the Rainbow,' and her gleaming soprano effortlessly flies it into the stratosphere where such numbers belong. This is the voice of enchantment…."

— Ben Brantley, today's NY Times

For related philosophical remarks on rainbows, infinite regress, and redheads, see

Loretta's Rainbow and

The Leonardo Code.