NOVEMBER 2003
SATURDAY, 1 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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How They Met Themselves
Dead siamese twins, Artis Amsterdam, November 1, 2003.
SUNDAY, 2 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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For the first time in a long time: N. and I paid visits to the zoo in Amsterdam yesterday and the zoo in Rotterdam today.
Apropos yesterday's photograph:
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"What is extremely discomposing about the double is that in a twisted, too logical way, he is more me than myself: while I include all the others, he includes only "me"; and therefore he is not really me, since I am never purely myself. The double is unrecognizable because he is the Same. The double is not the other, but I divested of all others. Theat is why whenever I encounter him, even in a crowded public place, I feel I am alone with him, alone with the alone, he embodies the divestment from the world. That is why encountering the double is such a desolate experience, and is a premonition of death with its bereavement from others and the rest of the world."
Jalal Toufic, Vampires (2nd edition)
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MONDAY, 3 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Red Light, Green Light
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One child plays the 'stop light'.
All the other children form a line about 15 feet away from the stop light.
Turning to face away from the line of children the stop light says "green light". At this point the children are allowed to move towards the stoplight.
At any time the stop light may say "red light!" and turn around. If any of the kids are caught moving after this has occurred, they are out.
Play resumes when the stop light turns away from the other children once more and says "green light".
The stop light wins if all the children are out.
Otherwise, the first child to reach the stop light wins and earns the right to be "stop light" in the next game.
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'Red light, green light' is known as Un, deux, trois - soleil in France and Ochs vom Berge, eins, zwei, drei in Germany. What are its names in other languages? Where's the web page with a theoretical reading of the game? Where is the web page which collects all of its the names and variants?
TUESDAY, 4 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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We Have Bubble Tea
When were we in Vancouver? End of May beginning of June. So why has it taken me five months to formulate the question, "What is bubble tea?"
WEDNESDAY, 5 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Read Softcops, a play by Caryl Churchill, on the train to and fro from Amsterdam. I was there today working with Mr. Lira. Work mainly consisted of lugging our equipment around the city looking "for locations". It was a beautiful sunny day. We shot some tape over lunch at Metz and Co. We walked past the flower market. I bought a joint and, upon toking twice, was gently ripped.
THURSDAY, 6 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Voodoo Structure
There must be a name for structural conceits like David Byrne's use of 50 pairs of twins on the set of True Stories or Werner Herzog's need for the entire cast to be hypnotized throughout the rehearsals and shooting of his Heart of Glass. I wonder what it is?
Links
Borges' Book of Sand as an online puzzle.
A wonderful essay on waiting by Roland Barthes.
FRIDAY, 7 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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How They Met Themselves
November 6, 2003
I've been given to understand that if one likes the work of David Lynch one would probably like the short stories of Robert Aickman.
SATURDAY, 8 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Pinch Me I'm Dreaming (I)
How can this be?
As a literary form akin to 'impossible crimes' and locked room detectives, the literary paradox reveals (revels in?) a kind of truth which at first seems completely contradictory.
G. K. Chesterton's Mr. Pond is renowned for paradoxical statements, short utterances which puzzle both Mr. Pond's listeners and Chesterton's readers (and subsequently demand further explanation). I've recently read two Mr. Pond stories: 'The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse' and 'When Doctors Agree'. (Personally I found the former much more interesting than the later. It seems the former was also a favorite of Mr. Borges.)
In 'The Three Horseman of the Apocalypse' Mr. Pond tells the story of a Prussian Marshall who's mission has failed "because the discipline was too good... because his soldiers obeyed him. Of course, if only one of his soldiers had obeyed him, it wouldnt have been so bad" but the failure couldn't be avoided "when two of his soldiers obeyed him".
In 'When Doctors Agree' Mr. Pond incongruously states, "Funny things agreements. Fortunately people generally go on disagreeing, till they die peacefully in their beds. Men very seldom do fully and finally agree. I did know two men who came to agree so completely that one of them naturally had to murder the other."
G. K. Chesterton: The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond
In this vein one should also consider the novels of the surreal mystery writer Leo Perutz. (Alamut entry & another Alamut entry)
SUNDAY, 9 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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I confess: I buy more books than I read.
Lately I've been trying to control myself by pretending I am my mother: "Paul, please read all the books you already own before buying any new ones." This helps a bit.
(1) Dadelus (I love Dadelus) books spotted today in De Slegte Rotterdam desired but not bought:
Mario de Sá-Carneiro: The Great Shadow: And Other Stories
Eugen Egner: Androids from Milk
Helmut Krausser: The Great Bagarozy
Paul Leppin: The Road to Darkness
Pierre Louÿs: The Woman and the Puppet
Yorgi Yatromanolakis: A Report of a Murder
(2) Dadelus books spotted today in De Slegte in Rotterdam desired and bought:
Alfred Kubin: The Other Side
MONDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Messages and Messengers
Reading Kafka's short story 'The Great Wall of China', I'm attracted like a moth to the figure of the messenger (especially when the content of the message is pure decoy and the messenger is the message):
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The Emperor, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again. Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death--all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire--before all these he has delivered his message. The messenger immediately sets out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcoming hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate--but never, never can that happen--the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself.
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TUESDAY, 11 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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(Today is the second anniversary of our being together. Rogério comes for dinner to celebrate.)
Pinch Me I'm Dreaming (II)
Three notes:
The scene in Spirited Away (which we watched together this evening after dinner) where our hero, Chihiro, crouches down next to the river, hides her head in her arms and cries, "I'm dreaming. I'm dreaming. I want to wake up. I want to wake up." Paradoxes (Mr. Pond's paradoxes) as signs of the inconsistencies within reality. Borges concludes his essay on paradoxes, 'Avatars of the Tortoise', with the following: "We (the undivided divinity operating within us) have dreamt the world. We have dreamt it as firm, mysterious, visible, ubiquitous in space and durable in time; but in its architecture we have allowed tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason which tell us it is false." Jalal Toufic, in his section on Letters in Vampires (2nd edition), writes: "These confessions, though, hide that a more fundamental secret is being hidden, for the different fragments, like different shots from different angles, are being used to edit around all the objective inconsistencies in the chronology and space. This remains a secret to them, that they confessed their mundane secrets precisely to hide more basic secrets: the inconsistencies in reality."
Dalai Lama
CNN publishes a short interview.
WEDNESDAY, 12 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Research:
Situation Puzzles
Hand Shadows
THURSDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Ewan McNeil writes:
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Hey Paulus. I was doing one of my boats and I came across this on an old Geographic map of the Holy Lands. I trust you are doing fine. Best. E.
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(Does the shadow indicate a topological event horizon?)
FRIDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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I Can Hardly Believe It (I)
I can hardly believe it. I was browsing the DVD section of the library while simultaneously knowing full well there was NOTHING I wanted to rent. Suddenly I spotted a copy of Linklater's Waking Life. It shouldn't have been there. I'm watching it now.
I Can Hardly Believe It (II)
Real Cool Toys
The No-Contact Jacket
The Napali Kayak
The Skyray
Flourescent Fish (genetically modified)
SATURDAY, 15 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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I've linked to Godfrey Cheshire's essay on Waking Life before.
Calvino's Death by Gore Vidal
SUNDAY, 16 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Four Short Stories by Witold Gombrowicz
A Premeditated Crime
Attorney Kraykowski's Dancer
Stefan Czarniecki's Memoir
A Feast at Countess von Doff's
MONDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Contrary to Popular Belief
One thing does not lead to another.
TUESDAY, 18 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Dr. Mehdi Golshani: Creation in the Islamic Outlook and in Modern Cosmology
WEDNESDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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The Art of Making Images with Eyes
Rabbit Optogram 1878
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"Willy Kuhne, a professor of physiology at the University of Heidelberg, invented optography in 1878. Kuhne was studying rhodopsin, the retinal pigment that changes state in response to light. During the course of his experiments, he realized that he might be able to take pictures with a living eye. He immobilized a rabbit and forced it to look at a window for three minutes. He then decapitated the animal, sliced open its eye, and soaked its retina in alum to fix the rhodopsin. The next day the dried retina revealed an image of the window. Two years later he repeated the process with the head of an executed criminal. The resulting optigram, which he reproduced in a drawing, is the only known picture taken with a human eye. Unfortunately, the scene it displayed was unidentifiable."
(Ali Hossaini:Vision of the Gods: An Inquiry Into the Meaning of Photography)
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Arthur B. Evans: Optograms and Fiction: Photo in a Dead Man's Eye
THURSDAY, 20 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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14:30. Lunch with Jalal at his favorite noodle bar Dim Daily.
18:00. Dinner with Jalal, Maurice & Nous at Oliva.
FRIDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Day at the Rijksakademie.
SATURDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
This evening I 'hosted' a small retrospective of Jalal Toufic's videos ('Saving Face', 'Phantom Beirut', 'The Sleep of Reason: This Blood Spilled in my Veins' and 'Ashura: This Blood Spilled in my Veins').
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"Unfinished business is the most basic obstacle to becoming. Indeed what is personality if not unfinished business? That which has no unfinished business is our original face, our buddha nature."
(Jalal Toufic, (Vampires))
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"Who said time heals all wounds? It would be better to say that time heals everything except wounds. With time the hurt of separation loses its real limits. With time the desired body will soon disappear. And if the desiring body has already ceased to exist for the other then what remains is a wound; disembodied."
(Japanese source in Chris Marker's Sans Soleil)
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SUNDAY, 23 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Peter Matthews: André Bazin - Divining the Real
MONDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Concerning substance induced 'altered states' and the non-linearity of their effects: a half a dose can sometimes be more dangerous (in the sense of initiating a 'negative' and disruptive experience) than a full one.
TUESDAY, 25 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Watched Wong Kar-wai's In The Mood for Love last night. Who wouldn't be impressed by Maggie Cheung's high-collared floral cheongsam dresses, the use of time expansion and compression, the dual protagonists' chaste rehearsal of their partners deceit and their tragic resolve not to duplicate it? Senses of Cinema has two excellent essays discussing the film: Adrian Martin's Perhaps and Stepen Teo's Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love: Like a Ritual in Transfigured Time.
WEDNESDAY, 26 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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The new aluminum 17" powerbook arrived yesterday. I am still shocked at how big it is.
THURSDAY, 27 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Visited the preview of this year's Open Ateliers at the Rijks. Exciting to see the choices the various participants have made "about what to show and how to show it."
FRIDAY, 28 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Bhikku writes:
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Hello there,
Three things in a row to say:
On optograms: have you read Kipling's The End of the Passage? It assumes for the purposes of the (horror) story that dreams may be imprinted too...
Then, did you see this one?
And I read this recently from another Paul:
"O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
(St Paul, Letter to the Romans 7, verse 24)
seeya
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SATURDAY, 29 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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Still busy configuring the new powerbook (my 7th new powerbook beginning with the powerbook 100), sorting out a couple of bugs (it came with Panther pre-installed) and getting accustomed to a new set of clicks (hard drive) and whirs (fans).
Read and Weep
Raimundas Malasauskas writes to say that the virtual interview that he recently did with Caterina (Caterina.net), Jouke (NQPAOFU) and yours truly is now up at NU-E magazine.
SUNDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2003
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Links to 5 years ago to resume on the 30th of December.
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First Sunday of Advent. (One purple candle.)
Via Caterina's sidebar: Omniglot: A Guide to Writing Systems.
For the OS X Folk
If you (like me) have reached the limits of 'Keychain' (I gave up trying to find where my 'Private Keychain' went during the move from the old to the new machine) check out Bryan Blackburn's lean, mean and free CiphSafe.
Two new OS X interfaces to Princeton's WordNet Lexical Database:
William Taysom's WordNet X (uses the WordNet 2.0 Database)
Mulle-Kybernetik's WordNet 5 (uses the WordNet 1.6 Database)
(I don't know which of the above I like better.)
Same thing but fancy ThinkMap interface (it's a commercial product): PlumbDesign's Visual Thesaurus.
October 2003
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Mail: current address.
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