A Sentimental Journey

How David Lynch pays the bills

2008-04-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

Singing Ringing Tree

2008-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Singing Ringing Tree, an art installation near Burnley, Lancashire. Artists: Tonkin Liu.

Only later I realised what it reminded me - of course, Alexei Prasolov's lines

        Я услышал: корявое дерево пело,
Мчалась туч торопливая, темная сила...

Another Place by Antony Gormley

2008-03-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Installation on Crosby Beach: Another Place by Antony Gormley (of the Angel of the North fame).

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VIII

2008-03-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre
Sont tombés du noir firmament
Dans la mer immobile et sombre
Suaire de silence et d'ombre,
La nuit efface entièrement
Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre
Tel qu'un lourd et muet décombre,
L'esprit plonge au vide dormant
Dans la mer immobile et sombre.
En lui-même, avec lui tout sombre,
Souvenir, rêve, sentiment,
Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre,
Dans la mer immobil et sombre.

Villanelle by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894). 

I first discovered Ivan Bunin's translation:
В ТЕМНУЮ НОЧЬ, В ШТИЛЬ, ПОД ЭКВАТОРОМ

Время, Пространство, Число
С черных упали небес
В море, где мрак и покой.

Саван молчанья и тьмы
Их поглотил без следа -
Время, Пространство, Число.

Тяжким обломком, немым,
Падает Дух и пустоту,
В море, где мрак и покой.

С ним, погруженным во тьму,
Тонут, рожденные им,
Время, Пространство, Число
В море, где мрак и покой.

27 ноября 1915

Animation with a whiff of mathematics, II

2008-03-01T12:32:00.001-08:00

Loop, A Snail Odyssey

Parrot to be fitted with a wooden leg

2008-02-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

From Telegraph:

A one-legged parrot that keeps slipping off his perch is to be fitted with a 'wooden leg'. George, a ten-year-old African Grey, lost a claw after being attacked by a wild animal which broke into his cage a year and a half ago. The missing limb means whenever George tries to sleep, he slips off his perch, squawking "Bloody Hell!" in surprise. Concerned for her pet, the bird's owner Sheila Weare sought advice from experts at the University of Salford. Mrs Weare, from Crewe told the BBC: “You can tell by the way he fidgets that he's not comfortable and he has to bite the bars of his cage at night to balance." In the hope of giving bird and owner a good night's sleep, the perch will be fitted with a specially-moulded slot, into which George will be trained to insert his stump at night.

For the Russian reader, не могу не вспомнить загадку эпохи моего детства:

С когтями, но не птица, Летит и матерится.

Kitsch and Norman Rockwell

2008-02-24T14:31:00.001-08:00

No discussion of kitsch is complete without mentioning Norman Rockwell (1894-1978).

Norman Rockwell, Courting Couple at Midnight, March 22, 1919. Source: Brewster & Co.

This painting caught my eye because of its description in the book 102 Favourite Paintings by Norman Rockwell (Crown Publishers, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-517-534487) , p. 20: ... She is living an eternal moment of romantic bliss... Therefore this post belongs to the thread on infinity, eternity and kitsch. I discovered the book on a coffee table in the house of my American colleague. As a coffee-table book, it is great, I have to admit that.

Soft Kitsch: Thomas Kinkade

2008-02-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

Have a look at the Official Thomas Kinkade Website -- emporium of soft kitsch, which I define by contrast with hardcore kitsch (see a post Kingdom of Kitch, Revisited in A Dialogue on Infinity; we try to explain there why dominant interpretations of concepts of eternity and infinity in mass produced popular imagery belong to hardcore kitsch. ).

My thanks go to David Pierce, who attracted my attention to work of Thomas Kinkade and also sent me the following quote from Annie Dillard's Living by Fiction, which looks like a description of soft kitsch:

"Sentimental art attempts to force pre-existing emotions on us. Instead of creating characters and events which will elicit special feelings unique to its text, sentimental art merely gestures toward stock characters and events whose accompanying emotions come on tap. Bad poetry is almost always bad because it attempts to claim for itself the real power of whatever it describes in ten lines: a sky full of stars, first love, or Niagara Falls. An honest work generates its own power; a dishonest work tries to rob power from the cataracts of the given."

However, a hormonal, biological nature of stimuli can be evident even in sample of soft kitsch.

Indeed Kinkade brings to mind Tom Lehrer's words about his time at Harvard: " I was engaged in a serious experimental study: extension of adolescence beyond all previously known limits".

Kinkade (self described as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light" -- a trademarked phrase! But have a look at sis Official Site before reading further) is a prime example of infantilisation of American culture. Puberty-hormonal nature of his imagery would be, I believe, instantly recognised by Bertrand Russell, who wrote in his "Autobiography":

"Concurrently with this physical preoccupation with sex, went a great intensity of idealistic feeling, which I did not at that time recognise as sexual in origin. I became intensely interested in the beauty of sunsets and clouds, and trees in spring and autumn, but my interest was of very sentimental kind, owing to the fact that it was an unconscious sublimation of sex, and an attempt to escape from reality."

(The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Unwin Paperbacks, London a. o., 1975; p. 35. ISBN 0 04 921022 X)

My native town

2008-02-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

My native town at the time when I was about four years old.

Café des Fédérations

2008-02-16T09:25:00.001-08:00

8, Rue du Major Martin, 69001 Lyon

La Méthode

2008-02-16T05:16:00.000-08:00

Only the French can give such names to their pubs (2, Rue Descartes, 75005 Paris, 01 43 54 22 43). And they also have Le Soleil d'Austerlitz‎ (18, Boulevard Hôpital, 75013 Paris, 01 43 31 22 38, opposite Gare d'Austerlitz). And one more great name, this time in Lyon:

Trois Couleurs, Vert, 6, Place Mar Lyautey, 69006 Lyon, France, 04 78 93 31 69

Alexander Blok on Immanuel Kant

2008-02-16T03:04:00.000-08:00

Can anyone help me to locate an English translation of this poem by Alexander Blok? I would like to show it to a philosopher colleague.

Иммануил Кант

Сижу за ширмой. У меня

Такие крохотные ножки…

Такие ручки у меня,

Такое тесное окошко…

Тепло и темно. Я гашу

Свечу, которую приносят,

Но благодарность приношу…

Меня давно развлечься просят,

Но эти ручки… Я влюблен

В мою морщинистую кожу…

Могу увидеть сладкий сон,

Но я себя не потревожу:

Не потревожу забытья,

Вот этих бликов на окошке…

И ручки скрещиваю я,

И также скрещиваю ножки.

Сижу за ширмой. Здесь тепло.

Здесь кто‑то есть. Не надо свечки.

Глаза бездонны, как стекло.

На ручке сморщенной – колечки.

18 октября 1903

Tale of Tales

2008-01-20T04:59:00.000-08:00

The best animation film ever - available on YouTube (4 parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmcp4XNCWRY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBniVo80Mec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjndixMcl8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7H1wrcFjc

Support Slow Food Movement!

2008-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

This fast food parlor occupies premises (at a corner of rue Soufflot and boulevard Saint-Michel) of a cafe A Capoulade where, in 1930-s, the founders of the Bourbaki group were meeting for work on their project, see a paper by Liliane Beaulieu, from which this contemporary photograph is taken: To add insult to injury, the opposite corner site is held by MacDonald's. Nowadays, would it be possible to do mathematics in burger joint? Therefore, support Slow Food Movement!

Espace Tangente

2008-01-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine a British shop with the word "mathematical" on the shop sign? (Espace Tangente, 80 bd St Michel 75006 Paris; closed on Sunday -- this explains a unfortunate wire mesh.) Yesterday I bought there a nice book on mathematics in music. See a website of the publishing house Editions Pole, it apparently owns the shop (or vice versa).

British Library on Euston Road

2008-01-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

Since I mentioned British Library in a comment to my post "Nabokov and Onegin's Stanza", I wish to add a brief tip on a hidden tourist gem of London: British Library on Euston Road, between Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras train stations. If you find yourself dying of boredom at Euston or King's Cross with 40 minutes to spare, visit the ground floor exhibition of the British Library - it is 5 minutes walk, entry is free (and instant, the exhibition is in the entrance lobby). You will discover fantastic treasures, like the logbook of HMS Victory with the record of Admiral Nelson's death, or the manuscript (actually, exceptionally tidy handwritten book - true labour of love) of Alice in the Wonderland.

New Year's Eve Question

2007-12-31T15:43:00.001-08:00

Edge still has not revealed its New Year's Eve Annual Question 2008, but, due to a leak to The Independent, I know that it is is wonderful: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Indeed, what have you changed your mind about in 2007?

A painting with a whiff of mathematics

2007-12-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Numbering at Bethlehem. 1566, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels Source: Wikimedia Commons, higher resolution.

Actually, there is more geometry in the painting than arithmetic.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness...

2007-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

I do not know whether you are prepared to believe me, but yesterday I was running through the labyrinths of Heathrow Terminal 1, shouting at the full force of my lungs: "Hey! Is there anyone from British Airways around?" There were no response...

Manifestations of Infinity

2007-12-18T02:26:00.000-08:00

As I have already mentioned, I have started, in collaboration with David Corfield, yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity. My approach to the issue of infinity is that of a practicing mathematician. In particular, I repeat Vladimir Arnold's famous claim that tires on the pictures below are manifistations of infinity in the real world. Details can be found in my post.

Infinity

2007-12-15T04:10:00.000-08:00

I started yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity, a joint venture with David Corfield. Meanwhile, here is the only decent picture found in Google Images:

It is an advertisement, as you can easily guess, for BIC. Source: Ads of the World. [Advertising Agency: TBWA Hunt Lascaris, South Africa. Creative Director: Tony Granger Copywriter: Clare Mcnally. Art Director: Jan Jacobs.]

But I warn you against an attempt to search for images related to Eternity: you will find yourself in the Kingdom of Kitch, and horrendous kitch.

A drawing with a whiff of mathematics

2007-12-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Satire on "False Perspective" by William Hogarth, 1753

"Whoever makes a Design without the knowledge of Perspective will be liable to such absurdities as are shewn in this Frontispiece."
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VII

2007-11-30T17:21:00.000-08:00

Вокруг него система кошек,
Система окон, ведер, дров
Висела, темный мир размножив
На царства узкие дворов.

Nikolai Zabolotskii

Analytic Phonics

2007-11-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

I continue my discussion of synthetic and analytic phonics started in my previous posts, Tale of a Fisherman and a Gold Fish and My First Book and Synthetic Phonics. Some theory could be useful:

Synthetic phonics involves the development of phonemic awareness from the outset. As part of the decoding process, the reader would learn up to 44 phonemes (the smallest units of sound) and their related graphemes (the written symbols for the phoneme). One phoneme can be represented by various graphemes, e.g. 'oa', 'ow', 'ough'. This is, of course, one of the reasons that the English language can be so difficult to learn to read and spell. The reader would be expected to recognise each grapheme then sound out each phoneme in a word, building up through blending the sounds together to pronounce the word phonetically. This approach works well with phonetically regular words. Analytic phonics involves analysis of whole words to detect phonetic or orthographic (spelling) patterns, then splitting them into smaller parts to help with decoding, for example onset and rime - onset (vowel sound(s)) at the beginning of a word or syllable and rime (always beginning with a vowel to form the remainder of that word or syllable). The rimes of words can be used to help children read and spell by analogy. For example, the right rime, once known, can be used to generate another 96 words. It is therefore an efficient way to help children develop a large sight vocabulary for both reading and spelling. It works particularly well for those words that young children cannot work out sound-by-sound, for example 'light', 'through', 'rake'. It is also an effective way of helping children to adopt the common sight words, for example when teaching the word 'could', children would be supported to generate and read the rhyming words that share the same written pattern - 'would', 'should'.

Basically, synthetic phonics is the standard approach to reading in Russia; it is widely accepted that Russian children can be taught (in their families) to read fluently by age of 5 and 6. This was experience of me as a child and as a parent; I briefly described these experiences in my previous posts, Tale of a Fisherman and and a Gold Fish and My First Book and Synthetic Phonics. However, my daughter, at that time aged five, independently discovered analytic phonics. This happened when we came to California. Her big brother, aged seven, was taught at their American school to read; my daughter was taught only spoken English. My children came to California being fluent Russian readers, and my daughter could not allow that her brother red English, while she did not. So she started to listen to audiobooks like this one, tracing words in the book and establishing correspondence between combinations of letters and sounds: In a couple of months she was a fluent English reader -- without any help from adults. Of course, this was possible only because she could fluently read in Russian. (Actually, in Russian she also was mostly self-taught reader, as it frequently happens with younger siblings in families with strong reading environment.) And the audiobooks were real masterpieces -- Dr. Suess narrated by Dustin Hoffman, of all people!

Astronomer

2007-11-30T12:25:00.000-08:00

Gerrit Dou. Astronomer