Book of Sand

  Borges is a writer who has mentioned everything. One cannot identify in the history of culture a single theme he has not touched on, even if only fleetingly. Just yesterday I listened to a speaker who suggested that Borges could have influenced Plato when he was writing the Parmenides since he, Borges, had portrayed the same characters as Plato.  I do not remember who evoked the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy yesterday: certainly Borges talks of it, but on this subject there is an endless bibliography, which begins in the seventeenth century, continues with monumental (and crazy) works in the nineteenth century, and extends to this day with pseudosecret societies that continue to look for the traces of Francis Bacon in Shakespeare's works. Obviously an idea like this (that the work of the great bard was written by someone else, who has left constant clues in the text if you read between the lines) could not but fascinate Borges. But that certainly does not mean that an autho...

"Still I think out of the dreary sameness of existence, a measure of dramatic life may be drawn. Even the most common place, the deadest among the living, may play a part in a great drama." James Joyce. Found in Umberto Eco's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Bachelor" On Literature. In the original speech to text transcription, deadest was rendered as "dentist,", which changes the meaning somewhat.

 …La vida es corta y aunque las horas son tan largas, una oscura maravilla nos acecha, la muerte, ese otro mar, esa otra flecha que nos libra del sol y de la luna y del amor. ~ Jorge Luis Borges ... Life is brief, and though the hours seem long, there is another dark mystery that lies in wait for us - death, that other sea, that other arrow that frees us from the sun, the moon, and love. [A.R. tr.] SP 217.  

  Spa Night was a gay coming-of-age story about a young Korean American with immigrant parents, who is forced to take a job to help support the family and starts working in an Asian bath house.  There is has encounters which make him come to a realization about himself.  Lilting (2014) was a drama starring Ben Whishaw, as a gay man coming to terms with the death of his long term Asian partner and then confronting his mother about what was lost in translation about their closeted life of denial because of her. They were both decent films and well made.  I had a free trial to MuBi to watch Burning by Lee Chang-Dong. Apparently it is free with ads on Prime Video.  Not many other films by Lee Chang-dong, none that I have heard of.

 Had a lovely meal at Mike and Christina's, she produced a wonderful meal of turkey and traditional sides. I contributed a large pumpkin pie and hor d'oeurves.  They had some friends over as well, Sam and Stewart and his 8 year old son, Aiden, who told me all about Hollow Knight. We watched some MST3k, and had a good discussion along, with quite a bit of wine.  I brought up the AI Art generation subject which lead to a discussion Mike later called "excellent" in a text; I think because I was willing to argue a point pretty strenuously.  He of course took the other side, but I could not get him to clarify his objections exactly, which seem to hinge on scale and also intent.

Burning (2018) directed by Lee Chang-dong Written by Jungmi Oh (screenplay by) Lee Chang-dong (screenplay by) Haruki Murakami(based on the short story "Barn Burning" by) Deliveryman Jongsu is out on a job when he runs into Haemi, a girl who once lived in his neighbourhood. She asks if he'd mind looking after her cat while she's away on a trip to Africa. On her return, she introduces to Jongsu an enigmatic young man named Ben, who she met during her trip. One day Ben tells Jongsu about his most unusual hobby. According to Lee Chang-Dong, there was something very cinematic about the mysteriousness included in Murakami's story. For Chang-Dong, a small mystery from the short story could be expanded to bigger mysteries in multiple layers in cinematic way. For example, with Chang-Dong's words, "the gaping holes in the chain of events -the missing piece from which we can never know the truth- alludes to the mysterious world we live in now; the world in which we ...

 " Sleeping, as we all know, is the most secret of our acts. We devote a third of our lives to it, and yet do not understand it. For some, it is no more than an eclipse of wakefulness; for others, a more complex state spanning at one and the same time past, present, and future; for still others, an uninterrupted series of dreams." The Elderly Lady. Dr. Brodie's Report. Jorge Luis Borges. 

In the grand hall of the station he saw that he had thirty minutes before his train left. He suddenly remembered that there was a café on Calle Brasil (a few yards from Yrigoyen's house) where there was a huge cat that would let people pet it, like some disdainful deity. He went in. There was the cat, asleep. He ordered a cup of coffee, slowly spooned sugar into it, tasted it (a pleasure that had been forbidden him in the clinic), and thought, while he stroked the cat's black fur, that this contact was illusory, that he and the cat were separated as though by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant. The South - Jorge Luis Borges

"The greatest magician (Novalis has memorably written) would be the one who would cast over himself a spell so complete that he would take his own phantasmagorias as autonomous appearances. Would not this be our case?" I conjecture that this is so.  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. Avatars of the Tortoise (Jorge Luis Borges) Translated by J. E. I.

From StackExchange : In The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges, the speaker says, They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical. In the above quote, he mentions the "Crimson Hexagon", which has its own meaning as an almost soul-consuming wish. However, so much of this short story is analogous to and symbolic for real-world objects. So, what does the "crimson hexagon" represent? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A central concern of The Library of Babel -- and particularly this section of it -- is the search for order and meaning within a chaotic world. In this passage, Borges introduces the Purifiers; those who, in their pursuit of truth and meaning, destroy anything they consider of no value: Others, inversely, believed that it was fundamental to eliminate us...

T odos los hechos que pueden ocurrirle a un hombre, desde el instante de su nacimiento hasta el de su muerte, han sido prefijados por él. Así, toda negligencia es deliberada, todo casual encuentro una cita, toda humillación una penitencia, todo fracaso una misteriosa victoria, toda muerte un suicidio. No hay consuelo más hábil que el pensamiento de que hemos elegido nuestras desdichas; esa teleología individual nos revela un orden secreto y prodigiosamente nos confunde con la divinidad. Deutsches requiem --------------------------- I read once more that all things that can occur to a man, from the moment of his birth to the moment of his death, have been predetermined by him. Thus, all inadvertence is deliberate, every casual encounter is an engagement made beforehand, every humiliation is an act of penitence, every failure a mysterious victory, every death a suicide. There is no more cunning consolation than the thought that we have chosen our own misfortunes; that individual t...

 Saw Ben last night and watched two critical videos about Everything, Everywhere All at Once. One by Thomas Flight " The Terror of Everything Everywhere All At Once " and one by Like Stories of Old " Multiverses, Nihilism, and How it Feels to be Alive Right Now " Ben queried what was the point of the use of the Midjourney AI image generator in the Thomas Flight video which led to a long discussion about my ideas relating to AI text generation.  He saw mostly only the downsides and the slippery slope toward more negative outcomes.  I suggested that we will get the negative outcomes anyway, so why not also have a more active role in creating and moderating our own content generation.  I asked who all of these Netflix programs are targeted to?  Not me, just my general demographic. In the Nihilism video, he mentions a multiverse as an opposing bulwark against the entropic heat death of the universe, positing a creative expansion essaying all possible variation...

 https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/liftoff-nasa-s-artemis-i-mega-rocket-launches-orion-to-moon   Liftoff! NASA’s Artemis I Mega Rocket Launches Orion to Moon NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s Artemis I mission is the first integrated flight test of the agency’s deep space exploration systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and ground systems. SLS and Orion launched at 1:47am ET from Launch Pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center. Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls Following a successful launch of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in the world, the agency’s Orion spacecraft is on its way to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Carrying an uncrewed Orion, SLS lifted off for its flight test debut at 1...

  LA CIFRA La amistad silenciosa de la luna (cito mal a Virgilio) te acompaña desde aquella perdida hoy en el tiempo noche o atardecer en que tus vagos ojos la descifraron para siempre en un jardín o un patio que son polvo. ¿Para siempre? Yo sé que alguien, un día, podrá decirte verdaderamente: No volverás a ver la clara luna . Has agotado ya la inalterable suma de veces que te da el destino . Inútil abrir todas las ventanas del mundo. Es tarde. No darás con ella . Vivimos descubriendo y olvidando esa dulce costumbre de la noche. Hay que mirarla bien. Puede ser última. ============================== The Limit The silent friendship of the moon (I misquote Virgil) has kept you company since that one night or evening now lost in time, when your restless eyes first made her out for always in a patio or a garden since gone to dust. For always? I know that someday someone will find a way of telling you this truth: "You'll never see the moon aglow again. You've now attained the l...

"De todos los instrumentos del hombre, el más asombroso es, sin duda, el libro. Los demás son extensiones de su cuerpo. El microscopio, el telescopio, son extensiones de su vista; el teléfono es extensión de la voz; luego tenemos el arado y la espada, extensiones del brazo. Pero el libro es otra cosa: el libro es una extensión de la memoria y la imaginación". Jorge Luis Borges. (Borges oral.)   "Of all the instruments of man, the most astonishing is, without a doubt, the book. Others are extensions of your body. The microscope, the telescope, are extensions of your sight; the phone is extension of your voice; then we have the plow and the sword, extensions of the arm. But the book is something else: the book is an extension of the memory and the imagination.” Jorge Luis Borges. (Borges oral.) ===========================================   "Of the various instruments of man, the most amazing is, without a doubt, the book", Jorge Luis Borges The book is one of the...

 Also watched Everything, Everywhere All at Once with Ben. Trying to think of some movies like this one...it is a genre bender, multiverse film. The directors said they were inspired by watching a double bill of The Matrix and Fight Club. I definitely got vibes of both of those films.  But also other weird existential forays like Being John Malkovich Synecdoche, NY Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Adaptation (?) The Truman Show Mr. Nobody * Jobu Tupaki. means Pocket Pistol or Pocket Gun in Telugu, a South Indian Language. Jobu or Jebu means pocket, Tupaki means a gun or a pistol.

 ...from William Shakespeare 's The Tempest:  "For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,  Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins  Shall, forth at vast of night that they may work,  All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched  As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging  Than bees that made 'em"

 ran into Miles Zheng, randomly while going out to lunch with Liming and Xioahui TU, alum, returning to campus for a talk. He was eating by himself at Lao Sze Chuan.  Liming asked him to join us 3 to make a foursome. I had the wrong number for Miles apparently, but we corrected it and texted afterward.  Going to dinner at Texas Roadhouse tonight. (TRh was a long wait, so we went to Outback. Had a good time!) I looked up his pic from Class of 2017.  His real name is Yongjian Zheng. He ooks very different without glasses. I cannot remember when I last saw him. Pre-covid at least, but perhaps before he went to Harvard for a year.

Murder in Chicago | Umberto Eco | The New York Review of Books : Murder in Chicago Umberto Eco April 10, 1997 issue Reviewed: Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu by Ted Anton Northwestern University Press, 301 pp., $24.95 On May 21, 1991, Ioan Culianu, a young (forty-one) and brilliant professor of the history of religion at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, stepped into the stall of the restroom of his department. So...

  “I think Garcia Marquez is a great writer. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a great novel, although I think fifty years would have been enough.” Borges

Spent the day hanging out with an alum, doing some video shoots and then we went to dinner with some faculty.  Although I was a bit trepidacious, it turned out to be a very good day. Enjoyed the conversations and feeling like I was actively doing something. Liming mostly stood back but I did notice how well he got the students to engage during lunch.  He talked a lot of course but was good at directing questions and seems to actually know a lot about each student.

 Ben again - watched some anime, made teriyaki chicken with rice, broccoli and gyoza. He did all of this pretty much himself and wants to do more home cooking.  He (and I) enjoy just making and eating a simple but multi-stage meal, which is very satisfying, and then cuddling and watching something. Later we got naked and I got rimmed(!). Saw him last Tuesday for del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, watched Lot 36, Graveyard Rats and The Viewing.  He is interested in watching more Studio Ghibli films. He works rather hard, puts in a lot of hours, doesn't get enough sleep, and yet is always pleasant, thoughtful, charming, cheerful and upbeat. He is a really great person to have a friend and lover. We are seeing each other usually 2-4 times a week now. Last week we went to Mike and Christina's Halloween party and out to dinner at Restaurant                                       ...

  Brownian motion was discovered by the biologist Robert Brown in 1827.  In 1827, the English botanist Robert Brown noticed that pollen seeds suspended in water moved in an irregular "swarming" motion. In 1827, while examining grains of pollen of the plant Clarkia pulchella suspended in water under a microscope, Brown observed minute particles, now known to be amyloplasts (starch organelles) and spherosomes (lipid organelles), ejected from the pollen grains, executing a continuous jittery motion. He then observed the same motion in particles of inorganic matter, enabling him to rule out the hypothesis that the effect was life-related. Although Brown did not provide a theory to explain the motion the phenomenon is now known as Brownian motion . 

Excerpts from Is Shakespeare Dead by Mark Twain, an exploration of the Shakespeare authorship question originally published in 1909. [The full text of Mark Twain’s Is Shakespeare Dead? is freely available online at Internet Archive .] “For the instruction of the ignorant I will make a list, now, of those details of Shakespeare’s history which are FACTS – verified facts, established facts, undisputed facts …. He was born on the 23d of April, 1564. Of good farmer-class parents who could not read, could not write, could not sign their names. At Stratford, a small back settlement which in that day was shabby and unclean, and densely illiterate. Of the nineteen important men charged with the government of the town, thirteen had to “make their mark” in attesting important documents, because they could not write their names. Of the first eighteen years of his life NOTHING is known. They are a blank. On the 27th of November (1582) William Shakespeare took out a license to marry...