R Allan Baruz: Commonplaces

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:16:03 GMT

An interesting point:

“The aim of mathematical modelling is not to try and simulate a natural phenomenon as closely as possible, but to isolate the fundamental principles that govern the phenomenon.”
—Tim Pedley

Sat, 12 Jul 2003 03:22:51 GMT

Wilde on diaries and memory:

CECILY. I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about them. MISS PRISM. Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Wilde on three-volume novel, plaguing us even then:

CECILY. Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us. MISS PRISM. Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I wrote one myself in earlier days. CECILY. Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

Wilde on what fiction means:

MISS PRISM. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.

Heh. The meaning of non-fiction, is, of course, beyond the scope of this weblog.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Thu, 10 Jul 2003 04:22:52 GMT

DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.
—New York Times, November 26, 1991

[by way of inluminent]

Mon, 30 Jun 2003 00:52:32 GMT

From the Greek Anthology, compiled by various sources. Nossis’s first epigram: I Ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος · ἃ δ’ ὄλβια, δεύτερα πάντα
ἐστίν · ἀπὸ στόματος δ’ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ μέλι.
τοῠτο λέγει Νοσσίς · τίνα δ’ ἁ Κύπρις οὐκ ἐφίλασεν.
οὐκ οἴδεν κήνα γ' ἅνθεα ποῐα ῥόδα. —Νοσσις I have not yet clapped eyes on an off-the-web Greek Anthology, but this Locrian site (by way of this site) has kindly put several of Nossis’s epigrams from the Anthology in picture form. I tried using the Macintosh’s support for foreign keyboards to type it in Greek, but it’s for modern Greek, so I used the Perseus Greek word study tool and its little language (a=alpha; h=eta; etc.) to compose the lines, save them to RTF Unicode-16, then used sed or awk to delete extras. Then to unicode.org to fill in some holes, some of which are not done yet. If anyone knows a better way to do this on a Mac OS X, please tell me!

Stalkin’ the ’hog

Mon, 16 Jun 2003 02:00:15 GMT

What was I saying? I saw it from above. It had come out and was standing on its haunches, looking over to where the neighbors were celebrating Father’s Day with loud music and patio partying. At the first shot of the bolt, it ran toward its hole. I approached, and it went closer and closer to ground. I came within four feet of the hole and stuck my arm out, with the camera on max optical zoom. Eventually, it stuck its head out, and I snapped, no flash. You can see the shadow of my arm above the li’l varmint. No flash, so some blurriness due to the longer exposure. Oh, one last thing:

License to kill gophers by the government of the United Nations. Man, free to kill gophers at will. To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit—ever. They’e like the Viet Cong—Varmint Cong. So you have to fall back on superior intelligence and superior firepower. And that’s all she wrote.
—Carl Spackler
Caddyshack

Durn cute varmints.

Thu, 29 May 2003 03:17:23 GMT

By way of Graham: A newspaper clipping.

Indeed, Mr. Steiner’s book and career are in many ways a celebration of the virtues of being utterly out of fashion. “In the 60’s, I was teaching amid all the upheaval, but I never had a day of trouble,” he said. “The young despise those who are trying to fake it, but they can accept the fact that you can be nuts or wrong politically. I walked into my classes and said: ‘I’m a reactionary mastodon out of the lost past. You don’t need to come to this lecture. But if you do I will explain something to you. I know an embarrassing lot. Terrible. You know almost nothing. I’ve taken an oath before God to change this equation in your favor. Now shut up.’ I didn’t have a moment’s trouble.”

Fri, 16 May 2003 05:32:50 GMT

150
A man who is trying to learn some art is apt to say, “I won’t rush things and tell people I am practicing while I am still a beginner. I’ll study by myself, and only when I have mastered the art will I perform before people. How impressed they’ll be then!”

People who speak in this fashion will never learn any art. The man who, even while still a novice, mixes with the experts, not ashamed of their harsh comments or ridicule, and who devotedly persists at his practice, unruffled by criticism, will neither become stultified in his art nor careless with it. Though he may lack natural gifts, he will with the passage of the years outstrip the man who coasts on his endowments, and in the end will attain the highest degree of skill, acquire authority in his art and the recognition of the public, and win an unequaled reputation.

The performers who now rank as the most skilled in the whole country were at the beginning considered incompeteent, and, indeed, had shocking faults. However, by faithfully maintaining the principles of their art and holding them in honor, rather than indulging in their own fancies, they have become paragons of the age and teachers for all. This surely holds true for every art.
—Kenkõ
Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkõ
Donald Keene, translator

Okay, a confession. Well, later on. Maybe.

Fri, 16 May 2003 05:18:11 GMT

Grant Barrett tossed this into the commentary while I was reminiscing on family, both by blood and the kinds we make for ourselves, in quotations, and I have tried to provide a translation, though my command of the idiom may be quite flawed, beware! (Corrections welcome):

Which in turn reminds me of this. Le premier homme by Albert Camus. 1994 Editions Gallimard. Ch. 3, "Recherche du père," pp 42-3

Cormery regardait les beaux muebles rustique qui remplissaient la salle à manger basse, aux poutres blanchies à la chaux.
« Cher ami, dit-il, vous avez toujours cru que j'étais orgueilleux. Je le suis. Mais pas toujours ni avec tous. Avec vous, par exemple, je suis incapable d'orgueil. »
Malan détourna le regard, ce qui chez lui était signe d'émotion.
« Je le sais, dit-il, mais pourquoi?
[~] Parce que je vous aime », dit calmement Cormery.
Malan tira vers lui le saladier de fruits rafraîchis et ne répondit rien.
« Parce que, continua Cormery, lorseque j[base ']étais très juene, très sot et très suel (vous vouz souvenez, à Alger?), vous vous êtes tourné vers moi, et vous m'avez ouvert sans y paraître les portes de tout ce que j'aime en ce monde.
[~] Oh! Vous êtes doué.
[~] Certainement. Mais aux plus doués il faut un initiateur. Celui que la vie un jour met sur votre chemin, celui-là doit être pour toujours aimé et respecté, même s'il n'est pas responsable. C'est là ma foi!
[~] Oui, oui, dit Malan d'un air patelin.
[~] Vous doutez, je sais. Voyez-vous, ne croyez pas que mon affection pour vous soit aveugle. Vous avez de gros, de très gros défauts. Du moins à mes yeux. »

Grant Barrett • 5/7/03; 7:39:34 PM

Um, time to break out the Cassell’s:

Cormery was looking at the quaint, pretty furniture filling the (buffet hall? cafeteria?), at the blanched lime chicken. "Dear friend," he said, "you have always believed me to be proud. I am that. But not always, nor with all. With you, say, I am incapable of pride." Malan turned away, which in him signaled emotion. "I know it," he said, "but why?" "Because I love you," said Cormery calmly. Malan picked at a bowl of chilled fruit and did not answer. "Because," he continued, "when I was young, so stupid and silly (Do you recall Algiers?) you turned to me, and you opened without appearing to the doors to all I hold dear in this world." "Bah! You were gifted." "Of course. But even the most gifted need a spark. He that life one day puts you upon your road, must be forever loved and respected, even if he is not responsible. By my faith!" "Yes, yes," said Malan with a (little place?) dismissive (?) air. "You doubt, I know. Look, don't think that my affection for you is blind. You have great, very great defects. At least in my eyes."
—Albert Camus
The First Man
“The search for the father”
Allan, translating...

Any hints on some of the expressions? Ugh, the things insomnia makes one do... Note to self: must update blogroll.

Wed, 07 May 2003 05:34:50 GMT

Which passage reminded me of this one:

And there were other things.

“You’re my teacher,” he said quietly. “My friend. Ten years ago when I was going insane trying to—to crush out the fire inside me—you told me that it was possible to have that fire, to hold it and keep it, not as a secret that I had to hide but as a way I could make my living and as a glory, a joy in itself. You told me that dreams were not insanity. Just for that, if you’d done nothing for me from that moment on, I’d still owe you...”

“You owe me nothing!” The crippled fingers tightened fiercely over the soft, stubby ones in their grasp. “Owe—it’s a filthy word! We are not permitted to marry, but we need sons and daughters, Rhion, to whom we can pass our knowledge. To whom we can pass what we are. Not children of the blood, but children of the fire.” There was a long silence, broken by the far-off mewling of gulls.

Rhion on magic; Jaldis on fatherhood
The Rainbow Abyss, 110<
Barbara Hambly, Sun-cross

Tue, 06 May 2003 07:33:41 GMT

“Why should you think so? Why assume me to be of such different stuff? We have the same blood, the same upbringing. What else is there, at the end of the day, that we can call our own? We’re our father’s prejudices and our swordmaster’s dead men; our mother’s palate and our nurse’s habit of speech. We’re the books unwritten by our tutor, and our groom’s convictions and the courage of our first horse. I share all that. Five years—even five such as these—can’t tear me drop by drop from your blood.”
Francis Crawford of Lymond
to Richard, Baron Culter, his brother
Game of Kings, 449,
Dorothy Dunnett, Lymond Chronicles.

Mon, 28 Apr 2003 01:58:45 GMT

You can wordify anything if you just verb it.

Bucky, Get Fuzzy
27 Apr 2003

Sun, 27 Apr 2003 21:17:47 GMT

“The problem with trying to child-proof the world, is that it makes people neglect the far more important task of world-proofing the child.”

—Hugh Daniel
by way of a jcr post in macosx-dev

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 03:35:07 GMT

Spoken in an outrageous French accent:

We wanted the characters to have real depths. Of course, it’s kind of stupid, whacky, cartoony depths...

—Ahmed Boukhelifa
Producer, Rayman 3
on Rayman 3 voice characterizations
Extended Play, 12 April 2003

(Host’s gratuitous remarks on the character of the French deleted)

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:06:50 GMT

Speaking of Al Lewis....

SHADOW:What's your secret for success, for a long, healthy, happy life? LEWIS:My secret for success? I don't know what the hell success means. (Laughs) I'll tell you what my secret is. It took me a long time to find this out. Find something that you absolutely love to do. Not you like it, or it's pleasant, something that you absolutely love to do. And along the way, if you're lucky, get to love the way you do it. Then you're home free. And you're looking at a man right now. I got a spine made out of stainless steel. Nothing shrinks it, nothing, nothing. Because I know who I am. I don't have to brag. I know what I contributed. I know what I did. You think you can do it better? Hey, go right ahead. The stage is yours. But find something that you absolutely love doing. And then get to love the way you do it. That's the uniqueness of all of us. That's it. Albert Einstein, one of my favorites, said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And if that cat say it, it's good enough for me.

Al Lewis on success
Shadowinterview

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 10:40:25 GMT

157

If we pick up a brush, we feel like writing; if we hold a musical instrument in our hands, we wish to play music. Lifting a wine cup makes us crave saké; taking up dice, we should like to play backgammon. The mind invariably reacts in this way to any stimulus. That is why we should not indulge even casually in improper amusements. Even a perfunctory glance at one verse of some holy writing will somehow make us notice also the text that precedes and follows; it may happen then, quite suddenly, that we mend our errors of many years. Supposing we had not at that moment opened the sacred text, would we have realized our mistakes? This is a case of accidental contact producing a beneficial result. Though our hearts may not be in the least impelled by faith, if we sit before the Buddha, rosary in hand, and take up a sutra, we may (even in our indolence) be accumulating merit through the act itself; though our mind may be inattentive, if we sit in meditation on a rope seat, we may enter a state of calm and concentration, without even being aware of it. Phenomenon and essence are fundamentally one. If the outward form is not at variance with the truth, an inward realization is certain to develop. We should not deny that this is true faith; we should respect and honor a conformity to truth.

Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenkõ
Donald Keene, tr. 139ff.

Now, no Catholic believes in salvation through works, or rather, only very uninformed ones; but through the ages the fundamental character of man has not changed, and from the patristic sources down to this day we are informed that actions become habits, habits become character. And a person of good character recognizes, accepts, and trusts in truth, more especially, Truth. The formation of a good conscience and good character is essential to the formation of faith. Good actions beget good character, and faith is just as much an act of will as any good work is. Knowledge has no salvific power, but without it, without Truth informing behavior, how can salvation occur? ...erm, edit later.

Tue, 08 Apr 2003 04:11:15 GMT

“[Michael Moore]’s going to wake up every day for the rest of his life, and he’s going to tell us how he hates everything about this country except his right to hate it. And then we say that we love it and he’s going to tell us what naive sheep we are and that he’s the true patriot because he hates it and he sees all the problems in it. Yeah, right, Mike. You know something, if my yawn got any bigger they’d have to assign it a hurricane name, okay? Michael Moore simultaneously represents everything I detest in a human being and everything I feel obligated to defend in an American. Quite simply, it is that stupid moron’s right to be that utterly, completely wrong.”

—Dennis Miller on Michael Moore's Oscar speech
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
(3 April 2003?)

[also by way of Gawker]

Mon, 07 Apr 2003 00:00:55 GMT

What was I saying? Oh, right. Lichtenberg quotes and aphorisms!

Fri, 28 Mar 2003 02:47:17 GMT

It was written in C, which was a great help, except in those instances in which it wasn’t.

Tue, 25 Mar 2003 04:53:15 GMT

If Mike can do it, why can’t I?

160 One no longer loves one’s knowledge enough when one has communicated it. 161 Poets behave impudently towards their experiences: they exploit them.

—Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols,
or,
How to philosophize with a hammer

Nietzsche: Less systematic than Wittgenstein; more insane. Likee? Writing of which, and in consideration of Mike’s run-in with Bono, and more succinctly:

Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief;
all kill their inspiration and sing about their grief.

—“The Fly”
Achtung, Baby
U2

Tue, 25 Mar 2003 03:46:45 GMT

According to A.N Wilson, Hugo Dyson used to sit in the corner during Tolkien's readings saying 'Oh fuck, not another elf.'

[by Andrew Rilstone. You may remember Rilstone from editing Interactive Fantasy, which published the Greg Costikyan essay, “I Have No Words & I Must Design,” if you happened to read one of the two or three issues that came out; I have the second, which contains the aforementioned essay. What is a game, anyway? This has been famously hard to define, resisting the Aristotelian genus-species approach, at least according to Ludwig Wittgenstein. Greg has a go at it, though, and produces an interesting definition, one which he chisels out in order to help in the task of analysis of games, the point of which is to create better ones. One would like to create an etymology of Ludwig/Ludovico that has to do with games, say, ludo-vico, game-winner or something silly like that. Alas, it is not to be. I think it emerges from Chlodwig or Hlodwig, and thus is cognate with Clovis the first among the Franks that invaded Gallia, and related through it to Louis. But Chlodwig means famous/loud/glorious warrior or something of the sort, which is an altogether different game.]

Tue, 25 Mar 2003 02:29:31 GMT

“How are you going to convince somebody when you don’t like him?”

—Dr. ex-General Markov to Webster Tompkins.
Tom DeMarco, The Deadline, 165

Sun, 23 Mar 2003 17:46:47 GMT

“We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them. There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory. Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing. Don’t treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you. If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.”

—Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins
to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment

Sat, 22 Mar 2003 02:13:06 GMT

Professor: Start the ship, Leela. Let’s just steal the damn radar dish and go back to our own time.
Fry: But, but won’t that change history?
Professor: Oooh, a lesson in not changing history from Mr. “I’m my own grandpa.” Let’s get the hell out of here already. Screw history!
[after much destruction, both in time and space (including a missile painted, “Roswell that ends well”)]
Professor: Choke on that, causality!

The crew says good-bye to 1947
“Roswell That Ends Well”
written by J. Stewart Burns
Futurama

I collapsed in hysterical laughter throughout this whole scene, probably because of the strong presumption in all the science fiction I have read and seen against changing history. Plus the verboten incest-with-your-own-grandma thing.

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 01:00:44 GMT

“Perhaps you aren’t a naturally confident kind of gal. That puts you with about 95 percent of the population. Fortunately, being confident and pretending to be confident are essentially the same thing.”

—Margaret Berry, 20 March 2003
Women’s Fashion: Part V, Releasing Your Inner Slμt
The Morning News
[Thanks, Paul!]

Mon, 10 Mar 2003 03:19:23 GMT

As a rule of thumb: A design is what the designer has when time and money have run out.

—James Poole
Chief Architect for Disneyland
Topanga, California