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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| Return to ParadiseEdward Rothstein's review in yesterday's New York Times--
seems to me more a description of Hell. My own concept of paradise is closer to the Gary Cooper film " Return to Paradise," which impressed me greatly when I saw it on TV when I was in 10th grade. A related vision: two frames from the Jodie Foster film "Contact"-- | | |
| Lying RhymesReaders of the previous entrywho wish to practice their pardes may contemplate the following:  The evening 563 may, as in other recent entries, be interpreted as a page number in Gravity's Rainbow (Penguin Classics, 1995). From that page: "He brings out the mandala he found.
'What's it mean?'
[....]
Slothrop gives him the mandala. He hopes it will work like the mantra that Enzian told him once, mba-kayere (I am passed over), mba-kayere... a spell [...]. A mezuzah. Safe passage through a bad night...."
Christ and the Four Elements
This 1495 image is found in
The Janus
Faces of Genius:
The Role of Alchemy
in Newton's Thought,
by B. J. T. Dobbs,
Cambridge University Press,
2002, p. 85
Related mandalas: and  For further details, click on any of the three mandalas above. "For every kind of vampire,
there is a kind of cross."
-- Thomas Pynchon, quoted
here on 9/13, 2007
(As for today's New York Lottery midday number 007, see (for instance) Edward Rothstein in today's New York Times on paradise, and also Tom Stoppard on heaven as "just a lying rhyme" for seven.) Time of entry: 10:20:55 PM | | |
| Interpret This
"With respect, you only interpret." "Countries have gone to war after misinterpreting one another." -- The Interpreter Edward Rothstein in today's New York Times review of San Francisco's new Contemporary Jewish Museum: "An introductory wall panel tells us that in the Jewish mystical
tradition the four letters [in Hebrew] of pardes each stand for a level of biblical
interpretation: very roughly, the literal, the allusive, the
allegorical and the hidden. Pardes, we are told, became the museum’s
symbol because it reflected the museum’s intention to cultivate
different levels of interpretation: 'to create an environment for
exploring multiple perspectives, encouraging open-mindedness' and
'acknowledging diverse backgrounds.' Pardes is treated as a form of
mystical multiculturalism.
But even the most elaborate interpretations of a text or tradition
require more rigor and must begin with the literal. What is being said?
What does it mean? Where does it come from and where else is it used?
Yet those are the types of questions-- fundamental ones-- that are not
being asked or examined [...].
How can multiple perspectives and open-mindedness and diverse
backgrounds be celebrated without a grounding in knowledge, without
history, detail, object and belief?" "It's the system that matters.
How the data arrange
themselves inside it."
-- Gravity's Rainbow
"Examples are the stained-
glass windows of knowledge."
-- Vladimir Nabokov
 Click on image to enlarge. | | |
| The SystemPennsylvania Lottery Sunday, June 8, 2008: Mid-day 638 Evening 913 Midrash: 638 --"It's the system that matters. How the data arrange themselves inside it." -- Gravity's Rainbow, page 638913 --"For every kind of vampire, there is a kind of cross." -- Thomas Pynchon, quoted here on 9/13, 2007 | | |
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