Without Lifting A Finger



Caroling, hot chocolate, and Santa atop the local fire engine. Then they pulled the switch. *         

No doorbusters. Just a few local denizens waiting for the lights to come on. *       



Forgotten? Discarded? On the run? Not scary enough? Hard to believe he can scare anything here beneath this tree. 

From The Fall : To be sure, you are not familiar with that dungeon cell that was called the little-ease in the Middle Ages. In general, one was forgotten there for life. That cell was distinguished from others by ingenious dimensions. It was not high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down in. One had to take on an awkward manner and live on the diagonal; sleep was a collapse, and waking a squatting. * I believe this little-ease is in the Tower of London:   [From Wikimedia Commons]   

The Just Judges or The Righteous Judges is the lower left panel of the Ghent Altarpiece , painted by Jan van Eyck or his brother Hubert Van Eyck between 1430–32. It is believed that the panel shows portraits of several contemporary figures such as Philip the Good , and possibly the artists Hubert and Jan van Eyck themselves. The panel was stolen in 1934 and has never been found. Photograph of the stolen panel:   [Photo and text from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Just_Judges ]    

Stayed close to home this morning. Walked to Bucks (hoping to see my coyote on the Greenbelt but no luck); sunrise over the lagoon was OK but I resisted the pic; a little Camus and then a short trek around the golf course and lagoon. * Excerpts from The Fall :      By the way, will you please open that cupboard? Yes, look at that painting. Don't you recognize it? It is "The Just Judges." That doesn't make you jump? Can it be that your culture has gaps? Yet if you read the papers, you would recall the theft in 1934 in the St. Bavon Cathedral of Ghent, of one of the panels of the famous van Eyck altarpiece, "The Adoration of the Lamb." That panel was called "The Just Judges." It represented judges on horseback coming to adore the sacred animal. It was replaced by an excellent copy, for the original was never found. Well, here it is. No, I had nothing to do with it. A frequenter of Mexico City --you had a glimpse of him the other evening--sold ...

Finished with Modiano. May read more if and when it becomes available on Kindle. So-so but it kept my interest. Have taken up Camus' The Fall (third time, I believe). Relatively easy read. Not always as good as I remembered, but probably (for me) his best work. * An excerpt: Any society, however brilliant, soon crushes me whereas I have never been bored with the women I liked. It hurts me to confess it, but I'd have given ten conversations with Einstein for an initial rendezvous with a pretty chorus girl. It's true that at the tenth rendezvous I was longing for Einstein or a serious book. In short, I was never concerned with the major problems except in the intervals between my little excesses. And how often, standing on the sidewalk involved in a passionate discussion with friends, I lost the thread of the argument being developed because a devastating woman was crossing the street at that very moment.

Two or three nights ago. Couldn't resist. Call me a hoarder of sunsets and sunrises. It was along my usual route home. A faux paradise is better than no paradise.     

Also quite interesting (I'm glad I followed the link): Buffon's Needle. * In mathematics , Buffon's needle problem is a question first posed in the 18th century by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon : Suppose we have a floor made of parallel strips of wood , each the same width, and we drop a needle onto the floor. What is the probability that the needle will lie across a line between two strips? Buffon's needle was the earliest problem in geometric probability to be solved; it can be solved using integral geometry . The solution, in the case where the needle length is not greater than the width of the strips, can be used to design a Monte Carlo method for approximating the number π . *       [From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffon%27s_needle ] 

Came across the name reading Modiano: Buffon. Didn't know the name. He was a character's favorite author. Found bits of his bio/work very interesting. * Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon ( French pronunciation: ​ [ʒɔʁʒ lwi ləklɛʁ kɔ̃t də byfɔ̃] ; 7 September 1707 – 16 April 1788) was a French naturalist , mathematician , cosmologist , and encyclopedic author. His works influenced the next two generations of naturalists , including Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and Georges Cuvier . Buffon published thirty-six quarto volumes of his Histoire naturelle during his lifetime; with additional volumes based on his notes and further research being published in the two decades following his death. [ 1 ] It has been said that "Truly, Buffon was the father of all thought in natural history in the second half of the 18th century". [ 2 ] Buffon held the position of intendant (director) at the Jardin du Roi, now called the Jardin des Plantes ; it is the French equivalent...

Certainly a nice place to "have a few," though I think they perhaps had a few too many. And who gets to clean up? Multiply this by how many thousands, and then answer the question: How positive do I feel about the future of mankind? ***          



Don't worry: I've been reading. Modiano's three novellas (only sampling in Kindle). Not all that "nobels" is gold. I can enjoy it (anything attempting to evoke Paris or its environs has some merit), but I can also say: not quite to my taste. Next: Rereading Camus' The Fall. Then: Probably back to Bernhard.

   



Interesting. Saw it this morning and thought I'd post it. It was supposedly shot by Daguerre himself in 1838. The Paris street is bustling with human activity, but only two people show up: a bootblack and the man getting his boots polished. * 









Finished with Concrete . Wondered where "concrete" and the suicide would come in: both at the end. * Loved this bit about writing: When we have sentences in our heads we still can't be certain of being able to get them down on paper, I thought. The sentences frighten us; first the idea frightens us, then the sentence, then the thought that we may no longer have the idea in our heads when we want to write it down. Very often we write down a sentence too early , the another too late ; what we have to do is to write it down at the proper time, otherwise it's lost.