Chain of Flowers, part 1

—Searching for Nephites in Mexico.

—Julia Galef's taxonomy of books.

—A counter-intuitive article finds that Tibetan Buddhist monks fear death more than other groups.

—Music from the Butt of Man in Hell In Bosch.

—Six Theses on Hamlet from Roy Tsao.

—Interesting Music conference at Columbia.

—Jim Hughes on Pernkopf's gorgeous Nazi anatomy.

—Maureen Mullarkey on the official Obama portraits.

—The latest Dahir Insaat idea — a flying train.

—Ronald Coffman wins the 2018 Schock Prize in Mathematics for his contributions to pure and applied harmonic analysis.

Notes from June 08, 2012

—It's possible to develop a strange relationship with a book, maybe a kind of obsession or a kind of love. 

But in love, we come to expect a response from our partner, and we expect to watch our partner change and grow. 

This presents a problem since books are static objects and can't respond to us or change. 

So we must be continually seeking to understand them in different terms than we are accustomed to.

This continual reinterpretation allows for the illusion of change in an otherwise static object. 

"Note On A Rainy Night To A Friend In The North"

Etienne Leopold Trouvelet, "Total Eclipse of the Sun," circa 1878

You ask me when I am coming. I do not know.
I dream of your mountains and autumn pools brimming all night with the rain.
Oh, when shall we be trimming wicks again, together in your Western window?
When shall I be hearing your voice again, all night in the rain?

[Li Shangyin, translated by Witter Banner]