Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/2:39 PM
Well, this starts to get a little beyond my comfort level in terms of what math actually "does" vis-a-vis reality. But "reality"--our understanding of what that means--shifts at any given point in time, doesn't it? And some of those shifts resulted from mathematics. So--is that bringing something 'new' (in terms of our understanding of reality) into being, as art does? Or is it just discovering what already exists? I honestly don't know. It's certainly an debate that's been going on (among much keener minds than mine) for a long time. Platonism or Formalism or something else entirely? Godel talked quite a bit about math being interpretive of abstract reality rather than empirical reality. Maybe that's not such a bad place to start thinking about this stuff. My head hurts.
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/2:04 PM
Fair enough. I guess that's why I see it as "interpret"--to render it in such a way as to be capable of a limited understanding. Of course, to me, it's academic anyway (given that I don't actually buy the concept of "divine").
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/1:58 PM
New "things"--such as? How is art any less interpretive of what already exists than math?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/1:52 PM
Oh, I give him credit all right. UVA/OoB has the problem with it. IMDB has three Fred Ott acting credits (he plays himself in two): The Kiss (1900) .... Himself Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894) .... Sneezing Man ... aka Fred Ott's Sneeze Fred Ott Holding a Bird (1894) .... Himself Full time?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/1:41 PM
Ah, now, Mr. Provacateur, how is using math to interpret the divine (if that's what D was doing here--I took it as the reverse, in a sense) analogous to monkeys throwing poop at the Sistine Chapel? Is the medium not sufficient or insufficiently beautiful (as opposed to, say, paint or words)?
Re: a comment on Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/1:39 PM
Wow--that's impressive. Maybe you should e-mail it to UVA's Oracle of Bacon, which says: "fred ott has a Kevin Bacon number of infinity. fred ott cannot be linked to Kevin Bacon using only feature films. About 12% of all actors cannot be linked to the rest of the movie universe, either because they have appeared only in TV features or straight-to-video releases that the Oracle doesn't count, or because they have not appeared in any features with actors from the Hollywood mainstream." On second thought, I doubt "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" would fit their criteria.
Re: Numbers In Heaven by Dovina	13-Mar-06/11:04 AM
My ex is a mathematician, and though I didn't come away from our relationship with much real knowledge or understanding of mathematics, I did come away with some appreciation of mathematical aesthetics (in part from long hours spent struggling with _Godel, Escher, Bach_ and the like). He had a knack for making me understand, if only superficially and mostly by analogy (not being math brained), why he saw such beauty in numbers (even if, as Erdos said, ". . . you don't see why [numbers are beautiful], someone can't tell you. I know numbers are beautiful. If they aren't beautiful, nothing is.") Your treatments, frankly, don't make me see that beauty. I'm not saying that to be a jerk. Maybe it's that you don't give enough information or make the necessary connections. Or maybe it's that your observations seem, I don't know, somewhat contradictory or superficial. For example--what's the significance of 183? It's not a prime (though you go on to extol primes). It's odd, true, but so? Maybe the problem is that I just don't bring the necessary math chops to the table, but I don't think it's that alone. You tap into a long tradition of seeing numbers as divinely inspired (I think that's part of what you're saying), from Gallileo to Erdos (not a believer, but he liked the divine analogy well enough) and beyond. And the reference to the the Platonic--abstract, unchanging truths--gives this some context it might otherwise lack. But some of it doesn't seem to hang together or perhaps just isn't fleshed out enough. I do think your subject choices are often unusual and ambitious, which is commendable. And you do have a knack for inspiring reaction!
Re: Nightfall by Niphredil	12-Mar-06/12:34 PM
Beautiful. "And now that it is late and I am free, I cannot bring myself to turn and go . . ."
Re: a comment on The Devil's Carnival by Ranger	12-Mar-06/12:28 PM
;-D
Re: a comment on The Devil's Carnival by Ranger	12-Mar-06/12:24 PM
re: bullying--it does come through, in the black and blue, in the grinning and the laughing, etc. The mottling of merle works, I think (had to look up "merle"--I only know it from Robert Plant singing about his dog, Strider--a blue-eyed merle--a million years ago); you probably even get away with churl because this has something of an "out of time" feel to it.
Re: Gone Bad by faithmairee	12-Mar-06/12:10 PM
Hee--it's like every blues song ever written condensed into a handful of lines.
Re: The Devil's Carnival by Ranger	12-Mar-06/12:07 PM
Makes me think of Blackpool Pleasure Beach, all of those incredibly cool dark rides you guys have; a girl on a ride crying. Your repeating lines are pretty good, Ranger, and the imagery here is well done. Not sure about churl and merle, but otherwise, this is very cool.
Re: Crowded by INTRANSIT	12-Mar-06/11:49 AM
Very cool. I like your truckin' poems. I like the end rhymes here too. One suggestion: lose the archaic "naught"--just recast the line to keep "keep" (or find another line with an "eep" word at end). The "naught" really doesn't fit the rest of the poem, and the sense is a little squidgy anyway.
Re: a comment on Sour Apple by ecargo	12-Mar-06/11:41 AM
Thanks, Mandy--I think. :) My nature poems are a little cheerier.
Re: a comment on Sour Apple by ecargo	12-Mar-06/11:41 AM
It's basically about hiking with a narcissistic friend who makes me crazy. And, yep, she's from NYC. Glad that came through--glassed towers and canyons and all.
Re: a comment on Breakfast by Dhanesh M Kumar	12-Mar-06/11:37 AM
Well, dear Sir, I do agree that the insurgents are murderous, barbarous bastards "beyond reason, and beyond motive"; thoughtless cynicism is as fruitless as unfounded, cockeyed optimism; and I am, indeed, extremely and most delectably naughty. Good day to you.
Re: a comment on Navy Pier by matt door	10-Mar-06/8:01 PM
Oh, yeah, and fix "Lake's."
Re: a comment on Emo Kid by Fayt	10-Mar-06/7:58 PM
Now, that'd make a good poem.
Re: Windflower by matt door	10-Mar-06/7:58 PM
"Primrose passion" bugs me, but the rest is pretty good.
Re: Navy Pier by matt door	10-Mar-06/7:56 PM
I love it. My only suggestions: "it's" (line 3) should be "its"; and delete the period after laugh and lowercase "blew" (run-in), since it's modified by "breeze". Small stuff.