She Say, She Sigh, She Sow

“Those who view mathematical science, not merely as a vast body of abstract and immutable truths, whose intrinsic beauty, symmetry and logical completeness, when regarded in their connection together as a whole, entitle them to a prominent place in the interest of all profound and logical minds, but as possessing a yet deeper interest for the human race, when it is remembered that this science constitutes the language through which alone we can adequately express the great facts of the natural world, and those unceasing changes of mutual relationship which, visibly or invisibly, consciously or unconsciously to our immediate physical perceptions, are interminably going on in the agencies of the creation we live amidst: those who thus think on mathematical truth as the instrument through which the weak mind of man can most effectively read his Creator’s works, will regard with especial interest all that can tend to facilitate the translation of its principles into explicit practical forms.” — Ada Lovelace (née Byron) (1815-52).

Mix to the Marx

“And in the global climate of the early 90s, it’s perhaps not surprising that the ANC bent to the neoliberal flood tide, putting its Freedom Charter calls for public ownership and redistribution of land on the back burner.” — Mandela has been sanitised by hypocrites and apologists, Seamus Milne, The Guardian, 12/xii/2013.


Previously pre-posted (please peruse):

• Reds under the Thread

He Say, He Sigh, He Sow #23

“Brion knew it wasn’t William’s fault. But in terms of the general popular culture not recognizing the importance of his contribution, there was a little bitterness.” — phantasmagoric freethinker Genesis P-Orridge interrogates issues around Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs.


Elsewhere other-posted:

• Ex-term-in-ate!

Performativizing Papyrocentricity #15

Papyrocentric Performativity Presents:

Brought to Book – A Book of English Essays, selected by W.E. Williams (Pelican 1942)

Glamourdämmerung – Treasures of Nirvana, Gillian G. Gaar (Carlton 2011)

Highway to Hell – The Road, Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Solids and Shadows – An Adventure in Multidimensional Space: The Art and Geometry of Polygons, Polyhedra, and Polytopes, Koji Miyazaki (Wiley-Interscience 1987) (posted @ Overlord of the Über-Feral)

Magna Mater Marina – The Illustrated World Encyclopedia of Marine Fish and Sea Creatures, Amy-Jane Beer and Derek Hall (Lorenz Books 2007) (@ O.o.t.Ü.-F.)


Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR

Lute to Kill

A little-known Housman poem that should be better-known:


Breathe, my lute, beneath my fingers
    One regretful breath,
One lament for life that lingers
    Round the doors of death.
For the frost has killed the rose,
And our summer dies in snows,
    And our morning once for all
    Gathers to the evenfall.

Hush, my lute, return to sleeping,
    Sing no songs again.
For the reaper stays his reaping
    On the darkened plain;
And the day has drained its cup,
And the twilight cometh up;
    Song and sorrow all that are
    Slumber at the even-star.

A.E. Housman (1859-1936) — see also Breathe, my lute at Wikilivres.