Papyrocentric Performativity Presents…
• Bestial at the Festival – The Festival, D.M. Mitchell (2021)
• Linkin’ Lawyer – Resurrection Walk, Michael Connelly (2023)
• Mini Miki – Maximal Mikita: The Mostly Morbid Memoirs of Mikita Brottman, Mikita Brottman (2024)
• Spider Guider – Britain’s Spiders: A Field Guide, Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford and Helen Smith (2020)
• Gnostalgie du Perdu – Gnosticism: An Anthology, ed. Robert M. Grant (1961)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
The French mathematician Siméon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840) once said: « La vie n’est bonne qu’à deux choses : à faire des mathématiques et à les professer. » — “Life is good only for two things: doing mathematics and teaching mathematics.” The German philosopher Nietzsche wouldn’t have agreed. He thought (inter alia) that we must learn to accept life as eternally recurring. Everything we do and experience will happen again and again for ever. Can you accept life like that? Then your life is good.
But neither Poisson or Nietzsche knew that Life, with a capital L, would take on a new meaning in the 20th century. It became a mathematical game played on a grid of squares with counters. You start by placing counters in some pattern, regular or random, on the grid, then you add or remove counters according to three simple rules applied to each square of the grid:
1. If an empty square has exactly three counters as neighbors, put a new counter on the square.
2. If a counter has two or three neighbors, leave it where it is.
3. If a counter has less than two or more than three neighbors, remove it from the grid.
And there is a meta-rule: apply all three rules simultaneously. That is, you check all the squares on the grid before you add or remove counters. With these three simple rules, patterns of great complexity and subtlety emerge, growing and dying in a way that reminded the inventor of the game, the English mathematician John Conway, of living organisms. That’s why he called the game Life.
Let’s look at Life in action, with the seeding counters shown in green. Sometimes the seed will evolve and disappear, sometimes it will evolve into one or more fixed shapes, sometimes it will evolve into dynamic shapes that repeat again and again. Here’s an example of a seed that evolves and disappears:
Seeded with cross (arms 4+1+4) stage #1
Life stage #2
Life stage #3
Life stage #4
Life stage #5
Life stage #6
Life stage #7
Death at stage #8
Life from cross (animated)
The final stage represents death. Now here’s a cross that evolves towards dynamism:
Life seeded with cross (arms 3+1+3) stage #1
Life stage #2
Life stage #3
Life stage #4
Life stage #5
Life stage #6 (same as stage #4)
Life stage #7 (same as stage #5)
Life stage #8 (same as stage #4 again)
Life from cross (animated)
A line of three blocks swinging between horizontal and vertical is called a blinker:
Four blinkers
And here’s a larger cross that evolves towards stasis:
Life seeded with cross (arms 7+1+7) stage #1
Life stage #2
Life stage #3
Life stage #4
Life stage #5
Life stage #6
Life stage #7
Life stage #8
Life stage #9
Life stage #10
Life stage #11
Life stage #12
Life stage #13
Life stage #14
Life stage #15
Life stage #16
Life from cross (animated)
This diamond with sides of 24 blocks evolves towards even more dynamism:
Life from 24-sided diamond (animated)
Looping Life from 24-sided diamond (animated)
The game of Life obviously has many variants. In the standard form, you’re checking all eight squares around the square whose fate is in question. If that square is (x,y), these are the eight other squares you check:
(x+1,y+1), (x+0,y+1), (x-1,y+1), (x-1,y+0), (x-1,y-1), (x+0,y-1), (x+1,y-1), (x+1,y+0)
Now trying checking only four squares around (x,y), the ones above and below and to the left and the right:
(x+1,y+1), (x-1,y+1), (x-1,y-1), (x+1,y-1)
And apply a different set of rules:
1. If a square has one or three neighbors, it stays alive or (if empty) comes to life
2. Otherwise the square remains or becomes empty.
With that check and those rules, the seed first disappears, then re-appears, for ever (note that the game is being played on a torus):
Evolution of spiral seed
Eternally recurring spiral
This happens with any seed, so you can use Life to bring Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence to life:
Evolution of LIFE
Eternally recurring LIFE
Papyrocentric Performativity Presents…
• Tight-Trope Man – The Tightrope Men, Desmond Bagley (1973)
• Primal Scheme – The Boy Who Was Afraid, Armstrong Sperry (1941)
• Verre If On N’est – Mots d’Heures: Gousses, Rames: The d’Antin Manuscript, edited and annoted by Luis d’Antin van Rooten (1967)
• Grim Pickings – Desert Star, Michael Connelly (2022)
• Leaves on the Life-Tree – The Seduction of Solitude, Kim Dallesandro (Incunabula Media 2022)
• Thirsk for Knowledge – A Yorkshire Vet Through the Seasons, Julian Norton (Michael O’Mara 2017)
• In League with Spandex – Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Michael Hann (Constable 2022)
Or Read a Review at Random: RaRaR
• R I O A E T L U
→ Herriot a été élu.
• L N N E O P Y I A V Q E I E D C D
→ Hélène est née au pay grec, y a vécu et y est décédée.
• J J A D I D A C K O T L A H E T D B K C D G A L E V D I N C P I E D F I J E C O Q P D B B A J T
→ Gigi a des idées assez cahotées: elle a acheté des bécasses et des geais, a élevé des hyènes, s’est payé des effigies et s’est occupée des bébés agités.
• From John Julius Norwich’s More Christmas Crackers (1990)
Il était un gendarme à Nanteuil,
Qui n’avait qu’une dent et qu’un oeil;
Mais cet oeil solitaire
Était plein de mystère;
Cette dent, d’importance et d’orgueil. — George du Maurier (1834-96)
Elsewhere other-accessible
• Vers Nonsensiques — more by du Maurier
Un moine au milieu de la messe
S’eleva et cria en détresse:
« La vie religieuse,
C’est sale et affreuse! »
Et se poignarda dans les fesses. — Edward Gorey (1925-2000)
Above you can see the Peacock on a Platter, or Robert de Montesquiou posing as the severed head of John the Baptist and flanked by relevant lines of his own poetry. But there’s a better version of the poetry, as you can see by comparing the photo with this:
J’aime le jade,
Couleur des yeux
D’HérodiadeEt l’améthyste,
Couleur du sang
De Jean-Baptiste. — from “Robert de Montesquiou: The Magnificent Dandy” (1962) by Cornelia Otis Skinner
I love jade,
Color of the eyes
Of HerodiasAnd amethyst,
Color of the blood
Of John the Baptist.
Elsewhere Other-Accessible…
• Portrait of a Peacock — Cornelia Otis Skinner’s excellent essay on Montesquiou
• Le Paon dans les Pyrénées — review of Julian Barnes’ not-so-good book partly about Montesquiou
« Les chats furent créés dans notre monde pour réfuter le dogme que toutes choses furent créées pour servir l’Homme. » — Froquevielle
• “Cats were created in our world to refute the dogma that everything was created to serve mankind.”
Post-Performative Post-Scriptum
I can’t find any more details of “Froquevielle”, which may be a misspelling.
« Tous les chats sont mortels, Socrate est mortel, donc Socrate est un chat. » — Rhinocéros (1959) par Eugène Ionesco (1931-94)
• “All cats are mortal, Socrates is mortal, therefore Socrates is a cat.”
I first came across this quote about cats in French:
« Le plus petit des félins est une œuvre d’art. »
• “The smallest of felines is a work of art.”
It’s widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, but I can’t find any proof that he ever said it. Here it is in a fuller Italian version:
« Anche il più piccolo dei felini, il gatto, è un capolavoro. »
• Même le plus petit des félins, le chat, est un chef-d’œuvre.
•• Even the smallest of felines, the cat, is a masterpiece.
It’s a good quote, wherever it comes from. But the attribution to Leonardo reminds of another saying in Italian: Se non è vero, è ben trovato — “If it’s not true, it’s a happy invention.”
(From Pinterest)
Leonardo’s Étude du mouvement des chats
Overlord In Terms of Core Issues Around Maximal Engagement with Key Notions of the Über-Feral 