A Sentimental Journey

How David Lynch pays the bills

2008-04-05T23:22:00.000-07:00

Singing Ringing Tree

2008-03-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Singing Ringing Tree, an art installation near Burnley, Lancashire. Artists: Tonkin Liu.

Only later I realised what it reminded me - of course, Alexei Prasolov's lines

        Я услышал: корявое дерево пело,
Мчалась туч торопливая, темная сила...

Another Place by Antony Gormley

2008-03-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Installation on Crosby Beach: Another Place by Antony Gormley (of the Angel of the North fame).

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VIII

2008-03-23T01:51:00.000-07:00

Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre
Sont tombés du noir firmament
Dans la mer immobile et sombre
Suaire de silence et d'ombre,
La nuit efface entièrement
Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre
Tel qu'un lourd et muet décombre,
L'esprit plonge au vide dormant
Dans la mer immobile et sombre.
En lui-même, avec lui tout sombre,
Souvenir, rêve, sentiment,
Le temps, l'étendue et le nombre,
Dans la mer immobil et sombre.

Villanelle by Charles-Marie-René Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894). 

I first discovered Ivan Bunin's translation:
В ТЕМНУЮ НОЧЬ, В ШТИЛЬ, ПОД ЭКВАТОРОМ

Время, Пространство, Число
С черных упали небес
В море, где мрак и покой.

Саван молчанья и тьмы
Их поглотил без следа -
Время, Пространство, Число.

Тяжким обломком, немым,
Падает Дух и пустоту,
В море, где мрак и покой.

С ним, погруженным во тьму,
Тонут, рожденные им,
Время, Пространство, Число
В море, где мрак и покой.

27 ноября 1915

Animation with a whiff of mathematics, II

2008-03-01T12:32:00.001-08:00

Loop, A Snail Odyssey

Parrot to be fitted with a wooden leg

2008-02-27T02:12:00.000-08:00

From Telegraph:

A one-legged parrot that keeps slipping off his perch is to be fitted with a 'wooden leg'. George, a ten-year-old African Grey, lost a claw after being attacked by a wild animal which broke into his cage a year and a half ago. The missing limb means whenever George tries to sleep, he slips off his perch, squawking "Bloody Hell!" in surprise. Concerned for her pet, the bird's owner Sheila Weare sought advice from experts at the University of Salford. Mrs Weare, from Crewe told the BBC: “You can tell by the way he fidgets that he's not comfortable and he has to bite the bars of his cage at night to balance." In the hope of giving bird and owner a good night's sleep, the perch will be fitted with a specially-moulded slot, into which George will be trained to insert his stump at night.

For the Russian reader, не могу не вспомнить загадку эпохи моего детства:

С когтями, но не птица, Летит и матерится.

Kitsch and Norman Rockwell

2008-02-24T14:31:00.001-08:00

No discussion of kitsch is complete without mentioning Norman Rockwell (1894-1978).

Norman Rockwell, Courting Couple at Midnight, March 22, 1919. Source: Brewster & Co.

This painting caught my eye because of its description in the book 102 Favourite Paintings by Norman Rockwell (Crown Publishers, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-517-534487) , p. 20: ... She is living an eternal moment of romantic bliss... Therefore this post belongs to the thread on infinity, eternity and kitsch. I discovered the book on a coffee table in the house of my American colleague. As a coffee-table book, it is great, I have to admit that.

Soft Kitsch: Thomas Kinkade

2008-02-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

Have a look at the Official Thomas Kinkade Website -- emporium of soft kitsch, which I define by contrast with hardcore kitsch (see a post Kingdom of Kitch, Revisited in A Dialogue on Infinity; we try to explain there why dominant interpretations of concepts of eternity and infinity in mass produced popular imagery belong to hardcore kitsch. ).

My thanks go to David Pierce, who attracted my attention to work of Thomas Kinkade and also sent me the following quote from Annie Dillard's Living by Fiction, which looks like a description of soft kitsch:

"Sentimental art attempts to force pre-existing emotions on us. Instead of creating characters and events which will elicit special feelings unique to its text, sentimental art merely gestures toward stock characters and events whose accompanying emotions come on tap. Bad poetry is almost always bad because it attempts to claim for itself the real power of whatever it describes in ten lines: a sky full of stars, first love, or Niagara Falls. An honest work generates its own power; a dishonest work tries to rob power from the cataracts of the given."

However, a hormonal, biological nature of stimuli can be evident even in sample of soft kitsch.

Indeed Kinkade brings to mind Tom Lehrer's words about his time at Harvard: " I was engaged in a serious experimental study: extension of adolescence beyond all previously known limits".

Kinkade (self described as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light" -- a trademarked phrase! But have a look at sis Official Site before reading further) is a prime example of infantilisation of American culture. Puberty-hormonal nature of his imagery would be, I believe, instantly recognised by Bertrand Russell, who wrote in his "Autobiography":

"Concurrently with this physical preoccupation with sex, went a great intensity of idealistic feeling, which I did not at that time recognise as sexual in origin. I became intensely interested in the beauty of sunsets and clouds, and trees in spring and autumn, but my interest was of very sentimental kind, owing to the fact that it was an unconscious sublimation of sex, and an attempt to escape from reality."

(The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Unwin Paperbacks, London a. o., 1975; p. 35. ISBN 0 04 921022 X)

My native town

2008-02-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

My native town at the time when I was about four years old.

Café des Fédérations

2008-02-16T09:25:00.001-08:00

8, Rue du Major Martin, 69001 Lyon

La Méthode

2008-02-16T05:16:00.000-08:00

Only the French can give such names to their pubs (2, Rue Descartes, 75005 Paris, 01 43 54 22 43). And they also have Le Soleil d'Austerlitz‎ (18, Boulevard Hôpital, 75013 Paris, 01 43 31 22 38, opposite Gare d'Austerlitz). And one more great name, this time in Lyon:

Trois Couleurs, Vert, 6, Place Mar Lyautey, 69006 Lyon, France, 04 78 93 31 69

Alexander Blok on Immanuel Kant

2008-02-16T03:04:00.000-08:00

Can anyone help me to locate an English translation of this poem by Alexander Blok? I would like to show it to a philosopher colleague.

Иммануил Кант

Сижу за ширмой. У меня

Такие крохотные ножки…

Такие ручки у меня,

Такое тесное окошко…

Тепло и темно. Я гашу

Свечу, которую приносят,

Но благодарность приношу…

Меня давно развлечься просят,

Но эти ручки… Я влюблен

В мою морщинистую кожу…

Могу увидеть сладкий сон,

Но я себя не потревожу:

Не потревожу забытья,

Вот этих бликов на окошке…

И ручки скрещиваю я,

И также скрещиваю ножки.

Сижу за ширмой. Здесь тепло.

Здесь кто‑то есть. Не надо свечки.

Глаза бездонны, как стекло.

На ручке сморщенной – колечки.

18 октября 1903

Tale of Tales

2008-01-20T04:59:00.000-08:00

The best animation film ever - available on YouTube (4 parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmcp4XNCWRY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBniVo80Mec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjndixMcl8g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB7H1wrcFjc

Support Slow Food Movement!

2008-01-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

This fast food parlor occupies premises (at a corner of rue Soufflot and boulevard Saint-Michel) of a cafe A Capoulade where, in 1930-s, the founders of the Bourbaki group were meeting for work on their project, see a paper by Liliane Beaulieu, from which this contemporary photograph is taken: To add insult to injury, the opposite corner site is held by MacDonald's. Nowadays, would it be possible to do mathematics in burger joint? Therefore, support Slow Food Movement!

Espace Tangente

2008-01-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine a British shop with the word "mathematical" on the shop sign? (Espace Tangente, 80 bd St Michel 75006 Paris; closed on Sunday -- this explains a unfortunate wire mesh.) Yesterday I bought there a nice book on mathematics in music. See a website of the publishing house Editions Pole, it apparently owns the shop (or vice versa).

British Library on Euston Road

2008-01-07T02:17:00.000-08:00

Since I mentioned British Library in a comment to my post "Nabokov and Onegin's Stanza", I wish to add a brief tip on a hidden tourist gem of London: British Library on Euston Road, between Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras train stations. If you find yourself dying of boredom at Euston or King's Cross with 40 minutes to spare, visit the ground floor exhibition of the British Library - it is 5 minutes walk, entry is free (and instant, the exhibition is in the entrance lobby). You will discover fantastic treasures, like the logbook of HMS Victory with the record of Admiral Nelson's death, or the manuscript (actually, exceptionally tidy handwritten book - true labour of love) of Alice in the Wonderland.

New Year's Eve Question

2007-12-31T15:43:00.001-08:00

Edge still has not revealed its New Year's Eve Annual Question 2008, but, due to a leak to The Independent, I know that it is is wonderful: What have you changed your mind about? Why? Indeed, what have you changed your mind about in 2007?

A painting with a whiff of mathematics

2007-12-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Numbering at Bethlehem. 1566, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels Source: Wikimedia Commons, higher resolution.

Actually, there is more geometry in the painting than arithmetic.

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness...

2007-12-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

I do not know whether you are prepared to believe me, but yesterday I was running through the labyrinths of Heathrow Terminal 1, shouting at the full force of my lungs: "Hey! Is there anyone from British Airways around?" There were no response...

Manifestations of Infinity

2007-12-18T02:26:00.000-08:00

As I have already mentioned, I have started, in collaboration with David Corfield, yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity. My approach to the issue of infinity is that of a practicing mathematician. In particular, I repeat Vladimir Arnold's famous claim that tires on the pictures below are manifistations of infinity in the real world. Details can be found in my post.

Infinity

2007-12-15T04:10:00.000-08:00

I started yet another blog, A Dialogue on Infinity, a joint venture with David Corfield. Meanwhile, here is the only decent picture found in Google Images:

It is an advertisement, as you can easily guess, for BIC. Source: Ads of the World. [Advertising Agency: TBWA Hunt Lascaris, South Africa. Creative Director: Tony Granger Copywriter: Clare Mcnally. Art Director: Jan Jacobs.]

But I warn you against an attempt to search for images related to Eternity: you will find yourself in the Kingdom of Kitch, and horrendous kitch.

A drawing with a whiff of mathematics

2007-12-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Satire on "False Perspective" by William Hogarth, 1753

"Whoever makes a Design without the knowledge of Perspective will be liable to such absurdities as are shewn in this Frontispiece."
Source: Wikimedia Commons

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VII

2007-11-30T17:21:00.000-08:00

Вокруг него система кошек,
Система окон, ведер, дров
Висела, темный мир размножив
На царства узкие дворов.

Nikolai Zabolotskii

Analytic Phonics

2007-11-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

I continue my discussion of synthetic and analytic phonics started in my previous posts, Tale of a Fisherman and a Gold Fish and My First Book and Synthetic Phonics. Some theory could be useful:

Synthetic phonics involves the development of phonemic awareness from the outset. As part of the decoding process, the reader would learn up to 44 phonemes (the smallest units of sound) and their related graphemes (the written symbols for the phoneme). One phoneme can be represented by various graphemes, e.g. 'oa', 'ow', 'ough'. This is, of course, one of the reasons that the English language can be so difficult to learn to read and spell. The reader would be expected to recognise each grapheme then sound out each phoneme in a word, building up through blending the sounds together to pronounce the word phonetically. This approach works well with phonetically regular words. Analytic phonics involves analysis of whole words to detect phonetic or orthographic (spelling) patterns, then splitting them into smaller parts to help with decoding, for example onset and rime - onset (vowel sound(s)) at the beginning of a word or syllable and rime (always beginning with a vowel to form the remainder of that word or syllable). The rimes of words can be used to help children read and spell by analogy. For example, the right rime, once known, can be used to generate another 96 words. It is therefore an efficient way to help children develop a large sight vocabulary for both reading and spelling. It works particularly well for those words that young children cannot work out sound-by-sound, for example 'light', 'through', 'rake'. It is also an effective way of helping children to adopt the common sight words, for example when teaching the word 'could', children would be supported to generate and read the rhyming words that share the same written pattern - 'would', 'should'.

Basically, synthetic phonics is the standard approach to reading in Russia; it is widely accepted that Russian children can be taught (in their families) to read fluently by age of 5 and 6. This was experience of me as a child and as a parent; I briefly described these experiences in my previous posts, Tale of a Fisherman and and a Gold Fish and My First Book and Synthetic Phonics. However, my daughter, at that time aged five, independently discovered analytic phonics. This happened when we came to California. Her big brother, aged seven, was taught at their American school to read; my daughter was taught only spoken English. My children came to California being fluent Russian readers, and my daughter could not allow that her brother red English, while she did not. So she started to listen to audiobooks like this one, tracing words in the book and establishing correspondence between combinations of letters and sounds: In a couple of months she was a fluent English reader -- without any help from adults. Of course, this was possible only because she could fluently read in Russian. (Actually, in Russian she also was mostly self-taught reader, as it frequently happens with younger siblings in families with strong reading environment.) And the audiobooks were real masterpieces -- Dr. Suess narrated by Dustin Hoffman, of all people!

Astronomer

2007-11-30T12:25:00.000-08:00

Gerrit Dou. Astronomer

A painting with a whiff of mathematics

2007-11-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger. Source: Wikimedia Commons Jean de Dinteville (left), was the French ambassador to England in 1533. Georges de Selve (right), Bishop of Lavaur, occasional ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See. National Gallery

Astronomer

2007-11-28T10:56:00.000-08:00

Gerrit Dou, Astronomer by Candlelight, c. 1665, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Nabokov and Onegin's Stanza

2007-11-28T03:05:00.000-08:00

This post, as well as the previous post on Nabokov, is a result of conversations with friends (at a mathematical conference). I tried to explain to my friends why Nabokov preferred to translate Pushkin's Eugene Onegin in prose -- apparently, it was quite a scandalous decision at the time. To prove that he could write in famous Onegin's stanza, Nabokov penned the famous poem:

Vladimir Nabokov
On translating "Eugene Onegin"
( The New Yorker, January 8, 1955, p. 34)

   1

What is translation? On a platter
A poets pale and glaring head,
A parrot's screech, a monkey's chatter,
And profanation of the dead.
The parasits you were so hard on
Are pardoned if I have your pardon,
O, Pushkin, for my stratagem:
I travelled down your secret stem,
And reached the root, and fed upon it;
Then, in a language newly learned,
I grew another stalk and turned
Your stanza patterned on a sonnet,
Into my honest roadside prose--
All thorn, but cousin to your rose.


   2

Reflected words can only shiver
Like elongated lights that twist
In the black mirror of a river
Between the city and the mist.
Elusive Pushkin! Persevering,
I still pick up Tatiana's earring,
Still travel with your sullen rake.
I find another man's mistake,
I analize alliterations
That grace your feasts and haunt the great
Fourth stanza of your Canto Eight.
This is my task -- a poet's patience
And scholiastic passion blent:
Dove-dropping on your monument.

And here is Stanza IV of Canto Eight mentioned by Nabokov:

IV

Но я отстал от их союза
И вдаль бежал... Она за мной.
Как часто ласковая муза
Мне услаждала путь немой
Волшебством тайного рассказа!
Как часто по скалам Кавказа
Она Ленорой, при луне,
Со мной скакала на коне!
Как часто по брегам Тавриды
Она меня во мгле ночной
Водила слушать шум морской,
Немолчный шепот Нереиды,
Глубокий, вечный хор валов,
Хвалебный гимн отцу миров.

In Ch. Jonston's translation the wonderful alliterations are lost without trace: IV

  When I defected from their union
  and ran far off... the Muse came too.
  How often, with her sweet communion,
  she'd cheer my wordless way, and do
  her secret work of magic suasion!
  How often on the steep Caucasian
  ranges, Lenora-like, she'd ride
  breakneck by moonlight at my side!
  How oft she'd lead me, by the Tauric
  seacoast, to hear in dark of night
  the murmuring Nereids recite,
  and the deep-throated billows' choric
  hymnal as, endlessly unfurled,
  they praise the Father of the world.

Of course, for the anglophil and anglophone Nabokov Eugene Onegin, a Byronic novel, had special attraction. Canto Eight, by the way, has an epigraph from Byron:

Fare thee well, and if for ever
Still for ever fare thee well.

I'll try to find Stanza IV in Nabokov's translation and place here, for comparison; it happened to be harder than I thought -- to my surprise, my University's library has no copy.

Astronomer

2007-11-27T16:10:00.001-08:00

Szymon Buchbinder. The Astronomer. Oil on Panel. Private collection. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, VI

2007-11-26T14:46:00.001-08:00


 Своенравное прозванье
 Дал я милой в ласку ей:
 Безотчетное созданье
 Детской нежности моей;
 Чуждо явного значенья,
 Для меня оно символ
 Чувств, которых выраженья
 В языках я не нашел.                                                                              Baratynskii

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, V

2007-11-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of a discussion of formal linguistic games that I started in the very first post of this thread, Poetry with a whiff of mathematics and Poetry with a whiff of mathematics IV. I quoted a few lines from Александр Левин:

От Щербы Да не будет у бокра куздры, а у куздры бокра перед лицем Моим, ибо Я так будланул, и Мною так будлануто...

which is, of course, a clever play on Schcherba's famous nonsense phrase

Гло́кая ку́здра ште́ко будлану́ла бо́кра и курдя́чит бокрёнка.

I expressed mild surprise that Levin did not use Shcherba's word штеко. I personally love it; I always thought that Shcherba's phrase should read дикая собака динго for глокая куздра штеко. Anonymous left a very subtle comment in defense of Levin:

Штеко - это, судя по всему, прилагательное (штеко ≈ сильно). В стилизации под конкретный текст из священного писания прилагательные, в общем, не нужны.

But one should not underestimate the huge redundancy (in an information-theoretic sense) and flexibility of Russian language. Indeed, why not try

"сиди оштекую Меня"

или

"оштекнели вы, а мы ошуяли" (Даль)?

Если "шуя" или "шуйца" - левая рука, то почему бы "штека" не могла бы быть правой рукой? Тогда "штеко будлануть" означало бы "будлануть с правой руки", то есть со всей силой -- и со всей правотой. "Сиди оштекую Меня" после этого выглядит очень логично. Более того,

"яко аще не избудетъ штекда ваша паче книжникъ и фарисей"

тоже не выглядит совсем уж неуместно.

Balance: Animation with a whiff of mathematics

2007-11-18T07:59:00.000-08:00

Balance ( 1989) is an animation film directed and produced by twin brothers Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein. It has to be seen to be appreciated. Perhaps, only twin brothers could make a film like that.

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, IV

2007-11-16T00:24:00.000-08:00

This is a continuation of a discussion of formal linguistic games that I started in the very first post of this thread, Poetry with a whiff of mathematics. I quoted a few lines from Александр Левин:

От Щербы Да не будет у бокра куздры, а у куздры бокра перед лицем Моим, ибо Я так будланул, и Мною так будлануто...

which is, of course, a clever play on Schcherba's famous nonsense phrase

Гло́кая ку́здра ште́ко будлану́ла бо́кра и курдя́чит бокрёнка.

Штеко - это, судя по всему, прилагательное (штеко ≈ сильно). В стилизации под конкретный текст из священного писания прилагательные, в общем, не нужны.

But one should not underestimate the huge redundancy (in a information-theoretic sense) and flexibility of Russian language. Indeed, why not try

"сиди оштекую Меня"

или

"оштекнели вы, а мы ошуяли" (Даль)?

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, III

2007-11-16T00:11:00.000-08:00

И я выхожу из пространства
В запущенный сад величин,
И мнимое рву постоянство
И самосогласье причин.
И твой, бесконечность, учебник
Читаю один, без людей -
Безлиственный дикий лечебник, -
Задачник огромных корней.

Osip Mandelstam

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics, II

2007-11-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

Дале деревья теряют свои очертанья и глазу
Кажутся то треугольником, то полукругом -
Это уже выражение чистых понятий,
Дерево Сфера царствует здесь над другими.
Дерево Сфера - это значок беспредельного дерева,
Это итог числовых операций.
Ум, не ищи ты его посредине деревьев:
Он посредине, и сбоку, и здесь, и повсюду.

Nikolai Zabolotskii

This is a fair description of a mathematical project that I am likely to start in earnest.

Poetry with a whiff of mathematics

2007-11-13T01:36:00.001-08:00

От Щербы Да не будет у бокра куздры, а у куздры бокра перед лицем Моим, ибо Я так будланул, и Мною так будлануто. [и т.д.]

(Александр Левин)

What surprises me that Levin is not using Shcherba's word штеко. I love it; I always thought that the famous Shcherba's phrase should read дикая собака динго for глокая куздра штеко.

First paparazzi footage

2007-11-04T06:35:00.000-08:00

Sofia Tolstay looks into a window of a room where her husband, Count Leo Tolstoy lies dying. Astapovo junction, 1910. A still from an infamous documentary footage.

This post is a late contribution to a wonderful conversation on literature that I had with my Turkish friends a week ago .

Domesticated foxes

2007-11-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

As a response to my post about a fox in my garden, my old friend Owl sent me a link to an article on domestication of foxes. The article is in Russian, which makes it unaccessible to most readers, therefore I put here a key picture: Selection of foxes in the direction of greater"domesticity" leads to emergence of dog-like features, like a curled tail or soft ears. I am happy that the experiment (started 50 years ago) continues: as a student of Novosibirsk University, I almost every day walked past kennels where experimental foxes (ancestors of the one featured above) were kept.

Ankara

2007-10-31T07:47:00.000-07:00

I am in Ankara visiting my friends and colleagues at METU, and shamelesly reproduce chunks of my post about my previous visit. This is METU's unofficial emblem: It is derived from a sculpture Tree of Science by Turkish sculptor Tamer Basoglu; it marks the main entrance to the campus: However, the sculpture was designed in 1965 as a monument to Ataturk, but came second in the official competition. The sculptor himself wrote:

This monument is the first example in Turkey signifying Atatürk's revolutionary principles in an abstract way. The flourishing of Atatürk's principles in a devastated Anatolian city during war times is expressed in this piece of work, as rooted firmly on strong grounds and growing fast like the mushroom of the atom bomb. Every outward projection on the sculpture symbolizes one of the revolutionary principles of Atatürk.

However, the interpretation as a Tree of Science, with all sciences, in all their diversity and unity, growing from the same root of knowledge, also works nicely. Even more important is the obvious reference to pre-Hittite and Hittite's tradition in art; it roots the modern Turkish science in the millenia old tradition of Anatolian civilisations. For comparison, here is a famous Bronze Age figurine from the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations: and a Hittite sculpture: And here is my favorite portrait of Ataturk: I am here to give a talk Elementary mathematics as seen by a mathematician, based on a couple of chapters from my book.

How to spot Arial

2007-10-26T09:53:00.002-07:00

A very useful article about spotting differences between the celebrated Helvetica and tiresome Arial. One of many illustrations:

My first book (and synthetic phonics)

2007-10-25T11:53:00.001-07:00

This was the first book that I read in my life: Moreover, it was the book that had taught me to read, and it remains the most powerful intellectual experience of my life. The story deserves to be told because it provides the best illustration of the advantages of synthetic phonics. (Of course, Russian alphabet is more phonetic than English, which makes synthetic phonics method much easier to use; but I will tell more about that and about comparison between synthetic and analytic phonics in later posts). By age of 5 or 6, I somehow learned alphabet -- mostly by asking my parents and my brothers (who were at the time about 14-15 and 10 -11 years old). Crucially, my mother was an elementary school teacher and for that reason, I believe, letters were explained to me by corresponding sounds, not by their names. No-one, however, taught me to read in any systematic way. For some time the relation between letters on paper and words remained a complete mystery for me. When my brother read me a book, I was very suspicious and occasionally complained to my parents that he was inventing the words. Then one day I was sitting in a quite corner with Vladimir Suteev's book Под грибом. Looking and the picture of a mushroom ("гриб" in Russian) I suddenly realised that the letters П, О, Д, Г, Р, И, Б, О, М on the cover could mean only "Под грибом", "Under a mushroom", and nothing else. I remember I was surprised by my discovery and decided to check. Under closer examination, it was still П-О-Д Г-Р-И-Б-О-М. "So what how they were doing that" - thought I for myself, then opened the book and read it in one go, from the beginning to the end. Then I went to the kitchen to report my progress to my mother. "Mom" - said I, -"I red a book". "Really?" - said my Mom without any sign of surprise. To prove my point, I read the book to her aloud. Next day, I remember, I went to the village library and enrolled as a borrower. Many years later, I taught my children to read using the same approach --The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish was improvised by me for that very purpose. The most bizarre turn of the story, of course, is that my daughter, when she came to USA at the age 5, taught herself to read in English using analytic phonics method -- I'll write about that experience in another post. Text of Suteev's book follows:

ПОД ГРИБОМ

Как то раз застал Муравья сильный дождь. Куда спрятаться? Увидел Муравей на полянке маленький грибок, добежал до него и спрятался под его шляпкой.

Сидит под грибом - дождь пережидает. А дождь идет все сильнее...

Ползет к грибу мокрая Бабочка: - Муравей, Муравей, пусти меня под грибок! Промокла я - летать не могу!

- Куда же я пущу тебя? - говорит Муравей. - Я один тут кое-как уместился.

- Ничего! В тесноте , да не в обиде. Пустил Муравей Бабочку под грибок.

А дождь еще сильнее идет ...Бежит мимо Мышка : - Пустите меня под грибок! Вода с меня ручьем течет.

- Куда же мы тебя пустим? Тут и места нет. - Потеснитесь немножко! Потеснились - пустили Мышку под грибок. А дождь все льет и не перестает...

Мимо гриба Воробей скачет и плачет: - Намокли перышки, устали крылышки! Пустите меня под грибок обсохнуть, отдохнуть, дождик переждать!

- Тут места нет. -Подвиньтесь пожалуйста! - Ладно. Подвинулись нашлось Воробью место.

А тут Заяц на полянку выскочил, увидел грибок. - Спрячьте, - кричит, -спасите! За мной Лиса гонится!

- Жалко Зайца, - говорит Муравей. - Давайте еще потеснимся.

Только спрятали Зайца, Лиса прибежала .- Зайца не видели? - спрашивает. - Не видели. Подошла Лиса поближе, понюхала: - Не тут ли он спрятался?

- Где ему тут спрятаться! Махнула Лиса хвостом и ушла.

К тому времени дождик прошел- солнышко выглянуло. Вылезли все из - под гриба - радуются . Муравей задумался и говорит: - Как же так? Раньше мне одному под грибом тесно было, а теперь всем пятерым место нашлось!

- Ква- ха-ха! Ква-ха-ха! - засмеялся кто-то. Все посмотрели: на шляпке гриба сидит Лягушка и хохочет: - Эх, вы! Гриб- то...

Не досказала и ускакала. Посмотрели все на гриб и тут догадались, почему сначала одному под грибом тесно было, а потом и пятерым место нашлось. А вы догадались?

The Mathematician

2007-10-24T01:41:00.001-07:00

One of the best studies of a mathematician in world art:

Diego Rivera. The Mathematician. 1918. Oil on canvas. Museo Dolores Olmedo Patino, Mexico City, Mexico.

Serban Chelariu: paintings on mathematics

2007-10-24T01:27:00.000-07:00

Among Serban Chelariu's paintings, there are a few with titles like Absicissa Coordinate Applicate, Crucified Cartesian Man, and even The Mathematician.

A Poem to Pork

2007-10-22T15:36:00.000-07:00

Never in my life I had a better piece of pork than at The Appletree Inn in Marton, North Yorkshire. Their Confit Belly of Pork with Mustard Mash & Apple Sauce was subtle, succulent, and indescribably flavoursome. As a starter, a Whitby Crab Fishcake with Sweet Chili Sauce & Crème Fraiche was a quite consonant prelude to the main course.

The place is quite popular and should normally be quite busy, a booking is recommended. Luckily, I happened to be there on the night of the rugby final, and the pub, with no TV, was half empty. Even emptier were moonlit roads of Yorkshire on my way home.

And yes, they collect money for a campaign against hunger in the world: "Fight Hunger -- Eat Out".

Mathematician

2007-10-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Anne Zahalka, The Mathematician, 1994. roslyn oxley9 gallery.

Cappuccino at "Flat White"

2007-10-21T06:40:00.000-07:00

Three cups of cappuccino at Flat White Espresso Bar (17 Berwick Street, W1F 0PT, 020 7734 4384); I wrote about it in my post Best milkshake, best cappuccino in London.

Fox

2007-10-18T15:53:00.001-07:00

An unusually warm Autumn resulted in foxes' behaviour shifting into the Spring mode: they started to sunbath in my garden. You can easily judge what kind of gardener I am ...

The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish

2007-10-15T01:13:00.000-07:00

On request from my daughter, I place here my version of Pushkin's The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish, writen either for her or her brother when they were about 5 or 6. It is interesting as an exmple of phonetics-based approach to teaching of reading.

Science, arts, crafts

2007-10-15T00:35:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine asked me regarding a phrase in my Manifesto,

Teaching is not a science, it is an art, and should be treated as such

"What is a science, and what is an art?" What follows is my slightly modified response to him. Manifesto is a political text, and therefore it uses nomination (simple naming of things, or giving examples) rather than definitions. Therefore a possible answer is: Opera is art. Pottery is a craft. Physics is a science. Of course, the boundaries between the three is sometimes hard to draw. Yesterday I visited Crafting Beauty exhibition at the British Museum, I had a chance to see an example of a fusion of art and craft.

Kuroda Tatsuaki (1904-82), Ornamental Box in a Flowering Design, about 1957

Maeta Akihiro, Jar with faceted body, 1996.

Osumi Yukie, Vase 'Sea Breeze', 1986 Nakagawa Mamoru, Vase with striped design, 1988

Most artists represented at the exhibition are designated as "Living National Treasures"; this concept is so remarkable that deserve explanation. Since 1950, Japanese law protects not only tangible cultural assets (historical buildings, monuments, landscapes, etc.) but also certain intangible cultural assets, such as performance skills in traditional theater and craft techniques. Holders of these skills are known as "Living National Treasures". The exhibtion in the British Museum was organised by the Agency for Cultural Affairs which designates new holders of the title records their craft techniques and exhibit their works. Britain should adopt this approach and preserve dying teaching skills in mathematics on par with Morris dancing.

Best milkshake, best cappuccino in London

2007-10-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

On my trip to London yesterday, my hosts took me for lunch to Ed's Easy Diner, a mock-American eatery at 12 Moor Street and Old Compton Road, W1D 5NG, 020 7434 4439. A bison burger was mediocre, but banana and peanut butter milkshake, the purpose of our visit, was astonishing: rich, thick, full of subtle flavour.

We proceeded to Flat White Espresso Bar (17 Berwick Street, W1F 0PT, 020 7734 4384), arguably the house of best coffee in London, see reviews at Tipped. It is a busy, crowded, noisy place, but I had there the best cup of cappuccino in my life.

Corporate identity

2007-10-07T01:08:00.001-07:00

Writing letters of reference for former students expands horizons and makes one aware of a suprising range of business activiries in the wider world outside the academia. But could you believe in the existence of a transnational group with this logo? And yes, it appears to faithfully reflect the proud history of the group and the current line of business of at least some of its subsidiaries. In particular, they provide Human Resources services:

Tailored contracts providing you with the 'legal authority' to overcome contentious issues as poor performance, sickness, absenteeism, redundancy as well as protection from discrimination claims
Expert team to support all your HR needs
Round the clock 24 hour support

Nietzsche on Route 42 buses

2007-10-06T03:02:00.000-07:00

Anyone who fight with monsters should take care that he does not in the process become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes back into you. -- Nietzsche
(Graffiti in a Finglands Route 42 bus, Manchester)

And the dancer were thought insane by those who could not hear the music. -- Nietzsche
(Graffiti in a Bullocks Route 42 bus, Manchester)
[I reproduce my old post of 1 February 2007 because of fresh comments there]

Hummingbird

2007-10-04T11:36:00.000-07:00

Denis Lomas wrote about my book:

A picture of a hummingbird in flight might be suitable for the cover.

Something like this one, perhaps:

Source: Wikimedia Commons

96.2 The Revolution

2007-10-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

This is what I listen to when I drive around Manchester.

Tan Hill Inn, the friendliest pub in England

2007-10-01T09:36:00.001-07:00

Tan Hill Inn, famous for being the most remote pub in England, overwhelms an incidental visitor like me by its relaxed ambience: children cuddling with dogs in front of a fireplace, banjo-playing American tourists, excellent food served in portions appropriate for bikers and hikers. And they have webcam!

Cats and Dogs

2007-09-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

I finally found some cards of the famous Cat-Dog Test [1]: The test consists of 13 line drawings. The first of these is clearly a cat which through successive small modifications gradually becomes a dog. In [figure above] are shown the first, seventh, and thirteenth of the drawings, i. e . the clearest cat, the most ambiguous picture and the clearest dog. The subject is told:

I am going to show you some pictures that can be either a dog or a cat. Please tell me whether each picture is more like a cat or more like a dog. Take as much or as little time to respond as you wish This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers Before I expose a card, I will say the word "ready " Keep your eyes on the screen at all times. [1]

Judging from the literature [4], there is a strong correlation between a subject's persistence on dog being cat and his/her authoritarian inclinations. When (as a student) I first read about the test, I thought: "How much should one despise the humankind to invent such a test?". Unfortunately, in my later life I met a lot of people who would reach number 13 with flying colours. Source:

[1] S. J. Korghin and H. Basowitz, The Judgment of Ambiguous Stimuli as an Index of Cognitive Functioning in Aging, Journal of Personality 25 n0. 1(1956), 81–95; doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1956.tb01290.x

They refer to

[2] E. Frenkel-Brunswick, Intolerance of ambiguity as an emotional and perceptual personality variable, Journal of Personality, 18 (1949), 108-143. [3] I. Krasno, Authoritarian and egalitarian personality syndromes and intolerance of perceptual ambiguity. Unpublished doctor s dissertation, Univer. of Pennsylvania, 1952.

as developers of the Test. A general discussion of authoritarianism scales can be found in

[4] Review of: Emotional Flexibility-Rigidity as a Comprehensive Dimension of Mind by Sigvard Rubenowitz. O. J. Harvey, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 5. (Mar., 1966), pp. 590-591. Stable URL.

I hate emoticons

2007-09-26T15:39:00.001-07:00

From Vladimir Nabokov's interview to NYT, 1969:

Q: How do you rank yourself among writers (living) and of the immediate past? Nabokov: I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile – some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question.

[See a commentary in Language Log on that quote and on attempts to patent emoticon-entry methods; see also the patent application itself.] This was one of the silliest things that Nabokov ever said. However, he did a lot of clever things, too. I experienced catharsis when I red in his Reply to My Critics the defence of the use of the (archaic even by standards of Shorter Oxford Dictionary) wordform "dit" instead of "ditty" in his translation of "Eugene Onegin":

I cannot understand why Mr. Wilson is puzzled by "dit" (Five: VIII: 13) which I chose instead of "ditty" to parallel "kit" instead of "kitty" in the next line, and which will now, I hope, enter or re-enter the language. Possibly, the masculine rhyme I needed here may have led me a little astray from the servile path of literalism (Pushkin has simply pesnya--"song").

I was always surprised that Nabokov entered into a protracted argument with Wilson about the use of "dit" instead of "ditty"; perhaps Nabokov's motivation was just sadistic joy at the discovery of his colleague's ignorance. Indeed, Wilson's attack on Nabokov is a precise parallel of scorn heaped on Pushkin by contemporary critics who disapproved his use of "топ" instead of "топот". Pushkin's response (in his article ОТВЕТ НА СТАТЬЮ В ЖУРНАЛЕ «АТЕНЕЙ») is famous:

Людская молвь и конский топ — выражение сказочное (Бова Королевич). Читайте простонародные сказки, молодые писатели, чтоб видеть свойства русского языка. «Как приятно будет читать роп вм. ропот, топ вм. топот» и проч. На сие замечу моему критику, что роп, топ и проч. употребляются простолюдимами во многих русских губерниях — NB мне случалось также слышать стукот вместо стук.

[Part of this post appeared first as my comment to a post in House of Mirth, 26 Sent 2007.]

Method acting

2007-09-23T01:06:00.000-07:00

My interest to mathematical intuition and subconscious mental work in mathematics leads me to discuss, in my main blog, method acting (or Stanislavski System as it is known in Russia). Here, I place only a brief comment that method acting is possible in animated film; the animation artist plays her character, and the degree of immersion in the character could go beyond what can be achieved in conventional cinema. However, so far this happened only in Overcoat, still unfinished film by Yuri Norstein and Franceska Yarbusova. Here is Yarbusova's sketch for the film: Norstein's Tale of Tales has to be included in any list of 10 best films of world cinema ever: The character of Little Wolfy was created by Yarbusova.

Nothing special, really

2007-09-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

This is an overflow blog for more trivial or personal posts not suitable for my principal blog, Mathematics under the Microscope. I doubt that I will write here regularly. The title, of course, is borrowed from my favorite book.

Impossible World

2007-08-08T03:06:00.000-07:00

A wonderful site Impossible World collects images of impossible objects in art - and goes well beyond Escher. For example, look at the mesmerising The Magpie on the Gallows by Pieter Bruegel (1568): The keeper of Impossible World also hosts Mathematical paintings and sculptures blog. Strongly recommend.

A few moody pictures ...

2007-08-08T03:04:00.000-07:00

... of Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach on a rainy day -- ideal time to do some mathematics. Of course, this is a comment on the brutalistic arcitecture of the New Mathematics Building.