A man, a plan, a canal — Panama!

Languages and codes.

Listening to the radio, I learn of a classical composer (I believe it was Shostakovich but I couldn’t find confirmation of this) who had a piece of metal inside his head that vibrated, causing him to hear highly original music, which he immediately transcribed… The metal was shrapnel, and it moved when he tilted his head. I listen to the radio in the car, and unfortunately I arrived at my destination before I could find out if he decided to have it removed or tuned…

The same day I came across the word palindrome, which reminded me of palimpsest, and as I was finding out what it meant I uncannily came across the following example:

"Satan, oscillate my metallic sonatas".

And palindromes don’t just exist in human language, they are also present in molecular biology…

Last weekend we had no electricity because of the storms, and I decided to allow myself the luxury of reading all day Saturday. I read a biography of Bjork, and then the book that jumped into my hands was Marguerite Duras' Un Barrage contre le Pacifique. I had been meaning to read this book for years. I love the title, and I love it even more because the Pacific in the title is the China Sea. Oh the enormity of it all. Duras’ mother apparently refused to call the water by its proper name.

Some time later I discovered the book has just been made into a new film with Isabelle Huppert as Duras’ mother. Excitedly I looked up the screening schedule and found that the film had been shown at our local cinema the night before the book jumped into my hand.

In other words, all this is proof that I most definitely am a part of the universe. I exist and I’m connected to everything else. There are some crossed wires and some delayed reactions in my circuits, is all.

Not only do I exist, but I am also one of the Keith Tyson 5000.

Keith Tyson did a series of paintings called the History Paintings. I happened to visit Charlotte Higgins’ blog at the Guardian on the day that…

and here is my history painting…

Apart from the irresistibility of a freebie, there is the possibility of being involved in a crowd-sourced response project – a kind of big thank you to Keith Tyson – though, so far there are only eight of us. The other 4992 seem to be playing hard to get.

This raises the passably vast questions of what I think of gambling – I have always been against gambling, finding Pascal’s gambit intellectually dishonest – and the moral discomfort this causes reminds me of Lacan’s ne pas céder sur son désir and the feeling of trahison. Betrayal. Giving way, letting your standards slip, or just plain doing something you don’t believe in or doing something you believe to be wrong…

- and what art is, or Art, whether you like your A's capital or prefer a petit a, and could the two be related, and points to the démarche theory - a/Art is what is produced by artists, artists being people who are recognised by the community as producing art – winners of art prizes…