HENRY HUNT

Walter asked me if I knew the name HENRY HUNT.
I said no.
He said:

If you could say there was a man who created American Artillery ... if you were saying the man who was the spiritual father of the Atomic Bomb falling on Hiroshima, if you could think of a man who brought down Thunderbolts from the sky, to slaughter thousands . . . there is Henry Hunt. Chief of Artillery for the Army of the Potomac, during the Civil War. It's HUNT'S GUNS. Hunt was such a powerful guy, that a reserve was created that was solely artillery. That's it. Before him, like during the 1st year of the war, artillery was divided up with every division, ok, you had to be a division to have artillery. Then, it evolved so that you at least had to be a brigade, to at least have, you know, what they call a battery, but because of the industrial might of the North, they created excess guns, and Hunt was placed in charge of this because he wanted it, so that he as and artillerist, without even talking to any of the commanders, can move his artillery to whatever sensitive position is necessary. And he did great work at Gettysburg. And when he saw those artillery guns blowing off on the July 3rd he had his guns set up in a particular position and waited. He walked up and down the line and yelled at artillerymen for firing. He said 'wait a minute, we wanna see what they're doing first, find out where they are and check out the smoke, save your artillery.' And then he let 'em have it. You can not read about Pickett's Charge without understanding Henry Hunt. Because he is one of the primary reasons why Pickett's Charge failed. Ok? When those Confederates talk about those cannonballs taking off their heads like 9-pins, 50% of those balls are HENRY HUNT'S BALLS. Ok? Henry Hunt. H.H. A man with a thick beard, as thick as the great Sherman himself ~ and eyes that will burn your eyes out ~ if you wanna see a real knockdown dragout fight, Sherman and Hunt! That's the one to go with! Ok? That is the name. Let this name burn into thy mind: Henry Hunt. When you get home, I want you to Google him ... He was in charge of the artillery! He was a god! Can you imagine this walking up and down the line, nobody to mess with him if he makes a decision about artillery. He has control over his artillery and also, philosophically, any field piece in the Union Army. And he placed ALL OF IT, on July 3rd. Oh God. He tore up Wilcox's Brigade. Ooo! Wilcox never made it halfway! He had those guns at Little Round Top blowing them away to Kingdome Come. Henry Hunt is one of the major reasons why I'm a free man - that I can stand here as an American citizen, Ok? Henry Hunt. Ok? Henry Hunt.

Oates Lincoln

I said with the 1st biography, you just open it up and you're right there in Lincoln's head. Oates did not realize what he had written. When he realized what he had written, this basic concept, the Myths is his attempt to do it on purpose, so it's even more intense, so you gotta be careful when you open it up - it's like 3 or 4 essays - be sitting down with seatbelts, cuz it's gem. There is nothing better ... Make sure you have 2, 3 hours locked away that you can be like ~guuuhuughuuuh~ like that, after you open it up. All right, if I never see you again, I'll know you opened da book.

This is the followup. The 1st one he did as a biography. Then he saw the effect it had on people because people were basically saying, "How come we never read about this in another biography?" All the other biographies were there, and all the facts were there, but it was the way he wrote it. That's what I'm trying to get at: his technique of getting at the text, and other people quote text, but the way he weaved those texts into his purpose is how it comes out, ok? I can open a Donald and see segments. I can open up Wilson's book and see, you know, actual stuff, but that's not it. They are a contrast, they simply went to the moon, they are objectivists, they're keeping it at a distance so that here is exhibit A, here is exhibit B, there is exhibit C, we can assume b-b-blah-b-b-blah, ok, so great. The man handled the stuff, that's Objective Donald Purpose, ok? But that's not Oates. When you're there, you're gonna be going up and down, your stomach will be wheezy with reading Oates, ok? Especially the LAST DAY, the 14th. That day is INCREDIBLE in Oates' book, ok? Insane.

These are the most precious things we have. He put loving care in it, knowing it's basically what was left out of Malice. That's the thing that knocked me out, I said, "He wrote another book on Lincoln? What did he leave out!!!" ... When he wrote the Myths it was as if we said we don't need more books on Lincoln, and then Donald's book came out. He wrote two more biographies, then Wilson's books! I can't believe these guys are still writing, but why do they write, because in their heads, even though their books come out like a Donald book, exhibit A, exhibit B, exhibit C, in their heads are the Oates, so once you sense the Oates that will tell you how to approach a true Lincoln expert, to give you an idea of where they are, because that life is going through their heads from beginning to end 24 hours a day. There's no way that you can get up and just do a little bit of Lincoln one day and, let's say, scuba diving the next, ok? ... There are no happy Lincoln scholars. These are all serious men.

I've talked to Oates and Donald on the phone. They were both interviewed for their books for the Diane Rehm Show. I got to talk to them on the essential issue, hello? Habeas Corpus: How do you explain Lincoln doing this? Ok? And Chief Justice Taney. And I always bring up the fact that Taney freed his slaves and that always blows Diane's mind, and everybody's going, "What?! The man who wrote the Dred Scott Decision freed his slaves? When he inherited them?" Yes. Before Dred Scott, so, Dred Scott is not what you think, hello, wake up and smell the coffee.

Introducing the Book

I'm glad I'm watching this one at home! I'm laughing so hard that the dogs both woke up and are staring at me as though I've lost my mind (which is quite possible!)!!!!

Tippett conducts Charles Ives 1969

Blaze Becket

Walter's seen Ghost Rider 4 times now. I got a text from him last night while he was watching it :: "Blaze just did helicopter jump!"

He also dropped an ASAP on me for "Becket" which I groaned and moaned about til i was sat in the back row watching it come up all fulla beauty and lively imaginative history. I simply did NOT think it would be that grand! Wow.

UNCERTAINTY

Uncertainty ::: radio interview with author David Lindley

"When physicist Werner Heisenberg introduced his Uncertainty Principle in 1927, he found himself at odds with Albert Einstein and centuries of scientific understanding. Kojo explores his radical idea - that sometimes you can obtain one bit of information about the world only at the price of losing another - and its profound influence on physics, social science and the arts."

Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science

Pythagoras Truths

OTHER LIVES
M.F. Burnyeat
of London Review of Books [lrb.co.uk]
writes up:

Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching and Influence by Christoph Riedweg

Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans: A Brief History by Charles Kahn

"It is hard to let go of Pythagoras. He has meant so much to so many for so long. I can with confidence say to readers of this essay: most of what you believe, or think you know, about Pythagoras is fiction, much of it deliberately contrived. Did he discover the geometrical theorem that bears his name? No. Did he ponder the harmony of the spheres? Certainly not: celestial spheres were first excogitated decades or more after Pythagoras’ death. Does he even deserve credit for his most famous accomplishment, analysing the mathematical ratios that structure musical concordances? Possibly, but there is little reason to believe the stories about his being the first to discover them, and compelling reason not to believe the oft-told story about how he did it. Allegedly, as he was passing a smithy, he heard that the sounds made by the hammers exemplified the intervals of fourth, fifth and octave, so he measured their weights and found their ratios to be respectively 4:3, 3:2, 2:1. Unfortunately for this anecdote, recently rehashed in the article on Pythagoras in Grove Music Online, the sounds made by a blow do not vary proportionately with the weight of the instrument used." -- M.F. Burnyeat
>>>MORE HERE>>>
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More Proust!

Walter sez ::

[ HERE is a fair but advanced intro to the world of Proust.....i don't want to die without finishing my Proust and i have the 3 big biographies of him that are like reading the novel in single volume form...HAHAHAHA...a peson can go to a desert island and read nothing but Proust material for years and years and years while, of course, listening ONLY to Debussy, Ravel and Satie while reading these books....Debussy is practically Proust rendered into sound....loooonnnnnnnnnnggggg, sssoooofffffttttt melodies in contrapuntal form.....that's Proust alright... HAHAHAHA ]

The Complete New Yorker

Of course this literate futurist product is appealing to Walter!!! Nicely done, peeple. Now then, let's see the full run of PLAYBOY given similar treatment! Every page! All ads! High Res! Fully searchable! This NYorker set is fresh, but it's more a fun-ass marker of things to come, heck yes.

Actually, Walter himself is the complete New Yorker.

Darwin's God

READ THIS he sez to me electronically

it's from nytimes magazine.
it's by robin marantz henig.
here's the beginning:

God has always been a puzzle for Scott Atran. When he was 10 years old, he scrawled a plaintive message on the wall of his bedroom in Baltimore. “God exists,” he wrote in black and orange paint, “or if he doesn’t, we’re in trouble.” Atran has been struggling with questions about religion ever since — why he himself no longer believes in God and why so many other people, everywhere in the world, apparently do.

Call it God; call it superstition; call it, as Atran does, “belief in hope beyond reason” — whatever you call it, there seems an inherent human drive to believe in something transcendent, unfathomable and otherworldly, something beyond the reach or understanding of science. “Why do we cross our fingers during turbulence, even the most atheistic among us?” asked Atran when we spoke at his Upper West Side pied-à-terre in January. Atran, who is 55, is an anthropologist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, with joint appointments at the University of Michigan and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. His research interests include cognitive science and evolutionary biology, and sometimes he presents students with a wooden box that he pretends is an African relic. “If you have negative sentiments toward religion,” he tells them, “the box will destroy whatever you put inside it.” Many of his students say they doubt the existence of God, but in this demonstration they act as if they believe in something. Put your pencil into the magic box, he tells them, and the nonbelievers do so blithely. Put in your driver’s license, he says, and most do, but only after significant hesitation. And when he tells them to put in their hands, few will.

If they don’t believe in God, what exactly are they afraid of?

rest of hot article here

Some books & vids & articles

PROUST!
Walter sez: THIS IS THE GREATEST INTRODUCTION TO AND NOSTALGIC REMINICSENCE OF PROUST EVER WRITTEN!!! :-D :-D :-D

if there is only one book on Proust one reads it's got to be this one.... 8-) 8-) 8-)

and if one NEVER reads any Proust, or wants to read any Proust, this is the book to read!.... ;-) ;-) ;-)

This funny video: Rachmaninov's big hands

This comprehensive study: The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian by the great Robin Lane Fox. Walter says you can trust Robin cuz he's one of the few who've attempted the mighty task: wrote grand books on Alexander the Great.

Also some super stuff from this article from physicsweb.org on the beauty of equations ~

From NPR this week, Walter recommends this insightful program on the ancient roots of modern science and yes oh yesthis other hot one about the oldest solar observatory (about 1,800 yrs BEFORE the sun-loving Incas!)