NPPR: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate

[Michael Joseph]

Thanks, Keith. The multiplication of images just goes to show.

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, sZ wrote:

> Accomplishing a figure-eight in wet sand on a bicycle is a rigorous test of
> balance and steering control while changing directions. Stands in stark
> contrast to Shade's awkwardness.
>
Yes, assuming this figure has been printed in the sand by one bicyclist.
Perhaps, as another printing image, and as a figure, an enduring sign,
inscribed in a soft, mutable element, the lemniscate (whose 'showiness'
(grin) as a sign seems designed to call attention to itself) would impress
the poet with a sense of the miraculous.


Michael



> Bicycle tracks on wet sand
>
> pheasant tracks pointing back
>
> Sherlock Holmes: reversing shoes
>
> Sherlock Holmes: switching animal shoes in a story which also investigates
> the pattern of bicycle tires
> (The Adventure at the Priory School)
>
> the Shade shoe mystery stamp/impress on damp turf
>
> quartic = 'of the fourth degree' -> Jack Degree
>
> Lemniscate of Bournoulli (involves Ex and Wye squared)
> Lemniscate of Gerone
> http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/Texts.Folder/Lem/Lemniscates.html
>
> The boy was picked up at a quarter past/Eight in New Wye
>
> You scrutinized your wrist: "It's eight fifteen.
> [And here time forked.]
>
> The curving arrows of Aeolian wars.
> You said that later a quartet of bores,
> Two writers and two critics, would debate
> The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.
>
>
>