Jew’s on First

This entry is dedicated to those worshippers of Allah who have at one time or another cried
“Itbah al-Yahud!” … Kill the Jew!
(See June 29 entries).

Dead at 78

Comedian Buddy Hackett died on Tuesday, July First, 2003, according to the New York Times.  According to Bloomberg.com, he died Sunday or Monday.

Associated Press

Buddy Hackett,
on the set of
“It’s a Mad, Mad,
Mad, Mad World”
in 1962.
Whatever.  We may imagine he has now walked, leading a parade of many other stand-up saints, into a bar.


Hepburn at Chaillot

MIDRASH
for Buddy Hackett

From my May 25 entry,

Matrix of the Death God:

R. M. Abraham’s Diversions and Pastimes, published by Constable and Company, London, in 1933, has the following magic square:

The Matrix of Abraham

A summary of the religious import of the above from Princeton University Press:

“Moslems of the Middle Ages were fascinated by pandiagonal squares with 1 in the center…. The Moslems thought of the central 1 as being symbolic of the unity of Allah.  Indeed, they were so awed by that symbol that they often left blank the central cell on which the 1 should be positioned.”

— Clifford A. Pickover, The Zen of Magic Squares, Circles, and Stars, Princeton U. Press, 2002, pp. 71-72

Other appearances of this religious icon on the Web include:

On Linguistic Creation

Picasso’s Birthday

1991 Yearbook
Rolling Stone



Hackett

In the Picasso’s Birthday version, 22 of the 25 magic square cells are correlated with pictures on the “Class of ’91” cover of Rolling Stone magazine.  Number 7 is Rod† Stewart.  In accordance with the theological rhyme “Seven is heaven, eight is a gate,” our site music for today is “Forever Young,” a tune made famous by Stewart.

† Roderick, actually —  the name of the hero in “Madwoman of Chaillot”