that man he write long poems
fold them into paper airplanes
sail them out apartment window
he watch for someone pick them up
pick up look at read give away
that man he watch and wait
he never call out
he imagine he make friends
that man he pretend some like him
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• If cats ate their weight in mosquitoes every day, I might excuse their existence.
• Cats would not be as popular if they were harder to spell.
• The best thing about the musical “Cats” is that there are no actual cats in it.
• The part of King Joffrey in “Game of Thrones” was originally written for a cat.
• When cats hiss, it is because the snakes that live inside them are trying to escape.
• If cats played chess, they would first torment the pieces they captured and then casually drop them at their opponent’s feet.
• It is no coincidence that the Edison lamp socket is the same diameter as a cat’s tail.
• We say scat when we see a cat because it isn’t polite to say shit.
• Cats belong in the wild, where they can satisfy their hunting instincts. I suggest Mars.
• There is a special place in Hell for cat-haters — it’s called Heaven.
• Cats like to sleep in your bed so they can be first in line the day you don’t wake up.
• No cats were harmed in the writing of this post. Insulted, yes, but what do they care?
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Recreational math buffs were introduced to fractals, shapes that repeat themselves at ever-smaller scales ad infinitum, in the August 1985 issue of Scientific American. This was back when Scientific American was a thick, high-quality magazine that respected the intelligence of reasonably-educated persons — and when I was a subscriber.
Anyway, French mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010) coined the term fractal for the dimension-rich contours of such natural formations as coastlines and fern leaves. He was responsible for advancing and popularizing the science of fractals, most notably in his work The Fractal Geometry of Nature, published August 15, 1982, 37 years ago today. I prize my hardcover copy.
Perhaps the most well-known fractal shape is the bulbous and prickly Mandelbrot Set which featured prominently in his book. For some reason — probably that small indentation — this figure always reminded me of the 20th-century comic strip character Nancy, who was created and drawn by Ernie Bushmiller.
By odd coincidence, August 15, 1982, the day Mandelbrot’s masterwork was published, was also the day Ernie Bushmiller died, a week before his 77th birthday. I don’t quite know what to make of this but I’m sure it holds some cosmic (or comic) significance.
So to properly commemorate this day, I created a visual portmanteau of the signature works of both men, which I call The Nancy Set. Although Mandelbrot and Bushmiller sat on opposite ends of the intellectual spectrum, their respective creations seem to belong to the same dimensionally-ambiguous world.
• • •
For an intriguing foretaste of fractals in Nancy’s world, here is the Nancy strip published on May 19, 1948, as Mandelbrot was about to receive his masters degree from Cal Tech:
Note how Fritzi is looking right past Nancy, back to the infinite regress in the first panel. Is this a second way that the strip plays with endless repetition? Or would that premise give Bushmiller too much credit? I suspect the latter but we will never know.
Dream in peace, Benoit and Ernie.
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