5 April 2004. I'm making mathemaku again, after not for about a month. I got ideas for two during a semi-sleepless night last night, and made a possibly final version of one as yet untitled:

I was trying for a descent into some sort of final things. I'm not entirely satisfied with either my colors (though I like them) or my shapes. The mathemaku itself is a rerun of one of my standard themes, the difference between a word for something and the thing itself, or a definition of it, or the like. Here, I suggest that the word, "ONE," is much "larger" than the numeral, "1," which is just a remainder of a long division into "ONE." The subdividend product is one of my attempts to be verbally poetic. It also uses a standard device of mine, making a verb of a noun. I like it, though. I think the poem is about some kind of yow a sleepless or drunk person might experience at 2 A.M., but I'm not sure. I didn't experience whatever it is when I composed the poem, by the way, but may have at some time in my life. It makes sense to me. "One," I would hope, suggests all kinds of things about Union, Uniqueness, Everythingness, etc.

A half hour later: I just played a little more with my mathemaku. I didn't feel that the quotient was quite as far right as it should have been. I fixed that, then suddenly thought maybe a rectilinear upright somewhere might help counter the curves. I tried several sets of them before dumping them for a square (or near-square) that I liked. I added two more. I think the three together a hefty improvement.

Still later: now I don't know whether I like the squares or near-squares, after all. But I'm going to leave them in.