JM: In a recent posting, A.Sklyarenko brought up John Shade’s lines on the figure that bicycle tires leave on the sand: “The infinity symbol ∞ is sometimes called “lemniscate.” ∞ is a poem by Nik. T-o (I. Annenski) included in Tikhie pesni (“Quiet Songs,” 1904[  ]Going back to the tires on the sand, the word “sand” itself carries us over to a forgotten rubber band and Shade’s verses 532-36. The rubber band, in this case, must have been ruptured somewhere for, as an “ampersand,” it extrapolates the sign for “infinite” with its two protruding tails…

“Overinterpretation” may happen involuntarily as a result of the “interconnectedness of things and events,” as it has been perceived and rendered by the plexed artistry of John Shade.  
Did VN intend to have his favorite fictional poet refer to lemniscate tire marks on the sand while also thinking about a dropped rubber band forming an ampersand? It’s difficult to ascertain. Probably the appeal of the rhyme played a role in that image…

However, while I was looking at the contours [ 8, ∞, & ] keeping the words “extrapolates the sign for infinite” in my mind, I remembered and checked Buzz Lightyear’s catch-phrase in “Toy Story” ( “To Infinity and Beyond”) and found out that it’s related to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey  where a title card with the words “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” is displayed.

Fortunately, all the associations that might have led me to suppose there was any VN reference to Stanley Kubrick’s fantasy are chronologically mismatched. Kubrick’s space movie is from 1968 and “Pale Fire’s” publication was in 1962 (the same year as Kubrick’s “Lolita” though). Most of all, when I tried to drop down fresh rubber bands (broken and unbroken) I found no ampersand contour in them.

But wait! I also decided to drop a used band, one that held my visiting cards together and which had partially lost its crisp elasticity: now it hesitantly shaped an irregular ∞ (one of its parts was much smaller than the other, like it’s the case with &). Anyway, “lemniscates” are precisely formed, symmetrical and then the symbol for the infinite associated to them would not constitute a precise analogy to the shriveled rubber band… (a ruptured old rubber band shaped nothing but a disheartened worm.)

In conclusion: lemniscate and ampersand forms in poetry are just that…suggestive images poetically licensed.