I have a quintet for you today, five easy — and small — pieces, the first of which, fittingly, is Five Easy Pieces. There's the 1970 movie, of course, made famous by the chicken salad sandwich scene. The title comes from an opening scene not actually used in the movie, in which, in the words of the script, there's a:
CLOSE-UP of a program announcing a Dupea family
recital. The CAMERA SCANS down the bill . . .The CAMERA COMES to rest on:
Five Easy Pieces – Grebner – Played by Robert Dupea.
But Grebner is fictitious. However, there were, perhaps not coincidentally, five songs by Tammy Wynette used in the movie — and five classical pieces used as well. Because this is Friday, I'll recommend you click the following link and let the great Ms Wynette rather than Bach play in the background as you look at the other four pieces here.
Next, for something completely different: a clip from the Globe and Mail dated April 11, 1969, that I came across while doing some research. (Click to make it legible.) O tempora, O mores.
Third, is a new ad campaign by Iceland, the country that wants to be your friend (so long as, I suspect, you're paying). It's well done, and nails our fascination with social media just right. Not bad for a country whose map looks like a badly diseased organ. They even manage to make the image look… appealing interesting.
My fourth item I borrow from Connie Crosby's post yesterday on the law firm Morrison Foerster: go and look at their website. Not only do they have the chutzpah, balls, guts — call it what you will — to call themselves MoFo, they also have simply the coolest damn website of any law firm I have ever seen. I don't know how potential clients feel about it, but it makes me think about working there.
And last, but likely infinite and certainly irrational, is the announcement that this coming Sunday is Pi Day, at least in American calendaring: 3/14. Give a thought at 1:59 on that day to this glorious ratio (and to all of those students who learn at that exact moment on that exact day that MIT has accepted them). In preparation, you should visit the Pi Day website, if only to glance at The Number itself played out to a million places:
A better Pi Day would be March 14, 2015. Specifically at 9:26:53(.589… sec), both AM and PM.
Only one in our lifetimes.
For those math geeks also interested in gematria, there's a great 1998 film that won the Sundance Film Festival for Directing Award by Darren Aronofsky:
You mean: "but wait! there's more!" ?
You're right, but waiting has never been my strong suit.
That truly is a great movie.
Omar, thank you for reminding me of the movie Pi. I saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival back when it was released. It is one of those puzzles that needs to be seen at least twice to unravel the meaning. I only managed to see it once, should go back to see it a few more times.
Could the extent to which one memorized Pi be some indication of the amount of one's potential for "geekness"? As best as I can recall for certain, I went no farther than 3.1415926535.
I say that because those numbers still trip off the fingers, though the 8979 seems familiar if I think about it.