From "I, Claudius" from Imad Rahman's collection
I Dream of Microwaves: Stories.
In the here and now, every word we use has already been spoken; we just rearrange them in different sequences. It's not about what we say, but about how we organize it. Someone else used the word first; that person must have said,"Here, this is a word, this is what it means, now you go use it," and you said, "OKay, it's mine now."
But it's not.
[page 83]
Watched the movie
Pi again, only this time on DVD. Here is some trivia from imdb:
- Freeze-framing shows that the 216 digit number actually has 218 digits. It's: 941432434315126593210548723904868285129134748760 276719592346023858295830472501652325259296925727655364363462727 184012012643147546329450127847264841075622347896267285928582953 47502772262646456217613984829519475412398501.
- The 216-digit number which Max hand-writes on paper (different from the 218-digit number displayed on-screen by Euclid) is: 884509627386359275033751967 943067599621731590401694134 434007629683591574337516791 197615733475195375920401694 343151239621353184932676605 800621596380716399501371459 954387507655892533875618750 354029981152863950711207613. The piece of paper he writes it on has "Only God is Perfect" at the bottom.
- The number Max is searching for is 216 digits long. 216 is 6x6x6; 666 is the "number of the beast" according to the Book of Revelations.
- Most of the props on the set were hot-glued together. That, plus the hot lights and the cramped quarters created by the sets, caused a number of crewmembers to grow nauseous from the smell.
- The movie ends with Jenna asking for the result of the division of 748 by 238. This simplifies to the fraction 22/7, the result is 3.1428 which is a good approximation of pi often taught in primary schools. (3.1415...) by 3 digits.
- Factual errors: The logic followed by the Kabbalists with respect to Hebrew numerology is flawed. First, there are no zeroes in the Hebrew numerological system. Second, in Hebrew numerology, the different letters have values that vary in the number of digits (the values range from 1 to 400, with only the first 9 letters having single-digit values.) Therefore, it is impossible to create a specific 216-letter-word in Hebrew given a 216-digit-number with zeroes in it. It has been argued that the Kabbalists do not use Hebrew numbers to decipher the code, rather, they use the modern western number system to correlate the 216 character name to each Hebrew letter. Nevertheless, the premise seems to be muddled, at best, if not completely flawed.
(Also, I had thought of going back over the DVD to free-frame on the number myself.)
When Kim was still living in Baltimore and working at Evergreen House a co-worker gave her a copy of the Official Cookbook of the 1982 World's Fair. This was the World's Fair that was held in Knoxville, Tennessee.
She showed it to me to illustrate what sort of recipes it contained. The claim of "600 International & Appalachian * Southern recipes" was striking. At the start of the Appalachian recipe section (titled, actually, "Appalachian Mountain and Country Favorites") I found an interesting preface:
GLOSSARY OF COUNTRY DIALECT
dreen - drain tase - taste
air - are vittles - vittles
sho - sure fraish - fresh
agin - again lif - lift
stidder - in stead of fo' - four
fer - for aigs - eggs
aint - isn't kilt - killed
po' - poor drap - drop
houn' - hound okry - okra
dawg - dog 'taters - potatoes
er - of cawn - corn
em - them sarvin - serving
'stonishin - astonishing fergit - forget
mawnin - morning tother - the other
kiver - cover sich - such
keerful - careful whupped - whipped
git - get holpin' - helping
bile - boil younguns - little ones
stiddy - steady som'ers - somewhere
kin - can poke - sack
jes - just
yo' - your Take time to understand us.
mus' - must You will like it!
ter - to
Expressions You Might Hear in the Mountains
I dogged if I know I don't know
Aw shucks Really
He come back He come back
They git sheda Get rid of
Chock full Filled up
Stone col' Ice cold
Pretty nigh Almost
If you have a min If you like
Yer innards Your stomach
Lef ter yer gumption left to your judgement
Go fetch it Go get it
Too yer whistle Talk too much
This here's fittin Really good
Mess or batch Good amount
Tote the grub Carry the food
Moonshining Making corn liquor
Rite smart Quite a bit
