It began as the GODFATHER OF MATH, evolved into the GOODFATHER OF MATH. Now this. Go figure...

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The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = G. CARLIN...Stain glass, engraved glass, frosted glass
–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES ... Music is the mathematics of the gods=PYTHAGORAS ... Nothing is more fluid than language = R. L. SWIHART
I cannot live without the oxygen of laughter = DAWN POWELL ... !!! ... But laughter cannot survive without the hydrogen of gravitas = PAUL OLIVERIO
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Monday, August 21, 2017

The Imaginary Number

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“Iiiiiits fakkkk toreee tiiiime.”   

Her words were muffled by a mouthful of chocolate zucchini pancakes. 

All I could say was Dominus Vobiscum. I bowed and the spatula in my hand made an air crucifix: vertical from head to waist then horizontal from shoulder to shoulder.

All Caroline could say was Dominuth Nabithco Crackers.

The patented Chocolate Zucchini Pancake recipe is the reason I rise with the Rooster on Sunday mornings. But it is his mother who gets him—and her—back to sleep. 

We will celebrate his birthday this week. 

Raymond “The Rooster” Samuels will be one hundred days old on Wednesday. His mother will place one hundred imaginary candles in a bowl of pastina.

I rise with the Rooster on Sunday mornings in August.
It was 5:15 AM and the birthday boy and my smarter half will sleep until the other half of the Samuels family returns from White Sulphur Springs.

The kitchen became my temporary kingdom: I sliced and diced a zucchini, a Hershey bar and tofu but the walnuts were minced pre-packaged nuts. 

All of this gets blended into a Duncan Hines Pancake mix.

After her father repeats the name Nina Simone three times, Caroline strolls into the kitchen. My ten year old daughter will not speak until there is food in her mouth.
  
I prefer it that way because ignoring her is the best cure for a hangover. But after she says “Iiiiiits fakkkk toreee tiiiime” she washes the dishes, gets dressed...then we drive sixty-one miles across state lines.

We live in Virginia where the churches do not welcome a Christian man married to a Jewish woman. Especially if the man believes a Bible is less important for his children than Alice In Wonderland.

Even more so when the Jewish woman is half-black.

But St. Charles Catholic Church in White Sulphur Springs does not require me to fill out a questionnaire before sitting in a pew. The church is in West Virginia. It is sixty-one miles from Livingston, VA. Most of those miles are driven in cruise control. The rest of them are descended from Blue Ridge Heaven.
For the entire distance, I am an audience of one but the performer, charismatic Caroline Samuels, speaks without food in her mouth.

Unusual ideas naturally descend from the mouths of babes when the first bedside book read to the babe is The History of Math and Religion. 

But the book was read by the author (Arlisha Rosenblatt Samuels) or the author's husband (me.)


Pythagoras was pre-eminent in dovetailing
Math and Religion when he postulated
the simple Geometric truth:  
The shortest distance between
any two points is a straight line.
His followers visualized the Gods
looking down on earth where all humans
were mere dots, that is, points on a surface.

The straight line symbolized communication
but the cultural result of the Pythagoreans'
existence was extermination. 
Each and everyone of them 
was slaughtered by a mob of plebians.

Five hundred years later,
Jesus Christ used the word
Love instead of Communication
Effectively, he said 
"All you need is love"
and he too was exterminated. 

Nearly two thousand years after that,
John Lennon used music (which is merely
the most beautiful form of applied mathematics)
to convey the same thing. 
He too was exterminated.
*** 

The History of Math and Religion was on the New York Times bestseller list for more than a year. The author and her husband agreed to not have another child but when we celebrated Caroline's ninth birthday in White Sulfur Springs, Raymond was conceived.
 
Be that as it may, the Sunday morning audience of one had his car in cruise control and his ears were wide open. The performer explained what she meant by her pancake flavored phrase: "fakkkk toreee tiiiime."

     
We are going to one of the factories that mass produces spiritual comfort. Many of these factories are Christian, others are built for Buddhists or Jews or Hindus. They are called churches or temples or mosques. The mass quantity of people who visit these factories are all in need of the same thing: spiritual comfort.

Like automobiles and air conditioners, spiritual comfort is a product but it is not produced by an assembly line. It is produced by the aura of the church or the temple. It is delivered instantly to the customers who are better known as the congregation. There is no middleman and  payment is determined by how much you put into a collection plate or basket.
   
There are basically three factory bosses but we never see them. Their foremen–or forewomen–are called pastors or rabbis. They tell us stories about their bosses, whose names are Buddah, Allah, and ..."

"Jesus," says the man in the audience.

"Correct, he is our chosen Boss. Did you know that he had an agent
  named Otto who believed a wardrobe change was necessary."

"Otto? Never heard of him."

"Otto became his agent when Jesus was a teenager, walking around
 with his posse..."

"Don't you mean disciples?"

"Whatever. Jesus famously wore yellow bloomers."

"I thought only girls wore bloomers."

"I'm glad you're still capable of thinking, Daddy."

"Thank you, Caroline." 
    

"Anyway, Otto said to Jesus: Lose the bloomers, Jake 
 Wear this loincloth. History will treat you much better."

"Jake?"

"That was Otto's pet name for Jesus."

"Did Jesus have a pet name for Otto?"

"Yes. He called him Toe. As in,
  Toe, which way do I go?"

"What the hell did that mean?"

"Golgotha might have been a NO-go-tha,
  if it weren't for Otto."

"I know Golgotha is where the crucifixtion
  took place but what did Otto 
  have to do with that?"

"The Crucifixtion nearly took place,
  somewhere south of Jerusalem but
  Otto objected because the image
  of Jesus carrying the crucifix
  would have shown Jesus' weak side."

"Weak side?"

"Yes. The public was better off not seeing
  the side of Jesus' face that had acne.
  Jesus might not have looked like 
  a savior if he had too many zits."

"What are you going to tell me
  next: Pontius Pilate wanted to give
  pimple cream to the executed man?"

"Maybe I will tell you about that
  next week but the church is too close
  to hear to begin that story."

END OF CHAPTER ONE.


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Footnote
THE IMAGINARY NUMBER is the copyrighted property
of the Lewis Carroll School of Logic.
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