HAPPY PI DAY (THE WHITE STRIPES DO SOME MATH).

Black Math and Pi

If you're a mathematician, then you do math.

If you're a musician, you make music.

If you're a musician who likes math, then you write a song about math.

And if you're someone who admires mathematics and music, yet has a particular aptitude for neither, then you do what I'm doing now, which is wait for National Pi Day to roll around so you have an excuse to write a short little homage to Jack and Meg White, a pair of musicians who wrote arguably* the greatest song ever about mathematics (although technically I think it may more of a philosophical treatise about the gap between LEARNING something and UNDERSTANDING something...).

"Yeah maybe I'll learn to understand /
Drawing a square with a pencil in hand yeah /
Mathematically turning the page /
...is it the fingers, or the brains that you're teaching the lesson?"

Concretely titled "Black Math," my wife gets furious** at me when I listen to it driving, because I steeringwheel-air drum to it like Pythagoras on triangle. I can understand why it's frustrating, particularly if I forgot to put cruise control on because of course I've gotta keep the kick drums going and it's not my fault*** if my right foot happens to be poised above the gas pedal. The barrage of elephantine guitars is a blast of buckshot to Jack's skreeny sweaty vocals as he writhes his skinny fingers through six strings of guitar contortions. Meg calmly stomps away frantically with her cute little drumset that is somehow fluently fierce and charming. What a pair they were.

Happy Pi Day. Now go hug a mathematician. Or at least listen to the White Stripes really loud.

*please argue

**not furious

***of course it's my fault - who else's would it be?

The White Stripes
Black Math
Elephant
2003

Judgment Night II (Post-Blazer Game) //// March 4, 2013

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THINGS THAT WILL NOT HELP YOU PREPARE FOR A PEACEFUL NIGHT'S SLEEP:


Having your wife walk around the house all evening wearing a Darth Vader mask, repeating "I am your father" in a voice that sounds more akin to Dennis Hopper than James Earl Jones.


I swear, if I wake up during the night and she is still wearing it I probably won't sleep for a fortnight.