May 1, 2003

• Rhymes with Puck

  
  

  Readings for May Day, also known as Beltane.

  
  

    I. The Playboy of the Western World

  
  

  
  
  • Operation Playmate
    
  • Puck Fair
    
  • Playboy Magazine, June 2003:
    See cover headline at top left.

  
  

   II.  Beltane

  
  

  
  
  • St. Mary-of-the-Woods
    
  • Our Lady of the Woods, Los Alamos
    
  • Our Lady of the Woods, Bellarmine U.

  
  

  III.  A is for Art

  
  

  
  
  • Wrestling Pablo Picasso
    
  • Terpsichore’s Birthday
    
  • Bell/Taine (see below)

  
  

  Bell/Taine

  
  

  In 1993, The Mathematical Association of America published Constance Reid’s

  
  

  THE SEARCH FOR E. T. BELL
  also known as John Taine.

  
  

  This is a biography of Eric Temple Bell, a mathematician and writer on mathematics, who also wrote fiction under the name John Taine.

  
  

  On page 194, Reid records a question Bell’s son asked as a child.  Passing a church and seeing a cross on the steeple, he inquired, “Why is the plus up there?”

  
  

  For an answer that makes some sort of sense

  
  

  
  
  • 
    
    in the context of Part II above, and
    
    
  • 
    
    in the context of last month’s “Math Awareness Month” theme, mathematics and art,

  
  

  consider the phrase “A is for Art,” so aptly illustrated by Olivia Newton-John in “Wrestling Pablo Picasso,”  then examine the photograph of ballerina Margaret “Puck” Petit on page 195 of Reid’s book.  Puck, as the mother of Leslie Caron (see Terpsichore’s Birthday), clearly deserves an A⁺.
  
  

  • 5:13 pm
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