March 17, 2006

  • Dogma in the
    State of Grace

    "Words and numbers are of equal value,
    for, in the cloak of knowledge,
    one is warp and the other woof."

    -- The princesses Rhyme and Reason

    in The Phantom Tollbooth,
    by Norton Juster, 1961

    (From a Sermon for
    St. Patrick's Day, 2001    )

    The Pennsylvania midday lottery
    on St. Patrick's Day, 2006:

    618.

    Comparing, as in Philadelphia Stories,  the Catholic style of Grace Kelly with the Protestant style of Katharine Hepburn, we conclude that Princess Rhyme might best be played by the former, Princess Reason by the latter.

    Reason informs us that the lottery result "618" may
    be regarded as naming " - 0.618," the approximate value of the negative
    solution to the equation

    x2 - x - 1 = 0

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    Following the advice of Clint Eastwood (on the
    "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" soundtrack CD) to "accentuate
    the positive," Reason notes that the other, positive, solution to this
    equation, approximately 1.618, a number symbolized by the Greek letter
    "phi," occurs in the following geometric diagram illustrating a
    construction of the pentagon:

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    For further enlightenment, we turn to Rhyme, who
    informs us that "618" may also be regarded as naming the date "6/18."
    Consulting our notes, we find on 6/18, 2003, a reference to "claves," Latin for "keys," as in "claves regni caelorum."

    We may tarry at this date, pleased to find that the keys to the kingdom involve rational numbers, rather than the irrational ratios suggested, paradoxically, by Reason.

    Or we may, with Miles Davis, prefer a more sensuous incarnation of the keys:

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    Alicia Keys

    "... it's going to be

    accomplished in steps    ,
    this establishment
    of the Talented in
     
    the scheme of things."

    -- Anne McCaffrey, 
    Radcliffe '47,
    To Ride Pegasus