Before They Were Night Vale: Piphilology (Patreon)

My friend (and fellow Neo-Futurist and Night Vale actor) Kate Jones is a math nerd. She fucking loves math, and I love math but not to the degree that she does. And that makes me like her even more. She’s great. One time we were talking about pi, and how cool it is, and what would be an impressive number of digits of pi that someone could memorize. She said 100. She also said if she met someone who could recite pi, from memory, to 100 places, she’d let them touch her boob.

I thought that was hilarious. So I wrote this play. I wasn’t interested in touching Kate Jones boob. I was interested in amusing a friend that found pi memorization that impressive. I proposed this play on a Wednesday night, and it got chosen to go into the Neo-Futurists’ weekly show “The Infinite Wrench” on Friday night. I was pleased.

Then I remembered that part of the promise of this play is that I could memorize pi to 100 digits (the script says “101” but I was just trying to one-up Kate’s expectations.). So basically I had 48 hours to memorize 100 essentially random digits. On my 10-min walk to the train, on my 40-min train ride to work, on my 5-min walk to work, on my 1-hr lunch break, on my whole commute home, I muttered this string of numbers over and over again. I looked truly nuts, I’m sure.

But I did it. Not the first night. The first night, I managed to get lost about half way through. But on Saturday night, the night Kate Jones, came to watch the show, I nailed it. The trick, honestly, is memorizing it as a series of 10-digit phone numbers. After the show, in KGB Bar, fellow Neo-Futurist Eevin said “Now you get to touch Kate’s boob!” Kate agreed, and through her thick winter layers I gently touched her boob like I was getting on an elevator but uncertain if I was pressing the right floor.

It was all worth it.

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Piphilology
© Jeffrey Cranor, 2010

DAN McCOY: Piphilology is the creation of mnemonic devices (like poems or stories) to help one remember a span of decimal digits in the geometric constant Pi.

LAUREN SHARPE: "Mom, a gent I dated destroyed my dreams - saucy lad!"

EEVIN HARTSOUGH: That is one such mnemonic. Each of those 10 words is the exact number of letters of the first 10 digits of Pi.

LAUREN: Yes. See? Mom 3. A 1. Gent 4. I 1. Dated 5, et cetera. Thus, 3.141592653

EEVIN: "How I cook a lunch: aubergine, um, cheese, sauce, egg!"

RYAN GOOD: "Was I more a great grammarer in longer timed ago?"

DAN: "Ick, I made a sorry spectacle of myself...party hog!!!"

EEVIN, RYAN, DAN: Wow, I've memorized Pi to TEN PLACES!

LAUREN: Guys that's great. But it's better to simplify. The point of piphilology is to find something EASIER to remember than the numbers.

[CENTER door opens, covered in blank white paper. JEFFREY and CHRISTOPHER BORG enter. JEFFREY stands UPCENTER by the paper. CHRISTOPHER goes DOWNRIGHT and unrolls a large scroll and reads. While CHRISTOPHER reads this overly long mnemonic device, JEFFREY attempts to write out pi to at least 101 digits* before the reading is done. On the back of the scroll, facing the AUDIENCE, where JEFFREY cannot see it, pi to 101 digits is written, so that they may check his work.]

CHRISTOPHER BORG: “How I wish I could alleviate it before year's end! Which boastful executive further collected for us the sandwich? They clamor at monkey when the can blancher had it. Antonio Banderas's sword swallowers in Winnepeg exploded vans I unsmartly created a sallow lampshade for. Monstrous clarinets are chewing until a windmiller helps hopeless DJ. Bedraggled Henchmen's tophats work steadfast with four aptly requested [finger quotes] "In Men." Misfortune cleaves Penelope? I surely have questioned. ‘Peddle by Merchant Ivory's ol' depository, Franklin! Mnemonics Schmonics!" -- fearless saying of history's unblinking eye lies anchored on grave o'er Dead Pa. I... I wouldn't filibuster reform, dumbass teabagger.

JEFFREY: 101 digits [or approximates if he didn't get them all.] You can double-check it after the show.

DAN: That's very impressive. [or "Not bad" or "Good try" depending on how well JC does at it.]

EEVIN: I like your piphilology mnemonic, Borg.

CHRISTOPHER: Thanks.

RYAN: So now what?

[long pause; They just sort of stand around looking at things.]

CURTAIN

*3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679