π 
π π for yesterday (mammoths lumber along majestically, and they are often regrettably late for appointments), 3/14, which was Pi Day in my country, and for some years now, also — delicious pun — Pie Day in many places (so inviting a cascade of formulaic word play: pie in the sky, a piece of the pie, easy as pie, even pie chart)
I’ll jump right into things with a charming and heartfelt Facebook message yesterday from my old friend Paula Stout, who many years ago lived in Palo Alto, but has since moved to the great American Southwest — on a ranch outside Greenville TX, east of Dallas-Fort Worth:
Happy Ecstatic Friday on Pi Day (3.14)
We were in town today, where every store treated the day as a celebration. They were giving away apple pies, chicken pot pies, [pizza pies,] and even eskimo pies. With big smiles, balloons and jubilation.
And it struck me that we are seeing history unfold.
1988 was the first “Pi Day” for a marketing campaign in SF, iirc. Before that, only we geeks and friends of the wonderful Kevin McHargue (who was born on this day) partied it up
And now, here we are. A national holiday of pies!
As David Mamet, renowned playwright, once noted, “We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie.”
There’s enough stress brewing in the world, y’all, let us pray he is right and there is pie enough to combat it.
The bare facts. From Wikipedia:
Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (the 3rd month) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant figures of π
… In 1988, the earliest known official or large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations.
My guy Jacques and I were in fact in the Bay Area on 3/14/88 — but doing the final packing for our annual drive, from Palo Alto (and Stanford) on 3/15 to Columbus OH (and Ohio State) on 3/19 (along a route that, this year, seems to be strewn with appalling weather hazards), so we missed the Exploratorium event.
For an extra kick to the day, 3/14 is also Albert Einstein’s birthday (in 1879, just two months before my Swiss grandfather’s birthday).
And now the pi(e) circus. I followed Paula Stout’s FB message up with a brief Twin Peaks allusion:
— AZ: Time for a damn fine slice of (cherry) pie
And now I unleash the clowns with a burlesque of a nursery rhyme:
Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Calculating mid-March pi;
He put in his 3.14159 thumb
And pulled out a 26535 plum,
And endlessly went on, “What a good boy am I!
The American classic is the apple pie. LJH was in it for the plum pie. FBI Agent Cooper went for the damn fine slice of cherry pie served at Norma’s RR Diner.
I took my cue from Agent Cooper and ordered a slice of cherry pie, which I ate cold, with vanilla bean ice cream. Yes, I know, an indulgence. (Meanwhile, I wonder what cherry π would be like.)