March 17, 2000

Last night, sitting in the Green Room of Stuart Theater at Brown University, passing the time with my fellow thespians during Brecht and Weill's Happy End, a challenge arose.

A small colloquy had begun among a few of the actors with the focus 'stupid things people say at dinner parties'. One actor declared that his professor was so proud of his knowledge in the literary arts that his prof. would recite passages from Shakespeare just to show the other dinner guests how well endowed he is. To this, another actor responded, "Yeah, that's like saying, 'I can recite pi to 100 places. Wanna hear?'"

Unable to resist the golden opportunity, I proclaimed, "Nah, I only do that at really good dinner parties...and I can only do 60."
"Bullshit," responded the other actor.
"No, seriously, only at the best dinner parties."
"No, I mean bullshit you know pi to 60 places."
<<Insert laugh by another actor who knows the validity of my claim.>>
"Do you want me to prove it?"
"How would you prove it?"
"Um...I'll say pi to 60 places."
"How do I know you're not making it up?"
"Well...I could have memorized a string of 60 random digits that have nothing to do with pi, in which case you would never know. Or, I could have done something almost as useless and actually memorized the first 60 digits of pi, which you may choose to write down as I say them and then read along as I repeat the list."
"Hold on."
<<Proceeds to get out a graphing calculator.>>
"You know, that calculator will only give you the first eight digits of pi, which is not very impressive," I announced.
"Yeah, well, go ahead and do it."
"3.14159265358979-"
"Wait, wait, wait, the calculator only goes out to eight places."
"..."
"Okay, just do it, I'll be able to tell if it's the same."
"Okay-- 3.141592653589793238462643383279
502884197169399375105820974944."
The actor who had laughed earlier on inquired with utmost sincerity, "60? Why not 100? I mean, then you'd be able to say at dinner parties, 'I know pi to 100 places.'"

Actors are from hell.

Adam