Last weekend was a good weekend for dinners. A dinner to celebrate the Sabbath, a dinner to celebrate my Mom and Dad’s collective birthday, and a dinner to celebrate Marissa’s new book.
At that last dinner, I met Marissa’s friend Jenn, who is a writer, and her companion Yony, a string theorist. I was tempted to ask Yony an incisive, thoughtful question, such as, “Like… ummm… why is it eleven dimensions, anyway?” Of course the last time I asked a string theorist that very question, the string theorist proceeded to launch into what can only be described as ten uninterrupted minutes of Mathematical Gobbledygook. My physics knowledge has since waned considerably1, and I thought it best not to risk asking again.
At one point in the dinner, Jenn casually mentioned that one of her characters looks like Sheena Easton. At that, poor M’ris blew a synapse. I certainly sympathize with Marissa here — when you imagine what a character looks like, and then you see what someone else thinks they look like, it can come as quite a shock. For example, when I discovered that the title role in the upcoming Alexander the Great movie will be played by Leonardo DiCaprio, I was stunned. They couldn’t pick anybody else? Heath Ledger, maybe?
That got me thinking about my (imaginary) screenplay for the 1527 Sack of Rome. Machiavelli is a no-brainer: Jeremy Irons (or maybe Viggo Mortensen in a pinch). Baldesar Castliogne is a bit tougher. Sir Anthony Hopkins could pull it off, given sufficient facial hair. But what about the cowardly Pope Clement VII? The brilliant Isabella d’Este? The self-aggrandizing Benvenuto Cellini? And last but not least, our tragic hero, The Constable (Duke of Bourbon)? Suggestions are welcome on this pressing issue.
Interesting side note on Yony: when he graduates this year, he’ll be taking a short internship with Google Labs. This leads us to the following dilemma:
- Is it ethical to be nice to someone solely for the purpose that they put in a good word for you at their company?
- Would candy and flowers be out of line?
1. My loss of mathematical prowess probably has nothing to do with the string theorist and his Mathematical Gobbledygook all those years ago. In particular, I wish to emphasize that it is highly unlikely that the string theorist incanted some sort of voodoo hex that nowadays prevents me from solving anything other than the most elementary partial differential equations.