• Home Page
  • About this website
  • Biography
  • Dr. B's Notes
  • Contact
Richard S. Beam

221     I Wonder As I Wander Through My Weirding Brain…

1/20/2022

0 Comments

 
I’ve been working on this post for a while now, but the need for “SPECIAL” posts got in its way.  I’m glad THAT didn’t happen again….  Anyway, here’s something a bit more normal(?) from my computer.

I guess that I should admit that I am aware of the fact that I am (and probably have always been) a bit of a “nerd.”  That’s probably no surprise to most who know me.  I don’t think that’s the only way to describe me, but I will admit to a degree of “Nerd-dom.”  By that statement, I mean, in part, that I have read at least some of the works of Douglas Adams (although I am far from being an expert on them, if such a thing exists).  And, as most of my students know, I am also guilty of being quite fond of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot; have seen it several times (probably the best time was the performance Maggi and I saw in London in 2009 with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen); I’ve directed a production of it at Western; built another production there; and assigned it in dramatic lit. classes on numerous occasions, after having studied in several times while in school, myself.  That, also, probably speaks to my “nerdiness.”  Thus, I establish my claim to both “nerdiness” and oddball literary references.

Anyway, I caught a reference in a comic strip in the newspaper a while ago to the idea that 42 is the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, as calculated by an enormous alien-built supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years.  I immediately recognized this as referring to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (as, I am sure, many others did) but then I ran across a reference to an online article by Ryan Kinsgrove which purported to explain why 42 was the answer.  So, I did the obvious thing, looked it up, and read it.

As I understand it, the basic argument goes something like this: the only way a computer can respond to any question has to be based on that computer’s “understanding” of the question and the nature of the universe which that computer “inhabits.”  Computers, obviously, understand “computerdom,” not humanity, or some other such construct, so Deep Thought would have to respond in a way which is appropriate for a computer.  

Adams’ book was first published in 1979.  Now, being an Apple user, I tend to think of the history of computers in terms of the development of Apple products, a not very accurate system, I know, but my own.  At that time the Apple II+ (which would be the first computer I would own) was just being introduced and the first Macintosh (which is what most people seem to think about when they think about Apple computers) was still five years away.

However, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was already (had been for a while) established as a standard way to express language.  That is, English letters, upper and lower case; numbers [digits]; standard punctuation; and some common control codes are expressed in ASCII in a form which could be “understood” by computers.  Hence ASCII was the basis for at least some of the programming languages in use at the time.  (NOTE: It’s entirely possible that it still is, but I’m getting well over my head here.)

Now I am basing this on information which I do NOT understand, but which seems to make sense.  The story goes that the glyph we call an asterisk (*) is/was commonly used as a “wildcard,” a variable input.  Hence, the asterisk can have whatever meaning is assigned to it.  

Note:    While I make no pretense of being a programmer in ANY sense of the word, I DID do a search for “examples of wildcard characters” in my browser of choice (DuckDuckGo) and was led to support.Microsoft.com which says that an * “Matches any number of characters.  You can use the asterisk (*) anywhere in a character string.”  I believe that this means that my belief that an asterisk (*) can act as a “wildcard” for any number of characters, (hence almost any expression) is true.

So, how does this relate to the “Ultimate Question?”  The decimal number “42” is the ASCII code for an asterisk.  Hence, I believe that Kinsgrove’s argument is suggesting, that, by responding with “42,” Deep Thought is saying that the meaning of life, etc., is a variable, a wildcard, it can mean whatever you want it to mean.  Thus, 42 suggests that life is what you make of it.

This conjecture, which I rather like, draws on the belief that Adams spent some time while he was in  school and early in his professional life as a computer programmer, which doesn’t appear unreasonable, but I have not been able to verify that idea.  However, I DID determine that his father apparently DID work as a computer salesman for a time, so the notion probably shouldn’t just be written off as a not particularly credible idea.

After pondering these thoughts a while, my weird brain said to me “That’s rather like Godot, isn’t it?” and my mind skipped a groove because it all made sense.  You see, one of the rather classic questions of dramatic literature is “Who or what is Godot?” in Beckett’s play.  Adams may have provided us with an answer to the question he posed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide, even if he didn’t make it too easy to understand.  (Yes, I’m far from sure that the explanation I have discussed above is true, or complete, but I do think that it seems to make a fair amount of sense.)

Beckett, on  the other hand, avoided explaining Godot (the character) for a long time and, only after years of being pressured by critics, scholars, etc., did he respond.  At least, my understanding is that he was eventually worn down to the point where he said something like: “Godot is that which we wait for which does not come.”  I’m not sure when or where I first heard this story, but I find that it makes perfect sense to me and that I think it ties directly into the ideas being discussed above in relation to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  But I probably ought to explain that a bit.

I think many people (certainly I) would suggest that Beckett’s play has something to do with Didi and Gogo spending their lives waiting for something to happen.  That event is expressed as the notion of Godot coming.  Somehow, at least as I see it, Godot, when he shows up is going to, like Sister Mary Ignatius, explain it all.  To, perhaps, put it in a form which makes slightly more sense, it’s an Existential statement relating to Being and Becoming.  After all, the play WAS written in the late 1940s (in French) and first produced (in France) in 1953, the period which seems most closely associated with Modern Existentialism. 

So, who, or what, is the Godot that they are waiting for?  The implication seems to be that he is a human (assuming that they are), but there is no assertion that that is a fact.  It IS stated, however, late in the second act, that they believe that if Godot comes, they “will be saved.”  That would seem to more than imply that Godot will solve all of their problems, answer all their questions, somehow provide a meaning for their existence and an explanation as to why all their “waiting” was worthwhile.  I think that this could be taken to suggest that Godot is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, or, at least, he can provide it when he shows up.

Of course, Beckett has written a play about waiting for this character in which he repeatedly does NOT come!  I believe that Beckett is implying that he is never going to do so!  In other words, Godot can, perhaps, be seen as a sort of “wildcard” which has no fixed value,  Godot is like an ASCII “asterisk,” he/she/it is the answer to a question which can only have meaning to the end user because only the end user can define the variable “life, the universe, and everything.”

I believe that this is simply another way of expressing what I have always thought was what Beckett wanted us to take away from his play, that the meaning/value of life is NOT its end result (Being), but the meaning we create by living (Becoming).  Hence, Didi and Gogo are, ultimately wasting their time playing games and waiting for Godot to “drop in” with the answer, because the TRUE answer is what we make of that life.  The answer is whatever we choose to define it as through what we do with our lives.  Please note that this is, as I understand it, a very Existential idea, based on my own (limited and probably flawed) understanding of Sartre, etc.

I hope that this if this is only clear as mud, at least it covers the ground.  I would be happy (I think) to try to explain these ideas more clearly (if I can), but I’ve gone as far as I can here.

I’ll be back in a couple of weeks, when I hope to have returned to my more normal sense of insanity, probably with something a bit more usual, like some stuff from the funny papers.

Until then, LLAP,

Dr. B

“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”                                                                        ―Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
0 Comments

220    SPECIAL    Donald “Doc” Loeffler

1/14/2022

0 Comments

 
Well, I said I’d be back in a week, or so, but I really hadn’t been planning for it to be this way.    I have to admit that I was reasonably sure that Doc’s health wasn’t particularly great (he was, after all, 91), but he was the type who you just assume is going to go on forever.  We hadn’t been in close contact for a number of years, although we did exchange cards at Christmas, so I was aware of his continuing involvement as a “sample patient” for the local medical community and that he was somewhat active in local theatre productions, especially of reader’s theatre.  Thus, I was a bit concerned when Bonnie and I didn’t get his usual card shortly after Christmas with his notes about folks out of the past, mostly students and old faculty people.  Well, now we know why.

To lose both Steve and Doc in less than a week is quite a shock.  Both were significant parts of my working life for about twenty years, a good deal of which overlapped.  I’ve already talked a bit about Steve in my “special” blog post #219 about a week ago, but I don’t think I’ve ever talked about my relationship with Doc Loeffler, so I guess that it’s now time.

When I finished my Master’s degree from Indiana U in 1969, I got a job as Technical Director and occasional Scenic and/or Lighting Designer and very occasional Director with Theatre 65 — The Children’s Theatre of Evanston, IL.  This historic theatre for children had been started by Winifred Ward, a professor of Theatre at Northwestern, in 1925 as a joint project between Northwestern’s School of Speech and Community Consolidated School District #65 in Evanston.  Growing up in Evanston as I did, I remember attending their productions as a school kid, and participating as a cast member as I got a bit older.  You see, a feature of their operations was always involvement of children; this was not a theatre for children to see productions by adults, it was a theatre FOR children.  While adults (mostly young adults — high school & college students) were occasionally cast in adult roles in productions for older (middle school) audiences, the vast majority of the roles were cast from middle school auditionees and virtually all tech positions were filled by middle and/or high school kids.  Anyway, by the time I worked there, the theatre had become almost completely operated by the school district, with fairly minimal involvement by Northwestern.  It was because of this change that the name was changed from “The Children’s Theatre of Evanston” to “Theatre 65,” which most people assumed was chosen because of the school district number, but was really done because that was the year the change was made.

Anyway, as a newly minted MA in the fall of 1969, I needed a job in theatre and was lucky enough to be offered a position at Theatre 65, largely because of my experience with the Indiana Theatre Company, which I had been a member of while doing my Master’s course work.  It wasn’t a great job, but Bonnie (I was married by that point) and I managed to (more or less) support ourselves and I liked the people I was working with and the theatre.  

But, remember that I said that the theatre was, essentially, owned by the school district?  When they lost a vote for an educational bond referendum (this first one which had EVER been lost) in the spring of 1971, I was told that we were going to try to save the children’s theatre, but I could not count on keeping my job.  We DID save the theatre (sort of), but by the latter days of the summer, I was sure I had no continuing employment.  So, I went to the conference of the American Educational Theatre Association in Chicago late that summer hoping to find some employment in educational theatre.  In other words, I was hoping to find an employer who was as desperate to find someone with skills I could satisfy as I was to get a job.  As I had expected, pickings were pretty slim, but there was this guy I met named Donald Loeffler from Western Carolina University, however, who had just lost both his TD/Designer and an Acting/Directing faculty member (who was the former TD’s wife) to other employment.  This Loeffler guy had also just become the Department Head of the Speech and Theatre Department, so was relatively new to administration.  And the job would be at this little school next to (essentially in) the Great Smoky Mountains.  All in all, it didn’t seem promising, but it was educational theatre AND it was a job!

Doc was NOT stupid, however.  He insisted that both Bonnie and I make at least a cursory visit to campus before I was offered the job, so we flew into Knoxville, where Doc picked us up and drove us to Cullowhee through the then brand new I-40 gorge.  As I remember it, we stayed for a couple of nights at the Court Hill Inn, which I understand now had been Sylva’s first hospital, but was, at this time, a rather nice hotel with quite a good restaurant.  The WCU campus wasn’t especially exciting, and the theatre wasn’t as large, or a well equipped as the spaces I had been using at the Children’s Theatre, but the people seemed nice and we figured we could at least survive for a year, or two.

Thus began an almost 43 year career at WCU.  Yeah, there were a lot of limitations, but Doc hired good people and went out of his way to try to treat them right.  He wanted a lot from you, so I was probably actually the subject of at least some “faculty abuse,” but we all worked pretty hard, including the students.  And I have to say that those were “good” years.  Doc gave us a great deal of freedom to teach our classes and do our production work as we saw fit and wasn’t always looking over our shoulder to make sure that we did things “his” way.  He was always supportive and, I would say went out of his way to make sure our work was appreciated.  He could get angry, but he was never unkind and we all loved him.

So, I started at Western in the fall of 1971 and, as I remember it, Doc finally retired about 1991 (the exact date eludes me).  By then, it had been obvious for a while that he was having difficulties health-wise, but he was still in there doing what he could and always being supportive of faculty and students alike.  If I’d been looking, I probably could have found a lot of reasons to leave over those years, but it would have been hard to have left Doc.  He was a great deal more than just my boss.  He was a mentor of sorts, a taskmaster, a colleague in the truest sense of the word.  His love of the theatre and for his students was an inspiration and established a pattern which I tried to follow.  I was aware of at least some of his failings, but I was much more aware of his strengths.  Like Steve, he was one of a kind and I will miss him.

I have strong hopes that I won’t be interrupting the regular routine of these posts, yet again any time soon.  My plan is to next post in a week, or so.  I’ve got something in the works, but I’m still working on it.  Suffice to say that it’s more like my usual oddball stuff.

In the meantime, once again, LLAP,

Dr. B

​“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”                                                                            ―Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
0 Comments

219 SPECIAL     The Loss of Steve Ayers

1/7/2022

0 Comments

 
I heard just the other day through the grapevine that Dr. Stephen Michael Ayers has died.  I first got to know Steve (he was always just Steve to me) about 1986 when he joined the Theatre faculty at Western Carolina University.  For, roughly, the next twenty years we worked together on something like 45 different productions.  Steve, of course, was the Director, although he, on some occasions, also performed as an actor.  I was, in almost every case, the Technical Director, although much of the time I combined that with designing scenery and/or lighting.  

In addition, of course, as faculty members we were also both directly involved in the day-to-day business of running the Theatre Program as part of the Dept. of Speech and Theatre Arts which would eventually be split into the School of Stage And Screen in the Belcher College of Fine and Performing Arts and the Department of Communication in the College of Arts and Sciences.  On top of that, our offices were in close proximity in Stillwell for much of that time.  Obviously, we spent a good deal of time together.

Still, I have to admit that we were never what I would call close friends.  I suspect that was because we spent so much of our working lives together, we were not excited by at the prospect of “hanging out” together in the time we spent away from professional activities.  We both had relatively young children of differing ages and lived “across town” from each other, so our wives didn’t really know each other and we ran in somewhat different social circles, even in the small Sylva/Cullowhee society.

Still, Steve and I were colleagues.  Perhaps I am making more of that term than it deserves, but it means something to me.  Maybe it was more true because we were both in Theatre.  Maybe it was because we both felt quite passionately about the theatre, especially theatre education, as more of a “calling” than just a job.  I can’t explain it very well, I know, but when I heard of his passing from my daughter, Maggi (who was in the chorus of our production of Fiddler on the Roof  in 1993), who had seen a posting by Steve’s daughter, Maribeth, on Facebook (which I have never joined, but that’s another story), I was somewhat stunned.  How could this be?  Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize that I’m not as young as I used to be and I’ve reached the age when the passing of people I know really isn’t all that uncommon.  Still, that doesn’t make it easier to accept, especially with someone who was such a part of one’s life.

Yes, it’s true that Steve and I didn’t always agree about some things.  Yes, I thought he placed excessive demands on our students at times, especially relating to productions.  He pushed me hard often, and, sometimes, I pushed back.  But I think that I always knew that what he wanted was really what I wanted, too.  He wanted each performance of each production to be the best it could possibly be, and he was as hard on himself as he was on others.  This didn’t always make him lovable, but we did some pretty damn good work together.  Much of my best work as a designer/technician was done on productions that Steve directed.  And my time working with him gave me a lot of food for thought for those occasions when I got the chance to direct my own productions.

​Is my life better because of Steve?  I don’t know.  I don’t think it’s worse.  I do know that it wouldn’t have been the same without his influence.  As in every relationship, we had our ups and downs.  But, looking back, I don’t think I’d change things.  Steve helped make me better at what I did.  I’d like to think that I had a positive influence on the work we did together.  All in all, I’ll miss him, probably more than he would have ever thought.  I’m glad that I retired before this happened.  Even if we weren’t working together, it would have been harder to continue.  Perhaps the most honest thing I can say about Steve comes from Hamlet: “He was a man, take him for all in all.  I shall not look upon his like again.”  ‘Nuf said.

Steve’s daughter, Maribeth, has set up a Gofundme account to raise money towards the creation of a Stephen Michael Ayers Memorial Scholarship with Claire Eye (a former student of ours and currently the Department Head of WCU’s School of Stage and Screen).  That account is reachable at: 
https://www.gofundme.com/f/stephen-michael-ayers-memorial-scholarship-fund?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet.  

I think this is a worthy way to remember a good man.  I would encourage folks to contribute.

I’ll be back in a week, or two, when I can get my head together to write something more usual.  In the meantime,

LLAP,


Dr. B

​
“Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic; capable of both inflicting injury, and remedying it.”             ―Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows


0 Comments

    Just personal comments about things which interest me (and might interest others).

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly