Something quite new was required

[sovay]

It is not an important yahrzeit of Alan Turing. That will be in a couple of years; in a couple of weeks it will be a more important birthday. He did not really live out of time like T. H. White's Merlin, but the Pet Shop Boys called him a man from the future. Since the last time I checked in, there seems to be a poetry collection about him and a poetry fest judged for humanness by an AI, not to mention a train named in his honor. The statue at King's College is still in zoning limbo. I like the news of these memorials and investigations, these personal or institutional engagements, but I keep recurring to the idea of how much easier it is to honor the dead than accept the living: how badly governments learn the lesson of letting people live as themselves. If I'm still here this time next year, I'll have outlived him. When I was sixteen and reading Hugh Whitemore's Breaking the Code (1986) in the red-jacketed secondhand hardcover whose spine has faded with time and sunlight to a most acceptably queer pink, dying like a fairy tale of injustice at forty-one looked a long way off in an eventful life. I didn't have to come this close in time to know his life had a lot in it, but it could have had a lot more.

Comments

[troisoiseaux]

I keep recurring to the idea of how much easier it is to honor the dead than accept the living: how badly governments learn the lesson of letting people live as themselves

+1

(brain fried, can't word, but this is a lovely post)

[sovay]

(brain fried, can't word, but this is a lovely post)

(Thank you.)

[selkie]

If I'm still here this time next year, I'll have outlived him.

*hugs* Thank you for memorializing him.

[sovay]

Thank you for memorializing him.

It matters.

*hugs*

[sara]

I'm forty five this year and really hitting my stride as a scientist.

[sovay]

I'm forty five this year and really hitting my stride as a scientist.

I've never had the impression it's the sort of field you peak before twenty-five in. I wish you many more years of science.

[minoanmiss]

*raises a light to his memory*

[sovay]

*raises a light to his memory*

*hugs*

[aurumcalendula]

I like the news of these memorials and investigations, these personal or institutional engagements, but I keep recurring to the idea of how much easier it is to honor the dead than accept the living: how badly governments learn the lesson of letting people live as themselves.

This - I'm glad more people know of him now, but yeah. Thank you for writing about him.

(I really should read Breaking the Code one of these days - I remember thinking Jacobi did an excellent job in the tv movie version)

[sovay]

This - I'm glad more people know of him now, but yeah. Thank you for writing about him.

Thank you.

(I really should read Breaking the Code one of these days - I remember thinking Jacobi did an excellent job in the tv movie version)

I've never seen the TV version! I finally caught a local production in 2011, which I enjoyed very much. My major complaint about the play is that real-life Joan Clarke was so much cooler than fictional Pat Green, so it just means I'm waiting for a play about Joan Clarke.

In terms of other drama about Turing, I can recommend Clare Beavan's Codebreaker (2011) and avoided The Imitation Game (2014) like, well, one can no longer say the plague. There is also the music video for Fiction's "The Apple (for Alan Turing)," which I also just like as a song.

[aurumcalendula]

I think nearly everyone with prior knowledge of Turing either avoided and/or hated 'The Imitation Game' (I got the impression it drew a lot from Levitt's biography, which I heartily disliked, let alone its other problems)

iirc I saw 'Breaking the Code' via the (now broken) link on Hodges' website. It doesn't look like it's officially available to stream anywhere, but someone uploaded a copy here

I really liked Codebreaker and the music video looks cool!

(I would love to see a play about Joan Clarke someday too!)

[sovay]

I think nearly everyone with prior knowledge of Turing either avoided and/or hated 'The Imitation Game'

I certainly don't know anyone who saw and/or liked it. Andrew Hodges was contractually tactful. I still resent that it sucked all of the funding out of the room for a Turing movie until the next God knows when. Not to mention a waste of a naturally apt title, although Ian McEwan's The Imitation Game (1981) is also obnoxious, so maybe the title is actually cursed.

iirc I saw 'Breaking the Code' via the (now broken) link on Hodges' website. It doesn't look like it's officially available to stream anywhere, but someone uploaded a copy here

Nice! Thank you.

(I discovered the link to that page was broken when I tried to add it to this post. It worked ten years ago!)

I really liked Codebreaker and the music video looks cool!

Apologies for recommending something you were likely to have seen: Codebreaker seems to have a weirdly low profile for how good it is.

There's this small number of songs about Alan Turing that just seem to come into existence at unpredictable intervals and I really appreciate them.

(I would love to see a play about Joan Clarke someday too!)

(I don't know how to interest anyone in the project. I do not know how to write plays and do not have time to learn. But I keep hoping.)

[aurumcalendula]

Apologies for recommending something you were likely to have seen: Codebreaker seems to have a weirdly low profile for how good it is.

No worries - I'm glad you reminded me of it!

[cmcmck]

One of my almae matres, UKC, had named its new college for Turing.

[sovay]

One of my almae matres, UKC, had named its new college for Turing.

I saw when that happened! I really approved.

[vass]

Thank you for the reminder. It had not sunk into me that he'd been forty-one when he died.

If I'm still here this time next year, I'll have outlived him.

Same.

[sovay]

Thank you for the reminder. It had not sunk into me that he'd been forty-one when he died.

You're welcome. Time is weird stuff.

*hugs*