RIP Tom Lehrer

Reading online this morning, I find news of Tom Lehrer's passing. This is not perhaps unexpected in itself; he had led a long and fruitful life, but it's definitely a moment for reflection, as Lehrer was possibly the cleverest and most literate satirist of our time, not to mention the funniest.

More than usually, though, one of my favorite Diane Duane quotes applies: "What's loved, survives." We still have the music (and that's a very literal "we"; per his Web site, Lehrer a couple of years ago released his entire oeuvre into the public domain.

And in the wake of the news, it turns out he also left behind a (formerly) top secret mathematical joke that took more than half a century to fully detonate. (sanguinity, you should appreciate this....)