Amanda LePore – The WOW Report

alan-turing

June 23, 1912– Alan Mathison Turing‘s story was told in The Imitation Game (2014), a somewhat pedestrian film about an extraordinary man. It is a good film; don’t get me wrong, you should see it. It was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. Graham Moore’s Oscar nominated screenplay had been kicking around Hollywood for years and the story deserved to be told. Norwegian director Morten Tyldum‘s cast includes my boo Benedict Cumberbatch (Oscar nominated), whose performance was vulnerable, compelling, and persuasive, plus the rest: Mark Strong, Keira Knightley (Oscar nominated), Charles Dance, and yummy Matthew Goode are all uniformly wonderful. I am not certain why I ended up thinking the whole thing played a little flat. But, having audiences experience Turing’s amazing story is a good thing.

Most people did not know that Alan Turing, a British cryptanalyst, saved the world from Fascism during WW II. I have to be honest, because his contribution is outside of the subjects of the arts and literature, I would not have known of his life but for the play and film in the late 1990s, Breaking The Code, both starring openly gay actor Derek Jacobi. I find this version a bit more engaging than the 2014 film.

That’s right, Turing saved the world from the Nazis. And, his importance to the modern world with his mathematical, philosophical, and cryptographic work cannot be overestimated.

A once-in-a-generation gifted mathematician, Turing was one of the founders of Computer Science. The Turing Machine was an abstract device that consisted of an infinite paper tape and a reading device that could move forwards and backwards altering what is on the tape. Despite its simplicity, it remains a model for all aspects of the world of computers in our own age. It was the prototype for all actions that can be performed by today’s computers. It is amazing that Turing invented his machine before computers as we know them even existed.

His most significant accomplishment was being responsible for cracking the “unbreakable” German codes during WW II. Given the limited resources the British possessed, having precise knowledge of Germany’s intentions allowed the British intelligence to concentrate their resources so that they could achieve battle superiority and eventually prevail against those damn Nazis. Turing’s contribution to the Allied victory over the Nazis in the greatest of wars ranks as high as anyone else, even Winston Churchill or Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Despite the fact that he may have been the most brilliant scientist of his generation, or basically saving everyone on this planet, Turing was discarded and deemed a security risk because of his gayness. We must remember him not only for his work with computers and deciphering the Enigma Machine codes during WW II, but also because of his needless, horrific death during an age of institutionalized homophobia. He committed suicide when he was just 41-years-old, two years after his arrest, conviction, and forced chemical castration for his gayness. Turing is a Gay Hero and a Gay Martyr.

After the war, Turing had dared to open the closet door just a crack, but it was also the start of a time when there was a change from conveniently ignoring queer people to active persecution of them in Britain. After his pioneering work in computers, software design, and artificial intelligence, Turing was elected a Fellow Of The Royal Society at an unusually young 22-years-old. This should have been the best time of his life, living life as a true war hero and respected researcher, but instead, in 1948 Turing’s life became especially difficult.

He had moved to Manchester after accepting a position as Deputy Director at the Royal Society’s Computing Laboratory at the University Of Manchester. He became involved with a young working-class bloke who would later break into his home. Turing reported the burglary, but he was arrested and prosecuted for what was then known under British law as “Gross Indecency”, the same law under which Oscar Wilde had also been charged in 1895. During this ordeal, Turning remained defiantly open and unapologetic about his gayness. After the trial, Turing was offered a very bleak choice: significant prison time or submit to the administration of estrogen, intended to suppress his libido.

This treatment left Turing impotent. He developed breasts. His security clearances were revoked and he was unable to resume his pioneering work in the new field of Computer Science. Two years after his arrest and one year after this barbaric torture therapy, Turing could stand it no longer and took his own life.

He left no suicide note and the circumstances of his death were inadequately investigated and left deliberately murky. It is thought that he committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Turing probably drank the cyanide and just left the apple on his bedside table. It was a grim joke against his reputation for being impractical. It is also a little breadcrumb for those who wanted to believe that he had taken the poison by mistake. Turing probably knew that the apple was the symbol of death from the Snow White story. It has also been rumored that he was murdered by his own government. How far-fetched is that? A civilized nation doesn’t bump-off its own citizens, right?

Turning’s story is tragic, but there are some twists that despite everything, I like to think Turing would find comedic, or at least ironic, or that he might enjoy: The London 2012 Olympic Torch flame was passed on in front of Turing’s statue in Manchester on his 100th birthday. On Christmas Eve 2013, Queen Elizabeth II signed a pardon for Turing’s conviction for gross indecency. This remains only the fourth royal pardon granted since the end of WW II. Turing’s pardon was also unusual in that pardons are normally only granted when the person is technically innocent and a request has been made by a family member. Neither condition was met in regard to Turing’s original conviction. Turing’s royal pardon is one of the positive things provoked by that new-fangled Internet thing. Turing fans started an online campaign compelling Prime Minister Gordon Brown to make an official public apology on behalf of the British government for the way in which Turing had been treated after the war. Both pardons sent Religious Right Wing Conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic into apoplexy.

Turing’s adopted city of Manchester has celebrated Turing’s life and achievements. There is now a major road called Alan Turing Way and there is that statue of Turing in the park in Manchester’s Gay Village. There is also a statue of him at the University Of Surrey, close to Turing’s childhood home. In June 2007, a new statue of Turing was unveiled at Bletchley Park Research Center, where he carried out most of his work during the war and the setting for much of The Imitation Game. Fittingly, tributes continue in a most lovely way; many computer conference centers, research labs and university facilities are named for Turing. I lost track counting at 51.

Although the company has denied it, Steve Jobs, when queried, stated: “God, we wish it were true”, but I doubt that is pure coincidence that Jobs named his new company Apple.

Turing would have to be pleased that Cumberbatch was chosen to portray him and did such a bang-up job.

“Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition.”

June 24, 1856– Henry Chapman Mercer was an archaeologist, artifact collector, tile-maker, naturalist, writer, anthropologist, and designer of three distinctive poured concrete structures: His own home, Fonthill, an American castle, really; The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works; plus The Mercer Museum. Like me, Mercer passionately loved dogs, was an advocate for all creatures, collected pottery, and he was considered to be an eccentric by members of his own class. Mercer was born to privilege and he traveled the world in search of adventure while collecting stuff. Just my sort of fellow.

Mercer was a gay man, but he was also an intensely private man who destroyed most of the private papers and correspondence before he left this life.

He attended Harvard University from 1875 to 1879, and he went on to study law at University Of Pennsylvania in 1881. Around that time Mercer became a founding member of the Bucks County Historical Society.

But, Mercer never practiced law. Instead, he went to Europe where he traveled the continent, buying up pottery & artifacts, & checking out the men.

Self-taught, Mercer became an expert and was appointed Curator of The American And Prehistoric Archaeology Department at The University Of Pennsylvania Museum in the early 1890s. At the start of the 20th century he left the job & devoted himself to finding American artifacts, believing that American society was being destroyed by industrialism.

Mercer founded The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works after apprenticing with a Pennsylvanian-German potter. His work greatly influenced the American Arts And Crafts Movement of the Edwardian era.

Mercer’s beautiful tiles were made using traditional methods. They were used, and can still be seen today in the mosaic floor at the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building, plus many other notable buildings and residences in the USA. The Pennsylvania State Capitol mosaics depict the history of the State of Pennsylvania from prehistoric times. They are the largest single collection of Mercer’s amazing tiles. Other tile works designed and manufactured by Mercer can be found at the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills, NY, Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and the Casino at Monte Carlo in Monaco.

Many of the 2,000 Mercer tile designs, drawing from sources as eclectic as Native-American lore and medieval heraldry, are currently in use. The Moravian Pottery & Tile Works catalog features tiles, with prices ranging from $5 for a single tile to more than $400 for a large mosaic, which are still available.

Henry Ford stated that The Mercer Museum was the only museum worth visiting in the USA, and the Mercer Museum was the inspiration for Ford’s own museum in Michigan. The Mercer Museum has over 40,000 artifacts of early Americana.

Fonthill, the nutty house he designed and constructed between 1908-1912, without the benefit of blueprints, is now owned by The Bucks County Historical Society and it is open to the public. It is eccentric to say the least, but really worth seeing, with 44 rooms, 32 stairwells, 200 windows, and 18 fireplaces. It’s filled with pottery and tiles from Mercer’s travels around the globe. There are columns scattered all around that sneer at symmetry; 3,000 year-old Etruscan pots are suspended in wire nets from the ceiling; chests of drawers are imbedded in concrete protrusions; dog themed doorstops and hinges; careening staircases and Mercer tiles blanket every surface. Wild, crazy and fantastic.

From Bucks County Archives

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Mercer was eccentric, to say the least. His neighbors in Bucks County considered him to be crazy. He refused to drive a car, but often bicycled, his cape billowing behind him as he pedaled down the country roads. He hated electric lights. He had an aversion to the stylized pruning of trees and shrubs that was popular in his era, but loved weeds. He was obsessed with fire. In fear of it, he chose concrete for his buildings because it was fire-resistant, but also loving it, with the “the gift of fire” a recurrent theme in his tile designs. He was obsessed with the past, and feared that the past was slipping away. The only newspaper he read was The London Times.

Mercer deserves more attention from people interested in gay history, although a lot of what were probably his juiciest files were among the things that he destroyed, like so many other gay figures from that era. I did find a reference to his having come down with the clap during his time in Europe. Mercer’s lifelong friend, Frank Swain, helped Mercer build Fonthill, where they lived together as a couple. After the locals started whispering about the men’s relationship, Mercer conveniently had his housekeeper marry Swain.

My research also found that Mercer was almost always referred to as “a committed bachelor”, one of my favorite euphemisms for historical homos and much different than the 21st century reality television series The Bachelor.

Mercer sure was a looker, and did I mention that he was just crazy for dogs?