From: "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com> To: "'WSFA members'" <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Subject: [WSFA] Re: Oliver Sacks Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:45:34 -0400 Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net> Just as well I didn't go. I really would like to hear Sacks lecture. I would've bought the book, myself: he's on my rather short don't-wait-for-the-paperback (or book club edition) list. I'm not surprised by the five-year-old's nautical know-how. Titanic stuff is big on the various Discovery channels, and kids pick up the most amazing stuff. At that age I was a font of dinosaur trivia. A four and a half, Lydia correctly identified a snake-necked turtle in a large tank at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, as well as a kookaburra that was stealing french fries from tourists and whacking them till they were dead (which is what they do when they catch a lizard!); no labels she could have read, either, and her reading didn't really hit fluent till this year. Recently we were reminiscing about our Australia trip with friends that we traveled with, and Lydia corrected me when I mentioned the flock of cockatoos roosting in a tree on a main street in Cairns: "No, Mommy, they were *sulfur crested* cockatoos!" We may go down to see the Silk Road festival, but I do poorly in heat, unlike the poikilothermic Keith. Maybe if there's a heavily overcast day this week. Erica -----Original Message----- From: Keith F. Lynch [mailto:kfl at keithlynch.net] Sent: Thursday, June 27, 2002 8:25 PM To: WSFAlist at keithlynch.net Subject: [WSFA] Re: Oliver Sacks "Erica VD Ginter" <eginter at klgai.com> wrote: > I wasn't up to making the trek into downtown DC yesterday to see the > good doctor. Did anyone else go? You didn't miss much. There was *only* a signing, no talk, reading, or discussion. And the book (Oaxaca Journal) was only available in hardback, which puts it out of my price range. I wandered around in National Geographic's Explorer Hall, looking back into the store periodically to see if any WSFAns or other people I knew had showed up. I didn't see any. Explorer Hall contained three exhibits. Photographs of animals, models of ships (including one very large very detailed model of the Titanic, which I was surprised to see a five- or six-year-old correctly identify on sight from across the room), and photos of the Vietnam war taken by the other side (including one photo showing Jane Fonda). Since it was cold inside, and nothing much was going on, and since it was beautiful outside, I went for a walk. I walked up to the White House, to see if the perpetual demonstration north of it was still going on. It was -- there were four people there, and a bunch of signs. Then I walked down to the mall to see the Folklife festival. I didn't find it very interesting. There was a puppet show in some guttural foreign language, various exotic music, hand-carved chess pieces, and lots of tents. I walked to the Smithsonian Castle, where there was an exhibit on September 11th, consisting of dozens of large photographs and a continuous-loop 15 minute silent video. Then I walked to the Air and Space Museum, but I couldn't stay long since it was so cold in there. The best part of that museum is the smell you notice when you first walk in the door, anyhow. I was pleased to see that security is fairly unobtrusive. Though I might have felt otherwise about it had I been carrying a bag. Then I took the Metro to the "My Organic Market" near the White Flint station (it usually has a better selection than the one near the Greenbelt station), and then went home. Instead of walking home from the Dunn Loring station, I took a Fairfax Connector bus for a quarter, since it had started raining and I didn't want my groceries to get wet. During the day I overheard several conversations about Worldcom. It's one of those words that attracts my attention, like hearing my own name. Mainly because it sounds so much like "Worldcon". Worldcom is basically the infamous UUNET. Once again it occurred to me that I could probably make a lot of money by selling short stock in companies that are notorious as sources of spam. -- Keith F. Lynch - kfl at keithlynch.net - http://keithlynch.net/ I always welcome replies to my e-mail, postings, and web pages, but unsolicited bulk e-mail (spam) is not acceptable. Please do not send me HTML, "rich text," or attachments, as all such email is discarded unread.