Tuesday, October 14, 2008

A Scholarly Meetup

D. W. Jacobs and I had a fun, free-ranging conversation at Powell's Books yesterday. He's perpetually interested in scholarship around Bucky, and given I'd spent a lot more face time with EJA than RBF, we explored that latter relationship, continuing threads from The Hawthorne Fish House.

What seemed so special about Ed was how out-of-the-closet he was about this CIA business, his having been a spook and so forth. Somewhat like Laffoley, he put a gothic spin on it, although in Laffoley's case it's more a gargoyle we're looking at.

He was quite in your face about it, Ed was, not like you had to draw it out of him over dinner or anything. In fact, it's right on the book jacket of Synergetics 2, per the exhibit below. His wife June was the same way (they met in the agency). Of course he waited until retirement to go public with these revelations.

None of this is news to buckaneers, as we've all read Ed's Cosmic Fishing and so forth, which goes into more details.

Sarah Vowell is at The Bagdad tonight at 6 PM, the voice of the teenage girl in The Incredibles, I reminded Tara, but better known for her writing in other circles.

Given our Py3K release party tonight, where I'm scheduled to make a presentation, I'm not one of the lucky few who will be there.

What few know about Sarah is she used to work at Oasis Pizza directly across from Bagdad, or so they tell me.

from the dust cover, Synergetics 2
(click for larger view)