Mexico City (Dec. 1985)

Keiran and Rodney at the Anthropology Museum

On top of the Pyramid of the Sun, Teotihaucan

In December, 1985, I traveled with my friend Kieran Prather to Mexico City. Kieran had been there before, I had not. I stayed only a few days, Kieran stayed longer.

It was three months after a severe earthquake had hit the city. There were many collapsed buildings and much re-construction work going on.

Kieran and I spent most days apart. I had to do the first-time visitor things, of course. I spent one day at Teotihuacan, one in and around the Zocalo, and most of another at the National Museum of Anthropology. We went to Coyoacán (I think!) for a holiday celebration and fireworks.

Autographs - Luis Zapata

Luis Zapata's best known work is El vampiro de la colonia Roma (1979). The English translation (1981) is Adonis Garcia, A Picaresque Novel. I enjoyed it a lot.

My friend Kieran knew Zapata, and in December 1985, I went to Mexico City with him, and we stayed at Zapata's apartment in the Zona Rosa, while Luis stayed with his family for a few days.

Years later, I had Kieran get Zapata to inscribe a Spanish language copy of the book for Victor. I gave the book to Victor. He read it, then quickly lent it to an acquaintance, and it never came back. I was unhappy about losing an autographed book.

(Index of autographs)

A trick of memory

Walking in Debs Park with Princeton (last summer)

Sue, a childhood friend of Bruce Lemerise's, found my note about him and wrote to me Saturday afternoon. I replied early that evening, and she wrote me again Sunday afternoon.

After Bruce died, a friend and neighbor of his gave me some additional illustrations he had drawn. Now, for the second time in twenty years or so, I looked around for them unsuccessfully. I also looked for that neighbor's name. I thought her first name was Susan, but I couldn't be sure that I wasn't just being misled because this new correspondent was named Sue. I did find Bruce's address and phone number in an old phone directory of mine, but no mention of Susan.

Monday morning, I was walking in Debs Park with the neighbors' Great Dane, Princeton, as usual. After about 45 minutes, as we were headed back to his house, I had just glanced at my watch and noted that we were doing well on time, when an unusual three-syllable word popped into my head. As I mentally repeated it, I slowly realized it was probably a last name, and after a few more moments, I realized it wanted to go with "Susan". It took yet another couple of moments and mental repetition of the name before my full consciousness kicked in and I thought, "Wait a minute! Could that really be her name?"

Thirty minutes later, I'm finally back online. I discover that it almost certainly was her name. One of the four people with that name in New York state (still!) lives in the same building that Bruce lived in! And I get a phone number, too.

When we finally talked last night, we were both amazed to have connected. Susan will contact Sue, too.

The more I thought about how Susan's last name suddenly came to me, and my slow mental processing after it did, the more mysterious it all seemed!

PanAm's First Moon Flights Club

(Click the images to enlarge them.)
As you can see, I was a charter member of PanAm's First Moon Flights Club.

Even before this, when I was a kid, I hoped to spend New Year's Day 2000 on the moon.

Autographs - Don Knuth

(Click the image to enlarge it.)

Famed computer scientist Don Knuth offers a modest cash reward to the first person who reports any specific error in his books. Many never cash their checks, preferring to display them!

In 1988, I found not one, but two errors in his then new book, Concrete Mathematics. I'm a pretty good proofreader / copy editor. Alas, I was not the first to find either error. I missed by 13 days in the first case.

At the time, Knuth did not use email. I wrote a letter to him about each error, and he replied beneath each letter. So I have his hand-writing twice, but only once did he write his name. Knuth is an author, and the autograph is about his book, but it's one more time I have an author's autograph not in the book.

In the image, Knuth's notes to me are a bit difficult to make out. They read: "previously reported on Oct 5 — please keep trying" and "yup — this is now the second-most-often reported error. I'm glad people are reading it... but sorry for being so erroneous... don".

(Full disclosure: In 2001, I reported what I thought was a misspelled name in a later Knuth book, but he was right and I was wrong. And that time, the correspondence was by email. No autograph.)

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Paul Hawken

(Click the images to enlarge them.)

I was an avid reader of the Whole Earth Catalog and its spin-offs. Paul Hawken wrote occasional pieces in one of them, CoEvolution Quarterly. It was there that I read his invitation to submit title suggestions for his upcoming book.

I made the winning suggestion, but I wasn't the only one, so he split the cash prize.

This is one more instance of an author autograph not in the book.

(Index of autographs)

Political ads (March 2013)

I sent this letter to the Los Angeles Times (not published):

As a resident of the City of Los Angeles, I've been inundated by campaign mailers for weeks now. I throw them all away without a glance, but I do pause to thank all the electioneers for helping ease the U.S. Postal Service's budget deficit.

Handling crimes on campus

Last week, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about college administrators becoming sexual misconduct detectives. I sent the following letter (not published):

It's clear to me that colleges shouldn't be doing criminal investigations.

Accusers should be given all necessary support and counseling, and they should be told to go to the police to file a criminal complaint.

On GMO foods

1. I don't have a fundamental issue with it.

2. I think GMO labeling will happen. Those who care are already using "No GMO" labels. Big Food is wasting lots of time and money fighting it, only to incite more opposition.

3. Given how pervasive the technology is, the GMO label will be so common that it will quickly become ignored.

On Internet privacy

February 11, 2014 was designated The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance. I wrote a short Facebook post as my contribution:

1. Assume that all data that can be collected will be collected.

2. "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it." - Scott McNealy, 1999 (See wikiquote.)