Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Cross-referenced

When I was in graduate school, an admirable but to-my-ear-utterly-abhorrently-titled series of talks was introduced: "When Worlds Collide." The phrase itself is innocuous, even appealing, only there seemed to me something intolerably portentous about using it as the rubric for a modest series of talks that paired grad students in the sciences and the humanities to present material from their dissertations!

(I vaguely think that when I did one of these talks myself, I might have left it off my CV because I found the phrase so dire...)

(Another phrase that just makes me want to laugh and squirm, one that it seems to me academics should certainly be banned from using about themselves and probably from using on behalf of colleagues either: speaking truth to power!)

But worlds did happily collide today when Ed Park sent me a very apt e-mail!

And I am happily positioned to follow the advice therein thanks to the generosity of two readers of this blog: Gautam, who has sent me a copy of Devil May Care; and Levi, who waited in line at BEA to get me a signed copy (still in transit) of Lee Child's new Jack Reacher book. (Sarah has had a copy in reserve for me also, only we have both been too busy to rendezvous for a book transfer.) Truly I am blessed....

1 comment:

  1. The book may be spoken for but a rendezvous is still very much in order!

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