Last Monday's Conversation

One of my colleagues used to live in South Bend, Indiana.

Monday, I encountered him while walking over to the Highrise.

"Did you hear the news?" said he, "Notre Dame didn't lose last weekend!"

"Great!" I said, foolishly taking the bait. "Whom were they playing?"

"Nobody! They didn't have a game this week."

A Vist from Royalty: Connie Willis in Batavia

A booklet called Neighbors of Batavia just appeared in our mailbox. We're not residents of Batavia, Illinois, but it's a short walk from here, and of course Fermilab has a Batavia address.

Says here that the Batavia Public Library is having a "One Book, One Batavia" campaign, an increasingly common custom, in which everyone in town (who cares to) reads the same book and discusses it. For 2008, it's Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, which bagged her both a Hugo and a Nebula for Best Novel.

So Connie Willis will appear on Thursday, 20 March at noon at the Library, and at 7 PM at Batavia High School. I like the idea of a town honoring science fiction this way, and of course Willis is among the most accomplished of SF writers. Cool.