Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Connie Willis, a writer of some rather wonderful humor, wrote of just such an exchange in her novel "Bellwether". I think I'm inside fair-use to excerpt this portion: - ---------------- The clerk was trying to make change for the man in front of me "It's eighteen seventy-eight," she said. "I KNOW," the man said. "I gave you a twenty-dollar bill and then after you ran it up as eighteen seventy-eight, I gave you three cents. You owe me a dollar and a quarter." She flipped her hair back, irritably, revelaing an "i". Give up, I thought. It's no use. "The register says one twenty-two," she said. "I KNOW," he said. "That's why I gave you the three cetns. Twenty-two plus three makes a quarter." "A quarter of WHAT?" ... "All RIGHT, find," the man said. "Give me back the three cents and give me one twenty-one." ...at this point there's an exchange between the narrator and the same clerk... I carefully counted out the excact change and left. One the way out, I stepped on something and looked down. It was a penny. Father on there were two more. They looked like they had been flung down with some force. - ---------------- I can highly recommend Connie's work. Her short story "At the Rialto" is a classic that combines quantum physics and Hollywood in a way that, well, when it's all will give you a whole new picture of what it takes to check into a hotel. The short story is collected in several places including a collection of her work "Impossible Things." Other work in a similiar vein would be "To Say Nothing of the Dog." She has a much more serious side. Her first novel "Lincoln's Dreams" and the later "Doomsday Book" (about the black plague) are worth your attention. To put this on topic: I took her photograph but not with a Leica. Adam - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html