Tag Archive: conversation


At the end of 2009 I started contract work at Current TV in Los Angeles. During my first week there the premises in which they’re located held a company Christmas party to which I was invited. I ended up having a long conversation with one individual about science fiction novels, short fiction, and Escape Pod, my favorite SF podcast. He hadn’t heard of it, but was interested in checking it out.

The following day, on my ride home, I decided it was time to start catching up on Escape Pod as some changes in my life had cut down on my podcast listening and I was a few months behind. The first story I put on was entitled Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store, and as I was quickly informed by the moderator, it was (brilliantly) written by Robin Sloan… a then employee of Current TV.

So in the very same week I started work at one of my all-time favorite workplaces and had a conversation about one of my all-time favorite podcasts, both were tied inextricably together by one science fiction short story, which also immediately became one of my all-time favorites. The odds MUST be crazy…

Dead Sea Stroll

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Brian Hart)

I was at the Hermosa Beach Crafts Fair with my friend John yesterday.  There were dozens of crafts booths and thousands of people.  During lunch in a small pizza place, we got into a quite friendly discussion of religion.  As we walked back into the fair and the the throngs of people, John asked me what I thought about the Dead Sea Scrolls.  A woman walking in the opposite direction stopped us and said, “What do you know about the Dead Sea Scrolls?”  We stopped and had a long conversation with her, and she turned out the be a biblical scholar, and had recently been to San Diego where there is a traveling Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.

A hundred Shekels for anyone who can tell me the odds on that happening.  Dead men DO tell tales!

Got Smart!

(Submitted by friend of the blog, Spencer Marks)

When I was just a wee lad, around 11 or 12 or so, I would go to my father’s office over the summer and work for him, doing little things, here and there. His office was on Wilshire Blvd., and our house wasn’t too far off of Wilshire, so I would jump on a bus to get to his office, and to get back home. One day, while I was sitting on the bus bench waiting to go home, there was this little old lady sitting on the bench next to me, and we started up a conversation. I asked her what she had done for a living (before she retired) and she said she had been an actress. I asked her if she would have been in anything I would have seen, and she said she had been in an episode of “Get Smart,” which to this day remains one of my all time favorite TV shows.

I asked her which part she had played, as the series was on every day (and by then in reruns), I had most likely watched every episode 3-5 times, and would know if she was lying! She described the scene, which I remembered, and I was excited to meet her! The bus came, and we continued to talk on the bus until I got off at my stop. I walked home the four blocks, and noticed from the TV guide that “Get Smart” was about to start in 5 minutes! I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t that be a GREAT coincidence if it was THAT episode?” AND GUESS WHAT?!?

It was a whole DIFFERENT episode! But it WOULD have been cool!

No, I’m kidding  … it WAS the episode, and there was my new friend! I was watching her just 15 minutes after leaving her on the bus (very much ALIVE, if any of you were wondering!) That remains one of the coolest coincidences EVER to happen in my life! Hope you all enjoyed it too!