Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Wisdom of the karpar: On Famous People

One of my favourite stories belongs to KM, who remarked, "Frogs really do look slimey," to a famous person during a visit to an aquarium. "It was all I could think of," she protested when later recounting the story. I suppose it wouldn't have been so bad, except KM never got to speak with that famous person again during the conference.

During my recent visit to San Jose, I remarked to karpar how difficult it was to talk to famous people (in academia), waxing eloquent about the anxieties a grad student faces when trying to come up with interesting things to say to them. Without skipping a beat, karpar posited:
KP: Well, remember: everyone poops.
I guess that's better than imagining them without their clothes on.