somewhere my school librarian is laughing in her grave...

My childhood disdain for fiction has finally caught up with me.

Our department got a call today from a journalist at NPR looking to interview a physicist about the recent death of Madeline L'Engle. Well, I'm the only physicist here. Problem is... I've never actually READ "A Wrinkle in Time".

(Aside: Nearly every week in elementary school, the librarian would bodliy drag me from the 500-600 shelves over to the fiction section and foist recommendations on me. I would dutifully check them out and then drop them in the returns bin on my way back to get a book about dinosaurs or black holes. I'm about 90% that "Wrinkle in Time" was one of her recommendations.)

Anyway, I talked to this guy on the phone and he claims he only wants to talk about 4 dimensional math and hypercubes, which I can do. Just don't ask me about a book that everyone else read in 6th grade, or I'll look like an idiot. The thing is... it's really a secret fantasy of mine to be one of thopse NPR-go-to-science-guys who Neal Conan call on the phone whenever something sciency happens.

He'll be here at 2:00. It's for a video podcast too, so I'm glad I wore my nice shirt.