sacman

Talk about an intimidating Secret Santa partner. Redefines the question "What do you buy for the guy who already has everything?"

In my day

This is still your day.

Hello, Mr. Taubes.

I'm simply interested in what you, personally, eat. Any chance you'd give us a rundown on what you've consumed over the past, say, 72 hours?

Thanks in advance!

So, this is entirely anecdotal and possibly a little, teensy bit creepy.

You were on an episode of "That's Incredible" in the early 80s. You were "incredible" because you were a genius and musical prodigy.

For some odd reason, the TV show was turned into a book. Actually, more of a novel. Each chapter of the book, as I recall, recounted a segment of the TV show, complete with terrible black-and-white photos.

Anyway, for some reason, I got my hands on that book when I was a kid (I'm only a couple years older than you). I didn't see the TV show until a later rerun, so the book was where I first heard of you.

And your segment was in that book. I have a distinct memory of a passage describing you going trick-or-treating but refusing all candy. You only accepted apples and other healthy food. Does that sound right? It's like a 30-year old memory.

So when Dune came out, I saw that you were Alia. It was one of my first grown-up moments, because I was making a connection between three different media (TV, book, movie). Hard to describe, but it felt like kind of a breakthrough.

I can't say I'm a huge fan, but then again, it's not like I've been avidly following your career. But every time I read your name, it brings up this childhood memory. So thanks for that, and thanks for doing this AMA.

Uh, so are these records online or something? The cynic in me thinks that to find my county's records, I'm going to have to descend into a basement with a torch and root around in a locked file cabinet protected by a tiger.