Folks; I'm a bit surprised nobody has mentioned the ALA meetings last week in San Francisco, so I'll take a moment. Great seeing so many friends, first of all. Second, I was impressed with the panels. It's great to see so many younger scholars all jazzed up about Twain, such as Kara Johnson at Northwestern. The papers on MT & Money, part of a forthcoming book project (ed. Harry Wonham), were really interesting. But the highlight was probably the renditions of "1601" & the "Science of Onanism": followed by a surprisingly sober discussion and analysis of the pieces, especially in terms of their place in historical accounts of MT -- which was then followed by a MTC happy hour; which was then followed by an amazing 9-course dinner at one of Chinatown's top restaurants. I'm still dreaming of the prawns, crab, and fish dishes that were serves; and I want to acknowledge publicly John Bird and his lovely wife of 35 years, for planning and arranging that wonderful evening. The other moment to note is that at that dinner, Vic Fischer was publicly acknowledged by a grateful company of folks for his outstanding service over many years to the MT community of scholars. Thanks for all your hard work, Vic!! I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on the conference, --hb -- Prof. Harold K. Bush Professor of English 3800 Lindell Saint Louis University St. Louis, MO 63108 314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h) <www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>