Hello everyone, I'd have responded to professor Bush's excellent comments earlier but my modem died and it took a while for me to get an iMac (very elegant—SLC would approve!). He is quite right that very little of Twain's important work was actually done in Hartford; what was at work in that story, which originally appeared on the front page of the Hartford Courant, was a sort of coat-tailing, if you will, on the news the Patriots football team are relocating there in a few years. Hartford is a city in difficult straits these days, despite some very worthy assets--not least among them the splendid job John Boyer has done in getting the Twain house on the map. When I saw that story, it seemed to me a clear case of (a) completely misunderstanding how and why Burns does what he does; (b) a broad jump onto the still rather creaky Hartford boosterism bandwagon; and (c) yet another attempt to use Twain as a magnet for tourism. The house is a truly lovely thing; I regard it, as a writer, as a secular church of sorts, even though I too know Clemens led a peripatetic life even into old age--and did write probably more in Elmira than he ever did in Hartford (Justin Kaplan's MR. CLEMENS AND MARK TWAIN has some interesting observations on this). I have no doubt Burns will be his usual meticulous self on these and other pertinent matters, and will probably spend more time on those areas of Clemens' life that aren't as well known--particularly his time out West. As for the government funding, the vast majority of money Burns gets for his projects is private rather than public, and what money he does earn for himself is in no way connected to that. It comes mostly from percentages of video sales, sales of companion books and speaking engagements. I hope this throws some more light on the matter. Kathy O'Connell Portland, Conn.