Skip to the Main Content

Note:These pages make extensive use of the latest XHTML and CSS Standards. They ought to look great in any standards-compliant modern browser. Unfortunately, they will probably look horrible in older browsers, like Netscape 4.x and IE 4.x. Moreover, many posts use MathML, which is, currently only supported in Mozilla. My best suggestion (and you will thank me when surfing an ever-increasing number of sites on the web which have been crafted to use the new standards) is to upgrade to the latest version of your browser. If that's not possible, consider moving to the Standards-compliant and open-source Mozilla browser.

June 1, 2007

The Woodstock of the Mind

Posted by David Corfield

This was Bill Clinton’s description of the wonderful Hay Festival. It’s held every year in the tiny Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye, packed with the kind of excellent second-hand bookshop that used to be so common 30 years ago.

Just like at Woodstock, heavy rain had turned the fields to mud. Fortunately, to keep our minds dry all the events took place under canvas. Darian Leader and I spoke about our book to an audience of around 700 people for about an hour with questions. An excellent event. And we got to stay in the same hotel as Tony Benn and Peter Falk!

Posted at June 1, 2007 7:15 PM UTC

TrackBack URL for this Entry:   https://golem.ph.utexas.edu/cgi-bin/MT-3.0/dxy-tb.fcgi/1298



3 Comments & 0 Trackbacks

Re: The Woodstock of the Mind

So what was the reaction of the 700-strong audience to your talk? Were there any particularly interesting questions? Did you and Darian do any crowd surfing?

Posted by: John Baez on June 1, 2007 11:32 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

Re: The Woodstock of the Mind

After the talk we signed somewhere between 40 and 50 copies of our book, and judging by the comments of the purchasers it was well received.

If there’s one lesson to learned, it’s taught us by the people of Roseto, PA.

Posted by: David Corfield on June 2, 2007 8:08 AM | Permalink | Reply to this

Re: The Woodstock of the Mind

There was a great episode of the TV series “Sliders” where our protagonists found themselves in an alternate universe where academics were treated like sports stars or film celebrities, throngs of people lining up to have textbooks autographed…

And yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper.

Posted by: Jonathan Vos Post on June 2, 2007 4:55 PM | Permalink | Reply to this

Post a New Comment