Return-Path: <ray@cwi.nl>
Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1993 09:58:42 +0100
From: ray@cwi.nl
To: cgdemarc@ai.mit.edu
Cc: las@ai.mit.edu
In-Reply-To: Carl de Marcken's message of Sun, 31 Oct 93 23:27:41 EST <9311010427.AA18003@theta>
Subject: GSL/GSB Messages

Carl,

I no longer have the GSL/GSB notices (except for the recent series of
GSB messages, which I'm sure you have too).  I tossed most of them
during one of my purges of accumulated email detritus.  I do still
have a couple of messages to individuals about preparing GSL's, etc.,
but nothing really of interest.  You might also check with Dave
Braunegg, who I noticed wasn't on your list of recipients (last I
heard he was at djb@hoppi.mitre.org).

The first GSL I prepared was sometime in 1982 or 1983, I think.  Paul
Weiss and I loaded up on veggies at the Boston Food Coop and spent
most of the night before the GSL making ratatouille, potato salad, and
cannolis.  I've only done 4 or 5 hand-cooked GSLs, but at one point I
adopted the habit of at the last minute taking the lab car out to get
Bel Canto pizza and Toscanini's ice cream when nobody had signed up to
do a GSL and it looked like it would be cancelled.  If the notice was
really late, I'd get just ice cream and toppings and have a GSD
(graduate student dessert) instead.  (Later, when the lab no longer
had a car and the Cambridge Bel Canto was gone, I'd go to Bertucci's.)

I'm afraid all of this is pretty boring.  I'm sorry I don't have any
juicy tidbits to relate.

Oh, there is one thing: originally, there was no custom of queueing up
down the hallway for the GSL.  It wasn't necessary; there was plenty
of food, and people were patient and polite.  But then the crowd
started getting larger and more unruly, and the pickin's slimmer.
When the preparer gave the signal, a ravenous horde would descend upon
the table and people would elbow others away in their frenzy to get at
the food.  So the lines were introduced (I don't remember by whom).

Ray Hirschfeld