To: all-ai
Subject: GSB, Friday Oct 21, 5:30 PM, 7AI
--text follows this line--


Have I told you about my dream?  I don't think so.  Let me tell you about
my dream.

I had the dream earlier this Summer, sleeping at our family's cabin in
northern Minnesota.  It was so magnificent that as soon as I woke up I
concentrated carefully on its details, and now I can re-experience it in
its original charm whenever I choose.

Sister Christine and I were together at GSB.  Sister Christine is a nun
I've known for many years, since a mutual friend introduced us.  She's
lived in many of the same African countries I have and can drink anyone
I know under the table.  Choose your beverage- wine or beer- but choose
fast or she'll have downed it first.

Anyway, we were together at GSB.

And we were drinking beer and had been for a while, and were both tipsy.
We were in fact drinking a specific kind of beer, maybe Griffon.
Whichever, the beer manufacturer was midst a promotional campaign.  A
_marvelous_ one!  On the back of every bottle they had printed a short
story, layered page after peel-off page, maybe 20 pages in all.  And they
were _good_ stories, commissioned especially for Griffon from people like
Mark Helprin, V.S. Naipaul, Saint-Expury.  Maybe thirty stories in all, one
per bottle, with a catalogue available from the brewer.  We cherished every
new story and traded bottles like baseball cards.

At this GSB Sister Christine and I were reading a new story by Helprin to
each other, carefully peeling the ever-soggier pages from the sweating
brown bottle, unable to make out the final paragraphs as the paper
smeared...

But enough.  My dreams are not for everyone.

Come to this week's

		    G I R L   S C O U T   B E N E F I T

and see for yourself why it inspires fantasies like these.