The Magician

Funny how a song can conjure up not just a time in your life but people, the way they laughed, the way in which the world spun at the time, the sights and smells and all the tactile data of the world in that moment. I am fascinated by this: how in a minute or two of a song an entire world can be replicated. Is it nostalgia? Is it the lacking that makes it present? Why does the mind work this way? How is it the brain stores music and lyrics in different places but that both can retireve things simultaneously?

I was reminded recently how people who have had strokes and lost their ability to use language can many times communicate in another language. Some seemed shocked, but I knew why it made sense. Languages acquired after about age 5 are stored in the brain in a different place, much more of it in the frontal lobes where active cognition is needed to learn and record data. First languages are stored in the midbrain. So, it is quite possible for one who loses English with a stroke to still have Italian or French or any number of languages learned later in life.

And words. Words can be stored in many parts of the brain depending on how they are encountered and learned. It is why some can snatch a word from the very air and others have it on the tips of their tongues. Some words are stored like images, some like sounds, some like anxieties. Who knows? It may be the very fact writers are always playing with words, accessing them from so many parts of the brain, that predisposes them to various illnesses of the mind. Writers store words in more parts of their brains than the average person because they are constantly seeing words, hearing them, using them, hiding them, wishing them gone in the same moment they want them desperately. Oh, but words. Words, words, words. Don't we want them all at our fingertips? Bluejay, corpuscle, rant, campanile, bread, light, song, heart.

And before I forget...

There is a new on-line magazine in town: The New Hampshire Review. Check it out. Some good stuff over there. I have been meaning to post a link to it for a week now but have been preoccupied.

Oh, and when you have a chance, stop by and wish Woody congratulations. He just had some poems accepted.

Back in SF

Good to be home. So good to be home. Approaching the Golden Gate Bridge today, I saw San Francisco and marveled at the fact this is my home. I know I am biased, but I really feel the Bay Area is the most wonderful place on Earth. I love visiting other places, but I am always so happy to come back.

Dreams

Early this morning, I had a wonderful dream. At breakfast this morning, the dream came true! I am shocked but also pretty excited. More about this later. For now, I am keeping it all to myself.

Almost late night musing in Napa

It is late and I should be in bed, but I think I am all ramped up from all the Lit talk of the past few days. It also doesn't help that Jacob had to head back to the city this morning, and this only makes the situation less like normal.

Tomorrow is the last workshop. All the torment of my assignments will come to an end for those in my workshop. And I think it will be a welcome thing for some of them. That said, they did a phenomenal job writing the assignments, and I can only hope the assignments helped to open their eyes to some of the many possibilities one can, as a writer, throw into the machinery of a poem. The Napa Valley Writers' Conference has those attending write a new poem each day. In this way, it is different from other conferences at which I have taught. We also meet for workshop every day. It occurs to me that those attending get a lot for their short time here. At least I hope my workshop did.

Tomorrow, after workshop, I will drive back to the city. I have missed it even though I have only been a little over an hour away.

Song

I have waited 15 years to hear Brigit Kelly's "Song" in her own words, and I have to say it moved me in a way I cannot fully describe. I actually teared up toward the end of the poem, which is something I never do at readings. But to hear the words actually emerge from the one who put them together was simply beautiful beyond anything I could have imagined. And I left the reading last night satisfied the way one is after devouring a meal so good it is almost like heaven.

Now, I have to go give my lecture. And that, will be far from heavenly, far from heaven.

Napa Day 3

The drive down the Silverado Trail last night was incredible. And the Silverado Winery, where the reading took place, was one of the most beautiful settings for a reading. I have never given a reading in such a beautiful place in my life! It was also a good time because my former classmate, David Koehn, showed up. And then there was a first. One of my patients showed up. This has never happened to me before, partly because I rarely give readings and partly because most of my patients have no idea I am a poet. This patient saw my picture in the newspaper and realized I was her doctor. So she came, dragged her husband with her even. Claire Messud's reading was phenomenal. In all, a good night.

Today, a lecture from Jane Hirshfield. Tonight, reading from Joan Silberg and Brigit Pegeen Kelly. As you all know, I adore Brigit's work. I think she is simply a brilliant poet. Her work is incredible. Jacob and I are hoping she will read "Song."

Also, today, as if to remind me of the real world, I also need to get the preliminary schedule for my Practice done. One never escapes completely.

Napa Day 2

Last night we got to hear Jane Hirshfield and Chris Tilghman read. Oh, and lots of wine at the reception before the reading. The readings were great. This morning, J.D. McClatchy gave a lecture/class that moved me to no end. He spoke of how we get passed around to different authors as people recommend work and how this shapes us more than we know. He also talked about his overwhelming love of Stevens when he was a young man. It is hard to describe why I found it so touching, but I think I heard in his trials and tribulations as a reader and writer many of my own.

Tonight, Claire Messud and I will be reading at the Silverado Winery. I actually need to go meet with participants for conferences and also figure what the hell I am going to read. I hate this part more than anything. The trying to decide what to read. I don't freak out getting up in front of an audience. It is the selecting that freaks me out.

From Napa

The drive up through Napa Valley was beautiful as ever yesterday. Last night we were treated to readings from J.D. McClatchy and Sam Chang. The readings were wonderful and made even better by the gorgeous setting of the Mondavi winery. And then there was all the wine. I think every reading should have wine. This has to be one of the best conferences: good readings, nice people, the beauty of Napa, lunches from the Culinary Institute of America.

First workshop in a bit. But first a class from Brigit Pegeen Kelly. I can't wait to hear what she has to say. Hers is a strange and brilliant mind filled with dark and unsayable things.

Drunk on the Idea of Order

I spent most of yesterday knee-deep in poetry: one of my students' work and then stuff for NER. I was so "in the zone" that at the end of it, I felt like one giant poem unraveling, my lines wandering toward the horizon. Yes, how dramatic.

I am driving up to the Wine Country in a couple of hours. I will be there for the week teaching at the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. Driving in Wine Country is permanently linked, in my mind, to the first months of dating Jacob. The image of Napa and Sonoma with its fields stretching away from the roads toward the horizon, the light shimmering in the fields and hazy on the hills, all of it brings back that early feeling of falling in love. Yes, how dramatic.

There is a poem in my second book (if I can ever get it published) about that first afternoon drive I took with Jacob through Dry Creek Valley. TriQuarterly published it a few years ago. Whether or not it is any good is beside the point for me. I loved writing it. I love reading it. It recaptures for me that sensation of falling in love. A friend of mine long ago insisted we write poems to capture moments of our mind at play, to capture our lives. He didn't mean a confessional poetry but that poetry marks for the poet where s/he was in his/her thinking. At the time, I thought this an odd thing, but it doesn't seem so odd to me now. I will always love this poem, which is not something I say often about my own poems. It has a function for me outside of anything related to the Art. Yes, how dramatic.


The Dream of Autumn after Rain


Preoccupied with its treatise on viticulture,
the road winds its way through Dry Creek Valley

down past the aluminum shack and up past
the rotting fence crawling with stray vines

and the fields, an endless proof for parallel lines,
glimmering in the just-washed light that follows rain,

the fields of Vitis vinifera forced to color by the season--
amber, rusts, a freckling of crimson and pale gold.

What is it that calls us to the road?
Even without a radio, we hear Vivaldi

as the corners take us, and the fields
shimmer off this way and that, the roadside

still wet and the leaves lifting alongside us
as we race through the valley drunk on the idea

of order, of all those lines challenging each other.
The finicky white varietal from the Rhone valley

tricked into growing on a windy, terraced hillside,
the valley with its muscular creek, itself a contradiction,

the warmth of your hand holding mine fast--
how could I not dream that you dreamt about me?




Sometimes, the dream dies, and sometimes it just keeps going. Something inside me that I cannot name tells me this dream will go on for as long as I am alive. Yes, how dramatic.

When you have a chance...

Stop by and wish Paul Guest Congratulations on his great news.

Geri Doran & Rick Barot

I know this will sound retarded, but I am really excited to go to dinner with two of my best friends tonight. Both are leaving me in the next few months, the whores! Anyway, one is heading off to Takoma Washington to be a fabulous teacher. The other is heading to Portugal and beyond for a year. It is funny how one finds friends and funnier how they find you. One will be my best person in my wedding. The other is my usher. They are the only two people who ever see a poem of mine before it is published in a magazine. So, tonight I plan to celebrate them (with Jacob, of course) and all that they have meant to me over so many years. They are both phenomenal poets. I have learned an immense amount from both of them, both about poetry and about life. They are like family to me. They are the first to hear my good news and bad news. And all I can say is thank God for cell phones and email, because I am not sure I would be happy without them in my life. So tonight, I plan to spoil us all with haute champagne, Zinfandels and Syrahs to die for, fabulous hors d'oevres, great food, and the world famous Tarte d'chocolat drizzled with caramel. If for some reason either of these whores are reading this, let it be known I think the world of each of you.

Eduardo is Back!!

Yes, our favorite Xicano is back! Stop by and welcome him back to the blogosphere.

Why I am Not a Urologist

So, picture me as a fourth year medical student doing a rotation in Outpatient Urology (I had believed at that time I wanted to be a Urologist). The clinic is a zoo. The nurses have a mean sense of humor. I am there, drowning in fluorescent light, wishing I were outside in the not so terrible September air. Instead, the Chief resident (a not so nice woman we all call a "female dog" behind her back) tells me to take room 4. I look at the board and cringe. It says: "Indwelling catheter broken off." I gulp and squirm a little. I pick up the chart and it says the guy fell and the anchoring balloon on the catheter popped. Great, I think, now I have to fish out balloon catheter pieces from some guy's bladder.

When I enter the room, I see this young guy, maybe 26 or 27. I ask him about the catheter and he says: "Wrong guy." But trying to be professional, I decide to just do a history from scratch. Why? Because I am now a senior med student soon to be a full-fledged doctor. It is then the guy tells me he was sent there by his urologist back at home because he is interested in penis reduction surgery. Yes, you read right: PENIS REDUCTION SURGERY!!!! I start to feel faint. The guy goes on to tell me he only wants 7 inches removed but he wants to still have normal sensation, etc. I am now totally out of my element, but I don't know what to do or say. Before I can say anything more, the guy lifts his gown and says: "No one wants equipment like this, no matter what they might think!" I almost fell over. The guy had a 17 inch penis!

I tell him I will get the resident. When I leave the room, Chief Resident from hell storms over to me.

Chief Resident: You couldn't have fixed the catheter already.
Me: But, see...
CR: No buts. For butts go to GI clinic. Now get back in there.
Me: But...
CR: I said get back IN there! What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I return to the room and have to listen to this poor young guy talk about how he cannot have a normal relationship because women run when they encounter him in the buff (his words, not mine). I am just about dying. But suddenly he says something I don't expect. He tells me that love is so much more than sex, but how do you get to love without sex. I am not sure why this made such an impression on me, but it did! I think it suddenly hit me why gay men many times have sex before they even decide to date someone. It isn't because they are gay but because they are men!

Random Guy: Hey, you look hot. Wanna have sex?
Random Guy 2: Okay.

Anyway, I just sit there and listen to this guy because I know Chief Resident from hell will have me for lunch if I leave the room. There is a knock on the door.

CR: Trying to trick me, eh?
Me: No, I tried...
CR: Get down to room 6. A stupid 3rd year student got the cath out but cannot get a new one in. You've seen one, done one, now go teach one. You are not going to get out of this.
Me: But...
CR: Get DOWN there!

Needless to say, I did a rotation in Radiation Oncology the following month. After that rotation, I knew where in Medicine I belonged. And it wasn't Urology. The funny thing? One of my areas of interest and expertise (besides Brain Tumors and GI Cancers) is Prostate Cancer. So, I never really got completely away from Urology after all.

Because Death is always with us...

Well, if any of you are going to be at Bread Loaf, I am apparently now teaching a craft class sometime while I am there. It will be more of a discussion class on 4 poems. And yes, you guessed it... I am going to have the class look at the following four elegies:

Elizabeth Bishop "One Art"
Donald Justice "Psalm and Lament"
Carl Phillips "As From a Quiver of Arrows" (sorry, no link, but found in his book, From the Devotions)
Debora Greger "Head, Perhaps of an Angel"

Basically, I am using this class as an opportunity to do more thinking about my lecture/essay I gave at Warren Wilson and am giving again shortly at the Napa Valley Writers' Conference. What can I say? I think about Death a lot. She is an old friend.

The Horror, the Horror!!

Imagine my shock and surprise to find this while roaming the blogosphere last night. Dear God! Is this for real? And is Blanco really going to do this? I need to email him and give him crap for this!! What next? Po-blog porno? Hahahahahahaha. I am really not shocked or dismayed, but I couldn't resist posting about this. I am curious to see if it can be pulled off (no pun intended).

Had a dream last night that I again won the Lottery. It is so painful to wake up and realize it was just a dream, just a dream.

Like a Dream

I have no idea why, but driving home tonight this poem appeared in my mind like a dream. I have no idea why I should now, today, think of this poem. But it won't leave me alone.


Keeping Things Whole


In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

--Mark Strand


I still find this poem odd, mysterious, kind of haunting. Even now, having read it so many times over so many years.

50,000

Well, it is hard to believe this, but I just had my 50,000th visit to this blog. I have been tracking since February with site meter. I am quite surprised by this. Thanks for your visits and all the good words many of you have shared with me.

Entropy

Ever notice that whenever things seem to be working out well, something goes wrong.

Time Flies

I should be revising two poems of mine into one poem, but I am lazy today and am avoiding the work I need to do. I also have a poem that is starting to form, a new poem. I heard a phrase while at Warren Wilson, and it just won't leave me alone. And now images and even a few lines are coming together. But I know my mind fairly well, so I know the poem is still far off. There is no rhetoric or argument yet. I can see the end of the poem and the beginning of the poem, but I don't yet know how the poem will thread from beginning to end. I suppose once I have say 10 or more lines, I will know it is time to sit down and draft.

I didn't finish reading all the submissions yesterday. I still have nine or so left. I hope to read them this morning and read the others I put aside for a second or third reading. I am working on my 40th issue of NER, and this is kind of shocking to me. Ten years of editing poetry. It doesn't seem like I have been doing this for ten years. It feels like maybe 4 or 5.

Sigourney Weaver (in the movie Jeffrey) is absolutely hysterical!

Saturday with Brahms

I have spent the morning and very early afternoon listening to Brahms' Piano Trios and reading submissions. I hope, by the end of the afternoon, to have finished reading everything left here. I love the Piano Trios. I heard one of them for the first time a few years ago when a Post-doc in Jacob's lab did a recital. I was drawn immediately to the apparent simplicity of sound in the Trio. Of course, the Trios aren't simple at all, but they are so artfully done they sound simple, elegant. They have been a wonderful accompaniment to my reading today. They are light enough to offset the gloomy fog, but complicated enough to keep me interested.

Jacob should be in lab, but I would wager money that he is sitting somewhere reading the new Harry Potter book! I wish I could get into Potter, but I just can't. Jacob loves the Potter books. He has been anxiously awaiting his copy of the new one and looked absolutely excited to find it on the steps this morning when he woke up. It was a little like Christmas.

In a week, I will be off to Napa to teach at a conference. I am a little excited because everyone I know has great things to say about this conference. And then there is the beauty of Napa itself. And there will be wine to be had!

Round Up, Round Down!

After weeks of no round up, it is time once again for the Friday afternoon round-up:

1. Jeff Bahr has a funny recount of William Logan's most recent omnibus review.

2. David Koehn has "defined" editor.

3. Reb Livingston is selling out her son, Gideon.

4. Little Emerson is still chugging along looking for "The One".

5. Patrick expounds on why NYers LOVE their apartments.

6. Robert adds to Emily's take on Richard Siken's Crush.

7. Seth Abramson is our rabid dog on the Rove story. We thank him!

8. Josh Corey has a beautiful new baby!

Far Away

I am down in Mountain View today covering one of our clinics. One of our associates is off for a long weekend. The drive down 280 this morning seemed endless. I am so not used to driving down here anymore.

Had dinner with Jacob and Rick last night. After champagne and a great dinner, we just sat around dishing. I am going to miss Rick so much when he moves away to Tacoma in a few weeks. I have gotten used to him being around here for the past 6 years.

Anyone read any new poetry books and been impressed with them recently?

The Alexandrian

I have been thinking a lot about the poetry of Cavafy recently. This is no doubt related to my having just taught recently in Asheville. I found that I brought up and recommended Cavafy to a lot of the students I met there. Cavafy remains one of the more fascinating poets I have ever read. He relies so much on scene, setting, emotional resonance through simple diction. He relies very little, if at all, on simile or frank metaphor. It isn't that he shuns metaphoric possibilities in his poetry, but that image and elegant speech take on a more important role in his work. Reading Cavafy always seems like a cleansing or purifying event for me. I always walk away from his work reminded how simple can mean elegant and not stupid. Anyway, I think I am going to reread Cavafy over the next week.

Had a wonderful dream last night that I won the lottery and a man called me to tell me he had a check for 48 million for me. In the dream I was a wreck because I somehow wanted to keep this fact a secret. Ha! Even my dreams betray my neurotic self.

Today seems far too filled with paperwork. I would rather be seeing patients.

Old Friend

Went out last night for Mexican food and was just so happy to be back in SF because the Mexican food is so much better here. If you visit Asheville, don't do Mex and DON'T do Indian!

This morning, drinking coffee, standing at my living room window, the fog was truly beautiful. I am sure by mid-August I will be sick of it, but for now it is like an old friend come back for a long visit.

I am still very disturbed by a lot of what is going at home and abroad right now, but I don't even know what to say about it. I am just going to leave that to other bloggers. It all depresses me.

Summertime

Well, I wouldn't be a good poetry editor if I didn't try to steer people toward the magazine for which I edit. We finally got the Spring issue on the web. You can check out the contents of the issue, the sample poems by Jesse Lee Kercheval and Brian Komei Dempster, and even check the news page to see what our contributors have been up to recently. And of course, if you are interested in subscribing, we would be happier than clams.

The Summer issue is already at press and should be a great issue. Poetry in the issue includes:

Rick Barot (1 long poem in sections)
Karen Gottshall (2 poems)
Michalle Gould (1 poem)
Richard Kenney (2 poems)
Diane Kirsten-Martin (3 poems)
Garcia Lorca (7 poems translated by Ralph Angel)
Corey Marks (1 poem)
Cecily Parks (2 poems)
Lucia Perillo (1 poem)
Nicholas Samaras (2 poems)
G.C. Waldrep (1 poem)
David Yezzi (1 poem)

I am already at work on the Fall issue and should have all the submissions that flooded in during April and May read soon. Most of what came in in those months have been read and decided upon, but the cream of the crop must be thinned down to make up the final roster. I hope to have that done this weekend.

At the Edge of Sight

I have been thinking a lot about people's perceptions about one another. Without going into too much detail, I was rather surprised recently to learn that a few people view me as a very intense guy. Maybe I am not as self aware as I should be, but I don't really consider myself intense. I like to do a lot of different things, but that doesn't, in and of itself, make me intense. Does it? Anyway, maybe I am misinterpreting the whole thing because I consider intense a word with negative connotations.

I have been thinking a lot about newish things for poems. I find myself turning certain images and phrases over and over in my head. It always starts this way. It is only a matter of time now. All I need now is a line and the poem will start to gel.

We continue with our wedding plans. So far we have the site for the ceremony (a winery in Sonoma), a caterer (even though there are so many menus I start to pass out when I see them), and an officiant who will actually do the marrying / committing. I am still so happy we have this stuff done already. I am so happy a good friend will be the one to marry us. He was in Asheville teaching with me, and he was so excited about marrying Jacob and me. It made me even happier.

Okay, back to clinic!

I am back!

I got back to San Francisco last evening. It was a long day of flying, but it was good to be home. My 10 days in Asheville were phenomenal. It was good seeing old friends and it was a nice place to make new friends. I am jealous of the education the students at WW get. The education they get as writers is so much better and better tailored to each of them than what most receive in a residential MFA program. It really is an amazing program. Most of what the students there get in the program I had to seek out on my own. I don't regret my choices in the past, but I am surprised at how much I had to do on my own with no guidance at all.

And my new way of avoiding conversation on the plane? Yup, headphones! They work like a charm. Not sure why I never thought of it before.

Anyway, I am back. Off to the hospital in a few minutes.

Routine

It is funny to think about how much of our lives is routine, and by that I really mean how much of my own life is routine. For me, the actual sitting down and writing a poem breaks my routine. It is the strangeness of that time that fascinates me. For the past 8 days, I have been utterly wrenched from my routine. And I have to say, it has been a wonderful thing. But all of that said, I will be happy to return to my mundane life on Sunday. And I will be glad to be home in San Francisco, where the air is cool and the breeze is crisp.

I have been thinking a lot about the beloved. Yes, I know a part of that is my missing Jacob, but I am also thinking about how the beloved enters and exits a poem, is sometimes named, is many times not. I am not thinking about love poems, per se, but poems in which the other suddenly makes an appearance.

I have also been thinking a lot about how easy it is for our minds to convince us that we think in logical sequence while writing, when in fact, we never do. More on that later.

Anyhoo, my time in Asheville is drawing to a close. "There's a somebody I'm longing to see..."

Luminous Confusion

All the new thinking is about loss.
In this it resembles all the old thinking.

-Robert Hass



I have had these, the opening lines of "Meditation at Lagunitas," in my head since yesterday. Of course, I realize it is because I overheard someone talking about this poem the other day while walking to a lecture. The person speaking didn't quote the poem, didn't even try to do so. But I immediately mumbled these two lines, spoke them under my breath. Why? I have no idea. But those two lines, even today, even after having read that poem many times, still contain a certain mystery to me. Despite its rather declarative qualities, it doesn't really MEAN anything. But I like the sound of it. I like the ideas housed in it. My brain connects it to Derrida, Foucault, and Baudrillard. And I don't really know why, because my study of these critics was never within the realm of Literature, but in the realm of Sociology. But there is something in this connection I make (that betrays my mind's preoccupations) regarding image, even the word itself as the image of something specific.

Despite the willful desire to make and remake images into something "other" and unexpected in painting, one always has to come back to the fact that no matter how strangely something is re-visioned, it still bears relation to the old image. And maybe even that statement is an assumption too large to ever prove or disprove. But everything new is old again. Anyway, I have been batting these lines around in my head and wondering about poems. I have been wondering about responsibility, which is to say I often feel little if any responsibility to a poem or reality at all. And by saying that, I am lying in the same breath.

Adagio for Strings

I was first introduced to Samuel Barber's Adagio for Stings by my partner Jacob. When first I heard it, I wanted to dismiss it. I wanted to say it was trying too hard to be romantic and sad, that it wanted to dive into desperation, swim there, wallow in it. But I listened to it again after seeing the sparkle in Jacob's eyes and face as he talked about Barber. And when he listens to that piece of music, the very countenance of his face becomes stern and his brow furrows with the weight of concentration. I recognized that look as the look I have caught on my own face as I listen intently to people talking about Literature. And so, I went back to Barber's Adagio. I went back again. And with each return, I found myself moved a bit more. By moved I mean not only the heart but the mind. It is almost as if sadness is the one thing both the heart and mind registers equally.

Today, I heard Barber's Adagio as the backdrop for a 7-minute short film; sitting there listening, I found myself literally shaken awake. The film faded away and my mind started racing. I felt (and I know it is odd to say this) as if I could see the music but not the film. And there, in that music I saw and felt an overwhelming desire. This is what I never heard in this music before, what Jacob saw in it (or what I think he saw). How stupid I must have seemed to him at the time he introduced it to me. But it is filled with a kind of yearning, a desire that isn't thwarted by sadness but dwells in sadness. Every moment dies but the sadness at losing things and time is in itself a desire. Is it weakness to make such a realization? Is it a strength? Neither? I don't know.

Outside, the hazy, almost smokey-appearing, air is even more dense now, surprising considering the downfall within the past hour. The ground is damp and water slowly ticks from the edges of leaves. The air smells clean but looks sullen, unclean. And over behind the open campus green, voices and laughter keep trickling by. And in such a setting, I see Barber's Adagio. No, I don't mean I hear it as a soundtrack. I can see it. I can finally see it.

Joy and Deception

Just a brief post. I got in to Asheville without any difficulties. Yes, I know my history and travel and am happy there were no delays or things like that. So far, I am having a great time. It is just absolutely energizing to be around people who care about Literature. It just makes me beam. And everyone here is so smart and so wants to be here. I am so glad I am getting the opportunity to be here.

On the flight out, the woman next to me asked me what I did. This time, I told her I was a lawyer. She just looked at me and said, "Oh." Ha! I will never use Medieva Historian again after one of my last trips where the guy turned out to be a Medievalist! That was the most painful flight of my life. And all because I didn't want to talk and thought that answer would shut down conversation. But now, now I have found the one: LAWYER. But, it just dawned on me that even that could backfire. I am sure there are a ton more lawyers in the world than Historians.