Flat's Last Tire and Black Country Western

[pms]

At 12:02 AM 1/24/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Almost all discussion of technology tends to get blurred by such
>narrow definitions of technology. Very seldom, for example, do people
>talking about technology discuss the various storage devices that
>allowed the development of neolithic agriculture.
>
>Carrol 
>--------
>
>Pottery? Cool.
>
>But, speaking of topologies of genus 0 and 1, yesterday, while I was
>fixing a flat tire on a math professor's push chair we were talking
>way knarlly, waay bad number theory--possibly the Empress of propeller
>heads everywhere. It seems Richard Taylor (one of co-authors of Weyl's
>proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, FLT) is at UC Berkeley and holding
>seminars. So, Robert Coleman, of flat tire fame, is doing a course on
>elliptic curves. He will have a syllabus for the course posted at:
>
>http://math.berkeley.edu/~coleman/
>
>The relevant material should show up next week sometime. The point is,
>that the key to understanding the method of proof in FLT is
>understanding the automorphisms of algebraic numbers, and these have a
>representation as elliptic curves, i.e. their Galois group. See, I
>told you it was waay bad.
>
>For a quick look at elliptic curves:
>
>http://www.best.com/~cgd/home/flt/flt03.htm
>
>
>Chuck Grimes
>
>I am telling you the people you meet fixing wheelchairs just blows me
>away. One Saturday, I hear what sounds like a whole street full of big
>rigs pulling up outside. After a couple of minutes, three black guys
>come in dressed in the fanciest western cowboy outfits I have ever
>seen pushing a forth guy in dark glasses and a cowboy hat. Guess whose
>chair broke down on a gig in Oakland--none other than Freddy
>Pendergast(?).
>
>Should I post this? Why not. Give PMS and Kelley something to chortle
>about--"Will ya look at look that. I told you, Honey, they're all
>alike--counting pimples on wicca's ass must be a guy thing. For sure."
>

That's dimples, not pimples Chuck. And I didn't say it, it was, uh, either
Alice Walker or Gunter Gass, I always get those two mixed up.

And don't you mean Teddy Pendergast?  Doesn't sing country, but has been
seen wearing a cowboy hat.  What was he like?  I always wondered how the
"black community" ( the folks who bought so many lp's in my record store)
had reacted to his tranvestite association.
Think I was out of the biz by then.

One of the most depressing music moments I ever had was at a convention
where a bunch of the unfunkyist white people on the planet, were trying to
make an impression on their bosses by partying and acting black, waiting
for Teddy to start singing.  I wondered if the disgusting sight of them
effected him.

I wanna have math fun too! Please expain about the morphing numbers smoking
french cigarettes.

Off to exchange X-mas gifts-p