The Dublin Bananafest is a pale memory at just a week and a half out, but not on account of Scottie, his beautiful wife, or Helena, who are truly splendid people. I was myself miserably sick, horribly jetlagged, and held to a meager two pints by a cramp in my right wrist, so the two hours were over almost as soon as they started and I don't remember having said a thing. I just sat there and smiled and perspired. We arrived just after the noon hour and found the Bowmans in the back room of the bar, with glasses of tomato juice stacked perilously around a silver UK edition of _Catcher_. Helena joined us about twenty minutes later. Scottie is a jolly fellow. Helena offered the adjective after he left, and I use it only with her implicit permission. He is of a sanguine but sensible humour, with the net effect of inspiring candor and laughter simultaneously. I expect he would entirely exceed Zooey's criteria for Franny's analyst. His wife Hazel is as rare a woman as any I can imagine, full of mirth, warmth and energy. At 70, or thereabouts, she somehow manages to give the impression of being about to slam-dunk a basketball. Helena is a striking young woman with a silk of fine red hair. She looks like she'd feel equally at home behind a typewriter or on a motorcycle. She politely excused herself from Guinness on account of the hour. My own dear lady sat quietly and endured the babble. Talk wended from the list to the list members (everyone was celebrated equally) to Scottie's books (Hazel tactfully declined to disclose their titles) to Helena's proposed trip to Boston to Jim's glass eye and finally to my Genghis snakeskin Texas kickers. We had planned perhaps to meet again later in the week with Helena when occassion would smile upon a slightly rowdier pub visit, but I was beset by ill luck. The conference we did have was a great time, and I regret only that it could not have lasted longer. -- Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu