Friday, November 26, 2010

In the Presence of a Reference Black Belt

I was pretty pleased with myself. The guy on the phone had asked for the film "Home on the Prairie" with Walt Garrison, and it only took me a few minutes to figure out that he actually wanted "Prairie Home Companion," starring the offensively dull Garrison Keillor. But a colleague left me in the dust with a tour de force reference interaction. The guy she was on the phone with wanted a book called "Preacher, Priest, Man." With very little additional information, she figured out that he really was looking for a book called"Bonhoeffer : pastor, martyr, prophet, spy : a righteous gentile vs. the Third Reich." Please note that the none of the words she was given appear in the actual title. If I wore hats, I'd take mine off.

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