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It's fascinating for me to try and guess what kind of questions or requests would have prompted certain answers on Heinlein's list. I wonder which ones would h
by domador 3y ago
It's fascinating for me to try and guess what kind of questions or requests would have prompted certain answers on Heinlein's list. I wonder which ones would have prompted a reference to the "You're Not As Smart As You Could Be" or the "Mental Telegraphy" articles. But I'm especially intrigued by the 12th answer, where Heinlein essentially offers to personally come to a student's defense when a grade on a project seems to depend on Heinlein's reply. I wonder how many times he ended up speaking to teachers, principals, and school boards about this, and what that looked like.
- fl7305 3y agoSo if you're a teacher who wants to chat with Heinlein, you don't write to him directly. Instead you tell a student that he will fail your class unless he gets Heinlein to help him.
- MPSimmons 3y agoI cannot imagine that discussion would have worked out at all in the teacher's favor.
- 48864w6ui 3y agoAnd who tried to give RMS a parrot?
- MPSimmons 3y agoOr bought one just because he was going to crash on their couch
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eesmith 3y agoA couple Heinlein's stories referred to a Renshaw device. From "Assignment in eternity" at https://archive.org/details/assignmentineter0000hein_h0q8/page/n67/mode/2up?q=%22Renshaw%22+%22Robert+Heinlein%22 https://archive.org/details/assignmentineter0000hein_h0q8/pa... : "Around World War II Dr Samuel Renshaw at the Ohio State University was proving that most people are about one-fifth efficient in using their capacities to see, hear, taste, feel, and remember. His research was swallowed in the morass of communist pseudoscience that obtained after World Word III, but after his death, his findings were preserved underground." That Renshaw is the author of "You're Not As Smart As You Could Be". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Renshaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Renshaw lists more places where Heinlein cites Renshaw's tachistoscopic training, including in this fan mail response.
- eesmith 3y agohttp://www.nitrosyncretic.com/nsp_rah-telepathy.php http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/nsp_rah-telepathy.php says the "Mental Telegraphy" is from Expanded Universe, and includes a copy of Twain's text. I haven't reread Heinlein for decades and don't remember the reference. An archive.org search of the book wasn't fruitful.