"How's the batter coming?" LP asked Holly.
     She showed him.
     "Great, you wanna leave it just a little lumpy.  Perfect."
     Ramanujan looked up and said, "No eggs, please.  Could you make 
up a few dosas?"
     "Dosas?"
     "Indian pancakes," said Data.  "They're tricky.  I'd better
handle these."
     Marilyn got up and walked over and whispered something to
Ludwig and Data.  Then she sat back down.
     Ludwig tested the griddle.  
     "Look, Holly.  When a drop of cold water falls onto the
griddle and bounces and sputters, it's the right temperature. 
     "Dishwasher," said Ludwig with disgust.  "I'll show them. 
I'll show them all.  Inside every dishwasher there's a fry cook
just begging to escape."
     He made up the pancakes, grilling them as Marilyn had asked,
and Data had three dosas replicated for Ramanujan, along with a
spicy potato filling and some coconut chutney.
     Marilyn put three pancakes each person's plate at the
table.  Not surprisingly, one of the pancakes had two dark sides,
one had two light sides, and one had a dark sight and a light side.
     "Okay," she said.  "Before we eat, pretend you pick one of
these three pancakes at random.  You see a dark side.  What are the
odds the other side is dark as well?"
     "Pass me the syrup."
     "Thanks."
     "Hey," said Marilyn,  "what's the probability?"
     "I already ate the light-dark one," said Gauss.  "My odds are
one in one."
     "I ate the dark-dark one already," said Fermat.  "Guess I
don't have a chance in hell."
     "Three dark sides," said Ramanujan.  "Two on the same pancake. 
Two out of three.  Was that supposed to be tricky?"
     "All right, Ludwig, what are the odds of the other side being
*light*?"
     Wittgenstein said, "Don't insult me--"
     "Not you," she said.  "*That* one."
     "I want what Ramanujan is eating," said LP.  "They look
good."
     "Answer the question, Mr. Plutonium."
     "They're spicy, Ludwig.  I don't think you'd care for them
much."
     "Data?" said LP.  "May I have some docents?"
     "Dosas.  Coming right up."
     "Well, Ludwig?  The odds?"
     "I don't concern myself with silly puzzles, Marilyn.  I am
only concerned with the big questions in mathematics."
     "Ludwig," said Marilyn.  "Ram was right.  The odds of the
other side being dark *are* two in three.  So what are the odds of
the other side being *light*?"
     Data placed two dosas before Ludwig.  He ate with his right
hand, mimicking Ramanujan.  After the first bite, he had a slight
stroke.
     "Spicy enough?" said Data.
     "Mommy?" said Ludwig.
     
     "All right, Ram," said Marilyn.  "What's the next number in
*this* series:  Eight, six, seven, five, three, oh--"
     "Very funny, Marilyn," said Wiles.  "But your series is a
perfect illustration of the cultural bias inherent in--
     "Nine?" said Ramanujan.
     "Jesus Christ."
     "It *is* nine," said Ramanujan, "is it not?"
     "How the *hell* did you get that?" she said.
     "Um, I inferred it."
     "Forget I said anything," said Wiles.
     Ramanujan whispered to Wiles, "Tommy Tutone is huge in Madras. 
Nick Kershaw, too.  Go figure."

     Riker was livid.  "I say _The Recognitions_ was the
quintessential novel of the fifties and that's that."
     "Um, Commander," said Dr. Crusher, "aren't you forgetting a
crazy little thing I like to call _Invisible Man_?"
     "I've heard that since I was five, Doctor.  Gaddis is a better
writer.  Who won the Nobel in '98?  After just four novels? 
Ellison wrote *one*."
     "One more than you.  One more than most people.  One that did
not need a second act.  One that established its author, entered
into mainstream American fiction, and to this day remains a
touchstone of the fifties.  Gaddis *this*."
     "Philistine."
     "The Commander has a point," said Worf.  "We can trace a line
from Gaddis through Pynchon, Heller, Roth, Barth..."
     "I don't know, Worf," said Geordi.  "I'd say Barth inherited
more from Burroughs than Gaddis."
     "Regardless,  this tangent is so ill-conceived I don't see how
anything can pull us out--"
     "Captain, this is Guinan, on the bridge.  Sir, I don't know
why you thought I would make a bridge officer, but Ensign Pulver
here tells me we've travelled too close to the space-potatoe, and
its gravity well is sucking out our neutrino soul."
     "I trust your instincts, Guinan.  Anyone who can mix up a
Tacony-Palmyrian ginger baker as well as you has more than what it
takes to command a starship.  Now then, magnify the space-potatoe
and tell me what you see."
     "Sir?"
     "Guinan?"
     "It looks like a signature, but it's hard to tell."
     "A signature," said Picard.  "Excellent.  Whose?"
     "Button Gwinnet?"
     "Move in closer."
     "But Sir..."

     "Silly puzzles, Ludwig?" said Wiles.  "I don't trust any
mathematician who isn't fond of puzzles and games."
     "Andrew, I can help you with your proof--"
     "Marilyn," said Wiles, "you bug me even more than LP over
there.  That ill-conceived book of yours.  Christ.  I don't
question you on how long it takes fruit flies to fill up a jar and
I wish you wouldn't question me on semistable elliptic curves."
     "I couldn't care less about elliptic curves.  I just--"
     "--am a monumental waste of neurons.  If there's any such
thing as 'sin', Marilyn, you and those like you are the embodiment
of it."
     Q appeared, said, "Existence is the only sin." and promptly
disappeared.
     "Was that Schopenauer?" said Picard.
     "It was I," said Wittgenstein.
     "Data?"
     "It was Schopenauer, Sir."
     "Don't believe everything you hear," said Wittgenstein,
"especially if *I* said it."
     "You'd author your own apocrypha?"
     Wittgenstein whistled a fugue.



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