Free Callahan's Place 10 - Off The Wall At Callahan's (v5.0) by Spider Robinson Page B

you are!
     
           Yes, there was more written on The Wall than you’ll find in this book—but I don’t see what I can do about it unless and until more photographs surface.   (If you have any, contact me c/o the publisher.)  
           Yes, I admit that the epigrams, maxims, perorations and pithy thayingth contained herein do lose something from not being scrawled in Callahan’s inimitable (thank God!) handwriting—but not one of those photos was clear and crisp enough to reproduce well in book format.
           Yes, some of these quotations, and all of the longer puns, have already appeared in variant form in diverse Callahan’s or Lady Sally stories.   For one thing—as in so many aspects of science fiction—there is precedent for this from Robert A. Heinlein: every word of his book THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS LONG appears in his previous novel TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE—yet both books perennially jockey for position together on Berkley Books’   list of All-Time Best-Selling Titles.   For another thing, in recent years people have been quoting some of these maxims and puns to me , unaware that I hold copyright, so it’s time to set the record straight.   (One reader informs me that she has been sending out Christmas cards containing the Yule Gibbons pun for years now—presumably in an effort to shorten her Christmas card list.)
           Besides, a great many of these quotes, and all the shorter atrocities, appear here for the first time.
           And I have included lagniappe.   Along with sayings from The Wall, I have included the lyrics to several of the songs that Jake and Fast Eddie used to play on Fireside Fillmore Nights, the ones that got the most requests during my tenure there.   While only one or two of these songs actually appeared on The Wall, all of them frequently echoed from it, and from the other three walls.   Several of these are recorded here for the first time.; I’ve transcribed most of them from tapes in my possession, and can certify the accuracy of the lyrics.  
           And as if that weren’t enough, I have taken special trouble to isolate the most potentially lethal quotes from off The Wall—the puns!—in a separate, labelled section of their own, for your sanitary protection.
           Wisdom, laughter, and song—here you have Callahan’s Place in a nutshell…
     
           I know: it’s not the same as having more Callahan stories.   But it’s something , and the best I can presently offer you.   Half of why one went to Callahan’s Place was the companionship, the camaraderie, the merriment and melancholy and the stories that got told, and I wish I had more of that for you, I do.
           But the other half of why I used to go there was the consistently good conversation.   Interesting things got said there a lot, because Callahan’s custom of requiring a toast got his customers into the habit of distilling their (very!) varied experiences and insights into crystallized form.   As the late, immortal Theodore Sturgeon used to say, “If it’s really basic, it’s simple.”   And you can’t have too much of that kind of stuff.
           It is my fond hope that in consideration of all this, readers will take pity on me, cut me some slack, and not write me any more letters asking for more Callahan’s Place stuff for awhile.  
           I promise, anything I hear, you’ll hear.   Okay?
     
    Spider Robinson
    Vancouver, British Columbia
    29 November 1991
     
     
    C)   Begin reading here if you’re the kind of reader who always skips the Forewords:

 
     
     
     
     
    Graffiti
    -
    Off The Wall
    at Callahan's Place

 
     
     
     
     
    Callahan’s Law: shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased.  

 
     
     
     
     
    Lady Sally’s Law: shared despair is squared; shared hope is cubed (or better.   Raised to the power of infinity?).  

 
     
     
     
     
    Writing is not necessarily something to be