>Walter Meyer wrote:
>
>>David Wolf wrote:
>>
>>>...there is another book in which Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations
>>>also figures prominently: Gold Bug Variations, by Richard Powers.  ...
>>
To which Mr. Meyer replied:

>>The title suggests of course not only Bach's work but a short story by
>>Edgar Allan Poe.  Does the author interweave Bach with Poe as Hofstadter
>>did w/ Goedel, Escher and Bach in his book of the same name?
>
To which I replied:

>I'm not aware of any connection to the Poe story, but now that you mention
>it, I ought to take another look at it.  (Why DID he use the word "bug" in
>the title, anyway?...)
>

Having aroused my curiosity on the subject, I went looking for the author
on the Internet.  Lo and behold, I found him at the University of Illinois,
where he is on staff.  I sent him a query, and the following is his reply:

    Dear Mr. Wolf,

    Thank you for your note, with its query about Poe references in my
    Gold Bug.  Poe's story and its ruminations about cryptography do
    indeed make several appearances in the book, most overtly in the
    early account of Stuart Ressler in the 1957 story.  (He looks up
    and reads the story, and it begins to form the conceptual framework
    of his thinking about the codon problem.)

    Thanks for your interest, and best of luck to you.

    Richard Powers

Now I'll have to go burrowing back into Powers' novel and find the
references.
(Dave: I hope I've not wandered too far off the beaten path.)

Dave Wolf
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