The Answer Man
1. The WOR Answer Man, who knew everything -- did the Romans eat ice cream, how tall was Jesus Christ, why do cows moo -- got stumped by this one: Do birds dream? America and I would tune him in on Sunday nights to hear the seer defeat that week’s mailed-in mindbenders, and win my lifelong inclination to compete. When the mountaintop White Throated Sparrow peeps, its little brain lights up, and an ECG outputs a sketch, and the same sketch when it sleeps, dreaming its D didi D didda D (Chat GPT) He had a research staff and a book-crammed suite near the library on 42nd Street. 2. I liked to dream that some day I would be, well, the smartest homo sapiens ever. Not working too hard I’d mutate to maturity, a human Monarch butterfly, so clever. (like mother-love, this this self-infatuation, so warm, so undemandingly ambitious.) The Answer Man gave solace to nation while I would raise my hand a lot in English. Chat suggests this Fermi estimate: “830 billion loosely packed bison to fill the Grand Canyon.” That being another nut the A-Man never cracked. Likewise, the sparrow’s dactyl D dida D dida D remains a total mystery to me. ,

"so undemandingly ambitious" —— I love this phrase. And total mysteries are a good thing. ChatGBT, not so much.