From: "Mark O. Aldrich" <maldrich@grci.com>
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 16:41:56 -0700 (PDT)
To: Sandy Sandfort <sandfort@crl.com>
Subject: Re: LET'S MEET DIMITRI
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.961010064043.5943A-100000@crl4.crl.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SCO.3.93.961010190453.21613D-100000@grctechs.va.grci.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Sandy Sandfort wrote:

> I am hereby pledging US$100 towards a fund to fly Dimitri to the
> SF Bay area for a Cypherpunk meeting.  I certainly would like to
> meet a real cryptographer, and I'm sure many of you would too.
> We should throw in a hotel room and local transportation as well.  
> I want Dimitri to be our featured speaker--his choice of topic, 
> of course.

It's strange that all this stuff with Dimitri has reached the level that
it has.  I don't know how many CPers finally made it for INFOWARCON in DC
last month, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that, in addition to
myself, there were several others, including Dimitri.  In fact, Dimitri
and I sat together with Eric Hughes and a couple of other list members
during lunch one day.

I am afraid that, for those of you who do not know him and are expecting
some ranting tyrant, you're going to be rather disappointed.  He was
soft-spoken, almost difficult to hear, sometimes, it seemed, even rather
shy.  He made numerous insightful comments on any number of topics, was a
pleasant conversationalist, and, in fact, acted like a gentleman in ever
instance when I saw or spoke with him.  To meet him solely in person,
you'd be impressed with his obviously diverse education and background,
and rather quiet disposition.  As anti-climactic as it may be, he was 
actually a nice, unassuming fellow with a sense of humor and a
pleasant demeanor.  Hell, he even had decent table manners.

Which is why, for the life of me, I can't understand how all these
postings from him are coming from the same human being.  The man I met
seemed incapable of such rage, bitterness and utter detestation.  It's as
much Jekyll/Hyde as I've ever seen between on and off line personas.

Oh, well - maybe there really _are_ that many people for whom life on the
screen is lived through some distortion or parallel of who and what they
are.  I like the realspace Dimitri much better, and I certainly don't want
to dissuade anyone from contributing, nor would I seek to scuttle a free
trip to S.F for Dimitri, but some mysteries are best left undiscovered. If
it's high-stakes entertainment you seek, you may find that you prefer the
character to the actor.

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