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When Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick Went to High School Together (2016) (openculture.com)
20 points by zeristor on July 17, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 7 comments


Stretching the topic slightly -- so as to include other high-school coincidences -- Nobel laureate Richard Axel has a delightful passage in his 2004 acceptance speech (medicine & physiology), recalling a moment in the 1960s when he was playing competitive basketball as the center for Stuyvesant High's team in New York City.

Their opponent one afternoon was Power Memorial High, which had the future Kareem Abdul Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) playing center. As Axel recalls: "When I was first passed the ball, he put his hands in front of my face, looked at me and asked: "What are you going to do, Einstein?"

Quoting from Axel: "I did rather little. He scored 54 points and I scored two. He went on to be among the greatest basketball legends and I became a neurobiologist."


The Paris Review interview linked in the blog is interesting glimpse into Le Guin's background. I've only read her fiction.


Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov were firends of a sort.

Heinlein even had a role in the promotion of Asimov getting him a leg up in the industry.


The picture of Dick is definitely a wax figure


As mentioned in the comments.

As explained that apparently all pictures of PKD are under copyright.


To say they went to High School together is a huge stretch, that they were at the same High school at the same time might be clearer.


This is the birthday problem on steroids. The probability of a coincidence like this happening somewhere is ~1.




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