He Said What?

Saturday, January 20, 2024 

What an exciting evening.  We met Eva and Jerry for dinner at ABA Turkish Restaurant, 325 West 57th Street, an ordinary looking place with very good food.  We shared a cold appetizer platter,  including hummus, eggplant salad (baba ganoush), lebni (yogurt), ezme (tomato, olive oil, peppers dip), and stuffed grape leaves ($23.95).  I then regressed to the mean, ordering lamb shish kebab and got seven chunks of juicy, marinated lamb, with rice, lettuce salad and red cabbage ($26.95). 

On this very cold night, we all took a bus crosstown to see a new play, "The Sweet Spot," by Alice Jankell, about an elderly couple awaiting the birth of their first great-grandchild and debating going into an assisted living facility.  This was a situation not far removed from some of us and it produced some squirming in our seats.  It was very well acted by Joel Leffert and Nancy Nichols, husband and wife in real life and members of West End Synagogue. 

Capping off the excitement was the realization that I lost my mobile phone on the bus ride to the theater.  I called it, to no avail, and tried 311, the city's general helpline, and 511, the transit-specific helpline, with no success.  I will persevere.

Sunday, January 21, 2024

My brother did some super sleuthing and came up with an address by Deane W. Malott at his installation as president of Cornell University, September 19, 1951, on the left, and an essay by Harold Taylor, president of Sarah Lawrence College, in the Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1949, on the right.  [Get the magnifying glass; it's worth it.]

 

 

Monday, January 22, 2024

After another series of fruitless telephone calls to my number and 511, I surrendered to my fate and marched off to the Spectrum store on Broadway near 61st Street to buy a new mobile phone.  At times like that, I dredge up memories of finding money on the street, most recently $16 in front of the NYU orthopedic medical center on East 38th Street.  I figure that, over the years, I've paid for the phone.

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Here's a topic for middle brow debate, the Greatest TV Shows of All Time according to Variety, the show business newspaper.

https://variety.com/lists/greatest-tv-shows-of-all-time/

I'll save you some time scrolling down and give you the top five in ascending order:

• Breaking Bad
• The Simpsons
• The Sopranos
• Mad Men
• I Love Lucy

Let the arguments begin.

.  .  .

The New York Times offers "The 7 Keys to Longevity"  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/well/live/live-longer-health.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

I can tell you what shortens lifespan -- replacing a lost mobile phone.  Over three days, it took three brief visits to the Apple store, one very long visit to the Spectrum store and one very long telephone call to Apple technical support wrapped in aggravation before I was restored to what passes for normalcy.  

Another memory that these last few days evoked was December 1979 when I stopped smoking after many years.  What was I to do with my hands?  Reaching for a cigarette, lighting a cigarette, holding a cigarette, extinguishing a cigarette keeps your hands busy.  What replaces that?  Similarly, a mobile phone may be held onto for reassurance, even if not in use.  While not glued to my phone like a teenager, I admit that I usually keep it in reach when not actually in hand.

Which brings me to my literary idol Calvin Trillin.  He has a new book “The Lede,” a collection of essays, many of them to do with journalism, including a brilliant observation about the current state of the New York Times.  He writes that he would flip through the section now labeled Styles, “looking for tips on how to acquire the mannerisms of an in-the-know teenager.”

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

About one in 10 restaurants in the United States serve Mexican food.  Only 1% of Americans live in counties without a Mexican restaurant.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/11/about-1-in-10-restaurants-in-the-us-serve-mexican-food/

What does this say about efforts to build a wall along our southern border?  Too little, too late?

 

Thursday, January 25, 2024

My life is an open blog.  I withhold typically only the immaterial, the immodest and/or the really inane.  My $1,000 hamburger is none of these.  It started on January 15th, but it resolved today, so I kept quiet in the interim.  On January 15th, four of us went to Long Island City; I was driving.  The streets were very crowded with construction vehicles and, at the corner of Queens Plaza South and Jackson Avenue, I tried to move over to turn onto Jackson Avenue.  "Crawling," as described by Scrupulous Art Spar, one of my passengers, I bumped the rear edge of a truck and an elongated spheroid piece of sheet metal popped out of my fender.  (An elongated spheroid is the shape of a football.)  

I submitted a claim to my insurer and was awarded $1,050 to repair the damage.  Okay, but, of course, my policy has a $1,000 deductible, so the hamburger I had for lunch, admittedly a triple, cost me $1,013.55, which I have rounded down to $1,000. 

 

January 26, 2024

I caught up with Johnathan the Poet at lunch at Thai Villa, 5 East 19th Street, decorated in carved wood and brass.  It was very attractive and it might as well be genuine, as far as I know.  He had good stories about his recent trip to South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland with his congregation of Black Jews.

I had a lunch special, pad see ew, stir-fried wide rice noodles with Chinese broccoli, egg, and chicken ($17).  Included was a vegetable broth and two small pieces of chive pancake.  A good deal, on the whole, although there is never enough chive pancake for me.  

 

 

Here and There

Saturday, January 13, 2024 

The obituary of Edward Jay Epstein appeared this morning.  https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/obituaries/edward-jay-epstein-dead.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

He was a fascinating figure.  His thick black hair and deep-set dark eyes made him look like a 19th Century Russian anarchist.   For a time, we were good buddies at Cornell University, especially when most other people were put off by his manic intensity.  He was, of course, fascinated by the Warren Commission report on the Kennedy assassination, producing his own best seller, "Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth," and launching a long career as an investigative journalist.

His carrel in the graduate student library held the 26-volume report, bound in blue leather, and one cheap paperback history of political assassinations.  He spent most of his time there, while many other of us graduate students in the Government Department (never renamed Political Science) gathered in a reading room at the end of the corridor.  Periodically, however, he would pop in, holding an open volume, to cite some anomaly in the evidence.  I was often the audience for these revelations.

My part in the story ends in the summer of 1965.  One evening, I went to a restaurant in downtown Ithaca with Ed, Michael O., a fellow graduate student, and a young woman who was the object of the affections of one or the other of them.  I was under duress academically and my normal grumpiness was accentuated.  The chatter at the table was unbearable and I finally burst out with, "Shut up, Epstein!  Don't ever talk to me again."  He never did and he made a lot of money.  

.  .  .

I rode down to the Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway, to just look around and I was thoroughly heartened by what I saw.

Those people were crowded in a BOOKSTORE.  There was no celebrity around to autograph a ghostwritten memoir.  There was no wine tasting.  There were no giveaways, mainly books.  Civilization may survive.

Sunday, January 14, 2024

All across the U.S., the average monthly rent is $1,700.  Prototypically, this gets 944 square feet, a large one-bedroom space or a medium two-bedroom space.  But, location, location, location is the name of the game in real estate.  Here is what $1,700 really gets you in zip codes around the country.

https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/market-snapshots/how-much-space-for-1700-by-zip-code/

It’s no surprise that you will have to tuck yourself into as little as 211 square feet in the Holy Land, while you can luxuriate in 1,996 square feet in Memphis.

.  .  .

Balancing dollars vs. dimensions is not an issue for some guys.  “Since 2020, the richest five men in the world have doubled their fortunes.”   https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/research-publications/inequality-inc/

Monday, January 15, 2024

“[G]un-related injuries have solidified their position as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents, surpassing motor vehicles, drug overdoses and cancer.” 

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/gun-deaths-us-children-rose-2021-cdc-data-shows-rcna100601

Yet, there is only a strange silence from the otherwise rabidly “pro-life” Evangelical Christian community.  While they cherish a handful of cells soon after conception, they tolerate the wanton destruction of fully-formed human beings without lifting a voice to Heaven.

.  .  .

I thought that a road trip would be a good way to celebrate the holiday and had the company of Art Spar, Ken Klein and Stony Brook Steve on a drive to Long Island City, just on the edge of the East River opposite Manhattan.  We were all agape at the building boom in the area.  Nothing older than a decade seems to be still standing and high-rise construction was underway everywhere you turned.  The narrow side streets were jammed with delivery trucks, cement mixers, cranes and dumpsters.

We headed for JACX&CO, 28-17 Jackson Avenue, a food court in the lobby of a new office building.  It was comfortably furnished with lounge chairs as well as dining tables and chairs, inviting hanging out.  There are about 10 food vendors, pizza, Mexican, hamburgers, fried chicken, Middle Eastern, pan-Asian, and, indeed, each of us went in a different direction.  

I got a triple burger at Paper Plate, very much in the Southern California mode, gooey with cheese and their special sauce ($13.55).  I certainly enjoyed it and the smell that lingered on my fingers for the rest of the afternoon.  The Classic Fries, on the other hand, thin, krinkle-cut, were ordinary ($4.25). 

Thursday, January 18, 2024

I paid a shiva call this evening.  Shiva is the mourning period after burial observed, in one form or another, by most Jews.  It may last up to seven days, excluding the Sabbath and holidays.  Very much like a bris, the circumcision ceremony, no one is traditionally invited, Jews just show up.  Attendance is considered a mitzvah, a good deed.  While shiva is intended to comfort the grieving family, I find that it is also a valuable community-affirming event.

I had a particularly fortunate encounter.  I met a young woman whose paternal grandmother had the maiden name Gothelf, too attenuated a link to explore for a family tie, but interesting nevertheless.  However, Jessica herself was very interesting.  She is a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, one of 400 elected.  That works out to one for each 3,300 residents, a pretty direct form of democracy.  Indeed, while New Hampshire is the focus of cable news for the next several days until the Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, Jessica is a Democrat and is spared most of the mishegas.

Friday, January 19, 2024

I was in midtown today, gathering new doctors in my desperate attempt to preserve this once grand edifice.  At least, I was able to explore new territory, all the way to the Philippines.  Actually, to Jollibee, 609 Eighth Avenue, the local branch of a worldwide fast food chain based in the Philippines with 1,100 locations.  Ten dollars bought me a "2pc Chickenjoy Meal Deal," a leg and a thigh, a biscuit, a side dish, a peach mango pie and a refillable fountain soda (Pepsi products).  The chicken was very good, although not quite Popeyes good.  Similarly, the biscuit with a pat of butter and a small packet of honey on the side.  In all, about 30% less than nearby competitors and well worth it.  Can 118 million Filipinos be wrong?    

 .  .  .

 

Sorry, but I've saved the worst for last.  https://www.sajr.co.za/is-it-time-to-go/

Near and Far

Sunday, January 7, 2024

How's this for a bleak headline?  "16% of Home Listings Were Affordable for the Typical Household in 2023, Likely the Bottom for Housing Affordability"

https://www.redfin.com/news/share-of-homes-affordable-new-2023/

This analysis of new listings in 97 of the most populous U.S. metropolitan areas measured the estimated monthly mortgage payment against the local median household income, where 30% is the affordability limit.  Some of the details are astounding.  Only 0.3% of the new listings in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oxnard, California, are considered affordable; San Jose and San Diego are at 0.4%.  By comparison, New York City is for bargain hunters with 3.1% of new listings affordable.  It obviously takes more than record high stock market numbers and record low unemployment figures to make the average American feel economically secure.

Monday, January 8, 2024

I had the distinction of being the oldest person in my law school class.  That was pretty good, but it’s nothing like Peter Park who passed the California bar exam at age 17 and is now a deputy district attorney in Tulare County at 18.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/08/peter-park-california-state-bar-youngest-person/71852802007/

On the other hand, Terrific Tom quoted me in a story in the New York Law Journal (October 5, 2001) as saying, “If it was up to me, you couldn’t go to law school until you’ve 35 years old.”  Sorry, Peter.

.  .  .

Speaking of law school, it ain’t a boys club anymore.  For the past eight years, women have become a majority in law school enrollment.   

https://www.enjuris.com/students/law-school-women-enrollment-2023/

In only three of what are considered the top 20 law schools, men are in the majority, but by the slightest margins.

.  .  .

Just as the law school enrollment of women has increased, salaries for young lawyers have climbed at the big law firms.  

https://abovethelaw.com/2023/12/biglaw-raise-bonus-tracker-2023/

The numbers are somewhat astonishing.  New hires at these eminent enterprises are being paid $225,000 annually, with likely bonuses of $15,000 to $20,000.   But, are they happy?

Tuesday, January 9, 2024

The very same Terrific Tom came up with this fascinating bit of information, surprising, in fact.  Pekin Noodle Parlor, established in 1909 in Butte, Montana, is the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the United States. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin_Noodle_Parlor#:~:text=Pekin%20Noodle%20Parlor%20(built%201909,Yow%20and%20Tam%20Kwong%20Yee.

Butte is 1,039 miles from San Francisco and 2,247 miles from the Holy Land.  More remarkable is the fact that Butte’s Jewish population declined throughout the 20th Century, now down only to a half dozen families, according to the lovely local lady that I was able to locate.  Yet, Pekin Noodle Parlor remained open.  I guess other people eat Chinese food.

By contrast, Nom Wah Tea Parlor, 13 Doyers Street, started in 1920 and claims to be the oldest restaurant in (our) Chinatown.  In any case, Shanghai 21, 21 Mott Street, was our destination today, Tom included. 

Eventually, there were seven of us at the table.  We ate heartily and with pleasure; cold sesame noodles ($8), scallion pancakes (2 orders @ $6), soup dumplings (2 orders @ $9.75), Shanghai style beef lo mein ($13.25), diced chicken in hoisin sauce ($21), jumbo shrimp with salt and pepper ($25.50), pork fried rice ($12.50).  Incidentally, the restaurant was half empty when Gentleman Jerry and I walked in at 12:20, but had a line waiting to be seated a few minutes later.

 

Thursday, January 11, 2024

I don't consider my fellow Americans to be a particularly humble people.  Our assertiveness and self-confidence are virtues overall, I believe.  Chants of "USA! USA!" and "We're number 1!" are common in competitive situations.  However, there is at least one vital area where we are trailing the field -- our physical size. 

https://ncdrisc.org/height-mean-ranking.html

Looking at the height of our 19-year olds compared to the rest of the world, our males placed 47th, sitting between Jamaica and Tunisia, while our females (let's not get started on who's what) are 58th, between Trinidad and Tobago and Georgia (Stalin's, not Ray Charles's).  Come on, moms.  Make the kids drink their milk

 

Friday, January 12, 2024 

You read “The Man Without A Country“ in junior high school, right?  Can you even remember back that far?  Do kids read it today?  It is a fictional short story set in the 19th Century.  Philip Nolan, an Army officer on trial for consorting with Aaron Burr, cries out, "Damn the United States.  I wish I may never hear of the United States again."  He gets his wish, a lifetime sentence on a ship at sea, no one to ever speak to him of the United States again. 

But, there he was today, Philip Nolan, my oral surgeon, standing on the dry land of the Bronx, giving me the news that my teeth should be sent out to sea, never to rejoin my mouth.

.  .  .

 

In case you run into me this weekend and wonder why I look so forlorn, my young bride left for California this afternoon, leaving me to my own devices for several days.  So, if you happen to have an extra chocolate chip cookie . . .

Uneasy Lies The Head That Wears A Crown

Saturday, December 30, 2023

In baseball, if you hit for the cycle, you get a single, double, triple and home run in one game.  The Ring Cycle, formally Der Ring des Nibelungen, is the group of four lengthy Richard Wagner operas based on characters from German heroic legend that are often presented sequentially.  Tonight, we attempted to complete an informal Stephen Sondheim cycle in a little over 12 months.  

Last December, we saw the latest revival of “Merrily We Roll Along,” my favorite Sondheim work.  In April, we saw a big production of “Sweeney Todd” on Broadway, my roommate’s favorite.  In November, we went to London specifically to see “Old Friends,” a new revue entirely of Sondheim music.  Third base with enormous delight.

Tonight, it was “Here We Are,” his last work, more or less completed at the time of his death two years ago.  While some Sondheim works were initial flops, they usually grew in estimation over time.  I seriously doubt that “Here We Are” will be so lucky.  Thrown out at the plate.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Unfortunately, this troubled year ended on an even sadder note.  I learned that Barry Brett died yesterday, good friend, loyal CCNY alumnus, wise legal counselor.  May his memory be for a blessing.

.  .  .

This was my wedding day for my first marriage, but the date was redeemed when America’s Favorite Epidemiologist accepted my proposal on another New Year’s Eve.

Monday, January 1, 2024

“Danish Queen Margrethe announces surprise abdication after 52 years on the throne”  

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/31/europe/queen-margrethe-denmark-abdication-intl?cid=ios_app

Apparently, she has been watching “The Crown.”

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Gather round children, Grandpa Alan is going to tell you how to become a billionaire or darn close.  Here are the 10 largest lottery jackpots in the United States:

$2.04 billion on 11/7/22

$1.765 billion on 10/11/23

$1.59 billion on 1/13/16

$1.58 billion on 8/9/23

$1.54 billion on 10/23/18

$1.35 billion on 1/13/23

$1.34 billion on 7/29/22

$1.08 billion on 7/19/23

$1.05 billion on 1/22/21

$842.4 million on 1/01/24

What’s extraordinary about these results is that, with the exception of three winners of the January 13, 2016 prize, all the winnings went to one ticket.  So, even with odds typically of 1 in 292,201,338 (Powerball) to 1 in 302,600,000 (Mega Millions), at a certain point, when the jackpot swelled, the money odds were decidedly in favor of the purchaser of a single ticket, not statistically, but in fact.

The lesson, children -- Patience.

.  .  .

Rob Teicher was my companion for the first Rangers game of the new year.  The Rangers have the best record in the National Hockey League, a fact that fails to excite my young bride as much as it does me.  However, tonight, we had nothing to be excited about.  The team underperformed and was beaten badly.

First, however, Rob and I had dinner at Mr. Broadway, 209 West 38th Street, until recently the site of Ben’s Kosher Delicatessen Restaurant.  This was my first visit since this replacement of an ordinary Kosher restaurant by a glatt Kosher restaurant, which, in the past, I found to be the substitution of piety for flavor.  Still, I entered Mr. Broadway optimistically and hungry.  That will not happen again.

I ordered kishke, stuffed derma to be polite, a classic Eastern European Jewish dish, now all but forgotten in our climb to American middle-class respectability.  Two thick pieces under a thick brown gravy were $9.95.  I also had a “Roumanian pastrami” sandwich on rye bread, strangely accompanied by a fresh green salad ($22.95).  I associate nothing green with Eastern European Jewish cuisine except pickles.

Here’s the report card: Pickles, very good; coleslaw, very good; green salad, very good; kishke, very bad; pastrami, bad.  The latter two items had the same basic ingredient — salt — that overwhelmed them.  

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Even as I withdraw my name from consideration as Harvard’s next president, I have some thoughts about the gig.  After Claudine Gay resigned the position, it was observed that “she has not written a single book, has published only 11 journal articles in the past 26 years and made no seminal contributions to her field.”  

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/opinion/harvard-claudine-gay-resignation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

So, what are we looking for in the presidency of a major academic institution?  Would a higher number of publications have better prepared her for the pressures of her job?  Of course, it was not the quantity of her output that undermined her, but the quality, although it was surely her inability to handle schoolyard taunts in front of Congress that ultimately did her in.

Excellence in teaching or administration may have qualified her, neither measured by a list of publications.  Once on the job, there is a critical element of success independent of a talent for administration or teaching, the ability to raise money.  In this regard, Gay's novelty status as the first Black person and the second woman to head Harvard may have been viewed as an asset.

In retrospect, I never would have encouraged Stanley Feingold (American government, CCNY), Mario Einaudi (European government, Cornell University), Ted Lowi (American government, Cornell University), Mulford Q. Sibley (political philosophy, University of Minnesota) or Mrs. MacIntyre (fourth grade, PS 159) to leave teaching for an administrative position.  Would you have urged your favorite teachers otherwise?  Most of the academics that I know would flee from the prospect.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

We celebrate the anniversary of the resistance against the colonizers on Capitol Hill by the American branch of Hamas.  From the Atlantic to the Potomac!