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.

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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.

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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!