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YEAR 2002

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News of Bob and M during the year 2002

Bill, Bob & John research at PPPL
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"Well, anyway we got the grant. Now dump the stiff."

  • January. Well we came through 2001 virtually intact. M has her sciatic problems, which have not been improved by physical therapy. I'm still working on my book of short stories. Better stop the dithering and get on with it.
  • Feb 13. Big day for Marian! She lectured to the METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD in a room overlooking the Opera in Lincoln Center. Fellow lecturers Harlow Robinson, an opera expert and Dick Wortman, an historian from Columbia. Topic: Images in Russian Art during the Napoleonic era. The talks preceeded by one day the opening of the opera War and Peace by Prokovief at Lincoln Center. Her talk well received. Many people complimented her aftward, even in the Dim Sung restaurant opposite Lincoln Center.
  • Feb 17-18. Visited the ONLINE TRADING EXPO at the Marriott in New York. Busy and noisy, but the exhibitors say that the attendance was way down from last year. I wonder why? The crowds were various and colorful: old traders wandering about the exhibits thinking the big strike was just down the road; young guys still wet behind the ears thinking their big days were coming. Lots of software and hardware to help you make your first billion, but all predicated on the assumption that you can make a mechanical (or, more precisely, electrical) device that pinpoints when a stock is going up or down, either in the next 15 or 20 minutes or in the next few months. The half dozen or so talks I heard did not convince me, but I did covet the three foot monitors some of the vendors would supply. Cool stuff.
  • Feb 20-24 At the Marriott in PHILADELPHIA. M at the CAA. Visit to the PENNSYLVANIA ACADEMY, where the show American Modern was installed. One of the original Electrolux vacuum cleaners, very similar to ours in 7 Hamilton; the Geddes Patriot Radio of 1940-so much in tune with today. What did I like? Pippin's John Brown on the Way to his Hanging, Edward Hicks Peaceful Kingdom with Ben Franklin and the Lions, the two great Thomas Cole murals. Got a rush ticket to the Kimmel Center to hear the PHIDELPHIA ORCHESTRA under Roberto Abbado play Prokofiev, Tchaikowsky and Brahms. The new center has a spectacular glass roof but the overhead lighting gives an uncomfortable glare. The BIRTHDAY PARTY by Harold Pinter at St Stephens Theatre. Excellent cast.Two mysterious men invade a bording house to find and punish one of the tenants. First act funny; second act horrendous. Pinter's plays always have a menacing tone, but this play is his most violent.
  • Mar 7. Our fifth gettogether in the fiction class. Topic for discussion: Emma by Jane Austen.
  • May2. Mordecai Shehori, pianist, at Alice Tully Hall. Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, and Prokofiev. The romantic gamut played to tumultuous applause. The Times refers to Mordecai's cult audience.
  • May 7. The plumber came once more to our downstairs bathroom to fix another leak from the new shower manifold. Izumi and I had noticed that the new wooden floor was still wet a week after the first fix, so I carved a one by two foot hole out of the sheetrock in back of the shower plumbing. Indeed, there was a slow leak where the hot line went into the manifold. To fix it you had to unsolder the copper pipe, screw the nut further into the hole, then resolder.
  • May 15. The lower bathroom is now finished, with two coats of light blue paint. I mounted a fan in the ceiling, mounting the fan on small wires so there was absolutely no noise. Quite an improvement on the usual bathroom fan, which makes a big racket.
  • ;May 21. Finally finished my most recent story, 'My Fabulous Career',  The fiction class with Ann Neuman helped a lot in the final fine tuning.
  • Jun 2. Pie Off at the Solomon's. Home-made pies of every persuasion. Number 1: strawberry-rhubard. So good you could hear your arteries clanging shut.
  • "My Short Fabulous Career" published in US1. "Irish Lover" turned down by Kelsey Review.

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  • Aug 22: Taken by M (as part of her birthday treat) to the Kafka exhibit at the Jewish Museum. Eerie, baby! Changing, distorted images of Prague on the wall, sounds of his lungs in one section, sounds of a rodent in a cage, lots of text from his writings. Then off to the garden of the Joanna restaurant on 92nd and Madison for a couple of pastas.
  • Aug 23: Dinner with the Solomons.
  • Aug 31. Party at Lisa's for new daughter Jessica. As usual, Patrick was the boss man.
  • Sept 1. Cass Twp reunion for all graduates at St Nick's Hall in Primrose. 332 attendees. Featured talks by Joe Hutsko and Chilli Lohin. We heard how 'rich' we were in childhood and how 'great' our teachers were. Fifteen of the class of '49 attended. Will repeat next year. Met AM Pellish, M Kondrack, J Supco, Agnes O'Brien, Betty Johnson (who said I had changed her life), Harry Searles, Mary Brennan, Mary Ellen Langton, John Mistician (from San Antonio, who talked incessantly) Ron M, M Courtney, John Ryan, ill with diabetes, his mother, his daughter Rose Marie Bush.
  • Sept 8. At the Brooklyn Museum to see the Victorian nudes. Favorites: Bondage, by Ernst Normand, women slaves, an Egyptian slaver flanked by two beautiful lion statues and Athlete with a Python, by Fred Leighton.
  • Sept 12: Two days hiking at High Point, NJ. Out of season, so I had the trails and lakes to myself. Not even a single camper on Sawmill Lake.Cold and blustry at times, but I had a good jacket. Favorite hike: park along the Sawmill Road near Sawmill Lake. Hike down the Mashipacong Trail, walk south along the Park Ridge Road, turn up the Ayers Trail, walk back to car along the Sawmill Road. Great hike along the old abandoned homesteads on the mountain. Nothing left but the stone foundation and stone fences. Stayed at the Rolling Hills Motel (55 bucks) along Rt 23, 10 miles from the top. Avoided Rt 206 and took Rt 517, not as direct a route, but with little traffic.*
  • Oct 5. Adelheit von G's 65th birthday. Good wine, good food, and good fellowship at the VG's house with their daughters and grandchildren and many of their musically inclined friends. Met Wulfgang, a physicist from Hightstown who delights in collecting old audio equipment. Promised to ring him up about my Fisher tuner and Heathkit amplifier,vacuum-tubed relics from the late fifties.
  • Oct 8. Dave at the Amoco station on Route 1 just north of the Brunswick Circle (phone 989-8111) replaced the fan motor in the Honda heating unit for less than half that quoted by the dealer. Great guy. Fed me pizza while I waited. I see why Izumi likes him so much.
  • Oct 15-21. Trip to Santa Fe. Marian to AREA meeting. Invited to cocktail party at the Sculpture Ranch outside Santa Fe, run by Nat Hesse and Alice van Buren. He's a sculptor, preparing for an opening in Providence. He runs a 14-acre sculpture ranch (where you can see forever) south of SF, full of immense pieces--a huge steel elbow that looks as if it came from a battleship, a circular concrete structure used for their wedding. Inside the workshop were some elegant spiral rods--part of the planned show.
  • Visit the Antiques show at the Armory , 67 & Park. Marian says it is the only time when she wishes she were rich. At the Galerie Meyer booth: Beautiful yipwong from the Yimar tribe, Sepik River, New Guinea, an ancestral spirit useful in hunting and warfare.(a great yipwon at the Met, too)
  • Nov 1, Visited the exhibit 'New Hotels for Global Nomads' at the Cooper-Hewitt on 5th & 91st. Marvelled at the coffin rooms (referred to more kindly as capsule rooms) in Japanese business hotels. Like an enlarged dog house, with a glass door, tiny cot on the floor, a TV and piped in air, I hope). One way to escape the high rentals in Tokyo. The Frank Lloyd Wright Imperial Hotel in Tokyo was limited to one chair and a photo taken from the roof top???
  • Nov 5. Lecture in the Princeton Art Mus about the late watercolors of Cezanne by Katherine Tuma of the Drawing Center, New York. Elegant exposition on the problems of attribution in Cezanne. Why a watercolor is not a Cezanne, in particular the roses in a flask, painted on the back of the Awakening. Great controversy between Douglas-Cooper (con) and Rewald. Learned a lot about Cezanne in the discussion.
  • Nov 21. Went to hear Lynn Gamwell and Elliott Wolfson speak on Einstein's cosmic religion. Einstein is full of remarks on how God should behave, like "God does not play dice with the universe," and "God is difficult, but not malicious." But according to Wolfson Einstein did not believe in a personal God, that is, one that intervenes in the universe to help or hinder anyone. This seminar was part of an exhibition by Lynn Gamwell on exploring the invisible. The items are on display at the New York Academy of Sciences and the Museum of Natural History.
  • Dec 5-7. Three days of great music: Beethoven at the NY Philharmonic open rehearsal, Spanish music with violincello and guitar at the Patron's Lounge at the Met, Brahms and Shostakovitch from the Princeton U Orchestra at Richardson Auditorium.
  • Dec 12. Cocktails and buffet supper at the Harvard Club, 44th and 5th Ave, given by Academic Arrangements Abroad, the travel agent that organizes the Metropolitan trips. Met Richard, Valerie, trip organizers and Patsey and Harriet, coowners of the firm. Lots of good chatter, fine ham, etc. The Harvard club looks brown,old, and very much in character with its parent university.
  • Dec 31. New Year's eve at the Purto's. Turkey and other scrumptious offerings. Much talk about diet, etc. Watched celebration in Times Square. Bob read "Fabulous Career". Marian played a 40-year old recording of Visi D'Arte, transcribed from a 78 rpm disk to a CD. Good weather for one hour trip to and fro.

    • Izumi and Joan
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    Performing at Lucy's

    B & M on their first date
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    "You certainly know how to show a girl a good time."

    B

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