DIARY

DIARY FOR 2003
Jan 1. English cheese and American wine with the Solomon's. Interesting talk with Pam and her husband about their son the submariner. He runs the nuclear reactors on the sub.
Jan 2. Market very strong today. Good sign for the month of January.
Jan 4. Wedding of Harriet Hawkins and Andy Greatrex in the choir hall at the Princeton U Chapel. Reception later at the Colonial Club. Sat with Barbara Ross, Jean Kunkle and her husband Jeff Whieler (Jean was one of Marian's students at Princeton), and the owner of Cordier Extrom and his wife Ann. Plenty of champagne, seafood pie, and Beringer cabernet sauvignon at the table.
Jan 7. Celebrate Orthodox Christmas with Elena Pischekova, her mother and daughter, both Luda, and Norma Jean B. Plenty of good zakuskie and wine, followed by salmon, veal, and stuffed peppers, my favorite. Elena showed us dozens of pictures taken in and outside her tomb above Deir el Bahri in Egypt.
Jan 10. Sent my manuscript Why? off to the publisher, iuniverse. One of their editors will read it and report back to me in a few days (weeks?). The uploading of the MS was easy. It took only about five minutes of internet time. The cover graphics took about one half an hour with a delay when the phone connection was broken.
Jan 11. Another marvelous soiree at the home of Lucy and Michael. A piano-cello duo of Irina Nuzova and Fabien Thousand. To get a flavor of the afternoon, go to http://www.geocities.com/expositionnew. To see the photos, including Michael, Lucy, Marian, Izumi and Bob, add share_the_feeling.htm to the above URL.
Jan 29. Just received word from Pam Anderson, my rep at iuniverse, that my book, Why?, has gone through review and is now being produced. Should be ready in 4-6 weeks.
Feb1. The proofs for the book arrived last night. I now have 2 weeks to make minor corrections before publication.
Feb 4. Bad weekend! M fell on Nassau St, breaking a front tooth, creating a nasty gash on her lower lip and bruising her nose. Worst possible time for this accident. On Saturday we gave a reception for Izumi after her organ performance at the Princeton Seminary. On Monday M gave her long scheduled talk on Berlioz at the Opera Guild in Lincoln Center. To make matters worse, she had the flu and had lost most of her voice. In spite of these disasters, she came through like a hardy trouper.
Feb 13-16. To Baltimore for Vivat St Petersburg, a celebration of Russian culture. Thursday: Shostakovich's Violin Concerto number one by the Baltimore Symphony under Yuri Termirkanov. Great evening. Friday: The Faberge collection and Russian Avant-Garde paintings at the Walters Museum. Zakuski and wine in the evening. Saturday: Visit Baltimore Museum of Art and its show of the art of the Ballets Russes, especially the set designs of Bakst.Shown around by the director, Doreen Bolger, a former student of Marian's at Princeton. Sunday: Scheduled brunch and a talk by the son of Kruschev at the Walters. Unfortunately cancelled by the blizzard. The Amtrak trains still ran, but the city taxi service had shut down. Finally, the doorman flagged down a county taxi to take us to the train station. We left with about a foot of snow on the ground. Then, about four hours after we arrived in New York, the storm swept through that city. So we experienced the blizzard of 2003 twice.
Feb 14. Sent in the proofs for "Why." Books should be available in a few weeks.
Feb 27. One book arrives. Looks good. Where are the other 19?
Feb 28. Online Trading Expo at the Marriott Marquis Hotel. Familiar hype--use a mechanical stock timing system to make money on the market. Great idea, but who can impliment it day after day? Heard one of the great talks of my life by John Bollinger of Bollinger Capital Management. He claims that the stock market peaked in 1999 , ending a 16 year rally and ushering in a secular (long term) change in the financial markets. There will be no steady upward climb, just a trading market for the next decade, like the market from 1966 to 1982,. Very dour, but possibly correct view of the market.
Mar 15. Choral concert at the Church of the Incarnation, Madison and 35th st. Nathan Davis, director with Izumi at the organ.The Kyrie, Agnus Dei and the Chicester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein. Finished with folk and gospel songs. Great chorus, including several excellent sopranos. Loads of good looking young men and women in the church. What a surprise. They chattered like magpies.
Mar 30. Dinner at the 222 Restaurant just down the street on 79th St. The occasion was the 60th birthday of Alex S., a friend who has worked with Marian for many years on liason with the museums in Russia. Whoever Alex does not know in Russia is not worth knowing.
Apr 3. Meet Jim Glanz, a former student of mine at Princeton, at the New York Times Building in Times Square. Jim has switched from Physics to science reporting for the Times. He is currently on leave to write a book on the Twin Towers. He showed me the newsroom of the Times and we went out to lunch in a Scottish restaurant nearby.
Apr 18. Dave Cylinder at PPPL. Biomorphic approach to micro air vehicles. Flapping, clapping, swirling small airplanes, dimensions measured in inches and feet, designed to swarm in the sky like insects. Reexamining some of the early approaches to flight, using modern technology. Dave demonstrated three or four of his bantom weight (about 20 gram) models in the lecture room. I had to duck one propelled with rubber band power.
Apr 26. Visited Judith and Bill Frost in Hackensack, NJ. Enjoyed drinks and nibblies in their spacious apartment, then dinner at the Stony Hill Inn, 231 Polifly Rd.
May 9. Dinner at the Bayard Restaurant at India House (subway stop Wall Street) as guests of Mary Apied. Occasion was a reunion of Trinity College, Dublin, Marian's Alma Mater. Met Mary Robinson & husband Nick. She was former President of Ireland, the the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, now the Chancellor of Trinity. Also met Joseph O'Sullivan, a biochemist turned administrator at Bristol Meyers Squib. Lives only a few blocks away from us in Princeton!

May 17. Young New Yorkers' Chorus at the Christ United Methodist Church, Park Ave and 60th, Nathan Davis director. Vaughan Williams, Fauré, Bernstein, Brahms, and Barber in a delightful evening of music in a splendid Greek Orthodox like church, gold leaf, Christ Panocrater, etc, the works. Didn't know Methodists built such churches. Izumi worked like a dervish at the piano and the organ.