Dying to Come Back As a Memoir

Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen

Dying to come back as a Memoir When George Gershwin asked to study composition with Maurice Ravel, Ravel replied, “Why be a second- rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” a I much prefer that my own style be my own, uncultivated and rude, but made to fit as a garment, to the measure of my mind rather than someone else’s, which may be more elegant, ambitious, and adorned but one that deriving from a greater genius, continually slips off, Copyright © 2013 by Stephen Rosen. All rights reserved. unfitted to the humble proportions of my intellect. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any --Petrarch means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author. a

Disclaimer: This book is based on fallible memory and many of the stories did not “Is it true, Rabbi, that ‘Do unto others as you would have them actually happen the way I describe them; portrayals of individuals and events contain motivated misperceptions, selective recall, confirmation biases, irony, and inventive or do unto you’ summarizes all of the Torah’s wisdom, and all imaginative recreations that make me appear wiser and more heroic or than I actually Jewish ethical and moral teachings?” was or am. --Astrophysicist PROSPECT PRESS 7 Prospect Boulevard East Hampton, NY 11937 and “Well, let me answer your question with a question. Is it true that 35 West 81st Street, Suite 1D all of astrophysics -- stellar evolution, cosmology, supernovae -- New York, NY 10024 is summarized by saying “Twinkle, twinkle, little star?”

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data --Rabbi Rosen, Stephen Youth, Middle-Age and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen a Dying to come back as a Memoir Everyone knows that the insane interpret the world via ISBN: 1479382205 ISBN 13 9781479382200 their own peculiar logic; how can you tell if your own LCCN: 2013901060 logic is “peculiar”, given that you have only your own CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform logic to judge itself? North Charleston, South Carolina --Douglas Hofstadter Also by Stephen Rosen a COSMIC RAY ORIGIN THEORIES (1960, Dover) FUTURE FACTS (1976, Simon & Schuster) WEATHERING (1979, M. Evans) I did not invent human beings. CAREER RENEWAL (1998, Academic/HBJ) with Celia Paul --Saul Bellow Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen

Dying to come back as a Memoir Table of Contents

I Youth Introduction: Kernels of Truth in Grains of Salt...... xiii 1. A Man For All Reasons...... 1 The sunshine man, from rags to riches 2. On Being A Good Person �� 17 Kindness and generosity 3. Genealogical Research �� 25 Throwing stones 4. Exceeding My Expectations �� 31 Eight, sixteen, twenty-one 5. Before You Were Born �� 37 Things happened 6. Deadly Hitch-hike �� 45 Saving three lives 7. Geniuses, Wunderkinds & Stevie Wonder �� 51 Role models 8. The Physics Years: Owego, Ft. Schuyler, & Paris �� 61 A physicist travels 9. Future Facts �� 71 Why a book? 10. Measure Twice; Cut Once! �� 75 Impulsive and inattentive

vii Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Table of Contents

II MIDDLE-AGE 4. A Person Of Interest: The FBI, The CIA, and The KGB �� 195 What did he do to deserve this? 1. My Half-Life �� 85 Radioactivity and other decays 5. Darwin, Darwin, and Self-Flattery �� 203 A stoic Ecuadorian comrade 2. Tiresias & Loneliness �� 89 Who enjoys love-making more? 6. Passion-At-Work �� 209 Most satisfying accomplishments 3. Rich Uncle, Poor Uncle �� 99 A couple of fraudulent bastards 7. Anastomosis: The Tree-House and Marriage �� 215 Measure twice; cut once 4. Urban Biking �� 105 An accident and a saint 8. Comedy Workshop �� 219 A funny thing happened on the way to married bliss 5. Driving A Taxi �� 109 Down and out in New York 9. Singin’ In The Brain �� 225 Songs my mother never taught me 6. A Volunteer In Israel �� 113 Digging sandbags and roots 10. A Glamorous Dubious Past �� 247 My beautiful daughter, the charmer 7. Mouse-traps, or Dead Mice? �� 119 Mistakes 11. Oy Gevalt! �� 259 A religious conversion 8. The Sex Life of My Former Piano Teacher �� 123 Sex at ninety-three 12. Ironic Assemblages �� 261 Welded transformations 9. Chinese Water Torture & Christian Science �� 127 Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law 13. A Tough Act To Follow �� 265 Celia after Dershowitz 10. Polishing The Turd �� 133 Shrinks versus the Rabbi 14. The Road Less-Traveled �� 269 Another path III YOU-LOOK-GREAT! 15. Grand-Kids As A Reward �� 275 Galway, London, Paris, Villefavard, Barcelona, 1. Nice Work & You Can Get It: My Finest Hour �� 169 Soviet émigré refuse-nik scientists as New Americans 16. Me Infinitesimal! �� 285 Hard-wired for significance 2. How I Met The Sunshine of My Life �� 187 She made three conclusions 17. My ‘Rosebud’ and ‘The Table’ �� 289 Peripatetic mahogany 3. Sol Paul & Dublin’s Jewish Lord Mayors �� 191 Shiksa fever 18. Afterwords: Both and Neither �� 293 Both and Neither viii ix Appendices

A. The Difference Between Talent and Genius The author’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration -- with encomi- ums, criticisms, praise, witticisms, original songs, stories (some even true), introductions, and panegyrics. B. Rockefeller University Panel “Career Change Among Scientists”, Rockefeller University November 13, 1997 Participants: Joseph Atick, President and CEO of Visionics Corporation, and Rockefeller University; David Z. Robinson, Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and the Government; Stephen Rosen, Science and Technology Advisory Board; Celia Paul, Celia Paul Associates. C. Cosmic Messengers Gifts from beyond D. What’s Good About Goodbye? You don’t have to break glass to get air; you can open the window. E. In Memoriam: Harding Willinger Eighty percent of him was greater than one hundred percent of anyone else. F. Expertise As An Addiction The perils of trained incapacity G. Heroes of Nine-Eleven Untimely deaths of people I worked with. H. Obituary Notice As Imagined by the Author What he thinks he wants to be remembered for.

xi Introduction:

KERNELS OF TRUTH IN GRAINS OF SALT

In the locker room each day after I swim, I place my wet swimsuit into a device that wrings out the water. It’s a small automatic spin-dryer whose centrifugal force flings the water out of my black nylon Speedo. The sign on the spin-dryer says: “This unit is self-timed and will shut down automatically at the end of its cycle. It will not reset.” I see these words every day after I swim …and it slowly dawns on me that this sign is an epiphany. An inert spin-dryer sign is communicating not only Instructions about a Device, but also a Decree and a Verdict on the end of my life. Hemingway put it differently: “For whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”. The message I take away from the locker room is virtually the same: For whom the spin-dry cycle rolls, it rolls for thee. The end is near. My end is nearer than it’s ever been. Friends I haven’t seen in a while greet me with, “You look great!” But “Youth” and “Middle-age” have passed me by. So I conclude that You-look-great! is the third phase of my life. Sure, the end is near, but I prefer to call the period I now inhabit, the “You-look- great” phase of my life. Irony, tongue-in-cheek, grains of salt, kernels of truth…yes, all of these can be found in “You-Look-Great Stephen Rosen!” If I really do look great, it’s a peculiarly unfair and paradoxi- cal compliment. Why do people expect me to have the memory ability, the physical agility, the quickness-of-mind, the word-fluency and vocabulary I had in my mid-fifties or mid-sixties, just because I may sometimes “look great.” I’m really an old guy now,

xiii Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Introduction: or what-would-have-been-considered-old in my parents’ era. When substance? With a tongue in cheek…as a jocular extrovert, a semi- my parents were my age now (late seventies) they had been dead hypochondriac? A friend says: “To know Steve is to be his friend.” for five years. Why can’t I look my age? Another says “Steve feels emotions more deeply than others.” A People say, “What’s your secret?” I’ve got well-rehearsed, former colleague said: “Winston Churchill was an introvert com- tongue-in-cheek answers: “First, you have to choose the right pared to Steve Rosen.” But Winston said: “We are all worms, but I grandparents. [I did!] Second, you have to be happily married. [I believe I am a glow-worm”. He was. Am I? am!] Third, you have to love your work. [Yes!] Fourth, you have Am I a sunset (at the end of my days) re-living a dawn (by cel- to take naps [I do!]. And most important, you have to act immature. ebrating the beginnings of my days)? Or am I simply a voluble [Check! And Double-Check!]” I get weak smiles at these sopho- candidate for that support group for people in recovery who talk moric lines. Occasionally, I quote them when someone asks why too much, called “On-and-On Anon”? I look so young for my age. If I volunteer my age, a stranger may In this book I’m defining who I am from imperfections –expe- say, “But you look much younger.” This gives me the opportunity to riences and events gleaned from each phase of my life. I am not utter these five grains-of-salt, these kernels-of-truth, about my still- aspiring to be a role-model. “Old people like to give good advice as a youthful appearance. consolation for the fact that they can no longer set a bad example” (La But I know I’m kidding-on-the-square, trying to deny the inevi- Rochefoucauld) To the contrary: I can still set bad examples, but table, making fun of old age and longevity because deep down it is I try to avoid giving advice. I learned lessons that define me alone. serious sub-text to my every autobiographical thought. I’m dying I’ll get one chance only to make a first impression, so this quasi- (so to speak) to squeeze out (so to speak) – and to convey -- the Memoir is my only reincarnation. defining stories of my life—my memories… before all the juice Who am I? of life is extracted and wrung out of me. Like the swimsuit water What part of speech am I? A hyper-active verb? An adverb? A extractor does to my Speedo. hyphen? A walking exclamation point! Am I bold-face, or italic? What class of number would I be…large, small, complex, tran- scendental, negative? (Three kinds of mathematicians: those who a can count, and those who can’t.) What kind of painting would I be? A Cubist multi-faceted Picasso portrait of a wild-eyed clown So many Memoirs are in the air -- like avian flu, pollen, and looking in several directions at once? A lush romantic landscape humidity -- that I read them with a grain of salt (Pliny’s purported by Pisarro? What kind of music am I? A Gershwin song? (Which antidote for poison), and I suggest you do the same with this one? “Nice Work If You Can Get It” is what I’d like played at my book, a work of autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography, memorial service, please. I’ve sung this during lectures to audi- quasi-Memoir. But please remember there is a kernel of truth and ences of lawyers at the Bar Association, scientists at MIT, and phy- tongue-in-cheek in every grain of salt. A famous line from the The sicians at Mt. Sinai Medical School.) A Beethoven symphony? Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam defines happiness as: “A jug of wine, a (Which one? The second movement of the Seventh?) A piano loaf of bread, and thou beside me”. My own definition: “A grain of salt, concerto? (Which one? The movement of the Beethoven’s that a tongue in cheek, a kernel of truth, and thou reading my Memoir”. (Note Leonard Bernstein lifted that became “Somewhere(There’s A Place the first two letters of Memoir are me.) For Me)” in “West Side Story”? When this theft was pointed out to How would I define me? With a grain of salt… as a buffoon, him he remarked, “Talent borrows; genius steals”.) A sonata? (The smart-aleck, wise-guy? With a kernel of truth… as a very sober still-vertical creature wanting to be taken seriously as a man of

xiv xv Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great!

Pathetique?) Has my part-of-speech, my number, my painting, or my music even been created yet? A baroque musician has left us instructions on how to write a sonata: First, find a sonata that you like so you can use it as a model by taking it apart; second, replace the treble-clef notes with a melody of your own, taking care to ensure it tracks properly and har- moniously with the original existing bass-clef notes; third, replace the existing bass-clef notes with your own original notes to har- monize with your new treble-clef notes; then, write it down, and voila…a New Sonata! My life-themes (physics, music, helping others) resemble the original Old Sonata with its old bass- and treble- A Man For All Reasons notes; my new careers resemble those new bass- and treble-notes that replaced the old to create a New Sonata (changing careers, doing sculpture, writing songs). Yet the Old Sonata and the origi- e was born Moshe. His birth certificate says Morris. But his nal me still dwell beneath the surface. Old and New resonate. friends and relatives and my Mom all called him Mike. But do I really have to define myself, dammit? If I’m to be re-incar- H I called him Dad. I learned from his examples how to work nated in (or as) a Book, my experiences and circumstances, my adven- hard and how to amuse people. But rarely simultaneously. tures and mis-adventures, great happenstances and small occasions, my In their 1932 wedding portrait, Dad is wearing a tux and top insights and outlooks, my foibles and fables, my immodest achievements hat, Mom a lovely white dress. Dad looks formal with a slight ironic and embarrassing mistakes…will all have to speak for themselves. Thus… smile that came to be his trade-mark -- and a fond memory. He After Beethoven had finished playing one of his newly-com- smiled that smile when he was about to ‘crack wise’ as he put it, or posed sonatas, a fan asked him, “But Sir. What does it mean?” about to utter something preposterous, charming, or weird… Beethoven reportedly sat down and played the sonata through “Is it as cold in the winter as it is in the country?” was a favorite again, and when he had finished -- refusing to be defined -- said, quip of Mike’s. “Fish don’t perspire” is another one that his grand- “That’s what it means!” daughter Lisa remembers fondly. “What’s heavier: a pound of lead, or Pass the salt. Note the tongue in cheek. And the kernels of truth. a pound of feathers?” “You’d kick even if you were swimming.” “You’ll As Gloria Swanson said to Cecil B. DeMille in the film “Sunset be late for your own funeral” “O/ Wa/ Ta/ Go/ Siam” (translation: oh Boulevard”, and as I said to my naïve young proctologist as he was what a goose I am).”Rich or poor, it’s always good to have money.” All about to insert a fiber-optic device into my lower colon to perform of us laughed no matter how many times we heard these. I still a colonoscopy, “I’m ready for my close-up. A drum roll, if you please. grin, revealing a slightly ironic smile, mirroring his. There are few pictures of Dad with us children because he was a always working at the restaurant before 1947. There’s one snap- shot of sister Barbara and me and Mom and Dad (our brother Elliott wasn’t born yet), taken in about 1942 in the restaurant, called the Enduro, that he and his older brother Harry owned and operated. (The name derived from a brand of stainless steel they used.) In 2013, Alan Rosen, Harry’s grand-son, opened Enduro, a

xvi 1 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons restaurant on the upper east side of Manhattan, in honor of Mike online. Spontaneously, he also sang, “Horch Che Chorn Ya”, and “OH and Harry. Shittanya, OH Shittanya …If I Had My Way I’d Shittanya All Day”. I Dad was nobody’s fool. When he was in the restaurant busi- suspect the latter he made up himself, although further research ness, he had once discovered a waiter had printed up counterfeit might reveal he heard it in a vaudeville show in his Youth. Always restaurant checks, handing out one copy with the higher-than- with the tongue-in-cheek smile. He should have had it patented. It’s menu prices to the customer, and turning in to Dad a copy with been especially valuable to me now that I feel and see where it came lower actual-menu prices—pocketing the difference. Dad noticed from. Dad would have loved the title of a 1911 song about adultery, this and fired him. entitled, “If You Talk In Your Sleep, Don’t Mention My Name.” He was ever-scornful of waiters. He insisted that if one of his Born in 1906, he was one of thirteen children, only five of whom waiters was asked by a patron, “Pardon me, waiter. Can you tell me survived, born to Barnet and Sarah Roskolenkier, who came from what time it is?” His waiter would say, “I’m sorry, sir, but this is not my Lomza Goberna, a city that couldn’t make up its mind whether to table”. (That was a joke Dad enjoyed telling.) be in Poland or Russia. The family name changed at Ellis Island Dad used to carry a lot of daily cash receipts from the Enduro to Rosen. in the days before credit cards. As a result, he had obtained a Dad was -- depending on who you speak to -- an optimist, a pistol permit which allowed him to carry a concealed weapon in good business-man, a friendly and outspoken guy, hot-tempered, New York City. He was robbed at gunpoint. Stopped at a traffic somewhat shy, impulsive, a diamond-in-the-rough, very practical, light at six am when he was driving home after the night shift, he scary, a bully, tough, generous, and every bit a charming maver- was jumped by two thugs who hopped onto his running boards. ick. He loved all members of his family; his business and mak- (These are ledges old-fashioned cars used to have outside each ing money (“money is honey”, he often said); gadgets and tools; door, to make it easier to enter.) Each pointed a gun at his head. cars; driving-very-fast; working-very-hard; people; the opera; fine He would have been shot dead had he tried to use the revolver— watches and jewelry; puttering and fixing things; collecting junk; one of the few tools he didn’t know how to use. They stripped him scanning the classified ads section of Sunday’s New York Times; of his money and valuables, tied his hands to the steering wheel, and wise-cracks. put a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes, locked the Dad used to say that his business lost money every day—but he doors of the car, pulled his Borsalino over his eyes, and tossed made up for it by staying closed on Sundays. He was a bundle of his car keys down the sewer. It was hours before anyone going eccentricities and aphorisms: “The letter ‘g’ in the word ‘sign’ is silent to work saw him and called the cops. (I still have this Borsalino like the cue (q) in billiards.” And he didn’t care what people thought from the 1930s. People stop me on the street and ask where I got of him. Sometimes, when I was embarrassed by his flamboyance, it. I usually say, “It’s spoken for”. Bela has asked to have it, so he has he teased me: “You worry about what people say”. Nowadays, follow- “first dibs”. Lisa, my-daughter-the-art-restorer, has refurbished it ing Dad’s example, I take pleasure in good-naturedly embarrass- for posterity.) ing my own children. In Brooklyn in the late 1930s, where the Enduro, thrived, I remember hearing the Inkspots on the radio singing “If I Didn’t Care”(1939). Boy, did I care. I loved music. And so did Dad. a Dad would spontaneously burst out into song, on occasion, sing- We moved to Flushing Queens in 1940 when I was six years old. ing “Stick Out Your Can, Here Comes The Garbage Man”, a song us kids The brand-new house was on a nice street with newly planted did not believe existed until nephew Louie discovered it recently trees, with other similar houses, and very pleasant neighbors

2 3 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons

-- including some kids my age. Dad became friendly and popu- mobsters who came to hear Frank Sinatra sing at the Brooklyn lar with all the neighbors; they loved his generosity and genial Paramount across the street during World War Two. The Enduro personality. had made a very good living for the two Rosen brothers and their Dad loved to fix things around the new house. I was made his growing families. helper, assistant, and chief “gofer” (as in “Steve: go for a left-handed Dad and Uncle Harry Rosen (Dad’s brother) declared the monkey wrench”.) He decided to install underground sprinklers so Enduro bankrupt. GIs were returning. Labor unions got strong. we wouldn’t have to lug hoses around the back and front yards. And maybe they gambled too much at the racetrack during the The house had a vast number of plumbing fittings and pipe “fat” years of World War Two. of all sizes left over by the builder. Dad taught me the names and Harry and Mike parted ways, remaining brothers in name only. sizes of each fitting so I could fetch them for him from the base- The Harry Rosen and the Mike Rosen families socialized only ment while he worked on his sprinkler project. rarely. There was some bad blood between Harry and Mike, in I learned all that I could as a six-year old about brass pipe fit- part because my father and mother both thought Harry was too tings: “elbows”, “unions”, “nipples”, three-quarter inch this and big for his britches, too bossy, and too arrogantly self-important. half-inch that. I loved watching my Dad join things together. I He had a huge ego, was a “legend-in-his-own-mind”, and possessed loved helping him join things together. I still love joining things what I now call “important-itis”. (More about this dreaded pathol- together. In the afternoon of my life, I still join things -- ideas, ogy in a chapter called, “Rich Uncle, Poor Uncle”.) words, books, and people -- together. I weld tools together into So Dad decided to get out of the restaurant business where he abstract shapes and animals. My love of tools and fixing things was working 16-hour days on his feet. Instead he went into the car began with Dad. (“Thanks, Dad!”) wash business and worked only 12 or 14 hours a day on his feet. Dad always had tools around the house. I still love tools... hand Dad had bought large amounts of life insurance during the tools, power tools, garden tools, nuts and bolts and screws. I still money-making years at the Enduro, when the restaurant was a purchase tools at yard sales and weld them into abstract sculp- gold mine. He borrowed against his life insurance, and invested tures and assemblages like Picasso’s sculpture of a bull, made of in a car wash. a bicycle seat and handle-bars. (See the chapter entitled “Ironic When I was in high school (Bayside High School) from 1947 to Assemblages”) 1951, I worked weekends and summers at the car wash alongside Dad called me his “number one son” (meaning first-born, in imi- Dad and his very-low-income-all-black employees who got paid tation of Charlie Chan from a series of movies of that era.) As a $0.75 an hour in those days. kid, I followed Dad faithfully like a puppy and admiringly like an They frequently came to work drunk. They carried razor blades acolyte on his appointed rounds. Much later, after Mom died, I and knives for self-protection, used words and phrases unfamiliar asked Dad if I was their favorite, and the answer was a strong “No”; to me, but exposure to them opened up my sheltered middle-class- but as kid, I felt like I was. Maybe good parenting makes us all feel bubble-life to a “liberal” education about life in the real world. special. The comfortable life I lived at Bayside High School, on 181st Street, and later at Queens College, was mainly possible because Dad overcame the immigrant squalor he grew up in on the ‘mean a streets’ and in the ‘school of hard knocks’ of the Lower East Side at the beginning of the twentieth century. Dad said everyone he A year after my Bar Mitzvah, the Enduro was forced to close. It had become a famous restaurant that was frequented by Mafioso

4 5 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons grew up with was poor, but “we didn’t know we were poor”. I guess But Vito stands out in my mind because he explained how he fish do not know they exist in water. saved his money. “So I take-a da silva dollas from-a da biznez, and I-a Dad was simultaneously a tough boss, a practical employer, a drop-a them into the 55 gallon steel drum buried under my concrete floor hard-working role-model, a worldly-wise mentor, and loving father. in-a the my basement of-a my house. No thieves-a could open it.” When he said I was “dragged up” (not “raised up”) he meant it as Someone asked Vito, “So how are you going to retrieve the silver an ambiguous pleasantry …one of his ironic wise-cracks about life. dollars when the drum was full?. He replied that a 55 gallon drum He meant he was not going to coddle me. No son of his would be full of silver was going to be worth so much money that he could a spoiled rich-kid treated with kid gloves, even though my mother afford to use jack-hammers to dig out and get at the silver dollars, thought that I was a Jewish Prince. and a welding torch to open the drum. How much would 55 gal- In the phrase “Flushing-by-the mud” Dad was saying, in effect: lons of silver dollars be worth? A treasure. I hesitate to guess. An “Don’t think you live in Hastings-on-Hudson or Deauville-by-the-Sea, exercise for the reader. [Hint: how much does a 55-gallon drum because like me, you come from humble beginnings; like me, you’re gonna of water weigh? One gallon weighs about 8 pounds. The density have to work hard to earn my respect and your self-respect and anything of silver is about ten times that of water. There are 16 ounces to a else you really want.” This was Mike Rosen’s subtext, text, and super- pound. The 2012 price of silver is about $40 an ounce. Some hint! text…his mantra…his Bible, his Shakespeare, his raison d’etre. Allow for spaces between the silver dollars, and the fact they are Sometimes these roles conflicted, especially on those occasions not pure silver. I get about one to two million 2012 dollars!] when I thought I knew more than he knew (often); when I was At these meetings of the car wash owners association were the being a rebellious teenager (often); when I was merely being a dif- Turk brothers, who ran the biggest car wash in Queens; they used ficult adolescent and adversary (often); or simply being a wise-ass to brag that they would wash 1,200 cars on a busy Saturday. My smart-aleck (very often). Mark Twain comes to mind: “When I was father was dubious -- but curious about it. So he paid my child- fifteen, I thought my father was an awful ignoramus; but by the time I was hood friend Justin McCarthy to watch from behind a billboard twenty five, I was surprised at how much the old man had learned in just and to count every car that passed through their car wash opera- ten short years.” tion from 6 a.m. to 6 pm. I brought Justin lunch. Those two “brag- I followed Dad around at the car-wash, and whenever he met garts” had not exaggerated. people he knew from the car wash business… competitors, suppli- Working alongside Dad and the employees, we washed 600 ers, his old grammar-school friends from the Lower East Side, and cars one day at two bucks a car. In the 1950s this was real money. his new pals. I eventually went with him to monthly meetings of No credit cards then, so this was what Dad called “green”. a trade association, a semi-social gathering of car wash owners— In the twenty-first century, the car wash we inherited (at 175-04 men like my father who were mostly un-educated, self-made “rug- Horace Harding Expressway) is still a car wash now operated by a ged individualists”. commercial tenant using modern equipment who, charging up to Some of them were very colorful. One guy, an Italian named twenty bucks for a car wash, grosses about a million dollars a year. Vito, looked like a rough-and-ready alpha male sent from central Dad drove himself very hard. He drove all his employees very casting to be a Mob boss. I imagined he was well-connected to the hard, sometimes as many as twenty-five guys on a busy Saturday. Mob. I had seen a lot of Mob movies starring guys who looked a And he drove me very hard. I learned about hard work by watch- lot like Vito, and I had a vivid imagination. He may not have been ing Dad work hard. I got to do each job at the car wash: vacuum- “connected”. ing cars, directing traffic, washing, drying, supervising, managing, and depositing checks. Dad worked diligently and prospered. Our

6 7 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons family lived well (at 64-26 181st Street, in Flushing, Queens) and Upon his return, Dad discovered that the manager was stealing Dad was proud to be a good provider and proud of his family. At receipts daily, right under my nose due to my naiveté and inex- times his pride veered into hubris: Mom said of him that he wanted perience. Dad’s due diligence and street smarts led him to get (and achieved) success, but he didn’t know quite what to do with the money back by making an offer to the manager he couldn’t it when he had it -- although he loved cars and owned a series of refuse: either go to jail or sign a letter agreeing to pay back all his unusual vehicles, including an apple-green Chrysler “Town and stolen funds. (He signed and paid the money back.) Country” convertible elegantly trimmed in blonde wood. I was crushed and very disappointed in myself that I hadn’t In the middle 1950s, demagogues like Joseph McCarthy done my job of watching the family business properly. I am still were persecuting anyone with left-leaning or Communist affilia- displeased with my performance that summer when I “covered” tions. Our former ally in World War II, the Soviet Union, and its for Dad….but didn’t “uncover” the leakage of funds. Communist ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ became our mortal Dad and I clashed angrily from time to time. On one occasion, enemy in the Cold War. I did not show up for work as expected. When Dad came home to My “social conscience” developed slowly. I began to think find me calmly watching television while he himself had put in a that those poor blacks I worked with at the car wash were being grueling 12-hour workday, he was furious at me. Impulsively, he “exploited” by my Dad and by people like him. rushed to accost me and stood over me and raised his hand as if Dad noticed my new attitude, and asked if I was friendly to to strike me, something he never did, and my reaction surprised Communists and idealistic lefties. I gave an ambiguous answer. even me. But of course at college, professors were fired for their leftist affili- I found myself bounding out of my chair, and stood tall. I was a ations, party groups, or Communist “cells”. full head taller than him. And then I shouted at him, “You touch me I was conflicted. My father was a successful businessman who and I’ll beat the shit out of you!” I had no idea I was going to say this. had pulled himself out of crushing poverty. He had “made it”. We Dad recoiled, surprised at my aggressive posture and words. My had a good standard of living because of him and his embrace Mom was beside herself, pleading with us, trying to pacify both of of capitalism. Capitalism also embraced the hard-driving Mike us. Dad backed off. Neither he nor I apologized, but Mom made Rosen. It was a case of mutual admiration. us make peace. Life returned slowly to business-as-usual. Looking His employees, who owned no business like a car wash, were back, I counted my assertive behavior as the beginning of my “wage slaves”. My father paid them the going wage. They earned breaking away from the grip of the family business, dependence their money. If they were “exploited” they certainly were no angels, on Dad, and my autonomy. these poor workers, and if they were lazy or drunk or belligerent Dad was very proud of me even if he never told me. I heard brawlers...shame on them. indirectly that he would brag about my accomplishments to his Over time, while I was still in college and living at home, Dad friends. gave me more and more responsibility on the job. He needed When I graduated Queens College, Mom and Dad came to my some relief and a vacation. He decided to put me in charge of graduation and to a special ceremony where I received an award the manager and keep an eye on him, so he and Mom and Elliott as the top student that year. I heard him cheering as I went up could go on a one-month cross-country car trip. Dad loved cars to gather the science books given to me inscribed by all of the and loved driving. He could sit while driving, and could drive as physics professors: “To Stephen Rosen, awarded for Excellence in fast as he liked. (“What seems to be the matter, Officer?”) Physics.”

8 9 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons

Dad wanted me to go into the car wash business with him, I turned this story over and over in my mind, and one day but I wanted to study physics. After I left home to go to graduate decided to do something myself. My wife, children, and I were school, Dad found a car wash partner, Tony Compagna, who was a visiting Mom and Dad in Peekskill on a wintry Sunday. I suggested few decades younger than Dad. They became co-owners of several to Dad that we take a walk in the nearby woods together, just the car washes together. Dad was a trusted mentor to Tony and they two of us. I spoke to him about us and our relationship over the got along very well together. (Unlike Dad and his brother Harry.) years: me as a kid growing up; me as a rebellious teenager; he and They really enjoyed each other’s company, hung out, and even I working together at the car wash; me as a grown man with my went to the racetrack together. own family. After I had children in my late twenties, and was then a young Then I said, “Dad: I’ve told you over the years how oppositional I was assistant professor of physics, I began to reflect on my relation- to you. But I never told you how much I loved you”. ship with Dad. I guess working for and with him for a few years, I Dad burst into tears. I burst into tears. We stood there, among picked up a lot of his mannerisms and attitudes. Like him, I joked the frozen trees in the cold snow and hugged each other for a with the customers. Like him, I worked hard. Like him, I exuded long time. It felt good. Dad was crying out of happiness and I was prideful confidence. sobbing because I was able to say what I deeply felt, and it was a This was during the 1960s. Miki (my then-wife), son Daniel, release. and daughter Lisa and I would visit Mom and Dad on a Sunday A stranger came walking along the path in the woods. He once every month or so, in Peekskill, in a lovely house, a hide- noticed us sobbing and hugging. He asked, “Is there anything wrong? away love-nest in a glen with a stream running alongside, they had Can I help?” Both Dad and answered “No thanks. Everything is fine”. bought to escape the gossip of the old neighbors on 181st Street in Queens. As I thought about my new role as head of a growing family, a and as a new father, and as a young upwardly-mobile professional, Don’t ever give a gun to a hot-head. In the nineteen fifties our I realized that Dad was truly a very good role model for me. He Dad was the proud owner of a car wash. A car wash customer was a good father, a family man, a very hard worker, generous to licked his finger and ran it over the finish of his car and then everyone, was amusing, had friends and colleagues who respected complained that his car was still dirty. Dad said, “We don’t wash our him, and was sought out by people for advice. cars with spit”. The customer was not amused. He backed his car I remembered Mark Twain’s remark about his father, quoted into the car wash, blocking all the cars that came behind him on earlier: “…surprised at how much the old man had learned in just 10 the assembly line. Dad said, “Just bring your car around the front and short years.” This seemed to fit my new circumstances -- except we’ll wash it again”. The customer said, “Wash it again right here and it took me longer than it took Mark Twain to realize that I was right now”. So Dad got into the car and drove it out of the car wash the one who had changed. I was in my thirties, teaching at the so the cars behind, assembly-line fashion, could continue to pass Maritime College at Fort Schuyler, and writing my dissertation. through single file. A friend, Stanley, whose father had died when he was only The customer got into his car, and backed it up blocking the twelve years old, confided how much he regretted that he had oncoming assembly line of cars. He locked the doors so Dad could never told his father he loved him. In his frequent dreams, Stanley not drive it out. Dad was frustrated, impulsive, and angry. He got was able to tell his dream-version father that he loved him, but twenty of his men, big bruisers built like football linemen, to lift these dreams haunted him regularly, even as an adult. the car and to carry it outside where it wouldn’t block the exit of

10 11 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons oncoming cars. The customer unlocked his car, got in, and backed successful businessman who always voted Republican. Harry took it right into the path of the exiting cars, blocking the exit once one look at the beard and said: “You have to get rid of that!” again. Though reluctant to part with it, Dad complied. He and I found Dad still had a license to carry a concealed weapon. He pulled a very nice gated community with a pool and lots of people his age. the gun out of his back pocket--and shot out the customer’s tire Most of these retirees were widows, outnumbering the men about flat. (He went ballistic!) The police were called. Dad was taken to three to one. Once he got over mourning Mom, Dad had his pick. the station where I picked him up. He and the cops were having a Harry and Ruth tried fixing Dad up with some of the wealthy big laugh about the whole episode. But he had his license to pack widows they knew. And Dad asked me to help meet potential a rod revoked. He had to pay a steep financial penalty as well. female companions. While sitting on the chaise lounges poolside Lesson: don’t carry a concealed weapon if you’re impulsive. (Dad in sunny Florida he said: “Steve. I’ve forgotten how to meet women. It said that the tire was flat—but only on the bottom.) was so long ago when I did it last. I need help. You’ve been divorced a long time. How do I start speaking to a complete stranger?” I said: “Sure. I can help.” I walked around the pool several times a to scope out the scene of available ladies. I noticed a pleasant woman of a certain age, in good health, chatting amiably with her I helped him move out of the Peekskill house after Mom died friends. in 1975 of complications from a stroke and cancer. The house was I approached and introduced myself: “Hi. My name is Steve full of memories of their lives together, but there was very little, Rosen, and my Dad just moved here from New York. My Mom died and aside from a few neighbors, to console him and to take him away he’s lonely. He’d like to meet you, but he’s shy.” from his memories and his profound grief. His grief became my She said, “Which one is he?” I said: “It’s that very nice man over grief. there”, and I pointed him out. She looked, and said, “Sure. I’ll be Dad’s physician urged him to move to Florida to start a new life happy to meet him. But can I ask you a question?” And I said: “Yes. Of and to meet new people. I volunteered to accompany Dad to Boca course”. Raton where Harry and Ruth Rosen lived “the good life” in a very She said, (and I am not making this up): “Are you married?” I upscale Jewish community called Woodlands. said, “No”. Then she asked, “Where do you live?” I responded, “New But first, I proudly brought Harry and Mike together for a York City”. meeting to reconcile any old differences, and so Harry could see She smiled. “I have a divorced daughter who lives in New York, and how bereft Dad was about losing Mom, and how lonely he was. I think you and she should meet each other.” Harry was, after all, his older brother -- for better or worse. (I I laughed, and brought her over to meet Dad. They got along spoke about this re-union, tearfully, in the family archival record- famously, and all of us were amused about her wishing to fix me ings that nephew Louie generously put together.) up with her divorced daughter. (I can’t remember if I ever met the Harry rose to the occasion. He was also in favor of his brother daughter.) Mike moving to Florida. He was enthusiastic in his praise of “the After a few years, Dad settled in to the good, slow-and-easy good life” and urged a new start in a new place with new people. Florida life. He had a steady girlfriend his age for a few years. When Dad and I arrived, Harry and Ruth were very welcoming. I flew down to see him where he had been taken on the previ- Dad had grown a beard since his retirement and looked a little ous Sunday: in the intensive care unit at the hospital. He was lucid like a “hippie” -- a look Dad would have scorned when he was a as I listened by his bedside to what had happened. He said, “In the

12 13 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A Man For All Reasons afternoon I had chest pains. I thought it was maybe indigestion or some- returned to New York I was depressed, exhausted, and came down thing routine. But after a few hours I realized it was serious and went to with pneumonia. the hospital.” I was forty-four, the year was 1978, and had not yet re-married, His doctor told me privately that Dad should have gone to so I was alone in my apartment. Recuperation dragged on for a the Emergency Room as soon as the pain started, and not waited, month; I became breathless walking a few feet. My immune system because damage was quickly done by prolonging the attack. must have completely collapsed. My sister Barbara brought me I sat with him for a few hours the day I arrived, and reported chicken soup, and I was very grateful. Then I knew what it meant his condition by phone to my sister Barbara and brother Elliott, and felt like to be “sick-at-heart”. and to Harry and Ruth. They suggested I stay with them, a rare act That “sick-at-heart” feeling permeated my days from morning of generosity, since they had never even allowed their own chil- to bed-time. Every morning for about a year I would wake up fine. dren to stay with them. Then, after a few minutes, I would remember that Dad had died. The next day I went to the hospital, accompanied by Dad’s This deep, tight, feeling, like a fist grabbing my heart, a squeeze- girlfriend of record. We chatted with Dad. He looked weak and pain in my chest returned, invading my life. I was glad I had told confused. He was able to speak with some difficulty. Dad, well before he died, that I loved him. Shirley and I left the hospital to go out for lunch together. About an hour later, we returned to the hospital. The reception- ist asked who we were. We explained that we had been in earlier, a visiting Morris Rosen. She said, “Wait a moment”. Flash-back to the 1950s… Mrs. Edner was a busybody-neighbor- A doctor approached and asked who we were. Then he who-would-enter-our-house-unannounced. She did this regularly. explained: “Morris Rosen died of a heart attack half an hour ago. As his Everyone else on 181st Street would knock or ring the bell first, of son, you may view his body if you wish.” course. But she walked right in without knocking or ringing the I was thunderstruck! Only an hour earlier Dad was alive. I felt doorbell. like a fist was squeezing my heart. I went to his room and closed Dad cured her of this bad habit by purposely coming to the top the door. of the stairs stark naked. He drew her attention to him by saying, Dad looked peaceful. His face was as relaxed as I’ve ever seen “Can I help you?” Mrs. Edner looked up, saw the nude Mike Rosen, him. I sat there holding his hand for long time. I recalled that and fled in confusion and embarrassment. She never entered when I was little, he would ask me to scratch his back. He had a unannounced again. mole on his upper shoulder. The mole was still there. I studied it for a long time, those memories of scratching his back when I was a kid, flooding my mind and filling the moment with grief. Dad’s a was the first dead body I had ever seen. I called my sister and brother: “I’m sitting in Dad’s hospital room with Dad. He finally looks relaxed and very peaceful. He died of a heart attack”. I made funeral arrangements to ship his body to New York. I arranged for his furniture and personal effects to be sold. When I

14 15 ON BEING A GOOD PERSON: EMMA ROSEN

y Mom, Emma Rosen, was the eldest of four children born in Mthe United States early in the twentieth century, of Russian- immigrant parents. If my ‘assignment’ from Dad was to work hard and to be successful, my ‘assignment’ from Mom was to be a good person. Her father Avram Katznellinson (“Zadie” to me) was an intellectual, an editor of a Hebrew-language newspaper in St. Petersburg, and a devout Zionist. He and his wife, both Zionists, came to America for the sole purpose of making and saving enough money so they could emigrate to the Holy Land, which at the time was called Palestine and now called Israel. Life did not work out for them as planned. His four children (Hy, Mom, Frieda, and Ellie) were born in New York, so it became difficult financially for the family to travel to Palestine. His wife died when I was three years old in 1937, and I have a dim memory of her bed-ridden and very frail. Zadie spoke no English and visited our family to teach me Hebrew before I was a Bar Mitzvah boy. Every Sunday he took public transportation from Bensonhurst in the bowels of Brooklyn, and spent two hours traveling to visit our home in Queens. I was his first grandson and he was eager for me to know Hebrew and to

17 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ON BEING A GOOD PERSON: EMMA ROSEN connect with him. I, however, was more interested in the choco- lunch: one woman looks up and down, then side to side, at his late reward he would give me after our lesson. open coat, and says “You call that a lining?”) Zadie was tall, with a lush beard, smoked cigarettes down to the nub, and smelled of tobacco smoke. He was from Babruysk (Bobruisk), in Belarus, a town south of Minsk. (For details, see a http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Bobruisk and the Mom grew up in a house in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, near next chapter, “Genealogy Research”.) Zadie was a writer, a phi- Sheepshead Bay. Unlike Dad, she finished high school, and got a losopher, and later when he lived in St. Petersburg, he was the job as a bank teller until she and Dad married. A wedding photo of editor of a Yiddish language newspaper. However, in America, her reveals a slender, attractive, fashionable young woman. which immigrants called “The Golden Land”, the land of oppor- Mom was an avid and voracious reader (she could assimi- tunity, he was a suit “presser”... a manual laborer. Zadie worked late several books a day), a skilled and fanatic cross-word puzzle hard, and was a religious man, a “wage-slave” who never was able addict -- and a lover of the theater and virtually everyone includ- to save enough money, once the children were born and settled in ing Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (especially Eleanor), Adlai America, to move to Israel. Stevenson, intellectuals, ADA (Americans for Democratic Action), At my Bar Mitzvah in 1947, Dad decided to have the Enduro Leonard Bernstein and Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and cater the post-synagogue-service celebration event at our home most family members. She was warm, emotionally accessible, open Flushing, New York -- and hired musicians to play. Over 100 fam- with her feelings, very intelligent, a good cook (though often put- ily, friends, and neighbors crowded into every room in the house. upon by Dad; long-suffering because she did not have a career Dad had hired a professional photographer to put together a huge outside our home) and a very generous hostess. photo album, which shows us mingling and visiting each other Mom liked Mrs. Roosevelt’s activities in helping those in need, happily at the event. in social welfare, in Negro’s and women’s rights, in what today we Grand-father Zadie gave a short toast in Russian or Yiddish; I might call “politically correct” issues,…but most of all Mom sought didn’t understand a word. A photo from the event shows Zadie to be – perhaps to a fault -- “a good person” and a kind and gener- speaking into a microphone, and me standing alongside. But my ous person --which she always was. eyes are closed out of boredom or incomprehension. That was She was never an activist. She was a liberal—as a friend put not one of my finer moments. Zadie died a year later and his was it—“a person whose feet are planted firmly in mid-air”. Her lib- the first funeral I ever attended. It was a very hot day. As they low- eral and personal views were always heart-felt. Her feelings were ered Zadie’s coffin into the ground, I fainted…collapsing to the very often expressed openly. She wept easily, and I must have ground. So Zadie’s death hit me hard. inherited that from her. I joke that I’m so sappy “I cry at television The major Manhattan industry in Zadie’s era, the early part of commercials”. the century, was garment manufacturing. This industry has since She raised us kids to be “good”, by which she meant us to moved “offshore” where labor costs are very low. (An excellent respect others, to be kind, to be generous, to be courteous and documentary about the rise and fall of the garment (“shmata”) polite at all times, and to help those less fortunate than we were. industry is, “From Rags To Riches To Rags”; a joke is told in the movie Her definition of a good Jew: “A good Jew is a good person.” This was about a flasher -- a guy showing his private parts by opening his coat her formulation of the “Golden Rule”. in front of women; he comes to the garment center of Manhattan during lunchtime when all the garment secretaries are out having

18 19 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ON BEING A GOOD PERSON: EMMA ROSEN

[Other definitions of a good Jew: from an Orthodox rabbi, “a during the day, what was on the news. (It was at dinner that I first good Jew is one whose grandchildren are good Jews”; from an Israeli, “a heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941; and good Jew is one who lives in Israel”.] at dinner when we heard that the first nuclear weapon devastated Mom was a very nurturing and supportive mother, and as men- Hiroshima in August 1945.) tioned a very good cook. When my father was not occupied as a Mom laughed and giggled if Dad said something even remotely work-a-holic, he loved to cook with her. Before he became a res- amusing. She loved him, but was often brow-beaten by him. Dad taurateur, he had worked as a sandwich man (and then owner) in expected Mom to be at his beck-and-call because he was a “good a luncheonette. My favorite photo shows the two of them in the provider”, and he felt justified in his small-time bullying and fre- kitchen making a turkey for us at Thanksgiving. quently tyrannical behavior. Dad also had a temper--which Mom All of the holidays were occasions for them to cook, and for us was afraid of. She was often rendered speechless by his anger and to visit together, especially later when I had my own family. orders. We and some relatives were not happy with the fact that he Mom was a warm and friendly person to virtually everyone. She bossed her around. (When I asked him late in his life why he did identified with the under-dog. She was overly trusting of people. this, he said, “I was afraid of her”!) She rarely said a bad thing about anyone. Two exceptions: she had But when he was relaxed and in an expansive good mood, Mom only scorn for Harry Rosen and his “big shot” airs and because would ruffle his hair, or kiss him—but we rarely saw the kind of of his shabby treatment of her husband in business; she was also demonstrative physical contact her death-bed confession (about critical of the poet Harry Roskolenko, Dad’s youngest brother we which more below) would have indicated. called “Bob”, who she referred to as a “schnorrer”, meaning a guy Bed-ridden after she had had a crippling stroke, she was alter- always looking for a hand-out…Of course he was a starving poet, nately irrational and lucid. Her periods of rambling consisted of the “black sheep” of the family. More about them in the chapter, intermittent free-associations, indecipherable nonsense, flash- “Rich Uncle, Poor Uncle”. backs to her early childhood, and injustices to her. This alternated Dad, ever the businessman, was tough-minded and somewhat with rational remarks about us and the world. skeptical of people and politicians. As mentioned, Mom was ten- (Why is it that memoir-writing brings out the death-bed scenes in all of der-hearted, a cultured person, and a big consumer (a ‘culture us?) vulture’) of ballet, the theater, music, books and books and ever- I sat next to her bed in the hospital…listening. She knew I was more books. She read books to a fault, and introduced us kids there. At several points she said my name. When she again became to books and the world of culture. Because she was a big fan of lucid, she said: “Steve. Your father has been the sunshine of my life!” I Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green I came to thought to myself, ‘This is news to me, given his dominant behavior love them, and still do. towards her later in her life’. But somewhere, somehow, she still had When she reached her menopause years, she often read trash, something positive from him…his ambition and energy, his opti- pulp fiction, and mystery stories—sometimes several a day to my mism and humor. father’s chagrin and dismay—ignoring her assigned role as “haus- Then, later: “Steve. My star. My star.” It is ironic to me that frau” and kitchen slave to our father’s what-he-felt-to-be-justifiable my doctoral dissertation dealt with exploding stars, called “super- demands for a hot meal on the table when he came home late nova”, and how they generate cosmic radiation. (Please see after a 12-14 hour day on his feet. “Cosmic Messengers” in the Appendix.) I suspect her comment We usually waited for Dad to come home and invariably ate was a coincidence, because my stars are different than her stars. But dinner all together. Table talk was hot and lively, what we did who knows? I didn’t pick the subject; it picked me.

20 21 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ON BEING A GOOD PERSON: EMMA ROSEN

My theory is that Mom was an episodic depressive and an I thought Mom and Dad were never physically affectionate in introvert—which explained her compulsive book-reading and front of us kids, which was a norm in that era….but once they were cross-word puzzle-solving (she could do the New York Time daily alone—who knew? My brother tells me that he overheard Dad’s cross-word in about ten minutes, and one in the Sunday Times brothers talking about Mom and Dad’s very vigorous and lusty sex in about 20 minutes flat). She had a voluminous knowledge of life. If Dad was “the sunshine” of Mom’s life, Mom was a sustain- words, and I often asked her the meaning of words before check- ing presence of warm support—and, yes sunshine--in my life. ing a dictionary. There is some research that supports the notion that an angry spouse can bring a depressed spouse out of depression, but I doubt a that Dad would have known that, although he might have ‘intu- ited’ it. After Mom died, Dad was devastated … truly a lost soul. My sister Barbara told me that while in the hospital listening to Mom ramble on, Mom actually once told Barbara that Dad had said something terrible to Mom, perhaps in order to get Mom to “snap out” of her depression and lethargy. He said Mom was “rotten to the core”, which turned out to be prophetic of the cancer no one knew (until an autopsy was performed) was destroying her every internal organ. I believe Barbara, but I wonder if Mom was playing to different audiences, and merely said what would “play well” to each of us. Of course the two apparently-different comments could both be true, which I suspect is the case. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, Barbara and I had different parents. But what shocked me even more than “Your father has been the sunshine of my life” – which makes some sense to the extent that his optimism and cheer could temper her depression—is what she said later on as I sat by her bedside, listening to her stroke-induced logorrhea, her loquacious ruminations. In the midst all her free-association jumble of words and memories she interjected “Dying is really hell!!”—which proved she knew what was happening to her—and then she dropped in these words: “Steve. Your father and I have had a great sex life!” I listened closely. I asked, “Mom. Why are you telling me this?” She said, “I just want you to know!” Perhaps Mom was presenting me with a great gift, telling me it was okay to be sexual, to experience full creature-hood, to obey one’s primitive urges, to be happy with a partner. I am glad I lived long enough for this gift to be fulfilled.

22 23 GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

didn’t expect my grandchildren while young to care about I my ancestors because I didn’t become interested in my own ancestors until my fifth decade. My parents mentioned their parents from time to time, but when we were kids this was of a lower priority than current events: school, food, stickball, books, movies, and joking-around-table-talk. Yet it was at family dinners that we heard the names of the villages our grandparents lived in and left to come here to the United States -- the “Golden Land” or the “promised land”. America was imagined by our immigrant-ancestors as a free country and land of opportunity compared to the desperate poverty and the autocratic czarist governments our ancestors faced and lived in fear of daily in Mother Russia. Russia had been ruled for centuries by dictators (Peter the Great, the Romanovs) whose word was law. Anti-Semitism was embedded in the Russian social climate, in peasant-mentality, and in the armed soldiers of the Czars, the Cossacks, who were cruel and ruthless in their oppression of our ancestors. Misery, squalor, and oppression were the daily diet of our Russian predecessors in Russia. Departure was their dream, emigration their future. If our ancestors imagined America as a “promised land”, with streets metaphorically “paved with gold”, it was a romanticized vision of the real thing -- a land of equal opportunity for each citizen to make a decent living based upon ability to work hard.

25 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

So too, was our vision of “the old country” somewhat of a family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher fantasy. their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families func- Yes, Mom and Dad spoke of their parents’ courage, survival tioned.” Writing my “family narrative” and these stories about my instincts, their will-to-live, and their absolute willingness to endure parents has immeasurably improved my own self-esteem, self-con- hardship in order to leave a barren existence to arrive at a strange trol, and satisfaction. distant country, to speak a new language, and to embrace the risks Doing genealogical research is easy with the use of the Internet. of finding work. Mom and Dad described the living conditions If you know the family name of your ancestor and the name of the in Russia as if their parents lived in “the shtetl” -- the regions of village or town where they live, you can “piggy-back” on the genea- Russia reserved for impoverished Jews, inhabiting lands that the logical research of others, whose ancestors with the same name down-trodden could not own. This is one explanation for the rise came from the same village. of the professions and portable wealth among Jews. The diamond Thus, my mother’s maiden name was Katznelson (or merchants and the bankers or lawyers or physicians might not own Katsenellinson) and they came from a town called Bobruisk(or property because it was forbidden to Jews -- but they could carry Babruysk), south of Minsk, in what is now Belarus, the most oppres- jewelry, their professions, their knowledge of medicine, the law, sive regime and remnant of Communism in Russia today. science. So I entered “Katznelson” and “Bobruisk” into Google, and up popped a website operated by the Jewish Genealogical Society. I wrote e-mails to anyone who had researched “Bobruisk” and a “Katznelson”. These people descended from the same people I was descended from…maybe. I was flooded with letters from peo- But our vision of “the shtetl” as told by my parents Emma and ple who thought we might be relatives. Mike at table talk resembled those scenes in movies like “Fiddler On The letters told of Katznelsons past who had been: timber bar- The Roof”, where the peasant Jews lived in mud huts with their farm ons, horse-thieves, rabbis, scholars, physicists, and peddlers. Many animals sharing their meager quarters, and the Cossacks sweep- told of being related to Beryl Katznelson, a Zionist who was one ing through these villages destroying the fragile lives of these, our of the founders of the state of Israel and a hero, somewhat like shtetl-bound ancestors. George Washington is in the U.S., and he’s prominently featured The film itself was an idealized Hollywood version of poverty in the Israeli history textbooks. Beryl was quoted in several of these and oppression. Real life, for those disenfranchised Jewish peas- letters from my far-flung correspondents and maybe-relatives. ants, was much worse. The book, “When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Beryl had said that there were so many Katznelsons in Bobruisk Gone” by Gal Beckerman, depicts in bloody detail how twentieth- that “If you would throw a stone in any direction, you would either hit a century Jews dealt with the officially-sanctioned cruelty of Russian dog -- or a Katznelson”. anti-Semitism. My mother’s version of the name Katznelson: the ‘Katz’ part is a common Jewish name which comes from the Hebrew ‘Kohane’ a meaning ‘high priest’, and ‘Tzadik’ meaning holy wise man. So ‘Katz’ means most holy wise priest. So much for the common In a New York Times essay, “The Stories That Bind Us” (March name Katz. 15, 2013) the author of “Secrets of Happy Families”, Bruce Feiler, As for the ‘Nelson’ part of the name, my Mom insisted that cites studies that demonstrate: “The more children knew about their some poor Jews named ‘Katz’ who lived in Bobruisk were so happy

26 27 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH when Adm. Lord Nelson defeated Napoleon, that they added the My research into this combination of family-name-plus-village- Nelson to the Katz to commemorate the victory. Thus, Katznelson. name took a slightly different turn when I uncovered another As the Italians say: “Si non vero, e ben trovato” (“Even if it’s not true, it’s method. well invented, a good story, and should be true”.) This time, I placed a classified ad in the International Jerusalem Another theory about the name goes back to the great Rabbinic Post. I specified the names of Dad’s parents, their village, and when scholar Rashi who lived in the eleventh century in France. One of they were born and died. I received a dozen letters from Australia, his six daughters was reputed to have married a man whose name Europe, Israel and elsewhere. was derived from a river called the Bogen; a bend in the river One letter stood out. It was from a young man, a social worker, looked like a cat’s elbow, thus the name was ‘Katzenellenbogen’, who had just returned from a visit to Lomza-Goberna. We invited or cat’s elbow. OK. If it’s not true it’s also well-invented. [“What him for Sunday brunch of bagels and lox and ‘schmoozing’ (a has two legs and kicks cats?...two beats…Mrs. Katz.”] Yiddish word meaning casual conversation or chitchat). Some of the letter-writers were highly accomplished, and some He told us he had ancestors from Lomza and that it was not were even neighbors in Manhattan. an impoverished Fiddler-On-The-Roof-mud-on-the-floor shtetl, Ira Katznelson lives in the apartment building next to ours but a thriving prosperous farming community -- much like those on West 81st St. in Manhattan. He is a well-known sociologist at found in Iowa. This came as a shock to us because we imagined Columbia University. our ancestors living in complete squalor. Another Katznelson was a neurosurgeon in Boston who had The visitor also said that there were no Jews left in Lomza, but hired a young graduate student from Minsk to do genealogical that there was a Jewish cemetery, which he visited every day. He research in Bobruisk using local town-hall records of births and observed that there were fresh flowers at the gates of the cemetery deaths. He also visited St. Petersburg every summer to teach neu- every day he visited, despite the fact that no Jews lived there since rosurgery to Russian medical students, and had visited Bobruisk. I the Holocaust. decided to avoid Bobruisk when we were in Russia in 2006 because A friend of some forty years, Howard Epstein, husband of we saw depressingly grim-faced people on the streets of Moscow. Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, has ancestors who also came from Lomza. No pedestrians smiled or made eye-contact. We realized that our Over the years, friends have remarked that he and I look some- grandparents had struggled in the extreme, risking their lives and what alike. Once we discovered our common heritage-connection those of their children, to leave. They must have had powerful to the town Lomza, we started calling each other “cousin”. His wife reasons to depart. And we had strong reasons to depart as well. said we were “kissing cousins”. “Howard and Steve may kiss”, Cynthia America -- the golden land – was awash in smiling faces. said, “but not on the lips”. a a

Dad’s parents’ Russian name was “Roskolenkier”, and Dad said that they came from “Lomza-Goberna”, a village that was near or on the border between Russia and Poland; at times it was in Russia, and other times in Poland, depending on the politics and geo- graphical climate of the times.

28 29 EXCEEDING MY EXPECTATIONS

was the only Jewish kid in Public School 163 and was skipped I a full year, so that all of my classmates were a year older than I was. At grammar school age, one year makes a big difference in physical and emotional maturity. I often felt like a triple outsider, being skipped and being Jewish and being immature. This were my “issues”, and maybe still are. I make light of this issue by joking that immaturity is one reason I appear to be so young for my age. I was a skinny hyperactive kid. “Nervous energy” Dad called it. “Impulsive” I call it. If I was six years old in 2012, I would probably be diagnosed as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), a condition which runs, or gallops, in our family. This condition is treatable today with meds (stimulants like Ritalin) and they allow a hyper-kinetic kid like my nephew Neil is, and like I was, to focus and concentrate. This would have saved me a lot of trouble, since I practically had to strap myself into a seat belt in order to write the five books and the hundred articles I had written. I played stickball and touch-football in the streets. I was a fast runner. I read voraciously: Tom Swift adventures, Encyclopedias, books about inventions, science fiction, science, Relativity, philos- ophy… anything I could read, including porn, and junk novels, in addition to required literature in school.

31 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! EXCEEDING MY EXPECTATIONS

When I was a naive twelve- year old, I was invited by a fat older kid to meet him in the schoolyard after school. Not knowing bet- a ter, I showed up – only to learn too late that he had challenged me to a fist-fight. He had a dozen accomplices, arranged in a circle After Bayside High School in 1947, I went to Queens College like an arena, into which we two were shoved to spar. I had never in 1951. been in a fist-fight before in my life (nor since), and didn’t know During the Korean War in the 1950s I was studying physics, what to do or how to defend myself. I had no reason to expect then referred to as “a critical skill”, and it was possible grounds for I could defend myself or fight back properly. His pals tightened exempting me from military service. their circle around us, making a circular boxing ring, and he I applied to the local Draft Board for the deferment and started slinging punches, landing a few good ones. Unprepared, appeared before the Board. I answered a few questions, friendly I just started punching back, wildly… almost blindly. Luckily for but to the point, and was granted a deferment. I did not have to me, and exceeding my expectations, a few landed. He started join the U.S. Army then, and by the time my deferment expired, bleeding. the war was over. His pals were screaming, egging him on. “Hit the Jew bastard However, I did have to take the Army Intelligence Test. I back! Hit him hard!” But he began crying and soon enough (it remember that it was interminably long, and excruciatingly hard, wasn’t too soon for me) stopped punching as the blood ran down and had weird visual-puzzle-type questions -- like “how many blocks the sides of his face onto his clothes. “You said you could beat him are invisible behind the blocks you can see”? I finished the entire exam up!” they chanted scornfully. He slipped out of the ring, still verti- with a sour taste and then forgot about it. cal, pride hurt, and gave up. I left, unmolested by the rabble, the Then one day, months later, after I returned home from toughs who tended to him. They could have ganged up on me in classes; my Mom told me that Official Visitors had arrived … The revenge, with disastrous results for me… but they didn’t, perhaps U.S. Army. Two men in medal-bedecked uniforms had pulled up out of fair play or remorse. to our house in a khaki-colored official Army car. When I got home, my mother said, “What happened to you?” I They introduced themselves, according to Mom’s retelling, said, “I got into a fight…I beat the other kid up.” Because I was not and asked to speak to Stephen Rosen (me). She told them that I expected to be a fighter, and never fought again with my fists, this was at college, and asked why they came. deja vu, misted with age and perhaps inflated with a pinch of salt “Official Business,” they told her. “Your son has scored very high on and tongue-in-cheek, is a fond memory of growing up – surprising the Army Intelligence Test – he may be a genius -- and we would like him to myself by rising to a challenge. This was an early challenge I met enroll in Army Officers’ Candidate school to become an officer in the U.S. and conquered, but as I aged I was able to surprise myself again Army.” and again. Perhaps my hyper-kinetic qualities helped me triumph They said they needed smart men, especially those who have on this singular occasion. Thank God for ADHD? Or was this a extraordinary abilities as demonstrated by the results of the intelli- lesson from Dad’s teaching me to “work hard, play hard”. And by gence test. I later decided this meant I could count the number of extension to “fight hard”? blocks that I could not see -- surprise, surprise -- hidden behind the If “surprise-able” isn’t a word, it should be…because in differ- number of blocks I could see. Was I a genius? “My father would have ent venues and under different circumstances, I was repeatedly loved the idea; my mother would have believed it”. (This from Robert able to surprise myself and surpass my own expectations…and Caro quoting Lyndon Johnson on being introduced with rhap- those of others. sodic praise.)

32 33 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! EXCEEDING MY EXPECTATIONS

Mom told them she knew me very well. She said her son would knives or razor blades, had scars to show how tough they were, and not want to be a candidate for officers’ training because he wanted often arrived drunk and late for work. They were my colleagues, to pursue a doctorate in physics so he could teach. They thanked my teachers, my antidotes to being spoiled rotten. And to college her and left some literature, and departed. and book-learning. I came home later that day. Mom told me what had happened. On rare occasions, Dad went home and I stayed late. On one She seemed proud of me. I was proud as well, and flattered that memorable evening, I stayed late to help the electrician who was they thought I had done well enough on the exam to consider me installing switches along the assembly line to control the conveyor as a candidate for officer candidate school. Again, I surpassed my chain at any point. The cars were towed through the car wash by own view of what I was capable of. means of a clamp attached to a moving conveyer driven by an elec- But Mom knew her son well. Stephen Rosen did not want to tric motor. join the U.S. Army. He was not (and is still not) military material. The electrician had run the conduit, a pipe, to contain the This was demonstrated while in the Israeli Army. See the chapter, wires. He then snaked electrical cables through the conduit. I was “A Volunteer in Israel”. busy doing some college physics homework. The electrician seemed to be taking an extremely long time to do the job. He finally came by to say “Good night….I have to get home a to my wife and kids for dinner”. He continued, “I forgot how to wire the remote switches that control the 220 volt three-phase conveyor-belt motor. I I spent my teen and college years Saturdays and summers know it’s possible to make it work with only three wires in the conduit to working with and for my father (1947 to 1955) at the car wash he turn the motor on and off from each switch station. I’ll come back tomorrow acquired after World War II, after he had left the restaurant busi- night to finish the job”. ness behind him. I sat. I thought. I ruminated. I knew it could be done because Dad often said that he worked eight hours a day for someone he said he’d done it once before. He had the wiring in place. I else so that he could save up enough money to go into his own could steal some time from my homework and loved problem-solv- business – and work sixteen hours a day for himself. In his own ing, puzzles, and challenges. Could I surprise myself again? restaurant business, and after 1947 in his own car wash business, I made a wiring diagram. I sketched in the switches and the he worked very long hours, mostly on his feet. And he had varicose motor. I looked at the lines on the paper in front of me for quite veins and other health problems to prove it. a while. I thought, and thought, and thought. I tried sketching dif- Whenever there was electrical work -- plumbing, concrete floor- ferent combinations of wires and switches until I found – totally by ing, or anything that would influence the smooth operation of the trial and error and a bit of patience -- a wiring circuit hook-up that car wash “assembly line”-- it had to be done after normal working looked like it should work. On paper. hours: seven am to seven pm. I know that’s only twelve, but Dad I took the diagram to each switch and using the color-coded came in early and left late. I was, in effect, earning my keep and wires, hooked them up the way each switch should work according getting a thorough education in the rough-and-tumble real world to my wiring diagram. outside of college. Professors referred to non-academic reality as It worked! I was very satisfied. Me, a college kid, trumped a “the world of work”, a world my father knew as the only real world professional electrician. I went home, and told my Dad. He called -- although he respected formal education. the electrician, and told him “my-son-the-genius” had figured it I often stayed late with Dad. This was my street education out and it wasn’t necessary for him to come back. in the real world working alongside black laborers who carried

34 35 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great!

The electrician praised the young problem-solver and was pleased that the job was done. I was very proud of myself, of course, but I suspect Dad was even prouder. I have no way of knowing this, but I did hear (as already mentioned) third-hand that Dad used to brag about me to his friends. The fist-fight. The Army intelligence test. The circuit wiring. These early events surprised me and shaped me…they whetted my appetite and eagerness to learn, to accept challenges, to toot my own horn somewhat…and I see these behaviors in myself at age 78, and in my son Daniel and my grandson Jascha. Surprise- abililty! Not yet a word, but should be. BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, Fast-forward to the year 2000. Celia and I are driving to Albany on the Taconic State Parkway to visit brother Elliott. This road is THINGS HAPPENED straight with long hills. In the heavy and comfortable Lexus, you can’t feel the speed. Like Mike Rosen, I enjoyed driving fast, and the State trooper who pulled us over for speeding said, ”I clocked you ou may find this hard to believe, but before you were born, doing seventy-nine in a fifty-five mile-an-hour zone.” I replied, “Officer, things happened. Really. Before Television. I’m talking to you: I was doing eighty-four.” Stumped by my dumb confession (because Y Lisa and Daniel, Jascha and Tanya -- and my great-grand-children (I speeders always say they are doing less than what they’re accused wish I knew your names.) of) the officer asked, “Is there an emergency reason why you are speed- Before YouTube. Before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before ing?” I replied, “My wife and I are having an argument.” Celia was iPad, iPod, …. OHMIGOD. I can’t believe you don’t know this. sitting beside me looking angry. The officer, exasperated by my In the 1930s and 1940s, all we had was books, magazines, newspa- goofy responses, said “Get out of here!” Surprise! No speeding ticket. pers…and radio. I read books and books and books. I listened to I did try this ploy on other occasions, but it never worked again. the radio over and over again. It’s hard to imagine communicating one-to-many via megaphone in the early twentieth century…instead a of using Twitter and Facebook in the early twenty-first. The public library was my home away from home. I would go there every week, taking a bus from Flushing, Queens all the way to Jamaica, Queens. A long slow trip. (We did have automobiles, then. But I was too young to drive…14 years old.) The library was old, but it had a lot of science books, which I devoured. I had a gene for reading, just like my Mom, my son Daniel, my daughter Lisa, and my grandson Jascha. “Treasure Island” was one favorite. “ABC of Relativity” by Bertrand Russell, was another. I also read adult novels and science fiction…in pulp magazines, and antholo- gies that included stories by Isaac Asimov, L. Ron Hubbard (the charlatan sci-fi writer who invented Dianetics), and many others.

36 37 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, THINGS HAPPENED

Radio. There were weekly series, in which a character has wild stardom in the secular world as a pop singer -- to replace him. BUT and kid-friendly adventures, like the “Green Hornet”, “The Shadow the son can’t, because his secular Broadway debut is scheduled for Knows”, “The Lone Ranger”, “Dick Tracy”, “Superman”, “Batman”. Also the same night as Yom Kippur. Obviously this is about a clash of weekly comedy series, in which a comic character spotlights epi- secular values: who has the best or the most? What does the son sodes or does comedy routines: “Fred Allen”, “Jack Benny”. Sunday do? There are rivers of tears, which is why this kind of “three-hand- nights we listened to Walter Winchell, a notorious scandal-monger kerchief” movie was called a “tear-jerker”. This story plot was so and gossip. Lisa and Daniel, Tanya and Jascha: You can check out popular, and I am not making this up, that there were eventually these names on Google or Wikipedia and learn more. I have some seven (7) movie versions of “The Jazz Singer” made. (One even stars recordings of these old shows. Ask me to play them for you; better Danny Thomas, who looked -- but was definitely not -- Jewish.) still, you can have them to keep. I can still recall my father sitting next to the console radio, If I had a chore to do, like painting a door, or cutting the maybe in the late 1940s. He is recovering from a long working lawn, I listened to “Your Hit Parade”, a radio program that played day standing on his feet. On the radio is a radio-play version of the most popular songs of the day, songs that were made pop- “The Jazz Singer” starring, you guessed it, Al Jolson. (I actually have ular by a movie or by Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, a recording of this twenty-minute version of the radio broadcast, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Doris Day, and many others. This yours for the asking.) My father is sobbing uncontrollably while the was my “whistle-while-you-work” audio accompaniment, my sonic young Al Jolson has to decide…does he sing in the synagogue and “wallpaper”. And my great joy. please his dying father and all Jews and all of Judaism – or does he The large console radio in our living room was always tuned to perform on Broadway and become a secular money-making super- classical music on the then-station of the New York Times, WQXR. star? My father wiped his eyes with a big white handkerchief. I I heard symphonic and chamber music when I came home from watched, and couldn’t understand why he was so emotional. Dad school, in the evenings after supper, and on weekends. Dad loved was not usually so teary. He was tough. to relax, sitting in the easy chair beside the radio, listening to opera Now I understand why he was crying. When I listen to the or other classical music. Often he fell asleep there, exhausted recording of that radio broadcast (I purchased it at a yard sale in from a long day’s journey into repose. East Hampton), I find myself sobbing. It’s about my father. It’s I can remember him listening to a broadcast recording of Al about my own struggle between being secular and being religious. Jolson, a very famous entertainer who was known for singing min- It’s about everyone’s conflict about the everyday world of making strel songs in black-face ...”Mammy”, “Swanee” (written by George a living, and the eternal world of spiritual values, fidelity to one’s Gershwin when he was nineteen; this made him very rich, very faith and to one’s family… I saw my father – not only as an icon young), and others you don’t hear anymore. But they had huge of the conflict between success and faith…but also as a walking- listening audiences in those days. talking-embodiment of this dichotomy. My father had come out Jolson was Jewish and was the star of the first movie that had on the side of secular success, but he still had his Jewishness alive sound in it, “The Jazz Singer”, in 1929. This maudlin, sappy, tear- and well inside of him. jerker, three-handkerchief movie featured a young pop singer His mother, a one-armed matriarch, bore thirteen children (played by Jolson) whose father is a dying elderly synagogue Cantor and raised the five surviving siblings on the lower East Side of scheduled to sing in the synagogue for the holiest days of the year Manhattan. Today she’d be called a “super-mom”; in Orthodox in the Jewish calendar – Yom Kippur. When he becomes so feeble Judaism she’d be called “A Woman Of Valor”; and on the Sabbath that he can’t sing, he asks his son – who is by now on his way to her Orthodox Jewish husband would sing her praises in a song

38 39 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, THINGS HAPPENED entitled “A Woman Of Valor”, or in Hebrew “Aiches Chayil”). She garage filled with Dad’s ‘bargains’ was in the back. I remembered had wanted Dad to be a Rabbi. All Jewish mothers of that genera- it as a very large house. In a visit a few years ago to show Celia tion had selected one of their offspring to be a Rabbi. That was where I grew up, I was shocked to see how very small my parents’ their expectation; the others would make money. Instead, Mike house appeared to me as an adult. Rosen made a worldly success of himself —but he never forgot the I wasn’t much of a stick-ball hitter, but I was a fast runner. Mike other side of himself. Rosen attributed this to what he called “nervous energy”, which I If I don’t stop, I’ll start weeping right here and now. now attribute to ADHD, attention deficit hyper-activity disorder. But I started off discussing what the world was like as a twelve- On rainy days in the summer, we sat under Eddie de Martin’s year old in Queens in 1947, riding my bicycle through rain pud- large porch overhang and played Monopoly, War, Knucks, or dles after public school on my way to Hebrew school. The rain some other rainy day activity (like bull-shitting about movies we puddles were my insurance that when I got to Hebrew school, hadn’t seen, or sex we hadn’t had); many of these sessions we’d which I hated, I would be sent home by the teacher: “Go back home. now think of as idiotic. You’re all wet!” In the winter, when there was no snow on the ground, we Before television. Before computers. played “touch-tackle”, a mild form of what Americans call “foot- On sunny days in the summer we played stick-ball. This is simi- ball”. Teams were chosen from the cast of characters mentioned lar to baseball, except it uses a tennis ball (a rubber ball coated above. Instead of tackling someone as in regulation football, you with something like velvet flocking) or a pink rubber “spalldeen” merely ran after them and “touched” them. I was fast, but not a or Spaulding that had air inside and bounced very high. The other great player. part of stick ball is….yes… a “stick” or broomstick, which resembled a baseball bat. The game was played in the street, in front of our house on 181st a Street in Flushing, Queens. The two sides usually consisted of the Bobby Serpe had two things I wanted: a pool table, and kids on the block who had come home from school…maybe eight an air-rifle or bee-bee (BB) gun. His father was in the jewelry or ten all told. The batter would stand in the center of the street in business, and their Italian family – his parents, brother, and a front of a manhole cover (which acted as “the home plate”) and very old grandmother from the old country who couldn’t speak take a swat at the ball pitched at him on one bounce by the pitcher. English -- lived on a corner house. If the ball was hit far enough, say two or three sewer-covers-distant When I would walk up 181st Street three houses north to his down the street, this was deemed a home run, scored for the team house to play pool or to shoot his BB gun, I would hear the same whose lucky hitter smacked the ball. The game was interrupted weird sound when I rang his front-door bell. It was a loud shriek- infrequently by cars passing through residential 181st Street; we ing, keening, wailing…like a ghost. Actually, it was the old lady, simply had to stop everything until the car went through. Eddie the grandma. She must have been in her nineties, or so it seemed de Martin, Bobby Serpe, Justin McCarthy, Billy McCarthy, Jerry to me at my ripe old age of twelve going on thirteen. She always Dickman, Seymour Radack, Henry Morderati, Paul Lepore, Jim wore these long black flowing robes, or a dress all the way to the Turner, Johnny Raible, and a few others participated. I’ll tell you ground. She came from a part of Sicily where widows wore black more about these guys later (if I remember.) after their husband died, wearing black the rest of their lives to Pictures of our home reveal a brick two-story dwelling with proclaim their widow-hood. (There are still places in Europe and brick steps leading up to a small porch and a driveway alongside. A the middle-east where this custom continues.)

40 41 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, THINGS HAPPENED

This “black widow” was the source of the wailing whenever I golfer hit the ball, we would run out onto the fairway, and grab the rang their front-door bell. ball. I remember the golfer yelling at us from the tee. “Hey give me “What’s that weird sound?” I asked Bobby. back my ball!” If he was really angry, we ran like hell. This was our “Nothing. Just nothing. Ignore it.” said Bobby. mature behavior. Pressing him, I said, “No. Really. What is it?” Another activity was to go to the fancy Bloomingdales store Bobby finally gave up and spilled the beans. It seems that the that was built after the golf course was torn down to make way for a Italians who lived in that small town in Sicily where the black widow vast housing development built by New York Life, also called Fresh came from were seriously superstitious. They believed that Jews Meadows. That store was air conditioned, in an era that didn’t do brought bad luck, bad news, bad fortune. The black widow was air conditioning. So on sweltering summer days—no school—we trying to get me to leave, or not enter, the premises of the Serpe went to Bloomingdale’s to cool off until we were chased out of the residence because I was a bringer of bad luck! store. This was really mature behavior. Bobby was kind enough to say, “Of course we don’t believe that any All this excitement before you were born! more”. Wow! That was a relief to know. BB guns were verboten in my home because my Mom thought that if you hit someone in the eye it would cause the person to go a blind. (I guess she was right. If you hit them in the eye.) I argued Then we got old enough for cars. Cars! Cars! Cars! that the eye was a very small target, and besides, I never aimed Cars were what grown-ups drove. Not bicycles. Cars! If you at the eye. But Mom said no, and so it was no BB gun for me. drove a car, even if you were only thirteen or fourteen or fifteen Advertised on the back page of comic books was the Daisy Air years old, you were a real grown-up. (Of course, at seventy-nine Rifle…and my lucky friend Bobby had one. I’m still immature, not yet grown up…but HEY, that’s why I feel So Bobby and I would stalk the wild turkeys or pheasants that and look so young for my age. Just when I thought it was safe to be inhabited the empty lots in the back of our homes…out there were seventy-nine, along comes eighty.) Acquiring a Mini Cooper convert- marshes and low reeds and small streams that froze over solid in ible at seventy-nine is another reason I still feel young. the winter. One freezing cold day, we fearless hunters, in hot pur- The legal age for getting a driver’s license in New York State suit of a wild turkey, were walking on the iced-over stream, when back in the 1950s was eighteen years old. At sixteen years of age, we started to hear ice creaking. It soon turned into ice cracking. one could get a “learner’s permit”, which actually allowed you to Jagged lines appeared to radiate outward from our feet. Our com- drive if accompanied by an adult. I actually drove for two min- bined weight was too much for the one or two inches of ice. Bobby utes, with Mom sitting next to me, when I was thirteen. This was and I watched in horror as the ice slowly gave way to our two bod- during the polio epidemic of 1947 when the children’s camp we ies, and we sank into the stream…all the way up to our hips. We attended closed down to prevent the spread of this dreaded dis- were freezing and wet. Somehow we pulled ourselves out of the ease (now conquered by the Salk vaccine). We drove to Montauk, stream and walked the embarrassing few hundred yards home to and I pleaded and whined and begged Mom so much that she our dismayed mothers. finally yielded and allowed me to take the wheel for those precious As we got older, we did “older-person” activities. There was a two minutes. Not the high point of my teen years, but “up there”. huge golf course not far away, called Fresh Meadows Golf Course. When we got to be sixteen, we were allowed to get our learner’s We went there to find and to ransom golf balls from their owners. permits. Sometimes, we were not accompanied by an adult. But we We would lie in wait a few hundred feet from the tee. After the

42 43 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! never got stopped by a policeman, luckily…nor did we ever have an accident. When the big giant step into the world of “dating girls” began, cars were a huge asset. You could “park” together somewhere deserted, and “make out”, which was a euphemism for “necking” which was a euphemism for “petting” which was a euphemism for ….guess what? ....Kissing and hugging. That’s it! That’s all there was to do as a teenager in the late forties and early fifties. No kidding. (I know it’s very different today.) Many other things happened. Try Googling: The Wizard Of Oz. World War II. Food and gasoline rationing. The Atom Bomb. DEADLY HITCH-HIKE Ball-point pens. The Cold War. Elvis Presley. FDR, Churchill, & Stalin. First love. First men on the Moon. n the summer of 1955, after I graduated from Queens College, a Iand before I started graduate school, I took a job as a camp counselor at a children’s camp called Camp Birchwoods in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the Berkshire Mountains not far from the Tanglewood Music festival, near Lenox. John Shaffer, my good friend throughout college (and fortunately for me still a good friend) was also a camp counselor. We used to talk about our lives, our futures, our careers, and our therapists. (He started Harvard that fall, got his PhD in clinical psychology, and became a therapist/analyst.) Because the camp’s owners were highly thought-of and thus well-connected, and because the camp was unusually well-run and organized, the team of counselors and campers there included individuals who later became high-profile public figures, like Robert Rubin (later, Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration) and Herb Schmertz (later, Robert Kennedy’s advance man and Mobil Oil’s vice president for public affairs). Counselors were responsible for seven children in each cabin, and my charges were about eight years old. After several weeks, counselors were given a day off. And this was how John and I and a young woman by the name of Anita, who happened to be black, had a day off together on the same day. We three decided to hitch-hike to Tanglewood Music Festival, which was an hour away by car.

44 45 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! DEADLY HITCH-HIKE

We hitchhiked happily, enjoyed the music concert which let Then I was thinking, ‘This is the real thing; we could get killed’. I out about 11 PM; so at that moment we were faced with the tricky was, however, pretty calm and logical compared to my back-seat task of hitch-hiking back to Camp Birchwoods in the dark along chums who were pleading with Bill from the back seat, making deserted mountain country roads. matters worse. Soon, I was both tense and strangely fairly cool- The three of us stood by the side of the road heading in the headed, because I thought to myself: this guy is an alcoholic and is proper direction. We held out our thumbs, and eventually a guy driving like this to scare us, and maybe it wasn’t so dangerous because stopped and says, “Where you headed?” We told him, and he said, maybe I could do something quickly. “OK. Hop in. I’ll take you there.” My reasoning was along these lines: if Bill was an alcoholic, he He was sloppily dressed with a dirty shirt and worn jeans and probably has a very weak personality, no self-respect, and no discipline: work shoes. He appeared to be a blue-collar guy; his car was old I decided that if this picture was accurate, then maybe he would respond and beat up, but appeared serviceable. It was our only choice. We to a “voice of authority.” This was my thinking under intense and accepted. possibly deadly circumstances. Thank God for adrenaline when So I sat in the front, and Anita and John sat in the back together. needed. His name was Bill, and he started driving, and after five or ten Who, me? I knew I had no authority. I was barely 21 years old at minutes, I noticed that he had alcohol on his breath and that he the time, immature at that, and a tenor! for God’s sake, but I sum- was driving erratically. Fear rising, I began to get edgy first. Then moned from my deepest bass register a most authoritarian and stentorian voice I could muster. I think I hauled this voice up from I became uneasy. Sweaty. I looked around, and John and Anita in the sacred depths of my kishkas, or my creature-hood, and my life-loving the back seat were scared. soul—rising up from my very toes. The more anxious we got, the more he seemed to enjoy our I launched these words at him: BILL! STOP! THE! CAR! … fear; the more erratic his driving became; and the more erratic his BILL! STOP! THE! CAR! I did not shout, because that would driving became, the more jumpy we got. (If we were astronauts, have told him I was in a state of panic. (Of course I was.) I spoke we would have said, “Looks like we have a situation here”.) with false confidence….but in a low register. This was very disturbing, because we were on dark mountain I hurled my prepared speech at Bill a few more times, and to roads that were very narrow and curvy. The risk escalated, verg- my surprise he slowed the car, and then he stopped. Whew! I said ing on dangerous, as soon as there were a few near-miss head- to him “You seem to be a little shaky, a little under the weather”. (Under- on collisions with oncoming cars on this two-lane un-lit mountain statement?) “Hey. How about you let me drive, Bill?” -- again in my road. The more we said anything about Bill’s driving, the more most authoritarian confidence-inspiring voice. he seemed to get excited and juiced about the danger he was And to my surprise he said “okay”. His voice registered resigna- thrusting all of us into. He even made sexually suggestive remarks tion. He sat alongside me in the front passenger seat, and I started about Anita being black, with lusty overtones and innuendo. Anita driving. Well, this went on comfortably for another 10 minutes, panicked. until he must have been ruminating about the situation while sit- John and Anita started to get seriously afraid as Bill swung the ting there in his alcoholic haze; and I guess he then imagined – steering wheel and the car back and forth into oncoming traffic no, realized -- that I had removed the juiced-up danger to us he was on this narrow road. I could see the headlights coming towards us seeking. as he swerved just in time to miss crashing into each one of those So he rebelled against the new situation -- where I was in the oncoming cars. driver’s seat of his car, and he had lost control. He decided to

46 47 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! DEADLY HITCH-HIKE reach his left foot over to the driver’s side from where he was sitting because it was an unusual emergency, self-inflicted as it turned out on the passenger-side front seat, and lunging recklessly pushed to be. But we paid. my right foot down hard under his on the accelerator pedal. This That was how we returned to camp…with a story to tell: how made the car go much faster until I released the clutch, which dis- we almost got killed by a drunken driver. engaged the engine. (I had worked on cars during my teen-age I remember telling the story many times over, and proud of years.) He obviously relished the panic, as if he wanted to destroy how surprisingly cool and collected I had been under fire – com- us all. pared to how frightened John and Anita were. I was very pleased at The back-seat doom-sayers, John and Anita, were no help. I exceeding my expectations of what I knew about myself, and may was very unhappy, though not panicked, but still able to think logi- have even embellished the story a bit. Certainly I did. Are you kid- cally. I was not as nervous as they were. But I was nervous, and then ding? I dined off this adventure in coolness-under-pressure over scared. the years. It was not my finest hour – that was to come some thirty- I considered the new situation for a moment, and I concluded five years later—but it was pretty close. I gained confidence in sur- that the only way for us to get out of this alive -- since he seemed passing myself, and learned that I could get out of a tough spot if hell-bent on killing all of us -- was to stop the car and run. So I necessary. Surprise-ability. slowed the car down by disengaging the clutch and braking it even I was still reminiscing about the saga fifty-five years later. though he was still trying to mash the accelerator pedal. He was Among others, I related these events to a friend (Al Lewis) not so unhappy. But I wasn’t. The car came to a full stop, despite his best long ago, who is a psychiatrist. Al said, “You know, that is a remark- efforts to accelerate. able story. It shows incredible insight and maturity and self-control and I put the car into reverse gear so it would be hard for him to discipline and intelligence.” I realize that Al heard my version of the run us over. I took the car keys, and flung them to the side of events only -- and I probably massaged and romanced the facts to the road into the woods and I yelled, “John! Anita! Run!” So we make myself look heroic. But nevertheless… ran like hell. I looked back, and saw Bill scrambling in the dark I said, “You bet”, and felt very proud of myself—for the hun- for his keys. While he searched, we had enough time to get away. dredth time. Who said hubris is all bad for you? John, who was there, Of course, he could have had a gun. Don’t rednecks carry guns? He agreed that I was not boasting; that the facts speak for themselves. could have looked for the keys after he shot us. Fortunately, this Yes -- the facts do speak for themselves, and – yes -- I am proud of imagined scenario didn’t happen. my “grace under pressure” and that I could think and act quickly It was a moonless spooky mountain road in a thick forest. There in a tense emergency; moreover, I correctly surmised Bill’s weak- were no houses in sight for what looked like miles. But we three ness. But I surprised myself, not suspecting I was competent to ran, breathless, until we found a house at the end of a dirt road effectively control a sudden life-threatening emergency. Since branching off from the mountain road. Panting. Sweating. Scared. then, I have never again risen to this level of calm-in-the-face-of- We knocked on the door. It was maybe midnight at this point, terror. No similar occasions arose. But I wonder if… and we woke the people who lived there. We told them that some Reflecting on the experience and the re-telling of it, I real- drunken maniac was trying to kill us. Could they call somebody to ized the scenario was very “iffy”: if I hadn’t sat in the front seat; if drive us to Camp Birchwoods in Pittsfield, about an hour away? Bill had crashed the car or driven over the edge of the road (no They got on their phone, and called a few neighbors. We seat belts in those days); if Anita and John hadn’t panicked…if offered them all the money we had, and I think it may have been I hadn’t thought quickly…without these “ifs” I wouldn’t be here about $80. I was not happy about spending all that cash just today. But I may have gained enough confidence to face other

48 49 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! emergencies later on…perhaps recklessly and to a fault. If so, I don’t remember putting myself in physical danger just so I could rescue myself. I did place future careers in jeopardy with impulsive self-confidence. (See the chapter, “Measure Twice; Cut Once!”) Apropos ‘quick thinking’, I must tell my favorite joke. Two guys are walking their dogs, a German Shepherd and a Chihuahua, in Central Park. The German Shepherd owner says, “Hey! Let’s have lunch at that nice restaurant over there, The Tavern On The Green.” The Chihuahua owner says, “You can’t do that. Restaurants in the U.S. don’t allow dogs.” The German Shepherd owner says, “We can both get in with our dogs if you just watch me, do what I do, and say what GENIUSES, WUNDERKINDS I say!” So the German Shepherd owner goes up to the maitre d’ and says “I’d like to have lunch here.” The maitre d’ says, “Sorry & ‘STEVIE WONDER’ sir, but we don’t accept dogs in our restaurant.” “But that’s a seeing-eye dog”, says the German Shepherd owner. “Oh, in that case, you are most welcome; please come right in with the dog”, says the maitre d’. We are all worms. But I believe I am a glow-worm. The Chihuahua owner having watched and listened, repeats the -- Winston Churchill same exchange. The maitre d’, incredulous, says, “Sir. You have a seeing-eye Chihuahua!?! And the Chihuahua owner shouts: “WHAT? THEY GAVE ME A CHIHUAHUA?” I guess, as hero of my own here are two kinds of geniuses. One kind is just like us – only a quasi-memoir and hitch-hiking saga, I could say, “What? We got lot smarter than we are. Then there’s the other kind, who seems picked up by a drunken driver?” T to have such extraordinary mastery and scope that they appear John still talks about the deadly hitch-hike experience when to have come “from another planet”. Mozart is one example. A I saved us from tragedy by my quick thinking. He says, “Do you “glow-worm”, he could compose a symphony in his head while remember the time you saved our lives?”… “Do I? Are you kidding? You playing a game of pool; when he wished to copy it down, he would betcha life I do!” do so later at his leisure. When young, he was a Wunderkind. My childhood heroes—Albert Einstein and George Gershwin— a were both the second type of geniuses. Each was in a class by himself. Each had an enduring, pervasive, and powerful effect on me and on my life. My admiration for Einstein led me into a career in physics; my admiration for Gershwin led me into a life-long love of his music -- and music in general. A real-life genius in my adult life was Herman Kahn, and knowing him led me into writing a book about the future, described in another chapter, “Future Facts”. Perhaps having geniuses as role models helped me reach beyond and surpass mundane expectations for myself.

50 51 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GENIUSES, WUNDERKINDS & ‘STEVIE WONDER’

I was very fortunate to learn relativity from Banesh Hoffmann, a a man who worked with Einstein, and who has his name with Einstein’s on a scientific article as a collaborator. (This paper Albert Einstein, another “glow-worm” and TIME Magazine’s introduced the Einstein-Infeld-Hoffmann (EIH) method, a way of “Man of the (Twentieth) Century”, was the founder of the special deriving the equations of particle motion for General Relativity and general theories of relativity, the photo-electric effect, and and similar theories, by finding approximate two-particle solu- the theory of Brownian motion. Einstein produced three masterly tions of the field equations.) works in one year, 1905, each of which was worthy of a Nobel Prize. At Queens College, Banesh Hoffmann taught Special Relativity When young, I read popular books on relativity (“The Universe one semester, and General Relativity the next semester. He was and Dr. Einstein”, by Lincoln Barnett; the “ABC of Relativity”, a mas- a very pleasant, witty, short man who spoke with a marked British terpiece by Bertrand Russell available on youtube, and books by accent. He introduced himself by saying: “This is how I make my Einstein himself). I puzzled over these explanations, and tried “x’s”, and then showed us two semi-circles intersecting at their mightily to comprehend the “meaning of it all”. mid-points, sort of like this: )( I cannot say I was completely successful, nor can I say that I Step-by-step he took us through each of the dramatic and by- grasp it today as well as say, the English language, or calculus, or now-well-established results of experimental confirmations of arithmetic -- despite studying with one of Einstein’s collaborators both the special and general theories of relativity. This was tre- and reading many scholarly articles on the subject. And teaching mendously exciting at the time…to see someone who had worked it. with the great man himself was thrilling to me. He showed us how I can, however, explain relativity at a dinner party (I’ve been Einstein himself had derived the bending of distant starlight as it asked to do so), and I’ve enthused about it to college undergradu- grazed our Sun, and how he calculated the advance of the perihe- ates. (About which more later; see below) I’ve lectured to laymen lion of Mercury. at the Institute for Advanced Study. On a challenge, I’ve done a When later, as a graduate student, I met Banesh at scientific five-minute popular synopsis to a group of senior citizens during a meetings, he was very friendly, and told a charming story about his physical exercise work-out. I have also written articles and papers working with Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study. It seems that appear to present an understanding. Nevertheless, absolute that he and Einstein would work together regularly, sitting side comprehension is elusive. Not the “elusive obvious” of love, or by side, in Einstein’s office at the Institute in Princeton in the late beauty, or truth. But the “elusive obvious” of special relativity. 1930s. After Einstein became famous there was a cartoon from a 1920s They were looking for certain solutions of the field equations magazine that shows him leaning out of the window of a train pass- of General Relativity for specific circumstances. There are 64 field ing a station, and asking those on the platform, “Does Oxford stop at equations, and solving some of them for physically testable mea- this train?” And I love this true story about a reporter approaching surements and conditions could be very taxing and difficult— Einstein while he was on a train (maybe the one in the cartoon?). even for Einstein. Whenever they got stuck, Banesh said, Einstein The reporter says, “Dr. Einstein. You’re so famous, I’d like to interview would get up from his desk, twist his long hair, pace the floor while you.” Einstein says, “I’m not Einstein; you are mistaken”. The reporter remarking, “I vill a little think” in his German-inflected English. says, “But Sir, yes you are. I recognize you from your picture in the news- Banesh sat still at the desk while Einstein paced and pulled and papers.” Einstein, exasperated, exclaims, “Who should know better? twisted his long hair. After a few moments of pacing and twisting You—or me?” his hair, Einstein would say, “I have it”, then sit down, the impasse

52 53 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GENIUSES, WUNDERKINDS & ‘STEVIE WONDER’ surmounted, and together they would move on to their next books he wrote on relativity to me, and inscribed the other: “From impasse. your former student, Moses”. After Einstein died in 1955, Banesh said that whenever he was working on those same equations, and whenever he got stuck, he would get up, pace the floor, twist a lock of his hair the way a Einstein did. “But”, he added, “it never worked!” Another genius who influenced my life (he still does) was George I had my own “Einstein moment” years later when I was teach- Gershwin. We never met, but I was drawn to his music one eve- ing a course in modern physics to undergraduates. On the day I ning as I was falling asleep when I was about 12 years old. Aunt lectured on relativity, I had planned to begin with first principles Esther, my mother’s sister-in-law, was visiting our family, staying that Einstein began with (the results of the Michelson-Morley as a guest for several weeks. As it turned out, she was also a pianist experiment that showed that the speed of light was –remarkably— and piano teacher. She was practicing, playing on our family’s the same for all observers), and then to “derive” the startling con- piano, and she was ripping through Gershwin’s “Rhapsody In Blue”. clusion that mass and energy are equivalent, in the famous equa- I had never heard the piece before. The sound wafted up the tion E=mc^2 What I hadn’t anticipated was that I would finish the stairs, through my bedroom door, and “spoke” to me in a musical lecture at precisely the moment the end-of-the-period bell would language of fresh sonorities, jagged rhythms, original harmonies, ring. Completely unplanned…trust me. and ravishing beauty. It touched, and engaged, and absorbed me. What happened of course was a coincidence—but my students It had a certain quality of “inevitability” and “originality”. (At a get- must have thought that I timed the lecture to arrive at the famous together a few years ago, the composer Lukas Foss insisted to me conclusion simultaneously with the ringing of the bell. (Shades of that “Gershwin was a much more original composer than Rachmaninoff”, Einstein’s experimental definition of simultaneity.) The students and I had to agree because Rachmaninoff emerged naturally from a cheered and applauded loudly, shocking me and making such a Russian tradition… Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakoff… noise that those outside of the classroom heard and wondered but Gershwin came full-blown from his unique tin-pan-alley song- what the caused the commotion. plugger tradition.) I remember this fondly, all the more so since it was unex- Later in life, the “Rhapsody” moved me, sometimes inexplicably pected and spontaneous. I believe it was on the basis of this excit- to the brink of tears (remembrances of early childhood?), perhaps ing moment, and perhaps a few other show-stopping class-room because of its jagged-happy rhythms, sharp iconoclastic brilliant enthusiasms of mine, that I was given this nick-name behind my harmonies. But to my twelve-year-old self, it spoke to me of jazz, back: “STEVIE WONDER”. I liked being known this way. I guess sophistication, New York, ravishing syncopated melodies, and joy they meant I was capable of inspiring wonder in young students. in living. It still elevates me. Because I’ve always been excited by Relativity, when in Spain From that day forward, I sought out Gershwin music to listen I bought a tee shirt with E=mc^2 emblazoned on it; beneath the to, and to play on the piano. I eventually worked my way up to play- equation are the words, “Espana = Mucho Calor”, meaning ‘Spain ing Gershwin’s “Three Preludes”. I was especially fond of the second is Very Hot’. I think this shirt is Very Cool. or slow, prelude. So simple. So elegant. I hear it now in my mind, Relativity is still a part of my life. One of my Russian émigré with the left hand playing the accompanying “dum dah dah dah”, students, Moses Fayngold, a theoretical physicist, after he found and the right hand doing the plaintive sonorous simple melody a job as physics professor with my help, dedicated one of the two “da dee da dee da…” My piano teacher insisted I record the three, and I did, but alas I’m unable to find the recording.

54 55 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GENIUSES, WUNDERKINDS & ‘STEVIE WONDER’

I have sought out and listened to virtually every composition in East Hampton on June 21, 2012 for Celia’s lady friends and it Gershwin wrote. At one point in my adolescence, I even wanted now resides on YouTube at…http://youtu.be/586LyHMuqOE to be like George Gershwin. He died too young of a brain hemor- I have written several dozen. Each was performed for a spe- rhage, which added to his bittersweet mystique, and was to me a cific occasion, and intended to be sung only once—for that occa- tragedy. Imagine what else he could have written. sion only. Some, maybe most, have been on target, some in the I’ve read every biography of him as well. I savored many of his style of George and Ira Gershwin, Tom Lehrer, or Cole Porter, life’s details and stories about him fascinate me. I’ve also read and or Sondheim. All have been fun and challenging to write. Some listened to Oscar Levant’s life and music, and enjoyed his stories took weeks and months to compose—even if they took only a few and songs as well. Lately, I’ve come to appreciate Ira Gershwin’s minutes to sing. elegant lyrics. My voice is not very sonorous, but the content—often (so they tell me) wry, tart, amusing, ironic, on-point, engaging—is what prevents these efforts from being deemed merely trite or dispos- a able. See the chapter entitled “Singin’ In The Brain”. Both Einstein and Gershwin pervaded my sensibilities early on; physics and music were my constant companions as the years a rolled by, and cruising through my life they’ve been vivid and com- panionable inspirations. Now to the third genius in my life. Our career work and all The Gershwins inspired me to compose songs for special fam- studies of networking show that most professional jobs come about ily events -- birthdays, celebrations, anniversaries, wedding parties, through contacts: speaking to someone you know who knows children born. I jump in and find myself thinking of Gershwin as I someone else, and so on. “You are only two phone calls away from your write ‘pastiche’ or special material made for these occasions. next boss,” is an aphorism we quote to our clients. But I have found At first, I wrote the melody and the words. I want to say that that except for my first two jobs found from advertisements, all my musical themes were Gershwin-esque. But they are merely of my subsequent jobs (and there have been many) came about serviceable…reaching for the un-attainable, yet stretching myself. through a friend of a friend or a contact of a contact. The words, I discover, are my métier. Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, In 1970, my career profited from this networking method and Stephen Sondheim got under my skin. I gradually stopped writing serendipity, or semi-serendipity. Through a social contact, I was melodies, and started writing and re-writing old well-known melo- hired as a professional staff member at a prominent think tank, dies using my new and appropriate-to-the-occasion words. or as they preferred to describe themselves, as a “policy-research “Nice Work and You Can Get It” I’ve adapted to career change, organization dedicated to security in the nation’s interest”. The Hudson and (believe-it-or-not) I’ve sung it at lectures I’ve given at MIT to Institute was headed by a singular 350-pound genius named PhDs, to Mt Sinai’s MD/PhD program, to lawyers at the Association Herman Kahn, whose IQ was reported to be north of his weight. of the Bar of the City of New York City, and at other venues. “I He was the from-another-planet kind of genius: using the same Got Rhythm” morphed into a tribute to my wife Celia (“Who Got facts available to an ordinary intelligent person, he could create Cee/lya?”). “Our Love Is Here To Stay”, Gershwin’s last song before conclusions of considerable power. This could be disconcerting his untimely death, I sing to Celia without changing any lyrics. to mere mortals like me. His most influential and controversial The melody for Cole Porter’s “You’re The Top” I transformed into a books were: “On Thermo-Nuclear War” (1961) and “The Year 2000: birthday song for Celia, entitled, “Hymn To Her”. I sang it at a lunch A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years” (1967).

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Herman was always provocative and interesting, even if some of But every so often, when one of the generals raised a question his ideas were half-baked and eccentric. His book on the future about what Herman was saying, Herman would lapse into silence, had such a powerful effect on me that it inspired me to write my and his head would loll forward, and he would start to snore. It own book on the future, “Future Facts” (1976), described in a later was narcolepsy. Nevertheless, whenever the discussion about the chapter. points he had raised got interesting again, Herman would snap Among the many policy studies done at the Hudson Institute out of his narcoleptic interlude, pick up the thread of the discus- in the 1960s during the Cold War was an examination of the anti- sion, and carry on with the briefing—seemingly without missing ballistic-missile (ABM) debate, the Viet Nam war, and detailed a beat, as if he had been heard and understood all the discussion public issues connected to these and student uprisings. Herman while he was taking his catnap. briefed officials and executives at the Pentagon, the President, As the generals filed out, I overheard one say to another, and many others. “You know Herman really is a genius”. And the other one agreeing, On one occasion I accompanied him, traveling together by replied, “Yes he sure is. But how did you determine he was a genius?” plane to the Pentagon. He needed first-class seats and a special The first one said, “You know, well, when the discussion got boring— seat-belt extender to accommodate his great girth. Herman had that is when Herman was not speaking…Herman fell asleep”. Herman a photographic (eidetic) memory, and showed me how he could was always the smartest and most interesting guy in the room… read a book as quickly as he could turn the pages, and then tell me and he knew it. what line and page contained any words I called out from any book But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me return to my life as a he had skimmed. He could also take any side of any argument, physicist – at IBM, at Fort Schuyler, and at the Institut d’Astrophysique beat the opposing debater, then exchange positions and win the in Paris. debate again. He could draw the most extraordinarily interesting (perhaps profound and bizarre) conclusions. Example: “Experts are the last person you wish to consult if you want to know something. a You’re an expert on the subject of your spouse, but you’re the last person to know that the aforesaid spouse is having an affair.” I have summarized his eccentric thoughts in the Appendix entitled, “Expertise As An Addiction?” At the Pentagon, Herman gave a briefing to a roomful of generals seated at a marble conference-room table that I imagined to be the length of an aircraft carrier. The generals had vast numbers of medals on their uniforms—each one more copious than I had ever seen. Herman gave a briefing to these assembled generals on the emerging Japanese super-state (later, he wrote a book called “The Rising Sun” about how Japan would dominate the 21st century), on the situation in Vietnam, on the anti-ballistic-missile debate. He was brilliant and his ideas riveting to those around the table who hung on his every word.

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n 1959, as a very immature twenty-five year old on a blind date, II met Miki Gold and after a few months, we married. She was slender and beautiful with very high Russian cheek-bones. Miki’s mother Tanya (after whom our grand-daughter was named) was a public-school teacher; her father Abe a public-school principal and a dear man. Miki had studied Art History and eventually taught mathematics (a subject she hated) in a New York City public school when we returned after two years. I began working as a physicist at IBM in Owego, in upstate New York, south of Cornell University in Ithaca, in a region called the “Southern Tier”. Owego was then about a five-hour drive to New York City. Miki and I (being newlyweds) were able to take a two-week vacation several weeks after starting to work at IBM. That’s how generous the job benefits were back then. We went to the Virgin Islands, which was lovely and wonderful, and then returned to the real world of cold-war nuclear warfare. Even though my wife was a “red-diaper baby”, meaning her parents were left-leaning, I was able to obtain Top Secret clearance; at this location IBM Federal

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Systems Division was a defense contractor engaged in classified me is writing this memoir and racing against the clock to finish military work. it before I pop off -- with the manuscript dangling in incomplete We rented an old farm with about 110 acres of land some ten fragments. Well, there’s another thing missing: an ancient iron- minutes from the IBM research facility. The facility was vast: it rimmed wood-spoke wagon wheel that looks as if it had been to had several thousand people there, and it was set in wooded and California and back. bucolic land on what was intended to look like a university campus, and it was an “industrial campus”. We had two dogs. One, a beautiful rust-colored long-legged a graceful Irish Setter, was named “Merry X” because she was con- Life at IBM was exciting. There were many professionals from ceived on a bet on Christmas Eve by the owner who gave her to all over the world, including a contingent of smart Jewish scientists us. The other was a friendly, slobbering, lovable white and liver- and engineers. There was even an Orthodox Jew, Mo (short for colored English Springer Spaniel, called “Ketuffles”. Both dogs Moishe) Shatzkes, who was able to keep Kosher because of the roamed freely on the acreage, and both caught rabbits and other small Orthodox community in Binghamton. wild-life. We also roamed freely, taking long honeymoon-flavored He became a good friend, a valued colleague, and together walks with the dogs and each other as company. Weather was such with another fellow, we wrote a paper entitled, “A Monte Carlo that local folks, mostly farmers, said “Summer was a nice Tuesday last Calculation of Gamma Ray Transport Through the Atmosphere”. year” or “We have only two seasons here: snow and mud.” We tested electronic components to see if they would work There was a very tiny grave-yard at the furthest distance from during a hypothetical nuclear missile exchange. These computer the farm-house on the property, which had been a farm a hundred components on U.S. missiles had to work properly even if they years earlier, as the tombstone dates testified. Some of the tomb- encountered intense neutrons and gamma radiation from incom- stones told of small children who died of childhood diseases. One ing enemy ballistic missiles. So we were sent to the laboratory in of the tombstones had the following inscription: “Dear Friend, as Los Alamos, New Mexico where the original Manhattan Project you pass by/Remember Me/As you are now/so Once was I/As I am now/ culminated in development of the atomic bomb and eventually You soon will Be/ So prepare for Death/and Follow Me.” led to the hydrogen bomb. Rusted farm implements, like an ancient covered wagon with Our purpose: to expose missile components to a simulated huge wagon wheels, lay about abandoned. I removed one of these nuclear weapon called “Godiva”-- so-called because it consisted of iron-rimmed, wooden-spoke wheels that looked as if it had been to two “naked” fissionable-Uranium hemispheres, each of sub-critical California (“Here We Come!”) and back. I decided the wagon wheel mass. would make a charming rustic lazy-Susan out-door coffee-table, so Godiva was an ingenious device cleverly designed to simulate a I figured out how to convert its axle from horizontal (as it was on nuclear weapons explosion and to produce neutrons and gamma the wagon) to vertical, and it became a rotating coffee-table in our radiation—but no blast or sound or shock wave like a “normal” garden. I loved this creation of mine. fission nuclear weapon would. As long as you were out of range But when it came time to move back to New York, it broke my of these neutrons and gamma rays, experimenters were safe from heart to leave it there, so we brought it to the farm that Tanya and the effects of shock-wave “blast” of the sort that leveled Hiroshima Abe owned about a hundred miles away. I ache to think it may and Nagasaki. have been discarded by them -- or worse -- burned as firewood. I [Here’s a simple explanation of Godiva….When pushed together, would love to make another one now. The only thing stopping the hemispheres became a “critical mass”, meaning that they would

62 63 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE PHYSICS YEARS: OWEGO, Ft. SCHUYLER, & PARIS produce on average more than two neutrons per fission, and there- the blackboard “Lisa Jo Rosen”, and her weight, “6 pounds and 9 fore “multiply” rapidly, as in a nuclear fission weapon. However, these ounces”. The class cheered. I think they were so close in age to me hemispheres were of such a size that when slapped together to pro- (I was 25 years old, but looked much younger) and so it resonated duce a runaway multiplication of neutrons simulating a weapon, their with their youthful eagerness to mature. physical size increased by thermal expansion due to the Uranium I was supremely happy to be a father yet immature in appear- sphere being heated up super rapidly. The net result was that after ance and enthusiasm. I went to each of the academic departments, a few nano-seconds, the assembly became sub-critical and the entire handing out cigars, and one of the professors of English literature runaway chain reaction shut itself down -- instead of exploding as remarked, “Isn’t it curious how fatherhood brings out the boy in a man.” an atomic bomb does by exponentially producing super-fast fission I plead guilty as charged…a very happy youthful exuberant father. neutrons.] It was very exciting to be at Los Alamos in the late 1950s, redolent of the memories and works of people like J. Robert Oppenheimer, a Enrico Fermi, and Richard Feynman and other giants of physics After teaching at the Maritime College for six years and com- who worked on the Manhattan project during World War II. I was pleting my dissertation, I was ready for a change in my career. I in a special place where such giants cast long shadows. Echoes asked the chairman of the humanities department to write a letter of their discussions rattled my thoughts. One such physicist was of reference “To Whom It May Concern”. The following is what Robert Serber, a colleague of Oppenheimer’s -- later a professor he wrote…. of physics at Columbia University -- and the person assigned by the Editor to referee publication of part of my dissertation for the archival journal The Physical Review. a

Miki desperately yearned to return to Manhattan so after two years I sought, and was offered, a position as assistant professor of physics at the State University of New York Maritime College at Fort Schuyler in the east Bronx. After a year of teaching, our first child, Lisa, was born; and a year and a half later our son Daniel was born. These were deeply exciting events in our lives. When Lisa was about to be born, I spent the entire night waiting nervously, and so was unable to get to my first class at 8:00 am. I called ahead, and asked if it could be moved to 11 am. When I arrived for my lecture, my class apparently had been briefed on the reason for my lateness, and the entire group of some thirty students rose as one and sang “For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow” in uni- son. I almost lost my cool for a moment. I did not weep, but felt tears forming. I recovered, and wrote my daughter’s name on

64 65 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE PHYSICS YEARS: OWEGO, Ft. SCHUYLER, & PARIS

I was very pleased and proud to have such praise from a man I April 29, 1965 respected who knew me and my reputation so well. I am delighted To whom it may concern: that someone – not me, a biased observer – could report on my I would like to recommend my colleague, Professor Stephen work in articulate prose and in such glowing terms. I’m glad I Rosen, as a physicist who is capable of both significant research and saved his letter. fine pedagogy. While I was working on my doctoral dissertation for several Professor Rosen has rare ability and thorough-going knowledge. years as my children aged through their single-digit years, I spent I base my judgment in part on formal indications, such as a Professor twelve- to fourteen-hour days disciplining myself to focus on my Rosen’s delivery of a lecture on cosmic radiation before our college’s research on the origin of cosmic rays. I received a PhD in 1966, Nuclear Science Club. Not only did he show a familiar grasp of his and our family of four celebrated with two months in Europe. The subject matter, but he was able to range from the limits of his imme- pictures of us enjoying the major cities—Paris, Rome, London, diate subject preparation during the rather enthusiastic question pe- Amsterdam, and Liege (where I presented a paper at the 14th riod which followed his talk. I mention this as a single instance, but Astrophysical Symposium) show a happy mischievous four-year I have seen many others which illustrate a highly desirable combina- old Daniel, a happy engaging six year old Lisa, my then-happy wife tion of thorough essential knowledge produced by careful scholar- Miki …and my then-happy self. ship and an ability to translate this material effectively for students. At the Conference, I gave a talk on a portion of my thesis sub- My association with Professor Rosen consists of five years at the ject…the production of anti-protons in primary cosmic radiation. Maritime College, a small college of fewer than fifty on the instructional (More in “Cosmic Messengers” in the Appendix.) Many of the staff. There are many opportunities for faculty interchange even out- attendees were famous, but one was infamous -- physicist Thomas side one’s department. It has become clear to me during these years Gold, co-author (with Fred Hoyle) of the “steady-state” model of that Professor Rosen’s matter-of-factness and informality hide a surprisingly profound grasp of intellectual material. This is true not only of the Universe, which has now been discredited by the discovery his own field, but of humanistic areas as well. He is able to draw from of cosmic microwave background radiation that led to the now- other disciplines in relation to his own field and to render more dy- accepted “big-bang” theory of the origin of the Universe. namic his specialized study. This is undoubtedly an important factor “Tommy” Gold, as everyone called him, was a very smart and in his evident ability to interest and to activate his students. During the provocative scientist, and a penetrating skeptic and interrogator of years, I have heard informal comments from students as well as teachers my presentation. He asked a few tough questions I fudged answer- indicating that Professor Rosen is a teacher who almost invariably has ing, to my agonizing embarrassment. (I still shudder to remember marked and positive effects upon his students. this.) I have been aware of Professor Rosen’s involvement in his doc- The next morning, as my family and I entered the elevator toral studies, and it seems apparent that he has been applying him- of the hotel where all of us conference attendees were staying, self with energy and imagination. I have no doubt that he will do Tommy Gold made a surprise appearance by crowding with us into creditable work and go on after he has earned his doctorate to de- one very small European elevator. Out of nowhere, my son Daniel velop measurably as a scholar and a teacher. piped up, “Hello stupid!” to Tommy Gold. I was stunned because Very truly yours. I hadn’t mentioned my embarrassing performance to my family, OSCAR B. GOODMAN and yet here was my son insulting a man who had aggressively que- ried me. Pure coincidence, of course! But the real surprise that Chairman, Humanities Department sticks in my mind was how Tommy reacted. He simply said, and I

66 67 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE PHYSICS YEARS: OWEGO, Ft. SCHUYLER, & PARIS quote his words exactly as they were seared into my brain, “Hello French at home. Their smart-aleck answer: “No! Your accents are too stupid!” to my four-year old son. bad!” The book, “1968: The Year That Rocked the World” is an excellent detailed retelling by author Mark Kurlansky of the many student a riots and anti-war demonstrations that appeared in major cities all over the globe. In 1968 I was invited to stay a year at the Institut d’Astrophysique in Student demonstrators in Paris were extremely energetic and Paris and the Centre d’Etudes Nucleaire de Saclay nearby. We had an vocal in their denunciations of those over thirty, and there were apartment secured from a French astrophysicist who was on leave violent confrontations between the gendarmes and students every- at Harvard that year. where we looked. Lisa and Daniel complained every day and cried plenty about I happened to have been meeting in Paris on May Day (May the French public school they attended. “They speak French.” “We first) in 1968 with my editor at a French science magazine (Atomes, can’t understand them”. “Take us out!” much like Scientific American in the U.S.) We finished our work I mentioned this to my colleagues at the Institute. They insisted together at about 5pm in the magazine’s editorial offices in Place that we not move the kids to the American school where students de l’ Odeon, a hub where six streets converged like spokes in a bicy- spoke English only. My colleagues pointed out that our kids, at six cle wheel. Jacques Richardson and I walked into a violent scene, and eight years of age, were at the best possible ages for learning which might have been mistaken for a movie were it not for real. a second language, and if they learned it then they would speak it Students streaming towards the hub from one spoke-street were the rest of their lives – without an accent! (This has turned out to pulling up five-pound Belgian blocks from the street and hurling be true.) them at gendarmes who were converging on the same hub from Sure enough, after about five weeks, the kids stopped complain- another spoke-street. The gendarmes had six-foot-high transparent ing about the language problem, but mentioned another prob- plastic shields in one hand, and three-foot long hard-rubber trun- lem: the harshness of the teachers. Thus, Lisa came home from cheons in the other. With the shields they were blocking the pav- school one day to announce that the teacher has punished her ing blocks, and with the truncheons they were beating the hell out classmate, little innocent Jeanne-Marie, for chewing gum in class. of students near enough to be beaten. The punishment would have been the grounds for firing a teacher We watched, fascinated. No one was bothering us. We were in the public schools of New York (where my wife worked). The innocent bystanders, or so we thought -- until the tear gas started teacher ask the gum-chewer to spit the gum out into the teacher’s to spread. Heavier than air, tear gas penetrates everything and outstretched hand, whereupon the teacher proceeded to rub the floats everywhere to a depth of a few feet above the ground, and gum into poor Jeanne-Marie’s scalp and hair! On another day, causes copious tears. It also stings like hell, like jelly fish sting. We Daniel returned home from school to complain about the pun- started fleeing the scene and came upon a nearby Metro station ishment received by little Jean-George, who was sent to darkest entrance. Down we went. But the tear gas followed us down into “Afrique”…that is, he was locked into a clothes closet. the bowels of Paris, and we wept and wept and wept until we were When I related this to my colleagues at the Institute, I was told finally able to escape on a train. To this day, when Jacques and I that these punishments were even harsher than those dealt to chil- meet, we still talk about the bond we formed on that day. dren in the German public schools! When Danny and Lisa stopped complaining about French and began to be fluent in their new language, we suggested they speak a

68 69 FUTURE FACTS

hen my days at a “think tank” -- the Hudson Institute -- were Wover in 1970, I started writing a book inspired by what I had learned there under the strong influence of Herman Kahn who had written a very popular book in 1967 called “The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years”. The book I had intended to write was to be about the future of science and technology. The simple basic idea was that some of those products and services in the pipeline—that is to say, in research and development—in labs and universities around the world -- would someday become real products and services. They were embryonic developments that I anticipated would someday enter our lives…hence the title, “Future Facts”. The categories of these pipeline developments were: health, communications, transportation, entertainment, construction, materials, and so on. Helped by a bunch of hired graduate students, I was able to do a time-consuming and energy-intensive job of collecting vast amounts of data by organizing a carefully mounted campaign, reaching out to companies and universities, scouring the country and the world for those developments that met my criteria: (1) they had to be in the pipeline; (2) they had to be likely to succeed;(3) they had to be practical and useful to the ordinary man-and-woman-in-the-street; and (4) they had to be ‘interesting’ to read about. Consequently, I had to scrutinize and screen research lab output and sift through thousands of pipeline

71 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! FUTURE FACTS developments (the trivial many) to arrive at the few hundred (the the publicity department at S&S to promote the book on television critical few) that eventually made their way into the book. and radio, in newspaper and magazine, and at speaking engage- Here are examples from my research in 1975 of a few ideas that ments to large audiences. My first experience on network televi- survived and eventually thrived in the Darwinian marketplace: age sion was on NBC’s “The Today Show”, with then-famous Barbara retardation, obesity control, wall-size television, invisible airplanes, Walters. computers and the internet, global communications from satel- I arrived in their vast television studio on a high floor at lites…and a pill when swallowed that transmits vital data non-inva- Rockefeller Plaza, with sets, cameras, lively crew members hustling sively from the interior of the body. (When I lost half of my blood and bustling, moving equipment and people around. The NBC in 2009 due to a gastro-intestinal leak, I was given an advanced studio seemed about the size of a football field, but that percep- version of this pill in a procedure now called “capsule endoscopy”, tion was perhaps an exaggeration due to my state of shock and developed, by the way, in Israel). awe. The studio space and activity was unbelievable. I had been Since the research for the book was so demanding of time and prepped and rehearsed and my prepared remarks vetted. I had labor, I had to write a proposal to sell the concept to a major pub- only five or six minutes to convey the message that my book was lisher. My mother, of blessed memory, believed in me and the proj- important enough for some of the maybe ten million viewers out ect enough to loan me some of her personal savings. The proposal there to purchase a copy. I was deeply shaken and nervous, even itself was about three hundred pages, and was filled with examples though I had done public speaking before, but only to small audi- of the embryonic developments that matched my criteria. The ences of classroom size and at scientific conferences. This was publisher who eventually acquired the book, Simon & Schuster, major league big-time publicity for the millions. ‘Uneasy’ or ‘skit- had an appropriate acquisition editor (Peter Schwed) who had tish’ doesn’t do justice to my conscious state at that moment. previously acquired a similar book, “The Way Things Work”. I got I must have looked like Pale, Lips, and Trembling LLC because what-for-then was a very large advance, repaid my mother, and Gene Shalit (one of the on-air personalities at the time) came over was off and running in the world of what seemed like big-time and asked what was wrong. I said I was panicked about appearing publishing. on network television. He was very kind and helpful. “Just imagine I remember floating on air when I deposited the largest check you’re sitting next to someone on a plane, and he asks you to tell him about I had ever seen. Great satisfaction swept over me after the long your book. That should relax you…By the way, you must be OK because hard push to create and sell the book proposal. The elation lasted you got this far.” I did exactly what he suggested, and it apparently one day only…and then the really hard work began. (A question worked, because I was booked all around the country on local and asked on obsolete psychology tests was: “Would you rather write a other network television and radio talk shows. My publicist at S&S book, read a book, or sell a book?” Dad would have said, “Sell a book!” also told me I had done well, although my parents who watched Mom would have said, “Read a book!” I am one of the few people the show thought that I was hamming it up—being a show-off. I I know who can honestly say “read, write and sell!” because I derive plead guilty, but with extenuating circumstances: eagerness to sell great energy from all three activities; as the need arises I can be an books to a mass market. introvert in the morning and an extrovert in the afternoon.) Touring the country to promote my book at the publisher’s The book, “Future Facts: The way things are going to work in expense was a trippy adventure in TV-land, over-dosing on self- the future in technology, science, medicine, and life”, eventually sold importance and an infinitesimal dollop of brief fame. I was put up some eighty thousand copies (and was translated into Japanese, at very expensive hotels, picked up and deposited at each appear- German, Portuguese, Italian, and British English). I was sent by ance or booking by chauffeured limos, and treated as if I was the

72 73 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! serious author of a serious book. In reality, I was a minor celebrity at the edge of the public eye for a few months. People came up to me on the street and said they had seen me on television. Fans flattered me. Women swooned. (Nora Ephron once described her own book tour as an exercise in acquiring a dreadful disease she called “terminal narcissism”). I probably caught the same disease during my book tour. Maybe even before. Staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, a palatial Los Angeles hotel frequented by celebrities, I was waiting in the breeze-way to be picked up by my limo when I noticed a very short man with a familiar face: movie director Roman Polanski was also waiting to MEASURE TWICE; be picked up. I told him I was a big fan of his work, especially “The Vampire’s Ball”, which he dismissed as being poorly edited. I CUT ONCE ! then ventured to say I had written a book, and added that maybe he’d like to look at it for possible movie ideas. And, by the way, I ventured further, “Here’s my card. May I have yours?” He then said “Hurry, worry, multitasking, stress — you might call them the four in an arrogant way “When you’re as famous as I am, you don’t need a horsemen of the accident prone. But the biggest issue is multitasking. card.” And then he walked away. I guess he was the ordinary kind If you’re presented with a lot of stimuli you have to filter out what’s of genius: not a glow-worm, but maybe a worm. most important to you. If you’re chopping something with a knife, You can encourage a relationship with someone who’s inter- you have to take that seriously enough to stay focused on it. You ested in you, but not if he’s not. You can pull on a string, but you can’t let loud noises or children or anything else disturb your train can’t push on a string. of thought. Meta-analysis … of the general population revealed that accidents cluster in individuals, and that this clustering is a higher than the clustering one would expect by chance alone. A recent study in the British Medical Journal found a correlation between early injuries and children who were diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.” --MSNBC

y sister Barbara is three years younger than I am. My parents Mconceived her on a second honeymoon. So I must have been two years old plus several months then. Playing with building blocks was my passion. I was left in the loving care of Mom’s sister Frieda, who had no children at the time. She was very fond of me, and made a big fuss over me, which I loved. One day while she was changing my

74 75 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MEASURE TWICE; CUT ONCE ! diapers, she went briefly into another room to fetch something, My sister was one year old at the time; the doctor was at our red and when she came back, she saw that I had taken apart an antique brick attached house in Brooklyn examining her because she had alarm clock near the bed. Curiosity (not the Devil) made me do it. a cold. My Dad hadn’t left yet for work. Fortunately, that was in This was my first in-depth quasi-scientific exploration of the physi- the days when doctors made house calls, and the doctor who was cal world of engineered objects. An early instance of impulsive attending to my baby sister was calm throughout the emergency. self-endangerment. And my earliest vivid memory. Here’s the way it happened… I was wandering—no, scamper- There had been two wind-up keys on the back of the big-faced ing-- down the street about a block away from home with another cream-colored alarm clock—one to wind the clock-spring, one to kid my age, a friend. We discovered a cat up a tree and decided we wind the alarm-spring. Un-spooling like a movie in my mind’s eye, had to climb up the tree to rescue it. We did not yet know that it the clock face pops into my head with its two hands and the tiny has been proven conclusively by Fire Departments everywhere that brass shafts sticking out the back. When Aunt Frieda returned, cats eventually come down from trees. Proof: how many cat skel- only one wind-up key was visible. Frieda asked me where the other etons have you seen at the tops of trees? The cats climb to catch one was, and I pointed to my mouth. She looked at it. No key. I birds and then cats come down to earth where they belong. Cat pointed inside my mouth. skeletons don’t exist in tree-tops. She concluded I must have swallowed it and got very upset, We four-year-olds stared up at a cat in a tree. On impulse, my because had been entrusted with my safe-keeping on her watch friend and I started climbing a steel picket fence that was next while my parents were away. She made a game for the two of us. to the tree to help the cat. When I reached the top of the steel She suspended a diaper across the toilet seat. After each and every picket fence, somehow I slipped and fell onto one of the steel pick- poop we two peeked into the suspended diaper to watch for the ets. The triceps muscle on my left arm was pierced through and key to come out the other end. A day or later, she got very excited through by the rusty iron spear-like picket. I was skewered, hang- -- and so did I! “Look! Look! Look! It’s right there!” This was a great ing by a thread of muscle. I must’ve been in shock because I didn’t lesson in anatomy and a memorable adventure. Yuk. So at an realize it until I saw the blood running, streaming, down my body. early age I was taking things apart, and trying to ingest parts of I was frightened and crying and skewered and stuck there. I could the world around me. “I am a part of all that I have met”, said Alfred not lift myself to climb down. Lord Tennyson. “Well, hello” said Stephen Rosen: “I am a part of all A kind gentleman walking down the street saw me and lifted that I have et” me off the steel picket. He asked me where I live and he walked me back to the house. I was holding my left arm away from my body, fearfully watching as the red blood galloped down my body. a We arrived at the house, and he told my parents what had happened to me. They gasped at the blood rushing out and showed Another troublesome event, this time a grim trauma, was dan- the wound to the doctor who took me in his car, followed by my gerous, vivid, and painful. I have a very strong dramatic recollec- Dad in his car, to his office and poured antiseptic solution on the tion, a video tape in my head, playing back the horror, the horror. wound. I watched it pouring in one side of the picket hole, and I impaled myself on a steel picket fence when I was four years dribbling out the other. Eeeek! I feel squeamish as I write these old. No, really. I’m not making this up. The memory is extremely words. But I have to tell this gory story, if only to show how impul- vivid because of the intense pain it caused me, and the extreme sive I was. Am. distress to my parents.

76 77 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MEASURE TWICE; CUT ONCE !

The doctor calmly placed a tourniquet above the wound. He He operated on my hand, and joined the severed tendon to proceeded to sew twenty stitches at the entry and the exit wounds. the appropriate muscle. I was able to move the fourth finger, and Then, he placed bandages around the circumference of the four- to play the piano again. Of course, I was never planning to be a year old arm. Then he prescribed daily rinses of Burrows Solution concert pianist. and daily dressing changes. I’m not proud of these episodes. They strongly suggest a pat- “Tincture-of-time” helped, and Mom lovingly attended to the tern, predictive or emblematic, of my early, yet still-present ten- wound daily for several months. I was later told that the doctor was dency, to impulsive and sometimes-dangerous accident-prone concerned they might have had to amputate the arm if it became behavior. My painter friend Gerry Monroe says “Humans are pat- infected. I still have scars from this on my upper left arm. Wanna tern-making machines.” One pattern that defines me: accident- see? prone behavior. Memo to future self…Pay attention! Heed warnings! Plan. Think before you act; look before you leap. Focus, focus, focus! Measure twice; cut a once! Another episode of impulsive self-endangerment. At age fifteen in college freshman chemistry lab, we were told to slip a glass a tube into a rubber-hole stopper. (You’re supposed to wet the tube first, and not to push the tube where it’s bent and the glass is thin.) But impulsive behavior is not my only imperfection. I also have The glass tube shattered in my right hand, entered my palm, a very short attention span. and severed the tendon connected to the muscle of my fourth When I do chores around the house, I find that en route to one finger. I was sent to the nearest hospital, Queens General, where task, I am often distracted by two or four other tasks. This may my uncle Ellie, Mom’s brother, Dr. Louis K. Nelson (changed work to my advantage, because I can sometimes be more efficient from Katznelson), found and rescued me at 2 am in a public ward doing multi-tasking. But it can also wreak havoc on those around -- minus anti-tetanus or anti-biotic shots. He was furious at the me, and sometimes I will catch myself doing a handful of chores staff and told me to get up, get dressed, and to go with him to his simultaneously, and wonder, “What the hell did I start out to do?” office in Lynbrook. He cleaned the wound carefully then, noting So here I am writing on a rainy day in East Hampton, strug- that tetanus was starting to set in, and gave me the appropriate gling to stay on point, and what do I see? An electrical outlet antibiotics. needs fixing. Do I sit still and keep my eye on the ball (the task at After several months, the wound healed. But the fourth finger hand, which is writing), or do I fix the electrical outlet? Well, in of my right hand flopped back and forth like a wet noodle. No this case, after writing a reasonable amount (five hundred words) attempts by me to control its motion were successful since the fin- I decide to get all the tools needed to fix the outlet. ger was unconnected to the muscle coordinating its movement. This means fetching tools from the disparate locations where Surgery was needed. they live. Now, maybe I place them in different storage spaces The man chosen to do the job was a Dr. Littler. He had learned because that’s where they are convenient? Or that’s where there’s hand surgery in World War II, repairing hands blown apart by enough space for them? Or because that gives my distract-ability hand-grenades…either faulty grenades that went off prematurely maximum scope? before being thrown at the enemy, or those that the thrower held So while I got the tools to fix the outlet, I noticed that the onto too long. sunflowers I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted, and need

78 79 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MEASURE TWICE; CUT ONCE ! re-potting. Also, I noticed there’s a dead tree branch that needs five books (including this one) and hundreds of articles, essays, trimming; and the compost heap needs turning and separating letters, and memos …given these symptoms and shortcomings. and feeding. Also, the car needs washing and waxing. So where But here’s another view. Consider the “Hunter versus Farmer was I? Oh, yes. The outlet. Well, fortunately I was able to fix it with- theory,” a notion that hyperactivity may be an adaptive behavior, out the need for an electrician. But I did the job then with what-I- allowing those more adept at searching and seeking to survive now-realize was irresponsible lack of impulse control: I didn’t shut (like Hunters) versus those more adept at staying home and man- down the main power to the outlet before working on it. I fixed aging complex tasks (like Farmers) to do agriculture. Well maybe it while the electricity was still “live” or “hot”. This, I again realize, I’m a Hunter, better at searching and seeking -- than as a Farmer was really stupid. I could have received a shock. But I didn’t; it staying put and managing complex tasks. (My beloved Celia is a was one of many shortcuts. “Do it right the first time”, my ten-year- Farmer, and I’m a Hunter…a combination that makes us such a old assistant, a neighbor’s kid, tells me. Corner-cutting can lead to great team.) accidents, and I’m certifiably accident-prone because of my impul- If I am pointed towards a goal, say writing a book, it takes me siveness and distract-ability. some time to get up to speed and fully immersed in the project. But once I aim at the target, and attend to the process, my directed- ness and over-active consciousness leads me to vacuum up mate- a rial from any source I happen to encounter. Sometimes I use virtually any idea, object, or person that pops I noticed this in college, when I had to study, to sit still, to focus into my head during the course of moving the book or project for- on one subject for extended periods. It happened again when I ward. These “pop-ins” almost always seem to have some intrinsic was writing each of the (so-far five) books I’d written. It might link to (or else I create a link to) what I’m doing. My total immer- be brain chemistry, lack of discipline, some inner compulsion to sion creates ongoing intent. It’s called intentionality or about-ness. jump around among different ideas, topics, activities. I suspect There is a sort of ‘critical mass’ of ideas and thoughts that keep that my father, nephew, son, and grand-daughter are genetically the project percolating along, carrying idea “stuff” in its path, impulsive and distractible — just like me. like a wind moving dust and tree-leaves along its way. At times, Clinical symptoms of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity dis- it feels more like a hurricane moving through. Is this ADHD – or order) listed by the National Institute of Mental Health include: Creativity? I see it when I put together my welded sculptures of inattention to details, trouble listening or following instructions randomly-found tools or assemblages. and organizing activities, avoiding lengthy mental effort, easily dis- I’ve urged clients to get into this zone of total immersion, or com- tracted, forgetting and losing items; also being fidgety, often “on plete focus when conducting a job search or a career change. I’ve the go” and acting as if “driven by a motor”, often talking exces- found that keeping a journal or diary or jot-book helps stay on sively, interrupting others, blurting out answers before a question track. While so directed and engaged, almost every person or topic is completed. I am exposed to (even apparently-random events) may become of I believe I share many of these symptoms, and so does my friend interest, and I can find myself swept up into the breeze -- or hurri- Paul Greenfield. Yes, I have to work hard, very hard, to compensate cane -- of intentionality or about-ness. It works for our clients who for these shortcomings. But I soldier on. follow this advice. It works for me. Friends have remarked that they find it difficult to understand how I could have written a doctoral dissertation in physics, written a

80 81 II MIDDLE-AGE MY HALF-LIFE

hen I was over half my present age, I wrote a book, published Win 1978, about the effects of the weather on our bodies, our minds, our moods, and our health. In the research for my book, called “Weathering”, I discovered a graph that changed my life and expectations. Looking back, I would now call the effect the graph had upon me as an ‘epiphany’ about the first half of my life…My Half-Life. The eight curves on the graph show how our body’s efficien- cies change as we age. Not surprisingly, each curve rises steeply in youth, peaks at about age twenty, and slowly tapers off until the about the ninth decade of life. As a percent of maximum capacity versus average age of the population, these eight curves show:

• The volume of gas that can be breathed in 15 seconds when a person breathes as deeply and quickly as possible (Maximum breathing capacity) • The amount of air that can be forcibly expelled after a deep inhale (Vital capacity) • The volume of blood delivered to kidneys per unit time (Renal plasma flow) • Flow rate of fluid thru the kidney (Glomerular filtration rate) • Daily energy expended at rest (Basal metabolic rate)

85 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MY HALF-LIFE

• Speed of electrical signals thru a nerve (Conduction velocity, sexual…was evident, not only on the chart. I began to intuit a ulnar nerve) gradual decay (I didn’t call it “aging”), slowly emerging into con- • The blood volume per unit of time divided by the body scious recognition, even as it rose infinitesimally and inexorably surface area, in liters per minute per square meter (Cardiac from beneath the radar. The loss of function, though miniscule at index) the time, had a life on its own. A half-life. • The interstitial, intravascular, or tissue fluid (Intracellular In a radioactive substance, unstable particles inside the nucleus, water) release energy as they re-arrange themselves -- by emitting particles and energy -- into a nuclear system of lower energy. Each of the eight curves on the graph has a similar inverted “U” In both cases (the nuclear and the Steve systems), the amount shape. Up to five years of age, each of the above bodily functions of disorder (called “entropy”) increases. Not only was I decaying. rises steeply, as the immature child’s body builds up those impor- It sounds better to say my entropy was increasing. tant functions necessary to grow and develop. The vital capacity Imagine a snowfield on a mountain. The ice particles are held and breathing capacity rise very steeply through the teen years. together by friction, but an outside disturbance could make this After rising, the curves on the graph remain virtually flat until snowfield transition to a more likely lower total-system energy- the fourth and fifth decade of life, and then they slowly turn down- state -- a higher entropy-state. In the case of the snowfield, a shock wards through the eighth decade of life. These curves represent to the system caused by a blast of sound emitted by a human-fired averages for the general population, cannon, or sound from a passing thunder-storm, could trigger an When I first contemplated these curves, I was forty-four years avalanche. I began to imagine I was a pre-avalanche about to hap- old, feeling very vigorous. I jogged four miles a day. I ate and slept pen….maybe about to transition to a lower energy-state. well. I felt great -- until I saw these data. It was then that I realized In my then-physical body--my infinitesimal universe—I resem- that my health and well-being had a life, or more properly a ‘half- bled the snowfield. Inherently unstable. About to become an ava- life’. …say, like a sample of radioactive uranium, samarium, or lanche. This graphical chart became an epiphany that re-arranged gadolinium, half of which disappears over a half-life about equal my world-view and shuffled my personal priorities. to my present age (~79 years = ~10^8 seconds…that’s a one fol- Before seeing the chart, I was in no hurry; I had limited ‘passion- lowed by eight zeros). [Strictly speaking, half-life is the average at-work’, limited goals; I was pathetically sleep-walking through my time for the mass of an original radioactive substance to lose an life. I was in mourning for my then recently-deceased parents, which average of half of its original mass, converting that lost half into a is another way to say I was mourning for myself…my sad solitary different substance.] unmarried state – like a ship without ballast, or half a pair of scissors. Radioactive substances have unstable nuclei that (semi-) spon- After, I was energized; I re-married; I became interested in a taneously emit energy plus one or more particles -- such as an elec- new life filled with meaning and purpose; I began the finest hour tron, a neutron, or a proton, or a photon. of my life, a prelude to the best (second) half of my half-life. I The similarities between myself, as charted by these graphical helped Soviet Jewish émigré scientists find work in the U.S. I began curves, depicting body function and body decay, resembled what helping physicians and attorneys to change their careers and lives happens to a radioactive substance when it “decays”. and, in so doing, to encourage them – and myself -- to develop a Unstable entities. Aha! I was decaying as well. In my body, full, rich, juicy, and well-lived life. the inexorable progress of aging and decline of powers—physical, physiological, and by implication mental and emotional and a

86 87 TIRESIAS & LONELINESS

ovelist C.P. Snow observed that Einstein was a very sensual Nman. According to Einstein’s biographers, he was also a womanizer. As a teenager, I didn’t know about his sexual conquests, but he was one of my childhood heroes because I fell in love with Relativity. A mysterious but confirmed result of the Special Theory is that time passes more slowly within a body moving with respect to a stationary body. I mention relativity and sex together because of my favorite New Yorker cartoon. Albert Einstein is shown in bed next to a lovely young woman who’s smoking what is clearly meant to be a post-coital cigarette. She has a very unhappy frown on her pretty face. The caption, Albert Einstein speaking: “To you it was fast!” (Think about it.) a

Another one of my heroes, Richard P. Feynman, was an extraordinary individual and a Nobel-Laureate theoretical physicist – who, like Einstein, also led a very active sex life, according to Lawrence Krauss in his beguiling book Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science. After his first wife Arline died very young of tuberculosis, Feynman was depressed, lonely, and desperate. In his letters to

89 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! TIRESIAS & LONELINESS her after she expired, he wrote: “You, dead, surpass anyone alive”. divorced in 1968 when you left Mom, and those parents were enjoying the His desperation, ironically, took the form of pursuing women, ‘sexual revolution’…so I want you to write about it, Dad.” OK. So she even the wives of his friends and students. (I’m not approving his strong-armed me into doing this. Thanks, Lisa. behavior, just reporting it.) One of the first inklings I had of this sea change in the mores He taught himself to become a facile, sophisticated, and suc- and morals of liberated women occurred during a conversation in cessful womanizer, an obsessive seducer of women, perhaps to a bar started by a woman, a complete stranger. assuage his loneliness. He addressed the problem of meeting, and She said, “Do you mind if I smoke?” I loathed cigarettes, their charming women into bed, as if it were a physics problem. He smell, their dangers to health, and the complete lack of discipline developed many approaches and methods to solve his needs for they symbolize. (Of course, I used to be a smoker: thus my sanc- temporary sexual companionship. His charm, his brilliance, his timony.) My inner wise-guy answered her with an impulsive non intense concentration and rapid mind...all came together when sequitor. I said, “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray”. he was in the midst of “chatting up” a candidate for his next con- The next moment, this stranger wrapped her arms around my quest. His smile, his ability to listen, his quick wit, his warmth, and neck, pulled my head towards hers, and proceeded to kiss me: a his “animal magnetism” supported his amatory pursuits. wet open-mouthed, lingering, smoke-flavored kiss. Reflexively, I While reading about this part of him (he is mainly remembered tingled all over. She said, “Was that like licking an ashtray?” I was as a giant of 20th century physics, indeed a legend, revered by speechless. “Smoke gets in your eyes” was a song….but the smoke she legions of fellow physicists) I began to remember my own clumsy blew my way got not only in my eyes…but everywhere. I was begin- gauche fumbling to avert loneliness after my first marriage disinte- ning to learn that some women actually liked some men. More grated in 1968 at the dawn of the sexual revolution. research was needed. Timing is everything, and 1960s and 1970s was a time of social I decided that if I spotted an attractive woman anywhere -- on and sexual liberation for women as well as for men. Growing up in the bus, walking on Fifth Avenue, biking in Central Park -- I would the 1940s and 1950s I didn’t have any friends whose parents were attempt to start a civilized conversation. The sun was setting on an divorced; in the sexual revolution, my own children did not have old era (my monogamous first marriage to Miki), and dawn was any friends whose parents were together. Experimentation and a rising on a new one: my new life as a bachelor. Maybe an Einstein new science to conquer, like Quantum Mechanics and Relativity or Feynman womanizer. I learned a lot from them. Besides physics. …the divorced generation and beyond were no longer doing clas- At first, my opening gambits were laughably incompetent. I was sical Newtonian science; they were exploring the receding limits. new to this modus operandi. On the one hand, if I spoke up I could Not at the speed of light, but pretty close. be rejected; and on the other hand, if I didn’t speak up I would Profoundly awkward at first, I realized I had to start a new life miss a probably-rare opportunity for our paths to cross again, since of my own, separate and apart from my ex-wife and our newly the “target” and I were complete strangers. There were so many ex-friends. good-looking women all around – as numerous as waves on the ocean and leaves on trees … but so little time. a The adventurous new man I wished to become argued with the old conservative me I wished to leave behind: if I had had When she was fifty-two, my daughter Lisa asked me to include only one chance at opening a conversation, I was obliged to take in these memoirs a report about my own post-marriage woman- my best shot. I persuaded the new me that no matter how read- izing because, she said, “All of my friends had parents who were getting ily or harshly my advance might be rejected, I would not allow it

90 91 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! TIRESIAS & LONELINESS to deflate me or to discourage me from trying again elsewhere. and an experienced sexual partner -- and I was a willing and eager Rejection was the price of converting an approaching opportunity learner. into an intimacy. Before Women’s Lib, Cervantes formulated it I will not catalog the fine details of our times together since this way: “Faint heart ne’er won fair maid.” no matter how I explained them they would, perforce, sound like Armed with this attitude, and beset by severe loneliness and a Casanova’s braggadocio and bravado. There truly is a learning voracious unsatisfied sexual appetite (one possible side-effect or curve on many activities, as I discovered by practicing this activ- co-factor of ADHD?), I persisted. I was resourceful. Yes, I had a ity with diligence... following in the footsteps of Einstein and number of rejections and dismissals from time to time. But I was Feynman, my Nobel-Laureate heroes. Did physics (or heredity) dedicated to the task, and eventually my libido prospered. There’s make me a better lover? a learning curve on many activities, and I was a diligent student. My own experiences were not merely my conquests of will- My approach was always adjusted, fine-tuned, and suited to the cir- ing women. To be sure, I came to understand that many mature cumstance, the venue, and the occasion. “seize the day” was another women actually like men, and enjoy sexual activity—“friendly love- motto I honored to a fault. making”, “recreational sex” -- as much I did -- if not more. Here’s my favorite joke about seducing women…. One guy A distant relative, who I am convinced had been a CIA agent, asks his friend how to get a woman into bed. The friend says, “It’s told me, confidentially, that he assumed that men were ready for really easy. You invite her out to dinner at one of those chic French res- sexual activity about 80 or 90 percent of the time, but that women taurants, you know the ones with red-and-white checkered table-cloths and were ready only about 20 or 30 percent of the time. He formulated romantic candle-light. You order the food and fine wine in French. You the problem statement: “You have to find the mutually convenient hold your wine glass up toward her face so the candle is visibly refracted time, and the best way to know, was simply to ask “Is this a conve- through wine, and you praise her beauty in French as a tear rolls down nient time?” your cheek.” The guy who asked says, “I know about French restaurants, The mysteries of women’s interest in love-making were checkered table-cloths, candle-light, ordering in French, and praising her unveiled to me slowly, since I had grown up in that era--the 1940s with the candle-light visible through the wine glass. But how on Earth do and 50s--when sexual activity was still embarrassingly “hush-hush”, you get that tear to roll down the side of your cheek?” The friend says, still behind the scenes, not polite table talk, and certainly not dis- “That’s really easy: you just pull a hair out of your nose.” (But I never cussed as readily and as openly and as matter-of-factly as it is in used this method.) the 21st century. (A sociologist told me that 21st century people will talk more openly about their sex life than about their money.) The taboos and shibboleths were dwindling, and sexual freedom a began to be emphasized as a woman’s right in the 1960s and 1970s, just as I was emerging from my monogamous marriage-cocoon. My first success -- easy to remember because it was my first— Lewis Carroll captured what I was feeling: “And, hast thou slain the took place in Woodstock, New York, with an independent-minded Jabberwock? (My marriage?) Come to my arms (Those welcoming lib- counter-cultural follower of Wilhelm Reich, a believer (now dis- erated women), my beamish boy (Eager me)! O frabjous day! Callooh! credited) in the ultimate power of environmental “orgone”, or Callay! (Orgone energy?) He (Me) chortled in his joy (New-found “orgasm energy”. She was already primed to enjoy a liaison with freedom).” any man by virtue of her Reichian beliefs and her orgone-energy- box “accumulator”. I happened to be “any man”, or “the only man near her at present”. She was a willing leader in this encounter, a

92 93 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! TIRESIAS & LONELINESS

Tiresias, one of the fabled demi-gods of Greek mythology, was swimmers or anyone in the pool seem to notice, or to care. This an unusual creature, the only mythical Greek figure who had been was Israel, after all...the land of Sabras and macho men. both a man and a woman at different times. In the Tiresias myth, When I showered and collected myself, and my excitement Zeus asks Tiresias, “Who has greater pleasure during lovemaking--the had dwindled and visibly diminished, I returned to our seats on man or the woman?” Mythical Tiresias, having been both sexes at the bus. We then sat very close together, arms in contact. Again! different times, was thus the only demi-god able to compare the So it had been a signal. two, and answered, “The woman, by ten times as much!” Zeus, being a I asked if she might be interested in some friendly love-mak- man, was enraged by this answer, and turned Tiresias into a blind ing, and she said “Yes”. (Timing is everything!) When we returned woman -- and as an afterthought gave her the gift of prophecy. She to Tel Aviv we went directly to her hotel room and enjoyed rec- became the blind seer. reational sex for the evening, during the course of which she I always enjoy this fable, not only for what it revealed about the remarked in her lovely Australian-accented, voice: “You make beau- Greeks’ knowledge of human nature, but also what it revealed to tiful love”. -- not, “You make love beautifully”) Flattery? me about the eternal nature of feminine desire and perhaps even You bet. But a very welcome compliment to a sex-starved lust. I found its message to me, in my hours of need, to be gently amateur in search of fulfillment and new friends. My first wife encouraging. My epiphany: women got more pleasure out of sex had never praised my efforts. So the Aussie’s review of my per- than men! “Hello, woman.” formance was a great gift. And a nod to Tiresias, Einstein, and So let me tell you a few examples of my being seduced by Feynman. “To Life!”(L’Chayim) as Tevye sings in “Fiddler On The women -- all the while believing I was the seducer. They say a man Roof”. runs after a woman until she catches him. I was caught many times I have carried this memory of her grammatically-inverted non- while I was a bachelor. idiomatic compliment for some forty years; I still savor it and get a Still between marriages, I was visiting Israel for the first time, frisson whenever I recollect the scene of our encounter, unspool- and on a tour bus noticed an attractive woman of a certain age, ing like a film in my mind’s eye. and invited her to sit next to me as we toured Masada and other As I discovered again and again, there is a learning curve on important places in Jewish history playing the piano, on skiing, on playing tennis, on learning phys- She was Australian and very friendly. After some hours of ics and Greek--and on understanding what to do before, during, conversation sitting side-by- side, I noticed her bare arm was in and after intercourse. I was on a steep learning curve. contact with my bare arm. I thought, “This is interesting”. Is this a subliminal or not-so-subliminal signal, or simply an accidental a contact? At one point the tour bus stopped at the Dead Sea, a well-known I once dated Joan, an actress who was very friendly with Salome tourist attraction, which had a very large very salty pool where, Jens, a beautiful actress of the 1960s who told my date that she, once we put on our swim suits, we were able to swim around. At Salome, was having an affair with President John F. Kennedy, who one point, I called her name, and when she approached me as I was another notorious womanizer. was standing in the pool, I opened my arms toward her in a wel- In fact, in his memoirs, Harold MacMillan, the British prime coming gesture. To my surprise, she did the same, came closer, minister at the same time Kennedy was president, mentions and leapt into my arms, wrapping her legs around me and stimu- that Kennedy confessed privately to him that he, Kennedy, lating me to the point where I became very embarrassed. No other needed to screw a different woman every three days -- at the

94 95 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! TIRESIAS & LONELINESS least. (An acquaintance of mine, when apprised of this, said, popular indoor sport…recreational love-making. It had become “Why so long?”) an obsession, a habit, a reflex...a way of avoiding intimacy. Salome Jens, to show off her presidential affair to her friends, Then I met and married Celia, and my well-lived life began -- actually wore black for weeks after JFK was assassinated, as if she and thankfully continues to this day. were the widow. Joan told me this was vulgar female braggadocio. Joan had lived in France, and was a very accomplished and elegant lover who taught me some of the French ways of love. a She asked if I had ever had sex with men. “Why do you ask?” I asked back, shocked. She said that in her vast sexual experiences with men, “Most men are terrible in bed…clumsy, awkward, all thumbs”. Then she said, “Actually, you’re not like most men in that regard.” Wow! Another notch on my belt. Being a divorced free agent was an eye-opener. (And an opener of other body parts. Woody Allen famously said, “My brain is my second favorite organ.” I couldn’t agree with him more.) Nevertheless, Joan ended our relationship when she realized that I was not going to be husband material any time soon. But Joan’s French love-making reminds me of a joke… Everyone thinks that when astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon, he said: “That’s one small step for a man, and a Giant Leap for Mankind.” In this joke, that’s not what he said. What he really said was: “That’s one small step for a man, and a giant leap for Manny Klein.” So you might wonder who is Manny Klein? I’ll tell you….Manny Klein is the husband of Mrs. Manny Klein, who for many years before the Moon landing had told her husband, “When men land on the Moon -- that’s when I’ll give you a blow job.” There are many more romantic interludes I enjoyed until my second marriage, but the theme is pretty much the same. I was better at this than I had hitherto been given credit for. And I was getting even better. Learning curves indeed. Exceeding my expectations. How do you get to Carnegie Hall? “Practice, practice, practice” There did come a time (“What took you so long, big shot?” I can hear my Dad saying) when I actually became over-dosed on this

96 97 RICH UNCLE, POOR UNCLE

y mother’s admonition to “be a good person” was embedded Min my brain from early child-hood. Such advice drove my life-long interests in teaching and helping others -- and made me a better person than I otherwise would have been had pursuit of money or of fame been the central theme of my life. But two uncles, brothers of Mike Rosen, exemplified the personal costs of their single-minded pursuit of money and fame. Each lived self-centered yet un-examined lives. Both grew up in squalid poverty alongside my Dad; Harry became a wealthy restau- rateur, Bob a starving minor poet. Harry Rosen (HR) was my Dad’s older brother…older by two years, with super-abundant testosterone, aggression, over-weaning ambition, charm, wit, arrogance, and selfishness—enough to fuel half a dozen people like me…or my father, Mike Rosen (MR). They were business partners in a very successful restaurant, the Enduro, predecessor to the now-famous Junior’s (of cheese-cake fame) which HR founded after MR left the restaurant business in 1947. The current Enduro, as mentioned, lives anew on the upper east side of Manhattan, in an upscale cheese-cake-free restaurant founded by Harry’s grand-son, Alan. HR, like MR, never finished grammar school but HR was also a phenomenon and a force of nature—for better or worse. Perhaps for better and worse. HR smoked cigars. He was magnanimous to his inferiors, fawning to his superiors, and an inveterate gambler.

99 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! RICH UNCLE, POOR UNCLE

Larger than life, he may have modeled himself on tough-guy roles One of his sons, Walter (my cousin, and about my age) stopped from old gangster movies -- like Edward G. Robinson’s role in speaking to him for the last decades of HR’s life. Apparently, “Little Caesar” or Humphrey Bogart’s in “Key Largo”. He was self- Walter’s wife Sandy and HR clashed on many levels, and on many made, and as they say, ‘a legend in his own mind.’ occasions. HR was an amusing amalgam of charm, pugnacity, and “Alphas” are creatures that dominate others in their group. Hollywood hubris. He died of prostate cancer at age 92, but he HR was an “alpha-cubed” male, and Sandy likewise an “alpha- gave his prostate several lifetimes of use, for he was a compulsive cubed” female. By “cubed” I mean to indicate that they were both womanizer during his life-long marriage to Ruth, who accepted extremely assertive and dominant personalities; Sandy and HR him as he was. She must have known about what he called his clashed from the very beginning of her marriage to Walter. For “chippies” (his sexual conquests), but she knew he loved her as their wedding, HR bought them a very expensive house in the she loved him. They had a very strong marriage, but serious issues upscale neighborhood of Sands Point in Great Neck. For what at with one of their children. the time (early 1960s) was a considerable sum: a million dollars. HR apparently believed that his largesse meant that he had a claim a on them, that they owed him obeisance or guilt or homage. Yet they never paid him the respect he demanded. Although he was my father’s “big brother”, he was often patron- When HR complained to Sandy that she didn’t obey him or give izing and often unkind to my father, who was his equal partner in him his due, he reminded her that he had bought their expensive their large, very successful, Enduro. He sought and acquired pub- home as a wedding present, she said to him, “You want me to write licity as well as conquests. My Mom said he once told her that his you a check?” She had her own successful business at the time and children “Think of me as a God”. Mom said she laughed in his face was not to be pushed around. at his hubris. One of them, Walter, rejected Harry’s self-deifica- The other son, Marvin, a few years older than Walter or me, tion, and ultimately Harry himself. was a chip off the old block HR, in that he was a voracious woman- Harry was a born gambler, a fancy-dresser, and an aggressive izer, but Walter told me Marvin was also an alcoholic. Marvin used businessman who made and lost and made and lost money by the to ask me if he could use my apartment for his extra-marital trysts, ton. Harry wore an expensive wig or “rug” to cover his male pattern or if I would act as an alibi for him (I refused) on his play dates with baldness and to look younger than he was. In later life, he drove a women who were not his wife Emily. She once complained to HR new white Roll Royce with green leather upholstery. (Green was that her husband Marvin was unfaithful to her and was running his favorite color because it’s the color of money.) The Brooklyn around with other women. HR memorably said: “So. Your shit don’t Chamber of Commerce or his public-relations firm, driven by his smell?” How do you respond to that? Emily and Marvin eventually self-importance, got a street next to Junior’s in Brooklyn named split up. after him: “Harry Rosen Way”. HR bet and lost millions on the stock market, at the races, and I don’t know how he was able to pull it off, but his three-column in real estate investments, Walter told me. Walter and his children obituary in the New York Times included his cherished (and sim- had virtually nothing to do with HR and his wife Ruth—until the plified) recipe for the now-famous Junior’s Cheesecake… which very end of HR’s life, when he was dying of prostate cancer. They always won the cheesecake competition in New York Magazine. I finally did come to see him to bid goodbye. He said to them: suspect that he (or his sons) had a publicist place the obituary in “NOW you come?” He was still trying to evoke major-league guilt the NYT. But just imagine: HR was marketing from the grave! and assert moral superiority -- even to the very end.

100 101 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! RICH UNCLE, POOR UNCLE

living and to pay the rent. Sadly, when he was down in the dumps a later in his life in a moment of self-criticism, he confessed to me that he was merely “a hack” writer. I guess he wanted me to dis- My other uncle was born Bob, which is what we called him. He agree; I demurred for the sake of kindness. took the nom de plume Harry Roskolenko (a variant on Roskolenkier, He didn’t have children, except for a ‘free-love’ child he the original family name in Russia). He was an anti-establishment fathered, but never cared for, in Australia during World War Two, poet, novelist, essayist, memoir writer, a professionally-starving where he was stationed and settled for a while. I guess he had some outlier – and a self-centered, self-made pretentious literary fig- regard for me because he asked me to be the Literary Executor of ure. His pursuit of fame resembled his brother HR’s pursuit of his Will. money. He wrote a narcissistic memoir entitled, “When I Was Last At his memorial service, the several eulogizers who spoke On Cherry Street” about growing up poor on the Lower East Side before me spoke of him with polite faint praise; he was “blessed of Manhattan as one of five (out of twelve) surviving children of with banalities”…until I spoke. I explained I was his nephew and impoverished immigrants. knew him differently than all the other eulogizers; I said I was enti- Dad told us how impoverished they were: “When I was ten years tled to honor his memory by truth-telling. I proceeded to speak old, I had to work to help feed the family. Because everyone we knew was in about him as I have already done above. I was not unkind, but I the same boat, we didn’t think we were poor.” was straight-forward about his schnorring (a Yiddish word meaning Bob ran away from home as a youngster, but not before hock- “sponger” or “parasite”), his womanizing, his self-involvement. ing my father’s cherished and hard-earned saxophone. Decades Harvey Shapiro, who was at one time the Editor-in-Chief of later, MR asked his younger brother Bob if he had pawned his the New York Times Book Review, a well-known poet and literature saxophone, and was told: “You played very badly!” Bob always had teacher, was present. When I met him years later in East Hampton justification for his selfishness. through mutual friends, he told me “Harry Roskolenko was a bas- He rode the rails (like the hobo in the movie “Sullivan’s tard”, and he remembered my eulogy because everyone who knew Travels”), met and was praised by Carl Sandburg, and married and Harry/Bob as a writer and who spoke after me told “the truth” lived in Paris with a descendant of novelist Pearl S. Buck; her name about Harry Roskolenko. I had broken the ice. Harvey said that was Diana Chang, and she too wrote novels and poetry. A lovely the event was the most amusing memorial service he had ever woman, perhaps too good for Bob, she eventually left him. He was attended. devastated. He was an adventurer. He lived the Bohemian life, was always in need of a hand-out and a meal. My hard-working businessman a father was always generous to him whenever he showed up, often with a new girlfriend in tow. Bob was scornful of his bourgeois What did I learn from knowing uncle Harry and uncle Bob? brothers HR and MR, although not too scornful to accept gener- Not easy to say…Harry’s aggression, hubris, single-minded ous hand-outs. drive for money cost him a flawed father-son relationship with He traveled the world after Diana left, and wrote a book, “Poet Walter. On the one hand, he greatly enjoyed making and spend- On A Scooter” which brought him an infinitesimal iota of fame and ing money on material comforts and luxuries, and passed on those a mini-micro-income. He was forced to write pot-boilers, sex and values to his children. On the other hand, his efforts to “deify” erotic novels and other non-literary books, in order to eke out a himself required obeisance from everyone around him…which

102 103 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! distanced him from them and from authenticity. His arrogance immunized him from deeply-felt emotions. He was always “on”. Bob, on the other hand, was someone who wanted to be loved and admired for himself and his writing, although I found him difficult to engage emotionally…until the end of his life when he asked me to join him for a fateful visit to his personal physician. Bob told me before the visit, “Please don’t tell me what the doctor says about my medical diagnosis; I don’t want to know now if I’m going to die from whatever it is I have.” I agreed. After his doctor examined him, Bob asked the doctor to tell me his prognosis without revealing it to Bob. The doctor told me Bob’s condition was dire – terminal URBAN BIKING cancer -- and said he didn’t have long to live. I took this in sadly, and as he had instructed I did not tell Bob the diagnosis. After we left the doctor’s office, Bob said, “Tell me the diagnosis”. iving in Manhattan as a bachelor on a limited budget in the I reminded Bob he had asked me not to tell. Bob then insisted he 1970s, I used a simple form of vehicular transportation: a bicycle. really wanted to know. I guess he wanted to hear the diagnosis L Reliable, exercise-generating, inexpensive, portable, and faster from a family member, or from me -- someone he cared about. So than walking, the bicycle was, and is, a wonderful invention. (One I reluctantly told him that according to his doctor, he was going problem with bikes in Manhattan was that they are stolen by drug to die soon. Not an easy message to deliver. We spent some time addicts who patrol the streets with chain-cutters and trucks, culling together absorbing this sad news. It was then I felt moved by the the best ones for resale to support their habit. I lost half a dozen, but difficult life Bob had led…not knowing where his next meal was Bill Cunningham, reporter-photographer for the New York Times coming from, not having his own family, displaying bravado as who covers fashion and design on his bike, had twenty-nine stolen.) compensation for his shortcomings in the face of a life not entirely I regularly biked to business appointments, to meetings, to well-lived. social events, on dates, at all times and everywhere (unless there was snow on the ground). a On one occasion, I was biking South on Broadway in the 70’s, and I passed a double-parked taxi-cab—and the driver suddenly opened his door as I came abreast of his cab. My bike struck the inside of the open door, stopped, and I kept going, doing a double-loop somersault over the front handle-bars, and over the open door…landing on my lower back with a heavy dull THUD! Groggy, I lay there -- my head aimed North on Broadway, facing up, with my feet aimed South on Broadway. A crowd gathered. Police arrived. I was taken to a hospital, checked for internal injuries, and released. When I got back to my tiny apartment, I discovered I was experienc- ing intense pain which started in my lower back, and radiated down

104 105 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! URBAN BIKING

my left leg, ending at my toes. The pain was unbearable. Yet I had a job Dr. G had a gift. It was not quite laying-on of hands, but it was to do…supervising the research and writing my expensive opus that I pretty close. I had never before been examined by a physician who imagined was going to earn me fame (like uncle Bob?) and fortune clearly expressed his care and compassion through his touch; his long (like uncle Harry?). Not so soon: I could barely move without pain, slender fingers apparently “connected” with me, with my being, per- described by one doctor as a ‘tooth-ache over half of my body’. haps my soul. I felt deeply connected and indebted to him. I went to doctors seriatim. One after another told me, “It will go After the lengthy examination, he sat on one side of his desk, away”, or “It’s nothing”, or “Just wait”, or (my favorite) “Tincture of time”. I on the other. I noticed his hands trembling. He noticed my Friends recommended one specialist, and another specialist, glance, and without my asking he said, “Parkinson’s disease”. He and yet another specialist…”the best in the city”. Physiatrists, physical didn’t say it was fatal or terminal, but I suspected this. Dr. G was in rehab medicine experts, sports-medicine doctors, physical thera- his seventies, and probably not long for this world, I thought. pists, orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, rheumatologists, and so Dr. G began: “Let’s talk about you… We know very little about the on. Nothing any of them did seemed to help…meds, injections, lower back”. He seemed to gain stature in my eyes at that moment… massage, exercise, and so on, ad nauseam. any doctor who says ‘I don’t know’ deserved special respect. He At the end of my tether, my wit’s end, in constant agony, I opened my skeptical eyes and my heart to his charismatic presence. sought out and found a man named David Gourievitch, MD. He Dr G continued: “Since we don’t understand enough about this came highly recommended, as did all the others. But he had been area, we have no one-hundred-percent-weapons against lower back pain. We have five-percent-weapons, ten-percent-weapons. So I’m going to pre- Eleanor Roosevelt’s personal physician, and had traveled all over scribe seven of these low-percent-weapons, and let’s hope that they add up to the world with her. He had even written a book about her and enough to control, or maybe even vanquish, the pain.” their travels together doing good works. (My mother had virtually “OK. I’m your patient. Let’s do them. When do we start?” idolized Eleanor as if she were a ‘saintly person’ because of her Dr. G added: “But I want you to promise me this: if I don’t cure you within attention to humanitarian causes. When I asked, after we got to a month or so, I want you to leave me, and to find someone else to treat you.” know each other, Dr. G was kind enough to give me an copy of the BOING! I had never heard a physician speak to me this way! book autographed to my Mom.) Suddenly, he grew metaphorically another few inches in stature. I met Dr. Gourievitch in his office after a lengthy wait in his And he was tall even before he spoke. waiting room, which was filled with many patients, who appeared Over the next few months, I came to him for “trigger-point to be from all walks of life…the impoverished, the rich, and the injections” (a mixture of Cortisone and Xylocaine shots in the famous (Isaac Stern and Bess Myerson among them). lower back region), electric-shock treatments, pain-killing medi- Dr. G was tall, slender, very handsome, and of a very gentle cations, muscle-relaxant medications, massage, heat therapy, cold kindly demeanor. I could appreciate why he was so popular. compresses, physical therapy, and a few I’ve forgotten. (Patients in his waiting room told me I was lucky that I was able to Slowly, slowly, I began to improve. The tear-inducing pain get an appointment.) started to subside. I was able to concentrate on my work again, After listening to me recite my symptoms, by now a litany, which instead of constantly thinking of, or dwelling on, my pain. included my copious tears, Dr. G examined me. His touch was I noticed Dr. G’s tremor getting worse and worse. extraordinary. I felt a little better already. I remembered countless After six months, we were done with his treatments. The pain other doctors who touched my body as if it were a piece of lifeless had fled. Life went back to the default position…writing, research, flesh…a dead chicken or piece of raw meat. organizing, supervising.

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Months passed. A year went by. I read that Dr. G has died of Parkinson’s. I decided to attend a memorial service for him at Central Synagogue, a vast reform Jewish temple, filled with what seemed like thousands of friends and current patients, and former patients like me. Bess Myerson was there. Isaac Stern was there. Other celebrities were there. Most of us non-celebrities came to honor this wonderful man and his charmed life healing others. The first eulogist was Rabbi Joachim Prinz, a personal friend of David’s; both grew up together in Berlin. He described their childhood: how kind, considerate, and elegant David was – even as a child. Rabbi Prinz said that everyone who knew David as a young- DRIVING A TAXI ster referred to him as “Beautiful David”, not merely because of his looks, but more so because of his temperament. People in the audience wept openly. Not me. Not yet. was in my mid-forties and out of work. My parents had lived The next eulogy came from a young physician who worked agreeable lives, and both died -- Dad from heart attack, Mom with David at the same hospital, Columbia P & S. He described I from a stroke -- in their early 70s. David’s enormous compassion, but even more, his great energy. Unwelcome ‘guests’ arrived: depression, loneliness, male David would work longer and harder than other physicians half menopause. Dark feelings visited, and dread permeated every- his age, bounding up the hospital steps two at a time. Audience thing I did. I was dysphoric, disappointed, and distressed -- won- members wept openly. Not me. Not yet. dering what to do with my life. I had written two books which gen- The third eulogist was violinist Isaac Stern. He said, “I’m not a man erated a very small income, and had some savings…barely enough of many words. I cannot speak of David in words. This is beyond my ability.” to eke out food and rent. My starving-poet uncle Bob must have “But I can play music. I will pay tribute to David in the way I know felt like this. best. I will play a piece in his memory that David loved…a Bach Partita Somebody suggested that I get out of the apartment and do for Unaccompanied Violin. It’s in a minor key.” something useful -- like driving a taxicab. In fact, this challenge Isaac Stern began to play. The mournful melody filled the syn- and a few others began to bring me out of my misery. I rose to the agogue. Echoing. Lingering. challenge to prove I could do it, took the taxi-driver license, and I looked around at the others. Everyone was weeping. “Not a started driving a cab every day in ten- to twelve-hour shifts. dry eye in the house” is a cliché, but an apt description. Yes. I wept There are many taxicab companies on the West side of openly. I get teary as I write this. (I joke that I cry so easily, I cry Manhattan. I presented myself at one huge taxi garage, and was at television commercials. I am one of the few men that enjoy cry- given the late shift, from late afternoon to after mid-night. I earned ing.) My heart-felt feelings are often very near the surface. a modest amount of money, a percentage of the receipts, and the “What comes from the heart”, the Talmud (and Coleridge) says… taxi company got the rest. I hated the work, the hours, and not a ”goes to the heart.” few of my passengers. But I learned. Here’s what I found. People who were dressed as laborers, a blue-collar folks, doormen, waiters, and others who identified with taxi-cab drivers would leave disproportionately large tips. On a ten

108 109 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! DRIVING A TAXI dollar tab, they might leave as much as two dollars. (Nowadays, I eventually makes a hole in your head, heart, or a stone, which- can afford to take taxis and remember those days and leave sub- ever is weakest. About which more in the chapter, “Chinese Water stantial tips if a driver has done his job effectively.) Torture and Christian Science”.) But the well-dressed apparently-wealthy customers usually left It came to pass ‘in the fullness of time’ that a romantic inter- none. I recall one night picking up Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy lude developed with a young lady who got into my cab carrying Onassis (one could play Scrabble with all of her last names). She a large package. When she placed it in the back seat of the cab, was dressed elegantly in a formal shimmering pale-blue ball-gown, occupying the entire space there, she asked if she could sit up front escorted by two handsome young men in tuxedos. I picked them in the passenger seat next to me. When we got to her destination, up on Fifth Avenue in the seventies at an excellent address, and she asked me to help her carry the package inside, which I did. I drove them to Park Avenue in the sixties, also an excellent address. think she paid the fare and included a tip and asked if I would like Their tip was zero. Goose eggs. Nada. a drink. “Yes, thanks!” Of course, one thing led to another. On another occasion I took a well-dressed businessman to JFK On another occasion, two guys who looked like they needed airport. It was rush hour. He says, “Hurry up! I don’t want to miss my four shaves, got in and requested I drive to a very distant and plane.” So I hurried up and drove stressed-out through bumper-to deserted place in Brooklyn. I had decided that these two guys were bumper traffic…moving as fast as I could and made it in time for Mafiosi. I don’t know how I decided. They just looked like cen- him to catch his plane. The fare was twenty four dollars. The tip? tral casting’s movie thugs. When we arrived at their destination, Zero, goose eggs, nada. an empty field, I imagined it was a killing ground. I was scared. I I had some other adventures. I picked up a very attractive well- didn’t wait for them to pay their fare or to shoot me, whatever they dressed glamorous woman, and when she reached her destination were going to do. I scrammed. Yes, I did. Fare-less in Brooklyn. she asked if I could change her hundred dollar bill. I said, “No. I eventually gave up driving a taxi because a guy punched me I can’t”. At that point I guessed that she was a prostitute because out. He must have felt I deserved it, but I didn’t. All I did was that’s all she had. I asked her if I could change the large bill in a bump into his rear fender, a love-tap, when he stopped suddenly convenience store, because I was afraid that if she left the cab she at a red light. wouldn’t come back. I came back with change, gave it to her, and My life changed. I received a grant from the National Science she did give me a tip. A ‘working girl’, and a real ‘professional’. Foundation to attend a science conference in Tokyo, where I pre- I remember an elderly Jewish lady who got into my cab on West sented a paper, and toured Japan. I visited Nara, Hiroshima, and End Avenue in the eighties. As soon as entered, she started bark- was treated royally by a friend of a friend of my sister’s. I returned ing orders at me. (Norman Mailer once described Bella Abzug as home a new-ish man, met my future wife, married her, and built a “woman with a voice that would melt the fat off the back of a taxi-drivers a juicy life and a very full career. “Time flies when you’re having neck”.) She started in by growling, “Go straight for three blocks! Make the fun.” light! Make the light! Then go left two blocks! Then…” I startled myself “Time flies like an arrow”, said Groucho Marx, “I know why fruit by shouting at her: “Lady! Get! Out! Of! My! Taxi!” She didn’t get it flies like bananas, but why should time flies like arrows?” These are the first time. Perhaps no one ever talked back to an elderly bossy called “garden-path sentences”: they mis-lead you along one path Bell-Abzug-type lady like her. Shaking her grey head, she finally …only to segue you imperceptibly into another direction. I must got it and left, slamming the door. (Maybe she reminded me of have been ready to make a smooth, almost imperceptible, transi- my first mother-in-law, an assertive alpha female, whose questions tion from a taxi-driver for three months into a new and juicy life. were like Chinese water torture, wherein drop-drop-drop-drop I was “garden-pathed”.

110 111 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! a In 1990 I created a program to help some five hundred émi- gré scientists from the former Soviet Union find jobs and careers in the U.S. (described in another chapter, “Nice Work: Soviet Emigres As New Americans”). Some (even those with double doctorates) were driving taxis like the former (single-doctorate) me. When they arrived, they needed to support their families any way they could. One of my own life’s ironies is that I also had driven a cab to support myself decades earlier. A VOLUNTEER IN ISRAEL Fast forward twenty years. Celia and I are all dressed up, going to the Metropolitan Opera. We hail a taxi, get in, and I say, “Broadway and 60th Street, please”. The taxi driver says, “Doctor Rosen?” visited Israel in 1983 to join a program called “Volunteers For Whoops? I do a double take. I scrutinize his taxi license photo and Israel”, developed by the former head of the Israeli paratroopers, name. It’s a familiar Russian face and name. Vladimir had been I General Aharon Daviddi, a tall, gangly, taciturn scholar-warrior -- one of my students in the Scientific Career Transitions Program I had who had a doctorate (which he called “a complete waste of time”) created years earlier. from Oxford. At first, when I recognized him, I was upset because even His idea of the program was to bring Jews from all over the though I had taught him how to find a job in his scientific spe- world to Israel to work as volunteers in the Israeli Army for two cialty, he was still driving a taxi after all these years. I told him I months, doing manual labor or menial tasks that would release was sorry he hadn’t found a job in his field. He said, ”No. No. Don’t regular Army soldiers to do more important, critical, or dangerous feel bad, Doctor Rosen. Tomorrow, my brother and I are opening our new tasks -- such as fighting. My job was to fill sandbags in the Golan consulting business, and we’re using all the methods you taught us in your Heights eight hours a day in the broiling Israeli summer sun. workshop!” We lived on an Israeli Army base, just like the regular Israeli Army soldiers did. We slept in barracks on army cots. We ate the a same food. We complained the same complaints. We became friends. It was a great way to see Israel for the first time…from the ground up. Masada, the Western Wall, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv. And exciting connections to my roots by discovering new parts of myself. (Please see my essay “A Volunteer In Israel”, in The Jewish Week, February 17, 1984, page 25.) I had a few adventures and misadventures. I was told to look up Shulamith Katznelson, the head of a language school teaching Hebrew, called “Ulpan Akiva”, based in Netanya, with whom I may have been related through my mother’s parents -- who had the

112 113 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A VOLUNTEER IN ISRAEL same last name, and who came from the same village in Belarus, and visit a Druse encampment with me? We’re making peace with these about 80 miles south of Minsk, called Bobruisk (Babruysk). nomadic Arabs, but don’t tell anyone back at the Israeli Army base, because Shulamith was a very strong, force-of-nature, take-charge, no- they don’t like my peace-making initiatives”. nonsense pro-Arab, peace-now, modern feminist. When I visited “Sure”, I said. “I’ll do it!” So we visited the tent-camp of the her, I explained that my mother was a Katznelson whose parents, Druse tribe, and ate with them, and slept at their camp overnight. Avram and Sarah Katsenellinson came from Bobruisk. Here’s an The next day, I returned to the Israeli Army base. The command- excerpt from her obit. ing officer requested to see me. He was of a very high rank, like Colonel or General, and exuded a powerful “alpha” presence. He asked, “Why were you so late in returning to camp? You were supposed to Shulamit Katznelson, 80; Teacher of Arabs and Jews be back here yesterday when your leave expired.” By WILLIAM H. HONAN, The New York Times I said, “Well, there was no way to communicate. I was with a relative, Published: August 07, 1999 Shulamith Katznelson, and she took me to an Arab village, where we ate Shulamit Katznelson, who was awarded the 1986 Israel Prize for and stayed over.” Life Achievement, her country’s highest honor, for bringing Arabs He was red-faced with anger. “WHAT! YOU DID WHAT?” He and Jews together through learning each other’s languages, died yes- added, “You will have to be interrogated to tell us what you told these terday at her home in the coastal town of Netanya, north of Tel Aviv. Arabs!” She was 80. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize…. I was interrogated at great length by another officer, who was …Ms. Katznelson was born in Geneva in 1919, and her family extremely aggressive in his questioning….”What did you tell them immigrated to Palestine two years later. Her mother, Bat-Sheva, be- about our camp?” “How much did they know about our facility here?” came a legislator in Israel’s Parliament. Her brother, Shmuel Tamir, I tried to make a joke about the situation, but He Was Not served as Justice Minister, and an uncle, Zalman Shazar, was Israel’s Amused. I left the interrogation room somewhat sadder and wiser, third President. grateful that I wasn’t given KP, or put into solitary confinement, or Nearly 100,000 people from 148 countries have studied at the worse... denied leave again. school in the last five decades, among them ambassadors, Israeli Before my next leave from the base, I called the Dviris. They Army officers and Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. knew Joseph Nellis, a Washington lawyer related to my Mom Ulpan Akiva set up two branch offices in the Gaza Strip towns of through her mother’s Misnevitch side of the family. We made a Gaza City and Khan Yunis. date to meet in Jerusalem, on Misgavladach Street, where they have an apartment over-looking the Western Wall. I showed up at the agreed-upon time and place in my Israeli Army uniform. a “You look like one of us!” said Rachel Dviri, wife of Haim Dviri, the person my mother’s family was related to. “I am one of you! I’m After telling Shulamith I was “a Katznelson”, she said:”Talk Jewish!” to me for ten minutes, and I’ll tell you if you’re a Katznelson or not!” Haim Dviri (the Hebrew word dviri means “destroyer” or So we started to converse, and schmooze. And schmooze. And “demolition”, or “building de-construction”) was in his eighties, schmooze. These wide-ranging discussions went on for about an very robust, and spoke barely-understandable English. He had hour, at which point Shulamith suddenly says, “Well, yes! You’re walked from Russia to Palestine in the 1920s. He was an ardent crazy enough to be a Katznelson. How would you like to stay here tonight, Zionist. He had killed British soldiers during the occupation of

114 115 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A VOLUNTEER IN ISRAEL what was then called Palestine. He had been with one of the anti- our adoptive daughters. Both earned master’s degrees with dis- British extreme-right-wing ultra-nationalist heroes, Yair Stern, tinction and “Bravas!” from us. head of the notorious “Stern Gang”, when Yair was assassinated by Keren’s education became a strong asset to our career man- the British for his revolutionary activities. agement business when she helped me create our websites (www. Haim was an adventurer, raconteur, a lady’s man, and a great careerchangeability.com and www.onlinecareerclinic.org) for story-teller…or maybe a teller-of-tall-tales. He told of being lawyers, doctors, and scientists. She did the design and computer arrested by the British many times and escaping many times. He graphics, and I did the writing and content; the two of us worked was imprisoned in Eritrea with Menachem Begin and other well- regularly from six pm to midnight every day for some three months. known political figures. The website is still live, and still generates new clients. His mother, and my mother’s mother, were sisters…and we had Zohar’s thesis required her to write a dramatic play that had a very old yellowed-with-age photograph from Russia that showed to be directed by a professional director and performed by profes- his parents and was confirmed as accurate when my mother identi- sional actors before a live audience. We invited many friends and fied her mother and his mother in the same photo. So I guessed relatives to see this remarkable three-generation play about the this made him….what?...my great uncle? first Gulf War in 1990-91, when Saddam Hussein’s Iraq Al Hussein His wife, Rachel, spoke English understandably, and was a /Scud missiles were directed at and landed in Israel. Two Israeli poet, writing in Hebrew. Her family had lived in Israel for seven citizens died, and 230 were wounded. Because the government generations, going back two-hundred years to the earth-quake in feared that the missiles might carry the deadly nerve gas Sarin, gas the holy city of Sfat. masks had been issued to all Israelis. Rachel and Haim introduced me to their grown children, Yael, We were pleasantly shocked and made proud when, in the mother of two then-young daughters (Zohar and Keren) and their course of the play, one of the characters who complains about son Hidei. Iraqi missiles hitting Israel, suggests in-character and onstage, in Zohar was about eight years old, and Keren was about twelve front of our friends and relatives, that they “call the Rosens in New years old when I first met them. I had been advised to bring them York” to see if they could stay with us to escape the missile attacks. gifts representative of New York City, so I brought them “tee” The audience applauded and laughed at the topicality and ref- shirts of the sort found in Times Square tourist shops. Both shirts erence to real life this theatrical moment captured. Of course, I were very New York-ish, with our famous skyline and sky-scrapers wept. emblazoned on their front and back. These two young ladies were We had been concerned about our relatives once we heard delightful, and delighted to meet me, whom they called “Shlomo” that Israel was being attacked by Scud missiles in 1991. We had (meaning “Solomon” or “Stephen” in Hebrew). Together they called the Dviris in Israel to make sure that they were all right, and wrote and performed a play, a magic puppet show, for me, on a hoped that they had not been hit by any explosives. make-shift stage they built for the occasion. Their later careers Yael, mother of Keren and Zohar, answered the phone. “Are were extensions of these performances. In their late teens, they you OK? Anybody hurt?” arrived in New York City to get advanced degrees (Zohar in “Of course we’re fine. We’re used to this. We live in a constant state of screen-writing; Keren in computer-graphics) and to be cared-for anticipation, protection, and defense. We’re really fine. Please don’t worry and watched-over by Celia and me for about ten years each. They about us.” Thus Yael put our minds at rest. quickly became assimilated into our New York lives, were intro- Zohar and Keren returned to Israel after finishing their educa- duced to our family members and friends, and in effect became tions in New York. Each married very appropriate and delightful

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Israeli husbands (Zohar a neurosurgeon, Yuvi; Keren a government official, Doron). We had visited them in Israel, and eventually they had two children each. We stay in touch with our much-loved adoptive “daughters”, their children, their salt-of-the- Earth mother, Yael, and her wonderful husband Asher, formerly a Colonel in the Israeli Army. a On Nine-Eleven (September 11, 2001) we were profoundly MOUSE-TRAPS, OR DEAD saddened by the intentionally murderous attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. We were inconsolable. We wept MICE? every time we viewed the video replay of the twin towers collapsing and taking three thousand lives. We knew two people personally who died in the devastation. One was head of security at the Twin towers. The other, a former client, who worked at a very high level sadistic death-row murderer had brutally killed his girlfriend position in the Pentagon for the Director of Defense and whose A and then, cannibal style, ate her flesh. When asked to office was struck by the plane that crashed into the Pentagon—was comment, he said, “It was a bad career move”. He used up his quota on that plane! (Please see the Appendix: “Heroes of Nine-Eleven”.) of bad moves instantly. My career mistakes were less dramatic, To get away from the tragedy, we drove to East Hampton more spread out, and more benign. In writing my quasi-memoirs, to recuperate. On our return to 35 West 81st Street, we played I have become interested in scrutinizing my mistakes, making our voice-mail messages. One was from Israel…from Yael. She them explicit, and in the process trying to learn to avoid repeating recorded two words: “Be brave!” She was calling to tell us to be them. I am not retailing advice; these lessons apply specifically to brave. She was also telling us that our New York family, and her me. Israeli family, are one and the same Family. My own career blunders inspired me to change careers until I We think of them often. When we visit Israel often, we stay near found the career that was right for me …and only then I was able them, and see them morning, noon, and night. We watch their to help improve other peoples’ career-matches. A client once said, youngsters grow up…and we savor Keren’s and Zohar’s children “My career is a worthy expression of who I am.” I helped myself find a as if they were extensions of ourselves. As if they are our “great” career that’s worthy of who I was – by helping others find careers grand-children. that were worthy expressions of who they were. I earned wisdom incrementally, from my lifetime collection of semi-serendipitous job-switching, misleading and often poor judg- a ment-calls, and “garden-path” transitions. a.. I worked at changing a job or career only when I was unhappy, waiting for opportunities, deferring decisions, intellec- tualizing options -- instead of adopting a long range plan. (I did this when working for an investment banking firm until I was fired.)

118 119 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MOUSE-TRAPS, OR DEAD MICE?

b.. I allowed negativity and despondency to overwhelm my job trained than me, and I could still wash a car, drive a cab, write and sell choices and career decisions. (This happened after my parents died books.) and I was under-employed.) l.. I stayed where I was for fear of failing elsewhere. (College c.. I imagined, prematurely, that I could read other people’s teaching was a sinecure; I became a trapped drone; being denied tenure minds without corroboration. (When I was in the academic life, and leaving academia liberated me to see the world beyond.) I assumed my boss disliked me personally, when in fact it was me who m.. I ruminated on what I should have done in the past, instead disliked him…causing him to deny me tenure, which turned out to be of focusing exclusively on what I can do in the future. (Actually, I serendipitous.) still mull over, ponder, and reflect on my past …but writing my quasi- d.. I believed that success in one area automatically translated memoir is my current future.) to success in every area, without the need for the same effort that Everyone makes mistakes. Some smart people are able to learn led to the first success. (As a freshly-minted PhD, I assumed I knew more from their own mistakes -- and some really smart people can learn than I did; I had to learn anew in each new job.) from others’. I seemed to learn better from my own mistakes. e.. I aspired to be perfect in all things, setting my work standards unattainably high, comparing myself to others who were more accomplished, and accepting a discouraging contrast. (When a I was working at a think-tank, everyone else seemed to be geniuses, and some were; I should have left before being laid-off.) Well, I made some bad career moves (but never ate human f.. I worried about what I couldn’t change (my smarts) -- instead flesh) and did leave jobs and change careers enough times to find of changing my attitude. (I did change: I worked hard and harder.) a good fit to my personality and skills. What’s good about goodbye? g.. I used to respond “Yes, but” to almost every positive thought, If your job’s a bad match to who you are, and you say goodbye in intention, or bit of good advice. (This caused me to ignore much good order to find a good match – that’s what’s good about goodbye. I advice; I learned how to force myself -- without trying to criticize-- to actively learned personal lessons by changing careers and jobs frequently, listen. I’m still working on this one.) until I got things right: that was very good for me. It was a bit like h.. I decided I must earn the same money, or maintain the trying on clothes of different sizes until the right ones fit, and dif- same level of status, responsibility, or prestige in each career or ferent styles and colors until the outfit is “a worthy expression of job -- instead of pursuing what I enjoy doing well. (I never thought who you are” -- or who you want to be. that helping Russian refuse-niks and American scientists – which I loved I was able to learn, by trial and error, to transfer skills I used in as a worthy expression of my life -- would ever earn me much money, but one career (public speaking, writing, communicating and teach- eventually it did.) ing) into other careers (plugging books I wrote, career counseling i.. I expected my work-life to bring complete personal fulfill- and career management). ment.(Actually it came pretty close eventually; but marrying Celia com- I learned what I was capable of doing -- only by testing myself pleted me…my personal and professional life naturally and seamlessly under very different but challenging circumstances. I didn’t know merged.) I could speak to millions of viewers on network television, or teach j.. I burned my bridges behind me.(Getting fired several times relativity, or swim a half-mile, or give a loving eulogy or toast, or finally taught me to leave before being asked... and not to burn bridges.) marry happily -- until I tried it. k.. I believed I’d be hired to do something only because I had It took me some time to realize that family dinner-time table- been formally trained with a PhD. (There were always people better talk, working for my father, and my parents’ attention and love,

120 121 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! high school and college and graduate school all provided role- models who became increasingly important later on. I was forced to sink or swim, to thrive, to become versatile, fear- lessly resourceful, and a survivor. I discovered that whatever didn’t kill me made me more effective. I found that I was able to adjust and fine-tune many of my personal resources (ambition, aggression, a talent to amuse, analyti- cal ability, eccentricity – all traits I got from my father) to many of the careers I inhabited. Maybe I performed well in spite of my idiosyncrasies. I learned that it’s Not True that if you ‘build a better mouse- THE SEX LIFE OF MY trap, the world will beat a path to your door’. People don’t want better mousetraps; they want dead mice. People don’t need electric FORMER PIANO TEACHER drills; they want properly-drilled holes.

a hen I reached three years of age, my parents decided that WI was to take violin lessons. They loved music and they had been denied the opportunity to study because of their impoverished beginnings. Maybe they thought music lessons would introduce me to what they had missed, and perhaps they hoped to help make me a Better Person. I was given a very small violin, one-quarter the size of a regular violin. The violin teacher was a very old seedy-looking character. He appeared to need the work. I remember making a very scratchy-screechy horrible noise on this instrument. I was a terrible student. I hated the violin. I remember when he would say, “Rest 1234, rest one and two, rest one, rest ABC rest CBA rest” I realized that these were exercises that I had to learn in order to be the “genius” virtuoso violinist that this violin teacher pretended to believe me to be. However, unbeknownst to my parents, I was no genius virtuoso gifted violin player despite what this old geezer said to them. I was a three-year old who wanted out! But the violin teacher insisted, counter to the auditory evidence, that I was a prodigy…and as a result he continued to give me violin lessons so he could continue the revenue stream from this “gig”.

122 123 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE SEX LIFE OF MY FORMER PIANO TEACHER

After several months of this agony for me and what must’ve heard Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and told her I loved Gershwin, been agony to my parents --listening to my screechy violin -- they she decided to give me something that I could actually play, finally figured it out: This violin teacher was hungry and I was not because the Rhapsody is a very very difficult piece, and requires a a gifted virtuoso genius violinist. I was a little kid forced into hard virtuoso pianist -- which I was not. labor at age three, a kid who made scratchy screechy horrible So Mrs. Goldman gave me Gershwin’s “Three Preludes”. I fell in sounds from this one-quarter-size violin. love with them! I believe Prelude Number Two is a work of genius Sometime later, I think maybe I was eight or ten, my parents – a very simple melody and unusually simple bass. In fact, I got so decided to try piano lessons. This time it was better. Their idea good at playing them that Mrs. Goldman suggested that I record paid off. The piano has fixed keys and fixed-length strings, so you the three Preludes at a professional recording studio, which I did. can’t screech or scratch like I did on the violin. So I actually took I wish I could find that recording now because I remember to the piano quite well and enjoyed it very much. I remember I was at my peak of pianistic ability. The Second Prelude was practicing one or two hours a day. (“How do you get to Carnegie Hall? about two minutes…a very languid elegant melody, on one side Practice, practice, practice!”) of a 12-inch 78-rpm disk, recorded in a studio. The first and third I started off with “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, and moved up Preludes were a few minutes each -- both very fast -- recorded on to Haydn’s “Surprise Symphony”, first with one hand, then with the other side. I have looked high and low, and low and high two hands. With my then-piano teacher, I played a duet: “She’ll Be through my possessions for this disc…and I cannot find it. Maybe Coming ‘Round The Mountain”. I played the melody and my piano I left it behind with my first marriage. teacher played the bass part. I can still hear it in the back of my I ceased taking piano lessons from Mrs. Goldman in about mind. 1955. Accidently, I met her daughter, Elena, in East Hampton in Mrs. Jeanette Goldman was a nice lady, my new piano teacher, about 1993. Elena is a lovely woman, who also went to Yale. She and a very serious musician. She lived in Astoria, Queens. And I would invited Celia and me to a reception at her home. Lo and behold… take the subway to her house, starting when I was about 10 years old. who do I meet but her mother, Mrs. Jeanette Goldman! She was educated at the Yale Conservatory of Music and had At this cocktail party, Mrs. Jeanette Goldman and I began chatting excellent training as a concert pianist and in the history of music. about music, and my taking lessons from her, some 50 years earlier. At She was a very conscientious teacher and she liked me well enough first she didn’t recognize me, but then it came to her. She remarked, and for about six years I studied with her every week; I would prac- “Oh! I remember you. You had some ‘issues’.” (She did not seem to recall tice my scales and harmonies diligently for an hour or more a day exactly what those ‘issues’ were since she had some fifty students a at home. When I complained about this, my father said, “Someday week back then. I knew I had been a difficult adolescent.) you’ll thank me for insisting that you practice.” Of course, he was right She was, at the time this get-together is taking place at her and I did thank him as an adult. daughter’s, in her mid-90s. I was in my 50s and happily married Gradually we moved into Chopin. I played the “Minute Waltz” to Celia. Jeanette told me that her husband, who used to work at and the “Revolutionary Etude” (which had three notes in the treble the New York Times, had died some 10 years earlier, and she had versus four in the base, and it was very very difficult.) moved to Florida to what some people call “God’s waiting room” -- a We moved on to Bach’s two-part and three-part inventions retirement community. which I loved. And I started to get better and better at the piano. We were sitting off to the side of the other guests, having a very Mrs. Goldman gave me music that I had never heard of: friendly confidential chat. She told me that she was 93 years old. Shostakovich “Polka” from “The Age of Gold” Ballet. When I had She volunteered the information that she was still sexually active.

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I was startled by this confession, not because I thought that she was being flirtatious, because she was not. But I was a bit shocked because my memory of her from when I was 16 years old in the late 1940s, was that she was a very prim and proper piano teacher. But then, the conversation got stranger and stranger, as if we were entering “garden-path” territory. Mrs. Goldman segued into a hush-hush confession that down in Florida, in retirement heaven, she was having an affair with a gentleman caller -- her best friend’s husband. Wow! She admitted this was not an ethical or moral activity on her part -- but she was enjoying the affair immensely nevertheless. I was shocked because it was out-of-character for her, and because it CHINESE WATER TORTURE went against social standards…unless this was a norm for old folks’ retirement homes in Florida. (Gentleman caller, indeed! There’s an & CHRISTIAN SCIENCE old Jewish joke about a husband who comes home to find his wife in bed with his best friend. The wife notices her husband and says to her bed-mate: “Here’s blabber-mouth; now everyone will know.”) ecause I’ve had two wives, I’ve had two Mothers-In-Law, of It was shocking even to her that Mrs. Goldman should be having blessed memory, may they both rest in peace. As it is said: an affair with her best friend’s husband. But not only was she hav- B “Behind every successful man is a surprised mother-in-law.” ing this surreptitious affair, but she then went on to say that she really Tanya Gold, my first mother-in-law, was a public-school teacher enjoyed sex and could not have imagined when young that she would at the grammar-school level. She was, like I was, proud to be a be able to enjoy sex at the age of 93 with a 93-year-old man, who teacher. However, unlike me, she taught very young children, happened to be the husband of her best friend. (She swore me to whereas I taught college students, graduate students, post-doctoral secrecy: “Please don’t tell my daughter” she added. Her daughter was students, and seasoned PhD scientists. fifty years old, standing across the deck speaking to her husband.) Tanya loved to ask questions. I believe she taught her young Sex among the elderly was a revelation. I did not know that grade-school students by employing the method of asking leading elderly people could have sex at such an advanced age. In fact, I questions, called “Socratic dialogue”. Thus accustomed to inter- received this information with some skepticism… but as I thought rogating helpless young kids, she continued to do so all the time about it, a smile broke out on my face -- a big smile. And I said to -- with me and with her daughter Miki, my first wife. Her questions Mrs. Goldman, “You have made my day! No, you have made my week! No, were relentless. Text-proof follows. you have made my month! No, you have made my year! This is great news!” “Why do you think it was moral to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki?” Now that she’s gone, I have treasured and visualized my piano- “Why kill hundreds of thousands of people?” “Why do capitalists run the teacher’s happy misbehavior for a long time…and I hope and pray war machine in this country?” “Why is there socialism for the rich and that when I reach 93 years old, if I do (and I hope I do) I will enjoy capitalism for the poor?” ”Why…why…why?” sex with my wife as much as did Mrs. Goldman with the 93-year-old I forgot to tell you she was a Marxist. I forgot to tell you that she husband of her best friend. Remember Tiresias? was inordinately proud that her father (or grand-father, I forget a which) was in exile with Trotsky -- a Russian Marxist revolutionary

126 127 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! CHINESE WATER TORTURE & CHRISTIAN SCIENCE and theorist, a Soviet politician, the founder and first leader of the sarcastically called that encounter “My Finest Moment”, which I am Red Army, and (on Stalin’s orders) was assassinated in Mexico. not now proud of having said. Nevertheless… Well. Let me see how to put this. Leon Trotsky, Marxist anti- In a bizarre coda to the marriage and divorce, my mother told Stalinist, was never rehabilitated by the Soviet Union. And my me that years after I left Miki her mother Tanya had called my Number One Mother-In-Law was never rehabilitated by me. She mother, asking her to “Make Steve go back” to her daughter. Mom was never cured of asking those infernal questions. Over and over, later told me that she said to Tanya that she had no way of doing and over, and over again. Puh-leeze. that since she never told the adult Steve what to do. I can only “Is that the best way to hold your infant daughter?” “Are you sure surmise that Tanya did tell her adult kids what to do. Was she a that you want to do that (or this, or the other thing)? “Is that food healthy control freak? I could be wrong. enough for your children?” “Why didn’t you pick us up from the airport?” When my nephew Neil was very young, he, too, asked a lot of a questions, like “Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green?” and when I tried to answer his questions as thoroughly as I could, he then A few years after my second wife Celia (the best of two) and would ask, “Why are you bothering to answer all of my questions?” he has I were married in 1985, we helped her half-sister Katie move to the Rosen ‘wise-ass gene’, or the Katznelson ‘nut gene’ or both. Santa Fe, New Mexico with Katie’s then two-year old son, Jessie. Mother-in-law Tanya asked endless questions -- not only to Santa Fe, altitude 7,000 feet, is surrounded by stunning vis- me, but also to everyone else. I was always polite and did my best tas, low-lying mountains, unusually clear skies with puffy paint- to answer them honestly. I never showed my exasperation, but I erly cumulus clouds in the distance. Inhabited by Hopi and Zuni could have bottled my repression in wholesale quantities, and sold Indian tribes, Santa Fe was also home to very wealthy Texans who it on the street or to any one of her targets who needed more. had weekend homes -- plus artistes, writers, painters, sculptors, In a moment of inspiration, discussing Tanya with people who and tourists. knew her well, I described her questions as resembling “Water drop- My second mother-in-law then lived in Santa Fe. Aileen Phillips, ping on stone, which slowly hollows it out”. If instead of stone, the water ex-wife of child-movie-star Freddie Bartholomew, was descended drips on a person’s forehead, it’s called “Chinese water torture” from Scandinavian Baptists, but of late a Christian Scientist. This -- a diabolical and painful method of slowly executing individu- is a system of beliefs derived from Mary Baker Eddy, who insisted als, the randomly-timed drops driving the restrained victim insane that Jesus heals all ailments through prayer and understanding, while at the same time drilling a hole into the victim’s brain. and argued that this made modern medicine unnecessary and I never knew when mother-in-law Number One, Tanya Gold, physicians obsolete. Christian Science suggested that the Universe would begin drilling into my brain using her water-drop-torture was spiritual: sickness was a lack of faith akin to a character flaw… style of interrogation torture. People who knew her well enough the result of not believing in and praying to God. Earlier, Aileen to have observed (or been subjected to) these interrogations had become interested in Unitarianism, a religion that (I say with remarked that “water-torture” was an accurate, apposite, and tongue-in-cheek) believes there is at most one God. insightful observation. Aileen had met Sol Paul, who later became her husband, while I readily confess that when I told her face-to-face my marriage they were both working in the broadcast industry. They divorced to her daughter was breaking up, I strongly hinted that her twice- when Celia was five years old. Aileen’s next ex-husband was Freddie daily ‘instructional’ phone calls to her daughter were instrumen- Bartholomew, former child-star-actor famous for “Captain’s tal in my decision to leave her daughter. I also confess that I later Courageous”, “David Copperfield”, “Little Lord Fauntleroy”, and other

128 129 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! CHINESE WATER TORTURE & CHRISTIAN SCIENCE films of the nineteen thirties. He was a wonderful step-father to Whatever it was, flu or upper respiratory infection -- it was brutal Celia, and a lovely man brimming with stories of Hollywood in the and debilitating. When I was a child, Mom would take good care old days, filled with actors he knew well….including Judy Garland, of her little Jewish prince: sitting by my bed; cold compresses on Mickey Rooney, James Cagney, Donald O’Connor, Anthony my forehead; singing lullabies; comforting; honey in warm milk. Perkins, Roddy McDowell, and other Hollywood notables. Where was my Mommy (may she still rest in peace) now that I Aileen had settled in Santa Fe after her marriage to “FB” (as we needed her? called him) dissolved. She was eager to start a new life with Jessie, Aileen had no sympathy whatsoever. She, like many Christian her grandson, and Katie, her daughter by FB. Scientists, seemed to believe that “Sickness is a character flaw”. The Celia, Jesse, Katie, and I traveled all day from New York, chang- corollary was “Ergo, sick Steve is a flawed character”. I knew I had a lot ing planes in Dallas to get to Santa Fe. When we arrived thoroughly of flaws, but I had never been sick like this before. exhausted after this grueling ordeal, Aileen eager to see her two Now she didn’t actually say those words, but she acted as if she daughters and grandson (and perhaps her son-in-law), had pre- believed that my character was deeply flawed, and that’s what she pared a meal of, ‘guess what’? implied my problem was. OK. But it wasn’t OK. I probably had Nothing. I’m not making this up. pneumonia and a bad case of travel-fatigue and crankiness. Aileen was a force of nature…pretty, slender, very quick I didn’t like her presumptive “evaluation”. It was a long way mind, although beginning in her seventies to start to show signs from Emma Rosen’s nurturing, care-giving, maternal tender- of Alzheimer’s. She often repeated herself, was sometimes a bit ness… pampering and coddling. Chicken soup. Tea with honey scatter-brained, sometimes a bit of “a flake” (as Celia put it so elo- and lemon. Hot milk with butter in it. I craved a Jewish mother— quently)… and a lot of fun. not a Christian-Scientist mother-in-law. But my biological Jewish mother was figuratively turning over Yikes!! What had I done in marrying into this meshugenah fam- in her grave. After three adults and an infant shlepped several thou- ily? So I suffered, but not nobly. I suffered miserably and loudly— sand miles and some fourteen hours to see Aileen, to have not pre- which drew no sympathy from Aileen. pared a feast to celebrate our arrival…was nothing short of unac- I decided on Shabbat to go to the tiny synagogue in Santa Fe ceptable treason to me…and to the Jewish concept of Motherhood where I could be with “my people”…the Jews! I was in alien ter- and Hospitality. I decided to raid the refrigerator, but I hadn’t ritory with Aileen. Out-gunned in the Wild West. Oh… for New reckoned on getting a strong rebuke from mother-in-law Number York, for Zabar’s, for mother’s milk. Two. In our Jewish childhood, food was code for love, and love So I drove to the local synagogue Saturday morning. With a made for open season on refrigerators. heavy heart and intractable symptoms. The small congregation “Get out of my fridge!” She pushed me aside. I couldn’t believe it. was led by a middle-aged reform Rabbi who (I was told) played Jewish mothers (including my Marxist first mother-in-law) had an bridge weekly with Aileen. I sat in the back of the synagogue— always-full fridge. “I’m going to make you your dinner!” she snapped. feverish, a heavy cough hacking for minutes at a time—disrupting Aileen then proceeded to cook (I use the word loosely) for the five the service. The Rabbi stopped the service and came over to me. of us tiny portions of unpalatable food. “Who are you?” Between coughs I got out “Aileen Phillips’ son-in- I took sick. Maybe it was the travel. Crowded airplane. Germs law”. “I play bridge with her every week. You’re not well, are you?” in the air. No decent food. Aileen. My severe coughing, severe “No sir”, I managed. “Aileen seems to think this is a character flaw, wheezing, severe headache, and severe sinusitis suggested pneu- but I think I may have pneumonia. She does not think I need medical monia. Also sickness-inducing and severe mother-in-law ailment. attention, her being a Christian Scientist and all”.

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The Rabbi said, “Well, Aileen or not, I’m taking you to the hospital now!” He asked a congregant to continue the Shabbat service, and asked me to follow his car to the hospital for a complete physical. The radiologist thumped my chest, looked at the x-rays and listened to my lungs. “Looks like you have a touch of pneumonia”. (Really? A touch?) I breathed a phlegm-ish sigh: “I kinda thought so. It’s not a character flaw, is it?” a POLISHING THE TURD

am a part of all that I have met” is not merely memorable “I poetry by Alfred Lord Tennyson. “I am what is around me” is not merely memorable poetry by Wallace Stevens. “The Universe is made of stories, not atoms” is not merely memorable poetry by Muriel Rukeyser. All of these remarks are consistent with my own personal experience. All my perceptions are inferences: I filter and interpret my sense impressions to try to impose patterns or theories on the sep- tillion sense perceptions that reach me daily and over a lifetime. Reality-testing is necessary to check on whether my notions or theories are really valid, or whether I am imposing some sort of “order” on the incoming sensory data. Writing for me nowadays is a form of seeking patterns and making sense of my memories. Yes. I am, like most people, a “pattern-making machine”. When younger, I sought to form new patterns. In the old days before psycho-active meds, like many of my con- temporaries I visited psychiatrists, psychologists, psycho-therapists. The first, when I was nineteen, was with Dr. Anchell, an MD who described our sessions as an “education about my emotions”. Dr. Anchell was a very kindly man, who listened attentively to my post-adolescent gripes and over-sensitivities, and gently pointed out my somewhat wrong-headed opinions. I wasn’t dysfunctional; just naïve and unfulfilled. I had read a lot about psychology, and had friends who were in therapy at the time, the mid-fifties…the

132 133 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! POLISHING THE TURD hey-day of psycho-therapy and psycho-analysis. Freud had yet to Dr. Kronmeyer had individual sessions and group sessions, be taken off his pedestal. (His fall from grace was accelerated by and the group was merciless in pointing out my inadequacies in the discovery of flaws in his ideas and the arrival of psycho-active both my marriage and my work-life. The group contained about pharmaceuticals.) a dozen others, most of them younger than me. Some were gradu- Most of my friends were “in therapy”, and most of them would ate students; some were in the theater; all were still struggling to often preface a self-revelation by saying “my analyst says….” Most find themselves. When I announced that my wife and I were going of us had quasi-normal growing pains…who am I? why am I so sen- to separate, the group asked if I would bring her in so that “all of sitive? … what do I do about my attraction to the opposite sex?... us together could discuss the separation”. This must sound bizarre to what’s my purpose in life? those reared on twenty-first century relationships. But she came Dr. Anchell “straightened me out” on a few errors of percep- to the session, we discussed my leaving her. She surprised me by tion. I was not, as I thought, yawning a lot because I was “tired sobbing uncontrollably, and even more surprising…she grabbed of life”. He pointed out that yawning was merely a way of rapidly me physically to prevent me from moving. Everyone in the group taking in more oxygen. He also pointed out that “Women are to be had something to say, mostly based upon their own views of them- approached sexually only insofar as they were willing to go, and no fur- selves, their own parents, and of us. The whole scene, playing back ther”. (Wow. I didn’t know that.) When I criticized my parents for in my mind, appears as if it could have been a poisonous parody being parents, he tried to help me understand that my parents of psycho-babble, or a Neil Simon play or a Larry David episode of were not unpleasant people, but just trying to do their best as par- “Curb Your Enthusiasm”. The emotional fireworks between us then ents….something I would learn as a parent in the fullness of time. eventually led us to separate, and for very good reasons. My son Daniel, when I confessed recently to him I wasn’t a very Dr. Kronmeyer was a psychologist who believed in mutually good father, surprised me when he said, “You did the best you could.” interacting cognitive and somatic influences. For example, if one could scream into a pillow and get very angry or fearful in somatic and physical terms, this often produced cognitive changes as well: a the artificially-induced anger or fear would generate remembrances of actual instances of real fear or anger that occurred in My next sitting occurred in my thirties, while I was teaching the past that could be examined, instead of being suppressed. physics at the Maritime College at Fort Schuyler (a unit of the State These ideas were based on the then-existing theories of University of New York) and completing my doctoral thesis on cos- Alexander Lowen. I suspect they have been somewhat discredited mic rays. I was having some authority problems with the chairman by now, the way much of Freud has been. A new generation of of my department, which were related to rebelliously finding my meds that can affect brain-chemistry has produced anti-Freudians, own voice and personal identity as I came into my own. This was some of whom laugh at the old Freud. They do it with humor. something of an “echo” of my coming into my own with my father [Joke: After twenty years of meeting three times a week with his when I was much younger. It’s not easy for me to realize now how Freudian psycho-analyst, the patient finally got to the point where difficult I then was to my then-wife and then-boss, but parts of me he could say “fuck” in front of his M-O-T-H-E-R.] were (and still are) abrasive, arrogant, and pedantic. That’s not all I was (and am). It’s also obvious to me now that these were parent- child authority and autonomy issues being played out again, and a again. I was emotionally immature not to have identified them as such, and not to have exercised mature control.

134 135 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! POLISHING THE TURD

The third sitting of my therapeutic life occurred during a very Carol did not do group therapy, thank goodness, but she did give difficult period, my mid-forties, when my parents died, I was seri- me a needed lift. She praised me often, when justifiable. For exam- ously depressed, and had lost such confidence in my abilities that ple, when I summarized Heinz Kohut’s work by saying, “the Mother I couldn’t function well. I was out of work. Effective anti-depres- shows the individual who he/she is; the father shows the individual who sion meds did not exist then (the early eighties) to the extent he/she is going to be.” She thought this was a very succinct and accu- that they do in the twenty-first century. The individuals in this rate distillation of Kohut’s main idea. I also happen to think this therapy group were very highly-functioning professionals, such as idea applied to me. Mom reflected back to me who I was (soft- therapists, research physicians, real-estate moguls, and intellectu- hearted, a bleeding-heart liberal) and Dad showed me who I was als. They, too, were merciless in their probing and critical insights going to be (hard-working, conservative, assertive). To this day I into my quirks, idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, and disabling attitudes refer to my blended self as a ‘bleeding-heart conservative’. Thanks and behaviors. Many of these valid criticisms of my arrogance and Mom. Thanks Dad. inactivity fed my insecurities and depression and drove me deeper Carol also helped me adjust to working at my then-new job into a steep depression. I was so despondent, I briefly contem- with Robert S. Ehrlich & Co, a small investment banking firm. I plated suicide—“the sincerest form of self-criticism”-- but realized met Robert and his wife Nan at Lincoln Square Synagogue, an that was no way out. (I could hear my father’s voice, from beyond Orthodox Jewish upper west side institution that provided me the grave, saying: “So after you killed yourself, then what would you do?”) with a haven when I was suffering situational and clinical depres- However, a life-long friendship emerged from this group. I sion. (I’ve related elsewhere how, after Mom died, I helped my met a research physician named Bill Gutstein with whom I was very depressed Dad get settled in Florida.) close until the end of his life. He died at age eighty seven in 2009, I turned to synagogue attendance to properly mourn. I and he is missed. “shopped around” for a synagogue where I would be comfortable. I was very vulnerable to criticism in this group for many rea- The reform and conservative synagogues I visited did not provide sons. For example, I didn’t have a job and was severely chastised me with the Sense of Belonging to a Family that Lincoln Square for not working. The group and Dr. Burt Pollens urged—no Synagogue did, even though the Orthodox emphasis on observa- insisted—that I do some kind of work, manual labor if necessary, or for tion and ritual were at first off-putting. But gradually, I became God’s sake drive a cab. For crying out loud, do anything but feeling sorry interested in why the congregants felt so strongly about their ritu- for yourself is not a full-time occupation. So I did drive a cab for sev- als. (One Rabbi, Ephraim Buchwald, who was later to become a eral months, but as described elsewhere, quit when I got punched mentor to me, explained that he would be fully observant accord- in the face by an irate guy whose bumper I gave a love tap to when ing to Orthodox Judaism even if someone could prove to him that he stopped suddenly at a light. God did not exist, because he acquired spiritual, ethical, and moral guidance -- “mindfulness” -- by strictly Orthodox ritual obser- a vance, a form of what might be called “behavior modification”.) ‘Ephie’ Buchwald is an unusually effective Rabbi and explainer My fourth sitting, which was necessary to recover from the of Judaism, and Jewish history, and Jewish ethics and morals. The group that (somewhat justifiably) beat up on me, was with a very best compliment I can give him is that there is no difference supportive woman, Carol Katz. Carol was helpful in resurrecting between Ephie and Rabbi Ephie. I became very fond of him. my self- confidence, after I had been with a critical group of peo- When Celia and I met, Ephie had an unusual role in my marriage ple who were highly successful and very functional emotionally. to her. In fact, because Celia’s mother Aileen was not Jewish (even

136 137 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! POLISHING THE TURD though Celia’s father Sol was), Ephie told me: “You should give her In retrospect, I would say that Rabbi Buchwald, by his passion- three months to make an Orthodox Conversion, and if she does not convert, ate teaching and wholesome example of religious intensity and you should leave her.” I told Ephie, “That’s easy for you to say because belief, has been a forceful and benevolent and timely influence you’re a zealot. But I’m not.” Happily, I didn’t listen to this advice, on me, getting myself out of my own way and developing a posi- and didn’t mention it to Celia. tive narrative about myself -- probably even more so than did those I was attending Lincoln Square Synagogue “religiously”, therapists who tried to help me “polish my turd”. (Those sessions was head of the “Hospitality Committee”, and had many friends were filled with self-pity and kvetching-as-a-way-of-life.) Maybe my among the congregation. I asked Celia if she would be interested turd was ready to be polish-able. in attending a class Ephie taught on Jewish history, and she agreed. Writing my memoirs has allowed me to let my children and The evening we heard Ephie speak, he remarked, “The assimilation grand-children know more about me than they thought they knew. of German Jews in Germany in the 19th and 20th century was responsible Furthermore, my quasi-memoirs have been an extra-ordinarily for the Holocaust in World War II”. Celia was so outraged she stormed useful opportunity to present my foibles and idiosyncrasies -- to out of the class, swearing she would never set foot again in any myself, to the world, and to the people I love -- in a well-thought- Orthodox synagogue. out positive and true narrative. When Celia and I married in East Hampton in 1985, the Rabbi (David Greenberg) and service was at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, a Reform synagogue. a Five years passed. Celia and I adjusted to marriage very successfully. We became members of Rodeph Sholom, a Reform synagogue near our apartment. One day, as we’re walking along Broadway, we met Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, who greeted us with a warm, “Shlomo! We don’t see you at Lincoln Square Synagogue any more. Why not?” So Celia explained to Ephie why she left his class…because of his remarks about “assimilation being responsible for the Holocaust” Ephie pondered this a moment, and said: “I said that? Give me another chance! Come back to Lincoln Square Synagogue!” Celia liked this, his attitude, and his willingness to re-consider his Earlier Views. Celia said: “Sure. We’ll give you another chance!” Thus began a very respectful relationship between Celia and Judaism. She took courses at Reform and Orthodox synagogues. She decided to become an adult “Bat Mitzvah” at Rodeph Sholom, and has opened us both to exploration of many different Jewish congregations of all “flavors”. Indeed, I like to joke that, “We are members of five different Jewish congregations. We’re Jewish -- in spite of the Rabbis”. Celia tells me not to say this because some folks might be offended. But I still repeat it.

138 139 Haym Dviri’s Russian family; his mother and Emma’s mother were sisters

Mike Rosen, ca 1926

Sarah & Barnett Rosen, Mike’s parents, surrounding Edna and Harry, ca 1905

140 141 Emma Katznelson & Morris Rosen Wedding, 1931

“Zaydie”: Avrham Katzenellinson, Brooklyn, ca 1930

142 143 Dad, Steve, Barbara, Mom at the Enduro, ca 1942 “Stevie Wonder”, age one year, 1935

L to R Mike, Harry, Sarah, Barnett, Edna, Bill Opening, Enduro Restaurant, 1935 Steve, Elliott, Barbara ca 1945

144 145 Mike and Emma at their Surprise 25th Wedding Anniversary, 1956

Steve sketched by physicist Otto Frisch* at Astrophysics Conference, Texas, 1964

* With Rudolf Peierls he designed first theoretical mechanism in 1940 for detonation of the atomic bomb. Fellow of the Royal Society.

146 147 Bela and Daniel. Peekskill, ca 1968

Miki, Lisa, Steve, Daniel. Ski-house in St. Moritz, 1968

Steve, Sherri, Daniel, Barbara, Joe, Louie; Jennifer, Opa, Lisa, Bela, Annie, Oma, ca 1970 148 149 Danny by Daniel Rosen, 1974 Man with hammer Daniel Rosen, 1974

Manhattan by Daniel Rosen, 1974 Steve by Daniel Rosen, 1974 150 151 Daniel and Basquiat, ca 1982

Steve by Marilyn Church, 1982 Steve in Golan Heights, 1983

152 153 Steve at NYANA, photographed by Volodya Minden, 1990

“This Isn’t A Dress Rehearsal. This Is It!” Celia and Steve Wedding, 1985 Volunteers & Soviet emigre scientists* in 1991 class of Scientific Career Transitions *Volodya Minden, of blessed memory, is at upper right with his wife.

154 155 “El burro de Don Esteban”. East Hampton, 1998 Shovel fountain, East Hampton, 1995

In Elliott’s Jacuzzi, Vermont, New Year 1996 Tanya and Celia. Galway, 1998

156 157 Jascha and Steve. Eiffel Tower, 1998 Tanya and Steve. Cork, 2000

L to r Jascha, Tanya, Daniel, Steve, Neil, Elliott 2000 Hatchet head sculpture, 2001

158 159 Elliot, Barbara, Steve. Erin & Sascha’s Wedding. New London, 2006

Tanya, ca 2002

Teapot, Wheels, Funnel. East Hampton, 2007 Jascha, Heather, Tanya. Central Park, 2004 160 161 At the American Museum of Natural History, 2009

Placing a Mezuzzah on Steve’s Tree-house, 2008

162 163 Lisa, Steve, Daniel after Lisa & Walter’s reception, 2010

Daniel wearing suit he tailor-made from drapes. Berlin, 2010

Tree-house in the snow. East Hampton, Dec. 26, 2011

164 165 Made by Steve ca 1990: Two mahogany tables and pergola. East Hampton, 2013

Lisa & Basquiat painting DANNY ROSEN, sold at Christies for $4.9 Million, 2013

Butterfly pins, hand-crafted by Steve. 2013

166 167 ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR

s a teenager interested in Relativity, I read a book Acalled Flatland; the Introduction was written by Banesh Hoffmann, the man mentioned in an earlier chapter (“Geniuses, Wunderkinds, and Stevie Wonder”) who worked with Einstein, and from whom I learned Relativity. Flatland is a novella that satires the social hierarchy of Victorian England by examining what a two-dimensional world would look like to three-dimensional inhabitants, and vice versa.

Flatland is a fable, a parable about a two-dimensional world (flatland) and how its citizens might view their own limited universe, but more importantly how they would see us as virtually- inconceivable three-dimensional creatures (four if you include time as in relativity) and how we (almost God-like by comparison) would view them. Here’s the book’s dedication:

“To: The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL… This Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland In the Hope that Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries Of THREE Dimensions

169 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR

Having been previously conversant This was the ‘world of my fathers’, immigrant ancestors who were With ONLY TWO courageous and ambitious early enough to leave Russia. They So the Citizens of that Celestial Region made my good life in the U.S. possible, but I took the good life for May aspire yet higher and higher granted as my birthright. Their courage, ambition, and struggles To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions (like higher or lower dimensions of ‘flatland’) were previously Thereby contributing invisible to me. To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION My slow-motion wake-up came through conversations with the And the possible Development scores of émigrés who kept coming to me through-out the late Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY eighties and early nineties. I heard how they suffered depriva- Among the Superior Races tion, torture, food shortages, KGB interrogations (Greg Royzman, Of SOLID HUMANITY” a Russian friend, was tortured by them), secrecy, conspiracies, social stratification (as Jews, as intellectuals) by the nomenkultura The ironic dedication of the book, the description of the place (a patronage system…the Communist party’s authority to make ‘flatland’, and the book’s wide readership and longevity suggest appointments to key positions), and much much worse. that it has resonances on many levels…conceptually helping us I didn’t personally experience any of these perverse realities to ‘visualize’ higher-dimensional spaces, or to ‘imagine’ the lim- growing up in the U.S. Oh, I did hear table-talk as a youngster itations of a “flat” space or circumscribed social structure like about how my grand-parents struggled to become new Americans, Victorian England. It might also be taken as a powerful metaphor and how they suffered enough to leave their homeland. I never for under-dogs everywhere – like the “flattened” social and eco- went hungry. I was never arrested. I was free to choose a profes- nomic conditions suffered by the Soviet émigré scientists before sion, a job, and the well-lived life I now enjoy thanks to my grand- Gorbachev unveiled glasnost and perestroika in the 1980s. parents and parents. Thus, when the émigrés came to the U.S. and faced our free- market economy, capitalism and open democracy, they may have felt (and many so indicated to me) their unusual feeling of enter- a ing into a ‘higher’ dimension—previously only dimly perceived “[in June 1990] the Soviet economy was on the point of collapse. from their drab colorless dowdy Soviet “flatland” limitations. There were now chronic shortages of everything in the Soviet capital. These limitations have been well-described by Gal Beckerman Even cigarettes had become scarce, and there were minor tobacco riots in “When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone”, in the novels of in several cities. The longest queues were at photographers’ studios, George Orwell “1984”and “Animal Farm”, in “Darkness At Noon” as Muscovites were obliged to apply for identity cards for city stores to by Arthur Koestler, and by others. prevent country people stripping the shelves bare. Ration coupons were But I was born and brought up and lived and worked happily issued for clothes, shoes, and domestic appliances. Sugar was restricted for five decades (up to that moment) in the U.S. Then, in the late to two kilograms per month per person. Butter was rarely seen. Flour and eighties, the émigré’s lives and mine intersected like two walls in salt disappeared from the shops, and bread ran out daily. Meat was only the corner of a room. available in expensive markets. Consumers were hoarding, making the Perhaps not surprisingly, I too lived in my own “flatland” of shortages worse.” limitations… almost entirely ignorant of the totalitarian “dictator- --“Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet ship of the proletariat”, of “religion as the opiate of the people”. Union”,

170 171 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR

by Conor O’Clery, Public Affairs/Perseus, 2011. After emigrating to the United States, I tried finding a job using This was the prelude to My Finest Hour. what I wrote in my brochure, but I failed. I studied job-searching in a course at NYANA which seemed fairly clear to me, but I failed again and again to find a job. When you get an answer that you are over- a qualified – and the potential employer is fascinated by your achievements – you have virtually nothing to say. The essay below is translated and adapted from an article by Vladimir Minden (who had a double PhD) that appeared in Russian in “Yevreiski Mir”, September 11, 1992. a I learned by chance about Stephen Rosen’s seminar for I am an émigré. I came to the USA this year in January. My fam- highly trained scientists and engineers, called “Scientific Career ily and I left Tblisi, in Russian Georgia, while there was fighting and Transitions”. Moved by natural curiosity (and somewhat by my fail- shooting. ures) I discovered that Dr. Rosen is a professional scientist, astrophysicist, and had published many scientific works including three I am a scientist, author of one hundred and thirty-five publi- monographs. I found out that he had been a consultant to such U.S. cations and eleven patents in various areas of physical chemistry, firms as IBM, Xerox, Honeywell, and others, that he was born in the chemical metallurgy, environmental protection, applied ther- U.S., and that his grand-parents emigrated from Russia early in the modynamics of complex chemical systems. For many years, I was twentieth century. not allowed to go abroad to any scientific conferences. However, many things changed during “perestroika” [According to Gorbachev, Later on, attending his free seminars for Soviet emigres, I also “Perestroika means overcoming the stagnation process, breaking down the learned that he was providing these seminars because of an ancient braking mechanism, creating a dependable and effective mechanism for Jewish tradition of “tsedaka”… usually translated as “charity”, but also acceleration of social and economic progress and giving it greater dyna- “justice’ or “righteousness”. The highest form of which is helping mism.”] people to help themselves. In 1990, I came to a conference in the United States. In con- Generally, the aims and tasks of the seminars he led inspired by versations with friends, and in reading newspapers and gather- this tradition was to teach people to be useful to themselves, to help ing information that I collected during my visit, I was convinced them help themselves, not to be subservient to “authorities”, but to that for me a “market economy” for an ordinary member of be fully responsible for their own lives. (Indeed, an aphorism Dr. Soviet society would bring an absolutely new relationship be- Rosen quoted often insisted that “If you give a person a fish, they will tween employee and employer, a new language, and new ways enjoy a meal, but that if you teach that person how to fish, she will never go of behavior. hungry again”.) At the end of my visit, I understood that in a dynamic American More specifically, his point of view was to teach former citizens society with its “market economy” the skills needed for search- of the former USSR to adopt successful job-search methods and suc- ing for a job are perhaps as important as the professional skills cessful patterns of American behavior applicable to the capitalistic required for a job. This insight appeared to me so important that system. All this important information I learned only later on. My I published a brochure in the former USSR entitled, “Job! How To initial facts, that he was a scientist, a consultant, and so on, was inter- Find It!” esting…but nothing more. I missed his first lesson, but in the evening my more fortunate colleague called me and explained what

172 173 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR

I had lost. I did not miss any more sessions because the next few to help, often overcoming their own big problems—but you sessions explained very clearly what was wrong in my job search style never hear about those except absolutely by chance. and methods. The next sessions showed me how to improve my job searching methods. Perhaps the most important result was that I finally learned how to use the failures to improve my approaches to a finding a job in the U.S. There are other aspects of socializing with Dr. Rosen and his Now, I actively use what I learned. friends; it is an honor to know them, to observe them, their gestures, I’m happy with the progress I made, but was disappointed that their speech, their postures, their dress, how to smile, how to be a I learned about his seminars only by chance. This is easy to under- very amiable interlocutor, as well as their good language to use to stand: there had been no publicity about his seminars in the Russian feel natural among native citizens of America, among professionals, language. Last year, some two thousand highly qualified engineers among technically sophisticated scientists and engineers. and PhDs came to the U.S., but they had no time to read old Russian What I have written here so far will hardly convince a skeptic or language newspapers. Nevertheless, there was ample publicity and a pragmatist. But for this category of reader (and not only for them) press coverage in the American media in English. The New York I say: among one hundred people who attended his seminars and Times, and the Wall Street Journal carried stories about his program. used his methods actively, fifty found a job in a month after his semi- As a result, American businesses became familiar with the high level nar ended, twenty found a job in three months, and ten were still of skills and training possessed by the Soviet emigres during those looking eleven months later. I could give more arguments to show years. the usefulness of his seminars and methods. But it’s easier for you So here, in this short article, I am not trying to paraphrase Dr. to simply call him, to tell Dr. Rosen who you are, where you are from Rosen’s methods because… and what is your profession, and ask permission to attend his semi- 1. The method includes a basic forty eight hours (really twice as nar. You don’t have to tell him I recommended you or him. I heard much) of training with him and his staff of volunteers, plus that some articles, from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal free manuals in English to work with at home and to use later [please see below] were later eventually translated into Russian and on. appeared in the former USSR, and the rumor among prospective emigres there was, “Call Rosen as soon as you land at JFK to see him 2. Dr. Rosen’s method is really his method plus he himself. It is and sign up for his seminar!” well-known that in many difficult areas of human activity, like learning to play the violin, people “learn by imitation” and If your English language skills are above levels three or four, you “learn by doing” what their mentors do, as apprentices. He will be told when the next cycle of the seminar series will begin. I is a very attractive person with a good sense of humor. He have to point out that his seminar is open to all specialists, all nation- uses various patterns of behavior—demonstrating them and alities, all ages, and both genders. You have nothing to sign, nothing urging you to follow his actions. to pay, nothing to fill out. 3. Dr. Rosen’s methods include his procedures that he learned You must arrive promptly at 9:00 am at the Workman’s Circle. growing up in the U.S., plus -- as I said -- he himself, plus Do not be surprised if on your way there, or in his conference room, his group of volunteers. Each volunteer works or worked in you meet media representatives. During the sessions which I attend- some area of science or engineering or management in the ed, his seminar was visited by the New York Times, by CNN, by NBC, U.S. All of them are doing this out of ‘tsedaka’: they come and by Eurovision correspondents.

174 175 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR

“Israel’s economic miracle is due as much to immigration as to anything. Be ready to tell about yourself as a specialist. Try to be brief and Today [2011] numbering 7.1 million people, the country has grown almost nine- optimistic, as Americans usually are. Being fascinated in 1990 by fold in sixty years….Foreign-born citizens of Israel currently account for over American optimism, I wrote in my brochure, “You can presume that one-third of the nation’s population, almost three times the ratio of foreigners to Americans are optimistic because much is good in the USA; but you can also natives in the United States. presume that much is good in the USA because Americans are optimistic”. …although Jews made up only about two percent of the Soviet population, At 9:00am then, punctual, smart, smiling, energetic Dr. Rosen they ‘counted for some thirty percent of doctors, twenty percent of engineers’ [ac- and his friends will enter the room and begin what may be the most cording to Natan Sharansky]”. important lesson from you…the lesson of optimism. --“Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle”, Dan Senor and Saul Singer (Council on Foreign Relations, 2011) This essay certainly captures some of the essence, the spirit, and the flavor of the “Scientific Careers Program” I helped create. I am extremely proud of the results that flowed from those years, a in the early nineties, working with hundreds of emigres who came A short history of My Finest Hour begins when a Russian scientist, sent by from a place where “we pretended to work, and they pretended to pay a mutual acquaintance, came to my office in 1990. In Russian-accented us”; a place where citizens had to “say one thing, think another thing, English, Dmitry asked for my help in finding a job in the United States. do a third thing”(meaning: you can’t trust anyone); a place where Like Vladimir Minden, he had a double PhD from impressive institu- “only four obstacles stood in the way of agriculture and food production… tions in the former Soviet Union, had arrived only a few months earlier, spring, summer, fall, and winter.” and was driving a taxicab to support himself and his family. This was the era of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructur- a ing), policies introduced in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, and partially responsible for the break-up of the former “That fall day when the Berlin Wall crumbled under the force of thousands Soviet Union. of pickax-wielding Germans was a historic moment that occurred with astonish- Dmitry was one individual among a wave of émigrés departing the ing speed. The known world flipped on its head in a few hours. By nightfall former Soviet Union. He and over a million others were Jews, fleeing on November 9th, 1989, [the] Cold War was effectively over….By the end of the persecution, and brought here by Jewish resettlement agencies who 1990s more than a million Soviet Jews had emigrated to Israel. Another half a loaned them money donated by American Jews. million had gone to the United States. Once here, the agencies helped them find jobs and housing so that as “…They were engineers and doctors, physicists and musicians, looking for a welcome visitors, they could eventually be permanent citizens. Officially, better life…They looked at the Soviet Union in its death throes and saw a place of they had to provide the names of U. S. relatives who lived here, and who great political and economic instability. Freedom had unleashed certain demons. would vouch for them…that is to say, who would prevent them from be- For the vast – and until then, silent – majority of Soviet Jews, this was enough to ing a burden to our U.S. federal and state and city governments. convince them to walk through the doors that had been unbolted”. Perhaps two thousand of those who arrived in the U.S. were high- functioning scientists, physicians, engineers. Dmitry’s specialty was ma- --“When They Come For Us, We’ll Be Gone”, rine biology, but others had done research in metallurgy, aeronautical Gal Beckerman, (Houghton Mifflin, 2010) engineering, solid state physics, low temperature physics, rheology, pis- catology, strength of materials, pure mathematics, applied mathemat- a ics, computer science and engineering, satellite design, and many very

176 177 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR narrow specialties, some of which did not yet even exist in the U.S. A few were geniuses. Capitalism for Emigres, in 12 Steps; Scientists From the Former In fact, if these Jewish professionals were talented enough, in Russia Soviet Union Study an Unusual Subject: How to Get a Job they were asked to work on classified military projects in applied sci- By DEBORAH SONTAG ence or engineering in addition to their academic work in the pure sci- Published: May 21, 1992, New York Times ences… even though they were Jews, who were normally discriminated One by one, the emigre scientists -- specialists in ichthyology, pi- against for centuries in Czarist eras until the present. This military work, sciculture, biomineralization and more -- rose to present themselves. while beneficial to them when living in Russia, actually made it very difficult for them to get permission from the Soviet officials to leave. Some, “I am Bril,” the first man began. “I come here two months ago however, were allowed to leave if classified projects there they were work- from Minsk.” ing on were not essential to the Soviet military. Then the next: “My major is fracture mechanics. I have 20 publi- Dmitry got a job within a few weeks of visiting my office and told his cations in international journals.” friends -- other émigrés -- about me. Many emigres lived in Brighton Beach And a graying engineer: “I was a supervisor,” he said. “I have 30 in Brooklyn, in Forest Hills in Queens, and other convenient housing lo- certificates. Now, sadly, I am rather old.” cations that the resettlement agency had found for them to live. Dmitry’s friends started to call me or turn up at my office (some- It was a touching exercise, but awkward, like a bad “Saturday times there was a long line), asking for job-search help. Here’s the short Night Live” skit snapped to life in a conference room on East version of what happened next: 33d Street. Dozens of scientists and engineers, many of them (1) I formed a non-profit tax-exempt foundation whose mission was stars in the former Soviet Union, had come together for a post- to help émigré scientists find appropriate work in the US; doctoral lesson in “the American mentality.” Their goal, more (2) I began a series of lectures to the ever-increasing numbers of bluntly: jobs. job-hungry émigrés; these talks morphed into a practical workshop with Eye Contact a full syllabus; It had been but a few months since most of them had arrived (3) I was visited by a reporter from the New York Times, Deborah from Russia and Belarus, but the eager students had already found Sontag, and she wrote the following factual and very positive article their way to this “crash course in capitalism” offered by an American- about our activities… born astrophysicist and career counselor, Dr. Stephen Rosen. Their capitalist re-education, which will take 12 sessions at no charge, began early this month at the Workmen’s Circle, a former bastion of Jewish socialism, itself re-educated into a fraternal organization. With the ready humility of immigrants, these dozens of Ph.D.’s from St. Petersburg University, Moscow State and the Steklov Mathematical Institute arrived prepared to study concepts like eye contact, thank-you notes and the buddy system. “I know about eye contact -- you have to maintain it -- but I have bad knowledge in many areas,” Dr. Vladimir Faynberg of Kiev said, his glasses slightly askew. “For instance, must you really wear only a blue suit to a job interview or is brown acceptable?”

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Dr. Faynberg may well be a physicist specializing in the nonde- comfortable. You must start making telephone calls. You must be in structive testing of semiconductors, but that and 50 cents, he has the right place at the right time.” learned, will get him a cup of coffee in America. Neither he nor the Dr. Salman, after placing himself in the right place at the right others have any desire to take a typical first job for immigrants, like time, discovered -- right in Brooklyn -- a project that could benefit driving a taxicab. Why watch a meter tick when you could be tinker- from his knowledge of seismology. He is studying the vibrations shaking with a carbon buckyball? ing the historic town houses above the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. So, referred by refugee-resettlement agencies, former capitalism Resumes and Vodka at Lunch students and Russian-language newspapers, the emigres have found their way to this workshop, which will initiate them into such alien “Many people are proud of themselves because of their former activities as networking, interfacing and looking for a job. It’s a haz- achievements,” Dr. Salman told his colleagues. “You must forget ing they’re willing to endure, considering that many are already suf- about that. You must accept anything you are offered.” fering what they hope will be a temporary indignity of depending on Spouting aphorisms and jokes, Dr. Rosen, in “Topic A: public assistance. Orientation,” offered his dos and don’ts of looking for work in Dr. Rosen estimated that more than 4,000 scientists have mi- America. grated here from the former Soviet Union in the last two years in Don’t send out resumes randomly, rely on classified advertise- what he calls a brain gain. His nonprofit program, Scientific Career ments, wait for the phone to ring, arrive late or depressed for job Transitions, which is supported by grants and donations, grew from interviews, smoke, photocopy cover letters or wear wrinkled brown a marriage of his vocation in career counseling and his avocation, suits. helping Jewish emigres. “Class, is it O.K. to drink vodka during an interview lunch?” Dr. Exploitation and Capitalism Rosen asked. There was a pause. Standing before a hand-lettered sign that said, “Either Network “Maybe a little?” one chemist ventured. or Not Work,” Dr. Rosen, whose grandparents came from what is Einstein Never Wore a Tie now Belarus, gave them their mission: “The job that you have to do is to persuade or convince an American employer that you can bring in Do be succinct, ask your interviewer questions -- “Don’t let it be- more money than they pay you. In the Soviet Union, this was called come a K.G.B. interview” -- search the Science Citation Index for exploitation. In the U.S., this is called capitalism.” those who have cited your research, call people in your field and engage them in shoptalk. And get a haircut. As would any self-actualization teacher worth his ego, Dr. Rosen introduced a success story, Dr. Aleksandr Salman, a once-nervous Dr. Rosen nodded at another workshop graduate, Dr. Gregory geophysicist from Moscow, who, after participating in the workshop, Pelts, who has secured a research position in the high-energy physics landed a position in soil mechanics at Polytechnic University in department at the Rockefeller University. “Notice that Gregory does Brooklyn. not wear a tie and jacket and has long hair. He fought with me. He said Einstein never wore a tie. Well, Einstein stopped wearing ties An elegant bearded man, Dr. Salman offered a testimonial. “I once he landed a job in the United States. Your absence of a tie does came over a year and a half ago,” he said. “I figured out it’s rather not imply you will be an Einstein.” impossible to find a job here in my field, earthquake prediction. But I didn’t give up. Dr. Pelts, however unkempt, was an exemplary networker. “I just called up Rockefeller University, and said, ‘Good day, may I speak “We must learn small things, for example, keep smiling,” he with someone working in string theory? “, he explained. said, his face impassive. “How to feel yourself comfortable when not

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Russian-style bluntness can, however, prove clunky. Dr. technicians. Many have dozens—or even hundreds—of journal ar- Faynberg offered an example. He had gone for a chat, not ticles and double doctorates. exactly a job interview, but an opportunity nonetheless, at a Rafail Kushak, for example, is now at Harvard doing research in laboratory in New Jersey. The topic was semi-conductors, and physiology and nutrition; Vyachslav Kuteyev, an applied mathemati- Dr. Faynberg’s interviewer ventured an opinion, to which Dr. cian, is doing actuarial work in biostatistics; Semeon Tsipursky, a ma- Faynberg responded, “You are wrong.” terials scientist is working at a leading research laboratory; Alexander “His jaw dropped, and he looked at his watch and said, ‘I’m in Salman is a geologist examining the civil engineering consequences a hurry,’ “ Dr. Faynberg recounted. “It was a very unhappy occur- of earthquake forecasts; German Laufer is a neurophysiologist doing rence.” research at Mt. Sinai Medical Center. These individuals were lucky. They found jobs in their fields just a few months after their arrival here through an imaginative, energetic and success- a ful program, Scientific Career Transitions, at the Workman’s Circle, created by American scientist Stephen Rosen, supported by a dedicated volunteer staff [italics added] and using facilities donated by Richard A. Eisner & About a month later, a Nobel Laureate, Roald Hoffmann, Co., a new York-based CPA firm with scientific and engineering com- wrote an essay at my urging for the Editorial Page of The Wall panies as clients. But many other émigrés have not yet learned the Street Journal, reprinted below. American methods of self-marketing, networking, job interviewing and outreach. U.S. corporate executives, research directors and science man- Soviet Émigré Talent: A Windfall For U. S. Employers agers now face industrial-strength opportunities to hire such highly (WSJ June 24, 1992) qualified, cost-effective talent with hands-on experience in science By Roald Hoffmann* and engineering—people who can really “get the job done”. What should a prospective employer look for when evaluating a Soviet im- Soviet scientific talent is now streaming westward. About 40,000 migrant candidate? Soviet Jewish émigrés arrived in the U.S. last year, and a similar number are expected this year. Some 20% of the new arrivals are engi- --Capitalism—What’s that? Being a Soviet research scientist or neers, and about 2% are professional scientists. high-level engineer is no guarantee of ignorance about capitalism… but it sure helps. New émigrés are uncomfortable presenting their This wave of émigré talent is an extraordinary windfall for the most “bankable” talents up front, with “networking” their way into U.S economy, for U.S. science and technology, and for our academ- the U.S. economy, and with asking for advice before applying for ic, research and corporate communities. jobs. Make allowances: their interviewing skills are not on a par with The periodic table, Sputnik, and surgical staples are striking their substantive technical knowledge. examples of Russian and Soviet genius in science and technolo- --Credentials. The Soviet Union has two different Ph.Ds. One, gy. Hundreds of recently arrived scientists are eager to follow in the “candidat nauk” is almost the equivalent of a standard U.S. Ph.D., Mendeleev’s footsteps; some perhaps are future Nobel laureates: requiring an original and publishable piece of research like the U.S. superb agricultural botanists, bio-technology specialists, biochem- doctoral dissertation. The other, the “doctor nauk”, is bestowed af- ists, geneticists, virologists, ichthyologists, physicists, petroleum and ter prolific research output, years beyond the U.S. doctorate. Ask hydro-geologists, neuroscientists, engineers, mathematicians and to see credentials, stamped with a special Soviet Academy seal, or a U.S. certified equivalent. Ask to see a candidate’s list of patents

182 183 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ‘NICE WORK & YOU CAN GET IT’: MY FINEST HOUR or publications, with titles and citations in English, so they can be They are among the most courageous, hard-working and future-ori- checked. Invite the candidate to tell you about his work. Then listen ented people on earth—new Americans at their best. critically to the caliber and quantity of accomplishments. --Depth of knowledge. Many émigrés have highly specialized capabilities in unusual-and multiple-market niches. I know Soviet a émigrés with Ph.Ds in printing technology, foundry casting, friction, *Roald Hoffmann, 1981 Nobel laureate in Chemistry, was him- digestion, engineering cybernetics, and other specialties that U.S. self an émigré from Russian-occupied Poland, arriving in 1949 in markets have not identified—yet. the U.S. --The language. Published émigrés have good English writing and listening skills but may require exposure to converse in fluent, idiomatic, functional English. Émigré scientists and engineers who go through Scientific Career Transitions have learned English quick- (4) I used the publicity from the appearance of both The New ly and easily. York Times and the Wall Street Journal articles to raise money for what --Compensation. Many émigrés can be hired at entry-level posi- became a six-week Program, called “Scientific Career Transitions”; tions until their language and marketplace skills are up to speed. (5) I was visited by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which made A responsible manager understands that émigrés are often eager— generous grants to our fledgling non-profit organization in the even driven—to prove themselves on the job with diligence and ded- belief that what we were doing with and for Russian scientists was ication. After a few months at work, their true value emerges. also needed by US scientists; --Entrepreneurs and innovators. In the Soviet Union, these peo- (6) Celia and I were commissioned to write a book, “Career ple were among the best and the brightest. But the stodgy, corrupt, Renewal”, based on our six-week Program on how to address career bureaucratic system did not allow them to put novel, productive problems of US scientists. ideas into practice. After they become acclimatized, ask them to (7) I was also visited by government intelligence agencies suggest innovations, to invent. (about which more in the chapter, “A Person Of Interest to The --Temporary work. Many Soviet scientists and high-level engi- FBI, The CIA, and The KGB”). neers will not find their “dream job” in the U.S. immediately, and The most rewarding part of our program for the Russian may be content to accept short-term assignments. If you offer this émigrés, they told me, was that they had their first face-to-face kind of work, be prepared to see an émigré-employee depart prompt- contact with an America Jewish scientist of Russian extraction who ly once that “dream job” comes along…or to promote that person when justified. You may even consider a brief test assignment to understood how to get professional and science jobs in US. (The prove the candidate’s “can-do” attitude and competence. fact that I was somewhat eccentric and amused them was a bonus, and became a source of lasting friendships.) --Contacts. If you cannot make a job offer, can you think of a few They told me they came from a very strange place, the former professional colleagues or personal contacts who might advance the Soviet Union, where as they put it ironically, the Soviet Union offi- emigre’s job search? In so doing you might also, just incidentally, advance the U.S. economy. cials had all the ‘ethical and moral principles of slime mold’. I met the emigres face-to-face and heard first-hand their unvar- Because emigres come to the U.S. to escape persecution, they nished views of the former Soviet Union (so to speak from the are highly motivated to succeed in their new country, their new life. bottom-up). I found that their candid opinions unveiled a very negative version of the “workers’ paradise” and of Marxist Theory

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I had read about in learned college textbooks (as it were from the top-down), and had heard about from my left-leaning college chums. I was being educated in real politics. When I was invited to emigres’ homes for dinner, we drank vodka -- bottoms up! – to toast their new-found capitalist freedoms. I also began to appreciate the sacrifices and courage of these stalwart and gutsy survivors, with their true-grit ambitions and robust powers of endurance, who wanted their children to grow up in a better place than they and their parents had inhabited. Since then, my admiration for them and for my own ancestors and parents has only increased. HOW I MET THE SUNSHINE As mentioned earlier, Bruce Feiler cites studies that show: “The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of OF MY LIFE control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned.” This resonates deeply with me. The early chapters in these memoirs about my parents and my n 1984, Celia Paul was a forty-year old social worker, divorced, work with Russian emigres demonstrate how monumentally impor- and very attractive. Some contemporary women friends of hers tant my own rich “family narrative” has strengthened my own self- I were complaining that they couldn’t meet “appropriate” men. esteem and self-control. Since these were accomplished attractive professional women, Not only did I help emigres help themselves change their lives, they probably wanted to meet accomplished attractive professional but they helped to immeasurably-improve my own life. I acquired men. Marriage-able men. Interesting men. the confidence to begin helping US scientists, lawyers, and doc- One of them suggested that they organize a reception and tors. I became a full-time career counselor. They helped me more invite men with whom each of them had gone out before, and had than they knew, and much much more than I helped them. liked—but didn’t love. It was later described facetiously as a “recycling” or “roll-over” party. Get it? The process reminded me of an a Irving Berlin song, “Won’t You Change Partners And Dance With Me?” popularized by Fred Astaire. This speed-dating event took place in a very pleasant upper-west side apartment on a very pleasant Sunday afternoon in September. About ten women appeared, and each had brought appetizers and snacks. Each of the fifteen men brought wine. The odds were in favor of the women, of course, since it was their idea. I had dated one of these women once five years earlier; no romance had developed between us, but she remembered me well enough to invite me to this male-candidate-recycling event.

186 187 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! HOW I MET THE SUNSHINE OF MY LIFE

I was munching on some appetizers and dip. I said to the lovely each other by separating for two weeks -- but re-united promptly. stranger standing next to me to my right at the table, “This is deli- During Christmas and Rosh Hashanah we disagreed briefly about cious! Let’s see, what’s in it? Ah ha… Yes….Coriander!” religious observance, but that was merely another brief trial-of-wills The stranger to my right said, “I made that dip!” Not much later, that ended well. when she became my wife, Celia Paul and no longer a stranger What did I like about her? What made us a good match? I loved told me: “I formed three conclusions about those few remarks of yours. looking at Celia. I loved our conversations. I loved being with her. One, ‘He’s generous with his compliments’. Two,’ He likes to eat’. And Celia is a practical and brilliant thinker in every way, a leader in three, ‘He must be sophisticated, because he could identify Coriander’.” her profession…career counseling lawyers. (I often said she was We exchanged names and chatted a few moments, and then I ‘too smart to be a lawyer’). Celia’s “just too marvelous…too marvel- said: “Please excuse me. I’d like to circulate.” Off I went to meet and ous for words…” a Johnny Mercer/Richard Whiting song which Ella chat up all the other women there. That was the purpose of the Fitzgerald performs at www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kiqbcbrOo event, wasn’t it? I circulated conscientiously, gathering as many She had a record collection (chamber music mostly) that dove- business cards from the other nine women as I could. tailed, completed, supplemented, and complimented my own Then, Celia – the Coriander lady – approached. “Would you like to record collection (symphonic music and jazz). We both accepted go out for a cup of coffee?” she asked. Now that I had collected all my this as a powerful metaphor for the many other ways we completed contacts, Celia and I both knew I was free to leave. “Sure!” Once each other: me theoretical, she practical; she a people-person, me we were outside, she said, “How about coming for coffee at my apart- an often-self-centered type; me spontaneous and impulsive, she ment. It’s very near.”… “Sure!”. focused and goal-oriented. We have learned to honor our differ- After entering her apartment, Celia proceeded to offer some ences. Both of us love entertaining and cooking together, trav- wine. One thing led to another, and we got closer and closer and eling together, and making new friends. I wrote admiring songs closer…until we were very very close. There are two divergent sce- honoring her best qualities for birthdays and special events; see narios of what happened next: mine, and hers. the chapter “Singin In The Brain”. MINE. I remember my version clearly. The next morning, In 2013 we’ve been married over twenty-seven years – and she according to my memory, Celia proposed marriage to me. I am still treats me AS IF I WERE HER EQUAL. The best of two mar- not making this up. riages. The kiss that conquers. The wisest decision I ever made. HERS. Celia remembers her version clearly. She recalls saying, Celia is “the sunshine of my life”. “That was great!”, and me proposing marriage a few months later. We’re both sure each of is right. Steve’s ego survives the two versions intact -- and maybe both versions are true. It really doesn’t a matter now. (The Gershwin song, “Who Cares” has a lyric couplet that says “Who cares if banks fail in Yonkers... Long as you’ve got a kiss that conquers”). She did. However, there were a few bumps ‘On the bumpy road to love’ -- which happens to be the title of a song sung by Judy Garland in a 1938 movie that co-starred Judy and Celia Paul’s step-father Freddie Bartholomew…a lovely man who loved Celia and me like a father. The bumps were minor. During our six-month courtship we tested

188 189 SOL PAUL & DUBLIN’S JEWISH LORD MAYORS

y new father-in-law in my new second marriage was Sol Paul. MHe was a bow-tie-wearing gentleman of the old school, loved to laugh, and was a very well-known and highly respected publisher of a trade magazine (Radio and Television Age) that circulated to executives in the radio and television industry. In fact, Sol had been a pioneer in the television industry back in the 1950s when television was in its infancy. Saul loved women. Especially beautiful women. He and Aileen Phillips, Celia’ mother, had one child together, and then their marriage broke up, sadly, when Celia was five years old. Sol was a bon vivant and a great story teller. He loved to talk about his old girlfriends back when he was in college, at Georgetown University in the 1940s in Washington DC. At one time he was dating the daughter of the man who was the then-Irish-Ambassador to the United States. The daughter was Maeve, a lovely Irish lass, whose name still brought a smile to Sol’s face decades later whenever he spoke of her. After Maeve and Sol had gone out a few times together, Sol was returning Maeve to the Ambassador’s residence one evening. As he was saying “Good night”, he was greeted at the front door of the Ambassador’s residence by the Ambassador himself.

191 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! SOL PAUL & DUBLIN’S JEWISH LORD MAYORS

The Ambassador said: “Mr. Paul…how nice to see you. May I have So I went to the Parliament and met Briscoe, and we had high a word? Would you mind? Please step into my study.” tea, around 4 PM. We got along very well. Ben Briscoe is very genial, Sol complied and when they were in the study, the Ambassador jovial, jolly, and has lots of jokes -- just like politicians everywhere -- closed the door and said the following: “Mr. Paul. You seem like a and I have a few of my own jokes. We had a great time together and very decent man. However, you are a Jew. Is that correct?” Sol said “Yes become instant friends…sharing Jewish jokes and Irish jokes. sir.” The Ambassador continued, “Well as nice a man as you are, I will Here’s one of Briscoe’s best jokes: It seems that a criminal has not have my daughter marry a Jew.” left the United States and was believed by the FBI to have gone The Ambassador continued, “Mr. Paul, you seem to have an eye for to Dublin to escape. So the FBI agent in charge sends a fax to Irish beauty, and I can help you find some Irish beauties who happen to be the Dublin police. The fax showed the culprit in three poses like Jewish. A good friend of mine, Robert Briscoe, is the Jewish Lord Mayor of wanted posters do… full-face (in the center of the poster); left side Dublin, and he has four beautiful Irish girls who also happen to be Jewish. profile of the face (on the right side of the ‘wanted’ poster); and I would be pleased to introduce you to him so you could meet his lovely Irish right side profile of the face (on the left side of the poster). Jewish daughters.” Saul said, “Thank you very much sir but I don’t think The poster says: “This man is wanted. If you see him please notify the that will be necessary”, and withdrew from the study and never saw Police. Do not attempt to apprehend him yourself. He may be armed and Maeve again. dangerous.” Weeks went by, and the FBI agent in charge heard nothing from the Dublin police. He got tired of waiting, and finally calls a his counterpart at the Dublin police. The FBI agent says to the Dublin Police Chief, “Did you get the fax we sent you about that escaped Fast forward forty years. criminal?” When Celia and I married in 1985, Sol told me this story about The Dublin police chief says, “Yes, sure and bejesus we got the fax.” Robert Briscoe. In the late 80s, I visited Ireland to see my son So the FBI agent says, “Did you catch the criminal?” And the Dublin Daniel and Daniel’s then-wife Heather. During my visit to Ireland, Police Chief says, “Well, we got the guy in the center--but we couldn’t get I planned to call on Ben Briscoe, the son of Robert Briscoe, for- the other two guys on each side of him.” merly active in the Irish Rebellion as well as Jewish Lord Mayor of These jokes helped both of us relax, and then I remembered Dublin. the story about Sol and Maeve, the daughter of the then-Irish- Ben is also Jewish Lord Mayor of Dublin, his father having Ambassador to the United States forty years earlier… including died, and he was elected to this position, which is an honorific title the part about the Irish Ambassador offering Robert Briscoe’s that allows him to travel the world as a Jew representing Ireland. daughters (Ben’s sisters) as models of Irish-Jewish pulchritude. This is unusual, since there are only some five hundred Jews left So I related this whole story to Ben Briscoe, who was obviously in Ireland, most having fled to England or Israel to find suitable the brother of these four daughters, as well as the son of Robert mates. Ireland has about 3 million people and has absolutely no Briscoe. And I explained the Ambassador’s offer, some forty years anti-Semitism there (maybe because there are so few Jews). earlier, to introduce Sol to Ben Briscoe’s four “beautiful” sisters. When I arrived in Dublin I looked up Ben Briscoe in the tele- Ben Briscoe’s response: “But my sisters are really ugly!” phone directory and I reached him at the Irish House of Parliament. The conversation went like this… “Hi! My name is Steve Rosen. I’m from New York, and I’m Jewish.” Without skipping a beat, Ben a Briscoe says, “Come on over!”

192 193 A PERSON OF INTEREST TO THE FBI, CIA, & KGB

ews did not have a happy history in the USSR. JWhen the Cold War warmed up, the US was able to negotiate an orderly departure of those Soviet citizens who wished to emigrate to the US and European countries, provided that American and the Jewish resettlement agencies finance the transitions. As mentioned, about a half a million Jews came to the U.S., and about a million went to Israel. Thus it came to pass that only if you were Jewish were you allowed to leave the USSR. In fact, one of my émi- gré scientists ‘confessed’ that she lied about her religion in order to depart Russia. She pretended to be Jewish. The irony is that while Russia persecuted Jews for centuries, many Jews pretended to be not Jewish. Here is a story circulated at the time by the émigrés: Gorbachev asks his deputy, “How many Jews are there still left in the Soviet Union?” The deputy says, “Two million.” Gorbachev says, “Well, how many Jews want to leave?” And the deputy says, “Four million”. a

In 1990, as mentioned, I created and directed the Scientific Career Transitions Program, especially for Jewish Soviet émigré

195 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A PERSON OF INTEREST TO THE FBI, CIA, & KGB scientists from the former Soviet Union. The New York Times sent However, if a Jewish scientist was truly outstanding, she was a reporter to visit us. The Times reporter, Deborah Sontag, was allowed to do military research for Mother Russia. A number of a very capable and diligent writer, and she wrote a wonderful these talented individuals attended the program and were partici- piece that gave us much-needed publicity. Included in the pating in the workshop as students of the job-search. So the FBI chapter entitled, “Nice Work and You Can Get It’, the article agents asked if I could keep them informed of any promising new- “Capitalism for Emigres, in 12 Steps; Scientists From the Former Soviet comers who might bring valuable information or technical devel- Union Study an Unusual Subject: How to Get a Job” (May 21, 1992) is opments to the United States via this émigré channel. The officials also available online. in the former Soviet Union, of course, would always try to screen Because of the very favorable publicity that followed the New the emigres before they granted exit visas so that no secrets would York Times article, I was able to use it as fund-raising tool. It was, depart. in effect, a testimonial that drew a lot of attention to the prob- The émigré scientists began calling me as they arrived in the US; lems of refuse-nik Jews in the former Soviet Union, their eager- they would have found out about the program via the émigré grape- ness to depart the “workers’ paradise” and to find a real life else- vine, the gossip network, or via the New York Times article -- which where. Even though I had never raised money for a worthy cause remarkably had been picked up by Russian-language newspapers (although I had given money to worthy causes) I was able to teach in Moscow and in New York. myself how to parlay this publicity into funding for the Scientific When they entered and joined our program, they furnished Career Transitions Program. me with their resumes and lists of publications and patents in But not only did we get publicity from the Times and funding English. Of course, I would scour these documents for hints about from wealthy donors and friends, from New York State, from the their research and whether anything they worked on might pos- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation -- and were offered a book contract sibly be of interest to the FBI. from Academic Press -- but we caught the attention of the FBI, the In the 1980s, the United States was ahead of the Russians in CIA, and the KGB. most technical, scientific, and engineering specialties. But there An agent of the FBI called one day and asked if we could meet. were a few fields where the Soviet Union surpassed the United I asked how they found out about me and our Program. The caller States. said, “Because of the article in the New York Times”. I replied, “What One such field was metallurgy, and how to machine Titanium, took you so long?” a very strong very light-weight metal used for military purposes in Central Casting and Middle America sent two clean-cut, crew- supersonic aircraft and other classified applications. One of “my” cut, straight-arrow FBI agents. This was at the tail end of the Cold émigrés (I became very protective and fond of them) had devel- War between the USSR and the US; the two countries, formerly oped effective ways of working with Titanium, a very difficult sub- mortal enemies, were still suspicious of each other. The agents stance to machine and deal with. I informed the FBI of this and of asked me to tell them about any scientific and technological devel- other developments that I thought they would like to know about. opments that these Soviet émigrés had worked on in the former In the space race of the late 1950s and the 1960s, the Soviet Soviet Union. Union appeared to have drawn ahead of the US when they Many of these émigré scientists were professors or researchers launched Sputnik into orbit and sent an unmanned rocket to land at premier institutes and only a few of them had been engaged in on the moon. The United States was caught flat-footed, and this classified military research because Jews were considered a secu- embarrassment was ultimately responsible for John F. Kennedy rity risk. announcing that we were going to send a man to the moon and

196 197 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A PERSON OF INTEREST TO THE FBI, CIA, & KGB bring back him back alive by the end of the decade. Our vast and in a conference room at 575 Madison Avenue in the offices that expensive Space Program and NASA were created to meet the were donated to our non-profit organization by the accounting Soviet challenge. firm Richard A. Eisner and Company. Our space satellites were powered by solar panels. But the Ivan had a very elaborate business card, with lots of degrees Soviets had developed long-lived power sources for their many and initials after his name, and was ostensibly visiting the U.S. to Earth satellites using their advances in metallurgy. As energy sell Russian Art. But I think this was a flimsy cover story. sources for satellites, they used highly radioactive substances that During the course of a two-hour meeting with him, I noticed were not only extremely “hot” (radio-actively speaking) but were that he was very short-tempered and hot-headed and got impa- also at very high temperatures; this powered their satellites using tient with my translator. At one point he yelled at her that she was the high temperatures to generate electricity by means of the not doing a good job of converting his words into English. “thermo-electric effect”. They built metal containers that would At that point, I realized that he spoke English very well. Perhaps not melt even if they held such substances at very high tempera- he wanted to hear everything that transpired during the meeting ture for years of satellite operation. twice. I photocopied his “business card” and I sent it to the CIA. This energy source had been designed by one of my emigres, a They researched him and urged very strongly that I have nothing program participant. I remember speaking to high-ranking offi- to do with him because he was “very dangerous”. And that was cials in the government about machining Titanium as an area that. where they were possibly ahead of the US. I also collected from other program participants many science and technology ideas that might be candidates for start-up compa- a nies or for commercial development in the US. Many of the emigre scientists came to me with their ideas, and then we met with ven- However, many years later I was contacted by a reporter for the ture capitalists and Goldman Sachs; eventually we came up empty Chinese language newspaper, Science & Technology Daily. He told -- although through this quest I met some very interesting scien- me in broken English that he was the New York and UN Bureau tists and financial investors. Chief, and wanted to interview me. The paper, he said, had a circulation of something like a half a a million people a day (!) The largest-circulation science periodical in the US was only about 300,000 a week. The general population An agent of the CIA also called after the New York Times article of China is so much greater than the population of the United to see what I was up to, and to investigate whether any of the émigré States that China has a correspondingly higher (much higher!) scientists might have been planted here by the Soviet Union to population of scientists. spy on us. I don’t know how they scrutinized the émigrés, but they “Jimmy” (as he called himself…admittedly a nom de guerre) found nothing suspicious…or didn’t tell me if they had. asked to meet me and to talk about science and technology in the In 1992, I got a visit from a very suspicious guy who was later United States and what I knew. He said that he was specifically identified to me by the CIA as a very dangerous person connected interested in, and wanted detailed information about, advanced to the KGB. He was introduced to me by one of my former stu- technologies that are being worked on in the United States. He dents (how very clever of him), and I met with him, the former specifically asked about electronics and aircraft development, and student, and a translator he requested (another of my protégés), other high-tech fields. So I got a little suspicious and called my

198 199 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A PERSON OF INTEREST TO THE FBI, CIA, & KGB

FBI contact, and he came back with the result: “This is a person of people on behalf of the United States. I thought this was a very bad interest”. idea because I suspected that Jimmy would decline, and that my I guess a “person of interest” to the FBI was somebody who effort would sour our friendship permanently. was “fishing” for critical information, and maybe potentially even Nevertheless, I accommodated the agents’ request. I was very a spy. I had read an Op-Ed article in the New York Times at the time uncomfortable with the whole idea, and with the “wire” (an incred- that indicated the Russians and the Chinese had different meth- ibly tiny recorder) I was asked to wear and felt the entire exercise ods or ‘styles’ of spying. The Russians would find an American who was based upon the FBI’s benign misconception…that he would had access to classified material, and then they would offer her convert his loyalty to the US merely on the basis of our friendship very large sums of money to “turn” the source into a spy. and his admiration for our system. But the article pointed out that the Chinese have a very large At one of our lunches, I discussed Jimmy’s new camera, and population, and suggested that their vast number of citizens would everything and anything else I could think of. I felt edgy, and scour sources of information in the open literature in the United Jimmy must have suspected the occasion was different from our States. Graduate students, visitors to China, and the newspapers regular meetings. I told Jimmy that I wanted him to meet with and technical journals were always examined carefully for what some people who wanted to talk to him. But he said, “No. It is they contained. The Chinese relied on people working in the U.S. not necessary.” I guess he figured out that we were going to try to who were research-informants, fact-collectors, or spies to give them recruit him. He was clearly not interested. This ended our rela- the information that was unclassified – and that they could then tionship and eventually he returned with his wife and son to his piece together the small information ‘tidbits’ using large teams family’s homeland. I still wonder if he left journalism and became of shrewd analysts back in China, and assemble these into “a big a photographer, or if he was sent from China on other similar mis- picture”. sions elsewhere. I was asked to cultivate and befriend this person and his wife and child, which I did with my wife’s help. He and I had lunch regularly over the course of five years. a They made a Chinese dinner of twenty different dishes for us in their apartment, and eventually visited and cooked for us in East Hampton. It was quite different than the food in a New York Chinese restaurant... although we and they did eat together in Chinese restaurants and elsewhere. We socialized often, visiting museums and parks with them and their young son. Jimmy even asked me for career advice: he wanted to be a professional photographer and designer once he returned to China. Jimmy asked me to introduce him to scientists and high-level people I knew. I did this but always told these targets about his background, and urged them to be careful in what they revealed. After years of developing our relationship, the FBI agents said that they wanted me to try to “turn” him, which I understood to mean that they wanted me to try to get him to spy against his own

200 201 DARWIN, DARWIN & SELF-FLATTERY

he first of four sons that Luis brought to East Hampton from TEcuador was Darwin. Luis -- a quiet, dark, stocky, very muscular man -- worked in East Hampton helping with our gardening and heavy household chores for about ten years. Luis spoke little English. He was a very hard worker; slow and steady, strong and quiet. He would toil all day; he needed the money and insisted on working sometimes for twelve hours straight. When I had the energy, I enjoyed working alongside him: but I would quit from exhaustion long before he even needed a rest. He…like the fabled tortoise that won the race against the nervous excitable hare…me. Luis had worked in an Ecuadorian rock quarry – hence the muscles and the twelve hour work-days -- making the equivalent of $30 or $40 a month there. The economy of Ecuador was so dire that the government was often unable to pay salaries to their own government employees. Luis had a wife and six children in Ecuador, and had come to East Hampton as an illegal immigrant like many of his compatriots to find work. Luis not only sent money home and phoned weekly, but he arrived one day with a video camera—to send home images of our house, our gardens, my sculptures-welded-from-rusty-tools, and us. He referred to one of my assemblages as, “El burro de Don Esteban”

203 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! DARWIN, DARWIN & SELF-FLATTERY

(Sir Stephen’s donkey). Nobody had ever called me Don Esteban. first observed features of birds that led to his discovering natural Or Sir. It sounded like a character from Don Quixote. We were selection. moved by his eagerness to show his family-back-home where, and It was not only the citizens of the United Kingdom and the with whom, he worked. A heart-warming gesture that made us feel rest of the World, but also the Ecuadorian people, who real- he was not merely a hired hand. ized his great accomplishment. Ecuadorians like Luis honored We loved Luis. And maybe he even loved us. When he left Charles’ memory by bestowing his last name as a first name on after ten years to go back to Quito, he smiled that dark hand- male offspring. some shy missing-tooth smile when we gave him a farewell party Like Luis, son Darwin was taciturn and strong. He worked and a going-away present. He had been sending money home, as steadily, efficiently, and effectively for many hours. He was very many immigrants do. When he was ready to return to Ecuador, quick-witted, with a strong native intelligence, and could solve he planned to use the money that he had saved up to buy a candy practical problems instantly. Unlike Luis, he spoke English. store. After Luis left, his son Darwin came to work for us. a a After working for us for three or four years, Darwin invited us Men or boys in Ecuador are named Darwin because when the to his wedding. He had met a young Puerto Rican woman from first one whose last name was Darwin (Charles) was writing his Brooklyn on an internet website, a Pentecostal dating service. We met Winnie, who was an American citizen, peppy and petite, famous diary on the voyage of the Beagle, he visited the Galapagos, and who we liked...until we didn’t. (You’ll see why momentarily.) islands off the coast (and part) of Ecuador. There Charles made We were pleased to learn that Darwin would be able to stay in East detailed observations of the flora and the fauna, and kept notes of Hampton and continue to work for us as he had done previously. all conversations he had with natives and other travelers. He was a Not only did he ask us to come to the wedding, but he Asked national hero. Me To Be His Best Man! Yes, this was a big deal I flattered myself I read both Charles Darwin’s “The Voyage of the Beagle” and to believe. I had no suspicion that he might be setting me up to his masterpiece “The Origins of Species” on a trip to Patagonia. give him a very large gift, but (as we later learned) he had no Extremely impressive was the wealth of deeply-detailed observa- such ulterior motive. I was required to wear a tuxedo. Celia was tions he recorded on paper while still a twenty-year-old, and a yet- required to wear a purple dress, according to Winnie, so she could to-be-declared genius. Charles Darwin’s writings virtually defined match all the other bridesmaids in the service. Celia had become the phrase, “powers of observation.” I envied his ability to objectify a Bridesmaid. reality in such rich detail. (Would that I could see less of myself The wedding was held mid-Island in a very small, very mod- in the world outside of me, and observe more of the world-as-it- est Pentecostal church. There must’ve been some three hundred is. Sometimes I feel as if I were a fish unable to sense its liquid Ecuadorians at this wedding. Celia and I were the only Caucasians environment.) -- or as they say “gringos”-- and we towered a head above the Charles Darwin observed the facts and data in his diary that Ecuadorians. would lead him decades later to his theories on evolution and the The food was not catered, but cooked and brought by the descent of mankind from earlier life forms by a process of “natural guests. There was a lot of rice. A lot of chicken. A lot of economiz- selection,” or “survival of the fittest.” In the Galapagos Islands he ing and warm family togetherness.

204 205 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! DARWIN, DARWIN & SELF-FLATTERY

Pentecostals do not believe in alcohol, dancing, or smoking. Darwin visits and works for us occasionally, has a girl-friend, So there was none of those. Instead, they had a Bible quiz and the and a daughter and son. He seems is happy and well. However, this winner won… a Bible. story has an unhappy twist. We heard through Darwin’s brother I was asked to give a toast. I speak Spanish, and gave the fol- -- not through Darwin himself -- that Winnie had perished in an lowing toast in Spanish: “I am very happy to be here. I am happy for apartment blaze; her mother survived. Darwin will not discuss this Darwin and Winnie, and here is what I wish for them… I hope that they matter. will be as happy twenty years from now, as my wife Celia and I are today. In 2012, Darwin returned to work for us again, and showed off Very happy.” I got a huge round of welcoming and enthusiastic his lovely daughter. He is very much a proud father. He’s put on applause. Celia and I talked about the wedding event for weeks a few pounds of prosperous maturity, and is once again a warm, thereafter, because we felt honored to be a part of this Ecuadorian friendly, and trusted all-around professional handy-man. By 2013, community. he built us a superb mahogany deck, re-married and has three The wedding itself was a strange event. Winnie’s divorced children. mother was inappropriately dressed and beyond eccentric. She was in her late 40s and her boyfriend was a 21-year-old moron. The wedding couple had hired limos, which were very expen- a sive, and which we tried to discourage them from doing, but they insisted. There was a disturbingly odd note on the printed invita- tions, which had an asterisk next to the location and date, and the footnote to this asterisk at the bottom of this printed invitation said “If you are planning to give us money, please give it in CASH”. Apparently this was Winnie’s idea, not Darwin’s. We did give them cash as a wedding gift. Darwin continued to work for us for several more years. He was extremely practical and youthful, appeared to be happily married, and was a very effective handyman and gardener, doing odd jobs and chores around our property. We referred him to others since we wanted him to increase his revenues, and to do our friends the favor of passing on a very good worker. Several years passed, and Darwin tells us that Winnie has left him for another man. He is devastated, moody, depressed. He is unable to work. He simply stands around moping. And we needed work done and we’re very disappointed and unhappy because we were present at his wedding. I tried to cheer him up about Winnie by pointing out that Winnie had some genetic abnormalities probably inherited from her emotionally-disturbed mother. He agreed with me that it was better that Winnie and he had not had children.

206 207 PASSION-AT-WORK

elia and I wrote a book, “Career Renewal” (1998), which Cemerged from our collaboration helping Soviet émigré scientists. The book was commissioned by Michael Teitelbaum, a Program Officer the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation who realized that what we were doing for Russian emigres needed to be done for US scientists. In our work together with scientists, doctors, and lawyers who have trouble deciding which career directions they prefer to follow, we administer some paper and pencil tests, or as we prefer to call them “exercises”. One of these is called “Most Enjoyable Skills”. We administer it to our clients if they’re clueless about their careers, and if (even as adults) they ‘still don’t know what they want to be when they grow up’. The exercise asks a client to name twelve most-emotionally and deeply satisfying accomplishments, both personal and professional. For example: writing an article, building a tree-house, giving a professional talk, acting in a school play, working on a legal matter, doing research, healing a disease, solving a problem, building a relationship, and so on. The choices need only be very specific accomplishments that evoked passion in their performance, what I call “passion-at-work”. These twelve are reduced by triage to the six most-salient accomplishments, and then matched against a list of 172 specific skills. It often turns out that many of the accomplishments share the same or similar skills. For example,

209 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! PASSION-AT-WORK if “teaching physics” and “writing a novel” are two emotionally- In brackets, I have added a ranking number next to each item on satisfying accomplishments, then a general skill clearly common the list that indicates its importance to me on a scale of one to to both accomplishments would be “communication skills”. ten (where ten is the most pleasurable accomplishment). Those As I was interpreting this exercise with a recent client, I realized at the end of the list in the normal text’s typeface (items 16, I hadn’t done the exercise myself. So I set myself the task of being 17, 18) reflect ‘normal’ enjoyment; those in italics reflect greater my own career counseling client to see how I would learn some- enjoyment(items 12 through 15); and the most salient and satisfying thing. What career at age 79 in the year 2013 would I be suited to? accomplishments are in boldface (items 1 through 11). I consider What do I want to be if and when I ever grow up? myself wealthy in enjoyable accomplishments. I have also added a letter in brackets indicating which parent [M for Mom, D for Dad], teacher [T], friend [F], Celia [C], or a other [O] was influential in developing each pleasurable accomplishment. Moreover, it’s clear from these satisfying accomplish- So here’s a lifetime list of my proudest, most-satisfying, emotionally- ments, I was positively influenced by these people in my life: Mom fulfilling accomplishments… ranked according to their importance (seven accomplishments), Dad (nine), teachers (four), friends to me (10 is the highest). The different typefaces and numbers (ten), Celia (five). and letters in brackets are explained below. “No man is an island”. Most of us are peninsulas. A few are

archipelagoes. “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of 1. having and raising kids [10; M, D] giants”, Newton famously said. I guess I’m standing on the shoulders 2. creating a successful marriage with Celia [10; F] of giants I have met…and they are probably standing on a continent. 3. having relationships with my grandchildren[10;C] From this specific list, I’ve also derived those general skills that I 4. building the tree-house [10; D, F] employ when engaged in each accomplishment. I notice that one 5. counseling lawyers/doctors/scientists[10;C,M,D,F] ‘skills theme’ that’s common to several accomplishments (reading, 6. creating programs for Russian émigrés[10;C] teaching, proposals, selling, creating, writing books/songs, etc.) 7. attending my 75th birthday celebration [10; C, F] is “communications”. Another cluster of accomplishments (fixing 8. reading outstanding books [10; M, F, T] things, welding sculptures, building the tree-house) draws upon 9. meeting & charming women [10; D] my manual dexterity and tactile abilities. Another ‘skills theme’ is a 10. going to yard sales; negotiating purchases[10; D] sense of the visual…as in my propensity for photography, sculpture, 11. appreciating great music [10; M] appreciating lovely paintings -- and admiring feminine beauty. 12. swimming and exercising [9; F, T] Using one’s “most enjoyable skills” are like “exercising favorite 13. repairing items around the house [9; D, F] muscles” (See “Expertise As An Addiction” in the Appendix.) The 14. teaching physics [9; F, T] more the skill is used, the stronger it gets. This is fine when the 15. cultivating friends [9; C, M, D] skill is exercised in a job or career one loves. But it’s possible to be 16. doing sculpture [7; D] good at work you don’t enjoy… I hated driving a taxi; I got burned 17. writing five books [6; M, T, F] out after six years teaching; I dreaded working at the car wash; 18. selling my book proposals [6; M, D, F] experimental research bored me. But I was good at all of these, and didn’t find that kind of work “a worthy expression of who I was” until I began counseling Russian émigré scientists -- and later

210 211 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! PASSION-AT-WORK on American scientists, lawyers, and doctors. Another way to view go into business with him, but I knew that wasn’t for me because “exercising favorite muscles”: excessive use of your strength or vir- I saw how physically intense and exhausting it was for him. I was tues may become a weakness or a disability. For example, Harry beguiled and enchanted by science. Rosen over-used his strong ability to make money, but in so doing I now know too much about the career problems of lawyers, doc- he atrophied his humility and humanity. tors, and rabbis to choose retro-actively one of those careers—even Suppose I ask what career or careers I might enjoy now, if I hypothetically. At seventy-nine, I realize that career counseling was a were to start over again? Career counseling might be one career I great – and even an inevitable –choice for me. But at age thirty could I would enjoy doing. However, that’s partly because all the different have imagined what would have appeared to me at age fifty an inevi- jobs and careers I inhabited -- teacher, author, lecturer, car washer, table career choice? Are these ideas useful to others who are young, management consultant, camp counselor, research scientist, taxi- who are going through agonizing career considerations and circum- driver, physicist – gave me the scope and breadth to understand stances? Great grand-children? Are you there? Are you reading this? the broader job market, the economy, and how to present myself to I’m not giving advice; I’m telling what worked for me. But employers. These invaluable work experiences made career coun- here’s some wisdom I found practical and inspiring. In 2013, seling a virtually ‘inevitable’ choice for me in the last few decades. Diana Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida But what career would I attempt if I were a young man start- without a protective cage, swimming to a Key West beach nearly 53 ing over now? (Clearly an academic question.) The easiest answer, hours after jumping into the ocean in Havana for her fifth try in but perhaps not the best choice, would be physicist and teacher, 35 years. According to the New York Times... if only because I like too many things besides physics, and I was a good but not a great researcher. How about lawyer? Well, I did Through it all, she held her mantra close: “You don’t like have communications, writing, and speaking skills even early in it. It’s not doing well. Find a way.” “I got three mes- my life…but those had to be challenged, tested, sharpened, and sages,” an exhausted and happy 64 year old Nyad told improved over many different projects for many decades. So could reporters. Her face was sunburned and swollen. “One is I have been a decent lawyer? Maybe. Would I have had as much we should never, ever give up. Two is you never are too fun? Perhaps. Cultivating my communications skills as a lawyer old to chase your dreams. Three is it looks like a soli- would have produced a different set of competencies than I now tary sport, but it’s a team,” she said. possess. How about rabbi? Well, again, my communications skills could have been tested and sharpened, but would my heart have I have embraced her mantra in the physical projects, intellec- been in that choice? I doubt it. How about doctor? Well, maybe tual efforts, and emotional relationships I cultivated. If I were to a better choice, but some of my self-diagnosed attention-deficit come back and start life over again, I would do the same…and problems would have made me a careless physician—something I work with more energy and passion. The plain truth is: I won’t wouldn’t want to be. Inventor? I remember thinking this as a kid, come back as anyone, because I can’t come back—except as a admiring “Rube Goldberg” type ‘inventions’. (My Dad’s father memory in the minds of family and people I influenced (friends, “invented” an automatic shut-off using an old alarm clock pre-set colleagues, people I mentored…Russian scientists, clients, stu- to shut the light off on Shabbat.) When I came to understand dents). Or in a photograph. Or on a video-tape. Or as a book. that an investment in marketing a new invention exceeds the cost This book, for example. of inventing it by three or four orders of magnitude, I decided “inventor” was a non-starter. Entrepreneur? Dad wanted me to a

212 213 ANASTOMOSIS: THE TREE- HOUSE & MARRIAGE

n 2008, I built a tree-house, described below, on our property Iin East Hampton. I built it with my own hands as a challenge to my wood-working, engineering and physics skills, and because I’m still a kid at heart. After I completed building the tree-house, I realized it was a metaphor for building my marriage. Its inauguration became a special and unorthodox event that was attended by some fifty friends and family. Songs were written and sung. Musicians performed. Harvey Shapiro read one of his poems. Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman and Cantor Deborah Stein of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons pre- sided. The rabbi blessed the tree-house. I made and mounted a Mezuzah. It’s still up there. The Cantor wrote a song to the melody of “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen” as follows: Bei mir bist du schoen/ Will someone explain?/ Why Steve built a tree-house on his land? The Rabbi compared the tree house to King Solomon’s Temple. (My name in Hebrew—Shlomo—means Solomon.) I wrote a Guestwords essay for the East Hampton Star (“Out On A Limb”, April 10, 2008) celebrating the origin, the evolution, and eventual unveiling of the tree-house. The tree-house -- as a centerpiece for our family and friends, children and grand-children of friends, and for many guests -- has since been visited, climbed, and found “uplifting”. Just like our

215 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ANASTOMOSIS: THE TREE-HOUSE & MARRIAGE marriage. One youngster from the UK declared the tree-house Two two-by-six inch beams of treated wood, each eight-foot “The high point of my trip to the US”. long, were bolted through --and perpendicular to -- the two oaks, In 2010, when my wife Celia Paul and I shared our twenty-fifth and are thus parallel to the ground twenty feet below. I bolted four wedding anniversary in the same East Hampton locations –at our more of these beams to the same two oaks, perpendicular to the home in the Northwest Woods in the shadow of the tree-house, first two beams, resting upon them, also parallel to the ground. and at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons—with many of the same Thus, voila, a horizontal frame suitable as a platform. friends and family originally in attendance twenty five earth-orbits- Specially treated two-by-fours were fastened with zinc-coated of-the-sun previously. Happily, many of those at the tree-house deck screws to this frame, creating a rigid eight-foot-by-eight-foot inauguration were also present. The day was filled with sunshine square deck, an elevated platform. and warmth. Our great good friend, next-door neighbor, and brilliant archi- My wife is the sunshine of my life, and as I thought about the tect Richard Lavenstein, concerned that the platform might not special occasion of our anniversary, and about building my mar- be entirely stable—that it could ‘rack’ or tilt when occupied -- sug- riage and building my tree-house, I realized they shared many ele- gested I reinforce it. I connected steel struts to the four corners ments in common. of the platform at 45 degree angles to each of the two oaks. This In building a marriage and a tree-house, I had to risk going out provided enough rigidity of the entire structure to accommodate on a limb. Both demand an investment of great care, thoughtful- the weight of eight people simultaneously aloft. ness, caution, high-level planning, and attention to detail. Railings, banisters, and balustrades enclose the open platform, And yet, both share a certain impulsive exuberant spontane- which is entered through its center between the two oak trees ity. Both marriage and tree-house inspire a form of transcendent through a rectangular slot: its length dimension is equal to the dis- and spiritual intimacy. Both demand a high tolerance for error tance between the two oaks, and its width is equal to the one-foot (especially mine). Both marriage and tree-house have a lot of diameter of each tree. A snug passageway. Ascending and enter- ‘moving’ parts: “Honeydew this, honey dew that”; domestic errands; ing is not for the faint-of-heart or the large-of-belly. carrying tools and lumber up and down; emotional ups-and-down- These two parallel trees are bound up together in space and moments in marriage. Both also offer splendid views: of other tall time. Connected, they support a common serene space and pleas- trees; of forest flora and fauna; of other happy marriages, and of ing patch of time. Just like our marriage. After twenty-eight years, each other. we saplings have become trees supporting an elevated arena for And from two marriages and one tree-house creation, I learned meditation beyond and above our normal cares ... promising “Measure twice—and cut once”. unique adventures, clear vistas, and glad anticipation. We are ‘an operative union of two structures’. I am speaking of my marriage: created from two former sap- a lings, now sturdy oaks, linked together with care, mindfulness, space, and love. Just like our tree-house. The tree-house is erected upon two stout vertical oaks spaced about three feet apart that grow parallel to each other for upwards of sixty feet. These form a sturdy natural armature. A raunchy a locker-room friend called it “your erection”, but I promised not only my wife but also a few people I wouldn’t “go there” verbally, so I won’t mention “my erection” again (Ooops.)

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An interconnection between any two objects -- channels, pas- sages or vessels -- is called, in medicine, “anastomosis”: “The connection of normally separate parts or spaces so they intercommunicate”. Anastomoses may be naturally occurring (our marriage) or artificially constructed (tree-house) and may be created during the process of embryonic development or by surgery… the term “anastomosis” originally referred to an opening or junction through a mouth, as of one body of water with another. It has been in medical usage since the Greek physician Galen (129-200 AD) used it to describe the interconnections between blood vessels. Yes, an operative union of two structures. COMEDY WORKSHOP My wife and I, our marriage -- and our double-tree constructed tree-house—are interconnected, as one body of water to another, as one blood vessel to another, as one partner to another, as an few months after Celia and I were married in 1985, she was “anastomosis” and, well…despite an occasional bark and sappy cleaning out our closets when I noticed that she was weeping. metaphor…yes, our tree house is built like our marriage. A I asked, “What’s the matter?” She said, “I was just thinking how I would Oh. I almost forgot those aforementioned songs. For the tree- feel if I lost you”. house consciousness-raising event, I re-wrote “Somewhere Over the In my fog of newly-wed bliss, I hadn’t realized that I meant as Rainbow” which became, “Way up/ There in my tree-house/ When winds much to her as she meant to me. This happy memory makes me blow/ Trees sway like ships at anchor/Am I afraid?/ Oh, no// She said smile even now. Our feelings for each other are reciprocal and ‘don’t build a tree-house/ What’s it for?’/ I said ‘If I don’t build it/ I will symmetrical. I feel very fortunate that this marriage to my best be Steve no more”. For our twenty-fifth anniversary event, I re-wrote friend, now 28 years old, has been the best and smartest thing I “How About You?”-- which became, “How About Us?” ever did. I used to joke that “we are two people with one brain” because she a can remember things that I can’t remember, and symmetrically. We can anticipate each other’s comments before they are spoken. Thus, our Israeli families refer to us as “Stevia”, a combination of “Steve” and “Celia”; stevia is also an herb that is sweet. My old friend, Malcolm Pennington, once said that he was responsible for acquiring knowledge (knowing) and his wife was responsible for retaining knowledge (remembering). We’re like that -- only more so. We work together side-by-side daily, 24/7, and although I never tire of her, we do respect our boundaries. (Most of the time.) When the two of us give lectures at professional events, I refer to myself as the “trailing spouse” of Celia Paul. I mentioned at one of our anniversaries that even though we’ve been together for all these years, my wife Celia “still treats me as if I were her equal”. A

218 219 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! COMEDY WORKSHOP friend has said that she’s too good for me, and sometimes I think “The scientist’s wife told him that if he broke wind in his echo chamber that’s true. Yes, she still is “the sunshine of my life”: she notices he would never hear the end of it.” Joke, laugh. when I’m depressed, and is concerned about it; she wants only “The difference between sex and the law: the law, even when it’s good good things for me. If I am morose or down she cheers me up, it’s bad; and sex…” and I strive mightily to be as good for her as she has been good “Sex after ninety five is like playing pool with a rope.” for me. She makes me want to be a better person...and sometimes So no “joke, laugh” was going into my routine. But wait a min- I succeed. ute. I have one more… About a year or so after we were married, she suggested that A Jewish man, a Frenchman, and an Italian are discussing how they I join a workshop on stand-up comedy, “Because”, she said, “you’re make love to their wives. The Italian says, “I gently rub her body with the pretty funny already, and you could get better at it if you worked on it”. first pressing of olive oil, I touch her everywhere, and she screams with plea- She is a career counselor, even to me. sure for three minutes. The Frenchman says, “I erotically rub my wife’s I found a comedy workshop called the Manhattan Punch-line, body with fresh sweet butter, I touch her everywhere, and she screams with on West 42nd Street led by a professional comic; I signed up for pleasure for ten minutes. That’s nothing, says the Jewish guy: I rub her it and there were a dozen other people in the group… actors and body with chicken fat and she screams for TWO HOURS! The other guys actresses trying to hone their comic skills. But there were also a are incredulous. Both want to know how is such a thing possible… The handful of lawyers. I guess they were trying to learn -- not how to Jewish guy says, “Well after we make love with the chicken fat, I wipe my be Funny In Court, but how to Improvise. hands off on the drapes.” Joke, laugh. The workshop met once a week for three hours each session. I struggled for a couple of months to develop five minutes of Our assignment was to develop five minutes of original material for character-driven or personality-based Original Comedy Material. presentation at one of those standup comedy clubs in Manhattan Not joke, laugh. I would focus while jogging, or at random by the end of twelve weeks. moments during the day. It was extremely difficult! I came to The workshop leader explained the modern idea of comedy: respect professional comedians because I saw how hard it was. humor should flow from a person’s character and style in the “Dying is easy; comedy is hard.” same way that Woody Allen’s humor (“It’s not just dog-eat-dog world; I am fortunate to have had a father who was witty and eccen- it’s dog-doesn’t-return-other-dogs-phone-calls world”) emerges from his tric. (He takes after me; I take after my son Daniel and grand-son character; Seinfeld’s humor emerges from his characters (Cosmo, Jascha). So I had a base to build upon. His smart-ass comments Elaine, George) and their ordinary situations (“more milk than are mentioned in the chapter about him, “A Man For all Reasons”. cereal? more cereal than milk?”); and similarly with Larry David’s There’s a wonderful movie called “The Aristocrats”, a docu- “Curb Your Enthusiasm”(“Your dying mother didn’t want to bother you mentary about forty professional comedians telling the same joke because she knew you were busy”). forty different ways. I’m smiling as I remember it: A man-and-wife The old-fashioned model for comedy….“joke, laugh; joke, comedy team present themselves to a booking agent who asks them laugh”…. like Henny Youngman’s routine, is as dead as the dino- to demonstrate their act for him. They proceed to strip naked, to saurs, and as dead as Henny Youngman -- who once said, “I’ve got fornicate in front of the agent, to beat each other up, to urinate all the money I’ll ever need if I die by 4pm today”. Joke, laugh. and defecate on the floor, and smear each other with fecal matter. “Did you hear about the biology professor whose wife gave birth to a set The agent says: “Interesting act. What do you call yourselves?” The of twins? He baptized one, and saved the other as a control.” Joke, laugh. couple answers simultaneously: “The Aristocrats”.

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Each comic told the same joke, and each comic did it in a com- A couple of my friends who attended liked it, and the profes- pletely different way. It was a powerful lesson to me in practical sional comic who led our workshop told me that I had “promise” comedy, comic theory, comic delivery, comedy style, and comic and that I should keep working at it. timing. I said, “I’m keeping my day job”. [Here’s a joke about timing made up of two questions: “Question I still have my day job. But I learned from the leader and the One: “Is it true you’re the World’s Greatest Polish Comedian?” Polish workshop experience to try out new material, to make the humor Comedian Answers: “YES!” Question Two: “And to what do you attri- immediately relevant to whatever subject is being discussed, to bute … Polish Comedian Interrupting Question: “TIMING!”… draw upon my idiosyncrasies, to adapt personal experiences and your great success?”] everyday life. I avoid dropping jokes into dinner-party conversa- I was developing my own style, of course, which reflects my tions—unless they connect to the topics of conversation. When I role-models Sid Caesar, Mel Brooks, Buddy Hackett, Steve Martin, lectured to the Russian scientists, I used humor to good advantage. and a few others. I still remember some of the material that I gen- For example: Question: “What directions do I need to get to Carnegie erated in my standup comedy routine, so here goes: Hall?...Answer: Practice, practice, practice!” (The joke’s sub-text is “After I was married to my first wife, I discovered that she was a Marxist that the émigrés needed to practice their job-interviewing skills.) and an atheist. This meant that she believed that “religion is the opiate of I now incorporate these valuable lessons learned into my the people”, and “religion was for ignorant people and those people who speeches, lectures, toasts (see the chapter “A Glamorous Dubious believe in black magic and fairy tales”. Past”), eulogies (see “In Memoriam” in the Appendix), conversa- “Not for her. She was a proud hard-nosed realist. However, I did notice tions, and even into the songs I write for special occasions.(See that during intercourse when she was having an orgasm, she would shout next chapter, “Singin’ In The Brain”.) “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” I have not yet figured out how to work some humor into my “Later on, I pointed out to her that she must have believed in God -- at “Obituary Notice As Imagined By The Author.” (See Appendix.) least during orgasm. She was not amused. [Please don’t tell I worked But maybe that’s because obituaries aren’t funny. her into my comedy routine.] Maybe my original material isn’t as funny as some “Joke, “However, I began to think that if I could convert an atheist like her laughs”. into a believer, just imagine what I could do if I was a Rabbi and I had an entire congregation to convert. So many women. So many orgasms. So much religious fervor. a Continuing the comedy routine…”In my new marriage, my new wife (and best of two) treats me as if I were her equal. I worship the ground above which she floats. She thinks I’m a hypochondriac because I’m always worried about my little ailments. But I tell her that the epitaph on my tombstone will be, “Finally! I told you I wasn’t feeling well!” When I presented my five minutes of original material at a standup comedy club (this is only a fraction of my comedy routine) there were about 200 people in the audience. Celia said I was “a hit”, so I tried to include what I had learned about stand-up comedy in my lectures and my day job.

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ingin’ in the brain. That’s what happens to me. Whenever I do Sanything—reading, writing, talking, walking, sitting, shitting, lying down, standing up, and going out—I’m filled and thrilled with song. I’m going to rhapsodize about music. Aren’t I lucky to carry music inside my head with me anytime I need it? Most of the sounds derive from music recently heard…like Khatchaturian’s “Violin Concerto”, or Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”, or Sondheim, or Bach, or Kapustin, or music from the synagogue. Of course, the movie musicals speak to me: “Singin’ In The Rain” is my all-time favorite,, followed, by “Royal Wedding” (especially Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling singing “You’re All The World To Me”), “Bandwagon”, and “Love Me Tonight” (especially Maurice Chevalier singing “Isn’t It Romantic”; see below), and “Babes On Broadway” (especially Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney singing “How About You?” in the 1940 film). My famous nephew, Bela Fleck, a professional musician, tells me that he has music inside his head all the time. He considers it a blessing and I agree. There’s one exception: an “ear worm”, which occurs when I can’t get a silly tune or mundane musical phrase out of my head, day after day. As a young kid, I could not shake “Mairsie Doats” loose from my brain. It took up residence deep down, for too long, like a mouse hiding in the house….you know it’s there, but you can’t get it out. I worried, would it stay

225 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! SINGIN’ IN THE BRAIN lodged there forever? Or would I be able listen to my own inner I work diligently, and struggle mightily to write songs that honor voices and generate my own thoughts? special people and important occasions, and to amuse those being Exception noted, emanating from a live performance or a honored. I have, as Noel Coward had, “a talent to amuse”. (Not recording or the radio, these internalized melodies trapped into a bad epitaph for my tombstone. Better than “I told you I wasn’t my cranium make me feel happy. Certain pieces, already noted, feeling well.”) charge me up. My pulse races. My spirits rise. The music makes my Each of the songs that follow has a story and a back-story. day. Hearing Beethoven’s sublime Third and Seventh Symphonies makes me tingle. It’s also inexpensive. But what I enjoy even more than hearing and listening to music a is writing songs. I used to write both the music and lyrics. I sat in This was my first song for which I did both music and words. I on a song-writing workshop at BMI filled with young, eager, and have a video of me singing it, accompanied by Jane Hastay. I had talented song-writers. But I became jealous when I saw how flu- to do extensive research to find the last words of famous dying ent the workshop leader (Maury Yeston) and the kids were. I mar- celebrities. Some of the jocular “swan songs” are hypothetical, but veled as Maury improvised lyrics and music simultaneously, vastly as you can see, I was thinking of my own mortality, and of going improving a song he had never previously heard. out with a laugh… I’ve seen Marvin Hamlisch ask a live audience to suggest an idea for a song, and then he composed the music and lyrics instan- SWAN SONG (Last Laugh Epitaph) taneously. And then do it again and again, maybe ten more times. Words & Music I shouted out a suggestion that he use the word “inevitable” in a By Stephen Rosen song, and he proceeded to do so after noodling around for all of Verse ten seconds. I was shocked at his mastery and fluency of the impro- Why not live a life that’s fine; Exit with a fine punch line visation in a language which has taken me years to acquire—and An Epitaph has got to zing; Here’s some swan songs others sing it’s still not comparable to his genius. Not everyone can walk in the Seven League Boots of Genius. Refrains My labors are long and intense over the words and music, to 1.) Groucho Marx’ final question was this: get the scansion and prosody right. (Example of prosody a la Tom Am I deceased--or has my watch stopped running? Lehrer via Dave Robinson from “Guys and Dolls”: “You pro/mise His Epitaph was a jest; Thus, the last words he spoke were best me this, you pro/mise me that; You pro/mise me eve/ry/thing un/der the Sun….dah dee dee dee dah…) 2.) Oscar Wilde said, on his shabby death-bed: Cole Porter told people that it took him merely minutes to “Either that wallpaper goes--or I do”; write his most famous songs, like “You’re The Top”—when it actu- His last words he spoke in jest, Yes, the last words he spoke were ally took him weeks, as it does me. He wanted folks to think that best. he wrote these songs effortlessly. And they sound spontaneous and inevitable…as if the lyrics and melody were made to fit. On Release the other hand, Rodgers and Hammerstein said they wrote “Oh! Don’t waste words now; Plan your Epitaph What A Beautiful Mornin’” in the amount of time it took to sing it. Leave your dear ones words that pack a laugh I believe that.

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Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think; Release Enjoy yourself, joke well upon life’s brink (~~~tremolo~~~) I can’t rhyme hyp-o-chon-dri-a-sis Un-less it’s with el-e-phant-i-a-sis 3.) Comic George Burns, before eaten by worms, said: Or an oc-ca-sion-al bout of psor-i-a-sis “I can’t die now—I’m all booked up”; His last words his Epitaph, Yes, his last words were his last laugh For hon-ey-moons it’s Ni-a-gra? 4.) Marilyn Monroe, before she expired, said: For im-po-tence how ‘bout Vi-a-gra “Who do I kiss[....] to get out of this movie?” Caes-a-ri-ans for ba-bies new-o-o-o-ooh Her last words her Epitaph, Yes, her last words were her last laugh. But I can’t take no-thin’ for yo-o-o-ou…ooh!

Release For mus-cle weak-ness I work out Don’t waste words now; Plan your Epitaph I di-et when I’m o-ver-weight Leave your dear ones words that pack a laugh In-tox-i-cat-ed I cry out Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think; “Oh poor me…please cure me--of yo-o-o-ou….ooh!” Enjoy yourself, joke well upon life’s brink.

5.) Before they die away, hypochondriacs say, a “Told you I wasn’t feeling well;” The next song was an experimental effort to write physics into I’ve asked that this be inscribed, On my tombstone when I’ve died. a love song…. Copyright © 2001 by Stephen Rosen. All rights reserved. Repulsion Words & Music by Stephen Rosen (2001) I wrote this next one for Celia… A Love Sickness There is Something that’s coming between us Music & Lyrics by Steve Rosen (2002) And I don’t mean the symptoms of Love Read about it in all of the papers When head-ache strikes, I take asp-rin It is coming from the heavens above Ant-a-cid for much too much food Flu shots I get…be-fore the flu-o-o-ooh B But I’m still real sick o-ver yo-o-o-ou…ooh! It’s not revulsion dear, It’s repulsion dear That drives me away from you For con-sti-pa-tion there’s bis-muth It is dark energy, anti-gravity For flat-u-lence of course char-coal Not the voodoo that I do to you When I’m blue, cer-tain-ly Pro-zac’s true But there’s no drug that cures me of yo-o-o-ou…ooh!

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A (a)Expectation lasts nine months a year we’re told I admit that it’s tiny—minuscule! Disappointment is winter’s cold, Red But it’s pushing us further apart A force growing much larger and larger (b)Defines beautiful, across this wondrous land Overcoming our love, my sweetheart But under Communism, Red got out of hand! B (a)Onion domes are not what you think they are Anti-gravity, it’s a mystery They are really flames from afar. Our What’s a body to do? Isaac Newton tried, Albert Einstein tried (b)Guides have told us so, so has Doctor Bill, To make some sense of gravity’s glue, A guy of whom you never get your fill. True glue, Cosmologically true (a)Those canal locks Yesenin passed lake to lake Water flows like new friends we make. But A Our love has much stronger attraction (b)On our ship’s sun-deck, it’s hard to stay awake Than repulsion they find out in space And with lox we need some bagels – – not cake! If you’ll just jump in to action Our love will fall right in to place. (a)Long ago and far, far away, away; far from good old US of A

Don’t let negative gravity force us (b)Ten gilded palaces, Rasputin’s malice–is Each body to move far away That’s history, Czarist history. Don’t let these weak forces divorce us Please let attraction have it’s say. (a)Let’s all pledge our snap shots to share, to share Even those of us with no hair. But Copyright © 2001 by Stephen Rosen. All rights reserved. (b)When we think of this, Russian friends we’ll miss Cameraderie, and vodka’s kiss. The song below I composed in the former Soviet Union on a sea voyage from St. Petersburg to Moscow with Stanford University’s (a)Cameraderie’s a word so hard to rhyme. Alumni Association, led by William Perry…who asked me to write Rhymable by next Christmas time. We th a song for the July 4 amateur night event. Rode on hydrofoils, bought Matryoshka goils We’ll adore our warm esprit de corps. MOSCOW NIGHTS (Journey’s Heights) (a) “Moscow Nights”, a song all Russians sing and sung Especially in places far flung. But Music by Solovyov-Sedoy (b)When this trip is done, and we’ve had our fun Lyrics by Steve Rosen (2004) We’ll still be singing this song called “Moscow Nights” (with critical contributions by (b’)But when our journey’s done, amidst the setting Sun Dave & Nan Robinson and Celia Paul) We’ll still be singing our song called “Moscow Nights”!!!

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NB: No force on Heaven or Earth – – not gravity, not electro- When Bela turned fifty, he had a large party in Nashville, and magnetism, not nuclear – – can resist the passionate urge to alter I wrote and sang the next song, accompanied by Tony Trischka, another person’s draft. So I did. Bela’s banjo teacher. It was a hit! A big hit! I got a standing ovation….but since there were no seats, everyone was already standing. Copyright©2004 by Stephen Rosen. All rights reserved. THERE’S NO BELA LIKE OUR BELA The next song is another Valentine to Celia. Music: Irving Berlin (There’s No Business Like Show Business) My Sweet Meringue Lyrics: Stephen Rosen(2008) for Bela’s fiftieth birthday

Music & Lyrics by Stephen Rosen (2001) 1. There’s no Bela, like our Bela, of all Belas we know... Verse Not even the great maestro Bela Bartok, Mousse means “foam” to a gas-tro-nome Not even Dracula Bela Lugosi, Souffle’s French for “blow under” Not even Bella Bella Donna, whoever she is--she isn’t he. Spuma’s foam as in Naples, Rome Egg whites whipped may go under. 2. He’s now fifty, ain’t that nifty? Refrain 1 Goes on strumming so sweet You’re light, you’re fluff, not chrome Albums such as “Bela Fleck and Flecktones” You’re air, you’re puff, love’s foam With “Tony Trischka”, “Drive”, and “Cosmic Hippo” You’re love’s foam, you’re the whole she-bang Just the ice-berg’s tip-OH, that put out heat. You’ll always be my sweet mer-ingue. 3. Refrain 2 There’s no banjo like his banjo You’re not tart, you’re a sweet sweet heart When he’s on he’s a treat Don’t collapse, before we start Plucking on your heart-strings ‘til your heart would ache This affair seems like whipped cream When he’s playing -- just takes the cake* You’re more creamy than you seem Go on, Bela, go on Never take a break Refrain 3 Go on plucking go on You’re white caps froth on the sea Go on plucking go on. You’re champagne bub-bles to me *Birthday cake was nearby You’re the froth in life’s cappuchino You’re my sweet mar-ras-chi-no 4. Release [Spoken] There’s much more, there’s much more a Beyond this, to say, but I am getting too old to say more

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There’s Abby, there’s Barbara, there’s Louie, Joe, Sascha Abigail Washburn is really the real thing! Opa, Oma, friendships, by the score Banjos dueling together There’s concerts on the road, travel on the bus You bet, you bet, they’re always set There’s sound checks and rehearsals--and then there’s us. There’s Bela, KC, Abby…that’s the Sparrow Quartet.

5. Reprise 3. Isn’t it romantic? There’s no banjo like his banjo, when he’s on he’s so sweet On a moonlit night Plucking on your heart-strings til your heart would ache She’ll cook him onion soup When he’s noshing he takes your cake Kiddies are romantic Go, Bela, go on And if they don’t fight Give us all a break They soon will have a troupe Go on, plucking, go on They’ll help grow the population Go on, plucking, go on. It’s a duty that always comes with pants Isn’t it Romance? a I S N ‘ T I T R O M A N C E ? [Ritardando] The following lyric, derived from “Isn’t It Romantic” by Rodgers a and Hart, was introduced in the 1932 film “Love Me Tonight” was sung by Steve for Abby and Bela’s Nashville wedding (watch it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWlLtp-2kzo or search YouTube for “Homage to A & B, 10 May 2010”). I was accompanied by very talented young Noam Pikelny on banjo. Bela reported that the musicians present told him afterwards that the song was “unexpectedly unpredictable”; he says they’re still talking about it in 2012.

1. Aren’t we ecstatic? Abigail and Bela now are truly one Aren’t they authentic? Now she does not have to be, to be, a Nun Banjos playing all together Morning, noon, and nights like this Isn’t it gigantic…A Prelude To A Kiss

2. Isn’t she enchanting? Even when she’s not playing in Beijng Can we be rhapsodic?

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I wrote the following for my seventy-eighth birthday. Sang an old refrain RAISING SELF-EMBARRASSMENT TO AN ART I’m still singin’, jes singin’, I’m inane.

“HAPPY AS A CLAM” (formerly “Singin In The Rain”) a New lyrics: Stephen Rosen The following was written on the occasion of the seventieth birthday celebration of our good friend, John Goldman. 1. I’m gettin’ on in years With a minimum of tears THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN (THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT) Aging is swell when embraced by all m’ dears Music: Arthur Schwartz, 1952; Lyrics: Steve Rosen, 2010 I’ve none of those fears While changin’ my gears On a sail, he can come about fast Immature…but gettin’ on in years. Not so pale, he’s a man with past He’s not Yale, in a gale he’s half-assed 2. I’m happy as a clam THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN Happily I am I’ve a smile on my face In a pinch, he can be very nice For the whole human race Give an inch, and he’ll give more than twice I never can go wrong He’s a cinch, to BE Jesus Christ When singin’ my song THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN Happy, just happy with my clan. He is droll, lots of laughs, he’s a very fun guy 3. Sevn’ty-eight is no joke Some times, in fun times, he’ll reach for the sky There’s heart attack or stroke But he is wry, and he’s dry, as am I And you can always choke Where a fella, a capella, Or fall down from a poke Sings a Happy Birth Cry! MY! OLE! Ev’rythin’ is OKE I cant really go far wrong He’s a King, owns real estate grand Long as I’m singin’, jes singin’ my own song! That’s his thing, it’s his beat, his right hand He knows Greek, but would sell you some land 4. I still have all my hair If you need it, or not, he will give you a hand. None extra can I spare Celia and Steve are happily a pair Big of brain, maybe other parts too We both of us still care Give him this, give him that, it’s his due We visited France and Spain He can SELL, you three bridges or two

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THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN… You’re my shining star, and better by far than me THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN… You’re my Valentine, you are sublime—a sym/pho/ny! THAT’S OUR JOHN GOLDMAN… 2.) You’re the Queen, of our empire tiny… THAT’S YOU!!!! You’re so clean, and I love your heinie You’re a breathe of air, you’ve a precious pair—of eyes Here’s another musical expression of enthusiastic praise and You’re one hot potato, a ripe tomato—and very wise. rapturous joy to my best friend Celia: 3.) We enhance, each other’s egos Our romance…we’re amigos’…amigos CELIA* Here is fulsome praise, you are sunshine’s rays (formerly “Laura”) ….cuisine Tex-Mex 1. You are lox and cheese…and if you please… a google-plex CELIA… IS A BEAUTY BOTH INSIDE OUT 4.)You’re the best, of all wives I’ve married EXALTED, ADMIRED BY ALL How I wish, I had never tarried CLASSY… A WOMAN OF VALOR TOO You’re a knish delish, a dish of ruggelach… SUPERIOR IN ALL RESPECTS, THAT’S TRUE …and if baby I am Gershwin, you are Bach! SO WHEN I WORSHIP, THE GROUND THAT SHE FLOATS *Music: Cole Porter; Lyrics: Steve Rosen ABOVE SHE SMILES AND ACCEPTS ALL MY LOVE CELIA…A BEAUTY BOTH INSIDE OUT a SHE’S CELIA, SHE’S MY SHINING LOVE. 2. The following song was written and sung for the seventy-fifth CELIA… NO ONE ELSE CAN COME QUITE SO NEAR birthday of Dave Robinson, my great good friend. CELIA… YOU ARE MORE LIKE CHAMPAGNE THAN BEER YOU TREAT ME AS IF I WERE YOUR PEER A Panegyric for Dave WHEN I AM MERELY MERE, THAT’S CLEAR Lyrics by Steve Rosen, in the Spirit of Tom Lehrer, Gilbert & Sullivan SO I SAY, LET’S ALL GIVE A BOISTEROUS CHEER BECAUSE SHE’S SO DEAR, DEAR DEAR DEAR Dave is the ve’/ry mo’/del of a mo’/dern gen/ral/iss’/i/mo SHE’S CELIA, A PEER NEAR AND DEAR He’s mo’/dest and he’s loy’/al, and he speaks in pi/an/iss’/imo His mind’ is nim’/ble and it’s deep’, and thinks’ at speeds pres/ *Music by David Raksin from the 1944 film “Laura”; Lyrics tiss’/i/mo Copyright © 2012 Stephen Rosen. We all ag/ree’ that he de/serves ‘a vi/gor/ous bra/viss’/i/mo!

HYMN TO HER* Dave does per/sist’, as phys/i/cist’, knows Ein’/stein’s rel/a/ti’/ (Formerly “You’re The Top”) vi/ty The par’/a/dox of twins’ are in his fam’/i/ly’s prox/i’/mi/ty 1.) You’re the top, you’re my best friend ever… Wave func’/tions are his friends and so are mech’/a/nics stat/ You’re ma femme, certainment you’re clever is’/ti/cal

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And ev’/ry one who knows him says he’s ne’/ver e/go/tis’/ti/cal! gathered. Afterwards, Mort asked me if I would write a song for his eightieth. I hope we’re both around then. He says he’s klut’/zy, but un/just’/ly, watch him on the ten’/nis court At po’/ker, bridge, golf, pol’/i/tics he shows’ him/self as quite a Another Panegyric: Dave-Zee at Eight-eee* sport M Gell’ Mann loves him at the Inst’/i/tute in San’/ta Fay We love our Dave all year, How about you? Where gen’/ius/es think cha’/os thoughts in/cred’/i/ble com/ We love his great good cheer, How about you? plex’/i/tay We love his family, relatives & friends And his belov’d special Nan Dave al’/so is a pa’/ra/digm, a gen’/tle/man, a Che’/val/lay On whom he depends. He’s em’/ble/ma’/tic of a guy who’s tray’-tray-tray, tray dis’/tin/ gay Dave’s grand-kids worship him, That’s no surprise His birth’/day is a cause cel/ebe’, point se/ven five one cen’/tu/ He has ser-en-i-ty, and he’s so wise ray Ar-che-o-log-i-cal trips Drinks Beau’/jo/lay, or Char’/don/nay, or Mon’/tra/chay, or Ed-u-ca-tion-al tips Ca’/ber/nay. Making a pun, Dave always knows how to have fun. Dave’ and Nan’, and Nan’ and Dave’, a cou’/ple in/div/is’/i/ble They quest’ and quest’, and quest’ a/gain’, both tea’/ching what’s Dave’s got a high IQ, Higher than you trans/miss’/a/ble Par-ents and good genes do, Give that to you A mar’/riage made in Har’/vard Square, a mar’/riage ins/spi/ Dave’s done much with his gifts ra’/tion/al Car-ne-gie, N-Y-U Brought them and us this hap/py day, a/part’/ment re/no/va’/ Adviser to, you know who tion/al Boo Hoo it’s not you.

Of course these words, are solely based, on data, facts em/ Temp/ra/ment counts a lot, just look at Dave’s pyr’/i/cal Eth/i/cal, life-well-lived, how he behaves The fact they rhyme at all’s an ex/tra/or/din/a/ry myr’/i/cal No ands, ifs or buts... Self described a klutz But seriously folks they’re not meant to be sat/y’/ri/cal Loves hu/man/i/ty, Let’s sing Dave’s prai/ses ab’/so/lute,in phra’/ses pan/e/gyr’/i/ We salute Dave at eight-e-e-e! cal. * Music by Richard Rodgers, “How About You?”(1940); Lyrics by Steve Rosen

When Dave reached eighty, his son Eric invited about sixty of a us to a celebration for Dave at Eric and Sally’s new brownstone in Manhattan. Tom Lehrer and Mort Zuckerman attended, and so I worked extra hard to make the song appropriate for those

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The following song was written, with important help from THE KIDS ARE SINGIN’, IT IS BED TIME Richard Lavenstein, to celebrate the eightieth birthday of brother- ERIN AND SASCHA HUMMIN’ LOW in-law Joseph Paladino, of blessed memory. WE KNOW THEY DO YEARN FOR YOU TOO JO/SEPH PAL/A/DI/NO JO/SEPH THEY’RE CALLING YOU-O-O-O ! HOW WE LOVE YA Originally SWANEE* CHORUS VERSE 1 JO/SEPH PAL/A/DI/NO, HOW WE LOVE YOU! IT TAKES GREAT SKILL TO GET TO EIGHTY SING OUT TO JOE P JOE PALADINO IS THE PROOF WE WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW GIANLUCCA AND COLE JOE PALADINO IS JOE PALADINO-O-O-O THEIR ZAYDIE HIS ROLE JO/SEPH, NOW YOU’RE EIGH/TY, JOE P IS NOT ALOOF ‘TALIAN ZAYDIE OUR SWEET KIND JOE P WE LOVE THE WAY YOU PLAY THE CELLO WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN OUR WORDS CAN SAY TUNES FROM YOUR HEART ARE SWEET AND MELLOW EV/RY DAY BY DAY BY DAY! LOVE YOUR VIBRATO CODA: DUBLIN, DUBLIN, YOU’RE GOIN’ BACK TO DUBLIN AND YOUR STACCATO NEW YORK, NEW YORK YOU’LL SEE THOSE TWIN KIDS AT AND HOW YOU SAY HELLOW-OH-OH-OH!. HOME.

CHORUS *Music: George Gerswin (1919); Lyrics: Steve Rosen & Richard JO/SEPH PAL/A/DI/NO, HOW WE LOVE YOU! Lavenstein (2013) WE SING TO JOE P On youtube, accompanied by Neil Rosen and Bela Fleck… WE’D GIVE THE WORLD TO SEE http://youtu.be/UODBhCqs4Nw Sadly, Joe died in August, 2013. YOU REACH THE AGE OF N-I-N-E-T-E-E-E He is missed. JO/SEPH, NOW YOU’RE EIGH/TY, ______’TALIAN ZAYDIE The following two songs I wrote and sang, accompanied by OUR SWEET KIND JOE P Bela, for Abby’s baby shower in April, 2013. WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN OUR WORDS CAN SAY See us performing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= EV/RY DAY BY DAY BY DAY! okaJBP_Jdj4&feature=em-share_video_user

VERSE 2 THE KIDS ARE FAR AWAY, IN DU/BLIN YOU MISS THEIR FUN AND JOY AND MIS/CHIEF ______YOUR LOVE, THEY FEEL APRIL SHOWERS* YOUR LOVE IS REAL AT BABY SHOWERS, THEY TALK FOR HOURS/ DUB/LIN, IS CALLING JOE (“Hey, Joe”) ABOUT THE BABY/ HEY ‘WHAT’S HIS NAME?’

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AND WE WILL ALL SAY/HE LOOKS LIKE WHO? I woke up one morning recently with a melody in my head which HIS EYES HIS NOSE HIS MOUTH HIS TUSH I couldn’t identify or erase: an “ear worm.” By asking many song- HIS BEGUILING PEEK-A-BOO writers I found one who was eventually able to identify the tune SO WITH A DRUMROLL FOR HIS BIG DAY (dropped from the movie version of CABARET) as “Perfectly WE’LL LISTEN FOR HIS CRY [W-A-A-A] Marvelous” by Kander & Ebb. It was serendipitous because Celia’s WHEN HE ARRIVES WE’LL SIGH & SIGH & SIGH birthday coincided with its arrival in my brain. Why did this apt . . .AND WE’LL KNOW WHY and lovely melody choose me? Why did Celia choose me? Just two *Lyrics: Steve Rosen; Music: Louis Silvers more of life’s many mysteries. a My Beautiful & Brilliant Wife* MY FAVORITE THINGS** I met this perfectly marvelous gal LIAM & NOAH & JACOB & JACKSON/MATTHEW & JASON & In our New York that wonderful town JAYDEN & JAMES/MICHAEL & HENRY & GA/BRI/EL/THESE As I tasted her hors d’ouerves and her Coriander Paté ARE A FEW 21ST CENTURY NAMES. Before I knew she selected me for A/rou/sal BOTTLES & DIAPERS & BOTTLES & DIAPERS/ HOODIES & Next moment I’m no longer alone, TEE SHIRTS & TEE SHIRTS & HOODIES/ BREAST PUMPS Let’s say I’m Spous/al & SCREAMING NO SLEEPING AT NIGHT/ IS THIS THE KID I made perfectly elegant jests WHO WILL GO FLY A KITE? In my Jewish-American way How she dazzled my senses IN THE OLD DAYS/THEY HAD OLD NAMES/ Was truly no less than a crime. SOME OF THEM CAME BACK/ Now I’ve this perfectly marvelous girl LAURENCE & IVER & DENNIS & LOWELL/ With our perfectly fabulous friends SHLOMO & MOISHE & SHMUEL & JACK/ And we’re living together And having a marvelous time. ROBIN & ROBERT & RUPERT & DJANGO/ I tell her perfectly marvelous tales SAMMY & SHERWIN & SIGMUUND & RINGO/ Of my thrill/ing/ly scan/dal/ous life ARNIE & AMOS & ANDY & AL/ Which I’ll probably use WHATEVER HIS NAME IS HE’LL BE OUR NEW PAL As a chapter or two in my book. WHATEVER HIS NAME IS HE’LL BE OUR NEW PAL And since my object in life was to seek Stim/u/la/tion **Lyrics: Steve Rosen; Music: Richard Rodgers What luck to fall on a fabulous source Of Ex/al/ta/tion. And perfectly marvelous, too, a Is her perfect agreement to be Just as still as a mouse When I’m giving my memoirs a whirl.

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Yes, I’ve a highly agreeable life With my brilliant and beautiful wife She’s my always ex/hu/be/rant Perfectly marvelous, girl. [PAUSE] CODA I... met... this... Truly… remarkable… girl In this really incredible town, And she skillfully managed To talk her way in to my HEART A GLAMOROUS a DUBIOUS PAST

*Lyrics: Steve Rosen; Music: Kander & Ebb, from CABARET hen the children in daughter Lisa’s grade-school class were Wasked what they wanted to be when they grew up, most of them answered, “Nurse”, “Secretary”, “Teacher”, and so on. These were the days before women were executives. But Lisa, who admired a glamorous woman publisher, shocked her teacher by answering, “Senior Vice President of a giant publishing company”. Lisa, who has great charm and a highly-developed visual intelligence, was always attracted to glamour and to good taste. As a photographer’s model in London and a Chanel runway model in Paris, she lived a high-speed show-biz life of exciting parties and celebrities … until she moved to Rome to become an art restorer. A New York Jewish girl restoring Art in The Vatican. In 2005, the New York Observer featured a flattering profile of Lisa, a Valentine to her alluring “dubious past”, which vividly captures the style and essence of her multiple careers.

An Art Restorer With a History of Her Own Profile: Lisa Rosen By MARTIN EDLUND February 24, 2005 THE NEW YORK OBSERVER

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Art restoration is, for the most part, quiet, contemplative work. at age 13, she visited a friend in California whose sister was work- Removing varnish. Patching holes. Researching ancient methods ing in the laboratory at the Getty Museum. She spent the next and materials. That sort of thing. There’s little glitz or glamour. summer cleaning shards of Etruscan pottery in the basement of a But when Lisa Rosen began getting press requests last year af- Danish art museum with a toothbrush, and, at 17, she was admit- ter restoring the Stations of the Cross murals at St. Ignatius Loyola, ted to New York University with the intention of studying history the spectacular Catholic church on Park Avenue at 83rd Street, she and applied arts. found herself in a familiar spot. That lasted only a semester. The siren song of the Mudd Club was In the early 1980s, Ms. Rosen was an “it” girl and everything that too alluring. “The thing about the Mudd Club was that you walked vague appellation implies. She was a jet-setting fashion model for the in, and you wanted to know everybody in the place,” she says. “They likes of Chanel and Dior. She was a core member of the downtown all looked fascinating, completely fascinating.” She dropped out of art-and-music scene that grew up around the Mudd Club, which NYU and enrolled full-time in the club’s social scene. produced Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Lurie, Debi Mazar, and Jim Ms. Rosen describes this entire episode in her life as a dizzying Jarmusch, among others. She was one of those mysterious creatures vortex of fascinating, famous, and fabulous people and places. Her who, through some alchemy of charm, will, and chance, comes to recollections unspool in lengthy narratives that sound like vivid, symbolize all that is cutting-edge and hip. name-dropping dreams. When I visited her recently at the enormous townhouse she “I took a month off from the Mudd Club and was lent a one- rents in Brooklyn Heights, Ms. Rosen informed me that my timing way plane ticket to Paris by Patricia Field. She had a shop on 8th was good: She has just decided to talk again about her “dubious Street then, but now she’s very well-known as the clothing designer past.” who creates the clothes for ‘Sex and the City.’ I was gonna meet my In part, this is because her past is once again in public view. girlfriend to go to an art opening where there would be food, so we Ms. Rosen appears in episodes of Glen O’Brien’s “TV Party” variety could actually eat that night, and I picked her up and she was hav- show on display at the “East Village, USA” exhibit now at the New ing her photo done by Pierre and Gilles - art photographers, they’re Museum, and she is part of the ensemble cast of “Downtown 81,” the quite famous now - and the editor of Marie Claire was there, and she long-delayed cult film starring Jean-Michel Basquiat that serves as a asked me had I ever modeled, and I said ‘No.’ She asked if I had any kind of video family tree of the bygone art scene. photos of myself and I said ‘No.’ She asked if I could come to the office tomorrow and I said ‘Okay.’ She was really nice. She took a In photos from that period, Ms. Rosen looks like a new-wave Polaroid, and that was that, and I left. Liza Minelli: jagged hair, pale complexion, expressive mouth. She appears equally comfortable in couture and the grubby “Willy “A few days later, the House of Chanel called. They had seen my Mays” sweatshirt painted for her by Basquiat (which she keeps in a Polaroid and they asked if I was available to do a publicity shot next drawer). week. I remember I had to put my hand over the receiver because I gasped, and I said, ‘Yes, sure,’ and I did that shot. With that shot, Now 43, she’s still handsome and confident. On the day we met, they asked if I had ever done a fashion show, and I said ‘No.’ They she was wearing a rust-colored jacket, matching knee-high boots, and said, ‘There are 12 girls going to Cannes next week, and I’d love for white pants slightly smudged from work. When she left the room to you to do it.’ I didn’t have a French Social Security number and I retrieve something, I found myself primping my hair in a giant an- didn’t have an agency, so they said, ‘Which agency would you like?’ - tique mirror on the wall of her studio. and that was another ‘Could you wait one minute?’ and I ran to the Her experience as an “it” girl was, in actuality, just a long di- phone, ‘What’s a good agency?’ - and I was accepted to an agency. As version from her interest in art restoration, which began when, soon as I was with an agency and was with Chanel, I got everybody. I

248 249 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A GLAMOROUS DUBIOUS PAST did shows for Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Kansai Yamamoto, blah, blah, Since moving back to New York in 1999, galleries, museums, and blah.” churches make up the mainstay of her work. Retrieving a folding table from the closet, Ms. Rosen produces Like a highbrow version of a diet brochure, Ms. Rosen’s resto- her modeling book. Her catchall “blah, blah, blah” encompasses the ration portfolio contains numerous before and after process shots. biggest designers and photographers in fashion. Flipping through The transformations are remarkable. When she restored a test patch the pages: There’s a still from a Chanel perfume ad directed by on the mosaics at St. Ignatius Loyola, visitors mistook it for a brilliant Richard Avedon and choreographed by Twyla Tharp; pictures of her ray of light coming in through the windows. Having completed the wearing inflatable pants by Issey Miyake (“two very small Japanese mosaics, she says she’s now “dying to do the statuary.” women on either side pumped it with air, blowing into either side”); These would hardly seem like thrills when compared to the stuff a picture of her outfitted in an ensemble of tea-strainer earrings and of her former life. But thrills are where you find them, and for Ms. tomato-sauce-can bangles by Jean Paul Gaultier; a photo by Mario Rosen, nothing compares to the excitement of seeing a work re- Testino (“You’ll find he’s like God now”); John Galliano; Italian stored to its original vibrancy. “It’s instant gratification. It’s there Vogue; Marie Claire; a John Cage record cover; Betsey Johnson. right in front of you,” she says. “You’re the first one to see it, and it After six years, at age 25, Ms. Rosen dropped out of fashion as doesn’t get better than that.” (continued at a link if you go to Google abruptly and nonchalantly as she’d entered it. Visiting Rome on a -- citing the publication, date, and article title). two-week vacation, she thought she might like to live there. “I mentioned it to somebody and they said, ‘I’ve got an apartment there you can borrow,’ and I packed my bags. Mario Stefano, the famous painter, asked me what I wanted to do in Rome, and I said, ‘I always wanted to be a restorer,’ and he said, ‘Why didn’t you say so?’ and he a makes a phone call and I had an appointment the next day to meet Cecilia Bernardini. She was at that point doing the Trajan Column, She learned much of what she now knows about restoration of and I started the next day as an apprentice.” fine art from her years in Rome with then-boyfriend and mentor Ms. Rosen began at the bottom, doing the dirty work -- carrying in art restoration Tony, and from the projects they worked on water buckets, climbing scaffolding -- all the while learning the craft. together at the Vatican and the Colonna palaces, and by inhaling In 1992, she branched out on her own. the atmospherics of ancient history. She also learned to speak In Europe, her clientele consisted mostly of royals. “The families Italian (a beautiful language) fluently. still have things intact,” she says. “You go from prince and princess In 1992, Celia and I were planning to visit the Greek islands, to the count and countess and so on.” Rome was en route, and Lisa invited us to see her and Tony. Tony She restored damaged art and sculpture at La Reggia di Caserta was sweet-tempered, very Italian -- darkly handsome, short, slender, near Naples, a royal hunting lodge that had served as headquarters with very long artistic fingers and eyelashes, and spoke almost no for American forces during World War II. (“The boys used to play English…but understood everything, including father-and-daugh- tennis against the frescos; they would drive jeeps through the halls.”) ter emotions, which were running high because this re-union was She did a six year stint with Prince Prospero and the Colonna Family, long overdue. during which she discovered an enormous Paris Bordone painting We dined in Rome in a restaurant Tony and Lisa chose. A pho- that had gone unidentified in the family collection. She helped re- tograph of this important meeting shows us seated at a table sur- pair the work of Carlo Maderno in the Cardinals Corridor at the rounded by other patrons going about their business consuming Vatican for the 2000 Jubilee Celebration. their meals. Moments before this photo was taken, Lisa and I were

250 251 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A GLAMOROUS DUBIOUS PAST copiously weeping, sobbing, crying, and wiping our eyes…both of I call this my “giving-love-and-getting-shit” theory of victory us grateful and glad to see each other after so much time had (short version: love for shit), which I have now adopted as my way passed. to conquer rejection. Some day, when I’m a real adult instead But Italians, being Italians, were ignoring us completely; as of a presumptive adult, I may leave my “you-look-great” phase, I said, going about their business. They didn’t notice anything and become a genuine and appropriate grand-parent to make unusual because All Italians Cry In Restaurants, don’t they? up for my inadequacies as a parent. Although I have been given another chance through Daniel’s children Jascha and Tanya, I’m not always up the high standard expected of me. I’m not a perfect and I never will be. School children (and I) should recite this every day. My daughter Lisa and I had not spoken to each other in years because The Divorce had been very acrimonious, and her teen- age years were tumultuous. In 1968, her mother Miki and I had a been married nine years; Lisa was eight, Daniel six. Lisa wept when we told her; Daniel said “I don’t care”. I concluded that Lisa was Let’s go back to a time to the 1970s, shortly after the breakup eventually going to recover from this painful chapter in our lives, of my first marriage, when I would see Daniel and Lisa regularly but that Daniel was going to have a much more difficult time. This several times a weeks at first, then once a week, then once a month, turned out to be prophetic. After many years of keeping her dis- then hardly at all -- as they entered rebellious adolescence and tance, she eventually made peace with me. Daniel took longer to the difficult oppositional years of anger and impossible behaviors. come around, remains very independent, and is pleasant to me. Truth to tell, I was – sadly -- not a very good father during those Mostly. years. An article about my work with the Russian scientists had I was focused on cultivating a new life (meeting women) appeared in the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune but largely on my career; I had been working to develop a in 1992. Lisa told me she read this by chance in Rome while Tony book, which was later bought by Simon & Schuster and eventu- was driving. “Pull over!” she ordered. Because of our estrangement, ally sold some eighty-thousand copies. But I’m getting ahead she hadn’t known what I was doing then; only recently (2012) told of myself. me she had devoured the details. She wrote to me. I was ecstatic to I would discuss the idea with anyone who’d listen, including hear from her since I believed she, her mother, and brother had book publishers, friends, acquaintances, and strangers. One of blamed me for the break-up – and I feared that we’d never com- these was a well-known woman in the New York publishing scene I municate unless I lived long enough to reconcile. I have lived long will call Emmy. A force of nature, she became my friend, and a bit enough, and -- yes -- we did. more for a brief time, until we were no longer friends -- because of Both kids avoided me during their adolescence. This was very an offensive, disturbing nuisance law-suit that emerged from our painful because I believed at the time that I had no way back into relationship. their hearts. My attempts to reach out were rejected time after In many ways Emmy was an admirable and accomplished time after time. A friend said, “You’re a glutton for punishment.” for woman, but an enigmatic one. She was very highly regarded reaching out. But another friend said, “It’s your job, being the pre- in the New York publishing scene, and knew many famous sumptive adult, to absorb the rejection and to continue reaching out despite authors well, and the many power-people in whose shining the rejection”. orbit she moved, like a star in a galaxy of stars. Emmy gave great

252 253 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A GLAMOROUS DUBIOUS PAST literary parties, and everyone was eager to attend. I brought longer friends. Worse still, she laid claim to having a proprietary Lisa and Daniel along when they spent two weeks with me in interest in the financial investment S&S had made in my labor of East Hampton, and Lisa formed an admiring attachment to love. In other words, she instituted a law suit against me (later her, which Emmy encouraged. dismissed as groundless), which severed our friendship. True, she Emmy was especially admired by her married boss, another had made a few good suggestions about the book to me, but I had famous force of nature. It was only recently that I was told she and labored mightily for many months to create my two-hundred-page he had an intimate relationship, but she always presented her rela- proposal, which earned my large advance and justified my earnest tionship with him as purely professional and mutually respectful faith in the commercial appeal to a large audience of a practical and admiring. This was a form of social-cheating, I now believe, book about the future. I was shocked and disturbed by this sea- because it gave the general impression that he regarded her highly change in our relationship, and I actually wept during our final because of her professionalism only, by her deviously subtracting phone conversation. The suit was eventually judged to be frivo- out the sexual component. lous, but not until I had to hire a brilliant and expensive intellec- When my two-hundred-page book-proposal landed on her tual-property lawyer to defend myself against her false assertions desk, she later told me one of her secretaries commented, “Emmy of co-authorship. sent the proposal on to the editorial people, but kept the author.” As if I was a kept man. Her glitterati friends may have thought I was her dumb naïve distant cousin -- since I must have seemed clue- a less about book publishing. Because, at the time, I was. But I When Lisa returned to New York in 1999, she got re-acquainted learned. with Walter Robinson. In 2010, they married at New York’s City It is my custom to get opinions from people I respect. I Hall, and had a reception for about a hundred friends from the used to joke that I always took the advice only from the most art world…collectors, painters, sculptors, gallery owners, and recent person I had spoken to. (The most recent person’s publishers. Here’s an excerpt from a 2012 article in the New York advice was best because it was easier to remember.) Emmy was Observer about Walter… an opinion-giver, an opinion-maker -- and on occasion a scold. I consulted her frequently about the contents, the style, and purposes of my book. She was very encouraging, trust-worthy Ask anyone about Walter Robinson, and they mention three and helpful – insightful and astute in the ways of publishing things. The first is his art: the skill in his figurative work; the audac- – until she wasn’t. At those times she became annoyed and ity of his spin paintings; his quasi-disappearance from the art world. would say “I can’t teach you everything about publishing or explain “He is one of the most underrated, unknown, undervalued artists of the reasons for my opinions; you just have to trust me.” (There was the late 20th century,” Barry Blinderman, director of Illinois State a joke going around at the time that “trust me” was the way University’s galleries and one of his former dealers, said. Californians would say “fuck you”. This turned out to be a The second thing that comes up is his wife, Lisa Rosen, a tall, hint about our future together.) slim brunette. In the ’70s, she met Edit deAk, a onetime friend and Eventually, I was able to auction the book to Simon & Schuster collaborator of Mr. Robinson’s, at the rock club CBGB and visited for what was at the time a large advance. When Emmy heard the loft Ms. deAk shared with Mr. Robinson—“We used to roller about this through the publishing grapevine, she and I were no skate in it, it was so enormous; it was fabulous,” Ms. Rosen recalled. She left for Europe, worked as a model and learned art restoration.

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After returning to New York in 1999, she ran into Mr. Robinson at a BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT MEMBER OF THIS TEAM IS Julian Schnabel opening. They married in 2010. LISA ROSEN HERSELF. The third thing people mention is Mr. Robinson’s omnipres- LISA IS UNIQUE...IN HER DEDICATION TO ART, TO HER ence as a journalist. “I wouldn’t say he’s a gossip but he always knows FRIENDS, TO HER JOY IN LIVING, HER SOPHISTICATION, HER what’s going on,” writer Glenn O’Brien said. “He’s so likable that VISUAL INTELLIGENCE (JUST LIKE HER MOM) -- AND THE people like to talk to him, and he’s pretty discreet.” RADIANT SUNSHINE AND BRILLIANCE SHE BRINGS TO HER ART RESTORATIONS, TO HER FRIENDS, TO HER LOVED At Lisa and Walter’s Wedding Reception, Miki welcomed the guests. ONES...JUST LIKE THE SUNSHINE TODAY. For several weeks prior to the reception, I thought about what I was WALTER HAS WRITTEN AN ELOQUENT BOOK ON ART going to say that would be brief -- appropriate to the occasion, venue, HISTORY. I QUOTE A FEW LINES…INSERTING THE WORD and to the glamorous art and publishing world worthies in attendance, ‘MARRIAGE’ WHERE THE WORD ‘ART’ APPEARS. (my apologies some famous and brilliant. I was urged by Lisa not to embarrass her in to Walter) front of her friends. She insisted, “No songs!” Okay, no songs. “IN EVERY SOCIETY, ART (MARRIAGE) HAS A SPECIAL So I simply reflected carefully on appropriate discourse, and PLACE. IT IS PART MAGIC AND PART SCIENCE, PART prepared a proper, formal, and what-was-later-deemed “warm and TRUTH AND PART IMAGINATION. ART (MARRIAGE) witty” toast by a New York Times columnist present at the occa- HELPS DEFINE MORALS, HISTORY, AND BELIEFS. ART sion. Lisa insisted on hearing what I was going to say in advance in (MARRIAGE) HELPS DELINEATE THE STRUCTURE OF order to make my toast embarrassment-proof, but since I was pay- SOCIETY, OF COMMUNITIES, AND OF FAMILIES. A FORM ing for the event and resisted her efforts at censorship, I was given OF COMMUNICATION THAT GOES BEYOND LANGUAGE the go-ahead by Lisa if – and only if -- Celia (whom she trusted) TO FORGE MYTHICAL LINKS WITHIN THE TRIBE, WITH vetted the toast beforehand. Here’s what I said… THE GODS, OR WITH THE FORCES OF NATURE” SO MY TOAST TO LISA AND WALTER IS ALSO TO ART & MARRIAGE... A TOAST TO LISA AND WALTER 04-01-10 Stephen Rosen -- BOTH HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE…PART MAGIC, PART IMAGINATION INTELLIGENCE IS THE ABILITY TO MAKE OTHER PEOPLE FEEL GOOD. -- BOTH ARE ELOQUENT FORMS OF COMMUNICATION LISA AND WALTER MAKE ME FEEL GOOD. -- BOTH ARE FORCES OF NATURE ALL OF YOU HERE TONIGHT MAKE LISA AND WALTER -- BOTH REPRESENT “LOVE MADE VISIBLE”. FEEL GOOD. I GUESS THAT MEANS WE’RE ALL INTELLIGENT. MY NAME IS STEVE ROSEN, AND I’M ONE PART OF THE I was very proud of the audience reactions to my toast and TEAM THAT BROUGHT FORTH LISA ROSEN. SHE GOT HER many compliments I received after this toast, to say nothing of the ‘YARD-SALE’ GENES FROM ME, AND HER ‘ART’ GENES FROM rousing ovation it generated. But the most delicious compliment MIKI ROSEN, LISA’S MOM, ANOTHER TEAM MEMBER. came from my ex-wife, Miki, who was rarely generous to me with AND WALTER BROUGHT HER HERE TONIGHT.

256 257 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! her compliments. She said, “That was a very good toast, Steve. Oh, and by the way: Thanks for making this event possible.” a

OY GEVALT!

y best friend, Paul Greenfield, had a very religious Orthodox- MJewish father who died at a ripe old age. A traditional Orthodox funeral took place at an Orthodox cemetery, attended by many Orthodox Rabbis and family and friends. I was asked to be a pall-bearer. After the funeral, as we were getting ready to drive back to Manhattan, Paul asked if anyone needed a lift. One Orthodox Rabbi joined us. He looked like central casting’s idea of an Orthodox Rabbi…long white beard, black suit, tzitzses (woven strings) sticking out of his shirt, a tallis (prayer shawl) around his shoulders, and -- of course to top it all off – a yarmulke or kippa (skull cap) on his head. He sat in the passenger’s seat next to Paul, who drove. I sat in the back seat with Paul’s wife, Hilda. During the course of the drive, the Rabbi turned around to ask me, “What do you do?” I said “I was trained as a physicist.” “Oh!” he says. “Are you Jewish?” When I answered in the affirmative, he said, “Many physicists are Jews”. I agreed, and mentioned Einstein, Oppenheimer, Szilard, Teller, Wigner, Feynman, and other well- known physicists who were Jews. Some one-third of physics Nobel Laureates are Jewish(!), a percentage disproportionate to the percentage of Jews in the general population. I pointed this out to the Rabbi, and he said he was a member of an organization called the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists (AOJS).

258 259 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great!

Then I remembered John von Neumann, one of the smartest mathematical physicists of all time. Physicist Edward Teller had referred to him as mentally superhuman, with an inexplicable “neural superconductivity”. I said to the Rabbi, “Did you know the name John von Neumann?” He said, “Yes. He was Jewish too?” I said, “Well. He was born Jewish. But he believed that although Catholicism was a very tough religion to live in, it was the only one to die in. It isn’t widely known, but on his death-bed he asked for a priest and to the dismay of his Jewish friends, he converted to Christianity”. The Rabbi took this information in, sitting quietly, stroking IRONIC ASSEMBLAGES his long white Biblical beard, ruminating on the news. I watched him in the front seat, clearly mulling this news over for several moments. hen I go to yard sales, I buy old scrap metal…rusty hand Finally, he spoke up: tools, garden tools, and small snippets of iron, and then I “OY GEVALT! IS HE IN FOR A BIG SURPRISE!” W weld these familiar-looking items together in unfamiliar ways. I don’t think this needs an explanation to most people, but I have taught myself how to negotiate at yard sales by asking here’s my ’take-away’…”Oy Gevalt” is Yiddish exclamation of sur- the seller, “Would you be offended by an insultingly-low offer?” It works prise, incredulity, exasperation. It’s somewhat equivalent to “Good most of the time, but on at least one occasion I was told to get lost. Grief!” The Rabbi must have believed in an afterlife, and thought (Actually, the vendor said, “Go fuck yourself! ”). that a Jew who converts to Catholicism is going to have a big sur- Yard-sale-bought raw materials, in my hands, become creations, prise after he dies because the God of Moses is happier greeting called “assemblages”. dead Jewish souls than dead converts from Judaism to Catholicism. I was inspired by a famous Picasso sculpture (Bull’s Head, But the explanation drains the anecdote of its assumptions and 1942) consisting merely of bicycle handle-bars welded to a bicycle surprises – and its humor. Maybe you had to be there. I was. seat. It has a witty and whimsical resemblance to a bull…with the handle-bars doubling as the horns of the bull, and the bike-seat a representing its head. Here’s what art critic Eric Gibson (Wall Street Journal) says about Bull’s Head…

At once both childlike and highly sophisticated in its simplicity, it stands as an assertion of the transforming power of the human imagination…Consisting as it does of only two elements, “Bull’s Head” is Picasso’s sparest sculpture. And it is unique among his assemblages for its transparency. There is no attempt to play down the real-world identity of the constituent parts. Indeed, the sculpture’s …simplicity draws attention to them.

260 261 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! IRONIC ASSEMBLAGES

I aspire to such simplicity, transparency, and duality. My assem- Recent additions to my iron butterfly menageries are ladies’ blages are sculptures made of rusty saw blades, garden shears, ham- wearable butterfly pins. Here’s how I make these. I find beautiful mers, rakes, gears, angle iron, or even simply scraps of weld-able color images of butterflies in books, catalogs, on wrapping paper, metal. I make familiar tools simultaneously look like familiar crea- and in Museum brochures (especially those at the American tures. My aspiration is to create a new object that is familiar in its Museum of Natural History, which also has living specimens in their new entirety -- at the same time as it is familiar in its old particularity. temperature-and humidity-controlled “Butterfly Conservatory”). I I am re-cycling scrap into a re-incarnated solid that is both new cut out the paper butterfly images. Then I mount and glue these and old. images to thin sheets of shiny copper sheet. I coat the copper- For example, I welded two sets of old hedge shears to a horizon- mounted images with a clear two-component epoxy, which stiffens tal scrap of iron, so that it resembles an animal, which (as I already the assemblage, and makes them appear to be enameled. Finally, I mentioned before) our Ecuadorian handyman Louis referred to mount safety clasps on the side opposite to the image….and voila as “El Burro de Don Esteban”… the donkey of Sir Stephen. (I like … a butterfly pin. I have made and given away dozens of these – the ‘Sir’ part; nobody calls me ‘Sir’, except when I’m offered a seat to my wife, my daughter, my sister, and all the other women in my on a bus by a wholesome, respectful youth. I’ve always got mixed life. (Abby Washburn, Bela’s wife, called it her “good luck” charm feelings…do I look that old that I need a seat? – remember that and wore it on stage!) This reminds me of a butterfly joke… the title of this memoir includes the phrase “You Look Great Stephen An international scientific conference of butterfly experts (called “lepidopterists”), meeting in Rio de Janeiro, are having Rosen”) dinner together. An American lepidopterist remarks, “BUT-TER- I have welded ten hammers to a vertical iron shaft made of con- FLY! Isn’t that a lovely word? It sounds just like a butterfly…it’s ono- crete reinforcing bar (called ‘rebar’). These hammers are in such matopoeia.” A French lepidopterist then says, “PA-PI-LLON! That’s various angles of repose with the vertical rebar that they look as if our word for butterfly in French. Isn’t it a ravishing word? It sounds they were a stroboscopic photo of a single hammer falling. like it is. Can’t you just hear the butterflies’ wings whispering as it flits From rusty old shovel heads I have fashioned a “shovel foun- from here to there?” The Spanish lepidopterist adds, “MAR-I-POS-A! tain”, in which the falling water moves in a cascade from each MAR-I-POS-A! Listen to the trilled “R” in MAR-I-POS-A. Can you believe down-ward-pointing shovel-head to its opposite number, going how beautifully that word sounds like a butterfly?” Pause. Two beats. back-and-forth in a vertical zig-zag pattern. This looks especially At last, the impatient German lepidopterist can take it no longer. sparkling when the sunlight strikes the water from behind, back- Finally, he shouts, “Und vas is wrong mitt SHME-TER-LINCK!?!?” lighting the ripples and turbulence of the trickling stream. I also created a collection of assemblages as a long line of stylized I have made dozens of iron butterflies from circular saw blades. animals-from-welded-tools marching side-by-side, two-by-two, up a Using a tungsten-carbide blade, I slice the circular saw blade into ramp onto a ship -- designed to evoke “Noah’s Ark”, which was four quarters, with the scalloped portion of the blades on the out- exhibited at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons. side of the quartered blade shape. The center of each quartered Why do I make these assemblages, these visual puns, these three- blade I weld to the center of another quartered blade shape, with dimensional double entendres? Perhaps to satisfy my yearning to do the two planes of the blades at an obtuse angle to each other. The something with my hands. To exercise my non-cerebral muscles… scalloped edges of the welded blades resemble a butterfly’s wings. and to avoid using those enjoyable verbal skills I use daily in my I paint designs on these assemblages to complete the resemblance, writing and work with clients. Maybe I’m eager to re-make a small and have given them away as gifts to friends. part of the world – I hesitate to say ‘in my own image’ –but there

262 263 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! it is. Of course, these sculptures don’t look like me at all. But they are an extension of me, a projection onto a welded object of some ephemeral essence of my father’s genetics, my tactile personality and busy hands -- or my urge to live on in iron and irony. On the other hand, I could be (as my son Daniel so eloquently articu- lated) “full of shit”. Maybe collecting tools at yard sales and assembling them touches long-ago dimly-familiar memories of helping my father, working together, me fetching hand tools, as we installed the underground sprinkler system when I was six years old, mentioned earlier. Maybe it resonates with working alongside my father at A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW the car wash. I inherited his love of gadgets and no doubt passed some comfort-with-tools along to Daniel and Jascha. Dad referred to himself as “mechanically inclined”: adept at working with tools, n 1992, my beloved brilliant beautiful wife Celia was invited equipment and machinery -- building things, repairing things, to speak at Harvard Law School on Alumni Day about the being able to figure out how things work, grasping mechanical I career problems of lawyers. (I was invited to speak at MIT on the processes. Or, ironically, someone who knows which end of the screw- same date about the career problems of scientists.) About three driver to hold, and which end does the work. hundred Harvard Law School alumni were in attendance. Even But, I went to college. And I knew “mechanically inclined” is Harvard lawyers have career problems: “We teach them how to climb un-grammatical. It does not mean an inclined mechanic; what the mountain, but not how to come back down,” according to Harvard’s does an ‘inclined mechanic’ do? “Mechanically” means imper- director of career services. Celia helps them become grounded. sonal or machine-like, mechanistic, or without feeling. Dad was Alan Dershowitz was the person who spoke just before Celia. none of these; he was more their opposite -- emotional. I haven’t Mr. Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard, has a well- heard the phrase “mechanically inclined” since the 1950s when deserved reputation for brilliance, for his ability to engage audi- Dad – who did not go to college -- used it. Un-grammatical as ences who listen carefully to anything he says. He has successfully “mechanically inclined” is, and grammatically superior to him as represented celebrity clients such as O.J. Simpson, Patty Hearst, I imagined myself to be back then, this phrase brings Dad back to and Claus von Bulow. In television interviews he is effective even if me in sharp focus…and I see him “mechanically inclined” in all of not entirely charming when he promotes his latest book (of which my sculptures. And I miss him very much. there have been many). His TV persona is abrasive, pugnacious, memorable, and controversial – all of which helps to promote and a sell his books. However, speaking in front of graduates of Harvard Law School, he was formal, dignified, and compelling as he described why the jury had voted the way it did (acquittal) in the first O.J. Simpson trial. The vote had been difficult to understand by many white people because they thought O.J. was guilty.

264 265 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW

Dershowitz explained to us that the jury was convinced the Bob introduced Steve Rosen to Alan Dershowitz. Steve smiled, police had framed O.J. The court-room evidence: spattered blood shook Alan’s hand, and said: “Mr Dershowitz. I have a bone to pick on a pair of socks. He went on to demonstrate to us how the jury with you.” Dershowitz squared his shoulders as if ready for a legal arrived at their bizarre conclusion. debate….or maybe a fist-fight. (Dershowitz, as mentioned, is On the lectern, Dershowitz had a glass of colored water, and known to be pugnacious.) Steve continued: “About eight years ago, two handkerchiefs…one suspended vertically, the other horizon- at Harvard Law School Alumni Day, you gave a brilliant talk on why the tally. On the vertical handkerchief, he splattered water from the jury voted as it did in the O.J. Simpson case…You were fascinating. The glass with his hand. He also splattered water on the horizontal audience of lawyers ate it up. But you went over your allotted time, and you handkerchief. He pointed out that the spatter pattern on each cut into the talk of my wife, who was supposed to follow you. You’re a tough handkerchief was different, as it would also be the case if the water act to follow, of course, but you took time away from her talk.” was blood spattered on a pair of sox. Dershowitz smiled and said, “Is she here tonight?” I said, “She’s If the blood on O.J.’s socks was the result of a horizontal spat- that beautiful woman standing over there.” Dershowitz says, “Please ter pattern, that implied that the blood had been placed on the introduce me to her”. socks while they were horizontal, on the floor, and this suggested Together, we walked over to Celia. I made the introductions. that perhaps the blood was placed on the socks by the police in an Dershowitz made a very gallant and heartfelt apology to Celia. “I’m effort to “frame” O.J. This hypothesis injected “reasonable doubt” so sorry I cut into your talk at Alumni Day. Please forgive me. I must have in the minds of the jurors, and they found the defendant “not gotten carried away.” guilty”. (Most white people today think O.J. was guilty of killing his wife, and some deranged zealots even sent death threats to Dershowitz for defending a presumed murderer.) a The audience of lawyers was very receptive to Alan’s talk because it defended the defendant brilliantly, clearly, and melo- dramatically—even if they thought O.J. guilty. Alan spoke well beyond his allotted time of a half hour, and the audience ate it up. However, Celia was scheduled to speak after Alan. And he ate up some of her allotted time. a

Eight years later, Celia and I were guests of Robert and Dale Mnookin at their lovely summer house in Martha’s Vineyard. Bob and Dale are lovely people we met on our Stanford-sponsored trip to Russia. Bob is the Williston Professor of Law at Harvard, and specializes in conflict resolution and negotiation. The Mnookins threw an elegant party for their friends and colleagues. Most of the Harvard Law and Harvard Business School faculty were present, including Alan Dershowitz.

266 267 THE ROAD LESS-TRAVELED

lthough my beloved son Daniel, when young, was not interested Ain money, material possessions, the ordinary physical comforts and amenities of life…he nevertheless has worked very hard at a wide variety of occupations, mostly blue-collar jobs. He has been a chef, a house painter, a commercial fisherman, a baker, an artist, a sailor, and a jack-of-all-trades. He is an extremely well-read and avid devourer of books. He dislikes the U.S. and capitalism, and has chosen to live in Ireland where he has made and sold potato chips (“crisps”) crepes, and donuts in the open air market in Galway. He’s been called “eccentric” (so have I). We travel the road less-traveled. One of his art teachers said that Daniel was “the greatest talent he had seen in some thirty years of teaching art”. His line drawings, done at age fourteen, in my opinion rival Picasso’s early drawings. Daniel’s high visual intelligence (inherited from his mother) allowed him to create strong simple lines and negative spaces to pull the viewer into his imag- ery and world-view to connect emotionally with the subject. I treasure my collection of these drawings: one shows Manhattan skyscrapers; another reveals an individual appearing to lecture pompously (probably me); another evokes a massive locomotive coming out of the page directly at the viewer. I love Daniel’s art and his rare sensibility. Daniel grew up surrounded by famous artists like James and Myron Lechay, his mother’s gifted uncles, whose paintings hung prominently in museums, our apartment, and Madison Avenue art galleries. Art was in the air he breathed growing up. Daniel

269 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE ROAD LESS-TRAVELED himself knew he was vastly talented at art but rebelled against nor- I like this parable, as told by George Vaillant… mal curricula in ordinary schools. “… of a father who on Christmas Eve puts into one son’s stocking a Daniel met Jean-Michel Basquiat at City-As-School, a special- fine gold watch, and into another son’s stocking a pile of horse manure. ized public high school in the West Village of Manhattan in New The next morning, the first boy comes to his father and says glumly, “Dad, I York City, unique in its focus on experiential learning and respect just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.” for individuals’ differences. The other boy runs to him and says, “Daddy! Daddy! Santa left me a pony, They became close friends and often painted together. Basquiat if only I can just find it!” was a gifted artist, a prodigy from the age of four. Sadly, his death of a Perhaps Daniel is the boy who’s looking for his pony; and I heroin dose at age 27 was probably responsible for Daniel’s decision perhaps I would have to be the traditional one wondering what to cease painting, despite his great talent. Daniel feared that he too to do with an expensive fragile watch. (Maybe it’s the other way would succumb to the drug culture widespread in the world of New around.) We are different in many ways….and similar in some. We York artists. Basquiat’s paintings now sell in the millions of dollars. are, enigmatically, both and neither of the boys in the parable who During a painting session together at my ex-wife Miki’s apart- are given the manure and the watch. ment, the pair, occupied creating works of art, had thoughtfully Daniel has many friends in Ireland who share his values. He spread newspaper on the floor to prevent spills and stains. When lives according to his own rules, which (despite my own eccen- Miki came home she said, “Clean up this mess! Pick up your things! tricities) are at great variance with my more traditional rules and Throw that stuff away!” values. Daniel and Jean-Michel did as they were told. When Basquiat became famous, and especially after he died, his paintings became worth a great deal of money. (One abstract portrait of my son by a Basquiat, entitled “Danny Rosen”, which I have seen on display at a well-known art gallery in New York, recently sold at Christie’s Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote “The Social Contract,” in which he for almost four million dollars.) Although trained and talented spelled out the idea that every citizen should exercise her social and immersed in art, Miki later made fun of her own demand that conscience and empathy in helping to determine the general will the then-unknown Basquiat discard his early work. Those Basquiat of the people. It was Rousseau who famously said, “Man is born free, works, had they been saved instead of trashed, Miki claimed rue- yet everywhere he is in chains”. Daniel would almost certainly agree fully in retrospect, would have been worth many tens of thousands with Rousseau, although he might debate the issues brilliantly. At of dollars. one time when Daniel was helping a friend who didn’t have legal Maybe Daniel thought that if he had continued to play in representation, Daniel went to court and won the case. Not only Basquiat’s world -- of punk, of drugs, of fast living, of dedication is Daniel not a lawyer, but (like the Beatles and his son Jascha) he to high art—he might have ended up like Basquiat. Daniel didn’t never attended college. follow Basquiat’s path; he quit art (the art world’s loss) and kicked Fascinated by Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau his addiction (our gain and his). and based on their writings, I created a comparative dichotomy As far as I can tell, Daniel’s world-view embraces free-spirit, emblematic of their opposing world-views in the table below. counter-culture values, hard “honest” work, autonomy, unusual Daniel and Jean-Jacques Rousseau philosophies would live very empathy for the under-dog, authenticity, the un-importance of well together. I and many friends would be very comfortable in money, and sturdy stoic individualism. the presence of Benjamin Franklin, one of my heroes.

270 271 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! THE ROAD LESS-TRAVELED

THE 18th CENTURY LEGACIES OF ROUSSEAU & FRANKLIN I suspect Daniel would agree with all or most of Rousseau’s set of values and priorities. I have tried to live by Franklin’s values and ROUSSEAU: THE SELF FRANKLIN: THE CAREER priorities although I confess I do share some of Rousseau’s. Daniel showed his creativity in ways other than his extra-ordi- Getting in touch with our true Committing ourselves to our careers; selves; Being what we were meant Striving to be team players nary drawings. In 1966 in Barcelona, Spain, when he was four years to be old, all of us visited an astronomical observatory. We were allowed to gaze through a very large optical telescope at the Moon. Each Challenging ourselves to make a Constructing a public life for of us had a turn looking. You could see the craters, the mountains journey into the self ourselves and valleys, the sharp shadows at the “terminator”. The entire Recovering the true by getting rid Learning from those habits that image, however, quivered and shimmered because of the Earth’s of the habits that social life calls for social life calls for heat rising through our atmosphere, causing alterations in the magnification. Daniel took one look and pronounced it appeared Our mistakes are patterns revealing Learning from mistakes (‘errata’), to be ….”Jello!” His observation revealed a very high order of visual deep aspects of the self; every and correcting them; every setback is intelligence, putting two disparate images together into one. setback is an insight an opportunity to turn a liability into an asset When he was in full adolescent rebellion against me and social norms, I tried to “understand” his oppositional behaviors. I patron- Transparent inner life; Opaque inner life; wearing a mask ized him: “Daniel. I know why you are angry. It’s Mother Nature’s way of individualistic refreshing the human race, questioning everything that existed before you. It’s Darwinian competition of the old and the new.” Daniel does not Being aware of our most secret Suppressing ulterior motives and feelings; allowing them to surface; feelings; disciplining ourselves to suffer fools gladly, especially me. As I deserved, he gave it to me penetrating to the most hidden serve a larger and mighty purpose; straight: “Dad. You are really full of shit.” motives of our conduct and actions

Unflinching public honesty even Allows the public to see only what is a in defeat or disgrace; vulnerability; acceptable, good, and appropriate; open, spontaneous in public ‘well-defended’; guarded

Subjectivity gives us authority Objectivity gives us authority and and depth; the only true vision; depth; avoids all self-indulgences as uncompromising unprofessional

The novelist The scientist

‘To thine own self be true’ ‘Vanity, vanity, …all is vanity’

“Always be yourself…” “…unless you’re un-presentable, in which case you should be someone else”

Something to live on Something to live for

272 273 GRAND-KIDS AS A REWARD

y charming grand-daughter Tanya, Daniel’s daughter, has Mread a few chapters of this memoir, and said she “thoroughly enjoyed” them. She asks, “What are you going to write about us once we come into the picture?” Good question. Here are my first memories of Tanya and her brother Jascha. When Jascha was an infant in 1990, he was brought to our apartment un-expectedly on a Saturday evening by his mother, Heather. Oddly enough, we were home and had no plans. Heather had gotten our address from Daniel (who was then not speaking to me or Celia). When she entered our apartment, she said “Here is your grandson.” I can never thank her enough for her courage and kindness. She needed such great courage to visit us because her husband was virtually alienated from me, his father, and was against any relationship between me and his infant son Jascha. (We are now very connected to Jascha since he moved to New York in 2012 on his way to seek his fortune.) As the impulse moved him, Daniel had been warm and friendly – and then cold and angry – at different times. I could see no rhyme or reason to his hot and cold spells, but Jascha as an adult suggested to me that Daniel’s fluctuating feelings toward me reflected his deep unhappiness with my absence as a father during my separation and divorce from his mother, starting in 1968 when Daniel was six years old. I plead guilty to being an

275 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GRAND-KIDS AS A REWARD absent and to not being a very good father. Excuses don’t count and somewhat like Mike Rosen. (What a coincidence, huh? Is this for my abdication of parental responsibility, and I cannot make genetics, or Darwin, and if so, what survival value does this have? up for my past dereliction of duty -- although to this day I persist I know not.) in trying to repair the damage, sometimes becoming a glutton for “Sweating bullets” (a phrase my father used often to indicate Daniel’s toxic punishment. I was suffering soul-shattering experi- hard work or extreme nervousness), I swerved to miss oncoming ences, depression in my personal and professional life -- such as cars, and made clumsy anxious turns, hoping against hope that the death of my parents, disastrous love affairs, suicidal fantasies, nothing bad would happen to our precious cargo while in this tiny and being temporarily unemployed. Excuses? Mitigating circum- tinny stick-shift rental car. stances? Both? Apologies may not help Daniel, but yet: “To err is Jascha piped up, “I’m much cleverer than you, Steve.” human; to forgive, divine.” “Oh really?” says I. (That’s the way some people speak in Ireland. These circumstances remind me of an old New Yorker cartoon There’s a lot of “sez I” locutions there.) “That may be true, Jascha, from a depressing epoch (albeit brief) in my life. (If you have a but how would you know this?” lemon, make lemonade.) An author is facing what appears to be “Because”, Jascha chimes in, full wise-guy mode, “you’re making his literary agent seated at his desk. The caption, author speak- all kinds of mistakes in driving.” Of course I was, for chris-sakes. I ing: “Well I’ll tell you…It started out as a one line suicide note. But then needed some experience. We all laughed. Score one for Jascha. I decided to add a sentence or two about my dismal life. Then I added Tanya was and still is cute as a button, with her green-eyes (like a few paragraphs about my rotten business, my empty bank account, my mine) and golden hair, much like Heather’s, and her lovely sweet unfaithful wife, my rebellious ungrateful children, my affair with a famous smiley face. actress, my second marriage and divorce…and so on…and never once did The two kiddies played very well together, and of course they I suspect that I would be sitting here with a high-powered agent like you – were adorable. Wholesome. Innocent. Beguiling. We were able discussing paperback and movie rights!”. to arrange more visits over the years by exchanging apartments But I digress. Years later, when Tanya and Jascha were old and houses, and by the on-again-off-again truce between us and enough to talk, and Daniel (to his great credit) forced himself Daniel. to have a decent-but-strained relationship with me (to my sur- Cork, Galway, Saltaire, London, Paris, Villefavard, Barcelona, prise), Celia and I visited them in Ireland. We had swapped our Manhattan, East Hampton…these were the venues where the five apartment in New York with Brian and Katherine Gallaher whose of us visited, romped, loved, and fought. Each one brings back lovely house in Athlone we obtained through an exchange agency. sweet and bittersweet (occasionally sour) memories of our times Photos of that visit show us in front of their house, all five of us together…meals (some fabulous, some barely edible), museums (except Daniel) smiling. (some exquisite, some boring), lush parks, incredible hotels, inns, We had rented a car and, like most Americans accustomed to swell and awful apartments, and swapped houses. driving on the “proper” or right-hand side of the road with the In Cork, the guy we swapped flats with was, as Daniel described driver on the left side of the car, I had plenty of adjustments to him, “queer as a three-dollar bill”. In fact, he had only recently left make. Driving through Galway, for example, I couldn’t get used his wife and three kids to live “the gay life”, in both meanings. He to making turns from what-to-me was the “wrong” side of the was very helpful and friendly, and Cork was a new experience for road. I got very confused about the whole process, and drove awk- all of us. We made a bare-bones-basic Passover dinner at his apart- wardly. Jascha was perhaps six at this time, and like now, had a ment, and of course Tanya was the Queen of Egypt. (That role quick and sarcastic wit, somewhat like Daniel, somewhat like me, doesn’t exist in the Seder, so we had to hastily create a costume

276 277 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GRAND-KIDS AS A REWARD for our royal grand-daughter, who fit the part like a glove.) I of not being emotionally ready for a serious commitment. Fear joked that Tanya would someday make a great Queen of England of mature intimacy? Thank goodness those days are long over for or Ireland or a place to-be-announced. Daniel had to repair to me.) Galway for a day to run his market stall (as noted, he made crisps, Paris with Tanya and Jascha, and Paris with Celia, and Paris potato- chips) leaving Jascha and Tanya with us. Tanya had a few with Daniel, was…PARIS! Each of us had our own Paris. Celia crying jags, or tantrums, in Daniel’s absence, for no apparent rea- and I had the romantic-and-gourmet-meal Paris. The kids had the son. Celia and I were worried that she would complain about our parks-and-playgrounds-and-museums Paris. Daniel had the Paris stewardship and supervision methods when Daniel returned, but familiar to him when he had worked for Gilles Ebersolt, an extra- she didn’t say a word. This suggested to us that she had a ten- ordinary architect who designs and builds huge inflatable rub- dency to sudden tears with no rhyme or reason, in episodes that ber rafts that rest upon the African and South American jungle soon passed over, like a small cloud dropping a few raindrops. tree-top canopies for scientists to camp out upon for months at a In psycho-babble terms, this fairly common condition is called a time while studying the flora and fauna. (National Geographic has a ‘labile personality’. We learned, as she has had to, to live with the series of gorgeous color photos and an essay about Gilles and his condition. unusual work.) Tanya, laughing, told us recently that she exploited her ability Gilles and his wife have a huge apartment in Paris (which we to start crying spontaneously when she came through Irish cus- stayed at years later to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary toms and the Inspector said she didn’t have the proper documen- of Norman and Shelly Dinhofer) -- plus a chateau, an estate really, tation. She burst into copious tears instantly, and the inspector in the South of France, in Villefavard, near the town that makes shaken by her passionate and genuine outburst, let her enter the elegant China, Limoges. We were invited, the whole lot of us, US without further ado. (Sweet are the tears of adversity.) to visit them there. We trained down, rented a car at the station, In Paris, we swapped our Manhattan apartment for an elegant and drove to the miniscule town, searching for their estate. We apartment on rue de Fleurus, the very same street where Gertrude stopped a man walking alongside the road, and in heavily-Ameri- Stein and Alice B. Toklas lived in the 1900s, playing muse and can-accented French asked where the Ebersolts’ place was. He said grand dames to Picasso, Stravinsky, Hemingway, Dos Passos, James in perfect English that he was the Mayor of Villefavard, and that Joyce, Salvadore Dali, and all the luminaries she assembled at her he, the Mayor, would personally escort us to our destination. famed soirees. (Many of them appear in the charming Woody Allen The estate was vast, with rolling hills, a man-made lake, five movie, “Midnight In Paris” as look-a-likes and character-parodies.) ancient buildings, lovely gardens, farm animals, and many other Flynn, one of Daniel’s lady-friends at the time joined us, and guests. We were treated as if we were royalty, given our own rooms, she won me over as we were looking in the shop window of an and fed by Gilles’ wife Regine, who looked so utterly casually glam- infant-wear boutique, by remarking to Daniel, “If we gave Steve orously elegantly French, with her simple silk scarf and chic attire, another grand-child, we could buy That Toddler Outfit.” I was thrilled as she bustled about the kitchen cooking delicious French food for that she would contemplate such a wonderful ‘gift’…but, alas, this us and the numerous “drop-ins”-- neighbors who just happened to was not to be, for a few months after our time together she and show up at all times of day and evening. Daniel ceased seeing each other. Too bad, because she was one of Jascha and Tanya were fortunate in that the Ebersolt children the wonderful ones of all the dozens of young ladies he courted were about their age and spoke only French… Jascha and Tanya and conquered and dropped. (Sounds familiar? I did much the (whose father Daniel and his sister Lisa had learned French in same find-‘em, fool-‘em, forget-‘em routine between marriages. A case a public school in Paris in 1968) were conversing fluently within

278 279 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GRAND-KIDS AS A REWARD days. The four of them hung out together as if they had known a great well-deserved reputation for their expertise in optics and each other forever. On Halloween, the foursome went around the astronomy.) other estates and neighbors and introduced the French to our silly I had never looked through a telescope this size before (nor custom of “trick or treat”. Actually, Halloween was beginning to since, although I did own a Questar folded-optics reflecting- gain traction in all of Europe at the time. refracting scope for a few years, which I used in teaching astron- The visit lasted almost a week, and we felt like the time was too omy and in explaining astronomy to my children). Daniel and Lisa short. We speak of that time longingly, when everything and every- and Miki and I peered into the device one at a time. one seemed charming, and European, and beguiling, fun, and lov- In 2002, Jascha and Tanya and Daniel and Celia and I were in ing. We had hoped to return someday, and that someday arrived in this beautiful city and eager to devour everything…Las Ramblas, 2012 when Gilles’ daughter Manon and her boyfriend Benjamin Tibidabo, Gaudi buildings, the cuisine, the museums, the art, and (both medical students in Paris) came to visit us in Manhattan and of course to be charmed by the wonderful Spanish people. East Hampton. In October -- on a special trip to London, Dublin, I wanted to revisit Tibidabo, but we got near the top and found Paris, and the Dordogne -- Celia and I visited Villefavard and again an extraordinary restaurant at about siesta time. We started eat- enjoyed the Ebersolt’s generous hospitality. Gilles built a bonfire ing at about two pm, and didn’t finish until about five pm. I can’t to celebrate Halloween. Regine cooked. Then we went on to visit remember what we ate, but I can remember that it was fabulous the cave drawings. Jascha and Tanya were too busy to join us. Spanish food. I wonder if Jascha, Tanya, and Daniel remember. Celia remembers. a We were so full we had to walk it off, and slowly descended the mountain-side until we came to a very modern science museum, Barcelona was another world altogether. which was filled with “hands-on” physics and science demonstra- Lisa and Daniel were four and six in 1966 when Miki and I tions, like the sort developed by Frank Oppenheimer (J. Robert’s first visited Madrid and Spain and Barcelona during the reign brother) at the San Francisco “Exploratorium”, which Lisa and of Franco. But this time, 2002, the Spanish people were free of Daniel and Miki and I had visited when the kids were tiny, back Franco, and Barcelona was Catalonian. in the sixties. I was excited by the demonstrations, and wanted to In 1966, I had taken pictures of Lisa and Daniel inside huge show off what I knew about these imaginative re-creations of Frank cups and saucers in the playground Tibidabo on the mountain Oppenheimer’s, but the kids were bored, to my dismay. top that overlooks the beautiful city. As mentioned in the chapter With a lovely young married couple, both journalists, we had on Daniel, on our way back down, we had noticed an astronomi- exchanged our Manhattan apartment for a Barcelona apartment cal observatory telescope dome, and of course I couldn’t resist a and at the same time our East Hampton house for their Costa visit. An elderly sleepy watchman came to the door, and in my Brava house—the equivalent of a Grand Slam! Both of their dwell- passable Spanish, I told him I was a “professor of astronomy” (I ings were spacious and elegant. left out ‘assistant’) in New York, and that my children and I would I have photos of Jascha and Tanya dancing the tango to CDs like to have a look at the stars through his telescope. He said found in the apartment, and I have photos of Daniel and Jascha that we should come back at three o’clock in the morning, which and Tanya taken from the balcony appearing to show them stand- we did, bleary-eyed, and he welcomed us and allowed us to look ing on top of each other’s shoulders. (What they had done, clev- at the Moon through what appeared to be a turn-of-the-century- erly set up by Daniel, was to lie stretched out horizontally on the French-made half-meter reflecting telescope. (The French had ground, with Daniel on the left his head pointed to the right,

280 281 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! GRAND-KIDS AS A REWARD

Jascha to his right lying so his feet appeared to be on Daniel’s Try seven hours!!! shoulders, and with Tanya to his right with her feet appearing to That’s what the clever city officials had counter-planned. The be on Jascha’s shoulders. When the photo, taken from the balcony demonstrators were bottled up for seven hours. I understand from above looking down, was rotated ninety degrees, a quarter turn, our great friends and British neighbors in East Hampton, Chris counter-clock-wise…hey presto…a complete illusion of standing and Peter Sephton, that this method has been well-established in vertically on each other’s shoulders upright.) England, and it’s even got a name: “kettling”. The protesters were completely fatigued and tired of standing. Of listening. Of pro- test. Of being speechified to. Finally, then, the officials let groups a of twenty demonstrators at a time very very slowly depart the London. Ah London! In 2004 we had swapped an apartment Oxford Circus at each radiating street, accompanied by a phalanx on Great Portland Street, near the British Telecom Tower. A spec- of twenty Bobbies in front and another twenty Bobbies in back of tacular location, convenient to almost everything London had on each departing group, moving with all the speed of an artic gla- offer. cier. There were no incidents. No violence (not enough energy Jascha and Tanya had been pried out of school against Miki’s left). And no arrests I knew of. wishes, but it was May, the weather was lovely, and to Daniel’s Daniel was in revolutionary mode, sympathizing as always with delight and our dismay, an anti-Capitalist revolutionary May Day under-dogs like himself: the demonstrators were not quite sure anti-Monopoly-like demonstrations had been planned for London what to make of the counter-plan. I was completely on the side of in 2004, much like Occupy Wall Street invaded New York in 2012. law and order, having righteously accelerated past my revolution- Only unlike the US, the clever Brits had a counter-plan, bril- ary days years earlier. Tension between Daniel and me was palpa- liant in its simplicity, and we had a grand-stand view of it all from ble, unpleasant -- for me, completely unnecessary –and redolent of the high floor of our flat overlooking Oxford Circus. enmity and anger. Daniel must have been torn between his natu- Here’s what the friendly-sounding British Bobbies had ral affinity toward toxic rage, and his eagerness to enjoy London arranged. When all of the demonstrators had gathered in Oxford (on our dime, another source of his ambivalence). The kids were Circus (and other well-known demonstration areas) the police lor- bull-dozed by Daniel into going along with his anti-establishment ries were brought in to block each of the spoke-like streets radiat- anti-Steve vitriol, which detracted from my enjoyment of the visit. ing out from the Circus hub. The lorries were placed perpendicu- I wonder how Jascha and Tanya remember this visit. lar to the axis of each street, from wall to wall, so it was virtually However, Celia had planned ahead, as usual. All of us went impossible for a pedestrian to depart from the crowd gathering to see the opening night theatrical performance of the comedy in the central hub. Bottled up as they were, their attention was “Noises Off”, a brilliant play by Michael Frayn (the guy who wrote directed to the zealous anti-capitalist bull-horn-wielding speak- the play “Copenhagen”, and the novel ”Headlong”.) We had great ers. How long can tens of thousands of people stand listening to seats. The play was a delicious conceit. Here’s the The Premise: a speeches they had heard before, speeches lashing out at the “sys- play within a play within a play. tem”, repetitive pontificating and speechifying, and exhibiting The first act opens on a regional amateur acting troupe rehears- what’s called “confirmation bias” (exposing oneself to opinions ing a feeble comedy. The director is actually sitting in our real and facts that only agree with their own)? One hour? Two hours? theater audience barking his orders to the bumbling stage actors. Three hours? How long before a demonstrator got hungry or had In the second act, we are viewing the back of the stage when the to use a WC? Four hours? Five hours? first act was proceeding, with many people behind and in front

282 283 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! of the curtain speaking over each other, cross-talk, and silly coincidences. In the third act, we see the actual bad play being performed not only badly, but on beyond badly to hysterically badly, with anything that could go wrong going wrong. Celia and I were giggling and laughing so hard the tears were streaming down our faces in torrents. Jascha was getting it, but Tanya didn’t get all the double entendres and cross-talking. Even Daniel, as angry and toxic as ever, was laughing. We were perhaps the only Americans in the audience, and the audience was roaring with approval. A hit! One of the funniest theatrical experiences of my life, dimmed and marred only by the smoke pouring out of Daniel’s ears. ME INFINITESIMAL! Daniel was not amused when I spouted the aphorism, “Grand- kids are the reward you get for not murdering your children”. “We seem to be hard-wired to find that what happens to each of us a naturally appears to take on special significance and meaning, even if it is an accident. We have to guard against this, and the only way to do so is by adhering to the straight-jacket of empirical reality.” –attributed to Richard P. Feynman

umans, as my friend Gerry Monroe says, are “pattern-making Hmachines”. We endow facts with meaning, despite our own insignificance and the facts that are frequently indifferent to us and our ideas. From my study of cosmic radiation and astrophysics, I learned about my own insignificance. Even though I think my life has meaning and purpose (derived from my work, my loved ones, and my friends), I am infinitesimal in a vast Universe. Please indulge me in a bit of pedantic astrophysics… The visible Universe consists of about 100 billion galaxies. Give or take. Each galaxy is a cluster of stars, held together by their mutual gravitational attraction, and the number of stars per galaxy is about the same as the number of galaxies. Give or take. So the total number of stars visible to our best telescopes, like the Hubble, is the product of these two numbers – 100 billion times 100 billion -- or one with twenty-two zeros after it.

284 285 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! ME INFINITESIMAL!

Let’s say that the Earth has six billion people living on it. Give most interesting creature I know…and I do know a lot of interest- or take. Round up to ten billion, or one with ten zeros after it. If -- a ing people. big if -- each star has, say, as much as ten planets orbiting each star (probably unlikely, but bear with me a moment), then multiplying To say that ‘the truth lies somewhere in between’ is dopey, trivial, all these “guesstimates” together, we get a huge number (one with unremarkable, and approaches the inane. To say that I have lived 33 zeros after it) or a Billion Trillion Trillion. This is perhaps an a full, rich, and meaningful life is to see myself from the inside upper limit on the number of potentially humanoid creatures in looking out…which is the only me I know, except for what others the Universe. have told me that they observe about me. “To know Steve is to be I’m merely one of those creatures, an insignificant human. I’m his friend”, Dave Robinson said of me at my seventy-fifth birthday. profoundly infinitesimal in the larger scheme of things, the bigger What a great guy he is! picture, the meta-Olympian view. Here’s a way to think about how others see us -- strongly biased Nevertheless, as Feynman and others point out, I am (like you) by our eagerness to think we are significant. When we’re in our hard-wired to believe that what happens to me naturally, in the twenties and thirties, we wonder and worry about what other peo- course of a life-time of human events, has special significance or ple say and think of us. In our forties and fifties we don’t really a “pattern”, even if these events are random, serendipitous, semi- care what they think and say about us. We reach our sixties and serendipitous, or brought about by what we might like to think of seventies and we discover that they haven’t been thinking or talk- as our own autonomous actions, or our Free-Will, or our code of ing about us at all. (We are really insignificant.) By the time we ethics and moral behavior…or all of the above. After all, each of us reach our eighties and nineties, we can barely see anything, or consists of some 10 to the 26th power (a one followed by 26 zeros) hear a thing they’re saying. I can now vouch for the accuracy of atoms….insignificant compared to 33 trailing zeros. (Religion this observation. teaches us—not how to count numbers—but how to count as ethical and moral beings who matter to each other. We Jews are “chosen” to the extent that we believe we are here to repair the broken “Youth may be wasted on the young”, George Bernard Shaw told world and to repair our broken selves.) us; but old age may be wasted on the elderly. I don’t want my old Some of us believe that, because we were thinking of a friend age, reckoned politely as the ‘afternoon’ or ‘evening’ of my life, a moment before she calls, such a coincidence has meaning and to be wasted at all. Like you, I want my life to mean something purpose….maybe telepathy. But the “straight-jacket of empirical to somebody besides myself, even though “I am unique -- just like reality” tells me that every day, billions of coincidences occur to everyone else”. each of us—most of them are below our observational radar. But when a stray coincidence rises to one of high salience, then we I am also unique—unlike everyone else. -- hard-wired-to-see-meaning-around-us –attribute people-significance, fate, clairvoyance, or a cosmic designer to what is really just I decided to mention to my grand-daughter Tanya, when she another random coincidence. was nineteen years old and had a lot of things happening in her “I’m unique—just like everyone else”, I keep reminding myself life to think about, that I was writing some stories about my life. and those around me. I toggle back and forth from thinking I I told her that I didn’t expect her to be too interested or excited may be the most boring and insignificant individual in the entire about my memoirs because her interest lay elsewhere; her plate Universe (see the vast numbers above) to thinking I may be the was full. “But”, I added, “when I have great-grandchildren, they may

286 287 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! become very interested in my ancestors, my roots, my genetic make-up, my gene-pool”.

Tanya said, “Steve. Don’t I have to have children first?” a

MY ‘ROSEBUD’ AND ‘THE TABLE’

he great Orson Welles movie, “Citizen Kane”, was modeled on Ta super-rich publishing tycoon American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and ends with the cremation of an old sled named “Rosebud”. Kane was…

“…a man who got everything he wanted, and then lost it. Maybe “Rosebud” was something he couldn’t get, or something he lost. In the ending of the film, it is revealed to the audience that “Rosebud” was the name of the sled from [his] childhood – an allusion to the only time in his life when he was truly happy. The sled, thought to be junk, is burned and destroyed in a basement furnace…”

I have a “Rosebud”: those small, oaken building blocks I joy- ously played with alone as an infant for hours on end. They came in various shapes: square, oblong, circular, round and square pil- lars…and I feel happy just thinking about them now, because they happily led me into visualizing three dimensions easily, into physics, into making butterflies and sculptures. And into making The Table. Unlike Kane and William Randolph Hearst, my “Rosebud”, my happy-remembered building blocks, led me into a sweet and juicy life. I am going to talk about The Table, a table I built that followed

288 289 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! MY ‘ROSEBUD’ AND ‘THE TABLE’ me for fifty-three years from Owego to Flushing to Manhattan to construction, a marvel to watch the pieces fitting together like a East Hampton, through two marriages and six careers. An impor- huge erector set-- just like the way my Table and my childhood tant table. building blocks came together. I designed and built The Table out of marble and mahogany in At the same time, I began studying and working towards a PhD 1959 in Owego, New York when I was a physicist at IBM Research in physics. I sat and studied at this Marble and Mahogany Table Labs there doing classified military work on anti-missile defense. every evening and weekends, coming to know its contours and tex- This was my first marriage, my first professional job as a physi- tures intimately. The marble was smooth. The rich-hued mahog- cist, and my first adventure in living together with a woman. We any reminded me of the rust-colored Irish Setter we had to leave had rented a 110 acre unused farm ten minutes from the Lab. I behind. As I focused more on my studies and grading test papers, enjoyed that brief commute, the sense of a new direction in my gradually, imperceptibly, the Table receded into the background, life, the freedom and time to walk the rambling wooded hills with especially after our beautiful daughter Lisa and handsome son our two dogs, and spacious land stretching out to infinity in all Daniel were born …and they became the centers of our attention. directions. Merry-X was a sleek rust-colored Irish Setter, and Max And our lives. was a liver-and-white English Springer Spaniel—fond companions We moved to a large apartment on the Upper West Side of on our bucolic walks. Manhattan, and the Table moved with us. My dissertation papers For entertainment in farm country, I created projects to work were spread on the Table, and that soon became my major pre- with my hands. One was a wagon-wheel I converted into an out- occupation and focus until completion in 1966. door table, a lazy-susan. Another was The Table. In 1968, we moved to Paris for a year while I worked at the A local hotel had closed down and was selling its furnishings, Institut d’Astrophysique, and when we returned, I moved out of the including slabs of white veined marble slabs from the hotel bath- apartment, sadly ending our marriage. I rented a bachelor studio room walls. I bought a slab about five feet wide, two feet across, apartment nearby, so I could visit Daniel and Lisa regularly. and three-quarters of an inch thick. Must have weighed about I brought The Table with me, and it became the platform for thirty pounds. Solid marble. I had to figure out how to mount it, writing articles, and my book, “Future Facts”, published in 1976, and a colleague at the Lab suggested I purchase mahogany. He and then “Weathering”, published in 1979. I endowed The Table had a woodworking shop at home and offered to mill mahogany with special meaning -- huge chunks of my writing and reading life framing pieces so that they had three-quarter-inch slots. When were connected, as were personal memories mingled with nostal- assembled, the mahogany formed an elegant, trim picture-frame gic feelings. embracing the marble slab, which began to look like a table top. In 1985, Celia and I married. I sold my bachelor studio co-op, It lacked only legs. and I moved into her apartment in Manhattan and her house in I constructed a rectangular assembly to support the framed East Hampton. The Table came with me, and it ended up residing marble, resting on the rigid frame to which the mahogany legs in a shade arbor, or pergola, I had built as its new home out in the were affixed by glue and screws. I was very proud of my creation, back of what is now our jointly-owned property. my Marble and Mahogany Table. The Table had weathered the storms and uncertainties of mov- We moved back in 1961 to New York to a small apartment in ing, as I had, but required repairs and maintenance, as I do. Not Flushing, and of course The Table came with us. I started teaching quite surgery, as I needed -- but serious attention, as I needed. I physics at the Maritime College at Fort Schuyler on the Bronx side re-glued the loose mahogany frame securely to the marble. I re- of the Whitestone Bridge; the Throgg’s Neck Bridge was under enforced the wobbly mahogany legs. I re-finished the marble and

290 291 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! mahogany surfaces with modern preservatives to protect against the elements. Eventually the marble was replaced by mahogany. I guess like The Table, I myself have been re-finished (by my marriage to Celia) and I’ve become preserved by the preservatives…modern medicine and a life well-lived. In East Hampton, when I pass The Table en route from our back bedroom to the compost heap, I admire my handiwork. When we have visitors seated in the pergola, The Table becomes a side-board upon which we place food we cooked together and wine waiting to be served – plus flatware, serving dishes, beverages. These guests are seated at another much-larger table I constructed entirely AFTERWORDS: BOTH AND from very expensive mahogany acquired (at a bargain, of course) from the yard sale of a retired elderly carpenter. NEITHER If they could speak, the two Tables might tell stories of articles and books written, of dinner-guests visiting, of stimulating conversations ping-ponging back-and-forth across its surfaces. They also ere’s a happy and sticky thought…a simple way I think about appear to frame, and to book-end, my life. Hmy ancestry and development. Each of us is made of three parts: the part of us that comes from our father; the part of us that comes from a our mother; and the part of us that comes from neither. The neither-of-our-parents part emerges from what we do -- once we are endowed with the both-of-our parents parts. Like cosmic rays emerging from supernovae, we travel through space and time in straight and zig-zag paths until encountering a serendipitous interaction or planned destination. That destination is logical only in retrospect. I couldn’t have predicted the destiny of a specific particle, or of my own world-line, but looking backward it can be determined to have been a logical or inevitable progression I endow with a theme, a “pattern”. Mathematics can describe -- but cannot predict -- the existence of physics. Physics can describe – but cannot predict – the existence of chemistry. Chemistry can describe – but cannot predict – the existence of biology. Biology can describe – but cannot predict my existence. And so I can describe – but could never have predicted – the experiences, adventures, and vignettes recorded here. I didn’t want to leave my biological embodiment without my loved ones knowing my stories, experiences and adventures …and what I felt like when being alive and inhabiting my own creature-hood.

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“The hardest part of writing”, said Nora Ephron, “is writing.” In writing these quasi-memoirs I have tried to avoid giving Advice. I have not written an Ethical Will. I am not writing Literature. But surely, as I’ve said before, “I am a part of all that I have met” (Tennyson). And maybe all that I have met has parts of me in it, Appendices as connective tissue joining my past to other futures, when nothing about me is left to remember except my memoir and stories. But with great effort I can sometimes remember, and by writ- The Difference Between Talent and Genius ing, I can slowly record my own impermanence. The author’s seventy-fifth birthday celebration -- with enco- miums, criticisms, praise, witticisms, original songs, stories (some a even true), introductions, and panegyrics.

On my seventy-eighth birthday (May 3, 2012) Celia and I visited Rockefeller University Panel the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see a show by an extra- “Career Change Among Scientists”, Rockefeller University ordinary artist, Cindy Sherman. The ironic images she creates are November 13, 1997 Participants: Joseph Atick, President and CEO so very powerful that after the exhibit they influenced how we of Visionics Corporation, and Rockefeller University; David Z. looked at people. An art critic and reviewer said her paintings of Robinson, Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and herself reveal… the Government; Stephen Rosen, Science and Technology Advisory “…the fact of her aging and the struggle against it. The decay of the Board; Celia Paul, Celia Paul Associates. body and the race against death became her great and enduring theme[she appears] trapped in personae, frenetically aware of the passing of time.” Cosmic Messengers --Richard Brody, 30 April 2012 New Yorker How much I used to know about cosmic radiation. Mars ice-

caps, X-raying volcanoes, Higgs Bosons. As I reviewed her images later in the day, a day we tried to make ordinary (just another ho-hum day in Paradise), her images What’s Good About Goodbye? stayed with us, burrowing into our awareness along with the other You don’t have to break glass to get air; you can open the window. sub-texts of getting older and sadder, maybe wiser… faculties dwindling and appearances decaying -- “you-look-great” notwith- Heroes Of Nine-Eleven standing. My friend Malcolm Pennington said: “The nice thing Untimely deaths of people I worked with about getting older is that even though our memory vanishes, every In Memoriam: Harding Willinger morning you meet the nicest people!” Eighty percent of him was greater than one hundred percent The title of these quasi-memoirs is “Youth, Middle-Age, and You- of anyone else. Look-Great Stephen Rosen” But after seeing her Art, I half-joked to Celia that my next volume of memoirs (if any) should be called, Obituary Notice As Imagined by the Author “Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Don’t-Look-So Hot-Anymore”. What he thinks he wants to be remembered for. a a 294 295 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TALENT AND GENIUS TRANSCRIPT: TRIBUTES & ROASTS, STEVE’S 75TH B-DAY Event: 26 April, 2009 @ 35 West 81st Street, NY NY 10024 (Actual birthday is 3 May)

CELIA PAUL Welcome everyone….our wonderful dear friends and relatives who have joined us to celebrate Steve’s 75th Birthday. I am so happy I married into this wonderful family, and I’m so proud of Sascha, Bela, Louie, and the movie “Throw Down Your Heart” at the International Film Center. It’s been a beautiful day and a weekend for the family get-together on the roof and here in our apartment. I also want to say how much I appreciate everybody’s support when Steve was sick, that so many people called to see how Steve was when he was in the hospital, and how many people called to see how I was doing. That was lovely. I was very appreciative of that. It’s been a wonderful 25 years—not just Steve’s 75th birthday, but also our 25th anniversary. I can’t believe Steve is 75. We’re going to hear the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, mostly I hope ‘ups’. I’ll turn this over now to Sascha.

SASCHA PALADINO Steve has asked me to host today. Celia has asked me too. I want to start off by saying that over the course of his 75 years, Steve has been called a lot of things…you know…father, brother, uncle, scientist, husband, friend, writer, career counselor, Jew, New Yorker, … hypochondriac…and he’ll be called a lot of other things today. I want to begin with a musical number I wrote especially for this occasion. So here is Abby to sing, and Bela to accompany her on the banjo…

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BELA FLECK time with Steve, and it was also in connection with the performing …playing riffs and intro to the tune of the Muppet Song… arts. When we were students at Queens College, I was conducting accompanied by Abby singing a Gilbert & Sullivan opera, called “Patience”. Now Steve was one of twenty Dragoon Guards, God help us. Now let me introduce a few ABBY WASHBURN little gestures. [Rises and makes believe he is pulling a sword out “It’s time to get things started/ It’s like a cabaret/ It’s time to of a scabbard, mimes raising it and lunging upward with the sword. greet Steve Rosen/ on his birthday// It’s time to stoke his ego/ LAUGHTER And sings, from Patience, “The en/e/my of one the en/e/ It’s time to make his day/ It’s time to get things going on Stevie’s my of all is”] So that was Steve’s role in the Dragoon Guards. The Birthday/ It’s time to raise the curtain/ If we don’t get things story is, that at one rehearsal, nineteen Dragoons went [lunges started/ This thing may take forever/On this most important sword upward again] and while Steve went [mimes Steve inserting day…If we don’t get things started on what we call the S-t-e-v-i-e his sword into his make-believe scabbard] singing, “the en/e/my of s-h-h-o-w-w-!” one, the en/e/my of all is”. LAUGHTER. Why he would keep doing BANJO RIFFING, APPLAUSE. LAUGHTER. that fifty or sixty years later, I have no idea. Eventually he’s going to be asked to sing as a Dragoon Guard in another production of SASCHA “Patience”…and that time he wants to get it right! Since Steve is the guest of honor, we want to make that clear. *Of blessed memory (1933-2013) So here’s a crown, or is it a barrette. [Steve puts on barrette and says, “I already have a few of these” to LAUGHTER] And we have a SASCHA PALADINO special present for Steve, which we sort of hope will set the tone Next we’d like to ask Paul Greenfield to come up. Paul and for today…[Sascha holds up a book, ‘STOP TALKING…A GUIDE Steve are friends for some forty years, and Paul is the model for TO LISTENING!’ which Steve holds up in front of his face, and Oscar Madison (Jack Klugman) in “The Odd Couple”, to Steve who says, ”I have about ten of these and it hasn’t helped! But I’m joining a was the model for Felix Ungar (Tony Randall). According to Lisa support group for the loquacious: On-and-On Anon.” LAUGHS] and Danny, Steve resembled very neat Felix Ungar—except once So first I would like to call up my father, Joe Paladino, Steve’s he married Celia, when he became the slobby-slob-like Oscar brother-in-law. APPPLAUSE. Madison, and Celia became the very neat Felix Ungar. And also Paul’s birthday was this Sunday. JOE PALADINO * In one of the little ironies of life, I—unaccustomed as I am to PAUL GREENFIELD public speaking—have to say something about Steve, who is thor- I’m a little bit older, but not by much. It’s difficult to recall oughly accustomed to public speaking. I can tell a little bit of a and remember all the things we were involved in, in all these story, which goes way back to 1953. You all know Steve’s accom- years, but one of the things I’ll remember was our first meeting. plishments in various fields…of course science, career counsel- We both came from similar backgrounds, recently both getting ing, and all of that professional stuff, and you also know about his divorced. And what do two guys do when they meet and are achievements in the arts—the visual arts, namely, his metal sculp- divorced? ….They run! And so we would meet at 5 am and jog up tures with found objects, and his photography, …and then there and down West End Avenue. And we wondered why nobody else are the performing arts. Steve as you know is quite the lyricist. was doing this. And then we realized that we were the leaders of He writes songs for special occasions. But I go back a long, long the whole city in jogging and running. Nobody used to run. And

298 299 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices then everybody caught on to it. I don’t think anybody has followed I had children. He had grand-children. We saw my children and me since. Nobody ever listened to anything I ever said or did any- his children and grand-children develop. He took me to Ireland way. So that’s how we got together. We had various and similar to see his grand-children…one of the best trips of our lives! My interests. He had a much more interest in women than I did. He life, at least. [Paul’s wife, Hilda, interjects, “Paul!” and Paul says was much better at it than me…I could never follow his lead….I “Sorry, Hilda”] Beside the trips with my wife. LAUGHTER. envied him, but that’s life. I had no responsibility; Steve ran the whole trip, which he does One of the things we used to do was to go skiing a lot. It was run everything anyhow. And we had a lot of wonderful experi- a lot of fun, and we took his children. I didn’t have any children ences, and I’m so happy to have been his friend all these years! then. I took my nephews. I didn’t have any nieces. We used to go APPLAUSE. [Steve rises to hug Paul, saying, “Paul doesn’t like to skiing with them a lot. But now I can’t go skiing with Steve any- hug, but I’m hugging him anyway.”] more, because we have only one set of skis for the two if us….and one set of boots. We are the same size, so they fit us both. One of CELIA these days I might get to use them. I just want to add about the skiing. We went to this very fancy And then we used to have adventures and misadventures. One ski shop, the Scandanavian Ski Shop…and we said here are two of the more memorable adventures, which turned out to be a very guys and they both want to use the same boots. And the salesman, serious misadventure… One of my brothers had a house and a says, “What? Are you CRAZY? The same boots for different feet?” So we sailboat on the North Fork of Long Island. It was a glorious spring told him that they are the same size, and they both use these boots. day. Just the two of us were there. There was a small sailboat that had a motor on it. STEVE Steve said, “Why don’t we go out sailing?” I said, “I’m not sure. It’s Paul forgot to say that he and I are exactly the same size…suit very windy and dangerous. There’s no one around, in case we get into trou- size, pants size, inseam, shoe size, jacket size, hat size…and in my ble”. But Steve said, in his own inimitable way, of getting his way, Will I’ve left him all of my clothes, and I think he may have done he said, “We’re gonna go!” And I said, “How about we leave the motor the same thing for me. here?” Steve said, “NO! WE HAVE TO TAKE THE MOTOR TOO!” So we go out into the ocean or the Great South Bay or the SASCHA Sound, whatever it is, and the wind was overwhelming! And sure Thank you, Paul. Next, we have Dave Robinson, Steve’s friend, enough, we capsize in this cold cold water! Maybe 40 degrees. I mentor, advisor, big brother,…a PhD in physics from Harvard at pictured the end of my life right then and there! Luckily, there age 22, room-mate of Tom Lehrer, science advisor in the Kennedy- was one person on shore observing us two idiots out there not Johnson Administration, Academic Provost at NYU, Senior Vice knowing how to sail….and he came and rescued us. President of the Carnegie Foundation. Because the motor fell off the capsized boat and into the ocean, my brother never forgave me for losing the motor. Luckily, we are DAVE ROBINSON here today only because that guy saw us and rescued us. We never Thank you. First let me tell you how Steve and I met. I met got his name. Steve exactly half his life ago, when he was 37.5 years old, and And we had a lot of good times together, like the tree-house! he has gracefully matured, since that time, I must say. I met him Has everyone seen the tree-house? APPLAUSE. when I was then at the Carnegie Foundation, and he wrote an

300 301 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices amazing Op-Ed piece for the Wall Street Journal, which was also them to go out and get jobs in the US economy…and how to do it amazing that they would run something like that. in a culture that they didn’t understand. What he did was he looked at book titles, and found how many But what was clear was the enormous affection he had for them, titles were in different categories, like cook-books, fiction, sociol- and the mutual affection they had for him. Once you know Steve, ogy, history, detective stories, for example, of each type—and how you’re an instant friend with Steve. I was extremely impressed by many titles in each category came out each year. He found there his ability to connect with people, with Russian scientists. Which I was a tremendous range…some years there were many Sociology had realized when he connected with me. He still has friendships book titles or fiction titles, say 15 thousand, and other years there with Russian scientists he helped. were much less…and he tried to correlate them (whispering: he He called me one day, and said he was engaged to Celia, and didn’t do that very well), but he tried to correlate them with what would like me to meet her. So I said, OK. I’ll take you both to was going on in society then. lunch at the Harvard Club. And we sat down, and I spent about And I just thought that was ingenious. And then my colleague three-quarters of an hour to an hour quizzing Celia. And at the Margaret Mahoney, the President of the Carnegie Foundation, end, I pulled him over, and I said, “She’s much too good for you!”. introduced us to each other. I invited Steve to lunch, which is what LAUGHTER. “You better marry her fast – before she recognizes this!...and Foundation officers do, at the Harvard Club, and here was a guy he took my advice, and…I think he would have taken it even if I hadn’t who was a physicist as I had been, and had moved to other fields given him advice” [Steve interjects, “What he really said is: ‘You’ve done very well!” as I had moved, and with an enormous range of interests. He had LAUGHTER] worked for Herman Kahn, the “Doctor Strangelove” of our soci- Dave says, “Yes. That is true. And of course Celia has been a ety. Herman Kahn, Steve will tell you, was a genius. [Steve inter- fabulous friend, companion, and influence on Steve these twenty jects “mega-genius”] five years.” But I will tell you that when I worked in the Kennedy-Johnson Steve, as you know, is a very talented song-writer and lyricist. administration on the President’s Science Advisory Committee, My problem is that, in 1944, when I was a sophomore at Harvard, we sat in on discussions of who should be the next member of I lived across the hall from a genius named Tom Lehrer, and we the committee…you know, working with all these Nobel Prize win- went through undergraduate and graduate school together, and ners. And at one meeting, somebody mentioned someone’s name, drove across the country, and we sang together. We put on a great and someone else said, “That man is a genius”. And I. I. Rabi, the show at Harvard, called “The Physical Review”[also the name of Columbia University Nobel prize winner, said, “Genius is easy to the premier scientific journal of physics] . One thing was clear in find. Judgement is very difficult to find”. And Herman Kahn fits that. our group. (Another guy there then was Lewis Branscomb, later Perfectly, in my view. LAUGHTER. head of research at IBM) What was very clear: there was a great In any event, Steve has an extra-ordinary range of intellec- difference between talent and genius….and Steve is really tal- tual interests. But what really brought me to admire him in one ented! Tom Lehrer, on the other hand…is, in fact, a genius. two-hour period occurred when he was dealing with the Russian Steve asked me to sing a song by Tom Lehrer….But there’s a scientists. story that goes with this song. And what I saw was not only the enormous skill with which he Danny Kaye, whose wife Sylvia Fine wrote his songs, used to was helping these Russian scientists, but the care he showed by sing a song…one song he did was called “Stanislavsy”…and in coming to this community, and helping them, and encouraging the song it says, the secret of acting success is “you must suffer. In

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Russian tragedy, everyone dies. In Russian comedy, everyone dies, but they where they have a lot of fountains, spraying streams very high in die happy!” So for the show Tom decided to write a song based the air. And Steve was really enamored with these fountains… he on Stanislavsky, only he wanted to use a famous mathematician, felt a kinship with these high-stream fountains. They went up to called Lobachevsky instead. Nicolai Ivanovitch Lobachevsky. The fifty feet in the air. Not only that, he took pictures of the foun- nice thing about this song is that it is sort of parody and plagiarism tains….and decided at one point to e-mail these photos of streams of Danny Kaye’s song “Stanislavsky”, of course with his permission. and fountains to his surgeon who did his (prostate) procedure, Now this song requires audience participation. Now, every time and to say, “I’m thinking of you!” I say ‘Nikolai Ivanovitch Lobachevsky was his name’, you say “Hai!” And people wondered why he was so happy to see these foun- DAVE ROBINSON sings “Lobachevsky” by Tom Lehrer tains, and the good part is I never had to see his own fountain. “Who made me the genius I am today/ The mathematician that others all quote?//Who’s the professor that made me that SASCHA PALADINO. way?/ The greatest that ever got chalk on his coat?”….You can And now a song, a favorite song of Steve’s, “You Make Me Feel So find Tom Lehrer himself singing at http://www.youtube.com/ Young” sung by Neil Rosen, accompanied by Bela Fleck… watch?v=UQHaGhC7C2E NEIL ROSEN sings… JEFFREY MORRIS You make me feel so young This may be a little more personal than Steve would like. As You make me feel like spring has sprung many of you know, I’m a physician, and Steve would often consult Every time I see you grin me. After he consulted all the biggest experts in Manhattan, he I’m such a hap/py in/di/vi/du/al makes me feel honored that he wants to talk to a plain country doctor like me. And I always enjoy doing it whenever he needs The moment that you speak medical advice, which is fairly frequent. I’m going to make my I want to go and play hide-and-seek remarks suitable for everyone over twenty-one. A little salty. I want to go and bounce the moon Aside from Steve’s great intellect, as we know…and now we Just like a toy balloon know that he’s more talented than genius, he is also very proud of his certain physical prowess. [Steve, in an aside: “How do you You and I, are just like a couple of tots know about that? LAUGHTER] Running across the meadow I hope none of this will be a violation of medical confidential- Picking up lots of for-get-me-nots ity. So one of our consults had to do with ‘How often Steve gets up at night’… (i.e. his prostate) Let’s just say that it involved “rivers and You make me feel so young streams”. You make me feel there are songs to be sung So Steve was not happy with his ‘streams’ his ‘flow’, his ‘fre- Bells to be rung, and a won/der/ful fling to be flung quency’ [of urination]. So Steve did his research, consulted world experts, had a “laser vaporization of his prostate” and called me to And even when I’m old and gray tell me he was very happy with the result. There was no examina- I’m gonna feel the way I do today tion on my part. But at one point right after his (prostate) surgery, Cause you make me feel so young. he was so happy with the result, we were at Longwood Gardens,

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STEVE SASCHA Wow! Great singing! Thanks! Neil…you make me feel so old! Now I’d like to bring up Elliott, Steve’s brother, the best man at his wedding…and still his best man. SASCHA PALADINO The next person to speak is Richard Lavenstein, Steve’s favor- ELLIOTT ite neighbor in East Hampton, fellow-song-writer, yard-sale pal, We were best man at each other’s weddings…and both wed- brilliant architect, designer of Steve & Celia’s apartment kitchen dings “took”… we’re all still happily married… THIS TIME! You all in New York, their living room in East Hampton, and consultant know I’m nine years older than Steve. [Crowd shouts “YOUNGER on the Tree-house project, which he told Steve not to build unless THAN STEVE!”] And fortunately I’m still nine years younger than he strengthened the platform with steel struts… Steve. Being a little kid, I was probably a nuisance to Steve. [Steve shakes his head NO] RICHARD LAVENSTEIN We had to share a bedroom, Steve and I. Barbara had her own I didn’t write a song for this occasion, because I thought there bedroom. I’m not going to talk about the stream. I do remember was too much competition. I have a very short story to tell you. hiding under the covers when Steve had girlfriends over in our When I bought my house, the people who sold it to me said, bedroom. [Steve says: “That never happened.”] “We have only one piece of advice for you…Stay away from your neigh- I remember I had my little rubber duck in the bath-tub, and bors”. I didn’t take their advice….and the best thing about my you took it away from me. Remember? But I don’t hold it against house is that Celia and Steve are my neighbors. you. SASCHA [Steve interjects: “Elliott called it his ‘fubby duck’, not his rub- The next person to speak is Steve’s cousin Kiki. ber duck. And I did not take it away! I just needed it for something else!] KIKI NELSON As you know, our father owned a car wash a few blocks away on When I was a little kid, the Rosens lived in a great house in 181st Street. Steve, being older, was asked rather forcefully by Dad, Flushing. It was beautifully decorated….and it had a rich green when Steve got old enough, to work for him at the car wash. I did wall-to-wall carpet. And in the corner was the grand piano and the also, later on when I got to be of age. Steve didn’t really want to piano bench…. They also had a little dog named “Suzy-Q” , a black work at the car wash. and white toy bull-dog. Suzy-Q had peed a few times on the green The same piano Kiki brought up earlier…I hid under neath carpet near the piano bench. One day, my cousin Steve started to when Steve and Dad had a big knock-down drag-out fight over tickle me on the floor near the bench. I think I was five, and that working at the car wash. Mom was away. And I hid under the piano, would have made Steve twenty. and maybe that’s what you were smelling…not Suzy-Q’s pee. Mine. Well, I peed on that floor, right where Suzy-Q peed. [Elliott We had to clean up the place before Mom came home… interjects, “And the dog took the blame?” LAUGHTER] I don’t Our father was also a bit of a car nut. Steve’s first car was a remember what happened after that. But I was embarrassed. You junker, a 1938 Chevvy, falling apart. You could hear it coming up had embarrassed me. [Steve interjects: “Do you have bladder control the street because the muffler was broken. Steve and Dad and I now?” LAUGHTER] got under the car and fixed the muffler with old juice cans, that were made of tin, and Steve wrapped the cans around the muffler with these juice cans, the ends of which you cut out, and tied to

306 307 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices the muffler with insulation and baling wire or coat hangers. I was You’ll get real freakish, everybody does it now very impressed. Doctors, lawyers, gigolos, cops It’s interesting, Paul, that you mentioned the story about the all come here to heat their chops sailboat. My last story is similar to your sailboat story, Paul. In my Everybody does it now, come on let me show you how first marriage, we rented a house in Bayville, on the great south Don’t get ‘dicted, everybody does it now bay of Long Island. I bought a little day sailor. Remember? Grampa Jarrell lay me low Steve came out one weekend and said, “Oh. I know how to sail”. I’m putting new tunes in this old banjo So we took the sailboat out. It must have been the same windy day Everybody does it now, let me show you how like you and Paul went out on. The same thing happened to us. Watch’em do the shimmy, everybody does it now It was windy and choppy and the motor fell off -- and went right Two time mamas all in dutch down to the bottom. I’m still making payments on that motor. But Out the backdoor, men too much it was another adventure. Everybody does it now, let me show you how Try to catch ‘em at it, everybody does it now SASCHA Mamas keep their papas broke Now, a special request from Steve…a song by Abby and Bela. and lose them because they lost their stroke Everybody does it now, come on let me show you how STEVE You really can’t blame ‘em, everybody does it now. I want to tell you about this wonderful woman Abby Washburn …the newest youngest member of our family, shortly to be mar- SASCHA ried to Bela. We’re very happy that they chose each other. She’s a Now, Bela’s going to speak. big big talent. LAUGHTER. BELA FLECK She spends a lot of time in China. She’s fluent in Chinese. Good judgment. Taking Louie, Danny, Lisa, and me to see the She sings and plays in Chinese. She’s gorgeous. The two of them Marx Brothers movies…all of them. were at the Olympics in Beijing, by invitation! (They open for Pete Bad judgment. Taking Louie and Danny and Lisa and me, and Seeger’s 90th birthday Celebration and Gala at Madison Square showing us that you could drive at sixty miles an hour without your Garden this Sunday!) hands. [Steve: “You remember that? I don’t remember that?] ABBY AND BELA Steve was always taking us to see and hear all that old music… Performing and singing “Everybody’s Doin’ It Now, Wont You Tell ”Rhapsody In Blue”…and those kinds of movies and music. Me How” There’s lots of other bad judgment, but I can’t remember it all. Hear that mu/sic nice and sweet Taking me skiing…and abandoning me on the beginner’s slope, Come on ba/by let’s warm our feet so you could go off and ski. I was able to get on the lift myself. Everybody does it now, come on let me show you how [Steve: “I don’t remember this at all.”] Work it Ms Fanny, everybody does it now But I have to say the good judgment outweighs the bad judg- Went upstairs to drink some cider ment for me. The stuff that I learned about music and what came Seen a big bug lovin’ a spider before, were worth all the bumps and bruises. I love you very Everybody does it now, come on let me show you how much.

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I greatly admired Oscar and George when I was a kid. The dif- SASCHA ference between talent and genius: Oscar and George were to You know that Steve and Celia have helped a lot of people with perform at a concert in Pittsburgh traveling by overnight train, their career counseling. We could actually have a group counsel- and they discussed who gets the upper berth. And Gershwin said, ing session right now. So I kind of adapted a few things from your he did, because there’s a difference between talent and genius. book [“Career Renewal”]. I want to read some portions to everyone now, related to Steve …So you can figure out a few questions SASCHA for him… What better way to demonstrate that difference than to have Would you describe Steve as an introvert or an extrovert? Steve sing one of his songs. What are his strengths? Jogging. His weaknesses? Lack of concentration? Not listening? Vanity? STEVE So what are the things you love the most about him? Intelligence. If you get bored you can leave. Good looks. Hair. All of the above? I’m going to sing a love song to my wife, because the best way to Well, based on all of that, according to this here book, “Career celebrate my existence is to celebrate hers….This song used to be Renewal”, you should be –guess what -- a career counselor! called “You’re The Top”, by Cole Porter, but now it’s called “Hymn To Her”, words by Steve Rosen. [See the lyrics in the chapter, STEVE “Singin’ In The Brain”.] (Performance available on Your Tube I want everyone to know that Richard Lavenstein gave me this sung by Steve a capella at a lunch in East Hampton at www.you- great gift…a cover of Life Magazine, circa 1949, showing J. Robert tube.com/Watch?v=586LyHMuqOE&feature=youtu.be ) Oppenheimer on the cover, and it’s signed by the great man. And now: A few, very few, words. I promise to keep this short… Richard wanted me to know that he bought this great gift for me. There was a nineteenth-century general who said “Today, we He’s been telling me this for six months now. stand at the edge of a deep dark abyss; Tomorrow, we take a giant step forward.” KIKI Well, I stood at the edge of a deep dark abyss about a month We have a present for you. Special. A photograph of Albert ago, (when I nearly died of a stroke) and I did not take that giant Einstein from the archives, to be returned when the recipient step forward, in large part because of Celia’s care, and excellent reaches 120 years old. Very valuable. doctors, and I feel very fortunate to be still vertical, as my childhood friend Justin McCarthy puts it. STEVE I’m still vertical, and I’m very very very happy to be here with Opening the gifts. “I always admired Einstein the physicist, my favorite relatives and friends celebrating my 75th. and the person, and I discovered pretty late that there is a difference between talent and genius…and I wasn’t it.” “That’s a great shot of Einstein!” “Beautiful” “Einstein in Jerusalem” limited edi- a tion….never published…”Thank you!” Lisa brought me a photo of Oscar Levant about nine months ago, assuming I was going to be alive today, which I am. [Despite my stroke and GI bleed.]

310 311 “Career Change Among Scientists” Rockefeller University November 13, 1997 TRANSCIPT Panelists: Joseph Atick, President and CEO of Visionics Corporation, and Rockefeller University David Z. Robinson, Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and the Government Stephen Rosen, Science and Technology Advisory Board Celia Paul, Celia Paul Associates

JOSEPH ATICK Good morning, everyone. Thank you for coming. My name is Joseph Atick. I’m the head of the Computational Neuroscience Lab at Rockefeller University. You are here today at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology for a really special event. I’m actually very honored to be hosting this event. This is something I’m very passionate about: Career Renewal. We have with us today the two authors, Steve Rosen and Celia Paul. And of course, David Z. Robinson. I’d like to say just a few words about my own career renewal, then give the ﬂoor to David, and then give you a chance to interact with the authors -- who will answer any questions you may have. I used to be a high energy physicist many years ago. I went to Princeton full of enthusiasm for a subject called string theory, a study of how all forces in nature can be uniﬁed into a single theory. One of the things at that time in my career that I recognized was our inability to make a connection between what we were working on and experiments. At that time, I perceived a strong meaning for career transition because I felt the thing that drove me to excitement with the ability to understand... as a scientist was something that was going to be. And since we could not do experiments, I could not stay in that subject.

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At that time, being in the hot and fashionable subject like able to sit on a panel with these distinguished people. So, without high energy physics and making a career move was taboo. It was any further delay, I’d like to introduce David Z. Robinson who is frowned on. What made it worse for me was the fact that the col- the director of the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, leagues around me, as I made the transition, were very discourag- and the Government. ing. This is like a personal relationship when you break up. When you break up, you’re somewhat in limbo; you have not made the DAVID Z. ROBINSON transition. People say, well, you’re going to go back, get together Steve asked me to say a few words about my five careers and again, and return to your original field. how they happened. Most of the time, my career changes hap- I basically burned my bridges right away because I knew if I did pened to me with more or less serendipity. I didn’t really have a not, they were going to pull me back in. All along, the physicists conscious plan. But I do like the term “career renewal,” which is were very negative about that, and that made making my career the title of the book, because I think career renewal is important. transition very uncertain, very difficult. For a period of two years, And you can have career renewal sometimes in the same job by actually, I could not get a single paper published. I came from a doing, starting and doing, totally new things and advancing. field where in physics only one paper out of two dozen that I wrote I started out as a bench scientist. l got out of graduate school in came back with a request for revisions. I went into a new field, I 1949, as a physical chemist. This was right after World War II and was totally unknown. It was exciting that I walked into conferences the universities had expanded tremendously to take care of the and nobody knew anything about me. And so I could say things veterans that came back. But then after three or four years, the vet- that were dumb; but at the end of the day, I did not care about erans had graduated and the universities were shrinking and there that. In the meantime, since I was not known, I was not publishing, were no academic jobs. I found a job-—l had done work in infra- there was a point in my career where it was difficult. You look back red spectroscopy—and that was the first job I really looked for, in a and on one side (my first career) those people are angry at you company that made optical, electronic, and infrared instruments. and the other side (my second career) those new people have not I went to work for the company that made the same instru- yet accepted you. And it‘s very sad because science should not be ments that I worked on in my graduate work. I spent ten years that way. Science should allow an open transition from one field in the lab. I was sort of a theoretical experimentalist. That is, I to another, and allow people to take their ideas from one field to could figure out good experiments to do, but I was sort of a klutz another. What I really liked about this book, “Career Renewal”, is in terms of actually doing them. Fortunately, they gave me a cou- that it’s filled with wonderful testimonials from people who strug- ple of assistants. Whenever I was working with my experiments, gled with these experiences. Steve and Celia have done a wonder- if something would go wrong, I would start to move towards the ful job in taking those experiences and deriving lessons that are spectrometer to fix it. All of a sudden I’d find three people stand- very useful to anybody who is contemplating a career change. So, ing in front of me pushing me back. They‘d say, “OK, Dave. We’ll for me, I really wish this book would have existed ten years ago fix it.” I got my machines fixed before anyone else because they because it would have made my life a lot simpler. But even for knew if I had come close to and started to fix it, they would have to someone who is not contemplating a career change, this makes spend another two weeks fixing it instead of just a couple of hours. for wonderful reading. I enjoyed reading about people who have When you’re working in industry, you can’t take a sabbatical, gone through similar things that I have gone through, and who but I thought I needed a sabbatical. I had known some people in came to understand how they ended up making their own career the Office of Naval Research and I said, “Do you have a London transition. So, I’m really honored to have the opportunity to be branch?” And the Office of Naval Research has a scientific liaison

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that lets scientist go over and visit laboratories. This was after WWII. and I was arguing about should they put choppers in front of the There wasn’t the same kind of connection between European sci- exit slit instead of the entrance slit. Things like that. ence and American science that it has become, because the war Then the next year, I found that I was going only to the invited just separated the people. So I said, “Do you have a spot for me?” papers, the 30 minute papers. George Wald would talk about the And they said, “Yes. We’d love to have you.” So, I quit my job and eye and how it worked and so forth. went over to England and became in effect, a science journalist. The third and fourth year, I found that I was spending most of I went to scientific meetings. I had been active in the Optical my time standing in the corridors talking to my friends and not Society and I knew a number of these European scientists, some going to the papers at all. What I was doing… I was sort of a -- I was of the leaders. So, I could visit their labs, and so forth. By chance, working in communications and general science and I worked on I had an opportunity. And it was very interesting. I told a lot of the future of high-energy physics so that Joseph Atick here could European scientists what was going on in the United States before have something to do 30 years later. it was published and was able to write back to American scientists I got all kinds of letters. All kinds of people wrote to the White and tell them interesting people they should visit when they went House. A professor from Swarthmore wrote the White House at to Europe. It was a wonderful experience. And it’s nice living in the time of the space program and he said, “You know, there is a London, too, particularly on an American salary in 1959 and ‘60. lot of radiation in space and that can cause damage to future gen- I had happened to meet somebody who was working for the erations. And it’s lonely up there in space and I think you should President’s science advisor. George Kistiakowsky was Eisenhower’s send Trappist monks in space because they’re celibate, and they’re Science Adviser. I thought had a job offer to work in the White not going to have any children and they don‘t talk.” So, I was House. And, so I decided not to go back to the company that I had given this letter: Respond to this letter. So I started out by saying, gone to, and decided I would go to the White House. Unfortunately, “You know, it’s really great. After you put chimps in space, we’ll I was the first person turned down by the White House because I put monks in space.” That was a lot of fun… writing that letter. was an active ADA Democratic in Massachusetts before I had gone But I did learn that you can‘t get anything done in Washington over to England. The Republican administration didn’t think that in two years. And so, I extended my leave. For those of you who I could be very useful for the Republican President of the United are scientists, I figured my “time constant” was about two years of States. Kistiakowsky was science adviser whom I knew because I declining scientific competence. After four years I was one over had done my graduate work in his department. This was 1960 and e-squared, which is 14% of my capability, and I didn’t know what he didn’t know what was going to happen, so he said he couldn’t my recovery time was going to be. So, I stayed on in Washington. fight for me. I said that was fine; the President should only have And by chance, NYU was looking for a Vice President of advisors that he likes. So, I went back to work to my company. Science, and when they offered it to me, and I heard the Vice Two to three months later, in the election of 1960, it turned out President of Social Science and Humanities was going to be the that being an ADA Democrat from Massachusetts wasn’t too bad. president of Clark University, I said if they combined the two jobs The Office of Science Advisory continued and I went to work for and made it Vice President of Academic Affairs I would come up. Jerome Weisner, later the president of MIT, who was Kennedy’s So, I found myself, after worrying about 14 billion dollars Science Advisor. So, I went from being a scientist to facilitating sci- worth of research that the government was doing and then wor- ence work for people. I took a two year leave from the company. I rying about approving the hiring of a new professor at $12,000 a found that I still went back to the Optical Society meetings, but the year in 1967, which is what the salary was at that time. Going from first year, I was going to the ten minute papers, detailed papers, huge things to detailed things.

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In a few years, I went to the Carnegie Foundation and nine that they were able to be successful. One population that inhabits years ago we started a Commission on Science, Technology, and the book are the career change champions. And what it means to Government. I went back and (Nobel Laureate) Joshua Lederberg, be a career change champion is discoverable by interviewing these who was the co-chair, and Bill Golden asked if I would be will- people and hearing them talk. Joseph and Dave are walking, talking to be Executive Director of it. I went trying to manage a big ing case histories, and there are many more in the book. When foundation -- I was Vice President and Treasurer of the Carnegie you talk to them and listen to them carefully and read their stories, Foundation at the time -- to trying to put together all of my former you understand that careers are very complicated. Career changes careers in one, because the Commission tried to deal with how the and turning points and career-decision making patterns are very government could use scientific information more effectively. complicated. It depends on how old you are when you do it--you We looked at the White House in the first report, then to notice we have an age spectrum of career change champions here. Congress, then the judicial system. I was just at a meeting yester- The idea of career well-being based on physical health as a day at the National Academy of Sciences trying to deal with the metaphor came to us when I read that Hippocrates 25 centuries judicial system. I think that the key, to me at least, has been having ago said that what’s more important than what ailment the person has interests in outside areas and try and follow up in areas where I is what person has the ailment. And so in career terms, we think and had interest. Even politics; I was interested in disarmament issues we‘ve observed thousands of individuals, examples of what per- when I was working in industry, and I worked evenings at those son has the career, what career the person has--and these examples kinds of questions and political issues. So, I get a chance to get inhabit the book, a population of people who need help, who ask to meet and know people in other areas, and to keep active as a for help. Very often, scientists find it’s very hard for them to ask scientist and to keep active in my profession, being willing to try… for help--largely because of their training--and Celia will say a little and being interested in other things. more about that. I am part of the book too, somewhat hidden, In any event, I didn’t have the benefit of reading “Career but I myself have made a few career changes which I will briefly Renewal” and I wish I did because I got where I did by serendip- mention. ity and good luck and people happened to come by that I had I worked for IBM as a research scientist, I was an academic been involved with in other areas. But, I think others will have the physicist, I did research in the origins of cosmic radiation, creation benefit of the exercises and the disciplined assessment process in of proton and anti-proton pairs in interstellar space--something the book, and I’d like Steve to tell you about it that was not going to make me rich. I ended up doing industrial research for a large corporation in New Jersey and then I STEVE ROSEN met Herman Kahn -- the so-called ‘evil genius, Dr. Strangelove’-- Thank you, Dave. Our book wasn’t around when these guys who was the head of an infamous organization called the Hudson wanted to change their careers. But, I have to tell you that nei- Institute, and had written several very provocative books. One was ther of these guys needed this book, nor do they need the book called, “On Thermonuclear War”, probably the most unusual book now because each of them invented, and reinvented, themselves on the subject since Von Clausewitz’s book on war a century ear- on their own. They are two examples of a class of maybe a hun- lier; and another book called “The Year 2000”. I ended up writing dred individuals who were interviewed for the book whom we have a book inspired by “The Year 2000” called “Future Facts”. The next come to call “career change champions.” The simple reason is that thing I knew I was in the book publishing business. they changed careers on their own with no outside help. They say, I migrated from that to investment banking and about seven and I believe them, that each career was satisfying to them and years ago I started a non-profit foundation called Science &

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Technology Advisory Board quite by accident. A Russian refugee- asked, “what were the choices open to you at the time, what were scientist who had come here from the former Soviet Union at the the alternatives at the time, what were your rationales for making end of the Cold War -- and there was a whole flood of them during the choice that you made at the time, and finally, in retrospect, Glasnost and Perestroika -- came to ask for some advice through how did it work out and would you do it again differently.” (Yogi some mutual acquaintances. He had a double PhD and was driv- Berra, that famous scientist said, “When you come to a fork in the ing a cab at that point. I helped him to get a job in his original spe- road, take it.”) It‘s not so simple. cialty, rheology, and he must have told his friends where he lived Now, because of the patterns that are a function of our person- in Brooklyn -- Little Odessa they call it, Brighton Beach. The next alities -- the person we are not the career we have -- it’s possible to thing I knew… there was a line of Russian emigre scientists outside make systematic mistakes. Or, it’s also possible to make one mis- our door asking for help. take and maybe it’s a little mistake and maybe it’s early in your So I went to some wealthy friends and a couple of foundations career, before you have a chance to know yourself well or the and we started a non-profit organization and eventually helped ways of the world well. But, unfortunately, we’re called upon to some 400 Russian refugee scientists to find jobs here in their origi- make these career decisions very early. In chaos theory, there is an nal specialties. Incidentally, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation came effect called the “butterfly effect.” a metaphor created by Edward along and observed the program and pointed out to me that what Lorentz that small errors amplify: A butterfly flapping its wings we were doing for Russian refugee scientists had to be done for in Iowa can produce a monsoon in India, in principle. In career American scientists as well. The end of the Cold War had not only terms, a small wrong turn in the road now can get you very lost diminished the job opportunities for Russians in Russia but for later on. The question is: How do we know that we’re making a American scientists in America. ‘wrong turn’ when the trees obscure the forest? When I look back at my own career decision-making patterns In my own case, I can say, in retrospect, all of those different in this recitation of six or seven different careers, I see that the careers that I just described to you made me an expert in “career simple pattern of my career changes was that I had a short atten- change”. I also discovered later in life that I really like to help peo- tion span. Each of those jobs that I described lasted for only a ple. To me, at this point in my life -- I‘m 63 -- I made the most inevi- couple of years. Each person has their own career decision-making table career choice in the last seven years, but it didn‘t seem that pattern which they’re not always aware of until later, sometimes way along the way. Very often I would wake up and say, “Investment when it‘s too late, only later when one looks at it in retrospect. banking?” But now I wake up and say, “Gee, this is really great. I’m The reasons we decide on a given career when young are often looking forward to the day.” shrouded from our own view, often until much later when we can Let me tell you, a wonderful story about George Gershwin; look back with some perspective. when he went to Paris he visited Maurice Ravel. He asked if he We have an exercise in the book that allows one to look at the could study harmony and composition with Ravel, and Ravel said, major turning points, the major branches, the major forks in their “Why be a second-rate Ravel, when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?“ So, career trajectory: Such as what high school you decided to go to, all of us would like to think that we can be the best person we can what college you decided to go to, what major you decided, what be, the most fulfilled, and use to the maximum those skills that graduate school you decided to go to, what specialty in graduate we most enjoy using. Let me quote some of the comments that school, what mentor you decided to work for, your first post-doc we’ve excerpted from an inventory of what “career change cham- position, your second post-doc position. At each of those junc- pions,” say were beliefs and activities they felt were instrumental tures, and the exercise in the book shows how to do it, you are in helping them help themselves change career directions. These

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are some of the hallmarks. They are exact quotes. I’ll read only a you change careers until you find a good or the best fit to who you few of them.... are, answer the items and let us know your results, we’d be happy “My work is worthy expression of my life.” to interpret them for you. “I know who I am.” I want to tell you two more stories. David McClelland is a sociol- “I think about how my career changes me as a person.” “I lead ogist who studied the sociology of science, and found that among a balanced life.” “I have a sense of my intellectual capacity.“ scientists there is a need for achievement. Among scientists, he “Logical, systematic, and scientific thinking is useful in many found that it is very common for scientists to want to work in a venues.” “I am uncomfortable if large aspects of myself are community of great men and great women. He also found that undeveloped.” scientists tend to have a belief in their comparative failure as scien- “I do whatever has the most positive impact, given my abilities.” tists, obviously not unrelated to the desire to work in a community Some of these are from the same people; we’ve got a hundred of great scientists. These are hindrances. These are hindrances to ease histories like this. careers, straight path careers, and career changes. “I’m intense about my family my friends and my work.” I want to tell a story about Thomas Edison, who invented the “I feel satisfaction when I help others.“ incandescent light bulb among other items. He was trying to find “Being right is the scientists’ disease.” the correct substance that would make an incandescent light bulb “My career is filled with fortuitous events and serendipity.” “I light up, while enclosed in an evacuated, glass enclosed envelope, learn by imitating my betters.” and would stay lit. Nowadays we use tungsten, but they didn’t know “Most of my jobs came to me.” that. At three o’clock one morning, after years of trying one sub- “I solve my bosses’ problems, not my own.” stance after another, he came upon a substance that worked. The “I shrug off adversity with ease and good humor.” “I have had bulb lit up and it stayed lit. And of course he shouted, “Eureka!” many good mentors.“ which means ‘I have found it’. And he wanted to run to tell some- “I know what’s important to me.“ body; he was very excited. The only person around was his wife “I view my career as an activity embedded within the flow of who was sleeping. So he went to her bedside and shook her shoul- life.” der and he said something like, “Honey, come see what I’ve done!“ “My intelligence is a way to make others feel good.” And she rolled over and woke up and said, “Tom, why don’t you just I think you’ll agree that people who believe those statements turn out the light and come to bed!” Now sometimes I feel like Thomas -- and Joseph and David are excellent examples of them -- if they Edison, and sometimes my wife Celia feels like Mrs. Edison. were to go through these questions, they would score at the upper- To get practical, when you’re looking for a job and looking to most right tail of a normal distribution of people. People who live change your career, you create your resume. This representation and really believe those statements don’t see them as platitudes. of you, your resume, is almost like Edison‘s comments “look what They actively believe and act upon those beliefs. And so, they have I’ve done.” But, you give your resume to people who are like Mrs. a constellation of career behaviors, career attitudes which we have Edison: “Turn out the light and come to bed.” This is merely a been able to identify and as a gold standard against which we can piece of paper. “Turn out the light.” Your resume is never as good compare ourselves. And that leads us to the Career Well-Being as you are. Inventory. A short version, Career Health Lite, you will find on the We have discovered through trial and error that it’s strategic handouts. And if you‘d like to try your hand at comparing yourself not to give out resumes -- and a lot of error -- and we teach people to the “gold standard” of “career-well-being” which occurs when who are going to change careers that they‘re going to make a lot

322 323 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices of errors, and so we urge them to make their errors quickly, since way to get involved in the process is really to get involved in the everyone is going to make errors. The resume should be the last process—which is to begin to do exercises. If we had more time, step before one gets a job or before one changes careers. The sim- particularly for the students who are here, we would begin the ple reason is, the subtext of a resume is “I want a job; give me a job.” process for you, but because we want to keep this short--we know It’s almost begging, although it may not seem like that. Because if everyone has a busy day and we appreciate your coming early in you receive a resume, you automatically assume that whoever is the morning--I’m just going to make a few remarks about what I submitting this resume, even if you get it second-hand or third- see is the most important aspects of any career transition. hand from someone else, that someone needs a job, wants a job, is Actually, I’m going to focus on one aspect, because in thinking desperate. And so that’s not the best way to present yourself. What about the difference between the “career change champions” and we have found is much more useful, is a one-page biography which the people I see daily who need help—I guess for me, one of the can be shaped individually to each job opening. Nevertheless, most challenging and satisfying parts of the book was interviewing employers ask for resumes. You have to be very clever to avoid giv- the people who had made successful career changes with Steve. In ing then one because, and one of the things we urge candidates to my own work and practice--basically I see people all day long who say when asked for a resume is, “My resume is not yet as good as I am.” are having difficulties with their careers. That’s why they‘re com- That’s always true, because it‘s only a piece of paper. ing to see me. So, it was really a very satisfying experience to talk We have a resume for Horatio Admiral Lord Nelson, which I to people who had been so successful without seeking my help. didn’t include in the book. It shows how foolish resumes can look, And looking at what was the difference between where they were, in a humorous way, because it starts off by saying how he was edu- and where the people who are coming for help are, I think we still cated in the Royal Navy midshipman school and that despite the don’t have all the answers to that -- and it’s going to be an ongoing lack of one eye and one arm, he can row a boat, shoot weapons, process that we’ve begun by developing this inventory on career climb masts, and govern a Navy. Of course, knowing his accom- well-being. plishments in this light, makes his resume seem superfluous. But, it seems to me that one of the most important ingredients I think I’m lucky in that I get to use, if not all of the skills for the career-change champions is that they had confidence that I’ve acquired over the life I’ve had, then very many of them in my the skills that they had could be transferred to many other fields. present career. And I’d wish the same for everyone. It’s easier in On the other hand, with clients that come in for career help, it’s retrospect to see how “inevitable” my current career is; but in pros- very difficult for them to have the confidence that the skills that pect -- if you can figure out, and the book tells you how to do this they have right now can be used in other ways. -- you can figure out what in retrospect would appear to have been And I think, particularly being a specialist or a professional, inevitable…then, that’s your career! Now, here’s a woman who means that your training is very specific and deep, and the way has treated me as if I were her equal for 12 years of marriage, and you become successful as a lawyer, as a doctor, as a scientist, is a year or so of writing this book, herself a career changer. She‘s by focusing on a very specific area and working very hard to mas- probably the country’s leading expert on the career problems of ter that area. And the idea that these skills can be broadened to attorneys and physicians: Celia Paul. be used in a totally different area, and having the vision to be able do that, and the confidence to do it, I think is very difficult. CELIA PAUL Perhaps, I haven‘t really proved this, but it would be an interest- Thank you. I always find it a little frustrating to try to speak ing hunch to test out that people who are highly credentialed -- as briefly about how you go about a career transition because the best Steve refers to them as “educated beyond their abilities to market

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themselves”—-perhaps people who are less educated may have less able to see a cluster of skills that you have that you can use in difficulty seeing those connections to other fields because they another or different area from the one you wish to leave. And the may have broader viewpoints. I’m not sure; that’s just a hunch. good news about professionals is although their training is narrow And we hope in our future work to be able to do more research or specific and deep in particular areas, they do have a lot of the on the Career Well-Being Inventory and to test it out with other skills --sometimes a bushel basket full -- that are necessary to make groups. So, we’ll see how it works out. successful transitions. To me, the most critical element in making a career transi- One of the things that I find very satisfying about my work is tion is to look at your values: what‘s important to you in your life, that the people I have helped, once they have a focus and a sense what kind of trade-offs are you willing to make when you make a of what they’d like to do, and what’s going to work for them -- transition. Maybe you’ll get more money in a particular job, maybe they are able to do it. They have the “follow-through skills,” they‘re you’ll have more independence in another, maybe you’ll be able organized, they’re intelligent, they know how to work with a lot to take a sabbatical in one, and you won’t in the other. So, by the of different data at the same time, so that they are able to really way, in interviewing the “career-change champions” also, as you follow a path that they have selected and persist in making the can see from the two people besides us who came today, is that transition. they’re very humble people, and it’s often hard to get them to talk We also encourage you to look at the skills that you have that about what they actually did. And they will often, not just David you enjoy using. Skills that you don’t enjoy using are often called and Joseph, but a lot of the people who were interviewed, would “killer skills,” skills that you have developed in your field because often say it was luck or circumstance. Now obviously, luck plays you’ve had to develop them because you needed them in order to some part in that, but Louis Pasteur and career counselors say, succeed in that field, but you don’t really like them and you want “chance favors the prepared mind.” So, people who are in the right to do something else that meets your own personal values and that place, but also ready to make that move and have the confidence uses skills that you find rewarding. that they can, are obviously going to be more successful. I‘ve seen In addition to the “career-change champions“, there are exam- many situations in my own work where clients have had an oppor- ples in the book of people who have gone through the process tunity almost right in front of them and they don’t see it because that I’m describing to you. There’s one, particularly, that I’ll refer they’re in a mind-set that they think that they can’t do that. If you you to whose name is Donna Ferrandino who talks about how she think you can’t do something, you probably can’t. didn’t have a good sense of direction until she worked through Another aspect of career change...there’s a very extensive skills her skills; but then she didn’t have a good sense of where they inventory in the book which is a good way to derive your most would fit. She describes the process in our book that she goes enjoyable and transferable skills by extracting them from your through to figure out how she can use those skills to work at a dif- most enjoyable accomplishments. ferent career. Don’t take “accomplishments” too literally; professionals are Lastly, I just want to say that I find a very important aspect for always saying, “That isn‘t really an accomplishment.” “I went to people to focus on is that the process of career transition some- Harvard Law School but I didn’t have to work that hard to get in times seems very daunting and you’re over “here,” and you want there.” So you want to, really, look at things you’ve done that are to go over “there.” Not only do you not know what “there” is—so important to you, personally, and analyze those accomplishments it feels like an abyss over there—but you also feel like, “How am I or achievements, and see what skills you used in order to accom- possibly going to get from this point to that point?” And you can even plish them. This exercise helps you do that, and you will then be feel that way once you have a sense of direction. “That’s so far

326 327 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices away from what I’m doing now. How can I possibly do that”? And then that will be a little more. If you want to change to something you become paralyzed, you can‘t move and you stay where you which uses very different skills, and you may have to go to school are because you can’t figure out the steps that you need to take. and add things, that’s going to be even more. I always ask people What I find is helpful is that you focus on taking small steps—we who’ve made transitions, when they speak, to talk about how the sometimes call them “baby steps”—and just taking one step at a process itself—because sometimes, when you read books, and I time, and doing one thing every day. Or, however it works for think you’ll find in this book we tried not to do that, it looks as if you. But, that will help you get into motion. There is a saying, one day someone was a lawyer, and the next day they’re a graphic “Imperfect motion is better than perfect paralysis.” Sometimes taking designer. You don’t really get a sense of what they went through. a little step, or taking a job which isn’t exactly what you want On the average, with the attorneys who are probably one of the but it’s going to lead you in the direction that you want to go, is largest groups of career transition professionals that have been important to get you moving. I don’t want to take too much of studied, it’s anywhere from six months to a year, year and a half. your time. We want to allow some time for questions. I thank you And that’s probably an average. And that’s from the beginning all for coming. thinking stages to the employment and the new position.

AUDIENCE MEMBER AUDIENCE MEMBER About how much time do you think one person should allow Is it better to be in a position and feeling your way toward new to get from where they are currently in their career to the next ones? Or say, shucks, I’m not interested in this one, and go off and phase? I mean, you talked about little steps, but to get from where have a lot of time to do your resume which is not going to be help- you are to where you really want to be? How much of a time frame ful. I have found that it’s much easier to make a switch if you are are we talking about‘? working somewhere where they’d like to keep you.

ROSEN ROSEN I often say that’s like asking the question: How long is a string? Where they know that you want to leave? Joseph had the luxury And the answer is: It depends. It depends on how many hours a of the five year post-doc. week you’re willing to invest in the change. It may have taken you a good many years to get where you are. And to get to where you’d ATICK like to be can take years, a year, six months, and sometimes less. Yeah, that was an opportunity. I knew. But I also knew that I Celia just mentioned the abyss. There’s a Brazilian general in the had to make the transition as fast as possible. I had to burn my 19th century who said, “Today we stand at the edge of a deep abyss. bridges [back to high energy physics]. It’s very important not to Tomorrow we take a giant step forward.” look back because if you know exactly where you want to be--the problem that I find with a lot of people--when they see it as an CELIA PAUL uphill struggle, they roll back. I had to burn the bridges. This Another thing it depends on is how far it is from what you‘re reminds me: when the Arabs invaded Spain. There was a warrior doing now to what you want to do. So, if you want to get another who led the invasion, and the first thing he did when the landed job in your own field, for example—if your job isn‘t working out on the shore...he ordered all the ships burned. He burned the and you want to get another job in that field—that‘s going to be entire Armada. And his people said, “You must be insane. Why did the least time. If you want to get another job in a related field, you do that?” And it was very clear that there was no option for the

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invaders except to move forward. And at least for me personally, or doing something in between having to totally let go of your burning my bridges was a very good decisive motivation. If I left identity as a whatever. I don’t know that everybody is good at burn- my bridges up, I would still be in high energy physics doing things ing the ships. Sometimes you can be creative and ﬁnd things in that have nothing to do with reality, unfortunately. between “having to burn your ships” and “not having time.”

ROSEN CELIA PAUL Dave was at Harvard with Tom Lehrer, with whom I did an That’s a good point. interview for the book. I hope you know who he is: a mathematician and well-known satirical song-writer. Tom said if he had JOSEPH ATICK ﬁnished his Ph.D. in mathematics he’d be an assistant professor Actually, from my experience, I have to say that this is right of mathematics in Iowa farm-country someplace. Now, instead of because right now I’m going through another transition. I‘ve that he is an accomplished writer-performer and famous satirical taken a leave from Rockefeller University for a year -- a sab- comic, in a completely different career. Among his best known batical for exploring another direction. That’s precisely what songs: “Werner von Braun”, “The Vatican Rag”, “The Elements”, I did instead of doing what I did at the Institute. That’s a “Lobachevsky”, “Hanukah in Santa Monica”. suggestion.

CELIA PAUL CELIA PAUL I think that for a lot of professionals, it’s difficult to work and at Again, it’s prudent to be “taking small steps.”... instead of trying the same time conduct a really effective job search, because their to do things dramatically. days are very long and filled with demanding projects. The job search requires a lot of networking and seeing people, contacting DAVID ROBINSON people, and especially seeing people on their own time-schedule, Well, I quit my job, if that’s how you do. Usually you get a sab- and of course they’re doing you a favor by speaking to you. So, if batical. I was reasonably confident they would offer the job back to you have a very demanding position, it may be difficult to do both. me in a couple of years. It’s really an individual decision. A lot of it has to do with the attitude that the person making the career change has. If the changer feels positive about their change, when they’re not working they a can project a positive image and explain why they’re not working, it’s fine. But some people, when they’re not working, may lose their identity. If you feel at loose-ends when you’re conducting a job search or career change and you have to project a positive image, then you’re going to have a problem. A lot of this issue is, I think, individual personality.

AUDIENCE MEMBER Don‘t you ﬁnd also that people can be much more creative in terms of creating space, either asking for a three-month leave,

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COSMIC MESSENGERS: Gifts from beyond COSMIC RAYS AS EXTRA- Stephen Rosen TERRESTRIAL MESSINGERS Yes, Virginia, Santa’s North Pole is covered with snow and ice. But THIS JUST IN: trillions of tons of ice really exist at the North Pole How to find ice on Mercury, X-ray a Volcano and create Higgs of Mercury, our Sun’s hottest companion. bosons. NASA’s Messenger Spacecraft recently detected the nuclear I wrote the following essay for the East Hampton Star (Guestwords signatures of water ice using galactic cosmic rays as probes. On column, 13 December 2012). It was a challenge to write simply other NASA missions, cosmic rays helped discover water on the enough for anyone to understand. One friend said it elevated the Moon and Mars. Cosmic rays probe and “X-Ray” volcanoes to pre- Star. Not their normal Guestwords column, but the only reason dict when they will erupt. Very high energy cosmic rays also gener- they ran it: I agreed to write a review of Dava Sobel’s book on ate recurring avalanches of nuclear particles, even Higgs Bosons, Copernicus – if and only if they ran it. They ran it. everywhere in our atmosphere. These “cosmic showers” rain down over square miles of the Earth’s surface penetrating our bodies, for the most part, harmlessly. Cosmic rays are the only samples of matter that arrive on Earth from outside our solar system, and we now know that they are very energetic extra-terrestrial protons (nuclei of hydrogen) and nuclei of heavier elements. Some low-energy cosmic particles originate in the Sun; high-energy cosmic rays come from stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy; and very high-energy cosmic rays come from beyond our Galaxy. The highest energy cosmic rays observed, if somehow converted into useful work, could probably lift a locomotive—but there is no simple way to harness this immense deluge of energy constantly raining down on us. (Very sad, really, when you think about how much oil and gas we consume…and how expensive electricity is on the East End.) Astronauts sent into space are exposed to the primary or extra-terrestrial cosmic ray beam, and can experience serious health consequences if they are unshielded on long voy- ages. At the bottom of the atmosphere where we reside, we are mostly protected by the blanket of air above us, except when a rare energetic particle strikes a chromosome. Genetic changes may ensue; fit mutations will survive. Some cosmic rays come from the core or nucleus of our Galaxy where stars are born -- and a giant black hole lives. NASA’s Space Telescope has recently detected huge bubbles there emitting

332 333 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices gamma radiation and X-rays. Cosmic rays are messengers carrying sci- in 1572); and the Kepler supernova (seen in 1604 AD). Similar entific information as gifts from beyond. spectacular events have been documented in ancient annals and The information content of cosmic rays tell us their energy, astronomical observations from China and Japan. A supernova their origins, their age, the directions from which they come, and flares up in our Galaxy every fifty years or so—but there are 100 what they passed through on their way here. Evidence comes from billion distant galaxies in the Universe that contribute their share very sensitive sophisticated scientific instrumentation on moun- to the primary beam of ultra-high cosmic rays finding their way to tain tops, or sent aloft in special balloons and satellites. Data also us. come from the International Space Station, Mercury’s recent visi- The relative constancy of cosmic rays in time and space says tor the Messenger Spacecraft, and the Mars Rover Curiosity. that these sources of cosmic rays are also distributed uniformly The most energetic cosmic particles striking nitrogen and oxy- in space and time. Magnetic fields bend the paths of positively- gen air molecules at the top of our atmosphere generate a cascade charged cosmic rays (mostly protons) so much so that there is of nuclear reactions, fanning out over thousands of acres by the no obvious correlation between the directions they arrive from time they reach the Earth’s surface. These “cosmic showers” are here…and the direction they had at their source. Light rays move an avalanche of nuclear air-molecule fragments sharing the high in a (mostly) straight line-of-sight to us from distant stars. Unlike energy of the initial incoming cosmic ray. Vast arrays of nuclear light rays, cosmic rays move in a sort of “random walk”, “drunk- particle-detectors placed at ground level are set to count only those ard’s stagger”, or “pinball’s path” before they reach us, disguising nuclear events which occur simultaneously. This says the origi- their source’s origin, and suppressing any variations in space or in nal triggering cosmic ray came from interstellar or intergalactic time. Imagine the Earth bathed in an immense reservoir or rip- space. Cosmic particles come from all directions in the Universe pling “sea” of cosmic rays. uniformly. The cosmic ray beam is roughly constant in time. The Our Galaxy looks like a flat pancake (the “disk”) with a scoop lower-energy particles are more abundant than the higher-energy of ice cream at its center (the “core”); our Solar System is located particles. about half-way out within one of the many spiral arms in the disk. Another source of information about the constancy of the pri- Cosmic rays may be “stored” by bouncing around in our Galaxy mary cosmic ray beam over time comes from observing the com- in the sense that a pinball bouncing from obstacle to obstacle is position of meteorites that have been traveling around our solar “stored” in the pinball machine. Some cosmic rays bounce off system for millions of years or more. Modified by cosmic ray bom- light nuclear targets and are deflected slightly. Others strike heavy bardments, they act as if they were cosmic ray “dosimeters”, show- nuclear targets and are deflected a great deal so the original par- ing that the primary galactic cosmic rays have been constant in ticle source-direction is not preserved. intensity within a factor of two over a million years, and constant How could the cosmic ray particles from exploding stars be within a factor of three or four over a billion years. accelerated to such incredibly high energies—energies not even Where do cosmic rays come from? The most likely sources remotely available in terrestrial nuclear particle accelerators? An are supernovae…stars that have reached a stage in their evolution unusual acceleration mechanism was famously suggested by the when they become unstable and erupt in a spectacular outburst great physicist Enrico Fermi. of energy in the form of light, x-rays, gamma rays, and nuclear Imagine a tennis ball bouncing up and down on a flat horizon- particles. tal surface. Visualize a tennis racquet placed above the ball parallel Supernovae may be visible to the naked eye for months: the to the horizon moving slowly downward. The vertical bounces of Crab Nebula (seen in 1054 AD); the Tycho Brahe supernova (seen the ball between the two approaching flat surfaces will increase

334 335 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! rapidly. Rather slow motion downwards of the tennis racquet results in a rather surprising rapid increase in the speed of the bouncing ball, as the frequency rise of the audible bounces would indicate. Imagine the ball represents the cosmic ray particle, and the two approaching flat surfaces represent reflecting “mirrors” or reflecting walls. A high magnetic field can act as a “reflector” of charged particles. Of course, these are simple analogies, and What’s Good About Goodbye? By Stephen Rosen and Celia Paul conditions in interstellar or intergalactic space are what they are. October 13, 2011 - East Hampton Star Physicist Karl Darrow said that cosmic radiation “is unique in modern physics for the minuteness of the phenomena, the delicacy With the economy hesitating to recover, is it time to think of the observations, the adventurous excursions of the observers, about finding or changing jobs? Normally, about one person in 10 the subtlety of the analysis,…and the grandeur of the inferences.” changes occupations per year. Nowadays, about twice that number The cosmos is extremely generous, showering us with cosmic contemplate switching. What’s so good about saying goodbye to a messages and gifts of grandeur. Happy Holidays! job or career? What’s good about being fired? Stephen Rosen, author of “Cosmic Ray Origin Theories”, former Finding a new job and changing jobs, careers, or occupations research physicist at the Institut d’Astrophysique in Paris and at the Centre can lead to job satisfaction. Many studies (and our personal expe- Nucleaires de Saclay, lives in East Hampton and NewYork. rience) show that job satisfaction is an important predictor of job performance. A happy worker is a productive worker. So it’s not a surprising that changing occupations led us, and can lead you, to career satisfaction. But how do you find your true calling, your passion-at-work? Some of us acquire practical job satisfaction by changing careers repeatedly until we find what’s right for us, sometimes through chance encounters. (Louis Pasteur, who discovered peni- cillin serendipitously, said, “Chance favors the prepared mind.”) But our studies of thousands of downsized employees and job- changers prove that there’s a special population who learn how to find or switch jobs naturally, easily, and freely. They find new ways to direct themselves in new avenues, to use their skills and strengths. They figure out how to find a job that dovetails with their skills. They arrive at a kind of inevitable match to their work. Their skills fit their work like a glove. They are invigorated, not exhausted, by work. They fully enjoy the exercise of their signature talents and their strongest and most enjoyable skills. One of these rare individuals put it this way: “My work is now a worthy expression of who I am.”

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Parents or well-meaning friends may suggest to career-bewil- The global economy drives local labor supply and demand in dered youngsters, “Become a lawyer or a doctor, and you’ll never the U.S., making rapid competitive responses essential. For exam- have to worry about making a living.” We find that many lawyers ple, FedEx keeps cargo planes in the air half-empty so they can and doctors later in life, after following this advice, actually expe- mobilize promptly in response to changing demand conditions. rience a rude awakening: They have a mortgage, a lifestyle, and Similarly, workers can mobilize their dissatisfactions as motiva- a family to support and realize they’re doing what their parents tion to change jobs, occupations, specialties. So work force ver- wanted, not necessarily what they want. satility and even employee unrest or layoffs become a resource Career changes late in life, now common, are difficult: Is per- waiting to be used — a virtual national asset. The U.S. economy fect paralysis better than imperfect movement? can, in effect, turn on a dime when necessary by allowing versa- The workplace is filled with those who do find satisfaction. tile, talented, and productive workers to shift jobs or careers with A landmark study of young people by Eli Ginzberg, a Columbia ease and alacrity, as facilitators to the survival of the fittest. This is University economist, found that as adults almost two-thirds had as true for laborers and tradespeople as it is for lawyers, business moved in a “straight-ahead career path,” entering and remain- executives, or doctors — no matter what color collar they wear ing in one field. Almost a third pursued a “broad career pattern,” (white, blue, plaid, pink, or gold). shifting fields within their occupation. The rest (some 13 percent) We do work harder and more efficiently when we work at jobs zigged and zagged in a “variant pattern,” changing career direc- or careers we like. “The face of Nature may be compared to a tions completely. yielding surface,” Darwin wrote, “with ten thousand sharp wedges The study concluded that achieving career satisfaction is not a packed close together and driven inwards by incessant blows, fully conscious process but had to be learned from the alternatives sometimes one wedge being struck, and then another with greater encountered — by trial and error. Those people who switch jobs force.” Individuals striving to find jobs or penetrate an economy or careers (by getting fired or quitting until they find the right fit) (a face of nature) are similar to sharp wedges. The incessant blows tend to be productive and satisfied in their work . . . eventually. that move us forward are our confident refusal to accept job loss, Hard work, years of random or systematic job-changing, and even our energetic persistence, our struggling to the utmost, our will- floundering may be necessary. ingness to push ourselves. Compared to other countries, the U.S. labor force works the Getting fired and changing jobs or career directions may not most hours annually and has the shortest period of unemploy- only turn out to be good for us, but may also be good for the ment benefits and the shortest vacations of any capitalist democ- economy. Saying goodbye to a job layoff or career mismatch can racy. Charles Darwin observed that variability of offspring “cou- provide a new lease on life and lead to genuine career satisfaction. pled with the energetic searching for a niche” produce hardened Isn’t imperfect movement better than perfect paralysis? You don’t survivors. Layoffs and career-changing help give us a productive have to break glass to get fresh air. You can open the window. American economy because of the variety and energy in our work Stephen Rosen is chairman of Scientific Career Transitions, which force, in our start-ups, and in our established companies. specializes in the career problems of scientists and physicians. Celia Paul, Changing jobs or careers lubricates and smoothes the opera- his wife, is president of Celia Paul Associates, a New York City-based tion of the economy. “Free movement of workers between occupa- career-counseling firm specializing in lawyers. They live part time in East tions,” according to economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Hampton. “can be beneficial to both the individual and the economy.” a

338 339 HEROES OF NINE-ELEVEN R.I.P.

Bryan Jack came to us because he wanted to change his career. He was a budget analyst, a director of the programming and fiscal economics division, Defense Department. Dr. Jack was responsible for crunching America’s defense budget. He was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 77, bound for official business in California when his plane struck the Pentagon, where, on any other day, Jack would have been at work at his computer. This meant that Dr. Jack would have died whether on the plane—or at his desk. Carla Tighe, a fellow Pentagon economist, said Jack was a brilliant mathematician and top budget analyst who translated policy decisions by the defense secretary into hard numbers. Colleagues wondered how they would fill the personal and professional void. “He was so mathematically gifted,” Tighe said. “We’re still reel- ing with how we compensate for what he did. He was really responsible for overseeing the capital budget.” Jack, a Texas native who graduated from California Institute of Technology in 1974 and from Stanford Business School, headed the Defense Department’s programming and fiscal economics division. He told us he wanted to leave the Pentagon and transfer his financial and budgeting expertise to the private sector. We had met him through his wife, an artist, at an art gallery near our office. Bryan and I worked together for several months, address- ing his eagerness to work for a large public corporation, perhaps as a Chief Financial Officer or as an economist. His sudden death prevented us from implementing a transition out of the Defense Department…a transition that might have preserved his life. According to Barbara Rachko, Bryan’s wife, “We were together for 15 1/2years before we finally got married. Bryan for years had said

341 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! we ought to get married, but I was very non-traditional. We finally did on June 16, 2001. We were married a grand total of 87 days. Bryan was wearing his ring when he was killed [at age 48]. I was contacted by the Expertise As An Addiction: Army and told that certain items had been recovered from the crash site. If there was one thing I hoped they would recover, it was that ring. It was a The Perils of ‘Trained Incapacity’ one in a million chance,” Brian was known for baking pecan pies at Christmas. (Michael Laris, The Washington Post) One or more of the following factors may limit expert knowledge or make a specialist logic counter-productive… (1) Experts may sacrifice common-sense insights to the intensity of their John Patrick O’Neill was a top anti-terrorism expert at the FBI, experience in their special field.* and then Kroll Associates’ head of security at the World Trade (2) Experts may have a marked aversion to new ideas.** Center until his death at age 49 there on September 11, 2001. He (3) In taking the subject of their specialty as the center of importance (the was responsible for capturing Ramzi Yousef, the leader of the ear- trees), experts may not always see things in their entirety (the forest). lier 1993 plot to destroy the WTC, and while at the FBI was on the (4) Experts may often feel a superiority that is likely to be associated with their trail of al-Queda and Osama bin Laden. position of authority or the loftiness of their expertise.*** John also investigated the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing and (5) Experts may tend to have strong identification with fellow specialists, so that the 2000 USS Cole bombing. evidence and arguments marshaled by non- experts may be viewed by In 2002, O’Neill was the subject of a Frontline documentary experts with suspicion or skepticism. named “The Man Who Knew.”, and cast as the main protagonist (6) Experts may be likely to confuse (on the one hand) the importance of their in the television miniseries “The Path to 9/11”. knowledge and facts, with (on the other hand) the significance of what they There is extensive coverage of John O’Neill’s anti-terrorist recommend to be done with them. work at the FBI and insights into his colorful character and his (7) The specialist may be awkward, or act inappropriately, in dealing with double private life in the book “The Looming Tower” (2006) by human affairs. Lawrence Wright. He and I met while I was involved in a matter (8) Excessive use of an expert’s strength may become a weakness. so confidential that if I revealed it to you, I would have to kill you. So I won’t do either. * The building code in Los Angeles was reputed to require flat roofs to support two feet of snow at a temperatures well above the boiling point of water -- because expert engineers built in “safety factors” based on the highest historical air temperature ever recorded in LA, combined with the heaviest historical snowfall ever recorded in LA. ** When he was Secretary of the Navy, FDR, speaking as an authority on ships, said, “airplanes will never be able to bomb ships at sea”. *** “To punish me for challenging Authority, the Fates made me an Authority”. --Albert Einstein a 342 343 HARDING WILLINGER In Memoriam, 2 February 2009

Ten years ago, after I spoke at a memorial service for my father- in-law, my friend Harding came up to me afterwards, and asked if I would do a eulogy for him when his time came. Well, that sad day has come. That’s why I’m here today. I’m honoring Harding’s request, and honored to help you remember and to celebrate Harding’s truly wonderful life. Intelligence is ‘the ability to make other people feel good’. Harding made everyone feel good. “What comes from the heart… goes to the heart” it says in the Talmud. Harding always spoke from his heart…and was able to reach into our hearts. “When I was young, I admired intelligent people; now that I am old, I admire kind people”. Harding was both intelligent and kind. I never heard him say an unkind word about anyone—unless it was politicians, especially Republicans. Harding was kind, generous, considerate, smart, and authenti- cally charming. He loved people—and they loved him back. He loved Kate and Karen and Jill. He loved Jan, who made him very very happy, and he told her so…often. Harding was a very talented and successful man—in business, in his family life, his social life, his emotional life, and in his entire personality. Harding had an extraordinary fulfilled life well-lived- -and was a very balanced and complete person. He admired the accomplishments of his family members, his friends, and others. He respected learning, wisdom, and thoughtful opinions. Harding admired his brother Alan, and was proud of Alan’s ingenious patents. His cousins Lowell, and Marty…extremely proud of them. He was rightly proud of his own very impressive accomplishments. He often told how he and Alan had built up their enterprise, how

345 Youth, Middle-Age And You-Look-Great! Appendices he’d found a tool-and-die-maker in Europe by happenstance, and I had a high-school teacher long ago who said, “If, at the end was able to beat the competition, who couldn’t figure out how the of your life, you can count on the fingers of one hand, truly close Willinger Brothers were able to produce such high quality prod- and dear and deep friendships, consider yourself fortunate”. ucts… fish-tank pumps at such attractive prices. Like all of you, I consider myself more than fortunate to count Celia & I met Jan & Harding about 24 years ago, and over Harding -- a real mensch -- as one of those. My life was much the years we had some wonderful experiences together—skiing fuller – and blessed --for having known Harding. “I am a part of in Deer Valley, visiting them in the south of France, sailing, and all that I have met”. We are all a part of Harding. many, many meals together. (Jan loved to cook extremely good I was trained as a physicist, and science teaches us that matter meals.) I was re-building the deck of our house in East Hampton can be transformed into energy, energy like light -- that radiates in with my own two hands, and Harding came over to ‘supervise’, to all directions. Harding was matter. He’s now energy, and light, kibitz, to criticize my handiwork. With that sly and mischievous and memory that still radiates in all directions. look of his, he said, “I think I can get you the contract to re-build About memory: I have lapses these days, increasingly, and as I the Boardwalk at Coney Island.” watched Harding’s, I remembered what another good friend said Harding loved to tell—and to hear--jokes. He really loved to about getting old and losing his memory, and not being able to laugh. In honor of Harding, please indulge me to tell a joke he recognize everyone. “Every morning, when I wake up, I meet the loved hearing. In the past year, I could tell Harding the same joke nicest people.” Those people are here today. They are you. over and over, because his memory was slipping. As I told Jan, eighty percent of Harding was a better person than 100 percent of most of us [[If a tree falls in the forest, and my wife is not there to a hear it, is it still my fault?]] For many summers, Harding and I used to take long walks on the beach outside of Sag Harbor Sunday mornings, and gab and gab like a couple of yentas. We talked about everything, and I must say some of the conversations were very intimate, like brothers. We always hugged and kissed when we met and parted—Harding was a big hugger--and I often thought that Harding & I were about as close as men ever get without being brothers. Harding was a great listener and would hear my problems, and always had something positive and useful and wise and loving to say. Also, for many summers, there were these “Food-For-Thought” breakfasts of a bunch of Palm Beach guys at Pierre’s to discuss politics, to schmooze…many are here today. Each of these guys was very accomplished and smart and respectful, like Harding. He was very pleased, as I was, to be included at these round-tables. As I say about my wife, even after 25 years of marriage, Celia still treats me as if I were her equal. Harding always treated me as if I was his equal.

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ceremony by Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman of the Jewish Center of Obituary Notice Imagined by the Hamptons. Stephen Rosen Rosen was a serious amateur photographer and sculptor, and a writer of songs and lyrics for milestone events in the lives of his many friends and relatives. Stephen Rosen, who helped some 500 Jewish émigre scientists He is survived by two children, Lisa Jo Rosen of New York, and fleeing the former Soviet Union to find work in their specialties in Daniel Marc Rosen of Galway, Ireland from an earlier marriage to the US, died in his sleep. The cause of his death, according to his Miki Tekla Gold, which ended in divorce. He is also survived by wife and business partner, career counselor Celia Paul, was stroke. two grandchildren, Jascha and Tanya, a brother Elliott Jay Rosen Ms. Paul was also co-author with Dr. Rosen, a physicist by of Albany, a sister Barbara Fleck-Paladino, and nephews Bela Fleck training, of their book, “Career Renewal” (Academic Press, 1997). of Nashville, Louie Fleck of New York, Sascha Paladino of Dublin Together, they gave workshops and seminars at Bar Associations and Connecticut and Los Angeles, and Neil Rosen of Albany, for lawyers, at Medical Societies for physicians, and at Mount New York. Sinai Medical School of Medicine in their MD-PhD Program, at Rockefeller University and MIT for scientists, and at the US National Academy of Science. a Dr. Rosen founded the Science & Technology Advisory Board, a non-profit organization that pioneered developing new methods of career management for scientists and engineers. Previously, he wrote on the origins of cosmic radiation and high-energy cosmic- ray anti-protons. In 1968, he was at the Institut D’Astrophysique in Paris, and the Centre d’Etudes Nuclaires de Saclay. In 1970, he was Senior Professional Staff member of the Hudson Institute, working on national security issues and technological forecasting. His book, “Future Facts” (Simon & Schuster, 1976) drew attention to several hundred embryonic developments in science and technology; many became true. Earlier, he was a young Assistant Professor of Physics at the State University of New York Maritime College, where his colleagues and students said he was an inspiring, witty, and admired teacher. Dr. Rosen had been a student of Einstein’s colleague Banesh Hoffmann at Queens College of the City of New York, from which he graduated with honors in physics in 1955. He was a familiar sight in East Hampton at yard sales, where he and his wife Ms. Paul had a home in the North West Woods, and where he single-handedly built a tree-house blessed at a special

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