How to use this Page

Yesterday and now again today: the celebration of the Radnor High 2015 Hall of Famers.

I was privileged to attend yesterday's ceremony—to watch my brother teach a master class to exceptionally bright young mathematicians (and to see him reunite with his favorite high school math teacher, Mrs. Swanson), to listen to the appreciative crowd as the inductees were named in that glossy gymnasium, to see my classmate Josh Wurman after so many years, and to thank some of the many people who make these two days what they are.

This year's inductees are remarkable—Jeffrey Bilhuber, a top designer whose clients include David Bowie and Anna Wintour, the best-selling author Kelly Corrigan, the military hero Mark Gibbons, the essential world affairs analyst and Islamist expert Shadi Hamid, the charming, internationally acclaimed choreographer Austin Hartel, the Yale scholar Maria Rosa Menocal, the multiple Academy Award winning Foley Artist John Roesch, the uber athlete Jenepher Shillingford, and the acclaimed scientist, meteorologist, and Discovery Channel storm chaser Josh Wurman.

But the Radnor High students are equally remarkable. Their eagerness to go into the thick of the Pascal Triangle, their respect for Shadi's knowledge, their roar when John's "Dark Knight" and "Frozen" were mentioned, their interest in process, their questions about careers.

Yesterday I asked Shadi if part of his felt responsibility was to offer hope in his analysis of ISIS and great discontent. The act of understanding, Shadi said, is a form of hope—a beautiful response in difficult days. But the students of Radnor High are also a form of hope—their connection to those who have gone before, their appreciation for a couple of hours spent with those who were once rising, questioning, wondering, too.

In a few hours, the second half of the program will commence. I'm dashing down to Penn to give a mini talk, then hurrying back to watch more greatness unfold.

A huge thank you to Mr Skip Shoemaker, Jeanne Lynam, Sharon Reardon, and the many others who create these immeasurable moments.

Add a Comment

Over the course of this week I have walked the glorious Victoriana streets of Frenchtown, NJ, taught memoir in a bar called the Rat, given an impromptu one-hour address to a gathering of New Jersey kids, encouraged the idea of urgency in 20 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors, listened to the stories of the fourth and fifth graders of West Philly, hung out at the Water Works with a drone and a camera crew, met with my Wall Street client, and spent time thinking about the arc of corporate strategies and the lives of patients. Later today I'll make the drive to Harleysville, where we will talk about LOVE and where I will listen to the tales of others. Tomorrow and Saturday I will return to my high school and watch my brother be inducted into the Radnor High Hall of Fame. Not just my brother, of course, but nine others who have done remarkable (and I do mean remarkable) things with their lives.

Here's a video, if you'd like to meet these souls (and my brother).



All of this seeing and living and talking and listening takes place against the backdrop of a bruised and battered world. Not just Paris, not just the Russian airliner, not just Lebanon, but the screech of stump speeches, the war over refugees, the stories that are not getting told because of the stories that must get told.

How do any of us maintain our perspective?

I'm not sure I know.

I'm just sure that I have made a commitment to try to stay informed, to read the objective reports, to take into consideration multiple points of view, to not condemn a group of people for the actions of a small minority, to still believe, as my hero Terrence des Pres believed, that goodness is bigger than badness and still entirely possible. Also—and this is critical—to admit when I am wrong, to be willing to adapt, to conclude newly, to advocate more gracefully.

I am sad. I admit that I am. But if I allow the sadness to eradicate my hope or my faith in people, then I have been defeated.

I don't wish to be defeated.

And so I go out, I talk to others, I listen to others, I ask for their stories. I remain open to the possibility of good.

That is our responsibility, in these times.

Add a Comment

I'm not sure I'll ever be very good at simply moving forward with my own life when I am vividly aware of the terrible loss and hurt that has utterly rearranged the lives of others.

It doesn't feel right. But it's the only choice we have. Keep living.

And so, this week, there will be (between pauses, within silence) moments of study, moments of reflection, moments of celebration, moments of friendship, many interesting corporate projects, one unexpected audition, and three hours with some wet clay.

You are welcome to join us for the public events:

Today, November 15, on behalf of The Book Garden in Frenchtown, NJ, I'll be teaching a three-hour memoir workshop. Details are here. There is room. You can join us.

Tomorrow, November 16, at the Delaware Valley Regional High School, I'll be talking about the writers' life to an assembly of students and then providing insights on crafting the college essay.

Tuesday, November 17, I'll return to my work with the fourth and fifth graders of West Philadelphia, who will be refining the essays they began writing last week.

Thursday, November 19, I'll be at the wonderful Harleysville Books for the November Book Club Happy Hour, talking about our city and the power of love, an especially important topic, I think, in these days. The details are here.

On Friday and Saturday I will be at Radnor High School, joining my brother for his Radnor High Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We are, I believe, the first brother-sister pairing on that wall. I am over the moon for Jeff and grateful to all those on the committee who recognized his contributions to his rarefied world of engineering and mathematics.

Finally, the paperback of Going Over, my Berlin Wall novel, is being launched this month, and in celebration there are currently ten copies being offered in this Goodreads giveaway. 

Finally, finally, words of thanks to Chronicle Books and Junior Library Guild. This Is the Story of You has been selected for the Guild's Book Club.

Add a Comment

He's helping to lead the IBM team now at work on this revolutionary technology in the Cognitive Environments Laboratory. When Jeff describes this to me, he asks me if I remember the film Minority Report, the technologies for which were conjured a decade ago by fifteen scientific researchers during a three-day, Spielberg-assembled think tank.

From the Yahoo Finance article where the video above appears:

Using the capabilities of IBM's pioneering Cognitive Environments Laboratory (CEL), Repsol and IBM researchers will work together to jointly develop and apply new prototype cognitive tools for real-world use cases in the oil and gas industry. Cognitive computing software agents and technologies will be designed to collaborate with human experts in more natural ways, learn through interaction, and enable individuals and teams to make better decisions by overcoming cognitive limitations posed by big data.

Scientists in the CEL will also be able to experiment with a combination of traditional and new interfaces based upon spoken dialog, gesture, robotics and advanced visualization and navigation techniques. Through these modalities, they will be able to learn and leverage sophisticated models of human characteristics, preferences and biases that may be present in the decision-making process.

Jeff, who was inducted into the IEEE two years ago (and whose children respectively dance and race the Rubik's Cube clock), possesses a mind that seems capable of the impossible. He has to dial his intellect down several notches so that he can communicate with ordinary people like me. He has spent many years at IBM doing various fascinating things—and many nights working until 3 AM or later (on concepts, on coding, on new ideas, on computer screens) to be ready for his team the next day.

If you watch this video, you'll see my brother beginning at minute 2:20 in a blue shirt at a long table, thinking. He has blue eyes, light hair, and a brain that is also seemingly unrelated to me.

Thanks to Donna, Jeff's wife, for sharing the article and video, and to my father who was on this news early today.

Add a Comment