By Tommy Bourgeois
Congratulations are in order for two of our number: In April the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the election of 228 new members. You may wonder why I note the presence among this distinguished company of 13 Harvard faculty members. Wonder no more. The honorees include our own David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature and director of the Institute for World Literature at our rival on the Charles. David is also past president of the American Comparative Literature Association. In addition to writing the landmark texts What Is World Literature? and How to Read World Literature, he is the founding general editor of the six-volume Longman Anthology of World Literature.
More recently Broadway Global, by unanimous vote of its board, honored Catherine Schreiber as its sixth annual Producer of the Year. She is the first woman to receive the award in her individual right, rather than as part of a producing team. A recent notes installment included news of our New York contingent’s “dinner and a play” evening last April, the theatrical component being The Play That Goes Wrong, whose Broadway production marks the stage producing debut of film and television powerhouse J. J. Abrams. Among Catherine’s other producing credits are Tony Award winner Clybourne Park, the Kander & Ebb musical The Scottsboro Boys, and recent revivals of the musicals Dreamgirls and Fiddler on the Roof. Her next project, The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, is set to open on the Great White Way in December.
Moving from belles lettres and beaux arts to the less lofty but no less noteworthy realm of continuing education, we get this news from Matt Fragner, who was kind enough to jot down an account of the entertaining story he told Arthur Greenwald, Tom Marcus, and me at our August L.A. class lunch at Monterey Park’s Elite Seafood. (Tom, by the way, was Matt’s law school roommate at Boalt Hall.) Matt writes, “In April I went back to New Haven for the 70th anniversary of Directed Studies, with DSers from current students to people who graduated well before us. Fareed Zakaria spoke (although he was not DS), there were a number of interesting panels I can’t remember anything about, and we got to pick three seminars to attend over the two days. Harking back to my DS year, I didn’t print out the reading assignments (yes, in fact there were) until the night before, when I discovered there were more than 200 pages. I managed to get through the reading for my first two, but not the third seminar on Confucius. In the first seminar, I happily sat next to Marc Schoenfeld, my closest friend from DS, and I had a strange case of deja-vu-doo, listening to myself bickering with his textual elucidations. The second seminar was on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It was led by Jeff Brenzel, and made me significantly more Nicomacho (sic), so I guess our relationship is no longer Platonic. I arrived early for the last seminar so I could sit outside and read the 112 pages of Confucian writings. The guy sitting next to me asked if I was in the seminar, and I told him yes, but I had to focus on at least three passages so I could ask questions on those even though I hadn’t had time to prepare before. He then told me he was teaching the seminar I was waiting for. Some people would have been embarrassed, but I just told him I was not changing my strategy. The seminar was pretty good, and I posed my three questions to the somewhat incredulous/bemused/annoyed professor, but as I sat there with eight other DSers, I noticed that five of them were taking notes. I left before they could assign a paper or give us a test.” Thanks to Matt for this reassuring proof that not all Yalies are driven.
Another frequent L.A. monthly lunch attendee, Seth Walworth, observed the happy occasion of his daughter Elizabeth’s July wedding, held a stone’s throw from his San Marino home at Caltech’s Athenaeum in Pasadena. As the big day approached, he sent a note concluding with this news: “Roomies Joe Lane, Phil Kann, and Mike Propper will be there to make sure I pay the bill.”
Believe it or not, Seth’s Left Coast affair wasn’t the only Davenport roommates’ reunion taking place last summer. Gathering on the far side of the country, specifically on Cape Cod in August, were Catherine Carr, Rose Ho, Meredith Golden, and Linda Oliver. One-upping their male counterparts, these four D’porters actually submitted photographic proof of their time together, posting shots on the class Facebook page.
One last mini-reunion item, also documented on the class FB page: During their summer tour of Alaska, Lori Laitman and Bruce Rosenblum visited Gunnar and Alice Knapp in Anchorage.
Thanks to the Office of Alumni Records for this update from Matti Maricq, still at work as a staff scientist at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, and living in nearby Grosse Ile. On his own time, Matti savors the outdoors. He and his wife Carolyn “recently returned from a six-day paddling trip in the Apostle Islands. We also enjoy hiking, skiing, and rock climbing with our 20-something sons.”
Finally, I am sad to report that Robert David Klineman died on August 12 in Alhambra, California. Bobby had made his home in Southern California since late 2015. He is survived by his mother, Carolyn Breidenbach, and sister, Lynne Breidenbach, who together hosted an August 23 memorial service at Bobby’s childhood home in New York City. Mourners, some of whom had known him since childhood, remembered Bobby as a devoted son, a loyal friend, and a man of many talents and interests. Yalies in attendance included John Friedman, Tim Gustafson, BK Munguia, and Aimee Troyen. Thanks to Bobby’s encouragement, his mother has been volunteering for the last 15-plus years at her neighborhood elementary school, PS 198. Anyone wishing to make a donation in his memory can send a check to Public School 198, The Isidor and Ida Strauss School, 1700 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10128, Attention: Danielle Santana. On behalf of the class, I send condolences to Bobby’s family and friends, and to everyone who remembers him fondly.
As always, I invite you to send me news of your whereabouts and status, to check out the class listserv at www.aya.yale.edu/lists, and to sign on to our aforementioned “secret” Facebook page, which you can do by e-mailing me at the address listed above or Nancy at hawaiiyoung54@gmail.com.