Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

…and that goes for Uncle Walter and Aunt Billie (who came with us to the Stockholm ceremonies) and cousins Cheri and Patti (and many more!) and cousin-in-law Jim too.

But this special picture shows Frank with his mom and dad after the Nobel Monument ceremony yesterday. It’s the first of all the many “praise Frank!” occasions they’ve been able to be part of. And we are so glad they came.

This is a town where kids from NH (like me) get freckles on the roofs of our mouths from staring up at the tall buildings. Then, just turn your head to something else amazing:

• Wow, it’s the Chrysler Building!
• Hey, that says “Carnegie Hall”!
• Isn’t that the place where they shot The Apprentice?

When we arrived Sunday, south Lexington Avenue was a huge Puerto Rican street fair (we’d missed the parade.) Later, hunting for dinner, we found a city block (Lexington, 27th to 28th Streets) full of Indian restaurants, and not just Indian restaurants but restaurants

• kosher,
• vegetarian, and
• South Indian.

In fact, one restaurant posted a warning sign on its door “This South Indian restaurant is kosher but not vegetarian.”

What a great city, and btw, I recommend the Mysore masala dosa at Udipi Palace.

In 30-plus years of physics conferences, Frank and I have ended up in some gnarly lodgings–spartan dormitories in Swansea and in Dresden come to mind, as well as a Paris hotel room so tiny that its double bed took up 99 and 44/100% of the floor.

More recently, we’ve found ourselves at the upper end of the scale–suites with gilt edges and amazing views. Grateful as I am to the hosts who treat us so kindly, I’m very happy here in NYC’s Park South Hotel, which costs about $500 less per night than the St. Regis–but unlike the St. Regis has free and reliable Internet.

Oh, how I love a good, not grand, hotel room with its own ironing board and little coffeemaker!*

Grand hotels so very often have neither. Instead they have butlers, valets, and room service. If I were a millionaire, I might really like this, but I am not a millionaire and I don’t.

What I prefer is to get my clothes ironed within 2 minutes after I notice that they are wrinkled–without paying $10 per garment, plus a tip. What I prefer is to make my own small pot of very bad coffee when I wake up, instead of waiting for room service to deliver a large pot of very bad coffee.

And I bet even millionaires would prefer those things too.

* The Park South Hotel doesn’t have a coffeemaker, I’m sorry to say, but it does have free breakfast for hours, down in the lobby.

Frank’s Polish grandmother, aka Grandma Wilczek, compressed a powerful primal force somewhere in her 5-foot-tall frame. Her wedding portrait, lugging an armful of lilies as long as her arm, dominates one corner of our diningroom.

At 19, in Poland’s disastrous post-World-War-I years, she fled her home town, Galician Babice. On Long Island, she met Frank’s Polish grandfather–a six-foot-tall blacksmith from Warsaw, who gave us all the last name that means “little wolf.”

I’ve enjoyed watching Frank get in touch with his Polish roots (and vice versa), but today’s
PIASA party takes the cake (or at least it takes the chrusciki and/or paczki).

“PIASA” stands for “Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America,” emigre scholars who maintain a wonderful archive of Polish lore here in NYC.

A good time was had by all–and I flickred some photos.

David Sedaris (to pick one up-to-date essayist at random) tapdances across the page, pitching out spangles of detailed irony to a hip audience. And the backdrop for this display is some fine-looking tapestry of a topical and recognizable theme–Santaland at the mall! Country houses near Paris! High schoolers dreaming about the Ivy League!

But happy endings and hip ones don’t work together. The finale must always be close-up peeks through the tapestry–ooo, there’s a flaw in the weave!–so you see:

• melancholy!
• loneliness!
• rootless lives!
• futile unattainable aspirations to glory!!!!!!

Surprise! (Or at least, a surprise the first ten times you see this done.)

My goal as a writer is different. I want you, dear reader, to enjoy whatever cross-quilted oddball tapestry I’m working on so much that you smile forgivingly over its obvious flaws.

And my obvious flaws.

And even (I really hope this for each reader) your own.

Steven Pinker calls it “uptalk.”

Young
Californians’ uptalk (sentences that sound like questions)
is no more pusillanimous or noncommittal than Canadians’
habitual “eh?”

Carcharodontosaurus saharicus
Middle Cretaceous- 100 million years old!
Kem Kem Valley, (Tafilalt) area near Taouz, Morocco

Maxilla and Mandible, Columbus Ave between 81st and 82nd Streets.

Would your living room look better with a six-foot long one-hundred-toothed replica crocodilian skull on display? Sure it would…and for a mere $5,900, BoneClones.com will make that dream come true:

Sarcosuchus imperator (flesh eating crocodile), nicknamed Supercroc, lived during the Cretaceous period (65 – 144 MYA). With an estimated body length of 40 feet, and a skull over 5 1/2 feet long, Supercroc is one of the largest crocodiles that ever walked the Earth.

It is believed that Sarcosuchus was an ambush predator capable of killing large dinosaurs that wandered too close to the water’s edge. The Sarcosuchus’s unusual bulbous snout is thought to have given it a greater ability to smell prey and make louder sounds… Shown here with a human skull for comparison. Individual tooth also available, KO-156. Please see our Dinosaurs and Fossils, and Reptiles catagories.

They also make lots of fake skulls for forensic classrooms… Ewww-factor very high, but fascinating. Thanks to Amity for the jaw-dropping linkage.

…four or five days later, you’re hungry again!”

(I’m quoting a hand-printed signs from Mimmo’s Italian restaurant on Ocean Avenue in York, ME, which serves exactly that kind of Italian food. Mimmo, the owner and chef, walks around when the kitchen is quiet, greeting newcomers and schmoozing with neighborhood friends.

Another Mimmo-ism: “What’s special tonight? Everything on my menu, that’s what’s special.?

I’m up in Maine, taking a moment to stop and smell the lilacs, here with my lilac-growing little sister. I asked Marie if she had a word of wisdom to share with my blog readers and she said, incredulously “A word? Just one?” Which just goes to show you how wise my sister is.

I do have a wise saying from my little brother, who went home this morning. “When you are skiing,” he said, “the very best moments come right before the moment when you say, ‘Uh oh, I think I’m in trouble.’ ”

In fact, Kevin’s insight applies to many fun things.

But not, so far as I know, to smelling the lilacs.

At the American Academy for Achievement’s 2005 International Achievement Summit, prizewinners each give a short speech to student delegates–about 200 Rhodes Scholars, etc. from 50 countries. So we all heard some darn good speeches but of course the best was given by Frank Wilczek–short, pithy, informative, and very funny.

I especially like his illustration of how to choose problems wisely:

It’s easy to give vague advice, but I will break new ground, and give you an algorithm. Many of you are probably thinking about getting married, and naturally you would like to maximize your chance of finding the best possible mate. I’ll give you an algorithm for that….

Wait, I hope this doesn’t mean I’m a problem…

If you want Frank’s algorithm, and to understand why my new nickname is “N over e plus one”, here’s Frank’s 5-minute talk including as a bonus Einstein’s favorite joke.