In 1862 President Benito Juarez ordered Mexico‘s army, under General Ignacio Zaragoza, to defend the nation against French invaders. The army, consisting of ill-equiped soldier-indians, met and defeated Napolian’s powerful European army at the Battle of Puebla. May five – Cinco de Mayo – is a celebration of the great victory. Alan and Lia party and parade to mark the holiday. They are cooking traditional Mexican tripe soup, menudo.
I am showing my (old) age, but an email from my HS alum association got me to looking at an extensive email list of fellow 1970 Science grads – lots of MDs and PhDs! I looked up friends (who today probably wouldn’t know me from Adam). Some I couldn’t trace. Here are a few I found.
It is interesting to ponder that I often used to lunch with 3 doctors – Phil Bach, a heart specialist in Sacramento; Michael Fifer, director of Coronary Care at MGH (he works in the same building as Alice!); and Jay Turkewitz, a neurologist in New Orleans specializing in HIV.
    
    
I also knew Stephen Drucker, Editor in Chief of House Beautiful; Paul Mailman, who went to MIT, joined Mensa, and worked with my sister at Atex; Noah Mendelsohn, distinguished IBM research engineer, who was just as handsome as a kid as he is today; and Susan Wessler, disinguished Professor and plant genetics researcher – she has a lab named after her(!) at U of Georgia, who I, and every other straight male, had a crush on.
    
    
    
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Allison rows in my rowing club (CRI - usually in bow with me in the 2 seat) and is a terrific photographer.  She just closed a month-long exhibition at the New England School of Photography Center for Photographic Exhibitions on Beacon Street.
“The moon is tangible, but also mythic, which is a compelling dichotomy. It waxes and wanes, directs tides, and waltzes into poetry.”
She is available for weddings – see her website.
The earliest Anamorphism goes back to Da Vinci. Anamorphosis is very much in use today by artists such as Istvan Orosz, Kurt Wenner, and Julian Beever (don’t miss Beever’s amazing street art). I used this free program to create projections of the love cakes Alice made for Lia and Alan for Valentine’s Day.
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Although we were both born in Budapest, both of Jewish heritage, and both have a keen interest in computers & mathematics, I am only related to the famous Professor John Kemeny by name. I did meet him once – he had a fine Hungarian accent. I have read two of his books, Introduction to Finite Mathematics (pdf) and Man and the Computer.
Jonathan Rotenberg, who founded the Boston Computer Society at age 13, once told Bill Gates, who had started discussing John Kemeny, that “We have our own John Kemeny.” I was leading the Timex-Sinclair group at the time.
From the Fashion & Style Section of the 29-January Sunday New York Times, above the fold is the following story featuring none other than Lia Elizabeth Kemeny:
PARENTS WHO GET THE WILLIES when slipping their children into less-than-pristine grocery carts will be happy to find the Clean Shopper, a cotton liner that fits into the child seat of shopping carts and covers the handle too. “I didn’t want my son to hold the germy metal handle of the carts,” said Missy Cohen-Fiffe, the designer and manufacturer of the quilted liner. “Every time I used it in a store, people asked where they could buy one,” she said. A business was born, and now the Clean Shopper ($29.95) can be ordered in many colors and patterns from www.cleanshopper.com or (800) 635-3899. Lest Junior become overly germphobic, parents can desensitize children with a collection of stuffed, plush microbes from the Museum of Modern Art ($7 each at www.momastore.org). The collection includes a common cold virus, a dust mite, a bedbug and a stomachache. MARIANNE ROHRLICH
Not bad press for 14 months.
Here’s the first blog I found to mention it.
