Princeton Magazine, February 2014

Princeton magazine

february 2014

being Esther dyson A tenacious pursuer of new causes

february P r i n c e t o n fa m i ly

february

2014

2014

Also Featuring: The Astonishing Art of Daniela Bittman Brad Mays - Growing up in Princeton Princeton Faculty Reverse Commute A Culinary Route at The Mates Inn The Pulse of South Beach The Last Word with Gary Walters $4.95 princetonmagazine.com

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contents

44 30

36

50

60

54

22

20

Photograph by Tom Grimes

..... HERE & THERE .....

..... FEATURES .....

BOOK SCENE

being esther dyson

by Stuart Mitchner

BY ellen gilbert

Leading Ladies

The most powerful woman in the neterati

12

22

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

in search of time lost

16

ART SCENE

by ellen gilbert

Filming Princeton in the ‘60s and’70s 30

by Linda Arntzenius

Basil Alkazzi’s Odyssey of Dreams 20

Real Estate

Recently sold in the Northeast

The Astonishing Art of Daniela Bittman

BY LINDA ARNTZENIUS

When you see her work, let your imagination fly 36

28

against the tide

destinations: The Pulse of South Beach

Princeton faculty who do the “reverse commute”

by taylor smith

44

BY ellen gilbert

Where people come to see and be seen 54

the mates inn

SHOPPING South Beach Bliss

One of Trenton’s best-kept secrets

BY anne levin

50

57 ..... LAST WORD .....

interview with gary walters by bill alden

Reflections from Princeton’s retiring athletic director 60

ON THE COVER: Esther Dyson, photographed by Tom Grimes

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ACCOUNT MANAGERS Sophia Kokkinos Susan Panzica Jennifer Covill OPERATIONS MANAGER Melissa Bilyeu PHOTO EDITOR Andrew Wilkinson PHOTOGRAPHERS Tom Grimes Andrew Wilkinson Frank Wojciechowski PRINCETON MAGAZINE Witherspoon Media Group 305 Witherspoon Street Princeton, NJ 08542 P: 609.924.5400 F: 609.924.8818 www.princetonmagazine.com Advertising opportunities: 609.924.5400 Media Kit available on www.princetonmagazine.com

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PRINCETON MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014

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Dear Princeton Readers, As I write this letter, there are 14 inches of snow outside and the temperature is a bone-chilling 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

I hope that by the time you are reading this issue, it will be a lot warmer and spring will seem more within reach.

For some inexplicable reason, though probably because of The New Yorker’s weekly cartoon contest, I have always done my initial “tour” of a new issue of a magazine by going back to front. In the case of this issue of your Princeton Magazine our back pages, “flipped,” present Princeton Family which hosts a bunch of helpful tips and will also introduce you, through a Q&A feature, to Stephen Cochrane, the impressive new Superintendent of the Princeton Public Schools. The main feature is an amazing story about Christy Turlington and her powerful program, “Every Mother Counts”... a must read!

What I found interesting is that the “un-flipped” front of the magazine also touches on family. Our cover story is about Esther Dyson, the awesomely successful “angel” investor.

Esther is also a philanthropist and a commentator on everything from digital and bio-technology to breakthrough efficacy in healthcare, while preparing for a trip to outer space. Here is the “family thing”—she is the daughter of the Institute for Advanced Study’s famous theoretical physicist, Freeman Dyson, who graced the cover of this magazine exactly three years ago.

We get more into family in our article about Brad Mays and the making of his documentary titled I Grew Up In Princeton, dealing with our town and his family between 1967 and 1974.

Daniela Bittman does gigantic artwork, often using the smallest of an artist’s tools; colored pencils! They are not family portraits, but they certainly could be for all of the stories and complications that are presented in these great pieces.

I found myself captivated by the characters, the settings, and the symbolism and I am sure you will be too.

Photography by Andrew Wilkinson

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| FROM THE PUBLISHER

Between all of these stories plus our article on the Princeton University faculty that “reverse commute” and an intriguing restaurant piece on The Mates Inn where prison inmates are being trained as chefs, our Editor, Lynn Smith, and I hope you will find this issue stimulating and inspiring. That is how we like your magazine to be perceived.

Enjoy, and keep looking for that warmer weather.

Respectfully yours,

J. Robert Hillier, FAIA Publisher

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| book scene

S

Leading Ladies

by Stuart Mitchner

ome names from the literary past—Cressida, Carthage, Brutus, Helen of Troy—haunt new novels by Princeton area authors. An online search for Cressida and Carthage, the central character and setting of Joyce Carol Oates’s new novel Carthage (HarperCollins $20.24), brought up Toyota Cressidas for sale in Carthage, Texas, North Carolina, and Mississippi, among 42 American towns (but none in New Jersey).

Until Toyota names a Prius for Priam, Cressida has nothing on Helen of Troy for classic product placement; you can see the white-gowned beauty in an ad for Cisco Systems brushing her long blond hair with one hand while dispensing with the hackers in the Trojan Horse by tapping “Eliminate” on her computer screen.

In Thomas Van Essen’s The Center of the World (Other Press $15.95), the source of primary interest is J.M.W. Turner’s erotic painting of the woman whose face “launched a thousand ships.” Like Oates’s Cressida, Van Essen’s painted Helen is the subject of a search at the heart of the narrative. And as Oates’s character is thought to have been murdered by her soldier boyfriend, Van Essen’s painting is thought to have been destroyed for the sake of Turner’s reputation.

The dynamic of the search also figures in Chang-Rae Lee’s new novel, On Such a Full Sea (Penguin/Riverhead $27.95), where Fan, the Chinese-American heroine, sets out to find her lost lover, a quest that inspired Lee’s choice of a title, from the “There is a tide in the affairs of men” speech by Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “On such a full sea are we now afloat, /And we must take the current when it serves / Or lose our ventures.” In an interview on Penguin’s Book Country site, Lee says that he was attracted by the “seizing of an opportunity” metaphor: “I simply liked the ring of it..., immediately picturing my heroine on the ‘tide’ of her adventure, and so leaped on it.”

In the same interview, Lee explains the “three very separate realms” in his novel’s futuristic vision of America: “the labor colony Fan decides to leave, the wild and ruthless ‘open counties’ where people must fend for themselves, and the superelite ‘Charter’ villages,” a structuring that reflects his “concerns about how partitioned our present society is between the haves and have nots and ‘have alls,’ and how those partitions seem to be ever-hardening. Mobility, in this reality, is possible only when one risks everything.”

Of all living writers, Lee’s colleague at Princeton University’s Lewis Center, Joyce Carol Oates, is probably most closely associated with the idea of braving the tide of a work taken at the flood, witness Stephen King’s review of her “dense, challenging, problematic, horrifying, funny, prolix” novel The Accursed (2013), one of the New York Times 100 Best Books of the Year: “It sprawls, there’s no identifiable protagonist or unity of scene, and yet these many loosely wrapped Tales of Princeton are feverishly entertaining.” Prepublication reviews of Carthage refer to “another novel that ratchets up the unsettling to her signature feverish pitch” (Publishers Weekly). Oates’s Cressida has obvious points in common with the difficult, famously unfaithful Cressida of Chaucer and Shakespeare.

12

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The Power of Art

Van Essen’s ingeniously conceived Helen comes to life in the 21st century through the sexual charisma radiating from the painting by Turner that gives the book its title. In an online interview (thomasvanessen.com), Van Essen, who works at ETS and lives in Hopewell, says it all began in a graduate English course at Rutgers when he first heard the story about John Ruskin taking it upon himself to burn Turner’s erotic sketches. Van Essen wondered, “What if Ruskin burnt them not because they were merely erotic, but because they had some kind of power in them that was more than mere eroticism?” He found an expression of the power in Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation, where “transparence” is “the highest, most liberating value in art.” The idea that transparence means “experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are” inspired the idea of a work of art that would be beyond interpretation, “more perfect than anything yet created and more erotic, as an erotic object, than any thing that ever was before.”

For Van Essen, the “two vectors, one labeled ‘art’ and one labeled ‘eroticism’ merged “some place beyond anything we know in either category. That intersection, treated as a real possibility, is what the book is about.”

The plot evolved naturally from the situation of a work of art so notorious it had to be concealed from the public view (the model being Courbet’s The Origin of the World). Van Essen complicated matters by setting half the book in Turner’s time with the painter and his model as characters and half in the present, where a middled-aged American male who lives in a splitlevel on our own Hawthorne Avenue discovers the painting in a barn in the Adirondacks and brings it home to Princeton.

On Teaching and Day Jobs

“I have a very good ‘day job,’ “ says Van Essen, “but one evening about ten years ago I had one of those ‘is this all there is?’ moments.... Is this what I really want out of life? Is this all there is?” So he decided to write the book he wanted to write: “I wouldn’t worry about it being ‘publishable’ or anything like that. I would just do what I needed to do, engage with the ideas I really cared about.”

Chang-Rae Lee, who can be seen conducting a writing class on the Lewis Center website, says, “I enjoy the teaching and my students but I try to keep the readerly work we do and our investigations into how fiction works in the classroom. I don’t want those notions crowding my thoughts at my writing desk, where I hope I can remain as natural and instinctive and un-theoretical as possible.”

After 35 years teaching Creative Writing at Princeton, Oates, who will be retiring after the fall 2014 semester, made it clear to the New York Times (“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”) that she would miss the studentteacher relationship. She compared herself to a trainer or coach of talented athletes, like the legendary boxing trainer Cus d’Amato who, when 12-year-old Mike Tyson was brought into his gym in Catskill, N.Y., excitedly called his manager in New York City to say, “the next heavyweight champion of the world just walked in my gym!’

PRINCETON MAGAZINE february 2014

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Coming Attractions

Another retiring literary luminary at the Lewis Center is poet C.K. Williams, whose chapbook, Catherine’s Laughter, is a celebration of the extraordinary 21stcentury woman to whom he’s married.

All at Once: Prose Poems is forthcoming in April from Farrar Straus & Giroux.

According to Library Journal’s National Poetry Month preview, “Williams here investigates the illuminating aspects of the everyday in pieces that cross and recross the borders of prose poem, short story, and essay.”

Meanwhile the movie rights to Princeton graduate A. Scott Berg’s acclaimed biography Wilson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons $40) have reportedly been purchased by Leonardo diCaprio, who will add Woodrow Wilson to a gallery of characters that includes Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jay Gatsby.

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| CULTURAL EVENTS

MAR. 12 MAR. 1

Mark Your

MAR. 14

Calendar music | books | theatre | lectures | sports

Friday, February 7

Friday, February 14

Saturday, February 22

8PM The Opera Company of Philadelphia presents “Ainadamar,” a Grammy Award-winning opera about the controversial life and defiant death of Federico Garcia Lorca. This vivid, flamenco-infused production will be on stage through February 16 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. www. operaphila.org

8PM The multimedia Beatles production, Rain consists of live performers who have mastered every gesture and nuance of the Beatles members.

Costumes, special effects, and historic video footage chart the Beatles greatest hits. www.mccarter.org

2PM Gallery lecture with New Jersey sculptor William Knight. Knight uses the remains of blown tires that he finds along New Jersey’s highways to form his oneof-a-kind creations. www.groundsforsculpture.org

Saturday, February 8 10AM Opening of the “Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print” art exhibit at the Princeton University Art Museum. The exhibit features 26 of the artist’s most powerful and well-known compositions. www. artmuseum.princeton.edu 10AM & 12:30PM Attendees to the workshop of the Arts Council of Princeton can express their love for friends and family by creating homemade Valentine cards. All materials are included, with several special technique stations to help make the perfect card. Workshops are open to children of all ages. artscouncilofprinceton.org 8PM An evening of dazzling show tunes and American classics hosted by Michael Feinstein at PSO Broadway POPS! www.princetonsymphony.org

Thursday, February 13 1PM The 12th Annual New Jersey Flower & Garden Show at the NJ Convention Center in Edison. Expect a rainbow of colors and fragrances, along with educational seminars and shopping opportunities at the Great Garden Marketplace. This event runs through February 16. www.macevents.com

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9PM Valentine’s Day Concert with actress and Broadway singer Vanessa Williams at Caesars Atlantic City. www.caesarsac.com

Saturday, February 15 9:30AM The 2014 Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, “Tending the Light: Community Organizing & the Modern Civil Rights Movement” at The Paul Robeson Campus Center at Rutgers University. www.ncas.rutgers.edu 8PM The Philadelphia Orchestra performs alongside the Westminster Symphonic Choir at The Kimmel Center.

Vladimir Jurowski conducts. www.rider.edu/wcc

Sunday, February 16 3PM The Haifa Symphony Orchestra makes its State Theatre debut with Israeli pianist Roman Rabinovich for the Tchaikovsky piano concerto. The program also includes Weber’s overture to the opera Euryanthe and the popular Dvořák work, Symphony No. 9. www.statetheatrenj.org

Friday, February 21 8PM The Krasnoyarsk National Dance Company of Siberia performs at McCarter Theatre. This 55-member dance troupe dances a wide-range of folk traditions. Large canvases, music, and intricate costumes lend to the theme. www.mccarter.org

Sunday, February 23 ALL DAY Princeton University mens and womens Track & Field Invitational at Jadwin Gym. www. goprincetontigers.com

Saturday, March 1 10:30AM Bring your family to the Watershed Reserve in Pennington to enjoy the maple syrup made on site. Participate in tree “tapping” and sample various maple syrups by the fire. www.thewatershed.org 11AM-9PM The Philadelphia Flower Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the world’s oldest and largest indoor flower show. Exhibits include large-scale gardens and over-the-top floral arrangements. The show runs through March 9. www.theflowershow.com 1PM Princeton University womens lacrosse vs.

Georgetown at Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium. www.goprincetontigers.com 7pm Mardi Gras Magic fundraiser at West Windsor Arts Center featuring Cajun fare, cocktails, New Orleans music and silent auction. Visit www.

WestWindsorArts.org for details.

8PM Drum & Dance Circle with Mark Wood at the Princeton Center for Yoga and Health. This annual drumming event draws hundreds from around New Jersey who seek to reconnect with themselves and others through the power of music and rhythm. www.princetonyoga.com

PRINCETON MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014

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FEB. 14

FEB. 14

FEB. 21

FEB. 15

MAR. 15

TUESDAY, MARCH 4

FRIDAY, MARCH 14

FRIDAY, MARCH 21

8PM Musicians Paul Simon and Sting in concert at Madison Square Garden. www.thegarden.com

Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!

9AM-4PM Eden Autism Services’ 20th Annual Princeton Lecture Series on Autism at Princeton University. Presenters will include leading autism researchers and professors from Harvard Medical School, University of South Florida, and Virginia Commonwealth University. www. princetonlectureseries.org

THURSDAY, MARCH 6 7:45PM R&B singer Robin Thicke performs at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden. www. camdenwaterfront.com

SATURDAY, MARCH 8 7PM Mystic India: The World Tour is an explosion of colors, sounds, and dance particular to ancient India.

This performance at NJ’s Performing Arts Center in Newark includes aerialists, acrobatics, and special effects. www.njpac.org

MONDAY, MARCH 10 7:30PM Homecoming Concert: A Spoleto Festival USA Preview performed by the Westminster Symphonic Choir and conducted by Joe Miller at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium. www. rider.edu/wcc

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12 4:30PM Reading by award-winning poet Dana Levin and fiction writer Claire Vaye Watkins at McCarter Theatre Center. The event is presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. www. princeton.edu/arts

THURSDAY, MARCH 13 11AM-2PM Art Salon with Linda Cunningham at Grounds for Sculpture. Learn how Cunningham layers materials and memories into her artwork.

This event includes lunch with the artist at Rat’s Restaurant. www.groundsforsculpture.org

11AM Walking tour of Einstein’s old neighborhood sponsored by the Princeton Tour Company. Tour begins at 116 Nassau Street inside of the Princeton University U-Store. www.princetontourcompany.com

SATURDAY, MARCH 15 9AM Pie eating contest at McCaffrey’s Supermarket at the Princeton Shopping Center. www. pidayprinceton.com

FRIDAY, MARCH 28

11AM The entertaining Einstein look-a-like contest at the Princeton Public Library. Winners are eligible to win $314.15 and a bike from Kopp’s Cycle Shop. www.pidayprinceton.com

4:30PM PSO’s Behind the Music Forum welcomes British composer Julian Grant to discuss the creation of his piece, “Dances in the Dark,” which will be performed at PSO’s Sunday Classical Series “Nights and Dreams” on Sunday, March 30. www.princetonsymphony.org

1PM Meet the Music: Leave it to Ludwig at Richardson Auditorium for children ages 6-12.

Learn about Beethoven, the man, through his music. A staged performance will include a visit by Beethoven himself. www.princeton.edu/richaud

7PM 6th Annual LUNAFEST hosted by The College of New Jersey. LUNAFEST is a touring film festival that honors women worldwide. This year’s proceeds will benefit The Breast Cancer Fund. www.lunafest.org/ewing0328

3PM Princeton University mens lacrosse vs. UPenn at Sherrerd Field at Class of 1952 Stadium. www. goprincetontigers.com

8PM The Argento Ensemble perform Sebastian Currier’s Deep Sky Objects, a cycle of songs with text by Sarah Manguso. The songs depict a romantic longing on an intergalactic scale (also, on Saturday, March 29). The event will be held at the Institute for Advanced Study as part of their Edward T. Cone Concert Series. www.ias.edu

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19 8PM American pop rock band Huey Lewis & the News perform at the Bergen Performing Arts Center. www.bergenpac.org

MONDAY, MARCH 31 8PM Gary Marcus, NYU Professor of Psychology, delivers a free public lecture at Princeton University as part of their Public Lecture Series. www.princeton.edu

FEBRUARY 2014 PRINCETON MAGAZINE

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500 Years of

January 25 to May 11

Romeo and Juliet

from the Princeton University Art Museum

2/22 : Berrie Center, Mahway, NJ 3/8: RVCCArts, Branchburg, NJ

Douglas Martin’s Romeo and Juliet.Credit: Kyle Froman Photograpy

Plus...coming March 12, 2014 to McCarter Theatre:

Firebird

Carlo Dolci, Study for ”Saint John the Evangelist” (detail), 1671. Black and red chalk on light tan paper.

Bequest of Dan Fellows Platt, Class of 1895

always free and open to the public

artmuseum.princeton.edu

PM_011514_4.4x5.4_500yID.indd 1

(world premiere by Douglas Martin) plus Douglas Martin’s Rite of Spring (Stravinsky) and Kirk Peterson’s Afternoon of a Faun (Debussy)

Tickets and information: arballet.org

1/15/14 1:38 PM

Nights and Dreams Sunday, March 30, 2014

PSO Classical Series Edward T. Cone Concert Richardson Auditorium 4 pm, Pre-concert talk at 3 pm Dominic Armstrong

Rossen Milanov, Music Director

Rossen Milanov, conductor Dominic Armstrong, tenor Eric Ruske, French horn Featuring the world premiere of composer Julian Grant’s Dances in the Dark

Contact Us

Grant Britten Berlioz

Call: (609) 497-0020 Visit: www.princetonsymphony.org Email: info@princetonsymphony.org Eric Ruske

Dances in the Dark Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings Symphonie fantastique

Tickets: $75, 60, 48, 30, and 25 (17 and under) All sales are final; programs, artists, dates, and times are subject to change.

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PRINCETON MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014

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| art scene Basil Alkazzi’s Odyssey of Dreams

A

by Linda Arntzenius

traveling exhibition of gouache and watercolors by the British artist Basil Alkazzi stops at Rider University this month. Curated by renowned Princeton printmaker Judith K. Brodsky, Distinguished Professor Emerita at Rutgers University, An Odyssey of Dreams: A Decade of Paintings 2003-2012, showcases some 34 enigmatic and mystical works by the Kuwaitiborn artist who has said that he hopes viewers will come away from the exhibition with “a feeling of awe at the sublime soul within life and nature, and so, within themselves.”

Alkazzi is a prolific and, in his own words, a “compulsive” painter whose career spans 50 years.

He is represented in museum collections in Israel, Kuwait and Poland, and across the United States in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, among others.

The artist first discovered a talent for drawing and painting as a child at boarding school in Beirut.

After attending art school in London, he spent time in Greece and then Crete before showing his work, mostly landscape photomontages at that time, to Halima Nalecz, director of London’s Drian Gallery.

Nalecz championed the young artist, whose work became known through showings at Drian and through annual exhibitions of the National Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Printmakers. After 1985, Alkazzi lived on and off in New York and was granted residency in 2000 as “an artist of exceptional ability.” He now lives in Monaco and makes regular visits to London and New York.

The images on display here are the culmination of a deep and on-going engagement by the artist in the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of abstraction. In the full-color catalog that accompanies the exhibition, quotes from Mr. Alkazzi introduce each year in a decade of work.

One such gives the flavor of his philosophy: “An artist reveals himself, his thoughts, his feelings, by his work, to himself, and for himself; and then others, perhaps, discover and see that self discovery, that self revelation, in matter.”

Brodsky, who has known Alkazzi for some 25 years, describes the work in the traveling exhibition as “distinctive and personal.” She says, “Alkazzi’s recent paintings are quite remarkable. With their spectacularly intense coloration and their scale, they are quite different from what one would expect from gouache and watercolor.”

“After painting for so many years, I no longer ‘think’ about color,” says Alkazzi, “but allow my instinct and my Muses to determine them.

Sometimes when I have finished a painting, I find myself deeply grateful at how beautiful the finished work is.”

The paintings range in size from 13 x 18 inches to 40 x 30 inches. All are on hand-made paper.

Their titles are romantic and tender: “Kiss of the Butterfly,” “Blossoming Spring,” “Ascending

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Basil Alkazzi Ascension in Beatitude II, 40”x30” 2011.

Angel,” Whispering Dreams.” Who could resist the delightful “Iris and the Grasshopper that Flew Away” or the poetic “And Still You Whisper, Still I Wait, Yet Again.” Here is an artist who references the sublime in nature and speaks unabashedly of “Soul,” “Spirit” and “Life-Force.”

The combination of romance, beauty and spirituality is exemplified in the painting “Ascension in Beatitude II” used on the cover of the 136-page catalog. A figure with arms stretched wide emerges, or is perhaps formed by, the cupping petals of a bright yellow flower, opening against a hot red/orange background. Is the figure male or female?” Is there an intended allusion to Christ here? Or are these the welcoming arms of a lover? Alkazzi’s ambiguity invites the viewer to engage with sumptuous color and organic shapes. Here are reds and purples, blues, yellows and oranges that seem to have replaced

substance. Petals and seeds suggest of renewal and reproduction on a cosmic scale.

As part of the exhibition, two slide-shows of Alkazzi’s drawings and paintings: A Retrospective Journey 1960-2012 and Collages & Photomontages 1985-1998 will give viewers a glimpse of his entire oeuvre.

In addition, the catalog, designed by the award-winning Isabella Duicu Palowitch and published by Scala last December, includes an essay by art critic Donald Kuspit and an interview of the artist by Rider Gallery Director Harry I. Naar, professor of fine arts at Rider University.

Alkazzi will speak about his work in conversation with Naar on Thursday, February 20, at 7pm. The interview is an opportunity to engage with the artist in a relaxed setting, surrounded by his work in the gallery.

PRINCETON MAGAZINE february 2014

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Basil Alkazzi Twilight III, 26”x21” 2003.

Basil Alkazzi Kiss of the Butterfly IV, 31”x23” 2003.

Naar likens the expressive and symbolic qualities of Alkazzi’s work to that of Wassily Kandinsky and finds dream-like qualities reminiscent of Mark Rothko. Of the exhibition, Naar says “The gouaches depict flowers, not in a literal way but more in a mystical, spiritual and symbolic way.”

Basil Alkazzi Ascending Angel Revisited III, 40”x30” 2011.

Kuspit, too, references Kandinsky when speaking of Alkazzi’s “pure forms, geomorphic and biomorphic,” that “become emblematic of pure spirit in action—pure spirit in Kandinsky’s sense of being possessed by ‘inner necessity’ and in Jung’s sense of being possessed by ‘divine nous.’”

Kuspit, who has long followed Alkazzi’s career and written two books about his work, describes his most recent paintings as “ecstatic imagery.”

Alkazzi’s recurrent themes are nature, the human body, love, and birth. As Kuspit points out, these themes have spiritual import for the artist. “I have always been involved in spiritual matters,” says Alkazzi. “I am not a man of religion, but of faith, and I have always believed in Spirit entities, in the life of a soul that continues to live in Spirit form. My paintings of nature are the Life-Force embodied in nature, all of nature, and that includes mankind.”

Launched last August at the Bradbury Gallery of Arkansas State University, An Odyssey of Dreams: A Decade of Paintings 2003-2012 comes to Rider from the Anne Kittrell Gallery at the University of Arkansas. It will be on display in the Rider Art Gallery through March 2 before it moves on to the Rosenberg Gallery, Maryland Institute College of Art in March and the Sheldon Museum of Art, in Lincoln, Nebraska in May. Basil Alkazzi’s An Odyssey of Dreams: A Decade of Paintings 2003-2012 runs February 6 through March 2 at the Gallery at Rider University, on the top floor of the Bart Luedeke Center, 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrenceville. Admission

is free. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Thursday: 11AM to 7PM; Sunday noon to 4 p.m. For more information, call 609.895.5588.

AREA EXHIBITS Morven Museum & Garden, 55 Stockton Street: The Age of Sail: A New Jersey Collection. For more information, hours and admission, call 609.924.8144 ext.106 or visit: www.morven.org.

Princeton University Art Museum: Edvard Munch: Symbolism in Print, Masterworks from the Museum of Modern Art, New York offers a rare opportunity to experience the artist’s most powerful compositions in prints by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) considered among the greatest printmakers of the modern period. The exhibition includes 26 of Munch’s signature prints and runs February 8 through June 8. For information and hours, call 609.258.3788 or visit: http:// artmuseum.princeton.edu/exhibitions.

Grounds for Sculpture: Edwina Sandys: Provocative and Profound, paintings; William Knight: Out of Context, sculpture; also a retrospective of public and studio work by internationally acclaimed artist Athena Tacha, Sculpting With/In Nature (19752013). For more information, visit www.groundsforsculpture.org.

James A. Michener Art Museum, 138 South Pine St., Doylestown, Pa: Local Mill Makes Good marks the 75th anniversary of the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope through March 2. For more information, hours and admission, call 800.595.4849 or visit: www.MichenerArtMuseum.org.

Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the Rutgers campus in New Brunswick: Diane Burko: Glacial Perspectives through July 31, 2014. For admission and hours, call 732.932.7237, ext.

610 or visit: www.zimmerlimuseum.rutgers.edu.

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BEING

ESTHER

DYSON

I’m flattered,” Esther Dyson says quietly when asked how it feels to be referred to by names like “queen of the internet,” “digital visionary,” or “innovation evangelist par excellence.” In a list of “Famous Real-life People Named ‘Esther’” her name appears next to Queen Esther and the competitive swimmer/movie star, Esther Williams.

Since Dyson is a tenacious pursuer of new causes and a swimmer who steadfastly hits the pool every day no matter where she is, there is a certain unintended logic to citing this trio of Esthers in the same entry.

On a recent snowy Saturday in New York City, Dyson is the only person at Meet-up.com’s Broadway headquarters. Moving around the broad expanse of computer banks, she cuts a slight figure in worn jeans and a well-laundered tee-shirt. Sitting down, she kicks off her comfortable flats, exposing cozy-looking red socks. For an “angel investor” who is “one of the most influential voices in technology,” she comes across as pretty earth-bound.

After over thirty years of being “one of the most powerful women in American business,” the 62-year old’s history is pretty well-known by now.

The eldest child of the distinguished physicist Freeman Dyson and his first wife, mathematician Verena Huber, Esther was born in Zurich. Her brother George, also from this marriage, was born

BY

in Princeton where they both grew up with their father and his second wife Imme, mother to four more daughters, surrounded by brainiacs at the Institute for Advanced Study, where her father is still a beloved figure. Family and colleagues recently celebrated his 90th birthday there.

“People want to talk to Esther–because she is Esther.

In the world she travels in, she is one of those women, like Martina in tennis or Hillary in politics, who need only be identified by her first name. In fact, Esther may well be the most powerful woman in computing.”

WIRED.COM

PRINCETON

Dyson has fond memories of Princeton. “I had a wonderful childhood; I was oblivious to everything going on around me.” At around the age of eight, she says, she wanted to marry Prince Charles. Other

ELLEN GILBERT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

childhood memories include sharing a sled with her father who took it to work on snowy days, and fantasizing about becoming a librarian as a result of the pleasure she took in the Princeton Public Library, located then in Bainbridge House. Ever the acute observer, Dyson took not of different parenting styles at the library, as some parents let their kids have free rein among the books while others strictly controlled whatever their children read. Dyson is clearly a product of the former.

However happy her childhood was, Dyson left home at 15. “I really wanted to be a teenager and we needed room for the younger kids,” she explains. She had her parents’ blessing and enrolled at Harvard. Writing for the daily newspaper, The Crimson, proved to be far more engaging than going to math and science classes. Harvard administrators were not pleased: calling her in one day, they expressed concern about how the promising student they had accepted appeared now to be a laggard with mediocre grades. Her response was to take a year off for travelling in Morocco with her boyfriend.

When she returned to Harvard the following year she switched her major to economics. Still devoted to The Crimson, Dyson’s attendance record and grades remained undistinguished. She served as an extra when the movie Love Story was filmed on campus. After it was released, she gave it a “pompous” review in the The Crimson.

TOM GRIMES

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FORBES

Dyson describes her economics degree as a “convenience.” After graduation, the time she spent as a college journalist was rewarded with a three-year stint as a reporter for Forbes, a job she has described as “transformational,” teaching her the ins and outs of the business world.

On the way to becoming “the most powerful woman in the Neterati,” Dyson worked as a tech analyst. In the mid-80s she bought Rosen Research from her boss and renamed it EDventure Holdings; it’s been her investment vehicle ever since. She is a board member of numerous companies, including 23andMe, Eventful, Meetup, NewspaperDirect, Voxiva, WPP Group, XCOR Aerospace, and Yandex, and was an early investor in such notable start-ups as Evernote, Flickr, Mashery, Medstory, Omada Health, and Square.

In 1997 Dyson wrote the best-selling, widely translated book Release 2.0: A Design for Living in the Digital Age. In his review of the book, former Senator Bill Bradley described it as a “must read for people who want to understand the Internet’s development and potential.” Summing up Dyson’s prescience about the internet and ability to make connections, Bradley continued by saying that she “explains—in words that both laypeople and ‘techies’ will find illuminating—how the Net is a tool to improve our workplaces, schools, and government.”

“need to repurpose health-care facilities and workers to some other role, including prevention, serving outsiders, or conversion to another use entirely.” Like all of the other causes she chooses to back, Dyson is optimistic about achieving good results: healthier people and less money spent on health care. Once the ball gets rolling, she says, “we will wonder what took us so long to get started.”

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

Dyson insists that she never set out to be an entrepreneur, humorously contending that she is a court jesther, or, more seriously, a “catalyst” who helps to make things happen. She wants to be needed for her problem-solving abilities. Endorsing a new effort, which can be for-profit or non-profit, isn’t enough for her; she needs to figure out how it will work or how it can be made better, with a result that is usually socially conscious, promising a positive outcome for many people.

Her latest venture, HICcup (Health Intervention Coordinating Council) proposes to promulgate good health habits in large communities of people in an effort to forestall the onset or even eliminate many of the illnesses that plague us. “Individuals often lack willpower or access to healthy food or convenient exercise facilities, and are surrounded by poor examples that encourage instant gratification rather than effort and restraint,” she writes in “The HICcup Manifesto,” sounding a bit like Michael Bloomberg on the subject of oversized soft drinks.

Like many of Dyson’s other ventures, this one requires a leap of faith or two, as well as the help of others. The first thing she did for HICcup, she says, was to hire a CEO to get it off the ground. HICcup will begin by selecting five American communities of 100,000 or fewer to participate in a pilot project.

“The majority in each community and its institutions must be enthusiastic,” she points out.

“If most community members work for just a few employers and obtain health care from just a few providers, the effort of corralling the players will be easier. And, of course, community leaders—the mayor, city council members, and others—must work together rather than undermine one another.”

Another hurdle is money. “The trick is to capture some of what is being spent on health care already,” says Dyson. Before that happens, though, an investor, ideally in the form of a benevolent but ultimately profit-driven billionaire or hedge fund manager; or a philanthropy that “sees a way to do good while earning money for future goodness,” must come forward with a sizable initial down payment. If this is not enough, the investor will

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WikiPedia.ru

HICcup

Dyson in preparation for a possible space flight.

The desire to confront things that need fixing up probably accounts for Dyson’s affinity for Russia.

After learning the language at Princeton High School, Dyson travelled to the then-Soviet Union. “It was like a fish discovering air,” she says. “It was just a fascinating, screwed up place where nothing made sense.” Being in Russia also afforded her the opportunity to view the United States from afar.

Her many return trips to Russia include a particularly satisfying stint preparing to be a back-up cosmonaut. She stayed in Star City, the former Russian military facility that is home to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center and spent six months there, taking courses and participating in simulations and drills.

Dyson happened to be in Budapest over the Christmas weekend when the Ceauşescus were executed. “It was all over Hungarian TV, not just the execution, but the Romanian riots, and all this stuff,” she recalls. “The village where it all started was mostly Hungarian, and people were in anguish.” She experienced a profound sense of homesickness which she recognized it as a longing to be in Russia, not the U.S. It makes sense that one of Dyson’s favorite movies is The Lives of Others, which depicts East Germany in the 1980s. Another is Chinatown, and recently she was making plans to see Gravity, which may or may not have quenched her desire for space travel.

Here on Earth, Dyson’s year-round itinerary would probably hold its own against that of any other well-seasoned traveler. In November, for example, she spent two days talking about Yandax, a Russian Internet company. The Yandax conversation continued, without a break, in Amsterdam. A day later she was in London to talk about the mobile virtual network operator Credo, and from London she flew to Abu Dhabi for a World Economic Forum event. She had no meetings the next day only because of the time needed to travel between Abu Dhabi and Boston.

The day after that she participated in a discussion about privacy and authentication of digitally relayed data.

Dyson, who thought that two-and-a-half month vacations were the norm when she was a child in Princeton, hasn’t taken a real vacation in years. She says that good quality sleep and her morning swim help her maintain a pace that would give anyone else permanent jet lag. She allows that she tallies the number of unread messages in her email inbox every night: “it’s the best indicator of stress.” Her commitment to swimming is absolute.

On the road she finds luxurious hotel pools. At home in New York City, she alternates between two YMCAs each day, and, seems to be particularly drawn to the idiosyncratic atmosphere of the Chinatown branch, though it’s not clear whether or not this ties in with loving the movie.

Dyson professes to being “proud” of using modest facilities like the YMCA and there’s a kind of grittiness too, in Dyson’s choice of where she lives: a four-flight walk-up that is, she pointedly says, “furnished, not decorated.” Her use of frequent flyer miles for family visits during the holidays seems like another “just folks” touch, and Dyson’s globe-hopping may offset, in a way, the fact that she never learned to drive a car.

Dyson was among the first people to have her DNA analyzed using the $99 23andMe home kit that was briefly available to consumers before the FDA pulled it off the market. She looks forward to its return. The verdict is still out as to how, when, and by whom genomes will be sequenced, but Dyson was happy to have more information about herself. While she ultimately didn’t learn anything really new (she already knew that her parents are long-lived), she responded to anything that looked potentially threatening by quickly making lifestyle adjustments. Her attitude about DNA reading is consistent with her philosophy about HICcup, and she describes early participants in study as being

FEBRUARY 2014

1/23/14 2:14:22 PM

Esther Dyson being interviewed by Ellen Gilbert.

“benefactors” who will provide lots of good data.”

In five years, she adds, they will also be beneficiaries.

Dyson is adamant about encouraging the next generation of digital stars not to take unconventional paths to success. She claims to have learned more from her job at Forbes than she did at Harvard or could have from an advanced degree. “Without a business school education to confuse me, I learned how business actually worked,” she says. While that formula may have worked for her, she tells others not to “do what I did.” Bill Gates may have dropped out of Harvard (and her father does not have a Ph.D.), but encouraging “a normal person” to do that would be “bad advice.”

Unlike Malcolm Gladwell, who sees truths in anomalous statistics, she goes for critical masses of logical data to prove a point. In general, she is “amazed” by how uninformed many people are, and by

their willingness to take cues from questionable statistics.

The would-be librarian was also, at one point, an aspiring novelist. Although her work right now is firmly grounded in non-fiction writing, Dyson is happy to share three plots she has in mind for potential novels. In one, a “large malicious corporation” murders people, allowing them to create new IDs for others. In another, a “delusional correspondent creates a fictional correspondence with him—or herself.” The third is based on an act of terrorism. Armchair psychoanalysts, take aim.

Dyson’s papers are already housed at Harvard University, a pretty unusual achievement for someone who is relatively young. The collection was processed last fall, and there’s an online finding aid to guide researchers in locating particular documents.

The online resource that Esther-enthusiasts (or critics) should really look at, though, is her photostream on Flickr. It consists of about 75 screens-worth of beautiful images annotated with pithy captions by Dyson. Together they document a remarkable life, with pictures of famous people she has met (the Obamas, Mick Jagger); whimsical moments (an arrangement of toilet paper rolls); and shots of the gorgeous swimming pools she frequents around the world. Group shots from recent meetings provide a who’s who in the world of computers. One photograph shows her brother, George, standing in front of an image of John von Neumann, one of the subjects of his well-received book about the advent of the digital age, Turing’s Cathedral. Dyson has labeled the photo “Two extraordinary people.” A third one, of course, was behind the camera.

FEBRUARY 2014 PRINCETON MAGAZINE

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PRINCETON MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2014

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“None of us is getting any younger,” observes Brad Mays as he talks about his new documentary, I Grew Up in Princeton. “We’re all 60 or pushing 60. I think I’m pretty much the same person I was back in those days, but smarter.”

Mays, a 1973 graduate of Princeton High School, is a cinematographer/editor/director with 30 years’ worth of experience working on stage, television and film productions. Now he is putting the finishing touches on I Grew Up in Princeton, a full-length film that takes a stroll down memory lane, with a special focus on the Zeitgeist of Princeton in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

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LIFE AND DEATH

“I’m doing this whole thing myself,” Mays says of the two-hour documentary that took five years to complete. The work is a labor of love: Mays’s wife, Lorenda Starfelt, herself a theatrical producer, encouraged him to do it early on. Her death from sarcoma in 2011 made the project, which he describes as a coming-of-age story, feel even more compelling.

“At first it seemed to me that it was a movie about facing death,” says Mays, “but by the end, I realized that it was about living life.” He was struck, he says, by the “finality” of death and, at the same time, aware that “as soon as you contemplate the idea of eternity, you’re drawn into divinity.”

The film’s opening lines come from Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?”

I Grew Up in Princeton looks at events and personalities in Princeton “during an era of racial, political and cultural division,” explains Mays.

Images and discussions about anti- (Vietnam) war protests loom large, but racial tensions and other issues of the day are an important part of the mix.

Former School Superintendent Phil McPherson, who was only 30 years old and had several young children of his own at the time, emerges as

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something of a hero for his steadfast support of black students. “It was a real civil war, politically,” he now observes, and people recall violent confrontations at Princeton High School.

McPherson’s even-handedness is evident when several years later, high school students wanted to protest the war, but recognized that getting the schools to close was not likely. McPherson and Princeton High School Principal Patricia Wertheimer

“Stories you thought you’d never hear about a place you only thought you knew.” allowed the students to cancel classes while holding two days of topical workshops.

Things escalated when high school and university students held a protest at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA). There are considerable differences of opinion in the film over who did what to whom; former students claim that they didn’t lift a finger, while others recall real vandalism on the students’ part.

“I think that the ‘60s have been portrayed in very trivial ways over the years,” says Mays, who professes to enjoy reading books more than

watching movies. “I know that this film has value.

I would like to think that audiences who come to it now and after I’m gone will recognize its authenticity. I haven’t sold out. I never tried to join any super-slick L.A. filmmakers’ club.”

NO VOICE-OVER

Of particular note is the fact that the entire film was produced without any voice-over narration, relying solely on the interviews and images, which are not necessarily limited to the ‘60s and ‘70s. There are appearances by cartoonist Arnold Roth, former IDA/CRD Deputy Director Lee Neuwirth, artist Nelson Shanks, and author Zachary Tumin of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Current Princeton High School Principal Gary Snyder talks about the school and its mission today, and another clip captures the PHS jazz band in rehearsal.

The idea for the movie grew out of a PHS class of ’73 reunion, and that cohort is particularly well represented in the movie. An announcement on the I Believe in Princeton Facebook page was responsible for attracting other participants. After “getting hammered” at a preview for the absence of blacks in the movie, Mays sought out more blacks, and several, including Princeton historian and activist Shirley Satterfield and former Borough Mayor Yina Moore, proved willing. “I wanted to talk to all kinds of people who I hung out with, younger, older, all races, all political persuasions,”

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Filmmaker Brad Mays filming I Grew Up in Princeton.

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CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT: Director/choreographer Susan Tenney in front of the Woodrow Wilson School; former IDA/CRD Deputy Director Lee Neuwirth; school superintendent Phil McPherson; historian Shirley Satterfield; Kurt Tazelaar at WPRB Radio Princeton; famed cartoonist Arnold Roth.

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says Mays. As a result, there is considerable tension as whites and blacks recount their respective sides of the story, particularly in black speakers’ wistful memories of the flourishing, tight-knit, community they grew up in, and, ironically, the unsettling affects of school desegregation. “That was the worst thing that could have happened to us,” remembers Satterfield at one point.

“The film brings all of us back to that time, but this isn’t nostalgia.”

The film features an original score by former Princetonian Jon Negus, and Mays chose the many evocative songs that are also used in the movie’s soundtrack. Caroline Roth and her son, Charles, recall the advent of the Beatles and multiple viewings of A Hard Days Night when it opened at the Garden Theater. Mays warns, though, that while I Grew Up in Princeton “brings all of us back to that time, it

isn’t nostalgia.” One of the most affecting narratives is Polly Smock’s description of wandering into Green Hall as a teen-ager and observing a live experimental monkey with its brain exposed.

OPENING NIGHT

The movie premiered at Princeton High School last fall, where it was largely well received by an audience of about 700 people. Mays says that he noticed “one or two people” walking out, and he heard laughter in the right places as well as some wrong ones. On the whole, Mays says that there was “so much warmth and so much generosity from the audience that I could feel they were connected.”

After some fine-tuning, Mays plans to show it at film festivals around the country, where he hopes that it will be picked up for wider distribution as a kind of art film.

Mays is not Princeton-born. He moved to Princeton as an adolescent, and citing his incredible memory (“a blessing and curse”) talks about the experience of being “dropped into this witch’s brew of culture. At my first school dance, I saw all these Jewish girls without bras on and knew I wasn’t in Kansas any more.” Within a year he was participating in marches on IDA in the belief that it

WE HEAR YOU TRUE COUNSEL

was cooperating in the Vietnam War effort. “If that had been true, it would have been noble to protest against it,” Mr. Mays says in retrospect, but, as the movie shows, “it was more complicated than we knew. We have to own what happened.” Whether they were right or wrong (or, most likely, somewhere in between), people still speak of that time as being magical.

KUBRICK

Stanley Kubrick is his favorite filmmaker, and Mays makes a point of describing how, when it first appeared in 1968, Kubrick’s landmark movie 2001 was savaged by critics. Explaining his own unapologetic approach to movie-making Mays emphasizes the fact that he doesn’t “spoon feed audiences,” and that I Grew Up in Princeton “isn’t pumped up with bells and whistles.” He hopes that the rapid cross-cutting between speakers with different points of view reflects his serious intentions. “I’m making this for a smart audience, though not necessarily a Princeton audience. People who watch reality TV—none of them would be really interested in a film like this.”

To learn more, visit www.igrewupinprinceton.com.

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(ABOVE) Daniela Bittman, Round Painting, Acrylic and Colored Pencil, 10’ Diameter, art photography

by Hanan Davidowitz. (OPPOSITE) Portrait of Daniela Bittman by photographer Regine Corngold.

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(below) Daniela Bittman, Sketch, Pencil, 4” x 6” (right) Dogs and Hardware, Acrylic and Colored Pencil, 10’ x 12’ art photography by Hanan Davidowitz.

(OPPOSITE) Birds & Crabs, Acrylic and Colored Pencil, 6’ x 6’ art photography by Hanan Davidowitz.

B

ittman’s imagination draws upon myriad influences but don’t ask her to explain her paintings or pinpoint the source of her ideas. Instead feel free to let your own imagination fly when you see her work. “I don’t talk about painting, I paint,” says the voracious reader, in seven languages no less. Well-traveled, curious, welcoming, warm, opinionated, as well as thoughtful and talented, Bittman thinks in images, has an impish sense of humor and believes artists should be anonymous. She refuses to sign her paintings because it disturbs the composition.

To those in the know, the wonder of Bittman’s work is why it hasn’t been seen more widely. At a rare exhibition at Rider Gallery last fall, her first showing in almost a decade, visitors were overheard expressing their astonishment. Why isn’t this work on show in New York? Why haven’t we seen this before? Where has this artist been hiding?

The answer is simple: Bittman, who lives in Princeton and works from a studio in the home she shares with her second husband, retired psychiatrist Sandy Otis, shows so rarely because she is busy creating extraordinarily large canvases that take more than a year to complete. She’s been absorbed, as she puts it, “in becoming a better artist” rather than in marketing her work.

“Vermeer could paint anything. I cannot. I want to but there is always a distance between what I want to do and what I am able to do,” says the artist. “Sometimes I can look at a part of a painting and say, yes I nailed it but sometimes I see something that I want to improve upon and I

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don’t know how to correct it. There’s a gap between what I want to do and what I can do. Perhaps the great masters can do what they want but I’m not a great master, at least not yet.”

As Rider Gallery Director Harry I. Naar puts it, “Daniela Bittman is a real undiscovered find. What’s really exciting about the work is her subject matter— figures doing all sorts of things in an interior; depicted in such a way that they’re totally unusual, involved in some kind of crazy activity; all of which adds to the visual excitement.”

Bittman’s medium is no less astonishing than her figurative and fantastic mural-size canvases. They are worked in colored pencil cross-hatched over acrylic washes. Some have been rolled up for years, seen only in a few local shows in Frenchtown at the Joy Kreves Gallery and in Princeton at the Anne Reid Gallery of Princeton Day School and recently at Rider.

If Bittman were a character in a novel, she would be described as a paradox. Her paintings are 10 feet by 12 feet, she is 4 feet 11 inches. Her surreal images invite interpretation, yet she is straight talking and down to earth. Her life is devoted to art and yet the only person she claims ever to have had a fantasy crush on is physicist Richard Feynman. Although her home shows a passion for nature, decorated with the nests of paper wasps and objects trouvés—a deer skull discovered in the Institute Woods, stick insects, cicadas wings made into jewelry—her paintings are most often interiors filled with human beings from all walks of life, infants to ancients. “I am always amazed, and greatly amused, by what people see in my work: all kinds of hidden symbolism, psychoanalytic meaning and the like, or stories that

show great imagination on their part, but which I definitely didn’t put in there,” she says.

Similarly, the artist claims no knowledge of what stimulates the ideas for her paintings. Acknowledging a penchant for the absurd, she is perfectly happy for others to attach whatever symbolic, archetypal, or psychological meaning they care to. Contrary to what many viewers conclude, they don’t come from dreams. Bittman simply thinks in pictures, she insists, and in response to my evident inability to fully comprehend, she adds: “If I try to understand someone who thinks in music—who can hear trumpets, trombones, piccolos, harps, and the right parts of all the instruments—it always awes me.”

Born to Jewish parents in Bucharest, Romania, in 1952, Bittman was an only child. Her father was a judge and her mother, a nurse. From what her mother told her, she was drawing not long after she learned to walk, obsessively filling whole notebooks with sketches of legs, feet, hands, and faces. In Bucharest, she went to an arts high school where she was taught in a classical manner, not just to look, but to observe, to see. The training was demanding and could be repetitious and boring but it has served her well. Her drawings were more grotesque than they are today, she says, “animal people; heads with a foot attached, they were funny.”

She studied pre-Renaissance and Renaissance art, especially the German, Dutch, Flemish and Spanish masters, and then, she says, she was “hit like a punch in the stomach” by the Orient. “The Japanese and Chinese masters, I think, had the most marked influence on the way I work. They were masters at what I was dreaming to achieve one day: their figures,

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objects, landscapes and plants had a ‘realness,’ an immediacy, a lightning-like impact way beyond any photographic or realistic rendition I had seen in Western art, and an elegance of line and composition that left me gasping.”

In 1970, she moved with her family to Israel, and enrolled at the Bezalel Art Academy in TelAviv. At that time, minimalist and abstract art was in, figurative painting was out. “If you drew figures, they said you couldn’t be an artist—you had to innovate or else,” she recalls. The art school experience almost destroyed her self confidence.

In a recent interview with Naar, she recalled: “At Bezalel, at that time, there was a lot of art-talk, and a lot of questioning as to what art was, ending, invariably, with the conclusion that it was whatever one said it was. I felt, if I may dare a figure of speech, like a black bug in a bowl of milk. . . I

didn’t care much about innovating; I wanted to perfect what I had.”

Bittman left Bezalel after just two years to study classics at Tel Aviv University. “I didn’t want to paint ever again,” she says. Fortunately, Israeli painter and muralist Naftali Bezem saw examples of her work.

He told her: “You know, you have a gift, and you are not entirely responsible for it, because it was given to you. But you are responsible for using it; if you don’t, you are being petty.” Bezem’s encouragement was just what the young artist needed.

While in Israel, she met her first husband, Plainsboro resident Gilbert Bittman on a visit to his parents there. She moved to the United States in 1984.

The couple’s son Jonathan now lives and works as a professional jazz musician in Amsterdam. She met Sandy Otis, the foremost champion of her work, in 1989, and has adapted a cathedral-ceilinged space in

their home into a workspace where her enormous canvas can be stapled to a piece of wood and raised and lowered by a pulley system of her own devising.

Why is her work so large? “The work requires a certain size,” she says. “If a Michelangelo sculpture was the size of a teacup it wouldn’t be the same work. If I could I would work larger.” Once she has a painting in mind, and she doesn’t start until her image has completely “coagulated,” she says, Bittman works deliberately, rarely improvising.

She associates a painting with music that she listens to while working: Bruchner, Bach, Beethoven, Handel, or Purcell. “I always have some piece of music in my head, a kind of guide for the composition.”

She says that she might “carry” an image for years until one day it’s ready to be

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(left) Daniela Bittman, Cabbage, Acrylic and Colored Pencil, 10’ x 12’ art photography by Hanan Davidowitz. (top-right) Tamar’s Painting, Acrylic and Colored Pencil, 10’ x 12’art photography by Hanan Davidowitz. (bottom-left) Daniela Bittman at work on Tamar’s Painting. Photo by Jon Naar Copyright ©2013. (bottom-middle) Sketch, Pencil, 4” x 6” (bottom-right) Harry I. Naar with Daniela Bittman in her studio. Photo by Jon Naar Copyright ©2013.

“

I would love it if people just let the images wash over them, and let themselves make their own dreams and stories about them, without looking for hidden symbolism, psychoanalytic meaning, and the like...

”

worked. First, she stretches and primes her canvas and then conveys her image from a summary, geometric sketch to the large-scale by means of a 16 section grid. Her faces are of people imagined or summoned up from childhood. Citing Aldous Huxley’s 1954 Doors of Perception in which he describes the hallucinatory effects of peyote, Bittman laughs, “I don’t need mescaline. I hallucinate at will.”

In a Bittman painting, figures don’t seem to interact with one another but there is usually one whose eyes engage the viewer directly. In Pig & Clover, the central female figure looks the viewer up and down. She clearly doesn’t like what she sees. In Cabbage, the predominant figure, clad in crimson on a crimson-draped crimson chair, against a crimson backdrop, holds a clarinet in his right hand and a cabbage in his left. His long dark hair gives him the aspect of a Venetian Duke and his expression dares one to make sense of his surroundings.

Turn your head, and I swear he winks!

Bittman’s juxtaposed figures tease the imagination from the familiar, often commonplace, to the absurd. She speaks and reads in English, French, Romanian, German, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew. The titles of her paintings convey a sense of fun: Life Complications, Birds & Crabs, Dogs and Hardware, and The Side Effects of Coffee.

Here are Tonka trucks, cabbages, clarinets and cat’s cradles, a plump and naked Japanese matron dipping her hand in a fishbowl, roses, bathing suits, grotesques, a man with a crab on his head, copulating dogs, pregnant nudes, plump sleeping babies. Her pictures could be of any time or place.

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They teem with the myriad methods and madnesses of life.

Gerald Scarfe and the elder Bruegel come to mind, as does Hieronymus Bosch, Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast, W.H. Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts.” Bittman is an artist with a real penchant for absurdity and ambiguity, for the obscure and the bizarre. One painting, simply titled “Round Painting,” includes an image of Odradek, the imaginary creature described in Kafka’s short story “The Cares of a Family Man.” “I feel a lot more affinity with Kafka, or Borges, than with any painter I can think of. Theirs (as mine) are worlds of the imagination, and yet the components of those worlds are ‘realistic’ or they would be totally unconvincing, and their writing techniques, different as they may be from each other, are punctilious and precise, which also adds to the power of the ‘illusion;’ I could have added Escher, for the same reasons. They are all playing a prank—whether on emotions, on expectations, or on the very way the brain works—and one cannot play a good prank unless one is dead serious about it.

That’s more or less what I want to do too.”

Tamar’s Painting When Bittman talks about the construction of her work, she invariably resorts to music as an analogy for her themes and subthemes. Describing Tamar’s Painting, she explains that the work was inspired by a small still life by her son’s high school girlfriend, Tamar. Bittman looked at Tamar’s three bottles with a red apple and a bulb of fennel and “saw” the painting she wanted to produce. Ms. Bittman riffs on it in the way a jazz musician might riff on a theme.

Her staggering 10 by 12 feet canvas takes Tamar’s still life and restates it in different pitches and keys.

The colors and shapes of its bottles, apple and fennel are transformed into three standing figures. Look, there they are again on the tray in the lap of the seated figure. Their yellows, grays and blacks appear in the clothing of the figures, in the trim of hanging drapery, and again in a pile of dirty laundry in the left, bottom corner.

Where the observer sees objects, the artist sees elements of composition, the abstract geometry of triangles and circles. “I would love it if people just let the images wash over them, and let themselves make their own dreams and stories about them, without looking for hidden symbolism, psychoanalytic meaning, and the like. . . And, of course, like any ego-driven artist (did ever one exist who wasn’t?) I want them to enjoy them, to appreciate the technique and the time involved in producing them, and to tell themselves that they wouldn’t mind it if their dentist worked on their teeth as well as I had worked on my painting.”

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on Bittman, she tells you about her latest endeavor.

No, it’s not a painting. It’s a cook book, tentatively titled: The Severe Dieter’s Gourmet Bible, organized by menu for dinners that are elegant and delicious as well as gluten- and cholesterol-free. When not painting or hiking or engaged in sundry other creative projects, Bittman is an experimental cook.

One wonders whether there is anything this petite blonde with a large appetite for life cannot do.

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com·mute verb \kə-ˈmyüt\: to travel regularly to and from a place and especially between where you live and where you work.

Despite trips that take from one to several hours, Princeton faculty members Paul Muldoon, William Bialek, Paul Lewis, Lee Silver, Tracy K. Smith, and Alan Stahl, all have pretty compelling reasons for regularly making the trek from New York City (and beyond) to Princeton—and back.

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“A FERTILE ENVIRONMENT”

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, Howard G.B. Clark ’21 University Professor in the Humanities, lived in New York City when he first started teaching at Princeton in 1987, so moving back there with his family was, in a way, coming full circle.

“We moved to the city for several reasons, mostly having to do with family,” reports Muldoon, who is also the inaugural chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts, and head of the Irish Studies Fund.

Tracy K. Smith, another Pulitzer Prize winning poet and member of the Lewis Center Creative Writing faculty, lives in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. She was on leave during the Fall, 2013, when she gave birth to twins. The return to work this spring will probably bring back Sundays as “family day” for Smith, her husband, three-year old daughter, and, of course, the twins. “I travel a lot during the week, teaching and doing readings,” Smith observed in a New York Times profile last year. “It’s nice to keep Sundays fairly local.” This means trips to the gym, long breakfasts, lots of playgrounds, and a leisurely dinner. Still, Smith’s output is prodigious: she is the author of three books of poetry and, in addition to the Pulitzer, has won many awards.

Photograph Courtesy of Alan Stahl

Like many of the design faculty in the School of Architecture, Paul Lewis does the reverse commute from New York City in part because his studio is based in the city. Currently an associate professor, Lewis has taught at Princeton since 2000, and is a principal at the New York-based firm LTL Architects. He is also a vice president of the Board of Directors of the Architectural League of New York and is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

“The vitality and density of the city provides a fertile environment for design based research, with the city itself often the site for projects and experimentation,” he observes.

For Alan Stahl, who is the Curator of Numismatics at Firestone Library, commuting is nothing new. He reports doing his Latin homework while riding the train between his childhood home in Bucks County and Central High School in Philadelphia. Now that he lives in Ossining, New York, though, the commute to Princeton is of quite a different order. In what he describes as “probably

the most complex commute among faculty and staff,” Stahl takes Metro North to Grand Central Station; takes two subways or walks to Penn Station; followed by rides on a Northeast Corridor train and the Dinky.

Professor of Molecular Biology and Public Affairs Lee Silver and his wife were long-time Princeton residents. They moved to New York City several years ago, and report being “more than satisfied with the switch,” which included giving up their cars. Silver now commutes via New Jersey Transit. “We chose to live in Greenwich Village, a block away from the West 4th Street subway stop, so I could get to Penn Station in less than 15 minutes,” he says.

John Archibald Wheeler/Battelle Professor in Physics William Bialek is another recent Princeton expat who has relocated to New York City. “We lived happily in Princeton for twenty years, but this is a new chapter and wonderful in very different ways,” he reports. This “new chapter” includes a Visiting Presidential Professorship of Physics at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, where Bialek is helping to launch an Initiative for the Theoretical Sciences.

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GETTING THERE

Getting from A to point B (and back) is, of course, different for each commuter.

The differences between Princeton and New York “are not so striking” to Silver “due to the fact that my legs provide my means of transportation in both places and I always make sure I am in the company of stimulating people”. The reverse trip, he adds, “is actually very pleasant with uncrowded train cars. I spend my time on my laptop connected to the Internet through my iPhone.”

Lewis’s design sensibility is readily apparent in his descriptions of going to and from Princeton. “The train commute down to Princeton is fundamentally different than the return. The way down, typically in the morning, is characterized by the varied and quixotic landscapes outside the train; of Penn Station, the Meadowlands, Newark industrial skeletons, strips malls and other suburban building types backed up to the train tracks.”

Lewis’s return trip takes place “in the dark of night,” when “the focus shifts toward the interior and those who reverse commute or are taking the train for a specific destination: students, families, Metropark office workers, NY Ranger fans, etc. Each station on the NJ Transit Northeast corridor line has its own demographics and typical cast of characters.

Despite these differences in context, the commute is much less an interruption of work than a continuity made possible by a proliferation of mobile technology. It’s just that you are frequently more alone on the crowded car than on Princeton’s campus.”

“I really enjoy the rhythm of the commuting day,” Muldoon says. “I save up all the magazines I might never otherwise get to—the New Yorker, the TLS, The Economist, Rolling Stone—and read them on the train.

I also write on the train. I was working on a poem this very morning.”

The commute is actually a boon for Bialek.

The approximately one hour uninterrupted time between Newark and Princeton Junction allows him to “catch up with reading, correspondence, and even editing manuscripts; all things I would do with the door closed, so when I arrive

“Some trails are happy ones, Others are blue.

It’s the way you ride the trail that counts, Here’s a happy one for you.”

– Dale Evans

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William Bialek is another recent Princeton expat who has relocated to New York City. “We lived happily in Princeton for twenty years, but this is a new chapter and wonderful in very different ways,” he reports.

in Princeton I can keep the door open and interact more with students and colleagues.”

A train from Ossining lands Stahl in Manhattan which, he says, “isn’t all bad,” since he’s “a morning person, who enjoys walking through a deserted Times Square from Grand Central to Penn Station.” During the next lap of the trip, he usually reads the Times on his ipad. “I’m afraid that I regularly carry, and worry about, an iphone, an ipad, and a laptop in my backpack,” he reports.

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The way back to Ossining, usually on Thursday evenings, is another story. At that point Stahl, who also teaches, at varying times, in the Art and Archaeology, Classics, and History Departments is “usually too tired for any reading beyond the New Yorker (whose mobile app I actually prefer to the paper version), listening to Pandora (the ‘Ella Fitzgerald channel’) or sleep.”

“A BLAST”

For Stahl and the others, it’s all worth the trouble.

Stahl’s husband is mayor of Ossining, and the couple lives in a beautifully restored church. “It has been clear that it is I who do the commuting,” he observes. In Stahl’s case, he has found some reprieve during the last nine years in keeping a Princeton crash pad, “a room in a private home at modest cost, hosted by an intelligent and caring scholar, which has made Princeton truly a second home to me.”

Muldoon relishes life in the Big Apple. “I set out to avail myself of what it has to offer, or I might as well be living in a cranberry bog somewhere.”

This past couple of weeks, for example, Muldoon has been to Madison Square Garden to see Van Morrison; the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see Susan Marshall’s new dance piece; the 92nd

Street Y for a Neruda celebration; the Metropolitan Opera for Two Boys; heard Sinead O’Connor at City Winery; and seen “Macbeth” at Lincoln Center. “It’s a blast!” he enthuses.

Speaking of great music, it’s nice to know that, In addition to University and mass transit web sites, the venerable Princeton Record Exchange provides easy-to-follow travel instructions that “help the hundreds of music and movie lovers that visit Prex from New York City.” See http://www. prex.com/directions-train-ny.html.

Photograph ©Andrew Wilkinson

Photograph Courtesy of Princeton University

LISTENING TO ELLA

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Minimum security prisoners with hopes for a culinary career once they complete their terms worked recently to prepare lunch at The Mates Inn, a dining room open to the public and known for its well-prepared food and low prices. The program, which trains those aspiring to the culinary arts, has been serving customers since the late 1970s.

I

f things go his way, Matthew Gross will be television’s next celebrity chef. Taking a break from chopping, dicing, and sautéing before the lunch crowd arrived at the Trenton restaurant The Mates Inn in mid-November, the 27-year-old cook sat at a table in the dining room and outlined his hopes for the future.

“I want to be the next Chef Ramsay,” he said, wiping sweat from the steamy kitchen off his brow.

“I love the show Kitchen Nightmares. I will be a TV personality, once I get my tooth fixed.”

Gross’s chipped front tooth is a minor stumbling block standing in the way of his chosen career path.

A more significant hurdle is the completion of the jail sentence he is serving for vehicular manslaughter at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Bordentown. He has four months to go.

But thanks to a unique program that teaches minimum-security inmates useful culinary skills, the odds may be in Gross’s favor. He is one of a group of young men who board a bus each morning for the New Jersey Department of Corrections’ Central Office, a large campus near the Trenton/Ewing border. The inmates disembark at The Mates Inn, a one-story building in the middle of the complex.

They head for the kitchen and get started on the lunch menu, which might include dishes such as Chicken Estelle, Pork Modenese, Cuban-Style Steak and Thai Shrimp Salad.

By 11:30AM, patrons begin to arrive and claim their favorite tables in the dining room. There are many regulars. Some work in the complex. Others come from offices and government buildings nearby. Then there are those who drive from across the Delaware River in Yardley, Pa., or beyond. They come for the food —well-prepared, and often imaginative —and the rock-bottom prices. The most expensive item on the menu the week of November 18 was $6.50.

The restaurant is one of Trenton’s best-kept secrets. Loyal customers like the fact that they are helping to give a second chance to non-violent offenders hoping to land a job in the food industry once they are released.

“The food is good, and it gets better all the time,” said Bill Farkas, 75, who has been coming from Yardley for the past 20 years and celebrated his recent birthday at the restaurant. “But I would support the program regardless, because it is a wonderful opportunity for the guys. I’ve gotten to know them. They have skills of real value.”

“We call ahead and order all the time,” said Cindy Rago, who dined at the restaurant recently with Cheryl Taliaferro, a colleague at the New Jersey Department of Transportation in Ewing.

“Everybody’s very polite. They accommodate you if you’re a picky eater. And it’s a good program. It will give them a foot in the door once they get out.”

Having a sudden change of heart about whether to order the Chocolate Mousse Cup or Hummingbird Cake for dessert, Ms. Taliaferro suddenly got up and strode into the kitchen to change her order. No one blinked an eye; this was clearly business as usual.

“We’re regulars. We get the menu emailed to us,” said Taliaferro. “They take our suggestions and they try all sorts of new things. They come out and ask us how we like what we’re eating. When we see them graduate out of the program, we’re happy for them.”

Since the 1930s, the building now known as The Mates Inn has housed a training program for inmates in the culinary arts. In 1977, the Department of Corrections decided to open a restaurant to the public. Prisoners who have full minimum custody status are eligible, and they can earn up to 15 credit hours toward a high school diploma or apply those hours to an apprenticeship program. When they finish, they can enroll in the Apprenticeship Training within the State Division of Vocational Education, which helps them make contacts in the industry.

“Our goal is for them to return to society with a sustainable skill,” said Francine Stromberg, assistant supervisor of Education for the Garden State Correctional Facility. “Their goal is probably more personal, depending on how they see themselves and the opportunity. It just depends.”

There are success stories. Rashoan Johnson worked his way up to head chef while serving in the

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Dajey Hannah, left, who has worked in the restaurant for the past several months, has already made a name for himself as a baker. After he finishes his sentence for aggravated assault, he hopes to work in the culinary industry. Matt Gross, right, take a break outside The Mates Inn after preparing such lunch specialties as Thai Shrimp Salad and Pork Modenese.

program a decade ago. Now 41, he has a successful catering business in Franklinville, New Jersey, and works part-time at The Franklinville Inn, where he got his first job after serving his sentence for conspiracy to commit murder.

“It was helpful, because you had the outside world coming in and tasting your food,” he said of the program. “Knowing you could do something other than your normal, which was just being incarcerated, was an encouragement to continue on. I knew I had some type of skill that was pertinent to helping people. My culinary arts teacher said there are two things in the world people have to do: One was to pass away, and the other was to eat. And if you have good food, people will come. So that was it for me.”

Students at the restaurant start as dishwashers, and then learn how to serve, create menus, prepare meals, bake, maintain equipment, and the daily responsibilities in operating a restaurant. “We start working on menus a week ahead,” said Dan DeCross, who is the inmates’ main instructor. “They add ideas. In the kitchen, they’re making everything from soup to nuts. Ideally, what we teach in the classroom, we do hands on in the kitchen.”

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The students are taught knife-safety and go through “serve safe” courses. None of them handle money.

No tips are allowed. Customers pay with a Mates Inn debit card, handled as payment by a cashier.

Knowing their work is appreciated is part of what makes the program work for the inmates. “They really like hearing the accolades from the customers,” said DeCross. “They learn people’s idiosyncracies. They get to know people and try to please them.”

Does the program work for everyone? “Honestly, it’s very rare that we have problems,” DeCross said.

“Maybe twice in the four or five years I’ve been here. This is one of the few programs where I’ve seen results. We actually have quite a few who show great talent and leadership potential. I hope when they are done with the program and get released from jail, they’ll put it to good use.”

Dajey Hannah, 25, incarcerated for aggravated assault, has been working in the restaurant since last July. Baking is his specialty. “It helps me. I stay busy,” he said. “I’m learning things I didn’t know before. I never expected something like this.”

“I like when he bakes, too,” said Gross. “He’s

really good. And I watch Cake Boss.” Gross praises his instructor. “I’ve learned from DeCross. He knows how to work with me,” he said, adding, “I’m probably the only inmate who gets cookbooks.”

The dining room at The Mates Inn is bright and cheerful. Windows that let in sunlight are framed by deep red drapes. Tables have cloths topped with glass. In addition to creating meals for the restaurant, the students cater for meetings. Clients include the ladies of The Red Hat Society, which often gathers in one of the meeting rooms. And three days a week, the students cater meals for HomeFront, the Trenton organization dedicated to helping the homeless.

“These guys know their way around a kitchen by the time they leave here,” said Darlene Livingston, manager of The Mates Inn. “They do their homework. Mr. DeCross cares, and that inspires them a lot. Sometimes when you’re locked away, you forget how to communicate.

This gives them a chance to do that. It helps them get back into the world.”

FEBRUARY 2014

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| DESTINATIONS

Ocean Drive

THE PULSE OF SOUTH BEACH

S

By Taylor Smith

outh Beach in Miami, Florida is a famous stretch of sand that extends along Ocean Drive, from 5th to 15th Streets and from Collins Avenue to 25th Street. As well as to enjoy the sun and sand, people come here to buy the latest fashions, to indulge in good food and drink, and to generally “see and be seen.” It’s hard not to notice the great number of attractive people walking around and the diversity of languages being spoken.

While some sections of South Beach are best suited to those aged 21 and older, there are many culturally fascinating sites that are also familyfriendly. Thus, while time spent at the beach is a prerequisite in South Florida, clubbing is not. But if clubbing is for you, be sure to pack your trendiest clothes and check your inhibitions at the door.

and you will soon notice the ubiquitous fishbowl sized mixed drinks and Caribbean hip-shaking. There is no judgment here, just the perfect opportunity to satisfy your wilder side.

LUMMUS PARK BOARDWALK

This 74-acre park runs along Ocean Drive from 6th Street until around 14th. While you can lay your towel down in the sand here, you will find better options south of 5th Street. The Boardwalk is the main attraction and many people use it as a place to stage photo shoots, jog, and rollerblade (a very popular form of exercise in Miami). In fact, the cocoa brown sand on this section of beach is so hard-packed that you can easily take a jog beside the ocean.

Bodybuilders and topless sunbathers are a common site. In addition, the hit TV show Burn Notice shot many scenes in this park.

SOFI

OCEAN DRIVE

The ten-block stretch around Ocean Drive is a non-stop party. Between the cameramen hunting for the Versace Mansion, tourists descending from the cruise ships, and the frequent 2 for 1-drink specials, the area is known for being a colorful, bacchanalian spectacle. The line between the actual beach and the roadside bars and cafés are frequently blurred, so don’t be surprised to observe men and women of every shape and size strutting down Ocean Drive in barely-there bathing suits. This being a popular destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties,

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Lummus Park

Third Street Beach, in an area referred to as SoFi (South of 5th Street), is inhabited by locals and possesses a much calmer atmosphere. This triangular district at the south end of South Beach has emerged as an urban oasis. South Pointe Park is decorated with walking paths that lead toward Fisher Island and the Atlantic Ocean. The Miami Beach Marina has a deepsea diving center, along with powerboat and yacht rentals. The Nikki Beach Club is outfitted with white canvas cabanas where you can lounge with friends in between cocktails and dips in the ocean. For an alternative experience, stop by South Pointe Park at

Lummus Park

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(LEFT) Aerial view of South Beach. (BELOW) Art Deco District. (TOP-RIGHT) Classic car in Art Deco District. (BELOW-RIGHT) Restaurants along Española Way.

7AM or 6PM when free yoga classes are offered on the beach. Join the locals as you stretch your arms into warrior pose and gaze upon the pastel colored sunset. Spontaneous drum circles are known to appear at sunset, as well. Just follow the rhythm…

ART DECO DISTRICT WELCOME CENTER

Stop by the Miami Design Preservation League’s Welcome Center (1001 Ocean Drive, South Beach) for a tour covering the architectural history of Lincoln Road, Española Way, North Beach, and the entire Art Deco District. Walking tours leave at 10:30AM everyday. Afterwards, you can check out the Preservation League’s gift shop to purchase some art deco memorabilia. If you are more interested in Miami’s modern architecture, you can attend the MiMo Tour, which leaves the first Saturday of each month at 9:30AM. BASS MUSEUM OF ART

The handsome Bass Museum of Art (2100 Collins Avenue, South Beach) can easily occupy an afternoon.

The permanent collection includes works by Botticelli and Peter Paul Rubens. You will also find art from Latin America, North America, and the Caribbean. Don’t miss the Bass Museum’s extensive textiles collection, which includes a Flemish tapestry once owned by Henry VIII. The exhibit “ESL” with works by Polish artist Piotr Uklanski, examines the immigrant experience and what it is like to be a “foreigner” in the United States. This exhibit will be on view through March 2014.

ESPAÑOLA WAY

Fashioned in a Mediterranean Revival style, the area was founded in the 1920s as a gathering place for Miami’s wealthy upper class. However, it wasn’t long before legendary gangsters began running gambling rings in this area (between 14th and 15th Streets from Washington to Jefferson Avenues). Al Capone once used the Clay Hotel in Española Way as an outpost for his crime operations. During the 1930s and ’40s, the area became a go-to destination for authentic rumba music. Bandleader Desi Arnaz performed regularly at Española Way bars, restaurants and hotels. The area declined during the 1970s before being re-fashioned in the 1980s to serve as the backdrop for the TV show, Miami Vice. Developers worked with the show’s creators in choosing “peach” as the dominant color for Española Way’s roadways and buildings. After the success of Miami Vice, many music videos, TV shows, and movies were filmed here including The Birdcage with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

The modern charms of Española Way are best discovered during a leisurely Saturday or Sunday stroll. Gather the family for brunch at one of the European-style cafés and peruse the vendors selling fresh flowers and fun jewelry.

Bass Museum of Art

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

This haunting memorial is laced with graphic sculptures, quotations, beams of sunlight, music and the names of those lost during the Holocaust (19331945) (Meridian Avenue at Dade Boulevard). To this

Holocaust Memorial

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(Top) South Beach. (below-left) Wolfsonian–FIU. (below-right) Jewish Museum of Florida.

day, the Miami metro area has a large population of Holocaust survivors. The entire structure took 4 years to build, and in 1990, was opened to the public with a dedication ceremony overseen by guest speaker and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.

Designed by Kenneth Treister, the memorial is anchored by a large hand reaching out of a water lily pond. Upon closer inspection, visitors will realize that the hand is carved with hundreds of bodies and faces.

Admission to the Holocaust Memorial is free and is open to the public 365 days per year from 9:30AM until sunset.

Wolfsonian–FIU

A world-class design museum, the Wolfsonian at Florida International University (1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach) is a great diversion from fun in the sand and sun. The museum tries to answer the question “what is design?” through a variety of media.

Exhibits often feature examples of furniture, industrial design, works in glass, ceramics and paintings, from the period 1851-1945. Collection highlights include the Modernism and Art Deco collections. The physical location in Miami Beach lends the museum a somewhat quirky quality.

Jewish Museum of Florida

The Jewish Museum of Florida plays host to numerous dance, music, scholarly, and theatrical events throughout the calendar year. The museum hosts Sufi scholars, Jewish food walking tours and collaborates with Jewish artists at Miami’s Art Basel. The permanent collection houses examples of Jewish oral history, newspaper documents, Jewish-American artifacts, and remnants of South Florida’s unique Jewish history. The Jewish Museum is located in a restored 1936 synagogue (301 Washington Avenue). The location of the synagogue is significant since, at one time, the city’s Jewish population was restricted to living south of Fifth Street.

When to Visit: The peak tourist season in Miami is from November through May. During this time, the winter air is warm and relatively dry for a subtropical environment. The ocean is still warm enough for swimming. Summer meanwhile is exceedingly hot and humid. Almost every afternoon ends in a tropical downpour. It’s also best to avoid hurricane season, which is roughly June through October. Unless you’re an enthusiastic storm watcher, the display of high winds, clouds, and lightning will be unappealing.

Centering your visit around one of Miami’s many festivals is always a good idea.

The two most popular events, drawing celebrities and an international audience, are Art Basel in early December and the Food Network South Beach Food & Wine Festival in late February. Hotel rooms for these events book-up months

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The museum is open to the public, Tuesdays through Sundays, from 10AM to 5PM.

Lincoln Road Mall

Lincoln Road is a pedestrian-friendly mall between Alton Road and Washington Avenue.

It is prime people-watching territory, populated by the young, the old, the wealthy, and the genetically (and surgically) blessed. You will find locals walking their dogs, students heading to an experimental theater performance at the Colony Theater, and statuesque men and women browsing the many boutique clothing, jewelry and home furnishings stores. Two sites worth noting are the 1921 Mission-style Miami Beach Community Church and the 1940s keystone building housing an impressive 1945 Leo Birchanky mural. The area is sophisticated and fashion-forward, so be sure to dress in something slinky and stylish.

in advance. Other significant festivals are the Miami International Boat Show, Arteamericas (showcasing contemporary Latin American art), and the Miami Book Fair International.

Where to Stay: South Beach is home to several spa-like luxury hotels that are situated close to the beach and all of the nighttime action. The cream of the crop is W South Beach, a 312-room hotel located on the northern outskirts of South Beach. Other options include The Setai Miami Beach, Delano Hotel, King & Grove Tides South Beach, and The Ritz-Carlton South Beach. All of these hotels boast ocean views, fitness centers, spa services, elegant pools and prime locations.

PRINCETON MAGAZINE february 2014

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FEBRUARY 2014 PRINCETON MAGAZINE

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| the last word Gary Walters

by Bill Alden | Photos provided courtesy of Princeton’s Office of Athletic Communications

G

understanding. But even more so, having played for coach [Pete] Carril in high school, having played for [Butch] van Breda Kolff in college, having played on some great basketball teams at Princeton that had fabulous people, I understood in my DNA the role that athletics played in the holistic education of the individual.

What were the most pressing issues that you faced when you took the helm?

The biggest challenge right off the bat was being engaged in the planning process to both raze Palmer Stadium and build a replacement. The second area that occupied me when I came in was the aftermath of the wrestling brouhaha. The president and the board asked me to seek a remedy for the decision [to discontinue wrestling on a varsity basis at Princeton] that had taken place the year before so I ended up basically being a peace negotiator between the wrestling alumni and the administration. We came to a successful solution on that and in fact wrestling is back now as a full-time varsity sport. In the process, there were also issues that needed to be addressed related to compensation and gender equity when it came to facilities, locker rooms and the like.

We ended up building 16 locker rooms for the women and expanding Caldwell Fieldhouse. The other major challenge when I took over was I was charged by the board and President Shapiro to strengthen the ties between the athletic community and all of the other constituencies on campus.

What were the main steps you took to strengthen those ties?

I created the Princeton Academic-Athletic Fellows program. I also created the Princeton Varsity Club (PVC) because all of the teams were involved in their separate goals related to the sport they played but the experiences were universal within the department. As such, the PVC enable me to get the individual sports groups to break away from being parochial in their vision about their own sport and understand that they all shared a uniform experience and a wider purpose but a similar purpose. I am every bit, probably even more proud, of those social organizations I just referenced because they really support the concept of pursuing excellence with a heart and with a soul.

You have presided over the building of such facilities as Princeton Stadium (football), Weaver Stadium (track), Class of 1952 Stadium (lacrosse) Roberts Stadium (soccer), and Bedford Field (field hockey) as well as improvements and renovations to DeNunzio Pool, the boathouse, and the tennis facility. What are your thoughts on the impact of those projects?

I have been very fortunate that during my tenure we have been able to really improve the athletic facilities at Princeton in incredibly meaningful ways that represent, as Toni Morrison would say, the idea of the place. When you walk around this campus in its entirety and then you see the blending of our athletic

ary Walters announced this past September that he is stepping down as the Princeton University Ford Family Director of Athletics at the conclusion of the 2013-14 academic year after being on the job since 1994. Walters, 68, a 1967 Princeton alum, brought a lot to the table when he took the post, having been the starting point guard on the school’s legendary 1965 Final 4 men’s basketball team, a college basketball coach, and a managing director in the investment advisory field. During his tenure, the Tiger athletics program has enjoyed historic success, having won 214 Ivy League championships in his first 19 years along with 48 national championships. Beyond the titles, Walters has been committed to providing the best possible experience for the school’s student-athletes while holding coaches and staff to the highest ethical standards. His belief in the lifelong benefits that athletes gain from participating in a character-based athletic program during their college years has formed the basis for the department’s overriding philosophy expressed in the motto, “Education Through Athletics.” Walters recently reflected on his storied tenure.

You brought a diverse resume of being a star athlete, a college coach, and a successful businessman to the AD post. How did that mix influence your approach to the job?

My background as a student-athlete at Princeton, my background coaching, my background in management all were significant experiences that have contributed to my

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facilities with our academic facilities that sends a major message about the integration of academics with athletics in pursuit of the educational mission.

If you were a student-athlete, my thinking was that looking at that, to be given the honor and privilege of playing in facilities like that, I have an obligation to my teammates to do the very best I can.

You have been praised for bringing in young coaches who have turned into stars of their profession. What qualities do you look for when hiring a coach?

Generally, I am looking for a very good player and for somebody who, for the most part, was a very good player and a leader on the team. That person develops vision and voice. Leadership is important, recruiting is important. Can this person communicate? Can they operate in such a challenging environment at Princeton? Will they not be intimidated by it? Will they develop their own voice here and leverage the great education that we get here at Princeton and the wonderful facilities that we have?

You were in the limelight for your tenure on the NCAA men’s basketball committee from 20022007, which included a year as the chairman.

What were the biggest things you took from serving on the committee?

That was a fabulous experience. Anybody who has served on the committee will tell you

from a professional standpoint it is a meaningful and educational experience and one that transcends, in this case, the parochial engagement with one’s own league. You are now involved in a national effort. It is an honor to be on the committee and I was further honored to be the chairman for a year.

What factors led to your decision to leave the AD post?

I think 20 years on a job like this is enough. It is a very, very demanding job. For me, 20 years is a full body of work, it is a generation. It is time for the baton to be passed. I feel very comfortable in my own skin right now about where I am. Somebody once told me the difference between a rut and the coffin are the two ends. It is time for me. I am not retiring; I am stepping aside.

What are your future plans?

I want to be able to contribute to society in some meaningful way. I want to pass it forward. I have tried to be a good mentor to our coaches. This will free me up to do that on a more global sense with student-athletes as well. I will facilitate help with academic-athletic fellows in some way. I am going to have an office on campus with a computer and so while I will be a volunteer, I hope to be active and constructive in any way that I can.

What advice would you give to your successor?

I would urge whoever succeeds me to literally go through the office and sit down with everyone for at least an hour over the spring and the summer and then

formulate his or her own priorities based on that. We can continue to improve. It is my fervent hope that whoever succeeds me makes it better. There will be new challenges and unguided missiles coming your way that you never anticipate and that you are going to have to deal with. But I think like anything else this has to be a calling; it has got to be a passion. You have to love what you’re doing but it also has to be for the right reasons. It has to be because you are contributing to the development of young men and women into adulthood and future leaders who can fulfill the concept of Princeton in the nation’s service.

How would you want your legacy to be described?

I would say the concept of education through athletics has been the driving issue. I personally believe that what we do in athletics is absolutely co-curricular. We are engaged in a different version of the creative and performing arts. At some level, I think you should get academic credit for four years of competing at Princeton because it has value. If you are a student-athlete here, people are pursuing you for your abilities, many of which were honed on the playing fields.

What things about the job will you miss the most?

It is the camaraderie. It is being surrounded by great people and working together and having fun doing it and maintaining high standards while we do that. When you hire the right people, you don’t have to do a lot of motivating.

PRINCETON BASKETBALL Upcoming Home Schedule Jan. 31 - Women vs. Harvard, 7 pm Feb. 1 - Women vs. Dartmouth, 6 pm Feb. 7 - Men vs. Columbia, 7 pm Feb. 8 - Men vs. Cornell, 6 pm Feb. 14 - Women vs. Brown, 7 pm Feb. 15 - Women vs. Yale, 6 pm Princeton Plays Pink

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March 11 - Women vs. Penn, 5:30 pm March 11 - Men vs. Penn, 8 pm Jump Rope Team Halftime Show

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february 2014 PRINCETON MAGAZINE

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