SPECIAL ISSUE

March 19, 2013

Welcome. There's a lift for you in the opening video. Then scroll down for sections, now arranged by topic, with brief introductions containing clicks to items on veterans, culture shock, Thailand, two beautiful pieces of sculpture by a classmate (and a picture of that famous "bird in flight" in the Yale Art Gallery), and a venerable '62 luncheon you can drop in on if you're in New York on the right day.

As always, we try to provoke your comments. Speak up. You can do that at the end of each full-length article. Or here.

— Chris Cory, Corresponding Secretary
— Steve Buck, Co-Corresponding Secretary
— John Stewart, Co-Corresponding Secretary

SCIENCE
TONY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS
Giamei's metallurgy helped forge modern flight



Click above for a 10-second video of the US's newest fighter plane doing its tricks. It's the most expensive U.S. plane in history. Like it? Hate it? Let's hear your comment.

The next time you buy an airline ticket, give a silent thanks to one of only two metallurgy majors in our class, Tony Giamei. His research and leadership made possible nothing less than the current generation of jet engines - and the landing you just saw.

Without his ways to make jets more powerful and cost efficient, planes would be smaller, fewer of us would be flying, and we'd all be paying more for airline tickets.

If that doesn't impress you, click here for the full three-minute video of that fighter: the F-35B. Just released, the shots show a new supersonic plane that can take off and land vertically and that one of its engineers claims is about to change "the shape and scope of warfare worldwide."

That, too, incorporates Tony's work. So does a modest little technology known as rocket propulsion.

In fact, once you know how to look, virtually every jet powered flight in the world, as well as the space shuttle's main engine, has Tony's metallurgical signature embedded in it. The hot, whirling vanes he made possible in the turbines of fan-jet engines may well be as important as the hot filaments that Thomas Edison made possible in light bulbs.

Click here for the rest of the article, including the amazing temperature at which Tony cooks metal.


PUBLIC POLICIES

"THERE SHOULD BE A QUOTA
FOR ALL BUSINESSES TO HIRE VETERANS"

A new blog entry by Chris Bent

Suicides by military personnel now outnumber deaths in combat, and Chris Bent says businesses should do more to prevent them. In a passionate recent post on his blog, www.chrisbentnaples.com, Chris draws on his experience as a Navy SEAL to illuminate the "quiet prison" in which many veterans are desperately confined. To read the post and comment, click here.


TRAVEL


Photo: Louise Winslow

The gilded Grand Temple on a hilltop in Chiang Mai was a grand highlight of the four-week trip to Thailand that Clark and Sharon Winslow took in January with members of their family and a family from the peninsula of Belvedere, California (north of San Francisco) where they spend many winter months. Another highlight: 10 days on a chartered, 100-foot yacht, including two SCUBA dives every day in what Clark describes as "fabulous clear water" near Similan Island.


TRAVEL

GOOD MORNING. WELCOME TO SUNU!
To be less shocked by culture shock, understand the floppy arm rule

By Brian McCauley

Overseas travelers may well be encountering the roller coaster of confusion and even discontent that can come with an unfamiliar culture, even if you're cocooned in a nice hotel. Hang in there and ponder a few basic insights, urges Brian McCauley. Brian was a dean or headmaster at ten of the loosely affiliated American/International schools that provide instruction in English for Americans and others throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia. He distilled his common sense, social science and sympathy into this fictionalized orientation lecture for new teachers working in the imaginary city of "Sunu." The article has been reprinted frequently for the University of Northern Iowa's annual recruitment fair for teachers who want to work overseas.

From the article:

"'Ain't it awful' complaints sound like this: Sunu's banks don't work; the monsoon is too wet; the water tastes funny; the sun never shines; Sunu is too hot, it's too damp, it's too dusty, there is too much pollution; no one knows how to drive; and the kids never do their homework..."

However, "If you talk to the teachers who lived during those 'awful' times and you comment on how bad it must have been, I guarantee they will look you squarely in the eye and say with disbelief in their voices, 'Whaddaya talkin' about? It was great! We had wonderful friends! We gave evening play readings. We brewed our own beer! We rode horses in the desert. We helped the Red Cross work with starving refugees. It was a wonderful place to live!'"

For further excerpts, click here. And please add your comments at the end.


Photo courtesy Escola Americana do Rio de Janiero
Too damp? Or wonderful? Escola Americana do Rio de Janeiro, where McCauley was Interim Headmaster in 2002 and 2003.


ARTS


RICHART BARNET'S NEW SCULPTURES

One of Dixie Carroll's many nice discoveries in our reunion exhibition of work by artists in the class was Richard Barnet, who was at Yale for a year before moving to Antioch and then graduate work at NYU and Lehman College of the City University of New York. He has taught for three decades at the Art Students League and the College of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx.

This winter, the two bronzes shown here have been on display, both with boating themes. "Ellie's Boat," made in 2009 but cast in the last 18 months, was in "Side Show Nation" at the Side Show Gallery on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn (closed March 3). "Jen" (2006) is part of the show "Go Figure" at Greenhut Galleries in Portland, Maine, opening April 4th and running through April 27th. Many other works are on his website, http://RichardBarnetArtist.com/.




ARTS

THE RECENT PAST IN A BRAND NEW SPACE

Namers. Steve and wife Ellen in the new gallery

An enormous upright Texas boot with chocolate frosting as the "leather" was the birthday cake at a 73rd birthday party for Steve Susman, thrown on a Saturday evening in January in the new Susman Galleries at the newly reopened and much-praised Yale Art Gallery. Clearly, the spacious Susman galleries are an important reason the Yale museum has become a genuine destination for people from all over the world. Bob Oliver was there,

The boot. (The initials are for Stephen Daily Susman, not Students for a Democratic Society)

and reports that 6Y2 classmates and spouses were in abundance — in addition to Steve and Ellen, Bob Rosenkrantz, Larry and Lannie Lipsher, and Ed and Lorna Goodman.


Bob writes: "The Art Gallery was open for all to stroll through. A reception was held in the new 4th floor Susman Gallery where a remarkable exhibit of 'modern' art from a special collection created by Marcel Duchamp in 1920s lined the walls, followed by dinner in the reception area of the gallery specially cleared and arranged for the event. All in all a memorable evening in Susman-style attended by Yale President Rick Levin and presided over by Gallery Director Jock Reynolds."




ARTS

FANTASY OF A LESS AUTOCRATIC CHINA —
A BOOK EXCERPT



"Teeming with clashes and intrigue, this political thriller chronicles the interactions between Tibet and China, Taiwan, and their leaderships. A retired American entrepreneur, Clark Pendleton, and a new Chinese President, Kai Chang, eventually are brought brought together as allies. Beyond the headlines looms a power struggle for China's soul with Tibet and Taiwan furnishing the flammable material."

That's Ken Cascone's intriguing synopsis of his new novel. Ken dashes off historical plots as a complement to his law practice. "The China Conundrum" moves between a thrilling opening avalanche that maroons the executiver, to the luxe life of powerful Chinese families, and in the process reflects current political conditions in China. Ken's agent is now circulating the book to publishers. but meanwhile, Ken granted readers of Yale62.org a preview of a chapter where a new Chinese leader softens the government's treatment of protesters.

Click here to read Chapter 23 of "The China Conundrum."


SEX

From the Smith College Class of 1962 50th Reunion Survey Report:
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

By Celine Sullivan, Smith '62, self-titled "Survey Queen"

"You may recall (which would really astonish the Survey Queen) that when this project was Class of '62. At the time, we used nearly identical questionnaires and found many more similarities than differences across the three samples. Since then, Yale has conducted three more studies with which the Queen has been involved, the most recent being their 50th reunion effort. Over the years, we've grown more relaxed, almost to the point of abandoment, about the need for direct Smith/Yale comparisons. Nevertheless, some differences between Smith '62 (which numbers I will label S62 here) and Yale '62 (Y62) respondents are at least internally consistent and noteworthy."

Ed note: Smith College graduates our age who answer class surveys are apparently less married than we are, less technophobic, use fewer prescriptions, and were more likely to vote for Barak Obama this fall. For more details, and Celine's quip about erectile dysfunction, click here.

YALE

"PERSONAL ENLIGHTENMENT FLASHES
ON A ROAD NOT TAKEN"
The Y62 lunch bunch

By Ken Cascone

Once a month since 1989, an extended group of '62 classmates has gathered in the Tap Room on the third floor of the New York Yale Club to indulge their appetites for food, drink and kindred spirits.

Over the years attendance has varied from two to 20, averaging seven. Some are regulars; others go years between visits. Yours truly and Larry Prince set the date each month and send out notices by email to a list of about 70 classmates — anyone we know who lives nearby, might occasionally blow through town, or who asks to be on the list. [If you're not on it, tell Ken at CCATTYS@aol.com. - Ed.] You don't have to belong to the Yale Club to attend.

For more on the lunch bunch, including Patrick Rulon Miller's Dow Jones pool, click here.


FAMILY

HEY — DON'T YOU HAVE FASCINATING CHILDREN
AND GRANDCHILDREN?

In the last issue we wrote the following, which we still mean:

We know from the reunion book that many of you have grandchildren who of course are absolutely the greatest grandchildren in the world. Without overloading the website, we're considering including a short item and photo in every issue on a child or grandchild or two whose stories might be of particular timely, topical or other interest. We're not sure exactly how this might work and would welcome suggestions and submissions, with the clear understanding that we might not be able to include what was sent. So if you've got a child or grandchild who's timely and topical, tell. So far, we have this:

George Snider reports that "digital music composition has big implications these days in the recording and motion picture industries," which he knows because a granddaughter is entering Oberlin's Conservatory of Music to study it.


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