BASLOW IS FANTASIZING ABOUT YOU, DEAR READER

Do you feel, even as you read this, Baslow's idle speculations about you emanating from your screen?

Baslow does not know who you are or why you are reading this. He wonders. He writes.

He imagines your posture at just this moment. He sees the illumination cast upon your face. He thinks he might know the color of your hair. He tries to gauge the impact of his words upon you.

Baslow's children and wife are long asleep but he cannot sleep, not yet. He must fix a firmer image of you, Dear Reader, in his mind. He must convince himself that he has consummated an act of verbal expression with you.

Are you there?

Baslow wants you to be there. He doesn't know why.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN...

...when, for months on end, something which purports to be an omninumgatherum gathers...nothing?

The Warthog Upstairs

Tom Alan Robbins is Baslow's upstairs neighbor. He has played the role of Pumbaa in the Broadway production of the The Lion King since the beginning of the run. Now the New York Times has published an article about long-term cast members which included several quotes from Tom: No Letup in a Lion Kingdom

WAITING TO BE BORN

Last weekend NY1, the all-news cable station devoted to metropolitan New York, named Katina Paron their "New Yorker of the Week" for her efforts (all unpaid) to establish a new local kids' journalism organization to take the place of the recently disbanded Children's Express. Baslow's children's can be glimpsed in the course of the feature. Baslow himself has a brief speaking role (with a weird hand gesture thrown in). The focus, however, is on Katina, who richly deserves it. We grow more and more optimistic that, because of her tenacious and indefatigable efforts, the spirit of Children's Express will once again waft through this Metropolis.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

Last Friday, August 3, NPR's All Things Considered ran a piece on the demise of Children's Express. Unfortunately, the piece left the impression that the New York Bureau of Children's Express has been evicted from its office and is now dead. Neither of these is quite true. The reporters, editors, and friends of the New York Bureau have banded together to create a new organization that will carry forward the original spirit of Robert Clampitt's Children's Express and will build upon the work done at the New York Bureau before the collapse. This new organization does not have a name or much money yet. It elected to move out of its current office in August because the rent was more than it could afford. It has found new space in which to store its files and equipment and in which, at the end of August, it will be able to set up new operations. The name Children's Express may be a thing of the past but the remarkable spirit and achievements which that name stood for WILL carry on.

NY1 REPORT ON INWOOD HILL PARK (WITH VIDEO)

As part of its Manhattan Week, New York 1, the Time-Warner all-news channel in Manhattan, aired a report by Rebecca Spitz, Visit the Forests of Inwood Hill Park. The park is about three blocks from Baslow's home.

A.P. ITEM ON CHILDREN'S EXPRESS

Report: Children's Express Folding

NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON THE COLLAPSE OF CHILDREN'S EXPRESS

Children's News Service Collapses By TAMAR LEWIN

Children's Express Shuts Down

The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 7/25/2001: Children's Express Shuts Down Amid Financial Woes

MORE STORIES FROM BASLOW'S KIDS

Acne Drug Poses Fatal Risks for Some Users

Drug Testing Program Tries to Keep Kids Safe

SIGH

No sooner did Baslow resolve to take up his old weblogging ways than he was revisited with old back afflictions: the ruptutred disk in his lower back and the pinched nerve in his upper back have both been bothering him with increasing insistence over the course of this week. He kindly begs your forebearance, Dear Reader, but this is about as much as he can type, for the time being.

RECHARGING THE ELECTRIC OMNIUMGATHERUM

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Baslow is painfully aware that he has allowed his Electric Omniumgatherum to slip into stagnation. He is aware that he has, to an alarming degree, "lost that blogging feeling". He has undertaken a 43-point self-help program to address those (numerous) deficiencies of character which have allowed such a sorry state of affairs to develop. He intends to revive the Omniumgatherum, both in his heart and in your attentions.

That is all.

For now.

FORT TRYON PARK

Saturday morning, Baslow took a walk around Fort Tryon Park and then headed back up Broadway to his home. A photographic record of his walk can be found here.

CHILDREN'S EXPRESS NEEDS YOUR HELP

6/6/01


Dear Friend,

Children's Express, an award-winning, nonprofit youth journalism program, needs your help to bring youth voices to adult media. For more than 25 years we've been empowering children all over the world through print, radio and video projects that rely on oral journalism to make the youth perspective a regular part of our national discussion. We are working on some great projects right now and we hope we can count on your support to continue our work into the next quarter century.

One of our main efforts has been to develop and market Children's Express' innovative radio pieces called "Fact/Voice" segments. These short broadcasts personalize statistics that pertain to young people. The New York bureau is creating the several pieces for pilot talk shows for XM Satellite Radio and Sesame Street. But these pieces - ranging from the stereotyping of children to homework woes to homeless youths - may never air if we can't count on people like you, people who respect and listen to the voices of youths, to support our work.

During the past 12 months, Children's Express New York has made a huge effort to listen to children in hard to reach areas. With a generous grant from the Japanese government Children's Express Worldwide was able to launch the Learn from Us program, a project that involves kids from all three North American bureaus plus ones from Tokyo. This summer, CE journalists will moderate a panel at educational hearings in Japan. In February, two CENY journalists joined a Unicef media tour of the reconstruction efforts in the Gujarat state of India, where a massive earthquake left more than 600,000 children homeless and destroyed half of Gujarat's 30,000 schools.

We've also done some remarkable stories at home. Kisha Kantasingh, 17, and Wade Spiner, 10, went to Staten Island to interview young amputees from Sierra Leone who were being fitted with donated prosthetics. "The article on Sierra Leone is incredible," wrote one adult reader. "I have been reading about Sierra Leone in other papers, but this time the impact on what is happening...caught my attention. Could it be because the article is written by a child?" Stories scheduled for June include the impact of plus-size junior models on young people, Ritalin testing on preschoolers and high school dropouts. We are also in the process of scheduling interviews with all of New York City's mayoral candidates.

Without your support these stories can't happen - and these young voices won't be heard. Please help us bring the youth perspective to the adult media.

Checks should be made out to Children's Express (NY Bureau) and sent to:
Children's Express (NY Bureau)
19 West 21st Street
Suite 1001
New York, New York, 10010.

Thank you,

Alexandra Berke, 16
Board of Directors

Katina Paron Director,
Children's Express New York

THE PIED PIPER CHILDREN'S THEATER OF NYC
The children’s theatre of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
20 Cumming Street New York, New York 10034
(212) 567-2329
Web site: http://members.aol.com/ppctnyc/index.html
e-mail: ppctnyc@aol.com
Rey-Rey, Artistic Director


June 4, 2001


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Pied Piper Children’s Theatre of NYC, a youth-run theatre at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church-Inwood in Upper Manhattan, is proud to present CINDERELLA in Hawaii by Lisa Sikes with music by Rey-Rey and lyrics by Denise Evarts. This new musical is directed by Rey-Rey, the theatre’s Artistic Director and founder with sets designed by Sarah Morgridge. Children ages 5 to 16 are involved in all aspects of the production. Performances will be on June 23 and 30 at 3PM and 7PM and June 24 and July 1 at 3PM. All performances are at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church-Inwood, 20 Cumming Street, Upper Manhattan. Admission charge is $6 for adults and $3 for children under 16. Group rates are also available. For more information please call (212) 567-2329.

This hilarious new musical written for children’s voices, takes the original story of Cinderella and brings it to Hawaii with a very wacky twist. All the characters of the original fairy tale are present, as well as other characters such as an Elvis-like Big Bad Wolf. The musical is full of wonderful tunes, great humor, and plenty of wit sure to bring lots of excitement to children and grownups.

The Pied Piper Children’s Theatre of NYC (PPCT) is a non-denominational, non-sectarian outreach program of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church-Inwood. The theatre is committed to creating a non-threatening place where children ages 5 to 16 can explore their creativity and learn new theatrical and musical skills. Since its first production in October of 1999, over one hundred and fifty children and adolescents have gone through the program. This has generated a strong community of children and families from different income levels and ethnic backgrounds.

Each season, 6 six-week-long sessions are offered during each of which a full-scale production is mounted. These sessions include script reading, character analysis, diction, movement, acting and voice production, among other things. Auditions to the program examine interest and attitude as well as aptitude. Participants rehearse an average of two hours, three times a week under the supervision and guidance of Artistic Director Reinaldo (‘Rey-Rey’) Martinez- Cubero, Production Coordinator Dayna Beegun, and Set Designer Sarah Morgridge.

[Rulizow will be playing the Fairy Godmother in one of the two alternating casts...ED.]

COOL KID

LEGO has chosen to feature Baslow's son as one of two "Cool Kids" in its June edition. You can see the story here.

MONDAY IN BATTERY PARK CITY WITH MOST OF THE BASLOWS

Mrs. Baslow, Rulizow, and Baslow himself went down to Battery Park City today. It was cloudy at first but after awhile there was more sun, at least intermittently. Baslow made a photographic record of the trip, which can be viewed here.

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF THE BASLOWS

The Baslow offspring have been sitting around, coming up with "sayings". No...wait...Rulizow protests that she didn't "sit around coming up with sayings". "I just say them," quoth she. Anyway, here are the first fruits:

Rulizow:
"If I had a pony I'd name it BoB"
"Mazel Tov, it's a bunbbalooloo"

David:
"To strike down one's compassion will inevitably make more logic and direct thinking; but you'd be one hell of a jackass."
"To assimilate to the folds of people's expectations is worse than to assimilate to death."

SATURDAY IN THE PARK WITH BASLOW

Baslow has recovered from his pinched nerve sufficiently to have undertaken, yesterday, a walk through Central Park. He took the subway down to 96th Street and Central Park West, where he entered the park. It was a pretty nice day, mostly sunny, with just occasional cloudiness. Baslow brought his new digital camera (a Fujifilm Finepix 2300) along and took about fifty photos. These have been posted at
Yahoo! Photos - Thumbnails View

WHY DO HISTORY IN THE FORM OF A COMIC BOOK?

Joshua Brown discusses this question in his very interesting review of Ben Katchor's The Jew of New York and Chris Ware's Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. It appears in Common-Place, The Interactive Journal of Early American Life

MORE CHILDREN'S EXPRESS ARTICLES

Seamus Farrow Draws Attention to Polio in Nigeria
Reporter's Notebook: Mental Illness

LEARNING TO BE THOUGHTFUL ABOUT STATISTICS

Joel Best, in the Chronicle of Higher Education, takes a stab at
"Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics"

DAVID WRITES ABOUT GUJARAT: STRENGTH OF THE PEOPLE

Baslow's son (known in the Omniumgatherum as David and in the world at large as Joel) has had a story published in the Online NewsHour Extra. This is a special student supplement to the website for PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The story is about his trip to Gujarat to interview survivors of the earthquake. It is titled "Strength of the People"

THE BASLOW FAMILY ALBUM

Baslow has recovered enough use of his arm to be able, finally, to offer you this small collection of low-quality photographs of his entire family. The photos were taken with a newly-acquired Fujifilm Finepix 2300. Baslow is new to photograpy, let alone digital photography, so allowances should be made. And now...here is the
Baslow Family Album!

SELF-AWARENESS AND OTHER-AWARENESS

Brainy Dolphins Pass the Human 'Mirror' Test
How do we put ourselves in someone else's shoes? : new brain mechanisms unveiled.
Effect of subjective perspective taking during simulation of action: a PET investigation of agency by Perrine Ruby & Jean Decety

DAVID WRITES ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH, BODY IMAGE

David was part of a Children's Express team that conducted the interview reported in this story posted at the New York Post's site: "Surgeon general Discusses Children's Mental Health". He has aslo contributed to this Reporter's Notebook on Body Image

BASLOW'S DELICATE CONDITION

The MRI last Friday revealed a nerve pinched between a neck spur and a bulging disk. There was plenty of good news: no neural damage, the disk is intact, no surgery required. Baslow merely requires physical therapy, which he has already begun. He cannot stand or even sit for very long without experiencing a heightened level of pain. He cannot work at the keyboard for more than ten minutes. He will not be able to return to work for a week or (more likely) two.

Sigh.

CITY LIGHTS YOUTH THEATER

Both Rulizow and David have attended classes at City Lights Youth Theater, which is featured in this article in the New York Times,
"Students by Day, Stars at Night: Acting at City Lights"

OUT SICK

Baslow seems to have a pinched nerve in his neck or shoulder. An MRI later today should clarify the matter. His left arm and shoulder are painful and his left hand is numb. Please excuse his failure to update this weblog, Dear Reader. He will resume regular updates as soon as he is able.

LET HISTORY NOTE

At about 9 A.M. this morning, as Baslow emerged from the subway into the enormous main chamber of Grand Central Station, two rounds of applause rose up from the balcony nearest 42nd Street.

This incongruity momentarily befuddled Baslow. Grand Central is rarely the scene of such concerted action -- Brownian motion, writ large, is more the rule.

Was it an unveiling or an opening? Had there just been some remarkable display of talent or magnanimity? Was the world, in that instant, finally coming to a full realization of the significance of Baslow's presence in its midst?

Baslow would be happy to share the answer with you, Dear Reader, if only he knew.

It must remain one of life's little mysteries.

WAY TO GO, RULIZOW!

Baslow is proud to point out that his daughter's weblog is, as of this writing, the 27th highest-rated weblog at Bloghop, with a rating of 72%.
You go, grrrrl!

FROM NEW SCIENTIST: FOOLED AGAIN

A few little words is all it takes to turn your rational brain to jelly

"Only one of the following statements about a particular hand of cards is true:

There is a king in the hand, or an ace, or both.

There is a queen in the hand, or an ace, or both.

There is a jack in the hand, or a ten, or both.

Is it possible that there is an ace in the hand?

On first examination the answer seems obvious: yes. But ask a formally programmed computer the same question and it will tell you the opposite. If there is an ace, then the first two statements are true. But the puzzle explicitly states that only one statement is true. So an ace is not possible.

Johnson-Laird tested Princeton University students with this problem, and 99 per cent of them got it wrong."

RULIZOW, CUB REPORTER

Rulizow attended, and successfully completed, her training at Children's Express today. She is now officially a member of the New York Bureau's reportorial staff...and has the certificate to prove it. Within the next week or so she will probably be choosing which story she wants to work on first. The Baslow family had dinner delivered from Hoppin' Jalapenos by way of celebration.

SAY AAAAAH!

DVD glasses promise relaxation at dentist's

WEEK OFF

Both Rulizow and David have the week off from school.

Today, Mrs. Baslow took Rulizow and her friends K. and E. to the American Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. At the museum they got to dub their own voices over famous film clips, make flip-books of themselves, and superimpose costumes from various movies onto pictures of themselves projected onto a screen. They saw Ben-Hur's chariot and the restaurant set from Seinfeld.

Tomorrow, Rulizow will attend beginning-reporter training at Children's Express.

TIMES OF INDIA, REVISITED

Children's Express has reprinted the story "Cub Reporters From US Kids-Only News Agency Are Humbled By Bhuj Experience", which originally ran in the Sunday Times of India on March 16th. There is a picture of the print version of the article.

PHAT

Researchers have reported isolating stem cells in human fat extracted from liposuction patients. Some of us who are of the rotund persuasion look forward to the day when the Red Cross runs fat drives in our neighborhoods.

IF THE ANSWER IS...

MULTICS without balls...

then what was the question?

FAMILY ROUND-UP

Pictures
Rulizow's weblog promises pictures "if her dad gets a scanner". The scanner was purchased and installed a few weeks ago and we've learned to use it (and the accompanying image-manipulation software) well enough to essay our first picture postings. Since Blogspot doesn't seem to afford us the ability to upload images, we have created a Geocities site for Rulizow's pictures.

David's AIDS Walk
David has registered to join AIDS Walk New York, to be held on Sunday, May 20th. He has begun to enlist sponsors, each of whom pledges a minimum of $25 to support his efforts. This is the second year David will have participated. He got involved in AIDS Walk, last year, entirely on his own... without any prodding from us, without even requiring any encouragement from us. He came home one day and told us he was thinking of doing it and the next thing we knew he WAS doing it.

Richard Nixon
All the President's Men has been a favorite DVD of David's for a while now. After having seen the movie five or six times he went on to read the book...and then viewed the movie several times more. Rulizow has, in her way, caught the bug. She has latched onto the movie Dick. Though well-reviewed in many quarters it sank without a trace after its release in August, 1999. It deserves a second look -- it is a funny take on Nixon, Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein, and the early Seventies. We rented it, once again, this weekend. Rulizow watched it one-and-a-half times and then invited her friend E. over to the house and watched it again. Then, for good measure, they watched All The President's Men.

Almost Famous
The practice of journalism in the early '70's was a second theme of the weekend. We rented Almost Famous and watched it with David on Saturday. Although much has been made of the film's affection for the Rock music scene of the time somewhat less attention has been paid to its story of the protagonist's coming-of-age as a journalist. His first and enduring mentor is Lester Bangs, a journalist who loves the music but who will not compromise his integrity by getting too close to the people who make the music. Towards the end of the film William, Cameron Crowe's lightly fictionalized stand-in, faces the conflict of loyalties to the people he's been covering on one hand and to the ethics of dispassionate journalism on the other. Although the film was rich with the atmosphere of the period it depicted we in the Baslow family found ourselves just as interested in young William the chronicler.

DEAR READER

Baslow would seem to be suffering from Blogger's Block. He just can't manage to pull together the elements of a post. He begs your pardon. He hopes to resume his communications with you soon.

Thank you.

"FAIRY TALES THAT GET WHACKED UP"

Rulizow is averaging a post a month to her weblog. When she posts, however, she really posts! She's started writing a book entitled Things That Get Whacked Up and the first Thing is yet another version of the Cinderella story. Check it out. If you think reading her stories is a hoot you can imagine what living with her is like...

BE ALARMED. BE VERY ALARMED.

NPR's Living on Earth reports on oil-drilling in Central Park.

R.I.P., JOHN LEWIS

John Lewis, Pianist, Composer and Creator of the Modern Jazz Quartet, Dies at 80
Allmusic Guide entry
Jazz Profiles: John Lewis
Michael Furstner's Jazclass: About John Lewis
atrecordings.com - Knitting Factory - "The Modern Jazz Quartet" Artist Page
atrecordings.com: Seven full tracks, in RealAudio, of the Modern Jazz Quartet from the album In a Crowd
John Lewis: A Big Gig


Modern Jazz Quartet
Django [Remaster]
Blues On Bach
Fontessa
European Concert
Concorde
Paul Desmond & The Modern Jazz Quartet
The Artistry Of The Modern Jazz Quartet
No Sun In Venice
Dedicated To Connie
The Complete Last Concert
A 40th Anniversary Celebration
Pyramid
Modern Jazz Quartet
MJQ
Lonely Woman
Together Again - "Echoes"
Three Windows
Together Again! Live At Montreux Jazz Festival '82
In a Crowd

Recordings Alone and With Other

Evolution
Evolution II
The Wonderful World Of Jazz (Jazzlore 44)
The John Lewis Piano/Jazz Piano International
Golden Striker/Jazz Abstractions
Afternoon In Paris [HDCD]
A Milanese Story/Animal Dance
Original Sin / Essence
Improvised Meditations

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RULIZOW

Today is Rulizow's real birthday. She and her mother baked brownies yesterday for a birthday celebration held in her class today. We brought them down to her school this morning.

We've ordered out from Hoppin' Jalapenos as a special treat for dinner tonight (to be topped off by cheesecake purchased at Carrot Top Bakery).

Rulizow received presents from her friends at her party last weekend, of course, but we withheld most of the presents we'd gotten her until today, her real birthday. Unfortunately, we withheld a number of them because they had not yet been delivered. Baslow had ordered them from Amazon, which normally ships them from Delaware. This time, however, they shipped out of Nevada and are taking longer than usual to arrive. Rulizow, though disappointed, is being good-natured about the glitch.

THE GWB

The George Washington Bridge, 40 blocks south of Baslow's home, is a nice walk which he often makes when the weather is nice. It is 70 years old and quite successful. Nice-looking, too.

The New York Times has an interesting story about the success of the bridge: Thriving at 70, 'the George' Is a Great Gray Success.

STAND UP FOR KIDS

The New York Post Online has published another story David (Joel) worked on: The Powers of Gentle Persuasion. It's about Stand Up For Kids, a nationwide outreach program for homeless and street youth.

THE WEEKEND

Rulizow's friends were all gone by 11 A.M. The party was over.

Mrs. Baslow took a well-deserved nap. David played a video game. Rulizow made a sign with stickers she received as a birthday present. The cats came out of hiding and began once again to patrol the apartment.

Yesterday morning David and his mother went up to Riverdale to look for a second-hand suit for him. They found one, as well as a shirt. We discovered a pair of Baslow's shoes that fit David's feet (!) and an old tie that looks appropriately criminal. We decided that a fedora could come later. David tried on the ensemble so far assembled and he looks quite startlingly natty in it. So the planned expedition downtown was rendered unnecessary.

While David and his mother were away Rulizow busily finished up the party preparations she and her mother had begun earlier: blowing up balloons (purple and silver, only); putting up Powerpuff Girls crepe-paper streamers; completing the hand-decorated party-favor bags.

The Baslow family has a tradition of long standing: the sibling present. One present has always been given to the sibling of the child celebrating the birthday. The tradition was started when Rulizow was born, as a way of softening the pangs of sibling jealousy. It has persisted as a family tradition long after its practical reasons for existing have fallen away.

When David returned from his clothes-shopping Baslow took him downtown, to the CompUSA at Columbus Circle, to purchase his sibling present. It was Final Fantasy VII for the Sony Playstation. When they returned home Rulizow had gone off to paint sets for the next Pied Piper production, Amy's Attic. David had a few hours to get to know his new game.

Rulizow returned from the set-painting a couple of hours later. K., one of the friends invited to the party, was with her. They sat, talked, and played as the other guests arrived. Within an hour the party was in full swing.

FULL swing. They didn't need much help to keep things going. The talking and giggling were nonstop from 5:30 P.M. to 1 A.M.

At 1 A.M. Mrs. Baslow wearily made her way from the bedroom to the living room and told the girls they had to stop giggling and talking and go to sleep. The giggling stopped but, we are reliably informed, the talking went on for another hour.

The next morning Mrs. Baslow got up at 8 A.M. to make her special waffles. The girls slept until it was time to eat.

Their parents picked the guests up between 9 and 11.

When they'd all left Rulizow napped while Mrs. Baslow prepared the makings of a minestrone for dinner. The two of them then went to a meeting of the newly-revived Mother/Daughter book club initiated by Mrs. Baslow. David worked on homework.

Rulizow napped some more when she returned with Mrs. Baslow. David surfed the Internet. Mrs. Baslow prepared the minestrone.

They had a quiet dinner together. Then they went into the living room to watch the Oscars.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

This morning, as happens many Saturday mornings, the Baslow family conducted a confabulation in the Baslow parents' bed. This will not happen very much longer; the kids are getting too big for all of us to fit.

The conversation turned to Rulizow's current assignment to write historical fiction set in the American Revolution. Rulizow has chosen to write the story of Paul Revere from the point of view of his wife. We look forward to reading it.

This morning, however, she told us about a friend who was writing about George Washington from the point of view of...George Washington.

" 'Hi,' " she quoted from the story, " 'My name is George Washington' ".

The story, she told us, pretty much delivered the facts of George Washington's life in the first person singular.

It ended, she informed us, with the sentence "I died on December 14, 1799."

Rulizow tells us that at this point she advised her friend: "People don't live to tell you when they're dead. You have to figure it out for yourself."

LUCK, BE A LADY

David decided to take Theater as his final elective of Middle School. They'll be presenting Guys & Dolls in May. David will play Sky Masterson.

Tomorrow, Baslow will take David downtown to search second-hand clothes stores and, perhaps, theatrical costume shops for the elements of Sky's wardrobe: a fedora, certainly; a natty, retro suit (how retro? Thirties? Forties? No later than Fifties, surely); a broad tie; a suitable shirt (what sort of shirt?)...

This must be done on the cheap. There is the future health of the College Fund to consider.

Baslow is not a fashion-conscious individual. There will be a lot of guesswork, a lot of improvisation, involved in this expedition.

Keep your fingers crossed, Dear Reader.

THEY'RE ALMOST HEEEEERE!

This, Dear Reader, is the weekend of Rulizow's birthday party. She has been anticipating it for over a month. She designed her own invitations, which Baslow obligingly printed out for her. She conducted several shopping trips to pick out just the right party favors. She has talked, sung, and dreamed about this party endlessly.

It begins tomorrow afternoon.

It will be a sleepover party. Six of her closest friends will bring their sleeping bags and camp out on the Baslow family living room floor. That's seven 10- and 11-year-old girls. In one small living room. In one small apartment.

Any combination of two, or even three, of these girls at a time are a fine, charming group of children. Seven, though...seven is another matter. Giggling. Gossiping. Watching videos.

Staying overnight.

Sleeping?

Do you sense, Dear Reader, Baslow's trepidation?

NOT JUST THINGS IN THEMSELVES BUT ALSO THE RELATIONS AMONG THEM

No Man, Quark, or Electron is an Island by Dennis Overbye in The New York Times

THE TIMES OF INDIA ARTICLE

US Cub Reporters Humbled by Bhuj Experience by Nina Martyris.

"Recalls Joel, 'All she thought of was to save her siblings, and I know that I would probably not be
that selfless. I remember another child who we saw in the tent city of Anjar. He had been in one of
the alleyways that had collapsed and killed about 400 other children. And it was just a sad thought to
think of 400 kids, which is more than my school, all just dead in a moment. I thought that just being
able to talk about it was very brave and very strong of him. And it still sticks out in my mind...that's
immediately what I think of.'"

NPR: GLOBALIZATION AND DISEASE
Globalization and Changes in Pattern of Disease Infection

THE WABC STORY

The WABC-TV story on the Children's Express assignment in India aired tonight at about 5:35 P.M. The piece, interestingly, was introduced without immediately making reference to the ages of the two journalists through whose interviews the story was told. The anchor, Roz Abrams, related the magnitude of the quake and the number of people who were dead and injured as a result. She then made reference to "two journalists" who were telling the story of the quake in a way that it is not usually told. The piece was reported by Bill Beutel. It opened with shots (taken by Children's Express) of Indian children drawing pictures of the disaster while Beutel narrated, "This is India, through the eyes of its children," and went on to emphasize the vividness of the memories the surviving children will carry with them. The story then cut to pictures of people picking through the rubble of their collapsed homes. "...And this is India, as seen by two teenage reporters from New York City," Beutel continued. He went on to describe how the assignment required the journalists to cope with a devastated landscape and with many horrific accounts of friends and relatives lost and pain endured. There was footage of sick children and of dozens of people who had no possesions left, sitting on cots in a big tent which they shared. There was a shot of the sign "SCHOOL CLOSED FORNEVER" chalked on the remains of a wall. There were then scenes of the teenage journalists interviewing children, interspersed with excerpts from the video diaries they kep while they were in Gujarat. There were interviews with adults from Children's Express about the responsibility the kids felt and how they'd done their jobs. There was a brief discussion of the prospects of pursuing journalism as a career. Beutel then ended with comments on the enormity of the assignment and the value of the story being told from the perspectives of the teens.

Baslow was not home when the piece aired. He watched a tape of it as soon as he arrived home. He had seen pictures of the destruction before and had heard his son's stories of the people he'd interviewed. This was the first time, however, he was actually seeing his son in the midst of all that. It was a moving moment. He was proud, to be sure. He newly appreciated the job his son had done. He also felt lives changing, in ways that are not easy to describe.

DAVID UPDATE

An article David worked on (under his real name, Joel Solow) is now available at the NY Post Online: Scars of Adolescent Depression Run Deep

An interview with David and his Children's Express colleagues will air today, in the New York City area, between 5:00 P.M. and 6:30 P.M. on WABC-TV, Eyewitness News, channel 7.

A feature story on the Children's Express reporters' experiences was printed in the Times of India on Sunday (March 18) -- or, at least, in some editions. Baslow has not yet seen it. It may show up online, at the Times of India website.

THE SICK FAMILY BASLOW

Mrs. Baslow was sick over the weekend. Freshly back from chaperoning David's eighth-grade class trip to D.C., she came down with something a little cold-like, only with headache and some stomach upset. She spent much of the weekend in bed.

Rulizow was sick, as well. She ran a fever and threw up a few times. As is traditional, she camped out in the living room. She slept on an unfolded futon rather than in her platform bed...the better to rush to the bathroom, if necessary. Her headache and stomachache prevented her from doing most of the things she likes to do when idle; she couldn't bear to listen to music or watch television. She couldn't concentrate well enough to enjoy having a book read to her. She did, however, request that Baslow and the Mrs. sit on the other futon in the living room and conduct conversations. She found that comforting.

David was not sick but he was certainly pensive all weekend. This is understandable. He still has much to process.

Baslow himself was mildly off-center. He felt listless. There was a mild sting in his eyes and the back of his throat. He, too, lay low.

David has, this morning, headed off to school. Baslow will go to work in a few minutes. Rulizow has felt well enough to eat a couple of slices of toast this morning. She is now watching a videotape of "Beauty and the Beast". Mrs. Baslow will rest today.

SOCIAL NETWORK THEORY

Welcome to the ...Social Network Analysis Instructional Web Site
Introduction to Social Network Analysis: Slide Show
What Is Social Network Analysis?
Notes on the History of Social Network Analysis

A Short Introduction to Social Networks: A Non-Technical Elementary Primer
by Charles Kadushin

"Social network theory is one of the few if perhaps the only theory in social science which is not reductionist. That is, the theory applies to a variety of levels of analysis from small groups to entire global systems. To be sure, there are emergent properties at different system levels, but these are extensions of what can be done at a lower level and not entirely different forms of organization."

Exposure, Networks, and Mobilization: The Petition Movement during the 1848/49 Revolution in a German Town by Lothar Krempel and Michael Schnegg

Abstract:
This paper examines how existing social networks are transformed into political action in times of rapid social change. This general theoretical problem is exemplified for the 1848/49 Revolution in Esslingen, a middle-sized German town. We use data from more than 200 historical sources to identify patterns of activity and social linkages for more than 2000 inhabitants of Esslingen at the time of the revolution and during the 15 years preceding it.

Results indicate that existing social structure plays a key role for mobilization processes. Further, they show that the picture needs to be differentiated. Structure does not have the same effect at each stage of the process and for every person involved. Mobilization does not only take place through the existing structure but also occurs in more distinct regions of the network where a common situation and an equivalent position in society at large are the driving forces behind the organization of protest.

Visualization: The Growth of a Petition Movement in a Structure of City Linked Events

International Network for Social Network Analysis

A GENERAL THEORY OF NETWORK GOVERNANCE: EXCHANGE CONDITIONS AND SOCIAL MECHANISMS
A SOCNET Discussion on the Origins of the Term Social Capital

Structural Analysis and Cultural Kinetics
UCI LINKS-LIST TO SOCIAL NETWORK WEB SITES
SocioSite: Networks, Groups and Social Interaction
Studying Online Social Networks

SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE

New Scientist: Playing fair
"Are you breathtakingly mean or perfectly equitable? Kate Douglas investigates where your moral sense comes from, and how we can shape it."

GESTURES

Baslow has had occasion, previously, to remark on Rulizow's emotional reserve in some areas. One of the ways in which Rulizow is reserved is with respect to Public Displays of Affection toward her parents. That's okay; we do not doubt the affection. We don't require that it be displayed in public.

So Baslow is restrained, himself, in saying goodbye to his daughter at the bus stop, where Rulizow's friends and classmates from the neighborhood are gathered. He bends over and briefly kisses the top of her head. She then runs off to board the bus.

Baslow tries to pay attention to his daughter after she boards the bus. He peers through the windows, into the dark interior, to determine which seat she is in. Then he stands in front of the window closest to her to make some farewell gesture. Lately he has been taking his cap off his head and sweeping it in front of himself as he bows slightly.

It is hard to see inside the bus but Baslow can make out that his daughter sees him. She has, the past few times, been doing something with her hands, by way of response.

Baslow could not imagine what she has been doing. It has seemed like some ritual hand gestures associated with the clapping games Rulizow used to love to play.

This morning, however, Baslow had a clearer view into the bus. He could see that his daughter was not performing a hand-clapping game. She was using the little bit of American Sign Language she's learned to gesture: "I love you."

PROBLEM PARENT

David and his parents enjoy generally good relations--not perfectly harmonious, mind you, but pretty good. There are mistakes and tensions on each side, from time to time but these are usually repaired. Misunderstandings are usually cleared up. Nevertheless, his parents are sure that David has some longer-standing complaints about his parents. His father, as an example, is distinctly weird.

David, of late, has been struggling to establish his own realm, a bubble of privacy, under difficult circumstances. He does not have his own room, cannot easily go anywhere to be alone. He needs to feel separate, somehow; needs to get some distance from his parents. He needs some way to assert his distinctness. His parents are pretty sure that one way David has of drawing a line is to share complaints about them (relatively minor complaints, they hope) with his friends. His friends, perhaps, sympathize. They know his parents through David's accounts, have very little personal contact, and have formed their opinions largely through him.

Now David is on a class trip to Washington on which his mother is serving as one of the chaperones. A problem has developed.

David's friends, in extended contact with his mother for the first time, appear to be drawing the conclusion that she is cool. Some of David's complaints seem to be losing a measure of credibility.

Don't worry, son. Your Dad's still weird.

THE RIGHT WORDS

David's eighth-grade class departed on their class trip to Washington, D.C. this morning. Mrs. Baslow is serving as one of the chaperones.

Yesterday, Children's Express received an email note from The Times of India, requesting email interviews with David and the rest of the Gujarat-quake reporting team. David does not have access to email at school but his father does at work. Baslow could imagine David's reaction, arriving at the CE NY Bureau office for his interview with WABC, to learning that he would have to, that evening, write out answers to questions posed by The Times of India after making hiw way home, after eating dinner, before packing for his class trip. So Baslow volunteered to read the questions to David, tape record the responses, transcribe the result, and send it off to Children's Express for review and to forward on to the paper.

David read the list of questions he would be answering before the interview began. He was well aware, when the tape started rolling, that he was in some sense talking to the world (or, at least, to India) and not really to his Dad. Baslow noticed the care with which he chose his words. He was telling stories of children he respected and admired. The people who read the article might know those stories only through those words.

One of the questions posed was "Why were you chosen for this assignment?". David allowed as how he couldn't know for sure but that he'd written many stories for Children's Express and had done good work. Baslow added that it probably also had something to do with his having a valid passport.

It was intended as a "don't-get-too-big-for-your-britches" little joke but it was a stupid thing to say. David had earned the right to be taken seriously and to take his work seriously. He expressed annoyance at the remark the next morning.

Baslow has a lot learn from his kids.

PURPLE PASSION

Rulizow decided to bedeck herself entirely in purple, today. She had the orthodontist, yesterday, equip her with purple braces. Then she came home and polished her nails purple. This morning she wore a purple shirt, purple scrunchee, and purple pants. She has a plastic purple choker that she wore around her neck. Then, of course, there are her purple sweater, fleece, backpack, and coat.

Was this a desperate ploy? Was this fashion statement really a plea that we devote more attention to her in the midst of all the attention lavished on David recently?

Rulizow steadfastly maintains not. Get over it, Dad.

She REALLLY likes purple.

DAVID (OKAY, JOEL) INTERVIEW TO APPEAR ON WABC ON MONDAY

WABC interviewed David (Baslow gives up: his name is really Joel) this evening, at the Children's Express NY Bureau office. The story is scheduled to appear on WABC, channel 7 in New York, Monday evening, probably during the 5 - 6:30 P.M. broadcast. More details as they are available.

HAVING AN E-DENTITY CRISIS?

Then you need the eNormicom Image Bucket Program™...
(Isn't it wonderful how quickly Web stuff turns into nostalgia?).

MORE ABOUT PRIVACY FROM DAVID (AND OTHERS AT CHILDREN'S EXPRESS)

In the second part of a discussion on privacy begun last week, David and fellow Children's Express reporter/editors discuss the tightrope which must be negotiated when Parents Invade Privacy With Concern.

OF SCHOOL AND HOPE

David was impressed by the enthusiasm with which the young Indians he interviewed talked about school. Many school buildings were compromised in the earthquake which devastated Gujarat a little over a month ago. The restoration of schools, however, was made a high priority and by the time of David's visit they were already back in operation, albeit out of tents.

Not one child with whom David spoke expressed any of the reservations about school which are so common among, say, American schoolchildren. There were no jokes about its being burdensome or boring. Instead, everyone spoke about school as their one best chance for a better life. They had no doubt about the practical value of school.

If David's experience in this regard is representative it raises an interesting question. What is it about these kids' lives, about their culture, about their situtation, which leads them to speak with such reverence about school? What is it about the way we raise our kids, about our culture, about our situation, which makes any such expression of reverence seem suspect or laughable?

CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE?

Baslow and Mrs. Baslow are very proud of their children. It is unclear, however, how much of the credit the Baslow parents can take for the way the Baslow children behave or for their admirable qualities. Certainly, they are responsible for the childrens' genetic endowment but this traces back to activity that is "parenting" only in the barest sense. What of the rest of "parenting", the care taken to treat children in nurturing ways, to provide children with good examples, to shape their behavior?

Psychologists, especially popularizers who communicate psychological results to the lay public, have tended to start with what Judith Rich Harris calls "The Nurture Assumption". That is, they assume that parents and their methods of child-rearing play a large role in the determination of behavior outside the context of the family and try to find in the research clues to which methods have which effects. If, however, one starts with the "null hypothesis" and assumes that parents have NO effect beyond the genetic, one must question whether the evidence establishes ANY consistent effect of nurture on offspring behavior. Harris claims that it does not, or at least that it doesn't indicate MUCH effect. She further claims that the evidence points to other factors in the child's environment which are far more influential, primarily the child's interaction with peers.

Baslow (who has not yet read her book) believes that there is considerable merit to Harris' critique of the prevailing psychological model of personality development in children. He suspects that she has oversold the merits of her own alternative. He doesn't share Howard Gardner's concern that Harris' book will be taken as an excuse by many parents to abandon efforts to influence their children's behavior; he hasn't heard many parents talk about Harris' book at all.

Baslow believes that we do not yet possess models of sufficient richness or complexity to adequately address the questions raised by Harris' book. We lack sufficient understanding of the minute-by-minute experience of our lives. We need to be able to describe how the human organism, on a second-by-second basis, decides what to attend to, decides what details to retain and accumulate, and decides how to act.

Baslow is convinced that models of such granularity will emerge only when students of human behavior have the means to incorporate social/cultural and ecological elements into their fundamental psychological accounts. For example, we will need to understand far betther than we do now how wording, setting, timing, tone of voice and facial and gestural expressions affect the reception of praise. Such understanding may very well require us, further, to appreciate how the history of a particular relationship affects the interpretation of any given combination of wording, setting, timing, etc. This is a tall order which, Baslow believes, will require contributions from many workers in many disciplines over the course of many years.

Baslow intends to read the Harris book. He believes that it will serve, at least, to cause him to re-examine his assumptions. It will almost certainly help him to clarify his own, half-formed beliefs about how children develop. There is every indication that it will make him think.

The Book

The Nurture Assumption

Writings by Judith Rich Harris on the Web

Children Don't Do Things Halfway
How to Succeed in Childhood
Slate: Dialogue with Jerome Kagan
Where Is the Child's Environment? A Group Socialization Theory of Development
How Many Environments Does a Child Have?
The Nurture Assumption and Adolescent Addiction

NPR: All Things Considered, Friday, March 9, 2001
"Commentator Judith Rich Harris says at times there isn't much a parent can do to prevent a child from using a gun at school and that signs are often not obvious. She says the best preventive measure is simply not to own guns. (3:30)" (14.4|28.8)

Responses and Reviews

In Defense of Parenthood, by Katie Allison Granju
Who Needs Experts? by Beth Kephart
Do Parents Matter? -- Equinox
Do Parents Count? by Howard Gardner
Peer Pressure by Carol Tavris
Lehrer Online NewsHour: Nature vs. Nurture
Parents and Children -- Commentary Magazine
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

Related

How Is Personality Formed? A Talk With Frank Sulloway (in which Sulloway expounds on his theory of the effects of birth order on personality.)
Harris's Comments on Sulloway's Talk
HOW CAN EDUCATED PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BE RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISTS? A Talk by David Lykken

SAVING FACE?

Rulizow, as this is being written, is sitting at the kitchen table, bent over a bowl of hot water, a towel tented over her head. She is giving herself a facial. She read about it in a book about sleepovers.

We have tried to explain to her that nine-year-old girls don't need facials but to no avail.

Oh! She's gotten up! She's walked over to the folded futon in the living room. She's lying down.

She's putting cucumber slices on her eyes.

Baslow is speechless.

RESISTENTIALISM

Report on Resisentialism

"A convenient point of departure is provided by the famous Clark-Trimble experiments of 1935. Clark-Trimble was not primarily a physicist, and his great discovery of the Graduated Hostility of Things was made almost accidentally. During some research into the relation between periods of the day and human bad temper, Clark-Trimble, a leading Cambridge psychologist, came to the conclusion that low human dynamics in the early morning could not sufficiently explain the apparent hostility of Things at the breakfast table - the way honey gets between the fingers, the unfoldability of newspapers, etc. In the experiments which finally confirmed him in this view, and which he demonstrated before the Royal Society in London, Clark-Trimble arranged four hundred pieces of carpet in ascending degrees of quality, from coarse matting to priceless Chinese silk. Pieces of toast and marmalade, graded, weighed, and measured, were then dropped on each piece of carpet, and the marmalade-downwards incidence was statistically analysed. The toast fell right-side-up every time on the cheap carpet, except when the cheap carpet was screened from the rest (in which case the toast didn't know that Clark-Trimble had other and better carpets), and it fell marmalade-downwards every time on the Chinese silk. Most remarkable of all, the marmalade- downwards incidence for the intermediate grades was found to vary exactly with the quality of carpet."


Here's a report, from National Public Radio, on buttered toast (see the middle of the page).

"Robert Siegel talks with Robert Matthews, a physicist at Aston University in Birmingham, England and the world's foremost expert on Murphy's Law. Matthews is part of a six-week experiment across Britain that begins today. Up to 150,000 primary and secondary school pupils are dropping buttered toast. If the results prove that the toast is more likely to fall butter-side down, Murphy's law will be validated. (4:00)"

UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF: INDIAN QUAKE

UNICEF ALERT!--A Program of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF: India: Earthquake

"Nothing can prepare you for this," said Dr. Appu Chitawadgi. Dr. Chitawadgi is in charge of a UNICEF-supported vaccination campaign in the earthquake zone. "I saw the pictures on TV, but nothing prepares you for… the incredible force of nature's destruction, the shock and fear of the people who have lost everything." (February 21)

FREE THE CHILDREN

A few years ago, when David was first getting involved with Children's Express, Baslow brought home a book about a young man, named Craig Kielburger, whose life was changed by a newspaper story.

The story was of a Pakistani child, named Iqbal Masih, who was sold into slavery by his family when he was four years old. He spent the next six years shackled to a carpet-weaving loom, tying knots. At the age of ten, with the help of a human rights organization, he escaped his bondage and began school. He soon became an activist, speaking in Pakistan, Europe, and the United States about the horrors of child slavery. At the age of twelve he was murdered, shot with a double-barrelled shotgun.

Craig Kielburger, twelve years old himself at the time, started his own human rights organization, which came to be called "Free the Children". It was composed entirely of children his own age, mostly his friends at first. They prepared leaflets and wrote letters advocating a boycott. They were invited to address a High School class.

In the course of the presentation they were peppered with questions they could not answer: How would families compensate for the lost income if child slavery were abolished? What would happen to the children? Wouldn't a boycott ruin local economies and cause widespread problems in the affected areas?

Craig realized that he didn't have enough information. He needed to bolster his opinions with facts. Soon after he set out on a fact-finding trip through South Asia.

He chronicles that trip in his book, Free the Children.

The Baslow family read the book aloud together, a little at a time, over the course of a few weeks. David and Rulizow were fascinated by the story of such a young person so boldly undertaking to do good. David was especially impressed. The book became a reference point.

When David returned from India Baslow mentioned Craig Kielburger in passing. David said that he'd been thinking about him and about "Free the Children". They took the book off the shelf and leafed through it again. Baslow marvelled at how far David had come since they'd first read the book together.

Judging by the website and the video interview listed below the message of Free the Children has been elaborated:

"Free the Children has two main purposes:

To free children from poverty, exploitation and abuse.
To give children a voice, leadership training, and opportunities to take action on issues which affect them from a local to an international level."

David's work with Children's Express fits right in with those purposes. He is, at the age of thirteen, a more effective actor in the world than his father has ever been.

Books
Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery by Susan Kuklin
Free the Children: A Young Man Fights Against Child Labor and Proves that Children Can Change the World by Craig Kielburger with Kevin Major.

Free the Children Website

Free The Children International
What is Free The Children?
Who is Craig Kielburger?

Video

State of the World Forum 2000: Interview with Craig Kielburger

NEW DELHI TV PHOTO JOURNAL

Photos of the Gujarat quake from NDTV

BBC IN-DEPTH COVERAGE OF THE INDIAN QUAKE

Children's Quake Nightmares
Housing Plans In Gujarat

THE PRESS RELEASE

Children's Express has issued a press release about David's coverage of the earthquakes in Gujarat, India. "David" is, of course, referred to by his real name, "Joel Solow". Baslow will continue to refer to his son as "David" (as per his son's request) within the confines of this OmniumGatherum. Outside of its bounds, however, he is universally known as "Joel Solow" and Baslow (among others) is very proud of him.

The press release can be found here:

MILLIONS OF CHILDREN AFFECTED BY EARTHQUAKES IN INDIA;
CHILDREN'S EXPRESS COVERS AFTERMATH WITH U.S. FUND FOR UNICEF
13- and 15-year-old journalists bring
perspective of affected children to the world

DAVID RETURNS

David is home, now. He hasn't really slept in almost 24 hours. On the other hand, he was on airplanes most of that time and dozed repeatedly. He is not ready to go to bed yet. He has checked his email and sent off some messages. He's given each of us one of the siroopwafelen (caramel syrup waffle cookies) he purchased at Schipol, in Amsterdam. He is now playing Final Fantasy IX to relax. We are waiting for a pizza to be delivered.

Although there is much more to tell he has told us a little about his trip.

There was no place in Bhuj that was spared devastation, nowhere he could turn to see a normal vista. The heat was merciless. He spoke to a twelve-year-old girl, Anjita, who was pinned by rubble for seven hours. She spent the whole time praying. He spoke to children who had lost some or all of their families. He visited schools struggling to re-establish themselves, housed in tents.

When Baslow asked his son about his reactions to what he'd seen, David's first response, offered immediately, was: "We are so [expletive deleted] lucky!" By "we" he meant, essentially, middle-class Americans. He had witnessed a proud, resilient people who uncomplainingly made lives for themselves out of a paucity of material resources that he found astonishing. He had spoken to one person after another who had told him of unimaginable personal misfortunes without the slightest trace of self-pity.

David and his colleagues from Children's Express spent a busy couple of days in Bhuj. They recorded video journals and audio interviews. They took copious notes. They will be spending the next days and weeks assembling these elements into stories in which they attempt to convey to the rest of the world what they witnessed. Baslow will direct you, Dear Reader, to these stories as they are available.

In the meantime they will be thinking about what they experienced, expanding their views of the world and appreciating their situations in it. We would all do well, periodically, to do the same.

DECAFFEINATION

"Only five years ago it was a novelty, now it is of historical interest. Only on the web could something make that transition so quickly,'' Quentin Stafford-Fraser...said Tuesday.

Say Good-Bye to An Unlikely Internet Star

DAVID RETURNING TODAY

The airline's web page shows David's flight arriving 20 minutes early. Later this morning, Baslow will go downtown to pick up Rulizow at school and Mrs. Baslow will swing by in the car. We will head out to Newark airport to meet the plane. Baslow will take along a tape recorder and a blank tape. If David is not thoroughly exhausted we expect the stories of his trip to come pouring out immediately.

DAVID (AMONG OTHERS) ON PRIVACY

David (and Baslow reminds you that this is not his real name) participated in a Children's Express roundtable discussion of privacy. It has been published as one of the New York Post's weekly Children's Express offerings. It can be found here: Kids Discuss Their Need for Privacy

ANOTHER CALL FROM MUMBAI

While Baslow was taking Rulizow down to school on the subway David called from Mumbai. He spoke to his mother. He said that it is oppressively hot and, therefore, nobody was feeling very well. Apart from that, however, they all were fine.

They have decided to head home a day early. The hotel requires them to be out of their room by noon and it is simply too hot to spend a day touring. So they are skipping the R&R day that had been scheduled and heading straight home. We will meet him at the airport tomorrow.

David said that there was too much to tell over the phone. We plan to bring a tape recorder with us to the airport since we expect that the stories will come pouring out immediately, unless exhaustion prevails.

WOZILUR

Rulizow has reversed herself. Having abandoned her blog for a time, she has returned to post her updated version of Cinderella. Have a look. Baslow thinks it is quite good and very indicative of her sense of humor.

THE MANSION ON BASLOW'S BLOCK

Baslow learns, from this article in the New York Times, that a mansion stood as recently as 1938 on the block where he now lives. His father, who grew up ten blocks south, never spoke too much about the neighborhood of his childhood or, for that matter, about his childhood. He never spoke of the mansion (which would have been around until he was eleven years old).

Baslow understands. He himself has found that, at various junctures in his life, he could only move forward by more or less forgetting, wholesale, large portions of his life up to that point. His interest in history was, for the longest time, exclusively an interest in the history of ideas, of designs, of social forces, of trends. He has only very recently become even slightly interested in the physical manifestations of history, in history you can see and touch. It is because he has children old enough to be curious about such things.

Fourteen years ago, when Baslow first returned to Inwood to live as an adult, he noted the marble arch on Broadway and gave it no second thought. Today, he is glad to know the story of what it represents.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ANDY ZWERLING?

Back in 1970 through the end of 1971 Baslow commuted to New College at Hofstra University from his home in Cedarhurst, Long Island. Much of that time he rode along with Paul Socolow, in Paul's VW Beetle. Usually, they were accompanied by someone named Andy Zwerling.

Andy Zwerling was possessed of a species of youthful energy that exhausted Baslow, who was only 19-20 years old at the time. Andy directed his energy exclusively into the pursuit of Rock and Roll. He wrote reviews for Rolling Stone. He was full of extravagant opinions. He seemed to be on a first-name basis with half the leading lights of the Rock world of the time; he frequently spoke about conversations with Jann Wenner. He was full of ideas, schemes, plans. He was, he told us, making an album.

The album was to be called "Spiders In the Night" but Paul immediately renamed it "Arachnids On My Back".

All of this vaguely amused Baslow. Rock and Roll never felt like his music; Jazz and Classical music hit closer to home. He was never impressed by the celebrity of rock stars or the attendant gossip. Andy, therefore, devoting all his considerable enthusiasm to an essentially alien pursuit, seemed vaguely, antically comic. Andy was never really a friend; Baslow never saw him outside the Beetle.

When, after a couple of years, Baslow succeeded in moving out of his house and into a basement domicile within walking distance of school, he lost touch with Andy Zwerling. He has never once, in the thirty-or-so years since then, ever stopped to wonder whatever happened to Andy Zwerling. Now, however, this omission notwithstanding, the New York Times has provided him with an answer: Dreaming for 30 Years: A Struggling Rock Duo Refuses to Quit

Rock on, Andy.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND SUNDAY MORNING, NOT NECESSARILY IN THAT ORDER

David, if he is on schedule, is now finishing his first day in Bhuj. He will, by now, have recorded an interview with the Health Minister of Gujarat, visited several hospitals and health facilities, conferred in the Gujarat Water Supply Board Control Room, and interviewed the UNICEF team about their plans for Education, Water, Health & Nutrition, Psychosocial interventions and Child Protection. We are not likely to hear from him for several days yet.

Rulizow has been entertaining a guest, yesterday and today. Her friend K. accompanied us, yesterday, to the movie Recess: School's Out. Rulizow adjudged it "mad funny". K. liked it, too. For the rest of the day, back home, the girls were quite self-sufficient. They chatted, watched Clueless on video, worked out song-and-dance routines, gossiped, giggled (a lot), drew, and played out elaborate fantasies involving many props. Wind 'em up and watch 'em go.

The girls had pizza for lunch. Mrs. Baslow went out shopping for provisions to see us through the predicted near-blizzard. Baslow did laundry and surfed the Internet. The girls showed no signs of running out of things to say to each other or things to do together. Mrs. Baslow prepared tacos for dinner. The girls worked together on a story Rulizow is writing and then disappeared into Rulizow's room. Mrs. Baslow and the Mr. watched a DVD of The Cider House Rules.

Baslow feels himself to be in a kind of suspension. His thoughts keep turning to India. Every couple of hours he computes the time in whatever city David is in and tries to figure out, from the little information he has, what David is doing just then. Baslow is not sorry that he let his thirteen-year-old son go off on an adventure like this but he hadn't thought that the issue would arise until David was sixteen or seventeen. He is experiencing the necessary difficulty of "letting go".

THE MAD DASH

Baslow still owes you this story, Dear Reader:

At the Monday night briefing by UNICEF, conducted in the NY Bureau Office of Children's Express, we learned that David would need more passport-type photos for a visa. They would need to be at the CE Office by 9 A.M. the following day. The meeting ended a little after 7 P.M. Mrs. Baslow had to head home to pick up Rulizow. It was up to Baslow and David to get those photos. We had to be quick about it; David had a considerable amount of homework to hand in the next day.

By 7 P.M. most of the obvious places to have passport photos made were closed. We were told that the K-Mart at Penn Station had a photo-developing place which also did passport photos. As we walked along 23rd St. to the subway we examined every storefront to see if we might save ourselves a trip to Penn Station. No such luck. We decided to pick up sandwiches at a Subway before getting onto THE subway. We wolfed our sandwiches on the subway platform and on the train to 34th St.

We learned, when we arrived at the K-Mart, that their passport photo operation had been shut down several months earlier. Uh-oh.

Baslow has lived in the Big City a very long time. He knows lots of obscure places and lots of little tricks. Not having been much of a world traveller, however, he cannot instantly come up with after-hours passport-photo establishments. Baslow and David began to worry.

We were on the Long Island Rail Road level of Penn Station. We looked around at all the shops but none of them offered passport photos. We went up to an information window and asked. The clerk thought for a while and suggested that we try the photo department of a drugstore upstairs, on the Amtrak level.

We went upstairs to the drugstore. No luck. The guard there suggested, however, that among the shops ringing the main waiting area there HAD to be one that could take the photos. We rushed down the corridor to the main waiting area and circled it, peering into windows and occasionally going in.

"Passport photos?"
"No."
"Passport photos?"
"Sorry."

Finally, we arrived at a little store that sold "Gifts and Electronics".
"Passport photos?"
"Yes, wait here."

A white blind was produced and hung against a showcase. The person who knew where the special Polaroid camera was stored emerged from behind a door. The picture was taken in a minute (David, by this time, looking quite grim) and four copies emerged. They were trimmed and handed over to us. We paid the ten dollars and were on our way.

We made our way to the Number 1 train and hopped on an uptown. Baslow pointed out an empty seat to David, who sat immediately. He then pulled a book and his looseleaf binder out of this backpack and began doing homework.

Five minutes later he looked up and asked "Pappy, what if we hadn't found that place? Where would we have gone next?".

Pappy, by this time, had a headache. He didn't answer. He rubbed his temples, periodically, the rest of the way home.

A SHORT CALL FROM MUMBAI (BOMBAY)

David called Baslow at work, just an hour ago. He was in the hotel in Mumbai. His normal thirteen-year-old laconic-with-parents manner was exaggerated by sheer dog-tiredness after such a long flight.

He mentioned having eaten a delectable dessert during the stopover at the Amsterdam airport. Baslow hastily ascertained that the dessert would be legal in the United States. David said that, apart from being tired, he was fine.

There wasn't much more to say after that (and others were waiting to use the phone) so Baslow bade his son goodbye. He will likely not hear from him directly again until next Tuesday or Wednesday. He may have to wait until David's return to New York to hear any substantive accounts of his experiences.

Meanwhile, Baslow is informed, there are many media outlets which have expressed interest in the story of the intrepid Children's Express reporters. Baslow will pass on to you, Dear Reader, any reports he has of any media coverage. He asks that, should you run across any media accounts, you let Baslow know by means of the "Click Here to Comment" link below or by the email link labelled "Respond. Correspond." to the left.

Thank you.

THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY

As Baslow writes this, his son (and colleagues from Children's Express) are on their way to Mumbai. The families of both kids saw them off at Newark Airport last night. We were all interviewed by WABC-TV but there is no word when, or if, a report will air. Baslow doesn't care. He is trying to imagine how his son is holding up under the exhausting flight; how his son will absorb all the meetings, briefings, and interviews he will be part of in the next week; what he will hear and see.

THE CAVEMAN'S VALENTINE

About a homeless man who lives in a cave in Inwood Hill Park, just down the street from Baslow's domicile. The mystery of a dead body found outside his cave draws him into an investigation, out into the world he has been avoiding. The movie version (which was well-received at the Sundance Festival) debuts today.

Novel

The Caveman's Valentine

Web Pages

Internet Movie Database
Yahoo! Movies

Movie Reviews

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Stephanie Zacharek, Salon
Todd McCarthy, Variety
Robert Horton, Film.com

FULL COLOR PHOTOS!

Here we see the intrepid band of world travelers in the Children's Express New York Bureau just hours before their departure. Guess which one is David.

Here we have the explorers surrounded by family. Baslow, Rulizow and Mrs. Baslow can be seen in the back row.

PANJOKUTCH.COM, "THE LIVE VOICE OF THE KUTCHI SOCIETY"

Panjokutch Earthquake Information, Stories and Photographs

WHAT DAVID WILL BE DOING IN GUJARAT

Tentative Itinerary From UNICEF
A visit of more than two-and-a-half days would unduly burden the relief staff in Bhuj.

4th March 2001 (Sunday)

1300 hrs Arrival in Bhuj from Mumbai (Bombay) by Jet Airways flight
1400 hrs Introductions, finalization of itinerary and briefing on Earthquake and Relief Measures at Hotel Lakeview
1500 hrs Meeting with Mr Ashok Bhatt, Ex. Health Minister & NGO Coordinator, Government of Gujarat
1530 - 1630 hrs Visit to Bhuj town, District Hospital & Jubilee Hospital and Health Control Room
1630 - 1730 hrs Visit to Gujarat Water Supply Board Control Room
1730 - 1900 hrs Discussion with UNICEF Team on interventions and future plans - Education, Water, Health & Nutrition, Psychosocial interventions and Child Protection

5th March 2001 (Monday)
0800 - 1800 hrs Visit to Schools, Anganwadis and Health Institutions in Anjar Taluka

6th March 2001 (Tuesday)
0900 - 1100 hrs Meet Government counterparts.
1115 hrs Departure for Airport

PACKING, PIZZA, LISTS, LAST-MINUTE HOMEWORK

Re-packing; planning; writing notes so the kids can leave school early; checking e-mail for any further instructions from UNICEF or Children's Express; leaving a message with the pediatrician about alternatives to Cipro (sp?); Deciding who will pick up Rulizow at school and who will take David's luggage downtown to the Bureau; compiling a list of the three levels of diarrhea and what to do for each level; laying out clothes for tomorrow.

Dear Reader, it has been a busy night.
Goodnight.

THE UNICEF BRIEFING

The briefing went a long way towards allaying the lingering anxieties Baslow and Mrs. Baslow were feeling about sending their thirteen-year-old son off to India. The UNICEF representatives provided us with many details and answered all our questions. They clearly have this stuff down to a science.

David and his Children's Express cohorts will depart Thursday night. The departure was moved ahead a bit to allow some rest time after the exhausting flight. There will be a stopover in Amsterdam. They will arrive in Mumbai late on Friday. They will be met at the airport by UNICEF staff in a UNICEF vehicle.

On Saturday, they will be briefed by Bombay staff (and by a senior communication person from Delhi). They will then travel on to Bhuj, which was close to the epicenter of the quake.

Much hard work has been done in Bhuj since the quake. David will not see scenes of devastation nearly so jarring as those he would have seen a few days after the disaster. He will see rubble, certainly. What will be most evident will be, not immediate hazards, but the long-term effects and challenges of such a large-scale disaster. Poverty (of a sort and to a degree David has not encountered) will be apparent. As apparent, however, will be the strong family and community structures with which the poverty is met.

UNICEF will accompany the Children's Express contingent wherever they go. They will always have sattelite communication and global cellphone facilities.

They will spend about two-and-a-half days in Bhuj. They will then make their way back to Mumbai and, from there, home. Psychological counselling will be available to help David deal with the more troubling aspects of what he will have seen.

David and his parents are excited. The adventure is about to begin.

THE WABC-TV INTERVIEW

Baslow had expected that David's interview with WABC-TV would be recorded. It was not. It was a getting-to-know-you meeting with producers and reporters. WABC-TV will be along on the press tour. Besides covering the tour itself and the aftermath of the earthquake they will be covering the two Children's Express reporters, viewing the experiences of the tour through their eyes. They've asked to interview Baslow and Mrs. Baslow at the airport.

David made his way from his Middle School crosstown to the WABC studios by himself. He met the newly-appointed New York Bureau Chief of Children's Express on Columbus Avenue and together they talked to the WABC people. David reports that he was taken aback by the makeup onscreen personalities have to wear. He chatted with producers, with an anchorperson, and with a reporter. They asked David a few questions about himself and about what he expected to find in India.

It didn't last very long; David and the Bureau Chief had to make their ways downtown for the UNICEF briefing.

IOU

1) Details of the briefing by UNICEF;
2) The story of David's interview at WABC-TV;
3) An account of the search for a place to get passport pictures for the visa;
4) The tale of dinner on the uptown 1 train;
5) An explanation of why David will be leaving Thursday night rather than Friday;
6) Probably other stories, as well...

RULIZOW ENDS HER RUN

Rulizow gave her last performance as Philostrate, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, this evening. There was a cast party afterward. She is very tired but very happy. She had nothing but good reports about the way things went. The audiences were uniformly enthusiastic. Things went as smoothly as any production she has been in. We think it likely that Rulizow will be in other productions in the future.

On another front, Rulizow has decided to discontinue her weblog. Baslow suspects that she was not receiving enough feedback to carry her along. He hopes she tries again, someday.

PREPARATIONS

We will be briefed by UNICEF tomorrow. In the meantime, they have sent us these preliminary notes:

"Carry as little as possible. This can't be overemphasized. Take few articles of clothing, and expect them to receive rough treatment. "

"You can check the weather at http://www.cnn.com/WEATHER/as/India/Bhuj-RudramataVABJ.html. Right now, the current conditions are highs in the 90's during the day and lows in the 60's in the evening."

"The following is a list of items that we suggest you bring on your trip to India:

sleeping bag
pillow case
towel
camera, with ample roll of films
sneakers or hiking boots
socks and underwear
cotton trousers
light colored shirts and T-shirts (cotton)
raincoat
hat
sweater
anti-bacterial hand wipes
medicine for diarrhea (Imodium)
shampoo and conditioner
lip balm
flashlight and batteries
tissues and a roll of toilet paper
pain relievers (e.g. aspirin, ibuprofen, etc)
prescription medications
passport/visa
sunglasses
toothbrush/toothpaste
contact lenses and cleaning solutions
sunscreen, at least SPF 15
a key lock or combination lock"

This whole trip is beginning to seem real to us...

A CHRONOLOGY OF NPR'S COVERAGE OF THE EARTHQUAKE IN GUJARAT, INDIA

1/26/01 -- India Earthquake NPR's Michael Sullivan reports that a powerful earthquake has killed more than two thousand people in India, and the death toll is expected to rise. The epicenter was in the city of Bhuj in the western state of Gujarat, close to India's border with Pakistan. Hospitals in Gujarat have been flooded with injured people. Rescue workers are using chain saws and their bare hands, as they to reach people believed to be trapped in rubble. (3:00)

1/26/01 -- Earthquake in India NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from India on the earthquake that shook the region early this morning. The earthquake is the worst in 50 years. 140 people are feared dead. (3:18)


1/26/01 -- Earthquake Robert talks with Star News correspondent Harsha Kumarisingh, who is at the site of the earthquake in India. Thousands of people are now counted dead, and workers are combing the rubble of collapsed buildings in hope of finding survivors. (4:30)

1/27/01 -- India - Earthquake NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from Ahmedabad, India where the death toll from Friday's earthquake is expected to rise to 13, 000. The quake, which registered 7. 9 in magnitude, devastated cities in the western state of Gujarat and has left tens of thousands of people homeless. (5:15)

1/27/01 -- Seismologist Perspective Seismologists who have been studying tectonic plates beneath India were surprised by the location of the earthquake, because it happened in an area where fault lines had not been detected. As a result of the earthquake, the new seismographic information could have both scientific and political consequences. Host Lisa Simeone speaks with Jeffrey Park, professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University. (3:00)

1/28/01 -- India Quake Liane talks with NPR's Michael Sullivan who's in Bhuj, India, near the epicenter of Friday's earthquake. Damage there is extensive. Government officials say the quake has claimed more than 6000 lives, with the death toll expected to rise. (4:00)

1/28/01 -- Epicenter Host Lisa Simeone talks with NPR's Michael Sullivan who's currently in the city of Bhuj, India, considered the worst hit area of last Friday's earthquake (5:30)

1/29/01 -- India Earthquake NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from India on the continuing rescue efforts following Friday's earthquake. The quake had a magnitude of 7.9 and at least 15,000 people are reported dead.

1/29/01 -- India Quake Robert talks to Harsha Kumarisingh, a correspondent for Star News, about the aftermath of last week's 7.9 magnitude earthquake in India. An estimated 20,000 people were killed. And the Indian government now estimates monetary losses of the quake at 5.5 billion dollars. Officials are now concentrating on restoring services to the Indian state of Gujarat. (4:30)


1/30/01 -- Earthquake Aftermath Host Bob Edwards speaks with NPR's Eric Weiner about last week's earthquake in India. Rescue efforts are becoming recovery efforts as the hope of finding survivors fades. (4:31)

1/30/01 - India Update NPR's Eric Weiner reports that rescuers, looking for survivors of Friday's massive earthquake in western India, managed to find a few more people still alive today. They had almost given up hope for finding more survivors. Indian officials now estimate that at least 20-thousand people were killed in the disaster. This would make it the worst earthquake to strike India in a half-century. (4:00)

1/31/01 - Earthquake Recovery NPR's Eric Weiner reports from Bhuj, India, with the latest on the earthquake recovery effort. (4:19)

1/31/01 -- India Quake Noah talks with NPR's Michael Sullivan about the recovery efforts from the earthquake in India. Relief workers have more work than they can handle. There has been outcry against the government for the slow response. And the number of dead is still rising. Government officials say the body count is now 12-thousand, and they estimate the total death toll will reach 25-thousand. (3:30)

2/1/01 -- India Recovery NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from India with the latest on the earthquake recovery. (4:02)

2/1/01 -- India's Public NPR's Eric Weiner reports from the western Indian city of Bhuj on relief operations by international aid agencies and private volunteers who have responded to last Friday's earthquake more quickly than the Indian government. (4:00)

2/2/01 -- India Earthquake Survivor A young man in college in the U.S. went home to India recently for a family reunion-- and was the only member of his family to survive the earthquake. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports. (3:39)

2/2/01 Talk of the Nation: Earthquake Update
Guests:

Mary Lou Zoback
Chief Scientist
Earthquake Hazards Program
United States Geological Survey, Menlo Park, California

Michel Bruneau
Deputy Director
Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research
State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York

Craig Weaver
Pacific Northwest Coordinator, USGS Earthquake Program
United States Geological Survey, Seattle, Washington

Recent earthquakes in India and El Salvador have killed thousands of people and left many wondering how we might better prepare for earthquakes. In this hour, we'll hear about the 'quake in India and find out what scientists know about the seismic activity in the area. We'll also hear about new earthquake research taking place in the Pacific northwest--what's under Seattle might surprise you.

2/3/01 -- Indian Earthquake Cleanup Scott speaks with NPR's Eric Weiner about the clean-up effort in western India following last week's devastating earthquake, which left more than 10,000 dead. (6:00)

2/4/01 - Quake NPR's Eric Weiner reports from Ahmedabad, India, that officials have begun the enormous task of calculating the human and economic cost of the earthquake. The government of India is asking The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank for some $1.5 billion to help rebuild Gujarat, the industrial center hit hardest by the earthquake. (5:00)


2/5/01 -- Earthquake Building Codes In the week since the devastating earthquake in India, many have asked a familiar question: Why doesn't the government enforce earthquake building codes? Martha Ann Overland looks at corruption in the Indian construction industry. (4:23)


2/7/01 -- India Relief , Host Bob Edwards talks with Daniel Wordsworth leader of the Christian Children's Fund relief team in India. The group is trying to provide help for children who were victims of the recent earthquake. (4:38)


2/11/01 -- Earthquake Revisited Two weeks after a 7-point-7 magnitude earthquake hit India, some villages are just beginning to receive tents to temporarily replace their damaged homes. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from Varsamadhi. (6:00)


2/12/01 -- India Recovery NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from India, 17 days after that nation's worst earthquake in 50 years. With aftershocks still shaking the ground and anywhere from 600,000 to one million left homeless, the challenge is now feeding, caring and housing the victims. (5:42)


2/18/01 -- Caste In India Essayist Ellis Cose just visited the Indian state of Gujurat. The recent Indian earthquake highlighted for Cose the persistent discrimination against the lowest level in the Indian caste system, the Dalit, or untouchables. (3:35)