As Far As You Know

Now that I think of it, June very well might be my favorite month of the year. School winds down, vacation kicks in, travel opportunities arise, Grand Slam tennis (Roland Garros and Wimbledon) is on display, and the weather is fine. Not a bad time.

Okay, now that the days are getting actually hot, I am breaking down and installing the air conditioner in my bedroom window tonight. For years I though A/C was decadent, but now I revel in a cool night's sleep.

I am not one of those who has been advocating Hilary Clinton drop out of the race for the Democratic nomination. She has deserved to contend and clearly has built a committed and loyal following within the Party. But as today's contests mark the end of the primary season--and at the risk of alienating my pro-Hilary friends and family members--I say the time has now come for her to find a way to bow out gracefully in the next few days so that Democrats can begin the process of unifying for the fall general election campaign. Though there's little doubt McCain would be far better than "W" as president, the potential for damage to the country and the world with four more years of the White House under Republican control almost demands Senator Clinton recognize the reality of the situation and pledge herself to supporting the Obama candidacy.

This cover to week's issue of The New Yorker struck me as particularly amusing, as it perfectly captures the contradictions inherent in my own book buying: I have a romantic attachment to good neighborhood bookstores, but the reality is I buy virtually everything I read online from Amazon.

For the second time in four days, I misplaced my wallet for half a day or so. It's a pretty crippling situation, unfortunately, as it more or less limits my ability to purchase anything in person (as opposed to online) and travel off campus. Both times, I was pretty convinced the wallet would turn up somewhere around my apartment. If it were truly lost, it would be a nightmare of credit card cancellations and driver's license replacement. Fortunately, it turned up in a student room down the hall the first time and under some papers that fell off my desk today.

Apple is featuring Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" in its new iTunes ad. Check it out here.

Hard to believe the tennis great turns 52 today.

The top two players in the world, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, won their semifinal matches today and so on Sunday will face each other on the clay of Roland Garros for the fourth straight year (and the third consecutive final). Nadal has never lost in this tournament, and with his wins over the Swiss rival in the finals of Monte Carlo and Hamburg earlier this spring, he has to be considered the favorite.

In the wake of Justine Henin's recent retirement, Ana Ivanovic has grabbed the #1 ranking and now her first major title in Paris--a crown Henin won the past three seasons. The likable Serb defeated Dinara Safin in straight sets in the Roland Garros final.

Though it seemed to take about as long as it took for the U.S. to recognize the People's Republic of China, candidate Hilary Clinton today acknowledged the inevitable, and suspended her campaign and endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency. No doubt this was made easier by Senator Obama's graceful praise of her in recent speeches and by what was reportedly a pleasant one-on-one meeting between the two Democratic front-runners in Washington a few days back. Still, it had to be painful to let go of one's life ambition.

I sort of expected the Choate campus to be desolate this afternoon, as most underclassmen have taken off after Prize Day and SAT testing and seniors are with their families in anticipation of tomorrow's graduation exercises. But I just took the scooter downtown to the bank and the convenience store and it seems like Wallingford is deserted, too. There were hardly any cars on the road. Granted, it's the first 90-plus-degree day of the year, and it is a Saturday. But the lack of the usual bustle in town gave me an eerie feeling, like I was in one of those post-apocalyptic science fiction movies. Either that or there is some big party going on that I wasn't invited to.

I am about to drape myself in academic regalia--a black gown and a hood adorned in white and Williams purple--to sweat through the better part of an outdoor ceremony in nearly 100 degrees of heat for the next two hours. The event, of course, is Choate's graduation exercises.

My good friend Chuck Timlin (note the obligatory Samuel Johnson reference) wrote the following piece, which appeared in the Hartford Courant a week ago--a reflection that perfectly captures my own feelings about the day.

"Great Joy Tempered By Deep Sadness"

A Sunday early in June is the most bittersweet day of each year for me. When I wake up that morning, I already know that I will go to bed that night emotionally wrung out. Each year, I experience the most selfless joy for my students as they graduate from Choate Rosemary Hall and the most selfish sadness for my loss.

After sipping my morning coffee, I shave and shower and watch the beginning of the men's French Open tennis final (also always played on our graduation day) as I put on a pair of dress pants, shirt and tie. Then, I go down to the basement closet and look for my robe, red and white hood, and mortarboard. I am always a bit surprised to find them still there, as if even the inanimate world would refuse to participate in the wrenching ritual about to unfold.

At 10 o'clock, I walk across the street on campus and take my place in line with my colleagues. At 10:30 the bagpipers in the front unleash their stirring swells of Caledonian war music, and we begin our march through the gauntlet the senior class has formed. All the girls wear beautiful white dresses and hold single, long-stemmed, crimson roses. The boys wear dark suits with crimson roses pinned to their lapels. They no longer look like boys and girls but seem to have transformed overnight into men and women. As we saunter through, seniors cheer and call out greetings to their teacher friends. I begin to see eyes watering up. I think those haunting bagpipes and the physical fact of our marching strikes the first note to them that this is indeed the beginning of the end.

Once the teachers pass them, the students pair up and march behind us toward their seats, facing ours on either side of the stage. During the long ceremony, I have time to scan the vast sea of students and their families on the green lawn. The graduates seem to tingle with excitement and expectation. Why shouldn't they? All they can think about now is that high school and all of its restrictions upon them are ending.

I look more closely to find the students I have come to know more as friends than pupils. A girl with whom I read Hamlet shows none of the sweet prince's melancholy. A boy I coached in basketball bats playfully at one of the beach balls bouncing above the scene. They are in love with the moment. I am trying to hold onto the last minutes of a relationship that in a couple of hours will never be the same.

As the seniors line up for the awarding of diplomas, I try to pay attention to all of the names announced. I want to see every student to whom I've grown particularly close receive his or her diploma. But every year, as the Y's are being called out, I look over my roster of graduates' names and realize, disconcertingly, that I missed seeing several students walk across the stage. I feel as if I have betrayed them somehow.

The ritual concluded, we teachers march back out between the rows of seats. The seniors, now graduates, again yell out our names, and more tears well up in eyes. Then it's onto the luncheon. For the next hour or so graduates and parents come up to us to offer thanks, little gifts, and requests for photos. A student gives me a parting hug and whispers, "I will never forget you." I have learned to quote Dr. Johnson's fine reply to his pupil Boswell on a similar occasion: "Nay sir, it is more likely you should forget me, than that I should forget you."

And then, they are all gone. Later that afternoon, I take a long, slow walk around the campus. It is a ritual that I must re-enact each year to confront my mixed emotions. I feel drained from the academic year just ended. And, having had so many heartstrings cut earlier that day, I feel the blues coming on.

There is a quiet about the campus that in a week will feel therapeutic but which now feels unreal. It's too quiet, as if all the life has been drained out of the place, turning it into a vacuum.

This is a crazy way of going through life. You get used to seeing these kids just about every day for three or four years, you have given a large part of your heart to them (and they have given even more of theirs to you) and then snip — the cord is cut and you may see some of them once or twice in the next 10 years.

They say that the three best reasons for teaching are June, July and August, but "they" don't know what it feels like to die so many little deaths at the crossroads of spring and summer.

In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Jordan Baker praises fall as the season when "life starts all over again." She was right. I know that only September's regeneration of the student body will make me feel whole again.

Well said, Chuck.

Wow. Rafael Nadal was lethal in thrashing world #1 Roger Federer in today's Roland Garros final for a fourth straight victory in the tournament. Nadal won the last nine games and Federer looked at sea on the red clay in Paris. This has to be Federer's worst loss in years, and certainly his poorest performance on such a big occasion since he ascended to the top of the men's game. I have to think the lopsided nature of Nadal's victory may give the Spaniard the confidence to take the Wimbledon crown he nearly won last summer. Certainly he seems to enjoy a psychological advantage over his rival now.

Steve Jobs will be holding court once more with a keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference tomorrow, and there should be big news on the iPhone front. A new model of the iPhone is expected, possibly with built-in GPS and video iChat capabilities. A software upgrade for existing iPhone models should be forthcoming, as well. Beyond that, who knows what surprises might be coming from Cupertino? Certainly the tech industry will be tuning in to see what the next "must have" Apple products will be.

To escape an empty Memorial House, I went to the local cinema and saw Sex And The City. Not really my type of movie, I suppose: I never found the HBO series all that engaging, and the constant focus on brand name fashions always struck me as incredibly shallow. The film was mildly entertaining, at best, and easily could have trimmed 30 minutes from the final cut.

Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 3G today, as well as a raft of new features in an upgrade to the device's operating software, including support for Exchange. Now I have to decide if I want my primary e-mail account at school to follow me around in my pocket. I'll probably hold off on upgrading the hardware, I think, unless there is an especially good deal in the offing. Built-in GPS and faster Internet access certainly is nice, but the iPhone I have serves me perfectly well. The fact that the data plan for 3G will be an additional $10 a month is a downer, too. Had there been video iChat, though . . .

I am much more excited about the potential embodied in Mobile Me (Apple's replacement for the .Mac service) than I am in the iPhone 3G. This may actually be the seamless integration of data on my desktop, laptop, and iPhone machines I have dreamed of! See for yourself.

My friends at Amazon delivered today the Deluxe Edition of Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection--indisputably a terrific album. The original release has been thoroughly remastered and this edition includes an additional CD of demos, unreleased tracks, and live recordings. The problem is that this must be at least the third time this particular album has been re-released on CD, each time in a "better" version. Seems like what George Lucas does with his Star Wars films: keep re-selling the same thing in different formats by just adding a few bells and whistles and declaring it an "ultimate" edition.

From Tom Friedman's New York Times column today:

It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Democrats’ nomination of Obama as their candidate for president has done more to improve America’s image abroad — an image dented by the Iraq war, President Bush’s invocation of a post-9/11 “crusade,” Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay and the xenophobic opposition to Dubai Ports World managing U.S. harbors — than the entire Bush public diplomacy effort for seven years.

Read it for yourself here.

In the course of just a couple of days, Roland Garros champ Rafa Nadal made the transition from slow red clay of Paris to the lightning-fast grass at Queens Club in London. He won his first match on the lawn pretty easily (though he lost in doubles yesterday). A year ago--on the Wednesday of the Artois Championships--I arrived in London and attended this Wimbledon tune-up tournament for the very first time and had an enjoyable afternoon on the club grounds.

I'm about halfway through the new memoir by Pete Sampras. Nothing earth-shattering within, but it's enjoyable quick read, especially when trying to avoid the last wave of reports I have to write at the end of the school year.

Sorry to hear of Tim Russert's passing earlier today. The affable newsman was always an entertaining presence for those of us who are political junkies.

Laurence Fishburne was most impressive in the one-man show Thurgood, based on the life of civil rights attorney and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. I saw the matinee today from a third row aisle seat--a terrific vantage point from which to see Fishburne work at close range. The play--which seemed to draw far more African-Americans to the audience than most Broadway fare, not surprisingly--was accessible, witty, and moving.

I got absolutely drenched by three successive waves of downpours as thunderstorms blanketed the city tonight. I was caught out on the street, and consequently my clothes are soaked through as I am about to head into a three-and-a-half hour show this evening. My clothes wouldn't be much wetter had I jumped into a pool. Not comfortable!

I saw the evening performance of August: Osage County, which is favored to win the "Best Play" honors at tomorrow night's Tony ceremonies. The first-rate ensemble cast of 13--dominated by a handful of vibrantly portrayed female characters--brought to life a piece that was, in turns, hilariously funny, starkly shocking, and emotionally wrenching. The family secrets thrown into the mix included marital infidelity, suicide, incest, recreational drug use, and a middle-aged man's sexual attraction to a 14-year-old girl. The play is long, clocking in at over three-and-a-half hours, but well worth the time.

Just seven days after manhandling top-ranked Roger Federer in the Roland Garros final on slow red clay, Rafael Nadal posted a victory over #3 Novak Djokovic to win the Artois Championships title on the slick lawns of Queen's Club. Nadal also dispatched four-time Queen's winner Andy Roddick in the semifinal round. The Spaniard is looking more and more comfortable on grass (thanks to Tennis Channel for carrying live coverage this morning). Anyone still discounting Nadal's chances to end Federer's streak in SW19 in a few weeks?

Filled up the tank of my Ford Explorer today. The cost? $93.63--getting perilously close to $100! I can remember breaking the $30 mark and thinking how outrageous that was.

I missed most of the excitement surrounding Tiger Woods' back nine charge at the U.S. Open yesterday, but I marveled tonight at his sinking that twelve-foot putt on 18 to force a playoff, saving his chances for another major title.

If you are a fan of The Sopranos and you have some time on your hands, check this out.

People who aren't sports fans really miss out on experiences like today's U.S. Open playoff between dark horse Rocco Mediate and the incredible Tiger Woods. This was yet another entertaining day in a weekend of high drama: the title was determined on the 19th hole played after Tiger birdied on 18 to level the score once more. I am so impressed by runner-up Mediate: like Santiago in The Old Man And The Sea, his attitude and performance illustrates the essential truth that the glory is in the struggle, not just in attaining the prize. And Tiger's response to adversity was similarly admirable, reflecting the qualities of determination and focus that make him a champion.

In a couple of marathon sessions the last few days, I've taken advantage of the On Demand service on my digital cable to catch up on Season 3 of Weeds, a Showtime program I enjoy. I am now caught up right through last night's Season 4 premiere.

The Boston Celtics won Game 6 of the NBA Finals with a rout of the Lakers to clinch the championship. What is amazing to me is the sudden emergence of diehard Celtic fans: people whom I've never heard utter a single word about the NBA are now lifelong supporters of the Celts.

Anyway, congrats to the Boston club and its fans for an exciting series.

Now that I have a bit of time to devote to "back burner" projects, I have borrowed a floppy disk drive from the IT department so I can cull old files, photos, and such that have lived on floppies for years now. I may need to convert old Word and Excel files to be compatible with upgraded versions as well. My iMac has massive storage capacity, so my "archives" will have a home.

I dropped my Explorer off this morning to have the tires checked and rotated. Would up replacing all four plus getting a wheel bearing fixed and some other gasket rod thingy. I was told all of this was essential, of course. So I just dropped a little over $1300 when I picked up my vehicle. Ugh!

Today is the longest day of the year. Sun worshippers like myself should rejoice!

I had an enjoyable evening in Central Park, with a picnic followed by the Public Theater's al fresco production of Hamlet. The show itself was very solid, though we were lucky to finish the final act in a drizzle before the skies really opened just afterward.

Like Walt Whitman, I grew up as a Long Island boy, so it's been a nostalgic return for me today. Three of us are slated to attend a Choate gathering tomorrow on the East End, so we took the ferry from New London to Orient Point, drove down the North Fork a ways and then across Shelter Island, and stopped for a pleasant outdoor lunch overlooking the docks in Sag Harbor. We are being put up in a pretty plush guesthouse on an estate in Bridgehampton and just finished dinner at the summer home of another Choate family.

During the drive earlier today, I realized I hadn't spent time on the island (other than in the city, of course) since my parents moved up to Connecticut three years ago. I miss the geography, the pervasive views of the water, and the feel of this place where I spent my first eighteen years.

On the way back to Connecticut from the garden party in Southampton, we came across one of Long Island's better-reviewed wineries and stopped for a tasting. The experience was eerily similar to the scenes in the film Sideways. We certainly had a good time.

Time to tee up The Lawn Tennis Championships: day one of Wimbledon. Live coverage is on ESPN2 right now.

Nike prepared a custom design to mark Roger Federer's five consecutive Wimbledon titles. He'll be playing in these white-and-gold models pursuing #6 the next two weeks.

I've been on the road since 9:30 this morning, heading down Interstate 95 to Washington, DC. I have made this drive virtually every summer the past twenty years, but with a bus full of kids in tow. Today's trip has been as painless as it's ever been. I coasted through New York City and have had no major traffic delays thus far.

My first stop in the District was one of my favorite locations in the city: the Jefferson Memorial. Good stop to hit the men's room and change out of my grubby travel clothes to make myself presentable for my dinner, with a little inspiration thrown in for good measure.

Sad to hear about the loss of George Carlin. As a kid, I delighted in his "Seven Words" routine and his riffs on growing up Catholic. He was a master observer of the foibles of the English language and his irreverent voice will be missed.

I slept in a bit this morning, then headed out to enjoy the city. The temperature was warm but comfortable, with minimal humidity. Under a cloudless blue sky, I walked across the P Street bridge from Georgetown to DuPont Circle and then took the Metro downtown.

This time of the summer, with school still in session in much of the country, there are far fewer student groups on hand as well as fewer families from the heartland, compared to the third week in July when I've made the Kennedy Institute trip over the years. There do seem to be more foreign tourists, no doubt benefiting from the weak dollar.

It certainly is nice to amble around the capital without a schedule to keep, nor students to keep in tow, nor security clearances to worry about!

I spent much of the afternoon exploring the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Washington site I had never visited before. Pretty moving stuff, though of course my trip to Dachau and Auschwitz in 1990 had a much greater impact.

I had a nice dinner in Georgetown at J. Paul's on M Street with a group of nine relatively recent Choate grads, all drawn from the classes of 2004 through 2007. It was an eclectic mix of people, but a pleasant night out.

Taking off from DC early this morning and heading west into Virginia on my way to "Shakespeare camp" in Charlottesville.

#3 seed Novak Djokovic was bounced out of the second round of Wimbledon in straight sets today by Marat Safin--admittedly a very dangerous floater for a top player to face so early in the tournament. This development detracts a bit from the three-way rivalry emerging at the top of the men's game. Djokovic, Nadal, and Federer all made the semis in Melbourne and Paris in the year's first two majors. I'm still hoping for another Federer-Nadal showdown in the final!

No doubt Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia. This is clearly a college town, and UVa is at the heart of this place. I've settled on campus and we have an opening reception and dinner this evening.

I'm still processing Marat Safin's upset of Novak Djokovic earlier today. Probably not a total surprise that a former U.S. and Australian Open champ turned out to be capable of such a strong result. But Safin's play in recent years has been so sporadic, it was hard to see this coming. It will be interesting to see how far he advances now. Certainly Roger Federer won't be sad to see the Djoker, who beat him in the semis in Melbourne and again was in the same half of the draw, bounced from the tournament.

I am staying just a stone's throw from the famous rotunda at the heart of the UVa campus. My room is right on The Lawn (room #5 on the west side) between Pavilions I and III. Pretty nifty location! These rooms are prized berths for senior honors students and campus leaders during the school year.

The overhead ceiling fan keeps things pretty cool in spite of the heat. Last night I slept with the shutters in the doorway (rather than the door) to get some effective cross-ventilation with the open window. I was perfectly comfortable. Though electrical outlets in this nearly 200-year-old room are few and inconveniently located, there is an Ethernet connection! Shower and toilet facilities are shared, but there is a sink in the room. It does feel a bit like living in Colonial Williamsburg.

Big news out of the Supreme Court today: in the final day of the term, the High Court struck down the D.C. handgun ban in what is already being billed online as a big victory for the NRA and its allies. Now I'm generally sympathetic to gun control, but I don't see this ruling as a disaster. First of all, I believe the Constitution does, in fact, grant individuals the right to own firearms. But I also believe that right, like all others, is not unlimited. The D.C. law was probably far too broad in its scope. I think that in the name of public safety, the Court will demonstrate it's far more amenable to less sweeping restrictions on handgun ownership.

The Blackfriars Playhouse is home to the American Shakespeare Center, and where our group from UVa will be seeing three plays in repertory this week: King Lear, Twelfth Night, and Measure For Measure. The theater is modeled on the the indoor theater used by the King's Men--Shakespeare's acting company (the larger Globe was used in summer months) and is an intimate and charming facility.

This afternoon we met with thirteen actors from the ASC company and went through an audition exercise to cast King Lear. We'll see tonight how close our choices were to the actual production.

I finally got to see a staging of King Lear tonight. Though I've become quite familiar with the tragedy, having taught it easily more than half a dozen times now in my "Use And Abuse Of Power" course, I am embarrassed to say I had not seen a production before this evening. Seeing the play on stage certainly brought to life many aspects of the drama that are far more obscure on the page. The show was quite good, and the ASC troupe has some real depth of acting talent.

In the past few months, I've seen productions of Shakespeare's three greatest tragedies: Macbeth with Patrick Stewart on Broadway, Hamlet in Central Park last week, and now King Lear.

Pretty tough day at Wimbledon yesterday for a handful of contenders: Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova, and James Blake were all sent packing. This represents a particularly brutal showing for American men at The Championships; only little-known Bobby Reynolds remains alive in the singles draw.

The enjoyable performance of Twelfth Night just finished up and I am now at a nearby restaurant in Staunton for the cast party (tonight was opening night for this play). It was cool to see the same group of actors scrambled around in parts very different from what they portrayed in Lear last night. The same troupe will put on Measure For Measure tomorrow.

I saw two other versions of Twelfth Night staged: a student production in the Paul Mellon Arts Center at Choate in either 1988 or 1989, if memory serves, and then an all-star cast (Michelle Pfeiffer, Jeff Goldblum, John Amos, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, et al.) in Central Park in a Public Theater production when I was a Klingenstein Summer Fellow at Columbia. (You can read Frank Rich's New York Times review of the latter show here.)

Today's play, Measure For Measure, was a matinee, so our last night in Charlottesville we have free. The American Shakespeare Center's production was again quite well done. The Blackfriars is a terrific venue and seems to attract top-notch acting talent. It's been quite a thrill to see three Shakespeare productions in the course of as many days. I was entirely unfamiliar with this play, having taught and/or seen the other works. There are certainly some disturbing elements in Measure For Measure, which isn't quite so neatly categorized a comedy as, say, Twelfth Night. Very much worth seeing, though.

Got the 2008 summer training website for Choate Cross Country up and running and my first newsletter out to the boys. Two months until the fall season!

One final class session for the Shakespeare Seminar this morning, then I will visit Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home, before leaving Charlottesville. My plan is to stop in Philadelphia this afternoon and then get home to Connecticut late in the evening.

I have stopped in the City of Brotherly Love for a couple hours to break up the drive home. Always good to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, especially after a week in Thomas Jefferson's stomping grounds.

Today all 16 men and 16 women left in the singles competitions will see action at Wimbledon. Among the day's featured tilts: a contest between the only two men's champions in the draw, Roger Federer and Lleyton Hewitt; Rafael Nadal vs. Mikhail Youzhny; and Richard Gasquet vs. Andy Murray. And for the first time in a week, I'll be able to watch live coverage!

Roger Federer may very well make a liar out of me, but Rafael Nadal is looking more and more like a Wimbledon champion this year; he appears more effective on grass with each match. Rafa schooled Mikhail Youzhny--a player who might have been expected to give him trouble--in the Round of 16 today.

The crowds at the All-England Club are always electrified when a home-grown player makes some noise in the singles draw. This happens rarely nowadays, but today Scot Andy Murray assembled an exciting comeback from 0-2 down in sets to get Centre Court on its feet.

Riding an incredible streak of successful releases that have won both critical acclaim and box office bucks, Pixar has done it again with WALL•E, a charming and visually appealing story I caught tonight after a late dinner.