I am remembering a 2001 0r 2002 interview with a Yale student newspaper on whether Fathom was a success or failure.

What year are you in? I asked the young woman.  If you had left college as a first-year student, would we call you a failure, or would we say that you were just getting started?

That was Fathom.  A pioneering initiative that had all the right instincts and will remain a milestone in higher education.

Terrific to see Harvard, MIT, Stanford, others getting their act together for large-scale projects.  All non-credentialed, but as Harvard Business School knows very well, you can have highly profitable lifelong learning/professional development certificate programs.

Our great public institutions are the ones with the most experience with scale in higher education, though mostly of the silly old lecture hall style of distance learning.  Herb Allen had it right in the Fathom-era — create virtual accredited introductory courses and free university resources up for professors worthy of a student’s real-life presence.

Which reminds of the interesting science fiction book I’m listening to — Ready Player One, a dystopia about life lived in the Oasis, the Internet morphed into a virtual life/videogame.  At the moment, I’m slogging through a tedious description of a videogame battle, but the description of the Oasis school is worth reading.  Also, I really want to know what happens when the young virtual lovers meet IRL.  [you'll figure it out in a minute.] Not quite Neuromancer, but enjoyable.

But the best was an unexpected encounter at Oregon State University Library in Corvallis, where I was  invited to tour the replica of Linus Pauling’s lab, complete with memorabilia that included his two Nobel Prizes, his microscope, and his blackboard covered with doodles and formulas and names.

I saw his lab coat and just could not resist tucking Flat Stanley right in the pocket.

Thanks, Jon Katz and the team at the Linus Pauling Collection!

We also went to Charleston, SC where I saw a splendid production of Arlene Hutton’s Letters to Sala, directed by Eric Nightengale.  I have gotten over the weirdly modernist experience of being a character in a play, and was happy to meet the beautiful 19 year old who did a terrific job.

If you have an unaccountable urge to see the whole thing, it’s here:  Flat Stanley

Sala’s Gift:  A Whole War in a Tin Box

Went looking for an image of the original box, which of course was cardboard not tin…and was reminded of our beautiful NYPL exhibition.  This case, which on July 4 houses an original copy of the Declaration of Independence, held the Spill and Box box, as well as the original small leather portfolio in which the letters slumbered for so long.

I had a wonderful three days of meetings and interviews through the efforts of Mlada Fronta, my Czech publisher.  I loved working with Tony Koci and Magdalena Potměšilová.

We will all have our fifteen minutes of fame, or so saith Andy Warhol; I just didn’t know that mine would be in Czech.  I did the equivalent of the Today Show, then another longer interview on a show that will air this Sunday. Never did like doing live tv, especially through an interpreter.  Not a comfortable situation, to be spoken to in a language where you can’t grasp a single word, and then hear the translation and respond.  I just watched the interview and see on my face the very essence of farkrumpt punim. You too can laugh at me here:

All of this began when Eva Rennerova googled Zacler and came up with my book.  As the director of the Zacler Museum, she was intrigued, and her interest led to an exhibition that was based on our NYPL exhibit but enhanced with local material.

That sparked the interest of Karin Venhauer, a young documentary filmmaker, who decided that she would do a film about Sala.  With remarkable tenacity, Karin led a small crew to Monsey, New York, to interview Sala and me.  She also won THINK BIG, a major Czech competition for creative projects, which underwrote the translation and publication of Sala’s Gift in Czech, now SALIN DAR, translated beautifully by Petra Efflorova.

All of this came together last week.  The book was officially launched at the Polish Institute in Prague.

Many thanks to Judita Matyášová for her article in Lidove Noviny 6 March 2012.

On Wednesday, I spent the entire day in Trutnov and Zacler.   Gave a talk to 350 teenagers, simultaneously translated by Petra, and thinking how odd it was to be talking to the grandchildren of the men and women who lived in Zacler during the war. They sang happy birthday to Sala, who turned  88 on Monday, March 5.

Later, standing by the field where the Zacler labor camp barracks once stood, the place where my mother was liberated on May 8, 1945, I was overcome with a complicated set of emotions.  Among the strongest was a sense of profound unworthiness.  I was there in my mother’s place, to talk and write about these times with sincere motivation — despite the fact that I am so far from the reality.  All of us are.  Only the survivors can speak with authority.  Their memories are faulty but still far more authentic than what we create.  And yet soon we will be the best the world can do.

Here is the Czech trailer for the book, created by Karin Venhauer:

What? You don’t speak Czech? here’s the English version on YouTube:

I don’t even mind having my name misspelled.  More important to get MACAULAY right!

Here’s her reference to Macaulay:

“And by the way, if we’re really going to embrace a cradle to career philosophy, we need to stop treating our public colleges like second class citizens. CUNY used to be the model of a public university system. But for decades we’ve been cutting back on their funding. Chancellor Goldstein and everyone at CUNY deserve tremendous credit for what they do every day with such limited resources. Imagine what they could do if we actually gave CUNY the funding they deserve.

But believe it or not, we left $71 million dollars in State funding on the table last year, because the City didn’t pony up its share. In this year’s budget, under the leadership of Council Member Domenic M. Recchia, Jr., the Council will be pushing for a full $71 million in additional capital funds to CUNY.

That means a total of $140 million that CUNY can use for renovations and upgrades. This funding will help CUNY fulfill its original mission: providing an affordable education that rivals the best private schools in the nation. There was a time not so long ago when City College was known as Harvard on the Hudson. It counts among its graduates Colin Powell, Upton Sinclair, and our own Ed Koch.

And most importantly, City College was free which meant the best and the brightest our city produced could get a world renowned education without a nickel in their pocket. We need to provide that same top quality education to the brightest students in New York City again. Chancellor Goldstein and Dean Kirshner have taken a great first step with the Macaulay program. It provides honors classes for a group of our best students, free of charge.

But if we really want to have an institution that can compete with the nation’s top schools, we need to build an honors college, complete with its own campus, and the best faculty in the world.

I want to thank CUNY for agreeing to work with us and with Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, to explore models for making this honors college a reality.  Just imagine future generations of Nobel laureates, discussing philosophy or technology while walking through their quad, or having spirited political debates in their cafeteria. Let’s give our brightest students an incentive to really work hard in school – the promise of a free education, and a degree that can open any door.”

Asking head of Broadcasting Val Pinchbeck, the night before the game, if he could add another camera on the field for superbowl.com:  he nearly killed me.

Suing, then working with Mark Cuban on the first online audio broadcast, which we did in multiple languages on broadcast.com, or was it still audionet?

Being caught smoking on live television in the NBC control booth.  Was it Chris Collingsworth who gave me a cigarette to calm me down, when the IBM servers crashed during the pregame testing?  I thought that maybe nobody  would notice, until my brother in law called to ask “why was Annie smoking before a zillion people?”  I swear, not a cigarette since…..

My brother Joey convincing my dad that no, he couldn’t scalp the tickets I’d given him, and how hard it was for them to walk across the parking lot to Joe Robbie stadium without my dad making the sale.

Saying yes to my daughter when she wanted me to take her undeclared boyfriend, now husband, and #1 Giants fan to the game.

NBC hiring Donna Summers to sing “Last Dance” at their post-Super Bowl party, fearing that it was their last forever.  Good that they’re back!

Keeping my fingers crossed that the NFL would allow me to put Microsoft Internet Explorer CDs in the Super Bowl cushions — imagine, no downloads for the IE 1.0.

NFL SUNDAY TICKET party at the historical museum in New Orleans, and then the crowd spilling out into the streets of the city after the game.

Diana Ross descending from the helicopter during halftime after days of legal wrangling about the liabilities.

Whispering in the phone to find out who Roger Staubuch was, before welcoming him as our first halftime chat guest.

Taking my husband’s college roommates to the Big Game in San Diego…or was it Miami??

Sitting in the Patriots end zone at University of Phoenix stadium when Dave Tyree made that amazing catch.

The professional high I felt in Sun Devil stadium after the first Super Bowl online in 1995.  Never equalled.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.