I went to a funeral service last night for Tony Zhang, the husband of Wei (Vicky), who teaches with me at Hunter. They have a beautiful 9-year-old son, Ryan, who played a song on the piano to open the service. While they were vacationing in Wyoming, a terrible car crash took Tony’s life. He was only 48. Ryan was hurt, and had to be helicoptered to a hospital, but he’s fine now. The first speaker was Tony’s father, who flew in from China and spoke in Chinese. Several friends spoke next. Then Wei spoke at length and ran the gamut of emotions, from grief to laughter, recounting stories. Behind the open casket, there were arrangements of white roses, a Chinese tradition. Tony had both a PhD in Chemistry from RPI, and a law degree from Suffolk Law School. By all accounts, he was a true mensch — look at that sweet punim — and will be deeply missed by his family, friends, and colleagues.
My colleague Ken was also there. We were chatting before the service began, and I know he has a son who was previously his daughter so I asked him if he saw Barbie yet. I was half-joking. Ken was taken aback for a second and reminded me that his ex-wife was named Barbara and they were sometimes referred to as “Ken and Barbie.” He hasn’t seen the movie.
When Wei spoke, Ken said he didn’t think it was common for a surviving spouse to speak at a service. Then he remembered a story about an Economics professor at Penn whose wife died and who gave the eulogy at the funeral and was arrested for her murder several days later. “That’s cold,” I said.
Ken thought he was still in prison, but Google tells me he served the maximum ten years and was released in 2017. His name is Rafael Robb. It wasn’t exactly murder — he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter. His wife, Ellen, retained a divorce lawyer and was planning to move out. They had a fight while she was wrapping Christmas gifts, always a stressful time, and he bludgeoned her to death.
I hope it’s not too creepy, but here’s a shot of her hands moments before she was killed. [I’m joking — it’s a random shot I found on the interweb. But I will go pretty low for a laugh from time to time.]
I may have shared this story before, but it’s good, so if I have it’s worth repeating. (Linda tells me most of my cooking repeats on her.) It’s the poet Stanley Kunitz’s birthday today. He was born in Worcester MA and lived to be 100. He was teaching at Bennington when the college tried to expel a student of his three months before her graduation for alcohol-related violations. Kunitz organized a protest and the president of the college came to his home to tell him to stop. Kunitz was potting a plant at the time. He threw the plant at the president and quit. The student was Miriam Marx, Groucho’s daughter. The protest was not successful.
Miriam went on to be a writer at Mademoiselle, and later worked on her father’s hysterical quiz show, You Bet Your Life. In her 1992 book, Love, Groucho: Letters from Groucho Marx to His Daughter Miriam, she detailed her battle against addiction, her difficult relationship with Groucho, and their eventual reconciliation. She died in 2017 at age 90.
Did you know that King David’s father’s name was JESSE? I forgot or never knew that, but that wasn’t what did me in today — it was 33A: “Delivery room offering, informally.” The answer was EPI, for epidural. I know epidural, but I never heard it called EPI. Oh, well.
Here’s Jessica Chastain who won an Oscar for Best Actress in The Eyes of Tammy Faye. She played one of the eyes, very expressively. Chastain is highly protective of her private life, but I was able to find out (it’s on Wikipedia) that she married Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo [I’m not kidding], an Italian count of the Passi de Preposulo noble family, who is an executive for the fashion brand Moncler, on June 10, 2017 at his family’s estate in Carbonera, Italy, which was Linda’s and my 33rd anniversary. They have two daughters.
I am aware that the link between the appearance of JESSE in the puzzle, clued as King David’s father, and the actress Jessica Chastain is tenuous. But it’s a slow news day for Chatter, and she has unusually colored eyes.
The commentariat gave a ton of grief to the constructor, Sam Ezersky, an old hand, for 11A: “Canal implement.” The canal is your ear canal, and the answer was Q-TIP, but many pointed out that you are not supposed to insert a Q-TIP into the canal — it says so right on the package, for Cripe’s sake! But doesn’t everyone?
A few days ago I vented here about a woman who got on the subway and blocked the way for the rest of us. Well, here’s a story about the commission of the same “crime” with a very happy ending. It’s from this week’s Met Diary, and was told by John Diefendorf.
On a sweltering Saturday in summer 1995, I was 25, hung over and waiting for the No. 1 train at 116th Street with a friend. We were on our way to Penn Station to pick up another friend.
When the train arrived, I stepped inside and stopped immediately so that I could lean against the door when it closed. A moment later I felt a sharp jab to my ribs and heard a stern, “Step aside!”
I apologized sheepishly.
The elbow jabber turned and looked at me. She was a petite woman about my age, and something happened when our eyes met.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” she said.
“No,” I said, feeling myself blush. “I just moved here from upstate.”
“You apologized,” she said, smiling. “That’s how I knew.”
“I just finished a parks restoration job upstate,” she continued. “Where did you live?”
By the time we got to Penn Station, I had her phone number and we had arranged to meet with a group of her friends and mine at an East Village bar that night.
We talked until 4 a.m., then went for falafels at Mamoun’s on St. Marks until the sun came up. June 27 was our 25th wedding anniversary.
We cannot let slip by a rave review of a new book on owls: “What an Owl Knows,” by Jennifer Ackerman. It sounds like a long love letter to our favorite bird. Here’s an eggs zerpt from Jennifer Szalai’s review: Each species seems like a marvel, but certain owls are so special that her book is peppered with superlatives. The Eurasian eagle owl is “the most powerful hunter of all owls” (though not to be mistaken for the powerful owl, which will eat as many as 250 to 350 possums a year). The Northern saw-whet is, she says, “arguably the world’s most adorable owl,” with its heart-shaped face and tiny, rounded form. Blakiston’s fish owl is “the world’s biggest owl.”
Here’s a trio of Northern saw-whets. Have you ever seen owls like these?
The title of the review is “Give a Hoot.” We do! See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 