For some
reason I’ve been on top of this one forever (already in Cornell) – Olivia Newton-John
as a proud grandchild of Max Born. Also stuck in my mind is a memory -possibly
not a fact- that her (Mensa-style measured) IQ is very high. Funny that we
would equal a pop star who once sang with ABBA with one of the creators of
quantum mechanics, but in a few centuries – if there are few centuries left to
us – this will be set right.
Talking about talented families – another cluster are Kinoshitas, the patriarch is Tom, my PhD adviser. The matriarch just died Masako Kinoshita (August 4, 2022)
and I have no one to talk to about it – Joe Serene was the only one
who would remember.
The family saga, together with a complete book, comes later in the blog:
June’s “pandemic
project” was to translate, edit, write, and produce her aunt’s memoir about her
mother’s family. The House of Ben’s Dreams parallels the rise and
fall of Japan from the 1860s to 1945. It is the story of ambitious young men
and women who set out from remote provinces to build a modern nation,
transforming a feudal system that had self-isolated from the world for 250
years into an empire to rival the Western powers. They had harnessed their life
dreams to those of their re-born nation, energizing the halls of government,
the courtrooms, and stock market and embracing Western food, fashion, and
furniture along with progressive ideas about women, democracy, workers’ rights,
only to find themselves under a militarist dictatorship for which they toiled
with varying degrees of reluctance or enthusiasm. The story arc crashes in
flames with Japan’s unconditional surrender in 1945.
View/download The House of Ben’s Dreams (pdf)
I am one of the things that happened once men returned home from that war. Claimed by two fathers, I was raised by a single mother and a gaggle of her art-history studying girlfriends. According to my mother Jackie I was brought into the world by parthenogenesis. There are documented cases in turkeys, she would say. I bring this up just to say that I was raised to recognize no authority, and especially no older male authority.
Tom, however, is so impervious to deviations from patriarchy that he never even noticed that I recognize no authority, in particular not his authority. And thus the Kinoshita daughters, and myself, the graduate student, found ourselves on the same side of history, 1970's America vs. 1930's Japan. The way the three teens, very cute and very American, navigated the two worlds was a source of endless mirth for me. Masako, with her wry smile, knew what they were up to. Their mothers, my mother, your mother - the world has always rested on their shoulders, while men do whatever stupid or sometimes great things they do. And, while I cannot take credit for anything at all, I'm proud of the Kinoshita girls.
Teaching starts in 10 days – scarry
. This has been a remarkable
summer in that while nothing happened, I accomplished absolutely nothing.
Probably a quiet depression, or the age. Or both.
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