I like it when we -- that is Flo, me and all of the children -- are in the same time zone. I can safely write about this because my daughter, Mea, and son-in-law, Charles, who live in Seattle, are in New York for the next few days. Everyone else lives in New York and, until Monday, we'll all be in the same time zone. When Mea and Charl …
Every year coaching hockey we have a draft. Each team is allowed to protect 5 kids from year-to-year, as they enter the division at 14 and leave at 17. It is always a big challenge dealing with the kids that go back into the draft, particularly when we are not able to get them back on my team. Last year, the last kid picked in the draft absolute …
For years, I have ended each day asking my children to “tell me something nice you did today.” I have heard really great stories over the years. Sometimes it was “I helped my friend with a hard math problem”. Other times I heard “I helped a younger kid find their classroom”. Once it was “I was worried that one of my friends had a terrible proble …
Marisa came home from L.A. to attend her cousin Tara's wedding. Tara was the flower girl when Shelly and I married. When Marisa took flight to CA, she left her softball equipment home. She pitched, caught, played every infield position. Initially I played her where I lacked someone to do the job. When the girls began to pitch, we found my da …
One of the most solemn prayers we say on Yom Kippur is U'netaneh Tokef, written centuries ago. It is in many ways the highlight of the long service. Before we got to that during the service yesterday the synogogue's president congratulated everyone for having been inscribed in the book of life last year, which carried some sadness to it as not e …
In Star Trek, The Motion Picture, a destructive space entity travels back to earh to find its creator. In doing so it obiliterates every nonplanet thing in it path except (cue the music) the Starship Enterprise. The crew discovers that it's Voyager I which encountered an alien culture who then decided to fulfill its mission of reporting back to its …
When I was initiated into my college fraternity the final test was the "Black Hole" into which the upper class "Bothers" piled the pledges. Many a boy broke in the "Black Hole" under the weight and closeness of the crammed in mass of hormonal humanity, but more broke with their first experience with claustrophobia. Since that time I have been p …
A Guest Blog by Flo Feinberg It was a beautiful Sunday, perfect for a healthy walk. We had returned from a week of mindless bliss on Martha's Vineyard into the maelstrom of the Jewish holidays...this was the first moment we had to refresh and contemplate the busy autumn ahead. It was warmer than I expected; not a cloud in the sky. So thrille …
Nancy, with her defining moments post yesterday, has set me up nicely for my first ever guest post on Gotham. September 11, 2001 and September 11, 2005 were both defining moments in my life. And defining moments become the stories that we tell and retell in the hope that we can make some sense of them. On September 11, 2001 I was at a conferenc …
You know (because I probably talk about it way too much) that my daughter is an avid public speaking competitor. We were talking recently about the fact that her favorite speeches usually begin “The date was XXXXXXX” followed by a distinct description of the moment. That observation started us talking about the dates or moments that define each of …
When I was younger, I had a great memory. As a student, I could read something one time and be able to regurgitate it back on an exam. At this point in my life, however, my memory is not the same. I am constantly picking up the phone to make a call and forget who I wanted to call or walking into the pantry of my house to get something and forget wh …
The theory orfrelativity has always eluded me despite my best efforts to try to understand it. Now, finally I am getting some relief in the form of Walter Isaacson's 2007 biography of Einstein. He devotes a full chapter (the Miracle Year) to special relativity and does a great job. I am not hopelessly lost, in part because Einstein based his the …
Most of the time when I'm walking through the City I am approached by someone looking for money and from my last experience, they are getting very creative now. I was in front of Grand Central Station enjoying the beautiful day and the architecture when a man came right up to me and said "Do you speak Hebrew?" I immediately stopped and looked at …
Sly and The Family Stone had a great song: Every Day People. This is a story about one of those people. 2 Weeks ago at the Gotham golf outing I was sitting in my cart just before the start. A grizzled old caddie approached and introduced himself to me as Joe. I asked him the year of his birth. He said 1935 and I said "78 is pretty old for a cad …
Happy and Healthy New Year! There's a custom associated with the Jewish New Year to dip sliced apple and/or challah in honey -- to bring in a sweet new year. With that tradition in mind, Flo and I made our way to the Framer's Market in West Tisbury (Martha's Vineyard) last week to get honey for ourselves and family. The farmer's market …
