OUT ON A LIMB: Taking A Chance With Words

By STEPHEN ROSEN

Eccentric physicist reveals the naked truth about East Hampton, his secrets of robust aging (or urging), why genius is easy yet comedy is hard, and how The Beatles resemble Albert Einstein.

"Charming and clever." Morris Dickstein. "A gold mine." Isaac Asimov.

• Language: English
• Publisher: STEVIA PRESS
• Release date: Apr 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087962108

STEPHEN ROSEN

Physicist Stephen Rosen learned relativity from Professor Banesh Hoffmann -- a colleague, collaborator and biographer of Albert Einstein. At the Institut d'Astrophysique in Paris and Centre d'Etudes Nucleaire in Saclay he was Visiting Scientist working on nuclear astrophysics and cosmic radiation. At Los Alamos and a prominent think tank during the cold war, he addressed issues of national defense and science policy. He helped 400 émigrés find employment. As a career counselor he helped a variety of individuals from different backgrounds find work by reviewing their resumes, preparing them for job interviews, developing contacts, and teaching them "network of not-work". Dr. Rosen's physics articles have appeared in science journals Physical Review, Nature, Nuovo Cimento; his op-ed and popular essays appear in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The East Hampton Star. His best-selling book Future Facts (S&S: 80,000 copies) is listed as one of 100 important books of the 20th century. Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann said his book, Career Renewal (co-authored with his wife Celia Paul) "is the ultimate self-help manual for the intelligent job seeker". After a recent stroke, he wrote: Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great! Dying To Come Back As A Memoir.

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© 2021 by Stephen Rosen

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover photo: Michael Mella Photography

Resume virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. Eulogy values are the ones talked about at your funeral—whether you were kind, honest, faithful, capable of deep love. Many of us are clearer on how to build an external career than how to build inner character…the deepest meaning of life and the highest moral joys. —David Brooks

Edison’s greatest achievement came in 1879 when he invented the electric company. His design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again. —Dave Barry

Here’s my podcast interview with Ted Conti, a high-energy radio announcer, who uses hyperbole and exaggeration to make me appear to be some kind of science super hero. Hope you enjoy hearing about my secret life. Please take it with a few grains of salt.

https://themountaingeek.net/2020/12/01/episode-33-stephen-rosen-phd-nuclear-astrophysics/

Dedication

Every morning, I wake up next to the smartest nice person and the nicest smart person I know: Celia Paul, my wife, the sunshine of my life. My ebullient grandchildren, Jascha and Tanya, and my vivacious daughter Lisa, fill me with inexpressible joy.

Guestwords Essays from The East Hampton Star

Introduction

High up ‘out on a limb’ was I… when I built that tree-house on my property. Twenty-three feet up. Courageous. Heroic.

And fearful, especially for a person like me scared of heights. Acrophobia… extreme fear of heights! From the Greek akron, meaning peak, summit, or edge.

Also fearful was I when I gave my first lecture, and when I wrote my first book. What will people think? What will they say?

So if acrophobia is fear of heights, what is fear of publishing your first book to be called. Libro-phobia? Or fear of what people think of you and your works? Opinion-phobia? Please help me out here, Doctor Google.

"Our fear of other people’s opinions, or FOPO as I call it, has become an irrational and unproductive obsession in the modern world, and its negative effects reach far beyond performance. Social anxiety disorder (also called social phobia) is a mental health condition. It is an intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others. This fear can affect work, school, and your other day-to-day activities."

So now we have a clumsy name for it: FOPO-phobia. Did I have it? You betcha! But the pleasure of lecturing and of writing my book, and the joy of building my tree-house, surpassed by far that irrational fear of what others would think of it or of me.

Is what others think of me as important as what I think of myself? Good question. I can alter what I think of myself, but I can hardly change what others think of me.

So maybe I have to work on that?

But aren’t I the most interesting person I know?

Interesting to whom? Well, to me, of course. And if so, shouldn’t I be interesting to others, whose opinion I fear?

And if that’s the case, then I have nothing to fear of their opinion… I need only assume that they’ll find my words interesting.

Glad we got that straight.

Yes. A good start. Always smile and say hello when you greet someone.

That’s what I always say at yard sales. Shows the person who’s selling stuff that I’m friendly, open, reasonable, maybe charming. Most sellers react favorably. This comes in handy later on, when it comes to negotiating.

Negotiating at yard sales…my specialty! I love the process of bargaining. No matter how large or small the deal, it’s exciting. Why? Don’t know. Maybe it’s the process of engaging another human in a test of wills. Maybe it’s the challenge of trying to dominate another. Maybe it’s a bit of exploitation. [A friend said to seller who refused to bargain: "You’re a person trying to sell stuff you don’t want — to a person who might buy stuff he doesn’t need….and you wont bargain? ]. Maybe it’s just plain fun.

So one of my yard sale purchasing strategies is to ask the seller: Would you be offended if I made you an insultingly low offer on that broken old lamp (or rundown old gasoline generator, or scratched old mirror, or rusty old table saw, or threadbare old sweater)?

Most people… nine times out of ten…say Sure, or Go ahead and make me an offer. So I do. What usually ensues is a lively exchange, until we come to a win-win price, or I walk away, satisfied that I had a good exchange.

I remember very satisfying encounters, like the time I acquired a brand new never use gasoline powered electric generator. The price tag of $600 was still hanging from the handle. The seller was asking $50. I used my magic would you be offended line, and got the generator for $35, to the chagrin of another yard sale bidder who still reminds me of his loss every time we bump into each at yard sales. (There is a whole sub-culture of regulars who meet and greet each other at East Hampton yard sales. Camaraderie. Brothers and sisters in arms.

There was only one unpleasant encounter at a yard sale where I made a Really Insultingly Low Offer. The guy had no sense of humor. By which I mean he yelled obscene expletives at me, and threatened to call the police! But either he was nuts, or I touched a nerve, or both. Since then, I watch my step. You never know what evil lurks in the hearts of men to quote The Shadow, my favorite serialized radio show from the 1940s.

So now you can do some arithmetic and surmise that I’m an old guy. Actually I’m 86 as of 2020. Still going to yard sales. Still vertical, as I tell those who ask How are you?. "Yes. I’m still vertical during the day! And I still know the difference between day and night!"

Yes. And I’m still married to Celia, the love of my life, even after almost forty years. As I always add:

And she still treats me as if I were her equal.

We’ve been living in the same house in the North West Woods since 1984. We spend as much time as possible here. Until the pandemic, it was usually weekends and summer weeks. But since May of 2020, when we recovered from an epic covid-19 assault on our bodies, we’ve been spending 100% of our time in East Hampton… except for brief visits to specialist physicians in New York City.

Yard sales are not our only activity in the East End. Swimming laps every day. Walking together with friends. Hiking on trails, the lovely sun-dappled paths blazed by the East Hampton Trail Preservation Society. We’re members. We often lead hikes nearby in Northwest Harbor.

Socializing with friends is another activity, although the pandemic has sharply curtailed the number of dinner parties and friendly get-togethers we used to have.

The East Hampton Library is a favorite institution. We’ve also finally achieved Tenure in that other Great Institution Known as Old Age.

We’ve enjoyed helping raise funds for the Library through it’s very famous Authors Night fund-raiser in mi-August. In past years, prior to covid, we were able to bring in several hundred thousand dollars in mid-August by inviting a hundred well-known authors under a tent to sign copies of their publisher-donated books, and to sell them to several thousand guests, each of whom paid a hundred dollars for the privilege. Selecting the authors was done by a committee, of which we were members, and spent meeting regularly every January. It was very exciting reading so many books, learning about the lives of famous authors and heir eccentricities. (Of course, we have none of those (:-). )

So this brings me to The East Hampton Star, our local weekly newspaper of record. By ‘of record’, I mean that the paper tells us what’s happening locally: Johnny lost his green tee shirt at baseball practice; who registered deeds of houses for sale and purchased; what’s on local police blotter records; drunken driver hits tree; and so on.

Into this mix of what may be banal and boring to non-East Hampton-ites, I bring my interesting and provocative self. My essays!

Samples? Out On A Limb about building my tree-house. Let There Be laughter, about the Jewish Humor Group Celia and I started at Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor. The Memoir Consortium, about helping my friend write his memoir by following my advice after I wrote mine (Youth, Middle-Age, and You-Look-Great: Dying To Come back As A Memoir).

A Social Instrument is a piece I wrote to celebrate the banjo, as an instrument of social justice — and to celebrate the genius of the banjo Bela Fleck, who happens to be my nephew.

The Second Time Is Better, a racy title, referred to a non-racy event—my second Bar Mitzvah, at age 83. Good Goodbyes examined what it feels like to re-evaluate one’s possessions. Cosmic Messengers is the story of cosmic rays, my specialty. Viral Happiness tells how to distract and amuse oneself during the covid pandemic b y solving puzzlers. Spring Fever suggests how your body reacts physiologically to the change in weather conditions at the end of winter. Einstein and The Beatles revealed celebrity fatigue, the down-side of fame. Albert Einstein, Rock Star was a short introduction to why Einstein was justifiably an icon of the twentieth century. Harvey Shapiro, Laughing was my eulogy to our beloved friend, a celebration of his life.

Mistakes: A Connoisseur’s Collection was a tribute to the ease with which it is possible to make errors of judgement. What’s Good About Goodbye? addressed the issues of losing one job and gaining another.

The essay On Being Squeezed refers to what happened when I finished swimming…

In the locker room each day after I swim, I place my wet swimsuit into a small spin-dryer. Centrifugal force squeezes the water out of my black nylon Speedo.

The sign on the spin-dryer says, This unit is self-timed and will shut down automatically at the end of its cycle. It will [not] reset. This message is an epiphany. An inert spin-dryer sign is communicating not only instructions about a device, but also a decree: After 80 years of being vertical, I Will Not Reset.

A bit melodramatic, yes. But that’s how I started my memoir, the book I wrote after I had a stroke at age 75 and survived. Now that I’ve also survived covid-19, I’m doubly survived, or survival squared. Does somebody have plans for me?

Table of Contents

Introduction

Let There Be Laughter: ‘The Fool In Charge’ of Jewish Humor

On Being Squeezed: 80 As The New 90

Guestwords: What’s Good About Goodbye?

Guestwords: Viral Happiness

The Memoir Consortium

Virus Survivors Describe ‘Epic Assault on the Body’

Albert Einstein, Rock Star

‘Rock Star’ Einstein Talk Near New Einstein Square

The Second Time Is Better

Einstein and the Beatles

Guestwords: Cosmic Messengers

Guestwords: Harvey Shapiro, Laughing

A Social Instrument

Guestwords: Spring Fever

High Tech & High Touch: Valentines To Our Creaturehood

Good Goodbyes

Mistakes: A Connoisseur’s Collection

Chasin’ The Blues Away

My Costco Birthday: An O’Henry Tale

Long-Lost Lovers:

Icarus? Sputnik? Moxie!

Glints of Silver in the Universe

It From Bit

Long Island Books: The Greatest Discovery?

Physics in a Cup of Cocoa

Surgery (With Complications)

Appendices

Lyrics On Special Occasions

Special-Occasion Songs, Eulogies, Lectures, Etc.

Genius Is Easy; Comedy Is Hard

Eulogies For Friends

Harding Willinger

In Memoriam, 2 February 2009

WEBSITE URLS, Family & Friends

Family Passovers

Capitalism For Emigres, In 12 Steps

Soviet Émigré Talent: A Windfall For U. S. Employers

A Momentary Glory

Nomination of Stephen Rosen

Stephen Rosen

Let There Be Laughter:

‘The Fool In Charge’ of Jewish Humor

Stephen Rosen

7-6-20

Inviting people to laugh with you while you are laughing at yourself is a good thing to do, Carl Reiner said. You may be a fool, but you’re the fool in charge.

Carl Reiner was a comedy genius. We remember him for The Dick Van Dyke Show, Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, and of course as straight man to Mel Brooks in The Two Thousand Year Old Man.

His passing reminds us of an era when perhaps 80 percent of leading comics were Jewish. The passing of a style of humor we might call earthy, clever, slapstick, and/or Jewish.

So what makes a joke Jewish? It must express a Jewish sensibility, and usually calls upon, according to Joseph Telushkin, those values and issues that matter to Jews: anti-Semitism, financial success, verbal aggression, assimilation, professional success, anxieties, creative logic and argumentation, family relationships, to name a few. Some Italian, Irish, Swedish, Welsh, and Russian collections of humor have Jewish flavors. We don’t have a monopoly. A good laugh is a good laugh in any culture!

Five years ago, when my wife Celia and I joined the synagogue in Sag Harbor, Temple Adas