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Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Saturday, March 10, 2012
The Visconti Titanic LE Fountain Pen
I wrote about an earlier version of this pen about 7 years ago, at the beginning of a blog entry here.
Friday, March 09, 2012
A Throwback Player, With a Wardrobe to Match
With his vintage clothes and classic paddle, Marty Reisman is a relic from a bolder era of New York table tennis.
Marty Reisman wears vintage Borsalino fedoras because no one makes a good hat anymore.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
Marty Reisman studies a portrait of himself at SPiN on East 23rd Street.
Carl T. Gossett/The New York Times
Marty Reisman at the Riverside Table Tennis Courts, at 96th Street and Broadway, in 1960.
He is known to measure the height of table tennis nets with $100 bills
because, sure, a $1 bill is just as long, but why be “chintzy” about
it?
He likes the city’s trendy new Ping-Pong parlors just fine,
particularly if some hot rapscallion has the gall to challenge him.
But Mr. Reisman misses his friends, those relics from the underbelly of
a postwar New York that loved a good showman, winked at a friendly — or
not so friendly — wager and supported these habits with a series of
underground money matches among the game’s best.
“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” Mr. Reisman, 82, said. “Never backed down from a bet.”
But with the death last month of Mr. Reisman’s friend and rival, 94-year-old Sol Schiff,
the man known as “Mr. Table Tennis,” the game’s departure from a bygone
city era has perhaps never been starker. Mr. Schiff’s tutelage came at
the 92nd Street Y, which no longer has a working table tennis court on
site. In a sport that once counted Americans among the world’s best,
the United States has not earned a medal since the game was certified
for the 1988 Olympics. (China has won 20 of 24 golds.)
While Mr. Schiff did not seek out money games as Mr. Reisman did, they
and other table tennis luminaries were once treated as kings at their
haunts, like Lawrence’s in Midtown Manhattan, where the walls were
dotted with bullet holes and other badges of its speakeasy past, or Mr.
Reisman’s eponymous parlor on 96th Street near Broadway.
Today, New York’s best-known table tennis personality may be the
actress Susan Sarandon, who, as co-owner of the “Ping-Pong social club”
SPiN on East 23rd Street, helped guide the game’s unlikely recasting as
a chic staple of urban night life.
Mr. Reisman, if photo archives are any indication, may have been the
first player to reach the intersection of champion table tennis and
immutable style. This week, during a trip to the site of his old parlor
on the occasion of Mr. Schiff’s recent death, he wore a dark brown
Borsalino, tinted glasses and a red turtleneck.
Before owning the shop, Mr. Reisman starred as the halftime act for the
Harlem Globetrotters in Europe and competed for prizes as lofty as
world championships and as lowly as a $50 war bond in Columbus, Ohio.
After owning the shop, he invested in a chain of Chinese restaurants.
The former national and international champion is a three-time
millionaire, he said, and a three-time former millionaire.
Mr. Reisman said he operated the parlor, in what is now the back of a
cellphone store, from 1958 until the late 1970s. He installed a
closed-circuit television on the sidewalk, so pedestrians and passing
drivers could watch the matches.
“It looked like a hustler’s paradise,” said Tim Boggan, the historian
for USA Table Tennis, the game’s national association.
Mr. Reisman reached a new audience in 2008 when, during a surprise cameo on the “Late Show,” he tried his signature parlor trick: breaking a cigarette in half from across the table.
“Look, the shoes match the shirt,” the host, David Letterman, noted, pointing to his bright red sneakers.
It is in this capacity — as the throwback magician, with outfits to
match — that the city’s young talents know Mr. Reisman.
On Tuesday, Mr. Reisman hoped to find some of them, traveling to SPiN
with two paddles in his bag. Each was covered in sandpaper. He prefers
that he and any opponents use these classic paddles, not the spongy
material that has come to dominate the game.
“The modern game is played with fraud, deceit and deception,” he said.
“This racket is the purest reflection of a player’s ability.”
The below-ground club, at least, seems to know its history. Mr.
Reisman’s likeness appears in no fewer than three places, including one
portrait in which he wears leopard-print pants. In the painting beside
it, a female player in a black bikini top holds her racket in a belt
loop of her cutoff jeans, her hands raised behind her head.
“You look fantastic up there!” a young blond employee said after Mr.
Reisman entered, referring to a photograph in the upstairs lobby.
“You look fantastic down here,” he said, shuffling toward the courts.
Once he got there, he trained his eyes on a player, Mark Croitoroo, 20,
practicing a serve that concealed the ball with his body until the
moment of contact. Mr. Reisman does not care for such ploys.
He asked if Mr. Croitoroo would mind hitting a few with the sandpaper
racket. Mr. Croitoroo obliged. And so they began exchanging strokes,
the older man pursing his lips with each forehand, the younger
appearing to grow restless with the rally.
Suddenly, Mr. Reisman began to turn his shoulders, tucking his right
arm against his body. He flicked a backhand with a quick jolt of the
wrist, dooming Mr. Croitoroo to a wayward return on his own backhand
side.
Mr. Reisman smiled. Mr. Croitoroo smirked, complimenting the shot. He
said he should probably return to his practice. Mr. Reisman thanked
him.
“He’s a hustler,” Mr. Croitoroo said later, as he watched the legend try another trick.
Mr. Reisman looked across a table at a man with a camera.
Did anyone, the old paddler asked, doubt that he could hit the lens with his serve?
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: March 9, 2012
An earlier version of a headline on a video accompanying this article had an incorrect age for Marty Reisman. He is 82.
Follow the link below to see some video of Marty in action:
Correction: March 9, 2012
An earlier version of a headline on a video accompanying this article had an incorrect age for Marty Reisman. He is 82.
Follow the link below to see some video of Marty in action:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/09/nyregion/marty-reisman-a-throwback-to-a-bolder-era-of-table-tennis.html
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Handwriting in the 21st Century?
Handwriting in the 21st Century? An Educational Summit
On January 23, 2012, 150 researchers and education thought leaders convened for Handwriting in the 21st Century? An Educational Summit to discuss the role of handwriting instruction in the 21st century classroom. Presenters shared cross-disciplinary handwriting research and attendees voiced their opinions about whether—and how—this skill should be taught. A white paper summarizing the research presented at the Summit, published by Saperstein Associates, Inc., is now available for download.Thursday, February 23, 2012
Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists
"Recognising the rights of dolphins would end whaling and their captivity
Dolphins
should be treated as non-human "persons", with their rights to life and
liberty respected, scientists meeting in Canada have been told.
They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify the same ethical considerations as humans.
Recognising their rights would mean an end to whaling and their captivity, or their use in entertainment.
"Science has shown that individuality - consciousness, self-awareness - is no longer a unique human property. That poses all kinds of challenges.” Ethics Professor Tom White Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles
The
move was made at the annual meeting of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada, the world's biggest
science conference.
This has led the experts to conclude that although non-human, dolphins and whales are "people" in a philosophical sense, which has far-reaching implications.
'Self-aware'
Ethics expert Prof Tom White, from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, author of In Defence of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, said dolphins were "non-human persons".
"A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent of deliberately killing a human being.
Intelligent cetacean behaviour
- A member of a group of orcas, or killer whales, in Patagonia had a damaged jaw and could not feed. The elderly whale was fed and kept alive by its companions.
- Dolphins taking part in an experiment had to press one of two levers to distinguish between sounds, some of which were very similar. By pressing a third lever, they were able to tell the researchers they wanted to "pass" on a particular test because it was too hard. "When you place dolphins in a situation like that they respond in exactly the same way humans do," said Dr Lori Marino. "They are accessing their own minds and thinking their own thoughts."
- A number of captive dolphins were rewarded with fish in return for tidying up their tank. One of them ripped up a large paper bag, hid away the pieces, and presented them one at a time to get multiple rewards.
- In Iceland, killer whales and fishermen have been known to work together. The whales show the fishermen where to lay their nets, and in return are allowed to feed on part of the catch. Then they lead the fleet to the next fishing ground.
"They can look in a mirror and say, 'Hey, that's me'” Dr Lori Marino Psychologist
The
declaration, originally agreed in May 2010, contains the statements
"every individual cetacean has the right to life", "no cetacean should
be held in captivity or servitude, be subject to cruel treatment, or be
removed from their natural environment", and "no cetacean is the
property of any state, corporation, human group or individual".
Psychologist Dr Lori Marino, from Emory University in Atlanta, told how scientific advances had changed the view of the cetacean brain.
She said: "We went from seeing the dolphin/whale brain as being a giant amorphous blob that doesn't carry a lot of intelligence and complexity to not only being an enormous brain but an enormous brain with an enormous amount of complexity, and a complexity that rivals our own."
Dolphins had a sense of self which could be tested by the way they recognise themselves in mirrors, she added.
"When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and know that's you, you have a sense of 'you'," said Dr Marino.
"They have a similar sense. They can look in a mirror and say, 'Hey, that's me'.""
Friday, February 10, 2012
Incredibly Realistic Bic-Pen Drawings of Animals
"You don’t need special materials to make breathtaking, realistic art. At least, you don’t if you’re as talented as French photographer and illustrator Sarah Esteje, who often uses nothing more than a Bic pen to create stunning work."
See more here.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Giants win Superbowl -- again
There's so much I could say about my beloved Giants -- but this quote from our 'talent scout' was pretty terrific:
"On the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, a few moments after the Lombardi Trophy had been given back to the Giants, Jerry Reese said, “Don’t ever be fooled by our quarterback. Ever. He is a baby-faced assassin.”"
"On the field at Lucas Oil Stadium, a few moments after the Lombardi Trophy had been given back to the Giants, Jerry Reese said, “Don’t ever be fooled by our quarterback. Ever. He is a baby-faced assassin.”"
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