The classical music station was playing “Pavane for a Dead Princess,” by Ravel. It was beautiful, and I didn't know it, and I wondered why WQXR-FM was playing it on the second day of September while I was driving home from the US Open. Then I remembered: the Open of 1997, and another princess who died on Aug. 31, and how I saw her once at Wimbledon. Journalists see public figures, even on the sports beat: Jimmy Carter under the stands at Turner Field. Lyndon Baines Johnson on opening day in Washington, D.C. Hillary Clinton visiting the press box in Wrigley Field. And John F. Kennedy, Jr., right in front of me in Madison Square Garden. Coolest guy in the world. And Princess Diana at Wimbledon. I’ll never forget the eyes. The old press tribune was directly alongside the Royal Box. Princess Diana was on the guest list one day in the late ‘80s. We all checked her out early, and went back to our business. Later, I turned my head and caught those piercing eyes, looking back at us. Perhaps she wondered who that raffish lot was, as we chattered and gestured our way through the afternoon – a fitting Shakespearean upstairs/downstairs balance to the swells in the Royal Box. She should have heard some of the Brits with lurid commentary, imitating plummy royal accents. I’d like to think she would have laughed. Her two little boys were scuttling around the box, watched by helpers. Their mom was checking things out, with the curiosity we read about, her concern for the underclass, that is to say, us. I don’t know that she cared much about the tennis. She certainly seemed to be a seeker. * * * One evening in the mid ‘90’s, John F. Kennedy, Jr., was sitting in front of me at the Garden, a couple of rows up, behind where Spike Lee sits, facing the Knicks bench. He arrived late, wearing a nice suit, probably just came from work. He was by himself, and he appeared to be starving, keeping one eye on the game as he devoured a hot dog. Then he went to work on a large sack of fries. Just to Kennedy’s left, a boy around ten years old was staring at him. Either the boy knew who was sitting next to him, or he was salivating from the proximity of the fries. Kennedy popped in a few more fries. Did not turn his head. Did not smile or try to ingratiate himself with the boy. But like a point guard making a blind pass, Kennedy held out the bag of fries and shook it. The boy knew a good thing, took a handful. I don’t think he said a word but then again, JFK, Jr., was not looking for thanks. That was not necessary between a couple of guys who understood each other perfectly. The pass. The dunk. Kennedy understood hunger; the boy understood generosity. * * * After hearing Ravel’s “Pavane” on the car radio, I came home and googled up the music, written in tribute to a patron from the Singer sewing machine family, Winnaretta Singer, who was in a lavender marriage with the Prince de Polignac. Our age has few princesses, few princes, worth noting. I remember Diana’s piercing eyes, and how JFK, Jr., could see out of the corner of his eye.
Altenir Silva
9/3/2016 06:00:53 pm
Dear George,
George
9/3/2016 06:18:16 pm
Altenir: muito obrigado. Have you recovered from the Olympics yet?
Altenir Silva
9/3/2016 09:11:44 pm
Dear George,
Brian Savin
9/4/2016 06:55:27 am
It's cool when a regular guy, working stiff journalist never loses his wonder at the paths he gets to cross with the great or famous.....and never once entertains any thought that he is more than a regular guy working stiff journalist himself. But in my book that's why he is read and loved. So, who are our heroes and princesses and princes? They're around. 9/7/2016 12:34:46 pm
Brian--your nailed it. George is a dose of humanity that inspires all his followers.
Sam Toperoff
9/4/2016 07:43:01 am
Really good question, Brian. You tell me yours--and why--and after a day of cogitation, I'll tell you mine.
George Vecsey
9/4/2016 01:51:29 pm
All right, I'll go first.
George Vecsey
9/4/2016 06:29:02 pm
I forgot this one. Want a touch of royal huffiness? Advised to make nice with a senator who has been sniping at him since November of 2008, he said:
Janet Vecsey
9/4/2016 03:28:23 pm
Loved reading this. Two of my favorites - gone way too soon. Thanks for sharing, George.
George Vecsey
9/4/2016 06:31:44 pm
Janet, thanks. Of course, my er,respect for Princess Diana had nothing to do with the fact that she and Mom had the same maiden name. Different branches, to be sure. Love, George
Brian Savin
9/5/2016 11:29:23 am
Sam, I had a particular now-blogger in mind. 9/7/2016 01:16:26 pm
I was once at a political event for Ruth Messinger who was running for Manhattan Borough president. Suddenly, there was an air of excitement and electricity. Edward Kennedy had just entered the room. This was felt before he even made it to the front of the room.
Sam Toperoff
9/5/2016 12:22:34 pm
Never been star-struck except but once in my life. My wife dragged me to see Marlene Dietrich perform live on Broadway. Here's how smitten I was by the end of her performance: When the show was over I waited around for quite a while at the stage door to see her up close. A cop I knew was working the street and he told me that she waited every night until all the other shows let out before making an appearance, so as a result all of 44th Street was close to traffic. Everyone wanted to see her. Then she appeared...and I lost it. I ended up lifting her up onto her limo while shouting, "Marlene, show us your legs!" Which she did in a min-dance and the entire street went berserk. She's remains my definition of a star.
George Vecsey
9/5/2016 07:44:23 pm
To Brian and Sam:
Brian Savin
9/6/2016 09:54:03 pm
Great stories, Sam! As to Marlene, however, I assume the wounds your wife inflicted, if only dagger-sharp glances (if you were lucky), have left no permanent scars.
bruce
9/6/2016 12:09:58 am
George, 9/7/2016 02:03:05 pm
John F. Kennedy Jr.’s silent human interaction with a youngster over a bag of French fries shows ones true character. It is the good things people do anonymously that define them.
Comments are closed.
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Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online. The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal…. After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness. The progress stems mostly from three factors: First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot. Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.) Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year. “Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.” That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.” That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data. One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines. Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks. Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths. The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions. Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately Republican and white. Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.) *** From the great Maureen Dowd: As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop. But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels." --- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing. *** "Putting out the paper," we called it. Much more than nostalgia. ---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html Categories
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