Unfriendly response, Wilson’s incomparable (or not) Iliad, recruiting conservatives, task force questions, and more.
“Breaking Balls” Isn’t “Love Language”
I read “We Should Be Friends” [Mar|Apr 2024] by Dave Zeitlin, which celebrates the careers and friendships of Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter, Penn alumni who have become coconspirators in the “Love you, buddy” genre of yearly group dinners and brocasts. I tried to listen to an episode of their The Man of the Year podcast before I wrote this letter but found it too pedantic and labored to finish.
While Zeitlin’s writing is fine, the content is pretty ho-hum, except maybe for Karo and Ritter’s large number of almost-hits in the world of entertainment, and their dogged determination to never give up. But there is a deeper level of infantilism and sophomoric philosophy that seems to be attempting to rise to legitimate relevancy regarding the maturing of American male development. It doesn’t. The annual Man of the Year dinners—Michelin Star-less affairs at Peter Luger’s Steakhouse, a carnivore haunt of faux alphas—offer little guidance for friendship growth. They are rather attempts to relive the Blink-182 bad boy days of their high school years. (The band’s video of its three naked members running around town comes to mind.) But what is most depressing about their post-Penn journey is the revelation of their reliance on “breaking balls” as the foundation of their friendships, or as Karo puts it, “Breaking balls is love language.” Just the visual of what that phrase entails should tell you what it really is: mockery, pointing out deficiencies, highlighting life mistakes, personal put downs, making fun of, and all the other devices insecure males use to feign love, but which are really designed to make them feel superior.
For two guys who are so obsessed with friendship, including selling We Should Be Friends merch, they recommend friends occasionally engage in a friendship audit. If you have to audit your friendship-ness, you’re destined for a low score. The most uplifting aspect of the article is that eight of the nine members of the Man of the Year group got married, presumably to their BFFs. Probably not a lot of ball breaking in those relationships.
David Rockwell C’72, Miami
Zien Was a Mask and Wig Star, But Not the First Jewish Chair
I’m a big fan of Chip Zien and thought your story was excellent [“The Chip Zien Show,” Mar|Apr 2024]. But there’s one glaring error. Chip was not the first Jewish undergraduate chair of Mask and Wig. I was. In 1964. This was a momentous, tumultuous event, causing numerous people to roll over in their graves in various Main Line cemeteries. I returned to Penn to attend Wharton grad, so I was fortunate to see Chip perform in Mask and Wig shows and am not surprised he took his considerable talents to Broadway and beyond.
I look forward to attending my 60th Reunion in May and making a visit to the downtown Clubhouse to see if my caricature and beer mug are still on the wall.
Bob Gardner C’64 WG’67, Sonoma, CA
A search in the Daily Pennsylvanian archives yields an article from March 1962 reporting on the selection of Mask and Wig board members—Bob Gardner included—under a new system in which undergraduates alone did the selecting, following “controversy last year over supposed discrimination against Jewish students on the part of the alumni group.” And a December 1963 piece on the forthcoming production “Sorry Charlie, Your Time Is Up” referred to the “quite urbane, Bob Gardner, Undergraduate Chairman.” We apologize for the error.—Ed.
No Translation Has Come Close
Before coming to Penn in the 1970s to complete my MA and PhD in the Folklore and Folklife Program, I had the privilege of taking Albert Lord’s Oral and Early Literature course and Gregory Nagy’s Odyssey course as an undergraduate at Harvard. Professor Lord’s groundbreaking book The Singer of Tales established the theory that the Homeric epics were first performed as oral poetry, and Nagy’s work emphasized the “song culture” essential to understanding the poems.
No translation of the Iliad or the Odyssey that I have read over the last 50 years has come as close to capturing the beauty and the flow of the works as they would have been performed by ancient singers as the recent efforts of Emily Wilson [“Shattering Violence, Shimmering Prizes,” Mar|Apr 2024]. Her use of plain English, her studied selection of “shimmering” vocabulary, and her attention to the meter of the poems should make Homer’s works more accessible to new readers for years to come!
Robert T. Teske G’72 Gr’74, Mequon, WI
No Ranking Needed
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Emily Wilson’s translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. This Wharton student developed a lifelong interest in Greek literature after taking two courses at Penn in Greek literature in translation in the mid-1960s. (I’ve also enjoyed online courses on the Iliad and related topics by Peter Struck, another prominent classical studies professor at Penn.) I take some exception to the suggestions by the article’s author that one translation of Homer is “better” than others. All of the translators mentioned by the author did work of consummate skill, and produced works that will be read for many years. No one is the best translator of Homer, and one of the pleasures of later life is the ability to compare the different styles of these translators without ranking them.
Robert H. Louis W’69, North Wales, PA
To Forgive Is Divine
Rage is the first word of The Iliad. With that word, Homer gives the listener the specific clue to the entire meaning of the poem.
Achilles rages at Menelaus, Achilles rages at the disrespect he receives, at the track of his fate. Achilles rages.
Achilles appears regularly to demonstrate his building rage. He doesn’t join his fellow Greeks in battle until his friend Patroclus is killed, and that finally ignites his rage into an explosion. He kills Patroclus’ killer, Hector, then drags Hector’s body behind his chariot around the camp for three days. That is rage. Due to the intervention of the gods, Hector’s body does not deteriorate due to Achilles’ revenge.
Priam, Hector’s father, sneaks into the Greek camp, at great peril to himself, to plead for the return of his son’s body for a proper funeral.
Homer achieves a lot of remarkable effects that have made The Iliad endure. In the scene in which Priam begs for his son’s body, you can feel Achilles’ rage melt. There is the highest achievement of Homer’s art and the lesson Homer sang the poem to illustrate.
Renaissance artists knew this lesson. Did they paint scenes of the combat? No, they painted the scene in which Priam petitions Achilles in supplication, and touches Achilles’ knee. They painted that scene when Achilles loses his rage and experiences forgiving. Even the half-god Achilles can forgive; that is the lesson.
In between “Rage” and Priam’s petition to Achilles, there is a lot of descriptions of the battle scene, the warriors, the background of the warriors, and the war. But the conflict was not the central point, it was not the point at all, any more than the Civil War was the point of Gone With the Wind, nor any more than World War II was the point of From Here to Eternity. Those conflicts were simply the backdrop to a larger, timeless theme of the universal struggles of the human condition.
The Iliad has over time evoked reactions that reflect the conventional wisdom of the day. Today, some college classics departments get in a tizzy about “the violence.” That is a superficial reading and misses the art of Homer’s epic.
The Greeks who were Homer’s audience already knew the story. They knew the combatants, the ancestry of the combatants, the gods, and the personalities of the gods. Those Greek audiences cheered the mention of their local hero in the same way that concert crowds cheer when the singer mentions their town (“How you doing, Cincinnati?”). The various dramatic episodes along the way served to reinforce the values of their own Greek culture.
The Greek audience knew the outcome; they didn’t listen to the Iliad to hear a news release being sung to them. They heard the lesson that Homer was singing about: to forgive is divine.
Louis Hansell WEv’77, Paoli, PA
A 10 for Lattimore’s “Tens”
Congratulations on a beautiful translation for yet another generation of readers of the Iliad. However, there is no need for qualitative comparisons of “sharper focus,” “clarity,” “impenetrable tangle,” or “ornate language” with previous efforts at translation. My affair with Homer began with Lattimore’s 1951 translation, and I still find his line referenced by the reviewer—“Of two tens Thalpios and Amphimachos were leaders”—to be extremely well considered, powerful, and aware of military culture. Lattimore identifies the whole concept of “band of brothers” in one word by citing the two as leaders of the basic fighting unit, the squad, from the shores of Troy to the shores of Normandy. “Tens,” today called squads, are where brotherly bonds are the glue that bind the team of 10 soldiers and their sergeant together. Lattimore gives heart, soul, and deep meaning to the roles of Thalpios and Amphimachos with his choice of one word—“tens”—the basic building block of armies.
William G. Stead CE’69 GCE’70 G’81, Chambersburg, PA
Despite Data, SAT Debate Continues
Regarding the interview with Admissions Dean Whitney Soule [“Admissions in Transition,” Mar|Apr 2024] and the question of whether Penn will reinstitute testing requirements, it would be interesting to learn Soule’s opinion about Bates College’s 20-year, landmark study regarding the SAT. Released in 2005, it found virtually no differences between 7,000 submitters and non-submitters in their academic performance and on-time graduation rates. Apparently, the controversy will continue unabated despite the results.
Walt Gardner C’57, Los Angeles
Shortly after the issue published, the Office of Admissions announced that Penn would remain test-optional for the 2024–25 admissions cycle.—Ed.
Affirmative Action for Conservatives Needed
I am an alumnus living in London and a Penn parent. Looking across the ocean at what has been happening to our university has been heartbreaking to me, and to many others. What happened to the open culture I experienced at Penn in the 1990s, where the Campus Republicans could have an Affirmative Action Bake Sale and the Democrats could openly talk about an Armenian genocide when the President of Turkey came to campus?
What happened at Penn is what has happened at many elite universities: a left-wing groupthink has emerged, silencing dissenting voices not only as incorrect, but as illegitimate and morally wrong. This absurd result in what should be a bastion of free and exploratory thinking, happily, has a remedy: Penn needs to introduce an affirmative action plan for conservatives.
The DP reported that 99.7 percent (that is not a typo) of faculty donations have gone to Democrats. This is laughable in a country basically split 50/50 between the main two political parties. The DP also reported (back in 2003) that the faculty was 12:1 Democrat versus Republican. We can be sure that ratio has only gone more Democratic.
How can a major research university exist when it is so far removed from the society it serves? The simple answer, as we have seen, is that it will have serious problems, as it should.
We have a Penn Biden Center. Where is the Penn Trump Center? The University seems to represent only one half of current American thought. And so a determined and concerted effort by any new administration to hire declared conservatives is the way to bring Penn back towards the mainstream. While the Supreme Court has outlawed affirmative action based on race, it is still legal to hire people based on their political views.
Imagine a campus in which conservative students are not afraid to say what they believe. Imagine a classroom run by a Trump supporter who challenges the views of younger people. This is how intellectual progress happens: by contrasting ideas and by argument. If we all agreed with each other we’d still be living in caves and eating nuts and berries.
And so I call on the administration to do the commonsense thing and align the faculty’s views more with the views of the American public. Penn has closed down debate far too often in the last few years and the University, and its students, are poorer for it.
Vincent DeLorenzo C’93 W’93, parent, London
Eying Pernicious Evil
Interesting to see the diversity in “Letters” [Mar|Apr 2024] regarding resignation, antisemitism, Israel, Palestine, etc. The article “Fighting a Pernicious Evil” [“Gazetteer”] in the same issue had me thinking. For me, as an educated Jew (Harvard BA 1970, Penn MA 1975), the Holocaust is just the tip of an iceberg. Though the public often seems tired of hearing about the Holocaust, the campus could benefit from a greater understanding of the many years that led up to it.
I would like to see, for instance, a display on campus of the face of Shakespeare above the question: Did you know that when the Bard created the negative character of the Jew Shylock in his drama The Merchant of Venice, there were very few Jews in England, as they had been expelled from English territory in 1290 and not readmitted for over 300 years, and even then under questionable motives?
And how about a display showing the face of Columbus over the question: Did you know that Columbus had all his crew members board the night before August 13, 1492, because the following day all Jews were to be expelled from Spain? Or that his interpreter Luis de Torres (born Yosef ben Halevi Halvri) was chosen for his knowledge of Hebrew, Chaldaic, and Arabic?
Or how about showing the face of Martin Luther with the question: Did you know that this great Protestant reformer of Christianity was the author of a stridently antisemitic treatise in 1543 entitled “The Jews and their Lies,” urging synagogues and schools be set on fire, prayer books be destroyed, property confiscated, and Jews be driven into forced labor or expulsion?
Think of a Renoir painting near the question: Did you know that Jews were expelled repeatedly from France until the “enlightened” years of the 18th century? The Franco-Prussian War encouraged an eruption of antisemitism in the Dreyfus affair of 1894–1906, when the Jewish French Army Officer Alfred Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason and imprisoned. Did you know that artists like Renoir, Degas, and Manet voiced strong antisemitism in the tumultuous French social upheaval that helped turn the Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl into the founder of Zionism?
Naturally many readers will find these (and other) overlooked points of history inappropriate for common campus consumption. Ironically it is easier perhaps to just focus on the Holocaust in considering antisemitism. Nevertheless, Jews and non-Jews alike should perhaps become more aware of the many events that necessitated the establishment of a Jewish democratic state.
Susan Dyshel Sommovilla Gr’75, Elkins Park, PA
Return to Teaching, Learning, and Scholarship
When did Penn abandon its defining principles and transition to an identity grievance platform? Just pick up the Gazette and read “Fighting a Pernicious Evil” (a task force formed to perfume Liz Magill’s failings over antisemitism), “Facing Hate with Allyship” (identity politics), and “Reproducing Racism” (structural racism that must be addressed by affirmative action) [all “Gazetteer,” Mar|Apr 2024], together with the first eight letters to the editor (ethnic and racial conflict).
Penn throws garlands at the feet of the agents of the “marginalized” and helps them tell their stories of victimhood. Maybe Penn would do better (and its alumni would be more supportive) if it returned to teaching, learning, and scholarship.
Creighton Meland W’78, Hinsdale, IL
Missing the Boat
In response to “Fighting a Pernicious Evil,” let’s start with the illustration. All of the people have been drawn with hook noses. Is this the illustrator’s “style,” or are they making a subtle point about Jewish students and alumni?
The article made me angry when it described the reasoning of Mark Wolff, the chair of the Task Force on Combating Antisemitism, about why there are fewer Jewish students on Penn’s campus now as compared to recent decades. He said Jewish students have “more choices” than before.
If Wolff really believes that, then he is delusional. The reason why there are fewer Jewish students on the campuses of Penn and the other Ivies is because fewer Jewish students are being admitted. The Ivies have all reduced Jewish student numbers by design.
I think the task force members are missing the boat. How about admitting more Jewish students, as you did during the ’60s, when my husband was on campus, and the ’90’s, when our daughter’s peers were there? Penn’s campus was a welcoming, exciting place during those times. Sadly, it no longer is.
Gail W. Weiss (wife of David L. Weiss C’67 WG’70), North Potomac, MD
Artist Melinda Beck has done a number of illustrations for the Gazette employing similarly stylized figures, on subjects ranging from the bioethics of healthcare to campus a capella groups. Also, in “On Jews and the University” [“Gazetteer,” this issue], admissions expert Jerome Karabel offers another explanation for lower Jewish enrollments at Penn and other Ivies.—Ed.
Stopped at Pit
Although I enjoyed Kathryn Levy Feldman’s essay, “House Keeping” [“Alumni Voices,” Mar|Apr 2024], I struggled to parse the first sentence. Feldman “got a pit” in the stomach with every bridge crossing? I doubted this referred to a series of small ulcers, but … what? Poking through the web suggested an answer—perhaps Feldman felt anxiety “in the pit of her stomach” during those bridge crossings.
Languages are living things and always evolving, and maybe this expression has moved on past my antiquated understanding, but I can’t help wondering if this is something the Angry Grammarian might choose to sing about.
M. Jill McCracken V’88, Wilmington, DE
We did not consult the Angry Grammarian [see “Arts,” Mar|Apr 2024 for his story], but assistant editor Nicole Perry, our resident expert, confirms that the phrase is increasingly used in American English. —Ed.
Worthy Topic to Explore
Thanks for the article “Duty of Care” on the Loren Cary’s adaptation of her memoir, Ladysitting, into a play produced at Philadelphia’s Arden Theatre [“Arts,” Mar|Apr 2024]. The evolution of the play from book to script is fascinating in itself and the contents most appealing. I have ordered a copy—so glad to find the play in published form.
Author Julia Klein mentions Cary’s tattoo reading “Love is Strong as Death,” a quotation from the Book of Solomon. Personally, I would say that “love transcends death.” Either way, a worthy topic to explore, especially for those of us no longer young.
I received my PhD from Penn in 1973 in absentia, as by then I was already married, employed, and pregnant! Sidenote: I met my husband in my dorm dining room at Penn.
Tricia Herban Gr’73, Columbus, OH
Language Is Funny
I enjoyed the article highlighted on the cover of the Jan|Feb 2024 issue as “Justice Chaser Jared Fishman C’99.” However, even after rereading the piece carefully, I could not determine on which appeals court Justice Fishman sits.
I do recall reading an opinion of his in a recent law reporter, in the case of notorious “cafe killer” Rascally Rabbit, who admitted at trial that he routinely “eats shoots and leaves.”
Edward Connor C’73, Camp Springs, MD