August, 20 years ago—the end of our sophomore summer. Tubestock long past, the summer term winding up. Personally, sophomore summer was when I took what I thought would be a fluff course on “Films of the 1980s,” where I could write a paper about Beetlejuice. These days I remind students in my own film courses that sometimes those supposed “guts” change your life. (Thanks, Amy and Al!) 


Summers at Dartmouth always bring back another distinct memory for me, though this one from 19 years ago. At the end of junior summer I remember walking out of Baker Library one afternoon with Dave Kaiser so that we could try to explain to each other the research we had been doing in preparation for our senior theses, mine on postmodern fiction and his on particle physics. (He did a much better job than I did.) Flash forward to now and, as I write this, W.W. Norton has just published his new book: How the Hippies Saved Physics. If that title doesn’t intrigue you, you need to pinch yourself. I mean, it has hippies! It has physics! Is there a movie deal yet? How about a spot on The Daily Show? In any case, congrats to Dave on more brilliant work.


Showing as you read this now at the Hop’s Strauss Gallery is the work of Melissa Brown, who tragically passed away a decade ago from breast cancer. The department of studio art, however, has brought her paintings back to Hanover and they are amazing. Catch them at the Hop until September 4.


It seems our class musicians were rather busy this summer. I just spent an evening with Brandon Adams, who was traveling with the Grammy-winning Pacific Boychoir to Eastern Europe, but not before putting on a great show here in D.C. Rick Owen was also on the road: After conducting Bizet’s Carmen in May, he lit out with the Delaware Valley Opera to perform Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love in August. (You may still catch him if you’re around the N.Y./Pennsylvania border—shows play until August 14.)


Lisa Yaffe writes in from Philadelphia with amazing (and green) news: “I am engaged to be married in September and marrying into a Dartmouth family. My wonderful fiancé Neal Sprafkin went to Trinity College and Emerson College for graduate school, but his twin brother Noah is a ’92, his older brother Jeff is an ’87 and his father, Bob, is a ’62.” Congrats!


Finally, I will leave you with this update from Nicole Mallement, which is quite comprehensive: “Guess what? I graduated! President Clinton handed me my degree personally. And I said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.’ Very Marilyn Monroe of me. But I was accepted into the college for the theater…and not the operating one, apparently, so that is another story. Since then I have been busy. I climbed a mountain or two and took a long walk around the reservoir in Central Park...after those suckers took the Twin Towers down. Doesn’t obstruct the view from the reservoir yet, though. I spent some time in San Francisco these past few years and got caught up with Suzanne Kim, who is a research analyst with CSFB. She is having a blast with her boss. They party hardy. I took her for dinner on Fillmore Street to get her into cooking again. Poor thing drove me home around the corner after. She was parked underneath the Castle on Pine Street, of all places. So, am down in Los Angeles just searching the streets for Jan Matuska, my true love.”


—Jeffrey Middents, 505 Ethan Allen Ave., Takoma Park, MD 20912; dartmouth93@gmail.com