When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Shout out to Neil deGrasse Tyson, whose new book STARRY MESSENGER publishes this week. Neil’s mission in life is to communicate about the cosmos. He does this in many ways: as the host of StarTalk, host of Cosmos, his 15 million Twitter followers, through public appearances, and (this is where I come in): through books. In Starry Messenger he inverts his telescope and brings his cosmic perspective to life on earth. It’s challenging, enlightening, witty, and bracing whether he’s writing about race, gender, body-mind, aesthetics, conflict and resolution, truth and beauty. Come for the science, stay for the writing.
Do you have stars in your eyes?
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Betsy Lerner 
I wish the stars were more in my eyes. When I was a kid, in a suburb of Dallas called Irving, I could see the Milky Way at night. Many people nowadays grow up without ever seeing that, which is why I’ve become a fan of the International Dark-Sky Association.
Fortunately, there are other stars in New York, such as Tyson. And if you, Ms. Lerner, have helped bring his work before the public, it’s a feather in both your caps.
Me too! I am writing about this.
Are you? Glad to hear it. Best of luck with that.
Yes, always inquisitive, always waiting to see what’s around the next bend.
Congratulations to Neil deGrasse Tyson, someone worth listening to. And thank you for your role in the book’s publication.
Ah Neil deGrasse Tyson, lecturer at Haydon Planetarium. (And so much more)
Leaning back in a chair in the dark. Surrounded by family we listened while staring at the black domed-sky above as it lit up with stars. The projector, a Zeiss Optical Multiple Stereopticon Planetarium Projector. I was a little girl in the early1960s enthralled that I could name the huge machine in the middle of the room. I was proud too. The tales of our universe as related to the audience were by my uncle, Walter Allen Munn, a Haydon Planetarium Lecturer when Neil deGrasse Tyson was a baby in the Bronx.
Betsy, your post about Neil and his book brought back wonderful memories of my uncle who traveled the world as a member of the Moon Watch teams, set up by J. Allen Hynek and Professor Whipple at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard when our space program was in its infancy.
Do I have stars in my eyes? Yup, for Walter Munn, my Uncle Dutch.
“Do you have stars in your eyes?”
Always. Hard abeam the mote.
Stars in my eyes. Stars in my writing. All of it.