Stan Brown's Personal Page

[ larger picture ]	"What do you want, Joe, my life's history? Here it is in four words: big ideas, small results."
	— Clash by Night (1952, adapted from a play by Clifford Odets)
	Any rough times are now behind you.
	— fortune cookie received 8 Sep 2000

Likes  |  Dislikes  |  Places  |  Jobs  |  Fantasy

Born in 1949 in Baltimore, Maryland, I can't take credit for the "Charm City" vogue because by the time it started I had already gone to college. Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, somehow blinked in 1971 and issued me both a physics degree and a teaching certificate. I'm single and more or less self employed.

My Likes

In the proverbial fifty words or less —

• I'm a pretty fair cook, especially favoring northern Italian and southern French cuisines.
• I like reading on pretty much any topic — science, history, languages, older science fiction, Tolkien, and mysteries.
• One of my students said, "Stan knows everything". I'd hesitate to agree too quickly, but I do like writing about a lot of topics.
• Classical music is my preferred listening, of which my favorites are Brahms chamber music and Sibelius orchestral music. Yes, I do like show tunes, up to about the 1960s anyway.
• Exercise and I are obviously not the best of friends, but I enjoy bicycling.
• Movies are of course a great escape for those of us who can't handle real life; I especially like independent films. In trying to list my two favorite, I couldn't narrow it down to fewer than four: All about Eve, Antonia's Line, Babette's Feast, and Tröllflöjten (Bergman's film of The Magic Flute).
• On the small screen, my two favorite sitcoms are the American Barney Miller and the British Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister.

Hmm, I guess that's more than fifty words. Now you know something else about me! <grin>

My Dislikes

Religious fundamentalism, particularly here in my own USA. Of course I have no objection to anyone believing and practicing their own religion. But the fundamentalist agenda seems to be to force their own ideas of living onto everyone else, and that's just wrong. Whatever happened to the American way of "live and let live"?

"One of the great achievements of science has been, if not to make it impossible for intelligent people to be religious, then at least to make it possible for them not to be religious. We should not retreat from this accomplishment." Thus spake Steven Weinberg, in Facing Up (2001).

My Places

I lived in Cleveland's inner suburbs from 1969 until 2000 (23 years was in one house), and it did seem a day too long! In September 2000 I moved from Cleveland to the outskirts of Cortland, New York. Cortland is a town of 24,000, on the eastern fringe of the Finger Lakes region, and I'm several miles outside of town.

This is my first experience with country living since age 10. I like the slower pace, the thinner traffic, the wider vistas. The scenery is peaceful: hills and mountains all around, Lake Cayuga just over half an hour's drive west. I love seeing more stars at night than I can count — when it's clear, that is. On the other hand, I really miss the resources of the Cleveland metropolitan libraries, and as a film buff I miss choice in movie theaters and video stores.

My Jobs

Most of the money comes from computer programming and technical writing. I also teach math at Tompkins-Cortland Community College (TC3) in Dryden, New York. This makes my life a kind of rondo, as my first job after college was teaching college-prep math at Hawken School in Gates Mills, Ohio.

My last few years in Cleveland, I volunteered at the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland as medical history taker, pharmacy technician, and HIV intervention specialist. I've been looking for the right volunteer opportunity in my new location.

My Fantasy

My ultimate fantasy is to live and work in Denmark. ("Der er et yndigt land. ...") I visited Scandinavia and Finland for a wonderful month, and liked all the places I visited, but I really fell in love with Denmark and the Danish people. Americans tend to see Scandinavians as rather dour and gloomy, but nothing could be further from the truth. The Danes were all warm and friendly, they really seemed to take joy in life, and they made this American feel very welcome indeed.