CLASS OF 1988 | 2015 | ISSUE 3

Hillary writes for this issue.

Greetings classmates. You will see that our notes this time around are pretty slim; we hope you’ll update us on your news so that we’ll have more to share next time.

Ilya Vinkovetsky writes, “This year I am a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki. My work here is about how Russia and Britain, two countries far away from any tea plantations, became cultures heavily associated with tea. Being in Finland is a great adventure for me and the whole family.”

And Pauline Frommer reports, “It’s been a crazily busy couple of years, as my father and I, through a long process, regained ownership of the Frommer guidebooks and Frommers.com. And suddenly I went from a person who had done editorial work for most of her career to being a publisher, and dealing with everything from the cost of paper to the fact that if a book is returned to the publisher the publisher has to issue a refund (making each book a calculated gamble—who knew?). Part of me wished I’d taken more math—okay, any math—at Wes, but a bigger part was grateful for all of the philosophy classes I took so I could remain sanguine when our books sat on the California docks for an extra two months due to a slowdown there by the dockworkers. (And being a Wes grad, of course I was on the dockworkers’ side). Long story short, we’re a small family business once again, which is exciting and exhausting in equal measure. (Oh, and I get to write the Frommer’s EasyGuide to New York City, which means I have an excuse to spend lots and lots of time in museums and at historic sites, and pretend I’m not a middle-aged mom when I go out bar- and club-hopping to get the necessary reviews.)

“I was lucky enough to go to the Wesleyan Mad Men event at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, N.Y., which was superb, thanks to the awe-inspiring curatorial gifts of Carl Goodman, who’s the president of the museum, and his staff. I caught up there with Cobina Gillitt ’87 and Claire Conceison ’87. I was also so happy to get to spend some time with the always delightful Kara Flannery, who is becoming a real maven of marketing, and also a force in the local politics of the Connecticut town she lives in. I look forward to seeing more Wes folks this fall when I head to the Sons and Daughters event at the school with my 16-year-old daughter, Veronica.”

PETER v.s. BOND | 007@pvsb.org

Hillary Ross | hrossdance@yahoo.com