2:50 pm Aug. 4, 2010
Alan Weisman loves his students, and they love him. Last night, he was wearing baggy light blue jeans, a dark polo shirt and buttoned-up blazer. He had gelled his graying hair into a part. It goes well with his bushy mustache.
"They're hip, they're smart," he said, standing in front of the projection screen after delivering a lecture on the "Politics of Fear." It was the third talk in a three-part series, and the audience loved how he compared the terrorist threat to the paranoia of the early Cold War. They remember the latter quite well.
The students had taken their canes and WNYC tote bags to another room, where there was wine and cheese. We were hanging out on the seventh floor of the United Jewish Appeal office, nestled in a sleek office building at 59th and Park.
"This is our way of reaching baby boomers," said Sara Tornay, director of the Jewish Association for the Services of the Aged, referring to the refreshments and topical discussion.
"He's their favorite teacher," said another staffer, as she moved chairs across the carpet.
Before Weisman took on his current part-time gig, he worked at CBS for decades, served as Charlie Rose's executive producer, and wrote biographies of Richard Perle and Dan Rather. He was giving a speech at Barnes and Noble three years ago, presenting his Perle book, when Sara Tornay, the director of JASA, saw a talent.
The presentation was a sort of multimedia rap session for a generation raised on print and radio, complete with BBC documentary excerpts, quotes from the Washington Post's big investigative series on "Top Secret America," and discussions of the Internet. (There were also a couple of interruptions, where someone mistakenly thought the answer to one of Weisman's questions was "Israel.") Why is the "fear business" so strong, Wesiman asked, and why does the government security state continue to expand?
"It's not the 60's," says a man named Martin, angry, who was wearing a denim shirt, and also had a mustache. A woman with spiked yellow-ish hair in a bright yellow lightweight hoodie whispered to her friend, the one with the light blue shawl.
The class, which numbered about 20, wondered why no one had taken action.
"They want it encapsulated," says a raven-haired woman, talking about why her grandson doesn't read.
A classmate added that it's not just the kids—older people don't like to read anymore. "The news is dismal."
Martin said that he doesn't like the electoral college, and wants more people to write about it, like Hendrik Hertzberg does in The New Yorker.
Another woman, in different shades of grey from head to toe, noted that police checked her bag at the Columbus Circle stop. Is it something new? A voice in the back mumbled loudly, annoyed, "It's been going on for years."
Weisman told the audience that going into the fall, "an informed electorate is the greatest weapon against all this." At one point in the class discussion, the cross talk got loud, and Wesiman said, "quiet, please." No luck. "Ladies, ladies, shut up!" The murmurs died down.
There are many things "you didn't have growing up," Weisman said, like "the good parts of the Internet." Readers can now access the Financial Times and The Economist. Everyone nodded.
Tornay stepped to the front of the room. The Power Point shut down, revealing Wesiman's computer screen, a sticky note for errands clearly displayed. ("Call Marty.") The NextAct lecture series, which is intended for people as young as 55, will return in the fall, bumping up against the midterm election. The forum on the future of senior housing will come before that, Tornay explains, as will the Brooklyn volunteer expo.
I ask Weisman how this compared to his old reporting gig.
"I prepare like a journalist," he said. He likes the give-and-take. "I've taught college courses where you get nothing but blank stares."
That's not the case here: "That's the reward."
