FW: To JE

Hi Jeffrey -

indeed...met with Tracy to brainstorm about event with our common friend, Kyle Gibson, also an ex-ABC Nightline producer who won an Emmy for Tenneman square coverage way back when...it's a different world, isn't it? I agree with Dan Rather that "journalism" is just about dead - little more than entertainment and gossip these days...Nightline did do a good job, though, with a non-watered down, 10 min segment about our randomized-controlled study with premature infants in the Neonatal ICU for their 3-4 million viewers...hard to reach that many "students" by other meansxxx


-----Original Message-----
From:   Lesley Groff [mailto:lesley@nysgllc.com]
Sent:   Sun 6/1/2008 11:10 AM
To:     Tramo, Mark Jude
Cc:    
Subject:        RE: To JE: Thanks; Abyssinian event

Hello Mark... the following is Jeffrey's reply:


a production , not a fair , certainly not science but entertainment,,
Brians wife is a television producer





Lesley Groff
Executive Assistant to Jeffrey Epstein



________________________________

From: Tramo, Mark Jude [mailto:mark_tramo@hms.harvard.edu]
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2008 9:37 AM
To: Lesley Groff
Subject: To JE: Thanks; Abyssinian event



Dear Jeffrey,

Thank you so very much for your invitation to breakfast, which Lesley
kindly conveyed via email and telephone yesterday.

Sorry I wasn't in town - The World Science Festival music/brain event
swayed way to far from science and the vision I formulated when the
organizers first consulted me back in October.  Originally, it was
supposed to take place at Lincoln Ctr, but that fell through.  They
managed to get another landmark location for the event, but the deal
they had to cut with the devil (no pun intended) was that the Abyssian
Baptist Church controlled the venue.  Consequently, what was supposed to
be 60 - 90 mins of neuroscience and musicology turned into a potpourri
of musical performances, church/ethnic history, fluffy patient anecdotes
by Sacks, and only a dollup of real science by yours truly - not
something I wanted to be connected with.  I didn't get the
minute-by-minute schedule from the choirmaster (!) until after Memorial
Day and my invitation to you, so you can imagine my surprise when I got
the rundown. [It's not just that I'm an anti-theist who would have run
the risk of saying something about the merits of hard-core empiricism
and the dangers of blind faith with Pastor Calvin Butts sitting nearby
on stage! (To my knowledge, Rev Jeremiah Wright was not going to fly in
from Chicago, but there's a decent chance Al Sharpton will be there.)]

I'm wondering what you thought of some of these physics/math-oriented
venues?  The one on dance inspired by Brian Greene's book struck me as,
well, weird.  Alan Alda's involved elsewhere.  Seems more like a
Discovery Channel fair than a true World Science Festival.  Are you
going to any of the other events?

Really, I'm happy to come down any time to breakfast - would be great to
see you again and catch up, and I could drop in on my octogenarian mom
in the Bronx afterwards.

Peace & Love,
Mark
mtramo@hms.harvard.edu
cellphone 781-718-6390