- The Story Teller: Colin Harrison
'82
by Steve Manning '96Porter Wren, the star reporter in Colin Harrison's '82 new book Manhattan Nocturne, writes about what his readers want to hear. "I sell falsehood and what passes for truth and every gradation in between," he says. "I sell the newborn and the dead. I sell the wretched, magnificent city of New York back to its people. I sell newspapers." Struggling against constant deadlines and forever glancing over his shoulder at younger reporters seeking to topple him, Porter seeks out the seamy underbelly of the city, writing about the crime, sex, and corruption to keep up with the insatiable tastes of his readers. Yet he is able to escape each night retreating to the safety of his wife and children. At heart Porter Wren is a family man, a quality that is put to the test the night he meets Catherine Crowley. In the femme fatale style, their eyes meet across a crowded room, and the inner conflict between Porter Wren's fidelity and his desires is revealed. The more deeply involved he becomes with Catherine Crowley, the more Porter is sucked into the danger that follows her, until he finds himself unable to escape.
- The Art of Science:
Kathy Koshland
'72
By Max Turner '98When Cathy Koshland stared into her canvas As a Haverford Fine Arts student in 1972, pondering the artwork's imperfections, she had little knowledge that she was preparing herself to study toxic emissions in combustion systems twenty-five years later. Today, as the Wood-Calvert Professor in Engineering at Berkeley, Koshland might appear to have thoroughly distanced herself from her undergraduate days of painting and sculpting with Haverford professors Charles Stegeman and Chris Cairns. But for Koshland, the distance is not so broad. "The process of discovery that you use in art is not unlike the process of discovery that you use in science." she begins, recalling an argument she has made countless times before. "There is a question of how you view the world and challenge yourself each time as you work through a painting or a sculpture. You ask, 'what's wrong with this piece? What don't I understand? Why am I not translating this or presenting it in a way that I want to? What do I need to change or rethink?' Those are the kinds of things you have to use in science all the time."