THAT'S MISTER DOCTOR TO YOU. . .

Before I start what is going to be a week of grading, grading, grading, and grading, let me say something brief about the fantastic weekend I just had.

Just pulled in from a whirlwind Northeast metropolitan tour in which I saw my family and several friends. My brother's graduation ceremony at Berklee College of Music was a trip: this year's graduation speakers and honorary doctorate recipients were Diane Reeves and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith (their clunky, graphics-heavy site is here). Yes, now it is DOCTOR Steven Tyler. Reeves's speech was beautiful: she reminded the students that the day was for them, and that the love that brought people to celebrate their graduation is a phenomenon that structures the world in a fundamental fashion. Well, she put it more eloquently than that, of course. She also sang a bit.

Tyler mostly talked about himself, but he's humorous and also inspiring in his own way. And not addled, actually.

The long and the short of it is that somewhere there is a picture of my brother with a big, goofy grin on his face, shaking hands with Steven Tyler. Updates will, of course, follow.

Another highlight of the trip was meeting my blog dad, Josh of Oxblog fame, for a few hours in midtown Manhattan, who, as he put it, has brought Oxford's (dismal) weather with him. Before next year is out, if all goes well, we may have to start calling him Doctor Chafetz before too long, also. . .

The pleasure of that paragraph was in putting Josh and Steven Tyler in the same line of thought.