STATEMENT FOR PUBLIC RELEASE (2/15/2011)
Our volunteer group has been searching for Dr. Phil Agre in the======================================== -Phil, if you are reading this, please let us know your whereabouts, how you are doing, or if there is anything you need. We care. Below you will find messages from friends as well as their contact information.  Author, scholar, and educator Phil Agre has been out of touch with colleagues, friends, and family for several months. His disappearance was made public on October 28, 2009. A sheriff's officer encountered Phil in January 2010 so we know that he is alive. However, our inside information gives us no reason to believe that he is safe or well. His friends and family are still trying to establish contact to make sure that he is okay. This personal website has been put up by friends and admirers of Phil Agre. We miss him and hope that he will see this and know that many are thinking of him and are eager to help. If you are looking for pointers to Phil's work including articles, books, and former mailing lists (Red Rock Eater or The Network Observer), please go to the separate website on Critical Technical Practice we have set up to serve as a resource for those who are interested in his scholarship. If you are among those myriad friends, friendly colleagues, and warm acquaintances who have lost touch with Phil over the years and who are upset by his disappearance, we have formed a group where people can talk with one another and share thoughts and news: http://groups.google.com/group/philipagre/topics This page is maintained by Charlotte Lee and Jean-François Blanchette. MESSAGES
Dear Phil, please feel free to contact me about anything. My email address is above. I hope that wherever you are that you are safe. I think often about the mentoring you gave me, especially with regards to providing detailed, constructive criticism on papers. I think often about the words of advice you gave me over the years we worked together and am grateful for them every day. -- Charlotte Lee Seattle, WA Dear Phil, please don't hesitate to get in touch at any time. There are many people here in Los Angeles who are available and eager to help you. Your dedication and generosity as an intellectual, scholar, and educator have been one of the greatest source of inspiration in my career. I know this to be the case for many other academics, in the several fields on which you have made a lasting impact. Please get in touch. -- Jean-François
Los Angeles, CA
Dear Phil, Your RRE mailing list was a source of constant inspiration in the early days of the web - I hope you are ok and am thinking positive thoughts for your return safely. -- Scott Leslie Victoria, BC, Canada http://www.edtechpost.ca/wordpress/ Phil, I hope you are still somewhere on the internet and that you see this message. You asked for my help before, and I would gladly help again. Just tell me what you need. -- Steven Bagley steven.bagley@gmail.com Los Angeles, CA I remember a conversation in the 7th floor Playroom of Tech Square, way back in the late 1980s. The question was how much power one could steal from the power company if one lived underneath high-voltage lines and put a metal roof on one's house. I remember that you had some good calculations to add to the discussion. If you're in the Boston area now, let's go for a helicopter ride over the new $300 million Stata Center that has replaced the functional-but-not-stylish Tech Square. -- Philip Greenspun,
philg@mit.edu
Cambridge, MA
a ring or drop me a line and I'll get it back to you.
-- Pat Hayes,
850.291.0667 / phayes@ihmc.us,
Pensacola. FLThe graduate seminar I took with you had a profound impact on me. I live in Orange County, CA. Call me or send a note if you need anything. -- Will Breitbach 818.288.2179/ willbreitbach@gmail.com fullerton, ca Dear Phil, I remember being in San Diego interviewing for the job, on lithium , and having only one person that was being nice to me on email...then i remember reading the RRE, and all your stuff, then i remember noticing you aint around.... I really hope you are well. -- Korinna Patelis kpatelis@yahoo.com / Athens, Greece
Hope to see you soon! -- Siva Vaidhyanathan sivav@pobox.com/ Charlotesville, VA Phil I hope we will find you again to interact with you again and more. -- B L Conein conein@unice.fr/ Nice, France Dear Phil, I took as many classes from you as I could. My first day of graduate school was in your Interpreting Documents class and it set the standard for all future classes. You taught me how to be a graduate student and burgeoning scholar. Thank you. I wish you only the best and hope that you are well. --Kim Anderson kima /ucla - edu Los Angeles, CA, USA Hey there, you were right, my spirit wasn't headed for academic librarianship. I'm on the cusp of changing from nitty-gritty search mechanics to helping people sort out how to communicate and manage their communal knowledge. Wenger, Snowden, that sort of thing. I was hoping to chat with you about some of it. So, if you find yourself up Seattle way (or just near a phone/email outlet), give me a call. --Sarah Dilling sarahd@gmail.com / 425.289.9643 Seattle, WA, USA Phil, You have many fans and friends who are worried about you and would like to reconnect. I was one of your advisees at UCLA (class of 2005) and a huge fan! --Carol Perruso perrusocarol@hotmail.com Long Beach, CA, USA Dear Phil, I only took one class with you (Interpreting Documents), and it was during the toughest quarter of my graduate school career, but I remember that every lecture was an absolute joy. I wish that I had taken more classes with you. The connections you made, and the way that you found something fascinating in every possible research topic were truly inspiring. --Christine Megowan cmegowan@gmail.com Los Angeles, CA, USA I was a doctoral student at UCLA when you first joined the department. I didn’t get a chance to take classes with you but I would have loved to have taken your Interpreting Documents course. After all these years I still have the handouts you gave us about writing research papers! We are all thinking of you. Please get in touch. --Ciaran cbtrace [at] gmail.com Austin, TX Phil, when we were in graduate school at MIT you set an example of intellectual courage and clarity that I've rarely seen matched since. Hope you find your way back. If you need anything, let me know. --Mike Travers mt@alum.mit.edu CA, USA Dear Phil - You taught me to trust and respect my curiosity - lessons I make use of daily. I hope that you are safe and that you will be in touch soon. Please let me know if there is anything I can do.
-- Monique Leahey Sugimoto, Palos Verdes Estates, CA
mleaheys@ucla.edu
I just heard the news that your family and colleagues can't locate you. I hope everything is all right, that whatever is going on in your life is your decision, and a good one for you. I just wanted to say that there are a lot people, in our field and around the world, who think very highly of you, hope that your well, and hope that you can find your way back to your academic contributions soon, as you see fit, on your own terms. In any case, be well. -- Tarleton Gillespie, Ithaca, NY
tlg28 at cornell dOt edu
Dear Phil. I think I read every issue of RRE. It was always lucid, always an authentic voice. It took the internet seriously, mixed insight and informality, and showed me what an online newsletter could be. I know that my own (now eight years old) had an easier way in the world because yours came first. I hope you are well. -- Peter Suber, Cambridge, MA
peter.suber@gmail.comd
Hope you are safe Phil. --Brian H. Santa Clarita, CA Phil Forgive me for having failed you, and then largely having abandoned you, in part out of embarrassment. I do so hope that you are off somewhere writing a book about existing off the net under your own terms. --Oscar ogandy@asc.upenn.edu tucon, az i was lucky enough to take two very different classes from you. i did some of the most challenging and fulfilling work and you helped me immensely. your enthusiasm for your work, for knowledge in general and for your students inspired me. i hope you will contact one of us soon even if it's just to let us know you're okay. please be safe and stay warm. --elyse barrere sadiegrrrl@gmail.com los angeles, ca Phil, the RRE was a source of inspiration for over a decade. I miss it, and I know your friends and colleagues miss you. It would ease the pain of many, if you could convey - through any confidante - something as simple as "I'm okay". If not, we'll continue to worry. --Ellis Godard ellis@netspace.org Moorpark, CA lynnboyden (at) gmail (dot) com,
los angeles, ca
Phil, if you are reading this I just want to say two things. I care about what happens to you. And I will help in any way I can if and when you need help. Just let me know. Beth Preston, epreston@uga.edu
Athens, Georgia
I read and highly valued RRE for years. Respect Phil's take on things and thought of him back then as a significant opinion and policy shaper. Wishing everyone well in this effort, especially Phil. Kari Peterson kapeters@dcn.org
Davis, California
RRE was a revelation, a mainstay, and an anchor to windward. Yours was one of the most incisive minds I have ever encountered, even as electronically mediated. Those of us who have found this forum to express our admiration are surely the thousandth part of those you have inlflenced and inspired. Be well. Keith Dawson
http:/ recoveringphysicist.com
Groton, MA
Dear Phil, I hope you're safe and well. I wish to let you know that your personal things are in secure storage in Los Angeles. I'm in Chicago at the Institute of Design, IIT since I returned to the US in autumn 2005. I miss your wit, wisdom and kindness and hope to see you again sometime soon. - Peace, Judith Judith Gregory judithg@id.iit.edu - 312 315 337 Chicago, IL I have one of the most positive memories of graduate school in my short conversations with Phil. He made himself approachable, available, and was kind. I really hope he realizes he has a positive impact and is appreciated. --Shilpa shilpaslewis@gmail.com San Diego, CA Hi Phil, it's been a while since we were in touch, but i'm still inspired by your work every day, have recently been re-reading a lot of your stuff, stands the test of time very well ..miss your insights and critical commentaries.... and hope you are doing ok, wherever you are. --peace, Liam
liam.bannon@ul.ie limerick, ireland In 1988, I actually became Phil for a semester. Really. So I've got an especially large stake in locating him. I was just finishing my fifth year of full-time undergrad research association with Agre and the other titans of Artificial Intelligence on 7AI, doing pre-CSAIL, pre-Media Lab music cognition research for Prof. Marvin Minsky and John Amuedo. Though I was known at the AI Lab only as "saz" or "saz@oz", I was Dave or David everywhere else at MIT, and my dorm was simply rife with Dave's. Believe me, it was SO exasperating having SO many people responding to the same name every time you called ANY ONE of us by name. There were no Phil's anywhere at the dorm, however, except one guy who'd never emerged from his room on the first floor, as far as anyone could tell. So one day, I unilaterally decided to disambiguate the hermeneutics of my nominative ontology, and I quasi-officially changed my first name to "Phil". And I chose the name "Phil" every bit as much out of esteem for Agre as for its (near-)uniqueness as a naming attribute at the dorm. Phil, in my mind, you epitomized the cool, calm, well-spoken, erudite, sophisticated, social adult I had always wanted to be but seemingly would never become. I don't think I ever told this story to Agre (or Batali, TK, Huttenlocher, Taft, Bawden, Gumby, JCMA, or Roylance) for fear of being relegated to an even lower, even more humiliating, even more frequently-ridiculed sub-container of their incredibly vast, collective worldview than I then occupied, as "Saz". But I stuck with it. At least until the novelty wore off. And for some of my dormmates, who first met me during "My Phil Period", I would never be a "Dave" again -- I remember at least one close friend referred to me as "Phil" right up to the day our paths diverged forever on the East side of campus, mistaking my eventual reversion back to "Dave" as an unsuccessful attempt to shed my TRUE first name: "Phil". Would it not be a truly fitting thing if, somewhere among that handful of incredible thinkers at 7AI, those estimable titans of computation who were fortunate enough to have been granted the very first round of Internet accounts on a PDP-10 running Twenex at a DARPA-funded graduate lab in Cambridge, MA, should come an idea or methodology for a way of using the Internet in its latest, most breathtaking incarnation, to retrieve one of their own from the void into which he has - perhaps temporarily - vanished? I will surely do my small part in spreading the word through the blogosphere. (send-all *7AI-ALUMS* :return-phil) -- David Saslav
dsaslav@gmail.com
San Francisco, CA There's a comfortable room waiting here on Cape Cod for you, 2 miles from Nauset Beach, great for walking or sitting. No rent, food, no charge, silence if you want it. Please let me know you're OK. You are very dearly missed. -- Fran Frances Davis robdv603@aol.com East Orleans, MA Dear Phil, You are loved, and you are missed. You are tremendously important. Your work is important. Please come back. Love, -- Julie Davis (Hoover) julia.hoover1@yahoo.com Shrewsbury, MA Dear Dr. Agre, I am a current MLIS student at UCLA. Though I have never met you or taken your class before, the news of your disappearance made me very sad and concerned. I hope you get in touch with your friends and family when the right time comes for you. --Cindy Hoda Los Angeles, CA Dear Phil, I hope you are safe, wherever you are.I have been inspired by your work - dating back to the early 1990's. You touched the lives of many through your work.You are missed. Vasant Honavar http://www.cs.iastate.edu/~honavar/ Ames, IA You were so helpful to me in my early Internet days. I'd love to hear from you. --Shirl Kennedy sdk (at) cesmail.net St. Petersburg, FL I recall seeing you talk about Pengi, and thinking, "Welp, this guy's done everything I wish I could, AND he's a very nice person. Huh. Now what?" (http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/1987/AAAI87-048.pdf ) I wish you safety, happiness, and freedom from mental and physical pain and suffering. If you want to live by yourself, so be it, but we'd LOVE to hear you're OK. --Bill Coderre bcbcATmacDOTcom San Jose, CA Dear Phil, I have missed your voice and viewpoint. You are in my prayers. With love and respect, Deborah Deborah C. Adams sandhillsmcp@gmail.com Elgin, SC Hello Phil: Come back, we miss you. michealbeethoven Stockton, CA Phil, We never met in person, but I lurked, enjoyed and occasionally commented on RRE. I live near UCLA if you are in LA and need a place to stay. Larry Press lpress@csudh.edu, 310-475-5679, http://bpastudio.csudh.edu/fac/lpress Los Angeles, CA Dear Phil, I took a Ph.D. course with you at UCLA about ten years ago. We had to invite speakers for talks and write a short report about that. Now that I am a professor at UBC, I am one of the people in charge of organizing my School's colloquium series and I am using what I learnt in your course. It was really great. And you gave us great advice about academia, too. I am so glad I took that course with you. I am no longer in Los Angeles, since I now live in Vancouver, Canada, but I hope I can be of help somehow. We miss you and we are thinking of you! Francesca Marini, Assistant Professor School of Library, Archival and Information Studies The University of British Columbia Irving K. Barber Learning Centre 1961 East Mall, Suite 470 Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1 fmarini@interchange.ubc.ca/604-822-4991 Your writings has guided my research and teaching for ten years. Thank you. --Chung-chieh Shan http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~ccshan/ Piscataway, NJ Hey Phil - we have never met. I am a stranger to you, but in my personal experience it has always been easier to talk to strangers. Hope wherever you are is a warm and kind place. Get in touch if I can help. --Catherine mail@catherinewright.com southampton We miss you Phil. Come home. (More at http://www.discourse.net/archives/2009/11/wheres_phil_agre.html) --Michael Froomkin http://www.law.tm Coral Gables, FL Make your way back, please! --Steve Sawyer ssawyer at syr dot edu Syracuse, NY Phil, We (you and I and Jessica Litman and our then-three-year-old child) had dinner way back in 1997, when you were kind enough to be part of a TPRC panel I had organized. I'd asked you to do the panel because, well, of all the people I'd encountered electronically since I'd gotten on the Net a few years before, you were the one whose intelligence and insight and humanity most blew me away. I hope you're OK. --Jon Weinberg www.law.wayne.edu/weinberg Ann Arbor, MI Dear Phil, It's been more than ten years since we last emailed. I told you I was changing course towards mathematics, and you told me that while you found that path attractive, the necessary cost of giving up your mind to it was too much. You were right about having to give up your mind to it, and for me it's been right. I miss you, and think about you. Please get in touch. Best, --Mario Mario Bourgoin http://brandeis.edu/~mob MA We all miss you Phil! I'm hoping you're working at a bookstore in Nepal and meditating about the greater meaning of things. Cafe in Costa Rica? Wherever you are, we all miss you. Hope you're OK. --Amy Bruckman asb@cc.gatech.edu Atlanta, GA Phil, Count me among the cousins, other family & friends who care. Haven't seen you since we hiked together (Mt. Washington) in 1979 (remember that?), but you've always been important to me and I continue to wish you well. If I can help in any way, gimme a clue, --Mike Davis, Franklin, MA mnkpdavisss AT comcast DOT net 508-541-8479 I had never heard of you until I was pointed here from the Metafilter thread about your disappearance, Phil, but reading only the first dozen or so messages on this page made me regret that I never got to take any classes with you or otherwise interact with you during my days on campus in Westwood. I hope you're OK and that you will soon add to your already voluminous and valuable contributions to society. Shalom, Yiftach Yiftach Levy avisitor@gmail.com San Diego, CA Phil - waiting for a call - lot's to talk about. geof ps - did I ever tell you the one about the red, red rocks of home? Geoffrey C. Bowker gbowker@pitt.edu Pittsburgh, PA Hi Phil, I never contacted you directly but I always found RRE valuable and enlightening. I hope you are well, wherever you are. If by some bizarre chance you're in New Zealand, get in touch, I'd love to buy you a drink. If you do, I promise I won't tell the world where you are unless we come to agree that it's a good idea! --Seth Wagoner +6421784409 sethop.com seth/at/sethop/dot/com Christchurch, New Zealand Phil, It's not enough to find the perfect pen, you have to bring it back. I'm looking forward to seeing it. --Tom Parmenter tom-parmenter@comcast.net Mass Hi Professor Agre, You had an absolutely profound influence on my academic view of information and knowledge. I appreciate all the work and care you poured out to me and my classmates in the classes I was fortunate enough to take with you. I hope you are safe and well and will contact loved ones and friends who are concerned about you. --David Lee dleesv@yahoo.com Los Angeles/CA Nobody you know. Somebody your work encouraged. Thanks for your words. They make a difference. A big difference. They make hope. That's all. --Andrew J King onepencil@mac.com hi phil, just to add to the numerous voices my own that you are missed, your insightful writing on design issues is missed and i hope you are well and merely enjoying yourself klaus klaus krippendorff kkrippendorff@asc.upenn.edu philadelphia pa Phil, you are a remarkably smart guy with a lot to offer the world. And you have, here, a lot of people (also smart) who have much to offer you. Please reach out and connect to this network that you have created through your hard work and brilliance. --Michael Shames ms@michaelshames.com San Diego, CA Hey Phil, I learned a lot from you, such as reading your thesis, your help when you published my article, and then when you wrote an article for me. I hope you're OK --Rich New York Phil, As a student, you once told me the secret to your amazing productivity was "Naps. Lots of naps." We hope your absence is a similarly temporary respite. Be well, Rich Rich Gazan http://www2.hawaii.edu/~gazan/ Honolulu, HI Dear Dr. Agre, You are a rare and wonderful human being. Please come home. E-mail or call. You are greatly missed. --Erica Bennett ehbennett@gmail.com Fullerton, CA Phil, I remember sitting in a restaurant in San Diego with you. We were watching the wait staff use the Squirrel system, and while I was content just to observe, you went ahead and asked our waitress what she thought of it. You did it in such a gentle and curious way that it turned into a great conversation. I learned a lot just listening to you two talk. Wherever you are walking, I hope the scenery is good, and you are better. If your travels bring you this way, my door is open. Meantime, my heart is with you. Yours, __Nic Nic Sammond nic.sammond@utoronto.ca/647.477.6132 Toronto, Ontario Canada 12 Dec 2009 Hi Phil, You of course remember me from our many correspondences in the 1990s when we were writing about the incoherence of traditional information-processing cognitive science. You had a major and long-lasting effect on the way I think about the mind, the brain, and society at large. The book review that I authored for the AIJ special issue and later as a chapter in your book is, to this day, the best thing I've ever written. And that I owe all to you. To this day, I remember why you called your group "Red Rock Eater". It was a joke from your childhood. "What is big, red, and eats rocks?" - "A big red rock eater!!!" I hope you are well. ---joe Joe Toth jtoth at cs dot cmu dot edu Pittsburgh PA You were the most serious, the most clear, and the best encouragement to be so. it would be an increase in humanity to have you in the conversation now. Even if your message is a tough one. --Doug Carmichael doug@dougcarmichael.com monte rio calif Phil I met you at UCLA and I am Francesca Marini's husband. Contact me and I will give you free a musical instrument of your choice. Rick Schmidlin rschmidlin@aol.com Vancouver Canada Phil, Just found out that you took a time-out. You were my dear friend during a rough spell in my life back in the mid 80's/living at the Loft. Let me know how I can help. --Susan scotten@comcast.net Edina, MN We never met but your articles made a huge impression on me. I am a fan who is grateful for your insights and perspectives. I fiercely missed your voice the last few years, wondered what happened to you and just learned of your disappearance. I hope you are safe and aware that many, many people are concerned for your welfare. --Ken Ormes kenormes@comcast.net Greenland, NH Phil at MIT Tech Square, you were always someone with whom I enjoyed conversing, and wished I knew better. And as I interacted with you online over the years, and read many of your writings, I came to a deeper appreciation, not only for the depth of your intellect, but for your humanity. One of my personal favorites of my own writing, was inspired by and in response to a message you posted to Risk Digest. But your writing and thoughts have inspired me so many times, I am forever in your debt. I hope you see this page, and learn just how much you are appreciated. Your fans are not a demanding public, but simply people whom you have touched, and who are more than willing to reach out and support you in turn. Please feel free to contact me. It would bring me great joy to simply know you're OK -- and to give you any assistance you might need. --Bob Kerns rwk [at] acm.org Corte Madera, CA Phil, I was a an of RRE in the early nineties. Think to be one of your very first subscribers (by that time we can run through list of subscribers of listserv, and we were only two french people...) You went to my home during your travel between Cerisy where you were an invited speaker... but nobody understand english in the public, and Sarajevo where you want to face war. For years now i regularly try to have some news, since you left the internet. I think to keep in touch to translate in french your articles from the 90', which are still influencial. But nobody was at the end of mail. This project is always on the run waiting for your approval... if you're there to give it. Sincerely Hervé Le Crosnier herve@info.unicaen.fr Caen, France Phil, it's been shamefully more more than a decade since we were last in touch. If you fancy a place to stay in the UK then give me a call; I will happily cook you several plates of that chicken+wine+cream+garlic dish that you taught me in 1991, known in our house forever-since as Chicken a la Agre. Or just call for a chat; that would be cool. Take care Cheers ...Dave +44 79 77 55 22 50 Phil, thinking of you and hoping you're safe. If you've found your way to Texas, look me up. --Jon Lebkowsky jonl /at/ weblogsky.com Austin, Texas Phil! i miss you. You are a force of nature, so influential on me during those wonder years at MIT and Atari. Remember those discussions about Robots Making Breakfast? I so want to see you again. --Susan Brennan susan.brennan@sunysb.edu Stony Brook, NY USA Hope you are doing OK; ltns. Am living in DC area now. Write me back. --CSTACY same email as always Hi Phil, I've never forgotten the classes I had with you when I was an undergrad at UCSD. They've had a long-lasting impact on me and my scholarship. I am so glad that I had that opportunity to learn from you. Sending you warm wishes and many good thoughts, Tabitha Tabitha Hart tabhart@uw.edu Seattle, WA Phil - I wanted to let you know I have created this easily remembered URL for you, anytime you want to check here for names, addresses, phone numbers, and various freely-offered support from your "posse": http://tr.im/pagre I hope you will visit this page often, and take advantage of the support network we have formed for you. David Saslav dsaslav@gmail.com Redwood City, CA Phil, We've not met. I'm still sober, in part cause I read a tip in RRE about moving minibars the hell out of hotel rooms. I thanked you then, I thank you now. I hope you find your way back—you've more friends than you know. —Julie D., 2/2/2010 San Diego, CA Dear Professor Agre, It was a real pleasure and an intellectually stimulating experience to be able to take several class sessions of your IS graduate seminar on KNOWLEDGE, and what constitutes the scope of researching a particular field of knowledge, with its creators, preservationists, catalogers, and the process of diffusion of research and information regarding an aggregate of a specialized field of knowledge, to the wider public. I, unfortunately, was not able to complete the seminar course, but look forward to taking the course again, with you, as soon as possible. I hope that you are well and wish you all the very best! Very sincerely, Your student and friend, Gerald Segall MLIS Program, UCLA Phil, I have of course read your stuff, but I think we only met once. We had a long conversation at one of the Oksenøen seminars in the south of Norway in the mid 1990ies. However, I still remember that conversation and I want you to know that a learnt a lot from it. I am also a friend of Judith G. and Eline V. and know that they and other mutual friends worries a lot about your disappearance. I just want you to know that I too care, and hope that you will get in touch. --Gisle Hannemyr gisle@ifi.uio.no It was 2001 when I started reading your articles, ideas, and that wild booklist (Red Rock Eaters) ... your rational and calm writing immediately after the 9/11 attacks helped to get me through that incredibly tough period. You wrote something about hardening the pilot cabin doors and a few other ideas that made such incredible sense as some next step solutions. Your "Advice to Undergraduates Considering Graduate School" I use ALL the time with my students (with attribution, of course). You don't know me one bit, but I'll send a long distance message of good kharma to you ... thank you for all of your help. Hoping that you are in a good place ... Randy randalls@unh.edu Durham, NH Hi Phil, I've been reading Computation and Human Experience. An Amazon reviewer claims that things have changed in the past decade. I wonder what your take on recent developments would be. I've also been reading your dissertation and hope you still find enjoyment in listening to records while working. Best, Youn (a former student from UCLA) Youn Noh youn012@gmail.com New Haven, CT Dear Phil, I didn't recognize you on Kenhill because of the beard. I am so sorry that I didn't stop. I turned the car around and went back as soon as I realized it was you, but you were gone. I hope you will come back some day. Wishing you well always. KAA same phone # as always Maryland You saw me knocking on the door of your office on a Friday afternoon that happened to be the very last day you were at University of Chicago. You were halfway out the building door & looked to see who was knocking on your office door & decided to come back and find out who I was. You gave me advice on doing a PhD in AI, which is why I'd come to see you. I did go and get an MSc at Edinburgh (the degree I talked to you about back then) where I read your early papers. After that I got a PhD from MIT. I've just been promoted to Reader at my university in the UK. Thank you for coming back for a stranger in 1991. Joanna Bryson jjb@alum.mit.edu Bath, United Kingdom Phil, I met you once and also heard one conference talk, and we shared some emails. I thought you had the sharpest access to the deepest issues in phenomenology and ethnomethodology, and I instantly wanted to have long conversations with you. You are a benefit to others. I hope to see you again. Ken Liberman liberman@uoregon.edu now living in Baja California Mexico Dear Phil, Hoping you are thinking of all of us. If I think appreciatively of your RREN...in any case: this may be duplication, however, the way posters are vigorous for (I'm gonna call it) Right Oil and Right Water and justice, at <www.Theoildrum.com> where, these weeks, the BP Macondo Well blow out in the GOM is the main thread, well, it brought you to mind, and how appreciation for your posting the Red Rock Eater News keeps on.going. Think of some soft way to let people know you are celebrating your life. Why, just that it would make us cheered up. Best wishes. Three. threeskies@gmail.com Phil I will be happy to receive a quick new from you. I am missing your company and your contribution tp thr world of ideas Conein Bernard bconein@gmail.com Paris, France Dear Phil, It's already December 2010, and I still have no idea if you've let yourself be found by any of your friends and family. I'm so sorry I've been such a horrible, ungrateful student. I'd lost touch with you for long before you went away, but I'd like you to know that I'm still thankful for all the love and encouragement you gave me when you were my doctoral advisor at UCSD. What you taught me I'm still using every day, even though I'm now in a completely different world. I've disappeared, in a way, too. I left our academic world for the world of foodies. Yes, I'm a food writer now, a published author even. You'll probably get a chuckle when you read this. But I know you'll appreciate it. I still remember those ""cheap eats"" lists you kept for different conference cities, you're a foodie too, I know. Next trip to Japan I promise I'll bring back the best cheap pens I could find. You know the Japanese make the best! I'll keep them for you here. If you're ever around San Francisco or Santa Cruz, let me know. I'll bake us a fresh batch of scones, we'll sit down for some tea and a long-overdue chat, and I'll remember to give you those pens. I hope you read this, and you know that I and your other friends are thinking of you. always your student, Pim Santa Cruz, CA USA pim at chezpim dot com chezpim.com Dear Phil, In desperation to find suggestions for a reasonable substitute for the disappeared Zebra J-Roller fine 0.5, I looked you up this morning only to find this much more distressing (or is it?) news. I picture you having slipped into a much more nourishing and fulfilling life than you found at UCLA. I picture you having slipped through to an illumined, warm, humane, enjoyable spot. I hope you are eating and sleeping well. As others have said, ""You are missed!"" Though so far I have read only a few of your LIS/IT articles, your writings on pens really wowed me, your advice to graduate students is truly precious, and I too feel the pain of having lost access to your brilliant, humane, unique, irreplaceable self. An admirer/friend in Sonoma County, wishing you well. Wishing you more than well. Nancy Kaye nancinova@gmail.com Petaluma, CA USA |