“When you do the book, David, you’re going to get this question: Who was Sid Caesar?”—Mel Brooks 

By Mel Laytner

For a comedian who could speak every language by speaking none, Sid Caesar left behind a silence that has lasted far too long.

David Margolick, Silurian and author of the eloquent biography,  When Caesar Was King,   unravelled that silence to recall the uncanny comedic contributions of that brilliant, hungry, panic-driven  force of live television at a packed Silurians luncheon on Nov. 19.

By David A. Andelman

Seventeen years ago, Richard Galant, then managing editor of CNN Opinion, called the historian of the United States Senate. He was looking for someone to comment on the unusual fact that two senators, Barack Obama and John McCain, were running against each other for President. Galant was directed to Princeton’s Julian Zelizer, “one of the leading political historians of our time.”

Now, 17 years later, Galant introduced Zelizer at October’s Silurian luncheon noting that the historian’s “ability to recall the whole of American political history, going back more than a century is extremely impressive.” 

By David A. Andelman

       As the great columnist and Silurian Joyce Wadler observed, when your grandfather was Howard Fast who wrote Spartacus and went to jail for refusing to name names to the HUAC, your father is novelist Jonathan Fast, and your mother is Erica Jong, whose book Fear of Flying sold over 22 million copies, you’ve got to have no small amount of chutzpah, let alone talent, to write about them—and yourself.

That's just what Molly Jong-Fast did.