Obviously, the title of this post is a riff on:
A Mathematician’s Miscellany is an autobiography and collection of anecdotes by John Edensor Littlewood. It is now out of print but Littlewood’s Miscellany is its successor, published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Béla Bollobás.
Why did this pop into my mind? I received an email requesting an interview from IIT-Madras for Alma Matters, whose opening question was:
What early influences shaped your path?
Reading this book while at IIT-Madras (1982-86), I was attracted to an Academic career of autonomy and leisure.
As its introduction notes:
A Miscellany is a collection without a natural ordering relation; I shall not attempt a spurious unity by imposing artificial ones. I hope that variety may compensate for this lack, except for those irreconcilable persons who demand an appearance of unity and uniform level.
The video of my Tech Up for Women podcast Is your Biz Quantum-Ready, now? hosted by Kathy Murray is here.
The CMU Press announcement of the Inaugural Tayur Poetry Prize winner – Sing, Sky by Hussain Ahmed – is here.
My invited article (Open Access) for IJDS (thanks again Yu Ding, and Jay Swaminathan and Tinglong Dai) – How INFORMS can contribute to the Second Quantum Revolution – is now online here.
And now for the really fun stuff.
The MSP International Film Festival was in progress when I arrived last week, at the nearby Main Cinema. You know that I really liked Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie (recall Live like you were Dying?), and so I was thrilled that a documentary based on it was playing at the festival!
Imagine my surprise and joy when I aimlessly walked into a reception that was taking place (catered by Raag) sponsored by the Indian Consulate (of Chicago) hosted by Sanjeev Pal, the Consul General, and met Susan Smoluchowki, Executive Director of MSP Film Society! Now for the really strange stuff: I told her that I was a professor at CMU, and it turns out that her father-in-law was on the physics faculty (and her husband an alum, majoring in architecture) of CMU! I looked up her father-in-law:
Roman Smoluchowski (born 31 August 1910 in Zakopane; died 12 January 1996 in Austin, Texas) was a notable physicist who worked in Poland, and after World War II settled in Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1946, Roman became an associate professor of metallurgy at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and then professor of physics in 1950. In 1984, the minor planet 4530 Smoluchowski was named after him.
As I flipped through the schedule, I notice that there was a documentary film (in Kannada!) playing:
The Gas Station Attendant is a 2025 documentary film written, directed and co-produced by Karla Murthy. The film is a daughter’s reflections on her South Asian father’s life. The film had its World Premiere at the Sheffield DocFest on June 19, 2025, where it won the Special Mention Jury Award in International Competition. It has also won Best Documentary at Nashville Film Festival and San Diego Asian Film Festival.
Beyond being half-Kannada, she is also half-Filipino (her mother’s side), just like my two first cousins! This is too much! After the film, we chatted a little bit about indie and documentary filmmaking and South Asian Representation in US media (a topic I expect to write more about in the coming months). You may have seen a feature in the NYTimes about her and her husband Jad Abumrad.
After each film, the audience can hand back a ballot (rating the film to a festival volunteer) on the way out. As many of you know, through my RAGS Foundation I had funded Silk Screen People Choice Awards (Asian American Film Festival in Pittsburgh) for many years (for example, 2012 winner Bardsongs). I was shocked to be told that the awards at MSPIFF45 are not funded: recognition, yes, but no money! You know me: No Money? Seriously? I am happy to let you know that RAGS Foundation will sponsor 4 awards at MSPIFF45, to be announced on Sunday: two Audience Choice Awards (documentary and fiction) and two Jury Awards (documentary and fiction). Stay tuned!
