I am Margie Arent from Rolling Road, now known as Margery Arent Safir and living in Paris. It is almost inconceivable to me that not one but two of us from that small area of Rollingwood ended up knowing Bob Wilson. The neighborhood was hardly a hot spot for avant garde theater, although you were always into theater.

I received my BA from Barnard (Columbia) and my PhD from Yale, with a stint as a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina for a year in-between. I have lived for decades in Paris, where I am Professor of Comparative Literature at The American University of Paris and for many years headed a research group at the Sorbonne. In 2007, I founded a nonprofit, multidisciplinary initiative in the arts (visual, literary, music, dance, film, issues of culture and society) called The Arts Arena, and we have put on some 100 events, all free of charge and open to the public. It's been great fun and very exciting, and it's in this context that I first met Bob Wilson, who is now on our board. (And yes, I did the book)

I have one son, Alexander, who was born and raised in Paris and attended Oxford. He now lives in Senegal with his Senegalese wife and their two small sons, and works for Google, specifically Android for emerging markets, which satisfies both his entrepreneurial side and his sense of doing something significant for Africa and other developing markets. He originally went to Senegal to found an NGO to help young people who had dropped out of the school system rediscover an appetite for learning.

Well, that should at least give you some sense of where I've been and what I've been up to since I left Rolling Road. It was really a delightful surprise to hear from you, and I wish you all the best for the 50th reunion. Should you ever find yourself in Paris, please do let me know and we can do our own reunion.

With warmest regards,

Margery