There’s a category of seasoned creative people producing work of extraordinary subtlety and sophistication that rarely shows up in our social media feeds.
I think this is the main reason why —
Organic humility drives these folks to develop the level of craft which yields this timbre of work.
And that same organic humility deters them from showing us what they've made.
The Trees is a passion project to find these people...
An interview with ceramic artist Elizabeth Donnally Davidson.
and show you what they've made.
An interview with photographer Siegfried Hanssen.
By asking them to tell us about each others’ work rather than their own.
You can see who in our free newsletter.
Just send a note asking to subscribe, via email (ted@thetre.es) or text (+1 720 728-9494).
My journalist dad was happiest around creative, organically humble people.
He hosted immensely popular Saturday afternoon New York City dim sum brunches for them,
2,546 weeks straight,
between 1966 and 2015.
He started having me tag along in 1980 after he and my mom split up.
I was eleven. And I adored those brunches. I'd never before been around grown-ups who got along that well or laughed that much.
When I got to college six years later, all I wanted to do was find people like them. And connect them to each other through gatherings.
It became a lifelong hobby.
Shortly after I started tagging along (for completely silly reasons I explain further down this page), I started calling dad's friends 'The Trees'.
It's a coincidence that the name now feels like it fits.
Dad and me, in Berlin's Grunewald Forest, 1969. NBC News had relocated him to Berlin to cover the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
I'm Ted Pearlman.
I’m married to Allison, an architect. We live in Denver, Colorado, with our ridiculous twelfth-grader, Oscar, and our Newfoundland, Mabel.
Little Oscar and his first Newfoundland, Tatou, were a bit famous on Youtube for entertaining each other.
I have a BA in Music (Cornell University ’90).
Until 2012, I worked at technology companies, including Sony and IBM.
From 2012 to 2020, I helped a small cadre of technology CEOs find specialists to tackle acute business challenges.
One of my clients, CEO Phil Caravaggio, collaborating with Rodrigo Corral on the book design for Ray Dalio's New York Times bestseller, ' Principles.'
Yes.
They run the gamut from question‑tackling audio chats...
In this one, artists Joel Newton, Jonathan Bernstein, and Paul Carlon tackled the question, 'What makes something elegant?'
to neighborhood lunches...
to themed, three‑day, twenty‑five‑person, private chef‑equipped, overseas destination retreats.
Katie, a set designer, and Eugene, a comedian and actor; knight in tarnished armor and Peggy, a bookseller; vegetarian pigs; and chef Cali; at Temple Guiting Manor in the English Cotswolds.
The first time I tagged along to one of dad's brunches, everyone there was wearing 'Hi Ted! I'm...' name tags.
The name tags were shaped like maple leaves (I think they were repurposed Thanksgiving Day decorations).
Somehow that turned into me calling his brunch participants, 'the trees'.
Yes. If you'd like to find out more, please send me a note. You can email me at ted@thetre.es or text me at +1 (720) 728-9494.
My dad, Sy (1930-2015), and his dad, Ted, had the same sense of humor.
During the weekend and after school, working together in the family’s Brooklyn candy store, dad and Ted spent much of the time trying to make each other laugh.
In the evening, they’d listen to radio comedy variety shows like Texaco Star Theater.
In New York's Central Park, near his Upper West Side apartment, 2001.
When Sy was 14, Ted died of leukemia.
Dad coped with the loss by becoming doubly obsessed with making people laugh. He started writing comedy skits with his high school friends, modeled on the ones he heard on the radio.
Samuel J. Tilden High School, Brooklyn.
In 1949, a year after high school, dad’s favorite comedian, Sid Caesar, got his first television show, the Admiral Broadway Review.
By the time the first episode ended, dad had figured out what he wanted to do with his life. He was going to be a television comedy writer.
The next day, while working alongside his mom at the store, dad announced his plan —
“I’m going to be a comedy writer for Sid Caesar’s Admiral Broadway Review.”
She was not amused.
Anna, dad’s mom. Date and circumstances unknown.
Dad, however, was dead serious. He began to ply his craft by writing stand-up bits during the week and heading to the Catskills on the weekends (four hours each way, via subway, bus, and hitchhike) to hawk them to Borscht Belt comedians.
Fort Lee High School, next to the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Dad hitched rides to the Catskills from the sidewalk out front. Weirdly, in 1986, I ended up graduating from there.
He was well on his way to a career as a television comedy writer. But the Korean War and the draft derailed him. Dad wanted to avoid combat at all costs, so he put his aspirations on hold and enlisted. With a plan.
Growing up in the rough, ethnically divided neighborhoods of post-Depression Brooklyn, and being the man of the house from age 14, he became exceptionally street smart. He could quickly assess people and their motivations, avoid pickpockets, trade favors, and talk himself out of any pickle.
Looking south over the Upper West Side of Manhattan, 1951.
He was also conversant in Russian, which his parents had spoken at home (along with Yiddish) when he was small.
All of this gave dad the idea to apply to the US Army Language School (now called the Defense Language Institute) in Monterey, California. This, he schemed, would enable him to finally become fluent in Russian, meet cute girls on the beach, and groom himself for a commission as an Army intelligence officer, based in Europe, in charge of recruiting and handling Soviet spies, a safe 4000+ miles from armed combat.
Monterey, CA, amazingly, is one of the world's most international cities.
13 years later, after his stint in the Army, a masters degree in Russian studies from NYU, another in journalism from Columbia, and a bunch of positions at small city papers, he landed his dream job as an editor for The New York Times.
New York Times building, 1909.
Right after he got to The Times, however, an old friend from his days inside the Borscht Belt got hired to write for Get Smart, a TV comedy about a bumbling secret agent.
It seemed like some kind of omen to dad, and, for a few weeks, he contemplated sacrificing his career as a journalist to follow his friend out to Hollywood. For various reasons, it didn't happen.
Created by Mel Brooks, arguably Sid Caesar’s most important writer, and Buck Henry.
Funny enough, dad did eventually become a bonafide TV comedy writer (while still somehow remaining a serious journalist) when Reuven Frank, the President of NBC News, recruited him to join Weekend.
It was the first sardonic, long-form news show on network television, running once a month, in Saturday Night Live’s time slot, when SNL was taking the week off.
I'm convinced it's the (mostly forgotten) great grandfather of The Daily Show and Last Week Tonight.
An article about the show (and dad) from TV Guide.
Below is an excerpt from an episode. Dad co-wrote the script.
Still great (including the advertisements), despite the pops, clicks, and jitters.
He never displayed his awards. He kept this one in his pen drawer.
An illustration Howell created for the Cartoon Network.
