What is The Trees?
It’s a project to organize gatherings
for people who'll love talking to each other.
There's no membership fee
and the vast majority of gatherings are free.
What kinds of gatherings?
Everything from 2‑person neighborhood lunches
to 3-person audio chats
All gatherings, as a rule, are private. But we'll occasionally make special arrangements to record an audio chat for other folks on the roster to enjoy. Here's an excerpt from a chat between three artists: Joel Newton, Jonathan Bernstein, and Paul Carlon. The starter topic: 'What makes something elegant?'
to themed, 3-day, 25-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.
Why do you do this?
My journalist dad loved hosting dim sum brunches
for folks he guessed would love talking to each other.
He hosted these brunches 2,546 Saturdays in a row, from 1966 to 2015.
Dad and me, in Berlin's Grunewald Forest, 1969. NBC News had posted him to Berlin to cover the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
I got to tag along starting in 1980, when I was eleven.
I loved it.
I'd never before been around grown-ups who got along that well or laughed that much.
When I started college in 1986, I was eager to organize gatherings like dad's.
It turned into a lifelong hobby.
How do you choose who to invite to each gathering?
The key to organizing great gatherings isn’t so much who you choose to invite.
It’s building a good pool of folks to choose from.
To do that, you have to make good guesses about which people possess the baseline character traits that make human beings good at conversation —
Sincerity, intellectual humility, listening instincts, self-awareness, word-smarts, a strong need for laughter, curiosity about what makes folks tick, wanting to be of service, loving good conversation for its own sake.
How often do people attend gatherings?
Some attend gatherings several times per week.
Some only once in a blue moon.
When did this become more than a hobby?
During COVID, after I started organizing audio chats.
They were more popular than I anticipated.
Who are you?
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.'
How is there no membership fee?
In August 2020, we added a small 'support the project' button at the bottom of the invitation for each gathering.
The generous, monthly funds we've received through that button have made a compulsory membership fee unnecessary.
Why do you call this 'The Trees'?
It's a pretty long story. If you and I talk, feel free to ask me about it.
Is The Trees 'noisy'?
No.
We have no social media presence, messaging system, news feed, or participant-accessible contact list.
Each gathering has specific invitees and a firm start and stop time.
Who created the illustration for the top of the site?
An illustration Howell created for the Cartoon Network.
Can you tell me more about your dad?
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.
Dad in DC, 1961.
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. I think he kept this one in a drawer with his Pilot Razor Point pens.
Dad's favorite quote.
