Dear Orange Friends:
My identical twin brother and I are both, in some sense, from Syracuse. We grew up down the way; he had part of his schooling in Syracuse; and I have settled here. But after our youth together, time and tides carried us far away from each other. His visit this week will bring us together here for the first time in many years.
That is a mildly interesting personal history, but it is also the basic plot of:
- A second-century B.C. play by Plautus (“Menaechmi”);
- One of Shakespeare’s first plays (written circa 1594);
- An opera with some inserted songs written by Mozart (by Frederic Reynolds, 1819);
- A Broadway hit by Rodgers and Hart (“The Boys from Syracuse”, 1938); and
- An award-winning hip-hop musical (“The Bomb-itty of Errors”, 2001)
I mention this because, with the Inauguration happening tomorrow, it would be good for us Syracusans to retain our sense of history and of humor – and to avoid hubris. Most situations today have echoes in the past and will be best approached with a chuckle rather than self-importance.
Shakespeare’s Syracuse play, of course, is “The Comedy of Errors.” It ends happily, but along the way the main characters need to learn to laugh at themselves, and to forgive. I hope to avoid most of the errors here, but not to stop laughing at myself and with others. A good place to start is at our campus run tomorrow morning. If you can’t muster a smile watching me try to race with undergraduates, you probably have come to the wrong Syracuse.
Happy Inauguration, and thank you for welcoming me as your Chancellor.
Chancellor Kent Syverud