February 17, 1998

Delivering the Alex Krieger ’95 Memorial Lecture in Skinner Hall, New Yorker writer and social critic Calvin Trillin admitted “I’m actually glad to be at any college where I’m not paying tuition.” “Trillin’s hour-and-15-minute-long talk,” said Sally-Anne Moringello ’99 in The Miscellany News, “was captivating from beginning to end—and not because he gave some lofty talk with a long, fancy title…. The ‘social commentator’ did just that—he commentated on random aspects of society and of his own life.”

Three of Trillin’s books on regional American food—American Fried: Adventures of a Happy Eater (1974), Alice, Let’s Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater (1978) and Third Helpings (1983)—appeared in 1994 as The Tummy Triology, as did Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist, a collection of comic verse with commentary. Family Man, reflections on his daughters, and Travels with Alice, essays on family travel, appeared in1999.

The Alex Krieger Memorial Fund was started by his parents in memory of Alex Krieger ’95 who died in his freshman year in an automobile accident while driving to Pennsylvania for an ultimate Frisbee match. The annual lectures brought eminent American humorists and cultural critics to Vassar in recognition of Krieger’s keen appreciation of the genres.