Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jay Keyser. It is my bittersweet privilege to preside over this afternoon’s events: bitter because Morris is gone; sweet because, unlike Mark Antony’s Caesar, we have come to praise him.
I knew Morris for over half a century. In this company that is no distinction. Louis Kampf knew him for 60 years, Noam Chomsky for 70 years. Sylvain Bromberger was even more fortunate.
Musing about longevity, I surprised myself with the realization that I knew Morris longer than I knew my own father. It is also true that I learned as much from him.
Over the course of those years Morris and I shared many personal moments. I was sleeping on the third floor of the Halle family’s home on Waverley Avenue—Morris and I had been working together and I stayed the night—when he knocked on the door at 2:30 in the morning to...