You are currently viewing the stories for December, 2008

Schadenfreude — How Bout Those Boys?

by 12/13/2008
Neighborhood: Upper East Side

The Dallas Cowboys losing — my number #1 Schadenfreude trigger. As you get older the word hate drifts from your conversation. It’s a bad word, and a silly emotion to hang onto. Life’s too short. If you’re lucky, you lose it all together. If you’re really lucky, you save it for one person, one particular […]

I Left My Youth at Fred & Rudy’s Candy Store

by 12/13/2008
Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn

When I was a kid in Brooklyn, in the Sixties, the “candy store” was the local hangout, the crossroads of the neighborhood. Actually, these ubiquitous institutions were a combination of soda fountain, luncheonette and newsstand. We probably called them candy stores because as kids the candy we bought there was the center of our culinary […]

Where Is Singer?

by 12/13/2008
Neighborhood: Murray Hill

The old man seated beside me awaiting the appearance of the celebrated Isaac Bashevis Singer at The Workman’s Circle Auditorium is becoming a pest. From a rumpled brown shopping bag he pulls out and shamelessly shows off photographs of his grandchildren to which I offer the obligatory compliments. Light and sound technicians, meanwhile, test the […]

An Evening With the Nichiren Shoshu of America, 1980

by Mary O'Connell 12/07/2008
Neighborhood: Across the River, Brooklyn

I remember now that we took the R train from Court Street to 75th Street in Bay Ridge. I thought how ironic it was to be returning to Bay Ridge, from which I had fled for my life, to seek enlightenment. But my sponsor, Ellen, assured me that I could chant for anything, ANYTHING, fulfill […]