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ContentS. issue 48

departments 24 traIn of thought

Trying to understand the universe.

By Anne Valente

33 the loCal SCene The City and The Suburbs.

126 rural palateS Delve into a new terrain.

136 I’ll take manhattan

Theater, Festivals, Cabarets and the fabulous Plaza Food Hall.

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172 BuyIng and SellIng

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196 State of mInd

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TRAIN OF THOUGHT

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Rye

by Anne Valente

The Astronomer’s Guide to Solace

JOSH AND I STAND IN THE CALM silence of our backyard, pajama pants and coats curled tight around us, our breath puffing against the November cold, our faces turned toward the night sky. My hands are pushed deep in my pockets. When I look at him, I can see only his nose peeking out from beneath his hoodie. We are watching for the Leonids, a yearly meteor shower that peaks in mid-November, among a set of stark constellations that blink back at us, remote, their intermittent glow casting my husband’s face in a pale halo of light.

I watched these same meteors the November of my senior year of high school, though at the time I didn’t know what they were. I wouldn’t have thought then to know that they were the Leonids, or that they came every year in November, or that they were some of the brightest meteors in a pinwheeled zodiac of annual showers. I only knew that they were peaking and that my heart was broken, a swift and staggering leap to the wrecked finish line of high school love. But the ache isn’t what I remember.

What I remember is my parents, how they knew I was hurting, and how they pulled three sleeping bags onto the frosted grass of our front yard for us to lay there, each in our own pod, with only our faces exposed to an expanse of sky.

We lay there for what felt like hours, and we never saw anything. But I remember laughing with them, and watching the steam of my breath escape toward the constellations above me, and thinking how wonderful it felt to be alive, and how amazing it felt to be loved.

My parents are incredible people. I think often about how great they are, about the

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Editor and Publisher Eric S. Meadow Editor Celia R. Meadow Art Director Tim Hussey Executive Editor Debbie Silver Travel Editor Susan Engel Editors at Large Paula Koffsky, Simone Meadow, Rich Silver General Counsel Bruce Koffsky, Esq. Contributors Ina Chadwick, Susan Cheever, James M. Chesbro, Liz Clement, Nelson DeMille, Harold R. Dill, Helen Dunn Frame, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Barbara Greenhouse, Gerald Howard, Lucy Kiely, Randi Olin, Jess Row, Debra Scott, Carly Silver, Gary Stromberg, Zachary Sussman, Elizabeth Spaulding Titus, Alexandra Vairo, Anne Valente, Vanessa Voltilina, Mary Kay Zuravleff Contributing Photographer Stephen Wilkes Cover Photograph “Times Square” by Stephen Wilkes Social Media Intern Megan Kirsch Distribution Manager Man in Motion LLC Advertising Sales Director Paul McNamara Advertising Sales Manager Libby Rosen Advertising Sales Representatives Barbara Greenhouse, Nicole Briggs, Sean Karimian Advertising Inquiries (203) 227-5377 Editorial Inquiries (203) 451-1967 Weston Magazine, Rye Magazine, Westport Country Capitalist, Greenwich Country Capitalist, New Canaan Country Capitalist, Hamptons Country Capitalist, Westchester Country Capitalist, Long Island Country Capitalist,TriBeCa Magazine, The Upper East Side Magazine, and Central Park West Magazine, Issue #48, are published 4 times per year by Weston Magazine, INC. P.O. Box 1006, Weston, CT 06883. Tel: 203/227-5377.

Email: eric@thewestonmag.com; www.westonmagazinegroup.com. Copyright 2012

by Weston Magazine, INC. All rights reserved. Weston Magazine/Country Capitalist/ Rye Magazine/The Upper East Side Magazine/Central Park West Magazine/TriBeCa are trademarks of Weston Magazine, INC. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. Weston assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Print subscription rate: four issues, $100. Back Issues, $10. Attention Postmaster: send address corrections to Weston, P.O. Box 1006, Weston, CT 06883. Printed in Canada.

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many times and ways they’ve known to always show their love for me, and how in that one moment in 1999, with a teenage daughter they recognized as heartsick, they knew to simply unfurl a few sleeping bags and let the calm of something larger take over. Lying huddled on the grass beneath all those constellations, I felt my own sorrow obscured, overridden by the world beyond myself, a world full of beauty and wonder. Even as a teenager, at the age when it was my duty to distance myself from my parents, I knew how much they loved me, and how lucky and rare that was.

And now, over a decade later, those same stars calm me for other reasons. I am not devastated, not reeling from the indecency of teenage love. But I am heartbroken in other ways, less obvious and more complicated than I could have imagined at seventeen. I am heartbroken to at last know my own mortality, that the wonder of this world will end for me and for everyone I hold close. I am quietly inconsolable. It crushes me with a gasping weight that the future is not unbounded as I once imagined; that there will ever be a time when I am not near my mother or father, my sister, my husband.

This weight is crushing in the most literal sense of the word. Sometimes I can’t breathe when I think of how fiercely I love everyone in my life, and how I want to love them forever and know that I can’t.

Love was once a sign to me. Sign and signified, word and object, a link I was meant to connect but never knew how. I wanted to see it from the other side. I wanted to know what love looked like through another person’s eyes, love as a prism, refracted in so many bands beyond my own narrow lens. I would lie in bed when I was little and think in sentences: My mother loves me. My father loves me. But those were words. Their intent was elusive. I would look at my mother and think this woman loves me, but I couldn’t imagine what that felt like for her.

I couldn’t imagine what it meant to love me.

The benefit of retrospective thinking, as I’ve grown older, has let me recognize where I struggle. I am connecting plot points. As a child, I thought the inability to understand how others could love me was a sign of insecurity. I know it now as a test of faith. Not trust, not confidence in others, but the simple fact of epistemology, of how things work and how there’s so much I don’t know. In so many ways, I have failed at faith. I fear death, sometimes I fear my own organs – small worlds I will never see, and never fully grasp even though they’re right there inside of me – and I fear airplanes more than I can ever outwardly admit, every intricate way they operate that I can’t begin to comprehend. Death, flight, organs, love – all things I place my life upon, without knowing the complexities of how they even work.

There is extreme anxiety in the unknown. I used to lay awake as a kid not only thinking about love, how others could possibly love me, but about infinity as well, how far the universe really stretched, and how we could live on this planet comfortably without having any sense at all of its limits. I haven’t made peace with flight or with death, the whiteknuckled need to know outweighing any ability to sit back with confidence, believing that even if everything isn’t immediately known, it will all turn out fine. Sometimes I roll around at night trying to shelter my insides with the right sleeping position, certain I’ve crushed my liver by laying on it.

But I have learned faith in love, even if I can’t begin to understand what it feels like to love me.

There is solace in mystery, in for once letting go.

My parents gave me a telescope for my birthday this year. It came in the form of a large box waiting on the doorstep when I came home from work, two days before my actual birthday. After I pushed the box into the living room and pulled off a web of packaging tape, the surprise inside stilled the rhythm of my breath. A collection of parts, a user’s manual, and an attached note that is still tacked to the cork-board above my desk: Happy Birthday, Dear – we remember how much you thoroughly enjoy stargazing. Lots of love always, Mom and Dad. A backyard astronomer’s guide arrived a day later, and by that time I’d already laid out every intricate piece and assembled the first telescope I’ve ever owned. Lots of love always. A reminder, even still, of what faith means to know this.

There is a learning curve to amateur astronomy. The first time I took the telescope out to the backyard, it was to see the pocked surface of a full moon. All I saw in the lens was an enormous blinding light, so bright it eclipsed the perimeter of the circled viewfinder. What I thought would be the best conditions to view the sky are instead the worst, I’ve learned; a tenet of stargazing that every other astronomer knows.

I know other things, though.

I know astronomy is a delicate balance of known and unknown, a double-bind I’ve always felt opposed within me. I know that to look through a telescope is to feel the certainty of pinning the universe down at last, and to also feel myself obscured completely by everything I will never understand. I know the light a full moon sheds is radiant enough to flood an eyepiece, a fact of stargazing that tells me I’ve been misguided elsewhere, that maybe I’ve looked at death through the wrong lens, that some things aren’t meant to be captured or contained.

I know that I feel most at peace when I leave the world alone and stand at its periphery, beside a telescope or beneath an open sky, breathing in the edge of what is known, the un-sounded wonder of a big world beyond the fractured grapplings of imperfect

epistemology.

Watching the night sky is a meditation in faith.

It is an exercise in silence, an observance of stilled solace. It is a reminder that I have learned love in gradation, that these stars blanket all of us, a watchful halo above everyone I want to clutch against me forever and never let go. It is a taming of everything fierce inside me, a will to slacken my grip, at least for a starlit moment. It is recognition of the faith I feel that others could love me, that over time I’ve learned to accept the breathless mystery of what binds us to one another and that if I can do this, then there is hope for me still.

There is a sense of parity in the night sky, that if I can look at distant stars and not know where they begin or end, and if I can know that what I’m seeing is only a fraction of a potentially boundless span of stars and planets and galaxies, then maybe love is the same way – and maybe death as well. The limit of my own knowledge becomes comforting at last.

If I can understand only my small allotment of the universe, then maybe there is more to love than I can ever know. There is the possibility that what I want to believe is true, in moments when the love I bear everyone else reaches an unbearable magnitude: maybe love really is too big to be contained by the boundaries of this world.

As Josh and I stand waiting beneath the November sky, a bright flash darts across the constellations above us. The sight of it feels like an electric current zipping through my chest. The meteor’s path is brief, then the sky falls silent and still again, as if we never saw its secret. But this is enough. I haven’t learned a way to accept death, or that the time I have on this earth and with everyone I so violently love within it will ever be enough. I haven’t learned a way to fully trust that an ending is never an ending. But I haven’t learned the complicated paths of meteors either: how they fall or where they go, or the mechanism of every constellation latticed above us and the millions of stars beyond them. There is so much I don’t know. But I’ve seen a Leonid, a meteor the size of a pencil point, from the limited view of this earth. I’ve watched the steam of my breath dissipate toward the stars while I stand still; alive and humbled and here.

*

Anne Valente’s short story collection, By Light We Knew Our Names, won the 2011 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Competition and will be published in 2014. Her fiction appears or is forthcoming in Hayden’s Ferry Review, Copper Nickel, CutBank, Redivider, Bellevue Literary Review and Sou’wester, among other journals, and her work was selected as a notable story in Best American Non-Required Reading 2011.

This essay first appeared on www.freerangenonfiction.com.

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Speakerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Corner

by Gerald Howard The fiction of Fairfield County

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The Next Chapter

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NOTES ON THE MERRiTT PaRKway NOvEL “There must be something hanging over us, something that makes it hard to be happy.”

—Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit “Bourgeois existence is the regime of private affairs…

Political conviction, financial situation, religion—all these seek hideouts and the family is the rotten, dismal edifice in whose closets and crannies the most ignominious instincts are deposited.”

—Walter Benjamin, “One-Way Street”

W

hen the weather and the traffic permit, and there is no over-testosteroned bond trader–driven Porsche or Audi ten feet from your rear bumper, a drive through Connecticut on the leafy Merritt Parkway offers some of the pleasantest highway motoring on the East Coast. Built from 1934 through 1940 in the depths of the Depression, this handsomely landscaped thirty-seven-mile road features a succession of battlementlike overpasses that whiz by like the slide show for a survey course in architectural styles from classical, Gothic, and Romanesque to Beaux Arts, Art Deco and Moderne, and Machine Age designs. The Merritt winds its tree-lined way through Fairfield County and several of the most prosperous, desirable, and envied suburban towns in the country: Greenwich, a haven for billionaires where the leaves and field stones don’t seem so much cared for as curated; Darien, whose name is synonymous with upper-class, lacrosse-playing privilege; the rather too allegorically named but equally flush New Canaan; and Westport, the spiritual home of the six o’clock martini and Mad Men–era ad execs. Even Stamford, a sizable city of office parks and buildings, is tony enough to have served as the home of conservative icon William F. Buckley and his legendarily social wife, Pat. If there is a stretch of territory that can be said to deliver definitively, in Herbert Croly’s resonant phrase, “the Promise of American Life,” it is the gilded towns of this Gold Coast. Here, the children really are all above average (or had better be) and can regard as their birthright early admission to Stanford, Duke, or Princeton, followed by fantastically well-compensated employment at the country’s most prestigious financial institutions. Or so the mythology goes.

I have spent hundreds of hours on the Merritt, driving to and from Cape Cod from and to our home in New York for almost three

34

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decades. But as I try to imagine the lives of the people dwelling in those handsome houses behind the stone walls and hedgerows, it is not happiness and prosperity that come to mind, but rather well-appointed misery and a peculiarly American form of spiritual squalor. Sordid adulteries. Social climbing and status anxiety. Decaying marriages. Bitter divorces. Municipal strife. Parents baffled by their children and children contemptuous of their parents. The corrosive despair of alcoholism.

Class and ethnic prejudice. The thousand worries of real estate. And many other leading indicators of domestic toxicity. Where would I get such ideas? From the fiction of Fairfield County, of course, a distinct and fascinating subset of the literature of suburbia that I have come to call “the Merritt Parkway Novel.”

I am hardly the first person to have noticed that the fiction of postwar suburban Connecticut constitutes almost a genre unto itself. Jonathan Franzen, our designated literary scourge of the upper-middle class, states

in his introduction to the current edition of the Fairfield County novel, Sloan Wilson’s The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit: “One of the classic settings in fiction, a little world as reassuring as imperial St. Petersburg or Victorian London, is suburban Connecticut in the 1950s.” He points out that Wilson’s demi-classic has become, along with the nonfiction works of social criticism The Lonely Crowd and The Organization Man, “a watchword of fifties conformity,” offering the contemporary reader “a pure fifties fix,” as indeed it does. What is truly fascinating, though, is to trace how the themes and conflicts that Wilson so presciently grappled with—broadly stated, the problem of living a meaningful and authentic life in the midst of postwar American prosperity and rapidly shifting values—have morphed and shape-shifted over five decades of American fiction. The evidence, at least as presented by today’s novelists, is that happiness on “the crabgrass frontier” remains elusive and that our ever-increasing freedoms have not availed us in that quest.

Before undertaking this essay, I had never read The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, content in the received notion that the novel is an indictment of commuter corporate conformity—of a timid man selling out his soul for security and certain modest prosperity. There is plenty of material in the novel to support such a view. Here is Tom Rath, the book’s protagonist, mulling over the consequences of disagreeing with the highpowered executive for whom he must write a speech on that fifties subject, mental health: “I should quit if I don’t like what he does, but I want to eat, and so, like a half million other guys in gray flannel suits, I’ll always pretend to agree, until I get big enough to be honest without being hurt. That’s not being crooked, it’s being smart.”

But what seems today to be a cliché fit for a high school social studies textbook must, in 1955, have struck many thousands of readers with the shock of recognition. What truly elevates the book above the status of a suburban problem novel with an anodyne and evasive conclusion is the way that Rath’s wartime experiences as a combat paratrooper haunt, as idyll, adventure, and nightmare alike, his placid if anxious peacetime life. In this regard, it reads something like a sequel to the landmark film of postwar readjustment The Best Years of Our Lives, with Rath in the Dana Andrews role—securely employed but still unable to escape the ghosts of war, a man

marked and set apart by this passage, as so many Americans were. The flashbacks to scenes of brutal combat, including Rath’s accidental shooting of a buddy, have a visceral immediacy that make you understand his inability to quite give himself over to what was once quaintly called the “rat race.” It prompts the thought that the American experience of World War II was not so much assimilated as willfully set aside and imperfectly buried.

Wilson concludes the novel with his hero setting forth on a mildly independent if unclear path, his money troubles solved through the sale—abetted by his wife’s energetic lobbying of the zoning board—of a tract of inherited land on the Westport shore to a housing developer. And here we come to one of the core subjects of the Merritt Parkway novel— real estate, which often functions in American domestic fiction in much the same way that adultery does in French novels.

For a clear-eyed view of the social and economic forces at work in fifties suburban Connecticut, you could do a lot worse than Max Shulman’s expert 1957 satire, Rally Round the Flag, Boys! The half New England village/half commuter bedroom community of Putnam’s Landing (transparently based on Westport, where Shulman lived) is stratified among the old Connecticut Yankees, who view newcomers and change with disdain, but are not averse to making a buck off them; the Italian tradesmen and their families, who provide the community services and much of the social glue; and “the New York commuters, also called the lambs, or the pigeons, or the patsies.” The latter class is represented by Harry Bannerman, a magazine editor with three kids, two mortgages, an unsatisfactory house, a sexually stalled marriage, “a gray flannel suit, a bald spot and a vague feeling of discontent.”

The Yankees wax fat by christening tracts of land “Flintlock Ridge” and “Powderhorn Hill” and a former gravel pit “Upper Meadow.” The Italians prosper by selling goods and services to the cash-strapped commuter families on revolving credit. And the commuters’ wives wage futile battles against the entrenched Yankees for better schools, sewers, and garbagedisposal plants. Then one day this fractured community finally finds itself united against a massive threat to its real estate values: a guidedmissile base to be installed by the U.S. Army.

Shulman’s genial farce skewers a whole host of fifties sacred cows and anxieties, from progressive education to juvenile delinquency

to junk-television programming to the military mind. But the internecine battles of real estate and the gnawing discontent besetting the town’s marriages give the book a sharper edge than I had remembered. By the mid-fifties, the American intelligentsia had decided that the mass exodus of families from cities to suburbs was a disaster on every level, from the fiscal to the existential. A prime example of this withering critique is John Keats’s 1956 The Crack in the Picture Window. Part exercise in David Brooksian pop sociology, part angry polemic, Keats’s book portrays the lives of his hapless specimen couple John and Mary Drone (subtle, he is not) in a new suburban subdivision as little more than a “domestic hell on earth”—“developments conceived in error, nurtured by greed, corroding everything they touch.”

In Keats’s jaundiced view, the development of postwar suburbia is the result of an unholy alliance among the realtors; the National Association of Home Builders, who saw a killing to be made; and the U.S. government, which provided low-cost no-money-down mortgages to the returning GIs and their growing broods.

Everybody has made out except the families, trapped in a bleak monoculture, overstretched in their budgets, beset by the sort of marital boredom that leads—shudder—to casual adultery, and, maybe worst of all, raising their kids in “a matriarchal society, with children who know men only as nighttime residents and weekend guests.” Who knows what sort of twisted little monsters these postwar Levittowns were breeding?

Keats scores some valid points as he unpacks the predatory economics of nascent suburban sprawl, though his cultural argument is too perfervid and marred by snide contempt to carry much weight. But as an example of just how sharply educated opinion had turned against suburbia, The Crack in the Picture Window helps us understand the background against which the one unequivocal masterpiece of the Merritt Parkway novel, Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road (1961) was received. By the time Yates decided to replay as tragedy many of the same elements that Wilson had rendered as melodrama and Shulman as satirical farce, the cultural ground had been well prepared for such a grim approach.

For years I resisted reading Revolutionary Road, a book that gives off the distinct aroma of being oversold as the Great Statement on the Sorrow of Suburbia. Yates’s other books WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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had all struck me as willfully morose—he really is the Debbie Downer of American letters— and the 2008 film adaptation is marred by excessive tastefulness and the usual callowness of Leonardo DiCaprio in the male lead. Its protagonists, stuck in their bickerfest of a marriage in a wan suburban setting, must be the least attractive, most ignoble couple ever to inhabit an important American novel—every problem they face is of their own devising.

And yet Yates, with his fierce conviction and astonishingly precise writing, triumphs over this unpromising material to deliver exactly the catharsis of pity and terror that Aristotle prescribed.

Frank and April Wheeler are two disastrously matched narcissists who, based on no empirical evidence whatsoever, feel themselves vastly superior to their mid-fifties Connecticut surroundings. Frank, a World War II veteran and Columbia grad goldbricking his way through a sales-promotion job in a proto-IBM

You really feel like smacking these people upside the head and telling them to get real, which is precisely what the novel’s designated truth teller, the mentally troubled son of their real estate agent, in a sense does. Twin adulteries (“I mean, you seem to be doing a pretty good imitation of Madame Bovary here,” Frank, ever ready with a survey-course reference, at one point remarks) and a poorly timed pregnancy lead to a tragic, heart-shredding conclusion.

As well-documented in Blake Bailey’s fine biography, Revolutionary Road’s roots are sunk deeply in Yates’s own experiences. Like Frank Wheeler, Yates worked in a dreary job as a PR writer for Remington Rand; like April Wheeler, his wife, Sheila, devised a plan for them to escape to Paris for two years (which they actually did). And much like the Wheelers, the Yates family upped sticks from a Greenwich Village apartment to a ranch house in Redding, Connecticut, where they lived an outwardly tranquil life riven by private marital tension.

But literature and sociology are distinctly separate fields of inquiry, and given the choice between happiness and contentment or misery and conflict, writers will head for the latter every time. corporation, is a living argument against a liberal arts education, a tiresome font of stale ideas about the sterility of suburban life. (One imagines he bought and read Keats’s book. “I don’t suppose one picture window is necessarily going to destroy our personalities,” he declares when he first sees their house. ) Faced with the reality of “deadly dull jobs in the city and deadly dull homes in the suburbs,” he smugly tells himself that “[e]conomic circumstances might force you to live in this environment, but . . . [t]he important thing, always, was to remember who you were.” April, a failed actress, experiences her domestic life as a wife and mother as a bleak exile from culture and deeper purpose—“an enormous, obscene delusion,” she solemnly declaims. So she devises a transparently daft plan to uproot the family to Paris, where she will work as a secretary to support them while her husband, in some ill-defined fashion, “finds himself.”

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Enthusiastically accepted by Atlantic Monthly Press, Yates’s grim yet gleaming manuscript was given an exceptional push for a first novel, receiving encomiums from no less than Alfred Kazin, William Styron, and Tennessee Williams. Critical reaction to the book was generally enthusiastic, with some nay-saying, such as Orville Prescott’s complaint in the New York Times that the Wheelers are simply too “psychopathic” to be worthy of Yates’s manifest gifts as a novelist. Commentators on the book, then and now, oscillate between two poles, seeing the book as either a powerful character study of two weak-willed romantic egoists or a broader indictment, as Yates himself put it, of “a general lust for conformity in this country, by no means only in the suburbs—a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price.” The book sold a modest 8,900 copies in its first incarnation, and it has survived over the decades as something of a cult novel, a hard

to resolve yet equally hard to shake portrayal of the cultural contradictions of suburbia.

And then the Merritt Parkway novel goes into hibernation for three decades. American fiction moved on to groovier subjects than mere domestic discontent, and the suburbs became largely the wholly owned subsidiary of the firm of Updike and Cheever, Ltd. The former brought the social acuity of a sometimes X-rated William Dean Howells to the marital doings and undoings around Ipswich, Massachusetts, while the latter touched quotidian life in Westchester County with the grace of his sublime prose and something of the Hudson Valley fabulism of Washington Irving. But the Merritt Parkway novel came back with, quite literally, a vengeance in Rick Moody’s explosive 1994 The Ice Storm—a book that reads as if the children in the novels of Yates and Wilson decided to wrest the narrative from their parents and channel something of Walter Benjamin’s malign animus against the bourgeois family in the bargain.

Eighteen years after its first publication, The Ice Storm retains the power to dismay with its sheer familial misery and psychosexual creepiness. (In a sense, Keats told us this was coming.) Its plethora of seventies cultural detritus (shag rugs, Pet Rocks, Rose Mary Woods, key parties) and overly commentatious, distinctly un-Jamesian narrative style are now more distracting than revelatory and have not aged well. But its angry and intimate indictment of feckless, divorce-prone parents makes it a signature Gen X novel and a protoFranzen critique of the careless squandering of our freedoms. Famously set during an epic ice storm that blanketed the northeast the weekend after Thanksgiving Day 1973, it portrays the complete meltdown of the Hood family of New Canaan, Connecticut, acting out their terminal unhappiness in a series of sexual acts that are variously joyless, thwarted, onanistic, or frankly perverse. We are plainly meant to see the Hood family’s misery as both a mirror and an end result of the social fevers and disorders of the seventies.

After such knowledge, what forgiveness?

Very little, clearly, from the author; the obviously autobiographical content of The Ice Storm suggests that there were not many happy Thanksgivings in the Moody family, nor was the author ever likely to have been invited to the New Canaan Library for a reading.

(One of my former bosses, who lived in New Canaan in the seventies, vehemently denies the

existence of key parties.) As unsparingly frank as Moody is in this novel, it is hard to know what to do with such brutal honesty beyond being appalled by it. Unlike Frank and April Wheeler, who in Yates’s hands reach an almost mythic stature, the members of the hapless Hood family seem preshrunk to the size of their respective miseries.

One thing is clear: The Ice Storm set the tone for the Merritt Parkway novels to come.

Prosperity, at least for some, returned to Connecticut and the nation, as finance became untethered from its former physical locations and hedge funds and investment firms set up shop in towns like Greenwich, making it one of the most hyper-prosperous municipalities on the planet. I recently drove through Greenwich on the way to an author reading, and the scent of BIG money wafting from the tastefully set-back estates and horse farms was overpowering. This development is perfectly captured by Stephen Amidon’s unjustly neglected 2004 novel, Human Capital, which offers something of the pleasures that John O’Hara’s books used to provide: a clear and convincing CAT scan of the class structure and pecking order of an American town and a nearsurgical dissection of the social, economic, and sexual forces underlying it.

At the top of the heap in Greeenwichesque Totten Crossing in the spring of 2001 is Quint (as in Quant?) Manning, a close-lipped and tightly wound hedge-fund manager; his wife, Carrie, channels her cultural energies and marital discontent by transforming an abandoned movie theater into an art house cinema. (Activities such as this are a fixture of these novels, usually the province of the women.) Their son, James, a Duke-bound golden boy with a drinking (and a father) problem, is dating Shannon, the daughter of Drew Hagel, a local realtor facing financial difficulties. This romance (and a good tennis game) gives Hagel entrée into the Mannings’ charmed circle, but a looming financial crisis and a tragic car accident set in motion a quite suspenseful plot in which it becomes clear that money is a solvent of ethics and that selfinterest definitely trumps correct behavior.

This is something American novelists have been demonstrating to us since Theodore Dreiser, but Amidon finds a way to make it new, with his uncanny understanding of the protocols and delicacies of class in the plutocratic era of the one percent.

The Merritt Parkway novel seems to reach

a terminus of sorts in Alison Espach’s fairly horrifying 2011 novel, The Adults, set in Fairfield. Espach sees Moody and raises him plenty, producing a book that, to me, at least, becomes a species of suburban gothic. (“What kind of lunatic hangs pictures of Asian women holding dildos?” a husband quite reasonably inquires of a marriage counselor’s décor.) Told in the voice of a girl named Emily Vidal, who learns entirely too many things entirely too early, the book gets off to a grim start when, leaving her father’s fiftieth birthday party, she discovers their next-door neighbor in the process of hanging himself, successfully, from a tree. Things somehow go south from there, as the behaviors of putative grown-ups make abundantly clear that the book’s title is grimly ironic—no functioning, responsible adults, as we once understood them, are to be found, only overgrown children bent on satisfying their needs. I was particularly dismayed by Espach’s portrayal of the almost feral and hyper-sexualized mean-girl culture of the local high school, which had me yearning for the tender consolations of Lord of the Flies. In freshman year (!) a group calling itself the Other Girls passes judgment on their classmates as, no kidding, Unf---ables. And all through high school and college Emily sleeps with a high school English teacher she calls “Mr. Basketball.” What emerges in this deadpan litany of alcoholism, adultery, depression, suicide, divorce, promiscuity, lockdowns, bullying, and plenty more is a portrait of a society so overstuffed with privilege and so conversant and comfortable with dysfunction that all boundaries of decency have been erased. The promise of American life, indeed.

The question that remains to be considered—although the answer will forever elude us—is to what extent do these six novels actually reflect the facts and the feel of life in Fairfield County as it has been lived by its inhabitants over the past half-century or more. We have to imagine (don’t we?) that hundreds of thousands of people have lived satisfying, successful, productive, upright lives there, engaged in meaningful work, graced by love and familial affection, returning to their communities more than they have been given.

If so, they have escaped the attention of our novelists. But literature and sociology are distinctly separate fields of inquiry, and given the choice between happiness and contentment or misery and conflict, writers will head for the latter every time. It is what they do.

In 1955, Life magazine published an admonitory editorial about the American fiction of the period that became instantly notorious. Beginning with some condescending praise of Sloan Wilson for precisely the weakest aspect of his novel—its “happy ending”— it goes on to register bemusement at the disparity between American power, prosperity, and social equality and its hostile literature, “which sounds sometimes as if it were written by an unemployed homosexual living in a packing-box shanty.” Nice. Truman Capote, Henry Miller, the war novelists, and even William Faulkner are weighed on the scales of affirmation and found wanting. Only Herman Wouk’s Marjorie Morningstar (!) makes the grade by Life’s literary standards.

If you can manage to put aside the hamfisted cluelessness of the editorialist, the piece does put its finger on a persistent disconnect between American life and American literature.

We are—or at least were, until recently—an optimistic, forward-looking, practical people, not much given to introspection and selfdoubt. Yet our best writers gravitate toward precisely those aspects of our civilization that reflect least well upon us. Five of the six Merritt Parkway novelists mentioned here lived in Fairfield County and their books draw upon close, on-the ground observation; Stephen Amidon grew up in northern New Jersey, but his father was a corporate executive and he knows the folkways of the upper middle class quite well. Their sense of the “something hanging over us . . . that makes it hard to be happy” is no fabrication or Commie plot to demoralize the citizenry. But the good people of Fairfield County must, if they pay any attention to American fiction (and most of them may not), feel ill used, even libeled by it. They might, with some justice, retort, “If life here is so hellish, why does everybody want to live here?” A chorus of assent might well be heard from Highland Park, Palo Alto, Buckhead, Short Hills, the North Shore, the Main Line, et cetera.

The whole business is hard to square, frankly.

I’ll give it some more thought the next time I’m on the Merritt.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Gerald Howard; first appeared in Tin House.

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Gerald Howard is a book editor in New York.

His essays and reviews have appeared in Tin House, Bookforum, the New York Times Book Review and other publications.

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the next chapter

iS THERE LifE afTER 13?

aN iNTERviEw wiTH DR. wiLLiaM f. BaKER, TELEviSiON PROGRaMMiNG PiONEER

By Harold R. Dill From Blue Screens to Blue Ice When I interviewed Dr. Bill Baker, he was vacationing in Nova Scotia on Henry Island. After only a few minutes into the interview, it became readily apparent that this man of letters was also a man of hyphens. As a broadcasting pioneer-educator-author-lecturer-adventurer, his many professional and avocational achievements help to define his success.

And those that have had the pleasure of listening to him speak quickly realize that his formal credentials must be superseded by his humanity.

Co-author of Leading with Kindness: How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results (American Management Association, 2008), Baker has made a career of improving the methodology and efficacy of management.

By tempering strong leadership with authenticity – a discernible and often palpable quality emanates that can elevate morale and translate into greater employee productivity and retention. When asked about the erosion of civility in contemporary culture, he states, “It cannot be denied. We must seek to manage both our business and personal affairs in a manner that cultivates our humanity. Accordingly, unmitigated functional rationality will not get superior results.” Leading with Kindness will. Baker has recently released a sequel entitled Every Leader Is An Artist that explores the relationship between artistic creativity and leadership.

Baker’s journey of achievement began in Cleveland, Ohio where his lower middle-class family provided all that was necessary to maintain his momentum. He recalls that his parents were always very supportive. His father was eager to encourage young Baker’s interest in broadcasting. So much so, that he built his teenage protégé a functional radio studio in a household room. Highly motivated, young Baker attended Case Western Reserve University, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. In the course of his long career, Baker has been awarded numerous honorary doctorates in America and Europe.

Blessed with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and discovery, he was, and remains, a perennial trailblazer. Much like Admiral Byrd, one of his boyhood heroes, Baker courageously trekked to explore the Polar Regions where temperatures can plummet to minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit with wind gusts exceeding 200 miles per hour. Despite the challenge, he succeeded in becoming the 8th man in human history to set foot on both the north and south poles. When asked to reflect on his near death experience of falling into a 2,000-foot crevasse near the North Pole, he blithely quips, “I only fell thirty or forty feet down. What saved my life was my camera strap, which snagged on an outcropping and stopped me from falling to my death.” When asked to share his impressions of the region’s desolation he states, “it takes you out of yourself, makes all your

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human concerns small and fleeting. It’s what the early Christian monks were looking for when they went out into the desert. That’s what both poles really are. Deserts of ice.”

And just as the spirit of adventure took him to far away regions, it also ignited his passion to explore new frontiers in television broadcasting.

Shooting the Tube, including Rutherford’s With a lifelong affinity for water and coastal environs, it is no wonder that Baker lists among his recreational pleasures sailing, snorkeling, and surfing. He proudly states, “While living in Southern California, I could hang-ten with the best of ‘em.” But “shooting the tube” does not only describe his surfing prowess; it also describes his dissonance regarding commercial broadcasting. “In a very real sense there were moments when I felt like literally shooting the cathode-ray tube I was watching — also known as television.” Profit is, and always has been, the primary impetus of commercial television broadcasting. Not an admirer of the status quo, Baker recognized that the powerful medium of television could do much more than provide insipid entertainment. It could inspire and educate.

The raison d’être of PBS, the station with which he is affiliated, is to fulfill this higher purpose. As CEO of WNET/Channel 13 New York, he dedicated over two decades of his life to innovating and improving the quality of television programming. Thanks to his dedication, WNET is recognized as PBS’s preeminent progenitor of exceptional programming.

He also co-authored Down the Tube: An Insider’s Account of the Failure of

American Television (Basic Books, 1998) and is the author of Lighthouse Island: Our Family Escape (Ruder Finn Press, 2004).

Even now, as a member of the “AARP generation,” Dr. Bill remains eager to explore new frontiers. Trailblazing is second nature to him as he is always scouting for new and exciting opportunities to fulfill his gusto for discovery that may present opportunities to manifest his vision, management precepts, and creative genius. During his twenty years commanding the helm of WNET, he distinguished himself by introducing landmark programs including Charlie Rose, Bill Moyers Journal, Great Performances, and Nature.

He also oversaw the station’s transition to digital broadcasting. We can also thank him for launching WNET’s first of many cable channels -- MetroArts/Thirteen. Before joining WNET, he was president of Westinghouse Television and chairman of their cable and programming companies. At Westinghouse, Baker introduced Oprah Winfrey as a talk show host and established PM Magazine as the #1 syndicated program in America in the 1980s. During Baker’s tenure, Westinghouse also launched five cable networks, including the Discovery Channel and the Disney Channel. Baker is the recipient of seven Emmy Awards and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS) Management Hall of Fame and received the Mark Schubart Award from the Lincoln Center Institute, given to individuals who most exemplify the Institute’s ideal of integrating

the arts with education. He has also been inducted into Broadcasting & Cable’s Hall of Fame and the New York State Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. In addition to numerous other awards, Baker has received the Gabriel Personal Achievement Award, two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Journalism Awards and the 1987 Trustees Emmy Award, given in recognition of outstanding contribution to the advancement of television.

Baker has also served as Chairman of the National Parks System Advisory Board and is a board member at Rodale Press.

With a long and distinguished career as an educator, Baker has established an event entitled, ”Celebrating Teaching and Learning” to honor New York’s finest and most dedicated teaching professionals. The event began three years ago and attracts more than 10,000 teachers annually. When asked about depersonalized high-tech learning, Dr. Bill opines, “the essential human connection between student and teacher will never be displaced by the electronic classroom, nor will the Socratic method be rendered obsolete.”

“Baker’s Island,” aka Henry Island While “no man is an island,” some men are definitely islanders. One such man is Dr. Baker. When he is not busily attending to his professional pursuits, lecturing to audiences around the world, or savoring the solace of his Greenwich domicile, Baker may be found roughing it on his island get-away. A 30-year Greenwich resident, he loves the town’s many amenities, but most of all its magnificent shoreline. It follows that a man so enamored by coastal environs would have an appetite for coastal real estate. Dr. Baker is the proud owner of Henry Island, located four miles off the scenic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. Aside from the Baker clan, there are a variety of other seasonal island residents, including a population of grey seals that migrate there annually to birth their young. The Bakers love their maritime “Ponderosa Ranch,” with its 150 acres of heavily forested terrain, 100-foot cliffs, and most notably the 1902 built, 53-foot high, octagonal, wooden lighthouse. When I asked about his love affair with lighthouses he replied, “These structures represent a safe harbor, good deeds and selfless service to humanity. My boss didn’t like the idea. He told me I was a crazy romantic. So I started looking for another job.” Many years later, he decided to dip into his savings and buy the island from a friend of Robert MacNeil of The MacNeil /Lehrer Report fame. Originally au natural and entirely unimproved, over the years Baker has equipped his idyllic “realm” with a few modern conveniences, including running water, plumbing, solar panels and wind-turbine electrical generators.

Baker does it all. He may be described as the personification of synergy wherein he is more than the sum of his capabilities and achievements. He’s also a wonderfully inspiring human being with a passion to seize opportunities where he can improve the way business transacts and humans interact. As a man of spiritual substance, Baker is the executive producer of The Face: Jesus in Art, a landmark Emmy-winning feature film that traces the image of Jesus Christ in art around the world and across two millennia.

When not enjoying his rustic “splendor in the woods” island retreat, Dr. Bill spends countless hours engaged in his other loves – astronomy, horology, polar science, and putting his quill to the papyrus writing books. Arguably one of Baker’s most esoteric loves is studio clocks. He explains, “after spending a lifetime working in an industry where time plays a starring role, I became fascinated by these marvels of precision timekeeping and began to collect them. His collection included the atomic clock once used by the US Naval Observatory, which he donated in 1982 to the American Clock & Watch Museum in Bristol, Connecticut.

Fifty Years of Great Television As current chairman emeritus of WNET Channel 13, Dr. Bill will be moderating the upcoming gala celebrating WNET’s 50th Anniversary. He will also be honored for his tremendous contributions to the station’s success and to PBS. There are plenty of brilliant and lettered Greenwich residents, but few are as successful at combining genteel modesty with purposeful accomplishment as William F. Baker Ph.D.

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Connecticut-born and California-raised, Mr. Dill is a freelance journalist with a graduate degree in urban planning and undergraduate degree in theater/film.

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generations

The TOyMaN

By Randi Olin

THe FIRST TIMe

I saw my father-inlaw’s antique toy collection, I was a law student and had been dating my husband for only a few months. One cold November day, my husband took me to see his childhood suburban home. As soon as I stepped into the house, I felt as though I had walked into a makeshift museum. His father led me down the main hallway, stopping along the way to point out the framed 19th century puzzles and board games that adorned the walls. For over 30 years, he had been collecting antique games and toys and before that, had been involved in his family’s toy business.

My father-in-law wore khakis and a plaid button down shirt, with a variety of pens sticking out of his breast pocket. His appearance was more of a lanky Gepetto rather than a flamboyant Willy Wonka and his collection was displayed with an organized and welcoming flair. An array of treasures, like antique building blocks, cast iron circus wagons and lithograph wood toys filled cabinets and display cases. Even in the bedrooms, shelving lined the walls all the way up to the ceiling, with board and card games from early American manufacturers, like McLoughlin, Milton Bradley and Parker Brothers, all in their original boxes from the 1800s.

And then there was the basement. My father-in-law led me down the not so sturdy steps and I held onto the wooden railing. Once downstairs, an enclosed 30 x 10-foot-size room with glass windows stood before me, a vintage looking “ye old toy shoppe” sign hanging outside the room, as if it were a store on an old fashioned cobblestone street. I held my breath as he grabbed a key from a “special hiding spot” to open the lock to the door. The moment before the door opened, I had a feeling I was about to enter something quite special and also something very private since it was located in the basement of a home.

And then, the door swung open and he turned on the light and I was no longer in the basement of my husband’s childhood home. I was transported to someplace magical, like the North Pole at Christmastime. The room was filled with his oldest and most treasured toys and playthings. Like in the upstairs rooms, antique games covered the walls. And glass showcases, like displays at an expensive jewelry store, filled the center of the room, creating an aisle-like walkway around the perimeter.

The tour lasted a long time (or was it only a few minutes?), my fatherin-law bending over to take things out of the showcases, his 6 foot 5 frame juxtaposed by his delicate long fingers opening small boxes to show me the game parts and pieces, while at the same time explaining in his gentle voice the history and evolution of the manufacturers and rules of the games. He showed me an antique wooden schoolhouse and took out the miniature desks and blackboards. And as he spoke he came alive, as if the pieces and parts were his little children. And in this 30 x

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10-foot enchanted toy room, an unspoken yet meaningful connection began between a future daughter-in-law and father-in-law.

Soon thereafter, on another visit to his parents, my husband went to play golf with his mother, and his father took me with him on an outing to search for old books and maps. We went to a place that looked less like a store and more like a cross between a Winnebago and a log cabin. As he looked through the bins and shelves, he explained how “a true collector buys for love rather than for value.” How the “beauty and history” of each piece is what matters most. I wasn’t sure why he was sharing all of this with me, but he spoke with the same gentle enthusiasm as he had that day in the basement and I hung onto his every word. As soon as we finished looking through the bins he asked, “want to go get an ice cream cone?” I nodded, and the two of us, me a twenty-something-year-old law student dating his son, and him, a silver haired, long-limbed middle aged man, headed over to the neighborhood old fashioned ice cream stand. Whether that afternoon he knew that someday I was going to marry his son I am not certain, but the way he treated me made me feel like I was the daughter he never had.

His nickname, “TOYMAN,” was on his license plate. It was also etched beneath his name on his headstone. About four years ago, when my father-in-law passed away, my husband took the TOYMAN plate and put it onto his own car. “If I don’t put the TOYMAN plate on my car, I will have to give it back to the DMV,” he said. “And then that would be the end of the Toyman.”

My husband’s childhood home was sold a year after his father’s death and the family donated most of the collection to the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, allegedly known as the Mecca for toy collectors. Some of his most treasured games and toys moved with my mother-in-law to her new home. A few of the framed antique board games now hang on our walls, including my personal favorite – an old ring toss with painted metal rings. And in our living room, the kids sometimes play with his fragile yet usable freestanding 19th century pinball table.

My husband is getting ready to look for a new car. We have not yet discussed whether we will keep the TOYMAN plate or return it to the DMV. I sort of hope we keep it. But then I think about all of the toys his father left behind, especially those in our house, like the ring toss in the family room and the Steeple Chase game hanging in the hallway and the antique framed map over the fireplace. And I realize, that whether we decide to keep or return the plates, it really doesn’t matter. Because there will be no end to the Toyman.

Randi Olin is a freelance writer living in Weston, CT and the mother of two children.

budding scribes

CREaKy PEaCE Once in a while I look at that aching chair.

The fabric wrapped tightly around his old wooden bones, held together with shiny, almost out of place, buttons.

He rocks back and forth just to make sure he can; to hear his own body creak and brush against the friendly ferns aging with him.

Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s old, he needs a certain creaky peace that we cannot gratify him with.

And when we make him creak, his body groans and aches and begs us to rock more gently.

But once in a while I will sit, and thats what he loves.

Those boring afternoons when I sit and read and write.

We listen to the gentle patter of the giddy rain as it dances over the roof.

It drizzles in beat with our swaying.

I sit, we rock, I read, he listens.

But we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t speak, and that is the creaky peace he lives for.

Lucy Kiely is a Weston resident, and a junior at Wooster School in Danbury, CT.

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curator’s corner

By Elizabeth Spaulding Titus

GaRy LiCHTENSTEiN: MaSTER COLLaBORaTOR

G

ary Lichtenstein is one of just a handful of master silkscreen printers in the world, collaborating with artists to recreate their work, from paintings to collages, into limited-edition silkscreen prints. With the advent of digital printing, a process that is faster, cheaper, and less labor intensive than silkscreen printing, the ancient process was threatened with obsolescence.

Lichtenstein, through his work and internship program he offers at his studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut, is doing his part to ensure the art of silkscreen printing is not lost.

“Silkscreening is a painting technique used to make prints. It’s not the same as reproducing,” Lichtenstein explains. “It’s recreating. Each silkscreen print is an original, its own work of art, even if it’s based on a gary lichtenstein painting. I reinterpret what the artist has done and make it into something new.”

The history of silkscreen is fascinating, dating back to the Chinese Song pursuing his color expressionist painting in an independent studio as Dynasty (960 A.D.-1279 A.D.) and fifteenth and sixteenth century Japan. well as opening SOMA Fine Art in downtown San Francisco in 1978 to The process as we know it today, though, originated in the early 1900s, give artists a place where true, collaborative partnerships could flourish.

Inspired by artists such as Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler, with patents taken out in England and the United States. During World War I, screenprinting was used for making flags and advertising banners. Lichtenstein has produced over 200 oil-based paintings that exhibit In the 1930s, artists used silkscreen to create posters and stickers for mastery of the properties of light absorption and reflection. His canvases promotional purposes. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, Pop artists such as have been described as ethereal, and he has been praised as one who Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Victor Vasarely, and Robert Rauschenberg manages to capture a “sense of no-self ” in paintings that are atmospheric and evocative of natural forms and phenomena. He is especially proud made silkscreen into a new and lasting art form in its own right.

In 1971 Lichtenstein, while studying at the Art Institute of San of “Reflections,” a joint exhibit with Taiwanese sculptor Yu Yu Yang at Francisco, apprenticed with the legendary rock-and-roll poster artist Bob the University of California in 1995-1996. Lichtenstein and Yang met at Fried. Fried was a key member of the “sixties scene” and an innovative, the 1994 New Trends exhibition in Hong Kong and realized their work prolific member of a small group of artists designing posters for rock conveyed similar themes, aesthetically and spiritually. The two artists groups such as The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, and Santana. Fried later brought a compelling global mix of experience to the shared work that turned to the limited edition screenprint, which is when Lichtenstein comprised “Reflections,” and the exhibition, which opened during the apprenticed with him. “It gave us a back door into artists’ studios,” 50th anniversary of the United Nations, was heralded as a “symbolic Lichtenstein says. “I liked it, and I figured I could earn a living at it while bridging between East and West.”

In 2001 Lichtenstein returned to his home state of Connecticut, still doing my own painting.”

For the next thirty years, Lichtenstein remained in San Francisco, understanding that he needed to be close to the art world in New

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lichtenstein’s exhibition at the aldrich MuseuM of conteMporary art in ridgefield, ct. June 2010.

(Works l to r: robert cottinghaM, phil deMise sMith, Joanne greenbauM, alex katz, karl benJaMin, yu yu yang)

York City. He opened Gary Lichtenstein Editions (GLE) (www. able to bring out things in your work that you might not see yourself.” In garylichtensteineditions.com) in a converted barn overlooking cow pastures 2009, when Christopher was planning the opening of Lift Trucks Project in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a far cry from the streets of San Francisco. GLE in Croton Falls, NY, he asked Lichtenstein to do the inaugural show, is devoted to publishing projects with new artists as well as artists with “From a Factory Floor: Screen Print Collaborations by Master Printmaker whom the relationship has been ongoing. These editions are frequently Gary Lichtenstein.”

Another collaboration that has been deeply rewarding for Lichtenstein unique – sometimes one-of-a-kind – and editioned in limited numbers.

“I’m fortunate to live and work in the same town – Ridgefield –as the is the one he has cultivated with Charles Hinman, who became popular in Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum,” Lichtenstein says. “In 2007 Harry the late 1970s. The two artists work together in Hinman’s huge space on the Bowery in New York City, where the artist Philbrick, the Director at the time, discovered and his wife have lived for over forty years. my studio, and I had a show at the Museum in “My relationship with Charles is one June 2010, working with Exhibitions Director that has evolved over time,” Lichtenstein Richard Klein. It was huge for me, because explains. “It represents the ideal of what I the Aldrich acknowledged thirty-five years mean when I talk about collaboration. We of work that I produced with other artists develop projects together, and as a result, that I might not otherwise be recognized for. we are building a deep relationship.”

They see both sides of me – the artist and Charles Hinman, who will turn 80 this the printer.” Lichtenstein’s exhibition at the year, was named a 2012 Guggenheim Museum was entitled “Gary Lichtenstein: Fellow by the John Simon Guggenheim 35 Years of Screenprinting,” and ran from Memorial Foundation. The artist found June 2010 to January 2011. The exhibition immediate, almost overnight, success in included monumental works produced with 1964 with work at Sidney Janis Gallery in artists such as Robert Cottingham, Robert New York City and a one-person exhibition Indiana, Alex Katz, Ken Price, Karl Benjamin courtesy of gary lichtenstein editions at Richard Feigen Gallery. His hard-edged and Feng Zhengjie. modernist work with shaped canvases Tom Christopher is one of the many artists Gary Lichtenstein has collaborated with. In Tom’s words, Lichtenstein is was ahead of its time and influenced an entire generation of artists. On “one of the few great printers in the world” and a “master colorist who is September 5, 2012, the art-loving public had a chance to view Hinman’s WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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Gary Gary Lichtenstein Lichtenstein isis a uniquely a uniquely inventive inventive force force inin the the art art world… world… anan extremely extremely talented talented artist artist whose whose work work has has too too often often been been invisible invisible – not – not that that you you cannot cannot see see his his work, work, but but you you might might not not bebe aware aware that that it it isis his. his.

Such Such isis the the fate fate ofof the the collaborative collaborative artist. artist.

–Harry –Harry Philbrick, Philbrick, Director, Director, The The Aldrich Aldrich Contemporary Contemporary Art Art Museum, Museum, October October 2010 2010 portfolio willwill be be released internationally thisthis fall.fall. portfolio released internationally Robert Cottingham expresses thethe joyjoy of of collaboration in in words that Robert Cottingham expresses collaboration words that could be be Gary Lichtenstein’s own: “Printmaking is is an an alternative artart could Gary Lichtenstein’s own: “Printmaking alternative world.

ForFor me,me, it provides a perfect opportunity to to escape thethe solitude of of world. it provides a perfect opportunity escape solitude thethe painting studio.

I relish thethe spirit painting studio.

I relish spirit of collaboration andand experimentation of collaboration experimentation of of thethe print shop, thethe trial andand error print shop, trial error procedures, thethe happy accidents andand procedures, happy accidents thetheinevitably inevitablyunpredictable unpredictableresults results that thisthis process offers.

In In addition that process offers. addition to to all all this, printmaking makes visual this, printmaking makes visual ideas more accessible.” ideas more accessible.”

Lichtenstein’s Lichtenstein’s work work hashas been been shown shownandandcollected collectedby,by,among among others, others,thetheAldrich AldrichContemporary Contemporary ArtArtMuseum; Museum;thetheMuseum Museumof of Modern ModernArtArt(MoMA); (MoMA);thetheSanSan Francisco Museum of of Modern Art; Francisco Museum Modern Art; thethe Smithsonian; thethe SanSan Francisco Smithsonian; Francisco ArtArtInstitute; Institute;thetheChicago ChicagoArtArt Institute; Institute;thetheButler ButlerInstitute Instituteof of American Art; thethe International Print American Art; International Print Center (IPC); andand ArtArt Asia (Hong Center (IPC); Asia (Hong Kong).

HeHe hashas hadhad solo exhibitions Kong). solo exhibitions in in New York, SanSan Francisco, Tokyo, New York, Francisco, Tokyo, andand Hong Kong.

Hong Kong.

studio

greg sMith, richard Meier, and gary lichtenstein Working on Meier’s collages. June 2011

recent work at Marc Straus Gallery in New York City.

Hinman describes his work with Gary Lichtenstein in this way: “The project is and must be a joint venture – the coalition of the artist and the printmaker. It is necessary for both to have a common sensitivity in order for the product to be a success. Working with Gary, I find that our minds work as one. The process and the result are quite gratifying to me.”

Lichtenstein has also printed silkscreen editions for American Image Atelier, one of Robert Indiana’s silkscreen print publishers; Robert Indiana is the creator of the widely celebrated LOVE icon. In 2008 Indiana created another icon, HOPE, in the style of LOVE, the project upon which Lichtenstein embarked. Other artists Lichtenstein has enjoyed lasting and productive collaborations with include Robert Cottingham and Jessica Stockholder.

He has also collaborated with Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier, creating silkscreen prints of Meier’s collages, which the architect has been making since the 1970s. Richard Meier’s publisher, Greg Smith of Exhibit A Fine Art & Editions, contacted Lichtenstein in 2011, and subsequently Meier, Lichtenstein, and Smith worked together for nine months, creating a limited edition, boxed set of silkscreen collages. The

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Elizabeth Spaulding Titus is aisfreelance Elizabeth Spaulding Titus a freelance writer whowho liveslives in in Weston, Connecticut. writer Weston, Connecticut.

SheShe hashas published articles in in Ms.Magazine.com, MORE.com, andand Skidmore published articles Ms.Magazine.com, MORE.com, Skidmore Scope andand willwill soonsoon appear in Narrative, Talking Writing, andand IthacaLit. Scope appear in Narrative, Talking Writing, IthacaLit.

gary and robert cottinghaM Working in the studio in april 2009.

model modelcitizens citizens

faLL iN LOvE

Fall 2012 marks the arrival of INTERMIX on Main Street in Westport. The irresistible, unparalleled assortment is a localized mix of the most coveted emerging and established designers – a well-edited combination of lasting luxuries and of-the-moment pieces.

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Shop the new INTERMIX Westport, now open: 51 Main Street. 203-221-3018.

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the

arts bruce MuseuM: your face squared

Timed to coincide with the 2012 American election season, united states is presented as the notion of the United States being both a county and a state of being. Subjects that are touched upon, among others, include history, unifying texts and phrases, war, political division, race, identity, the economy, immigration, competition vs. cooperation, mythology, the social contract, and consumerism.

258 Main Street, Ridgefield, CT. www.aldrichart.org; (203) 438-4519. greater bridgeport syMphony guest pianist: andreW arMstrong

foreign musicians studying or working in the US. Past winners include: pianists Frederic Chiu, Christopher O’Reilly; clarinetists Charles Neidich and Todd Palmer; baritone Christopheren Nomura; flutist David Fedele, and the Alexander Quartet. The two categories of voice and piano alternate every two years. Semi-Finals: Saturday, December 1, 2012, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Free and open to the public at Westport Town Hall.

Finals Concert: Sunday, December 2, 2012, 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. $20 for adults; Free for youth18 and younger. www.heidahermannscomptition.org.

Performing Arts The Westport Arts Center offers a wide range of musical programs, including jazz, chamber music and the American songbook, as well as discussions, lectures and explorations of the arts.

51 Riverside Avenue Westport, CT. For tickets and info: www.westportartscenter.org (203) 222-7070.

The Bruce MuseuM Your Face Squared: Community Self-Portrait Project November 17, 2012 – January 27, 2013 Your Face Squared: Community Self-Portrait Project is an exhibition made up of self-portraits entirely by the public, for the public. Everyone is invited to submit a self-portrait created in any medium they see appropriate for themselves, even writing.

They will all be on display in the Bruce Museum’s Arcade Gallery.

1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT. www.brucemuseum.org; (203) 869-0376.

GreATer BridGeporT syMphony

The Aldrich conTeMporAry ArT MuseuM united states: Artist’s Projects Through February 24, 2013

WesTporT ArTs cenTer The Heida Hermanns International Voice Competition Presented by Connecticut Alliance for Music, with support from the Westport Arts Center The goal of the Competition is to give young musicians, aged 19 through 35, support in the early stages of their professional careers. Now celebrating its 41st year, the Competition attracts contestants from all over the world, including many

Holiday Pops Presented December 8, 2012 Gustav Meier and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony are together again! Following the disappointment of last year’s holiday event not materializing as planned, GBS fans will be excited to see Meier back with the orchestra. For the event, he has planned an “Americana” program that features two of George Gershwin’s most beloved works — “American in Paris” and “Rhapsody in Blue” — and a guest pianist: Andrew Armstrong.

The Klein Auditorium, 910 Fairfield Ave, Bridgeport, CT. For tickets or more information visit www.gbs.org or call (203) 576-0263.

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GaLLERy Special Holiday concert at Silvermine artS center

The Turtle Island Quartet Friday, December 14th A special evening of holiday music is coming to the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, Connecticut on Friday, December 14th. The Turtle Island Quartet returns to Silvermine, bringing

their signature fusion of jazz and classical music to celebrate the holiday season. Their holiday concert, “A Solstice Celebration,” will take you through the joyous voyage of world holiday music, commemorating the quartet members’ ancestral roots, featuring music associated with what is referred to in both the Jewish and Hindu traditions as the Festival of Lights.

From the songs of Chanukah, to the music of India’s Diwali, to the old English carols and Scottish reels of the 16th century, Turtle Island Quartet explores the timeless music that has been an integral part of winter holiday celebrations for centuries. The holiday program also includes music from Vince Guaraldi’s beloved “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” as well as famous classical gems that have become indelibly tied to the holiday season.

Since they began in 1985, the Turtle Island Quartet has been a singular force in the creation of bold, new trends in chamber music for strings. Winner of the 2006 and 2008 Grammy Awards for Best Classical Crossover category, the group fuses the classical quartet aesthetic with contemporary American musical styles. Seating is limited and advance reservations are suggested. Tickets are $15 for members and $20 for non-members.

To reserve tickets or for more information, call 203/966-9700 ext. 22 or visit www.silvermineart.org. 1037 Silvermine Road, New Canaan, CT.

adl HonorS Joyce and Ken BacKman, Gayle WeinStein and raBBi roBert orKand at 2012 Upper FairField coUnty reception

Former red Sox manaGer BoBBy valentine HoStS mS dinner oF cHampionS

The Connecticut Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation League honored Joyce and Ken Backman, Gayle Weinstein and Rabbi Robert Orkand at ADL’s 2012 Upper Fairfield County Award Reception on Sunday, October 28, in Westport.

The Backmans received ADL’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award. Dr. Ken Backman is the founder of Allergy and Asthma Care of Fairfield County, LLC. He is currently the Co-Chair of the ADL Westport Committee, a member of the ADL Executive Board and on the Board of Directors for the Juvenile Bipolar Research Foundation. Joyce is a registered nurse who assists Ken with his practice. She also is very active in Hadassah, serving on the Connecticut Executive Board and beginning her third nonconsecutive term as Westport Chapter President in January.

Gayle Weinstein also received ADL’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award. She has served as Weston’s First Selectman since 2009, and has been on Weston’s Board of Selectmen since 2007. She is the Vice Chair of Connecticut Council of Municipalities’ Task Force on Children, Youth and Families and is a Board Member of the UJA-Federation of Westport-Weston-Wilton-Norwalk.

After 30 years at Temple Israel, Rabbi Robert Orkand will retire in June. A former recipient of the ADL’s Distinguished Community Leadership Award, Chair of ADL’s Interfaith Committee and an ADL Regional Board Member, Rabbi Orkand received a Special Recognition Award for his service to the Anti-Defamation League, his synagogue and community.

The award reception, which recognizes those with exceptional dedication to serving the Upper Fairfield County community, is one of ADL’s premier annual events in Connecticut, attracting approximately 300 guests from Upper Fairfield County.

For more on the work of the Anti-Defamation League, visit www.adl.org.

Stamford native and baseball great Bobby Valentine returned once again to host the 2012 MS Dinner of Champions, on Nov. 8th, at the Hyatt Regency in Old Greenwich.

Bobby Valentine had a successful career in baseball with the L.A. Dodgers, Angels, Padres, Mets and Valentine hosts the Mariners. After retir- bobby 2012 Ms dinner of chaMpions ing as a player, Valen- at the hyatt regency in old tine stepped up to the greenWich. plate as manager, leading the New York Mets to the World Series in 2000. Valentine served as an analyst for ESPN until this year, when he was hired as manager for the Boston Red Sox. He also serves as director of public safety and public health for Stamford.

Valentine has been recognized many times for his contributions to the community. He has been actively involved with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Connecticut Chapter, for more than 20 years. In 1982, Valentine received the Leonard Schine Memorial Award from the chapter for outstanding volunteerism. Valentine owns and operates Bobby V’s Sports Gallery Café in Stamford. Valentine and his wife, Mary, the daughter of former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ralph Branca, reside in Stamford.

The MS Dinner of Champions honors outstanding corporate leaders and local and national sports figures making a significant contribution to the community at large. Past honorees include Steve Young, Joe Namath, Frank Gifford and Billie Jean King. This year’s event recognized New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira and Shep and Ian Murray of Vineyard Vines. Funds raised ensure ongoing scientific research to find a cure and provide for the continuation of vital programs and services offered by the chapter to Connecticut residents diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

For more information, visit www.ctfightsMS.org.

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I’ll Walk

the lIne I pulled over and quIckly threw my phone to the floor, a knee-jerk reaction as soon as the police car flashed its lights. Was I driving under the influence? The question flashed through my mind, as did the power of denial. I had just come from an art opening.

I’d had one vodka martini, then two cups of tea and a glass of water. I hadn’t eaten since noon. I felt a little dizzy, but not buzzed.

When the polite, attractive, young officer leaned in my window and asked if I’d been drinking, I replied without perjuring myself. “I did have one drink,” I told him, and he had me step outside for a sobriety test.

When he asked me to walk in a straight line, I couldn’t—not because of my dizziness, but because of the tall wedge heels I was wearing. I asked if I could remove them. He said yes, but his backup—a female cop in her 30s, waiting a few yards away—said no. If one drink is my limit, I thought, this is a swell time to find out. I’d take my DUI and let this handsome cop drive me home.

I had to go back to the precinct, they said. I watched placidly as my car was

WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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towed away. It was Friday night, so I couldn’t pick it up until Monday.

Suddenly the woman cop yanked and cuffed my hands behind me. The steel hurt—especially when I was shoved into the backseat. in neW york city, Where i greW up, it Was all too common for policemen to sympathetically pat me on the head as they kindly escorted my alcoholic union-leader father home. While New York City was a much bigger place with far more anonymity for the masses, my father was part of the powerful elite. It was understood that someone of his status could call the mayor or the police chief and be handled by the police with extra care. From the time I first met New York City cops, I understood the meaning of influence and camaraderie. And when my husband got pulled over and was asked if he’d been drinking, all it took was a “No, sir” and we’d be on our way.

Dad would’ve been enraged if a broad half his age—some “bossy dame

in station wagons used to wait for their husbands at the train with a martini glass and shaker in hand. Alcoholism wasn’t a worry if your husband wore a grey flannel suit, or if you in your Mary Tyler Moore adorableness tipped back a few glasses with neighbors and drove home.

Times change, of course, and I didn’t feel I ought to be exempt from the law. But something was off—something about the way the woman cop in the precinct station eyed my expensive jeans and jacket and the eight $20 bills in my pocketbook, which she counted and bagged. i felt guilty. i had never carried that much cash with me in my life, but I had just come from the West Coast and my husband had insisted I carry cash, just in case. Women of my generation rarely carry much cash. It’s a gender issue left over from the days when mothers told us women were vulnerable and having cash might make us targets.

Though I have worked my whole adult life, I still carry about $20—and that’s a bonanza for me.

The male cop read me my Miranda rights. I passed on calling a lawyer, deciding instead to own up to whatever the Breathalyzer showed.

But when I tried to blow, the volume of air I produced wouldn’t register. The machine aborted. I told them I had to pee.

“I’m older than you and I’ve had three kids,” I pleaded to the woman cop, crossing my legs. “It’s hard to take a deep breath when I drank two cups of tea and a large glass of water, plus one martini, more than an hour ago.”

She thought I was faking it. Some people do that if they think they’re “blind drunk” and would rather defend themselves after a night in jail—the penalty for refusing the Breathalyzer.

Believe me, I wanted to say, I know what drunk looks like. But I didn’t say it. It might be used against me. Alcoholism runs in families, and these cops didn’t need to know a thing about my father.

In its heyday, westport was the archetypal cocktailhour town. wives in station wagons used to wait for their husbands at the train with a martini glass and shaker in hand. in a guy’s uniform,” he’d say—had been the one to cuff him. It would’ve turned physical. The man was so bellicose that, once, when my mother tried to take his keys away after a night of drinking, he loaded us in the car and shouted, “You want to see drunk? I’ll show you what it really means.” He pulled his fedora over his eyes and drove, weaving, visibly drunk and now blind, until he felt he’d made his point: Male expertise with a machine was not to be questioned. if you fight crime in a toWn like Westport, Connecticut, where the annual per-capita income is just under six figures, you’ve got a boring job. During the day, a soccer mom might rear-end a hedge-fund manager; there’s an occasional burglary, maybe a murder every decade, a suicide here and there—but for the most part, our 25,000 residents, me included, keep quiet and cause little trouble.

The average cop earns about $40k a year, and unless he’s snagged another breadwinner, he can’t afford the local lifestyle. It’s a dicey socioeconomic dynamic where the less well-off hold such power over the very privileged, and in Westport, this divide rears its ugly head at times. I can safely call some of my neighbors overgrown spoiled brats. But I can also say that I’ve seen beautifully dressed women driving safely in a Lexus get stopped for no reason and detained.

In its heyday, Westport was the archetypal cocktail-hour town. Wives

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finally, after the guy saW me struggling not to pee on the floor, he convinced her to let me go to the bathroom. The toilet was steel— without a seat—and it was low. The woman stood less than two feet in front of me, hands on her belt, poised to club me if I tried to bolt. She handed me a fine-gauge-sandpaper towel for personal hygiene.

I aborted the Breathalyzer test again. “Maybe you could take blood,” I suggested. And I asked, worried I wasn’t breathing right, if I needed a pulmonologist.

“You use too many big words,” she said.

We locked eyes. I told her I was sure she was doing her job pro forma and holding up to all the standard police-policy rules, but that I am also doing my job: “I’m a writer and a damn good one. I get paid to be articulate. So you do your job and stop trying to humiliate me for doing mine.”

We’d now drawn the socioeconomic line in the sand, and it was with our words. The tone in the room changed. In some part of her I could see that she must have worked hard to get to Westport, to save lives as well as give routine tickets.

Eventually I produced two vials of urine. I was given a court date. I learned

I should hire a lawyer. My husband came and bailed me out: $500 in cash. He was told he could get a bail bondsman if he couldn’t come up with the money.

This is a term most Jews in the suburbs have never heard: bail bondsman. i didn’t sleep for Weeks. i considered attending an AA meeting. I wondered if I was a drunk and, just like my father, refusing to admit it. I also didn’t want to have a cocktail in front of anyone because my name had appeared in the papers, online and in print, and now I felt I was being judged. I considered staying home for the rest of my life.

Or hiding a flask in my pocketbook and sipping it in the bathroom.

When I opened the envelope marked “State of Connecticut Department of Public Safety Scientific Services,” I winced. The legal ground zero is 0.08 and I was 0.10. My lawyer says that used to be the legal limit. I was “barely drunk,” but at my height and weight, even with a three-ounce martini I was over the limit. DUI.

be greeted by a cop in an enclosed, raised stanchion, the height of a lifeguard’s perch. His job was to guard the thoroughfare in a town of 5000 by stopping each car and checking out whether or not you belonged there. He wore a stiff-brimmed gold officer’s cap. He’d blow a whistle and hold up my father’s huge, black Chrysler Imperial. They’d exchange pleasantries until he gave us the OK: “Now move it on up.”

My father loved that ritual. Real power, he’d chuckle, was holding up cars on their way to a beloved lakeside destination.

The summer I was 14 I told my parents I wanted to be a nurse. Both my parents shrieked, “Wear a uniform?” Women in uniforms were waitresses, toll takers, cooks, housekeepers, and maybe a “dyke prison guard.” The secret code for uniformed girls who were past Girl Scout age was “not of our class.” Not smart enough even to be a switchboard operator. Or a typist in the typing pool. Too poor to go to college. forty-six years after my father’s alcohol-related death, I became locked in a class, power, and stereotyping struggle with a woman. Me, the daughter of a labor leader. Throughout my life I’ve fought for women’s financial independence. But I hadn’t ever thought about the entitlements I had witnessed growing up, and that here in the police precinct those entitlements were a detriment with another woman. The wit and playfulness that I had always been able to use with men amounted to a hangman’s noose with this woman in uniform.

My mother would’ve been penniless if she ever left my father. I lived through an era of “don’t ask, don’t tell” sexual harassment in the workplace. I fought for women to have equal power. Now, here is my backlash in this epitome of upscale suburban America.

the only thing I felt with this woman who had her hand on her pistol was humiliated, and that’s bully’s work: humiliation, not real authority.

He said he’d figure out how to let me keep my driver’s license. “Maybe a handicapped plea. It’s a first offense, but you’re in jeopardy whenever you finish a drink in a restaurant.”

I started asking friends if they thought I had an alcohol problem. They pondered and said no, but that I “like my one drink.” If I’m driving, they said, I should start appreciating my half-drink instead. the more illuminating issue for me is hoW rancorous I still feel about the woman cop who needed to overpower me. I would like to tell her that I didn’t feel powerless in the precinct—I felt far more powerless when my father was drunk behind the wheel. I feel powerless when any man I know insists on driving when I know he’s had too much to drink. The only thing I felt with this woman who had her hand on her pistol was humiliated, and that’s bully’s work: humiliation, not real authority.

A 19-year-old female filmmaking intern at our local arts center told me how she and a woman friend were forced to get out of the car and the car was searched. They were parked in a blinding rainstorm because they couldn’t see out the window. Two Westport cops, (and the same woman cop I encountered) said if they didn’t open the door they would smash the windows. They claimed they heard loud music and smelled alcohol and saw teenage girls. It wound up on an official citizens’ complaint, showing no reason the cops should have been so forceful.

In the 1950s and ’60s when we drove up to our summer house in Great Barrington, my family would arrive on a Friday before dark and

i only Wish that alcohol hadn’t been the reason I met with this woman in uniform. My father’s ghost had scared the crap out of me about drinking.

But the cop and I, I like to think, could’ve had a martini and a hearty meal together one night before my arrest. We could have bonded over the good fight, the gender and power war we’re still waging. We’d have been on the same side—if it hadn’t been my father’s ghost we were battling.

Or would we have? The DNA of my father’s disease haunts me, but is the fundamental Queen Bee Bitch theory of women in power truer than I want to believe? I was powerless over that one drink, was helpless over my father’s supreme power on all levels over our family. Thirty years ago, she wouldn’t have had any power over me.

My father would’ve loved my achievements, my rapport and friendship with men and women of all backgrounds. But that night, powerless over alcohol as my father once was, I crashed at the crossroads of socioeconomic and gender inequality. And my father, for all his power, couldn’t help me this time.

*

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“The Scream” afTer “The STorm” illustration by dave cutler

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Triburbia

by Karl Taro Greenfeld 113 North Moore That’s me, lurking by the elementary school wrought-iron fence, standing with my hands in the pockets of my peacoat. I’m half Chinese, half Caucasian, shoulder-length black hair, ovoid face, epicanthic eyes, soft nose, thick lips, still boyish, I like to think, at age thirty-seven.

Behind me are the children, my daughters included, a rabbling swirl of high-pitched noise, shouts piercing other shouts, aural confetti, almost impossible to reproduce in a sound studio. Around me are my fellow parents. Dutiful. Concerned about the school. But don’t underestimate them. They will draw and quarter you if they think you might f--k with their kids. God help you if you happen to venture onto the playground at the wrong time. I did it once, trying to record that school-yard din for a project of mine. I walked right into the recess playground through the unlocked gate wearing headphones, carrying an omni-directional microphone and a digital recorder. Teachers, attendants and parent volunteers swarmed me—they came rappelling down walls, climbing from sewer grates, materializing in clouds of smoke—before I could get close to a child. The look in their vigilante eyes, their eagerness, it was almost like they were hoping I was a pervert, some sicko, just so all their dark fears would be justified. They were angry with me when it turned out I was a parent and not a sexual predator. I was sternly warned not to return to the school unless I was accompanying my daughters.

Here’s what’s wrong with us: there’s nothing at stake. That makes us over-sensitive to minor transgressions, prone to disproportionate responses, quick to counterattack.

We are a prosperous community. Our lofts and apartments are worth millions. Our wives vestigially beautiful. Our renovations as vast and grand in scale as the construction of ocean liners, yet we regularly assure ourselves that our affluence does not define us. We are better than that.

Measure us by the books on our shelves, the paintings on our walls, the songs in our iTunes playlists, our children in their secure little school.

We live in smug certainty that our taste is impeccable, our politics correct, our sense of outrage at the current regime totally warranted.

Our neighborhood was settled by artists so long ago the story feels apocryphal. For almost as soon as the larger world became aware of Tribeca, in rushed developers and syndicators and builders and realtors and the name turned into a synonym for a kind of urban living: a little edgy, perhaps, but ultimately safer and richer even than Scarsdale.

A certain type of family arrived, drawn by that safety and the fauxbohemianism of Downtown, driving out the actual bohemians. And now, we faux-bohemians find ourselves facing the onslaught of those who don’t even pretend to give a shit about books or theater.

We are cosseted, a warm little precinct, connected to the rest of the city, but for all our interaction with it, it feels as if there are drawbridges that keep out the would-be brigands and freebooters. They are among us on these sidewalks, but we don’t notice them, the chubby minority girls in their sweatpants and string-strap day-packs, the boys on their way to the community college with their heavy parkas and earphones, rapping as they strut. They are local color: harmless, we tell ourselves, as unlikely to cause havoc as the pizza-delivery man or the fellow from

Guatemala who works at the deli.

So it is a shock when an icy hand reaches in and ruins a life. We wake up to the news and feel that a blade has scraped against our heart. We look at our children and wonder how we let them become so exposed, but then, the sense of safety, the cordoned-off warmth, wasn’t that always the aberration? An island of gentle deceit in a dark, hostile sea of truth, truth, truth?

*

From TRIBURBIA. Copyright © 2012 by Karl Taro Greenfeld.

Reprinted by permission of Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Karl Taro Greenfeld is the author of five previous books: the muchacclaimed memoir Boy Alone; NowTrends; China Syndrome; Standard Deviations; and Speed Tribes. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, the Paris Review, Playboy, One Story, Bloomberg Businessweek, Time, Sports Illustrated, GQ, the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, Best American Short Stories, and The PEN/O Henry Prize Stories. Born in Kobe, Japan, he has lived in Paris, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. He currently lives in Tribeca with his wife, Silka, and their daughters, Esmee and Lola.

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third eye ANythiNg one can imagine one can create. Over the last several years, photographic technology has evolved to a point where anything is possible. I imagined changing time in a single photograph. Using this new technology, I’ve been able to express this fascination through a new series of photographs: “Day to Night.” I photograph from a fixed camera angle continuously for up to 15 hours, throughout the “Day to Night.” A select group of images are then digitally blended into one photograph, capturing the changing of time in a single frame. “Day to Night” embodies a combination of my favorite things to photograph; people on the street melded with epic cityscapes, and the fleeting moments throughout the day and night. As this series has evolved, I discovered that the photographs began to highlight a form of emergent behavior within the daily life of the city. Seeing the subtle communication between pedestrians on sidewalks, cars and cabs on the street, these individual elements become a complex life form as they flow together to create a chaotic harmony. Cartier Bresson once said, “Photography is the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things.” I am forever fascinated by the rhythm of a city’s relentless energy from “Day to Night.” ~Stephen Wilkes

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by Stephen Wilkes

*

For more than two decades Stephen Wilkes has been widely recognized for his fine art and commercial photography.

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Chapter 1 A man wearing the white robes of a Bedouin, Bulus ibn al-Darwish by name, known also by his Al Qaeda nom de guerre as al-Numair – The Panther – stood to the side of the Belgian tour group.

The Belgians had arrived in a minibus from Sana’a, four men and five women, with their Yemeni driver, and their Yemeni tour guide, a man named Wasim al-Rahib. The driver had stayed in the air-conditioned minibus, out of the hot August sun.

The tour guide, Wasim, spoke no French, but his English was good, and one of the Belgians, Annette, a girl of about sixteen, also spoke English and was able to translate into French for her compatriots.

Wasim said to his group, “This is the famous Bar’an Temple, also known as Arsh Bilqis – the throne of the Queen of Sheba.”

Annette translated, and the tour group nodded and began taking pictures.

Al-Numair, The Panther, scanned the ruins of the temple complex – over an acre of brown sandstone walls, towering square columns, and open courtyards, baking in the desert sun.

American and European archaeologists had spent many years and much money uncovering and restoring these pagan ruins – and then they had left because of tribal suspicion, and more recently Al Qaeda activity. Such a waste of time and money, thought The Panther. He looked forward to the day when the Western tourists stopped coming and this temple and the surrounding pagan ruins returned to the shifting desert sands.

The Panther looked beyond the temple complex at the sparse vegetation and the occasional date palm. In ancient times, he knew, it was much greener here, and more populous. Now the desert had arrived from

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the East – from the Hadhramawt, meaning the Place Where Death Comes.

Wasim al-Rahib glanced at the tall, bearded Bedouin and wondered why he had joined the Belgian tour group. Wasim had made his arrangements with the local tribal sheik, Musa, paying the man one hundred American dollars for the privilege of visiting this national historic site. Also, of course, the money bought peace; the promise that no Bedouin tribesmen would annoy, hinder, or in any way molest the tour group. So, Wasim wondered, why was this Bedouin here?

The Panther noticed that the tour guide was looking at him and he returned the stare until the guide turned back to his group.

There were no other tourists at the temple today; only one or two groups each week ventured out from the capital of Sana’a, two hundred kilometers to the west. The Panther remembered when these famous ruins attracted more Westerners, but unfortunately because of these recent reports of Al Qaeda activity in this province of Marib, many tourists stayed away. He smiled.

Also because of this situation, the Belgians had arrived with an armed escort of twenty men from the National Security Bureau, a para-military police force, whose job it was to protect tourists on the roads and at historic sites. The tourists paid for this service, which was money well spent, thought The Panther. But unfortunately for these Westerners, the policemen had also been paid to leave, which they were about to do.

Wasim continued his talk, “This temple is also known as the Moon Temple, and it was dedicated to the national god of the Sabaean state, who was called Almaqah.”

As the Belgian girl translated, Wasim glanced again at the bearded man in Bedouin robes who was standing too close to his tour group. He wanted to say something to the man, but he

was uneasy about him, and instead he said to his group, “This was one thousand and five hundred years before the Prophet Mohammed enlightened the world and vanquished the pagans.”

The Panther, who also spoke English, nodded in approval at the guide’s last statement.

He studied the Belgian tourists. There were two couples in their later years who seemed to know one another, and who looked uncomfortable in the burning sun. There was also a man and a woman, perhaps in their early twenties, and The Panther saw they wore no wedding rings, though they were obviously together, sometimes holding hands. The remaining man and woman were also together as a couple, and the girl who was translating appeared to be their daughter or a relative. He noted, too, that the women had covered their hair with hijabs, a sign of respect for Islamic custom, but none of them had covered their faces as required. The guide should have insisted, but he was a servant of the non-believers.

They were all adventurous travelers, thought The Panther. Curious people, perhaps prosperous, enjoying their excursion from Sana’a, where, as he knew, they were guests of the Sheraton Hotel.

Perhaps, though, this excursion was more difficult and adventurous than they had been told by the tour company. So now, he imagined, they might be thinking about their hotel comforts, and the hotel bar and dining room. He wondered, too, if a few of them were also thinking about security matters.

That would be an appropriate thought.

Again Wasim stole a glance at the Bedouin, who had intruded even closer to his small tour group.

The man, he thought, was not yet forty years of age, though the beard and the sun-browned skin made him appear older. Wasim also noticed now that the man was wearing the ceremonial jambiyah – the curved dagger of Yemen, worn by all males in the north of the country. The man’s shiwal,

his head covering, was not elaborate nor was it embroidered with costly gold thread, so this was not an important man, not a tribal sheik or the chief of a clan. Perhaps, then, the Bedouin was there to ask for alms from the Westerners. Even though Wasim had paid Sheik Musa to keep the tribesmen at a distance, if this Bedouin asked for alms, Wasim would give him a few hundred rials and tell him to go in peace.

Wasim again addressed his group. “This temple is believed by some who practice the American Mormon faith to be the place to which the Mormon prophet called Lehi fled from Jerusalem in the sixth century before the Common Era. It was here, according to Mormon scholars, where Lehi buried the prophet Ishmael.

And when this was done, Lehi built a great ship for himself and his family and sailed to America.”

Annette translated, and one of the male tourists asked a question, which the young girl translated into English for Wasim, who smiled and answered, “Yes, as you can see, there is no ocean here. But in ancient times, it is believed there was much water here – rivers, perhaps – from the Great Flood of Noah.”

The young woman translated, and the Belgians all nodded in understanding.

Wasim said, “Follow me, please.” He ascended fourteen stone steps and stood before six square columns, five of which rose twenty meters in height, while the sixth was broken in half. He waited for his group to join him, then

said, “If you look there to the west, you will see the mountains where the local tribes believe the Ark of Noah came to rest.”

The tourists took pictures of the distant mountains and didn’t notice the bearded man climbing the steps toward them.

Wasim, however, did notice, and he said to the Bedouin in Arabic, “Please, sir, this is a private tour group.”

Al-Numair, The Panther, replied in Arabic, “But I wish to learn also.”

Wasim, keeping a respectful tone in his voice, replied to the Bedouin, “You speak no English or French, sir. What can you learn?”

The Panther replied in English, “I am a poor man, sir, who comes to entertain the tourists in my finest tribal robes.”

Wasim was taken aback by the man’s perfect English, then replied in Arabic, “Thank you, but Sheik Musa has assured me –” “Please, sir,” said the Bedouin in English, “allow me to pose for photographs with your Western friends. One hundred rials for each photograph.”

Annette heard this and translated into French for her compatriots, who had seemed anxious about the exchange between the two Arabs.

Hearing now what this was about, they all smiled and agreed that this would be a very good thing – an excellent souvenir photograph to take home.

Wasim acquiesced to his clients’ wishes and motioned to the Bedouin to proceed.

The Belgians began posing alongside the tall, bearded Bedouin, individually at first, then in small groups. The Bedouin smiled for each photograph, and he was very accommodating to the tourists as they asked him to move around the temple to set up various shots with the ruins in the background.

One of the older men asked him to draw his dagger, but the Bedouin explained almost apologetically that if the jambiyah is drawn, then it must be used. On hearing the translation of this from Annette, the older Belgian said to his compatriots, “Then we will not ask him to draw his dagger,” and they all laughed. But Wasim did not laugh.

Wasim glanced at his watch. Though they had left Sana’a at eight in the morning, the bus had not arrived at the nearby town of Marib until after noon. The tourists had lunched, too slowly he thought, at the Bilqis Hotel tourist restaurant, and there Wasim had to wait too long for Sheik Musa, who demanded two hundred American dollars, saying to Wasim, “The other tribes are making problems, and so I must pay them to allow you safe passage on your return to Sana’a.”

Wasim had heard this before, but he explained WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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to the sheik, as he always did, “The tourists have already paid a fixed price to the travel company in Sana’a, and a price for the police escort. I can ask no more of them. And there is no profit for me if I give you more money.” But, as always, Wasim promised, “Next time.”

The sheik and the tour guide from Sana’a had agreed on the one hundred dollars, but Wasim had decided there would be no next time. The road from Sana’a to Marib was becoming unsafe, and it was not only the tribes who were restless, but also this new group, Al Qaeda, who had entered the area in the last year. They were mostly foreigners – Saudis, Kuwaitis, people from neighboring Oman, and also Iraqis who had fled the Americans in their homeland. These people, Wasim thought, would bring death and unhappiness to Yemen.

In fact, Sheik Musa had said to Wasim, “These Al Qaeda people are becoming a problem. They are attracted by the American oil wells and the American pipelines, and they gather like wolves waiting for a chance to strike.” The sheik had also told Wasim, “You cannot buy those people, my friend, and the police cannot protect you from them, but I can. Three hundred dollars.”

Again, Wasim had declined to make the extra payment, and Sheik Musa had shrugged and said, “Perhaps next time.”

“Yes, next time.” But Wasim was now sure there would be no next time.

Wasim al-Rahib, a university graduate with a degree in ancient history, could not find a job teaching, or a job anywhere, except with this tour company. It paid well enough, and the Western tourists were generous with their gratuities, but it was becoming dangerous work. And also dangerous for the tourists, though the tour company would not say that.

All the guidebooks – written years ago – said, “You cannot leave Yemen without seeing the ruins of Marib.” Well, Wasim thought, they would have to see them without him.

Wasim watched the tourists, talking now to the Bedouin through the English translation of the young girl. The Bedouin seemed pleasant enough, but there was something unusual about him. He did not seem like a Bedouin.

He was too at ease with these foreigners, and he spoke English. Very unusual, unless perhaps he worked for the Americans at the oil installation.

In any case, it was now past three in the afternoon, and they had not yet visited the Temple of the Sun. If they stayed here much longer, they would be traveling the last hour to Sana’a in darkness. And

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it was not good to be on the road after dark, even with the police escort, who themselves did not want to be on the road after dark.

Wasim spoke in English to the young woman, and to the Bedouin, “We must now leave. Thank you, sir, for your hospitality.”

But the Belgians wanted a photograph of the entire group together with the Bedouin, taken by Wasim. So Wasim, thinking about his gratuity, agreed, and took the photographs with four different cameras.

Wasim then said to the Belgian girl, “I think if you give this gentleman a thousand rials, he will be very happy.” He made sure she understood. “That will be about five euros. A very good day’s pay for this kind man.”

Annette collected the money and handed it to the Bedouin, then said to him, “Thank you, sir.”

The Bedouin took the money and replied, “You are very welcome.” He also said to the girl, “Please tell your compatriots that Bulus ibn al-Darwish wishes them a happy and safe visit to Yemen.”

Wasim was looking to the north where the minibus had parked on the road behind the army truck that carried the security police.

The bus was still there, but the truck was not. In fact, Wasim could not see any of the National Security police in their distinctive blue camouflage uniforms.

Wasim made a call on his cell phone to the police commander, but there was no answer. Then he called the bus driver, Isa, who was also his wife’s cousin. But Isa did not answer his cell phone.

Wasim then looked at the Bedouin, who was looking at him, and Wasim understood what was happening. He took a deep breath to steady his voice and said to the Bedouin in Arabic, “Please, sir…” Wasim shook his head and said, “This is a very bad thing.”

The tall Bedouin replied, “You, Wasim alRahib, are a bad thing. You are a servant of the infidels, but you should be a servant of Allah.”

“I am truly his servant – ” “Quiet.” The Bedouin raised his right arm in a signal, then lowered it and looked at Wasim and at the Belgians, but said nothing.

The four men and five women were looking at their guide, waiting for him to explain what was happening. Clearly, something was wrong, though a few minutes earlier everyone had been smiling and posing for pictures.

Wasim avoided the worried stares of his group.

Annette said to Wasim in English, “What is wrong? Did we not give him enough?”

Wasim did not reply, so Annette said to the Bedouin in English, “Is there something wrong?”

Al-Numair, The Panther, replied to her, “You are what is wrong.”

The Belgians began asking Annette what had been said, but she didn’t reply.

Then one of the men in the group shouted, “Regardez!” and pointed.

In the temple courtyard below, where they had been standing, a group of about twelve men suddenly appeared from the dark recesses of the ruins, wearing Bedouin robes and carrying Kalashnikov rifles.

At first, all the tourists were silent, but then as the Bedouin began running up the stone steps, a woman screamed.

Then everything happened very quickly.

Two of the Bedouin pointed their rifles at the Belgians while the others bound their hands behind their backs with tape.

Annette shouted to Wasim, “What is happening? Why are they doing this?”

Wasim, whose wrists were also bound, was at first afraid to speak, but then he found his voice and said, “It is a kidnapping. Do not be frightened.

They kidnap for money. They will not harm us.”

And as Wasim said this, he hoped it was so. A tribal kidnapping of Westerners. It was a common thing – what was called a guest kidnapping – and they would spend a week, perhaps two, with a tribe until money was delivered. And then they would be released.

These things usually ended well, he knew, and Westerners were rarely harmed, and never killed unless the army intervened and attempted to free those who were taken by the tribes.

Annette, though she was terrified, said to her compatriots, “It is a kidnapping. For ransom.

Wasim says not to be – ” “Shut up,” said the tall Bedouin in English.

He then said to Wasim in Arabic, “This is not a kidnapping.”

Wasim closed his eyes and began praying aloud.

Bulus ibn al-Darwish, The Panther, drew his curved dagger and moved behind Wasim.

With one hand he pulled Wasim’s head back by his hair, and with his other hand he drew his curved dagger across Wasim’s throat, then shoved the man forward.

Wasim fell face first onto the stone floor of the Temple of the Moon and lay still as his blood flowed quickly and spread across the hot stones.

The Belgians stared in horror, then some of them began screaming and some began crying.

The armed men now forced all the Belgians to their knees, and The Panther moved first to Annette, coming around behind her, and said

to her, “So you don’t have to watch the others die,” and with a quick motion he pulled her head back by her long hair and sliced open her throat with his curved dagger, then moved on to the others.

Some cried or begged for mercy, and some struggled, though it was futile, because the jihadists held them in a tight grip as The Panther cut their throats. A few accepted their fate quietly. Only one prayed, an elderly woman whom The Panther saved for last so she could finish her prayers. It was interesting, he thought, to see how people died.

In less than two minutes, it was over. All nine infidels and Wasim their servant lay on the floor of the temple, their life blood flowing freely onto the ancient stone.

Bulus ibn al-Darwish, al-Numair, The Panther, watched the infidels as, one by one, they went into a final death throe, then lay still.

One, however, the man who was the father of the young woman, suddenly stood, his wrists still bound behind his back, and began running down the stone steps. He quickly stumbled and fell face first onto the stone, then tumbled down the steep steps and came to rest at the bottom.

The Panther said to his jihadists, “I hope he was not injured.”

The men laughed.

The Panther stared at his jambiyah, red with blood, then slid it into its sheath.

He retrieved one of the tourists’ cameras and looked at the digital images on the small screen, which made him smile.

He called to one of his men, “Nabeel,” and handed him the camera to take pictures of the slaughter.

The Panther looked at the dead Europeans and said, “So, you came to Yemen for adventure and for knowledge. And you have found both. A great final adventure, and a great knowledge of this land. You have learned that in Yemen death comes.”

Chapter 2 If the earth had an anus, it would be located in Yemen.

And speaking of assholes, my boss, FBI Special Agent in Charge Tom Walsh, wanted to see me, John Corey, at 5:15 p.m., and Detective Corey was now five minutes late.

But not to worry – my wife, Kate Mayfield, who also works for Walsh, was on time for the meeting and had undoubtedly made excuses for me, like, “John is in a passive-aggressive mood today. He’ll be here when he feels he’s

made his statement.”

Right. Another five minutes. I logged off my computer and looked around the empty cube farm. I work on the 26th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, which is located in Lower Manhattan in the shadows of the Twin Towers. Well…not anymore. The Towers, I mean. But I’m still here.

It was Friday – what we call Federal Friday – meaning that by 4:30, my colleagues in the war on terrorism, mostly FBI agents and NYPD detectives, had left to beat the bridge and tunnel traffic, or they’d gone off on special assignments to the surrounding bars and restaurants. With any luck, I’d be joining them shortly. But first I had to see Tom Walsh, who is in charge of the New York Anti-Terrorist Task Force. And what did Mr. Walsh want to see me about?

His e-mail had said: JOHN, KATE, MY OFFICE, 5:15. PRIVATE. SUBJECT YEMEN. Yemen? Typo, maybe. Yemex? A new kind of explosive? Maybe he meant “Yes-men.” Too many yes-men in the organization.

Walsh doesn’t usually state the subject of a private meeting – he likes to surprise you. But when he does state a subject, he wants you to think about it – he wants it to eat at your guts.

If I thought this out, I could conclude that Tom Walsh wanted to assign Kate and me to the Yemen desk. Do we have a Yemen desk here? Maybe he just wanted us to help him find Yemen on the map.

Another possibility… no, he was not going to ask us to go to Yemen. No, no. I’d been there for a month to investigate the USS Cole bombing.

That’s how I found out it was an anal cavity.

I stood, put on my jacket, straightened my tie, and brushed the chips off my shoulders – a well-balanced detective has a chip on both shoulders – then made my way toward Walsh’s office.

A brief history of this elite organization. The Anti-Terrorist Task Force was founded in 1980, when the word “terrorist” was not synonymous with Islamic terrorist. The ATTF in those days had its hands full with Irish Republican Army guys, Black Panthers, Puerto Rican separatist groups, and other bad actors who, to paraphrase William Shakespeare, thought that all New York was a stage, and every bad actor wanted to play Broadway.

So the first Federally funded Anti-Terrorist Task Force was formed here in New York, comprised of ten FBI agents and ten NYPD detectives. Now we have a lot more people than that. Also, we’ve

added a few CIA officers, plus people from other Federal and State law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The actual number is classified, and if someone asks me how many people work here, I say, “About half.”

The New York Task Force experiment worked well, and prior to September 11, 2001, there were about thirty-five other anti-terrorist task forces across the country. Now, post-9/11, there are over a hundred nationwide. A sign of the times.

The theory behind these task forces is that if you mix people from various law enforcement and intelligence agencies into a single organization, you will get different skills and mind-sets coming together to form synergy, and that will lead to better results. It sort of works. I mean, my wife is FBI and I’m NYPD and we get along and communicate pretty well.

In fact, everyone here would get along better if they slept with one another.

The other reason for including the local police in the Federal Task Force is that most FBI agents – my wife included – are from non-urban areas, meaning the ‘burbs or the boondocks. So in a big city like New York, it’s the local cops who know the territory. I’ve instructed new FBI agents on how to read a subway map and I’ve pinpointed for them the location of every Irish pub on Second and Third Avenues.

In any case, I’m actually a contract agent here, meaning I’m a civilian. Until five years ago I was NYPD, but I’m retired on medical disability as a result of being shot three times in the line of duty, all on the same day. I’m fine physically (mentally maybe not so fine), but there were other reasons to take the offer to retire. Now, like a lot of ex-cops, I’ve found a new career with the Feds, who have zillions of anti-terrorist dollars to spend. Do I like this job? I was about to find out.

*

Reprinted with Permission of Grand Central Publishing, 2012 Nelson DeMille is a former U.S. Army lieutenant who served in Vietnam and is the author of sixteen acclaimed novels, including the #1 New York Times bestsellers Night Fall, Plum Island, and The Gate House. He is also the author of By the Rivers of Babylon, Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Charm School, The Gold Coast, The General’s Daughter, Spencerville, The Lion’s Game, Up Country, Wild Fire, and The Lion.

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fiction

Dear Yale

by Jess

I

t’s been much too long.

But enough about that. Don’t think of me angry. Think of me as I am, standing at the mailbox on a sunny September mid-morning, a light breeze kicking up a swirl of dust and aster leaves around my legs. Cane hooked over my arm, I steady myself against the post, and run my finger under the flap, heedless of paper cuts, like a little boy with a birthday card. There are still those of us who love the smell of fresh ink and newly pulped wood, the sweet gum of the envelope flap; who when we see, in amongst the telephone bills and the Humane Society pity letters, a simple blue silhouette of Nathan Hale, experience a perineal clench, an involuntary rectal bunching-up of joy.

Today, in celebration, I put on Black Watch tartan pants, with a navy V-neck sweater, a white button-down, and a kellygreen tie dotted with canvasback ducks. My granddaughter Mackenzie, the colorblind one, gave it to me last Christmas. Why grow old if you can’t dress the way you like? I always say, though Tilda sees things differently. She says I dress like a country-club Republican. I remind her that we are country-club Republicans, and she says, oh no we’re not, not anymore, not since Monkeyface invited his drooling henchmen to squat in the Lincoln Bedroom

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Row

and do their dirt on the floor.

Tilda’s father knew Preston Bush rather well, even wrote the family’s automobile policies at one point, and she took the whole Texas move rather hard.

I make up errands for myself nearly every day; today it’s Wofford’s Hardware, where I buy a set of solar-powered walkway lights on sale, reduced to $99 from $299, because the sun never shines in Connecticut long enough to charge the damn things. Michael will put them in anyway. We have few visitors, day or night, and I don’t mind if they stumble. And then, yes, though it’s out of the way, and there’s split pea soup with ham at home, I drive up the long curving driveway to the Club, past the tennis courts, the young women in the short boxy skirts that flap so invitingly around their bottoms, and park in the Senior Members lot, next to the wheelchair ramp. A young man comes out to greet me, and I don’t mind saying he’s black, no more than I mind that I still think of him as a Negro, and still believe that Negroes make the best help, the most deferential and kind, because, after all, they are still human, which is more than I can say of myself on some days, and Tilda hardly ever.

And it is only then, seated at my customary window table overlooking the lawn where all

three of my daughters were married in a fiveyear period during the Reagan administration, that I take your letter out of my inner jacket pocket, right side, and lay it on the white tablecloth where it belongs, where a letter from Yale deserves to be read.

But not quite yet. There are other rituals to be observed. There is the removal of the toothpicks, the salting and peppering of the egg salad. There is the first glassy taste of iced tea, my first and only caffeine of the day, unless I sneak the dregs of Tilda’s instant coffee at breakfast. There is the spreading of the Journal and the scanning of the headlines. I keep my head down, intent, industrious. No one interrupts a man of my age while he’s reading. We fear heart attacks, sudden jolts, little arrhythmias. I could stay here all afternoon, three shifts’ worth of waiters silently refilling my glass. I have nothing but time. But at least I have that.

Dear Yale Family, There was a young woman from the Office of Alumni Giving—a name I have always loved, because it never hints, grammatically, at who is doing the giving and who the receiving— who came to see me once, some years ago. We had lunch at this very table. It was May. The old beeches on the lawn still had that look of wetness, that intense, astringent green of

spring. Her name was Melissa Hardwick; she had pale blond hair tucked behind her ears and sat up very straight, as if she’d only recently become accustomed to sitting in chairs at all.

Her hometown, incredibly, was Hailey, Idaho, Ezra Pound’s birthplace. She had been captain of the ski team. Her major was Ethics, Politics, and Economics. We discussed Machiavelli.

I don’t blame her at all for what happened afterwards. I gave her the plans in a sealed envelope, and told her, with best wishes, to pass them onward, upward, to you. Imagine, she had no idea who Jonathan Edwards was!

I bear no ill will toward the Melissa Hardwicks of the world. But to you, I still say, there was no need to inform the authorities.

It’s the time of year when I come to you hat in hand for contributions to the Alumni Annual Fund. There are, of course, many ways that you already support Yale—donations to your class fund, to Capital Campaigns, to individual institutions, through legacy giving—but only the Alumni Annual Fund provides us with

of Faculty Interviewers, was a young lady named Zhihua Liang, whose parents literally owned a laundry. In Hartford, on Butler Street; I drove by afterward myself to make sure. Zhihua Liang, as you surely know, had perfect SAT scores, and had already received the highest possible grade on five Advanced Placement tests in her junior year.

She had invented a software program that had to do with testing the screens on something called a tablet PC. She had filed a patent application. She played one of Bach’s partitas on the violin and then discoursed for nearly an hour on Bach’s relationship with the choirmasters of his father’s generation, quoting extensively from German sources. From her mother she had learned a form of reflexology that she demonstrated on the balls of my aching feet. She took my pulse and gave me a kind of scalp massage. She was wearing a rather low-cut knit sweater with a demure silver heart pendant above her small but well-defined breasts. We made love for an hour on the couch in my study, and then I wrote her a check for five hundred thousand dollars, to cover the cost of tuition and books.

to pursue my graduate degree. Melissa Hardwick, in whom green optimism sprang eternal, suggested that I would benefit from Yale’s enormous range of, as she put it, non-credit, Adult Education programs. In declining, I had to explain to her that basic precept of American philosophy, that there is no such thing as knowledge for its own sake. I was hungry, I told her. I am hungry, hungrier than any twenty-five-year-old. I wanted, I want, to get in the game. There are other schools, she said, and I laughed, again. In every age, there is only one school. And I have applied, in my late life, to nearly every one of its branches and tentacles: law school, engineering school, philosophy, classics, English, economics, poli sci. The chair of one department, I forget which, wrote me a personal letter, in which he commended my enthusiasm but suggested that my ideas belong to a discipline which may have once existed but has now vanished for lack of empirical evidence. This, to me, seemed a most ringing endorsement. Indeed, almost an invitation.

Not long ago, I spoke over the phone with one of our most senior alumni, Sam Winslow,

The chair of one deparTmenT, i forgeT which, wroTe me a personal leTTer, in which he commended my enThusiasm buT suggesTed ThaT my ideas belong To a discipline which may have once exisTed buT has now vanished for lack of empirical evidence. This, To me, seemed a mosT ringing endorsemenT. the unrestricted resources we need to meet the ever-changing needs of Yale’s students and faculty. Our most pressing concern this year is a 14% increase in applications for financial aid.

I nibble the crust of my wheat toast. I take up a soup spoon and prod among the swollen noodles for a shard of dark meat. Last year the club did away with its old recipe and introduced institutional canned soup, with perfect white discs of chicken, precise cubes of carrot and celery: a bizarre food-lab experiment, courtesy of some land grant college in the Midwest, Porcine State. I admit that I overdid it at the member’s meeting. Mark Philpot, the president, is a perfectly nice man; I told him so afterward in his office, over a glass of sherry.

But there are ways and ways to economize.

I want you to sit here and watch me as I think about the nature of the phrase financial aid. I want this to be part of our time together. The last child I interviewed before the unpleasantness began, before the AYA removed me from its list

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That, according to my lights, was nothing more than financial aid. I did not need it demonstrated to me in a court of law—my check, in a plastic envelope, marked “Exhibit 439c”! I knew what I was doing. I said so at the time.

Recently I had a conversation with Izameyake Ogundigasagare, a sophomore (SY ’12) who lost both her parents in the Rwandan genocide when she was only two years old. Izameyake, who still smiles when her friends address her by her new American nickname, “Izzy,” came to Yale with the assistance of the Alumni Fund’s Aid to International Students program. Raised in an orphanage in Kenya, she was invited to apply after a chance meeting with Bill Clinton at the African AIDS and Tuberculosis Summit in the spring of 2006.

I am an enthusiast; that is the worst of my faults. A late interloper in realms where I have no authority, unlike, say, the realm of reinsurance for highly capitalized multilateral corporations, where I quite literally wrote the book. I waited too long

SY ’28. Sam, the only living member of his class, remembers visits to campus by Calvin Coolidge, George Bernard Shaw, and Edith Wharton. He regretted not being able to attend last year’s reunion due to ill health, but he was delighted to receive a visit by Tiffany Jackson, president of the class of 2009. Sam, who calls himself “a lifelong believer in progress and development,” says of Yale in the twentyfirst century that “it’s different from the Yale I attended in every conceivable way, except the ways that matter most.” He credits his own longevity to one word: “adaptability.”

I shouldn’t have to mention this here, but I was, very briefly, brought in as a consultant on reinsurance matters to the meetings of the Yale Corporation, from April to August of 1983. Professionally it should go without saying that those were the happiest months of my career. I worked myself to a froth. I had night sweats. I slept on the couch in my office. I took on, and abandoned, a smoking

habit. When it was all over I went to a party at the home of a younger colleague, Class of 1967, on East 77th Street and Park, and snorted cocaine for the first and only time in my life. And it was in that ecstatic state—on a rooftop patio, at some ungodly hour of the morning, after the exquisite Thai prostitutes had left—that I had the first of my visions.

Portfolio managers, I’m told, visualize their largest accounts in bar graphs and flow charts.

Hillhouse, but I leave the real estate concerns up to you. It could be in a basement. It could be a rural retreat. What matters is that it exists, and that every undergraduate, on the day they arrive, receive a letter in his or her box in Yale Station, giving them a day and time for an appointment.

They arrive, I see it now, one at a time, in their scrubby clothes, their hooded sweatshirts and fashionably ripped jeans, and find a dimly lit, plush-carpeted, sweet-

Our house is set back nearly a quarter of a mile from the road, on a slight rise; the whole front of the property is a long, sloping lawn, that comes down to a fringe of old oaks around Warbling Brook, and to the left of the driveway, behind post fences, are the horse pastures, the barn just visible next to the woods on the opposite side. When the girls were still at home we owned four and five horses at a time, Morgans, and had

This is america; we don’T have TiTles, we don’T have pedigrees, we have money. and whaT is The meaning of money? like waTer, iT flows everywhere, buT always reTurns To iTs source.

The true visionaries see numbers as swans, their feathers ruffled by the winds of market turbulence, or as sand dunes in the Sahara, their tops delicately shaved away minute by minute as the manager’s fees accumulate. I have never had this talent. In insurance we don’t see risk. But on that rooftop I did: I saw the number, our number, as a tower, an obelisk, three-sided, shining, and absolutely black. Light seemed to fall into it.

The Gnostics, as you know, say that at the moment of true knowledge our earthly trappings simply evaporate; we no longer feel our bodies or see our surroundings, except briefly, fleetingly, as the mirage dissipates, and we are suffused with glowing joy at being united with the light. And I ask you, as I have asked myself my entire life, where is Yale, exactly? Can we locate it in its symbols, in beloved old Harkness, in Veritas et Lux? Of course not. We are our money. How much more baldly can I put things? Our money which is not ours, which belongs to the future, our life-giving fountain, may it ever accumulate, may it gather power unto itself!

Occasionally I’m asked why it is I feel such commitment to a position raising money for an institution that already has a great deal of money. My answer is always very simple: with our great resources comes great responsibility. Staying the same size— staying the same in any way—is not an option in a complex and expanding world.

It’s because you appreciate this fact that I know you’ll make this another successful year for the Alumni Fund.

My proposal, then? My Institute. The Proctor Institute. I see it in one of the stone mansions on

smelling room. Beautiful olive-skinned women invite them to change into robes and escort them to a bubbling hot bath. There is champagne, and a lovely light meal. There are massages offered in private rooms. There are other experiences available, only for the asking. After an interval of two hours, the students arrive, flushed and sleek, in a conference room, with a circle of couches around an advanced holographic computer.

More women arrive, bearing pots of exquisite tea, slow-brewed Ethiopian coffee. A Yale representative greets them and dims the lights. And there, in front of them, a glowing orb, a monument, a number in dancing laser beams, as the market fluctuates that day.

What should he say to them? What do we all wish we could say to them, our precious offspring, these striplings, these fawns?

Look around. Take note of one another.

What meaning do you have, separately, individually? A thousand people wanted to take your place. Why are you here? The truth is, it doesn’t really matter, does it? This is America; we don’t have titles, we don’t have pedigrees, we have money. And what is the meaning of money? Like water, it flows everywhere, but always returns to its source.

What do you want in life? We can give it to you. As long as you return the favor.

Look around. I have tears in my eyes, soppy old soul that I am, and have to pull over onto the narrow grassy strip. Look around, I want to say to them. Touch each other. Love each other.

Conjugate, for God’s sakes, you Changs and alAbiyas, you Wheatcrofts and Gopals! Pool your lucky genes!

Yours,

family rides on Sundays. Now the pastures are overgrown with ragweed and thistle, impossible to mow, and pitted with hidden sinkholes, thanks to poor drainage. Ride a horse there now and you’d break his leg. I park at the mailbox, leaving the keys inside for Michael, and walk up the driveway: my daily constitutional, such as it is. This way, if I pitch over, at the very least I’ll be on my own property, not a burden to the taxpayers.

Tilda, who has been watercoloring, and haranguing one child or another over the phone, comes out onto the front porch to “warch” me, hands on her hips. I make slow but steady progress. In one hand, I bear a letter from Yale; it flaps lightly, teasingly, with every jolting step. You who are looking at me now, who have been with me from this journey, you who see me, frankly, now, as an integer, see me now turned back into material, if only for a minute, before I go up to my study and call my accountant. See me for this once as the human being I might have been, and then I will dissolve myself, joyfully, finally, but with a tiny residue of sadness for the world I have excreted and left behind.

*

Jess Row is the author of the story collections The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Granta, Conjunctions, Slate, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at the College of New Jersey and the Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can track his movements at jessrow.com.

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Rural Palates : reviews Terrain Garden Café Westport, CT Billed as a café, the exciting new restaurant at Terrain in Westport is a whole lot more. Terrain Café offers a greenhouse or outdoor setting,

and leeks; lamb loin with eggplant, fava beans, peas, arugula and spicy harissa sauce; and soft shell crabs with potato rosti, sweet peppers, pickled onions, baby lettuce in a lemon basil vinaigrette are house specials. Finish your meal

SpiCe affaire Stamford, CT “A romance between spice and food,” Spice Affaire at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Stamford presents a culinary tour of Indian cuisine with an emphasis on fresh, fragrant, and appealing. If the seasonings should be toasted, tossed, sifted or ground, they are done so on premises. India is the largest spice producer in the world, and chef “Ninja” Rayamajhi takes advantage of the range of products he has sourced directly from his country of birth. But that doesn’t necessarily mean his dishes are hot.

While all of the biryanis (basmati rice-based dishes) are served with raita— a tangy yogurt sauce ideal for cooling palates — they are topped with a variety of savory marinated meats cooked with nuts, dried fruits, vegetables and a blend of herbs and spices.

Specialties cooked in the tandoori oven include tiger prawns marinated in yogurt and

Terrain Garden Café

surrounded by lush, living things. Raw linens, masons jars, and extensive use of candles and lanterns enhance the natural ambiance while adding a sophisticated aura. The staff is young, highly competent, and eager to please.

Executive Chef Joe Wolfson, a rising star on the Gulf coast, oversees an innovative and varied menu with Southern influences.

Offerings change weekly, many of them seasonal dishes using ingredients from local farms. To start, a fresh mini loaf of bread baked and served in a terra cotta flowerpot with a side of honey-sweetened butter arrives on the reclaimed wood table. Among the small plates, Chef Wolfson doesn’t shy away from organ meats with a nouvelle twist, recently offering both an excellent chicken liver mousse with apricot gelée, petite salad and toast points; and delicately crisp veal sweetbreads with golden raisin chutney, in a leek, capers and brown butter sauce.

From the main plates, red snapper with little neck clams, Swiss chard, new potatoes, fennel

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with an artisanal cheese board from regional cheesemakers, or a housemade sweet treat.

Coffee bar open daily 7:30 am – 6 pm; lunch Monday - Friday, dinner Tuesday - Saturday and weekend brunch served in the café. 561 Post Road East, Westport, CT. 203/226-2732; www.shopterrain.com/westport-restaurant.

SpiCe affaire

STiCKy-nuTS Stamford, CT Sticky-Nuts is trail mix all grown up, and dressed to impress. Made with organic nuts, seeds, and dried fruits, Sticky-Nuts includes creative twists like sesame brittle and crispy lentils in its Asian Fusion mixture, and candied peel in the Morning Grapefruit trail mix. The company was created by husband and wife team Zachary and Rebecca Butlein in early 2011. Their decision to leave Manhattan to start Sticky-Nuts in suburban Ridgefield,

eleven14 KiTChen

mild carom seed sauce; ginger marinated chicken on the bone, skewered and grilled; and beautiful whole wheat flour breads, plain or with a choice of chopped garlic, mint, fenugreek, coriander and butter.

Lamb chili masala is a unique combination of finely minced and chunks of lamb with green chilies and a blend of herbs; for appetizers any of the samosas or fritters are lightly crispy. Excellent vegetarian entrees as well as goat appear on the menu, but no pork; the restaurant is halal.

Tantalizing, lightly sweetened desserts include a hot gulab jamun (Spongy milky balls soaked in rose scented syrup) and housemade pistachio ice cream served in a lemon rind. Lunch buffet and dinner served daily.

26 Mill River Street, Stamford, CT. 203/353-1000; www.spiceaffaire.com. eleven14 KiTChen Greenwich, CT This snazzy restaurant at the new JHouse boutique hotel in the Riverside neighborhood of Greenwich, CT is hot, hot, hot. Retro yet avant-garde, with a new American menu, stunning décor, swinging bar and lounge, and louche, open-air dining and bar area with trellises and heating units that should allow the outdoor spaces to be used for much of the year, the restaurant is drawing in overnight guests as well as beautiful local patrons in satisfying numbers.

Executive Chef François Kwaku-Dongo uses many locally sourced ingredients (Connecticut and the Hudson Valley) to present seasonal, globally-influenced dishes.

To start, sample the housemade duck sausage pizza; roasted tomato soup served chilled; spicy beef tartar with quail egg; marinated tuna carpaccio; or fresh baby artichoke and avocado salad. House special entrées include a grilled bone-in rib eye steak; roasted simple half chicken with natural juices; and black bass filet with a tomato bean vinaigrette.

As you pass by the see through, glass walled baking area on your way in, you will be inspired to save room for dessert: eleven14 chocolate mousse cake; jumbo, chocolate filled madeleines; or individual, hot, seasonal cobbler (peach and rhubarb on a recent visit.)

The handsome main dining room is large and open, with a dark recycled wood floor, tan knitted chair covers, potted herbs on the tables, and floor to ceiling windows.

The Chocolate Lab, a sweet shop and café located just inside the hotel lobby, offers Chef ’s rich cocoa and coffee creations all day to stay or go, such as handmade truffles and chocolates, housemade ice cream, espresso and coffee drinks, as well as coffee beans from his native Côte d’Ivoire, pastries, sandwiches and light bites.

1114E. Putnam Ave., Greenwich, CT. 203/698-6990; www.jhousegreenwich.com.

Connecticut, was brought on by Rebecca being diagnosed with Lupus and Sjögren’s Syndrome in 2010. She found that trail mix was what helped her survive, becoming one of the few foods that her body could tolerate. Rebecca quickly grew tired of the same old trail mix options and Sticky-Nuts was born.

In addition to Morning Grapefruit and Asian Fusion blends, the company offers PB Fig and Choco Spice mixes, as well as limited batches of a special blend for each season.

Sticky-Nuts is currently available in Connecticut at the Westport Farmers’ Market, New Canaan Farmers’ Market, City Seed’s Edgewood Park Farmers’ Market in New Haven, Rowayton Farmers’ Market, and Woodmont Farmers’ Market.

You can also find the trail mixtures online at: www.abesmarket.com; www.etsy.com; www.monthlys.com www.sticky-nuts.com.

Approx. $6 for a 4 oz package

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Not to be missed the plaza food hall

The New York Plaza Have you been to the Food Hall at the Plaza? This has to be one of the most exciting additions to the New York City dining scene since the debut of Eataly. Located on the Concourse level of the landmark Plaza Hotel, The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English is a toast to Harrod’s legendary gastronomic emporium. Celebrity chef Todd English is the headliner and The Plaza Food Hall is a winner! Eight seating areas offer intimate experiences at the Wine Bar, Cheese & Charcuterie Station, Sushi Bar, Burger Bar & Rotisserie, Asian Noodle and Dumpling Bar, Espresso & Tea Bar, and Brick Oven Pizza and Artisanal Pasta Bar. Designed by Jeffrey Beers, The Plaza Food Hall is a handsome European-style arcade of New York City favorites: Luke’s Lobster, No. 7 Sub, Pain D’Avignon, Tartine, Three Tarts, Sushi of Gari, William Greenberg Desserts, Billy’s Bakery, Kusmi Tea shop, La Maison du Chocolat, Lady M Cakes, YoArt, Burke in the Box, Creperie NYC.

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Whether it’s for tea at the Palm Court, a stay in the elegant suites or a visit to The Rose Club, The Plaza has always been a special occasion destination. What I love about The Plaza Food Hall is that it’s casual, the menu prices are not out of sight and the food is terrific. No need to wait for a special occasion; pop in for a lobster roll to go, or meet a friend for dinner.

The Plaza also offers a selection of the ‘best of the best’ retail collections with its direct entrance from 58th Street. Don’t miss the Caudalie Spa, and Warren Tricomi Hair Salon for the top hair stylists in Manhattan. Can’t forget about Eloise, that lucky little girl with her very own boutique for parties and suite designed by Betsy Johnson for sleepovers. Well, for the very special young man in your life, The Plaza now offers Knights of knights of the plaza the Plaza, a Tower Suite featuring a round bed within a unique circle-shaped bedroom overlooking 5th Avenue. The 23-foot exposed brick cathedral ceiling gives the suite a real life siege tower authenticity. Young guests staying in the suite will be given The Plaza’s royal treatment, hotel-wide recognition that his lordship is present. The young knight will receive an eight inch metallic painted chocolate knight upon arrival, medieval-themed DVDs and books, and a closet full of knight dress-up outfits and toys from FAO Schwarz.

The Plaza’s $450 million restoration has brought this classic hotel forward as a destination for unforgettable experiences for all ages.

Fifth Avenue at Central Park South, New York, New York.

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The Singer And The Song 54 Below

When Colony Records closed in September, Broadway lost a piece of musical history. For 64 years, Colony was sheet music heaven, a part of the lives of every singer hoping to make it to Broadway. Performers would stand in the aisles searching for the ultimate audition song from Colony’s rows of sheet music from the latest Broadway shows. Though Colony’s run on Broadway has ended, the Broadway singer and patti lupone at 54 below

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NY metropolitan area. ReelAbilities is the largest festival in the country dedicated to promotEnjoy the Broadway premiere of Craig Wright’s ing awareness and appreciation of the lives, thought-provoking play, Grace, directed by Dexter Bullard and starring Paul Rudd, Michael Shannon, Kate Arrington and Ed Asner. An exploration of destiny, responsibility, and belief, Grace follows the turbulent path of a fast talking Evangelical idealist and his wife from wide-eyed zealots to ruined mortals. Will their dream of opening a chain of Gospelthemed motels unravel in the face of disillusionment? And how strong, really, is their faith? Limited engagement through January 6, 2013.

GraceOnBroadway.com; telecharge.com; 212/239-6200.

Cort Theatre, 138 West 48th St.

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A Christmas Story, The Musical!

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the Song have found new life at 54 Below.

If you love Broadway musicals, 54 Below is an amazing venue where you can drink, fine dine and listen to the best on Broadway in an intimate cabaret setting. There are up to three shows nightly as well as a late night lounge. You’re an insider at 54 Below, invited to a VIP private gathering for the Broadway theatre community. It’s hard to

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believe you’re sitting feet away listening to Patti Lupone belt out a song! Check out the stellar line-up in November: Melissa Errico (My Fair Lady) Adam Pascal (Rent), Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd), Liz Callaway (Baby).

254 West 54th Street, between Broadway & Eighth Avenue. 646/476-3551; www.54below.com.

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A Christmas Story, The Musical! arrives on Broadway at the LuntFontanne Theatre just in time for the 2012 holiday season. The new musical, based on the 1983 movie perennial, plays a November 5 – December 30 holiday engagement. The musical features a bright holiday score by composer/lyricist team Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and a witty book by Joseph Robinette based on the writings of radio humorist Jean Shepherd and the 1983 holiday film favorite. In 1940’s Indiana, a bespectacled boy named Ralphie has a big imagination and one wish for Christmas—a Red Ryder BB Gun. A kooky leg lamp, outrageous pink bunny pajamas, a cranky department store Santa, and a tripledog-dare to lick a freezing flagpole are just a few of the obstacles that stand between Ralphie and his Christmas dream. Co-produced by the film’s original Ralphie, Peter Billingsley, A Christmas Story, The Musical! is holiday entertainment that captures a simpler time in America with delicious wit and a heart of gold. www.AChristmasStoryTheMusical.com.

reelabilities

stories and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. Initiated in NY in 2007, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. Post-screenReelAbilities ing discussions and other engaging programs bring together the community to explore, disMarch 7-12, 2013 The 5th edition of ReelAbilities: NY cuss, embrace, and celebrate the diversity of our Disabilities Film Festival, will take place March shared human experience. www.reelabilities.org.

7-12, 2013, in over 20 venues throughout the

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and poached eggs topped off by saracha hollandaise, scallion and cheese; loaded hash BOMBS; a picturesque downstairs greenhouse and a rooftop patio.

135 North 5th Street, Brooklyn, NY. 718/388-9222 www.juliettewilliamsburg.com.

We’re messing with BOTH! Moti Mahal

It’s uptown for Indian … Moti Mahal Delux has 100 locations in India, Nepal, London, and now, NYC. And I know why… First of all they practically invented Butter Chicken — and they make it the same uber tender way its made in India; inventive apps like shot glasses of spicy Indian spring rolls suspended in dip; steaming and fragrant rice byriani in clay pots with cooling yogurt raita. Top it off... with my new obsession, Rasmalai (sweet cottage cheese dumplings soaked in saffron-infused condensed milk)!

1149 1st Avenue at 63rd Street.

212/371-3535; www.motimahaldelux.us

tortaria

Brasilina

spices, and Cajun nuts housed in a sizzling clay bowl. Cocktail specials at brunch, 7 variations of Caipirinhas and Caipiroskas.

The presentation’s organic… Camarao Na Moranga is a steamy pumpkin stuffed with a shrimp gratin of cream sauce and Catupiry cheese.

Slabs of aged wood support Brazilian steaks, piles of yucca fries, and jasmine rice and black beans.

836 9th Avenue (between 54th & 55th St).

Desi Galli 212/969-9970; www.brasilinany.com.

AND IN CURRY HILL: You can get all of your favorite Indian dishes wrapped up in six types of Indian bread (Paratha, Roomali, Juliette Mumbai pav….whole wheat) in a hand held In Williamsburg… make it to the trip-worthy size, for $6 max! brunch, served weekends.

Late Breakfast: Choices made with eggs are About it: hot skillet layered with sausage hash great in the morning too.

Sweets and Finery: Housemade Saffron ice cream pops with a hint of crunch; more of those dangerous Indian cottage cheese balls soaked in sweet milk; all conveniently in plasticware perfect for takeout!

101 Lexington Avenue (corner of 27th).

212/683-2292; www.desi-galli.com.

Brasilina

A family affair… Love the brother-sister team at work at sexy Brasilina in Hells Kitchen. Dimly lit, but the cool foresty vibes speak volumes.

Perfect before nearby Terminal 5 concerts.

Brazilian food: Hearty stews like Moqueca, a cod and shrimp stew with broth of coconut, Juliette

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A civilized take on fast food... always fresh. Hand pressed, made to order corn tortillas, and fresh local bread for the tortas; plenty of flavorful fixin’s; one of my favorite bar men; highly pleasant and tasty all around!

Order at the counter and then sit at your leisure, at cute, casual, communal and private tables.

Turquoise walls, colorful lights, plenty of South American paraphernalia, and the most fantastically creative restrooms. At the bar, ask to try a spicy passion fruit and cucumber margarita: the cucumber opens the flavors up while cooling your mouth down.

94 University Place.

212/776-1830 www.tortaria-nyc.com.

la BotteGa Bar

Check out La Bottega Bar at The Maritime Hotel in the Meatpacking District… A handsome spot for hot spiced cider and other seasonal cocktails. Listen to old school beats, play on the regal pool table. Mix in some... Highland Park Single Malt Scotch Whiskey with hot apple cider (no additional spice needed) or eggnog!

88 9th Ave. 212/ 243-8400 www.themaritimehotel.com/labottega.php Haven’t been to Korea toWn? Goooooooo! etHiKs ClOtHinG You’ll understand little on the menu... but pretty much any thing’s a fantastic bet when its cooked on the barbeque or served with a side of rice. it up... plentiful mascara. Intense apple shade Try: Wonjo, 23 West 32nd Street. gel manicure never hurt anyone I knew.

212/695-5815; newwonjo.com.

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Perfect for Friday Night… Friday Night nYC When it’s tiMe to PlaY Don’t Be Afraid… A swipe of dark green shad- Fights present Muay Thai if you can handle some ow along eye crease connected to inner eye, serious brawling and indulge in plenty of cold continue along bottom lash line. Deep black beer. Hall at St Paul, 25 Park Place; www.fridayeye liner along upper – inner lash line... smudge nightfights.com... followed by late night dances at Lit Lounge (bottom of 2nd Ave).

212/777-7987 www.litloungenyc.com.

What I like this season: Brooklyn-based Beauty… Sprout all natural skincare… vintage mini backpacks…. bulky kickass sneakers… organic, rooftop-raised, locally collected honey to fight off your winter allergies.

Sprout Skin Care: www.sproutskincare.com.

WARM UP WITH MADE IN NYC…

popup shop success… threw down some committed gorilla marketing (I’ve seen Ethik stickers popping up all over the city). Visit their new flagship store in the LES! An inspired vision with fresh graphics and great prices.

23 Essex Street. www.ethikny.com.

One Lucky Duck Smoothies… and you will feel lucky. Best I’ve ever had: Blue Sunset (2 brilliant smoothies layered for a setting sun effect).

All ingredients are raw, organic, vegan… and made on site. Watch them strain fresh cashew milk, and drain coconuts behind the counter.

Chelsea Market; www.oneluckyduck.com.

NYC Chocolate Show… It’s actually an EXPO, but has featured a Run DMC performance… chocolate runway fashions…. Chocolate WINE… and hundreds of decadent samples. The 15th annual New York Chocolate Show takes place at The Metropolitan Pavilion (125 West 18th Street, New York, NY), Friday, November 9 through Sunday, November 11, 2012. Chocolate shows also held in Paris, Cannes, Shanghai, and Zurich. www.chocolateshow.com/accueil.aspx

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Born from Kickstarter…100% double paneled knit, patriotically-themed scarves and throw blankets. Not itchy, and wash in the machine safely! www.votaryny.com.

The Boys from Ethiks Clothing, NYC… Entrepreneurs and artists, best friends and downtown university students meet silkscreen. The boys quickly claimed a loyal following and

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Le Barn

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Best Source for French Country Antiques, Mid Century & Art Deco

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The Other Buenos Aires thermae bath spa

ARGENTINA

bo bo hotel

Buenos Aires is a city of contrasts, a mash-up of elegance and graffiti. Glorious buildings of the 1930s defaced with messages of protest, soulful tango singers in smoky bars, vibrant street murals and rich Malbecs. Its bohemian heart beats in the clubs, animated cafes and eclectic shops of Palermo Soho and Palermo Hollywood. Funky boutique hotels are the best way to experience these South American hipster neighborhoods, and here are a few favorites:

Bo Bo Hotel

Bourgeois and bohemian, Bo Bo Hotel introduced the boutique hotel concept to Palermo Soho. A 1927 house redefined with a contemporary flair, Bo Bo gets it right; the restaurant, the rooms, the music and a wonderful staff. Rooms and suites are decorated in their own unique style ranging from minimalist to vintage to Art Deco. A full menu breakfast is included in your stay.

Be sure to order the pastry basket filled with medialunas (traditional sweet crescent rolls),

legado mítico

brownies and alfajores cookies filled with dulce de leche! www.bobohotel.com.

Legado Mítico Buenos Aires History speaks at Legado Mítico Buenos Aires, a luxury boutique hotel located in the heart of Palermo Soho. Each of the eleven rooms is dedicated to one of Argentina’s larger-than-life historical figures:

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The First Lady, Evita, of course!

The Writer, Jorge Luis Borges The Girl from the Slum, Tita Merello The Tango Singer, Carlos Gardel The hotel lounge is stunning, with a library of magnificent books about Argentina.

Cosmopolitan yet comfortable, you won’t want to leave. www.legadomitico.com.

home hotel

Miravida Soho Hotel

miravida soho hotel

Miravida Soho Hotel is a cool, cozy oasis in fast-paced BA. Located on a tree-lined cobblestone street in Buenos Aires' trendy Palermo neighborhood, a visit to Miravida Soho is like staying in your own 1930s mansion.

Proprietors, Cornel and Frauke Faltin, are incredibly accommodating; it's a real treat if you’re lucky enough to stay in one of their six rooms. What distinguishes Miravida Soho from other boutique hotels is its wine bar, and guests can arrange for an informal, personal wine tasting. Your stay at Miravida Soho will be memorable thanks to the ambiance, the wonderful breakfast and the unforgettable Malbec at the winebar. www.miravidasoho.com.

Home Hotel

“Welcome Home!” That’s how guests are greeted and that’s the vibe of this very cool boutique hotel in Palermo Hollywood.

Husband and wife team, UK record producer and DJ Tom Rixton and Argentine PR director, Patricia O’Shea, have created a hip hangout/

hotel with a Resto-Bar offering breakfast, lunch, evening tapas and an al fresco weekend brunch. A mix of vintage French wallpaper, mod seating, green initiative, serious cocktails, an award-winning mixologist, outdoor garden and poolside. Time to party! www.homebuenosaires.com.

Buenos Aires Limousine Service offers prompt, reliable airport transfer service to and from Ezeiza Airport and Jorge Newbery Airport. Family owned

by Cecilia Malaguti and Antonino de Simone, the company also offers special sightseeing tours of the Art District, The Milonga, and a Tango Tour. Cruise shore excursions, shopping tours and personalized tours are also available. www.buenosairescarservice.com.

Destino Argentino is a luxury travel organization available to help plan your trip to Buenos Aires.

Just let them know where you’d like to visit, and one of Destino Argentino’s travel agents will help arrange a tailor-made itinerary for you. www.destinationargentina.com.

Silversea Cruises: Silver Spirit by Paula Koffsky The challenge of creating a vacation that appeals to high school and college age children as well as parents can be daunting for even the most venturesome families. How do you combine a cultural experience with exciting excursions and deluxe pampering thrown in for good measure? Got it — a Mediterranean cruise! The next ambitious task is to find the elusive balance between luxury and adventure on a cruise ship. Some high-end cruise ships feel stuffy to the young at heart, and the larger mega-vessels offer cheek-by-jowl travel with the persistent overload of a loud speaker. However, the majestic Silversea Cruises offer all-inclusive, top-shelf cruising with ample opportunities for fun and extra-ordinary experiences. And much to my family’s good fortune, Silversea had a port-of-call in Piraeus, Greece; mission accomplished.

Silversea is known for her fleet of six ultraluxury ships: Silver Cloud, Silver Wind, Silver Shadow, Silver Whisper, Silver Spirit, and Silver Explorer. These sleeker, all-suite vessels can venture into smaller bays and harbors.

These ships can sail closer to the shoreline, and tie up dockside while larger ships must

Photo courtesy of Silversea Cruises anchor offshore. Silversea itineraries also include overnight stays, as well as late-evening departures, which offer welcome opportunities to explore the local culture and soak-up the nightlife. Combine that with unique and adventuresome shore excursions, haute cuisine,

Photo courtesy of Silversea Cruises

and unparalleled service, and you have a total package of unforgettable experiences.

We boarded Silver Spirit, the fleet’s newest and largest launch, where western civilization had its birthplace: in Greece. This gleaming white ship with 270 ocean-view suites and teak-lined balconies set sail with 540 discerning passengers. (The five other vessels are smaller still and offer even more intimate experiences, with capacities as low as 132 guests.) Silver Spirit offers one of the highest space-to-guest ratios at sea; the resplendent suites include private butler service, walk-in closets, and Italian marble bathrooms stocked with Bvlgari bath amenities. Silversea has an amazing ratio of nearly one staff member per guest. Highly trained personal butlers tend to every detail of your vacation, from unpacking your luggage to making dinner and spa appointments and arranging special excursions, making your trip more carefree and less complicated. Our butler welcomed us into the magnificently appointed suite we would call home for the week, with flutes of chilled champagne and plates of caviar.

He would discreetly appear daily to restock our favorite beverages, deliver afternoon canapés, and personalized stationary.

The atmosphere on board a Silversea Cruise WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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is friendly and relaxed, the staff seems to know every guest’s name within one day. Remarkably, more then half of the guests aboard a Silversea Cruise are returning guests, testament to the welcoming ambiance of the fleet.

Silver Spirit offers guests a daily choice of six excellent gourmet restaurants. La Terrazza is a traditional Italian restaurant, which highlights Slow Food, the gastronomic movement supporting local producers and sustainable resources. Seishin is an intimate Asian bistro and Stars Supper Club is a lively nightclub reminiscent of the legendary Rainbow Room, with nightly jazz and cabaret performances.

Le Champagne Wine Restaurant by Relais & Chateau is part of a distinguished international association of hoteliers and Grand Chefs who share a passion for culinary excellence. Le Champagne is the only Relais & Chateau at sea and my family couldn’t resist this gastronomic adventure. The six-course menu celebrates the local regions of the ports-of-call and the wine pairings would make any wine aficionado swoon.

But for this cruise, my family’s top choice was Hot Rock. By day, this venue is the popular Pool Grill, but with the setting of the sun, it is transformed into a wildly entertaining cookout where guests are presented with super-heated lava

Photo courtesy of Silversea Cruises stones and invited to grill their own juicy sirloin and seafood to mouth-watering perfection.

Over the course of the week, we sailed across three bodies of water and explored five countries. We launched into the blue Aegean Sea of Athens, sailed the Ionian Sea of the Peloponnese Islands, north along the Dalmatian Coast of the Adriatic Sea, and ended our journey in the enchanted waters of Venice. Each day brought about new and exciting adventures and cherished memories. In Monemvasia, Greece, we toured the captivating Byzantine forts and castles of Mystras, enjoying the vigorous hike through the medieval ruins and the delectable home-cooked fare at a

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countryside taverna. In Corfu, we buckled up for a thrilling jeep safari, through beautiful villages, past olive groves, all the while keeping the sea in view. And in Montenegro we kayaked around the world’s most spectacular natural harbor, Kotor Bay. That evening we gathered poolside for a bountiful barbeque feast. What a celebration! We couldn’t help but relish our adventure as the sun dipped below the dramatic mountains. Guests gathered along the deck rails and watched in wonder as Captain Mino Pontillo piloted the 19-mile journey out of the fjord’s narrow channels. Our itinerary included one day at sea, a welcome opportunity to take in a cooking demonstration with Executive Chef Guillermo Muro, play a rousing game of pool volleyball, enjoy the dazzling 8,300 sq. ft. spa and lounge at the pool watching the horizon for a glimpse of friendly dolphins.

But all journeys must come to an end, and although heartbroken to finally return to terra firma, we knew that we had shared a special family adventure of unsurpassed luxury, supreme style, and exhilaration made lasting and memorable aboard the Silver Spirit. www.silversea.com.

Athenaeum InterContinental Athens, Greece Arriving a day or two before embarkation allows guests to explore the city and start the journey rested and acclimatized to the new time zone and local climate. Let Silversea Cruises arrange flights, transportation to and from the airport and ports-of-call, hotel and sightseeing opportunities.

In Athens, The Athenaeum InterContinental is conveniently located close to the city center and many historic landmarks. Awarded Greece’s “Leading Hotel” several years running, the hotel offers sophisticated guest rooms with comfortable sitting areas and marble

bathrooms. The modern décor and original works of contemporary art make for the perfect setting to complement one of the world’s oldest cities. The hotel’s 8th and 9th floors make up Club InterContinental, which combines the feel of a private club and a first class business hotel; perks include complimentary breakfast, snacks and drinks throughout the day, use of the Club Boardroom, and complementary Internet.

The hotel’s award-winning rooftop Restaurant and Lounge Bar, Première, serves gourmet Mediterranean specialties set amidst stunning views of the legendary Athenian skyline, and the Acropolis. After a day of touring, cool off in the hotel’s private pool, then rejuvenate at the I-Spa with a therapeutic hot stone massage.

89-93 Syngrou Avenue. www.athens.intercontinental.com.

In Your Ports of Call Athens Athens Walking Tours: www.athenswalkingtour.gr Viatour Athens: www.viator.com.

Kotor, Montenegro Adventure Montenegro Kotor: kayaking, rafting, hiking, shore excursions; local traditional seafood meal at Cesarica Restaurant, Old Town. www.adventuremontenegro.com.

Split, Croatia Radisson Blu Resort. www.radissonblu.com/resort-split.

Venice, Italy Venice full and half day tours: www.viator.com/search/venice.

Private Gondola Rides: Bucintoro Viaggi. www.bucintoroviaggi.com.

Sea Change in the Aegean It’s early morning, often the loveliest part of any use my marketing background to full advanday in the romantic, picturesque Aegean. Trisha tage. I set about developing important business Johnson’s 26.5 meter (88’) gulet – Piccolo – is relationships with the yachting community quietly anchored in one of the many protected throughout the Aegean, and found the people coves that dot the Aegean Sea coastline. The aro- here to be hospitable, fun-loving and very service-oriented, right up my alley.” ma of freshly brewed coffee awakens the senses.

Trisha notes that today’s sleek gulets are outThe crew of four has already set out an assortment of fresh fruit, cereals and yoghurt for the six guests on board. queen of karia ii The group has started their weeklong adventure in Marmaris, one of several bustling harbors on Turkey’s southern coast. Stops and layovers have included the historic Greek Islands of Rhodes, Symi, Tilos and Kos. The group’s final destination will be the exciting Turkish port of Bodrum.

Piccolo’s owner, Trisha Johnson, a fifteen-year resident of Fairfield, CT, founded Aegean Sails LLC ten years ago. Her company focuses entirely on gulet charters, offering family vacations, romantic getaway adventures, corporate team-building holidays, and individually-tailored, crew-supported, motor-sailing gulet charters in the waters of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas.

“Everything about this business is very exciting to me,” says Trisha.

“Similar, amazing Turkish boats originally worked the ancient trade routes throughout the Mediterranean. We’re talking about centuries ago."

“But fast forward. Today’s gulets are some of standing venues for intimate family gatherings, the finest, most luxurious yachts in the Aegean. small reunions or business incentives. Most guThey are handmade of elegant mahogany and lets sleep fewer than 16 people and many of the teak, lavishly constructed, and outfitted with smaller ones are outfitted for eight people or less.

“Whatever the size, gulets are the epitome of all the most advanced safety features available.”

Her venture into the gulet charter business start- comfort. They all have comfortable salons and ed simply enough after a fun-filled sailing holiday spacious outdoor decks fore and aft for relaxwith her husband, David, and several close friends. ing, dining, dancing and sleeping under the She fell in love with the startling beauty of the Ae- stars,” Trisha says.

Today’s sleek charter gulets range from 16 to gean, the people, the food and, of course, the gulet.

Trisha bought Piccolo in 2004, and then set 47 meters (53 to 155 feet) in length, and can accommodate up to 24 people in spacious twin about learning the sailing charter business itself.

“It was a bit of a gamble, but I was able to or double cabins – all with private bathrooms.

All come with exceptional features, designed to provide great comfort and fun.

Trisha’s love of the charter business, the Turkish business community, and the international clientele with whom she works has opened up the opportunity for her to represent numerous gulets for charter.

Charter prices vary by the size and age of the gulet. Rates are usually quoted on a perday basis. The larger, most deluxe gulets are normally chartered at all-inclusive rates. These rates include all meals, local wines and beer, and airport transfers. All charters feature an experienced crew of up to seven people.

Trisha is always available to discuss prices and schedules with clients, to help outline cruise destinations, and to assist in selecting the gulet most suitable for the charter experience and price requirements. www.aegeansails.com.

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SOuTh AfRICAN AIRwAyS VACATIONS easy. The concept means that you can browse through a variety of vacation options without jumping from website to website.

Several dozen holidays from “affordable” to “extreme luxury” — in South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Kenya and Tanzania — are detailed on the South African Airways Vacations website, which has launched this first-of-its-kind service where sellers of travel to Africa offer virtual web itineraries. (Simply click on the “virtual itinerary” button.)

When you check it out, you’ll see that you get a full, day-by-day itinerary, complete with price, starting with your flight out of New York (JFK) or Washington, D.C. (Dulles) on South African Airways, and continuing through activities, destinations and accommodations.

The virtual itineraries include photos and “i-brochures” of properties, plus maps that show the journey from the U.S. to Africa. Each portion is clearly described so there is no need to scramble through an assortment of web pages to do the research.

For travelers, the result is being able to get a feel for the vacation they’re purchasing, and being able to make an informed decision.

cape town

No one knows Southern Africa better than South African Airways Vacations. A division of South African Airways, the national airline of South Africa and Africa’s most awarded airline, SAA Vacations is highly regarded for its wide array of affordable luxury packages to Africa. Utilizing SAA’s extensive route network, SAA Vacations has created air-inclusive packages for travel throughout South Africa, Botswana, Victoria Falls, Namibia, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania and the Indian Ocean Islands.

Here is what SAA Vacations offers: Superb, affordable air-inclusive experiences to Southern Africa, which always include taxes in his childhood to park andehud fees. banai A variety offavorite accommodations fit any budget. A choice of activities. Amenities such as meals, Meet & Greet ground transfers, and an expert staff to help you select the right trip for you.

In addition, to help you in selecting the right vacation, South African Airways Vacations has launched a cutting edge online simple-to-use and super-accessible virtual itinerary feature showcasing an array of travel options.

Want KwaZulu-Natal self-drive? Cape and Garden Route Splendor? Affordable South Africa? The best of South Africa? The Bachelor SA

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supper limpopo

Getaway? Cape luxury rail and safari? Romantic To learn more about the experiences SAA South Africa? Or further afield, Mozambique Vacations has to offer, visit www.flysaavacations.com Magic; Botswana’s Last Lions; Namibia Fly or call 1-855-FLY-SAAV (1-855-359-7228).

Drive; or Kenya and Tanzania Highlights?

The idea is to give visual substance to virtual travel and make choosing and booking

GRANd hOTEl TREmEzzO lAkE COmO, ITAly

When When itit comes comes to to the the north north of of Italy, Italy, Americans Americans are are obsessed obsessed with with Lake Lake Como, Como, and and not not just just for for the the possibility possibility of of aa George George Clooney Clooney sighting sighting while while there. there. Luxurious Luxurious villas villas lining lining the the shore, shore, towns towns like like Bellagio Bellagio offering offering magnificent magnificent silks silks and and shops, shops, aa glimmering glimmering lake lake dotted dottedwith withboats, boats,and andwonderful wonderful local local cuisine cuisine all all add add to to the the extreme extreme appeal. appeal.

The The stunning stunningGrand GrandHotel HotelTremezzo, Tremezzo,aagrand grand dame, dame, family–owned family–owned palazzo palazzo overlooking overlooking itit all all isis aa fabulous fabulous place place from from which which to to experience experience the the glamour glamour and and romance romance of of the the area. area. Recently Recently renovated, renovated, the the hotel hotel offers offers elegantly elegantly appointed appointed rooms rooms and and suites, suites, with with soaring soaring ceilings, ceilings, floor floor to to

ceiling windows, swathes of fabrics, and marbled bathrooms. Public areas blend old world design with contemporary colors and furnishings to create a chic and whimsical backdrop.

Originally built in 1910, the Art Nouveau hotel is set into the Como hills amidst lavish terraced gardens with wonderful views from all guest rooms. A newly added spa offers an infinity horizon pool with sunbathing deck as well as tranquil treatment rooms with a wide range of services. In addition, there is a secluded outdoor garden pool and a floating pool on the lake.

Dining in La Terrazza is on the formal side, as

befits the opulent setting and excellent service.

Enjoy a multi-course meal of regional specialties from a menu designed by renowned Italian chef Gualtiero Marchesi. The fondue and tableside grilled meats served in the more casual L’Escale Restaurant and Wine Bar give a nod to the nearby Swiss border.

Guests may book a private tour of the lake on Grand Hotel Tremezzo's Ruy, their period Venetian motor launch, or visit any of the nearby sights and towns via convenient public ferries or water taxis. www.grandhoteltremezzo.com.

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SlOpESIdE: lES 3 VAllEES By RICh SIlVER On the right flank is Val Thorens, known for its wide open glacier skiing and young party atmosphere. One look at the immense trail map and you’ll know why you really need to plan your day. Getting caught in the wrong valley could mean a long bus ride home. The well trained guides are highly recommended to make the most of your experience around the mountains.

Les Menuires, in the Belleville Valley, is the largest skiable area, a wonderful family friendly resort with great attention to children’s activities, clubs and lessons, starting as young as 18 months. There’s even a kid’s spa! From Pointe de la Masse to Mont de la Chambre there’s wide open skiing with easy access to all of Les 3 Vallees. In addition, from here you can easily ski down to the charming village of Saint Martin The Alps beckon skiers with the promise of breathtaking beauty, cultural immersion and unparalleled outdoor adventure. In no place is this more apparent than Les 3 Vallees region of France. After landing in Geneva, it’s a 2 1/2 hour drive passing through picturesque villages, climbing into the French Alps toward the largest ski area in the world.

Les 3 Vallees is made up of four interconnected ski areas: Courchevel, Meribel, Val Thorens and Les Menuires. They total 330 runs, 200+ lifts and an astounding 24,000 acres of skiable terrain.

To give you an idea of its size, you can fit Vail, Deer Valley, all four Aspen mountains and every single ski area in the state of Vermont inside of it, with room to spare. With one ski pass, each day you can set off in a different direction, skiing from peak to peak and village to village, stopping along the way to enjoy the warm hospitality and gastronomic specialties of the Savoie region.

Courchevel, the most celebrated area, is a wonderland of first class service. Divided into four villages, each is designated by their altitude in meters —1850,1650,1550 and 1300 (also known as La Praz). Miles of beautifully groomed slopes, deep powder off-piste skiing and a world class ski school are complemented by high end boutiques, art galleries, and sophisticated restaurants. Luxury accommodations abound, with over twenty 4 and 5 star hotels and skiin/ski-out chalets featuring every amenity

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saint martin de belleville

you can imagine. Food and wine lovers will appreciate the more than 70 restaurants, twelve on mountain, and incredibly, seven that are Michelin starred. Jet set parties in the clubs and bars go all night long. Courchevel can be wildly expensive, but it’s an intoxicating combination of luxury, sport, culture, and natural beauty.

The geographic center of the area is Meribel, home of the 1992 Women’s Olympic Downhill race. Known as the “heart” of Les 3 Vallees, Meribel offers more affordable accommodations and a very appealing town sprinkled with patisseries, ski shops and reasonably priced restaurants.

de Belleville for a fabulous Savoyard lunch.

Les 3 Vallees is a dream European ski vacation and you’ll need a full week to enjoy it all. To get the inside scoop on planning your trip, check out the following: www.les3vallees.com www.courchevel.com www.lesmenuires.com www.meribel.net www.skisnowboardeurope.com Chalets: en.cimalpes.com.

thermae bath spa

Bath Beckons

by Carly Silver Winter is a jolly good time to visit Bath, the jewel of Britain’s countryside. Offering the largest holiday market in southwestern Britain, this year’s festivities run from November 22nd through December 9th and are expected to attract 350,000 visitors.

Get festive at www.bathchristmasmarket.co.uk.

Immerse yourself in this UNESCO World Heritage Site’s history with tour guide Jan Hudson.

She will lead you to some of the city’s most prominent architectural features, including the Royal Crescent, a lovely, curved row of Georgian houses, and up and down Bath’s cobbled streets.

Jan introduces her guests to Bath and its famous residents, as well as its rich past, which included a stint as a gambling center for the British elite. Even Jane Austen doted on Bath: The famous author set numerous novels in this charming city.

Book a tour at Hudson-j1@sky.com.

Head back in time by visiting the Roman Baths Museum and its healing hot springs, which contain 42 different minerals. From tombstones to tablets, mosaics to Medusa heads, the Roman baths pique even the most seasoned traveler’s interest.

The mist rolling off the springs’ mysterious green waters beckons, while the museum meticulously documents the baths’ long history.

Learn more at www.romanbaths.co.uk/.

Bath Abbey is a beacon to churchgoers and tourists alike. Be prepared to ascend more than two hundred stairs to the towers, where knowledgeable guides demonstrate the workings of the church’s bells. Then, enjoy Sally Lunn’s buns, perfect for tea, at her eponymous bakeshop.

Delve further into ancient mysteries by taking a

tour of Stonehenge, only an hour away by bus.

Tuckered out from sightseeing? Unwind in the Thermae Spa and indulge in the spa’s signature Watsu massage, during which your tense muscles will be gently stretched and comforted in a warm private pool. Then, venture to the rooftop pool or keep yourself warm in the indoor Minerva pool and steam rooms, each scented with a different fragrance. www.thermaebathspa.com.

Where to stay? At the end of a row of handsome homes is the Brooks Guesthouse. Enter through this Edwardian building’s tidy garden to a cheery reception desk, where you will be welcomed with open arms by duty managers Ben and Sian.

You can Tweet your arrival courtesy of free Wi-Fi and the lounge offers information on numerous tourist destinations. Head up to your room, which looks like it belongs in a country manor.

Every room displays the classic style of owners Andrew and Carla Brooks. Elegant curtains frame windows looking out onto the streets of

Bath, and each suite has the most comfortable bed with plump Hungarian goose-down duvet covers, perfect for an after-sightseeing nap.

Families are welcome at the Brooks Guesthouse.

Options include a Triple Bedroom—for two adults and one child—and a family bedroom, which fits two adults and two children. Breakfast is a highlight at the Brooks Guesthouse. Don’t fear the militant sounding boiled eggs and soldiers: The soldiers are strips of toast. A full English breakfast is available, as is a British take on French toast, topped with honey, cinnamon, and crème fraiche. www.brooksguesthouse.com.

The Queensberry Hotel is situated in four interconnected Georgian townhouses built by the eighth Marquess of Queensberry. A boxing theme permeates the hotel because of the ninth marquess’ love for the sport. The hotel includes a set of the Queensberry Rules, the original boxing regulations, revised with such hilarities as “Please remove motorcycle helmets before attempting to drink.” The hotel offers several lounges, including an outdoor garden, and a sitting room with complementary tea and coffee. Its “quintessentially British” bar, named the Old Q in honor of the marquess, offers classic English drinks that make you feel at home. The Queensberry’s Olive Tree offers an inventive take on English cuisine.

Their hearty breakfasts include eggs, bacon, and fried tomatoes and mushrooms. Dinners are delicious: Head Chef Nick Brodie uses seasonally fresh ingredients, many of which hail from Bath’s surrounding West Country. Try a creamy pumpkin soup or opt for the pressed fish, a rich mackerel topped with a robust horseradish sauce. Be sure to save room for the banana tarte tatin with chocolate ice cream. www.thequeensberry.co.uk/.

Within a relatively small vicinity, Bath manages to encompass history, cuisine, and modern luxury. visitbath.co.uk/ and www.visitbritain.com/en/US/.

bath christmas market photo by colin hawkinsbath tourism plus

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NEARER TO hOmE mARRIOTT ‘S GRANdE VISTA, A mARRIOTT VACATION CluB RESORT ORlANdO, flORIdA

marriott's grande vista resort

With premiere attractions like Walt Disney World, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios, Orlando is the most visited destination in the country. Choosing amongst the city’s 400 hotels and resorts can be as confusing as choosing which ride to go on first at Harry Potter World. There is one resort that is certain to please families seeking the thrill and excitement of Orlando’s theme parks along with the rest and relaxation of a premiere resort: Marriott’s Grande Vista Resort. The resort is close enough to the parks to come “home” for lunch, a dip in the pool, and a recharge for the evening activities, and the off-site theme park location makes for a perfect balance between excitement and relaxation.

The Grande Vista Resort is comprised of several smaller buildings, each with its own secluded pool and hot tub. The spacious two and three bedroom villas are outfitted with kitchens, private balconies, and a washer and dryer. Grande Vista’s kids club offers a daily schedule of on site activities, as well as trips to Seaworld or Disney. Meanwhile the parents can take a tennis lesson, yoga class, or enjoy an aromatherapy message at the full service spa.

Golf enthusiasts look no further, the Grande Vista’s nine-hole Faldo Golf Institute, designed to accommodate golfers of all levels and ages, has a staff of PGA professionals to help guests perfect their

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game. Start out at the cutting edge swing analysis studio for a breakdown of your technique, next, let their pros custom fit your clubs, finally head out to the beautifully manicured championship course.

Check out the Institute’s spectacular 360° driving range where Nick Faldo is often perfecting his own swing. Golfers also enjoy access to Marriott’s Grande Pines Golf Club, voted one of America’s Best Resort Courses by Golfweek Magazine.

5925 Avenida Vista, Orlando, FL. 407/238-7676 www.marriottvacationclub.com.

The Fontainebleau

Miami Beach, FL Welcome to Miami Beach, where the party never ends! Succinct invitations stream across

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the fontainebleau

the skies: Ladies in Free - Drink Free 2NITE. The Fontainebleau Miami Beach is where it’s happening, day and night. It’s a hedonistic paradise of the barely clothed, iphone in one hand, cocktail in the other, and too many tattoos. Everyone looks tanned and fabulous at The Fontainebleau. Even the hotel had a billion dollar facelift in 2008.

Designed in 1953 by architect Morris Lapidus, the historic Fontainebleau Miami Beach is set on over twenty acres of oceanfront property. The staff is plentiful and exceptionally friendly, from housekeeping, to pool staff, to waiters. A total of 1,504 guestrooms offer luxurious comfort and amenities. The rooms are stunning with sea foam green accents to match the ocean view. You’ll appreciate the 20inch iMac computer in each room, ideal for accessing hotel info and restaurant menus.

The Fontainebleau has twelve restaurants and lounges to choose from, including Alfred Portale’s Gotham Steak, Scott Conant’s Scarpetta and Hakkasan. Loved La Cote, the hotel’s French Mediterranean poolside restaurant. The list goes on and on: Fresh, Solo, Blade Sushi, and Vida, an American brasserie serving breakfast, lunch and dinner.

There are plenty of pools at the Fontainebleau, but you can’t miss the club scene/music blasting/ afternoon rave in the barside pool. Oh, the nightlife at the Fontainebleau! The party scene lights up at LIV exclusive lounge and nightclub and Arkadia, the hotel’s adult lounge and pool venue. Guests can seek and find serenity at the 40,000 square foot Lapis Spa, and re-energize at the 5800 square foot hi-tech gym overlooking the Atlantic. There’s so much happening at the Fontainebleau you may never leave, so don’t bother renting a car.

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buying and selling

By Helen Dunn Frame

Costa Rica Offers the Lap of Real Estate Luxury beyond Jalapas owning a million dollar

home in Costa Rica has turned into a standard of living for many successful people. It has become a new concept of sharing with family and friends and a way of living life at a leisurely pace that takes advantage of the added value of natural elements such as those found in a region like Guanacaste.

As Costa Rica continues to grow into one of the favorite destinations for buying a retirement or vacation home, residences have become bigger and more luxurious to justify land value and the needs and desires of the investors. They may even have jalapas (grass huts), an image associated with the tropics, on a nearby beach.

Extraordinary luxury homes, multi-milliondollar mansions and award-winning properties may be found throughout the developing country. In Guanacaste, the Playas del Coco, Conchal, Flamingo, Hermosa, Langosta, Nosara, Ocotal, Panama, Potrero, Tamarindo and the beaches in the Papagayo Gulf near the Four Seasons Resort feature luxury villas, all located within 30 minutes of the Daniel Oduber Quiros Liberia International Airport. With its recent expansion, the airport accommodates more tourists who can fly directly to the northwest province of Guanacaste in the morning and watch the sunset from the terrace of a luxury property, whether rented or owned, while sipping a cocktail in the evening.

Convenience is the key word behind many of the features in homes of the future, at

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least as envisioned by architects, designers, manufacturers and marketing experts recently surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders. The future seems to have arrived in Costa Rica because the construction of mansions has reached a point where no budget limitations restrict local architects and engineers in their efforts to bring to life renderings that seem to be impossible dreams on paper.

Luxury properties in Costa Rica, measured by the square meter but stated here by the square foot, include fabulous kitchens and bathrooms and a myriad of conveniences. They may cost from $100 a sq. ft. for a luxury home up to $300 a sq. ft. for a multimillion-dollar mansion. Prices of land in some of the most exclusive gated compounds start at $100 a sq. ft. and increase from there, depending on location and services provided by the owner. However, some motivated property developers offer large parcels and construction packages for land with incredible ocean views at below market prices.

An example of an extraordinary property is actor Mel Gibson’s Costa Rica, private 500acre beachfront-and-jungle compound listed for $29.8 million. Located on the Nicoya Peninsula, the main residence, a two-story hacienda-style house with seven bedrooms and eight bathrooms, overlooks the beach and also features a large courtyard and a swimming pool.

The two smaller guest cottages, each with two bedrooms, a veranda, vaulted ceilings, kitchen and private swimming pool, plus a Balinese entertaining house with no walls — often referred to as a rancho — a restaurant and another small cottage in the jungle complete the fantastic property.

Some of the increased costs in luxury homes today are due to expensive high level

finishes, featuring attention to details and qualities. They include imported marble, exotic woods and stones, and the largest variety of high end features for lighting, security, sound systems and entertainment.

In some cases, they are award-winning architectural works of art. For example, the Pin Residence built in 2010, located in Playa Hermosa near Playas del Coco with its many amenities, was designed by Costa Rican architect Andrés Morales. It received an award in the category of the Detached House Property Division from America Property Awards, a global contest that rewards the best professional design and construction.

Another award-winning, tropical contemporary villa in the North Coco gated community of Laguna Vista was designed by Architect Victor Canas. Featured in an architectural magazine, the wide open floor plan was designed to incorporate incredible ocean views.

Coldwell Banker Coast to Coast Properties, located in Playas del Coco, includes among its listings properties priced from about one million to $3,500,000. For help finding your luxurious dream home in Costa Rica, call Linda Gray, owner/broker, for more details. Her professional real estate agents are prepared to assist you throughout Guanacaste and in the Central Valley.

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Helen Dunn Frame, author of Greek Ghosts and Doctors, Dogs, and Pura Vida in Costa Rica, editor, writer and world traveler from New York City, lives in Costa Rica.

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designer’s eye

Chanel’s little BlaCk JaCket At the beginning there wAs the suit.

Gabrielle Chanel introduced her casual but elegant suit, characterized by both masculine and feminine features, as a move away from the 1950s style which she considered to be too restrictive and largely unsuitable for the times. Hers was a suit created for free, active women that could be worn during the day and into the night, and that, in addition, offered comfort and functional styling. “I designed the CHANEL suit for women who move,” Gabrielle Chanel is reported to have said. “I’m a great admirer of the female race. I wanted to give women clothes that they would feel comfortable in, that they could drive in but that, at the same time, would emphasize their femininity.”

Of course, the creation of the CHANEL suit brought with it the birth of the timeless CHANEL tweed jacket. A jacket in a class of its own: boxy, structured, and that closes edge to edge. Having turned tweed into her signature material, Mademoiselle Chanel focused on refining the design details which would make her jacket fit like a second skin, making it a truly unique garment.

The jacket remains relatively unchanged today. At the workshops on rue Cambon, CHANEL suits are still created to the same exacting standards. While remaining faithful to the CHANEL tradition, Karl Lagerfeld is constantly modernising and updating the jacket, to move with the times and to inject it with just the right dose of brazen fun. Karl Lagerfeld separated the jacket from its matching skirt and, while making

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the occasional nod to Mademoiselle Chanel, produced numerous daring innovations, offering new tweeds, strongly contrasting blouses, bold combinations of fabrics and motifs. A classic piece that forever stands the test of time, CHANEL’s iconic jacket continues to hold the limelight.

The designer celebrates CHANEL’s little black jacket in his new book, The Little Black Jacket: CHANEL’s Classic Revisited by Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld. Over a hundred photographs serve to illustrate the modernity of this iconic piece. As Karl Lagerfeld says, “Coco Chanel invented a type of piece that had never before existed in this particular form, and no one can take this achievement away from her. It is an icon that embodies the essence of the CHANEL style. Some things never go out of fashion in the world of fashion: jeans, the white shirt and the CHANEL jacket.”

The Little Black Jacket: CHANEL’s Classic Revisited by Karl Lagerfeld and Carine Roitfeld, Steidl,Göttingen, 2012, 232 pages. Available in bookstores from autumn 2012.

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vintage

By Zachary Sussman

DECONSTRUCTING THE “CROWD PLEASERS”: MALbEC AND SAUvIGNON bLANC fROM THE SOURCE It’s often quIte mysterIous what makes certain wines more popular than others. Public taste in such matters tends to be exceedingly fickle, and what was once the height of fashion quickly grows as stale as the bubbles in last night’s Champagne.

But then there are those bottles whose appeal seems practically universal. To describe this particular class of vino, the industry lexicon reserves a special catchphrase: “crowd pleasers,” they’re called, and for obvious reasons. In some ways, it’s logical to think of them as the vinous equivalent of “Top 40” radio; while not always the most profound expressions of their kind, they accomplish exactly what they aspire to do: deliver a simple dose of pleasure to anyone who happens to drink them.

Although there is no shortage of possible examples, two particular grape varieties immediately spring to mind as the King and Queen of the “crowd-pleasers.” For reds, we have Malbec—particularly those from Argentina, whose recent meteoric rise in consumption continues to spread at a viral pace— and, for whites, Sauvignon Blanc, which has positioned itself as a crisp alternative to the buttery, oak-laden Chardonnays whose appeal to a younger generation of drinkers expired at some point during the nineties, along with roller blades and the “Asian Fusion” craze.

If you’re reading this, it’s probable that these very same wines have graced your glass more than just occasionally. For many of us, they’ve become the habitual, “go-to” pours of choice. We automatically order them in bars and restaurants, and regularly pick them out of the line-up on store shelves, confident that we’ll be getting something consistent and reliable. It’s almost like the grapes themselves have become trusted, familiar brands.

Beyond the Grape: Geography in a Glass In certain ways, however, we’re missing the point. One of the unfortunate shortcomings of the US wine market is that we tend to place undue emphasis upon the grape varieties that go into our wine. We arrive at certain conclusions, such as “I adore Pinot Noir” or “I can’t stand Chardonnay” — as if the essence of a wine could be imparted by the grape alone.

Ultimately, the issue of grape type represents just one piece of a complex and endlessly captivating puzzle, involving the varied factors of climate, vintage, soil type, vinification processes, and, perhaps most importantly, geography. In other words, where a wine is grown is just as important as what is being grown, whether it be Malbec, Sauvignon Blanc, or anything else.

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To think along these lines invokes the elusive French concept of “terroir.” This refers to the notion that a wine should faithfully communicate the specific geographical and climactic identity of its region of origin, offering what some have called a “sense of place.” You might think of it as the DNA of the soil communicated through your glass. From this angle, wine ceases to be a simple beverage. Instead, it offers a fascinating geography lesson in a bottle, as we learn to trace the shifting nuances of a particular grape— or blend of grapes, as the case may be— as articulated through the diverse framework of geographic and regional differences.

To truly understand what we’re drinking when we order a Malbec from Argentina or a Sauvignon Blanc from anywhere that ubiquitous grape is grown, it helps to go back to the source. It’s here — in the native French soils that constitute each grape’s respective “home turf ” — that we encounter their most basic, archetypal expressions. These so-called “Old World” incarnations will typically come across as a bit more subtle or restrained, offering less of the obvious, “in-your-face” fruit than their “New World” counterparts. Instead, you should expect to experience more of the underlying secondary notes of minerals, earth, and herbs that communicate a genuine sense of “terroir.” It’s possible to imagine that you’re drinking the liquid essence of the specific area where your bottle was made.

Sauvignon Blanc: The Loire and Bordeaux Although it’s now planted across the globe with an almost indiscriminate hospitality— notably in California and New Zealand— Sauvignon Blanc finds its spiritual epicenter in the storied region of France’s Loire valley. Here the grape delivers wines of breathtaking freshness and salinity, with a textbook “grassy” character (think white flowers and freshly mown hay), crackling acidity, and a briny wash of minerals that feels like licking the vineyards’ flinty, limestone soils.

Within the Loire itself, it’s the so-called “central vineyards” (actually located at the region’s easternmost edge) that boast what are arguably the world’s most sublime incarnations of Sauvignon Blanc. Chances are you’ve heard of Sancerre, by far the most popular of these villages (due, in large part, to how easy it is to pronounce). While the names of the neighboring communes don’t roll off the tongue quite as seamlessly, they compensate for their linguistic trickiness by offering comparable wines at relatively competitive prices, including those from Reuilly, Quincy,

Menetou-Salon, and Pouilly-Fumé— the latter being known for distinctively smoky, gunflint flavors and aromas. For exceptional values, however, look for whites simply labeled “AOC Touraine.” Sometimes blended with other indigenous grapes, but often made exclusively from

Sauvignon Blanc, these modest gems distill the essence of the grape’s regional style with price tags that hover miraculously between ten to fifteen bucks per bottle.

If the subject of Sauvignon Blanc immediately transports us to the Loire, we soon find ourselves returning to Bordeaux — a region far better known for producing some of the world’s most aristocratic and prohibitively expensive reds. Its oft-neglected whites, however, range from bright and zippy quaffers — such as those from Entre-Deux-Mers — to the rich and structured masterpieces from Graves and its distinguished sub-region of Pessac-Léognan. Often mixed with the Semillon grape, which contributes a creamy texture and lovely golden hues, the top examples can withstand several years of aging in the cellar. In their maturity, they transform into the kind of cozy, autumnal whites that seem better suited for the fireside than the pool, unleashing an unctuous complexity normally reserved for reds.

Malbec: Not Crying for Argentina One of the wine world’s great ironies is the manner in which Malbec has become entirely synonymous with Argentina. Although the pleasantly plush and fruit-driven expressions from south of the equator continue to hold drinkers captive, the grape has only been cultivated there for a relatively short period of time. Long before achieving its “pop-star” status in South America, Malbec sang backup as one of several blending grapes in its native Bordeaux, and eventually gained a small but dedicated cultfollowing in the Southwest of France as the primary varietal in the so-

called “black wines” of Cahors.

If Malbec from Argentina could be compared to a sleek, modern highrise hotel, the wines from Cahors would be the equivalent of a rustic country inn. Thick, dense, and chewy, Cahors is the sort of bone-warming elixir you’d want to drink in the middle of winter: imagine layers of black cherries and pepper, with a sanguine, game-like quality that immediately conjures hearty braises or stews — all topped off with a telltale whiff of violets that lends the best examples their surprising elegance for such burly wines.

If, on the other hand, it’s a prettier, more delicate manifestation of French Malbec you’re after, you’d be well-advised to turn once again to the Loire, where the local vernacular dubs the grape “Côt.”

Often blended into the straightforward but delicious “Touraine Rouge,” here the grape assumes a completely different profile, crafting fresh and light-bodied wines that have perennially lubricated the thirsty bistros and winebars of Paris. Although a bit more difficult to find, it’s equally worthwhile to seek out examples from the region made entirely from Côt. With bright yet earthy minerality and fruit that leans toward the strawberry side of the spectrum, these bottles would be the ultimate “crowd pleasers,” if only the crowd knew what they were.

SuGGeSTed WiNeS Sauvignon Blanc: • 2011 Francois Chidaine Clos de la Grange Touraine Blanc, $13 suggested price • 2011 Clos Roche Blanche, Touraine Sauvignon, $20 suggested price • 2010 Denis Jamain Reuilly “Les Pierres Plates,” $18 suggested price • 2011 Chateau Graville-Lacoste Graves Blanc, $20 suggested price • 2009 Chateau Carbonnieux Péssac-Léognan Blanc, $50 suggested price Malbec: • 2011 Domaine de la Pepiere “La Pepie” Cot, $13 suggested price • 2010 Theirry Puzelat Touraine Rouge “KO, In Côt We Trust,” $20 suggested price • 2009 Clos la Coutale Cahors, $13 suggested price • 2007 Chateau de Haute-Serre Cahors, $18 suggested price

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Zachary Sussman is a Brooklyn-based wine writer, educator and consultant. He contributes regularly to the National and New York editions of “Tasting Table,” and his work has appeared in Wine & Spirits, Serious Eats, Wine Chap, and the Lot 18 blog, among others. He also works as the Manager of New York University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing, where he has taught undergraduate poetry and fiction.

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state of mind

Top 5’s for the Insomnia Crowd Can’t sleep? Neither can 60 million Americans affected by sleep disorders annually. If you hit the sheets only to find your brain reeling, you’re not alone. Stats on those who have insomnia continue to rise, with females hit hardest (twice as likely as men to suffer from insomnia), with 40 to 69 percent of sufferers over age 60.

When you’re Googling “natural sleep aids” at 3 am, it’s helpful to know that “there are three types of insomnia,” says “The Sleep Doctor,” Michael Breus, clinical psychologist and a Fellow of The American Academy of Sleep Medicine. “There’s the inability to fall asleep, the inability to stay asleep, and waking up from sleep far too early.”

For those who are unable to fall asleep, he says stress and an “inability to turn off the brain” are the causes nine out of ten times. “I always try to take it from a non-pharmaceutical angle first, and remind patients that sleep isn’t a switch that can be turned on and off, but is more like slowly putting your foot on the brake, and that there are ways to prepare for bedtime.”

Those powerless at turning off their brains to get an adequate amount of sleep may not only experience fatigue, “but also … weight gain, pain, poor immunity, premature aging, and a host of other problems,” says Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, medical director of the national Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers and author of From Fatigued to Fantastic!

Here, the top five in meds, remedies, habits, songs and foods for those not getting enough zzzs.

5 Popular Rx Sleep Aids Source: Dr. Russell Rosenberg, Ph.D., insomnia researcher and chairman of the National Sleep Foundation 1. Zolpidem (generic Ambien) - 5mg or 10mg 2. Lunesta - 1.2mg or 3mg 3. Intermezzo - 1.75 or 3.5mg 4. Silenor - mg3 or 6mg 5. Rosarum - 8mg Top 5 Over-the-Counter Insomnia Drugs Source: The Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, clinical psychologist 1. Advil PM (Dr. Breus’ personal favorite)

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2. Tylenol PM 3. Benadryl 4. Sominex 5. Unisom Top 5 Treatments for 8-Hour Rest Source: Dr. Jacob Teitelbaum, medical director of the national Fibromyalgia and Fatigue Centers 1. Revitalizing Sleep Formula by Enzymatic Therapy (dosage: 2-4 capsules at bedtime).

“This outstanding mix of six herbs leaves most people sleeping like puppies.”

2. Melatonin (dosage: .5 mg). “This is the hormone that regulates sleep. A half milligram has been shown to be as effective as higher doses.”

3. Hot bath with 2 cups of Epsom salts.

“The magnesium in Epsom salts relaxes your muscles and calms the nervous system, easing you into a deep restful sleep. In addition, the magnesium has many other health benefits including decreasing the risk of heart disease.”

4. Desyrel (dosage: 25-50mg; generic trazodone).

“At these very low doses, this medication is both calming and low in side effects.”

5. Flexeril (dosage: 5mg; generic cyclobenzaprine).

“Half of one tablet relaxes muscles and helps sustain sleep.”

Top 5 Positive Habits That Kick Insomnia Source: The Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, clinical psychologist 1. Make an electronic curfew. Don’t use any electronics (except maybe watching TV), within an hour of lights out.

2. Don’t have a major emotional discussion before bed. Schedule another time to do so, like during dinner.

3. Ease excess muscle tension and promote relaxation with yoga, stretching or deep breathing.

4. Take hot showers and baths to fall asleep and stay asleep. Bubble baths are best because a top layer of bubbles keeps water hotter, longer.

5. Use distraction techniques, including counting backwards from 300 by 3s. It’s highly effective because it’s complicated enough so that people can’t focus on much else.

Top 5 Bedroom Contributions to Insomnia Source: The Sleep Doctor Michael Breus, clinical psychologist 1. Not maintaining a regular bedtime 2. Old, uncomfortable mattress 3. Pillows more than a year old 4. Too much light in room 5. Noisiness (solution: sound machine) Top 3 AM Noshes Source: Sharerank.com 1. Philly Cheesesteak 2. Pizza 3. Taco Bell 4. Pretzels 5. Fruit Top 5 Late Night Activities Source: ChicagoNow.com 1. Take a bath 2. Chow down 3. Browser window shop 4. Kill time on a social networking site 5. Watch embarrassingly terrible online videos 5 Famous Insomniacs Source: TheWeek.com 1. Vincent Van Gogh 2. Judy Garland 3. Margaret Thatcher 4. Arianna Huffington 5. Marilyn Monroe 5 Songs for the Sleepless 1. “Insomniac,” Green Day 2. “Mr. Sandman,” The Chordettes 3. “If Only Tonight We Could Sleep,” The Cure 4. “Can’t Sleep,” Above and Beyond 5. “All I Have To Do Is Dream,” The Everly Brothers 5 Insomnia-Beating Mobile Apps Source: ApartmentTherapy.com 1. Pzizz Sleep 2. Deep Sleep with Andrea Johnson 3. Brainwave Tuner 4. Dreambot 5. Insomnia Cure

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Ultherapy uses ultrasound to tighten the skin on your face and neck, and requires no downtime. Targets the same tissue as a facelift but without the surgery. This state-of-the-art, non-invasive procedure lifts and tightens while stimulating new collagen growth for more youthful looking skin.

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Pain.

Pain.Pill.

Pain. Pill. Pill.

Pain.Pill. Pill. Pill.

Pain.Pill. Pill. Pill. Pill.

Pain.Pill. Pill. Pill. Pill. Pill.

Familiar pattern?

We have a better way. Let us show you.

Betty Ford Center offers a Pain Management Track.

If you suffer from addiction and chronic pain, contact us NOW.

877-872-8562 bettyfordcenter.org/ny

Betty Ford Center Rancho Mirage, California

the healing agent

Left to right, John L. Sinn, who waS preSident of eiSenhower MedicaL center at the tiMe of the groundbreaking, betty ford and center co-founder Leonard fireStone.

Betty Ford Center, Celebrating 30 Years of World Class Service

By Gary Stromberg

betty ford refused

to admit she had problems with prescription drugs and alcohol until her family confronted her in 1978.

Just two years before, she had been First Lady, one of the most powerful women in the world. Yet there she was, sitting on a couch in the new Rancho Mirage home she built with President Gerald Ford, humbled and horrified as her husband and children told her how worried they were about her.

The entire family gathered at the Fords’ home for the final intervention two days later. And after hearing them discuss how embarrassed they were to bring friends home and share their fears she wouldn’t be around for her grandchildren, she agreed to seek treatment.

Mrs. Ford reluctantly went public about her problem while getting help in the Long Beach

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(CA) Naval Hospital, which she entered three days after turning 60 in April, 1978.

She spent the first year focusing on her own recovery. It wasn’t until she and President Ford helped stage an intervention for their friend Leonard Firestone a year later that she and Firestone focused on creating a center.

Mrs. Ford has earned national respect for her frankness on taboo topics – first when she battled breast cancer and then her addiction. But as public as she had become, she was hesitant about the center carrying her name. It wasn’t until President Ford and Firestone “twisted my arm” and the Ford children endorsed the idea that she agreed.

“They just insisted it was very important because if it was just a center for chemical dependency or something, it would not have the impact that it would if I allowed my name,” she said.

History has proven them right.

Officials initially hoped the center would become a premiere treatment clinic for Southern California. Instead, it became and remains one of the most prestigious in the world, earning a global reputation for its innovative and successful treatment of alcohol and drug addiction.

The emotionally draining day that launched Betty Ford on the road to recovery ultimately led her to create a world-renowned addiction hospital that’s helped nearly 100,000 patients while inspiring countless others across the globe to confront their addictions, too.

This year, The Betty Ford Center, in Rancho Mirage, California, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, a time for alumni to return to campus, revitalize recovery in the place where their new lives began and renew their bond with friends

Learn how at Betty Ford Center.

Betty Ford Center is a licensed addiction treatment hospital. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re SERIOUS about getting sober and staying sober, contact us NOW.

877-872-8562 bettyfordcenter.org/ny

Betty Ford Center Rancho Mirage, California

they made in treatment.

Each year, the event draws hundreds of alumni from all Betty Ford Center treatment and educational programs. There are special activities for alumni of the children’s program as well as 12-Step meetings geared for family members and alumni of the treatment programs.

The Betty Ford Center has commissioned sculptor J. Brett Grill to create a full-sized bronze bust of Betty Ford. The piece will honor the Center’s 30th anniversary and be displayed in the Admissions lobby area following a dedication ceremony during the November event.

When asked to comment about the significance of this anniversary, Mary Pattiz, Chairman of the Betty Ford Center Board of Directors, said, “In journalism, 30 means ‘the end,’ but for us it’s just the beginning.”

Since its opening in October 1982, the Betty Ford Center has provided effective drug and alcohol dependency treatment services, including programs of education, to help women, men, children and families begin the process of recovery.

With more than 100,000 alumni throughout the world, the Betty Ford Center has a network of alumni and friends in nearly every part of this country and beyond. If you or a friend is considering

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help for a problem with alcohol and/or other drugs, please visit the website, www.bettyfordcenter.org for more detailed information. Staff members are available and waiting to assist you.

“To reflect on Betty Ford is a daunting task,” stated CEO John Schwarzlose. “One of the principles she embraced was to never give up on an alcoholic or addict. She not only promoted that principle but lived it. After everything that life threw at her, Betty never quit.”

Betty created the Betty Ford Center as a unique place of healing. Her quiet strength and determination allowed the Center to change the face of addiction treatment. Not satisfied to be another “rehab,” she led the Center to become the first licensed Addiction Hospital in the U.S.

Betty also insisted that the Betty Ford Center would be accessible to women who were badly underserved in addiction treatment. She was extremely proud that 50% of the nearly 100,000 people who began their journey of recovery at the Betty Ford Center are women.

She also recognized that addiction is a family disease and must be treated as a family disease.

“Husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters – they need to come here for a week to learn about the disease, to get treatment themselves,” she said.

To that end, the Center’s signature Family Program has been a huge success. It’s offered every week of the year, and more than 90 percent of primary patients have at least one loved one come to the Center for help. And what about the children of alcoholics and addicts? So often they are collateral damage – they think somehow it’s their fault mom or dad (or both) are drunk or high all the time.

Betty was an early, and enthusiastic, supporter of the Center’s unique Children’s Program. Thousands of young people, ages seven to twelve, have come to the Betty Ford Center for four days to learn about the disease, to learn that it’s not their fault, and to acquire coping skills. Over the years the Center has seen the need for new programs to be created, such as a Young Adult Track, Pain Management Track and Clinical Diagnostic Evaluation.

The Betty Ford Center is a not-for-profit, separately licensed residential chemical dependency recovery hospital, which offers inpatient, outpatient and day treatment for alcohol and other drug addictions as well as prevention and education programs for family and children. The center has 100 inpatient beds available on their Rancho Mirage campus and additional lodging for 84 clients in the Residential Day Treatment program.

From the very start, Mrs. Ford was determined that the Betty Ford Center would be different, would change the face of addiction treatment. She didn’t want it to be just another facility. This was accomplished by stressing the competency and quality of every staff member that is part of the Center. Physicians, nurses, counselors, and other professionals make the Center a state-of-the-art addiction hospital. Betty wanted this unique 27 acre campus to be an oasis; a special place of healing. Her interest was that every alcoholic and addict who walked through the front doors would feel like “I have finally come to the right place… I have come home.

Author of three books on substance abuse and recovery; The Harder They Fall, Feeding the Fame and Second Chances. Gary has been clean and sober for over 29 years.”

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Find it at Betty Ford Center.

Betty Ford Center is a licensed addiction treatment hospital. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re SERIOUS about getting sober and staying sober, contact us NOW.

877-872-8562 bettyfordcenter.org/ny

Betty Ford Center Rancho Mirage, California

the healing agent

Sugar Coated Holiday Blues

By Barbara Greenhouse

what a combination,

sugar and the holiday blues. One is enough to live with. But really, so many of us have both of them. There is definitely a connection between them. As far as sugar blues goes, many Americans have them and have been exporting them around the world.

What are they? Sugar Blues are the deep cravings built into today’s processed foods that you are not conscious about. They impact your health tremendously. Processed foods are oversweetened with sugar and other sugar products, whether they are natural or not. They affect you like a drug due to the activation of certain neurotransmitters in the brain. They also come from sprinkling too much sugar on food rather than relishing savory, natural flavors.

“Excess sugars, especially fructose, are quite harmful for your brain’s health and metabolism.” -David Wolfe, Health, Nutrition, and Natural Beauty Expert.

Did you know that pre-1900’s, a person’s annual consumption of sugar was only 14 pounds?

Plus, people were less sedentary. Take a seat for today’s average annual sugar consumption per person in the US: It is 150 - 180 pounds. Is it any wonder that there are Sugar Coated Holiday Blues and Sugar Blues, the latter causing a steep climb in obesity and diabetes, especially in children, in the last decade? This is a disease, rarely seen in kids before, that is now skyrocketing. The CDC has comparative statistics for the last 30 years and more. Diabetes 2 has increased 176% since 1980. Diabetes 1 has also

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increased tremendously according to CDC statistics, the data broken out by gender and ages, also since 1980.

Many of these adults and children are not suffering from infectious or genetic diseases, but from lifestyle choices like too much sugar, chemically processed food, and less fitness activity, which lead to imbalances in the body.

These diseases require quite a bit of management with meds, and medical and monitoring devices. But for many people, diabetes is preventable and curable.

And what if you don’t have diabetes and you are not obese? It can take up to 20-30 years for diabetes and other degenerative diseases to surface.

Our stomachs are populated by billions of beneficial microflora, commonly called bacteria, that must not lose their dominance over the bad bacteria in our stomachs. The good bacteria need to thrive. They create B12 and the stomach acid required to digest food. But, they get destroyed by certain medications, therapies, sugar and by not eating nutrient dense foods.

These nutrient dense foods have the vitamins and minerals your body was designed to use as fuel, the energy to keep you humming. Bad bacteria thrive on sugar. Diabetes 1 and 2, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Coronary Heart disease, auto immune arthritis, allergies and elimination issues are allowed to take hold because the good nutrients are not passing through your gut lining to the body. The bad bacteria that are well fed by sugar are.

This tips you from wellness to illness. When the good bacteria are reduced in number and in a lower amount than the bad bacteria, you can gain weight because the signals are not getting to the brain to say you are satiated. Since these bad bacteria multiply, they also cause all types of stomach ailments, irritable bowel, and poor mineral and vitamin absorption, which affects mood and causes inflammation.

With all of these issues caused by sugar, it’s no wonder your mood is affected. Since you generally eat more sweets and treats around the holidays, plus drink more alcohol which turns quickly to sugar, the Sugar Coated Holiday Blues can be intense, especially if you are alone or stressed from all of the visiting and shopping.

So what is the solution to the impact of too much sugar, perhaps the # 1 drug in America destroying so many lives in body and mind?

Give yourself permission to slow down and to slowly let go of most sugar. “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” - Michael Pollan - for a happier and healthier holiday season.

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Barbara Greenhouse wears many hats for the Weston Magazine Group–sales, web/graphic design, social media and the implementation of e-readers for our 11 magazines. Barbara is also a Health Coach supporting clients to reduce stress, weight, pain, and achieve more balance, a healthier lifestyle, and better nutrition, which ultimately increases vitality, energy and better relationships. BarbaraGreenhouse.com; Refresh Your Life Now.blogspot.com.

SA F E T Y F I R S T. V I N C E N T’S One of only four hospitals in Connecticut to receive an ‘A’ rating from Hospital Safety ScoreSM

A

Sometimes there is safety in letters, too. The 2012 “A” Hospital Safety ScoreSM by The Leapfrog Group proves it. Under the guidance of a blue ribbon panel, The Leapfrog Group uses publicly available data on patient injuries, medical errors and infections to letter grade the safety records of more than 2600 hospitals nationwide. Our “A” represents our overall performance in keeping patients safe from preventable harm and medical errors.

It’s another reason why you can always trust St. Vincent’s.

www.stvincents.org

Compare our score with other area hospitals at www.hospitalsafetyscore.org

appraised & approved

the sassy story Aunt Sassy’s Sauces was launched in 2010 with the idea of sharing a highly coveted and closely guarded family recipe with the world.

Founder Leslie Bene was born and raised in Atlanta, GA before moving to Fairfield, CT. As a child, she remembers folks all over Atlanta delighting in her aunt’s “naughty sauce,” a famous local recipe that is as addictive as it is versatile; whether used for BBQ, dipping, marinade or, umm, other situations. Naturally, when Leslie’s aunt was running the show, everybody wanted the recipe. But nobody ever got it. Years later, her aunt left Leslie the secret recipe in her will and the rest is history.

Aunt Sassy’s Sauces are perfect for all kinds of foods, ranging from meats and nuts to veggies, and even vanilla ice cream! Not only are Aunt Sassy’s Sauces all-natural and gluten-free, but they offer a distinct and addicting barbecue flavor to a variety of foods. Whether you’re looking for a sweet condiment, a special slow cooking ingredient or a spicy marinade, Aunt Sassy covers it all. Aunt Sassy’s Sauces offers 3 different flavors: Original Honey, Cracked Black Pepper, and Spicy Slow Burn, to give your meals a good ole’ Southern twist.

Aunt SASSy’S Slightly nAughty PecAnS ReciPe Who doesn’t feel nutty every now and then? That’s sort of how this recipe came to pass.

To honor nuts, Aunt Sassy came up with this great snack that is (according to others) as addictive as Aunt Sassy’s Sauces.

These nuts make for the perfect appetizer, salad topping or holiday gift.

Ingredients 2 cups of pecans 2 tablespoons Aunt Sassy’s Slightly Naughty Sauce (we like Cracked Black Pepper the best) 1/4 cup brown sugar 3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon Instructions • Preheat oven to 300° F. • Put all dry ingredients: brown sugar, sea salt and cinnamon into a plastic bag and mix well.

• Pour evenly over nuts.

• Add the sauce till well covered.

• Split nuts between two baking sheets lined with parchment paper, separating them as much as possible.

• Bake 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to allow even baking.

Nuts should no longer be wet and should appear toasted.

• Cool slightly on pan, then remove parchment to a cool surface to cool completely.

• Store in an airtight container for a week or more.

Notes If you’re not a fan of pecans, try this with walnuts or unsalted almonds.

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You’ve probably heard that Aunt Sassy has a heart o’ gold, but let us explain why.

Aunt Sassy’s Sauces donates 10% of profits to charity. But there’s a twist; you get to decide where the money goes! You can visit the website and vote for your charity of choice once a day. The gifts are allocated based on the total votes received, so make sure you tell your friends and family to vote too.

Just as Aunt Sassy saw the need for some local BBQ lovin’, the charities that she works with have been selected because they saw an immediate need in their community and are working to answer it. These charities share knowledge and empower others within their communities. Aunt Sassy currently works with Circle of Care, Kid’s Clothes, Necessities Bag, and Person-to-Person.

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Aunt Sassy’s Sauces can be ordered through the company website: www.auntsassysauces.com and are sold locally at the following locations: Bedford Gourmet – Bedford, NY; Palmer’s Market – Darien, CT; Sport Hill Farm – Easton, CT; The Pantry – Fairfield, CT; Walter Stewart’s Market – New Canaan, CT; Greenwich Produce – South Salem, NY; Spic and Span Market – Southport, CT; Peter’s Market – Weston, CT; Stiles Farmer’s Market – Westport, CT; Village Market – Wilton, CT.

“KeepMeHome keeps me homewhereI belong.” ®

KeepMeHome® helps you or your loved one stay at home or in their retirement community – with as little or as much help as needed. We offer cooking and cleaning to personal care, errand running, and appointment escorts. KeepMeHome

can do it all.

Be it an hour a day or live-in care, we can fit your individual needs. We’re dependable, responsive and very affordable.

We also provide nursing, therapy and a full range of in-home medical services.

www.keepmehome.com

Medicare/Medicaid certified. ACHC accredited. DCP registered.

877-302-2323

DCP Registration #HCA0000190

appraised & approved

flexform

Founded in 1967 and developed through a decades-long family tradition, Flexform is renown for its high quality furniture production. The Flexform brand has been instantly recognizable for almost half a century.

Over the last thirty years, the company, which is located just outside of Milan in Meda, Italy, has produced an extensive range of products that have taken their place in the history of Italian design for their quality, elegance and comfort.

There is a strong synergy between production and design at Flexform that has successfully stimulated creative interaction with successive generations of designers: from Cini Boeri to Joe Colombo, from Sergio Asti to Rodolfo Bonetto and Paolo Nava.

Flexform continues to produce examples of Modernism with products designed by the rationalists, Asnago and Vender.

Currently, Antonio Citterio, with his lucid and inventive style, coordinates Flexform’s collection. He has also written Flexform’s history, designing some of the bestsellers like the Infinity bookshelves system and the Groundpiece sofa system. In 2001, Flexform introduced a new brand, Flexform Mood, a complete collection characterized by a classical, sophisticated and international style. John Hutton, Carlo Colombo, and Roberto Lazzeroni are the designers of this line of products.

Flexform: An Identity of Value For over fifty years, Flexform has pursued a philosophy based upon several values that are clearly evident in its products and corporate image.

One such value is design COHERENCE, which quells a fascination for fads that may be immediately popular but quickly fade into oblivion.

Another is the struggle to maintain coherence as entrepreneurs when the market goes haywire, collapses, and darkens, and fear fuels that all too human desire for immediate, effortless results.

Yet another value is PERSEVERANCE in pursuing a corporate policy leaning more towards reformism than revolution, rarely inclined towards excess, and strongly oriented towards a precise, slow, reflective path. This strategy has allowed the company to create a succession of valid, complete products reflecting the reassuring stability of people with their feet firmly planted upon the ground, who go ahead in life, one step at a time, never rushing or losing their way.

DISCRETION, a value that epitomizes understatement, can be attributed to the collections distinguished for their subtle beauty, disarming simplicity, and understated refinement, which clearly reflect the

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concept that less is definitely more where ELEGANCE is concerned.

Never excessive or extravagant, these products are proof of the persuasive strength of silence and the fact that when a person raises his voice, it is often a sign of weakness.

Another value is LOYALTY, first and foremost to oneself and to the corporate image. The beauty of a story depends upon how it is

told. A good product that is inadequately promoted risks appearing bad. Through its black and white chiaroscuro images depicting sofas brought to life through the expressive charisma of men and women photographed in strongly symbolic architectural contexts devoid of everything except emotions, Flexform became the first company to invent its own unique, original and coherent narrative style that has existed for over three decades.

Last but not least, there is the SERIOUSNESS of a promise: the promise of a product of QUALITY. Thus, even a chair can help improve the quality of life. Years ago, the enlightened customers of this company had the foresight to realize that two persons, in particular, were the possible “authors” of the corporate history: Antonio Citterio, the mastermind behind the structure of the various collections and projects, and Natalia Corbetta, the Art Director of the corporate image and head of the graphics project.

These core values have made Flexform the distinguished brand it is today.

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Flexform: 155 East 56th Street, New York, NY. 212/355-2328 Info@flexformny.com; www.flexformny.com.

appraised & approved

twelve Beverage

When successful Wall Street veteran Pat Dealy was first introduced to the idea of an all-natural sparkling beverage that was low in calories, had no added sugar and was gluten-free, it was love at first sip. The product was Twelve Beverage, which at the time had one flavor and limited distribution. It needed refinement, but Dealy knew that with his business and marketing acumen, if he surrounded himself with the right team, he could develop a unique brand that would be like no other. So, Dealy orchestrated a group of investors to negotiate a controlling stake and has become CEO. The company, locally based, has developed into 12NtM® (stands for noon to midnight) Sparkling Beverages, with several flavors and nationwide distribution.

Dealy joined forces with famed chef/restaurateur and entrepreneur

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David Burke, who brought an educated palate and an ability to alchemize ingredients, marrying them into a delicious relationship. He has an uncanny knack to understand what sells in the food world. They have teamed to bring about the most innovative, effervescent beverages in today’s market. Accordingly, “chef-crafted” as a key brand attribute was born. Dealy and Burke knew by instinct that the world needed a non-alcoholic specialty drink that tastes all grown up.

12NtM® Sparkling Beverages are currently available in two crisp, refreshing flavors: Blanc, a refreshing combination of citrus, ginger, cardamom, herbs, spices, all natural fruit juices and a blend of three teas; and Rouge, a crisp blend of tangy pomegranate, black currant, bergamot, juniper berry, herbs, spices, all natural fruit juices and three different tea leaves. More innovative flavors like these are in development. The products are presented in sophisticated champagne-like frosted bottles and will soon be available in single-serve packages.

The rapid success of 12NtM® Sparkling Beverages has been reflected in its nationwide availability in Whole Foods Markets as well as at many of the best specialty food markets throughout the United States. 12NtM® Sparkling Beverages uses only the highest quality all natural ingredients – over 60 in every bottle. There is no added sugar; the beverages are lightly sweetened by natural fruit juices and only have 60 calories per 8oz serving.

12NtM® Sparkling Beverages are also gluten-free.

12NtM® Sparkling Beverages pair well with a wide variety of foods. Chef Burke recommends the following: pair Blanc with Soft Gruyere, Chunks of Parmesan Cheese, Olive Tapenade, Onion Tart, Roasted Duck, Pomme Frites, Chocolate with a Drop of Orange, Mussels in White Wine, Cucumber Salad, Shrimp Cocktail, Smoked Salmon, Grilled Cheese, Lemon Tart, Tiramisu. He likes Rouge with: Creamy Stilton, Ratatouille, Braised Chicken, Grilled Scallops, Salty Goat cheese, Sweet Bell Peppers, Dried Figs, Beef Stew, Chili, Roasted Vegetables, Pasta Bolognese, Dark Chocolate Cake, Crème Brûlée.

For future growth and brand building, Dealy envisions white tableclothed hotels, bars, and restaurants serving 12NtM® Sparking Beverages, alone or in mixed drinks. He sees it as a healthy refresher, filling the void between alcoholic beverages and ho-hum soft drinks wherever people find themselves thirsty for something truly unique.

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appraised & approved

Noelle Newell resideNtial desigN aNd decor IFDA and Allied Member ASID

Noelle Newell brings a contemporary approach to classically inspired interiors with eclectic touches from around the world. Noelle was first inspired by her mother’s enthusiasm for home decoration. Family activities like travel, visits to museums, antique fairs and specialty stores furthered her interest in design. She likes to bring a sense of travel into her interiors in a synthesized way without trying to recreate a destination.

This May she traveled to meet with Anna Enrico of Misha handmade wallpaper in Milan. She was drawn to the product because of its aesthetics and traditional craftsmanship. As an agent of Misha wallpaper, Noelle Newell is focusing on Misha’s hand painted silk and natural fiber wallpapers.

She has partnered with Ellen Robinson Designs of NY and Los Angeles, representing artists from the US, Canada and Europe. Amongst theses artists are Sean Young, James Lane, Photographer; Mark Brodkin, Mogens Kischinovsky “Kischi” and David Smyth.

Noelle is a graduate of Curry College, in Milton, MA and Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. As a college student she began her career working under the direction of Matthew Smyth at David Anthony Easton. She also studied at the British Institute of Florence and at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London. Her work experience includes: Senior Designer at David Scott Parker Architects LLC Southport, designer with Michael Whaley Interiors and Marjorie Shushan Interiors, New York.

Design services are available to individuals as well as Architectural/ Interior Design Firms. Services include; conceptual design, furniture layout, research, sourcing (of fabrics, wallpapers, trims, flooring, hard surfaces, accent lighting, fine art and decorative accessories) shopping trips, color, fabric selection and coordination, window treatment design, purchasing and project management, and consulting for those who wish to do their own legwork and purchasing.

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Noelle Newell Residential Design and Décor: 203/273-8920 www.noellenewellfairfieldcountyinteriordecorator.com noellenewell@me.com.

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AMERICAN FRAMELESS SHOWER DOOR A Division of Westport Glass Co., Inc.

800 606-1776 路 203 227-1785 路 wgci@optonline.net 路 www.americanframeless.com

appraised & approved

mixology there was not a dressing room to be had.

While each location I visited – from Hewlett to Woodbury, Westhampton to Westport – had its own personality, the unifying factor was the highly trained personnel who aren’t the least bit overbearing; when asked for assistance, they exude a love for clothing, enthusiastically imparting tasteful expertise.

Every location has the odd ability to make those familiar with Soho or any major city’s hot-spot fashion district find themselves feeling reminiscent of those shopping excursions.

With a devotion to representation of the latest trends in an array of

Most commonly coined as the skill in mixing drinks to an almost scientific, luscious degree of perfection, a now tangible form of Mixology – that of a super-hip clothing store by the same name, only this, with aptitude for mixing styles – is opening in the heart of Westchester at the fabulous Rye Ridge Shopping Center.

Not being able to wait I took a trip to the existing Mixology locations in Long Island and Connecticut.

Mixology Clothing Company was established a little over three years ago, and it must be something of a successfully proven phenomenon; in an otherwise difficult economy, sales of incredibly reasonably priced stylish and trendy items satisfied even the most discerning of fashionistas.

Mixology’s high-end style in price ranges never exceeding $100, was deliberately devised to attract in this challenging market.

And appealing it is – busily welcoming, and attending to, women anywhere from 14 to 50+. When I was there, college girls were home, and

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carefully selected pieces, Mixology is in an envious position to curate exclusive private collections from such hot companies as Gypsy Junkies, Motel Rock, and MinkPink.

Mixology is immersed in the online world with a bustling and busy website, ShopMixology.com. A Facebook page has over 24,000 fans, and a fiercely devoted following on Instagram.

Mixology is owned by former major label recording artist, writer, and producer, Jonathan Shapiro, better known by his stage name, Jon Saint.

Mr. Shapiro has taken his experiences in the fast paced world of music and touring and translated them into Mixology’s guiding philosophy, that every visit to Mixology should be an amazing experience. Shopping, fashion, style and music are therapy that feed the soul and brighten the day. Mixology certainly does that. www.ShopMixology.com www.facebook.com/mixologystores twitter.com/SHOPMIXOLOGY pinterest.com/shopmixology instagram: @shopmixology

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appraised & approved

fig liNeNs

Fig is a year-round shop located in historic Westport, CT. They offer an extensive selection of luxury linens for your bedroom, bathroom and table. Along with bedding and towels, you’ll find many other wonderful items for your home. Sumptuous brands include: Pratesi John Robshaw Kevin O’Brien Studio Anali Exquisite Needlework Sferra Matouk Nancy Koltes Abyss & Habidecor Yves Delorme Scandia Down Lulu DK Alashan Cashmere PJ Harlow Loungewear Souchi Organic Cashmere John Derian Designers Guild Scents & Feel Beatriz Ball Ferran New York Brahms Mount Textiles Their staff is friendly and knowledgeable, eager to meet your unique design needs. They are there to offer design consultation by phone or email as you shop. Most of all, they want you to feel great shopping with them, and to always look forward to your next Fig Experience.

FIG is located at 66 Post Road East, Westport, CT 06880.

Store Hours are Monday - Saturday 10:00a.m. - 5:00p.m.

(203) 227-8669. www.figlinens.com.

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appraised & approved Healthy, Wholesome Cooking

The Gold Standard

Looking for something special for the avid skier on your holiday list?

The Colorado Ski Country USA Gold Pass is the perfect gift. The pass allows unlimited access to 21 world class ski areas all over Colorado with absolutely no black out dates, for the entire 2012-2013 season. It is also fully transferable so purchasers can share their pass with family, friends, clients and colleagues.

The Colorado Gold Pass is valid at A-Basin, Aspen, Snowmass, Buttermilk, Aspen Highlands, Crested Butte, Purgatory, Echo, Eldora, Howelson, Loveland, Monarch, Powderhorn, Ski Cooper, Sol Vista Steamboat, Sunlight Telluride, Winter Park and Wolf Creek.

So, GO FOR THE GOLD at www.coloradoski.com

Broken Shed

Direct from New Zealand comes Broken Shed Vodka, a premium vodka distilled four times from natural whey (the excess sugar generated from milk production). Though few other vodkas are distilled from whey, it makes an excellent natural source for distillation of pure spirit. Broken Shed is free of additives, sugars, and is blended with New Zealand’s purest spring water from two sources. This premium vodka is smooth, mellow and enjoyable.

Now available in Connecticut and New York: approx. $34 retail. www.brokenshed.com.

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500 Best Quinoa Recipes

by Camilla Saulsbury Hundreds of tasty ideas using this gluten-free super food, as a side dish, as an entrée, and in desserts. Low fat, meat and vegetarian options. © 2012. Robert Rose Publishing; $27.95.

250 Best Beans, Lentils & Tofu Recipes Simple to prepare as well as gourmet options from around the world using these powerhouse, low fat ingredients. Includes nutritional information, preparation tips and serving suggestions.

Meat, vegetarian, and vegan instructions. © 2012. Robert Rose Publishing; $24.95.

The Epic Continues Winter of the World, Book Two of the Century Triology by Ken Follett is here! Immerse yourself in the continuing fortunes of five intertwined families – American, English, Welsh, Russian, and German – as they bring to life the history of the turbulent period between the World Wars, and the conflagration of World War II. ©2012. Dutton Publishing: $36. Sequel to the internationally best-selling Fall of Giants.

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YOUR LOCAL CARPET STORE Specializing in Fine Carpet and Wood Flooring for Every Room in Your Home

REDI-CUT CARPET & FLOORING

Sink into the warmth and beauty of Redi-Cut Carpets. Bring color, texture and value into your home.

We specialize in Laminate, Vinyl, Ceramic and Hardwood Floors too.

173 North Main Street Port Chester, NY 10573 T 914.937.5885 visit: www.redicut.com

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O U R

W O R L D.

D O YO U H AV E W H AT I T TA K E S ?

In celebration of LEEP, Clark’s pioneering model of higher education, up to ten scholars in 2013 will receive free tuition, room and board for their first four years.

Find out if you have what it takes to be a LEEP Scholar at clarku.edu/leepscholarship

A P P LY

DEADLINES

clarku.edu/apply commonapp.org

Early Action: November 1 Regular Decision: January 15

T H E C H A N G E S TA R T S H E R E .

A boyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education without Character Development and Consistent Structure

Our personalized instruction provides the right equipment Be Informed | Be Selective | Apply Now

c h a m b e r l a i n

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T e l 6 0 1 . 4 3 7. 8 8 5 5 | F a x 6 0 1 . 4 3 7. 3 2 1 2

Why start college after the 10th or 11th grade?

Because you’re ready.

We’re a community passionate about learning: independent-minded, inquiring, and creatively intellectual. We’re 400+ students on 275 beautiful acres, loving the challenge.

Nobody else does what we do.

C O N TA C T U S T O DAY:

simons-rock.edu/admit admit@simons-rock.edu 800.235.7186

To succeed in a changing world

Think beyond the ordinary What’s here is unique in the country.

It’s about a sense of self and where you fit in the world.

You get the school to work for you, not the other way around.

— Rob Cole, physics faculty

Uniquely interdisciplinary | Dynamic curriculum | Coordinated studies Customized pathways | Narrative evaluations | Applied learning

admissions.evergreen.edu/why

THE STORM KING SCHOOL Truth ♦ Respect ♦ Responsibility “Creating Success from Potential”

       

Small, Collaborative Classes; iPad Program Coed, Boarding & Day, Grades 8-12 Beautiful, Safe Campus on Storm King Mountain Warm, Respectful, Diverse Community Honors & Advanced Placement (AP) Classes Outstanding Visual & Performing Arts Competitive & Club Athletics; Outdoor Adventure Support for Students with Learning Differences “I have a special bond with my Storm King teachers, who are encouraging and supportive. They have helped me discover abilities and talents that I never knew I had.”

—Lily Snyder ‘13

THE STORM KING SCHOOL 314 Mountain Road Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY 12520 (800) 225-9144 or (845) 534-9860 admissions@sks.org ♦ www.sks.org

PREPARING STUDENTS FOR COLLEGE SINCE 1867

Canterbury School New Milford, CT

Grades 9-12 • Boarding & Day • (860) 210-3934 • www.cbury.org

Westover School, a leading preparatory school for young women, is known for its graduates – confident young women prepared both academically and personally to get the most out of their college experience.

At Westover your daughter will have opportunities to explore and discover her strengths through signature academic programs that allow for in-depth study in areas including Women in Science and Engineering, Global Exchanges, Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Online School for Girls.

Here your daughter will grow both academically and personally within a collaborative community of students in grades 9 - 12 from 16 states and 17 countries.

For more information or to arrange for a visit to the School, please call the Office of Admission at 203.577.4521 or visit westoverschool.org.

Westover School

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Middlebury, CT

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westoverschool.org

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE

by Alexandra Vairo

Private School Denial Limited space and an overabundance of applications results in more students not being accepted into their first choice – or any – private school. Here’s why well-qualified kids are getting rejected, and what happens after the dust settles.

and under, and schools like the Upper West Side’s Mandell report almost twice the number of sibling applications as last year. With the pre-school application process remaining predominately private, it’s no wonder Green has found herself in the proverbial pickle.

Green and other enthusiastic parents continue to clamor for prime spots in private school programs, ranging from Pre-Kindergarten to high school. But top schools – such as Greenwich Country Day, Riverdale, Dalton, Claremont and Beekman -continue to see an increased number of student applications.

In 2010-2011, The Educational Records Bureau reported that the number of students taking the intelligence tests required for admission at most private schools rose 7.7 percent year over year; last year it increased more still, by 1.4 percent.

Parents’ willingness to give their kids an edge to succeed vaults some kids above others in the game of private school roulette. However, the hundreds of applicants applying for one of 35 spots makes rejection from at least one school seem inevitable. But all?

Parents and professionals weigh in on the factors that may be leading to a stamp of non-approval for students, and what plan B is for those who don’t make the grade.

Last year, Notoya GreeN was iN disbeLief wheN she discovered that her 2-yearoLd tripLets didN’t Get iNto either of the two private pre-schooL proGrams iN her tribeca, New york city NeiGhborhood.

“I applied to only two schools in TriBeCa since my triplets were 15 months and many schools don’t have programs for such young kids,” Green says. “What made it challenging was submitting applications for three kids, not just one.”

Another factor that may be contributing to Green’s disappointing, but more-common-than-not, situation? The New York Post reports that TriBeCa has experienced a 60 percent increase of children ages 5

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An Imperfect Fit Greater New York area consultant and field supervisor for School Choice International, Linda Kiarsis, experiences these rejections firsthand. Kiarsis’ job is to find private school options for children of both individual families, as well as families experiencing corporate relocation. Often, clientele are coming to Kiarsis to guide them through the private school application process, or have been rejected, and need help figuring out the next step.

While Kiarsis cites various reasons for first-time rejection from every school, a major one, she says, is unrealistic expectations. “They [parents] print out that list of top private schools without really analyzing why they are a fit for their child,” adding that she once had a parent say: “‘I have a 3-year-old and want her to go to the best school. Where should I send her? I’m open to moving anywhere in the U.S.’” Extreme cases aside, “There’s intense pressure to give kids the best

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE start possible,” Green says. “If you really want an honest curriculum that stimulates your child and paves the way for Kindergarten, I don’t know if there is a better option than private pre-schools.” But there can be a great deal of pressure for students to follow a set path by parents by being accepted to a list of the top schools, or continuing a legacy that siblings, parents and even grandparents have already put into play. But sometimes, the school just isn’t a good fit (see unrealistic expectations) or the student just doesn’t have the academic chops to cut it.

Kiarsis notes one situation where a mother and brother both attended Dalton, but daughter Hillary* didn’t fare as well on the ISEE exam (Independent School Entrance Exam), and this took her out of the running. “We did a lot of coaching with the family to let them know that it wasn’t a good fit,” says Kiarsis. “One child left Dalton and actually needed to find another school because of the high level

“THErE’S INTENSE PrESSUrE TO GIVE kIDS THE bEST STArT POSSIbLE,” GrEEN SAyS. “If yOU rEALLy wANT AN HONEST CUrrICULUm THAT STImULATES yOUr CHILD AND PAVES THE wAy fOr kINDErGArTEN, I DON’T kNOw If THErE IS A bETTEr OPTION THAN PrIVATE PrE-SCHOOLS.” of pressure.” Based on her experience, Kiarsis thinks: “Generally, if a child can perform in the top five to ten percent of his class, he will do well wherever he goes.” Better to be happy and successful at a mid-tier school than struggling and stressed at a top tier school, she concludes.

Barrier to Entry Learning disabilities are not to be taken lightly. But oftentimes, students – particularly those eighth grade and younger, particularly Pre-K – are denied from a private school due to a learning disability that they didn’t even know existed. “Children may have learning issues that are yet to be diagnosed,” says Kiarsis. Recently, when helping with fouryear-old Brittany’s* application to private Kindergarten programs, Kiarsis experienced this first hand. Brittany applied to a solid list of eight schools, but “because she was so young, we didn’t know that she would test low on her ERB [Educational Requirements Board] due to learning issues,” says Kiarsis. Brittany was denied from all eight schools.

They were able to act quickly, and with more interviews, visits and conversations, Kiarsis was able to have Brittany placed in a program

that would help her with these issues.

Similar to learning issues, another barrier to entry for non-native students can be language. Kiarsis helped Anne* with Kindergarten applications. “English was not the first language, but she was bright,” she says. The family required that Anne attend a top school, and ultimately weren’t happy with the schools where she was accepted. Although Anne’s ERB scores were very good, unsurprisingly, the verbal was low because English was not her native language – and because she was four.

While a learning disorder or ESL doesn’t always put a student out of the running for a private school, Kiarsis notes that many private schools don’t offer the one-on-one kinds of support that children need in these situations.

Late in the Game In the private school game, being the early bird can truly offer a better chance at catching that worm. Many times, totally qualified students can be denied from every private school due to full enrollment.

Maggie* is just one example of a late applicant to the ninth grade.

“She was a strong student coming from Malaysia and applied to all of the top schools, including Riverdale, Greenwich Academy and Rye Country Day,” Kiarsis says. The family interviewed at these top schools, but Kiarsis believes “this was really a case of no spaces opening up at the private schools.” From here, Kiarsis and School Choice International counseled the family to a plan B: Enroll Maggie in a very good public school. (School Choice cites public schools in Westchester and Southern Connecticut ranking some of the highest).

What’s Next?

While there are many extenuating circumstances for why a student may not make the cut at a private school, a backup plan – including public school and re-applying to privates the following year – are often options that work out, and are not irreversible.

What’s particularly tough on both parent and child can be the emotional attachment that comes from the application, tour and interview process for private schools. “When I received the letters in the mail from schools several months later,” says Green, “they left me devastated. I wasn’t sure I was going to reapply again. I didn’t know if I had it in me.”

Green did end up applying again this year to get her three little ones into a Pre-K program – this time, to a total of 15 schools. If they don’t get in, she has a plan. “If we don’t get in next year, there are preschool alternative programs where you drop kids off a few days per week (there’s virtually no competition),” she says. While the situation isn’t ideal for her family, it is an alternative.

“Maybe we’re all wrong and none of it matters in the end, but right now it [private schooling] seems like the way to go,” she says. Her second-time-around philosophy is to “cast a wider net and not take it personally. It really is a numbers game.” *Names have been changed.

*

Alexandra Vairo is a Manhattan-based lifestyle writer who lives with her family in Fairfield County, CT. WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE day schools Ridgefield Academy Ridgefield, CT

Empowering Every Student Ridgefield Academy, an independent day school located in Ridgefield, CT, empowers every child to realize his or her unique potential by bringing together academic excellence, innovative programming and a diverse, supportive community.

Small Classes Make the Difference Teachers and administrators believe the key to future success is empowering each and every student. The program, which educates children from preschool (two-year-olds) to eighth grade, provides students with daily opportunities to build confidence, use their creativity, work collaboratively and learn how to problem solve. Through small classes and individualized teaching instruction, children develop the skills to be critical thinkers, public speakers and self-advocates.

A Comprehensive Curriculum RA’s curriculum combines the traditional, core subject areas of language arts, mathematics, science, history, world language and social studies with a rich program of music, art, and drama designed to inspire students and spark their creativity. “The strengths of RA’s program can be found on many different levels,” comments one parent, “such as interweaving meaningful literature with verbal and artistic expression; expanding a history unit to include a variety of approaches like re-enactments and movie creations of certain events. These are all examples of how RA educates rather than teaches.”

of shared values. In all areas of school life, students model and reinforce the principles of respect, responsibility, fairness, and service to others. Service learning is incorporated into the curriculum to engage children in meaningful activities that reinforce the importance of service to others.

Innovative Media Arts Curriculum RA’s 5,800 square foot state-of-the-art media arts center and sound room allows students to use the latest technology to develop their writing skills, learn the current methods of research and explore the digital arts through classes such as animation, digital storytelling, film and sound editing.

New Preschool Wing In September the Academy opened a renovated preschool wing designed specifically for students aged 2 – 5 years of age. The facility features areas for cooking, technology and a small amphitheater for performances. The Academy’s preschool program offers children purposeful learning experiences to support social, emotional, cognitive and physiological development through science, art, math, foreign language, pre-reading exercises and movement activities.

The RA Difference Many families have discovered what a difference the Ridgefield Academy experience can make for their child.

For more information about Ridgefield Academy, visit www.ridgefieldacademy.org, or call Julie Crane at (203) 894-1800 x112.

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Lauralton Hall Milford, CT

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Public Speaking An important part of becoming a confident learner is learning the tools to effectively communicate your ideas. Seven years ago Ridgefield Academy implemented a public speaking program. The school recognized that if children are taught the tools for effective communication and given ample opportunity to practice, they could effectively learn written and verbal communication at a young age. RA students learn the strategies for successful written and oral communication and through practice, develop into confident writers and public speakers.

Service Learning and Character Development The RA school community is a caring community built on a foundation

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The Academy of Our Lady of Mercy, Lauralton Hall, was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1905. Lauralton is the first independent Catholic college-prep school for young women in Connecticut. A member of the National Association of Independent Schools and National Coalition of Girls Schools, Lauralton Hall is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and the Connecticut Department of Education.

Lauralton Hall is one of a select group of Catholic girls’ schools that has remained true to its original unique mission, which is to foster a community atmosphere enriched by the Mercy tradition and to educate young women to pursue knowledge, recognize truth and respond to the needs of others.

The core values of a Mercy education play an integral role in a Lauralton Hall education: compassion and service; educational excellence; concern for women and women’s issues; global vision and responsibility; spiritual growth and development; as well as collaboration.

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE Set on a beautiful 30-acre campus, the school is located in historic downtown Milford, within walking distance of the train station. Students from over 35 communities arrive by train, car, or bus. The student body is composed of young women from diverse socioeconomic, religious and ethnic backgrounds.

Lauralton currently enrolls 465 students in grades 9 through 12.

Lauralton prepares girls to become competent, confident and compassionate women. The well-rounded curriculum fully prepares students for college study, with demanding honors and advanced placement classes offered in all academic disciplines. State-of-the-art science labs and ever-evolving technologies in the classrooms prepare students with 21st century skills. Courses are available through the UConn Early Education Experience (ECE), a concurrent enrollment program that allows motivated high school students to take UConn courses at their high schools for both high school and college credit. Continuing the tradition of individualized attention, Lauralton’s highly regarded Center for College Counseling and Guidance provides one-on-one counseling with each student and her family throughout their four years.

Lauralton Hall is a member of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) and the South West Conference (SWC) with fifteen varsity sports to choose from. The campus has playing fields and an athletic center which houses a basketball court as well as a fully-equipped fitness center.

Lauralton Hall encourages each student to become involved in at least one extracurricular activity. With more than 30 clubs and organizations to choose from, there is something to fit the interest of every student.

Activities include culture trips, student council, national and language honor societies, a fall musical, art club and additions made yearly based on student interest. Community service is an integral part of a Mercy education; students are challenged to succeed in a rigorous academic program and also to give of themselves – especially to those in need.

Lauralton Hall: 200 High St, Milford, CT 06460. Kathleen Shine, Director of Enrollment Management: (203) 877-2786 x125. Email: admissions@lauraltonhall.org; Website: www.lauraltonhall.org.

Villa Maria School Stamford, CT What would you do if your child were having trouble keeping up in school? At home, maybe your son becomes more anxious, or your daughter isn’t as happy as she used to be. Soon enough, your child may start dreading school, showing problem behaviors you’ve never seen before.

These are common signs of a child frustrated by school — a child who is in a program that isn’t meeting his or her needs. Students who learn differently need a learning environment that’s different, too: one where they are understood and can be successful. For many families the safe, caring environment at Villa Maria School in Stamford has been the answer. It’s a school that has been successful at teaching students with learning differences for almost 40 years.

Many have called Villa Maria the “Jewel on the Hill in Stamford” because of the beauty and serenity of the setting. But what happens inside is beautiful as well: with one teacher for every four or five students, Villa Maria offers a highly individualized instructional environment, tailored to the specific needs of the each and every student.

All of our teachers are certified in special education. Villa Maria School is State approved as a special education school, and accredited by both the State Department of Education and the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools.

Perhaps the most powerful words about Villa Maria come from the parents who have lived through the frustration of knowing their children were not in the right place because their schools weren’t meeting their needs. Here is one story: VICTORIA JORDAN “When you realize your child needs help, you wonder if anyone can help—if there’s any hope. The worst thing for a parent is knowing your child needs help and you don’t know how to help him. I will never forget our first visit to Villa Maria. First of all, they have a welcome sign when a student visits, and I can’t tell you what that small gesture of seeing a welcome sign with your name on it means. He immediately felt important.

It was such a relief to find a school that has teachers who knew how to teach my child. They not only understand how to teach each child, they do it. There’s a lot of one-to-one work that goes on and there’s intensity to the work they do here that’s very unique.”

Villa Maria is a private, co-educational day school serving students with learning disabilities in grades K-9. If you are interested in finding out more about Villa Maria School, visit their website at www.villamariaedu.org or call Mary Ann Tynan, Director of Admissions, at 203/322-5886.

Villa Maria School is located at 161 Sky Meadow Drive in Stamford, CT.

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE York Preparatory School New York City York Preparatory School is a co-educational, independent, college preparatory day school offering a traditional curriculum for grades 6-12. In the belief that every student can succeed, we provide a supportive atmosphere that reflects and is enhanced by the diversity and richness of New York City.

York Prep recognizes the student as the focus of the educational process. We guide our students to reach their optimum potential intellectually, physically, and socially. Each student is challenged to think critically and creatively in a structured environment where excellence is rewarded and individual effort is encouraged. We strive to develop responsible citizens by reinforcing respect for self and for others in the community.

York Prep students are grouped into subject-specific tracks, thus enabling them to recognize their academic potential. We believe subject-specific

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tracking encourages students to take academic risks and to reach beyond their comfort level. For high achievers, we have an honors program of accelerated classes in all subjects and offer Advanced Placement testing. In addition, the Headmaster may permit seniors and advanced eleventh graders the opportunity to take courses at Columbia University, New York University, or tHe german scHool of connecticut Hunter College.

The York Prep Scholars Program is a three-year sequence which addresses the needs of York’s most academically able students with a rigorous curriculum. Units on such topics as “Neuroscience,” “Italian Renaissance Art,” “Statistics,” and “Shakespeare Performance” are presented independently in mini-courses taught by members of the faculty who focus on their particular intellectual passions and specialties.

York Prep’s Jump Start Program helps students with different learning styles and learning disabilities to function successfully in an academically-challenging mainstream setting. Study skills, test-

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taking skills, and organizational skills are key components of this supplemental program. The Jump Start program offers supervised group study periods before and after school every day except Friday afternoon, and two 45-minute one-on-one sessions with a designated Jump Start teacher, with whom the student works over the course of the school year.

Located in a stately, self-contained, seven-level granite building, York Prep is situated on 68th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue in Manhattan. York Prep takes advantage of its surroundings by holding its fall and spring physical education classes and team practices in Central Park and by conducting regular visits to Lincoln Center. In addition, the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are only a few blocks away. York Prep’s location truly makes the school an intimate place to learn in the heart of New York City.

York Prep offers the following sports: Boys’ Varsity Soccer, Boys’ Varsity Basketball, Girls’ Varsity Soccer, Girls’ Varsity Basketball, Middle School Soccer, Middle School Basketball, Girls’ Varsity Volleyball, Boys’ Junior Varsity Basketball, Girls’ Junior Varsity Volleyball, Girls’ Varsity Softball, Boys’ Varsity Volleyball, Indoor Varsity Track & Field, Girls’ Middle School Volleyball, Varsity Track & Field, Varsity Golf, Middle School Track & Field, Boys’ Varsity Baseball, Varsity Cross Country, Middle School Baseball, and Middle School Cross Country.

Clubs and activities include Beekeepers Society, Book Club, Broadway Club, Chess Club, Community Service Club, Environmental & Gardeners Club, Fitness Club, French Cinema Club, Gay/Straight Alliance, Glee Club, literary and arts magazine, Knitting Club, Model United Nations, Multicultural Club, New York City Tour Club, Open Studio/Crafts Club, Origami Club, school newspaper, Peer Tutoring Program, Photography Club, Rock Band, School Production/Drama Club, Science Club, Stock Market Group, Student Government Organization, Ukulele Club, Yearbook, Swim Club, Tennis Club, Intramural Sports Program, and Student Yoga.

For further information contact: Elizabeth Norton, Director of Enrollment 212-362-0400 ext. 103; enorton@yorkprep.org; or Cathy Minaudo, Director of Admissions 212-362-0400 ext. 106; cminaudo@yorkprep.org.

The German School of Connecticut

In today’s vibrant and diverse society, communication across national borders has increased exponentially. Consequently, the advantages to knowing and speaking several languages are limitless, but knowing and speaking the right languages is key. What many may not know, is that German has become an especially advantageous option, as a language of music, science, and literature, as well as the native tongue of the world’s number one exporter of goods worldwide. And there’s no better place to learn this interesting and dynamic language than the German School of Connecticut (GSC).

With locations in both Fairfield County and Hartford, GSC is the only professional German Saturday school in the state and offers classes from pre-

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE River and the Appalachian Trail.

Canterbury was founded in 1915 by prominent lay Catholics. One of the founders, Dr. Nelson Hume, was honored by Pope Pius XI for his outstanding work in education. Today the Canterbury student body is a diverse mix of both Catholics and non-Catholics from 16 countries and 21 states.

Canterbury’s buildings, set on 150 acres, are a rich architectural mix of traditional and modern. The Chapel of Our Lady is both the physical center and the spiritual heart of the campus. The large newly renovated and expanded Robert Markey Steele Hall has a dining room, a student center, two computer labs, a library, a 100-seat lecture room, and the Steers Admission Center. Next door, Nelson Hume Hall has classrooms, science labs, a 400-seat auditorium, and the Theater Department’s “green room.”

The sports facilities include ten playing fields, three baseball diamonds, eight tennis courts, a track, a new state of the art aquatic center, and the Hockey Arena. The athletic facility houses three basketball courts, five international squash courts, locker rooms, a weight and fitness room, a wrestling room, as well as space for aerobics and dance.

New Milford, CT There are eight student dormitories, which, like the classroom buildings, have wireless Internet access.

There are eighty faculty, most of whom also coach and serve as dorm advisors, and therefore may be working with a student in several roles each day. Many live on campus, 30 with their families.

Canterbury School takes pride in the breadth and depth of its course options. Few boarding schools of Canterbury’s size offer as many AP classes (19). Canterbury is among the very few offering AP courses in World History, Drawing, and Music Theory. The school also offers four years of Latin.

All 100% of the seniors in the class of 2011 continued on to college. Students have enrolled at excellent schools such as: Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin, Colby, Colgate, Columbia, UConn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Fordham, Georgetown, Loyola, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Penn, Roger Williams, St. Lawrence, US Coast Guard Academy, US Naval Academy, Villanova and Wesleyan.

Canterbury’s sports program is extensive, the athletic facilities are substantial, and the coaches are dedicated. All Grades 9-12 • Boarding & Day • (860) 210-3934 • www.cbury.org students participate in athletics. Three team levels – Varsity, Junior Varsity, and recreational—are fielded in most sports to accommodate players of varying skills, ages, and size. Boys day aNd BoaRdING teams are organized in basketball, baseball, crew, cross-country, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, squash, swimming, tennis, track, water Canterbury School polo, and wrestling. Girls compete in basketball, crew, cross-country, New Milford, CT Canterbury School is a coeducational boarding and day school enrolling field hockey, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, softball, squash, swim360 students in a college preparatory program for grades 9-12. In addi- ming, track, tennis, and volleyball.

Students may earn academic credit for participating in the Canterbury tion to its strong academic program, the school is known for the beauty of its location, a true dedication to spiritual growth, and an exciting Choir, Chorale and Octet as well as Chamber Orchestra and Jazz Band.

Other activities include student government, theater, the school newspasports program for both boys and girls.

The school is situated on a hilltop adjacent to the historic section of per, the yearbook, and the literary magazine. Interest clubs are formed New Milford, Connecticut, where Roger Sherman, one of the signers of for the environment and recycling, diversity issues, and school spirit. the Declaration of Independence, lived. The campus is about 80 miles www.cbury.org; www.facebook.com/canterbury.admission. from New York City in an area of natural beauty near the Housatonic 100 Aspetuck Avenue, New Milford, CT. 860/210-3800. kindergarten to high school and for adults. The school boasts a two-track continuous curriculum – one for beginners and non-native speakers and the other for those with native and near-native fluency – as well as classes for business German, which are tailored to the needs of employees in local businesses.

“Coming to the German School of Connecticut is fun,” said Dr. Renate Ludanyi, the school’s principal. “Celebrating old-world customs and establishing international relationships and friendships is the next best thing to traveling abroad. The German School of Connecticut has been in Fairfield County for 30 years and it is still growing. It is one of Fairfield’s best kept secrets…no longer.”

For more information regarding GSC, visit www.germanschoolct.org or call 203-548.0438 for the Fairfield County location and 860-242-3399 for the Hartford location.

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE BoaRdING schools Westover Middlebury, CT Education Plus Opportunities for Girls in Special Areas of Interest Westover, a selective boarding school of 200 girls, grades 9 - 12, in Middlebury, CT, has students from 16 countries and 19 states. Because the Westover community values the ideas and talents of every student, its students have endless opportunities to distinguish and challenge themselves. In addition to its rich and varied curriculum, Westover offers three specialized programs for those students with more concentrated interests. These programs provide co-curricular experiences for Westover students with the Brass City Ballet, the Manhattan School of Music, and Women in Science and Engineering (WISE).

• Brass City Ballet. As participants in this program, a joint venture between Westover and the Brass City Ballet, select students have the opportunity to study dance at one of the region’s leading dance schools.

Students audition in the fall of their entry year and take six dance classes a week in ballet, modern, and jazz.

• Manhattan School of Music. This joint program between the Manhattan School of Music Pre-College Division and Westover offers talented musicians and vocalists the opportunity to study music and play in an orchestra or ensemble at one of the country’s leading music schools.

Students must complete a separate application and audition to be accepted into the program.

• WISE (Women in Science and Engineering). This advanced extracurricular program in conjunction with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) offers a variety of electives aimed at preparing students for careers in science or engineering. WISE graduates also receive special consideration for RPI’s engineering program.

A number of Westover graduates who have participated in these programs have later pursued studies in dance, music, science and engineering in college and have gone on to establish careers in these fields.

In addition, Westover offers three signature programs that further reflect the School’s commitment to giving students opportunities to gain experience and knowledge in special areas of interest: the Sonja Osborn Museum Studies Internship, the Online School for Girls, and Westover’s

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Summer Programs for girls entering grades 7, 8 and 9.

• The Sonja Osborn Museum Studies Internship. The Museum Studies Internship, designed for students with interests and aptitude in the study of art history, consists of a ten-week program. The first eight weeks are spent at Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT, the home designed and lived in by Theodate Pope Riddle, Westover’s architect. The final two weeks are spent working on a project that investigates the historical ties between the museum and Westover.

• The Online School for Girls (OSG). Westover was one of four all-girls schools in 2009 to establish a consortium to offer online education for girls.

Girls taking part in the program are offered courses taught by faculty members from the consortium over the Internet. Courses range from multivariable calculus and differential equations to women in art and literature. All classes focus on collaborative projects for participating students.

• Westover’s Summer Programs. The School’s residential one- or twoweek summer programs in the arts and academics are an extension of the Westover experience, allowing girls to benefit from courses taught by Westover instructors while enjoying a range of summer activities. Recent course offerings have included ceramics, creative writing, dance, drama, Model United Nations, and photography.

These six programs reflect the diverse offerings that Westover provides for all of its students. As Head of School Ann Pollina has noted, “Westover’s small, all-girls’ environment forces students out of boxes and into a bigger picture of themselves. Our girls are artists and athletes, musicians and mathematicians, poets and physicists – sometimes all at the same time.”

1237 Whittemore Rd, Middlebury, CT. 203/758-2423; www.westoverschool.org. For admissions information, or to arrange a visit, contact Westover’s Office of Admission at 203/577-4521 or e-mail admission@westoverschool.org.

Avon Old Farms School Avon, CT Since 1927, Avon Old Farms has been a leader in preparing young men for higher education, and the world. Avon is a dynamic community of learning with a rigorous curriculum anchored in the liberal arts. By understanding boys – and with appreciation for their sense of humor, their energy, and how they learn – we have created the kind of environment where our students are able to become their best selves.

Avon is conveniently located in the heart of the Farmington River Valley. Our founder, Theodate Pope Riddle, an accomplished American

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE architect, created a campus with the feel of an English village on 1,000 acres of Connecticut countryside. The Cotswold-inspired architecture reflects the traditional approach to education that is so successful here.

Avon’s teachers are experts in their fields who bring lessons to life and create compelling context for discussion. Creativity, innovation, and collaboration are taught by example through humor, inquiry, and debate.

Small classes mean that every voice is heard and every question answered.

At Avon we understand the importance of personal connection, especially during adolescence; this is why we have held strong to the model of a faculty member who advises, teaches, mentors, and coaches our boys.

Athletics is an honored tradition at Avon and, we believe, a valuable part of a complete education. Our athletic program is one of the best in the country and we attribute our success to experienced coaches, excellent facilities, strong competition, and an emphasis on things that matter most: teamwork, determination, and sportsmanship. As successful as we are at the varsity level, Avon sub-varsity teams play a full schedule in every sport, giving all our boys the opportunity to learn, stay fit, and enjoy the bonding experience of being part of a team.

Another way Avon boys come together is through the arts. Our rich and varied programs in music and the visual and performing arts provide many opportunities for boys to express themselves creatively and form meaningful connections with peers. Our students have been honored locally, regionally, and nationally for their creative accomplishments. Most impressive, however, Avon is a place where you can draw, paint, play an instrument, sing or act whether you have had years of experience or none.

As a college preparatory school, one of our goals is to identify and facilitate the right matches between Avon students and institutions of higher learning.

Our boys typically begin the college counseling process during sophomore year, setting expectations and goals early so that by the time they are seniors, they are prepared to take the lead on this leg of their journey to adulthood.

At Avon Old Farms, our goal is to be the best school for boys. From the start, we have successfully given young men the tools they need to excel both personally and professionally. Our core values of integrity, civility, selfdiscipline, altruism, tolerance, sportsmanship, and responsibility are fundamental to life at Avon, and stay with our graduates for a lifetime.

Avon Old Farms School: 500 Old Farms Road, Avon, CT 06001. 800464-2866; www.AvonOldFarms.com.

The Storm King School Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY Balancing Competition and Cooperation in 21st Century Education Paul Domingue, The Storm King School’s 16th head of school in 145 years, introduced himself this summer with a letter that included the following thoughts.

Geography dictates so much of every school’s culture, but in this 21st century it is critical that we prepare students to become leaders in a global marketplace and society. Our challenge is to identify the skills, values, and habits of mind that will serve them well in their ongoing education and careers of the future.

Much has been written about the “21st century skills” we should be teaching, among them: co-operation, teamwork, empathy, and group-think—some of the essential skills for success in the new global economy. This list sits in sharp contrast to the quintessentially American notions of competition, individualism, self-realization, and personal responsibility that have been the mainstays of prep-school education. And while a sympathetic—if not empathetic—impulse to society’s betterment underpins traditional standards of

leadership, contemporary standards push for a less hierarchical approach.

All of this begs several questions. Should schools dramatically shift to embrace these new imperatives? Should an individual’s success depend upon his or her group’s success? What of grades? Accountability? Personal initiative and responsibility? And are these new values the remedy for the endemic abuse of power we have witnessed here and abroad?

I endorse the notion that ethics should be at the heart of all we do.

Twenty-first century leaders must possess extraordinary personal integrity and, I believe, employ what is “right” as the litmus test for decision making. As we prepare our Storm King students to assume positions of leadership, traditional character education must remain at the center of our daily community experience.

To slavishly abandon traditional values in favor of new, market-driven substitutes seems unwise at best. Most of the uniquely American focus on the individual remains relevant. Individualism has been and will continue to be a powerful force for progress and should not be dismissed as

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dated and irrelevant. And it is telling that US boarding schools are in great demand by students from around the world.

To suppose that 21st century society will not reward competitiveness is to ignore the realities of population growth, the unequal distribution of resources around the planet, and the universal desire to provide for one’s children opportunities for a better life. The real question revolves around the need to embrace competition without allowing it to overwhelm our global sensibility and desire for equanimity. For that to occur, competition must be tempered.

But to force a choice—competition versus cooperation—is a red herring. Rather, I would argue for a more balanced, blended approach that draws the best from both points of view. Indeed, the Greek notion of balance remains the single greatest gift we can give students today.

So, it seems to me that the best, most forward-thinking schools will be ones that preserve the best of their traditions and balance them with emerging educational imperatives. Living balanced lives that acknowledge our competing natures and accommodate the range of human experience should be our ultimate goal. Find the complete letter at www. sks.org/about/FromtheHeadsDesk.cfm. Mr. Domingue and the rest of The Storm King School community are eager to welcome you for a visit.

For more information, visit www.sks.org or call Joanna Evans at (845) 534-9860. 314 Mountain Road, Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY 12520 WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM

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New Hampton School New Hampton, NH A drive through the bucolic village of New Hampton, New Hampshire, provides a view of New Hampton School’s idyllic academic row, a setting for the education of boys and girls since 1821. Nevertheless, New Hampton School’s long tradition as a transformative secondary school in the boarding school tradition has not slowed the School’s evolution in recent years. A school on the move, New Hampton School is now considered one of the most innovative boarding schools in the country, an institution that is not only preparing students for college, but also providing graduates with the skills, confidence, and values they will need to succeed in life and in a world that is more interconnected than ever.

“New Hampton School opened up a world of opportunity for me and pushed me to have an open mind,” says Will Callif, a four-year boarding student who is now a freshman at the College of the Holy Cross. “It’s a tight-knit community. The adults in the community are your coaches, house parents, and advisors. I’m fully prepared for college, but I’m going to miss it, because attending NHS was the best decision of my life.”

New Hampton, which recently reintroduced a weeklong Project Period, considers not only what students need now, but also what they will need 10 years from now. Look no further than School’s adoption of the International Baccalaureate diploma program. New Hampton was the first IB boarding school in New England, and many school are now making the move.

Its comprehensive technology integration plan has resulted in a fully integrated 1:1 iPad Program. “As a school, we have taken the necessary steps, including training and surveys, to ensure that the iPad in our school is not merely a device but a vehicle for our students to become

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better independent learners and our teachers to differentiate their pedagogy,” says Head of School Andrew Menke, who is in his eighth year at New Hampton.

An independent, coeducational, college preparatory school for boarding and day students, grades 9 through 12 and postgraduate, New Hampton is nestled in the foothills of New Hampshire’s White Mountains and is in the heart of the beautiful Lakes Region. The 350-acre campus features six classroom buildings, including the state-of-the-art Pilalas Center for Math and Science. There are 13 residential houses, varying in size, each with resident house parents/family.

The 2012-13 student body includes representation from 20 states and 24 different countries, and 18 percent of New Hampton students are international. New Hampton routinely sends its students to top colleges and universities. Students in the last three years have attended schools including the University of Michigan, Columbia University, Princeton University, Cornell University, Connecticut College, Williams College, Brown University, UCLA, Trinity College, Swarthmore College, and the University of Chicago.

“Colleges respect the way students are asked to think in new integrative ways, utilizing the inquiry-based, interdisciplinary nature of IB courses. Our IB program puts New Hampton School in a more competitive position in the college process,” Director of College Counseling Derek Krein explains.

The school boasts a tremendously strong athletic program with a number of players competing at the Division I level and at academicallyminded NESCAC schools. It also offers a variety of arts offerings.

70 Main Street, New Hampton, NH. Office of Admission: 603-677-3401; email: admission@newhampton.org.

Director of Admission: Suzanne Walker Buck. www.nwhampton.org.

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE MIlITaRy acadEMIEs

Chamberlain-Hunt Academy Port Gibson, MS Daily Life Undeniably, students give up some traditional teenage activities to come to Chamberlain-Hunt. What do they get in return? Rigorous Academics. Small class sizes. Opportunities to excel. Safety. Close friendships.

The Academy’s belief is that the purpose of high school is not having a full social calendar, but rather to prepare students for college and adulthood. Through a structured boarding program, students get a change of pace from the usual high school experience and have space to develop academically, physically, and spiritually. cHamberlain-Hunt academy

transition into the adult world.

The Academy’s military structure gives students the chance to be a leader among peers as they rise through the ranks and earn badges and command positions. It’s different from the usual high school agenda, but it offers experiences and friendships that will last a lifetime.

Extracurricular Opportunities A Chamberlain-Hunt Academy cadet will have experiences that many other high school students never have. There is a 72-acre wilderness training facility adjacent to campus with two paintball courses, a climbing and rappelling tower, a fitness trail, two confidence courses, and a 4.5-acre fishing pond. At the 30-yard pistol and rifle range, students will have the opportunity to hone marksmanship skill.

High-energy activities like swimming, tackling the climbing and rappelling tower, running obstacle courses, and intramural athletics will get them in the best physical shape of their lives.

Application Timetable Applications are accepted at any time. The application processing fee is $100. Stephen C. Allen, MAJ, CHA, Director of Admissions.

124 McComb Avenue, Port Gibson, MS 39150. www.chamberlain-hunt.com; 601/437-8855.

Riverside Military Academy Gainesville, GA

Academic Program Chamberlain-Hunt’s students achieve distinction in the classroom, often for the first time. Class sizes are purposely kept small to allow each cadet to get the attention he needs. The average cadet-teacher ratio is 5:1, with class sizes ranging from 1 to 14 students. Last year, 28% of enrollment carried a 3.7 GPA or better.

Writing skill is crucial. Chamberlain-Hunt is focused on giving students necessary writing skills. Chamberlain-Hunt employs Excellence in Writing (EiW), a program particularly beneficial to boys that can help them overcome the fear of the blank page. It is designed to teach structure and style in composition. This program is used for writing across the curriculum, and becomes the standard by which all writing is taught and measured.

Chamberlain-Hunt’s instructors offer an unparalleled education for young men. All instructors are certified and 90 percent hold advanced degrees. Young men who complete the Academy’s program enter the nation’s top colleges. College-bound Chamberlain-Hunt seniors score an average of 5 points higher than the state average and 4 points higher than the national average on the ACT. Structure and Conduct Chamberlain-Hunt’s military structure is one of the School’s unique features, which sets it apart from most of the nation’s boarding schools.

Through their time at Chamberlain-Hunt, young men learn the benefits of hard work and adherence to rules, as they see these qualities rewarded.

This model has proven to have a positive effect on the students as they

Founded in 1907, Riverside Military Academy (RMA) offers a traditional, American-style education where personal values, honor, and love of country still matter. Riverside is not owned or operated by any particular religious denomination, but supports the spiritual and educational goals of all families. Riverside’s 2010-11 Corps of Cadets consists of over 380 cadets from 15 countries.

RMA is first and foremost a college preparatory school. They offer high quality academics in a structured environment designed to meet the needs of boys in grades 7-12. The military setting adds structure, responsibility, accountability and yes, consequences when necessary. All contribute to a well-rounded young man. This environment works for those who have historically underachieved, who simply have not been able to manage their time, and who tend to procrastinate in every endeavor. The rigorous days at RMA are filled with academics, military activities, social activities, and riverside military academy

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE athletics. Thus, there is little time for non-productive activities.

Over 70% of their faculty hold advanced degrees and encourage their cadets to develop the daily habits essential for success at home and in the workplace.

These habits include organizational skills, time management, and the ability to manage stress through preparation and exercise. Cadets of Riverside Military Academy benefit from a small class size and a 14:1 student teacher ratio. Their entire educational program centers around the way young men learn best.

Because Riverside believes that there is a strong connection between physical and mental development, extra-curricular activities, field trips, and outdoor activities play an important role in the daily lives of cadets. The RMA program takes full advantage of its 206-acre campus, athletic facilities, and proximity to Lake Lanier, which is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Riverside’s college center assists cadets in preparing for and placing their college applications each year. The graduating class of 2010 consisted of 74 cadets who were admitted to over 90 universities, including the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy –West Point, and received over $4,100,000 in scholarships.

Upon graduation, a Riverside cadet has experienced the challenges of the military model of education and is completely prepared for the rigors of college. He is poised, polite, and confident in any social environment.

Riverside cadets stand tall, offer a firm handshake, respect authority, and display a level of confidence that parents may not have observed previously.

Riverside Military Academy holds dual accreditation in SACS and SAIS. Located in Gainesville, Georgia, just one hour north of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Riverside is easily accessible to cadets and their families from around the world. In addition, RMA offers shuttle service to and from the airport for their cadets.

Riverside Military Academy’s comprehensive program of rigorous academics, athletics and leadership development sets the stage for a lifetime of success.

They invite you to learn more about Riverside Military Academy by visiting www.riversidemilitary.com or by calling the admissions office at 800/462-2338.

hIGhER EdUcaTIoN The Evergreen State College Olympia, Washington Think Beyond the Ordinary While most colleges teach the same things in the same ways, Evergreen stands apart. We opened our doors in 1971, not 1791, and you’ll see the benefits in our innovative curriculum, student-driven academic pathways and focus on real learning.

The Evergreen Difference • Full-time, multi-quarter interdisciplinary programs, often team-taught • Coordinated schedules for homework, tests and field study • Narrative evaluations • Customized academic pathways • Individual and group learning contracts to tailor your education • Extraordinary 1,000-acre campus in the Pacific Northwest Other Good News • Princeton Review 376 Best Colleges • Colleges That Change Lives (one of only two public colleges included) • Fiske Guides “Best Buy” • Sierra Magazine top 10 green colleges • High acceptance rate to graduate school Learning in Community, Making Connections – Imagine studying

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tHe evergreen state college

art, science, history, writing and sociology in one integrated program focused on a central theme. Many students take just one 16-credit, teamtaught interdisciplinary program per quarter (instead of four or five disconnected classes), studying with the same students and faculty for up to a year.

Check out our catalog to get a feel for the unique and intriguing interdisciplinary programs you’ll find at Evergreen (www.evergreen.edu/catalog).

Coordinated Studies – In a full-time interdisciplinary program, homework and tests for one subject don’t compete with another and you don’t have to miss other classes to take field trips, work at an internship, or study abroad.

Focus on Learning – Your faculty will give you feedback in a narrative evaluation instead of reducing your hard work down to a letter grade. The focus is on learning and collaboration – often in small seminar groups – not competition for grades. The absence of grades doesn’t mean an absence of high expectations. National studies show that Evergreen students read more, spend more time preparing for class and work more in teams than their peers.

More Flexibility – We don’t limit your options with formal majors.

You can tailor your education to meet your needs and explore areas of interest without worrying that your credits won’t count toward graduation.

Later in your studies, you can also design individual or group learning contracts to create customized learning opportunities.

Great Value – Evergreen is both a nationally acclaimed public liberal arts and sciences college and a Fiske Guides best buy. Our total cost of attendance for non-resident students is less than tuition alone at many private institutions. Depending on your need and/or academic qualifications, your actual cost could be even lower.

Living in the Pacific Northwest – Evergreen is located in Olympia, Washington’s capital city. Our 1,000-acre forested campus – a living laboratory and classroom – has a beach on Puget Sound, miles of trails, an organic farm, a Native American longhouse, and easy access to Olympia’s vibrant downtown. More opportunities for fun – the Pacific Ocean, Olympic and Mt. Rainier national parks, Mt. St. Helens, ski areas, and the urban scenes of Seattle and Portland, Oregon – are just an hour or two away.

Learn more at http://admissions.evergreen.edu/why.

2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Olympia, WA 98505. 360/867-6170.

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE Bard College at Simon’s Rock Great Barrington, MA Bard College at Simon’s Rock — a highly selective college of the liberal arts and sciences — gives bright, motivated students the opportunity to begin college immediately after 10th or 11th grade. Starting at an average age of 16, students complete the BA in four years. We are ranked 13th

bard college at simon’s rock

extraordinary amount of personal attention, and a strong social network.

All of our students start college early in an environment designed specifically for them. The way we teach, the way we set up our advising system, the way we staff our dorms and choose our faculty and arrange our curriculum – all of these things are tailored for the intellectual and emotional needs of slightly younger students.

Life After Simon’s Rock Our graduates are smart, confident and prepared for the next step in their lives. They’ve had internships, studied abroad, and written theses. Those that transfer after earning their AA go on as juniors to many of the most selective colleges and universities in the nation. Our BA graduates go on to the medical, law, business, engineering, and graduate schools of their choice.

Bard College at Simon’s Rock, 84 Alford Rd, Great Barrington, MA 01230. 800/235-7186. email admit@simons-rock.edu. Website: www.simons-rock.edu

Clark University Worcester, MA

among all colleges and universities in the nation for the percentage of our graduates who go on to earn the PhD. Why Start College Early For some students the standard track just doesn’t make sense. At 16, they are ready for —and need — the serious, joyous, rigorous exploration of topics and ideas they are passionate about. They don’t want to spend another year or two preparing for college – prepping for and taking standardized tests and padding their resumes. They want the opportunity and challenge of a high quality liberal arts education now.

How To Spot A Simon’s Rock Student Simon’s Rock students are not only bright and highly motivated, but truly love learning. They are smart, creative, independent-minded, self-motivated. All have an inner sense of purpose, are mature enough to live semi-independently on a college campus, and are ready for a new community and a new challenge.

At Simon’s Rock these students find true peers who share their hunger for engagement and their desire to be part of a vibrant intellectual community.

What Sets Simon’s Rock Apart The quality and diversity of the students we enroll, the expertise of the professors, the small and inspiring classes, and the combination of rigor and engagement. All of our classes are seminars. Students learn from each other and from professors. All of our professors are adept at managing lively discussion and debate. Our core curriculum assures a solid foundation across all disciplines, and is complemented by a full array of electives and concentrations in the humanities, social sciences, mathematics, natural and physical sciences, and fine and performing arts.

Why Send Your Teen to Simon’s Rock We give them an exceptionally challenging liberal arts curriculum, an

AN UNCONVENTIONAL UNIVERSITY IN A MAINSTREAM WORLD Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a dynamic small, urban, liberal arts-based research university. This combination is important and unique for students who want to excel in today’s world. Our small size gives you access to research opportunities that are normally reserved for graduate students at other schools – and our urban location provides you with a diverse city environment where you can apply your skills and develop solutions to real-world problems.

Clark’s tradition of close working relationships provides many opportunities for you to pursue knowledge through active participation. With a 10:1 faculty-to-student ratio, you can partner with professors and postdoctoral associates on a variety of projects. We also offer you the ability to choose from 32 undergraduate majors, along with many master’s degree and Ph.D. program options. At Clark, you will be engaged in a relevant and challenging 21st century education that can impact your life – and the lives and communities around you.

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INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE AN EDUCATION ON THE CUTTING EDGE Clark gives you the chance to participate in something big: LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice), a new model of education that’s transforming the way students learn. LEEP combines a traditional liberal arts education with intensive world, workplace and personal experiences – ensuring that you develop the full range of skills needed to succeed in today’s complex, ever-changing world.

A FULL RIDE FOR TEN LEEP SCHOLARS In celebration of the launch of LEEP, we’re offering up to 10 students in 2013 the chance to benefit from everything Clark has to offer – at no cost for tuition, room or board – through the LEEP Scholars program. Scholars also have the opportunity to complete a master’s degree, tuition-free, through our Accelerated B.A./Master’s Degree Program.

THE ACCELERATED B.A./MASTER’S DEGREE PROGRAM With Clark’s excellent graduate programs and research institutes, the University is able to offer all of our students a unique cost-savings opportunity. Work hard and you could earn an accelerated bachelor’s and master’s degree in five years from one of 14 different programs with the fifth year of tuition waived. Any student who meets the chosen program’s requirements is eligible.

A DYNAMIC COMMUNITY WITH GLOBAL INSIGHT By living and learning in Clark’s global community, you have access to a broader understanding of international perspectives.

With approximately 600 international students, faculty members and scholars from more than 90 countries, you’ll discover a variety of cultures, traditions, religions and political ideologies to learn about and enjoy.

CHALLENGE CONVENTION. CHANGE OUR WORLD. Clark will inspire you to get involved in significant ways in class, on campus and abroad. More than 50 percent of Clark students actively volunteer, locally and globally, through community service and study abroad programs. Our students also lead the charge in organizing more than 120 clubs and organizations involving business, the arts, the sciences, social service, athletics, etc. With our various academic and student life opportunities, LEEP and the overall Clark experience, you’ll be well-equipped to exemplify the University’s motto: “Challenge convention. Change our world.”

Clark University: 950 Main Street, Worcester, MA. 800-462-5275 or 508-793-7431; admissions@clarku.edu clarku.edu/explore.

Miami University Oxford, Ohio A Public Ivy with Powerful Outcomes Miami ranks 9th in the nation for return on tuition investment, according to SmartMoney magazine. Payscale.com also places Miami among the nation’s top public universities for best salary potential after graduation.

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miami university

Miami was named one of the original “Public Ivy” universities, and has a national reputation for giving our students the vigorous, wellrounded education that prepares you for professional life.

Visit Miami There’s no better way to learn about Miami than by seeing for yourself!

Look for year-round visit opportunities at muohio.edu/visit.

East Coast students at Miami Many students from the Northeast have found a home at Miami. In fact, we have nearly 800 current undergraduates on campus from this area.

We also have more than 13,300 active alumni in the Northeast.

We know it can be a little confusing. Miami University is in Ohio, NOT in Florida. As our students like to say, Miami was a university before Florida was a state.

Classic College Environment East Coast students are attracted to our picture-perfect campus in a friendly college town. It’s a student-focused world in Oxford, and when you want a city environment, just a ½ hour drive to Cincinnati.

Personal Guidance, Professional Skills You’ll receive personal attention and guidance from our most experienced professors because teaching is always their first priority. Miami ranks among the top 3 universities in the country for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” in U.S.News & World Report’s 2011 “America’s Best Colleges.” Dartmouth and Princeton tie for first, and Miami is ranked 3rd.

Compared to many public universities, undergraduate students at Miami have so many more opportunities to work with professors on research and other projects where students learn professional skills.

Worldwide Study Abroad Miami makes it so easy to study abroad, and offers so many programs,

INDEPENDENT SCHOOL GUIDE that 41% of our undergraduates particiroger Williams university pate, ranking us in the top 2 among public universities.

24/7 Student Life Miami is a residential school, with almost all our students living on campus or in Oxford. Students are involved in more than 400 student organizations, internship opportunities, the arts, and Greek life.

Magnet For Employers Many national and East Coast firms recruit at Miami. The quality of our graduates and our academic reputation give Miami a solid base of employers significantly larger than most other universities our size. Nearly twice as many employers recruit at Miami, and they conduct four times as many on-campus interviews.

Miami At A Glance Affiliation: Public university of Ohio.

Location: Central campus in Oxford, Ohio (35 miles north of Cincinnati, 45 miles southwest of Dayton.

Enrollment: 14,936 on the Oxford campus plus 2,298 graduate students.

Student/faculty ratio: 17/1 Programs of study: more than 100 majors.

Financial aid and scholarships: More than 70% of Miami students receive some form of financial assistance from state, federal, or university funds.

Calendar: semesters Sports: NCAA Division I, Central Collegiate Hockey Association, U.S. Figure Skating Association Contact our East Coast counselor: rachel.cheng@muohio.edu. For more information: muohio.edu/admissioninfo

Roger Williams University Bristol, RI RWU: What will you do?

Roger Williams University (RWU) is a medium-sized university with huge opportunities – and they are all open to you. RWU is a leading independent, coeducational university with 43 majors and 40+ minors to choose from; where your course of study can be almost anything you want it to be.

RWU is an open community dedicated to the success of students, commitment to a set of core values and providing a world-class education above all else through a curriculum that blends the essence of a liberal arts education with the best of what the professions have to offer.

Personal attention is guaranteed, and professors (not graduate assistants) will teach all of your courses—even the intros. Our student to faculty ratio is 14:1 and our class size averages just 19 students; so when we say personal attention we mean it.

Interested in community service? All entering freshmen participate in Community Connections, an annual day of service that sends 1,500 students, faculty and staff members to volunteer at more than 70 local organizations. Of course, service at RWU extends far beyond our local community. From alternative spring break and tax help for senior citi-

zens to serving as eco-reps to help us become a carbon neutral campus, RWU students are improving the community and world around them.

Our students are also preparing for future careers. Faculty/student research projects allow students to learn from hands-on experience with faculty members, often with the opportunity to present their research at national and international industry conferences. Our students are often published researchers long before they are graduates. Of course many of them also choose to pursue internships as career preparation, and find placements in locations around the world.

Speaking of around the world, the University encourages all students to study abroad, whether it’s for a year, semester, summer session or even a mini-mester. We work with programs on every continent but Antarctica!

Maintain a 3.0 GPA, and the University will give you your passport for free.

But let’s get real—you’re in the classroom for 15 hours a week.

The college experience is everything that happens in the rest of those hours—living away from home, doing your own laundry, getting involved on campus and defining the person you want to be. RWU has more than 60 clubs and organizations and 20 varsity athletics teams, everything from Wiffleball to our national champion coed sailing squad.

Then there’s our location. You’d be amazed how many people have seen pictures, but still can’t believe how beautiful the campus is. Located in Bristol, R.I. and surrounded by water, we’ve got that old New England charm with all the modern amenities of a big city school. RWU is conveniently located just 30 minutes from both Providence (R.I.’s creative capital) and Newport (R.I.’s beach haven), one hour from Boston and just three hours from New York City.

Our students are training to become teachers, psychologists, lawyers, architects, engineers, business leaders and more. They are making a difference every day. What will you do?

To learn more, contact our Admission office at (888) 557-5015 or email admit@rwu.edu. 1 Old Ferry Road, Bristol, RI. www.rwu.edu.

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PHoto credit: karl dominey

sUMMER pRoGRaMs Pre-College Programs at Brown University: Summer 2013 Providence, RI A True Residential College Experience Summer@Brown attracts serious college-bound students from around the world. As a student, you’ll live in a Brown University residence hall, eat at a Brown dining hall, and join your fellow students on The College Green—just as you would if you were a Brown undergraduate. You will be surrounded by peers from diverse backgrounds and cultures—all sharing a passion for high-level academics and a desire to succeed at a selective institution like Brown University. A student who completes a Summer@Brown course is better prepared, more confident, and better positioned to succeed during one of the biggest transitions of his or her life: the move to college.

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Brown University: 250 Years of Academic Excellence Brown is known in the Ivy League for an innovative open curriculum that challenges students to be actively engaged in their own intellectual development. Summer@Brown is an opportunity to explore this stimulating learning environment. Academics are at the program’s core, with more than 250 courses in one- to seven-week sessions. Dive deeper into a subject you love or a new area of learning you may never have considered. You will face exciting challenges and accomplish more than you can imagine. Come to Summer@ Brown to prepare for college success and experience life in the Ivy League.

Brown University Continuing Education, Providence, Rhode Island. www.brown.edu/summer.

*

Miami Universityâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; what college should be.

Check out Miami muohio.edu/admissioninfo Attend our summer program for high school juniors muohio.edu/juniorscholars Contact your local admission representative rachel.cheng@muohio.edu

Empowering Women for Life

“My teachers believe in me and have taught me to believe in myself.”

Lauralton Hall Connecticut’s First Catholic College Prep School for Girls 200 High Street Milford Connecticut

203.877.2786 LauraltonHall.org

Sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy

NEW YORK MILITARY ACADEMY CO-ED • COLLEGE PREP • 7TH - 12TH GRADE BOARDING & DAY SCHOOL

Located just 60 miles from New York City,

New York

Military Academy is an important part of

America’s independent school heritage. Today, we offer a rigorous global curriculum for students who actively seek to be Set Apart for Excellence.

We do this in a structured program that enables our graduates to enter college inspired, engaged, and ready for the future.

ACAdemiC TrACks our CAdeTs Are pursuiNg: Classical College Prep Studies • Service Academy Preparatory • International Diplomacy • STEM - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics • Research and Technology • Business/Entrepreneurial

ACADEMICS ATHLETICS CHARACTER LEADERSHIP

Visit our website for OpeN hOuSe dates.

Call Now for Reservations!

Please visit our website for Summer Program information

888-ASK-NYMA • WWW.NYMA.ORG NYMA 78 Academy Ave • Cornwall on Hudson, NY

Villa Maria School Stamford’s “Jewel on the Hill”

Making Success a Reality for Children with Learning Difficulties Since 1973

A language-based curriculum in grades K through 9 A professional faculty fully certified in special education  4:1 student-teacher ratio

 

www.villamariaedu.org For more information please call 203.322.5886 x104 or email mtynan@villamariaedu.org

Since 1927, Avon Old Farms has been a leader in preparing young men for higher education, and the world. Avon is a dynamic community of learning with a rigorous curriculum anchored in the liberal arts and committed faculty that understands and appreciates the way boys learn best. Located in the scenic Farmington River Valley, Avonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s campus, with its Cotswoldinspired architecture, reflects the traditional approach to education that is so successful here.

Our emphasis on sharing with one another and shaping character creates a supportive environment in which our students live, learn, compete, and grow.

QUICK FACTS: Established: 1927 Enrollment: 405 boys States/Countries Represented: 22/22 Average Class Size: 12 Student-Teacher Ratio: 6:1 Campus Size: 990 wooded acres Interscholastic Sports: 15

To schedule an interview, please call us at 800-464-2866, or email us at admissions@avonoldfarms.com 500 Old Farms Road, Avon, Connecticut 06001

www.AvonOldFarms.com

Avon Old Farms School welcomes students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin.

Follow us:

Ready?

We are!

With 43 undergraduate majors in a wide range of liberal arts and professional programs â&#x20AC;&#x201C; from Architecture and International Business to Marine Biology and Political Science â&#x20AC;&#x201C; RWU is uniquely positioned to prepare our students for success in this rapidly changing world.

Roger Williams

University

Bristol, Rhode Island http://rwu.edu/prepared (888) 557-5015 admit@rwu.edu

Study with students from

60 Nations.

EF International Academy is a coeducational, private international high school that is located in historic Tarrytown, New York.

With a student body representing over 60 nations, EF International Academy offers traditional boarding school experiences on an international level.

EF International Academy is an IB World School, offering the prestigious and world-recognized International Baccalaureate Diploma to qualifying graduates, and is accepted by universities and colleges around the world.

EF International Academy 100 Marymount Avenue, Butler Hall, Tarrytown, NY Admissions Office: (914) 597-7241 Visit us online at ef.com/academy

Call for more information or to set up your campus visit (914) 597-7241

The Classic College Experience 30 minutes from Manhattan 13:1 student–faculty ratio Experience-based learning NCAA Division ll Sports

Visit our beautiful campus in Westchester

800.937.2655 • www.concordia-ny.edu • admission@concordia-ny.edu

Army Navy Academy

College Preparatory Boarding School for Boys, Grades 7-12

Honor. Integrity. Respect.

Responsibility. Compassion.

Since 1910, Army and Navy Academy has developed scholarship and honorable character in young men. The Academy is an internationally acclaimed college preparatory boarding and day school with a proud tradition of setting young men on a course for academic, personal and professional excellence.

The Academyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s approach is built on six pillars: academics, athletics, leadership, character development, residential life and the associated student body.

The Academy follows University of California standards for matriculation and incorporates leadership training and character development into the daily curriculum. Our highly structured program is rooted in individualized personal attention, with an emphasis on responsibility and accountability.

Call 888.762.2338 or visit armyandnavyacademy.org

BROWN UNIVERSITY Pre-College Programs

On Campus. Online. Abroad. n

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Prepare to succeed in a college environment Experience the freedom and responsibility of college life

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Meet exceptional students from around the world Connect with world-class ideas, people, and facilities

Discover and develop new passions Environmental Leadership

Intensive English Language Program

Pre-College Courses

SPARK â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Science for Middle School

Summer Session Credit Courses

Summer Study Abroad for High School Students

Brown Leadership Institute TheatreBridge

Online Courses â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Spring, Summer and Fall Sessions

www.brown.edu/summer

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Welcometo toTaSiS TaSiSThe Theamerican american School School in England, where we help Nursery range of of AP AP classes classes •• Rich Richsports sports&&activities activitiesprogram program Nursery––Grade Grade 12 12 •• American American curriculum • Wide range Welcoming featuring specially speciallydesigned designedsettling-in settling-inseminars seminars Welcomingcommunity community for for students and parents, featuring Excellent campus near near Central CentralLondon Londonand andairports airports Excellentuniversity university placement placement • Beautiful 46-acre campus Coldharbour ColdharbourLane, Lane,Thorpe, Thorpe,Surrey SurreyTW20 TW208TE 8TE Tel: Tel:+44 +441932 1932582 582316 316 ukadmissions@tasisengland.org ukadmissions@tasisengland.org

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112South SouthRoyal RoyalStreet, Street,Alexandria, Alexandria,VAVA22314 22314 112 Tel:703 703299 2998150 8150 Tel: usadmissions@tasis.com usadmissions@tasis.com

TASIS Summer ProgrAmS In TASIS In euroPe uroPe

Salamanca,Spain Spain Salamanca, Spanish language intensive, architecture Spanish language intensive, architecture

london, England England london, arts, Theatre, academic arts, Theatre, academic Enrichment Enrichment

SouTh SouThof offrancE francE drawing, painting, photography, drawing, painting, photography,architecture architecture

Exciting summer summer courses courses for for students Exciting students ages ages 11 11 to to18 18 ColdharbourLane Lane Coldharbour Thorpe, Surrey TW208TE 8TE Thorpe, TW20 Tel:+44 +44Surrey 1932582 582346 346 Tel: 1932 uksummer@tasisengland.org uksummer@tasisengland.org

http://summer.tasis.com http://summer.tasis.com

112 South Street 112 SouthRoyal Royal Street Alexandria, VA 22314 Alexandria, VA 22314 Tel: 703 299 8150 Tel: 703 299 8150 usadmissions@tasis.com usadmissions@tasis.com

working on the water brings us closer together.

There’s one constant that each of us relies upon at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. It’s the bond that exists between all Cadets, entrusted with saving lives and protecting our nation’s coasts and waterways. We quickly become family, taking on challenges bigger than ourselves in a nationally ranked Bachelor of Science degree program. And our reward is not only a guaranteed paid career serving our country, but the knowledge that as Coasties we’ll always look out for each other. It’s why the Academy is like no other college in the nation.

Experience more at uscga.edu

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Jump into Summer.

extraordinary summer programs for high school students

The College Experience + Study Abroad Programs Harvard Yale Stanford UMaSS

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800.752.2250

375 West Broadway, Suite 200 New York, NY 10012 T:212 796 8340 F:212 334 4934

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“An Intimate PlacePlace to Learn theHeart Heart of a Great “An Intimate to Learnin in the of a Great City” City”

“An Intimate Place to Learn in the Heart of a Great City” “An Intimate Place to Learn in the Heart of a Great City”

York Preparatory School School YorkYork Preparatory School Preparatory

40 West 68thth Street – New York, NY 10023 th 68 Street – New York, NY 10023 40 West 40 West 68college Street – New York, NY 10023 coeducational preparatory school serving students from coeducational college preparatory school serving students from grades 6-12. coeducational college preparatory school serving students grades 6-12.

grades 6-12.

Outstanding Academics Outstanding Academics Superb College Guidance Outstanding Superb CollegeAcademics Guidance Championship Sports Teams Championship Sports Teams

Superb College Guidance Endless Extracurricular Activities Endless Extracurricular Activities

Championship Sports Teams An Oasis of Learning and Compassion An Oasis of Learning and Compassion

There IS something for everyone at York Prep!

There IS something for everyoneActivities at York Prep!

Endless Extracurricular

For more information, contact our Admissions Office at For more information, contact our Admissions Office at admissions@yorkprep.org or 212-362-0400.www.yorkprep.org admissions@yorkprep.org or 212-362-0400.www.yorkprep.org

An Oasis of Learning and Compassion

from

RISE AND SHINE AD ELP H I U N I V E R S I T Y

A D E L P H I . E D U / S U C CE S S

OPPORTUNITY IS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS. At Adelphi, you can study abroad, pursue a competitive internship, debate relevant issues, and prepare for a richer life. Find your opportunity to stand out and make a positive change for your future.

Phillips Exeter Academy Summer School

Five weeks of academic exploration and discovery at one of America’s outstanding independent schools

July 7-August 10, 2013 The UPPER SCHOOL — Comprised of students who have completed grades nine, ten, eleven, or twelve — enrolls some 500 students who come to us from more than 40 states, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and several dozen foreign nations.

ACCESS EXETER — Open to students who have completed grades seven or eight — provides a challenging academic program for approximately 250 students.

Together, these students embody a rich diversity of language, culture, religion and race.

Tel 603.777.3488 summer@exeter.edu To learn more, please visit our website: www.exeter.edu/summer

The summer before her senior year as a criminal justice major at Rutgers, Karina Martinez of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, studied child labor laws in Ghana as part of an effort to raise awareness about human rights.

Some universities prepare you for the real world.

At Rutgers, youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in it.

admissions.rutgers.edu/isg

ridgefield academy

Experience the Difference

Our teachers inspire students to think critically, work collaboratively and communicate effectively. Learn how our individualized program can empower your child!

Open House: October 20 from 11 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1pm

Building a strong foundation from preschool through grade 8 (203) 894-1800 | www.ridgefieldacademy.org

Why would a student help another scale a 10-foot wall?

Why would a 17-year-old walk differently than his friends back home? Hold his head higher?

Consider himself a leader?

The answer is pride.

A private day and boarding academy for grades 7-12 and postgraduate, VFMA’s mission is preparing students for competitive four-year colleges. 99% of our cadets are accepted to their first- or second-choice schools. And more than 63% matriculate at the nation’s leading universities.

The primary reason for that is our Five Cornerstones —academic excellence, character development, personal motivation, physical development, and leadership. Our students thrive and grow thanks to an average class size of just 13, with a student-teacher ratio of 10:1.

Valley Forge Military Academy is not for everyone. It is not easy. In fact, it’s demanding. But students who are ready to push themselves to new heights, who are ready to learn, to follow, and ultimately to lead, will not only flourish here. They will proudly flourish in whatever paths they choose in life.

1001 EAGLE ROAD, WAYNE, PA 866-923-VFMA | ACADEMY.VFMAC.EDU

Thinking of Visiting the Hamptons?

Think Ross School.

Boarding for grades 7â&#x20AC;&#x201C;12 in beautiful boarding houses.

Two campuses in East Hampton and Bridgehampton, New York, just 2 hours east of New York City.

Easily accessible by bus, train, ferry and air.

Global, integrated curriculum to educate the whole child for the whole world.

Opportunities for independent study, advanced classes, competitive athletics, extracurricular activities and travel.

www.ross.org/boarding UPPER S C H OOL 18 GOOD FRIEND D RIV E EAST H AM PTON, NY

LOWER SCH OOL 739 B UTTER LANE BRID GEH A MPTON, NY

Deutsch mit Spaß!

German School of Connecticut

bridging cultures

Nothing connects us to a country more than its language. Speaking German can help you strengthen that connection while enhancing travel, education and buziness horizons. Established in 1978, the German School of Connecticut (GSC) – the only professional German Saturday School in the state – provides a high-quality German educational program for over 350 children and adults. At GSC, students at all levels learn German language and culture Saturdy mornings during the academic year.

• Two convenient locations: Stamford and West Hartford.

• All grades: pre K-12, and adult classes too!

“Fluency in German gave my daughter that extra edge to get into her first choice in college… and later helped her find a job as well!” - Mother of Former Student

• Dedicated, professional teachers.

• Two different proficiency levels: beginners/non-native, and near fluent/native.

“My children learned so much at GSC that when we go to Germany, they feel at home with the language and culture.”

- German Parent

• Best CT results in the National German AATG Examinations.

• Prepare for SAT Subject Test and AP German Exam.

• Deutsches Sprachdiplom A2, B1, C1, satisfying German university entrance language requirements.

“My Business Studies got me the interview, but I am convinced my fluency in German landed the job.”

- Former Student/Business Major

Attend a Free Trial Class! – Call Ahead (203) 548-0438 More details at

www.germanschoolct.org

E V E RY S T U D E N T C A N

LEARN TO BE EXCEPTIONAL

At The Knox School, everything we do is geared to helping young people become exceptional in the sizes, and students that care as much about good values as they do about strong academic achievement. At Knox, all our students learn to be exceptional.

Contact us at 631-686-1600 or online at www.knoxschool.org.

THE KNOX SCHOOL LE A R N T O B E E X C E P T I O N A L

541 Long Beach Rd. St. James, NY 11780 â&#x20AC;˘ A Coeducational Independent Boarding and Day School for Grades Six-Post Graduate

community room

The Endangered Barber

By James M. Chesbro

I’m quIte sure Al Is the lAst remAInIng bArber In town, And the only one who wIll remInd me of my fAther. whAt I lIke About Al’s hAIrcut Is thAt he’s A true crAftsmAn of A lost Art. I trust hIm to hold sheArs And hummIng clIppers to my heAd— to shAve the bAck of my neck wIth A strAIght rAzor.

Every five or six weeks, I sit in his chair, watch the traffic on the main road in town, and he takes care of me. Nothing changes in the barbershop except the magazines and newspapers. You can talk with the other customers while you wait, if you want. But the guys at the barbershop don’t really say much to each other except to defer with a head nod when Al asks who’s next. Al’s hair is white around the sides. The overhead light reflects in the skin of his head. If my father were alive, he would be seventy-one, which is how old I surmise Al to be. He has three children, and his daughter was born in the same month and year as me. Photographs of his grandchildren decorate the borders of his mirror. I see their faces as I see myself and Al in the reflection.

I sit in his barber chair and we talk about the weather and baseball.

Sometimes you have to wait for Al. You might be lucky and find him reading in his barber chair. But most times, you have one and sometimes two guys in front of you. If it’s going to be a while, Al will ask if you have any errands you can do and to come back in

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an hour or so. You can’t be impatient with Al. He’s too nice, he’s too old, and he’s too rare of a barber. It seems like an odd admission to say I worry about my barber, but I do.

I’ve been to the haircut chains and other places where a barber pole spins outside the entrance. For years I tried different places before finally finding Al and his barbershop, Colonial Haircutters. Most people used one pair of clippers, and one pair of scissors. They’d ask me what number attachment I wanted on the clippers, as if I were a meal at a fast-food joint. The lower the number the closer the cut.

I’m pretty sure Al uses a three, but I don’t know because Al doesn’t have to ask.

Al lives in the next town over. He likes to garden. He sees his grandchildren often. And like mine, his father died of a heart attack, when he was young. I see Al more than my closest friends, more than my mother. Every five or six weeks, my son, James, and I need a haircut, and we’re not on the same schedule.

After I hand Al some cash, I say, “See you in a few weeks.” He charges twenty-one dollars. I used to hand him a twenty and a five dollar bill and walk away. But ever since he’s been cutting James’s hair, I’ve given him thirty dollars. Sometimes I don’t have exact change, and Al will take both twenties and put them in his pocket, and I have to ask for a ten back. And I tell him I wish I could just throw around twenties, and how I’d gladly throw them at him, the way some men do in the barbershop at Christmas. He says, “You and me both, Buddy.” He laughs, and pats

me on the back as we leave.

Outside the window from Al’s red barber chair, green grass rolls down an abrupt hill where vehicles stop and go at the busy intersection.

After a long lull in the conversation, as he stares at my hair and I stare out the window in a daze, I say, “God, it feels good to sit here, Al.” He wears my father’s uniform: khakis and a plaid sleeveless button-down shirt.

“Well, you’ve got the kids in your classroom and the kids at home, right?”

“Right, Al.” “A man needs to kick his feet up every now and then, doesn’t he?”

“You’re telling me, Al.” “Well, just enjoy it. This is the best therapy you got.” And he continues to snip behind my ear. And I continue to stare at the shifting headlights glowing in the faint light of dusk.

After Al puts away the clippers, he unbuttons the plastic draped around my neck. He pushes a paper towel under my shirt collar. He rubs warm shaving cream on my hairline, and shaves it off with a straight razor. He rubs the aftershave into my skin with his fingers. I anticipate a pat on the top of my head and an atta boy, as my father used to do. He grabs a large hand mirror with the handle broken off and holds it up behind my head. “How’s it look?”

“Like it always, does, Al. Like it always does.”

*

James M. Chesbro’s essays appear in The Huffington Post and Connecticut Review. He is at work on A Lion in the Snow, a collection of interlinked familial portraits.

Presenting a new approach to high quality housing and support for adults with autism, developmental disabilities and traumatic brain injuries.

Artist’s rendering. Completion in fall, 2012.

Applications now being accepted. Assessments underway.

Our supportive environment will feature:

• Housing for 41 residents in their own apartments • 24 hour supervision by highly trained staff for superior support • Gym, workshop, computer lab, recreational activities, all on site • 24 hour security with video surveillance, entry/exit monitoring • Day program with extensive, self-directed activities

Mt. Bethel Village

Contact: Carolann Garafola, Executive Director 908-889-4200, ext. 108 cgarafola@mtbethelvillage.com Learn more at www.mtbethelvillage.com

helping navigate your financial future.

Westport Resources is an independent investment firm specializing in managing assets for a select Private Client Group of individuals, families, municipalities and not-for-profit organizations.

We believe that knowing the right questions to ask – and then listening to your answers – are at the heart of helping you reach your long-term investments goals.

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The journey to those strategic results begins with contacting us.

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315 Post Road West • Westport, CT 06880 • 203.226.0222 • 800.935.0222 • www.westportresources.com Westport Resources Management, Inc. is an Investment Advisor, registered with the SEC. Securities are offered through Westport Resources Investment Services, Inc., a broker/dealer registered with the SEC and a member of FINRA & SIPC.