Short Takes
November 20, 2015
When the dead are still alive for us: “Best Man”
I know Owen Lewis as a psychiatrist (not mine) and a professor at Columbia. His poetry comes as late-breaking news, and the subject of “Best Man” even more so: 23 poems about his brother Jason, who died in 1980, age 23. These poems are blunt, colloquial, rooted in real events. Jason steals Owen’s prescription pad. Owen breaks the phone Jason called on. Jason’s body is “Found After Three Days… Your face running off your cheeks, in rivulets.” But “Best Man” is much more than reportage. In the end, Owen Lewis takes his brother’s years of self-destruction and their inability to connect and turns them into a kind of conversation. And the reader comes to understand how the accomplished healer and his lost brother are rendered… well, not equal, but definitely brothers. The Edward Hirsch lines that begin the book couldn’t be more appropriate: “Look closely and you will see/ Almost everyone carrying bags/ Of cement on their shoulders.” [To buy the paperback of “Best Man” from Amazon, click here.]
October 5, 2015
Take a trip to Harbour Island without leaving home
It’s not easy to get to Harbour Island. Fly to the Bahamas, take a small plane from Nassau to Eleuthera, then board a boat for the 15-minute crossing to Harbour Island. Once you’re on the tiny island — three miles long, a half-mile wide — there are no cars, only golf carts. Why go to all that trouble? For the pink sand beaches, the total absence of tension, the relatively few rich Americans — and the bonefishing. My friend Elizabeth Howard, who has spent considerable time on Harbour Island, has written a charming story for children about a local girl and the afternoon she gets to spend with a legendary fisherman. And Diana Wege’s illustrations are the next best thing to being there. [To buy “A Day with Bonefish Joe” from Amazon, click here.]
September 30, 2015
Ella Woodward got sick. Then she ate herself well.
Ella Woodward was your basic 19-year-old English girl — “a sugar monster, and I mean a total addict.” But in 2011, she was diagnosed with Postural Tachycardia Syndrome: “I literally couldn’t walk down the street, I slept for 16 hours a day, had never ending heart palpitations, was in chronic pain, had unbearable stomach issues, constant headaches and the list goes on.” Not the kind of affliction you want when you’re a university student who’s just starting to work as a model. She dared to take a vacation; she came home in a wheelchair. She went to the Web — and returned a gluten-free vegan. She started a food blog; 18 months later, it had 5 million hits. In her book, “Deliciously Ella: 100+ Easy, Healthy, and Delicious Plant-Based, Gluten-Free Recipes,” she counts “goodness, not calories.” If smoothies, mango-and-sesame quinoa, and sweet potato and carrot mash appeal to you, here’s your cookbook. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
September 1, 2015
Elaine Kaufman: “Yeah, I’m an icon…”
One night I was to have dinner at Elio’s with a famous painter who was, in her mid-40s, 8 months pregnant. When I made the reservation, I told Elio that the painter had to be seated promptly. This didn’t happen. After 40 minutes, we walked a few blocks north. Elaine knew without asking that something had gone wrong elsewhere, gave us a great table, stopped by to chat. That’s my Elaine’s story: a tough-talking mountain of a woman who could be kindness incarnate to anyone who created. Okay, you have to create at a high level. You had to be known. Pass those tests, and you weren’t in a restaurant — you were in the club. In the 134 pages of “Elaine’s: The Rise of One of New York’s Most Legendary Restaurants from Those Who Were There,” Amy Phillips Penn collects stories from the regulars and shows them at play, often loaded, in photos by Jessica Burstein. It’s not being there. But it doesn’t suck. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
July 29, 2015
Josh Ritter: “If you want to see a miracle, watch me get down.”
New song. New CD coming. Counting the days.