Monthly Archives: July 2011

Nina Sankovitch On WNYC

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 1 comment

Nearly 2 years ago, “06880” profiled Nina Sankovitch — the Westporter who responded to the death of her sister by reading a book a day for 365 days.

Nina Sankovitch in her purple chair. (Photo by Douglas Healey/New York Times)

Her next project was writing a book about it.  Tolstoy and the Purple Chair is a moving account of that year.  It’s a memoir about death and grieving — but also about living, and the kind of robust life books can provide.

This morning, Nina was interviewed on WNYC-FM’s Leonard Lopate Show.  She talked about her family’s support (she has 4 boys), and gave a shout-out to the Westport Public Library.

Referring to the memoirs, biographies, translations and independent press books she read — in addition to the novels and mysteries she’d always loved — Nina said:  “I visited stacks I didn’t even know were there.”

(To hear the complete interview, click here.)

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Posted in Arts, Library, People

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Mark Pattinson’s Amazing Race

Posted on July 25, 2011 | 5 comments

Don’t read this story if you consider yourself to be a normal human being.

Definitely do not read it if you ride your bike a couple of hours every day,  banging out 50 or 60 miles, and consider that a “workout.”

Compared to Mark Pattinson, you’re such a slacker.

This summer, the British-born Westport resident competed in the 30th annual Race Across America.

That’s not a catchy title.  If anything, it’s an understatement.

Biking 22 hours a day — you read that right — for 9 days and 41 minutes, Mark raced from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland.

He rode nearly 3,000 miles, through 14 states.  He climbed over 100,000 feet.  Over 9 days, he slept for 17 hours — total.

And in a field of 48 solo riders, he finished 2nd.

Don’t ever complain about taking out the garbage again.

Mark Pattinson

This was Mark’s 3rd Race Across America.  He was in 3rd place last year when an injury forced him to drop out.  He couldn’t move his neck — at all.  “That’s common in races like this,” he says casually.

In 2008 — Mark’s first race — he also placed 2nd.  “I surprised myself,” he admits.  “You’re battling weather, exhaustion, mental lows.  Everything just breaks down.”

The key to the race is “never being off your bike.”  That, of course, is hyperbole.  For 3 hours every day, you sleep, eat, have a massage.  24 hours straight on a bike would be crazy!

Although Mark did ride the 1st 38 hours or so without a sleep break.  How else would you cross the 110-degree desert, and head to the 10,800-foot Rockies?

Hey, ya gotta get ready for those 30-mph crosswinds in Kansas, right?

Mark prepared rigorously for this year’s race.  As soon as the snow melted, he headed for the Connecticut hills.  And the Blue Ridge Mountains, taking a tune-up ride 1,200 miles from Tennessee back home.

And another shakedown ride, in California, before the real deal.

(If you’re wondering:  He works for himself, in finance.  He has a “very understanding, flexible wife.”  And 3 kids, ages 11, 8 and nearly 3.  Plus one more on the way.)

His family provides plenty of moral support. “It puts a bit of strain on them when I nip out for a 10-hour ride,” he notes.  “I don’t have much of a social life.”

For logistical help, Mark relies on 9 volunteer crew members, in 2 minivans and an RV.  They hand him bottles filled with liquid food or Gatorade, electrolyte pills, snacks, sunscreen, changes of clothes and anything else he needs.  The team forms close bonds, which is part of Mark’s joy.

Mark Pattinson rides through the Monument Valley, where Arizona and Utah meet near the Four Corners.

Westport massage therapist Rosalie Dunn helped too.  His neck did not bother him at all this year.

Mark is 41.  Endurance sport athletes, he says, peak in their late 30s and early 40s.

Still, they don’t call it “endurance sport” for nothing.

“This race completely breaks you down,” Mark says.  “You go from the highest highs to the lowest lows.  It’s dark, rainy, windy, you’ve slept for 2 hours, and you know you have to get back on the bike for another 2 hours before it even gets light.

“That’s pretty dismal.  It pushes the boundary of your own mental state.”

But the highs are so high.  The satisfaction of setting an absurd goal — and reaching it — is incalculable.

“It’s all about racing against the best guys in the world,” Mark says.  “It’s a great challenge.  You can sit around all day doing nothing, or you can spend your time pushing your body and your mind.”

Mark Pattinson climbs through the Rocky Mountains. Yes, this is a summertime photo.

Then there’s the thrill of slowly catching the racers in front of you, picking them off one by one, as you near the finish line.  That’s what Mark did this year.  He used a strategy of sleeping a little more than the other racers — yes, 2 hours is “longer” — to have more energy and power in the crucial final days.

The last push came during a brutal 500-mile up-and-down ride through the Appalachians.  “It just rips everyone to shreds,” Mark says.

And then its over.  “A lot of people break down crying at the end,” says Mark.  “For about a week, you feel this massive void.  You’ve spent 6 or 9 months preparing for something — and suddenly it’s done.”

Of course, “you’ve been jarred around for 22 hours, 9 days in a row.  Your body is in a pretty bad way.”  Mark’s hands and feet were numb.

Even getting back to a regular sleep rotation is difficult.

But, Mark says, “the human body is an amazing machine.  As long as it gets the right food, the right liquids and massages, it adapts.”

The mind, he cautions, “is the biggest challenge.  It plays tricks on you.  You can get in a bad state, unless you’re careful.”

So what’s next?

“Placing 2nd was as good a result as could be expected,” Mark says.  “So that might be it for me, with this race anyway.

“Right now I’m searching for the next crazy, long idea.  It may not be cycling, and it may not be next year.”  (He’s having another child, don’t forget.)

“I haven’t yet decided,” he concludes.

“But I’m taking suggestions.”

(For more details on the race — and to feel like even more of a slacker — click here for Mark’s website.)

Mark Pattinson and his crew. They look relaxed, because the Race Across America has not yet begun.

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Posted in People, Sports

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Clam Box (2nd Helping)

Posted on July 24, 2011 | 70 comments

Last month, “06880” wandered back to the Clam Box — the much-loved restaurant on the site of the current Bertucci’s.

Plenty of readers commented on the post, and passed it along to friends.  It worked its way to Doris Gross Nussbaum.  She’s the daughter of the original owner, and now lives all the way in Wilton.

Earlier this week, Doris emailed:

Back pre-1938 my Dad, George Gross, had a restaurant in New York City:  Cooper’s Fish & Chips, on 44th and Lexington.

In 1939 he couldn’t take the commute from Port Chester.  He opened the 1st Clam Box in Cos Cob.  The name was easily picked because the front window flaps opened upwards and looked like a Chinese take out box.

My copy of the original menu has Fish & Chips for 25 cents.  The place was successful, and a year later Dad opened in Westport.  He made head chef Steve Zakos his 50% partner.

Integrity was big in those days, and Dad felt that Steve — who came from the coal fields of Pennsylvania, and had worked with him in New York City — deserved the “gift.”

Because they worked 12 to 14-hour days, 7 days a week, that was a gift with strings!

Both restaurants were successful, although Westport had to close during World War II.  Steve became a chief petty officer and head cook on a Navy battleship.

After the war, when Steve opened again, it was a charm.  Times were right, and business was very good.  Eventually Steve married Claire Fitch, and had 3 children.  They still live in the area.  In those days every family member worked the same long hours in Cos Cob and Westport.

Maps showed how easy it was to reach all 3 Clam Boxes.

In 1965 a 3rd Clam Box opened in Wethersfield.  My husband and I ran it for 15 years.  The 10 Gross grandchildren and 3 Zakos kids all said “no more!”  They had been to college, and found there were activities other young people did on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays besides work.

In 1985, the Westport and Cos Cob Clam Boxes were sold to the Marketing Corporation of America, and we all retired.  We had a good run for sure — 48 years.

One of the comments you received asked why it was sold.  I guess that person had never been in the restaurant business, with all its long hours .

70 Comments

Posted in Looking back, People, Restaurants

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Nothin’ But Snack Bars

Posted on July 23, 2011 | 9 comments

Most people don’t make a connection between poison ivy and muffins.

Then again, most people are not Jerri Graham.

She and her daughter had recently moved to Westport from Taiwan.  Jeri got a job at Greenwood Press — and a bad case of poison ivy.

Prednisone “made me crazy,” she recalls.  She started baking muffins — lots of them.  Soon her creations — including a delicious “Westport Morning Muffin” with flax seed, whole wheat flour, fruits and vegetables — were being sold at Doc’s.

Jeri envisioned a muffin delivery service that would “revolutionize breakfast around the world.”

Then she ate a supermarket granola bar.  It was nothing but oats, and a few “well-calculated” pieces of nuts and dried fruit.

That was Jerri’s aha! moment.

“I’d been duped,” she recalls.  “There was no flavor.”

Jerri Graham at Christie's Farmer's Market. (Photo by Lynn U. Miller)

Oats, she says, “are a blank canvas.  You can add anything to them” — nuts, seeds, fruits, spices.  There is no limit to creativity.

“If you pair almonds with cherries, that’s different than if you use cashews or pecans,” she says.  “My brain is constantly spinning with possibilities.”

She started making the kind of bars she wanted, for herself and her daughter.

She shared them.  Today she makes 62 varieties of snack bars.  And counting.

Jerri says the reaction to her bars has been “incredibly positive.  People are excited by all the different tastes and textures.  They’re tired of being tricked.”

Nothin’ But — as in “nothin’ but the best real snacks available” — are baked in a Post Road caterer’s kitchen.  They’re sold at Doc’s, Double L Market, Arogya, Cocoa Michelle, and 2 farmer’s markets (Thursdays at the Imperial Avenue lot, Sundays at Christie’s).

They’re also available at the Norwalk-Rowayton, Brickwalk and Greenfield Hill farmer’s markets.

Soon you can buy them at Yura in New York City, and Golden Pear in the Hamptons.

But not at Stop & Shop.

“Everyone’s trying to be the next Bear Naked,” she says, of the Fairfield County granola mega-succes story.

“I don’t want to follow that path.  We’d go to Dean & Deluca-type stores — if we ever did those at all.”

Jerri’s mission is to “change snacking.  America does not need to run on Dunkin’.

“Convenience stores sell snack bars, but they’re right next to cigarettes and Oreos.  That’s not the impact I want.  Almonds are better for you than butter cream.”

For now, Jerri’s goal is to “stay focused.”  The 1-woman operation is ready to hire people.

Meanwhile, she’s working on a blueberry-based “brain bar.”  A percentage of sales will go to Alzheimer’s research.

“If you don’t have a reason for what you’re doing, there’s no reason to do it,” she says.

And then she’s off to the kitchen, to make the donuts snack bars.

9 Comments

Posted in Local business, People

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Be Careful What You Wish For

Posted on July 22, 2011 | 3 comments

Just 6 months ago, alert “06880” reader Andy Yemma and Trooper couldn’t wait for the dog days of summer.

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Posted in Totally random, Weather

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Cool News

Posted on July 22, 2011 | 2 comments

The Westport Y:  It’s not just for winter storm victims.

That isn’t the tag line.  But it could be.

In March 2010 — when some Westporters lost power for a week — the Y opened its doors to anyone for showers, stress-relieving workouts, even cell phone charging.

Now — 16 months and 6000 degrees later — comes news that Y is a “local cooling center.” As the Village People know, it’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A.

You can stay until closing at 9:30 p.m., just hanging out in one of the public areas — including the very comfy Bedford Room.

When the pool’s open, you can even swim — free of charge.

How cool is that?

A Westport Water Rat swimmer. You don't have to go that fast.

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Posted in Weather, YMCA

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Back To 365 Drawing Boards

Posted on July 22, 2011 | 5 comments

For Carson Einarsen, this past year felt like “back to the drawing board.”

365 times.

Carson — a rising senior at Staples — has always liked art.  He spent last summer at Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies.  This month, at the Savannah College of Art and Design, he studied comic and sequential art, and animation.

He doesn’t just scribble.  “Life drawing is required for comic art,” Carson says.  “So I do a lot of that.”

Carson does a lot of drawing, period.

Last July, feeling he did not draw faces well, Carson set a goal.  Every day, he’d find a friend’s face on Facebook — then draw it.

And he’d do it every day for a full year.

Carson Einarsen's favorite: a fisheye portrait.

Carson usually drew right before bed.  He’d make an initial pencil sketch on a 3×5 card, then ink it over.  He scanned each drawing — and the photo he used — into his computer.  He posted them all in a Facebook album.  (Search “The fACEs Project” to find it.)

His final drawing — #365 — was Monday night.

“Some were really good.  Some were bad,” Carson says.  “It depended how I felt.”

The 1st sketches took “about 30 seconds.”  By the end, they took 20 minutes.

“I got a lot better — and not just drawing faces,” Carson notes.  “I’m much more attuned now to what makes something look the way it does.”

One of the hardest parts of the project — beyond the discipline of drawing every day — was working from photographs.  “Everything looks flat,” Carson explains.  “When you draw from life, it looks 3D.  I had to work hard to make my drawings look like an actual person.”

Like any artist, Carson has his favorite:  the girl whose Facebook photo showed her looking at a fisheye lens.  “Her face was really distorted,” he says.

Carson's self-portrait -- midway through the project, of himself midway to his current age.

Carson created several “milestone” sketches.  For #184 — the halfway point — he drew himself at half his current age.  Monday’s final drawing shows the same person he did for #1:  classmate Elliott Enriquez.

Last winter, the Westport Arts Center included 80 of Carson’s works in their “Kid Culture” exhibition.  Other than that, though, he hasn’t publicized his project.  It’s his; his personal — and, finally, it’s finished.

So what’s next?

“A comic book series,” Carson says.  “I want to apply everything I’ve learned to comic work.”

He plans to draw one page a week.

For a year?

“No!” he says emphatically.  “I want a different goal — something like 60 pages.”

He pauses, then laughs.

“Wait!  That’s more than a year!”

Back to the drawing board…

Just a few of Carson Einarsen's 365 sketches.

5 Comments

Posted in Arts, Staples HS, technology, Teenagers

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Max Lance’s Crazy Girls

Posted on July 21, 2011 | 8 comments

Max Lance lost his virginity to a girl he later learned was using him to cheat on her boyfriend.

After many drinks, she passed out.  Max spent his first post-coital moments checking her pulse to see if she was alive.

Most people would keep that story to themselves.

Max wrote a book about it.

Crazy Girls was published last Friday.

Two days later, it was #1 on the Amazon Kindle Singles best-seller list.

Max Lance

War and Peace it’s not.  A quick read — “less than an hour,” promises Max, a 2002 Staples graduate — it’s 5 short stories with a common theme.

Which is:  the 5 worst dates Max ever went on.

Did you hear the one about the girl who took Max to a surprise spot — her bible study group — and spent all night trying to convert him?

“She didn’t know I was Jewish,” he says.  “That was shocking.  I mean, it’s all I’ve got.”

How about the Italian model who described — sobbing, and in horrific detail — her date rape story?

“Everyone in the restaurant was looking at me,” Max recalls.  “Then she opened her locket, pulled out 2 anti-depressants, and drank them.  With wine.”

It helps that Max is a standup comedian.  He’s honed that skill since he was 13.  While at Staples, he moonlighted at New York comedy clubs.

He also co-edited Inklings, the school newspaper.  He was almost fired for proposing a satirical issue.

Then it was on to NYU — for 2 years.  He left, and spent 3 years doing “boring, crappy jobs” in Queens.

His social life was less boring.  That’s where the material for all 5 Crazy Girls stories came from.

In 2007 Max entered USC’s film school.  He graduated 3 months ago — just in time to hear that Amazon Kindle Singles was looking for young writers with distinctive voices.

A month later, his book was done.

“Singles” are “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length.”  They can be long magazine articles, essays or books.  Crazy Girls sells for 99 cents.

Many writers draw on personal tragedies.  The worst thing that had happened to Max were his awful dates.  He wrote about what he knew.  And did it well.

Max calls his book “not fiction, but not non-fiction.  It’s ‘based on’ real stories.  I mean, there’s dialogue, but it’s obviously not verbatim.”

He pauses.  “It’s in the James Frey genre.”

The response has been great.  “A lot of people like that I didn’t lose my virginity until college,” he says.  “I was waiting for a nice girl.”

Be careful what you wish for…

Many readers “relate to the terror of putting yourself out on a date,” he says.  Max did more than that, of course:  He put his dating terrors out there for the entire world to see (at least, that portion of it with Kindles).

Fortunately, Max’s openness (and cleverness — one reviewer calls him “naively funny and wickedly insightful”) is paying off.  He’s not allowed to release sales figures, but thanks to strong marketing efforts by both Max and Amazon, it’s been both the #1-selling Kindle Single, and #11 on all Kindle charts.

Because it’s self-published, Max retains all film and TV rights.  Not bad for someone who studied screenwriting in college.

And who is not afraid to share his most intimate thoughts after losing his virginity.

First, he remembers thinking:  “Why did I wait this long?”

And then:  “That was quick.”

(Click here to download Crazy Girls, or learn more about it.)

8 Comments

Posted in Entertainment, People, Staples HS, technology

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Carl Swanson’s Bulldog

Posted on July 20, 2011 | 11 comments

Carl Addison Swanson’s name pops up often on “06880.”  He’s a frequent commenter, and occasional guest author.

His name also appears on books.  His latest novel — Sorry Don’t Pay the Bulldog — has just been released, to very good reviews.

The book is the 12th in Swanson’s Hush McCormick series.  The novels feature a boat bum who helps people disappear.  Swanson — a graduate of Staples, and Rice University’s creative writing program — was inspired by Alex Kelly, the Darien teenagers who fled to Europe after being convicted of date rape.

“I’ve always been fascinated by people who just disappear into thin air,” Swanson says.

“Would you put your home up as bond to keep your kid out of jail?” he asks.  Kelly’s parents allegedly supported him financially during his 7-year escape.

Sorry is available at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, and on Kindle.

 

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Posted in Entertainment, People

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Shack Shakes Westport

Posted on July 20, 2011 | 5 comments

It was billed as a “VIP Party” the night before Shake Shack officially opens in Westport.

But the place was jammed like the hottest New York club.  The only person not there last night, I thought, was the fire marshal.

Then I saw him too.

Westport Shake Shack general manager Dave Yearwood surveys the happy scene.

After a squintillion tries, the restaurant building on the Southport line — across the street from the old Toys R Us — finally has a winner.

When Shake Shack opens its doors this morning to the 3 non-VIPs who were not there last night, all of Westport will have a new favorite place.

There are realistically priced burgers made from great beef.

Hot dogs.  Crispy fries.  Milkshakes.  Custard.

And — the killer app — beer and wine.

It’s a family place — like Five Guys — but occasionally Mom and Pop want a (non-soda) pop with their burgers.

Who doesn't like burgers? Not these kids!

Wood (recycled from bowling alleys); flat-screen TVs; an airy, open and lively layout — all create a “Shack meets Westport” vibe.

Shake Shack CEO David Swinghamer and Danny Meyer Himself were there.  Both were clearly — and genuinely — excited about the location, the staff, the energy, the potential, and the community.

Meyer’s original vision for Shake Shack was a “roadside burger stand.”  But roadsides are hard to come by in New York City.

So — with its 13th location — Westport becomes the 1st suburban Shake Shack.

There have been at least 13 restaurants on this site.  This one is here to stay.

5 Comments

Posted in People, Restaurants