Travel Blog

The year began with a Polish-Jewish-Chinese wedding in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. Walking from the ceremony to the reception, I got talking to a man who said he wrote for The Nation, and used to write for The New Yorker. I asked his name. "Jonathan Schell," he said.

A filmmaker sat at our table, one of a number of guests who, like the groom's mother, were expelled from Poland in 1968. Soon, the mother was being hoisted in a chair, along with the bride's mother, on the dance floor. Rambunctious circle dances broke out, followed eventually by a sedate tea ceremony. At one point a Chinese man, a relative of the bride, sang "O Solo Mio."

The five-year-old French boy at the neighboring table was dressed in tails. The groom's brother told us that he took the boy to F.A.O Schwartz and offered to buy him anything he wanted. He asked for a Louis XIV wig.

I hope I get invited to his wedding.