Back when people read magazines there was a phenomenon known as the “Sports Illustrated jinx,” which assured that no team heading into playoffs wanted to find its picture on the SI cover.
That superstition has now been replaced by the “Swick jinx.” Lately, every team I root for loses. In the baseball playoffs, I threw my support behind the Tigers, the Cubs, and – of course – the Phillies. I am now pulling for the Brewers, who last night lost by one run to the Dodgers after loading the bases in the bottom of the ninth. Of course they did.
In college football, my favorite teams are Florida, Florida State and – the one I’ve been a fan of since childhood, when my uncle taught at the school – Penn State. (The Nittany Lions, for you non-sports fans, began the season with a single-digit ranking and last week fired their coach after three straight losses.) Likewise, I’ve been a lifelong fan of the Eagles, who I hope (hoped?) will/would meet the Bills in the Super Bowl. Both teams, after excellent starts, lost their last two games. The only team that seemed immune to my jinx was the Florida Panthers – until last night, when they lost to the Philadelphia Flyers.
On our way back from Gainesville on Friday we stopped in West Palm Beach for Art After Dark at the Norton Museum, which included a concert of Chinese classical music played on a pipa, a zheng, and a qin. Moon cakes were served in a nearby room.
Saturday we drove to Miami for the Centennial Concert at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. The normally half-hour journey took us 90 minutes – you’d have thought Art Basel was in town – causing us to miss much of the Mozart. But the second half was more to my taste any way: Bach, Fauré, Vaughan Williams and Handel. The concert concluded with the Hallelujah Chorus.
I returned by myself to the cathedral last evening for the choral evensong, which featured only sacred music, including Vaughan Williams’ The Old One Hundredth Psalm Tune – fittingly, as yesterday was the composer’s birthday. There were almost as many people at evensong (my favorite word in the English language) as had attended the concert, and it was heartening to see the grand 100-year-old building in the heart of Miami bursting with music and voices and life.
It’s banned books week, which is encouraging. Aldous Huxley worried about a world in which books had become so insignificant they weren’t worth banning.
I’m off on a little road trip, culminating Thursday with a conversation about my memoir at The Lynx, the Gainesville bookstore started by Lauren Groff in support of banned books. Back here next Monday.
PS: My book is not banned.
If you have to be sick, there is perhaps no better time than the first week of October. You schlep through the morning, eat lunch, and then settle on the couch for the buffet of baseball that awaits. On Tuesday and Wednesday, there were games at 1 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 6 o’clock and 9 o’clock – nearly 12 hours of non-stop baseball. And not just any baseball; playoff baseball, in which every pitch, every at-bat throbs with significance. And the early games gave you the unparalleled sight of a sunlit outfield, shadows falling across the infield, the ancient architecture of the sport.
Two of the old friends I saw in New York last week said they come down here occasionally to visit their daughter who lives in West Palm Beach. At the airport, I met a couple flying down to see their daughter at UM. It's a nice change from - or rather addition to - people coming to Florida to visit their parents.
Growing up in New Jersey, I would sometimes take a bus into Manhattan, step out of Port Authority, and just wander for the day. It took me years to get into a museum because the streets were my museum – endlessly fascinating and educational. It was in New York that I developed my love of walking city streets.
Nobody counted steps back then but last Wednesday in Manhattan I did 14,000. Many of them were in pursuit of a place for lunch. Or, to be more accurate, the place for lunch. I have an ideal restaurant in my head – for all meals when traveling – and I always suspect that it’s right around the corner. This is workable in small towns, where options are limited; in New York, where places to eat almost outnumber pigeons, the search can be endless. And immensely annoying to companions. Hania wasn’t with me; hence the marathon.
It started at Rockefeller Center, where I asked a man if there was a good deli nearby. My heart was on a New York sandwich – corned beef, pastrami – in a bustling, well-lit place filled with New Yorkers.
He pointed me in the direction of a place called Toasties, which didn’t sound promising and wasn’t. It was full of office workers standing by a counter waiting to pick up their orders. I wanted sit down, so I walked out and headed down Madison Avenue, where I found more of the same. One deli was actually named Grab & Go.
I turned west into the theater district, making sure to stay east of Broadway and the tourist swarms. Here there were more takeaways, many of them Asian and interesting, but my hotel – in the vicinity – was fine for sleeping but not for eating. Occasionally I’d pass a nice restaurant – Greek, Italian – that was romantic and empty. Here I would have stopped had Hania been with me.
It was now after 1 pm and I was flagging. I remembered the Irish place next to my hotel, which I had heard the receptionist recommend to the couple who’d checked in before me.
It was dark but busy, and I was sat at a table close enough to its neighbors that I could eavesdrop. My waitress spoke with an Irish accent. My Reuben sandwich was perfect, just the right size, not overstuffed, and came with thick, crispy, delicious French fries. I was having lunch in New York, unquestionably, and it tasted even better because of the hike I’d taken to get to it.