WAG Magazine, January/February 2021 by Westfair Business Journal

Redefining the activist-athlete:

MEGAN RAPINOE REMAKING ART HISTORY: Kathleen Gilje and Fay Ku RENEWING MIND AND BODY: Breathe magazine, Greenwich’s Men Care Now and spas galore RETHINKING PET CARE: Our new WAG the Tail section REIMAGINING HERSELF AND YOUNG AUTISTIC WOMEN: Yes She Can’s Marjorie Madfis RECREATING A MILESTONE: Turning 21 in ’21 JUDGED A

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IN NEW YORK STATE 2014, 2015, 2016 2018, 2019

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CONTENTS

J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 1

10 Editor’s Letter 11 SELF-MADE (AND REMADE) WOMEN 12 Playing the game of life 16 Yes she did 20 Playing the hand she was dealt 24 Outstanding, on and off the field 27 Book review: Megan Rapinoe’s antiheroic ‘One Life’ 30 Restoration plays 33 21 IN ’21 34 21 — An auspicious number for an auspicious year ahead 36 We’ll drink to that 38 Hit me: Blackjack, or Twenty-One 39 HOME DESIGN 40 Real estate that ‘razzle-dazzles ’em’ 44 New year, new home 46 Leafy luxury, Miami style 50 A Miami bayfront beauty 53 TRAVEL 54 Making room for this inn 58 Roger Sherman’s inn-spired reimaginings 60 Viva Las Vegas 64 The accidental tourism of Wes Anderson 69 What’s new in the Maldives 72 Wyoming’s irresistibly wild West 76 The pop stars’ hitmaker

2 Courtesy WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 Breathe magazine.

79 FOOD & SPIRITS 80 Behold The White Horse 82 Fortified (and fortifying) wines 84 Toast the new year with an egg roast 85 FASHION & BEAUTY 86 What’s trending 88 Keeping ‘abreast’ of love tokens 89 WELLNESS 90 Relish, relax, refresh 92 Massaging the tide 96 Addressing male wellness 98 The love spas 100 Managing OCD during Covid 102 Losing the ‘pandemic 15’ in 2021 103 WAG THE TAIL 104 Calling on Fido 106 Training dogs — and their ‘parents’ 108 Matching chaos with calm 110 Go Go-ing big for pets 111 A hidden jewel WHEN & WHERE 112 A January-February mix WITS 114 We wonder: How will you renew yourself this year?

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At The Kensington, we give our residents MORE of the best things in life Every single day, The Kensington White Plains delivers...

ore family, because a sense of belonging builds trust. More companionship, because keeping good company eases loneliness. More access to expert medical care because we staffed our community with best-in-class professionals on-site and are across the street from White Plains Hospital. More continuity, because we are equipped to address complex medical challenges and will never ask a resident to leave as a result. More care options, because we anticipate change and are prepared to meet new or evolving needs. Our full spectrum of clinical care and emotional support reect our commitment “to love and care for your family as we do our own.” Our services accommodate the variety of

personalities we serve and set us apart from other care providers. For example, excellent staff-to-resident ratios pave the way for deeper connections between caregivers and residents. Pocket programs—personalized small-group activities—foster friendships and sense of mastery. Two levels of memory care address the challenges unique to each phase of disease progression. There’s more to share, including that we are taking all recommended precautions to protect our residents and staff from COVID. Please call to tell us how we can help care for your loved one...and you, because you matter, too. Learn about the uncompromising care and profound devotion to family that you’ll experience at The Kensington.

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WAGGERS T H E TA L E N T B E H I N D O U R PA G E S

Dee DelBello

Dan Viteri

PUBLISHER dee@westfairinc.com

EXECUTIVE ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/CREATIVE dviteri@westfairinc.com

EDITORIAL

PHIL HALL

DEBBI K. KICKHAM

Bob Rozycki MANAGING EDITOR bobr@westfairinc.com

Georgette Gouveia EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ggouveia@westfairinc.com

WILLIAM D. KICKHAM

ART Sarafina Pavlak GRAPHIC DESIGNER spavlak@westfairinc.com

CRISTINA LOSAPIO

RAJNI MENON

PHOTOGRAPHY

FATIME MURIQI

John Rizzo, Bob Rozycki

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Gina Gouveia, Phil Hall, Debbi K. Kickham, Doug Paulding, Giovanni Roselli, Bob Rozycki, Gregg Shapiro, Barbara Barton Sloane, Jeremy Wayne, Cami Weinstein, Katie Banser-Whittle

JOHN RIZZO

DOUG PAULDING

PRINT/DIGITAL SALES

GIOVANNI ROSELLI

Anne Jordan Duffy ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/SALES anne@westfairinc.com Barbara Hanlon, Marcia Pflug, Heather Sari Monachelli ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

BOB ROZYCKI

GREGG SHAPIRO

MARKETING/EVENTS

BARBARA BARTON SLOANE

Fatime Muriqi EVENTS & MARKETING DIRECTOR fmuriqi@westfairinc.com

Marcia Pflug SPONSORS DIRECTOR mpflug@wfpromote.com

CIRCULATION JEREMY WAYNE

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Sylvia Sikoutris CIRCULATION MANAGER sylvia@westfairinc.com

KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE

Billy Losapio ADVISER

WHAT IS WAG?

Irene Corsaro ADVISER

Some readers think WAG stands for “Westchester and Greenwich.” We certainly cover both. But mostly, a WAG is a wit and that’s how we think of ourselves, serving up piquant stories and photos to set your own tongues wagging.

HEADQUARTERS A division of Westfair Communications Inc., 701 Westchester Ave., White Plains, NY 10604 Telephone: 914-694-3600 | Facsimile: 914-694-3699 Website: wagmag.com | Email: ggouveia@westfairinc.com Redefining the activist-athlete:

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COVER: Megan Rapinoe. Photograph by Gareth Cattermole — FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images.

All news, comments, opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations in WAG are those of the authors and do not constitute opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations of the publication, its publisher and its editorial staff. No portion of WAG may be reproduced without permission.WAG is distributed at select locations, mailed directly and is available at $24 a year for home or office delivery. To subscribe, call 914-694-3600, ext. 3020. All advertising inquiries should be directed to Anne Jordan at 914-694-3600, ext. 3032 or email anne@westfairinc.com. Advertisements are subject to review by the publisher and acceptance for WAG does not constitute an endorsement of the product or service. WAG (Issn: 1931-6364) is published monthly and is owned and published by Westfair Communications Inc. Dee DelBello, CEO, dee@westfairinc.com

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EDITOR’S LETTER BY GEORGET TE GOUVEIA

WITH A NEW YEAR AND OUR 10TH ANNIVERSARY UPON US AND THE VIRUS STILL RAGING, WE AT WAG THOUGHT, “WHY NOT GO ALL IN AND REVAMP THE MAGAZINE?” IT MADE PERFECT SENSE, FOR IF THERE EVER WAS A YEAR FOR A REFRESH, IT’S 2021. And so, we kick off our year of reinvention with a combined January-February issue that marries January’s theme of renewal with our annual February salute to love, romance, sex and the body. Call it “Reinventing ourselves.” The first thing you’ll notice inside the magazine on our Table of Contents page is that we’ve done away with many of the distinctions between our features and our regular columns. Everything related to one section is now in that section. Thus, Wanders gives us not only columns by our regular Wanderers Jeremy and Barbara — who are off to the Maldives (pictured here) and Wyoming respectively — but articles on The Abbey Inn & Spa in Peekskill and the Roger Sherman Inn in New Canaan (Phil’s piece), along Hurawalhi, aerial view.  with Gregg’s visit with legendary Courtesy Hurawalhi Woodstock hitmaker Jules Shear. Island Resort. Then Jeremy returns for pieces on a book inspired by quirky director Wes Anderson and memories of Las Vegas that will have you laughing out loud. Put it this way: You’ll never think of the phrase “cathouse” in the same way again. Clearly, what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas. For foodies, Jeremy gets in touch with his English pub roots at The White Horse Country Pub & Restaurant in Marbledale, while Rajni serves up the perfect egg, courtesy of Kerala, India, and Doug samples sherries. On the Wellness front, we put up our feet for a moment and take a break and a breath with the United Kingdom’s Breathe magazine, an escape that’s only your local bookstore or supermarket newsstand away. Speaking of escapes, Debbi, whom you usually find in the Wanders section, joins Wellness for this issue with a column on the Red Lane Spas at Sandals Resorts in the Caribbean that she sampled with hubby and fellow Wagger Bill. Meanwhile, we look at skincare specialists Vicki Morav and Pietro Simone’s new, individual spa offerings in Manhattan; nutritionist Preeti Pusalkar helps us shed “the Covid 15”; psychiatrist Alex Dimitriu, MD, discusses the way the virus is exacerbating obsessive-compulsive behaviors; and Giovanni brings us the important story of Men Care Now, a new, Greenwich-based enterprise he’s involved in that addresses men’s mental, emotional and physical well-being. Now more than ever, we need whatever makes us whole. We also show you our Wares with a peek inside two magnificent Miami properties, courtesy of Sotheby's International Realty; the elegantly casual Waccabuc weekend home of Fran and Barry Weissler, producers of the long-running Broadway musical revival “Chicago” while Cami and hubby Marc swim against the tide and move from the ’burbs to the city and Katie brings us the little-known but once hot to-

kens known as lover's eyes. In one case, the token of affection — from artist Sarah Goodridge to statesman Daniel Webster — turned out to be more lover’s boobs. It’s a now-forgotten but fascinating tidbit like this that makes WAG, well, waggish. But perhaps the biggest change comes in our Pet Portraits section, now called WAG the Tail, which we’ve also turned into a newsletter — spearheaded by Karen Sackowitz, our director of digital content and new product development — to match the demand for pets, and thus pet care, in the Covid era. There are profiles of Nicole Goudey-Rigger, whose full range of services at Pets a Go Go covers Westchester and Fairfield counties, veterinarian Sarah Cutler, DVM, and her Katonah-based At Home Care and Cristina Losapio, a dog trainer, consultant and owner of Trail Dog Inc. in New Castle who is now a new WAG columnist. And, of course, we still have our Pet of the Month from the SPCA, which shines a spotlight in this issue on the lovely but fragile Retriever/Hound mix Opal. Each of these sections begins with a photograph and features a more user-friendly layout with snappier (we hope) headlines, subheads and highlighted items. But in essentials, WAG is ever as it was, still a sophisticated, cultural magazine known for its creative themes and subthemes. Our subtheme for this issue is “21 in ’21” — all the things you can do once you turn 21, like drink alcohol — drink recipes and histories provided; play Twenty-One, also known as Blackjack; and go to a casino where you can drink and play Blackjack. (Do we have to mention that with such pleasures come responsibilities?) Our primary theme — on Self-made and Remade Women — offers two takes on controversial soccer star and cover subject Megan Rapinoe, the Greenwich resident who continues to redefine the idea of the activist-athlete; a profile on Marjorie Madfis, the former IBM-er who recreated herself as founder of the Yes She Can nonprofit, refurbishing American Girl Dolls and the lives of autistic young women like daughter Izzie; and conversations with New York City artists Kathleen Gilje and Fay Ku, who in different ways have turned the female gaze on art history, reclaiming the female body and persona in the process. This section is led by an essay in which I recall my personal 2020 — 2010 — in which I was caring for my dying aunt and starting a new job here at Westfair when a tree fell on our home. What I learned in this crucible is that the valley is always preparation for the summit. And that while things may not get easier, they will always get better. A 2020 YWCA White Plains & Central Westchester Visionary Award winner and a 2018 Folio Women in Media Award Winner, Georgette Gouveia is the author of “Burying the Dead,” “Daimon: A Novel of Alexander the Great” and "Seamless Sky" (JMS Books), as well as “The Penalty for Holding,” a 2018 Lambda Literary Award finalist (JMS Books), and “Water Music” (Greenleaf Book Group). They’re part of her series of novels, “The Games Men Play,” also the name of the sports/culture blog she writes.

SELF-MADE AND REMADE WOMEN P. 12 Playing the game of life

P. 16 Yes she did

P. 24 Outstanding, on and off the field

P. 20 Playing the hand she was dealt P. 30 Restoration plays

At the 2019 World Cup and beyond, Megan Rapinoe has proved that the game isn’t limited to what happens on the field, and what happens on the field isn’t merely a game.Photograph by Daniela Porcelli / Getty.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

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An ace-high straight flush, or royal flush, is the best hand in many variations of poker. Photograph by Graeme Main/MOD.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. — Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”

In 1992, Queen Elizabeth II coined the phrase annus horribilis to describe a “horrible year” that saw the collapse of many of her children’s marriages and a fire at Windsor Castle. It was, she said with characteristic British understatement, “not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.” For most, 2020 has definitely been a diluted-pleasure kind of a year. The pandemic’s incalculable loss — of lives, livelihoods and sheer ways of life — was the most defining feature of 365 days that also saw an alphabet-exhausting string of storms and other natural disasters as well as manmade ones that erupted in protests at racial injustice. But for some — far more than will acknowledge it — 2020 was a very good year. They suffered no loss of health or wealth. In fact, they made money, often in the surprisingly euphoric, shades-of-the1920s stock market. They used the lockdown to reorganize their lives and acquire new skills. They took the proverbial lemons and made lemonade. Some, like artist Fay Ku (Page 20), who picked up additional teaching assignments, felt guilty about their good fortune. Others didn’t mind proclaiming it. This from author Susie Orman Schnall’s newsletter: “Despite 2020 being, well, 2020, it's been quite a year. For me it meant a summer book launch, cooking 3,621 dinners, running ‘the calendar club’ in April, voting for a new president and lots of family time.” How nice for her. For still others of us, 2020 was not a

particularly bad year, not because we necessarily excelled but because we’d already been through our own personal annus horribilis. 2010 — MY 2020 It actually began in 2009. In the summer of the Great Recession, I lost my job as senior cultural writer at The Journal News, a dream assignment, then saw my beloved Aunt Mary, who raised me, undergo disastrous hip revision surgery that exacerbated a kind of dementia that included Capgras Syndrome — a condition in which the sufferer thinks the person closest to her, that would’ve been me, has an evil twin. Dementia is a downward spiral of denial, dread, despair and death. That autumn and the winter of 2009-10, Aunt Mary and I were in and out of hospitals and nursing homes until she finally came home for good on Thursday, March 11, 2010. That Monday, the Ides of March, I would start a new job as a reporter for the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals. Things were finally looking up. I would work to give my aunt the care, the end, she deserved. Everything would be all right. And then a massive oak tree fell on our house at 8:40 p.m. Saturday, March 13 in a late-winter nor’easter. ‘BATTALIONS OF SORROWS’ I am not alone in the multiple-whammy phenomenon. “A few years ago, I went through a period in my life where it seemed like everything that could go wrong did,” Maria Konnikova said in a recent “In My Humble Opinion” piece pbs.org/newshour/show/striking-thebalance-between-luck-and-skill#transcript for the “PBS NewsHour.” “Out of nowhere, I came down with an autoimmune disorder that no one could diagnose. My grandmother, totally healthy, slipped on her way to the bathroom and never woke up. My husband lost his job. My mom lost her job, all in a span of weeks.” Konnikova, a Ph.D. in psychology, is a keen poker player and author of “The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win.” Her thesis is that life, like poker, is a game of luck and skill in which there will always be uncertainties. But, she said, “if you keep making the right choices, if you keep thinking well and act-

ing thoughtfully, if you keep putting yourself in a position to win, then, eventually, the variance will be on your side.” Me? I don’t subscribe to luck. Rather I think we are strands in the universe and that what we perceive to be good or bad luck is merely the strand we shall contribute to the universe’s design. Of course, we don’t know where the strand will take us, so we keep following it. Or, to put it in Konnikova’s parlance, we keep playing the hand we’re dealt. PREPARING TO SUMMIT “Your destiny is to be a writer,” my aunt had told me before the portal of her mind closed forever. Faced with the inevitable loss of the great love of my personal life — my aunt passed away in an ice storm on Groundhog Day, Feb. 2, 2011 — on top of the loss of the great love of my professional life and the near loss of our lovely home, I somehow still knew I would not be defeated. I would find meaning in life and in suffering by locating meaning in her deathin-life. We would celebrate every holiday, every birthday, every day, such as it was. I would remake the house, only better, and in remaking our home, I would remake my life. I would create a support team that prepared me for the day when I would manage people as editor of WAG, a position publisher Dee DelBello offered me when she purchased the magazine in November 2010. I would create a garden in which I sat as my aunt slept, dreaming of the day when I would actually travel the world. And I would write — not just essays and articles but the poetry that would ultimately lead me to become a novelist and blogger. Konnikova would say that I kept putting myself in a position to win — something that is near-impossible for those who, unlike me, have no resources. But what I knew is this: My aunt’s life and death delivered me into a brilliant life. And what I learned is this: The valley is but the preparation for the summit. Suffering is but the springboard for the next step we have to take on our journeys. The subsequent paths may not be easier. They will probably be different from what we have known. But they will surely, in their own ways, lead to something better.

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arjorie Madfis, who was in interactive marketing at IBM, had long thought about starting a nonprofit. But the crystallizing moment didn’t come until she found herself at age 57 out of her IBM job and interviewing for a position at Bloomberg. There a young man in blue jeans conducted the interview as he texted with his feet on the desk. “I said to myself, ‘I don’t want to be this guy’s mother,’” Madfis remembers. “That was the push. Who needs that?” Who indeed? It turned out to be the impetus to found Yes She Can Inc., a nonprofit that seeks to empower young autistic women while rehabilitating secondhand American Girl dolls for purchase. As executive director, Madfis incorporated Yes She Can in November 2013, with the store, Girl Again, opening in February 2014 in the now-defunct Sweet Heaven Spa in Hartsdale. Ever the marketer, Madfis was testing out the concept to see if such a store would be viable. Nine months later, it moved to its present 750-square-foot pink and brink location in the heart of White Plains’ financial district. There, until the coronavirus hit, the young trainees would refurbish American Girl dolls — which represent various narratives in the American experience — and their accessories under the watchful eyes of their coaches, two coaches for every four trainees. Today, the work continues on Zoom, with one coach for every two trainees at a time. The store, which was closed from March through May, reopened in June for a sidewalk sale. Shoppers can book an appointment for up to three people for a half-hour, or drop off dolls for repair, via a scheduling app. Among those who have visited the store is Akie Abe, the former first lady of Japan.

MORE THAN A STORE

Marjorie Madfis, founding executive director of Yes She Can Inc. at its Girl Again store in White Plains. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

With new merchandise, Girl Again is a bargain for American Girl’s ardent fan base, selling dolls that are still in rotation at less than half the price of a new doll (which costs around $110) and 10 to 20% less than the price on eBay for collectible dolls that have been retired. But as we wrote wagmag.com/a-design-for-working-with-autism/ in March 2016 WAG, the dolls are not the point. Instead their refurbishment serves as a metaphor for imagining young autistic women in the workforce. On Tuesdays, the Yes She Can group, including 13 trainees, meets via Zoom to work on networking

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

Refurbished American Girl dolls at Girl Again in White Plains.

and other core employment skills. Those on the spectrum are often intelligent and talented. But they generally lack the sensitivity to social cues that enables less-gifted people to succeed. This past October, 25 employees of Regeneron — the boutique biotechnology company in Tarrytown that’s been in the press recently for its new Covid-fighting drug cocktail — used their annual “Day for Doing Good” to work one-on-one online with Yes She Can coaches and trainees on two separate occasions. It’s an association Madfis hopes to continue. Since her organization’s inception, she has trained 42 women, 15 of whom have gone on to other programs or college or have found work, though she acknowledges it’s not consistent. “Extra effort needs to go in when you hire someone who’s not neurotypical,” Madfis says. Amid the pandemic, these hires are often among the first to be laid off.

EMPLOYED AGAIN

Madfis, a White Plains resident, knows all about the perils of the workforce. She was a year and a half into a 15-year career at IBM when in 1998 her daughter, Izzie, was diagnosed with autism. That changed her career track from one climbing the

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

executive ranks to that of an individual contributor with more job flexibility, which IBM offered. The company also had a program that covered the expenses of additional services needed to raise a child with developmental disabilities. But in June 2013 — two years after big layoffs — IBM had a purge of 6,000 employees. Madfis’ team of nine — seven women and two men — was not immune. Of the nine, only the two men were kept on. While she was not part of the subsequent age discrimination lawsuit, she did do an interview with ProPublica, an investigative news organization that in turn held a conference at Columbia University at which John Rowe, former CEO of Connecticut-based Aetna, spoke. He noted that women over 50 cost a company four times more than men do for health benefits, which is perhaps one reason why they may be more likely to lose their jobs. (Women tend to use health services more, are healthier than men and have fared better physically — though not financially and professionally — in the coronavirus.) Another reason women are more likely to be laid off may have to do with a society that still sees men as the primary breadwinners, even though 40% of American households are headed by women. These households tend to be less well off, in part

because women still earn less than men for the same work. Though women have made strides as the economy switched from a manufacturing to a service-oriented base that drew on their people and communications skills and now dominate colleges and professional schools, service jobs are precisely the ones that have been evaporating in the distance-requiring virus. Madfis’ ProPublica interview caught the eye of Paul Solman, economics correspondent for the “PBS NewsHour,” who profiled her along with other older workers for his “Unfinished Business” series on the “NewsHour” in November. “IBM has maintained that age plays no role in employment actions,” he reported. “But in August, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that the company engaged in systematic age discrimination.” For her part, Madfis is concentrating on the here and now. The 13 trainees who participate in Yes She Can’s program include two from Rockland County, one from Queens and one from the Berkshires. They would not have been able to take part if the program were not online. “So,” Madfis says, “it’s a bit of a silver lining.” For appointments, visit girlagain. com. And for more, visit yesshecaninc. org.

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It is a response to what British feminist film critic Laura Mulvey called the objectifying “male gaze.” For Ku, whose works echo Édouard Manet and Paul Gauguin, this idea of the female gaze is “a wonderful recent movement that draws attention to women, and it’s about time.” (See also our story on artist Kathleen Gilje, Page30). But it’s more than that. “I can’t separate the female gaze from the East Asian gaze,” Ku says. “Everyone sees from their point of view, an internal viewpoint.”

BRIDGING EAST AND WEST

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where are you from?” “No, really, where are you from?” They are questions that belie the answer “I’m from here,” that actually ask, “Who are you?”

Fay Ku, who has heard these questions many times before, has many answers for the latter. She’s a woman; an artist; an art teacher (at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she did her graduate studies); a wife (to composer-instrumentalist Mick Rossi, who’s worked with Paul Simon and Philip Glass); a New York City resident who adores her adopted hometown for its diversity; a baseball fan; and a shrewd poker player who enjoys beating the guys at their own game. She’s also a Chinese-American who understands what it is to be in a place where no one looks like you, where no on is like you, to be a bridge between two worlds, one East and one West, belonging to both and, perhaps in some people's eyes, belonging to neither. Her work — shown recently in the Pelham Art Center’s “Domestic Brutes” show — is part of a trend among women artists to address the way women have been objectified in art by reimagining them in some of the world’s masterworks.

When Ku looks out, she sees through the eyes of a Chinese-American gazing at a Chinese-American face that has not always been reflected in the West generally and America specifically. Her mixed media works seek in part to recalibrate this. Her “New Olympia” (2019, graphite and oil paint on translucent drafting film) — seen in the Pelham Art Center show — replaces Manet’s sleek nude white courtesan and Black servant in “Olympia” (1863, oil on canvas) with two Asian women in sarongs. They’re in the same physical position as Manet’s subjects but not the same social one. They’re equals. Ku’s “The Jungle Has Eyes” (2019, graphite, oil paint and glitter on cut and layered translucent drafting film) evokes the intimacy of the women in Paul Gauguin’s “Barbarian Tales” (1902, oil on canvas). But the backdrop is vastly different, with eyes like so many peacock feathers. Seeing and being seen — a motif throughout art history but especially of Modernism and a preoccupation of the digital age — is key to Ku’s work. In “See What You Do” (2008, graphic, watercolor and gouache on paper), a woman dressed in a vivid, peacock-feathered gown covers her eyes in a forest of silver birch trees, whose distinctive markings are known as “eyes.” It’s a metaphor for the way many women feel — seen but not seeing and faceless. It tells us something about Ku’s own story. Her family fled the Cultural Revolution on mainland China to Taiwan, where she was born, then moved about the United States as her father, who ultimately created a software company that did work for NASA and other organizations, pursued his academic studies. In Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado, where she grew up before the family settled in Maryland, there weren’t many people, if any, who looked like her.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

Fay Ku’s “New Olympia” (2019, graphite and oil paint on translucent drafting film) — seen in the recent Pelham Art Center show “Domestic Brutes” — replaces Éduard Manet’s sleek nude white courtesan and Black servant in “Olympia” (1863, oil on canvas) with two Asian women in sarongs.

THE

Chinese are a people for whom family is of the utmost importance. Each person knows his place in the family, honoring the elders and ancestors. The oldest son is expected to care for the parents in old age, which is why primacy is given to having a boy. The fact that she was “female and not important,” in Ku’s words, ironically worked in her favor, allowing her to do what she wanted to do and study art at Bennington College in Vermont. But it wasn’t until graduate school that she found herself as an artist. “I think for whatever reason, it took me a long time to be political, a long time,” she says. “I grew up in an era where it was not cool to be different. I think it’s great that youth today appreciate diversity. I had a very odd, isolated childhood.”

STAYING IN THE GAME

She credits her Pratt professors with bringing out what was inside of her, what she saw in her dreams. That and New York, with its infinite variety. “I couldn’t live anywhere else,” she says. And though she’d like to go back to Taiwan to perfect her Mandarin or to Paris for her French,

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she says, “New York is my hometown in the way no place else is.” There she teaches freshman and thesis drawing to seniors. The pandemic has meant extra work, something she is both guilty about and grateful for at a moment when so many others have lost their jobs. This brings her to baseball — a sport she came to listen to for the background noise and then got hooked on — and to poker, a game in which she has taken many a man’s laundry quarters. Sports and games require skill and luck and the best don’t always win while the less-than-great sometimes get a good hand or make the best of a bad one. Like the poker-playing psychologist Maria Konnikova, author of the provocative “The Biggest Bluff,” “The Biggest Bluff: How I learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself and Win,” Ku believes that luck needs a little push, which is where skill — and persistence — come into play. “When you play well, you put yourself in a position where you can capitalize on a good hand,” Ku says. “You have to keep working to put yourself in a position where you can capitalize on luck.” For more, visit fayku.com.

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Megan Rapinoe. Courtesy Brad Smith/ISI Photos/Getty Images.

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hat does it mean to be a self-made woman or a self-remade one? For Megan Rapinoe, it has meant scoring goals on the soccer field; winning gold with the national team at the 2012 London Summer Olympics, the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2019 Women’s World Cup; fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ community, of which she is a part; and taking a knee in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and against racial injustice; — and not in a shy way. Rapinoe’s in-your-face style may not be everyone’s cup of chamomile. (See Phil Hall’s review of her recent biography “One Life.”) But you can’t say the Greenwich resident — she of the sometimes purple, sometimes platinum hair — is afraid to stand out on and off the soccer field. BORN ON THE FIFTH OF JULY Growing up in Redding, California, Rapinoe and fraternal twin sister Rachael were almost Yankee Doodle girls, born on July 5, 1985 into a blended family of five siblings. Dad Jim worked construction. Mom Denise was a waitress. Older brother Brian proved to be an inspiration for what to do — and what not to do. Rapinoe took up soccer after watching him play. Later, soccer would prove a viable alternative to the drug culture in rural California that would send Brian to prison. Rapanoe played on youth teams and for local clubs before winning a full scholarship to the University of Portland. There she had a solid career, being named an all-American, despite two seasons ending with ACL injuries. "I know this sounds weird, but getting hurt was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” she said in an interview with the United States Soccer Federation.” It really gave me a different perspective. Before, everything was going how it was supposed to be and I wasn't really appreciative of what I was doing and what it took to be there. The injury grounded me in a lot of different ways.” Instead of closing out her college career, she opted for the women’s professional soccer draft, leading her to play for teams in Chicago; Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Sydney, Australia; and Lyon, France. (The midfielder/winger captains OL Reign, the Tacoma, Washington-based team in the National Women’s Soccer League.) It is in international play that Rapinoe has shown brightest. Her cross to Abby Wambach in the quarterfinals of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup set up an

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eventual win for the Americans. Her three goals — including one from the corner, making her the only player in Olympic history to accomplish this — and four assists in the London Olympics were a big part of the American women’s gold medal result. Their 2015 FIFA triumph led to a ticker-tape parade in New York City — unprecedented for a women’s team — and a fete at the Obama White House. (A second Big Apple parade would follow the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.) Contracts, including one with luxe fashion brand Loewe, would mingle with singular honors. Last year, Time named Rapinoe one of its 100 Most Influential People.

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AN ACTIVIST FIRST Rapinoe has not shrunk from using that influence. She has been vocal in her support for Kaepernick and #BlackLivesMatter; for closing the wage gap between female and male soccer players, filing a federal suit along with 27 teammates against the United States Soccer Federation for gender discrimination; and for such LGBT groups as the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Athlete Ally. (In 2019, Rapanoe co-founded the gender-neutral lifestyle brand reinc.) One percent of her wages goes to Common Goal in support of soccer-related charities.

Megan Rapinoe during warm up before a friendly game against Mexico as preparation for 2019 Women's World Cup.

That activism has not been without controversy. Rapinoe said she would probably never sing the National Anthem again after a 2016 pro game in which host Washington Spirit played the anthem before the teams took the field so no one could kneel. After the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup win, Rapinoe said she would refuse an invite to the Trump White

BOOK REVIEW: MEGAN RAPINOE’S ANTIHEROIC ‘ONE LIFE’ BY PHIL HALL House, drawing a rebuke from the former Twitterer in Chief. In Greenwich, where she lives with her fiancée, WNBA star Sue Bird — swimming, biking and weightlifting during the pandemic — she had previously given a soccer clinic at Sacred Heart Greenwich. But for Rapinoe, it’s not enough to be an athlete. “…There’s so much more happening here than the sports,” she told The New York Times regarding her autobiography, “and I think we can use that as a vehicle to really talk about what I see as the most important work in my life, which is all the stuff we’re doing off the field.” For more, visit rapinoe.us.

During the 1970s, New York Yankees legend Joe DiMaggio encountered singer/songwriter Paul Simon in a Manhattan restaurant. The baseball icon was eager to ask the music superstar about the reference to him in the song “Mrs. Robinson,” where Simon and then-partner Art Garfunkel ruefully proclaimed, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” DiMaggio told Simon, “What I don't understand, is why you ask where I've gone. I just did a Mr. Coffee commercial, I’m a spokesman for the Bowery Savings Bank and I haven’t gone anywhere.” Simon explained that the lyrics were not a literal wondering of DiMaggio’s physical location, but a tribute to an old-school concept of the public hero as a modest individual who epitomized decency, sincerity and maturity. “He was the antithesis of the iconoclastic, mind-expanding, authority-defying ’60s, which is why I think he suspected a hidden meaning in my lyrics,” Simon would recall in a 1999 New York Times op-ed published after DiMaggio’s death. “The fact

that the lines were sincere and that they've been embraced over the years as a yearning for heroes and heroism speaks to the subconscious desires of the culture. We need heroes and we search for candidates to be anointed.” If DiMaggio was too modest to recognize his stature as an American hero, soccer star Megan Rapinoe appears too insistent on being coronated with such honors. In July 2019, when Rapinoe and her teammates were being honored in New York City with a ticker-tape parade after winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Rapinoe clutched the trophy, looked squarely into a television news camera and screamed, “I deserve this. I deserve this. Everything.” Strangely, Rapinoe’s self-congratulatory accolade was fairly sedate compared to the other antics detailed in her recently published autobiography “One Life” (Penguin Random House), cowritten with Emma Brockes, in which Rapinoe runs an exhausting inventory of mirror-gazing praise to her supposed audaciousness and bravery in dealing with the perceived injustices that poison her world. Rather than wait to be anointed as a hero in the DiMaggio manner, Rapinoe has imagined herself to be the hero that today’s America needs. Heroes, of course, are not born but are made through trials and tribulations. Rapinoe’s problem is that she never experienced these harsh tests to strengthen her resolve. Born into a working-class family in a rural California community, Rapinoe nonetheless enjoyed the harvest sewn through the hard work of earlier generations who fought tirelessly to bring gender equality to college sports scholarships and to ensure LGBT rights were part of the wider society. Rather than show appreciation for those who genuinely struggle in their lives, “One Life” documents a young woman whose sense of entitlement goes awry when people fail to acquiesce to her opinions and demands. The my-way-or-the-highway attitude is particularly acute when Rapinoe deals with her parents. Recalling how she came out to her mother, Rapinoe initially ridiculed her for failing to guess her orientation and then blew up when her mother did not immediately process the unexpected news. As Rapinoe told her mother: “My whole life makes sense now. I’m f---ing ready to roll, and you can either get on board or get the f--- off.” Later in the book, Rapinoe happily recalls how she refused to speak to her father for six weeks after learning he voted former President Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election — she acknowledges sending him a birthday greeting via text but without emojis or kisses — and then deliberately disrupted a family Christmas gathering to berate him for his politics. This is heroic behavior? Rapinoe also details her solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the National Anthem by following his example before her games. While she expresses her concerns and anger over the racial injustice that fueled Kaepernick’s protests, she fails to cite a single example of how she has gone out of her way to help the lives of socially and economically disenfranchised people of color. Breathing the fumes of a limousine liberal is one thing, but applauding narcissism masquerading as activism is another matter. One area where Rapinoe should take on some degree of heroism is the campaign by the U.S. women's soccer team in their lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation regarding the pay disparity between male and female soccer players. But when Rapinoe uses her book to boast about pocketing a half-million dollars in a year, signing a Nike sponsorship deal for $80,000 per year and purchasing a gold Rolex for herself, it becomes impossible to view her as a poor little thing struggling to make ends meet. Whereas DiMaggio was confused over the “Mrs. Robinson”

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Carli LLoyd and Megan Rapinoe of the FIFA World Cup Champion U.S. Women's National Soccer Team during a ticker-tape parade in downtown Manhattan.

framing of his greatness, “One Life” is peppered with passages in which Rapinoe is baffled when some people don’t affirm her sense of self-worth. She claims to be confused by the behavior of her teammates when she played on France’s Olympique Lyonnais because they didn’t socialize with her after training, adding the celebrated city of Lyon was too boring for her tastes. Many pages are devoted to trash-talking Jill Ellis, the coach of the U.S. women’s team, for failing to share her politics and allegedly lying that other team members found Rapinoe to be a toxic personality. If there is one brief piece within “One Life” where Rapinoe trespasses into genuine altruism, it involves her creation of a fundraising page on Facebook to help residents in her hometown of Redding, California, who lost their homes in a wildfire. Rapinoe states she raised $150,000 within two weeks, albeit “thanks in part to the generosity of my teammates” — she never mentions her contribution to the cause — but even this effort is spoiled when she erupts in anger when someone on Facebook stated he would not support the effort because of her kneeling during the National Anthem. Again, she makes herself the center of attention and battles against those who are not impressed with her works. Immodesty is a difficult trick to pull off. Muhammad Ali’s boastful proclamations on being “the greatest” were clearly camp, and the performance art of his public persona was designed to make people laugh. Howard Cosell’s celebrated interviews with Ali felt like a Martin and Lewis routine, with the faux-exasperated sportscaster trying to corral the motormouthed boxer. Rapinoe, however, lacks the underlying humor of Ali, giving the impression of a vain and vapid person. Perhaps it helps to revisit Paul Simon’s 1999 New York Times op-ed on Joe DiMaggio, especially his closing thoughts on how “we mourn the loss of his grace and dignity, his fierce sense of privacy, his fidelity to the memory of his wife (Marilyn Monroe) and the power of his silence.” Indeed, DiMaggio’s silence will resonate much longer than Rapinoe’s foolish words.

Sage performs at White Plains JazzFest

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Kathleen Gilje before her “Lowery Sims as Ingres’ Napoleon With a Gun” (2006, oil on linen), in which she pays tribute to Lowery Stokes Sims, curator emerita of Manhattan’s Museum of Arts and Design, by taking inspiration from Jean-Antoine-Dominique Ingres’ “Napoleon I on the Throne” (1806, oil on canvas) and Eldridge Cleaver’s 1967 photograph “Untitled: Huey P. Newton in a Wicker Peacock Chair.”

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athleen Gilje describes becoming an artist as “a whole, long process” in which “I had no choice” that began professionally with the restoration work that still informs her art.

Growing up in Brooklyn, she would watch her mother take time out from her housework to set up her easel, sit down and paint. At school, Gilje was the class artist. At City College of New York, from which she graduated in 1966, she majored in art and literature. Ultimately, her paintings would be shown everywhere from the Aldrich, Bruce and Katonah museums and what is now Hudson Valley MOCA to Manhattan galleries and European institutions. Still, she says, “I don’t know if at that time I thought I could make a living as an artist.” A BOLD MOVE The die would be cast by an audacious lie. Gilje’s father had given her a trip to Italy as a graduation gift. Working her way north to south, she realized she didn’t want to leave the country but didn’t have the money to stay, and winter was setting in. Despite speaking “awful Italian,” she approached Antonio de Mata, a major conservator of Italian paintings in Rome, with a real whopper. “I said I’d like a job. I’m the conservator for The Metropolitan Museum in New York, and I was hired.” It’s clear he didn’t believe her story as he put her to work sweeping floors and getting palettes together for $50 a week. And yet, this was totally in keeping with the traditions of art history, giving a fledgling an opportunity in an atelier to study with a master from the ground up. “I had a good hand and soon I began restoring paintings,” she says of a career that took her from Naples back to New York. “So I thought, ‘I can make a living as a restorer. I don’t know if I can make a living as a painter.’” And yet, her success with the former would be the springboard for the latter. “At one point, I got an offer for an extraordinary job at a major museum,” she recalls of a moment in the late-’70s. “It would be a 100% commitment to conservation. That’s when I knew. I had heard about people who remained closeted artists. I didn’t want that.” Working on the restoration of El Greco’s “The Fable” (1580, oil on canvas) for the art dealer Stanley Moss in the late-’80s, Gilje made an exact replica save for the playful addition of a light bulb that subtly underscored the painting’s firelit faces and El Greco’s chiaroscuro effects. Moss threatened to sue her, then offered to buy the copy. And that was the beginning of a career in which Gilje would recreate masterpieces by recasting female subjects in a heroic, activist light, drawing attention to their circumstances; and reclaiming the female body for themselves, herself and her female viewers. In a sense, this has been a continuation of her work in restoration, for conservators, she says, often make changes in recapturing what has been lost. “When I started to think how restorations were used,” she adds, “then I began to take on feminist subject matter.”

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Kathleen Gilje’s “Woman With a Parrot, Restored (X-ray)” (2001, X-ray film on Plexiglas), sets Gustave Courbet’s highly sexual Metropolitan Museum of Art favorite on its ear by “revealing” a hunky male nude in the imagined pentimento. Gilje’s “Le Violin d’Ingres, Restored” (1999) brings together Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ “The Bather (The Valpinçon Bather)” (1808, oil on canvas) and Man Ray’s “Le Violin d’Ingres” (1924, gelatin silver print) in a work that adds the S-shaped sound holes of a violin and of Man Ray’s photo to the nude, violinshaped back of Ingres’ odalisque.

WOMEN, RESTORED Gilje’s “La Donna Velata, Restored” (1995, oil on linen) gives Raphael’s “La Donna Velata” (1516, oil on canvas) a black eye in a commentary on domestic violence. Her “Le Violin d’Ingres, Restored” (1999) brings together Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ “The Bather (The Valpinçon Bather)” (1808, oil on canvas) and Man Ray’s “Le Violin d’Ingres” (1924, gelatin silver print) in a work that adds the S-shaped sound holes of a violin and of Man Ray’s photo to the nude, violin-shaped back of Ingres’ odalisque. To some, the idea of a woman as an instrument may appear sexist, but when Gilje saw her work flanked by the original and Man Ray’s tongue-in-cheek takeoff in “Ingres et Les Modernes” at the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec in 2010, “it was a thrill” that also proved to be a vindication for women portraying and viewing the female nude on their own terms. One of Gilje’s most-traveled works captures the vulnerability of the female body in haunting terms. Her “Susanna and the Elders, Restored” (1998, oil on linen) and “Susanna and the Elders, Restored (X-ray)” (1998, of X-ray film on Plexiglas) retells the biblical story of a young Hebrew woman who is sexually blackmailed

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by two old lechers and of Artemisia Gentileschi’s “Susanna and the Elders” (1610, oil on canvas). Gentileschi — whose paintings have enjoyed a renaissance since the 1970s, with an exhibit at London’s National Gallery, the first major solo show of her work, available online — created her “Susanna” a year before she was raped and tortured at the subsequent trial to ensure she was telling the truth. Long fascinated by Gentileschi’s work and story, Gilje gives us a faithful representation of the former’s “Susanna” and an alternative X-ray pentimento — Susanna screaming and clutching a knife in a kind of self-defensive exorcism. (In the trial transcript, Gentileschi describes subsequently threatening her attacker, the painter Agostino Tassi, with a knife and then throwing it at him.) Gilje’s “Susanna” is in the collection of Phillips Academy’s Addison Gallery of Art, but she made an ink-jet print of her X-ray “Susanna” for “The Un-Heroic Act: Representations of Rape in Contemporary Women's Art in the U.S.” at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2018. The work itself will be part of “Susanna: From Mannerism to #Me Too” at the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud in Cologne,

Germany in 2022. Though these works are more about personal stories than abstract movements for Gilje, they are often mentioned as examples of “the female gaze” in art. (See also the story on Fay Ku on Page 20.) But what is that gaze? Is any work — a landscape for instance, done by a woman — the result of a female gaze? Or is it more a response to “the male gaze,” as defined by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, that has objectified women for centuries in the visual arts? Gilje points to “In the Cut: The Male Body in Feminist Art,” a 2018 show at the Stadtgalerie Saarbrucken in Saarbrucken, Germany, that included her X-ray treatment of Gustave Courbet’s “Woman With a Parrot” (1866, oil on canvas), a female nude in The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection made all the more erotic by her limbs akimbo and the bird perched on one finger. In Gilje’s version, however, it’s hard to concentrate on the woman because she has added a rippling male nude approaching the subject’s bed. In reclaiming the female body, women artists are also claiming their right to depict the male one. “That exhibit was really about the female gaze,” she says. For more, visit kathleengilje.com.

21 IN ’21

P. 34 21 — An auspicious number for an auspicious year ahead

P. 36 We’ll drink to that

P. 38 Hit me: Blackjack, or Twenty-One “Blackjack”. Photograph by Lucas Medvedevas.

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Bacardi bottle.  Photograph by Michael Fousert. Uber driver.  Photograph by Humphrey Muleba.

t’s here — 2021. And not before time, you might say. I know I do. There are going to be a lot of reasons to love the year ahead, and not just because the last one was so crummy. Twenty-one, you see, is a special number. True, it doesn’t have symmetry and isn’t palindromic, nor is it a prime number, which is really the ultimate kudo for a number. (We don’t say we are in our prime for nothing.) But it does have a special power all its own. Granted, it may not have the clout it once did — it’s almost 50 years since the voting age was lowered to 18 and who now needs to wait until they turn 21 to be given the key of the door — but reaching the magic age holds other rewards, other prizes. First up, for thirsty young Americans, boys and girls who have spent all their teenage years and then some waiting in the wings to drink, there is booze — and lots of it, for preference. No more chicanery and carding, no more lying and conniving. Age 21, American youths can drink all they want more or less where they want and pretty much when they want. Liquor-store owners and bartenders will turn as if by magic from Enemy No. 1 into your dearest friends on the stroke of midnight of your 21st birthday, although parents may still need to lock up their liquor cabinets as the newly legal become emboldened around the house. Alcohol is a curious thing, as is our attitude toward it. Along with the USA, only a handful of countries, Mongolia and the Solomon Islands among them, insist on a 21-year minimum age to consume it. In the vast majority, though, the minimum legal age is 18, and in some, including Spain

and Germany, it is only 16. In Antigua and Barbuda, you can drink hard liquor at 10, while in Syria, Cambodia, Cameroon and China there is no minimum age at all. What many just-turned-21-year-olds do discover quite quickly, however, is that wine and liquor can be expensive, and paying for it must now be factored into the 20-something budget. By happy coincidence, at 21 you have also reached the required minimum age to become an Uber driver. Just don’t drink and drive. It is often remarked upon that you can serve in the military, start a family and do goodness knows what other marvelous things before a drop of the hard stuff can legally pass your lips. The law, of course, is an ass, too, often opposed to common sense, but anomalies — which even socalled adults cannot explain — are part of the rich fabric of youth, adding to its age-old sense of frustration. At 21, in New York or Connecticut you can get a handgun and the permit to go with it. And you can legally enter casinos across the nation, although like drinking and driving you should not do both simultaneously (unless you answer to the name of Bond, James Bond and are thoroughly well-acquainted with the rules of baccarat.) The number 21 has class; it has cachet. When it comes to cards, at least if you’re a Blackjack player, is there any sight more beautiful than an ace and a 10 or royal, snapped smartly down on the baize by an inscrutable croupier, unbeatable, untrumpable? At 21, you can marry in all states with-

out parental permission. You can adopt a child. (Yet again, some advice from an elder: Don’t attempt both simultaneously.) You can be elected to public office, get instant decisions on credit applications and book a hotel room in Michigan, Miami or New York — places where under-21s, in a gray area of the law, are often turned away. A 21-year-old woman may sell her own eggs. Yes, at 21, the world is truly your oyster and so long as the activity itself is legal, you are now free to pursue it to your heart’s, or liver’s, content. On the other hand, remember that seven out of the Ten Commandments are negative injunctions. So, equally as valuable as a checklist of things kids can do when they turn 21, might be a list of things they should definitely not do, or no longer do, once the magic milestone is reached. These might include wearing baseball caps backwards, using the expression “my bad,” putting ketchup on a good steak… I could go on. Age, they say, is merely a number. Although a quick look in the mirror each morning leaves me in no real doubt, I can never quite believe how old I am. Of course, no one ever can believe how old he is. My father used to tell me that he only felt “grownup” after his own father had passed away. But when he himself passed away, over 20 years ago now, no such grownup-ness, no heightened sense of responsibility, no sudden change in attitude or jettisoning of childish things took hold over me. Unfortunately. Irrespective of my actual years, never mind 21, some days I feel barely 18, an impression loaned substance by the fact that my wife refers to me, along with our two 16-year olds, as her third teenager. It is not usually expressed as a compliment. But oh, to really be 21 again — footloose, more or less debt and fancy free, happy go lucky. And speaking of luck, what do the numbers on the dice add up to? Why 21, of course, that magic number again. Plus, let’s not forget, it was the 21st Amendment that repealed the 18th, thereby ending Prohibition. Now — providing we’re 21— that’s something we can all drink to.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

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ne of the main rights of passage for those turning 21 is that they can drink legally — and, might we add, responsibly, because with privilege comes obligation. That said, those turning 21 in the new year can produce that adult driver’s license at restaurants and bars, when they safely open, to enjoy an alcoholic bevy. Or they can make a guilt-free cocktail at home. Here are three classic cocktails with which you can toast becoming “legal”:

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

THE COSMOPOLITAN

The cosmopolitan, or cosmo, has long been associated with young women, New York City and the 1990s, thanks to the hit HBO series “Sex and the City,” whose main character, style-setter Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), imbibed them at lunch with her gal pals. (In the subsequent film, though, snobbish Carrie says that she stopped drinking them “because everyone else started.”) All we can say, Carrie, is that means more of the pink beauties for us. Despite its “Sex and the City” imprimatur, the cosmo has a complex history that may date from the 1930s but certainly to various sources in the mid-1970s — ranging from gay bars in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to Minneapolis bartender Neal Murray. The International Bartenders Association (IBA) uses vodka citron, or lemon-flavored vodka, in its recipe, though you can use regular vodka. Ingredients: • 1 1/2 fluid ounces vodka citron • 1 ounce cranberry juice • 1/2 ounce Cointreau • 1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

Preparation: Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well and double strain into a large martini glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

THE MARTINI

The acidic journalist H.L. Menken said the martini was “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.” Indeed, it may be the king of cocktails, partly because of that perfection but mainly, we suspect, because of its infinite variety. The martini owes its popularity to happenstance. In the 1920s, gin, its main ingredient, was outlawed along with other spirits by Prohibition. Nothing is quite so desirable as that which is forbidden, and soon batches of gin were being whipped up in bathtubs, along with kick-up-your-heels martinis. The drink can, of course, be made with vodka instead, or garnished with cocktail onions instead of a twist of lemon or olives (and thus be called a Gibson). It can be “shaken, not stirred” (the preference of the James Bonds of the movies) or “stirred, not shaken” (the preference of the James Bond of Ian Fleming’s books). (Fleming also created the Vesper martini, after Bond’s wounding true love, which uses gin, vodka and Kina Lillet.) You can dirty a martini with olive juice or make it porn with vanilla and passion fruit and a side of Prosecco. You can make it drier by adding more gin in relation to the vermouth, and you can serve it on the rocks or straight up in a chilled martini glass. It’s no doubt this enormous versatility helped the martini, eclipse in the wine spritzer age, come roaring back to life at the end of the 20th century and the first two decades of our own. (AMC’s “Mad Men” series might’ve also played a role with its portrayal of the “three-martini lunch.”) Because of the drink’s versatility, one recipe will not suffice. What follows is a recipe for the classic martini and one for the espresso martini, a popular dessert drink invented in the 1980s by British bartender Dick Bradsell:

The classic martini

Ingredients: • Cracked ice • 2 ½ ounces dry gin (or vodka) • ½ ounce dry vermouth • Green olives or lemon twist Preparation: In a mixing glass or cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine gin/ vodka and vermouth, blending well. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with olives or lemon twist and serve.

The espresso martini

Ingredients: • 1 ½ ounces vodka • 1 ounce brewed espresso • 1 ½ ounces coffee liqueur • 1 cup ice • Coffee beans Preparation: Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker and strain into a chilled martini glass. The espresso will give the drink a nice layer of crema on top. Garnish with three coffee beans.

THE MOJITO

Some say it was invented by the English privateer Francis Drake. Others by African slaves or South American Indians. Still others claim it was the favorite drink of writer Ernest Hemingway, subject of a fascinating Ken Burns’ three-part documentary, bowing on PBS in April. What we can say for sure is that the mojito, the signature Cuban highball, is legendary, and for good reason. Who, after all, wouldn’t want to sip mojitos and go salsa dancing in Cuba, as Colin Farrell’s Sonny Crockett does in the “Miami Vice” movie? While it conjures steamy summers, this “hot, hot” drink is perfect for the winter holidays when made with raspberries or strawberries for a minty, redand-green effect: Ingredients: • 10 fresh mint leaves • ½ lime, cut into four wedges • 2 tablespoons sugar • 1 cup ice cubes • 1 ½ ounces white rum • ½ cup club soda Preparation: Muddle the mint leaves and one lime wedge in a glass, then add two more lime wedges and sugar and muddle again. Fill the glass with ice. Pour rum over ice and add club soda. Stir, sip and add more sugar if desired. Garnish with remaining wedge. To make a strawberry or raspberry mojito, muddle berries with mint leaves at beginning of prep. (Make sure strawberries are hulled and sliced.) Garnish with berries.

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HIT M E:

R O T , W K E C N A T J Y K C O A N LB

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Hit me: While Blackjack, or Twenty-One, has many variations, the objective remains the same — to get to that magic number. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

hether you call it Blackjack (in the United States), Pontoon (in Great Britain) or Vingt-et-Un (on the Continent), Twenty-One is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. And like other popular games, it has had many variations since it was introduced as Veintiuna (meaning “Twenty-One”) in 17th century Spain before making its way into France (and Napoleon’s heart), Germany, England and 19th century America where it earned the nickname “Blackjack” during the Klondike Gold Rush. (“Blackjack” is a name for zincblende, which often signals a gold or

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silver deposit.) Even today, Blackjack has more than 100 rule variations. What all the versions have in common is a betting premise in which the players play the dealer rather than one another. The objective, of course, is to get to 21 points or as close to that without going over. (Cards from 2 to 10 are worth their number value, while face cards — Jack, Queen, King — are worth 10 points and aces either one or 11 each. Thus the game lends itself naturally to card counting, which, contrary to popular belief — and a major plot point in the estimable 1988 movie “Rain Man” — is not illegal. You may, however, have to be a savant on the order of the film’s Raymond Babbitt (played by Dustin Hoffman) to do it successfully.

HOME & DESIGN P. 40 Real Estate that 'razzle dazzles 'em'

P. 44 New year, new home

P. 46 Leafy luxury, Miami style

P. 50 A Miami bayfront beauty Fran and Barry Weissler theatrical Waccabuc home. Photographs by Modern Angles.

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What’s greatly done is the way the home is positioned on the property to take advantage of (its surroundings).” Real estate agent Anthony Lando is talking about the Waccabuc home of Fran and Barry Weissler, the Tony Award-winning producers who are perhaps bestknown for their revival of the John KanderFred Ebb-Bob Fosse musical “Chicago,” which originally starred Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth and Weston’s James Naughton wagmag.com/james-naughton-passionateabout-the-arts/ in a tale of lust and murder set in the Windy City of the Roaring ’20s. Still going strong before the coronavirus shut down the theater district, “Chicago” is the longest-running musical revival and the longest-running American musical in Broadway history and the second-longest running show on Broadway, behind “The Phantom of the Opera.” Like their infectious, toe-tapping show —

whose smart observations about the media and celebrity make it a natural for the Instagram age — the Weisslers’ 18.4-acre estate “razzle-dazzles ’em” with a comfortably elegant country manor house, Versailles-style gardens, an outdoor theater and, well, “All That Jazz,” to quote the musical’s signature song. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the sunroom off the warm avocado and wood kitchen, with its dynamic greenstriped wallpaper covering even the ceiling, cobalt-blue chandelier and chintz-covered wicker furnishings whose accents include a pillow reminder that “This is not a dress rehearsal.” Quite. The set, uh, room — one of 17 in the main and guest houses, which total 8,900 square feet — opens onto a terrace with outdoor furniture, beyond which you spy the geometric hedge gardens. It was in this room that Lando, who’s with Julia B. Fee/Sotheby’s International Realty in Irvington, met with the Weisslers to discuss listing their property for $13.2 million. (Lando shares the listing with Melissa Colabella.) During that meeting, he says, the couple reminisced about their early days, touring high schools, colleges and commu-

Scenes from the theatrical Waccabuc home of Broadway producers Fran and Barry Weissler, from left: the pool; conical bushes stand at attention outside the commanding house; and a Hanneke Beaumont figure walks on water.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

Inside the Weissler home, from left: The warm avocado kitchen; the dynamic green-striped sunroom with its cobalt-blue chandelier and chintz-covered wicker furnishings; and an earth-toned living area. Courtesy Julia B. Fee/ Sotheby's International Realty. 42

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nity venues with their professional National Theater Company. (Their Tony Award-winning careers would include “Othello” with James Earl Jones and Christopher Plummer and revivals of “Gypsy,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “Pippin.”) house reflects the Weisslers’ theatrical flair. Framed Playbill covers of Broadway triumphs turn an upstairs hallway into an art gallery. Modern and contemporary works pop from walls saturated in color, including one of eight bedrooms. (There are also nine bathrooms, seven of them full baths.) The couple’s most spectacular artistic statement is the Beverly Pepper-designed outdoor amphitheater, set in a sunken oval that is ringed Stonehenge-like by cylindrical hedges. There guests have been treated to performances by Jones, Plummer, Tommy Tune and the New York Philharmonic. Other sculpted works play more quietly, as in the Hanneke Beaumont figure that seems to be walking across the reflecting pond. “It’s its own Storm King,” Lando says, referring to the monumental outdoor modern and contemporary art center in New Windsor across the Hudson River. With so much enchantment, who would want to leave? Alas, the Weisslers, who have divided their time between New York and Florida, have other properties and projects to consider. “They’ve been here for 20 years,” Lando says. “Time to move on and let someone else enjoy it.” For more, call Anthony Lando at 917-843-9076 or Melissa Colabella at 914-438-0139 or visit landolistings.com.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

H W O E M N , E R A E Y W

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

BY C

AMI

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T EI

new year always signifies a fresh start, a time to reset and move forward. I think everyone this year could not wait to see 2020 go. 2021 will definitely have its challenges, especially the first half before we can all get vaccinated and fully resume our lives. However, everything is definitely looking brighter. The coronavirus pandemic had many of us rethinking priorities and what would be important to us once the pandemic is over. How we want to live and work has undergone a huge transformation and will be affecting us for many years. After isolating for almost a year, my husband and I realized that the home we raised our children in and lived in for almost 30 years was no longer going to suit the lifestyle we wanted as we moved forward into 2021. We realized we were living in too few of the rooms in our house, so we decided to accelerate our plans to move to New York City a few years earlier. We put our home on the market this past fall and it was quickly purchased by a young couple with a family. We were so delighted that our home would have a young family in it. The house was a family home and we were thrilled it would continue to be one. Still, downsizing from a five-bedroom house to a two-bedroom apartment in the city was a challenge. As a designer, I am almost always curating and adding furnishings and artwork to my clients' homes. Most times clients are starting from scratch. I would not be starting from scratch. It would be too difficult for me to part with beloved pieces of furniture and artwork that we have collect-

ed over the years. That being said, some furniture pieces work out more effectively in a new space than others. Seeing your pieces in a different space and light makes you realize that no matter how “good” your furniture is, no matter how careful you are with your pieces, many may need to be repaired, refinished, reupholstered or replaced. When you refresh and move furniture and artwork around, they’ll look new in a different setting. When you take the additional steps of changing the colors in your rooms and reupholstering the furniture, you are creating a new frame of reference. Adding in some completely new pieces to replace pieces that just no longer fit your new space is the chance to bring in some newer design trends. Don’t be afraid to eliminate the pieces that just don’t work. Be objective when pieces are not working and get rid of them. The most challenging issue for me was the lack of storage space in an apartment compared to a house. One trick I have learned over the years is that as many pieces of furniture that can have storage space with doors should be part of your design. It reduces clutter and makes your space feel more organized. Every single inch must be utilized: One of my antique armoires in the living room that held many beautiful sets of porcelain plates (now in storage) holds my overflow of boots and shoes. Even though we did reduce and shed many of our things, we still have a storage unit filled with items we will need to dispose of over time. This new start in the city feels completely right for us at this time. With a new space, less “stuff” to worry about or take care of, we are poised to enjoy the city and travel once the pandemic is under control. The location we picked also affords us a quick route back to our offices in Westchester County and Greenwich. The pandemic brought into focus what is important and the ways to refocus energy, creativity and renewal. Whether you are planning a move to a larger or smaller space or a totally new location, now may be a great time to do it. Truly there is no time like the present and if the pandemic has taught us anything it is that. Warm wishes for a happy New Year. Stay healthy and safe and enjoy being home. For more, call 203-661-4700 or visit camidesigns.com.

For some, it’s time to move to — or back into — the city. For others, the “move” might be a refresh in the Pantone color of the year — gray.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

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walled-in residential enclave, spanning 2.88 acres, offers an elevated landscape to match an elevated lifestyle. Setting a new standard for play, the elegant 13,283-square-foot home captures the grace of indoor-outdoor living with an exceptional backyard centered on a serene reflection pool surrounded by stunning, one-of-a-kind foliage, balmy coconut palm trees, tropical leafy plants and thousands of native trees and plants in an expansive botanical garden. The main estate has five bedrooms, four bathrooms and two half-baths, while the detached guesthouse has three bedrooms and a sitting area upstairs, with two offices, a kitchenette and a gym downstairs, plus a loggia leading to a four-car garage. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all within walking distance to the shops and restaurants of Coconut Grove and yours for $17,500,000. For more, contact Dennis Carvajal at edcarvajal@onesothebysrealty.com or 786-255-3334.

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his gated 8,192-squarefoot gem offers panoramic views of Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne off S. Bayshore Drive. Lush plantings embellish the European style courtyard with its focal fountain and driveway of old St. Louis brick.

editerranean home through a carved, 10-foot-tall portal with beveled glass and iron ornamentation, flowing through airy spaces created for entertaining. They include a paneled library with a handsome bar and a saltwater aquarium, a living room thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s separated from the library by a wall with a stately stone fireplace and a 1,600-square-foot primary bedroom suite with a sitting room and fireplace, an office and a bathroom. (There are five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms in all.) The spacious guest wing is ideal for older children, in-laws or a home office. Meanwhile, covered terraces look out onto breathtaking views. Amenities include a house generator and a new dock large enough to accommodate an 80-foot boat. For more on this property, which lists for $9,800,000, contact Gabriela Dajer at egdajer@onesothebysrealty.com or 786-290-3832.

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

P. 54 Making room for this inn

P. 58 Roger Sherman’s inn-spired reimaginingS

P. 60 Viva Las Vegas

TRAVEL

P. 64 The accidental tourism of Wes Anderson

P. 68 What’s new in the Maldives P. 76 The pop stars’ hitmaker

P. 72 Wyoming’s irresistibly wild West

The majestic beauty of Jackson’s Spring Creek Ranch. Courtesy Sloane Travel Photography.

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Scenes from this Abbey â&#x20AC;&#x201D; exteriors and, next page, the Highlands Ballroom. Courtesy The Abbey Inn & Spa.

N N I S THI

BY G E O R G E T T E G O U V E

he Abbey Inn & Spa in Peekskill opened March 18 and, well, you know what happened then. The grand opening of the hotel was eclipsed as its spa and Apropos restaurant were forced to shut down. (They’re now operating at reduced capacity.) Because the hotel was deemed by New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be an essential service, it remained open with meals delivered to guests via room service. “It was very quiet,” says Abbey general manager Gilbert Baeriswil. “We were fortunate to have the commitment to stay open.” Since then, however, things have picked up, with guests from New York City and other neighboring locales booking stays to savor executive chef John Paidas’ farm-to-table, Mediterranean-style offerings. “We try to buy local as much as we can,” Baeriswil says. Others are drawn to the hotel’s spa, with its four treatment rooms, including one for couple’s massage, fitness center, relaxation room and his and her saunas. (CDC guidelines for masks, social distancing and rigorous hygiene are strictly observed, with guests having their temperatures checked when they arrive and before they dine in the restaurant. Employees, too, have their temperatures checked daily.) The result, Baeriswil says, is that all 42 rooms and suites — including 17 with Hudson River views — have sold out at least a dozen times. Adapting to change comes natural to The Abbey. Indeed, as the name implies, it once had a higher calling. Nestled on more than 65 acres in Peekskill’s historic Fort Hill section — the city was the site of a Revolutionary War battle — The Abbey complex was begun in 1876 and expanded

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through 1963 as the home of the Episcopal Sisters of St. Mary, the oldest extant religious community in the United States. In 2003, the sisters moved to Greenwich, a town in Washington County, New York, selling the property to Ginsburg Development Corp. in Valhalla. For more than a decade the abbey sat empty, as the Great Recession clipped the wings of real estate developers. In 2017, however, its transformation began in earnest with Ginsburg architects and designers preserving much of the stone and brick exterior, Baeriswil says, while reimagining the interior in a modern fashion with warm earth tones. But even there, visitors will observe the religious grace notes. In the 742-squarefoot Cornerstone Room, suited to intimate gatherings of 30 to 64, historic, hand-painted ecclesiastical wall coverings and stainedglass windows serve as a backdrop, while the 2,183-square-foot Highlands Ballroom, site of the nuns’ former chapel with its vaulted ceiling and Romanesque altar, provides a dramatic

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setting for the larger gatherings (60 to 120 people) that will eventually be returning. Another reminder of the inn’s past — a 1,000-pound bell manufactured by the Meneely Bell Co. of West Troy, New York, which was installed in the belfry in 1902 — is still in place today. Overseeing it all is a man whose name will be familiar to those readers who have been with this incarnation of WAG since its inception with the February 2011 “Royal Treatment” issue. Back then Baeriswil was the general manager of the Castle Hotel & Spa in Tarrytown, a post he held from 2003 to 2015. After that he was at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont, owned by the Von Trapp Family of “The Sound of Music” fame. It was while managing a private golf club that Baeriswil got a call from The Abbey in February 2019. A month later, he was on the scene there and a year after that ready for its debut when life decided otherwise. “You have to deal with it,” he says. “Make the best out of the hand you’re dealt and run with it.” For more, visit theabbeyinn.com.

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Courtesy Dewi Morgan / Creative Commons.

t is not uncommon for a hospitality destination to reinvent itself in response to changing times, trends and tastes. But few establishments have ever experienced the dramatic evolutions of New Canaan’s Roger Sherman Inn.

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The landmark dates from the mid- or late18th century — historical sources offer differing dates regarding when construction actually took place on the 22-acre lot at Haynes Ridge Road, the original name of the thoroughfare that is today’s Oenoke Ridge Road. It was the home of the Rev. Justus Mitchell, minister of the Congregational Church, and his wife, Martha Sherman, the niece of the Continental Congress delegate Roger Sherman. In addition to providing for the parish’s

spiritual needs, Mitchell was also responsible for establishing a private school and a library. However, Mitchell was not a modern-style progressive — the school was designed to prepare young men for an education at Yale University while the library’s membership was restricted to what the late 18th century described as “gentlemen contributors.” HISTORIC TURNAROUNDS The Rev. William Bonney, who succeeded Mitchell as the pastor for the Congregational Church, purchased the house in 1809. It changed hands four times during the first part of the 19th century until New York financier William E. Bond acquired it, in 1868 and made expansive renovations befitting the extravagant aesthetics that defined the Gilded Age tycoons. The property would change hands again in 1925 when J. Herbert and Louise Stevenson Tebbetts acquired the space, adding more rooms and a wraparound porch. But rather than maintaining a private residence, the Tebbetts opened the building with a twin purpose — as a 17-room lodging spot known as the Holmewood Inn and an educational facility called the Holmewood Junior School. The Tebbetts’ school closed after three years, but the inn remained operational and quickly became a local favorite for its emphasis on fine dining. It was purchased by hotelier John D. Shea in 1946 and was sold in 1960 to a New Jersey country club manager named Roger Sherman Ross, a direct descendant of the colonial patriot, for whom it was renamed. ENTER THE JAFFRES Real estate investors Nesreen and Joseph Jaffre, who previously owned Le Château in South Salem, bought the Roger Sherman Inn in 2008 for $3.4 million with the goal of continuing the establishment’s culinary reputation. The Jaffres brought in Christophe Cadou as the executive chef and the inn’s cred spread beyond New Canaan. In a November 2008 review, New York Times restaurant critic Patricia Brooks lavishly praised Cadou’s creations, proclaiming, “It’s been a long time since I have seen a menu so appealing that I’ve wanted to order every single dish … Not only was almost every dish expertly prepared and very fresh-tasting, but the plate presentations were uniformly lovely and appetite-inspiring, without looking ‘played with.’” Brooks gave particular attention to Cadou’s roasted Colorado rack of lamb with thyme-rosemary jus, noting how she has not enjoyed “such tender, flavorful lamb in a very long while.” She also gave kudos to pastry chef Chelsea Spielmann, noting that her dessert creations “were as perfect as the rest of the meal.” Alas, the delicious meals were not enough to shield

the inn from the tumult of the Great Recession. With a shrinking revenue stream and what appeared to be limited opportunities for a turnaround — as well as the defection of Cadou from the kitchen in 2013 — the Jaffres listed the inn for sale in August 2014 at $6 million. After remaining on the market for more than two years, a sale was announced — not to a hotelier, but to Rowayton real estate developer Andy Glazer, who offered to buy the property and transform it into a development with eight single-family homes. ‘HOSTING’ PRINCE HARRY The Jaffres initially announced the closure of the inn in January 2017 pending the planning and zoning commission’s approval of the sale. But local opposition to Glazer’s plans was well-organized and highly vocal and the commission rejected Glazer’s initial proposal and two updated ones. “Although it is a staple in New Canaan, the community needs to know that it requires their support,” said Nes Jaffre in a September 2017 interview with the Fairfield County Business Journal. “It requires the public’s help in keeping it open. This is not a building that is supported by government grants or public subsidies. You can’t go there once a year and claim that you are supporting it.” The Jaffres managed to chart a new course by recruiting François Kwaku-Dongo, the Ivory Coastborn chef who gained international prominence in 1991 as executive chef at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in West Hollywood. Kwaku-Dongo’s presence at the inn created a media frenzy and brought renewed attention to the establishment. Clever promotions, including viewing parties for the Kentucky Derby and Prince Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle, brought in more patrons, and all seemed to be full-systemsgo when 2020 rolled around. Of course, 2020 was not the year anyone expected and the inn reinvented itself yet again as the Covid-19 pandemic temporarily forced its closure. Following the lead of other eateries, the inn launched its “Roger on the Go” menu for curbside pickup, offering some rather eclectic takeout choices, including Escargots à la Bourguignonne, Beef Stroganoff and Lamb Osco Buco. Outdoor dining resumed in May along with live music by socially distanced local performers. July, brought more good news with Cadou’s return after a seven-year absence. “We can’t be more thrilled,” Nes Jaffre exclaimed on Facebook. “I know you will be too. Whew! Relief!!!” What’s next for the Roger Sherman Inn? If we learned anything from 2020, it is that the future is impossible to forecast. But smart money will say that the celebrated establishment will change with the times and still be in the spotlight for years to come. Roger Sherman Inn is at 195 Oenoke Ridge Road. For more, call 203-966-4541 or visit rogershermaninn.com.

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V S E G A L AS A V IV

Slot Machines. Photograph by Steve Sawusch on Upsplash.

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Las Vegas view #1 (Eiffel Tower).â&#x20AC;¨Photograph by Mike Boening on Upsplash.

Celluloid Vegas

A timeless setting for romance and caper movies, Las Vegas has starred in any number of films, including:

“Diamonds Are Forever” (1971)

A slightly plodding James Bond movie, saved by Sean Connery in his last assignment as 007, with 1970s Las Vegas as a fast-paced, glitzy, rollicking backdrop.'

ambling was the last great hold-out paradigm of puritanical reproof, the great sin that the Pilgrims sought to expunge, practically before they had left the stony beach by Plymouth Rock.

Clean-living New England has long been almost superstitiously hostile to gambling, while Dutch-mercantile New York, in so many ways the most liberal and yet one of the most formal of states, has had an almost schizophrenic attitude towards it. On the one hand, gambling had long been held to be the eighth deadly sin and was therefore outlawed. On the other, New Yorkers found themselves to be inveterate and unapologetic gamblers at heart, and hence the prevalence of gaming dens, poker rooms, dodgy pool halls and dice joints (immortalized in Damon Runyon’s “On Broadway” collection of short stories and the Runyonesque “Guys & Dolls” musical). These days, more New Yorkers buy lottery tickets than punters of other state, with an incredible 92% participation for some of the biggest prize-draw games. As for online gambling, while it is easily accessible, it is still held to be technically illegal in New York. (I tried my own test in the interests of investigative journalism: I opened an online account in 18 seconds flat, joined a Blackjack game and promptly lost $45 in under a minute.) When it comes to bricks-and-mortar casinos, there are now plenty of opportunities to play electronic games in Queens and the Bronx, as well as all over the state, although for live dealer games you will need to head to the super-sized casino resorts of Connecticut and New Jersey. But for sheer adrenalin-inducing ka-ching, for mesmeric, eyes-out-on-stalks-gaudiness, for anything-you-can-do-we-can-do-bigger-and-better extravagance, there is still nowhere on earth like Las Vegas. ORIGIN STORY Gambling was legalized in Vegas in 1931, primarily to offer diversion to the 5,000 or so men brought in to the desert settlement during the building of the Boulder — later Hoover Dam. In, 1941, Thomas Hull, a hotelier, opened El Rancho Vegas, the first resort on what would become the famed Las Vegas strip. That same decade, mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel oversaw the bumpy development of the

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1988)

Adapted from Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel and now a cult classic, the film stars a young Johnny Depp and an even younger Benicio del Toro exploring the city under the influence of psychotropic drugs.

“Honeymoon in Vegas” (1992)

Commitment-phobic Jack Singer (Nicolas Cage) has to rethink his values when a con man takes off with his fiancée (Sarah Jessica Parker) in settlement of a debt in a romcom that reminds us that Elvis has never left the building.

“Indecent Proposal” (1993)

Playing against type, Robert Redford is the controlling tycoon who makes out-of-their-Vegas-depths husband and wife Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore an offer they should refuse but don’t in this money-can’t-buy-everything morality tale.

“Leaving Las Vegas” (1995)

Down on his luck and with suicide in mind, angst-ridden Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage, again) heads to Vegas, where hard-bitten sex worker Sera (Elisabeth Shue) skewers his plan.

“Ocean’s Eleven” (1960)

Danny Ocean (Frank Sinatra) and his World War II-era Rat Pack cronies conspire to pull off the biggest heist in Las Vegas history. “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) Danny Ocean (George Clooney in the Sinatra role) and the gang get plotting in a remake of the 1960 movie — with more thrills than the original and not an Nespresso machine in sight. (Followed by “Ocean’s 12,” “Ocean’s 13” and “Ocean’s 8,” the last a female version led by Sandra Bullock as Danny’s kid sister.)

“Rain Man” (1988)

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (for Dustin Hoffman) this story of an autistic man’s odyssey with his embittered younger brother (Tom Cruise), which includes a key side trip to Vegas, is really the poignant tale of one man’s journey to becoming his brother’s keeper and features one of Cruise’s best performances.

“Viva Las Vegas” (1964)

Racing driver Lucky (Elvis Presley) and swimming instructor Rusty (Ann-Margret) cavort around Vegas in this endearing 1960s romantic musical, considered one of The King’s best.

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PERSONAL MEMOIR NO. 1 My parents went to Las Vegas when I was a kid, 10 or 11 I think. It was an age when most kids were into dinosaurs but I remember I was into big cats at the time — lions, tigers and that sort of thing. My father returned home to London, proud of the fact that he had not put so much as one dime into a slot machine. My mother returned with a slim volume I’m guessing she found in a last-minute, gift-buying panic at the hotel gift shop or airport, without bothering to look between the covers, but certain it would be perfect for her little boy back home. It was called “The Best Cat Houses in Nevada.”

Flamingo Hotel (now the Flamingo Las Vegas). Though its initial opening on Dec. 26, 1946 was a failure, the hotel began turning a profit the following year. (Too late, though, for Siegel, who was murdered in the Beverly Hills home of girlfriend Virginia Mayo on June 20, 1947 — a tale told in the 1991 Warren Beatty movie “Bugsy” one of many films for which Vegas has served as muse. See sidebar.) It was the beginning of Las Vegas’ notoriety, a reputation that went along with the city’s establishment as the cabaret capital of America, ultimately hosting Liberace, Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra’s The Rat Pack. Famously clock-less, Las Vegas is actually the city that never sleeps. (Sorry, New York.) You can get a pastrami sandwich or a seven-course gourmet meal, drink alcohol, swim, visit the botanical gardens (at the Bellagio Hotel,) get married and of course gamble, 24 hours a day. NOT ONLY FOR TOURISTS Vegas, though is surprisingly liveable

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“Guys & Dolls” Original Cast album cover. Photograph by Jeremy Wayne.

— with well-planned suburbs, great supermarkets, five dog parks downtown (something of which we at WAG heartily approve) and extremely modest taxation. Nevada’s taxes are the lowest in the nation. In addition, Las Vegas has a world class art museum, a vibrant arts district and its own philharmonic orchestra. As for food, once you’ve sampled the “once in a lifetime” experiences at restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s CUT or Jean-Georges’ ARIA (note: all serious restaurants in Las Vegas must be spelled out in upper-case,) the developing local food scene is fully worth investigating. FUN FACT The shrimp consumption in Las Vegas is more than 60,000 pounds per day, higher than the rest of the states combined.

PERSONAL MEMOIR NO. 2 The first time I was in Las Vegas I bet the farm and lost. With every cent gone and every card maxed out, I had to walk to the airport in the dark — a 4 mile trek. Somehow, as I neared McCarran International, I took a wrong turn and found myself blocked. To make my flight I was going to have to scale a fairly low barbedwire fence, which was easy enough to do, although I did hear an ominous sound as I dropped down over the other side. Another couple hundred yards and I was safely in the terminal building, where I discovered that the back of my beloved Burberry had been ripped to shreds. Seems I had lost my raincoat as well as my shirt that night. Completely true story by the way. PERSONAL MEMOIR NO.3 The second — and last time — I was in Vegas was in 1992. We rocked up at Caesar’s Palace, my then girlfriend and me, and discovered Sinatra was performing that evening at the Desert Inn. “Any chance of a couple of tickets?” I asked the concierge, expecting to be laughed out of town. Sure thing, said the concierge, and two modestly priced tickets — I forget how much — were produced. I didn’t even like Sinatra that much in those days. He was from my dad’s generation, but I knew he was a legend and since he’d already retired several times, there would be few opportunities to hear him live again. By then the old voice had pretty much gone but it didn’t matter, because those perfect-pitch, warbling notes were attacked with pure gravel and finger-clicking syncopation instead, and everyone in the audience that night felt he had hit the jackpot. So you see, what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas.

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illy Koval is the name of the man who in 2017 founded @AccidentallyWesAnderson, an Instagram community of “adventurers” (as Koval calls them,) now numbering more than one million, inspired by American film director Wes Anderson’s distinctively loopy, psychologically acute style.

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E From left: Kayak on Lake Tekapo, South Island, New Zealand (circa 1855). Photograph by Frida Berg. From above: Roberts Cottages, Oceanside, California, (circa 1928). Photograph by Paul Fuentes.

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Anderson himself has an endless fascination with hotels and travel, from stylized romance in his 2007 short, “Hotel Chevalier” (starring Jason Schwartzman and Natalie Portman,) set in Paris, to bonding with the local Italians in “Castello Cavalcanti” (Schwartzman again,) to the quirky travels of three brothers (Schwartzman once again, with Owen Wilson and Adrien Brody) through India in “The Darjeeling Limited.” In “The Grand Budapest Hotel” — a Russian nesting doll of narratives that’s proved to be Anderson’s highest grossing film to date — an author interviews a wealthy hotel owner about his humble beginnings as a lobby boy who learned what it really means to live life with style from an oily but ultimately honorable concierge (played by Ralph Fiennes). Typically shooting with wide-angle, anamorphic lenses — which can alter and heighten perspective, serving to unnerve and reassure the audience simultaneously — and favoring symmetrical lines, pastel colors and precise composition, Anderson makes eccentric films unlike any others. Says Koval: “You know what a Wes Anderson shot looks like it when you see it.” Indeed you do. Now Koval and his wife, Amanda, who runs the Instagram site with him from their Brooklyn base, have collected the most striking of these Insta images, reflecting the film director’s original style, in “Accidentally Wes Anderson” (Voracious/ Little, Brown and Co., $35, 354 pages). It’s a tome to covet, as readable and practical as it is “coffee-table.” It is also endorsed by Anderson and with a foreword by him, even though by the director’s own admission the photographs have been taken by people he has never met and show places and things he has almost never seen. In the introduction, Koval writes, “We encourage you to use this collection to find your next adventure and guide your travels.” What the Kovals have done in fact is to produce a primer, a vade mecum if you will, one that effortlessly sells itself. Dripping with more than 200 delicious images, it has no end of places to motivate, inspire and amuse, as we sit at home, armchair travelers still, eagerly awaiting the Covid vaccine and counting the days until all travel restrictions are lifted. Here are six of my favorites:

Vizhinjam Old Portuguese Church, Kerala, India Churches don’t come much prettier — or

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more symmetrical — than this 19th century one, built by the Portuguese who ruled this part of India for more than 450 years. My first visit to India, over 25 years ago now, was to Kerala, but I missed seeing this beauty. Guess I’ll just have to go back.

kept secret. I only discovered them myself a couple of years ago, alerted by a Canadian friend, an ex-swimming champion. Owned by the local council, a membership here will cost you a mere $30 a month (waived for the first year) — but only if you live locally.

Yazd Science Museum, Yazd, Iran Vaccine or no vaccine, and even with the most “glass half-full” outlook, I don’t imagine heading to Iran any time soon, which is a pity, since it’s a magnificent country, full of awe-inspiring architecture and antiquities, Majestic mountain ranges, vast lakes and empty deserts. When I do eventually return, you can be sure that Yazd and its Science Museum will be one of my first stops.

Roberts Cottage, Oceanside, California On the one hand, the California palms, the salmon-pink pastel cottages and the gorgeous eau-de-nil camper van make me want to pack a bag and go west right now. On the other hand, there is something faintly unsettling about the banality of these picture-perfect cottages in Oceanside, just north of San Diego — something I can’t quite put my finger on.

Kayak on Lake Tekapo, Mackenzie Country, South Island, New Zealand Have you been to Mackenzie Country, on the South Island of New Zealand, recently? Me neither. In fact, I have never been to New Zealand. But after seeing this fabulous photo, New Zealand and Tekapo are going straight on to my bucket lake, er, list. Marshall Street Baths, London, England These glorious baths, opened in 1850, a stone’s throw from Carnaby Street in the center of London, may just be the capital’s best-

Claromecó Lighthouse, Buenos Aires, Argentina If Coco Chanel or André Courrèges had designed lighthouses, you might well think one of them had designed this stunner, which reaches 177 feet into the Argentinian sky — the second tallest in South America. Chic is not a word you’d generally ascribe to a lighthouse but this one undoubtedly possesses “chic” in abundance.. For more, visit accidentallywesanderson.com and @AccidentallyWesAnderson on Instagram.

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T N H I E M W E A N L D S â&#x20AC;&#x2122; I T V A E H S W

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Green turtles around Lhavyani atoll. Photograph by Ray Van Eedden.

The Villas at Kudadoo, aerial view. Courtesy Kudadoo.

ou might say the only problem with the Republic of Maldives — that archipelagic nation of almost 1,200 islands, which dot the Indian Ocean across the Equator like fragments of shattered glass — is getting there, as there are no direct flights from the USA.

Hurawalhi, aerial view.  Courtesy Hurawalhi Island Resort.

Then again, I can think of worse ways to spend 18 hours than flying to Malé, the Maldives’ pint-size “capital” in my own first-class suite on Emirates, with a twohour layover in Dubai for a spot of duty-free airport shopping before the real vacation begins. Goodness knows, there’s nothing to buy in Maldives once you get there, except shells and snorkels and bathing suits, though believe me, you wouldn’t want it any other way. First, some context. Along with their intense beauty and peerless marine life, it’s the sheer remoteness of the Maldives that makes the islands so alluring. Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka and the nearest city of any size, lies 500 miles to the northeast. To the west, there’s Nairobi, 2,500 miles away. And heading south there is absolutely nothing. Unless you count Antarctica. A former British colony cast seemingly adrift in — to pinch poet Samuel Coleridge’s phrase — “a wide, wide (Arabian) sea,” the Maldives rely heavily on tourism to keep its fragile economy afloat. Over the last

decade, the atolls have seen numbers of U.S. visitors slowly but steadily increasing, at a time when the American government is looking to establish an embassy there. With a population of barely half a million, however, roughly the same as Sacramento, California, spread out over around 200 islands, the Maldives is never going to feel crowded. You step off the plane and blink at the blinding morning light. Americans do not require a visa for the Maldives and so you whisk through immigration and make your way to the jetty for your ongoing journey, by boat or perhaps by seaplane, to your resort. It’s been five years since I was last in the Maldives and in that short time, and despite the past year lost to the pandemic, a number of luxury new resorts have opened. Of course, the effects of growing tourism on the ecosystem is another matter, although responsible government appears to be on top of it, protecting the marine life, promoting recycling and solar power and limiting destructive waste. Launched four years ago, Hurawalhi Island is an adults-only resort on Lhaviyani atoll, a great diving center with more than 50 dive sites to explore one of the Indian Ocean’s richest reefs. Accommodations on Hurawalhi look superb, with overwater villas, villas with their own infinity pools and others with their own private beach — or both. Along with its other three restaurants and two bars, the resort also boasts the world’s largest underwater all-glass restaurant, called 5.8, where you feast on smoked lobster with sea urchin mousse and panseared red mullet with Beluga coconut broth — though if tucking into fish and shellfish, as their cousins swim past your table seems a little indelicate, there are plenty of dairy, meat and vegetarian alternatives. Indeed, the abundant reef that surrounds the resort hosts more than 2,000 species of fish and more than 200 species

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Bathtub at Kudadoo Spa. Courtesy Kudadoo.

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

of coral, while the atoll is also home to the Maldives’ largest population of endangered green turtles, magnificent herbivorous creatures each weighing up to 350 pounds. Over on Ithaafushi atoll, a 40 minute-glide from the airport in one of the resort’s private yachts, the brand-new Waldorf Astoria Ithaafushi is the latest property in the Waldorf’s glamorous portfolio, adding luster to this revitalized luxury brand. Strung out over three private islands, the resort offers 122 villas, overwater, reef or right on the beach. The overwater villas are the largest, each with its own infinity pool, deck and outdoor gazebo. A little glitzier than some resorts, Waldorf Astoria is nevertheless going to have legions of fans, who are already sharing their enthusiasm on social media, and as for the 24-carat gold facial, offered in the resort’s 10 treatment villa spa, it is leaving guests glowing in all senses. For an exquisite property with a French

twist, consider Randheli, in the heart of the Noonu atoll. This is one from the small and extremely stylish Cheval Blanc hotel group, which is in turn a part of the LVMH luxury empire. Randheli is the sort of place favoured by people who know they have “arrived” without having to shout about it, where privacy and discretion are key and a rock-star, a Housewife of New Jersey or a quiet Parisian attorney will all be treated equally, with quiet courtesy. In short, no posturing — either by guests or staff. Randheli’s Guerlain spa is situated on an entire island of its own, and the food in this chic resort is some of the best in all the islands — no matter what or where you eat, be it dinner at Le 47 gourmet restaurant, a resort-prepared picnic for two on a sandbar or a meal while watching a movie in bed. Back on Lhaviyani atoll is Hurawalhi’s sister resort of Kudadoo, the only fully solar-powered luxury resort in the Maldives. With 15 overwater residences sleeping up to 34 guests — each with its own butler, naturally — Kudadoo offers entire property buyouts with dining, access to an expansive wine cellar (including seven different Champagnes), all spa treatments and private water experiences fully included in the price per night. What’s more, guests arriving by private jet can land at the new, local North Malé atoll airport for the 45-minute journey to the resort on board Kudadoo’s private yacht, Bella. It’s the only Maldivian island to offer this kind of fully-inclusive luxury, which is to say anything, anytime, anywhere. Nothing, it seems, exceeds like excess and yes, as they say in the classics: It will take an awful lot of this to kill you. Under current requirements, a negative PCR test conducted no more than 96 hours prior to departure, as well as an online health declaration form submitted no more than 24 hours before departure, are both needed before traveling to the Maldives. For more, visit hurawalhi.com, waldorfastoria.com, chevalblanc.com, kudadoo.com and visitmaldives.com.

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The majestic beauty of Jackson’s Spring Creek Ranch.

Aren’t they Grand? The Tetons, of course.

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hy oh why Wyoming? Because: From Jackson Hole in the West to Buffalo in the Northeast and everything in between, this is a land of staggering natural beauty, offering an authentic Western experience. From its two national parks, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, to rodeos, river rafting, resorts, ranches, scenic woodlands and a wonderland of wildlife, Wyoming is nature experienced up close and very personal. THE LAST OF THE OLD WEST I visited Wyoming for the first time last year and was delighted to find that the town of Jackson (Jackson Hole is the name of the valley) is the gateway to nearby Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone National Park and the National Elk Refuge. Often described as the “Crown Jewel” of the Rockies, downtown Jackson is dotted with upscale cafés, shops and art galleries and enjoys the glitz and glamour that wealthy travelers and West Coast expats have brought to this former cattle ranching community. But, glitz aside, I experienced Jackson Hole’s Old West Days celebration, and if you set your sights for May 22 through 31, maybe you can, too. C’mon, by then it’s just possible that travel will be safer and you can make this happen — and guaranteed this event will put you smack in the heart of the old, romantic West. A ‘HOLE’ LOTTA FUN Celebrating Jackson Hole’s heritage through art, food, music and dance, the Old

West Days event includes country and western music, cowboys spouting poetry and a Mountain Man Rendezvous where old-time artisans work the magic of their trades. A highlight of the weekend is the Old West Parade, one of the last and best horsedrawn parades today. Kids will love the stagecoach rides and shoot-out reenactments. In fact, the shoot-out on Town Square is the longest-running shoot-out in the country. This historic Square has an old Hollywood western feel with its wooden boardwalks, galleries of western art, old-time candy stores and good restaurants. To add to the merriment, there’s yodeling, clogging, line dancing, pickin’, fiddlin’ and bagpipes, too. Clearly, Old West Days provides a memorable fun weekend for the whole, multigenerational family. Besides Old West Days, there’s a lot more hootin’ and hollerin’ to be done in and around Jackson. For an authentic chuck wagon supper and western show, visit the Bar J Chuckwagon. Originally a working cattle ranch, the place has the atmosphere of cattle drives in the 1800s. After a hard day in the saddle, there was always an evening of tall tales and music at the chuck wagon. This tradition continues at the Bar J. A rib-stickin’ old-style western meal is followed by songs and stories performed by the Bar J Wranglers. I found myself caught up in cheery chuck wagon revelry, singing along to “Tumblin’ Tumbleweed” and other western golden oldies. Another day, I took a scenic float down the Snake River with Sands Wild Water River Trips, a mustdo. Although this company offers wild white water rafting, I opted for a slow, leisurely raft float, my chance to sit back and let myself be enthralled by spectacular views of the majestic Teton Mountains surrounding me. Although the Snake is a fast-moving river, on my float I spotted a red fox and, deep in the pines, I saw a large black splotch with jutting white spikes that our guide swore was a moose. There were two bald eagles swooping low over the water while hawks and herons were our constant companions as they flew alongside our raft. Not yet having my fill of wildlife, I visited the National Museum of Wildlife Art, an imaginatively designed sandstone building overlooking the National Elk Refuge with a 5,000-piece collection of animal art ranging from the fantastical to the utterly realistic and including several etchings by Pablo Picasso. There’s also a Children’s Discovery Gallery, free to kids. Judging from the squeals of delight emanating from the room, it’s safe to say the kids were having a blast. At A-OK Corral, there were no gunfights here but cowboy fun? Yes, lots. From the back of my chestnut-colored mare (that promised to be slow and steady), I had a panoramic view of the heart-stop-

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ping Gros Ventre Wilderness and Teton mountain range, the fields ablaze with pink, yellow and purple wildflowers. All of the horses at A-OK Corral are well-mannered and mountain-wise and there’s a horse here for all riding abilities. After all, they even found one for me. READY FOR SOME PAMPERING There are a host of world-class, luxury resorts here, and I was lucky enough to visit a few of them. At Amangani, (“peaceful home”), Eastern serenity meets Old West Americana and international glamour. The property clings to the crest of East Gros Ventre Butte, some 7,000 feet above sea level, overlooking Jackson. Towering floor-to-ceiling columns of Oklahoma sandstone, walks amid Pacific redwoods and chairs of rattan and woven cowhide are part of Amangani, which has its roots in the cattle ranches that wind through the valley below and in the mountains that rise up as a backdrop to wide-open plains.

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Nestled in a secluded valley, Amangani has a casual vibe, although the amenities rival any luxe resort on the planet. There’s a heated infinity pool, a sigh-inducing Asian spa and a restaurant that produces standout fare. In my mystical, Zen-inspired room, I lit a fire, opened the drapes and languished in the bathtub while gazing at the sky and the Tetons beyond. The Four Seasons Resort, high in the Teton Mountains and on the doorstep of both national parks, is a magnificent natural hideaway retreat, an alpine lodge with seductive sophistication plus the typical comfort, care and personal, intuitive service we have come to recognize as distinctly Four Seasons. Spring Creek Ranch is utterly secluded yet totally accessible with unmatched views, luxury accommodations and a quiet western elegance situated just five miles from the Town Square on a 1,000-acre wildlife refuge. I dined at its award-winning Granary Restaurant in a unique,

The stagecoach pulls into Jackson. Courtesy Sloane Travel Photography.

cliffside setting facing the Tetons. So mesmerized was I by the awe-inspiring views, I almost forgot to order dinner but glad I didn’t. It was wonderful, leaving me a bit wistful, like the sound of the buteo jamaicensis, red-tailed hawk, easily identified in Jackson by its mannerisms. The hawks usually leave their perch with slow, distinct wing beats. A shrill, rasping cry is often heard as they fly off to search for their prey. No shrill cry for me, it was just a melancholy sigh as I slowly and sadly left my perch in magical, wondrous Wyoming. For more, visit jacksonholechamber. com.

CELEBRATING LIFE, LOVE, & THE POWER OF FLOWERS SINCE 1925 4th Generation, Locally Grown & Locally Owned

www.BlossomFlower.com 914.237.2511 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

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f the name of Woodstock songwriter Jules Shear doesn’t instantly ring any bells, perhaps the titles of some the hits he’s written for others will. Cyndi Lauper’s recording of Shear’s “All Through The Night,” from her multiplatinum, Grammy Award-winning album “She’s So Unusual” went to No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Bangles’ cover of “If She Knew What She Wants” was the second single from the band’s best-selling “Different Light” album and Alison Moyet’s rendition of “Whispering Your Name” was a hit in the United States and the United Kingdom. Shear, himself, has released more than a dozen albums under his own name, including 1985’s “The Eternal Return,” which included the single “Steady,” co-written with Lauper. His new album “Slower” (Funzalo), described as his “most personal work to date,” is a collection of songs about embracing the prospect and process of aging, which comes with the benefit of being able to “sit around and eat sugar all day,” from the song of the same name. Shear was kind enough to answer a few questions shortly after the release of the album:

Jules, you are a performer whom I would describe as the definition of someone who plays well with others, beginning with your membership in bands such as Funky Kings, Jules and the Polar Bears and Reckless Sleepers. Additionally, you have a history of songwriting collaborations with Lauper, Aimee Mann, Matthew Sweet and Rick Danko as well as your wife, Pal Shazar. What makes you such a good creative partner? “Well, I don't think that I'm a particularly good collaborator. I will try from time to time, but I'd rather write by myself. Those five that you noted are or were great people that were just fun to hang out with.” Despite not being “a particularly good collaborator,” one of the best examples of your collaborative nature is your 1998 album “Between Us,” on which you performed duets with Rosanne Cash, Patty Griffin, Carole King, Suzzy Roche, Amy Rigby and Ron Sexsmith. Were these songs written with the

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

Dogs appear in the album artwork for on “Eternal Return,” “Between Us” and “More,” and your 1983 solo debut album was titled “Watch Dog.” Can you please say something about the role that dogs play in your life? “I've had four dogs at this point and they've all had their own thang. I've loved them all and I think they've liked me, too. All were mixed breeds, not that they'd know.” Your previously mentioned history of playing well with others continues on your new album “Slower,” which features the return of guest musician John Sebastian (of The Lovin’ Spoonful and “Welcome Back Kotter” theme song fame), as well as Sara Lee (of Gang of Four). What made Sara and John a good fit for this album? “Sara kind of lives in the neighborhood. I always wanted to use her and finally got the chance. I saw John at the health food store. He asked what I was up to and when I told him, he said he'd play. I asked him, ‘How about tomorrow?’ He showed up and played great, but he was also really fun to hang out with. (A) great guy.”

intention of being duets or is that something that came about later? ‘I don't think they were written with those people in mind, but they were written to be duets with someone. I think I wrote those songs by myself, then used my duet partners during recording.” Jules Shear’s been a hit machine for everyone from Cyndi Lauper to The Bangles. Photographs by Dion Ogust.

Some of your songs have been covered by others, including Lauper (“All Through The Night”), Moyet (“Whispering Your Name”), ‘Til Tuesday (with Aimee Mann, “Everything’s Different Now”) and The Bangles (“If She Knew What She Wants,” as well as an entire album of your songs by Iain Matthews. Do you have an all-time favorite cover version? “I guess that Cyndi's would be my favorite because it did the best. Plus, I got to sing the background vocals on Cyndi's version. That was fun.” Is there a dream cover artist you would like to sing one of your songs? “Yeah. Eric Clapton. Whatever song he'd want, that'd be fine with me.”

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Heaven and hell are recurring themes on “Slower,” in songs such as “It Came Down From Heaven,” “Between Hell and Hello” and “Sugar All Day.” Can you please say a few words about that? “You know, I didn't even realize that it was a theme. I was just writing every day and didn't realize it until I was sequencing. Then I realized that I had a recurring theme here. So I put them together. I didn't know, I swear.” “It’s Love” is a wonderful love song. Of all the various subjects for a song, are love songs easier or harder to write? “I suppose that it's a common theme for songs. Yet they're all different. I like having a reason to write one though. That's good.” What do you enjoy most about living in Woodstock, New York? “It's beautiful here. Good people, too. Plus, good places to walk the dogs. I first came here to work with Todd Rundgren. He was nice enough to give me time in his guest house (while I tried) to find a place to live. I just stayed.” For more, visit julesshearshow.com.

FOOD & SPIRITS

P. 80 Behold The White Horse

P. 82 Fortified (and fortifying) wines

P. 84 Toast the new year with an egg roast

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

H T E W D L HITE HO O H EB RSE

RY AN D PH

OG OT RA

YJ ER E MY

NE WAY

The White Horse pub sign. Fireplace at The White Horse.â&#x20AC;¨

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hile London, England, was on almost full lockdown at the end of last year, preventing folks from leaving the city and heading off to a country pub for a typical Sunday pub lunch, the irony was not lost on me that, here in New York I was able to do exactly that. Not that there is any room for complacency with Covid, but we take our pleasures where we can safely find them. The pub in question, The White Horse Country Pub & Restaurant is in the village of Marbledale in the southwest corner of the Litchfield Hills, a picturesque pocket made even more popular (and house prices even more astronomical) on account of nearby Washington, Connecticut, being the setting for the Netflix series “The Gilmore Girls.” The pub was established by Brit John Harris and wife Lisa 11 years ago, but you’d think from its interior, complete with beams, nooks and fireplaces, that it had been here for a century at least. It’s also as near to a British country pub as you’re likely to find anywhere east of Cornwall, consistently winning all manner of awards for its upscale pub food and charming ambiance. A third reason its legions of fans love The White Horse is for its memorabilia, a collection of art and artifacts as random as it is riveting. A Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Christmas card might jockey for position with a photograph of Winston Churchill, signed by his daughter, Sarah, while a swatch of Martha Washington’s wedding dress competes for wall space with a 20 shilling note, dating from 1773, “from the Great British Colony of Connecticut.” Seals, deeds and proclamations from parliament act as wallpaper. A Rolling Stones guitar, meanwhile hangs just by the deck doors and, behind the bar, a 1920s Indian Scout motorbike is suspended in all its glory. Think Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar (Thieves’ Market) married with London’s Portobello Road, with a touch of Brooklyn’s Flea market thrown into the mix.

A seasoned restaurateur who has also worked in the construction industry, Harris has the instincts of a marketing man, so complete is The White Horse’s devotion to branding. Apart from the pub sign itself — an 1840 original that once hung outside a pub of the same name in Mayfair, London — the current White Horse motif abounds. It is printed on the paper bands that ring the real cloth napkins, seared onto hamburger buns, even sculpted in pastry and standing proud on top of the pub’s signature chicken pot pie, proud as a…well, as a white horse. THE FOOD’S THE THING Oh, the pot pie. Even without its flowery menu description, this pie’s a winner. Cubed chicken and vegetables luxuriate in a cream sauce prinked with Chardonnay, all cohabiting amicably under the lightest pastry crust. Whether pot pies really were “an important element of a royal chef’s repertoire,” or whether this one “would definitely win the King’s favor,” is anybody’s guess, but nobody’s likely to mind the tongue-incheek prose, nor Harris hamming it up for all it’s worth. The White Horse bucks two principles for success. In the first, it is often said in the trade that when a restaurant has a view, the quality of the food will always play second fiddle to the outlook. Yet, at The White Horse, which sits dreamily on the banks of the fast-flowing East Aspetuck River, the food is never compromised. The second standard it breaks is that the quality of the food is in inverse proportion to the length of the menu, because while the menu here is a blockbuster bill of fare, dish after mouth-watering dish presented in striking neo-Gothic font on four sides of heavy, crisp white cartridge paper, the caliber of the cooking stays consistently high. Like all good British pub menus, The White Horse cherry-picks (I hesitate to say “appropriates”) the very best dishes from around the globe. At lunch there are croque messieurs from France, Mexican nachos and quesadillas, lamb koftas and chicken wraps with a nod to the British Raj and a fantastic Shrimp Louie, the classic West Coast salad of shrimp, lettuce, egg and tomato in a tangy, paprika-primped Thousand Island dressing. At both lunch and dinner there’s a glorious version of chicken tikka masala, the mild chicken curry which is held — not entirely jokingly — to be Britain’s national dish. There are burgers galore, and they are excellent, and seafood abounds. Mussels are served either à la marinière, or Belgian-style, with a side of fries; coquilles Saint-Jacques (scallops) come with their

requisite mashed potatoes; and lobster pie is an exuberant dish of Maine lobster in a spirited sherry sauce. Naturally, there is fish and chips, three generous tranches of bigflaked, wild-caught cod, fried to a golden tan, served with regular and sweet potato fries and good tartar sauce. Malt vinegar on the fries — a British peculiarity, some would say perversity — is optional. And hats off to The White Horse, too, for including the pot pie in a miniature portion on their children’s menu, a welcome addition to the standard burger or mac ’n’ cheese kiddie fare. DRINK UP Drinking, naturally, is a serious business. There is English cider and English and Irish ales, while closer to home you’ll find Naughty Nurse, a wonderfully prurient-sounding English-style bitter from the City Steam Brewery Café in Hartford, Connecticut. A pre-mixed bloody Mary, a little heavy on the horseradish, comes with a twist of both lemon and lime as well as two fat olives, which is certainly keeping all bases covered. As for the wine list, it embraces the Old and New Worlds and wines either by the bottle or by the glass are sympathetically marked-up. I couldn’t help thinking, though, that The White Horse would be the perfect place to showcase some of the wonderful sparklers now coming out of southern England, wines like Nyetimber, Gusbourne and Wiston, all of which repeatedly take the top gongs at international wine awards, often beating their more established Champagne counterparts from France. What say you, Mr. Harris? Service, from the time of making a phone reservation to the cheery farewell at the end of lunch or dinner, is thoroughly helpful and good-natured. Yes, our server did need reminding about a couple of items and it can be tricky to attract a staffer’s attention during a busy service if you are seated at a corner table, but it seems almost churlish to mention these blips in the context of the bigger, convivial picture. Following Covid-19 protocols that go above and beyond the state’s requirements, The White Horse has been one of the lucky ones — a restaurant that looks likely to survive the pandemic. Not all have been so fortunate. As the mythological symbol of England, a white horse is also considered a harbinger of good fortune and prosperity. Let’s hope it’s an omen not just for itself but for others too, and for better times to come in 2021. For reservations and more, visit whitehorsecountrypub.com.

Three kind of sherry for a snowy night by the fire.

FORTIFIED (AND FORTIFYING) WINES

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPH BY DOUG PAULDING

am often asked the question, “So what’s your favorite wine?” which always begins a discussion on time and place, temperature and season, situation and present company. What could be the perfect wine for one setting could well be dead wrong for another. No one wants a light and fruity Sauvignon Blanc when it’s cold and snowing outside. And no one would open a big and hearty Malbec or Cabernet Sauvignon in a heat wave. So, what a pleasant surprise to find these three bottles of sherry on my doorstep just as the temperatures were dropping off to winter. Sherries, like other fortified wines of the world, have an ancient history for good reason. Fortified wines are grape-based

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fermented juice that at some point has a distilled spirit added to it, either to kill the yeasts, maintaining the natural sugars in the juice, or just to increase the final alcohol levels. Back in the day, wines and beers were consumed not just for fun or sacramental reasons. Both were safe and trustworthy products for hydration. With poor hygiene and ineffective or nonexistent septic systems, open bodies of water could and did make people sick. But these fermented liquids did not contain the bacterial and microbial pathogens that sickened people, so they became the drink of choice. And wines back then were generally not aged and cellared. Without good storage, wines were made for daily consumption as poor storage vessels and heat and cold would start to kill the fresh wine flavors

quite quickly. So fortified wines became a passion, largely because they were almost impervious to the weather vagaries, shipping abuses and time. Sherries, ports, madeiras, marsalas and vermouths are all fortified wines and they have impressive shelf lives. All of these became popular, especially when transporting them to market by ship or wagon could take weeks or months. The Jerez region in southwest Spain on the Atlantic Ocean is the source of all sherries and is one of the oldest protected Denomination of Origins in the country, established in the 1930s to safeguard the name and the product. Sherries can be bone dry or powerfully sweet or anything in between. Most sherries are made from the Palomino grape. The sweeter sherries tend to be made with Pedro Ximénez or Moscatel grapes, which are often sun- or air-dried first to concentrate the sugars. We patiently waited for the perfect night to open these three bottles. I really wanted a fire for ambience and snow flying for contrast and beauty. I first tasted the González Byass Oloroso made from the Palomino grape. Oloroso is midline in the dry/sweet spectrum with an alcohol level of 18% and is intentionally oxidized for flavor. Showing a clean copper hue with a delightful smokiness, it is spicy and nutty, clean and dry on the palate with a warming mouthfeel. With aromas of dry saddle leather and a pleasant saltiness in the mouth, this is a wine to be savored. Our next taste was the Harveys Bristol Cream, which is a blend of a few styles of sherry that is then sweetened. Tasting pleasantly sweet and lush with full caramel and molasses flavors, it is multidimensional with a great lingering mouthfeel. Finally we tasted the González Byass Pedro Ximénez (PX) Nectar. This sherry is romantic by itself. Dark coffee-colored with notes of burnt orange, molasses, dried figs and raisins, it was aromatic with a silky mouthfeel and a lovely and agreeable sweetness. It went on to exhibit dark caramel, chocolate and coffee flavors. Quite simply this PX is a symphony in a glass. All of these sherries are quite easy to locate and are ridiculously affordable. Each can pair well with food. I’m thinking oysters or a seafood dish for the Oloroso. A fruit and nut tray with bleu cheese would work well with the Harveys Bristol Cream and the PX. Or each can stand alone and will stimulate descriptives and discussion. Find a few bottles and look for the perfect night. These sherries will delight your palate and warm your toes. Yummy indeed. Write me at doug@dougpaulding.com.

TRATTORIA 632

Restaurants in Westchester County change plans but not dreams amidst the pandemic.... The very popular family eatery, Trattoria 632 is excited to welcome back their loyal diners and greet new ones as they open for indoor and outdoor dining on their new patio. Delivery and take-out of their full, extensive menu is also available. Patrons can rest assured that Trattoria 632 has taken every measure and precaution to ensure a delectable and safe dining experience. Nonna Marieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s homemade cakes and pies are no exception! She is serving her famous carrot cake and original cheesecake recipes and Trattoria 632 is delighted to see their customers smiling again!

632 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, NY 10577 914-481-5811 trattoria632 .com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

WHAT’S COOKING?

FOOD & SPIRITS

EGG ROAST

Rajni Menon’s Egg Roast is a great way to start the new year. Photograph by Aditya Menon.

TOAST THE NEW YEAR WITH AN EGG ROAST

BY RAJNI MENON

he start of the year is a time for renewal. And what better way to signal it than with eggs, symbols of new life and rebirth in cultures throughout the world. My egg recipe is one of the staples of Kerala, India, usually served for breakfast. It’s a dish made with roasted, spiced onions — simple but very flavorful. May you enjoy it and the new year in health and happiness.

INGREDIENTS: 2 tablespoons coconut oil 1 teaspoon turmeric powder 1 teaspoon cumin powder 1/2 teaspoon fennel powder 1/4 teaspoon black pepper powder 1/2 teaspoon black mustard seeds 2 teaspoons kosher salt 3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped 2 to 3 jalapeño chili peppers, sliced thin 1 1/2 cups red onions, thinly sliced 1 tablespoon ketchup 2 hardboiled eggs, each sliced in half METHOD: 1. Heat a deep pan and add coconut oil to it. Add the mustard seeds and let the mixture splutter. 2. Add jalapeños and sauté for 10 seconds. 3. Add the chopped red onions. Sauté until light brown. Halfway though add in the garlic and sauté until brown. 4. Add salt, turmeric and black pepper, cumin and fennel powders and stir for 5 seconds. 5. Add the ketchup and mix well. 6. Add chopped fresh cilantro leaves and mix well. Add the hard-boiled eggs. 7. Serve hot with basmati rice or any flat breads as a wrap. For more, visit creativerajni.com.

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FASHION & BEAUTY

Bosom buddies: While miniatures of lover's eyes were discreet tokens of affection in the late-18th and early-19th centuries, artist Sarah Goodridge decided on a bold move to lure her beloved, statesman Daniel Webster — a miniature of her boobs. Though he married another, this “boob”y prize remained in his possession. Courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

P. 86 What's trending?

P. 88 Keeping a‘breast’ of love tokens

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

D N I N E G R T S T HA

BY D

EB B

I K.

KIC

Tajima Direct offers lenses that will complement any eyeglass frame — for a fraction of the price.

GIVE YOURSELF SPECS APPEAL A few years ago I visited France and treated myself to a gorgeous pair of expensive designer eyeglass frames. Once I had the frames, though, I had to find some place that would provide me with prescription lenses for them. I tried several shops and warehouse clubs, but the cost was astronomical. Then I discovered Tajima Direct, which proved a superior choice for my eyes — and my wallet. Tajima Direct makes it easy to put new, high-quality lenses in any frame you already own, using its patented polarized lens technology. While the company specializes in polarized sunglass lenses (in prescription and nonprescription), it also offers prescription clear and Transitions (light adapting) lenses that can be placed in your favorite frames. The other appeal of Tajima Direct is its top-tier customer service — knowledgeable, personalized and contact-free. The lenses are delivered directly to your door. So, no salesmen, no waiting rooms, no driving back and forth and no crazy price markups. Welcome to modern-day, lens technology that makes a visual difference. Even better: Receive a 15 percent discount with code WAGMAG15. For more, visit tajima-direct.com.

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

WEAR YOUR WANDERLUST

The classic Midori jacket in leopard print is perfect for any adventure. Courtesy Anatomie.

A TRAVEL JACKET THAT IS ‘SPOT-ON’ Looking for a winter jacket that makes a statement? Meet the Midori Long Jacket in Snow Leopard Print, a comfortable, versatile piece in the perfect length. Even better, you can layer all you want underneath, thanks to a classic slim fit and double gun-metal zippers. Crafted using Anatomie's signature wrinkle-free stretch in a bold pattern, this jacket suits any outdoor adventure. Looking chic on the streets — or on the peaks — has never been easier. $398. For more, visit anatomie.com

Jet Set Candy’s slim infinity necklace is ideal for mini charms, such as these petite passport stamps. Courtesy Jet Set Candy.

Modern trendsetter Jet Set Candy’s wagmag. com/28413-2/ infinity bracelet now has a skinnier sister — the slim infinity link charm bracelet, made of 14-karat gold ($998). It’s in JSC’s “infinity” family for a reason: With a spring hinge on each of the links, it can carry as many charms as you’d like. This slender version was created especially for the company’s extensive gold mini charm collection. A tiny passport stamp here, a baby croissant there, an adorable little pagoda on the end: Together these elegantly represent a traveler’s — or an armchair tourist’s — greatest hits. For those preferring a necklace, the slim infinity is available in a length of 18 inches ($1,998) 16 inches ($1,798) and 14 inches ($1,598). Through Jan. 31, use promo code WAG20 for 20 percent off the bracelet or the necklace. For more, visit jetsetcandy.com

KEEPING A‘BREAST’ OF LOVE TOKENS BY KATIE BANSER-WHITTLE

he eyes are the mirrors of the soul.” That statement may have become a cliché, but it contains a great deal of truth. In life and in art, the expression in someone’s eyes says a great deal without words. Nowhere is it more intriguingly displayed than in the tiny pieces of painted jewelry known as eye miniatures. Or, more romantically, lover’s eyes. These charming tokens were an upper-class fad from the 1790s to the 1830s. It was an era when public displays of affection were frowned upon and contact with members of the opposite sex was governed by strict social conventions. So, long before selfies and sexting, people found a discreet way to convey their feelings by means of an artful depiction, on a small piece of ivory, of their amorous gaze. These intimate tokens probably first appeared in France not long before the revolution, but they became a craze in England because of a royal romance. The young Prince Regent, later to become King George IV, had fallen in love with a beautiful widow named Maria Fitzherbert. He had a miniature of his own eye painted and sent it to her with a proposal of marriage. She reciprocated with a portrait of one of her own eyes. The romantic gesture worked, after a fashion; Maria rather reluctantly went through an illegal marriage ceremony — illegal because she was a twice-widowed Roman Catholic, and members of the royal family, whose sovereign also headed the Church of England, could not marry Cath-

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

An Antique Eye Miniature Portrait, depicting a blue eye and brown curls, reverse with plaited hair, the border with gilt detail and a gold frame with bail. Sold for $8,610 at Skinner Inc.

olics. She was soon set aside and the prince married an approved cousin. The marriage was a disaster and George remained devoted to Mrs. Fitzherbert for the rest of his life. The fashion for eye miniatures soon spread among the fashionable. For the next 50 years, the delicate pieces (they were given the name of lover’s eyes recently by New York antique dealer Edith Weber) were treasured love tokens. The little paintings were especially intimate since usually only the wearer and the subject knew the “eye-dentity” of the beloved. Usually the miniatures were set in gold and artfully surrounded with gems such as pearls. They were worn especially as lockets by both men and women, where they could nestle against the bare skin. Less romantically they were also mounted as brooches, lapel pins and rings and on male accessories such as snuff box lids, toothpick holders and cane handles. Not all lovers’ eyes were tokens of romantic love. Some, called tear jewelry, were memorial examples. Others were sentimental symbols of affection. Queen Victoria popularized a minor revival of eye miniatures as presentation pieces for family members and favored friends. One of the most intriguing and unusual examples of this genre is not a depiction of an eye at all. Even more remarkably, we know not only exactly for whom it was painted, but who painted it. This extraordinary example of minia-

ture art is certainly a lover’s token, and a scandalous one at that. It was created in 1828 by Boston artist Sarah Goodridge for Daniel Webster, a lawyer who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in Congress and served as secretary of state under three presidents. The scandalous part is the subject matter, not an amorous eye but a pair of bare breasts — Sarah’s breasts. The subject matter would be considered daring under any circumstances, particularly since Goodridge and Webster were not married, or even engaged. Despite her daring gesture, the recently bereaved Webster did not ask her to marry him. Instead he quickly chose a New York heiress to be the second Mrs. W. But the artist and the ambitious politician remained in touch for many years. Sarah never married. And when Webster died, the miniature, known as “Beauty Revealed,” was found among his personal belongings. Lover’s eyes went out of fashion. In part they were superseded by the new technology of photography, which made images of loved ones readily available and inexpensive. Society became less restrictive and it was increasingly acceptable to display romantic feelings openly. Still, around 1,000 eye miniatures remain, as watchful reminders of a more discreet but no less passionate past. For more, contact Katie at kwhittle@ skinnerinc.com or 212-787-1114.

WELLNESS

P. 90 Relish, relax, refresh

P. 92 Massaging the tide

P. 96 Addressing male wellness

P. 98 The love spas

P. 100 Managing OCD During Covid

P. 102 Losing the ‘pandemic 15’ in 2021

THIS PAGE: The lounge and hallway at Vicki Morav.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

WELLBEING • MINDFULNESS • CREATIVIT Y • ESCAPING

Breathe and make time for yourself

RELISH, RELAX, REFRESH

WELLBEING • MINDFULNESS • CREATIVIT Y • ESCAPE

Breathe and make time for yourself

Paint yourself happy Wall of hope How to holiday from home Natural healing Out of the past Sunlight and shadows Identity parade Off the grid Dip into past times Straight from the heart

Enchanted sleep Beyond the thrill The art of not compromising Into the wild As right as rain Positively blinkered Step back in time Pictures of you Be transported Ring in the spontaneous

WELLBEING • MINDFULNESS • CREATIVIT Y • ESCAPE

Breathe and make time for yourself

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA All fired up Pearls of thought Don’t make do – mend Unfinished conversations Circle of trust In tune with nature Collective differences Sounds that time forgot The script of your life Lost birds

Breathe magazine invites you to “make time for yourself.” Courtesy Breathe magazine.

t’s not often that we write about other publications, but we wanted to give a shoutout to Breathe — a magazine designed to help you exhale and thus recharge. Breathe — which comes out of the United Kingdom but can be found on American newsstands — is subtitled “and make time for yourself.” Each issue is divided into five sections — well-being, living, mindfulness, creativity and escape. Issue 33, for example, includes: A step-by-step guide to analyzing your own handwriting with a page to “Try It Out”; An article on navigating differences with others that opens with this great quote by Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union: “Peace is not unity in similar-

New Year’s realisations Meet and greet Balancing act Make every word count Into the storm London calling How to live well in limbo Absolute beginners More than a feeling Uninvited guests

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

ity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.” Recipes on cooking charred mackerel, fire-grilled beetroot and baked peaches out of doors; A look at self-publishing and a number of self-published successes ranging from Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” to E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey.” And a tour of some of the world’s most “Seductive Sunsets.” The clearly written articles are offset by highlight boxes and bullets of key points and accompanied by illustrations that draw you in with a mix of photography and hyperrealistic drawings in saturated colors. But what makes Breathe so, well, breathable is an unusual viewpoint that allows you to tune in to yourself without any hint

of narcissism. (Indeed, Breathe’s special edition on gratitude — a subject WAG covered in its November issue — contains an article that suggests you “Love Yourself First.”) Breathe understands that you have to go deep within to reach out, that sometimes you have to take your foot off the pedal to succeed; and that failure often later breeds success. Meanwhile, Breathe inspires others. In one of the issues we purchased at Barnes & Noble’s concept store in Eastchester, we found a child’s drawing on a small, rectangular piece of paper with a flower in lavender, blue and gray. Underneath was written “Stay on the path to no resistance.” We’re taking that as a sign from the universe as it sounds very Breathe-able. For more, visit breathemagazine.com.

We brought the best pediatric specialists closer to you. The newly opened Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital Pediatric Specialty Center brings top specialists to one convenient Greenwich location. From allergies to cancer treatment, your child will be cared for by specialists from a children’s hospital that ranks among the best in the country according to U.S. News & World Report. In addition, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital physicians provide 24/7 emergency services and onsite care for children at Greenwich Hospital. Everything your child could need from our top ranked children’s hospital is now close by. ynhch.org

G T H N I E G T A I D S E S A M

Top clockwise: The lounge and hallway at Vicki Morav; the lounge at the Parlor. Courtesy Vicki Morav and the Parlor.

BY G

t is perhaps no small irony that spas — oases of wellness — posed particular challenges in the Covid-19 era, given the proximity with which aestheticians work with clients. But where there’s a will, there’s a way as evinced by the opening of two new spas in Manhattan recently, both with enhanced antiviral protocols. At the very least, they are there for spa lovers when they feel it is safe for them to luxuriate once more. Vicki Morav wagmag.com/creating-aspa-at-home/ — known for her holistic approach to skincare using the sumptuous Swiss skincare lines Biologique Recherche and Valmont, among others — has opened a 32,000-square-foot space on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Pietro Simone wagmag.com/nourishing-the-theater-oflife/ — known for facial and body treatments using his anti-aging, botanicals-based Italian Bella Complex — has opened a tworoom suite at midtown’s The Parlor, a curated collection of beauty and wellness practices. TREATING THE WHOLE PERSON When we interviewed Morav in the midst of the pandemic last summer, we learned that she considers the integrity of the individual — genetic history, predispositions and existing conditions — before designing a course of action that addresses nutrition, hormones, stress, exercise, environment,

habits and states of mental, physical and spiritual well-being. The new space, designed by Mathew Kelly, founding CEO of MKDREAMDESIGN, reflects this on its two floors. The first floor includes a welcome area, a retail space of beauty products, new treatment rooms ornamented with crystals and state-of-the-art saunas and showers. The second floor has four treatment rooms for Morav’s anti-aging services as well as a space for panel discussions, educational workshops and meditation. The spa is at 19 E. 71St. For more, call 212-744-4753 or visit vickimorav.com. A NEW ‘THEATER’ When we interviewed Simone, he told us he considers the skin to be “the theater of life” as it is the largest organ in the body, one that becomes the backdrop for the self. Simone nourishes that back-drop with his two skincare lines, Essential and Prestige, which draw on such ingredients as Puglian tomato seed oil, Tuscan grapeseed oil, Vesuvian apple, edelweiss and Sicilian almond oil in a host of bespoke treatments in his Parlor locale. Among those treatments is the Aurum Radiance Infusion, which uses a 24-karat gold peel and massage to revamp and reenergize the skin. The Pietro Simone Skincare clinic is at 160 Madison Ave. For more, visit pietrosimone.com.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

Your Heart is in

good hands.

White Plains Hospital is here for all your family’s urgent, routine and specialized health care needs – including a full-service program of advanced cardiac services. Early Detection Is Key

Curtailing Complications

Access to Advanced Care

“It’s estimated that 80 percent of cardiac events such as heart attack and stroke can be prevented,” says Dr. Roger Cappucci, Chief of Cardiology at White Plains Hospital. “Consulting with a specialist if you are at risk or are having warning signs can help us assess your condition and, in coordination with the many other sub-specialists here, develop a comprehensive cardiac care plan that is personalized for each patient.”

“Between 3 to 6 million people in the country have arrhythmia, or an irregular heartbeat, and the chances of developing one increases with age,” notes Dr. Daniel Wang, Director of the Cardiac Electrophysiology Program at White Plains Hospital. “Our providers use only the most advanced technology and research-proven techniques in our highly specialized labs to maximize safety and efficacy.”

“We pride ourselves on the fact that we are able to provide our patients with advanced coronary procedures, close to home,” notes Dr. Dimitrios Bliagos, Chief of Interventional Cardiology at White Plains Hospital. “It is often thought that you need to travel far to receive complex care. At the Hospital, we can treat everything from the routine to the most complex cardiac disease, with a personalized experience you can only get at a community hospital.”

COMPREHENSIVE CARDIAC CARE AT WHITE PLAINS HOSPITAL • Board-certified and fellowship trained experts in cardiovascular specialties available at several convenient locations • Two state-of-the-art cardiac catherization labs to implement the latest therapies in catheter ablation, pacemakers, and defibrillators, including remote monitoring • Advanced imaging techniques, such as CT-angiography, MRI, MRA and carotid ultrasound • First New York State-designated Regional Stroke Center in Westchester, with expert Stroke Team onsite 24/7

To find a physician call 914-849-MyMD or visit wphospital.org

COMING 2021. We are pleased to further enhance our cardiology programs and facilities with exciting new developments this year! The Center for Advanced Medicine & Surgery is scheduled to open this summer and is a nine-story, 252,000 sq. ft. building, featuring a state-of-the-art Heart & Vascular Center.

HEART DISEASE IN WOMEN

reversing the trend

Women know to schedule regular mammograms, but they continue to lag behind men in getting screened for heart disease – the No. 1 killer of women in the United States. According to the American Heart Association, almost twothirds (64%) of women who die suddenly from coronary heart disease exhibit no previous symptoms. “This is why primary care physicians and cardiologists stress the importance of regular cardiac screening for women,” says Dr. Shalini Bobra, a cardiologist and specialist in women’s cardiovascular health at White Plains Hospital. Dr. Bobra offers the following tips on how to spot the signs of a heart attack and what you can do to lower your risk. Some of the most common signs of a heart attack in women include: chest pain that is more often “tightness” than sudden searing pain; general weakness; shortness of breath; and pain anywhere in the upper body, like the back of the neck or jaw. Additionally, women who are experiencing signs of a heart attack often don’t seek the immediate, life-saving care they need. It is common for women to wait more than six hours after first feeling the symptoms of a heart attack before going to the ER, as they believe they are experiencing non-lifethreatening conditions like acid reflux, the flu, or normal aging.

Take Some Healthy Steps In addition to discussing your personal risk with a cardiologist, Dr. Bobra says these lifestyle changes can greatly impact heart health in women: • Don’t smoke, or quit now – By quitting smoking, you cut your risk of coronary heart disease by about 50%. • Exercise moderately for 30 minutes a day (or as advised by your medical professional) – Walking, taking the stairs, and parking in the farthest spot all count. • Eat a well-balanced diet – Avoid processed foods and stick to natural, whole foods. “We recommend a Mediterranean-style diet that is more plant based, for optimal heart health,” says Dr. Bobra.

Visit wphospital.org/cardiac to take our cardiac risk self-assessment.

ADDRESSING MALE WELLNESS

BY GIOVANNI ROSELLI From left: New York/Connecticut fitness instructor Isak Spanjol, author Giovanni Roselli and Men Care Now CEO Nicolas de Alejo. Courtesy Roselli Health & Fitness.

“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self”. — “The Bhagavad Gita

ver this past year we have all had to pivot in some way shape or form. One of the ways I have kept myself busy is by welcoming opportunities that I may not have been introduced to otherwise. A few years ago while teaching a seminar in Greenwich, I met local yoga instructor Nicolas de Alejo. Little did we know we would one day be working together on a virtual project that we hope will introduce a whole new kind of health and consciousness to men’s fitness routines and regiments. MEN CARE NOW Having lived in the high-octane world of finance in New York and coming into contact with many diverse types of men living in what some would call a stressful city, de Alejo decided to formulate tools and programs for helping men grow, heal, cope, develop and excel. I was honored to be asked to join the team as the biomechanics lead, along with top health and wellness experts Mike Okech, Loren Fishman, M.D., Aaron Powell, Ernesto Lira De La Rosa and others. Together, we bring our diverse knowledge, energy and passion working with men

to help Nic create an approach to needed behavioral and physical change. Men Care Now is a platform for mind and body, helping men achieve physical and mental fitness for a healthy state of being. Since things affect men differently than women, and men experience and are exposed to different pressures and difficulties, the Men Care Now platform focuses strictly on men’s physical and mental fitness. The men’s physical and mental training programs span multiple modalities, understanding all men are not created the same nor do all men have the same experiences and perspectives. The primary virtual training offerings include: • Well-Being Fundamentals • Yoga Basics Intensive • Yoga Teacher Training VIRTUAL TEACHER TRAINING In the fall of 2020, MCN launched its first 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Certification done completely virtually with participants all around the country. I had the pleasure of working with the students on a bimonthly basis, specifically discussing the biomechanics of how certain joint structures and systems play a role in the MCN curriculum. The training explores the traditional components of a Yoga Teacher

Training program as outlined by the Yoga Alliance. The course covers yoga teacher training live, video study and partner work, and also includes additional opportunities to learn through books, journaling and homework. The assignments are embedded throughout the training and both Google Classroom and Zoom are used. This program embodies the traditional aspects of yoga and allows many perspectives to drive the ancient wisdom of the practice of yoga. By exploring the practice from many perspectives, students are able to create a deeper connection to the practice while also understanding more about other experiences and how they might be unique or similar to their own. Regardless of how it compares, the focus of this training is love and compassion for ourselves, for our community and for our planet. And isn’t that something we can all appreciate and get behind? Wishing everyone health and safety as we continue to navigate through another year filled with unknowns and uncertainty. Interested in learning more about the Men Care Now program? Feel free to shoot me a message at Gio@GiovanniRoselli.com and I’ll be happy to answer any questions as well as make the necessary introductions.

BRAND NEW ASSISTED LIVING RESIDENCE FOR OVER 30 YEARS, CHELSEA SENIOR LIVING HAS BEEN DEDICATED TO PROVIDING A COMFORTABLE, SAFE, AND SECURE HOME IN A CARING ATMOSPHERE OF RESPECT AND DIGNITY.

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CALL TO LEARN ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY AND HOW WE MIGHT HELP YOUR FAMILY 914-350-2588 The Chelsea at Greenburgh Assisted Living • Memory Care Respite/Trial Stays 715 Dobbs Ferry Road Greenburgh, NY 10607 ChelseaForYou.com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

A P S S E V O L E H T

Sandals' Red Lane Spa offers sybaritic outdoor spa treatments under a sun-kissed palapa. Courtesy Sandals Resorts.

WAGMAG.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021

BY D E B

BI K.

KI C K

HAM

fter the year we all had, a spa experience to rejuvenate and refresh our minds, bodies and souls could be the perfect remedy to take on the New Year. Well, now you can step into Sandals (not just your slip-on sandals), but I am talking Sandals Resorts, with some of the most posh spas I have experienced. Yes, it’s an all-inclusive resort, and no, not all all-inclusives are created equal. Located throughout the Caribbean, Sandals Resorts offer high caliber amenities and services for couples in love. With an improving health picture around the corner, this could be the ultimate romantic getaway your heart, body and soul so desires. All you need to do is bring someone you’re crazy about. If you feel the need to immerse yourself in a restored sense of well-being with a good, nurturing massage, you’re not alone. According to experts, today’s travelers are increasingly stressed, citing fewer vacation days to enjoy, a continued connection to their mobile devices and a constant worry of what’s been left back at home — not to mention the Covid pandemic. Indeed, a recent Spafinder Wellness 365 consumer survey found that 85 percent of people have returned from a vacation less rejuvenated than when they arrived. At the award-winning Red Lane Spas at Sandals Resorts, they have made it their mission to undo the trend, creating a vacation experience for couples to focus on “connection, time and love.” The spa features signature treatments curated to promote relaxation and romance. The menu of treatments infuse Caribbean elements into the spa experience with aromas and ingredients from the islands such as coffee, ginger, raw sugar cane and coconut. “Just like an incredible vacation, your spa experience should be transformational,” says Adam Stewart, deputy chairman of Sandals Resorts International. The Spafinder survey also says that travelers report wanting a more nuanced “wellness” experience during their vacation, with 82 percent seeking spa treatments. Sandals Red Lane Spa believes that the path to this sought-after wellness immersion begins with the intent to allow couples to dissolve the every-

day worries and distractions of life in order to reconnect, both physically and emotionally. They have also created a product line so good even USA Today voted it as one of the Best Splurge-Worthy Gifts of 2020. (I find that the complimentary, in-room amenities of the Red Lane Revitalizing sulfate-free shampoo and conditioner particularly noteworthy, ensuring terrific tresses as a result.) Red Lane Spas’ enhanced, all-natural product line represents the regions of the Caribbean in which Sandals has resorts, including Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Antigua, Barbados, Grenada and the Bahamas. Featuring body lotion, body butter, shower gel, mineral bath salts, body scrubs, organic oils, candles and a suncare line, the products include organic ingredients whenever possible and are free of parabens, sulfates and synthetic fragrances. The products come in a range of five distinct blends including: Island Essence — A revitalizing blend of coconut, mango lime and green tea extracts to heighten and revitalize the senses that is the signature scent of Red Lane Spas; Fevergrass — A fresh lemongrass scent representing the island of Jamaica and combined with ugli fruit and green tea to invigorate and grab the senses, taking you on an aromatic journey; Wild Sugar — Capturing the sweetness and playfulness of the Eastern Caribbean with the essences of guava and green tea mingling with mango; Spice: A rich, musky blend of nutmeg, bayberry and clove — inspired by Grenada, known as “Spice Island,” to take you on a relaxing, southern Caribbean-inspired journey. Using these scents, couples are especially encouraged to rekindle their romance through a series of exotic massage experiences, focused on the art of touch, serenity and connection. Signature treatments include the Scents of Love Couples Massage. Therapists guide couples through a romantic candle lighting and warm massage oil ritual based upon the chosen sensory experience. To continue the path toward relaxation, Sandals Resorts also offer a full array of fitness experiences, including beach yoga, power walks, couples stretching and aqua fitness by the sea, as well as state-of-theart fitness centers at each resort — so you can dine at all of the included restaurants and still look good in your bikini. And let’s not forget about an unforgettable Vow Renewal Ceremony on the beach. For more on the Red Lane Spas at Sandals Resorts, visit sandals.com or call 877-SANDALS. And follow Debbi on Instagram at @Debbikickham.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

VID

G N I O G C A D N A DURIN M G CO

BY AL

DIM

IT R I U,

Alex Dimitriu, M.D.

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magine trying to tell yourself not to think about the coronavirus. Impossible, right?

But everyday virus-prevention measures such as handwashing, disinfecting and physical distancing also happen to overlap tremendously with the type of circular thinking and repetitive behaviors known all too well by those with obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD. Tangled with anxiety, OCD is now recognized as a separate diagnosis in the DSM-5 manual of mental disorders. But both conditions unquestionably share impulse control problems as a trait. And Covid-19 presents a perfect storm of sorts to anxious and obsessive people, whom mental health professionals describe as “sticky” due to their trouble letting go of thoughts, fears and impulses. Walking a fine line between doing what’s necessary to avoid the virus and doing too much too often is an especially fraught tightrope for those with OCD. OVERLAPPING FEARS TRIGGER OCD BEHAVIORS All of us need to focus each day on taking proper steps to avoid catching the coronavirus and unwittingly spreading it to others if we’re asymptomatic. And these measures simply take time, whether it’s restocking masks or disinfectant supplies, diligently washing our hands in 20-second spurts or strategizing

about how to stay 6 feet apart from others in various settings safely. While these actions add up, however, they probably still don’t take the one hour or more each day that crosses into the realm of OCD. Obsessions, compulsions and disruptive thoughts trigger marked distress for those with the disorder, consuming an hour or more of a sufferer’s day or significantly interfering with their ability to work, go to school, socialize and otherwise live their daily lives normally. Several aspects of the Covid-19 pandemic might trigger OCD-related fears and behaviors. What do they include? • Contamination: Keeping hands, body and surfaces clean can be a daily obsession for someone with OCD during normal times. So public health advice to wash hands more often and using proper techniques can trigger excessive handwashing and household disinfecting far beyond what’s necessary. Sufferers may also pressure family and friends to wash their own hands frequently. • Hoarding: Buying months’ worth of toilet paper, canned goods and other pandemic supplies? In Covid times, it doesn’t take a diagnosis of OCD to trigger the urge to stockpile. A scarcity mindset has infected many of us. But someone with OCD may panic-shop, which can lead to hoarding. • Harming Others: Either by accident or on purpose, some with OCD worry excessively about hurting others. But Covid-19 may turn up the volume on such fears, triggering sufferers to go to extremes to avoid spreading the virus. They may decide to forgo any trip out of their home, even to shop for food or other necessities. TIPS FOR COPING AND COMPASSION Nobody likes feeling anxious. For those with OCD, anxiety levels can be crippling. But a sometimes-overlooked aspect about anxiety is that there’s a “sweet spot” that actually works in our favor. Too little anxiety can be as harmful as too much — but the right amount can be healthy and useful, propelling us forward to take care of ourselves and our priorities. The same is true for OCD, of course, as well as the fear of germs and contamination. If you have OCD or know someone who does, watch for ways that the Covid-19 crisis may be changing OCD symptoms, obsessions and behaviors. Those in treat-

ment for OCD should talk to their mental health providers about these ripple effects. There are also ways you can better cope at balancing public health advice and symptoms. These include: • Limit news or information: No, you don’t have to turn off the news completely or avoid all public messaging. It might lower anxiety, however, to allow only 10 or 15 minutes a day to update yourself on the latest about the health crisis. • Disinfect on a schedule: Clean surfaces in your home only once a day for several minutes and no more. If no one has visited, you don’t need to wipe down the doorknobs again. • Handwash for only 20 seconds: Sure, follow public health guidelines regarding handwashing. But overdoing it can actually introduce infection by breaking down the moisture barrier of your skin. • "Practice resisting (some) impulses": While it's good to be thoughtful and careful, it's also equally important to know when it's too much. Take handwashing as an example or any checking behavior. At some point it can be too much (especially if no threat of contamination is present). In these instances, and more generally for anyone with any repetitive or checking behavior, I ask that person to try to resist the "impulse" at least one in fives times, maybe one in three times, especially when there is no clear risk or danger. The goal is not to be completely under the control of our fears and irresistible impulses. Otherwise, it can quickly become a slippery slope, and behaviors can go unchecked. If anything positive can result from the coronavirus pandemic, it’s that it offers those without OCD a valuable window into anxiety. On a daily basis, every one of us is getting a chance to experience what it’s like to live with anxiety and behaviors that may veer toward obsession. Next time you’re wondering if you’ve washed your hands enough or worry you’ve somehow spread the virus to another person, it’s a small glimpse into OCD — and an opportunity for greater understanding. Alex Dimitriu, M.D., is double board-certified in psychiatry and sleep medicine and founder of Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine. For more, visit siliconpsych.com.

possible, it’s been harder for some to stay motivated about weight.

LOSING THE ‘PANDEMIC 15’ IN 2021

BY PREETI PUSALKAR, CNS

ose weight.” It’s one of the top New Year’s resolutions people make every January. But with the 2020 we all just experienced — hoo boy! — this common resolution is even more pressing for many as 2021 begins. Whether you call it the “Quarantine 15” or merely “pandemic pounds,” you’re definitely not alone if you’re among those who gained weight during the Covid-19 health crisis gripping the globe. According to a survey commissioned by Nutrisystem, more than three-quarters of Americans gained up to 16 pounds between the months of March and July 2020 alone. Another 63% said they were prioritizing weight loss after quarantine to slice off the excess pounds that crept on during lockdown.

WHY WE’VE GAINED WEIGHT It’s easy to see why so many have packed on the pounds this past year — especially if you had already struggled with your weight. The pandemic created a perfect storm of sorts for weight gain, with many factors prompting people to eat more and exercise less. What contributed? • Stress and anxiety: Nothing like a glob-

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al health crisis to trigger emotional eating, right? Many of the excess calories have also come in the form of “comfort foods” brimming with sugar and simple carbohydrates. On top of that, stress ramps up our body’s production of cortisol, fueling weight gain. • Boredom: Stuck at home during lockdown, many of us tickled our taste buds just to stave off the humdrum nature of our days. A lot of us also tried decadent new recipes and did a lot of baking. (Sourdough bread, anyone?) • Lack of focus: The sheer volume of information streaming in every day about Covid-19 — even if you and family members were lucky enough to avoid catching the virus — made healthier lifestyle choices that much harder. • Gym and park closures: Exercise routines were upended by on-again, off-again shutdowns around the United States all year. These disruptions demolished many people’s best-laid plans for cardio, weightlifting and exercise classes. • Postponed medical checkups: Physical exams at the doctor’s office and readings of blood pressure and cholesterol levels help a lot of people keep better track of their health. With these routine visits often not

SANE TIPS TO DROP POUNDS The start of vaccine distribution for Covid-19 in the United States is good news for a lot of reasons. Among them is the very real hope it offers of restoring our pre-pandemic lifestyles — day-to-day routines that include more normal ways of eating and moving. And ,of course, losing the “Pandemic 15” is ideal for overall health as well. It’s understandable to want the extra pounds gone as quickly as they came but aim for 1 or 2 pounds of weight loss per week. This pace is not only more realistic but allows you to adjust to the lifestyle tweaks you’ll make to achieve weight loss as well as maintain it going forward. Here are some common-sense tips to lose the "Pandemic 15" in 2021: • Do one thing: Overhauling both your diet and exercise levels at the same time may feel like too much. So start with one thing — such as walking a mile a day, or skipping dessert — and build on these efforts over the days and weeks ahead. • Eat on a schedule: Some people are embracing intermittent fasting, which limits eating to a set window of hours each day — say, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. But even if intermittent fasting isn’t your thing, try to plan when you’re eating and stick to a schedule, even if working from home means food is accessible at all hours. • Turn your “commute” into exercise time: Many employees who left offices in 2020 will continue their work-from-home arrangements well into 2021. If you’re not commuting, spend that time moving your body instead. • Liquor less: Tipping a nightly glass of wine (or two) or a frosty mug of beer are how many have sought relief from pandemic-related stress. But not only does alcohol depress your nervous system, it quickly boosts your calorie consumption and makes it harder to resist junk food. • Prioritize stress management: Even as the pandemic eases (we hope) over the coming months, acknowledge the enormous stress that Covid-19 has created in your own life — whether through illness, job loss, or caregiving duties — and take healthy steps to manage that stress. Seeking counseling (which can be done virtually), practicing yoga or meditation, or taking long daily walks are just some of the ways to calm frayed nerves and focus more on your health. Preeti Pusalkar, CNS, is a certified clinical nutritionist with Hudson Medical, with extensive training not only in nutrition but in functional medicine. For more, visit hudsonmedical.com.

WAG THE TAIL P. 104 Calling on Fido

P. 106 Training dogs — and their ‘parents P. 110 Go Go-ing big for pets

P. 108 Matching chaos with calm

P. 111 A hidden jewel

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Sarah Cutler and her dog, Cole. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

BY K A

R EN

S AC

KO W

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t’s a chilly morning in Goldens Bridge, and Muffin doesn’t want to cooperate. “Come have a treat,” Sarah Cutler, V.M.D., says gently as she and the Mastiff’s owners work together to get Muffin on to Cutler’s portable scale as the family’s “toddler” putters gleefully in the snow. Getting any puppy to comply with a directive can be a challenge, but Muffin is 120 pounds of pure silliness. Soon enough, though, she obliges, allowing Cutler to check her weight, listen to her heart and lungs and clip as many nails as she can before the 10-monthold decides she’s been in one spot long enough. She lopes through the snow, checkup complete. Cutler’s passion for animals and fascination with their behaviors began professionally when she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine in 1997. After completing her internship at the Animal Medical Center in Manhattan, Cutler worked at Park East Animal Hospital for six years before moving out of the city and joining Somers Animal Hospital for six years. (With licenses in New York and Connecticut, she is a member of the American Veterinary Medical Association, Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association and New York State Veterinary Medical Society.) After years of working for busy animal hospitals, Cutler decided in 2010 to launch At Home Vet Care, a house-call veterinary practice based in Katonah, to fit her personal and professional goals. “At the time, I needed a break from the hustle and bustle of a hospital schedule. I also had three small kids at home and wanted to be more flexible with my time,” she says. “I knew some vets in the city who had peeled off to start house-call practic-

es and they were really happy and successful, so I thought it could work in Westchester.” At the time, Cutler says there were only a few other house-call vets in the area. Since then, the number has more than doubled, but there’s still plenty of work for everyone, especially during the pandemic. “We're all inundated with work right now. So many people got dogs, and it’s not slowing down,” Cutler says. “People are also home watching their pets more, so they’re more likely to pick up on things they want checked. When they were gone all day, they may not have noticed as much.” In addition to the convenience of having their pet exams at home, Cutler says her clients benefit from the ability to engage and ask more questions. “Instead of being in a generic office setting where you might have at most 20 or 30 minutes to talk to a client and meet their dog, I have the freedom to set my own pace and get to know both the patient and the owners,” she says. “When you’re around someone's home, you get to an understanding of what's going on and can help with other issues. Like, how are we going to manage giving this medication? How do we train a new puppy at home with small children?” Cutler says that beyond physical health, she works with families on how to use reinforcement to steer a new puppy, or even an older dog, in the right direction. “One of my areas of passion is to educate people on building trust with their pet as opposed to using strict rules and punitive techniques,” she says. “Communication, happiness and calm are so important when it comes to behavior modification.” Before leaving Muffin’s house, Cutler instructs her family on how to scale up her heartworm preventative as she gains weight. They ask her whether the breath-freshening treats they bought are safe for Muffin to eat in large amounts. When the appointment is over, Cutler packs up her car and heads down the road. She’s off to South Salem to see Boomer, a Bernese Mountain Dog who needs a shot to help with his arthritis. Later, she’ll meet Dori, a Pit Bull rescue whose foster mom says behavioral guidance may be the pup’s last hope. So many house-calls, so many pets. After a decade in business, Cutler wouldn’t have it any other way. For more, visit athomevetcare.org.

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BY K

E H I R T ‘ D P N A A R E — N T S S G ’ O D G N I N AR I

To connect with your pets, connect with yourself, says dog trainer/consultant Cristina Losapio. Photograph by Bob Rozycki.

Oakley. Windham.

SA CK OW

Paige.

t would be too simple to say that Cristina Losapio is a dog trainer and consultant. She is far better-known as a true student of both human and canine behavior. “Sharing a beautiful connection with our dogs really comes from looking inside of ourselves and questioning everything we think we know,” she says. “If we take the time to remain patient and present, our dogs can teach us as much as we teach them.” The path to such insights began in 2006 with Losapio pet-sitting for one family. A natural observer, she found herself fascinated by canine behavior. More families followed. “What I saw was a lot of excitement being nurtured and tons of dogs being rewarded for physically doing what the family member wanted,” she says. “But there was such a disconnect between body and mind, and between human and dog.” When she took a puppy class with her first dog, a rescue named Phoebe, Losapio took a deeper dive into dog psychology. She chose to take on 300 required training hours to become a certified professional dog trainer and became an active volunteer with the SPCA of Westchester in Briarcliff Manor. Fifteen years in, Losapio works with dogs and families through her business, Trail Dog Inc., based in New Castle. She says one of the things she helps her clients with is learning to look past the surface in order to read what a dog is really saying. “For instance, why ask a dog to sit or lay down if the dog is standing, four paws relaxed, with a soft face, breathing slowly and giving attention. The dog’s brain is already sitting.” Though she has worked with countless dogs, Losapio says it’s more about understanding the dog within the family. She helps her clients work to comprehend how their dog thinks, instead of relying on what they perceive he or she is thinking. For her, no dog is a lost cause. “Every single dog deserves a chance without judgment from the past or breed labels,” she says. “Unhealthy patterns can be refreshed with clear communication and relationships can evolve.” When working with a family, Losapio says kids are a great part of the mix, as they are naturally curious and want to learn about their pet. In the end, when a dog and family are aligned, Losapio says it makes every step worth it. “I love solving problems, so to me it’s just figuring out the energy of the family and implementing new patterns that blend well for everyone. When we get to the point where everyone is working together, it’s always a joyous moment.” For more, read Cristina’s first WAG the Tail column on Page 106 and visit https://www.facebook.com/TrailDogNY/.

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MATCHING CHAOS WITH CALM BY CRISTINA LOSAPIO PHOTOGRAPH BY BOB ROZYCKI

t’s hard for me to talk about dog training when I feel a deep need to talk about our energy. So many times we want to train the dog to listen to us or change a behavior that we don’t like, but we never talk about how to change our behavior and how we may have created the behavior.

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I am not blaming you. I am just saying think about it. Animals learn by association but they also pick up on everything that we do. They study us and take everything in, what causes us to react and even more so to overreact. So to me it is most important to be aware and mindful of our energy and the emotions that we are feeling while with our animals. If we could be centered and grounded while with our dogs, we can change so much more than just the relationship with our dogs. How do I become centered and grounded? I always start with the breath. It may start off as a shallow breath and thoughts may come up. That is all OK. See if you can feel where the breath goes. You may find the breath gets stuck in your throat and a thought about something random comes up. It happens to us all. If that happens to me, I acknowledge the thought and breathe that in and let it go, picturing the thought dissolve. Try again and see if you can bring the breath to your heart, then to your lungs, then your lower belly. See if you can envision the breathe go through your legs

through your feet into the earth. Maybe it will help if you place your hands over each other on your heart or lower belly to feel your breath — whatever works for you. See where the breath takes you. Practice this without your dog or in the same space as your dog. Practicing this breathing will bring a stillness to your mind. I can describe the feeling as looking out into the Hudson River or Atlantic Ocean, and it just looks like a smooth piece of glass. This type of breathing will help clear your mind and help you to focus on what you want with your dog. You will be able to observe and assess what actually needs to happen in the moment it is happening. If you think about a chaotic moment that has nothing to do with your dog, just in general, do you match that moment with chaos or do you match it with calmness? Think about what you want, figure out the steps to achieve that and you may just find the solution. I was on a walk just this past week with a pack of dogs and someone looked at me and said “Wow, you have your hands full” and in that moment I thought, My hands may be physically full but my mind is clear, light and present.

A WRITER TRYING TO OUTPACE HER PAST A DELIVERY MAN ON THE FRONTLINES AND THE GLASS DOOR THAT DIVIDES YET CONNECTS THEM

AVAILAB JMS BOO LE AUG. 12KS

FROM WAGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S EDITOR COMES A BRIEF TALE OF LOVE AND LOSS IN THE TIME OF CORONA THEGAMESMENPLAY.COM JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

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Courtesy Pets a Go Go.

GO GO-ING BIG FOR PETS

BY GEORGETTE GOUVEIA

icole Goudey-Rigger remembers the moment she had her epiphany about dogs and her professional life. In the 1980s, she was a trader on Wall Street who had moved to New York City from New Jersey, and was living in a tiny apartment with her Yorkshire Terrier, Hennessey, “the love of my life,” whom she got from a local pet shop. The dog, however, was not healthy and, after an experience at a kennel, developed an opportunistic lung infection that required daily antibiotics. “At that point, I thought, ‘There must be a better way,’” she says. In 2005, Goudey-Rigger opened Doggie Wishes and Pussycat Dreams, a dog-walking and pet-sitting business. It would be rebranded three years later as Pets a Go Go, which offers pooches and their parents a full range of services, from doggy day care and boarding to grooming and training.

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(Pets a Go Go provides at-home services for other species.) This, however, doesn’t really begin to describe the devotion of Goudey-Rigger — a woman who grew up in Bergen County, New Jersey, saving field mice in the basement and nurturing ducks and a gerbil her mother named Frou Frou — and her “Paw Squad.” “At Pets a Go Go,” the website proclaims, “we pride ourselves on the dedication and diligence of each member of The Paw Squad. Whether it is washing delicate, little puppy paws after a salty winter walk or microwaving vegetables for sensitive, little geriatric teeth, it’s simply what we do.” And they do it at two locations. The 2,000-square-foot, 1 ½-acre Briarcliff Manor facility, which has operated since 2011, offers a supervised, green, cage-free experience for canines that are friendly with other dogs and neutered or spayed if they are older than six months. The 6,000-square-foot, 1/4-acre Stamford fa-

cility consists of suites and a dog park so it can have intact females together and intact males together. (Oddly enough, Goudey-Rigger says problems arise not when two intact males go mano a mano but when a neutered male challenges an intact one.) Need to use the facility in one county but live in the other? No problem as Pets a Go Go shuttles pooches back and forth. It also works closely with Adopt-A-Dog in Armonk, Special Needs Animal Rescue & Rehabilitation (SNARR) in Brewster and with the SPCA in Briarcliff Manor, housing its overflow of rescues temporarily from time to time. Nowadays, animal shelters are empty as people working from home or just housebound are seeking furry, four-legged friends — one of the few good things to come out of the coronavirus. This would seem to explain why boarding at Pets a Go Go is slow — “10 percent off where we normally are,” Goudey-Rigger says — but daycare is “reasonably busy” and “grooming and training are up.” With good news, though, comes challenges. “Being home is a different life with a dog than when you go back to work. You have to make sure your pet doesn’t have separation anxiety.” Goudey-Rigger counsels leaving your home (while you’re still working from it) for a time — even if it’s a short walk around the block — to get your pet used to time away from you. Start small and build on your time away from your “furbaby,” a word Pets a Go Go likes to use on its website. Of course, some people are taking on a second or third furbaby. As with human babies coming home for the first time, this can create anxiety and jealousy among those already there. “Older dogs don’t necessarily appreciate the bounciness of a pup,” Goudey-Rigger says. The solution: Introduce the new siblings in a neutral zone and overcompensate with the older dog. And don’t forget to establish a routine for potty training with the newbie. Like all members of “The Paw Squad,” Goudey-Rigger is also a pet parent. She has a menagerie of six — Samson, an Akita; Delilah and Winter, two mixed-breed rescues; the special needs cats Timber (balance issues) and Echo (blind); and a bunny, Crème Brûlée. She and husband Dan Rigger are also the parents of two sets of boy-girl twins, ages 15 and 12. How does she do it? “I don’t sleep much,” Goudey-Rigger says. “Other than that, it’s all good.” For more, visit petsagogo.com.

Opal needs just a little confidence to find her forever family. Courtesy SPCA.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021 WAGMAG.COM

PET CARE

When it comes to adoption, some pets, like kids, have a harder time finding a forever home than others. Such is the case of Opal, a gentle, shy Retriever/Hound mix. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a certain sadness in those big brown eyes. You wonder what story and what pain they hide. Slowly but surely, though, Opal is learning to trust people and once she gets to know you, she reveals her jewel of a self. The SPCA would love to find her a foster home so she can gain confidence, preferably with someone whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d also be interested in adopting her once she progresses. She has a few canine buddies at the shelter so a home with a social canine friend may help. The SPCA trainers will assist the foster parent to help Opal acclimate and blossom. To learn more about Opal or set up a meet and greet, visit spca914.org.

PET OF THE MONTH

A HIDDEN JEWEL

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WHEN & WHERE THROUGH JAN. 24 Katonah Museum of Art presents “Hands & Earth: Perspectives on Japanese Contemporary Ceramics,” an exhibition that features 41 ceramic works by some of Japan’s most notable artists. The exhibit also provides a comprehensive survey of Japan’s ceramic tradition over the past 80 years, from the Mingei Folk Craft Movement of the 1930s to contemporary ceramic sculpture.10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m., Sundays; 134 Jay St.; 914-232-9555, katonahmuseum.org THROUGH FEB. 6 Hollis Taggart Southport presents “A Way of Feeling: Thomas Agrinier, Hollis Heichemer and Anna Pietrzak,” an exhibit of distinct explorations of the Romantic tradition that emphasize an appreciation of nature, imagination, emotion and transcendent experiences. These three contemporary practitioners are based respectively in Paris, New Hampshire and New York City. 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. 330 Pequot Ave., Southport; 212-628-4000, hollistaggart.com JAN. 16 AND 17 The Play Group Theatre will present two virtual performances of the play “Clue.” In this production, the characters of the beloved family game come to life, delivering a refreshing mystery. 8 p.m. Jan. 16 and 2 p.m. Jan. 17; 914-946-4433, playgroup.org JAN. 16 THROUGH MARCH 28 The Greenwich Historical Society (GHS) debuts its recently acquired “The Red Mill, Cos Cob,” by American Impressionist painter Childe Hassam as part of an intimate focus exhibit, drawing from the society’s collections, that explores how Hassam and fellow artists captured the fleeting character of Cos Cob’s Lower Landing in the 19th century. This painting is of a view across the Cos Cob Harbor from the current GHS Bush-Holley House, toward the former Palmer & Duff shipyard. Reservations required. Noon to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. 47 Strickland Road, Cos Cob; 203-8696899, greenwichhistory.org JAN. 16 THROUGH JUNE 13 The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk presents “A Slug’s Life: Facing the Climate Endgame,” exploring nudibranchs, an order of mollusks known for its striking forms and brilliant colors. Less than 3 inches long, these tiny creatures are considered an “indicator species” because of how quickly they respond to environmental change. Nudibranchs occur in some 3,000 species around the world, including two dozen species found in Long Island

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Jan. 16 through March 28 — Childe Hassam’s “The Red Mill, Cos Cob“ (1896), oil on canvas. Greenwich Historical Society. Courtesy the society.

Sound. Along with the live creatures, the show represents them in onyx and marble sculptures by Gar Waterman of New Haven and photographs by divers across the globe. 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. 10 N. Water St.; 203-852-0700, maritimeaquarium. org JAN. 19 The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, “See Hear: Revealing the Links Between Impressionist Art and Music.” Husband-and-wife team artist Christopher Campbell and art historian Nancy Locke, consider the intersection of Impressionist painting and music on Zoom with pianist Boris Berman, playing select pieces by Claude Debussy to highlight linkages with works by Cézanne, Pissarro, and other French Impressionists. Reservations required. 7 p.m., 203-869-0376, brucemuseum.org JAN. 20 In this first in a series of “Peace and Paint Workshops,” hosted by Norwalk’s MAD Lab, participants will engage in a group meditation and group paint based on the theme of color, led by poet and healer Tayler Samantha, and painter Evan Bieder. All materials will be provided. 7 p.m. 22 Leonard St., Norwalk; 203-682 5536, madweare.com JAN. 21 Brian Walker, professor of biology at Fairfield University, gives the virtual opening night lecture

for the exhibit “Birds of the Northeast: Gulls to Great Auks,” which features paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs and natural history specimens from the early 19th century through the present day. Curated by Carey Weber and Fairfield University biology professors Brian Walker, Jim Biardi and Tod Osier, the exhibit complements the installation of “The Lost Bird Project” by artist Todd McGrain on Fairfield’s campus. On view through July, his five monumental sculptures were created as a public memorial to birds driven to extinction in modern times. Reservations requested at fuam.eventbrite.com. Watch live at 6 p.m. at thequicklive.com. 203-254-4046 Join Michael Cramer, professor of film history at Sarah Lawrence College, to explore the factors and influences that produced some of Italy’s most renowned and artistic films in “Italian Cinema of the 1960s,” part of the New Canaan Library’s “Movements in Cinema” online series of lectures. Although Italian cinema first gained international attention with Neorealist films such as “Open City” and “Bicycle Thieves,” released after World War II, it reached perhaps its greatest commercial and artistic heights in the early 1960s. 7 p.m. Reservations required. 203-594-5003, newcanaanlibrary.org/calendar The Rye Arts Center presents an evening of self-expression through paint for audiences age 21 and up. The in-person workshop will start with a simple still life and progress from

WAG

WHEN & WHERE there. Participants are encouraged to bring their own beverages. Preregistration required. 6:15 to 9 p.m., 51 Milton Road, Rye; 914-967-0700, ryeartscenter.org

barrier at Yale in September 1969. Few were prepared for what they found when they arrived. 12:30 p.m. Reservations required. 203-762-7257, wiltonhistorical.org

JAN. 23 Heather Gaudio Fine Art opens a new exhibition, “Martin Kline: Allover Paintings,” running through March 6. Over his career, Kline has examined systems of historicism and presentation, creating bodies of works in series, each with its distinctive visual language. As he states, there comes a point when an artist “cannot escape Jackson Pollock.” For this exhibition, Kline presents his newest group of paintings, inspired by the Pollock-style drip technique he used in “Dream of Pollock (for Kirk Varnedoe)” in 2007. 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. 66 Elm St., New Canaan; 203-801-9590, heathergaudiofineart. com

JAN. 29 The Stamford Museum & Nature Center opens “Global Garden: Resonant Beauty” an exhibition featuring the oil paintings, etchings and drawings of Patricia Laspino, running through March 21. Over her 40-year career, Patricia Laspino has developed a signature style that layers dozens of transparent oil color glazes over a sculptural groundwork of botanical impressions. Her large-scale paintings use orchids symbolically to raise awareness for environmental stewardship and convey the connection between humanity and nature. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays. 39 Scofieldtown Road, Stamford. 203-977-6521, stamfordmuseum.org

New Choral Society will present a virtual evening of chamber music with the members of its chamber orchestra, conducted by John T. King. The concert will be available online through February. 8 p.m.; newchoralsociety.org/chamber

JAN. 31 India Center of Westchester will present a Republic Day Celebration of India to mark the day when the Constitution of India came into effect. This online celebration of Indian culture will include folk music, Bollywood dances and more. For more, email info@indiacenter.us. 11 a.m. via Zoom, 914-418-5775, indiacenter.us

JAN. 26 New Canaan Library’s “Presidential Trappings” series of online lectures concludes with “The Art of Ballot Design Throughout History” by Alicia Yin Cheng, founding partner of MGMT. design, and author of “This is What Democracy Looked Like: A Visual History of the Printed Ballot.” 7 p.m. Reservations required. 203-594-5003, newcanaanlibrary.org/calendar JAN. 27 “Make History Now!” Join preservation leaders Jane Montanaro, executive director, Connecticut Preservation; and Elise Hillman Green, Russell S. Reynolds and Anne Young, co-founders, Historic Properties of Greenwich, as they share research on the economic and environmental benefits of local property historic designation and outline practical steps homeowners can take to save community history. 6 p.m. on Zoom. 203-8696899, greenwichhistory.org JAN. 28 The Wilton Historical Society presents an online discussion with author Anne Gardiner Perkins of her new book, “Yale Needs Women: How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant,” winner of the 2020 Connecticut Book Award for Nonfiction. “Yale Needs Women” tells the story of five of the women students—two black and three white—who broke the gender

FEB. 2 The Ridgefield Playhouse presents the documentary, “Woman In Motion—Nichelle Nicholas, ‘Star Trek’ and the Remaking of NASA.” In 1977, with just four months left, NASA struggled to recruit scientists, engineers and astronauts for its Space Shuttle Program. Nichelle Nichols, “Star Trek’s” Lt. Uhura, challenged NASA by asking the question: “Where are my people?”, referring to people of color. She embarked on a national blitz, recruiting 8,000 of the nation’s best and brightest, including the trailblazing astronauts who became the first African-American, Asian and Latino men and women to fly in space. 7 p.m., 80 E. Ridge Road, Ridgefield; 203-438-5795, ridgefieldplayhouse.org FEB. 4 Join Norwalk Youth Symphony (NYS) music director Jonathan Yates and his sister, Carolyn Yates, art historian for the Arts in Embassies program of the U. S. State Department, in the last of the NYS Webinar series. The Yateses dive into the thrilling world of Harlem in the 1920s with “Art & Music: The Roaring Harlem Renaissance,” investigating what led to this exciting period of cultural and intellectual ferment, its long legacy, and its continuing influence on the social

movements of today. 8 p.m., 203-866-4100, norwalkyouthsymphony.org FEB. 5 Join the Stamford Museum & Nature Center for a reading of Jane Yolen’s “Owl Moon” and then head out onto the trails for an “Owl Moon Owl Prowl” as guides call in local owls. For ages 5 and up. 7 p.m. 39 Scofieldtown Road. 203-977-6521, stamfordmuseum.org FEB. 7 As part of its continuing ARTalks series of online discussions, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum presents “African American Artists: Self Determination and Resistance from the Roaring 20s to 2020,” with Stephanie Sparling Williams, a black feminist theorist and an associate curator at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum. From the Harlem Renaissance (New Negro Movement), to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power period, from hiphop to Black Lives Matter—artists across time and media have used the visual arts as means to express dignity and humanity and to inspire radical change. 2 p.m. 203-438-4519, thealdrich.org FEB. 12 Emelin Theatre presents an exclusive livestream performance by American folk singersongwriter Livingston Taylor. Taylor has shared the stage with such major artists as Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Buffett and Jethro Tull. 8 to 9:30 p.m., 914-698-0098, emelin.org FEB. 13 THROUGH 19 Friends Of Music Concerts, an all-volunteer nonprofit serving Westchester County, will present a virtual concert with pianist Gloria Chien, a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society. The program will consist of works by John Field, Franz Liszt and Felix Mendelssohn. 914-8615080, friendsofmusicconcerts.org FEB. 21 Hudson Stage Company presents “A Remedy for the Pandemic Blues,” a virtual series of four commissioned one-act plays. This event will feature works by local playwright Julia Izumi and director Addie Gorlin. 3 to 4 p.m.; 914-271-2811, hudsonstage.com

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WE WONDER:

HOW WILL YOU RENEW YOURSELF THIS YE AR? “I will renew myself this year by making sure I prioritize self-care in the form of rest, exercise and diet on a daily basis. Consistency in these areas will make for a stronger and more energetic 2021.”

PAUL AMADO

business banking relationship manager Milford resident

“Renewal is deeply personal and has a different meaning for everyone. In these trying times where we've felt miles apart from one another, renewal for me is centered around encouraging and working on building more meaningful relationships with those around me. We never know what someone else may be going through and what a difference a kind word, or a simple ‘I see you’ can make. I will work on renewing myself by strengthening and deepening my relationships with others.”

“I will renew myself by reconnecting with the activities that were put on hold during the height of the pandemic. I will spend more time with family, especially engaging in family hikes. I am also looking forward to tackling the stack of books I’ve been putting off. We grow by learning.”

KRISTIN FERRARESE

executive chef/creative director for Fortuna’s Catering Co. Bridgeport resident

“In every article I read about a day in the life of successful people, I always hear two things — rituals and meditation. 2020 was a crazy year with a lot of changes so I'm going to focus on staying consistent with my morning rituals in 2021."

MIKE HANAUER

chief revenue officer, SKOUT Cybersecurity Wilton resident

VALERIA G. BISCEGLIA

education and training programs adviser Bridgeport resident “As a business owner, it's important to continually challenge myself to expand my goals in order to grow the business, multiply our client base with exceptional service and challenge employees to produce amazing work without a heavy-handed approach. Our success at Noble House is built on solid relationships with the people we work for and the people on our team. I want my staff to be excited when they arrive for work and be willing to expand their horizons each and every day.”

“In order to renew myself this year, I've committed to my health and taking a hike every weekend. Hiking provides exercise, time in nature and away from screens and allows me to see my friends in a safe setting. This time of year it takes a lot of bundling up, but it's still great to get outside.”

CHELSEA KORDIAK

executive director, Stratford Y Milford resident

PETER BELBITA

CEO, Noble House Media Darien resident “At some point, once it is safe to do so, I intend on spending an extended period of time on a white sand beach in a tropical environment recovering and recharging from the stress of the last year.”

PATRICK DUNLEAVEY

principal, CironeFridberg Trumbull resident

“This year I will continue to renew myself, focusing on lifestyle, exercise, attitude, nutrition and family. I believe all of these working in tandem improve learning, behavior, increase(ing) energy levels and overall a happier and productive lifestyle.”

KIM CHAMBERLAIN

district manager/vice president Trumbull resident

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“This year I’m focusing on reading more books. It’s a simple and healthy escape that I’m really enjoying.”

LINDSEY SHELLMAN chief commercial officer Newtown resident

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