Thursday's News

High-end jeweler Tiffany & Co. reported today first quarter sales increased 20% over a year ago to $761 million while earnings jumped an even higher 25% to $81.1 million.

It’s another sign the luxury market is back.

I wonder...will Newt “$500,000-Tiffany-credit-line” Gingrich consider signing on as a celebrity corporate spokesman once his presidential nomination bid flames out?


Elaine’s, the literati’s Second Avenue watering hole on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, closes tonight, five months after the saloon’s namesake owner, Elaine Kaufman, died. Brian McDonald, an ex-bartender at Elaine’s, provided his reminiscences for the NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/opinion/26mcdonald.html?ref=opinion.

One question McDonald sought to answer was the secret to the restaurant’s success, as it was generally acknowledged Elaine’s did not serve haute cuisine. He discounted the appeal of seeing the rich and famous as well as seeing Elaine herself. His conclusion: she was simply a good businesswoman who didn’t worry about tomorrow but cared more for “the names in the reservation book for that night.”

Last December I chimed in with my reflections on the night Gilda and I visited Elaine’s and sat with the editors of the NY Post (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-night-at-elaines.html). I can’t tell you why a restaurant becomes an “in” place, but I do disagree with McDonald that Elaine was not a “crowd pleaser.” She didn’t have to play to the crowds. She did what any good host does—she made each individual feel important, that she cared they stopped in for a drink, for a meal, for a snack. Any good restaurateur knows that it’s the personal touch that makes an establishment successful. It’s that way with any service business. If the proprietor doesn’t care about his or her customers, they won’t care about his or her service. They’ll take their business elsewhere. It’s hard to sustain that intimacy in a chain store world. That’s why places like Elaine’s are to be cherished.


I’m a traditionalist when it comes to many things, including sports. That’s one reason, perhaps, I find it hard to watch today’s version of basketball, aside from my being a less than stellar performer on the hard wood, attributed mainly to my inability to dribble and therefore drive to the basket.

Today’s Times carried an article and video on “The Crossover: Genealogy of a Vicious Move” (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/05/25/sports/basketball/100000000831937/the-crossover-on-display.html?ref=sports). The crossover is a dribble move used to free the ball handler to either shoot a jump shot or drive to the basket for a lay-up.

Aside from not being able to execute such a move, my problem with the crossover is that it should be illegal. Pure and simple, it’s a carry, a palm, an illegal transmission of the ball. Allen Iverson, reputedly one of the players who popularized the move, admits so on the video. But basketball let it become acceptable because of a need to pump up scoring and dazzling dunks (oh yeah, I can’t dunk, either).

Today’s basketball players are superb ball handlers. You can’t compare them to the icons of the 1950s and 1960s, guys like Bob Cousy, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, Elgin Baylor or Walt Frazier who had to play by the rules.


I watched a tape of Oprah’s final hurrah on regular TV Wednesday. No guests, just Oprah spouting her wisdom and philosophy. I thought I’d be cynically put off by its cheesiness. I wasn’t. She did a good job.

Life, Plus and Minus 30 Years

Herb Horn was eulogized today. Herb passed away Tuesday, three months after celebrating his 90th birthday. He was a friend.

Three weeks ago, Finley’s maternal great grandmother, Phebe Perry Mixter, age 90, was eulogized.

Both funerals, one Jewish, the other Episcopalian, were celebrations of remarkable lives.

But what struck me as I sat through both services was the near 30-year gap in our ages (I’m three months shy of 62). Should I live to their age, how will society and culture change? Consider what has transpired in the last 30 years:

* The scourge of HIV/AIDS became widely known at the start of the 1980s

* Lipitor, the preeminent cholesterol-fighting drug that has affected countless lives (I’m a beneficiary), was developed in 1988. Two years before, doctors implanted the first human coronary heart stent

* Lasik eye surgery is commonplace

* Cable and satellite TV (now being challenged by Internet TV) became standard household conveniences

* Speaking of the Internet, the World Wide Web didn’t really take off until the early 1990s

* Land line telephone service is giving way to cell phone and Internet hook-ups

* GPS systems, once a military monopoly, entered civilian life

* Facebook and Twitter et al have changed the way we communicate, socially and politically

* Personal computers became ubiquitous, as have DVRs, digital cameras and TVs, satellite radio, mind-boggling video games, debit cards, and hybrid cars

Think about it—30 years ago was before Seinfeld, before the Simpsons, before Oprah, before rap, Lady Gaga, Madonna (though not before Cher, Dylan or Springsteen). Thirty years ago was before Derek Jeter started playing, before Fantasy Football.

Before Al-Qaeda.

In 30 years, my oldest, and for now only grandchild, Finley, will be 31. How will his/their lives be different? Will we have conquered cancer? Will cars drive themselves (as Google has already experimented with)? Will we have enough water to sustain the world’s population without threat of war or famine? Will we implant chips into our bodies to help us better think and perform? Will religions be sources of inspiration, comfort, healing and compassion or tools of discord and divisiveness? Will the U.S. surrender its mantle of exceptionalism to China? India? To a united Europe?

Thirty years is a long time. I was fortunate to have known Herb Horn for nearly 30 years. Sadly, I knew Phebe Perry Mixter for just four short years.