“Comedy, I imagine, is harder to do consistently than tragedy, but I like it spiced in the wine of sadness.”

It was the long bad time after the long good time. Stocks a puzzle, real estate stalled, the bond market iffy, Wall Street firms down to half their size. Two of his former associates under indictment:

Brandauer had Tuna Fish for lunch every day of the nine years I knew him. Sometimes on rye toast, sometimes on white bread, sometimes with a Coke, sometimes with a small glass of milk. Not a full size

Ah, Bixby, Mettro, Manishin and Marx. Sitting here in my high-ceilinged under-priced West End Avenue Co-op, waiting for my wife to come by and leave the keys for the last time, I am giving a party in my head.

Can you imagine how it might have turned out if Katherine Eudemie had forgotten her child in the coatroom of the Russian Rendezvous in March instead of a glorious, sunny June? Think of the women’s coats soggy with snow—the men’s trench coats soaked with wet —the little girl. Tulip, under a curse of endless sniffles. Impossible to think of raising a child in such an environment.

And still there is no season's story told
by words, expressive, eager to explain;
no winter's tale will pass from mouth to mind;