OYSTER NEWS

FEBRUARY 2004

A TOAST!  A TOAST!

On Saturday, January 24, 14 persons, many of them Oysterers, gathered at the Sichuan Pavilion in Washington DC to celebrate the birthdays of Stephen Banker, Joe Schildkraut and John Meeks, who were born within a few days of each other.  Albert Hahn, another member of that group, was “stuck” in Paris.  Peter Riddleberger was also born in the fourth week of January but in another year.  As I told the assemblage, ”This dinner is to birthdays as Sun Myung Moon is to weddings — except we have better food.”

            Here is the menu:

Note the unusual champagne, a magnum of Piper-Heidsieck 1953:  part of a legacy from my late uncle, who was a member of Les Chevaliers du Tastevin.  In truth, the bubbly was somewhat past its prime but there was definitely some fizz to it — and it was a pleasure to drink, especially since it’s unlikely that we’ll have a chance at that particular vintage again.

The dinner coincided with the advent of “The Year of the Monkey,” which seemed appropriate to our carryings-on.  The birthday cake, specially baked for us, had chocolate simian figures on it.

Joe and Betsy Schildkraut came from Boston;  Marty Moleski drove down from Buffalo;  and George Klein flew in all the way from Geneva.  Among the guests were the Schildkrauts’ son Peter and his fiancée, Dr. Stacey Merola.  

The hand in the right corner of that photo belongs to Marty Moleski. For those who were worried about whether or not he would make his Oxford University Press deadline in March — relax, he’s on schedule.  It’s just a matter of cutting.  Marty puts his faith in Faulkner’s dictum on editing: “Kill your darlings.”

Marty, George and Stephen attended a matinée of  the one-man show, “Gershwin Alone,” at Ford’s Theatre in the afternoon before the dinner.  At the end of the performance, when he interacts with the audience, the actor/singer Hershey Felder, said, “I think I saw a priest in the audience,” and Marty duly raised his hand.  “Well, Father,” said Felder, “do you know the lyrics to ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’… ‘the things that you’re liable to read in the bible, they ain’t necessarily so…’”?  “No. Sorry,” said Marty.  And the show moved on.

Joel Dreyfuss reports:  “The trip to Paris with my mother during the holidays turned out well. She revisited some of her old neighborhoods, changed somewhat after 30-35 years but still recognizable; there's a certain endurance to these cities. She had a good time and we all (mom, me, Veronica, my sister Carole and her son, Michael, who is in the Marines) enjoyed a wonderful dinner at a very nice little restaurant on New Year's Eve. The menu started with grilled oysters (in honor of La Société des Huîtres), went on to foie gras and featured wild boar. Veronica and I got to go off on our own a couple of times to wine bars we like and to walk in some neighborhoods, although it was cold, cold and snowed on New Year's Day.”

Eric Britton is recovering beautifully from hip-replacement surgery at the American Hospital in Paris.  He received several bedside visits from the ever-solicitous Albert Hahn, fortuitously on hand from São Paulo.  Now, according to reports crossing the Atlantic, Eric is taking five jogs a day in his Montparnasse arrondisement and is currently at 97% of perfect.

John Meeks and I are going to Montreal in April to select a site for Oyster III on June 27th.  Please mark your calendars accordingly.  For those who may have business in Paris around that time (such as Joe, David and Eric) be assured that flights between Dorval and DeGaulle are relatively hassle-free.  And the value of the Canadian dollar, compared to that of the US$ or the €uro, is not to be believed.

Peter Riddleberger’s daughter Kate is to be married in Washington on June 12^th.  Peter has adjusted his mad mad travel schedule to accommodate the event.

Tim and Petie O’Brien’s daughter Teresa María is to be married a week later in Rhode Island.  The O’Briens will take a breather in Maine and then drive northward to join the rest of us in la belle province.

While some of us were frivolously marking birthdays, David Levering Lewis was tending to his knitting by delivering the Chancellor’s Lecture at Washington University in St.  Louis.  David’s most recent book, “A Small Nation of People,” has jumped out of the gate by selling 60,000 copies.  It consists of photographs of black Americans displayed by W.E.B. Du Bois at the Paris exposition of 1900.  David did not see all the pictures before he wrote his introductory essay and so it came as a shock to him to find a photo of his mother, an early Du Bois student, among the collection.  Here she is, Miss Alice Bell, and if I may pay the appropriate compliment, a shining young beauty with a gaze of calm intelligence.

—compiled by Stephen Banker
HTML version by M.X. Moleski, SJ