The Fame-Gaining Filmmaker

It’s a sunny Saturday, and David Jakubovic is itching to get out bright and early. He’s going to shoot a fashion film, and he wants to scout a bunch of locations in the neighborhood. He’s all pumped up because his first feature film, , took top honors at the European Independent Film Festival and won two awards at Italy’s Tolentino International Film Festival. Relaxing in his living room is torture; the freelance film editor is a “complete and utter workaholic,”…

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The Barbershop Duo

When the door is open, the music of the bouzouki drifts out into 29th Street like a dream. That’s how you know when Nikos and Tasoula Zigouris are between customers. At their barbershop, Nikos & Tasoula Hair Style for Men & Women, haircuts start at $10, and a shave and a snip sometimes come with a song. Nikos, you see, is a magician of a musician, and he can’t keep his fingers idle when he’s sans scissors. So he takes his bouzouki or his baglama or his violin or his guitar…

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The Cabbie of All Trades

John McDonagh, in a hoodie and hooligan cap, is not behind the wheel. It’s his day off, and he’s at the diner having his breakfast between errands that will take him all over the place before the sun sets. John, a fine fellow with a wee bit of a brogue and a wide sweep of brown-polish hair, is having a cup of tea with milk and a bacon and English muffin sandwich. 55 Stan, where he leases a cab every day he’s working, is only a couple blocks away. John gets behind a lot of things,…

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The On-the-Ball Baseball Usher

It was 2 a.m. It was freezing, so cold that when Luke Gasparre talks about it, he still feels the ice-box chill creeping up his spine even though all this happened to him nearly 70 years ago. The world was at war with itself for the second time in history, and Luke, an Army infantryman, was guarding a road in Saarbrücken, Germany, in 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. Private First Class Gasparre, serial number 32827016, had wrapped a long, brown, wool scarf around his head — his sister…

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