Author: ruhlwrite

I hung an enormous vintage mirror in my bedroom at the beginning of the year. It was, if you will, a gift from the grave. It belonged to Marie Milo, who would have celebrated her 98th birthday this week. Marie loved to go out. As showy as a peacock and as tough as her perfectly painted nails, Marie, 5-foot-3 and 90 pounds, was larger than life. Marie wasn’t the life of the party. She the party. She quaffed margaritas (the message on her answering machine said, “I’m out drinking…

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The sound of the piano, powerfully playful, echoes through June Xiao’s duplex apartment. With her sleek Siberian, Milford, at her feet, she heads to the basement, down two sets of steep steps that are so narrow you almost have to turn sideways, where one of her students is practicing on the Hamburg Steinway. June’s from Shanghai, China. (The gleaming grand piano, in flamed mahogany, came in through the garage legless and was reassembled on site.) Benny, who at 15 is the same…

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You wanna hear something funny? Comedian Matt Storrs named his petulant 6-year-old Dachshund after a wheel of cheese. Matt is a lawyer and a comedian. Commandant Cameron Quincy Camembert, Cam for short, is throwing a tantrum that’s as long as his alliterative appellation. Matt, whose curly coppery locks are the same color as Cam’s, takes a bite out of a carrot and offers it as a treat. But Cam’s no fool: He holds out for a piece of meat. It isn’t until Matt picks him up…

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The most important – and astounding — thing to know about pastry chef Ankhana “Anne” Ward is that she grew up without an oven. Anne’s the owner of Pastries by Anne. She nonchalantly reveals this tantalizing tidbit as an afterthought while she’s whipping up another almond mango cake for her newly opened bakery, which is, of course, called Pastries by Anne. Her admission is a sweet amuse-bouche, and it takes us to Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, where Anne – she started…

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“The bass is cool,” declares Jeff Dingler. “In any style of music, it’s always a countermelody happening in the background in between the melodic instruments and the drums.” Jeff plays the electric bass and the upright bass. Want to hear a little Gershwin? Jeff takes off his shoes at the door, slides his feet into slippers and sits down in his living room.  When he plays, he loses himself in the sound. He was only going to play one short piece, but how about some jazz? He…

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