The Lady, the Dog and the Deli Sandwich Order

Alec Tabak A dog owner wanted turkey with mustard on whole wheat. What happened next is a mystery.

The call crackled over police radios in the First Precinct just after 2 p.m. on Wednesday: a dispute at a deli in TriBeCa - dog involved.

A squad car responded to the location, the Tribeca Deli on Greenwich Street, witnesses said, as did a smaller single-person police vehicle and an ambulance, possibly because there had been a report that a blind woman was involved.

Outside the deli, officers spoke with a woman, who stood with her dog. She wanted to get a turkey sandwich with mustard on whole wheat. And she wanted to take the dog inside with her.

“It was busy time,” said one worker, Jose Santos, who staffed the sandwich stand in back of the deli with two other workers.

Mr. Santos did not see the woman or her dog, he said, but he registered a commotion in the front of the store. He said choice words could be heard, though he declined to elaborate on which ones.

Up front, the cashiers were mum. “No comment,” one said.

“I just get here; I don’t know what happened,” said another, but noted the rule: “No dog. No dog in the store.”

Mr. Santos said the cashiers up front had asked the woman to wait outside with her dog as the men in back made her sandwich. That was apparently not a good solution. The police were summoned.

A Police Department spokesman said there was no record of any incident at that location, adding that police officers talk to people on the street all day long and do not record every interaction.

Yet 30 minutes after the radio call, a wolf pack of reporters arrived, ch! asing a story of a service dog and a blind woman denied entry to a deli in one of the tonier sections downtown.

Inside the deli.

Inside the deli, a picture of a St. Bernard â€" a beverage bottle in place of a barrel around its neck - greeted entering customers.

But the woman and her dog had already left, as had the police.

Carlos Gutierrez, a chauffeur to a Hollywood celebrity, said he saw the commotion from his black Cadillac Escalade parked across the street. “She didn’t seem like she was blind,” he said. “It was just one lady talking to three cops.”

Service animals â€" anything from a dog to a hedgehog â€" assist owners with a variety of disailities besides blindness and are permitted to enter stores that sell food, per the city health department [pdf]. Such “food service operators” may not demand to see proof of an owner’s disability or identification for the animal.

One door down from the deli, at a Duane Reade drugstore, a cashier said people regularly try to bring their dogs inside. “If it’s a small dog, I tell them to carry it; if it’s a big dog, I tell them to leave it outside,” he said. “Because customers complain when they sniff the candy.”

An assistant manager chimed in: “In Manhattan, some people treat their dogs like kids.” Both employees declined to give their names, not wanting to be drawn into any fluffy kerfuffle.

Remember \'Moose Murders\' She Was There - On Stage

Gerry Goodstein Holland Taylor and Nicholas Hormann in “Moose Murders,” which opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theater in 1983.

“From now on, there will always be two groups of theatergoers in this world: those who have seen ‘Moose Murders,’ and those who have not.”

So began Frank Rich’s legendary review of the legendary flop, a 1983 farce by Arthur Bicknell that closed on opening night and after some of the most gobsmacked notices in Broadway history.

With a revised version of the play opening Off Broadway Wednesday night, that firs group might get larger. But among those unlikely to return is Holland Taylor, who played Hedda Holloway in the original production.

As it happens Ms. Taylor â€" who went on to a lengthy TV career that included an Emmy nomination for “Two and a Half Men” and a win for “The Practice” â€" is back in New York, rehearsing “Ann,” her one-woman show about the late Texas Gov. Ann W. Richards, which opens on Broadway in March.

In a recent conversation about the new play with Adam Nagourney, the Times’s Los Angeles bureau chief, the matter of “Moose Murders” came up.

“I actually I took that job because I knew it would be over quickly, and I had another show I wanted to do,” she confessed. “They were so desperate for me to take that job because Eve Arden had left suddenl! y and they needed to get somebody who had the nerve to get up in that show in a week. The lead! I made a very fast assessment to do it.”

Having mostly worked Off Broadway, “I was living on my credit cards,” she added. “I was a mess. I knew this would get me out of debt like that.” The writing was on the wall: “I knew they knew they were going to close. But they needed to open. I just sussed all this out.”

So will she see what the fuss was about, from the audience this time “I would if I were a free agent,” Ms. Taylor said. “I’m sort of busy.”

Museum Leaders Toughen Artifact Acquisition Guidelines

The Association of Art Museum Directors has voted to strengthen rules requiring museums to publish pictures and information about antiquities they have acquired that might be subject to questions of looting.

In 2008 the group wrote sweeping guidelines advising museums that they “normally should not” acquire a work unless solid proof exists that the object was, prior to 1970, outside the country where it was discovered in modern times, or was legally exported from that country after 1970.
That is the year Unesco ratified a landmark convention prohibiting traffic in illicit antiquities, and it has become a widely accepted cutoff for collecting. Objects that appear on the market without documentation leading back that far are much more likely to have been stolen or illegally dug up and smuggled out of their countries.

Maxwell Anderson, the director of the Dallas Museum of Art and the chairman of the directors’ association’s task force on archaeological material and ancient art, said the change, made at the association’s meetings this week in Kansas City, Mo., makes the publication rule “really into a sunshine law now.”

“It gets the information out there, and if there are claimants then they can come forward,” he said.

But some cultural property experts who have questioned museum practices in the past warned that while the publication requireme! nt is a positive step, it still might not be enough to discourage some museums who have skirted the 1970 rule since it was put in place.

“What I want to see is the museums not acquiring these things in the first place,” said Patty Gerstenblith, director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University in Chicago. “It remains to be seen how they enforce that part.”

Museum Leaders Toughen Artifact Acquisition Guidelines

The Association of Art Museum Directors has voted to strengthen rules requiring museums to publish pictures and information about antiquities they have acquired that might be subject to questions of looting.

In 2008 the group wrote sweeping guidelines advising museums that they “normally should not” acquire a work unless solid proof exists that the object was, prior to 1970, outside the country where it was discovered in modern times, or was legally exported from that country after 1970.
That is the year Unesco ratified a landmark convention prohibiting traffic in illicit antiquities, and it has become a widely accepted cutoff for collecting. Objects that appear on the market without documentation leading back that far are much more likely to have been stolen or illegally dug up and smuggled out of their countries.

Maxwell Anderson, the director of the Dallas Museum of Art and the chairman of the directors’ association’s task force on archaeological material and ancient art, said the change, made at the association’s meetings this week in Kansas City, Mo., makes the publication rule “really into a sunshine law now.”

“It gets the information out there, and if there are claimants then they can come forward,” he said.

But some cultural property experts who have questioned museum practices in the past warned that while the publication requireme! nt is a positive step, it still might not be enough to discourage some museums who have skirted the 1970 rule since it was put in place.

“What I want to see is the museums not acquiring these things in the first place,” said Patty Gerstenblith, director of the Center for Art, Museum and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University in Chicago. “It remains to be seen how they enforce that part.”

Knoedler Gallery Again Accused of Fraud in New Lawsuit

The once-grand Knoedler gallery was accused again on Tuesday of selling a forged painting for $5.5 million that was attributed to an American master, in this case, the artist Mark Rothko.

The Martin Hilti Family Trust, a charity created by the construction tool magnate of the same name and based in Liechtenstein in Europe, sued the gallery, stating that a forensic analysis of the work “Untitled (1956)” reveals that a particular red pigment used in the work “was not developed until the 1960s, years after the purported ‘1956’ date of the work.”

This suit is the fourth filed in Manhattan federal court against Knoedler & Co. since it closed its doors in November 2011. It names Knoedler’s owner, Michael Hammer, its former president Ann Freedman, as well as Glafira Rosales, the Long Island dealer currently being investigated by the F.B.I. for supplying this painting and dozens of others to Knoedler.

One of the suits, filed over a $17 million work attributed to Jackson Pollock, was settled in October. A second suit was brought by Domenico DeSole, the chairman of Tom Ford’s fashion firm, and his wife, Eleanore, over a $8.3 million work attributed to Mark Rothko, while a third was filed by John D. Howard, a Wall St. executive, over a $4 million painting attributed to Willem de Kooning.

Mr. Hammer’s lawyer, Charles D. Schmerler, said: “The Hilti complaint rehashes the same baseless claims contained in the prior lawsuits. Given the attention this matter has received, it is not unexpected to see copycat suits filed. We plan to aggressively litigate this case and expect to see Knoedler and Mr. Hammer fully vindicated.”

Ms. Rosales’ lawyer has sai! d that she has never knowingly sold any forged works.

Ms. Freedman’s lawyer, Nicholas Gravante Jr, provided a statement from her that said: “These paintings were exhibited in museums around the world and heralded as masterworks. This particular Rothko was featured at the Beyeler Foundation in 2002. The personal vendettas and professional jealously behind the attacks on the works and on my reputation should be obvious.”

Aaron Sorkin Drops Out of Broadway \'Houdini\'

Aaron Sorkin, who was to make his debut as a librettist with the Broadway musical “Houdini,” has pulled his own disappearing act and dropped out of the production because of scheduling conflicts, the producers confirmed Wednesday.

Deadline.com first reported on Tuesday that scheduling conflicts led Mr. Sorkin to withdraw from the musical starring Hugh Jackman as the famed illusionist. Mr. Sorkin was writing the book with Stephen Schwartz, the composer of “Wicked” and “Pippin.”

Mr. Sorkin was balancing “Houdini” with the writing of his HBO series €œThe Newsroom,” as well as work on a screenplay about Steve Jobs, adapted from Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography. In an interview with The New York Times last June, Mr. Sorkin was asked about juggling his various projects, noting that he had walked away from his TV series “The West Wing” before the run ended.

“I’m not good enough to be able to give any of these things less than my full attention and expect them to have a chance at being good, so the answer is that 100 percent of my attention goes to whatever’s right in front of me,” Mr. Sorkin said at the time.

In the statement released Wednesday, Mr. Sorkin said, “I was really looking forward to returning to Broadway and working with such an incredible team. I am very disappointed my schedule won’t allow that at this time.”

The producers Scott Sander and David Rockwe! ll said, “Mr. Sorkin’s considerable talents are an asset to any project and we regret that he’s unable to remain with ‘Houdini.’”

The musical’s projected arrival on Broadway and additional creative team announcements will be made at a future date, the statement said.

Police Save Ship Engineer in Helicopter Rescue Mission

The New York police staged a nighttime helicopter rescue mission in New York Harbor on Tuesday, saving the life of the ship’s 60-year-old chief engineer, who had a heart attack while the 360-foot cargo vessel was anchored far from shore.

The police received a distress call at 9:45 p.m. about the stricken engineer aboard the Grey Shark.

Courtesy Devon Shipping Inc. The Grey Shark

The ship, which is based in Brooklyn and brings cars and trucks to St. Marc, Haiti, was anchored off Statn Island between the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the ferry terminal, waiting out a patch of bad weather, said an official of Devon Shipping, Inc, which owns the vessel. The Police Department’s harbor unit ferried Detective Robert Brager, a tactical medic with the Emergency Services Unit, to the ship.

Once on board, Detective Brager treated the engineer, Aly Akl, but decided that “the safest, and quickest, way to get the patient off the ship to a hospital would be to airlift him off,” the police said.

N.Y.P.D. Detective Robert Brager

A Bell 412 police helicopter was already on its way to the location and once it arrived, rescue workers lowered a basket to the ship’s deck and Mr. Akl was lifted onto ! the helicopter.

Detective Brager was also hoisted up to the helicopter, where he continued to monitor the patient on the flight to Staten Island University North Hospital.

On Wednesday, Mr. Akl was in stable condition, the police said.

Andy Newman contributed reporting.

Give Us Your Best Honking Haiku

Illustration: The New York Times; Cars and sign: Michael Appleton for The New York Times; Horn at right and goose: Associated Press; Horn at left: Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Please share your honking haiku with us.

So the city is taking down all those “No Honking” signs, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, having concluded that their efficacy is, at best, uncertain.

But honku will endure forever â€" perhaps even drawing strength from this act of bureaucratic capitulation to the forces of noise pollution.

Honku, huh you ask. Why, haiku about honking, a form invented in 2001 by a Brooklyn-based Web designer named Aaron Naparstek, who with his neighbors distilled their annoyance with neighborhood motorists into keenly observed three-line missives of five, seven and five syllables, like:

When the light turns green
like a leaf on a spring wind
the horn blows quickly.

and

Gruesome hit and run
fatalities up ahead
how awful â€" I’m late.

The little poems caught on, spinning off a Web site, a book and, incidentally, a career for Mr. Naparstek as a clean-transportation advocate.

Mr. Naparstek, who worked for Transportation Alternatives and founded Streetsblog, is in Massachusetts this! school year teaching in M.I.T.’s urban planning department. Reached by phone on Tuesday, he said he had dimly heard about the city’s move.

“I’m just assuming that the signs are coming down because the honking problem must have been solved, am I not correct” he asked. “I’m sorry not to be in New York City to experience the victory and the sweet sound of silence. But I’m happy for the people in New York.”

Perhaps Mr. Naparstek is not kidding as much as he thinks he is, and the fanfare-played-upon-the-steering-wheel is gradually fading from the city soundscape. Perhaps the music of the automotive horn is here to stay.

Either way, won’t you share your own honku with us in the comments

Give Us Your Best Honking Haiku

Illustration: The New York Times; Cars and sign: Michael Appleton for The New York Times; Horn at right and goose: Associated Press; Horn at left: Agence France-Presse â€" Getty Images Please share your honking haiku with us.

So the city is taking down all those “No Honking” signs, as The New York Times reported Tuesday, having concluded that their efficacy is, at best, uncertain.

But honku will endure forever â€" perhaps even drawing strength from this act of bureaucratic capitulation to the forces of noise pollution.

Honku, huh you ask. Why, haiku about honking, a form invented in 2001 by a Brooklyn-based Web designer named Aaron Naparstek, who with his neighbors distilled their annoyance with neighborhood motorists into keenly observed three-line missives of five, seven and five syllables, like:

When the light turns green
like a leaf on a spring wind
the horn blows quickly.

and

Gruesome hit and run
fatalities up ahead
how awful â€" I’m late.

The little poems caught on, spinning off a Web site, a book and, incidentally, a career for Mr. Naparstek as a clean-transportation advocate.

Mr. Naparstek, who worked for Transportation Alternatives and founded Streetsblog, is in Massachusetts this! school year teaching in M.I.T.’s urban planning department. Reached by phone on Tuesday, he said he had dimly heard about the city’s move.

“I’m just assuming that the signs are coming down because the honking problem must have been solved, am I not correct” he asked. “I’m sorry not to be in New York City to experience the victory and the sweet sound of silence. But I’m happy for the people in New York.”

Perhaps Mr. Naparstek is not kidding as much as he thinks he is, and the fanfare-played-upon-the-steering-wheel is gradually fading from the city soundscape. Perhaps the music of the automotive horn is here to stay.

Either way, won’t you share your own honku with us in the comments

Gary Allan Earns His First No. 1 Album

MCA Nashville

Taylor Swift aside, country albums don’t make it to No. 1 every week. But the genre has still been very strong on the Billboard charts lately: last year, for example, half of the year’s top 10 titles were country.

This week Nashville scored another victory in the singer Gary Allan, who reached No. 1 for the first time with “Set You Free” (MCA Nashville), which sold 106,000 copies in its first week out, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In these days of slipping sales, record companies all but expect most artists’ new albums to sell fewer copies than their last, but, as Billboard noted, Mr. Allan just had the best sales week of his 17-year recording career, and beat the numbers for his last studio release, 2012’s “Get Off on the Pain,” by 63 percent.

Perhaps even more notable is the No. 2 record this week, by the folk-flavored act the Lumineers, which in barely a year has shot from the independent margins to the center of the pop mainstream. The band’s self-titled debut, released by Dualtone last April, sold 50,000 copies last week, a 31 percent gain from the week before, bringing its total sales to nearly 870,000. (A performance on “Saturday Night Live” on Jan. 19 helped, as did discounts last week at Amazon and Best Buy.) Another big boost could come from the Grammys on Feb. 10, where it is scheduled to perform and is nominated for two awards, including best new artist.

Also this week, the soundtrack to the film “Pitch Perfect” (Universal) holds at ! No. 3 with 44,000 sales; a compilation of this year’s Grammy Nominees, released by Capitol and the Grammys’ own label, is No. 4 with 41,000; and another compilation, “Kidz Bop 23” (Razor & Tie) fell three spots to No. 5 with 40,000.

Last week’s No. 1 album, ASAP Rocky’s “Long.Live.ASAP” (Polo Grounds/RCA), fell to No. 7 with 38,000 sales, a 73 percent weekly drop.

Bolshoi Ballerina Says She\'s Afraid to Return to Russia

MOSCOW - Svetlana Lunkina, a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Ballet, has told the newspaper Izvestiya that she is afraid to return to Russia because she has been the subject of blackmail and threats, apparently related to a business dispute involving her husband. Her claim has no evident connection to an acid attack on Sergei Filin, the ballet’s artistic director, that took place two weeks ago and left severe burns on his eyes and face.

Six months ago she left Russia for Canada, amid a deepening conflict between her husband and a partner in a film that would have told the story of the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska, who was the lover of the future Nicholas II, Russia’s last czar. She said that letters damaging her reputation had been sent to the word’s leading ballet companies and that her personal email had been hacked. A Bolshoi spokeswoman confirmed that Ms. Lunkina has been granted leave for the season.

Mr. Filin’s eyes have been bandaged since the attack, but his wife said he was able to make out the top four lines on a vision chart, according to the newspaper Evening Moscow. Mr. Filin’s attorney, Tatyana Stulakova, said on Wednesday that his family members have been assigned bodyguards.

Salvaged From Flood Waters, a Jazz Legend\'s Recordings Draws New Listeners

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times Ben Young, a D.J. at WKCR-FM, the campus radio station at Columbia University, held one of the records containing music by the jazz musician Roy Eldridge on Wednesday. The records were rescued from a Queens home flooded during Hurricane Sandy.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times Eldridge performing in an undated photo.

The great trumpeter Roy Eldridge did not throw much out.

“Roy was a keeper â€" he kept stuff around,” said Ben Young, a jazz aficionado and the director of broadcasting at WKCR-FM (89.9), the campus radio station at Columbia University.

Eldridge, who died in 1989, saved laundry slips, Christmas cards, canceled checks and thousands of jazz photographs and homemade recordings in the cluttered basement of his house at 194-19 109th Avenue in Hollis, Queens.

Mr. Young noted this as he held a dilapidated record from the 1940s on Wednesday, inside the radio station’s studios on Columbia’s campus in Morningside Heights. The station plays Eldridge’s music regularly and on Wednesday is playing its annual Roy Eldridge 24-hour birthday memorial broadcast to the jazzman, who was born on Jan. 30, 1911.

Mr. Young held a dilapidated o! ld record with a handwritten label: “Heckler’s Hop,” from an Eldridge performance in the 1940s.

The disk, cracked and splotched with mold, was one of about 350 homemade records made for, or by, Eldridge dating back to the 1930s - mostly of Eldridge performing â€" that have never been heard by the public.

How this crumbling old record got into Mr. Young’s hands is a tale that intersects with Hurricane Sandy and a homeowner in the Rockaways named Kurt Schneck.

After Eldridge died in 1989, his daughter, Carol, continued to live in the Eldridge house in Hollis until her death in January 2009. With no immediate relatives nearby, the contents of the house were thrown out, but a junk man pulled out some items and sold them to Mr. Schneck, an antiques collector who lives in the Belle Harbor section of the Rockaways. Mr. Schneck stored the collection in his basement, someday hoping to sell them.

“I’m more of a Louis Armstrong guy,” said Mr. Schneck, an amateur drummer, “but I new this stuff was valuable.”

When Hurricane Sandy hit last October, floodwaters filled Mr. Schneck’s basement, submerging the Eldridge material and many other items.

A day or two later, a photographer, Elizabeth Leitzel, happened to shoot the many items Mr. Schneck had dragged out of the basement and onto his front lawn. She told an acquaintance, Phil Schaap, about the Eldridge items. Mr. Schaap, the curator for Jazz at Lincoln Center and also the curator for WKCR, told Mr. Young about the items. Mr. Young called Mr. Schneck and persuaded him to loan the station the items to see if they could be cleaned and restored.

“It was a match made in heaven,” Mr. Schneck said. “What’s the chances I meet some guy who loves Roy Eldridge and knows how to rescue recordings.”

So a week or so after the hurricane, Mr. Young and a team of student D.J.’s arrived in a van to pick up the items and take them to the station. He showed some of them on Wednesday: a Christmas card from! the trum! peter Buck Clayton, some canceled checks to band members from the Roy Eldridge Orchestra; 50 pages of an incomplete autobiography Eldridge started writing in the 1950s; a laundry receipt from a London hotel; and a French magazine that featured topless women. Mr. Young also pulled out a photograph of Eldridge performing with Coleman Hawkins and Thelonious Monk from 1945.

Then there were audio recordings of Eldridge playing, including 200 hours of reel-to-reel tapes and 350 78-r.p.m. records. The music ranges from the 1930s to the 1980s and includes private sessions in musicians’ homes and big-band concerts recorded from live radio broadcasts. One tape was a recording of Woody Allen playing clarinet with Eldridge and Gerry Mulligan.

“They all have that spark of Roy as an improviser, which makes anything he played worth having - he’s always going for it,” Mr. Young said.

The oldest and rarest of the music was on the disks, which had been badly damaged by the flood - especially the 100or so that were made of metal.

Mr. Young and Mr. Schaap realized that if these discs were allowed to dry, they would crack and rust and become unplayable.

“If it dries, it dies,” said Mr. Schaap, who had known Eldridge since 1958 and who often invited him to the radio station for interviews.

Mr. Young put the damaged discs on a turntable in the studio and while continually dousing the disks with water, let the phonograph needle run through the delicate grooves and pull the old music off, so it could be recorded digitally â€" essentially extracting one last play from these one-of-a-kind crumbling discs. On Wednesday, he was preparing to play some of the rescued recordings during an afternoon segment.

“It’s a tragedy that they got dunked in the ocean, he said, “but then again, it took a hurricane to finally flush the collection out into the open.”

\'Finnegans Wake\' Follows Tocqueville Onto Chinese Best-Seller List

James Joyce’s fiendishly difficult novel “Finnegans Wake” has been called many things since it first began appearing in portions in 1924, including “the most colossal leg-pull in literature,” “the work of a psychopath,” and “the chief ironic epic of our time.”

Now, it can add another designation: best seller in China.

A new translation of the novel has sold out its initial print run of 8,000 since it appeared on Dec. 25, thanks in part to an unusual billboard campaign in major Chinese cities, the Associated Press reported. In Shanghai, where the book was advertised on 16 billboards, sales were second only to a new biography of Deng Xiaoping in the “good books” category, according to the Shanghai News and Publishing Bureau.

The book’s surprise success has drawn some clucking from Chinese observers (how do you say “cofee table trophy” in Mandarin). But at a panel on Tuesday, the translator, Dai Congrong of Fudan University, who spent nearly 10 years wrestling with Joyce’s runaway sentences and knotty coinages, confessed that even she didn’t fully understand the book. “I would not be faithful to the original intent of the novel if my translation made it easy to comprehend,” she said.

Earlier this year, Tocqueville’s “The Old Regime and the French Revolution” became a best seller in China, buoyed by reports that senior Communist Party officials had asked party members to read the book to gain insight into the country’s challenges.

The more puzzling vogue for Joyce, whose “Ulysses” sold more than 85,000 copies when it was first published in Chinese translation in 1994, may reflect an interest in avant-garde writers once dismissed or banned as “decadent,” said Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a historian at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Global Shanghai: 1850-2010.”

“I’ve been intrigued over the years, for example, of how popular translations of works by Roland Barthes have been in China, admittedly within a niche audience of intellectuals,” Mr. Wasserstrom said via email. “Judging from the print runs I’ve seen of some of his books, which sold in the tens of thousands, perhaps sometimes reaching the hundreds of thousands, it may be that some of his titles, such as ‘Fragments of a Lover’s Discourse,’ sold more copies in Chinese than in Frech and English combined.”

Wild Wedding: Dave Barry Talks About \'Insane City\'

In Dave Barry’s new novel, “Insane City,” a wedding weekend in Miami goes spectacularly wrong when the groom loses the one-of-a-kind ring, rescues a Haitian family on the beach and sets loose an orangutan on the city. Janet Maslin wrote: “Although ‘Insane City’ creaks occasionally, it mostly lives up to the impressive Dave Barry standard of escapist fun.” I recently spoke to Mr. Barry about how Florida is stranger than fiction and other subjects:

Justin Timberlake to Perform at Grammys

Justin Timberlake, who plans to release his first album in seven years in March, will perform at the 55th annual Grammy Awards, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences announced. The appearance will mark the first time in four years that Mr. Timberlake, who is not nominated for an award, has been on the Grammy stage and seems timed to generate excitement for the album, called “The 20/20 Experience.” The awards ceremony takes place on Feb. 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Mr. Timberlake, 31, joins a long list of performers for the televised show, inclding Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, the Black Keys, Fun., the Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Ed Sheeran and Jack White.

Rihanna Says She Has Reconciled With Chris Brown

Alex Gallardo/Associated Press Chris Brown and Rihanna at a Lakers game in December.

Rihanna has told Rolling Stone she has reconciled with her boyfriend Chris Brown, who was convicted of brutally assaulting her four years ago just before the Grammy Awards. She said she has decided to give him a second chance despite criticism that her decision might be seen as forgiving violence against women. Over the last year there have signs the couple had resumed dating: they collaborated on sons and appeared in public together several times.

“I decided it was more important for me to be happy,” she told the magazine. “I wasn’t going to let anybody’s opinion get in the way of that. Even if it’s a mistake, it’s my mistake. After being tormented for so many years, being angry and dark, I’d rather just live my truth and take the backlash. I can handle it.”

Four years ago, Mr. Brown attacked Rihanna in a car after a party on the eve of the Grammy Awards. He pleaded guilty to assault and received a sentence of five years’ probation. Over the weekend, the police in Los Angeles said, Mr. Brown was involved in an altercation with the R&B singer Frank Ocean over a parking space.

“When you add up the pieces from the outside, it’s not the cutest puzzl! e in the world,” Rihanna said. “You see us walking somewhere, driving somewhere, in the studio, in the club, and you think you know. But it’s different now. We don’t have those types of arguments anymore.” She added she would not stand for any more violence from Mr. Brown. “That’s just not an option,” she said.

As Immigration Takes Center Stage, Thoughts From Walt Whitman

G. Frank E. Pearsall/National Portrait Gallery , via Associated Press Walt Whitman

The issue of what to do about the 11 million illegal immigrants living in the United States has taken center stage with President Obama and Congress firing the opening salvo in their efforts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. The discussion has focused on making efforts to better secure the country’s border with Mexico a priority.

But many Latino leaders say the time has come to finally place illegal immigrants, many of whom are Latinos, on a path that would make them lawful citizens. As Mr. Obama said, the debate over the mmigration plan will promise to be an emotional one. It also shines a spotlight on the changing face of America and what that means for the country, a theme that has persisted throughout history.

City Room was reminded that more than 100 years ago one of America’s greatest poets, Walt Whitman, offered his own reflection of the nation’s shifting population and in particular the role of people of Hispanic origin. In 1883, Whitman had been asked to participate in ceremonies marking the 333rd anniversary of the founding of Santa Fe. He could not attend, but instead sent a letter â€" published in The New York Times on August 7 of that year â€" to the organizers in which he discussed his views of what he called the “American identity” and the “Spanish stock” of the Southwest.

“It is certain to me that we do not begin to appreciate the splendor and sterling value of its race element,” Whitman wrote of the Spanish-speaking population. “Who knows bu! t that element, like the course of some subterranean river, dipping invisibly for a hundred or two years, is now to emerge in broadest flow and permanent action”

Below is the full text of the letter.

1883 Whitman Letter on the Spanish (PDF)

1883 Whitman Letter on the Spanish (Text)

Report Says Jim Nabors Marries Partner in Seattle

There were apparently no exclamations of “Shazam!” or “Golly!” â€" just a simple exchange of rings in front of a judge in a Seattle hotel room, after which Jim Nabors, the star of television’s “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M C.”, married Stan Cadwallader, his partner of 38 years, according to a report by a Hawaiian television news station.

Hawaii News Now of Honolulu reported that Mr. Nabors, 82, the actor and singer, who now lives in Hawaii, and Mr. Cadwallader, 64, who works with him, were married on Jan. 15 at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle. The couple, who traveled to Seattle a few weeks after same-sex marriages became legl in Washington State, were wed in a private ceremony witnessed by friends who live near Mr. Nabors and Mr. Cadwallader, Hawaii News Now said.

Mr. Nabors declined an on-camera interview with Hawaii News Now, but was quoted in a telephone interview with the news program as saying that he and Mr. Cadwallader “had no rights as a couple” before they were married, “yet when you’ve been together 38 years, I think something’s got to happen there, you’ve got to solidify something.” Mr. Nabors added: “And at my age, it’s probably the best thing to do.”

A representative for the guest services department of the Fairmont Olympic Hotel said on Friday morning said that it could not comment on the activities of its guests. The King County Marriage Licensing office in Seattle was not immediately reachable for comment.

Mr. Nabors, who was born and raised in Sylacauga, Ala., originated the character of the hapless but loveable gas-station attendant Go! mer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show,” and reprised the role in five seasons of “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.” (on which the goofball character was perpetually making trouble for his military superiors). Mr. Nabors also appeared on “The Carol Burnett Show,” “The Muppet Show,” and his own variety series, “The Jim Nabors Hour.”

Hawaii News Now said Mr. Nabors met Mr. Cadwallader, a former firefighter in Honolulu, in 1975. They started working together and began a relationship.

The news program quoted Mr. Nabors as saying that though he had always been open about his sexuality to co-workers in the entertainment industry, he did not plan to get involved in the national debate over gay marriage.

“I haven’t ever made a public spectacle of it,” Mr. Nabors said, according to Hawaii News Now. “Well, I’ve known since I was a child, so, come on. It’s not that kind of a thing. I’ve never made a huge secret of it at all.”

He added: “My friend and I, my partner, we wen through all of this 38 years ago. So I mean, we made our vows and that was it. It was to each other, but nevertheless, we were a couple.”

After 45 Years, a Mailman\'s Final Rounds on Ninth Avenue

Robert Caplin for The New York Times Al Gibson crossing Ninth Avenue on one of his last workdays before ending his 45 years of delivering mail in Hell’s Kitchen.

King Xerxes’ messengers in Persia, the ancient ones who inspired the famous line about what neither snow, rain nor heat could stop, had their horses. Al Gibson, who is nearing the swift completion of a 45-year career as a mail carrier in Hell’s Kitchen, has his horn.

It is a clown’s horn attached to his cart. He honks it as he makes his appointed rounds, letting people know the mail is on the way. He had the older people in the walk-ups on Ninth Avenue in mind hen he taped it to his cart in the 1980s. “This was to keep them from walking down, and there’s no mail,” he said.

Mr. Gibson’s fans along his six blocks of Ninth Avenue â€" and just about everyone in those six blocks is a fan of Mr. Gibson’s, it seems â€" will miss the horn, and him. “He’s a fixture of the neighborhood â€" the mayor, if you will,” said Alan Kaplan, a director of Bra-Tenders, which sells lingerie to the film and theater industry from a suite in the Film Center Building at 630 Ninth Avenue, the centerpiece of Mr. Gibson’s route.

To follow Mr. Gibson through from floor to floor â€" 13 in all, though the top floor is the 14th, because superstition prevailed when the building opened in the 1920s, so there is no 13th â€" is to witness an unusual camaraderie. It is also to hear person after person in office after office ask, “How many more days, 14”

That was on a recent Friday. They all knew it was 14 days, and that aft! er Thursday and a party in a bar across the street, he will be gone.

“Al’s a terrific presence and a larger-than-life guy,” said Lori Rubinstein, executive director of Plasa, a trade association in Suite 609, “but even though he gets in and out of your office very quickly, he still has taken the time to say hello. He doesn’t make you feel like some people do, run in, throw the mail at you and run out. He does it quickly but he has the talent for doing that and still making it a welcome part of your day.”

He has been on Ninth Avenue since the bad old days, but his sunny, tell-no-evil personality has carried him through. Mickey Spillane The Westies “They weren’t on my route,” he said. “They hung out on 10th Avenue.”

He stayed on Ninth Avenue, always sorting the mail in the post office on West 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in the early morning, always pushing his cart up the avenue around noon. “It’s a good route,” he said. “A working route.” Henever bid for a route with more prestigious addresses, like Fifth Avenue.

Robert Caplin for The New York Times Mr. Gibson uses a horn to let people on his route know when the mail has arrived.

Parking his cart into the Film Center Building’s Art Deco lobby, he explains his strategy: “Work my way down, floor to floor, door to door.” On the way into each office, he announces himself: “Mailman in the house,” or simply “MAIL-man.”

Jim Markovic, a film editor who has worked in the building since the 1960s, except for a few years at another address, long ago cracked the code that underlies Mr. Gibson’s patter. “He’d say: ‘I got so! me goodie! s for you. You’ll see.’ Or he’d say, ‘The goodies are right here in the bag.’ That meant checks. The other mail, he wouldn’t say anything. He wouldn’t refer to junk mail as junk mail. But you knew if he didn’t say ‘goodies,’ you didn’t get any checks.” (“I always put the checks on the top. That makes everyone happy.”)

It is the noon hour, but Mr. Gibson is going full speed. “Keep moving, do the route, have my lunch period at the end of the day,” he explains.

On the ninth floor, Mr. Gibson encountered the enemy, the FedEx deliverer. Except that they are not enemies.

“U.P.S., DHL, I communicate with all of them,” he said. “If I can help them to get in, I work along with them.”

Mr. Gibson wears the standard letter carrier’s uniform â€" and a pith helmet, even in cold weather. Some tenants have asked about the headgear. “His standard response is, ‘Because it’s a jungle out there,’” said John Kilgore in Suite 307.

But Mr. Gibso’s explanation, on the way to the second floor, was different. “One time, coming around the building, a guy was washing the windows and he missed the hook with the squeegee,” he said. The squeegee â€" heavy, he said, and sharp â€" fell to the pavement. “If I’d been one step farther along,” he said, “boom, that’s it.”

Michael Berkowitz, in Suite 203, had another question: Who will get the horn

The answer is, no one.

“I’m going to take it with me,” Mr. Gibson said. “Too many people want it.”

Good for One Fare

Dear Diary:

Two beat-up New York City subway tokens sit on my windowsill in western Colorado between a euro coin from a Mediterranean vacation and a tube of Blistex for chapped lips.

My old worn coins, roughly the size of a nickel, no longer have a purpose since MetroCards replaced tokens about 10 years ago. But I don’t consider them worthless. Far from it. They will not get me from Brooklyn, where I once lived, to Grand Central, which was once my daily destination when I worked as a back-order clerk on the ninth floor of Brooks Brothers.

These tokens will take me back, way back, to 1973. Nixon was still holed up in the White House, the Mets were playing in the World Series, and I was resh out of college ready to become the next Jimmy Breslin.

Life is full of surprises.

Oakland beat the Mets. Nixon and I both resigned, though for different reasons. I fell in love with a woman in Ohio, and she had no immediate plans to move to New York. We’ve been married for almost 40 years. I worked at newspapers in many states, though nobody ever confused me with Jimmy Breslin.

Still, I keep these subway tokens as a reminder that it’s a long way from Brooklyn to wherever. It’s been a good ride.

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Ask Elizabeth Meriwether About \'New Girl\'

Patrick McElhenney/FOX Jake Johnson and Zooey Deschanel in last night’s episode of “New Girl.”

Previously we heard from the creators of “Modern Family,” “Homeland” and “Justified.”

Since beginning in 2011 as a showcase for Zooey Deschanel’s allegedly adorable awkwardness (or vice versa), Foxâ€s “New Girl” has evolved into a well-regarded team effort. Max Greenfield’s Schmidt, though perhaps not quite in Ron Swanson territory, has attained something close to cult status. Jake Johnson, meanwhile, has emerged as Ms. Deschanel’s likable will-they-or-won’t-they partner, a subplot that â€" in a sitcom’s riskiest move â€" received a bit of resolution in Tuesday’s episode.

This week Elizabeth Meriwether, the creator of “New Girl,” is taking your questions about the show. Please post your queries in the comments below â€" we’ll pose some of them to Ms. Meriwether and post her answers here! next week.