Cemetery

I may not have expressly stated it previously, but even though I am able to function in summer, the heat and humidity wears me down to a nub by Labor Day every year; and I don’t feel fully dressed unless I can wear a jacket. Psychoanalyze that any way you wish, but I have always…

On a frigid afternoon last week, I found myself at Machpela Cemetery, visiting the grave of perhaps the greatest celebrity of the early 20th century – Harry Houdini. Houdini was a stage magician, an escape artist, a genius promoter, a star of the stage and screen, claimed to be one of the toughest men alive,…

There it sits at Metropolitan Avenue and 69th Street in Middle Village, across the street from All-Faiths Cemetery, a showcase of stone carving with the name Frank T. Lang positioned prominently on the chamfered corner, guarded by prehensile tailed creatures of no known genus or species. Its proximity to the cemetery is no accident, as…