Sunday, March 7, 2010
Sunday is the final chance to catch the sumptuous Darien Antiques Show.
Today is the last day of the annual Darien Antiques Show, open Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the First Congregational Church. This event has been one of my favorite things in Darien, ever since I discovered it because my kids attended nursery school at the church. I was pleased this year (the 43rd year of the show) to sneak in while the antique dealers from all over the East Coast were setting up. Just inside the entrance is Bonsal Douglas Antiques, where Isabelle D. Seggerman shared a Spanish plate from the late 18th century. "It's polychrome," she said. "The animal in the center—he's a wonderful guy. He's primitive in almost the way Picasso could do a primitive sophisticate style." A bit further along I found James Gallagher from …
41.081425
-73.4652
First Congregational Church of Darien
14 Brookside Rd
/articles/art-and-artifacts-bring-earlier-eras-to-life-beautifully
35621
/locations/302474
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Diners enjoy great beef and the original all-you-can-eat salad bar.
Chuck's Steak House is such a Darien institution that it might have been here since the Redcoats disrupted Moses Mather's sermon at the First Congregational Church during the Revolutionary War. Actually, Chuck's arrived a little less than 200 years later. Joe Russo, the current owner of Chuck's Steak House, says that the Darien branch of this regional chain opened in 1968. And, the surprise is that Chuck's was started originally in Hawaii. In 1953, Chuck Rolles opened the first Chuck's Steak House in Waikiki (which explains the surfing décor). Rolles attended restaurant school at Cornell, and when he went home to Hawaii he opened a restaurant that provided good food without the frills. His intention was to compete with the tuxedo-service …
41.070128
-73.476441
Chuck's Steak House
1340 Post Rd
/articles/chucks-steak-house-is-good-family-eating
14578
/locations/302196
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Materials Management System can get your returns back on the shelf in 20 minutes flat.
Remember back in the Dark Ages, before the new Darien Library opened? To return a book, you dumped it into a plain old bin. Library staffers periodically schlepped outside to empty the drive-through bins; they recorded returns in the computer system, then sorted and eventually replaced items on the shelves. Those days are over! In keeping with the library's high-tech philosophy, its electronic materials management system does all the above and more. Now when you return a book, to either the drive-through or indoor kiosks, you wait for a green light, then place your book on the return platform. Voila! It's whisked down a conveyer belt to the basement for automated processing. Parts of the conveyer are visible from the entrance or the lower …
41.068254
-73.478141
Darien Library
1441 Post Rd
/articles/darien-library-tech-tour-part-two
14842
/locations/297868
Saturday, February 20, 2010
I'd wait for the DVD.
The Lightning Thief is the first in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. The book came out in 2005 and was an instant favorite in my family and many others. In the series, Riordan places ancient Greek mythology in the modern world. It's clever, amusing, and extremely gratifying for anyone who enjoys Greek mythology. The characters are well-developed and funny. So of course we had high expectations for the movie, especially after seeing the trailer, which looked very cool. The film is directed by Chris Columbus of Harry Potter (Chamber of Secrets and Sorcerer's Stone) fame. I decided to take my ten-year-old son Matthew and his friends Timmy and Sam, all avid fans, and my daughter (13—not a fan). "We are really excited…
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-73.472922
Darien Playhouse
1077 Post Rd
/articles/darien-playhouse-the-lightning-thief
19672
/locations/277060
Thursday, February 18, 2010
First of a series: a tech tour of our new library, with quizzes and contests.
I knew our new library was high tech, but I had no idea how much tech, exactly. I'm not an IT-type person, just a regular user, so I decided to ask the Darien Library staff for a Tech Tour and let you all know what kind of tech power we had harnessed, and whether this tech power was so advanced that it might at any time achieve intelligence and rebel against us. I met with John Blyberg in the library's offices. His title is "Assistant Director, Innovation & UX." I was already lost in another world, a mysterious and techie world, not knowing what "UX" meant. "User Experience," said Blyberg. That didn't quite compute with me, because experience begins with an "e." Blyberg explained that UX was a common term in the tech industry. Smart …
41.068254
-73.478141
Darien Library
1441 Post Rd
/articles/darien-library-tech-tour-part-one
14842
/locations/275971
Sunday, February 14, 2010
From Valentine's to Quentin Tarrantino
You may just know of the First Congregational Church because of its annual Darien Antiques Show (coming in early March). Perhaps you've just driven by on your way to the Goodwives Shopping Center or the ice rink or the YWCA. Perhaps you didn't know that the church has been around since 1737, and that it was the scene of a Revolutionary War skirmish, when its first minister, the patriot Moses Mather, was dragged from the pulpit by Tories (this event is depicted in a mural in Town Hall). Well, there are some revolutionary new things happening at FCC, and I'm not just talking about their new kitchen or their relatively new interim minister, Dr. Donald Longbottom. Since I'm a member of the church, I can give you the scoop. It started when I …
41.081425
-73.4652
First Congregational Church of Darien
14 Brookside Rd
/articles/first-congregational-church-womens-association-shakes-things-up
35621
/locations/273417
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
"Tradition!"
Auditions for the Theatre 308 spring musical were held first week of January, and rehearsals and set-building are underway; so I set out to see how Darien High School's preparation of Fiddler on the Roof compared to Disney's High School Musical. I didn't notice any strife between jocks and drama people and nerds and skaters. I did see a lot of kids building sets in a Tech Ed room that would rival any construction site. And I saw a few kids rehearsing a scene for an hour, and then lots more kids (and I mean lots) coming in to warm up and then practice a dance routine. There were too many kids to count, but I do have a cast list and, again, there are too many to count. Somewhere over fifty. There was the occasional burst into song and/or …
41.08288
-73.49158
Darien High School
80 High School Ln
/articles/theater-308-prepares-fiddler-on-the-roof
35641
/locations/270346
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Jeff Bridges may win Oscar for best barfing onscreen
In case you've somehow missed the independent film phenomenon, independent films are the coolest films you've never seen. Films like Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, Fargo, The Usual Suspects, The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Mad Max, Swingers, Terminator (yes, apparently Terminator was independent), Sideways, Donnie Darko, Resevoir Dogs are all independents that became popular.You can see these films when they first come out at the Avon Theater, a glamorous old-timey art house, right next door in Stamford. So I went there right away to see Crazy Heart, an independent starring Jeff Bridges, about a boozy, down-on-his-luck country singer called Bad Blake.The film starts with a vision of beautiful western landscape being traversed by a trashy …
41.056221
-73.538546
272 Bedford St, Stamford, CT
/articles/movie-review-crazy-heart
/locations/264875
Thursday, January 28, 2010
The British Amateur Theater Group presents their annual panto production this weekend.
"Fee Fie Foe Fun" is promised this Saturday and Sunday at the Town Hall Auditorium, where the British Amateur Theatre Group of Darien will perform its 2010 "Panto" production of Jack and the Beanstalk. "In Britain it's called Pantomime but people here thought that meant it was mimed. It's not!" said Director Larraine Brandon. British Pantomime is a tradition of theatre that combines storytelling with topical subjects, jokes, music, and slapstick humor. In Brandon's production, fairytale Jack becomes Jack of the hit show 24 and must rescue the princess in 24 hours. The characters discuss taking a break at Ernie's in Darien, and the evil giant sleeps in his snuggie. The jokes can be a bit, well, corny, but that's all part of the fun. "…
41.080313
-73.464848
/articles/theatre-preview-jack-and-the-beanstalk
14788
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41.06587
-73.484163
Darien Town Hall
2 Renshaw Rd
/articles/theatre-preview-jack-and-the-beanstalk
35676
/locations/239413
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Davis has been a Darien institution since the 1940s
If you walk into Fabricare Cleaners in Noroton Heights, look past the cashiers and you'll find Gardtrell Davis sitting near a window with his ancient Singer sewing machine, a small transistor radio playing tunes. Born in 1928, Davis had a thing for sewing ever since he was little. "As a child, my mother said I always had a needle in my hand. I'd be sewing my brother's socks and my sister's socks, my socks, my daddy's socks," he said. Davis took a sewing class when he was at Stamford High School, and never turned back. At fifteen, he began working at the Kingsbury Shop, a dry cleaning and tailoring store in Darien. The owner, Mr. Terzian, treated Davis more like a son than an employee. "He said I was about one of the best young men he'd …
41.069269
-73.4969
Fabricare Cleaners Darien
312 Heights Rd
/articles/tailor-gardtrell-davis-loves-his-job
15006
/locations/239033
