October 27, 2009 2:00 pm : Comments 001
Those who know me will attest that I’m something of a fitness buff. The credit or blame, take your pick, goes to my seventh grade gym teacher who once lined me and my knobby-kneed classmates against a wall and declared with unmitigated disgust, “You boys are the poorest excuse for the male species I have ever met.” Let’s just say he was less-than-dazzled by our performance in a series of exercise drills.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the gym teacher, a muscle-bound former Toronto Argonauts running back named Ulysses “Crazy Legs” Curtis, followed it up with this gem: “When you boys get older, you are going to want to sleep with girls, and before any girl will sleep with you, she’ll want to know how many pushups you can do.”
Alas, Curtis’s tenure at our school was short-lived, but I took his counsel to heart and began doing pushups and weight training from that day on. Nearly four decades later, I’m still at it, giving the younger kids at the gym a run for their money. (I was the first runner up in a contest last year at an Equinox Fitness Club to see which member could do the most pushups and pull ups within a minute; the guy who beat me was nearly 25 years younger.)
While I credit Curtis for getting me started on the fitness journey, in February I discovered someone whose influence on me already is equally profound. Her name is Jamie Graham, and she is a professional dancer who also oversees the Pilates studio at the Park Avenue Equinox club where I transferred last fall. Although I had long thought of Pilates as a “girlie” thing best suited for those who are looking for a simple stretch rather than a meaningful, sweat-inducing workout, the intensity and animation of Graham’s instruction and the level of attention she provides her clients, caught my attention. So when Equinox offered a free 30-minute session, I signed up. Truthfully, I wasn’t so much interested in learning Pilates as I was experiencing Graham’s passion for teaching it.
My initial session with Graham was quite sobering. One of the first routines she taught me is a routine known as the 100s, an intense abdominal, breathing, and concentration exercise that I found excruciatingly challenging. Graham is a stickler for detail and every movement she taught me required radical corrections. She also wasn’t shy about identifying my numerous weaknesses and body imbalances. As someone who was long used to impressing personal trainers with my fitness prowess, I found the constant adjustments both frustrating and humiliating.
But Graham inspired confidence, both in her abilities and my own, so I continued training with her. Though soft spoken and decidedly more understated than Curtis, Graham is equally tough and teaches with the same discipline as he did, albeit with more support and nurturing encouragement. She doesn’t care whether I like an exercise or routine, insisting that I embrace challenges that initially overwhelm or frustrate me. She knows my body’s limits better than I do, and without exception, each session with her has proven to be more challenging than the one before.
Though it took a few months, I gradually came to enjoy my sessions with Graham and increasingly experienced dramatic increases in my strength and flexibility. Whereas I first regarded Pilates as an activity for my “rest” days between my weight training sessions, it’s now my primary fitness training activity. Frankly, I’m starting to regard weight training as somewhat of a “girlie” thing.
Graham’s leadership also is impressive. Graham’s instructors all teach with the same enthusiasm and dedication she does and span at least four generations. By my estimation, they have well over 100 years of combined experience. If Pilates instruction was a competitive sport, Graham and her colleagues would unquestionably be the baseball equivalent of the New York Yankees.
Graham doesn’t engage in small talk while she’s teaching, and I know virtually nothing about her other than she is a performing modern dancer who hails from Nashville and trained at what is now known as True Pilates, a legendary Manhattan studio that research suggests is the Harvard of Pilates instruction. I’ve also learned that Graham, who has a maturity and poise way beyond her years, has no time for vanity. When I proudly told her a few weeks ago that the six-pack stomach I had in my youth had returned, she grimaced and replied, “A flat stomach is one of the results of Pilates, but it’s not what we are trying to achieve here.”
Given that Joseph Pilates initially conceived the practice that bears his name to rehabilitate hospital patients, I’m certain he would be quite pleased with Graham’s answer and with her mantra that Pilates is a process – a lifetime challenge that never ends.
Many thanks, Jamie, for starting me on my journey.
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June 5, 2009 1:15 pm : Comments 026
They say a man never forgets his first time, and that’s certainly true for me. The place was Toronto, the year 1980-something. A fresh-faced reporter not long out of graduate school, I had just sat down at The Library Bar for an interview with a hot-shot investment banker when the waitress came over for our drink orders. The banker asked for a martini and I, wanting to look worldly and sophisticated, ordered the same.
In those days, martinis at The Library Bar were made stirred, not shaken, and generously served in glass pitchers. My martini arrived arctic-cold with no discernible taste save for its slight hint of dryness. It burned soooooo good. I felt like a grown up.
I’ve lived in New York for two decades now and in all that time – and despite the city’s reputation for having the best of everything – I have yet to find a place that serves one that rivals the mastery and flair of The Library Bar. Gotham is sadly lacking on the quality bartender front. You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than randomly finding a bartender who knows how, or will take the time, to serve a properly dry martini. Even some of the best and most expensive restaurants employ rank amateurs.
Fortunately, there are some notable exceptions. And one of them is Abdul Tabini, a longtime bartender at The Odeon who is beloved by Tribeca locals not only for his significant mixology talents, but also for his warmth, charm, and unbridled discretion. I suspect James Bond, a character known for his impeccable taste for the best of everything, particularly his martinis, would be most appreciative of Tabini’s handiwork with a bottle of gin or vodka, a few olives, and a splash of vermouth (although Bond would no doubt disapprove that Tabini also believes a good martini is stirred, not shaken).
The Odeon is, of course, the landmark New York restaurant that flashes in the opening credits of “Saturday Night Live” and was featured on the cover of Jay McInerney’s novel “Bright Lights, Big City.” From the day it opened nearly 30 years ago, the restaurant has always managed to attract a trendy crowd of artists and bold-faced names without making mere mortals like me feel somehow out of our element. Despite its impressive pedigree, The Odeon lacks pretension, which I suspect is one reason for its continued success. For at least the last 14 years, martini-master Tabini was another.
In the mid-nineties, 22-year-old Tabini left his native Morocco for the States with no more than a few dollars in his pocket and a handful of English phrases in his vocabulary. He quickly found work at The Odeon as a barback (essentially a bartender’s assistant), where he thrived. He kept his eyes and ears open, quickly learning both the language and the art of bartending. Tabini was promoted to bartender within eight months; I am proud to be counted among his first customers.
To describe Tabini as being a bartender would be tantamount to describing Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg as mere film directors. He does not simply pour drinks by rote following recipes long-ago locked in his head. There is exceptional art and pride to what he does, approaching each empty glass much like a sculptor must approach an unmolded piece of clay – as an opportunity to create a uniquely wonderful “wow” moment.
In addition to his sheer flair for making a great drink, I also very much admire Tabini’s inimitable warmth. He has a remarkable memory for details and always seems genuinely interested in how things are going for me and my friends, especially “Chuck” who was one of the regulars many years ago before work obligations took him out of the neighborhood. Tabini also is incredibly discreet: I’ve yet to hear him say anything about anybody to anyone. Whatever happens in front of Tabini stays with Tabini. The guy is a real class act.
This Saturday night will be Tabini’s last shift at The Odeon, a day that the regulars have looked toward with mixed emotions. While we hate to see him abandon his cocktail shaker and swizzle sticks and wave goodbye, he leaves to start Ward III, a 46-seat restaurant and bar he’s opening with two former colleagues around the corner at the site formerly occupied by QDT at 111 Reade Street.
Although Tabini’s myriad regulars earnestly pledge they will frequent his new joint, many also admit they will miss seeing him at The Odeon. “He’s like family,” confided Tommy, a local producer and director. “It’s devastating,” chimed his friend Patricia (before reminding me again to be sure to mention in this blog post that he makes the best martinis).
It takes real guts to leave a secure job to open a restaurant at the best of times, and even more so in the midst of a major economic downturn. Tabini says he isn’t afraid. “You can’t give up just because it’s a bad economy,” he says. “We believe in ourselves.”
Having enjoyed his company and his drinks for the last innumerable years, I must say I believe in them, too.
Tomorrow we drink to your continued success, Abdul. Bottoms up!
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June 4, 2009 3:33 pm : Comments 000
Ten or so years ago, I discovered gyrotonics, an exercise system that was most commonly used and taught back then by professional dancers. My primary instructor was Jennifer DePalo, an accomplished modern dancer. I’d always been a fitness buff but under her tutelage, I achieved significant improvements in strength, flexibility, and balance. I also found a genuine appreciation for form and movement, as well as the rigors of professional dance training.
I attended several of DePalo’s performances and was always mesmerized by the graceful ease at which she mastered the complexities of her craft, making complicated dance steps and sequences seem effortless. Each performance left me wondering how choreographers do what they do. Where does one even start when conceiving a dance piece? It took nearly a decade but thanks to our newfound friends at modern dance company Jennifer Muller/The Works, I am beginning to find out.
A few months ago, S&A client and friend Gary Hayes asked if we’d consider getting involved with Jennifer Muller/The Works. The company, which he supported on a personal level, was planning a gala to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Like so many other cultural institutions, they were feeling the financial pinch of an economy turned south and were seeking additional patrons.
For the uninitiated, Jennifer Muller is a living legend in the modern dance world. She has created more than 90 dance pieces and created and restaged countless others for more than 20 international repertory companies across nine countries. She has collaborated with prominent artists such as Keith Haring, Sandro Chia, Keith Jarrett, and Yoko Ono. Underscoring her accomplishment, Muller was one of only 30 artists chosen in 2003 as a founding member of the World Arts Council in Valencia, Spain.
Although there are a few New York City dance companies that have been around longer than Muller’s, virtually all of them were founded in the 1960s when grants and corporate funding for the arts were more readily available. Founding a dance company in the mid-seventies was an ambitious and formidable challenge and keeping it alive through multiple recessions is testimony to her business acumen.
Given my personal interest in dance and our team’s collective excitement to provide the dance troupe support, we leapt at the opportunity to get involved. Truth be told, they had me as soon as I learned I’d be able to attend a rehearsal of the works being staged later in the season! Finally, I had my chance to peek behind the curtain and watch a celebrated choreographer at work.
I’m hard-pressed to accurately explain the emotional reaction of watching Muller at the helm of a rehearsal. As a team leader myself, I was impressed with how she can be so remarkably demanding and nurturing at the same time. She has clearly earned the admiration, respect, and loyalty of her dancers, each one delivering the extra something required to meet and then exceed her passionate demands to achieve perfection. In corporate-speak, we’d say that her dancers are fully engaged in the mission. They live for their art, they have great confidence in their leader, they trust in her vision, and execute it brilliantly not for the mere sake of recognition or tangible reward, but rather because not delivering the goods would be too great a personal disappointment.
Most people don’t realize that the life of a modern dancer isn’t easy or glorious, even for those talented and fortunate enough to make it into a top-tier New York City company. Muller’s dancers spend seven hours a day studying and performing, and the majority need to hold secondary jobs to make ends meet (you definitely don’t choose a career in modern dance for the money). In addition to teaching at various gyms around the city, company dancer Rosie Lani Fiedelman, for example, performs at least eight times a week as an ensemble cast member in the acclaimed Broadway play “In the Heights” (for which she received a 2007 Drama Desk Award). Her dance company colleague Elizabeth (Beth) Disharoon is an energy analyst at a Wall Street firm that, fortunately for her, genuinely supports the outside pursuits of its employees. Needless to say, time management is obviously a requisite skill for being a professional modern dancer.
From June 9-14, Jennifer Muller/The Works will be performing at New York’s Joyce Theater, one of the premier dance venues in New York City. Having already seen multiple Muller performances, I can say with considerable authority that this is an event that modern dance enthusiasts will not want to miss. Starkman & Associates is extremely proud to be a corporate sponsor of a talented dance company that reflects our own values, and hopes you’ll join us at the Joyce Theater next week. We’ll be easy to spot – just look for the group standing proud and clapping the loudest.
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