NEWS FROM CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT 4

Congrats to Daniel Mendelsohn, whose book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million just received the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. Daniel is scheduled to appear at the Plainview-Old Bethpage Public Library (seen in his brother Eric's film Judy Berlin) at 7:30 pm on Monday, March 19. Congrats also to Daniel's brother Matt, the photographer for the book, as well as the Mendelsohn family--the story Daniel tells is a family story. I still hope to read it as soon as I finish Against the Day.

In other news, Charles Wang has withdrawn his plan to create the elaborate and poorly named development Old Plainview. It seems that some development will go on, though. I'm highly skeptical of any scheme that would dramatically boost [the traffic and] the population, but I'm also appalled to read that Wang received racist emails from his opponents. That's disgusting.

I've gotten word from an inside informant that all but one of Robert Leighton's witty murals at the old Kennedy High School were painted over after years and years of wear and tear. They actually have art restorers and preservationists for things like that, but so it goes. (I imagine that Julie Lawrence's work met a similar fate.) Leighton, who contributed (okay: sold) these cartoons to The New Yorker, also worked on this humor piece for Slate. He's pictured on this page in what appears to be a bookstore.

Marc Lawrence's latest film is Music and Lyrics.

And oh yes: Frank London's band The Klezmatics won a 2006 Grammy for Wonder Wheel!

Photo: David Marc Fischer