Lou Reed wore black. He moved slowly and a bit stiffly through the darkness that had descended on the Great Hall, a sheaf of paper in his hand. For the last thirty years he has looked like an ageless lizard but now I felt concern for him at the sight of his stiff gait. He entered the circle of light and put on reading glasses, gold rimmed.

Just a few minutes earlier the audience had been treated to several facts. One of them, shared by the Dean of Cooper Union, was that Abraham Lincoln had spoken in this very hall. I have been to a number of events at the [...]

"I had a very important appointment with Tina Brown that morning, and I was racing through the cream cheese inventory so as to be on time." —As the Upper West Side home of H&H Bagels suddenly shuts (now one must go to 639 W. 46th St.!), it is not a terrible time to read Thomas Beller's account of being the inventory man at H&H in 1992.