NewCanaanite.com (https://newcanaanite.com/category/new-canaan-opinion/who-knew)
Sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market, “Who Knew?” is a monthly column by New Canaan’s Laura Ault, spotlighting the best of what the town offers.
‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. The only hardship about eating at Crust Issues in Norwalk is parking. One recent evening, the woman from Naughty Nancy’s, the adult bookstore two doors down from our intended destination, angrily shooed us away from a parking spot reserved for her customers. Nancy was NOT playing, and I had questions. How could she tell we didn’t plan to shop in her store?
‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. A man, diagnosed with terminal colon cancer, made a hilarious, profound rocketship of a movie about it, and I’m inviting you to come watch it with me at the New Canaan Playhouse on April 18th. André is an Idiot is the best movie about death I’ve ever seen. Not just me; pretty much anyone who sees it. It won the Audience Award at Sundance.
‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. I never write bad reviews. If a restaurant isn’t for me, I say so privately and move on; taking public shots at a small local business seems cruel when umpteen other forces stand ready to shutter an eatery any given day. Today, though, I’m making an exception, because what has quietly arrived in Stamford, dressed in the language of convenience and community, is not a small local business. It just plays one on a screen near you.
‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. Fairfield County is home to rolling lawns, sprawling mansions, and this brutal truth: right now, 34,000 children in our county are food insecure. Statewide, one in six kids doesn’t know where their next meal will come from.
In October, when we learned that SNAP wouldn’t be funded during the government shutdown, the human reality of nutrition assistance bloomed in vivid color: a lot of people need help paying for food, and many of these people are our neighbors. To allow people to go hungry is horrifying, and there’s no credible political or religious doctrine that justifies it. Period.
‘Who Knew?’ is sponsored by Walter Stewart’s Market. Instagram, in its finite wisdom, recently informed me that “August is the Sunday of summer.” This proclamation struck an ominous chord. The author (okay, the meme-creating chatbot) may have intended to incite a cozy, churchy, Sunday kind of calm, but it gave me a little stab of panic and despair. Have I been to enough baseball games? Played enough Marco Polo?