The moment I saw this, my first thought was: Why would a guy like Danny Ocean be in East Haven, Connecticut? And why does the shot of him leaving the bank and strolling through the center of town, then dumping his flowers into the trash so he can rush back to his wife, Tess, show a quaint, charming, subtly-decorated New England town which bears no resemblance to East Haven, Connecticut? He’s not in any East Haven I’ve ever seen; he’s in Guilford. He’s in Litchfield. He’s somewhere in Connecticut, sure -- but it sure as hell isn’t East Haven.
I've discussed this with people who are more capable of nuanced thought than I. My original theory was, "Whoever wrote the movie (George Nolfi) thinks that all of Connecticut is like Westport, and has no idea that East Haven is just this blue collar town where rich people do not go to retire, where art curators are not going to redecorate their beach house and quibble with the housepainters about how much brown to add to the white paint." That it was a mistake borne out of ignorance of the true cultural geography of Connecticut.

But a cooler head suggests that perhaps the explanation is more complicated but also more mundane: that the screenwriter knew what he was doing when he wrote "East Haven, Connecticut," but that the director (Steven Soderbergh) didn't know what was envisioned by Nolfi when he went to film, and so, that segment of the movie wound up being the stereotypical "Connecticut" that people are used to in Hollywood product (with the exception of Mystic Pizza, which does a pretty good job of depicting working class life in Mystic -- at least, it LOOKS like Mystic, and not Westport. Or Guilford). The cooler head suggests that perhaps a town like East Haven would actually be an excellent place for Danny Ocean to hide out: claiming he’s a retired high school basketball coach, he’d have a chance to just blend into the community.

But here's what I'm having fun thinking about now: how lots of people who watch that movie from now on will see that little line of text -- East Haven, Connecticut -- and it's gonna mean something different now because of this hullabaloo with the mayor and tacos and the cops who've been harassing the Latinos who've been making East Haven their homes for the last 20 odd years.

When you factor in Ocean’s pseudonym, which he takes on to blend in to the charming little community of East Haven, is Diaz, the whole thing just becomes more comical. Wrong ethnic group to pick, it seems, if you're trying to sketch a character who's just trying to blend in. But maybe someone knew this would be a problem. When Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) asks Ocean, “How’s East Haven?” Ocean doesn’t skip a beat. “Sucks,” he says. So perhaps the screenwriter knew something about the real East Haven after all?

I am a sucker for bloopers -- you know, the gag reels they tack onto DVDs as “extras” off the main menu -- and it seems to me that more than ever, those opening scenes of “Ocean’s Twelve” are just one giant blooper. Mr. and Mrs. Diaz, you really picked the wrong place to go if you were trying to escape the attention of local police. Fortunately, in your cases, though, it was just a movie.

In 2002 I was given a membership as a gift, and it changed my life. A few years after that, I joined the board of the Library, and my life changed again -- I gained a mission. I am an evangelist for the Institute Library.

At a dinner party in the fall of 2008 I met Will Baker, a local bookman. Our casual conversation about bookselling led me to ask him if he ever went to the Institute Library. He hadn't heard of it. I said, "Oh, you need go -- let me take you some day on your lunch break."

I took Will to see the Library the following week, as I recall, and it was, I gather, love at first sight. Shortly after that, Will left his position at the William Reese Company and enrolled in a library science program, a move that I found slightly confounding, but also understood: he had a mission, too. For various school assignments, Will threw himself into projects relating to or benefitting the Library. He built its first website -- a lovely, elegant little thing -- and conducted a survey of its members which was full of information that was interesting, surprising, and valuable -- and which would never have been undertaken by anyone on the Library's staff or board. The scale of effort Will put into these projects was simply beyond any one of us: these were labors of love, not merely assignments done to fulfill a degree requirement.

In January of 2011, the Board voted to install William C. Baker as the first Executive Director of the Young Men's Institute Library. A superior bookman -- by which I mean widely read, knowledgeable, and seemingly a Hoover for all information book-related -- Will moved to New Haven a few years ago and has thrown himself into becoming one of those social-lightning-rod types you read about in Malcolm Gladwell essays. I had heard of Will, myself, for years before I actually met him. On becoming acquainted with him, I learned that we knew at least a dozen of the same people. He's done volunteer work for New Haven Reads and at Christ Church New Haven; he has talked at length with at least 75% of the people he's ever laid eyes on, as far as I can tell; if he were interested in political office, he'd be a force to watch, but as it is, he's a bookman, and so he's just.... amazing.

Some folks are whip smart, and some folks are genuinely nice, and some folks are energetic and full of interesting ideas, but very few people combine all of these qualities. Will combines all of these qualities and adds a lot more to the mix; fortunately for the Institute Library, he's directing his love and energy toward the Library now, officially and full-time. The Library's hours have expanded: it is now open not just ten hours a week, but six days a week (M-F, 10-6; Saturday, with volunteer staff, 10-3). With Will at the helm, the Library will be developing new programming; re-working acquisitions policies; and, frankly, God knows what else. The guy's got a list of plans longer than my arm.

I know it's been hard for people to appreciate the Library in recent years because its hours were so choppy and difficult to work with. But now, the hours are longer. The place is open and right in the middle of a very buzz-y neighborhood (Chapel Street near Church -- there's a lot happening there); and there's wireless internet. You can go up and browse the shelves of books and borrow a stack of obscure 1930s thrillers or you can just sit and read for a bit and then amble off on your way. Either way, you are welcome to come by. Membership to the Library is still a humble $25 per year (and can be purchased with plastic for the first time if you go to www.institutelibrary.org).

I fell in love with the Institute Library when I saw they had almost every old book by Patrick Dennis on the shelf. Just sitting there. Waiting for me. I imagine that people who read the New Haven Review would have some similar experience on first browsing the stacks. On first walking in. The Institute Library is a beautiful time machine; a librarian walked in, one recent Saturday, and said to me in wonder, "It's a museum of what a library used to be." And it is.... except it's not a museum. It's the real deal. An old-fashioned membership library.

I predict you can fall in love with it too, and then, knocked silly with joy, you can leave the library and go have freshly made square doughnuts at the Orangeside Luncheonette around the corner. Really, a near-perfect morning.

I scrolled through the list of current articles and noticed a piece by Caitlin Flanagan, and clicked on it eagerly. As I settled in to read it, fork in hand, I shook my head and asked "Why am I doing this to myself? It's just going to make me crazy." But I had to read it.

Caitlin Flanagan is on a mental list I have of writers who I read whenever I can, even though they make me crazy. I've got a little list of such writers. Half the time -- more than half the time -- what they write turns me into a raving loony, pissed about their lack of critical thinking, their shitty writing skills, or some other massive flaw in their work; and yet I read every word I can find by these people. Why is this? Why is this? Why do I do this to myself? It's a form of masochism, right? But why?

And am I the only person who does this?

Flanagan is a writer who seems to inspire this reaction in lots of people, so I can't be alone. I mean, she makes people crazy, but she's still earning a living as a writer. I don't think anyone disputes that she's entertaining; she's got lots of clever sentences, and she seldom sounds simply moronic. But nuanced thinking may not be her strong suit, shall we say. I read her and while I'm laughing at some zinger she's come up with, I often think, "Well, no, that's not really true." And I wind up frustrated with the piece as a whole, even as I agree with several points, or even the thrust of the article overall. Even if I think she's got a good idea, I inevitably feel it's not well argued (which is comical, coming from me, because I am probably the least lucid or organized thinker in my zip code). When someone like me thinks a piece isn't well thought out, you've got problems.

But this phenomenon of "I hate you/I love you/When's your next book coming out" happens to me with fiction writers as well. Over the years, based on my affection for one writer, I've been led to the works of other authors who I've been told, or who I suspect, will quench my never-to-be satisfied thirst for another book by my beloved (ok, it's Laurie Colwin, I admit it). So over time I have read numerous novels that I opened hopefully, but have left me just angry that I wasted my time. Books by Maemeve Medwed -- who are the people who really think these are great? Because I just can't get into them; novels by Cathleen Schine, who I ought to love, but who I just.... don't; Meghan Daum. Oh, Meghan Daum. Her first book of essays made me insane: it was so good, so good, and she was so likeable in so many ways, but I just wanted to smack her on the head and tell her to shape up. I approached her novel The Quality of Life Report with apprehension, knowing on the one hand that it would almost certainly suck, but positive that I would devour it in maybe one and a half sittings. I was right on the money. Why did I do this to myself? I could have been reading something I actually enjoyed; instead, I forced myself to read this novel that held no surprises, no phrase that stuck in my head forever after (not true with My Misspent Youth, a collection of pieces that rings in my head all the time). I received her book about house hunting for my birthday last year and was so excited to read it, even as I knew it would disappoint -- and my suspicions were fulfilled. I opened it immediately and couldn't stop reading but in the end I was left feeling like I hadn't read anything at all.

It's very frustrating.

There's a test I have, though, which is, Do you keep your copies of the books by these people, or do you get rid of them (or never even buy them in the first place, but just borrow them from the library).

Cathleen Schine, I've kept one novel (last year's The Three Weissmans of Westport). There are no Medwed books on my shelves.

I'm keeping all my Meghan Daum.

Why do I read writers whose works I know I won't like? It's not like I'm getting paid to read these things (usually). I keep hoping for the next Veronica Geng, Laurie Colwin, James Thurber, or Patrick Dennis. I'm not looking for cosmic enlightenment, folks; just some solid light entertainment. I guess I'll just have to let you know when I find it, and in the meantime, re-read some Betty MacDonald. She's good on a cold winter day.

This is a little paperback that I remember my parents having a copy of in the late 1980s. I don't think I ever looked at it then but I do remember throwing it out when they moved out of their apartment downtown. The edition I remember -- and which is now sitting on the desk next to me -- is from 1989 and was published by Sledge and Fayen as East Rock Press, Ltd., and it is a fine little guide to the city with some really lovely prints. I found a copy of it a couple of Saturdays ago. I had spent the day at the Institute Library, a wonderful quiet place to go when you need a place that's wonderful and quiet, and on leaving, I went into the English Building Market, which is a couple of doors down. I cruise the place fairly regularly but hardly ever do I look at the books; however, this book caught my eye: I thought, "Oh, what the hell," and bought it.

So let me tell you: reading a guide to New Haven from 1989 is a trip. It's really a strange experience. I found myself remembering shops that I had really and truly forgotten about, though they were once landmarks of downtown New Haven. Scribbles, a shop on Chapel Street, beneath the Yale Center for British Art: you went there for stupid doodads, stickers, obscene greeting cards, and other things no sane person would spend money on. I'd forgotten all about that place. And what makes that awful is, I actually worked there briefly. For about two days. The job was so deplorable that, at the age of 16, I phoned them and said, "Yeah, hi, I won't be coming in. No, I don't need to pick up the paycheck. Keep it." I never wanted to set foot in there again.

How could I have forgotten about Scribbles? And yet I did.

The guide mentions Gentree's, a fairly dignified restaurant that used to be on York Street, in a building that no longer exists because Yale tore it down. It was on York near Chapel, a site now housing the new part of the Art and Architecture school. Gentree's was originally a men's clothing store; I own an overcoat from there, which I acquired at a tag sale on Orange Street simply because I wanted an article of clothing with the Gentree's label. The men's shop closed, and somehow Gentree's was re-conceived as a restaurant, the kind of place where you could get decent burgers and serious drinks. Plants; dark wood; 80s yuppie heaven. Gentree's closed, and I was sad; it wasn't that it was such a great restaurant, but it was reliable. Fitzwilly's, which was on the corner of Park and Elm Streets, was a similar establishment, but much larger, and I was very sorry when they closed, too.

And the Old Heidelberg! Which is now a Thai restaurant! How can it be that the Old Heidelberg is a Thai restaurant? Well, it is the case, my friends. Been that way since 1991. Which means that the Old Heidelberg has been gone for almost twenty years. Which means that there's at least one generation of people to whom that space has "always" been a Thai restaurant.

A sobering thought.

New Haven is, I suspect, no different from any other small city, or even town, in this regard: any business establishment that opens and then lasts longer than three to five years becomes, simply out of its survival, an institution. Some institutions are more entrenched than others: Rudy's may thrive in its new spot, but it won't be Rudy's, really; it'll be something else -- but even so, you know that for the next ten years, there will be people sitting around bars around town going, "Man, remember Rudy's, that night when...." I know that's how it is with the Grotto, a club on lower Crown Street that closed in I think 1988 or maybe it was 1989. New Haven is filled with sentimental chumps like me who remember every club, every restaurant they ever ate at, every store where they ever bought shoes, and lament their closings. If you don't believe me, there is proof on Facebook, even about the shoe store: Cheryl Andresen's shop Solemate, which started on State Street and moved to York Street, is much missed by many. I still wear shoes I bought from Cheryl and her shop closed in 2000. Are people more sentimental in New Haven than in other places? I have no idea. But when I meet someone who has been here a long time, inevitably our first conversation includes a litany of "do you remembers": the Daily Caffe; the Willoughby's on Chapel Street; The Moon on Whalley; the Third World International Cafe... it's always sort of romantic, actually, these conversations. We woo each other with our memory banks of the Nine Squares and the streets that radiate from it. Tight friendships are born out of these shared memories of places long gone.

Mamoun's is still here. Mysteriously, Clarie's Corner Copia is still here. Ashley's is here. All true.

But I miss Thomas Sweet. I miss the pancake restaurant that used to be on York Street. (Not the crepe place; I mean the pancake place; it was where Bangkok Gardens is.) And don't even get me started on the bookstores.

Andy and Karen are completely brilliant and wonderful people and they prove it to me on a fairly frequent basis, the most recent of which was when Andy suggested that there be created a Slow Mail movement, akin to the Slow Food movement. As someone who has pontificated at some length about the glory of letter writing, and how sad it is we don't do it more, I glommed onto this right away, of course. (I'm sure Mark Oppenheimer would too -- I seem to recall hearing his NPR-friendly voice over NPR airwaves recently talking about this very subject.) Andy posted a status line on Facebook saying something along the lines of "Hey: Slow Mail. Anyone else think this is a great idea?" And he generated more than a few comments, among them someone's suggesting that he do a Google search for something called the Letter Writers Alliance.

Well, I don't know if Andy ever did that Google search, but I sure as hell did, and within an hour I'd convinced myself to join the organization. If you go to http://www.16sparrows.com/shop/Letter-Writers-Alliance.html then you too can join the LWA. It doesn't cost a lot of money, which is good, because it's kind of a silly thing to do, but boy, when I got my packet in the mail from them, I thought, "This is worth every penny."

The LWA was founded by some stationers who make what they describe as "greetings cards for sarcastic, quirky folks." (That phrase along made me desperately wish that I was still the buyer for Atticus; how I would have loved to put these cards on display.) So they've got a lot of snarky cards, which are way fun (if, all right, not for everybody), and clever stationery designs, and then they've got the LWA, which has a mission statement as follows:

"In this era of instantaneous communication, a handwritten letter is a rare and wondrous item. The Letter Writers Alliance is dedicated to preserving this art form; neither long lines, nor late deliveries, nor increasing postal rates will keep us from our mission.

As a member of the Letter Writers Alliance, you will carry on the glorious cultural tradition of letter writing. You will take advantage of every opportunity to send tangible correspondence. Prepare your pen and paper, moisten your tongue, and get ready to write more letters!"

I have several friends who gave up Facebook for Lent. One of them, a guy who lives in Idaho, sent me a Facebook message about two weeks before Lent began, asking if I would write to him, on paper, during Lent. I said, "Of course!" I did, using LWA stationery. I admit that I didn't use a fountain pen, but even so, it was a pleasure.

It was interesting to me that the Times made a point of referring to the Yale Murder, because, what with the latest big Yale murder, the Annie Le case, in all the coverage of that case I kept looking in the media for a reference to the earlier murder, and never saw it. I would have thought that someone would have brought it up, but, no, it never happened.

The only reason I know about the Yale Murder is that someone once asked me to locate a copy of the true crime book that it inspired. I located a copy for the customer, and then, because I like reading true crime, I got another copy for myself (finding it by chance at a junk shop, ironically, after putting actual effort into finding the customer his copy). I still have it. It's a bright magenta mass market paperback. Presumably for legal reasons the publisher was prevented from using Yale blue...

Now out of print, the book tells the story of the people involved in the case -- Richard Herrin and Bonnie Garland, two Yale undergrads who were involved in a relationship that had a bad ending (when Herrin killed Garland in her parents' Westchester house). This happened in the 1970s, and while I was here at the time, I was too young to have been aware of it.

I find it sort of weird that the "original" Yale Murder has become such an obscure historical fact, even here in New Haven, where I feel like we all have such long memories for things like this. People talk about Penny Serra like it happened yesterday. But the "Yale Murder"? Nope.

Maybe it's because Bonnie Garland wasn't actually murdered in New Haven. But even so. Even so. It's a Yale crime. Where did it go in our collective memories? Bonnie Garland is now, it seems, just a little note in Jack Litman's obituary.