12 January 2004, New York City--Monday night at O'Lunney's was great fun as a new bunch of Roundtablers enjoyed artistic as well as heated impassioned discussions and, to quote Steve Kivlen, "I've never been with such a variety of different types of people at one table in my life!"

...and fun it was! I'm calling it a tertulia** this time, and not a roundtable, for our ROUND table was nowhere to be found and we all wished the table would have been circular so we could have communicated a bit easier. But that didn't stop almost everyone who came from getting in on the conversations and the table was so long, some were shouting from one end to the other. The mixture of energetic jibes was electric.

Nonetheless, this gathering was more in the tradition of the Spanish tertulia where artistic people gather to argue, exchange ideas, joke, banter and gossip. "6:45 is the time we always dish the dirt on who's shacking up with who," joked Richard while we awaited the arrival of the other Roundtablers.

Carl Limbacher and I shared a cab from Penn Station and arrived fashionably on time to meet Richard & Jana, freshly wed and so in love, who were keeping our seats warm on the first floor (apparently our room in the loft had sprung a leak). They're still in the midst of packing New Jersey off to Connecticut and getting settled in their new life together.

Our fearless leader, Howie Comen wasn't able to break away from a pressing case in Charleston, so he couldn't make it this time... and we all felt the void. Yet we could've sworn we saw him doing undercover surveillance on our little party several times during the evening. Or maybe he was doing a little undercover surveillance of his own at home with his wife, Michelle!!

I was so thrilled to share in the joy of my recent success and so I brought prints for everyone of my still-life acrylic painting, 2 Green Pears, which was chosen to grace the cover of grade school art textbooks throughout the country (Publisher: Harcourt School Publishers). Tobi Zausner, to whom I'm so grateful for recommending me, said my painting was chosen from hundreds and hundreds of submissions! We were so happy that Tobi was there Monday night and the new Roundtablers got to see some of her work via her beautiful brochures, which she handed out. Tobi's encouragement for me has been so enormously valuable! And now she's recommending more of my art for some Catholic books. [I've already e-mailed her images of my St. Bernadette and Pope paintings.] I also brought copies of my CD, "Resurrection" for some of the Roundtablers, too, which they seemed to enjoy and I've already received some nice reviews via e-mail!

It was a real pleasure that Gail Lefkowitz joined us on Monday night. Gail works for the outsourcing division of a staffing solutions strategic resources (I know she'll forgive me if I got it wrong) agency. I told her all about my mother, Elizabeth - how when I was young she'd owned two employment agencies in Chicagoland and Gail filled us all in on the happenings at her agency and just how much the world is changing job-wise as well as economically. She told us that, coincidentally, she'd celebrated her 30-year anniversary in Charleston, SC in October! Gail and I sat in the middle... and from our vantage point, we weren't the left or the right wing; we were barraged from both sides. She listened while I took notes.

It was wonderful to see charter member Princeton Club Librarian Betty Dornheim again... she kept the conversation flowing with her charm and grace and said she's anxious to get her e-mail running so she can keep up to the minute on our roundtable reports... and participate much more.

It was fun being with fellow Roundtablers from NewsMax again - Steve Kivlen of Koeppel Tener Real Estate Services and Fr. Mike Reilly who was ordained a Roman Catholic priest by John Cardinal O'Connor in 1992 and is currently serving as Dean at St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in Staten Island, New York. We were once again discussing attending the 2004 RNC. It should be a highly charged time in NYC next year as the RNC will be at MSG... and Steve Kivlen brought up a good point - that it could be scary, too, being that Amtrak, the LIRR, Penn Station, etc. is right under MSG! But we won't let those terrorists get the best of us!

Other first-time Roundtablers were Muriel Taub Glantzman, a wonderful collage artist who handed out cards with some of her original art printed on them. Very colourful and unique! Muriel got into a heated, passionate discussion about politics with Brian & Florence Moffatt, also first-time Roundtablers. The table was really rocking from left to right as the topics covered every war from the Indians at Plymouth Rock to the recent war in Iraq! Eventually they all agreed to disagree and we were impressed when Muriel summed it all up: "We all should live by the Golden Rule!" and told us all about her father arriving in America in 1903 from Poland and how he was a Zionist, very Orthodox. We got the impression he must've been a great man. On some of the discussions, Father Mike's vast knowledge of religions came in handy... and he even told us how he believes the next Pope will come about.

Then the discussion turned to 9/11, bin Laden and Saddam... and Carl Limbacher gave everyone the facts about Clinton's role in bin Laden getting away and recommended that we all check out NewsMax as well as FreeRepublic.com, the best conservative Web sites. He referred to a story he wrote on 9/29/01 that was of great interest to the Roundtablers (FBI Stands Aside as bin Laden Kin Flee U.S.).

Then the O'Lunney's servers brought a delicious chocolate cake with a candle and we all sang Happy Birthday to Carl, who couldn't seem to figure out how everyone knew it was his birthday!

It was a freezing winter night in Times Square as the Roundtable wrapped up and went home, happy to have met some wonderful, creative artists and new friends, who we hope will return next month... along with Howie, the man, the Comen of the Comen Roundtable.

**The Algonquin Roundtablers weren't the only group to meet in this way. There was Picasso's group of friends, modeled on the Spanish tertulia (When a group of individuals come together and share their ideas, talents and anecdotes in the spirit of interpreting life, when there is song and poetry and when there is wit in conversation, then we say that a tertulia has formed.) His was a circle of mostly professional cronies who would meet day after day in a particular cafe and pass the time, gossiping, arguing, exchanging jokes... The artist's father had been the center of one such tertulia in his day. By the time he was 17, Picasso was the young star of a Barcelona tertulia. And within a few months of moving to Paris he managed to establish a comparable group in Montmartre. The "bande a Picasso," as it became known, included some of the most gifted young writers of their time -- and in one form or another it survived until the artist's death.

[View Pictures from the 1/12/2004 Dinner]

The Comen International Roundtable will meet the third Monday of every month. For more info on the Roundtable, contact Howard Comen at 843-571-2667, www.comeninternational.com or Sandy Frazier at 516-735-5468, sandy@mystic-art.com