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A Great Day

JL;DR SUMMARY Leslie Epstein shares a nostalgic and serendipitous journey connected to a painting by Vivan Sundaram, "It Was a Great Day." A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish IdentityMontrealKing Of The JewsLeslie EpsteinDemocratic National Convention1968Art CollectionVivan SundaramWorld's FairVietnam War Protest

Places mentioned

Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada
"Peggys Cove was pleasant, as advertised, and we spent a few days on Prince Edward Island, where to our horror we watched on a tavern television Mayor Daleys thugs beating up Abby Hoffmans demonstrators at the Democratic National Committees meeting in Chicago."
Prince Edward Island, Canada
"Peggys Cove was pleasant, as advertised, and we spent a few days on Prince Edward Island, where to our horror we watched on a tavern television Mayor Daleys thugs beating up Abby Hoffmans demonstrators at the Democratic National Committees meeting in Chicago."
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
"Now to where this story really begins, Montreal, to take in the remains of the 1967 Worlds Fair, which had been renamed Man and His World."
New York, United States
"may pay the shipping expenses. Our vacation completed, we got in our Opel and drove home. Some months later the painting, still in its stout wooden frame and with three black-and-white proofs depicting its development, arrived at our West 87th Street apartment."
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
"and then to my office at Boston University. There it sat for decades until I was deposed as head of the creative writing program and the new director, in his eagerness to take over my office and its view, ripped the canvas, a 2-inch gash."
Deer Isle, Maine, United States
"We could change the title of the painting to Invisible Mending because not even the greatest expert could find the slightest trace of the damage done. It turned out that the office of the outcast director was too small for the painting, so we rented a U-Haul and took it up to the place we own with my daughter and her husband in Deer Isle, Maine."
New Delhi, Delhi, India
"Driven by these thoughts, and on impulse too, I contacted a number of galleries in New Delhi to ask if any of them knew how I might contact Vivan Sundaram."
London, England, United Kingdom
"demonstration in front of the American Embassy in London."

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Retrieved 2025-07-30 05:32:33 UTC
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