December 19, 2004

Early in the summer of 2002, the darkest season of Charlie Weis's life, he lay near death in a Boston hospital. His best friend from college, Dr. Jim Benenati, called Weis's buddies from Notre Dame to pass along the news. Weis's mother and youngest brother drove from New Jersey, arriving at 3 a.m. to be at his bedside. A priest came to deliver last rites. Despite severe complications from gastric bypass surgery, Weis survived. After two weeks in intensive care and two more in rehabilitation, he was finally able to return to his home in Rhode Island. Even then, a physical therapist warned Weis's wife, Maura, that he might have to be in a wheelchair for a year.

CHRISTMAS trees, it can be agreed, are dangerous objects. They are annually the source of freakish but tragic house fires, pet mishaps and emotional conflagrations involving the deployment of tiny colored bulbs. Yet we love Christmas trees, or anyway I do. Kitsch they may be, but also sentimental, garish, probably Druidic in origin, Teutonic in their modern form and emotionally loaded no matter how one interprets the history. They are the perfect totem, but of what? Well, I'm not sure, but at a guess I would say of collective memory. And nothing enlivens the past in quite the alarming way a Christmas tree does. Short of importing every person one has ever slept with into one's house, little would have quite the same jarring effect on memory as hauling home a six-foot balsam trussed in plastic or twine.

Article on demise of Pontiac Aztek, minivan-based, tent-equipped utility wagon that did not catch on with public; photo; drawing (M)

Curbside auto mechanics, especially in Bronx, are forming new rung on New York City's freelance work ladder, drawing clients from as far as Connecticut and Rhode Island with low prices; flourishing, although illegal, street business blends improvisation with corporate savvy; some freelancers are incompetent, making mess of jobs, while others are qualified mechanics; best workers can pocket $400 in one day, saving clients steeper prices charged at shops; workers operate within hierarchy; at top are owners of auto parts stores, who moved to streets in early 1970's, followed by mechanics and finally helpers, who are training and earn much of their pay by luring clients; photos; map (M)

Steve Dougherty travel article on visit to Reykjavik, Iceland, where weekend nighttime clubbing scene is hot; describes scene in October during Iceland Airwaves, ultra-hip music festival that features cutting-edge music groups from Iceland, Britain and US; photos (L)