Congrats! On April 25 at 11:30 p.m., after 36 hours of labor, East Village journalist Sarah Ferguson and John Wagner welcomed Christopher Zen Wagner into the world. A contributor to The Villager, Ferguson was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for deadline feature writing for her coverage for The Village Voice of the Tompkins Square Park riots and squatter movement. Wagner is a musician and lives in Serenity squat. Before C.Z.’s birth, the couple had been going back and forth on what to call their youngin. “We mostly call him Christopher, but we also call him Zen,” Ferguson said. “His daddy John thought Zen Wagner would be a rock star name. But he could still be president with a name like Christopher, no?”
A bit of a stretch: Ed Koch will forgo surgery on his back and try another method to treat his stenosis, or narrowing of the spine. “I decided to try one more option suggested to me by a good friend whose wife had great success with the treatment,” Hizzoner reports. “The 10 consecutive treatment sessions involve a machine that stretches the spine. Hopefully, it will be successful, and I won’t need the surgery which is generally considered to be a last resort.” Koch had thought he’d have to suspend his weekly movie review column in The Villager, but his fans will be cheered to know Koch’s columns will keep coming uninterrupted. His e-mail commentaries on various topics will continue, too. “I am very appreciative of the many kind notes and good wishes I received when I notified everyone that I would be suspending my commentaries and movie reviews for several weeks,” he said. “I expect to resume writing them very soon.”
