We’ve all sampled food-and-atmosphere moments to die for…perfect transitional serenity…that quietly radiant feeling in which the place and the warmth (and not just the climatorial kind) are so calming and poignant that time itself has seemingly stopped…much more than just sitting at a table…enveloped by bliss and rapture.

Two nights ago I happened upon a brief video of such a moment…12 years and three months ago (late May 2011) on a calm and sunny day in Venice, Italy…placid, a gentle breeze, the faint sound of water lapping at pilings…sitting at an outdoor table at Trattoria San Basilio, a fairly small (you could even call it tiny) restaurant, waterside in southern Dorsoduru…no tourists, no madding crowd…Calle del Vento, 1516, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy.

Right now I feel as strongly about this moment as Mr. Bernstein felt about the girl in the white dress on the Staten Island ferry.

Video shot on a Canon camera….the quality of iPhone videos wasn’t good enough back then…good God, I was still filing on Movable Type!