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August 29, 2005
The Honest War Blogger
In every war that America has ever fought there have always been journalists reporting from the front lines.
Until now.
Mainstream journalists seem to think that the front line is wherever Cindy Sheehan plants her lawn chair, and explains the war with such nuggets as: "This country is not worth dying for," and "We're fighting because of Israel."
And The New York Times considers Ms. Sheehan "an absolute moral authority."
Isn't it kind of refreshing when the left reveals their anti-Semitism? Their spokespeople can back-peddle and say oh, grieving mother, she didn't mean it, yadda yadda, but folks, I have grieved for a dead son and believe me, you lash out at what's always been in your heart.
Isn't it amazing how the left almost always manages to come back to good old fashioned anti-Semitism? They know it's bad PR, they know it's incredibly dumb, yet they just can't help themselves. It's called pathological hatred.
Now for some sanity.
I'd like Seraphic Secret readers to turn their attention to the best journalist working in Iraq today. Michael Yon is on the front lines in Iraq. His blog is so vivid, so well written that it just makes me cry. It is soaked in sweat and blood and after reading a few entries you just stop and you say to yourself: "Wow, so that's what's going on! That's what it's like. You feel enlightened; truth does that.
If Michael Yon doesn't get the Pulitzer Prize--what am I saying, they'll never give him the Pulitzer. They'll give to the self-righteous hacks who endlessly recyle the so-called story of so-called Koran and prisoner abuse. Yon points out that the terrorists are anxious to get into American custody: good treatment, great food, AC, fantastic medical and dental treatment, and the jihadists stand a good chance of getting a slick lawyer who will get them released so they can go off and well, just keep killing more Americans, more innocent women and children, their stock in trade. And the mainstream media insists on calling these barbarians, "insurgents."
As George Orwell predicted: the death of language always precedes totalitarian political thought.
Anyway, make sure not to miss Gates of Fire. It is a masterpiec of war reporting.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:52 AM | Comments (23)
August 26, 2005
No Diamond Ring!?
It started when I was in fourth grade at Yeshiva Flatbush. Karen transferred from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe and it was her first day in school. I laid eyes on her and WHAP! That was it. The course of my life was forever changed. Okay, ten years old. What can a pisher like that know of true love? Well, read this series and find out.
How I Married Karen — Chapter 24
I'm flat on my back staring up at the ceiling.
My mouth is filled with blood.
I am five-years old.
There was a family get-together. For some reason, I started yelling. Screaming. People said, "Robert, stop." But oddly enough, I thought this was really silly and I just kept screaming—even louder. Everyone turned and looked at me. Hmm, good way to get attention. Finally, a woman stepped forward, stuck her face in mine and said, "If you don't shaddup, I'm going to give you such a zets."
You'd think I'd pay attention.
Not me. If anything, my volume finds an even higher register.
I can still see it: the diamond ring catching the light as she hauls off and back-hands me right across the mouth.
Sslap!
Just like in the classic Hollywood movies where slapping was an art form.
I stop screaming.
In fact, I have never heard such perfect silence in all my life.
I'm flat on my back, blood running down my throat.
Note to self: women with diamond rings are violent creatures.
My top lip is sliced open, there is blood everywhere. And the woman who hit me is just horrified. She looks around and says, "I—I didn't mean to do that."
My uncle the diamond cutter deadpans, "It's a good stone! Whaddaya expect's gonna happen?"
And so, when Karen and I discuss our impending marriage, I timidly ask, "Do you mind if we don't buy a diamond ring?"
She just waves her hand as if swatting away a mosquitoe. "Who cares?"
But a moment later she queries: "Would you object to diamond earrings?"
"Not at all," I assure Karen. "Spend whatever you want."
For this is not about money. This is about me being unable to get get over the absurd notion that once Karen is wearing one of these huge diamond rocks on her finger I will be stuck, like Proust and his madelaine, in some perpetual memory cycle, forever replaying that awful moment of violence, and forever tasting the warm salty blood slithering down my throat, forever believing that women who flash karats, are by nature violent beings capable of doing terrible things to the male of the species.
Gosh, just look at Elizabeth Taylor. I loved her in National Velvet. Those were the days before she was weighted down with, um, weight and diamonds. Now she's heavy with flesh and karats and and the poor woman clearly has more durable and healthier relationships with her jewelry than with any of the unfortunate men who have stumbled into the mad psychodrama of her life.
Gold. Diamonds. Jewelry. It's all so perplexing. I just want to be normal, but there doesn't seem to be enough of that to go to around.
I've got too much of not enough.
Sigh.
And to this very day, when I see a big fat diamond on a woman's hand, my lip actually tingles.
Karen adds: I never doubted Robert's aversion to diamond rings, and I did get the diamond studs. When we had been married for about fifteen years, I don't even remember the occasion, but Robert asked me if I wanted a piece of jewelry. I had my eye on a ring that was a diamond surrounded by two emeralds. The diamond was in a bezel setting so there were no sharp edges. We sketched it and had it copied by Robert's aunt, who has worked in the jewelry business for over thirty years. I love the ring, Robert is not scared of it, and it is sort of my belated "engagement" ring. I always loved emeralds.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:26 AM | Comments (20)
August 24, 2005
Seraphic Rules
We've just had a chance to catch up on most of the comments for the past few days and we've had to do something we've never done before: censor comments.
Not for content, but for language.
Bad words.
Shame on you, and you know who you are.
Karen and I are instituting two Seraphic Rules--only one of which is related to profanity, but we thought we'd bring up the second at this time anyway.
Seraphic Rule #1. At Seraphic Secret a certain commentor has been using profanity and we've had do some judiciuous editing. Look, it offends us and the sensibilities of our intelligent readers to come across filthy words. English is the richest language in the world. Surely you can find another way of expressing yourself outside of vulgarities. Really, it just reveals a poverty of imagination. If it happens again, we are going to ban you. Sooooo, if you want to take part in our dialogue you will have to stop using shmutzik words.
Seraphic Rule #2. At Seraphic Secret no one may bash Israel. The world is full of places where Israel is bashed and criticized and told what a failure she is. In fact, that describes most of the world. Go elsewhere if that's what you want to do. Here at Seraphic Secret we love Israel; it is unqualified love and when we say, "If I forget thee O Jerusalem," we feel it to the core of our being.
Don't even bother bringing up freedom of speech. Try that on some knee jerk liberal. Seraphic Secret is private property. That's right, even here in cyber space market capitalism is, thank G-d, alive and well.
So, no dirty language and no Israel bashing. That's it. Pretty simple. That's our agreement. Break it and we reserve the right to ban the commentor--forever, and as you know that is a fate worse than, well most anything. Gosh, imagine not being able to comment on the How I Married Karen saga. I mean, that would be heinous!
This stuff is even covered under some kind of treaty I've seen on other blogs that talks about copyrights and has words like "whereas", and about a dozen subclauses. But I'm a compassionate guy and I'm not going to subject Seraphic Secret readers to the full text of some international copyright treaty because reading it is a lot like ingesting a massive dose of Thorazine.
So: Let's just say that Seraphic Secret is covered under this treaty and so are you by something called mutual consent, and blah blah blah, and boy am I glad I didn't go to law school.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:14 PM | Comments (25)
August 22, 2005
Not Popping the Question
The continuing saga of how Robert fell in love with Karen at the tender age of nine, stayed in love, and Karen had no idea until many years later and you know, sometimes miracles happen.
How do I ask Karen to marry me?
We have been going out for several months and it's obvious that we hold the same values, are deeply in love, meant to live our lives together.
But, I'm stumped. Really, I have no idea how this is done. How do you ask a woman to marry you? Especially the woman you've been in love with since fourth grade. My only role models are, and this is sad, the movies.
Especially the screwball comedies, which, quite frankly, are amusing and brilliant, but relations between the sexes are not really all that normal. In fact, the love impulse is based on conflict—pathological conflict.
Example: Barbara Stanwyck hisses her love for Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve.
"I need him like the axe needs the turkey."
Or the way Rosalind Russell declares her love for Cary Grant in His Girl Friday:
"Oh Walter, you're wonderful—in a loathsome sort of way."
Or Cary Grant and Irene Dunne dueling deliciously in The Awful Truth.
The delight in these films is the way the men and women just keep nailing each other with amazing zingers; it is obvious that the relationship can never be exhausted; the man and woman will never tire of one another. But boy oh boy, it will be noisy.
Karen and I are not in the movies. We do not trade endlessly amusing zingers. We talk, we laugh. We are at ease when we don't talk. We say "I'm sorry" and "thank you" when it's appropriate for if you never say you're sorry then you're a boor or a moron or probably both. There is no conflict. No drama. In short, we are happy.
Let's see what else is out there to guide me in this perplexing problem of how to pop the question?
There are the Samurai movies that I love. Kurosawa, he knows everything, right? The noble samurai warrior keeps his distance from the chaste but lovesick princess/peasant/servant/beauty/whatever, and then the night before the decisive battle they find themselves alone and she offers herself to him and he declines because, well, he's a warrior and he's noble. And it's funny, I just realized, in these samurai movies, no one ever talks about getting married. The women are always howling: "Take me! Take me! For tomorrow you die!" Sheesh, talk about speed dating.
Again, not a great role model for an Orthodox Jew.
Maybe I should just, you know, ask her.
"Karen, will you marry me... Please!? Or I'll shrivel up and die and end up a bum in the street!"
No, strike that.
"Karen, will you marry me? I love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Better.
Maybe I should even get down one one knee, like in those really bad movies? But I'm pretty sure Karen would laugh. Or at least stifle a laugh.
So, I'm stuck. Really stuck. And then, well you know me. Never do anything nice and easy. I have a brilliant idea. I'll drop some hints.
Subtle hints.
Karen and I are window shopping on Columbus Avenue, there's some furniture on view and I grab the opportunity.
"That's kind of nice, isn't it? I don't know all that much about furniture, but I mean, it's got subtle colors, strong lines, looks really comfortable, it's not too expensive, and when we're married we could get something like that for our apartment, right?" I say it all in one breath, really fast.
See what I mean. Subtle.
Karen turns her onyx gaze on me. She knows me by now. She's much smarter than me and so instead of jumping up and down and clapping her hands, and instead of even acknowledging the reference to marriage, Karen just sort of locks me in that lazer gaze and says... nothing.
Hellooo. Didn't you hear me? I used the M word?
And we move on and I keep babbling and before you know I've made about ten references to "being married" and "when we're married" by the end of the day.
By the end of the week, who knows how many references I've dropped? Dozens. Hundreds. They are scattered all over the Upper West Side like mad butterflies.
And suddenly it is understood that we are, well, getting married.
I don't think Karen has ever said, yes.
It's just... there.
Us.
The moral of the story is: You don't have to pop the question. You don't need any theatrics. You just know when it's right and you glide along and life kind of sneaks up and gently takes care of you.
To be continued...
Karen adds: Robert is a dramatist by trade, I am a realist. So the story goes something like this: Robert mentioned the M word about twice. The first time I sort of froze in disbelief, thinking, "Was it a slip of the tongue? Will I look over anxious if I jump at the reference? I can't look too eager? He didn't even ask me?"
I kept cool and didn't say anything.
The second time he used the "M" word, I said something like, "Did you really mean that? Are you really thinking we are going to get married?" Robert answered, "Sure, don't you?" I answered, "Yeah, I do, When were you thinking of?" Robert answered, "Oh, in about five years."
I nearly blacked out.
Here I was, in my mid twenties, FIVE YEARS!
I know now he was worried about his screenwriting career, finances.
I swiftly set Robert straight, and said, that's way too long, "I'm not waiting five years!" Robert said, "When do you want to get married?" I answered, "Within the year." Robert rebounded quickly, "Okay, whatever you want."
And that was our proposal, no flourishes, no flowers, just brass tacks. We didn't go public for about two more months. We waited until the very second Robert's sister's wedding was over and then announced our engagement in February, having this conversation in December.
No ring either. That's another blog entirely.
Robert adds: Whoops!
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:06 AM | Comments (40)
August 19, 2005
Hollywood Republicans, Sshh...
Interesting article about being GASP! Republican in politically correct Hollywood in this week's Jewish Press.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:46 AM | Comments (72)
August 16, 2005
Plan 9 From Bensonhurst
The saga of how I met, fell in love and pursued Karen for many, many years. All this before she even knew that I existed.
How I Married Karen — Chapter 22
"Well you see, Rabbi and Mrs. Singer, I flushed the toilet and it kind of overflowed and your basement bathroom is flooded and well..."
And Karen is sitting there, looking at me, confused, disappointed, and I know, I just know that this is a huge disaster.
I'm still in the basement washroom. The toilet has finally stopped flushing, finally stopped overflowing. I've been playing various scenarios in my head and let me tell you, none of them are good. And so I go to Plan 9 From Bensonhurst. (This, by the way, is a very obscure allusion to possibly the worst movie ever made: Plan 9 From Outer Space, directed by the wretched Ed Wood.)
The plan flashes through my mind in a fraction of a second, the sign, I'm afraid, of a true criminal mastermind. There is one plastic cup over the washbasin. I grab it, lean over and yes, start filling it up with the water flooding the floor, and dumping the water down the tiny drain in the corner shower. One small cup after another. It feels like I'm draining the ocean. Why can't I just go upstairs and tell the truth?
For the same reason that I sneaked upstairs, in a mad quest for Karen's fourth grade dress.
Because I'm not too normal.
Because if there's a choice between doing things in a straight line, nice and easy, you can be sure that I'll find the most twisted path.
I have no idea how long I bail but pretty soon the line of water on the floor has actually diminished. I frantically search underneath the sink and find several rolls of paper towels. I start mopping up the excess water. I make a tidy pile of the soaked towels on the edge of the sink. I'm sort of like Norman Bates, in Psycho, cleaning up after his mother murders Marion Crane. He's methodical, thorough, clear-headed, but completely demented.
I am breathing hard and soaked in sweat. I survey the washroom; it looks pretty good; in the dim light you can barely tell that just a few minutes ago there was a massive flood in this room.
I mop up the floor once again, then I shove the sopping paper towels, yup, in my side pockets, my back pockets. I mean, I can't very well flush them down the toilet, now can I? Squish. Squish. Squish. Guh-ross.
I exit the washroom and make my way towards the basement stairs. Oh joy, there's a trash can. I dump in one congealed clump of towels, and cover the mess with a layer of papers. Hmm, looks like some notes Karen's father has made for a speech. He has beautiful handwriting. I never learned to write script. I envy people who can. I still write in big dumb block letters.
Up the stairs, into the kitchen, whoopee! another garbage can. This is a great house: lots of garbage cans. Quickly, I shove the rest of the sopping towels into the trash and cover the mess with foodstuff and empty milk cartons.
I've cleverly disposed of the evidence.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, feeling like a Mossad agent I reenter the Succah and sit down.
"Are you okay," Karen asks.
"Stomach ache," I say with a brave shrug.
I shift in my seat. My pants are thoroughly soaked from the wet towels. I don't know how long I'm going to be able to sit like this. My slacks are starting to chafe in a really bad place. And what happens if somebody uses the washroom in the next few minutes?
Not a pretty thought.
Karen's parents, Rabbi Phillip and Celia Singer, wedding day,
August 1947
And that's when Karen's father, Rabbi Singer, enters. He's an imposing man in a black Borsalino and black suit. He looks at me like he has x-ray vision. I'll bet he knows all about the washroom.
Karen makes the introductions. After cursory small talk, and the basic but oh-so-necessary Jewish geography, Rabbi Singer gets down to business.
"Nu, so what are you learning these days?"
Possible answers:
1. I'm learning to be a plumber.
2. I'm learning Kurosawa.
3. I'm learning the architecture of your daughter's lovely face.
But I have not studied in yeshiva my whole life for nothing. There are certain passages of Talmud I know pretty well and have in reserve just for moments like this.
"Baba Metziya, Daf Tes." I say.
"Ah..." And Rabbi Singer proceeds to quote chapter and verse, including Tosfos, no mean feat, and all I have to do is sit there and nod.
After a few moments, Karen's parents politely withdraw, it's almost time for me to go to shul for Mincha, afternoon prayers.
I wonder if I should confide to Karen about the washroom. This is the woman I love, the woman, presumably I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. Surely I can trust her with this little hiccup. I mean, I should warn the love of my life about the chaos downstairs, right?
Nah.
I'm a coward. And I'm thinking magically. Maybe the pipes will just fix themselves—that does happen, doesn't it?
Karen walks me to the door.
"I had a good time," she says.
"Me too."
We look at each other for a long moment.
"See you back in Manhattan, " she says.
I can't hold myself back any longer. I recognized certain looks back in the house. Looks between Karen and her mother. Between Karen and her father. Between Karen's mother and Karen's father.
"Karen, did your parents know I was coming over?"
"Not really."
I walk home and I wonder: why didn't Karen tell them? Isn't she serious about me? If she is serious, wouldn't she have said something to her parents about yours truly ?
Conclusion: maybe she really isn't as serious as I think she is.
Great, something to drive me crazy. Another relationship clue with which to torture myself. Gee-willikers, I told my parents I was going over to see Karen.
Is there no justice in this universe?
To be continued.
Karen answers: Robert says he was a coward, well I was a coward in another way. I didn't know how to tell my parents about Robert without their pressuring me, without their blowing the relationship out of the water with questions about how serious we were, and Robert's "intentions." I wanted to keep the relationship so to speak, on my court, under my control, without anyone else calling the shots, calling foul, or calling "game."
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:22 AM | Comments (22)
August 15, 2005
Wake. Breathe. Repeat.
I've never been a strong faster. I get migraines and lack of food is a sure way of getting a heinous headache.
Yesterday, T'sha B'av, was no exception. But with Ariel gone, I tend to obsess on the past. Some days I can close the various drawers in my chest. On holidays, they spring open and stay that way. No amount of pressure can close them. I remember how Ariel fasted, with the only intent being to fulfill all halachic obligations, and therefore reach the spiritual heights halacha points towards. It was an awesome sight to behold.
I am left to my own meager devices now, which is to say that I concentrate on hunger, on discomfort, on the dozens of signals my body sends out telling me that it is not happy and the flesh will have its awful revenge. In other words: I whine about my discomfort and do very little thinking about the various Jewish calamities that have befallen our people through the ages on this day.
On the whole, my religious life has been diminished since Ariel's death. He was my role model, and no rabbi, no sage, no study partner can take his place. Ariel was... special. Now, all I can do is go from day to night and just remember to breathe; one breath after another. And repeat.
And then somewhere along the way in my fast, when the hunger and the migraine fuse -- I start thinking about, Auschwitz and how long I would have lasted in the death camps. Answer: not very long, maybe four minutes, tops. Conclusion: I'm a weak and useless Jew. Ariel was strong and righteous and, yes, heroic, and yet it is he who is gone.
I don't understand anything anymore.
Tomorrow, I'll return to "How I Married Karen", but I just had to get this down. You see, my life really isn't a screwball comedy.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:10 AM | Comments (24)
August 12, 2005
Seraphic Evenings with Robert & Karen
I will continue my tale of washroom woes after the fast. Sorry, but I really need to recharge my batteries.
Meanwhile, I'm writing The Hebrew Kid and Wyatt Earp . Five pages a day. It's executing beautifully. Originally, I was writing The Hebrew Kid and Buffalo Bill and it was like pulling teeth. I could not make the story work. Sometimes, the gears just do not mesh. Characters do not go where you want them to go; they do not do what you want them to do. I ended up dumping eighty-eight pages in the trash. I got depressed. Figured I had no talent anymore and it was time to go to trade school, learn to be a welder, drink beer, drive a truck, join a corrupt union, smoke Camels.
Then I took a deep breath, opened a few obscure books and learned that Wyattt Earp is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Colma, California.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
I knew immediately that I had the next Hebrew Kid book. I'm so happy now because when I sit down to write the words just pour out and the only trouble I have is putting in too much story, too much detail. Every good film and book has three plots going on at the same time. You juggle these three plots in order of importance and in the end you resolve them so that the moral landscape is put back in a way that makes some kind of ethical sense. The trick is to keep those three plots in the air at the same time. If you fumble even one of those subplots--for even one moment--bam! it's over.
At night Karen and I are furiously editing the next book we're publishing, The Shidduch Diaries by Michael Levin. It's a delightful novel, a warm and funny and light-hearted peek into the current dating rituals among the Orthodox. It's appropriate for the observant, it's romantic, it's true and it has an ending that is guaranteed to bring tears to your eyes. We'll be publishing The Shidduch Diaries in the spring.
Seraphic Press has entered into an agreement with acclaimed graphic artist Neil Kleid. Neil is writing and drawing Migdal David, The Tower of David, a graphic novel about a learning disabled teenager in an Orthodox family. It's an incredible story of faith and brotherhood through adversity. In the next few days, Seraphic Secret will publish a sneak preview of the first few pages of this amazing book.
By the way, we are very big on graphic novels and are looking to do more of them.
Meanwhile, Mazal Tov. The NRA has a new president. She's a lady and she is, yes Jewish. Thanks to Toronto Pearl for sending me the article.
And finally, this article about one of the greatest writers in America today, Mark Helprin. Hat tip to Azriel for bringing this to my attention.
And some more clear thinking from the great Victor Davis Hanson, about why we should believe everything the Islamic barbarians threaten. Again, thanks to Azriel, who can always be counted on.
A Good Shabbos and a meaningful fast to all our wonderful Seraphic Secret readers. Your generosity gives us a measure of nechama, comfort, and for this we are eternally grateful.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:25 AM | Comments (16)
August 10, 2005
Flushing in Brooklyn
The continuing saga of Robert and Karen and Karen and Robert and how Robert fell in love with Karen in fourth grade and Karen had absolutely no idea and they exchanged barely ten words until—okay, it's a long story.
Into the Succah walks Karen's mother. I do a double take. Is this woman Jewish? She looks like the great American actress Lee Remick. I'm talking blond hair, blue eyes, thin as a stalk of wheat. She's stunning. Okay, beauty runs in the family. Karen's mother is gracious, makes small talk and asks after my parents. Pretty soon she's serving me cake and cookies and hmmm, what's that little battle of eyes I see going on between Karen and her mother?
Now, if you've been following my little tale of not too normal behavior, you know that my little psycho trip upstairs to the restroom was really a secret mission to discover Karen's fourth grade outfit.
If you're new to this blog—well, don't ask.
Anyway, I never made it to the restroom. It was occupied and I'm pretty sure that I almost walked in on the devastatingly beautiful Mrs. Singer—which might not have been a very good move for a perspective son-in-law.
So, I'm down in the Succah, being shtupped with cookies and tea and I lean over, embarrassed, and say to Karen in an teensy-weensy voice: "Um, I need to use the restroom..."
Karen looks at me, obviously wondering what's going on because I just came down from the restroom five minutes ago. Is she getting involved with some guy who has, um, bladder issues? So, I quickly, reassuringly add: "It was occupied." Observe my oh-so-delicate use of language. I want to impress Karen as a gentleman.
I didn't know it at the time, but Karen's mother has Super Hearing.
"Oh, I think Dad's in there now, Robert, why don't you use the bathroom downstairs."
My washroom habits are now public. Wonderful.
Karen walks me to the stairs.
"Watch your step, they're kind of tricky."
I make my way to the basement. I feel like Paul Newman as Fast Eddie in The Hustler, all cocky and confident. It's like that great scene where Newman meets Jackie Gleason, Minnesota Fats, for the very first time. Fast Eddie, like yours truly, has no idea that he's on the edge of disaster.
I take a series of deep, cleansing breaths. I gaze at my reflection in the mirror and tell myself: Robert, you got away with the insanity of looking for the fourth grade dress in the closet. You didn't walk in on Karen's mother in the bathroom. You're just about to meet her father, a highly respected and very well known Rav and Talmudic scholar. You love Karen and Karen probably loves you. Just go upstairs, sit down and chat, and try not to start babbling about Akira Kurosawa, or Kenji Mizoguchi. Everything is going to be fine.
I smile at myself.
This is going to be great. I feel wonderful, optimistic. I have not felt this hopeful since, well, since the day I met Karen at the Jewish Street Festival.
I flush the toilet, turn to leave the bathroom.
And then I hear a funny sound. I turn and watch in horror as the water in the bowl rises and rises and—
I run over and cry: "No, don't!"
As if this will halt the coming deluge.
—and the water gently, lazily slips over the lip of the bowl and just keeps flowing and flooding the bathroom and I'm just standing there feeling my shoes get wet. Gee willikers, when is the flush going to stop already?
I'm wondering how I'm going to go upstairs and tell Karen that I just broke the toilet and flooded the bathroom and probably caused, oh, a couple of hundred dollars worth of damage. How am I going to do this and not die of embarrassment?
I'm pretty sure that some truly heinous medieval torture might actually be a preferable fate than going upstairs and saying what I'm going to have to say in a minute or two.
I'm also wondering: is this going to have a negative effect on my relationship with Karen?
To be continued:
Karen adds: Robert never told me that this happened but he surely has a kindred soul in this nightmare. I have recurring dreams of malfunctioning toilets and it doesn't take a psychoanalyst to realize that I fear losing control. But I truly hate lousy plumbing and it did happen often in my childhood house.
Now, as a homeowner, as soon as there is the slightest drip, gurgle, clog, or any loss of pressure I'm speed dialing the plumbers, call it obsessive, that's my illness. I don't know how I ever survived camp, or any camping trip, but believe it or not, I feel grateful every time I take a shower and have gloriously hot water.
When we had the big earthquake of '94 the first thing I checked out after the shaking stopped was whether the toilet flushed, after that, I was calm. All was well in the Avrech abode. I don't take any of these amenities for granted, and Robert and I are fusspots about these little things that have to be just right. I guess that's why we don't travel much, and when we do, guess what we check out first?
FYI: Re the title of this entry, Flushing is a section of Queens which, when I was about six years old, sent me into spasms of laughter, I couldn't believe someone could live in a place called "Flushing." I think it's now called something like "Hillcrest."
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:08 PM | Comments (19)
August 09, 2005
Seraphic Psycho
The continuing story of Karen and Robert. In this installment, Robert reveals that his love for Karen was so obsessive that the word obsessive actually does not do justice to his somewhat loony actions. As will be seen, Robert was doing Ben Stiller before Ben Stiller was doing Ben Stiller.
Up the stairs. Two doors. The washroom is on the left. The other room is, well, heaven. Karen's room. Somehow, in the dark recesses of my damaged mind (way too many movies) I have convinced myself that if I step into Karen's bedroom, I'll open her closet and find myself face-to-face with that adorable skirt and blouse that she wore the very first day I laid eyes on her. And once I see this outfit I'll —
I am drawing a blank here. I have absolutely no idea what I'll do if the outfit is hanging there.
I'm sure psychologists have a term for this frame of mind, but I really don't want to know what it is. I'm sure it's some scary Latin phrase that Karen has kindly withheld from me.
Slowly, I make my way up the stairs. You remember Psycho, Detective Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is climbing the stairs, the camera cranes overhead and then BLAM, Norman's mother erupts from a doorway, knife flashing, slashing. Okay, I don't expect to get knifed. But I do feel really creepy.
I'm in the middle of my life-long dream of actually having a relationship with the one girl I've been in love with since fourth grade and what am I about to do? On my first visit to her parents home I'm going to sneak into her bedroom and peek into her closet on the one-in-a-million chance that some fifteen-year-old skirt and blouse will be hanging there.
Am I really going to do this?
Yup.
I arrive at the top of the stairs. There's the washroom. My fingers close round the knob. I turn it.
"I'm in here!" somebody calls out.
My hand pulls back as if it's been scalded. Great. I almost walked in on, who knows, her mother! I'm lucky. That lock, I learn, has been broken for, let's see, about forty years.
Okay. This is good. I have to wait. I edge over to Karen's bedroom. I casually nudge the door open. Nobody's there. And oh, Hashem is good to me. One single closet, right at the entrance. I reach out, open the door, look inside and...
Oh
My
Gosh...
The closet is stuffed, crammed, packed with, well, everything. It's a chaos of clothing. Mens suits, women's dresses, piles of white Shabbos shirts, skirts, blouses, jackets, a jumble of interlocking wire hangers, but wait, there's something in the back that looks vaguely familiar...
Whoosh...
The toilet is flushing.
I have never moved so fast in my life. I'm back in the hallway in about four seconds. I wait for the washroom door to open.
And wait.
One. Two. Three. Four.
Maybe it's a trap.
And then the bedroom door at the end of the hallway groans open and I catch a glimpse of Karen's father, Rabbi Singer, stepping out of his bedroom and before he catches sight of me —
—I fly down the stairs. Back into the Succah. Karen looks up and and gives me a nervous look.
"I think my parents are coming down now."
"Great, can't wait to meet them."
"Want some more hot tea?"
I hear footsteps. I am sweating and my bladder is busting and a little voice inside my head says: why do you do this to yourself?
At that moment, Karen's mother enters the Succah.
To be continued.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:08 AM | Comments (20)
August 08, 2005
Robert Enters the Closet
The continuing story of Robert and Karen's long courtship. It started in fourth grade—actually it only started for Robert. Karen was completely unaware of any relationship. She only caught on, oh, let's see, about sixteen years later.
We can't put it off any longer. Karen and I have been living in a sort of dream world. Going out together for about two months, we're living an almost isolated existence. We're happy, we're content, and I sense that we're both frightened of changing the status quo. We're fearful of bringing in the X-factor--and what exactly is the X-factor?
The parents.
But we have to do it.
The time has come.
Karen and I will be home for Succos. Home is Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Our parents live just a few blocks away from each other. So far, the Upper West Side has been our home turf, it's going to be, I don't know, weird seeing Karen, at last, in her parent's home.
But I actually want to see the room she grew up in. I have this fantasy that I'll open her closet and I'll see the same dress she was wearing the first day I saw her when she transferred from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe. And her white linen handkerchief will be pinned to the dress. Even her shoes will be neatly aligned on the floor, right below the dress.
Since my parents stumbled into my apartment and ran into Karen I've not told them them that I've been seeing her on a regular basis. I don't want to get their hopes up. What am I saying? I'm afraid of getting my hopes up. So when they quiz me about who I'm going out with I just mumble incoherently.
My poor parents shake their heads. Their eldest born is a complete mystery to them. He talks about being a screenwriter, they don't even know what that means. And Caron, my younger sister is already planning a beautiful wedding.
I keep my mouth shut on the first night of Succos. We go to shul, eat in the Succah. My parents ask me what's new and I shrug and talk about the latest interview I did with director Sidney Lumet. What a brilliant man, I sigh, there's so much to learn from him.
Funny, years later as writer/producer in Hollywood I asked Sidney Lumet to direct my film A Stranger Among Us and under Sidney's tutelage I learned more about the craft of making movies than from anyone else in Hollywood. He is a remarkable and important director.
"How's Rabbi Singer's daughter?" my father probes.
I shrug. "Okay, I guess. "I might walk over and visit her tomorrow afternoon." I add.
My mother shrieks.
Caron (my sister) smiles.
My father says: "Send my regards to Rabbi Singer."
Sleep is elusive. My childhood room seems very small. I sit by the window and wonder if Karen is sleeping or if she too is awake, anxious about my visit tomorrow.
Shul, the next day is... a blur. During lunch, my stomach siezes up and I feel vaguely ill. I pace for about twenty minutes then, as casually as I can manage, I announce, "I, uh, I think I'll walk over to Karen's house now." My sister wiggles her eyebrows, teasing with great affection. She looks like the Jewish Ali McGraw.
It's odd, walking through Brooklyn to meet Karen. This is where I grew up. These are the streets that I associate with my loneliness and yearning for Karen. Every corner, every store, every street light holds some memory that vividly tells me that Karen Singer will never love me, that I will live a life unfulfilled, a life of broken parts, a life of short circuited desires.
I knock on the door, and no one answers. It's a holiday, so I can't ring the bell. I knock louder. Nothing.
It kicks in. Fear. Paranoia. Karen has realized that she doesn't love me after all and she's going to ignore me. Oh wait, I know! She had a long talk with her parents. They knocked some sense into her head. Screenwriter? Is that a real job? Is that a living? Come on, Karen, since when do you play around with these romantic boys who have no prospects. Drop him. Find a lawyer, a level-headed dentist, an accountant. Something real. Something solid. Someone with a future! And Karen must have realized that they were absolutely right... No, that's crazy. She wouldn't do that. She's, well, different.
I think.
I hope.
I pray.
Maybe they're all napping. That's it. I've come waaaaay to early. I'm going to wake them all up and they are going to think that I'm an absolute idiot. They'll never let me marry their daughter. "Are you kidding," her father will thunder, "the boy has no common sense, we're all shloofing and he pounds on the front door like King Kong!"
I make a deal with myself. I will knock once more, count to five. If no one comes to the door I'll turn around and go home.
And when I get home, I'll tell my parents—what?
I'll lock myself in my room and never come out. I'll become a neighborhood curiosity. Robert The Hermit.
I knock. Hard.
One. Two. Three. Four.
My future is slipping away here, folks.
Four-and-a-half...
My so-called life.
Five...
I turn to leave.
Robert the Hermit. It has kind of a nice ring. I'll become a tragic but wise figure.
Behind me, I hear the door swinging open on its hinges.
"Robert?"
I turn around and find myself looking up at Karen. Gosh, she is beautiful. She's smiling. Smiling hugely. As if she's actually glad to see me.
"Where are you going?" she asks, looking perplexed.
"No one was answering the door."
"We agreed to meet."
"I thought maybe..."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Come in. Let's sit in the Succah."
I take a deep breath and step inside. This is where Karen grew up. This is the air she breathed. This is the furniture she sat in. The walls that sheltered her.
"Where's your room?
"Upstairs, why?"
I shrug, "No reason, just wondering. Actually, I'm plotting like a Mossad agent (a deranged Mossad agent) to get into her room and peek into her closet. That 4th grade dress, I just know it's there.
I understand, this is beyond obsessive.
Karen leads me through the living room, through the kitchen, to the back porch and we sit in the Succah.
We stare at one another for a long moment. Karen grins.
"This is so weird, isn't it?" Karen says.
"It's just funny seeing you, in another context, I mean."
Karen bustles about, serves tea and cake. Soon enough, we fall into our easy flowing conversation. Her parents are upstairs, still napping. They'll be down soon.
"Do they know I'm coming?"
Karen inclines her head a bit; is that an affirmative? I'm too insecure to ask.
Too much tea. I need to use the washroom. Karen walks me back into the house. It's so quiet. In the John Wayne westerns I love so much, right before the ambush they always say: "It's quiet out there," and then The Duke says: "Too quiet." And then, of course, all hell breaks loose.
"Up the stairs, first door to the left is the restroom." Karen says.
I start up the stairs.
"Karen?
"Yes"
"What's the second door?"
"My bedroom."
Okaaaaaay.
To be continued...
Karen adds: Robert's memory for this first visit is so vivid. All I remember is that Robert wasn't wearing a suit, he hates suits, and that we had managed to avoid our shared Brooklyn turf until Succos. During the Yamim Noraim (Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur), we each went to our respective shul,) but hurried back to Manhattan as soon as feasibly possible. By Succos, it was time to "Meet the Parents." My parents had no idea why Robert Avrech suddenly appeared at our front door.
I had a lot of explaining to do.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:14 AM | Comments (13)
August 04, 2005
Seraphic Loyalty
After our post yesterday, Karen and I talk.
Karen: Didn't you sense my possessiveness?
Robert: No, I never understood it that way. I saw you as someone rightly asking for loyalty. And that's what marriage is about: loyalty.
Karen: Oh.
Robert: Without loyalty we're no better than animals.
I tell Karen that I love her, that I hope I make her happy. Karen says that it's beyond happiness. Now, after Ariel's death it's about... survival. We embrace each other and weep.
We endure.
Karen adds: Ironically, I am not the great animal lover in the family, but in their defense, I do know that animals show loyalty to each other, at least some do, elephants I think mourn their mates, and I do recall reading about other species as well. So loyalty goes beyond the human species.
As far as making me happy, that is a phrase that can mean so many different things. I can still find happiness in my life in many, many ways, but there is always a shadow, a piece that is out of joint. I forget for hours at a time, it is true.
I should have answered, "Yes," to Robert, he does make me happy. But there is never absolute happiness, and especially now, the picture is always incomplete, somebody is missing, and there is no one who can "make it better."
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:34 PM | Comments (10)
August 03, 2005
Karrrrrrrrrrrrrrren!
Robert first laid eyes on Karen when they were both nine-years-old, 4th graders in Yeshiva of Flatbush grade school. Thus began a love affair that defined and continues to define Robert's existence. This series tells the story of...
It's the middle of the night. Karen and I have been going out for four months. The relationship is obviously... a relationship. Still, being male and horribly insecure, I wait for disaster to strike, I wait for the phone call where she tells me that we should just be friends, that she's not ready to commit, that maybe we're moving too fast. I'm waiting for all the cliches that hover in the air of the Upper West Side. But Karen is different, at least I think she's different.
All my life I have assumed that disaster is just around the corner. Whenever anything good happens, I just wait for something equally dreadful to follow. I'm not pessimistic, just a realistic kind of guy. Bad things happen with alarming regularity.
Isn't that normal?
Anyhoo.
I sit up at four in the morning. I am drenched in a cold sweat and I know, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that something terrible is going to happen. Sooner or later Karen, the most level-headed of women, is going to realize that she really loves somebody else, or she's going to come to her senses and understand that loving me, an impoverished screenwriter, is sheer madness.
I must do something.
I bolt out of bed, throw on my clothing, and I run through the deserted streets of Manhattan. I stand outside Karen's building and...
I know, I should scream, Karrrrrrrren! Like Marlon Brando's primal Stellaaaaa! in Streetcar Named Desire. But, look, I don't want to get arrested and I'm pretty sure Karrrrrrrren! wouldn't hear me anyway. Besides, what would I say afterwards?
Marry me?
Please?
Pretty please?
So I stand there and stare at the blank face of her building and a bum walks by muttering some madness and I realize, whoa, I'm out on the street in the middle of the night about to scream Karen's name.
Get a grip.
I turn round and make my way back to my apartment and never tell Karen about this episode. Until today.
Karen adds: I guess this is the nature of the early stages of courtship, each person trying to hide their insecurities, hoping, praying that the other feels the same way they do, that the feeling will "last" and that the intangible, irrational attraction that drew the couple together will endure and grow.
While Robert was having his night terrors, he hid it so well it never occurred to me that he was insecure. I, on the other hand, was sure I would blow it, that I would project my need for a commitment, that I would suffocate Robert with my neediness, and my possessive nature. Perhaps I even held back somewhat to compensate for these tendencies. So while Robert was dealing with his insecurities I was dealing with mine. I took measures to deal with them, and in the end, it was the best move I ever made.
Had Robert screamed at the top of his lungs I probably wouldn't have heard him, since my apartment faced an air shaft, with quite a distance to the front of the building. As far as screaming on the Upper West Side, in those days, there was a screamer on every block.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:10 PM | Comments (15)
August 02, 2005
How to Lose (Not so Seraphic) Friends
The saga of Robert and Karen's life-long courtship continues. This chapter veers off into the often dangerous territory of friends and how they relate to the primary love relationship.
He is dirty. He chain-smokes and smells like an ash tray. His clothing has not been washed in a very long time. His hair is greasy. He also knows more about movies than anybody else on earth. He's sort of a shmutzy genius.
Meet Henry, my new friend.
I have been a student at Bard College for about two incredibly lonely weeks. It's not easy being the only Shomer Shabbos student at college.
Henry writes looooooong film reviews for the student newspaper. He tosses off phrases that are well, French to me: Mise 'en scene, Film Noir. He discusses the theoretical positions of Jean Luc Goddard, Andre Bazin and Francois Truffaut. He is passionate about the cinema of Samuel Fuller. Huh? Doesn't Fuller make like these lousy B pictures? I feel really stupid when I read Henry's articles.
One day I screw up my courage and ask Henry about his latest essay regarding Ingmar Bergman. I know that this Swedish director is supposed to be deep and "heavy" but isn't it all a bit... pretentious? Henry, to his credit, does not blow me off. In fact he allows that this is a "valid position" taken by many of the "cahier" crowd. I nod as if I know who the cahier crowd are. Answer: a bunch of dopey Frenchman who watch American films not understanding a word of English, hence basing their cinematic theories on mis en scene—go figure.
Anyway, in spite of Henry's, ahem, hygiene problems, I form a close friendship with him. My other friend, Jamie A"H, sniffs when Henry comes round and rapidly disappears. He thinks I'm nuts to hang around with Henry, but gee, Henry is so smart, he knows sooooo much, and I've been in yeshiva all my life and I've got a lot of catching up to do. And so Henry, bless his kind and most generous heart, gives me a crash course in the history of world cinema. To this day, when people ask me how I learned so much about film, I tell them about Henry.
We even start writing films together. Oh yes, Henry wants to be a screenwriter too. But our collaboration never quite works out. I am still an earnest yeshiva student at heart. I'll be sitting in my dorm room writing, waiting for Henry and he'll be off with one of his girlfriends, down the road, partying hard. He'll show up—whenever—dash off a pound of pages, some brilliant, some incoherent, and I instinctively know that this can never work.
I confess, it also bothers me, deep, deep in my gut, though I never articulate it, that Henry is Jewish, can rattle off Shakespeare, Donne, Emerson, and knows not one word of Torah. He does not even know the Sh'ma.
And he couldn't care less.
It never crosses his mind that it might be sort of appropriate to go out with a Jewish girl. Nope, only thin, crazy, very crazy, Presbyterian Princesses for Henry.
After Bard, Henry and I end up living around the corner from each other in New York. You know how when you are seriously going out with a woman the time comes when you introduce her to your circle of friends? It's another crossroads in the relationship. It announces that this is real. The friends look the woman over, they hesitate for a moment, then realize that she's perfect and they welcome her to the inner circle.
I do not have a circle of friends. I have no friends from Yeshiva anymore. Once you leave Beis Midrash to study art, it's hard keeping up with old friends.
So, my only friend is Henry.
And he is still dirty.
And I know that when Karen takes one look at him, hears him rattle off his theories about the cinema of Howard Hawks, the structuralism of Claude Levi Strauss as applied to the films of Jean Luc Goddard, well, it's not going to be pretty. Karen has no patience for, well, intellectual gibberish.
And knowing Henry, he will scrutinize Karen, see, gasp! a ferociously normal woman, probably the greatest threat to his world-view, to our friendship, and, well, I just want to get this over with as quickly as possible.
The question is: How far does loyalty extend?
Henry has given me an education in film, the tools that will probably allow me to have a career in film. He has, in short, been a good friend. He has also helped me get my job at Millimeter Magazine.
What do I owe him? I feel like I owe him, well, close to everything.
Does every passionate relationship inevitably destroy another?
Karen is away now, but when she comes back I'll have her add the coup de grace. Pardon my French.
Karen adds: Robert has cast me as Marie Antoinette in this story, yet, as I remember it, I was more on the side of liberte and egalite. You see, there were terrible hygiene problem, second-hand smoke which was camel strength and unrelenting, and the verbal diarrhea.
In addition when Robert told me he sometimes would go over to Henry's apartment and pick Henry's dirty laundry off the floor it sickened me. I told Robert, "This man is pathological and you are enabling him! What purpose is this relationship serving for you?" It made me question the health of our own relationship which seemed so normal and straight forward.
Robert agreed that he would not ask me to socialize with Henry, that once they finished a screenplay they were working on, and that was not going well because Henry did not know the meaning of discipline, they would no longer collaborate. After that, the relationship sort of fizzled out on its own. Whatever purpose Henry served no longer paid off, maybe Robert saw him in another light once he wasn't dependent on him for artistic inspiration. For whatever reason, once we got married, Robert and Henry saw each other only about every ten years, and they never renewed the bond they once had. I was the spoiler and I don't regret it.
Robert adds: Henry was right about the films of Sam Fuller. Check out Shock Corridor. It is great. Especially the scene in the, yup, nympho ward!
And of course don't forget Fuller's last film The Big Red One. It has just been released in the Director's Cut and it is a thing of beauty.
Thank you, Henry.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:08 AM | Comments (16)
August 01, 2005
Seraphic Obsession Meets DePalma's Obsession
The continuing saga of Robert and Karen's looooooong relationship, that became a romance when childhood obsessions finally matured into love.
Karen and I are watching Brian De Palma's Obsession and I'm thinking to myself, I'd give anything to work with De Palma, give most anything to write a film for him. But I know that it will never happen because, well, he's a pretty twisted character and me, well, I'm just a regular guy from Brooklyn with a nice normal sensibility and my favorite writer in the whole wide world is probably Jane Austen, and my favorite films are the screwball comedies from the 30's and 40's, and I mean, that's a long way from Brian De Palma's macabre sensibility. But gee willikers, I really like his movies, really enjoy his bravura camera moves and his absolutely psychotic take on the human condition.
Oddly enough, my big break in Hollywood came from Brian De Palma when he tapped me to write the thriller, Body Double (1984).
Obsession. I know something about obsession. And she is sitting right beside me.
This is one film where Karen is not, thank goodness, hunched over, bored out of her skull, as she was in The Seven Samurai my favorite film of all time. Why, you might ask? Because it elegantly teaches the most important lesson a man must learn in this life: that to live in this world evil must be met and utterly defeated.
Obsession is smart, stylish, tricky and absolutely satisfying, and, as I said, we both like it. Big sigh of relief. No need for any long tortuous debates on the nature of film aesthetics. Sometimes I exhaust myself over absolutely nothing. Karen is teaching me—by osmosis—to separate the important from the unimportant. I realize that there is much in me that is, well, pretentious and arty. Four years in Bard College leaves a deep, intellectually flawed tattoo.
Karen and I are going out regularly, if not every night, almost every night. It's nice. No, it's heavenly. I feel as if I'm living someone else's life. I wait for disaster to strike for how is it possible for this good, kind, generous and strikingly beautiful woman to actually care for me?
Sometimes I think that I'm in a lost episode of The Twilight Zone.
I invite Karen for Shabbos dinner at my apartment. Don't get all excited. Banish all thoughts of me sweating in the kitchen, running around with a little chef's hat perched on my head. I can cook a mean omelet—that's about it. No, I buy take-out. One thing about Karen then and now, she's not picky about food. Give her some salad, some melon, and she's happy. In fact, Karen is the lowest maintenance woman in the history of, well, the universe. Basically, I'm playing house. I want to see what it's like having a Shabbos meal with Karen—just the two of us. No friends to distract.
One man. One woman. One Shabbos.
And it is great. We sing z'meros. We talk for hours. Naturally, I can't remember a thing about the food; it's never been an important component in my life. Afterwards, I walk Karen back to her apartment and I know that a threshold has been crossed. I wonder if Karen knows it too. I wonder where her mind is going in terms of, well, the future, commitment, marriage.
I wonder what will happen next.
Karen adds: I have an everyman's attitude toward movies — if it's entertaining, if it keeps my interest and it's smart — I like it. Obsession did the trick.
As far as food, Robert is the one who couldn't care less. I remember cooking that meal, and bringing it over to Robert's apartment. Definitely not take-out. I wasn't a vegetarian in those days, so we shared a meal.
The dates with other guys were dropping out gradually, and our relationship just seemed magical from the very beginning. Robert was a straight-shooter, didn't play any games, but I was so jaded, and cautious that I needed time to trust his feelings. So, on both sides, we had this, I-can't-believe-this-is-happening, pinch-me-when-I-wake-up, feeling.
I guess it's called, falling in love.
To be continued...
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:57 AM | Comments (17)