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September 01, 2008
Script
Robert first laid eyes on Karen when they were both nine-years-old, students 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...
“Can I read the screenplay?”
“Um...”
I am my usual articulate self.
It is 1976. Karen and I have been dating for several weeks.
I have always loved Karen. Never stopped thinking abut her ever since she, a stunning, raven-haired 9-year old, transferred from Yeshiva Ohel Moshe, to Yeshiva of Flatbush elementary school, where yours truly was a student.
A chance meeting at a Jewish street festival on the upper West Side brought us together, and from that encounter—just like Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in the heart-breaking Brief Encounter—our relationship has gathered force, and now moves along like a whirling tornado.
At least in my feverish imagination.
Karen is reserved. Karen is cautious. Several painful relationships have made her suspicious of the male of the species.
Imagine that.
Now, we are sitting in a coffee shop on Manhattan's upper West Side and I spill, tell Karen of my dreams and aspirations.
I am a screenwriter, I say.
I want to make movies, I say.
Notice: I am not in medical, dental, or law school. Nor am I am studying to be an accountant, a businessman, a psychologist, an educator, a Rabbi or a social worker.
I'm shooting for Hollywood.
Karen just gazes at me long and hard. Like Supergirl—the Jewish version—she seems to possess x-ray vision, and I'm pretty sure she can see right through me.
Karen does not flinch, she does not blink, she does not protest.
Other young women have said to me:
“You can't do that, you're a Shomer Shabbos Jew.”
Or:
“Is that a parnassah, a living?”
Or:
“That's a wonderful ambition,” says Karen.
To this day I have no idea what kept me from falling to my knees and kissing her feet.
I have been so isolated in my love of movies, in my desire to become a Hollywood screenwriter, that at some point I just stopped telling people what I truly wanted out of life.
I was like a crypto Jew of the Spanish Inquisition, on the surface, a normal American guy, but in the privacy of my apartment, a devoted screenwriter, pounding away on my manual Smith Corona, burning with images.
Karen sips her tea and asks me a series of logical questions about the structure of screenplays.
Note to self: Karen does not pretend to know more than she does.
I explain that movies have three acts: exposition, conflict, resolution. I talk about main characters, how the script is all about a journey to overcome impossible obstacles and achieve something.
Karen asks about the business.
“It's very tough,” I concede.
I don't tell her that Hollywood is littered with broken, failed screenwriters. I don't want to scare Karen away.
“What have you written?”
I tell Karen about my latest script, an adaptation of a short story by the great Israeli Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon. It's been a struggle to write. Every script has its own unique problems to solve, but this script has been keeping me up at nights. It's good but flawed, deeply flawed.
“Can I read the screenplay?”
Oh boy.
If I give it to Karen and she hates it, well, I have a feeling that this will diminish me in her eyes.
But if I don't let Karen read it, well, that indicates total cowardice.
I have loved Karen since we were children. Helplessly and hopelessly. Abruptly, I realize that at some point I must make the leap from the warm embrace of romantic love into the real world where relationships are tested, where the depth of trust can be properly measured.
On the way home from the coffee shop, we stop at my apartment and I hand over my screenplay.
A little voice inside my head screams and screams and screams.
Several days pass without a response from Karen.
I tell myself:
“She hates it.”
I stare at the telephone and growl:
“What do you know about screenplays? Nothing. So who are you to judge me?”
And then, the phone chimes:
“I read your screenplay.”
Pause.
Someone on my block is beating on a set of drums and it's making my entire body shake. Oh, wait, that's my heart galloping in my chest.
“Annnd?” I whine.
We meet at the same coffee shop.
“I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner,” Karen says, “but I wanted to read the original story and see what you did with it.”
Note to self: Unlike yours truly, Karen is thorough, believes in hard work, research.
“So I had to go to the library and find the Hebrew version.”
“Wait a minute, you read the original?”
Karen nods, sips her tea.
“It's not hot enough.”
“My screenplay?”
“My tea.”
“You read the story in Hebrew?”
Karen nods, says to the waiter: “Can I have some hot tea, please
“Karen, I worked from an English translation. My Hebrew isn't good enough to read Agnon's original. ”
“I read both,” Karen says, “the Hebrew and the English.”
Which is why Karen was in the A-class in Yeshiva Flatbush and I was in the C-class, the class reserved for dummies.
Karen praises my work and then offers the most cogent criticism I have ever received on a screenplay. This young woman who has never before read a movie script, effortlessly isolates the main problems in the story and offers a few simple suggestions that will help clarify the central theme and sharpen the main character. Oh, and Karen has a few notes on how to make the script a bit more commercial. Always a fine idea.
I am flattened.
I am humbled.
And of course, I am a complete baby.
“But you like my script, right?”
I'm pretty sure I'm begging.
Yes, Karen assures me, she likes it.
And only supernatural willpower stops me from saying: “Well, that means you like me too, right?”
Even I, violently love-smitten since childhood, have some reserves of pride.
Karen sips her hot tea, looks up at me with her onyx-black eyes and says: “You're going to have the career you want. I have faith in you.”
I bite my lip. Hard. It's the only thing I can do to hold back a gush of tears. No one has ever said these words to me. All my life I have been the outsider, the lofty dreamer, the kid who just doesn't fit in.
In truth, I have almost no faith in myself.
It's as if the cruel teachers in Yeshiva of Flatbush had forever branded me—inside and out—with that fearful report card notation: Does not live up to his full potential.
In scripts there is a decisive moment, almost always in the second act, it's the point in the story where several plot lines converge, where the main character makes a momentous decision, and in terms of narrative, the story then moves along with single-minded velocity to the inevitable resolution and end.
We have reached that decisive moment. Karen and I have just taken a giant leap in our relationship, and here in this Manhattan coffee shop, we sip our tea and just bask in companionable silence.
I am going to marry Karen.
Karen is going to marry me.
Everything is going to be okay.
It's in the script.
Karen, my kallah, my bride, June 19, 1977
Introduction: Seraphic School Days or The Sadist of Yeshiva Flatbush
Chapter 1: The Rabbi's Seraphic Daughter
Chapter 3: Karen's POV on the Seraphic (Pity) Dance
Chapter 6: Seraphic Street Festival Bonus footage: Karen's Side of the Street.
Chapter 7: Karen Meets the Parents—Way Too Early
Chapter 8: Karen's View From Robert's Couch
Chapter 9: Sunday Afternoon Around the Corner From the Park With Robert
Chapter 10: Seraphic First Date
Chapter 11: Seraphic Shakesperian Urges
Chapter 13: Not So Seraphic Sweden
Chapter 14: Karen Meets The Seven Samurai—Sorta
Chapter 15: Karen and Robert Debate About—Get This—Art
Chapter 16: Seraphic Obsession Meets De Palma's Obsession
Chapter 17: How To Lose (Not So) Seraphic Friends
Chapter 18: Karrrrrrrrrren! Bonus Footage: Seraphic Loyalty.
Chapter 19: Robert Enters the Closet—Literally
Chapter 20: Seraphic Psycho—Plus Hitchcock's Great Crane Shot
Chapter 21: Flushing in Brooklyn
Chapter 22: Plan 9 From Bensonhurst
Chapter 23: Not Popping The Question
Chapter 25: Permission to Marry Karen
Chapter 26: My (Very Long) List of Sins
Chapter 27: Stanley Kubrick Plans Our Wedding, Bonus Wedding Pictures
Chapter 28: Negative on the Negatives
Chapter 29: Karen's at City Hall, Where's Robert?
Chapter 31: Beauty and Me, Bonus Photos of Robert & Karen in School
Chapter 33: The Seam, The Sword & Belle
Chapter 34: Karen Out of Context
Chapter 35: High School Confidential
Chapter 36: Be Good to My Daughter
Chapter 37: Seraphic Duel via Rashomon
Chapter 39: Two Tales of the Past
Chapter 40: Script
How Karen Feels About How I Married Karen
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at September 1, 2008 04:50 AM
Comments
Seraphic Secret is private property, that's right, it's an extension of our home, and as such, Karen and I have instituted two Seraphic Rules and we ask commentors to act respectfully.
1. No profanity.2. No Israel bashing. We debate, we discuss, we are respectful. You know what Israel bashing is. The world is full of it. Seraphic Secret is one of the few places in the world that will not tolerate this form of anti-Semitism. That's it. Break either of these rules and you will be banned.
[Sigh.] I am laughing, and crying. I am in love with these two kids. They are such richly-textured, delicious people. It will be a joy to go back through the chapters and really get to know them.
Ribono shel Olam: Thank You for giving out gifts of creativity so generously to my fellow Yidden. Kindly keep 'em flowing. We live in a time, as You well know, when we need to laugh, and to cry from our hearts spilling over with affection, rather than from tragedy.
Posted by: rutimizrachi at September 1, 2008 07:57 AM
Very sweet!
For that you get a haiku:
Kind words at cafe
Find home in my smitten heart
Hot tea in her hand
Posted by: kishke at September 1, 2008 08:34 AM
So beatiful....
Posted by: Foxfier at September 1, 2008 11:03 AM
Karen writes:
Your detailed reprise of this pivotal chapter of our courtship is the best birthday present I could ever get, (Aug 30). I never doubted your talent for one minute, nor did I think in terms of monetary success or failure of an unconventional career choice. Although I was in the tunnel of love, I was not blind, I knew you were smart, ambitious, and sensible—despite your protestations to the contrary. I would have followed you anywhere.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.seraphicpress.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 1, 2008 12:09 PM
Love Karen's response. For that she gets a tanka:
Young lovers embark
Riding gaily painted cars
The tunnel of love
Years like days, like centuries
Two hearts are forged into one
Posted by: kishke at September 1, 2008 01:09 PM
I mulled over several possible comments which seem to me inadequate for several reasons. So I'm sticking with this version:
You two are truely blessed.
Posted by: QuietusLeo at September 1, 2008 01:30 PM
Thank you for a beautiful story. It made for a perfect ending to a nice weekend.
Posted by: Tamster at September 1, 2008 02:16 PM
Another beautiful chapter, Robert.
Good things come to those who wait-- you got the whole package in Karen!
Happy belated b'day, Karen, and may you celebrate many more in good health...and together with Robert.
Robert, what ever became of the script? Was it produced eventually?
Posted by: Pearl at September 1, 2008 03:44 PM
The frum Brooklyn version of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning
Posted by: mata hari at September 1, 2008 04:55 PM
Oh Robert, now I have to pick my melting heart up off the floor. The love you have for each other is the stuff that great movies are made of ;)
Happy birthday Karen...those words: "I would have followed you anywhere" describe the kind of love everyone should feel and have felt about them at least once in a lifetime.
Posted by: cruisin-mom at September 1, 2008 05:25 PM
Happy Birthday, Karen!
Posted by: DrCarol at September 1, 2008 06:17 PM
Happy birthday, Karen.
Blessings to both of you. What a beautiful post.
Robert, you've got me curious. Which story by Agnon was it?
And are you ever going to publish The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden in Hebrew? In my opinion, it would be worthwhile.
Posted by: Rahel at September 1, 2008 09:59 PM
It is a lovely story. Robert, you may enjoy self-deprecation, but you are clearly talented.
Posted by: Jack at September 1, 2008 11:15 PM
happy birthday karen
Posted by: Lion of Zion at September 1, 2008 11:49 PM
Top 10 Notes Karen Made on Robert's Script
10) "Nice work, but we had to adapt this exact story for homework in Mrs. Haramati's 10th grade class... want to see my paper?"
9) "I don't care what translation you used, I'm pretty sure Agnon never set any of his stories in the old West."
8) "This is a great tense moment in the script... but not as tense as trying to cross Bay Parkway!"
7) "It was touching when the bride's family gave the groom's father a 9mm Glock as a dowry."
6) "It was a touching moment when the boy fights back against his abusive Rebbe, but I don't think they taught Algebra in Heder."
5) "I realize you're a big fan of 'The Seven Samurai,' but I'm pretty sure no one in 19th century Galicia spoke Japanese."
4) "It was wonderful irony when the character who spent his whole life searching for a real Jewish community dying of salmonella poisioning at the kosher pizza place!"
3) "I'm not really sure this works as a musical, but you're the writer!"
2) "I like the part when the young Rabbi speaks of the evils of capital gains taxes."
1) "Sorry, I couldn't read the final paragraph because of all the chocolate babka smudges you left on it."
Posted by: Jake at September 2, 2008 06:43 AM
lol, Jake, you rock! (You know where he got that babke from, don't you?)
Posted by: cruisin-mom at September 2, 2008 07:27 AM
Sigh.
These are always worth the wait, Robert. Thank you for telling the story.
Best love story ever.
Posted by: Leah at September 2, 2008 12:29 PM
Everyone:
Thanks so much for your kind words, the sighs, the poetry and the lists. Karen and I greatly enjoy sharing our story with all of you.
In fact, I never would have been inspired to write the tale if our readers were not out there to cheer it on chapter by chapter.
I mean, who knew?
Thank you.
For the record, the Agnon short story I adapted was “The Lady and the Pedlar.” A supernatural, erotic tale.
Nothing ever happened with the script.
Except the script was lost when we moved from NY to LA over 20 years ago. Those were the days before computers and hard drives and each copy of a script was expensive and precious.
But the script did help bind us together and that's what counts.
Posted by: Robert J. Avrech at September 2, 2008 01:18 PM
What a beautiful post. I really enjoy these posts - I look for them, wait for them, savor them. Thanks for writing these and this one in particular.
Posted by: neil fleischmann at September 4, 2008 07:16 PM