Happy 30th anniversary Karen.

I have had two dreams my entire life: to love and be loved by you, and to work in Hollywood. Baruch HaShem I have achieved both dreams.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:25 AM | Comments (36)

January 18, 2007

Backstory

The continuing story of the author's love for his wife, Karen. It began when Robert was 9-years old, in the fourth grade in Yeshiva Flatbush. It's a long story and this series will continue for... Well, actually, I have no idea how long it will go on. I guess until I finish telling the tale.

"So, what do you do?"

"I edit a magazine."

"Really, what kindamagazine?"

Rachel is attractive and well educated. She's in graduate school studying Special Education. From Boro Park, Rachel's family is a bit more right wing than mine—actually they're a lot more right wing than my family, but she told the people who set us up that she's looking for a modern orthodox kindaguy. Rachel has a tendency to fuse two or three words together. Anyway, she considers herself something of a rebel.

Okay, I get it. I even respect it. I fit the bill, rebel-wise, that is.

"It's a film magazine."

"Film?"

Rachel is bewildered.

"We write about movies."

"You mean like glamorous moviestars?"

"Not exactly. We write about the people behind the scenes, the directors, the screenwriters, the cameramen."

"That doesn't sound very exciting, nowdoesit?"

"I guess not. We're kind of, well, culty."

"What's that?" Her face screws up unpleasantly.

I'm pretty sure Rachel thinks I've just used a dirty word.

"We write about people like Preston Sturges, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Robert Riskin, Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, Alfred Hitchcock, Sven Nykvist, and of course, the great Billy Bitzer."

"English, puhleeese."

"Sorry, I admit this is kind of obscure stuff. Like Tosfos."

"L'havdeel."

"L'havdeel."

Sheesh, I should really learn to shut up.

Rachel breaks off a slice of pizza, leans in close:

"Tell me, this editing and writing stuff y'do — it'saliving?"

I shrug. I am not going to confess that I live on the edge of poverty. This date, in fact, will wipe me out.

"It's not what I really want to do. But it's a good in-between job. I meet important movie people. Learn how Hollywood really operates."

"So, what doyareally wanna do?"

"I want to be a screenwriter. A Hollywood screenwriter."

"What's that mean?"

"I want to write movies."

Rachel sips her coffee, thoughtfully chews her pizza. She eats backwards: from the crust to the tip. I wonder what that means?

Maybe this a Boro Park minhag I'm not aware of.

Rachel says: "The actors don't make the stories up?"

I stare at her, smile.

"You're kidding?"

Rachel gazes at me. Her eyes are about as lively as Norman Bate's mother.

She. Is. Not. Kidding.

She's in graduate school for gosh sake.

How does this happen in the United States of America? What kind of education system allows this kind of ignorance to blossom?

I'm about to explode, a theatrical, know-it-all tyrant, like John Barrymore bullying Carole Lombard in Twentieth Century:

But I behave myself, silently count to ten.

"No, the actors repeat dialog written by writers. Stories are carefully laid out by the writers. It's a long laborious and very expensive progress. It takes a great deal of talent and craft to write movies."

"You have that — talent and craft, I mean?"

"I — I think so."

"How do you know? What happens if you fail? What do you do then?" Her voice is like steel, accusing and unforgiving.

I feel like melting into a puddle. Rachel is not good for my already shaky confidence

"I won't fail."

"That's not very realistic. What happens if you have a wife and children who countonya for a parnassa?"

I'm sweating buckets. Rachel, who I've known for maybe 45 minutes, is making me feel guilty, making me feel like a terrible husband.

And she's still not finished with me:

"Besides, what happens if your wife doesn't want to move to bigshotHollywood. What happens if she wants to stay with her family in New York? There's no Jewish life in Hollywood. Bunchagoyim if you ask me."

I am speechless. Totally and completely at a loss for words.

And I'm a screenwriter.

Or was.

Until I met this destroyer-of-dreams.

I was going to take Rachel to see Preston Sturge's magnificent screwball comedy The Lady Eve, but by the end of pizza and coffee, I'm seriously reconsidered the rest of the evening. In fact, I'm thinking about throwing Rachel under the screeching wheels of the subway. That's how badly I do not want to spend one more minute with this miserable scold.

And it's mutual. She hates me too.

Rachel realizes that just perhaps she's not such a rebel after all.

We agree that this date/disaster should terminate as quickly as possible. And I give her credit, she doesn't insist that I escort her back to Boro Park.

"Hey, I make this trip every day, you don't have to schlep. Besides, what are we gonnatalkabout?"

Nice, she just had to get in that final dig.

I go back to apartment in Manhattan and dream of Karen Singer. The girl I fell in love with in fourth grade. The girl I have never stopped loving.

I feel a yearning for my childhood love that is so deep, so painful, so vivid, that I want to crawl into bed, pull the blanket over my head, and stay there — forever.

Will I ever be rescued from this purgatory of bad dates, this bad life, this miserable bachelorhood?

Disclaimer: Not all young women with Bais Yaakov style educations are like "Rachel." In fact, many, many young women who went to Bais Yaakov style schools know very well that actors do not make up the dialogue and stories of the movies.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:56 AM | Comments (54)

January 09, 2007

The Seam, The Sword & Belle

"One of the truly sad, no tragic developments in modern romance is that we males have no way of displaying our manly virtues to the women we adore. Somewhere along the way somebody got the terrible idea that men no longer need to be, well, men; that we should to be tamed, made more sensitive, more gentle.

"Let me state this bluntly: men have been reeducated, Pol Pot-like, to be feminized.

"Don't women realize what we really want; don't women understand what men really need? It's in our DNA, it is at the hot and burning core of our souls.

"I want to climb into the saddle of a snorting, stamping medieval war horse, enter the lists, and SLAM! unhorse another rider. I want Karen to place her silken handkerchief on the tip of my lance and declare me her true knight.

"I want to grab an frightfully sharp Samurai sword, dash into brutal, face-to-face combat against the wicked bandits who threaten Karen's shtetl -- whoops I'm mixing civilizations here. But okay, you get the point.

"Please, please, please, just hand me two Colt .45's and let me duel in the sun against a wild bunch of psychotic killers hired by the evil railroad to crush Karen's modest Arizona homestead.

"Instead, men have been reduced to playing violent video games. Shopping for expensive Italian coffee blenders. Maybe playing a rough game of touch footbal.

"When all we truly desire is to let slip the dogs of war for the women we love."

Yes, this is what it is like inside my mind.

And this is a particularly giddy excerpt from Chapter 30 of How I Married Karen. To read the entire chapter, please click here.

Virtual Jerusalem, has been running my series on a weekly basis, and I have to tell you, I feel just like Charles Dickens, (minus the massive talent) whose many novels were originally published as weeklies, and highly anticipated by the reading public. There is something quite wonderful about seeing your story running as an old fashioned serial.

I'm working on Part II of My Hollywood Gun, and that should appear later in the day.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:34 AM | Comments (12)

January 02, 2007

Alone in Yichud

I love this chapter running in Virtual Jerusalem this week. From my How I Married Karen series: Alone in Yichud. Finally, now that we're married, I work up the courage to confess to Karen that I've been in love with her since 4th grade. And Karen, cool as ice, hits me with a response--just five simple words--that just leave me breathless and of course, quite puzzled. Women really are a mystery.

Extra Screenwriter's Cut: This chapter has one of the ten surviving pictures from our wedding.

P.S. I did some rewriting on this chapter for Virtual Jerusalem so it's not exactly the same copy as when I first published this material.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:11 PM | Comments (20)

December 18, 2006

My Ugetzu

"I realize that Karen will civilize me. I understand that the role of women has always been to take the clay of boys and make us into men..."

One of my favorite chapters of How I Married Karen.

From Virtual Jerusalem My Ugetzu

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:12 PM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2006

When Worlds Collide

Funny how things work out. Karen and I are about to leave for Israel for the unveiling for Karen's father ZT'L. And this week, Virtual Jerusalem, the fine website serializing my How I Married Karen story, is running the very chapter where I ask Rabbi Singer's permission to marry Karen. As they say in Hollywood: timing is everything.

The unveiling for Karen's father, Rabbi Philip Harris Singer ZT'L will take place Friday, November 24, 2006 (Kislev 3) at 10:00 am. The cemetery is Eretz Hachaim near Beit Shemesh, Israel. Block 1 Section 8.

Karen and I are flying to Israel on Sunday November 19th.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:14 PM | Comments (8)

October 10, 2006

Succos Redux

It just so happens that right now, Virtual Jerusalem is running my "How I Married Karen" Succos installment. How's that for timing?

This has to be one of the most demented stories I have ever told--all true, I'm afraid.

Here's where I visit Karen's house in Brooklyn for the very first time, on Succos mind you, and meet Karen's parents. Here's Part One.

And in this installment, lunatic that I am, I step out of the Succah, sneak past Karen's parents for I have my eyes set on a bigger prize -- and it's in the closet in Karen's childhood bedroom. Part Two.

If you want to read the entire "How I Married Karen" story, all 37 chapters, click here. You'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom to get to Chapter One, then just work your way up chapter by chapter.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:22 AM | Comments (9)

September 13, 2006

Seraphic Duel via Rashomon

The continuing story of the author's love for his wife, Karen. It began when Robert was 9-years old, in the fourth grade in Yeshiva Flatbush. It's a long story and this series will continue for—well, actually, I have no idea how long it will go on. I guess until I finish telling the tale.

I'm looking into the eyes of a perfectly decent man, and I'm thinking of challenging him to a duel. A duel to the death.

Seriously.

DISSOLVE TO:

A half-hour earlier.

Karen and I have just seen a wonderful film, one of my favorites, Akira Kurosawa's modern classic Rashomon, a tale that unfolds in multiple visual and moral dimensions. This masterpiece takes one violent episode, isolates it, and then tells the story from several points of view — in the process, exposing the vanity and lies that motivate the principal characters.

Never before in the history of film have flashbacks been used to such provocative effect. Ultimately, the 8th century Japanese landscape mutates into a complex moral fable in which the following questions are posed:

Who is telling the truth?

What is the truth?

What is a woman's honor worth?

And in this landscape, a moral allegory unfolds where:

A husband's love for his wife is tested, and a wife's love for her husband.

Karen adores this film. Unlike The Seven Samurai, my very favorite film of all time, which bored her to tears, Karen is riveted by Rashomon's relentless narrative drive. Its moral and psychological complexity suit her perfectly.

We have been going out for several months now. So close have we grown that I can actually read Karen's body language even in the velvety dark of a movie theater. By her very breath I can tell if Karen likes a movie or wants to flee.

EXT. MANHATTAN, PIZZA SHOP - NIGHT

Karen and Robert have exited the movie theater. They WALK and TALK along Broadway, but we cannot hear their conversation.

An old fashioned musical interlude, perhaps Cole Porter's Night and Day, indicates that this romance is blossoming. The lights of the city sparkle and glow like a modern fairy tale.

The happy couple halt at a kosher pizza shop.

Karen: Hungry?

INT. PIZZA SHOP - NIGHT

Minutes later.

Quick CUTS:
The usual suspects for a kosher pizza joint: A booth full of yeshiva high school BOYS grossly devouring pizza, pita, fries, and eyeing --

YESHIVA GIRLS --

Adorable in their identical long jeans skirts, lady-like nibbling at the edges of their slices and making a big deal out of not looking at the boys.

A YOUNG COUPLE --

with screaming babies in tow. He's got his head buried in a Mishnah, and wifey is just barely coping.

KAREN & ROBERT --

are alone in a booth. Robert eats, while Karen sips tea. They smile at each other.

Robert: Boy, am I relieved.
Karen: And if I didn't like Rashomon?

Robert shrugs.

Robert: No biggie.

Abruptly, Karen's attention wanders. She sees something off-screen, more precisely, someone, entering the pizza shop. Her expression changes. It's hard to tell what she's feeling.

Robert: You okay?
Karen: Someone just came in.

Robert turns, sees MAX, young modern Orthodox, brimming with self-confidence, Burberry raincoat jauntily slung over his arm.

Robert: Who's that?
Karen: Max.

Karen takes a shallow breath, then:

Karen: We used to go out.

CAMERA MOVES IN ON ROBERT's expression -- as he desperately attempts to cover his shock and dismay.

Time seems to stop.

Robert puts down his slice. He stares at the oily film dripping from the pizza onto his finger. Suddenly, he's no longer hungry. In fact, he' slightly nauseous. Robert looks up again —

ROBERT'S POV:

SLOW MOTION as Max makes his way to the front counter.

The Yeshiva Girls take notice. They whisper to each other and giggle. He is good looking. Tall, dressed in an expensive suit, Max cuts an impressive figure.

END SLOW-MO.

Robert: How long did you, you know, go out with him?
Karen: About six months. No, more like eight months.
Robert: Oh boy.

Karen rises.

Robert: (brightening) We leaving?
Karen: I want you two to meet.

CLOSE-UP: ROBERT -

The last thing he wants is to meet Max. And so he takes a stab at Lame Tactic #1.

Robert: Actually, I'm getting a migraine, we should —
Karen: Robert.

There is a brief duel of eyes.

No contest. Robert retreats faster than the French army.

Robert: Okey-dokey.

Now, Robert watches helplessly as Karen steps over to the counter. Sensing Karen's presence, Max turns. His expression immediately brightens as he finds himself face-to face with his old and very beautiful girlfriend.

Robert's VOICE-OVER: He's still in love with Karen. It's soooo obvious.

Karen and Max chat, but Robert cannot hear what they are saying.

Max turns, looks directly at Robert.

ALL SOUNDS in the pizza shop abruptly FADE as the two men stare at each other. There is perfect silence as their eyes bore into each other like drills.

Gradually, we HEAR a rising THUMP, THUMP, THUMP.

This is Robert's heart beating in his chest like a trapped animal. The dull thumping grows louder and louder as their eyes DUEL back and forth.

SHARP CUT:

KAREN and MAX -

are standing over Robert who's still in the booth, looking in Max's direction. But obviously, a few moments have passed. Robert, ambushed in his emotional turmoil, has lost track of both time and space.

Karen: Robert, Max.
Max: Nice to meet you, Robert.
Robert: Um, yeah, you too.

There is an uncomfortable silence.

Max and Karen sit. Max picks up the thread of his conversation with Karen from the counter — which does not sit well with Robert.

Max: So Karen, the topic for your dissertation, you were saying?

ROBERT'S VOICE-OVER: Max is talking about Karen's choice of topic for her doctorate. I haven't had that conversation with Karen yet, sheesh...

CLOSE-UP: KAREN -

Smiling, as she explains to Max what she's been working on. Her VOICE is but a murky undertone reflecting Robert's hapless POV.

Robert's VO: (cont'd.) Oh my gosh, she's smiling at him. I know what's happening here. Karen realizes that Max is better looking than I am, better dressed, better educated, has much more money, far better prospects, and —

CLOSE-UP: MAX -

Smiling...

Robert's VO: (cont'd.) — and she's going to dump me. Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?

EXTREME CLOSE-UP - KAREN

Her face is softly lit and her beauty is just breath taking. Karen's gaze moves away from Max, and now her eyes pin Robert with the most penetrating gaze this man has ever experienced.

Robert's VO: (cont'd.) I know what I have to do. I'll kill Max. But nicely! I'll challenge him to a duel.

EXT. FOG SHROUDED VALLEY - DAY

For a brief moment, WHITE SCREEN, and then the whiteness shifts, for it is fog.
The thick mist parts to reveal:

Robert, clad in classic 18th century European military attire, is about to meet Max on a field of honor.

KAREN, in a flowing silk and taffeta gown, stands at the edge of the field, dabbing at tears. Helplessly and hopelessly, she watches this tragic duel of honor unfold.

Max unsheaths a frighteningly sharp sword. He unfolds a snow-white linen handkerchief, flings it up in the air, and with lightning speed--SWISH--with one wickedly casual flick of the sword, slices the handkechief in half

Robert's eyes widen in shock. Max twirls his mustache and smirks.

Max's SECOND, a rigidly proper and dignified aristocrat, approaches Robert to agree on the terms of the duel.

The Second speaks in rapid-fire FRENCH.

Robert: Hold it, I don't speak French!

JUMP CUT:

Robert: Did you know that Marcel Proust, this sickly, little effeminate French novelist, fought a duel of honor?

Our VIEW WIDENS to REVEAL that we are back in the PIZZA SHOP. Karen and Max look at Robert, both a bit baffled by what he's just said.

Max: That's really, um, interesting. Is that something you're working on?
Robert: What do you mean?
Max: Well, Karen tells me that you're a screenwriter. Is this a story you're working on?
Robert: (obviously hostile) No, it's not.

Another horribly awkward pause.

Karen studies Robert for a long moment; trying to gauge the level of his mental health.

Robert: When did Karen tell you that I was a screenwriter?
Karen: Robert, weren't you listening, we just said --
Robert: Sorry.

Max jumps in, trying to save the moment.

Max: Movies. That sounds so interesting. Not like my work.
Robert: What do you do, Max?
Max: I — I just told you.
Robert: Right. So you did. I guess I drifted.
Max: I suppose that's what you creative types do; you get inspiration and just get lost in your thoughts.
Robert: Actually, I never get inspired. I think of myself like any working shlub. I get up, go to work, grind away, and some days are good, some days are bad. The whole notion of inspiration is just romantic nonsense.
Max: Wow, had me fooled. Learn something new every day.

Robert's VO: As hard as I try, and golly, do I ever try, I just cannot hate Max. He's good and decent and even though I'm completely obnoxious he does not allow himself to be provoked. He's a mature gentleman. Which really, really baffles me for I have to ask myself: why would Karen choose me over Max?

FADE TO BLACK

INT. PRIVATE STUDY - NIGHT

Robert sits in an easy chair looking directly into the CAMERA and speaks.

Robert: So I'm looking into the eyes of a perfectly decent man, and I'm thinking of challenging him to a duel. I don't know what came over me. I mean, I know that Karen went out with other men before she met me. That was obvious, but it's not something we ever talked about. It's not something I ever thought about. They were faceless men who meant less than nothing.

But suddenly I was confronted with a real live breathing human being. And how do I react? Like a homicidal maniac. I want to, ahem, murder the poor man.

How not normal is that?

You know what happened after we left the pizza shop? Big fight with Karen? Nope. Long talk? Nope. Big interrogation on the part of yours truly? Wrong again.

Here's what happened: nothing.

Zilch.

Max exited the pizza shop. Max exited our life.

I said: "Nice guy."
Karen said: "Uh-huh."
And we never spoke of him again. Ever.

Until now.

FADE to BLACK for this is

Karen adds: The irony of Robert's scenario is that we have spun our own Rashomon. I read the story, and I was shocked. I had no memory of the incident. I only recalled running into Max by accident on the street while I was walking on the Upper West side with Robert. We exchanged a few words and that was it. The human mind is scary.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:45 PM | Comments (38)

September 07, 2006

Seraphic Samurai

This might be one of my favorite sections from my series How I Married Karen, and so for our new readers, I'm directing you to Virtual Jerusalem, which is running the series on a weekly, Dickensian basis.

In this chapter, Karen absolutely hates The Seven Samurai, my favorite movie of all time, and I am forced to grow up -- really fast.

P.S. There will be a new Chapter of How I Married Karen next week. It's been, um, difficult to write.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:23 PM | Comments (7)

August 08, 2006

Seraphic First Date

Okay, I know Israel is in the midst of war, but as I've said, here at Seraphic Secret we believe passionately in being happy -- no matter what.

We have lots and lots of new readers these days. And many of you may not be aware but for a few years now I've been writing a series called: How I Married Karen.

It's, um, a major embarrassment to Offspring #2, and #3.

All Thirty-Six chapters.

To summarize: Karen and I went to Yeshiva of Flatbush grade school together. I developed a major crush on Karen in 4th grade. Never got over it. (Have still not gotten over it.) Karen had no idea. I loved Karen from afar for many moons. Somehow, we bumped into each other on the upper West Side about 16 years later. I was still in love with Karen. She was still clueless. We dated. We fell in love. We married -- all this after numerous complications, all springing from my rather unhinged mind.

Virtual Jerusalem is now running the wild and whacky story of our long un-courtship as a weekly serial. Here's the story of our First Date. Enjoy. Oh, special bonus. This chapter has a picture of Karen from that very first date. Lovely beyond all words.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:31 AM | Comments (17)

June 30, 2006

Be Good to my Daughter

The continuing story of the author's love for his wife, Karen. It began when the author was 9-years old, in the fourth grade in Yeshiva Flatbush. It's a complicated story and this series will continue for, well, until I finish telling the tale.

"This story is true. It happened in the Beis Midrash of the Radzyner Chasidim, the alter Beis Midrash, the old Beis Midrash back in Radzyn, Poland."

An old photo of Warsaw Street, Radzyn, Poland. Radzyn was near Lublin

My father-in-law, Rav Pinchas Tzvi Singer ZT'L and I are sitting in his basement study. In ten days I am going to marry his daughter Karen—I have been in love with Karen since I first laid eyes on her in fourth grade in Yeshiva of Flatbush.

Now, Rav Singer, one of the most learned and prominent Orthodox Rabbis in Brooklyn, in New York, in America, in the known and unknown Universe, has asked me join him for a "talk."

I gird myself for I know that we are not going to be talking about the cinema of Akira Kurosawa.

Rav Singer opens his desk drawer and lifts out a huge Tallis, prayer shawl. It is tradition that only married men wear Tallesim in shul. It is a beautiful and ancient tradition that when a couple get married, the father of the bride buys a full length tallis for his new son-in-law.

Rav Singer holds out the tallis for me.

"For you, Robert."

"Thank you, Rabbi Singer."

"You may call me, Dad."

I hesitate, then manage to stutter: "Thank you, Da-ad."

Reaching over to accept the Tallis, "Dad" — this sounds soooo wrong — abruptly pulls it away.

Oh-oh.

"First, the techeles."

"Oh, you want me to wear..."

He just nails me with a long dark look. I recognize that look. I have seen it in Karen's eyes and it is formidable. You do not argue, you do not question, you just:

"Sure. Absolutely. A great kavod, honor."

Karen's father is a Radzyner Hasid.

The founder of the Radzyn Hasidic dynasty in the late 19th century was Reb Gershon Hanoch Leiner, who reintroduced the interweaving of the blue thread among the tzitzit, the ritual fringes, and established a laboratory for producing the proper dye.

The particular blue that the techles is supposed to be was lost for over two thousand years. Reb Gershon traveled to Italy and Greece, armed to the teeth against highwayman, and experimented with hundreds of dyes until he came up with what he believed was the correct shade of blue.

Naturally, there are dissenting opinions, and several other techeles dyes have appeared that seem to have more validity than Reb Gershon's original formulation.

But the weight of tradition is authoritative and Rav Singer as a Radzyner Chasid felt that the minhagim, the traditions of the Radzyner are vital to uphold.

We sit in the basement and weave the techeles into my new tallis. I find myself deeply moved, as if a central part of my very soul is being woven into Rav Singer's life, into the life of this great dynasty that was all but obliterated by the Nazis.

My father-in-law returns to his Chasidic tale.

"This happened in the Radzyner Beis Midrash back in Poland, when Reb Gershon's court was filled with his Chasidim, and the future of the dynasty shined brightly.

"The Radzyner are known for two things, Robert, do you know what they are?"

"Techeles..."

"And?"

I shrug.

"Learning. The Radzyner were the most scholarly of all the Chasidic dynasties. They were determined to show the Litvaks that Chasidim could be as learned as the Litvishe Beis Midrashim. You know of course that the Vilna Gaon put a ban on Chassidus at the beginning, he considered the movement heretical and filled with ignoramuses. With his ban, it could be said that The Vilna Gaon actually saved Chassidus."

Rav Singer deftly finishes one tzitzis, and moves on to the next. I'm still hunkered over, laboring on the first thread. Naturally, I'm botching the job; the knots have to be tied in a ritually prescribed manner, according to age old tradition, and the Hebrew instructions I'm trying to follow are just about as confusing as a Japanese manual for a VCR.

"Anyway, here's what happened. The Radzyner Beis Midrash was filled with Chasidim. Every single man was bent over, engrossed in learning Talmud. The room buzzed with the sounds of Torah, the give and take of scholarly exegesis. Suddenly, Reb Gershon noticed that the sun was setting.

"He motioned to the Beadle, who clopped his hand on the table.

"Whap!

"Signaling that it was time to daven, time to pray."

Rav Singer's fingers seem to fly as he knots the tzitzis up and down, preparing my tallis for me, for the husband of his most beloved daughter.

I wait for the end of the story. My future father-in-law looks up at me, questioning.

"Nu, Robert?

I have not a clue.

"What are they davening?

"Minchah? I propose.

Rav Singer shakes his head, and continues.

"Reb Gershon rose, and went to his shtender, then announced to his Chasidim: "Chevre, we must stop learning, but it is time to daven Kol Nidre."

Rav Singer chuckles, yanks my end of the tallis away from me and in ten seconds flat weaves my techeles into my tzitzis.

"Be good to Karen, Robert. Learn Torah, and be good to my daughter."

The tallis Rav Singer gave me is still the tallis I wear on Shabbos. The techeles he threaded for me so many years ago gently sways with my body as I daven. The Radzyner tradition that Rav Singer so proudly passed on to me are part and parcel of my life. Every once in a while, in shul, someone will come over to me, acknowledge my techeles and say:

"Radzyner?"

"My father-in-law."

"Ah, his name?"

"Rav Pinchas Zvi Singer."

Inevitably, recognition brightens their expression and the person will tell me that they have heard of Rav Singer's great scholarship, or in some cases they will relay some wonderful anecdote about my father-in-law.

Sometimes, I will meet another Radzyner Chasid in shul or Beis Midrash and when he hears that I am Rav Singer's son-in-law I will be pulled into a huge bear hug and given sloppy kisses on both cheeks.

I call these "Radzyner Encounters of the Third Kind." Karen's father always took great pleasure in hearing about these emotional meetings. When you are Jewish and you meet other Jews in shul, there are no strangers.

Now that Rav Singer is physically gone, I have a feeling that I will be the one on the look out in shul for other men wearing techeles. And though it's completely against my more reserved nature, I can see myself playing Jewish geography with another Radzyner, pulling him into a bear hug and yes, even bestowing a wet kiss on my Chasidic chaver's cheeks.

I will do this for Rav Singer ZT'l, just as I have learned Torah and been as good as I know how to his most beloved daughter Karen.

*******************************************************************************************************************************************

Karen and I thank all our Seraphic Friends for your kind words of nechama, for your shiva visits, for your friendship. On behalf of the Avrech/Singer family we wish you all a lovely and meaninigful Shabbos.

********************************************************************************************************************************************

To read Rabbi David Singer's hesped, eulogy for his father, Rav Singer, go here.

To read Jackie Danicki's hesped for Rav Singer, click here.

For Karen's hesped for her father click here.

And to read a fine article by Rav Singer on, "A Shabbos Shattered" click here.

To read Rav Singer's article: "Resurrection: The Neglected Consolation." click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:06 PM | Comments (27)

May 08, 2006

High School Confidential

The continuing story of how I met my wife Karen in fourth grade, and fell helplessly, hopelessly in love with her. Naturally, Karen did not know that I existed. And so, though technically we met when we were ten-years old, we were not to know each other until we were both in our mid-twenties. It was a painful, one-way love affair for most of our lives.

I do not belong here.

High school, I mean.

My closest friendships from elementary school have abruptly dissolved. David, in the A class, is in all these really smart clubs: Debate Club, Chess Club, Science Club; gosh he barely talks to me anymore. Mitchell's parents have sent him to a public high school. There are dozens of new kids from other yeshivas, and it's just not easy for me to make new friendships.

What am I saying, it's almost impossible for me to make new friendships.

The social hierarchies in Yeshiva of Flatbush High School are about as rigid as medievel Europe -- and just about as cruel. There are the smart kids and the dumb kids, the rich kids and the poor kids, the athletes and the awkwards.

I am one of the dumb kids.

The fact that I love novels and spend hours each day reading, writing stories and poetry instead of doing my homework assignments just marks me as a ferocious "underachiever." Teachers look at me as if I have the plague.

Needless to say, I am at the bottom of the social heap.

I'm dumb.
I'm not a great athlete.
My family is not rich.

And on top of everything else, I have an even bigger problem. Every single day I see Karen Singer in the hallways of Yeshiva of Flatbush.

I've been in love with Karen since fourth grade.

Karen is getting even prettier. And believe me, I'm not the only boy who notices. In fact, everyone seems to notice. And she's not one of those, "Hey look at me, I'm a gorgeous yeshiva girl," of which, believe me, there is no shortage. No, Karen's modest, serious, smart, and everyone knows it.

Unlike so many of the other Flatbush Alpha Girls who change outfits every single day of the week, Karen repeats outfits -- and her status does not diminish. That's how special she is. And believe me, for Yeshiva of Flatbush, where clothing and labels are big-time important, this is significant.

Meanwhile, my marks are steadily flatlining.

And then it happens. It's lunch time. I see Karen walking down the hallway. She stops to talk to someone, and--

--and Karen Singer smiles.

It's like one of those movie moments when the lighting is diffused and all sounds fade and time seems to stop.

Karen's smile is so glorious that I actually feel a lump growing in my throat.

Instinctively, I understand that there is no way I can go through four year of this.

I'm pretty sure I'll die.

I know this sounds a bit melodramatic, but remember, I'm fourteen-years-old and well, let's face it, love is very serious when you are fourteen.

Oh my gosh, what am I saying? I still feel the exact same way about Karen when she smiles. What does that say about my level of emotional maturity?

Anywhoo.

That night I tell my father that I want to transfer to Brooklyn Talmudical Academy, an all boy's yeshiva in, yup, you guessed it, Brooklyn.

My father frowns, wants to know why.

Because I'm in love with Karen Singer and I cannot bear watching her grow more beautiful and more popular over the next four years while I become the most unpopular and pimply and skinny and withdrawn kid in the history of American yeshiva high schools.

I just shrug and tell my father that most of my friends are in BTA and I'd be happier there.

Which is a complete lie.

I don't have any friends in BTA. None. Zero. Nada. In fact, BTA is considered a yeshiva for scary and damaged kids. I'm probably going to be eaten alive there.

Which is just fine. Really, that's okay, in fact it's much better than the absolute torture of seeing Karen every single day of the week. I mean, I look at her and my head feels like it's going to explode. This is not a good feeling.

I'm wondering: is this normal?

I'm pretty sure it isn't.

And this not-too-normal feeling is causing many sleepless nights. Which, in turn, is making me fall asleep at my desk in class. Does this endear me to the teachers who, may I point out, already hate my guts?

It does not. Gee willikers, what a shock.

One teacher wonders out loud if perhaps I might be retarded. The class giggles nervously. From now on this teacher refers to me as: Robert the Sleepy Retard.

Such a clever mind at work.

My father sighs; it is not easy being my father. Patiently, he tells me that he'll take care of the transfer. Since BTA is part of Yeshiva University, and my father is a graduate of YU: high school, college, and of course it's where he received his s'micha, his Rabbinic Ordination, and now my father is director of Community Relations for YU, well, it's just a matter of a few phone calls and of course, endless paper work, to effect the transfer.

I hope, oh how I hope that four years away from Karen will cure me of this hopeless and helpless love.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:33 AM | Comments (58)

March 10, 2006

Karen: Out of Context

The continuing story of how I met my wife Karen in fourth grade, and fell helplessly, hopelessly in love with her. Naturally, Karen did not know that I existed. And so, though technically we met when we were nine-years old, we were not to know each other until we were both in our mid-twenties. It was a painful, one-way love affair for yours truly.

"Let's go to Rabbi Singer's shul."

"You mean Karen Singer's father?" David asks.

I nod. I'm trying for an oh-so-casual attitude. But my heart is beating in my chest like a Gene Krupa solo and I'm pretty certain that everybody can hear it.

David and Mitchell trade glances.

"It's too far to walk, " says Mitchell.

"Actually, " says David, "it's only about 2.2 miles and we've already done that several times."

My best friends debate this "spontaneous idea" of mine. But in truth, I've been planning this proposal for close to a year. Ever since my grade school buddies and I have developed this whacky notion that we will daven, pray, in a new shul, synagogue, in Brooklyn, every single Shabbos no matter the weather.

For us yeshiva kids, this constitutes a grand adventure.

Go figure.

I hold my breath as the arguments fly back and forth. It is maddening. I want to scream: "Guys I really don't care about visiting all these shuls I just want to see Karen Singer on her home ground."

We three are in eighth grade in the Yeshiva of Flatbush. I have had a secret crush on Karen Singer, The Rabbi's Beautiful Daughter, since the fourth grade.

I'm pretty sure that I'm completely abnormal. None of my friends ever mention girls, nor do they seem particularly interested in the opposite sex.

Me, I'm totally obsessed with Karen.

Finally, David and Mitchell make a momentous decision.

"Okay," says David, "This Shabbos, we walk to the Avenue O Jewish Center in Bensonhurst."

"Hey," says Mitchell,"what happens if we see Karen there?"

I remain mute. I'm like this secret agent, even under torture I will not reveal my deep dark secret.

"You say, Good Shabbos, Karen," David offers.

David is ferociously logical. The smartest kid in school, I'm amazed that he's my friend, after all I'm absolutely one of the dumbest kids in our yeshiva.

Mitchell chuckles and says: "Karen probably won't even be in shul. She'll hear that we're coming and stay home."

Mitchell and David crack up.

"How would she find out?" I demand, my voice unnaturally shrill.

"Robert, I was just making a joke." Mitchell frowns.

My friends gaze at me for a long moment. I think my cover as a normal Jewish kid is about to be blown. I force myself to laugh. I assure them that I knew it was a joke and I was actually, in my own clever way, building on the joke.

My friends are typically immature 13-year-old kids, but they are far from stupid. I sense that they sense... something.

David has mapped out our route from our home turf, Midwood, to Karen's neighborhood, Bensonhurst. David, a combination human calculator/GPS system is our designated navigator. So bright is David that he doesn't even have to sit down and consult a map. David just walks. It's all in his head automatically. Mitchell and I follow, sure in the knowledge that the route David has chosen is not only the quickest but the most scenic path, ahem, possible—for Brooklyn.

The 2.2 miles seems like 26.2 miles. Normally, on our walks, we talk about, what else, school, and our truly insane teachers.

There's Mr. Zilber, who regularly hurls blackboard erasers at our heads. He's got an arm like Willie Mays. It's a miracle that no one's eye has been knocked out.

Mrs. Katz is probably a sociopath. When a student misbehaves—and G-d knows how loosely she defines that term—she makes the kid stick out his hand, and WHAP, WHAP, WHAP, she smacks the tender flesh with a long wooden ruler. The pain, for I have been on the receiving end many times, is excruciating.

And then there's Mr. Weinstein, who has the endearing habit of grabbing the back of our necks, shaking us like rag dolls and screaming at the top of his lungs. His face turns red and a huge blue vein visibly throbs on his temple. I often stare at the throbbing vein, willing it to implode.

Our teachers hate us with a Dickensian ardor. And our parents pay top dollar for this education.

The Avenue O Jewish Center is a fairly large shul. And they've got a pretty good minyan going. We slip into some vacant seats, grab siddurim, prayer books, and start to daven, pray.

Well, not exactly. Mitchell and David are davening. Me, I'm craning my neck, looking beyond the mechitza, a low wall that separates the men and women's seating. Naturally, I am looking for Karen Singer. And guess what?

She's not here.

This is, I'm pretty sure, a conspiracy. David and Mitchell have figured out my secret, and they've leaked the intel to Karen, and naturally she's stayed home. Rather than allow me to gaze upon her lovely face on her home ground, Karen's chosen not to come to shul on Shabbos.

I feel like Quasimoto—except not as hideously adorable.

Rabbi Singer, up on the podium, is a charismatic figure. He's got that stern but totally dignified I'm-The Rabbi-Don't-Mess-With-Me look about him. He's not one of those smiley, huggable, politically savvy congregation Rabbis. Nope, Rabbi Singer has a reputation as being one of the most learned Talmudic scholars, well, anywhere.

I'm so disappointed that Karen is not in shul that I actually feel like telling Mitchell and David that I'm going to go home early. But I just can't bring myself to do that to them. It's called flat-leaving. And it's the worst thing you can do to a friend.

Besides, I'd never be able to find my way back home. I'd probably end up in some really bad neighborhood, get knifed by some hoods and with my blood spilling to the concrete, I'd write Karen's name. Word would get back to her and she'd spend the rest of her life mourning the one man—okay boy—who truly loved her.

Hey, that actually sounds pretty good. I'm about to bail when Rabbi Singer gets up to make his speech.

You do not walk out when the Rabbi speaks. That's just plain wrong.

Wow. This guy can really lay it on. Most Orthodox Rabbis speak in really squeaky voices and sweat bullets. Crowds are not their thing—Torah is.

But Karen's father has this deep bass, operatic voice, and even I can tell that he uses his voice like a musical instrument.

Normally, I switch off my little brain when a Rabbi speaks. Yes, I am that shallow. The speeches are usually dead boring. But Karen's father is just mesmerizing. And intimidating. I have this strange feeling that he's looking right at me, right through me, and telepathically sending me messages:

Stay away from my daughter, you little putz.

There's more, lots more, but that's the basic thrust of the secret message he's zapping into my head.

As Rabbi Singer finishes, I sense movement in the women's section.

Oh
My
Gosh

Karen Singer is in shul. She's sitting next to her mother. And Mom, I kid you not, looks like the movie star, Lee Remick. Karen is a combination Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh. Together, mother and daughter are just breathtaking.

Karen's mother, Mrs. Celia Singer, in her hometown of
Lowell, Mass., 1941

I barely turn the pages in my siddur. I'm gazing at Karen outside of school, and I am just overwhelmed. She's even more beautiful out of our regular context.

And oh boy, does she daven. Karen sits there, head down, eyes glued to the siddur, praying with true emotion. Nothing showy about Karen's piety; she does not shuckle, sway back and forth; she does not clench her fists; she does not squeeze shut her eyes and grimace. No, Karen davens like she does everything else in life: quietly, deeply, sincerely, modestly.

I am so in love with this girl I feel like Raskolnikov in Crime & Punishment. I desperately want to confess my feelings for her. I need to make this confession for the weight of this emotion is simply unbearable.

And then, and then I'll bravely accept exile to Siberia.

I turn to David and Mitchell.

"Guys, I have to tell you something."

"What?" they whisper in unison.

"I just love... the stained glass windows in this shul. Aren't they just great?"

Mitchell rolls his eyeballs.

David frowns.

"I'm just saying..."

"Avrech," says Mitchell, "you are sooooo weird."

"Oh yeah, well at least I don't carry a handkerchief!"

For some reason I have decided to decide that carrying a handkerchief is the height of perversity.

"I told you — it's my allergies." Mitchell wheezes. Saying the word 'allergies' as if he's pronouncing, Bubonic Plague.

We three are immediately shushed by the shul regulars. Not because we're interfering, G-d forbid, with the intensity of their prayers, nooooo, but because we're interrupting a serious conversation about the, oy-vey, New York Mets.

After davening, we walk up to Rabbi Singer and say, "Good Shabbos." It's what we always do. A way of putting closure to our whole Shabbos adventure.

"What's your name?" Rabbi Singer asks me as I shake his hand.

I tell him.

"Ah, so you must be Rabbi Avrech's son."

"Yes."

"Please send my warmest regards. Your father and I are old friends."

"Really?"

I'm thinking: I've got an in with Rabbi Singer. I can use my father as leverage. There is nothing like the bond that exists among Orthodox Rabbis. Somehow, in my feverish 13-year old mind I'm plotting a way to manipulate this Rabbinic friendship to my advantage.

And I have the perfect plan.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Robert?"

"Can I ask you a favor?'

"Sure son, anything."

"Can you ask Rabbi Singer to order his daughter to love me with all her heart and marry me when we're older. Say, in high school."

That's about as sophisticated as my thinking gets.

We turn to leave, and oh gee-willikers, I'm pretty sure I'm going to melt into a puddle. There's Karen, at the back of the room, waiting for her father.

I start to walk towards her. I'm going to say something incredibly clever. She'll be so impressed that she'll fall instantly in love with me.

Mitchell grabs my arm.

"Let's go."

"I am going, the door's that way."

"There's an exit right here."

I turn, David already has the rear exit door open. He beckons to me. Mitchell tugs my arm. I look over my shoulder just as Rabbi Singer joins Karen and her mother.

Please, just look over your shoulder, notice me!

And they are gone.

We make our way back to Midwood. We talk about where we'll go next Shabbos. I tell my buddies that I don't think I'm going to go with them next time. They want to know why, and I can only shrug.

The next Shabbos, I attend my own shul, seated right next to my father. I daven, but when I close my eyes all I see is Karen in her father's shul. I see her head slightly inclined, her lips moving in prayer.

I wonder how long this feeling will grip me, for it is painful, and yet I recognize that it is simultaneously oddly exhilarating.

After Shabbos, David calls.

"Mitch is in the hospital."

"What happened?"

"We were fooling around on the second floor of the shul, and somehow Mitchell put his hand right through a glass window, Robert, there was so much blood. They had to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital. He's got about forty stitches in his hand. You're so lucky you weren't there."

"Oh, my G-d."

This terrible accident signals the end of our Shabbos wanderings.

I imagine that I'll never set foot in Karen's father's shul ever again. But close to thirty years later, I am in that shul again. It's my Aufruf, the Shabbos before our wedding. And during the entire service, I gaze into the women's section, gaze at Karen, who will soon be my wife.

I'm also looking back to a time when we were just children and I sat in the same shul, in the same seat, loving that same child/girl/woman. I watch Karen across time and space and for one brief moment past and present merge into a single magical point, and I am delirious with joy.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:11 AM | Comments (64)

February 07, 2006

The Seam, The Sword & Belle

The continuing saga, some call it a romance, of:

"I've finally found Karen after all these years, and now I'm probably going to die."

This evening Karen and I have no plans. We're in that funny place I call: the Seam.

We're not officially in love.

Well, I am, always have been. But I am socially appropriate enough to know that saying such a thing is probably a very bad idea.

Stalker alert, Karen.

Anyhoo.

The Seam. We're going out on a regular basis. We're not going out, either of us, with anybody else. We are tethered to the phone every night — after our dates. That's meaningful.

We're looking at each other with what James Joyce calls "moo-cow eyes" but we're also... holding back.

More precisely, Karen is holding back.

She has been hurt one too many times and she's not anxious to make herself vulnerable to heartbreak again.

Karen does not realize that I'm totally in. Have been since I was 9-years old.

So this night, I insist on coming over to the apartment Karen shares with several other Orthodox young women.

"Maybe you shouldn't, the rain," Karen cautions.

"I'll get wet, big deal."

"There's the wind."

"It'll pick me up and drop me at your doorstep."

Karen laughs, then: "No really, it's pretty bad out there."

"I just bought a new Gore Tex rain jacket from REI. I need to test it out. They say it's been to Everest. I think it can handle the Upper West Side in a little rain storm."

Karen lives on 74th Street just off Broadway. I'm on 76th off Columbus. Walking along, I feel like Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain, perhaps the finest musical ever made. I splash in puddles, dodge spouts of water gushing from drains.

Sans grace.

I am on my way to see the woman I love.

The woman I have always loved.

And it seems that she loves me too.

Or is about to love me.

But we're in the dreaded Seam.

And one of the reasons I'm schlepping through this miserable rainstorm is to break through the Seam. To let Karen know that I'm willing to go through hell and high water just to see her.

One of the truly sad, no tragic developments in modern romance is that we males have no way of displaying our manly virtues to the women we adore. Somewhere along the way somebody got the terrible idea that men no longer need to be, well, men; that we should to be tamed, made more sensitive, more gentle.

Let me state it bluntly: men are now reeducated, Pol Pot-like, to be feminized.

Don't women realize what we want, don't women understand what men need? It's in our DNA, it is at the hot and burning core of our souls.

I want to climb into the saddle of a snorting, stamping medieval war horse, enter the lists, and SLAM! unhorse another rider. I want Karen to place her silken handkerchief on the tip of my sword and declare me her true knight. I want to endure bloody close-quarter combat to defend the woman I love.

Please, please, please, give me a Colt .45 and let me shoot it out against a bunch of psychotic killers who are out to crush Karen's modest Arizona homestead.

Instead, men have been reduced to... playing video games! Shopping for expensive Italian coffee blenders. Maybe playing a rough game of basketball.

When what we truly desire is to let slip the dogs of war for the women we love.

"I think it's time for you to leave." Karen says.

I've been sitting in Karen's apartment for maybe fifteen minutes.

"You want me to go?"

"Robert, it's really bad out there."

"Just a few more minutes?"

I'm practically begging. Oh, Karen is so lovely tonight. She's wearing a white turtleneck sweater, denim skirt, and those cute and clunky Swedish clogs.

There is a sudden crash from one of the bedrooms. Roommate Devorah cries out, comes running into the living room, announcing that a tree branch just smashed through her bedroom window. Her face is flush with fear and excitement.

Hurricane Belle is lashing New York City with atavistic power.

The rain is hard and driving, like steel from the sky.

Karen, the voice of reason, insists that I head home immediately. She walks me downstairs to the lobby, worriedly watches as I zip up my new jacket and adjust the high-tech hood.

It's so high-tech my peripheral vision is all but obscured.

"Be careful crossing the street, drivers might not see you."

"I'll be fine."

"Try not to walk under any trees, the branches might snap and --"

"Gotcha."

I heave the door open. The wind whooshes in and Karen shivers.

"Robert?"

I look at her.

"It means a lot that you came over tonight." Karen is hugging herself. Rain and wind pelt her.

I can only nod, for if I speak my voice will crack. I step outside, into nature made chaos.

This is truly insane.

I am, get this, the only person in the street.

So dangerous is Hurricane Belle that the Upper West Side, this night, looks like some drowning city, a modern deluge.

And I think to myself: "I've finally found Karen after all these years, and now I'm probably going to die."

I practically crawl over the threshold of my apartment. The phone is ringing. Has been for a quite a while. I heard it while I was still in the hallway.

"Robert?"

"Karen?"

"You're safe."

I hear her breathing.

The Seam. I need a sword to cut through it. Preferably a Samurai sword.

But I'm a writer. Words are my sword.

"I love you, Karen."

There is a long silence, and then:

"I love you too."

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:04 PM | Comments (95)

January 23, 2006

Alone in Yichud

The continuing saga, some call it a romance, of:

Karen and I enter Yichud, June 19, 1977, Lido Beach Hotel

After the Chuppah, the wedding ceremony, Karen and I, and all Jewish chossons, grooms, and kallahs, brides, immediately retire to a private room to be alone. This is called: Yichud. In Hebrew it means, union or joining.

We eat there in privacy. Jewish couples fast the whole day because marriage represents a new beginning. It has become traditional to enter this new phase of life with fasting and prayers for the forgiveness of past sins, much in the manner of Yom Kippur. Though fasting is not observed on Rosh Chodesh, The New Moon, Purim, Chanukah and several other minor holidays.

Yichud is a vestige of Jewish life of much older times when the bride was brought to the groom's house, and there the marriage was consumated.

Anyhoo.

Karen and I in Yichud. I have to wipe the tears from my eyes. Stomach churning, I force myself to nibble some food, and drink some water. Karen and I sit across from each other and, well, we just grin. I tell Karen that she is beautiful.

Karen lowers her eyes. Her lashes are so long they can catch rain drops. I have learned that beautiful women are never quite comfortable with their beauty.

"I can't believe this," I say.

"Believe it," Karen says, always the steady one.

"You actually married me."

"You married me too, Robert."

"Yes, but..."

I lean over and press Karen's hand to my face. She smells of vanilla.

"We better go, they're waiting for us," Karen cautions.

I nod.

I take a deep breath.

"I've been in love with you since the fourth grade," I confess.

Karen rises, floats to the door in her wedding gown, a Jewish Vivien Leigh—but much prettier, and of course wonderfully sane, unlike the tragic and probably bi-polar movie star. Karen looks over her shoulder at me. Her eyes are twinkling.

"Since fourth grade?"

"Uh-huh?"

"What took you so long?"

Karen steps out of the room, and I am left alone in Yichud pondering the mysteries of womanhood.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:35 AM | Comments (35)

January 17, 2006

Beauty and Me

The continuing saga of:

I save everything. The problem is that when I want to find something, I can't. There is a picture, somewhere, of Karen in the fourth grade, playing Shabbos Mommy in Yeshiva of Flatbush, lighting Shabbos candles, and she is a-dorable.

Naturally, I can't find it.

So, I'm posting her eighth grade picture instead. Trust me, she was as beautiful in fourth grade as in the eighth. You can see why I was knocked out from that moment, well, to this moment.

Beauty

On the other hand, somehow, I did manage to find my picture from the fourth grade. You can see why Karen never knew that I existed.

Me

I hated that bow tie, but I was forced to wear it. I hated being forced to smile, but I smiled. Sorta. I look at these two pictures and I still have trouble processing the information that these two children ended up together.

The truth is I strongly identify with Quasimoto from The Hunchback of Notre Dame—and Karen is my Esmerelda.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:26 PM | Comments (31)

January 06, 2006

My Ugetsu

The story of how I fell in love with Karen in fourth grade, held on to that love through grade school, high school, college, post college, and then at age 25, met her at a Jewish street Festival and a year later we were wed. Guess what, I got un-lazy, glued my butt to the desk and counted all the entries in this series. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. Counting is hard work.

The week before the wedding, Karen and I are not allowed to see one another.

It is tradition.

It is also torture.

At work, my mind wanders. I try and imagine where she is, what she's wearing, precisely what she's doing. I try and reconstruct the lilt of her voice, the way her hair moves when she looks over her shoulder. I especially like when Karen idly plays with her split ends. It's intensely private, and so terribly feminine.

I'm desperately lonely. I don't really have any close friends to confide in. Karen is my only friend. She is my present, my past, and my future.

Alone in my apartment on the Upper West Side, I pace like a lunatic about to explode. I ponder marriage and I wonder: what will happen to my character? I am who I am, but who will I become?

It's not good to be alone with these kinds of thoughts a few days before your wedding.

And so, I do what I always do — flee to the silver screen.

The movie is playing at my home away from home, the Thalia Movie Theater. Ugetsu, 1953 directed by the great Kenji Mizoguchi. I have heard about this film for many years but never had the opportunity to see it. Mizoguchi is interested in women and the limited, often tragic choices offered to them in Japanese society.

The stunning Machiko Kyo in Ugetsu

Ugetsu is his masterpiece. It tells the story of two families, medieval peasants trying to eke out wretched livings while warring Samurai rip the land apart. The husbands are greedy, ambitious for money and status, while their wives want, well, just simple decent lives.

This elemental conflict leads to tragedy.

The film unfolds in a stately, classical pace, perhaps a bit slow for modern audiences, but it is masterful. I am riveted as I watch husbands and wives compete for what is right and important in life.

Of course, the husbands are entirely clueless. Their overriding ambitions, and physical passions, lead to short-lived pleasure, wealth and fame, and then comes the inevitable downfall.

Ugetsu is also a ghost story. But unlike any you have ever seen. It is sensual and haunting, and I shudder at the plight of the ghost, for it too is a victim of terrible times.

The ending of the film just rips my heart out. Thick tears run down my cheeks.

I realize that Karen will civilize me. I understand that the role of women has always been to take the clay of boys and make us into men.

A few days later, as I stand under the Chuppah, the wedding canopy, and the Sheva Brachos, the Seven Wedding Blessing are being intoned, I am once again weeping. I am weeping from joy, but I am also recalling the last scene from Ugetsu.

My Ugetsu.

But Karen is proud and clear-eyed, luminous as a Mizoguchi heroine. She looks at me and smiles; my heart soars.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:13 AM | Comments (20)

December 14, 2005

Karen's at City Hall, Where's Robert?!

The continuing saga of Robert's life-long love affair with Karen. It's a looooong story that started in fourth grade, in the Yeshiva of Flatbush.

You know that scene in the movies where the bride is left standing at the altar and the groom is a no-show?

Well, obviously that wasn't us. But, we did have a close call.

A few weeks before the wedding, Karen and I are scheduled to go to City Hall to apply for our wedding license.

Full disclosure: I have a minor problem with the New York subway system. Well, maybe not so minor. It's actually a major problem. And the problem is: unless I know my route intimately I tend to get kind of um, confused. Which is another way of saying that I get completely lost.

Now, I usually do my homework, plan my route very carefully. I make copious notes, I'm like a soldier going into a battlefield. But something happens when I'm on the subway. There's the shrill screech of steel upon steel. The hypnotic flash of lights. The clackety-clack of the rails that smears my brain into a flustered twilight. And then let's not forget the very strange people who talk to themselves and then talk to me—why, oh why do they always confide in me, and why in heavens name do I talk to these loony people who smell like the landfill right outside Lefrak City?

Anyhooo.

I leave work early so I'll be sure to meet Karen right on time. I'm one of those people who always shows up early for meetings. I'm never fashionably late. Even in Hollywood I come early to meetings which is not too smart—but there you go.

I have no intention of being late for my wedding license. I've been waiting for this since the fourth grade, since I first saw and fell in love with Karen.

I am not going to be late, I tell myself. Not. Not. Not. The power of positive thinking.

As if.

Not only do I get lost. I'm pretty sure that I end up in, get this, Harlem. I cleverly intuit this because I'm the only white person aboard the subway, the only person wearing a yarmulke. And people are, and I'm not imagining this, glaring at me.

I have this almost overwhelming impulse to stand up and announce that ever since I've been a little boy I've had a picture of the great Willie Mays taped to my bedroom wall.

Thankfully, I resist this lunatic urge.

When I finally do find my way back to the right subway stop, I cannot for the life of me find the right building. I must be the only person in Manhattan who doesn't know where City Hall is.

And I'm sweating like mad because I know that Karen is anxiously waiting for me. I'm scared that she's scared that I've gotten cold feet and left her standing almost at the altar. What an awful cliche. I feel like screaming. But there are already enough screamers in the streets of New York.

Understand, this is 1977, practically prehistoric times, there are no cell phones. There is no way to communicate with her. No way to explain what a dope I am.

Finally, somehow, I stumble upon the right building, and Karen is standing on the steps waiting. She sees me. I rush over, start to explain.

"You got lost."

"Um, yeah."

"I figured. Let's go."

As we walk into City Hall, I look at Karen's profile. Back in 7th grade, in Yeshiva of Flatbush, there was an assembly one day for our grade and I was seated one row behind Karen. I just sat and stared at Karen's profile throughout the whole period. I was so happy just to sit and gaze at her.

Going into City Hall, the same happiness seizes me. Past and present merge. I am happy. I am content.

Karen adds: I'm sitting here laughing as I read this because Robert wrote "wedding license" instead of "marriage license." I have this image of him getting a special certificate to allow him into the wedding ceremony.

Anyway, there are two reasons that I stayed calm and collected:

A. I felt it was just too humiliating, a downright cliche, to get angry and perceive Robert's tardiness as his subconscious resistance to marriage, and

B. He was so apologetic and contrite, and didn't try to make any excuses. This is not to say that my teeth were not clenched and my tone quite businesslike as we went through the paper work with the city clerk.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:15 PM | Comments (26)

November 29, 2005

Negative on the Negatives

It started when I was in fourth grade at Yeshiva Flatbush. Karen had just 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. I was just nine-years old. What can a pisher like that know of true love? Well, read this series and find out.

A few weeks after our wedding, Karen and I ask my parents if they have received the contact sheets from the photographer.

"Not yet," they say.

The weeks turn into months and finally my parents tell us that there are no photos.

"What do you mean?"

"There was a fire in the lab, all the negatives were destroyed."

I stare in disbelief.

"The photographer said it was a terrible blaze and so much was destroyed," my mother continues tragically.

Oh yeah, I'll bet it was just like the burning of Atlanta in Gone With the Wind.

I figure shmendrick probably shot at the wrong F stop or misplaced the film. But a fire at the lab? Come on, he might as well have told us that the dog ate the film.

It turns out that not all the negatives were "lost in the fire." Shmendrick has discovered about a dozen stiffly posed photos that he actually has the chutzpah to charge for. And my good and honest parents actually pay when they should be suing this idiot.

The photos make us all look like statues from Madame Trussauds Wax Museum.

The punch line: Twenty years later, I get a phone call from a low level local politician in Brooklyn. He's raising money from "prominent Jews in the entertainment business."

It takes me a moment to place his name, but it comes to me.

It's shmendrick!

I tell him that I'd rather have my wedding photos.

"Huh?"

I remind him of my wedding, of the lost photos, of the fire.

He makes sympathetic noises but presses for campaign money. I make a deal with him. "Tell me the truth about what happened to the wedding photos and I'll make a contribution."

Needless to say, I never made a contribution.

The ten photos my friend took are infinitely better than anything shmendrick could ever have dreamed. Those ten photos capture our happiness and our complete love.

I realize now that sometimes disasters are not so disastrous. Maybe it's a blessing that the professional photos were lost. They only would have frozen us in a tableau that did not really exist.

Karen Adds: It's another Gigi moment, "Ah yes, I remember it well." if you know the song. What happened, is that after we came back from our sort of honeymoon, a hiking trip, two months after our wedding, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, my mother-in-law sort of fessed up that there were no wedding pictures. She said that she didn't want to tell me right away because she was afraid that I would be too traumatized. Well, I remember thinking, I was too happy being married that I didn't even care. I suspected that there was no fire because all the shots that photographer number one took, fake poses of the ceremony were intact, and everything from the second photographer, (known as shmendrick) were gone. And yes it is true, my in-laws actually shelled out money for the meager pictures that were salvaged from the so called "fire."

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:46 AM | Comments (19)

November 23, 2005

Stanley Kubrick Plans Our Wedding

The story of how I fell in love with Karen in fourth grade, held on to that love through grade school, high school, college, post college, and then at age 25, met her at a Jewish street Festival and a year later we were wed.

The time has come to make a wedding. I have no idea what's involved in planning a wedding, and I have to confess that I couldn't care less.

I just want to be married to Karen. That's all I've ever wanted.

Going into Yichud

The party, all the oh-so-necessary craziness that comes alone with Jewish weddings, well, I'm 26-years old and I'm a guy and please, let somebody else deal with the painful details.

I don't care about the hall.
I don't care about the flowers.
I don't care about the band.
I don't care about the food.
I really don't care about the bridesmaids.

I do care about the photographer.

I want photos that capture Karen's beauty. I yearn for photos that will reflect this love affair I've had for her. But really, who are we going to hire, Akira Kurosawa?

I don't think so.

No, we end up hiring some fast-talking shmendrick. He proudly displays his portfolio and gee willikers, he has this amazing ability to make people of flesh and blood look like wax figures. But the price is right and really all the photographers in Brooklyn are pretty much the same. Hideous.

I console myself with the thought that a close friend of mine, a very fine photographer, will be coming to the wedding with his Nikon and I can count on him for some truly lovely and artistic photos. But I have to admit that in the pit of my stomach, I have an awful feeling about this photographer. He just talks way too fast — and never says anything.

Karen is a dream of a bride. Unlike too many brides, she's not focused on the wedding; she cares about being married. She's a woman not a kid and she understands that obsessing on every little detail of a wedding might not be a very healthy sign.

Karen borrows a lovely gown. She's not about to blow thousands of dollars on a dress that will be worn just once. She has her priorities straight.

We go looking for a hall and she has a check-list of things that are important. (Karen has a book of check-lists for various vacations, and trips going back many years. I still pack for a trip the night before, helplessly asking Karen what I need as I fling items in my bag.)

This is what Karen wants in a hall:

1. Ample room so people can mix comfortably during the buffet. i.e. no pillars in the middle of the space to obstruct movement.

2. A dance floor that is a normal shape and big enough for the guests. We run into really weirdly shaped dance floors. The owners try and convince Karen that the floors are not oddly shaped. That they are interesting. Karen just looks at them like they are morons.

3. Parking that our guests don't have to pay for. Making guests pay for their own parking is a major sin.

4. A few other things that Karen patiently explains to me, but I have no idea what she's talking about. I'm thoroughly heterosexual, that's my only excuse.

I go along on these trips, but basically leave it to Karen and her father. I say very little, just nod my head every once in a while to show that I'm, well, breathing and involved.

Finally, we end up at the Lido Beach Hotel. Karen starts checking things off her check list. So far so good. There's a nice surprise when we discover that in the area where the chuppah will take place the ceiling slides open with a low-grade rumble. Karen and I look at each other and smile. You are supposed to get married under the stars.

I wander around the hotel. It is huge and kind of, well, creepy. But creepy in a nice kind of way. It's very retro. Reminds me of B movies that I loved as a kid.

The Manager asks me what I do for a living. I tell him that I'm a screenwriter.

"Oh, that's interesting," he says. "Stanley Kubrick was just here last week."

Goodness
Gracious

Stanley Kubrick? Only one of the greatest directors ever.

"How come?"

"He's thinking of using The Lido Beach as the location for his next movie, The Shining."

"We'll take it," I blurt out, "We'll have our wedding here."

Next installment: read with horror how the wedding photographer fulfilled every fear I had — and then some.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:30 PM | Comments (26)

November 10, 2005

My (Very Long) List of Sins

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.