"T" is dead..... again

Sept. 7, 2024

What a cop out! David Chase again teases the viewers with the same vague ending in "Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos." Either talk about the show and your intentions in the final episode or fuggetaboutit. 

written in June of 2007:

"T" is Dead!

Although David Chase has written: "The Sopranos: The Complete Book," and in it he discusses the future of the family, I am going to blog my thoughts on the series finale as they were before part of the book's contents were revealed.

I rewatched "Made in America" on HBO On Demand... which was the controversial and confusing last episode to the phenomenal series "The Sopranos." Many fans were disappointed and even angry that the series did not come to a more satisfying conclusion with more clear closure. It was so layered with different innuendos and possibilities that some diehards referred to the last episode of "The Sopranos" as the Zapruder film of TV finales. But, now I am even more convinced than ever that my initial impressions and interpretations are valid.

The textured theme for the entire run of this series has been the meaning of life and the afterlife. "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right," Bobby asks Tony in "Soprano Home Movies" when they are out in his little boat on the lake. That one line was a nuanced foreshadowing in terms of the final scene of "Made in America" which opens with the soundtrack of a funeral dirge and then moves along to the family dinner at Holsten's. A suspicious guy in a Members Only jacket enters the restaurant and he nervously looks around. We are thinking he could be dangerous. When he gets up to go to the bathroom, the tension that has been building is unbearable. And all of this is happening while Meadow unsuccessfully attempts several times to park her car. Just as she runs across the street, Tony hears the bells as the restaurant door opens and he looks up and seems startled. Then, the infamous quick and unexpected cut to a dark and silent screen that lasts for about 20 seconds before the credits roll. "What the fuck?" we all initially thought. And all across America customers were calling their cable companies.

After I calmed down, I realized Tony Soprano got whacked by the guy in the Members Only jacket! In his death there was no lighted "Inn at the Oaks" filled with deceased family members, no big answer to "where am I going," and no insight into his desert revelation, "I get it." There was no validation to Paulie's spiritual hallucinations and no parallel experience to Christopher's vision of hell when he was in a coma. Carmela was wrong... Tony did not go to hell. And even Bill Burroughs got it wrong. The blank and silent screen at the very end implies Mama Livia was right all along! "It's all a big nothing," she told AJ. How funny is that? In my book, that's surreal, mind-boggling, and ultimately amazing. The series ended in great irony and dark comedy.

My jaw drops open at that final 20 second blank screen each time I see it. David Chase has to be disappointed that people reacted so negatively at first to his masterpiece. They did not "get it," so maybe it was a bit too esoteric. But it remains a twist so bizarre, so richly funny, so blended with the theme of the entire series, that "I just can't shake it." In the end, Mama was right and "it's all a big nothing!"

"T" RIP.

Last June, I sat shiva for Tony Soprano.

BACK TO BROWN

 

WITH ROBERT KLEIN ON BLOOPERS AND PRACTICAL JOKES

 

LIVE FROM BROADWAY

 

YETTA FOR USA SECRETARY OF EDUCATION

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from 2023

 

THE NEW WINDOW

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate." from Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.

And last night, I had that dream again.  I was in my old childhood house.

I was looking out of a new window that was never a window in my old house. The street in the dream did not look like the street in this picture which is the street in Autumn.

On that street in my dream the view had changed to a soft pink and blue. As twilight descended, snow was falling. As I peered south, soon the road was covered in a white blanket that seemed oddly soothing and comforting. This was not a blurred vision, it was a sharp image with crystal clarity. I could even look up and see, through the falling snow, some stars appearing which for so long had not even been visible to me. 

Everything that came before no longer mattered; I was so happy to be someplace else, to be home where I seemed to belong. I wanted to remain within that picture. 

And high above there was a plane taking passengers home too. When I awakened I wondered if that was what death is: a place where you go that seems so real and you just stay there. I gasped because it all seemed so easy.

COMING SOON!

My next book is the saga of my memories at the Women's House of Detention in NYC 1968. It won't be pretty. I was known as Large Marge and I was a force to be reckoned with. 

THESE OLD HOUSES

What? Where is Clark Kent?

a different view:

DULY NOTED

 

THE GHOST PiC

 

a FEW REVIEWS ARE IN

 

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IT SOMEHOW NEVER ESCAPED ME

"During the 1950s and 1960s, New York City police would conduct compulsory air raid drills, also known as "duck and cover" drills, where people would take shelter when sirens sounded. The drills were a civil defense response to the possibility of a nuclear attack during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union." 

I lived on Shore Parkway in Brooklyn when I was three years old. I can still remember walking with my mother on 20th Avenue when that siren sounded and we stood against a wall until there was silence. That wall is still there today. 

WALKING SIDEWAYS ON A SPIRAL STAIRCASE

 from 2007:

After I retired, I wrote pieces on education that were published as "Letters" in THE NEW YORK SUN. I was looking through the clippings the other day, and although the collection is too extensive to repost here, I am going to cull a few blurbs from selected articles I wrote and retype them for this blog. Whew! So much for a run-on sentence.

from: "When Students Run the Show," 1/2-4/04 I can recall a beginning teacher who crafted creative, fine lessons. But classroom management was difficult for her and she could have used some administrative guidance and support in the handling of her class. One day, a second grader in her class slammed a closet door into her back and then ran away and laughed. She brought him to the principal and later it was she who received a disciplinary letter! In the principal's office, the child had been interviewed about the teacher's performance and his misbehavior was blamed on the teacher's weak behavior modification program.

from: "The Stepford Teachers," 7/20/04 ... a discussion of the problems in the New York City schools has "jumped the shark." The 2 1/2 hour (reading) block is so micromanaged that it includes prepared dialogue for the instruction of the children. When teachers help students choose a "just right" nonfiction book, they are told what to say in order to model thinking.... But, experienced traditional teachers would consider this learning model to be a major farce, where education has moved into the surreal world of "The Stepford Wives." As more time passes, the articles on education seem to have deteriorated into redundant pieces "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

from: "Going Back to Basics," 8/11/04 (re: phonics replaced by phonemic awareness) I am not surprised that classrooms filled with fascinating leveled libraries (with books grouped by genre) are not motivating students. If you never learned to play chess and some benefactor filled your home with the most expensive and beautiful sets, would you not first have to learn, step by step, how to to play the game?

from: "The Turning Tide," 8/24/04 During my 34 years as a NYC teacher, I have seen some pretty ludicrous letters written by principals for teachers' files. One teacher was written up for "teaching with two handbags on (her) arm." She also was reprimanded for replying "I'll try" when directed to handle a class. The principal stated that her response did not meet the accountability for a New York City scool (sic) teacher!" And the latest tactic is to accuse teachers who "yell" of corporal punishment.

from: "The Spin Doctors," 10/06 At almost the end of my 34 year long teaching career, I was directed to change the seating arrangement in my classroom from rows to groups and (to) develop an atmosphere of "productive noise" and (to) construct mini-lessons. The new "balanced literacy" model was filled with layered components and the classroom was mandated to have visual and heady appeal. A student shortly pleaded to "go back to the old way of learning" which was a more no-frills and basic textbook approach. I discussed this with my supervisor and I was told it was my fault the students didn't like the new style. I had not properly motivated the students or successfully implemented the model.

And I was a teacher whose classes during instruction and learning were so quiet, visitors to the room "could hear a pin drop!" Parents requested placement with me because I was known as one of the teachers who could handle a sixth grade class, and the work I gave was very much admired. I stopped writing on education one bleak day when I finally thought: "Stick a fork in me, I am done!"

MY UNCLE ROBERT

There are many sad stories that often go untold and as the decades pass, lives that were lived fade away. This was my uncle Robert. 

MUSEUM EXHIBITS

 from THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

“I’ll Have What She’s Having”: The Jewish Deli

TITANIC THE EXHIBITION 526 6th Avenue, New York, NY 

 (Southeast Corner of W. 14th Street at 6th Avenue)

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF ART

EDWARD HOPPER'S NEW YORK

SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL 718 Broadway, New York, NY 

WONDERLAND DREAMS 529 5th Ave, New York, NY 

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Virginia Woolf: A Modern Mind

THE JEWISH MUSEUM

Through the Saga of the Sassoon Family

Attributed to William Melville. Portrait of David Sassoon. Oil on canvas; 41 ½ × 33 in.

 

LINCOLN CENTER

Historical Landmarks of San Juan Hill

LEGO Friends Pop-Up 210 10th Ave

THE MET

Berenice Abbott’s New York Album, 1929

Photograph: By Berenice Abbott | West Street, 1936 / 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Jane and Mark Ciabattari

MoMA 

"Georgia O'Keeffe: To See Takes Time"

Photograph: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Straus Fund, 1958. © 2022 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkEvening Star No.III, 191

THE MET

"Wheat Field with Cypresses" and "The Starry Night"—will be on display together in a new exhibition at The Met starting this spring. The show, titled "Van Gogh's Cypresses," will be the first to focus on the artist's fascination with the flamelike trees.

The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh. Saint Rémy, June 1889

THE RUBIN MUSEUM OF ART

Death is Not the End

The Last Judgment; Follower of Hieronymus Bosch, Netherlandish, ca. 1450–1516; late 16th century / Philadelphia Museum of Art

THE YEARLY VISUAL

For decades, every year at Christmas time 

I tried to create a sublime rhyme.

I would exit my building and see a sight to behold

And with excitement, so many thoughts would unfold.

The Santa so silver and huge and and it lit up the street

And all those people walking when I heard their feet

Going here and there, this way and that, in front of me 

After cars passed, I really had nothing else to see.

The tree in my lobby was part of that picture so pretty

I finally took pen in hand to write this little ditty.

But you see, I want you to read between the lines.

I want you to be able to see through my eyes to the signs:

I am old now and grey and getting older every day

So I ponder: will this be the last time I get to see it and say

Happy holidays to you and those passing along the highway?

--- Marjorie J. Levine © 2022

IN SEPIA

Then in sepia

Fading old in full soft light 

A strange new vision