MY BLOCK IS AGAIN TODAY A MOVIE SET

ANOTHER THEN AND NOW

This is the east side corner of 7th Avenue and 19th Street, and the subway entrance that was there so long ago is still there and visible in both pictures. 

THE ANCESTORS FROM MINSK

 I celebrate my family tree... and look forward to the next family reunion. This photo was taken in about 1916... my father is the child sitting on the step between his two brothers and he is looking back at his aunt. 

A THEN AND NOW

This is a composed "then and now..." with WALKER TOWER in the distance, which at one time was New York Telephone:

THE SHADES OF CONTEMPLATION

“One by one they were all becoming shades. 

Better pass boldly into that other world, 

in the full glory of some passion, than fade 

and wither dismally with age.”

-- James Joyce, THE DEAD

HERE COMES THE BRIDE

 Steph and Herm

A LETTER OF APPRECIATION TO A TEACHER FROM A PARENT

 

ROAD TRIPS

THE REVIEWS ARE IN

 

THE VALLEY

REST IN PEACE... TOO MANY GONE TOO SOON

I lost too many. And not a day goes by that I do not remember all these friends who left me with huge empty spaces and no choice but to advance and move forward without them. I miss all of them.

Ellen and Bette, gone way too young. 

Nick... a sad loss. I miss his great musical talents.

Bernie, my BC! We sure had so many laughs together. There were so many inside jokes... I still have the letters you sent me... even the one from Diamond Head!

Betty O. you always were there for every show and I miss our great dinners at Zinno!

Annie B. you were a great comic and I was glad to call you a "friend."

Susan S.! We were colleagues for a decade. We were in Miami togther. You left too early. 

Marilyn K. you were my neighbor for 40 years... 

Rhea, Ellen and Eileen... cousins who I will always miss.

Phyllis! I think I miss you the most. It is hard to lose a friend I spoke to every day and who I knew since I was 10 years old.

Joan! We traveled together... to Charleston, San Antonio, and St. Louis. 

Rhoda... we met at a Frank Sinatra forum and then talked constantly about the good old days. 

Jack! OMG Jack! How many times did I visit you down at the Jersey Shore and then Red Bank? 

Frances! You were my morning phone call for ears. Rest in Peace, there was not a mean bone in your body.

Sue! I have so much regret. I should have done more. I think of you every day. I remember Los Angeles and all the laughs. Remember all those eggs benedict and Sunday in the Park With George?

Lou... we had a good secret.

Jerry... I know you loved me. You stayed in touch with me through 2 marriages. We met in Orlando... You were uch a sweet soul.

Roz.. my consiglieré. how did you pass so early?

And Nell.... my dear Nell. All the late night phone calls, all the conversations, losing you hit hard. 

And now my Rogeré.... I know you are in heaven talking "sense" to anybody who will listen. We spoke on Thursday and on Monday I got the call you passed on Saturday. I went into shock... 

There are others like Maxine and Gail and Ellen... 

Life seems empty without all my friends near me, friends who were in my life for decades. 

Will I ever see them again?

"His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." --- James Joyce, THE DEAD

 

TWO TIMES TWO AND ONE

THE BEST OF THE HOLIDAYS

"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

 video application

LINK TO VIDEOS

 link to comedy channel

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: