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Clickbait (2021)

Available on Netflix

Created by Tony Ayres & Christian WhiteStarring Zoe Kazan, Betty Gabriel, and Adrian Grenier

There are so many good things – even great things –  to watch on screen these days. But we all have a limited amount of time. With my schedule, I have about an hour or two a day to devote to TV and movies. So, I have to be selective about what I give that time to. Why not get the highest return for my investment?

That’s the theory. In practice, I am not infrequently seduced by what my mother used to call candy bar entertainment: Delicious. Addictive. Bad for your (mental) health.

You can’t always know from reviews or trailers whether the movie or series you decide to watch will be of the candy-bar kind. But what you can do is make it a rule to push the off button the moment you realize it is.

Last night, for example, based on something K had read, we decided to watch Macho, the new Clint Eastwood movie. It was awful right from the start. So it was easy to walk away from it after 15 minutes.

About a week ago, though, I decided to try Clickbait, a Netflix miniseries recommended by a friend. Unlike Macho, Clickbait was, from the beginning, engaging and entertaining. Binge-worthy. So I watched all eight episodes in three sittings, staying up two hours past my bedtime twice.

Was it worth it?

Plot:  “Clickbait” is internet content that grabs you with an alluring promise but then fails to deliver. By naming this series Clickbait, Netflix was quite possibly promising the opposite.

The series follows the mysterious Nick Brewer (Adrian Grenier) as he struggles with his multiple roles as father, brother, son, and husband after appearing in an alarming video holding a sign indicating that once his taped confession of abuse gets 5 million views, he will die. Of course, the clip goes viral. Unsure where Nick is, his family must figure out how a man they only knew as caring found himself confessing to a secret life.

 

What I liked: 

* Clickbait was, for sure, highly entertaining – in the sense of having a fast-moving and interesting plot that kept me wanting more.

* It was a whodunit. Sort of. But it was also an exploration of many elements of social media that are changing our culture.

* I liked the acting of two of the principals: Betty Gabriel (as Nick’s wife) and Andrea Elizabeth (who played Nick’s mother). I had mixed feelings about what Zoe Kazan brought to her role, but I thought many of the secondary roles, including those of Nick’s two boys (Cameron Engels and Jaylin Fletcher) were played well.

* I liked that it depicts an interracial family without making too much of it.

 

What I didn’t like: 

* I found much of the plot to be annoyingly improbable. Everything from the romance between two of the lead characters, Pia (Zoe Kazan) and Roshan Amir (Phoenix Raei), to the scene where the villain is standing with his gun pointed at the cops and they aren’t shooting him.

* The tension and the surprises were done not through clever plotting but with fakes and feints.  The plot itself was clickbait.

* Adrian Grenier, who was perfect in Entourage,  didn’t bring enough to this role.

Roxana Hadadi, writing on the Roger Ebert website, said all of this better than I just did:

Clickbait is a reminder of why Netflix series became such hits in the first place. A cast of recognizable, serviceable actors dive with melodrama and zeal into a narrative that defies logical sense but moves at a breakneck pace, ends on cliffhangers like clockwork, and incorporates just enough zigs and zags to keep viewers guessing. The miniseries’ title is accurate enough: Clickbait grabs you, whizzes you along, and leaves you feeling satisfied before you forget everything you just watched. It’s not sophisticated, but it is highly bingeable, and its eight episodes are consistently outlandish enough to keep you watching.

 

Critical Reception:

* “Clickbait asks big questions and keeps you hooked…” (Karl Quinn, Sydney Morning Herald)

* “Alas, I finished Clickbait feeling had, as though – to use the title – I’d clicked on something that promised a bit of substance but delivered a whole lot of nothing.” (Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe)

* “Obviously Clickbait has things to say about internet technology, misinformation, and the alarming, potentially dangerous speed of modern media. But mostly it’s just an elaborate whodunit.” (Tom Long, Detroit News)

You can watch the trailer here.

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Blood Meridian – or The Evening Redness in the West

By Cormac McCarthy

337 pages

Published in April 1985 by Random House

I’m writing this review two hours before we meet to discuss the book. At this point, I’ve read about half of it. Normally, I’d feel uncertain about commenting on a novel I’d only half read, but not in this case. I’m quite certain that what’s ahead for me is more of what I’ve already experienced.

There isn’t much of a plot to Blood Meridian. It’s more like a travelogue – taking the reader through the seven circles of Cormac McCarthy’s vision of hell. There are four or five principal characters, but none can be described as a protagonist – not even “the kid.”

There is no character development to speak of. No anagnorisis. No peripetia. No denouement. But there is the kid’s tragic journey through a bleak and brutal landscape, described in language that is verbally lush, syntactically challenging – and always poetic. In fact, I have come to think of this book more as a prose poem than a novel.

Blood Meridian follows the kid, a teenage orphan with a penchant for violence, as he gets hooked up with a series of even more violent people while seeking his fortune in the US/Mexico borderland in the middle of the 19th century.

Some of the plot and at least two of the characters are based on historical accounts. One of them is John Glanton, the leader of a gang of thieves and murderers that, among other atrocities, randomly massacred indigenous Americans and Mexicans in 1949 and 1950. Another is Judge Holden, a character one could reasonably suppose to be a hybrid of Ahab, Kurtz, and Mephistopheles, but who was, in fact, a real person.

If Blood Meridian is verbally a prose poem, it is visually an orgy of charred and bludgeoned human bodies, broken skulls, bloody scalps, raped women, and hung and dismembered babies. Instead of a plot, the reader is delivered a litany of human cruelty, betrayal, and evil. These actions continue, almost unbroken, for 337 pages. You can open the book to any page, put your finger on any sentence, and you will be within 20 words of something that is ugly and/or violent and/or terrifying.

But the prose… It is the reason you want to keep on reading.

Blood Meridian is a literary achievement. It is Heart of Darkness played out on the Western Frontier, spare in sentimentality and brimming with Peckinpah-level carnage.

I’m eager to discover what my fellow Mules will say about it. I know at least one of them put the book down without finishing it. But Harold Bloom himself put it down twice before reading it through a third time and declaring it a masterpiece.

As I said, I am about halfway through the book. And so far, I’m not sure I’d rate Blood Meridian as highly as Bloom did. (Not that he would have needed my confirmation.) But I am certain that I will finish it – because even if it fails as a novel in some ways, it succeeds magnificently in so many others.

 

Critical Reception  

* “Blood Meridian comes at the reader like a slap in the face, an affront that asks us to endure a vision of [hell]…. But while Cormac McCarthy’s fifth novel is hard to get through, it is harder to ignore. Any page of his work reveals his originality, a passionate voice given equally to ugliness and lyricism.”  (Caryn James, New York Times, April 28, 1985)

* “McCarthy’s style is a pastiche of bad Faulkner, and his vocabulary is apparently drawn from Jacobean tragedies and translations of Beowulf…. The narrative is littered with portentous phrases like ‘Gods years’ and ‘lies by God lies.’ These… pronouncements, after a while, become irksomely hollow and pretentious…. Blood Meridian is certainly bold and disturbing – but does that make it a masterpiece?”  (Allen Boyer, Detroit Free Press, March 24, 1985)

* “[Cormac McCarthy] is the writer all American writers have to measure themselves against.” (David Vann, The Guardian, Nov. 13, 2009)

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1960s Movies Redux: 14 Reportedly Great Ones I Missed

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Directed by Alain Resnais

Starring Delphine Seyrig, Giorgio Albertazzi, Sacha Pitoëff

Plot: In this mindbender of a romantic French drama, set in a picturesque château, a man, “X” (Giorgio Albertazzi), attempts to convince a woman, “A” (Delphine Seyrig), that they spent time together the previous year. But she has no memory of ever having met him. The question: Is there any truth to X’s story?

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 94% positive based on 53 reviews. “Elegantly enigmatic and dreamlike, this work of essential cinema features exquisite cinematography and an exploration of narrative still revisited by filmmakers today.”

Why it made my list: It was first recommended to me by HR, an older, pot-smoking cheerleader I had a crush on in high school. Why I never got around to watching it, I don’t know. But I’ll watch it this year in memory of her. (I heard she died a few years ago.)

 

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Directed by Luis Buñuel

Starring Silvia Pinal, Jaqueline Andere, Enrique Rambal

Plot: Members of Mexico City’s bourgeoisie come together for a lavish dinner party that soon unravels into nonsensical scenes of chaos as a mysterious force keeps them from leaving the room.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 93% positive based on 27 reviews. “Societal etiquette devolves into depravity in Luis Buñuel’s existential comedy, effectively playing the absurdity of civilization for mordant laughs.”

Why it made my list: The phrase: “Societal etiquette devolves into depravity.”

 

Persona (1966)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Starring Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook

Plot: Alma (Bibi Andersson), a nurse at a psychiatric hospital, is assigned to a new patient, the famous actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), who has suddenly gone mute. As the women spend more time alone together, they form a powerful bond, with their personalities becoming more and more alike.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 91% positive based on 54 reviews. “Arguably Bergman’s finest film, Personaexplores the human condition with intense curiosity, immense technical skill, and beguiling warmth.”

Why it made my list: In my teenage years, I did my best to love Bergman, but all I could do, at best, was admire him. Now that I’m so much older, I may feel differently – one way or the other. I’m eager to find out.

 

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo

Starring Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi

Plot:  French Algeria in 1954 is the epicenter of the fight for Algerian independence. The film depicts the revolution from both sides, documenting the violence and fear that pervades the country.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 99% positive based on 89 reviews. “A documentary-like depiction of a nation’s real-life efforts to expel a colonizing force, The Battle of Algiers puts viewers on the front lines with gripping realism.”

Why it made my list: I know very little about the Algerian revolution, but I heard a bit about it from French academics and mercenaries when I lived in Chad, a former French colony. I like the idea that this film shows the fight from both sides.

 

Harakiri (1962)

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita

Plot: In 17th century Japan, a samurai, Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai), arrives at the house of a feudal lord and asks for permission to commit harakiri (an honorable form of suicide) there. The lord tells Tsugumo the story of the last samurai who made that request and how it ended. Will he still go through with it?

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 100% positive based on 8 reviews. “Both a thrilling character piece and a scathing takedown of authority, Harakiri is a tour-de-force and a compelling look into the facade of institutions.”

Why it made my list: Kobayasshi is considered one of the great Japanese directors, and this is said to be his masterpiece. The Japanese made some great films in the 1960s. How can it not be on my list?

 

Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Starring Eiji Okada, Kyôko Kishida, Hiroko Itô

Plot: An entomologist, Jumpei Niki (Eiji Okada), who is collecting insects in a rural seaside village is tricked into living with a mysterious woman who spends almost all her time trying to keep her home from being swallowed up by advancing sand dunes. The two begin a bizzare and erotic relationship that stretches over years, while Jumpei’s hope for escape dims.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 100% positive based on 29 reviews. “An important contribution to the avant-garde, this existential thriller offers an allegorical take on the cruel and twisted universe in which we live.”

Why it made my list: Japanese classic + 1960s avant-garde + existential + thriller = bound to please at some level.

 

Marketa Lazarová (1967)

Directed by Frantisek Vlácil

Starring Josef Kemr, Magda Vásáryová, Nada Hejna

Plot: Set in the 13th century, the film tells the story of a young virgin, the daughter of a feudal lord. When she is kidnapped by a clan of bandits pillaging the village and forced to marry one of them, her father seeks revenge.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 100% positive based on 12 reviews. “Its eerie, haunting music, gorgeous cinematography from Bedrich Batka, and Miroslav Hajek’s editing make for one of the most magical cinematic assaults on the senses. It’ll razzle dazzle you.”

Why it made my list: I’m weak on my knowledge of Czech films, always in the mood for “gorgeous cinematography,”  and haven’t seen a good pillaging movie in ages. Why not?

 

Doctor Zhivago (1965)

Directed by David Lean

Starring Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin

Plot:  This sprawling romantic epic depicts the struggles of surgeon and poet Dr. Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) during World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Russian Civil War.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 84% positive based on 50 reviews. “Despite the grim and brooding background, Zhivago has a surging buoyant spirit that is unquenchable. Doctor Zhivago is more than a masterful motion picture; it is a life experience.”

Why it made my list: Duh. Never saw it!

 

Ivan’s Childhood (1962)

Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

Starring  Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Evgeniy Zharikov

Plot: 12-year-old orphan Ivan Bondarev (Nikolay Burlyaev) works as a spy on the Eastern front during WWII. An unlikely friendship forms between Ivan and three Soviet officers.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 100% positive based on 24 reviews. “Remains one of the most remarkable debuts in all of cinema, and one of the most indelible portraits of war and childhood ever made.”

Why it made my list: “Remains one of the most remarkable debuts in all of cinema, and one of the most indelible portraits of war and childhood ever made.”

 

Army of Shadows (1969)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Melville

Starring  Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel

Plot: In 1942, Philippe Gerbier (Lino Ventura), a leader of the French Resistance, is arrested and sent to a concentration camp. He manages to escape,  rejoin the underground, and take revenge on the informant who betrayed him.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 97% positive based on 75 reviews. “The greatness of Army of Shadows comes from the way it is able to convey many of the cruel paradoxes of war. What is an intimate and messy affair for some ends up being a remote and tactical exercise for others.”

Why it made my list: Honestly? I was sold by the title.

 

The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer (1961)

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi

Starring Tatsuya Nakadai, Michiyo Aratama, Tamao Nakamura

Plot: Adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, The Human Condition trilogy follows the life of a pacifist, Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), in war-time Japan’s military. In the final part of the trilogy, trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 97% positive based on 500+ audience reviews. “The film possesses a restless vitality, with hard cuts juxtaposing abject brutality with pastoral tranquility and romantic longing.”

Why it made my list: It almost didn’t. The subject matter is heavy. The review made the treatment sound daunting. I’m thinking this is going to take some energy to go through. But with 485 positive reviews out of 500, I owe it to myself to give it a go.

 

La Jetée (1962)

Directed by Chris Marker

Starring Étienne Becker, Jean Négroni (voice), Hélène Châtelain

Plot: Told mostly through a series of photos with voice-over narration, La Jetée is the story of a man in post-World War III Paris who is sent back in time in order to find a cure for the devastation faced by people in the present.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 93% positive based on 27 reviews. “La Jetée pioneers new storytelling possibilities by shaving an ambitious science-fiction narrative down to its bare essentials, achieving a transporting texture with each still frame.”

Why it made my list: Another one that sounds like work. Film-student work. But I’m a student of film. Maybe I’ll like it.

 

The Virgin Spring (1960)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Starring Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom

Plot: Set in 14th century Sweden, Karin (Birgitta Valberg), the beautiful daughter of a Christian landowner, is sent to deliver candles to a distant church, accompanied by the family’s servant, Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom). Along the way, they have a shocking encounter with a group of savage goat herders… and only one of the girls returns home.

Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 87% positive based on 23 reviews. “The Virgin Spring marks one of Ingmar Bergman’s most controversial dramas, although its uncomfortable exploration of divine justice – or lack thereof – is undeniably thought-provoking.”

Why it made my list: I think I might have seen this one. I can’t remember. If it’s the movie I’m remembering, it is grim, stark, and ultimately depressing. My good friend Ken Danz used to say, “If it’s described as grim, stark, and depressing, I know I’m going to like it.” I’ll be watching this in memory of Ken.

 

One, Two, Three (1961)

Directed by Billy Wilder

Starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin

Plot: Hoping that it will get him a promotion, C.R. MacNamara (James Cagney), a minor executive in Coca Cola’s West Berlin branch, takes on the job of looking after his boss’s socialite daughter when she visits the city.

 Reception: Rotten Tomatoes – 91% positive based on 22 reviews. “Billy Wilder’s One, Two, Three is an uproarious Cold War satire, offering devastating critiques of both factions with an effortless touch and a powerhouse performance from James Cagney.”

Why it made my list: I haven’t seen many Billy Wilder films, but I know that he’s considered to be important. I like satire. And James Cagney? I’m in.

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A peek inside Paradise Palms, my botanical and sculpture gardens in Delray Beach…

Pinnate leaves of a betel nut palm (Areca catechu),                                                               

Also known as areca palm, Indian nut, Pinang palm, and catechu,this species of palm is believed to have originated in the Philippines. The seeds and leaves contain alkaloids such as arecaidine and arecoline, which, when chewed, are a stimulant.

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Bits and Pieces 

BAD: Crazy Court Decision in Australia 

A lot of weird stuff goes on in the land down under. Last week, I read that Australia’s highest court ruled that newspapers and television stations that post articles on Facebook can be sued for defamatory comments made by readers on such posts. Click here.

While you’re at it, read what I had to say about the legal ramifications of defamation here.

 

WORSE: We Killed… Who? 

After 13 American soldiers and dozens of civilians were killed in Kabul on August 29, the US launched a drone strike that, according to the Biden administration, targeted the terrorist responsible for their deaths. But turns out that the “terrorist” wasn’t a terrorist at all. It was Zemari Ahmadi, a worker for a US aid group. To make matters worse, the strike on Ahmadi’s car also killed 9 members of his family, including 7 children, who were in the car at the time.

Click here.

 

PUZZLING: 2 Stories CNN Didn’t Cover 

  1. Larry Elders, the conservative talk show host and Republican gubernatorial candidate (California), was attacked by about a dozen hecklers in Venice Beach. One of them, a White woman, yelled racial slurs at Elders (who is African-American) and then lobbed an egg at him. When a security guard stood in her way, she punched him.

Let me break this down. A White woman, on camera, wearing a gorilla mask, yells racist slurs at a Black man running for office.

The incident was widely reported on Fox and other conservative media outlets, but barely mentioned elsewhere. Click here and here

  1. A Google search will tell you that Ben Shapiro is, among other things, a political commentator whose views have been criticized by both the right and the left.

Shapiro vehemently denies being a White Supremacist, pointing out that he has actually received death threats from White Supremacist groups. But according to an internal document created by Google’s diversity training team for Google employees, he is part of the “White Supremacy Pyramid” responsible for fomenting racial hatred in the US.

Click here to watch Shapiro’s response.

Google denies that the document has anything to do with policy. But you have to wonder…

 

HOPEFUL: The Kids May Be Alright 

The state of racial divide today is worse than at any time in memory. Identity politics and Critical Race Theory, its imbecile bastard child, have set Blacks against Whites and Whites against Blacks as a matter of principle.

There are reasons that racial-based fear and animosity have seeped into our culture. But contrary to what some would have us believe, it is not natural.

This little video of two five-year-old friends reminds us that racism – towards any and every race – is a product of nurture, not nature.

 

 3 Bits About Korea: A Crash Course in the Difference Between Political and Economic Freedom and Central Control  

1.- In a recent issue of his blog, Bill Bonner wrote this:

Thank the long-suffering people of North Korea for their real-world/real-time test. The elite in North Korea has been telling them what to do for more than half a century… with predictable results – grinding poverty… and outright starvation.

And we are grateful. Otherwise, the theory – that the freer the society, the richer the people – would be just a theory… buttressed only by speculation, logic, and anecdotal evidence.

But the test on the Korean Peninsula was almost perfect. Same people. Same resources. Same climate. Same time (the test began in 1953). More or less the same starting position (the US had pulverized North Korea in the war; but so had it smashed up Japan and Germany).

The southerners chose freedom – moderated, as always, by government, social norms, and so forth.

The group in the North went for non-freedom… ruthlessly, sternly enforced by the Kim Il-Sung and then Kim Jong-Il communist governments.

The result? The South Korean economy is now nearly 100 times bigger than the economy of North Korea. The average South Korean has nearly 50 times more wealth.

He will live to an average age of 79, which is 11 years longer than the North Korean male (and a couple of years more than the average man in the US).

And to top it off, the free people of the South are between 1 and 3 inches taller than those in the North, thanks to getting enough to eat.

Conclusion: Freedom makes a big difference in the economic world.

2.- JS sent me this last week – an interview with Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector. Click here for this firsthand account of the North Korean lifestyle.

3.- Book Recommendation: Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor shares the remarkable story of Kim Yong, a former military official who spent six years in a gulag. Click here.

 

Unleash Your Inner Art Critic 

Take a look at this list of Rembrandt’s greatest hits. The critics pick their faves. Mine’s “Herman Doomer.” What’s yours?

Click here.

 

Well Said: 4 Worthy Thoughts 

* “Over the years, I’ve learned that the first idea you have is irrelevant. It’s just a catalyst for you to get started. Then you figure out what’s wrong with it and you go through phases of denial, panic, regret. And then you finally have a better idea and the second idea is always the important one.” – Jessica Livingston

* “Double down on your best relationship. It’s the investment with the highest return.” – James Clear

* “If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something, I can neither give nor receive.” – Dorothee Sölle

* “The ability to forget a sorrow is childhood’s most enchanting feature.” – Phyllis McGinley

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Tuesday, September 21, 2021, Delray Beach, Florida


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Fathers and Sons 

I looked through the little box next to my bed this morning, the one that contains the letter my mother sent to me before she died, advising me to work less and live more. The letter I’ve only been able to scan, not read slowly and contemplatively, as it deserves. The letter that whispers to me every time I set my eyes on that box.

I glanced at old photos and postcards – images of my life in Brooklyn, more than 60 years ago. Among them I found something else, a single page, typewritten and signed, simply, “Dad.”

It was a letter asking me to accept a check for $10,000 as a “house gift.” It must have been written in 2010 or 2011, when he was 81 or 82 (and I was 61 or 62), for it mentioned an operation that he’d recently had. They’d cut him open for some sort of intestinal problem, and then spotted the cancer that would – sometime later – kill him.

I didn’t remember having read it before. And yet there it was, in that keepsake box, right beside the letter from my mother.

Dear Mark,

I’ve asked D to deliver this check, your long-overdue house gift. Please don’t reject it or try to return it. Don’t think of it as money. My giving you money is like the proverbial sending coals to Newcastle or like me giving Warren Buffett a stock tip. Rather think of it as my finally fulfilling a promise I made to myself – that when each child was ready for family-making, I’d give them ten thousand to help with buying a house…

The next section of the letter was about his will. He explained that he’d revised it the day before his operation, noting that he’d complied with my wish to have the proceeds of his estate divided among my seven siblings, since I had no need.

In the last paragraph, he wrote:

What this means is not a matter of money but that you are one of my eight [children] that I love in eight different ways but with about the same amount of feeling…. Despite my growls, I am also proud of you… as a skillful businessman and a great giver…

The handwriting was elegant. (His mother was a schoolteacher and a disciplinarian.) The diction was clean. The sentiment was restrained. And the underlying message – which was barely mentioned – was about the gulf that had always existed between us, the gap that so often develops between fathers and sons during the latter’s adolescence, the gap that remains, however much they may try, later on, to bridge it.

This letter – this was all he could do. Just as all I can do is remember who he was and what he stood for.

My father graduated from high school when he was 16, in 1936, winning two citywide awards – one for math and one for English. He spent the next four years at Fordham University, studying English literature and dramaturgy, earning spending money by tutoring his fellow classmates in math.

Because of his natural gift for mathematics, he was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. Of course, he didn’t know what sort of work he would be doing. They told him only that he’d be applying his math skills to physics, which intrigued him. But he had his heart set on becoming a writer. So after some deliberation, he turned down the Manhattan Project and went looking for a job as a writer.

He landed work as a script writer and part-time actor for an ersatz Abbot and Costello comedy special that was being launched on the radio. (No TVs back then.) But on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He quit his job on the spot – actually in the middle of a recording session – and enlisted in the Navy.

He made his way up the ranks in the Navy quickly, but to his disappointment he never saw any action. He ended up captaining a ship in the China Sea (if I remember right) when the war ended.

After the war, he enrolled in a graduate program at Catholic University in Washington, DC. One of the courses he took was in dramaturgy. It was taught by a woman he instantly fell in love with. That is how our family began.

Soon after they were married, my parents moved to Guatemala, where he spent his daytime hours working on his writing and his evenings writing some more as a civilian security guard at the American Embassy.

That was in 1949, in the middle of an attempted coup d’etat that left 150 dead and 200 wounded. Their apartment was actually bombed. A shell came through a wall and landed, unexploded, in the bedroom. My father baptized my sister D, their first child, underneath the kitchen table.

Left with neither an apartment nor jobs, my parents came back to the States. To support his young family, my father got a job teaching English literature and drama at Fordham. Every year, a new child was born. He took on extra jobs on the side, but gave up his dream of being a writer in order to pay the bills.

He never griped about his decision. Throughout his adult life, he worked at least two, but often three, jobs. He and my mother taught their eight children that life is hard, and no one is entitled to anything. Work for what you want. Don’t complain if you don’t get it. Take responsibility. And leave the world – and every portion of the world that you inhabit – a little better than the way you found it.

My father was an academic and an intellectual. He had no interest in material things. For most of my childhood, the 10 of us lived in a small, four-bedroom house across the street from a municipal storage lot. I was embarrassed by our relative poverty.  I wanted, like my father, to be a writer and a teacher. But more than anything, I wanted to be rich.

By the time I bought my first rich-person’s house, my mother was already gone. My father visited many times, and he always made an effort to say something nice about the house or our luxury cars or something else that we had spent a grotesque amount of money on. It was clear that he wasn’t the least bit impressed by any of it. But he knew that becoming wealthy was important to me, and he was trying to breach the divide that always separates fathers and sons. Just as he was doing in that last letter to me.

(I don’t remember whether I cashed his $10,000 check or not. K tells me I didn’t. I hope I did.)

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How effective are the COVID vaccines at preventing transmission of the disease? Getting a straight answer to this question is particularly important now that we know that even vaccinated people are contracting the Delta variant. In this video testimony, an expert witness tries to clear up the confusion.

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