If your award comes from Trump, do you qualify as an honoree?
Saturday we drove to the just-opened Old World Polish Deli in Fort Lauderdale to buy kabanosy (small sticks of garlicky sausage) and stuffed cabbage. On the way, we passed the new Kimchi Mart where I buy my kimchi. Both stores are small gifts of the immigration that our burger-loving leader is trying to stop.
The death of Rob Reiner touched me more deeply than most celebrity deaths, in large part because it's almost as if I know the family. My favorite TV show growing up was The Dick Van Dyke Show, which was created, and co-written, by Rob’s father Carl. (He also sometimes appeared in it, playing, apparently totally out of character, the draconian boss, Alan Brady.) And then, one decade later, I watched, with most of America, All in the Family, in which Rob played Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law.
A couple of years ago I watched Rob’s documentary about his longtime friend Albert Brooks, and heard them in interviews, talking about their days growing up in L.A. The day they met in high school, Brooks tried to impress Reiner by saying he knew Carl Reiner, to which Rob replied: “I do too. He’s my father.” My favorite story was the one Rob told of wanting, as a child, to change his name. He mentioned this to his mother, who understood that it must be difficult growing up in the shadow of such a famous man. She asked him what he wanted to change his name to. He said he wanted to change it to Carl.
Carl Reiner died five years ago at the age of 98. Dick Van Dyke just celebrated his 100th birthday. In a sane world, Rob Reiner would have many happy years ahead of him.
A shooting at Brown. A shooting in Sydney. Looking for solace, we drove to Miami yesterday afternoon for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. A few of the lessons were read in Spanish; the first verse of Silent Night was sung in Spanish, French, and then English. The congregation, like the Anglican Chorale, was a mix of WASPs, Blacks, and Hispanics. In his announcements, the Very Reverend Jason Roberson asked us to remember in our prayers especially “our Jewish siblings.”
Yesterday Hania was wrapping presents in the living room while I was writing cards here in the office, and I thought: We have a regular Santa’s workshop here.
We watched Jay Kelly last night and when it was over Hania said what I’d been thinking: That the presentation of the loveless, self-centered movie star was heavy-handed. And while the movie has faint echoes of Fellini’s 8½, George Clooney doesn’t have the gravitas to play an existential antihero, à la Mastroianni. Not with that thousand-watt smile, which he employs frequently. Also, he seems too much of a nice guy in real life to play a heartless one in a movie.