Recently in Personal Category

Sorry I've been so sporadic of late, but I've been concentrating on my new gig, working for a new short documentary publishing company called Cinelan. We launched it at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this month and it's a pretty cool new initiative. Check us out!

You are invited to join me, my family and friends as we celebrate and remember the life of my "unrepentant leftist" father, Victor Rabinowitz (July 2, 1911 - November 16, 2007) on Saturday, January 12th, 4pm at the NYU Law School, Tischman Auditorium, 40 Washington Square South, between Macdougal and Sullivan Streets.

Every year, when I was a child, my mother would throw lavish New Year's Day parties at our house in East Hampton. They had pretty much stopped by the time I was old enough to really enjoy them, but for a few years it was a tradition and all of our friends would come over for caviar, homemade blinis, champagne, martinis and I assume, a fair amount of Bloody Marys.

Well, my mother passed away on January 9th, 2005 and my father died this past November 16th and I miss them both very much. I will be selling the apartment they (and I) lived in for much of the past 30 years and in part to honor them and in part because I consider New Year's Day a much more interesting holiday than New Year's Eve, I am preparing to host my first ever New Year's Day party.

In typical fashion, I have let my ambition and natural hosting tendencies take control over the part of the brain that controls reason (the neocortex, I believe...erm...Wikipedia believes....) So, as a result, I am attempting to serve the following during the day...I'll let you know, with pix and hopefully testemony, on what I succeeded in preparing:

Morning:
Bagels and lox, coffee and juice.

Lunch/dinner:
Bonac Clam Pie
Smoked Sausage and Black Eyed Peas
Maine Shrimp Boil
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
Saucisson sec w/cornicons and truffle butter
Assorted cheeses, blue, stinky and others!
Sage beer cheese bread
Oysters Rattray (A family recipe from old family friends from East Hampton. Alas, sorrel was nowhere to be found, so I will have to make due with baby spinach and lemon juice to approximate the taste of the sorrel.)
Half a freshly smoked and glazed ham
And, if we have the energy tomorrow, cookies.

Here's a few shots of the prelims:

"Before" shots of my living room, kitchen and fridge:

The first chocolate bourbon pecan pie (the stuff around the edges is the sugary, chocolaty, pecany overflow. It's the stuff of gods):

On Friday night, November 16th my father, Victor Rabinowitz, passed away quietly at home. He was 96 and to say he had lived a full life would be a vast understatement. He was a truly great man of integrity who taught me appreciation for many things including politics, baseball, gardening, photography, chess, Shakespeare and classical music, among others. It was also because of him and my mother that I was able to travel at an early age and develop a love for other countries and cultures.

Despite my early (and continued) support for the dominant New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys, I was taught that in most situations, the underdog was to be supported and that those less fortunate deserved respect and wherever possible, a leg up. Among those items in the above list, "politics" is probably his lasting legacy to me, because it was through leftist politics that I learned an appreciation for all those things in which any good progressive believes.

Social programs designed to help the poor and infirm; the need for universal healthcare; the right of citizens in a so-called free society to speak out against the government when necessary (and even when not...it's one of those rights that works both ways); that people should be paid a fair living wage for a day's work and anything less than this is exploitation, regardless of the country in which it occurs; that the US is not the boss of the world and it is not our business to poke our nose in where it's not wanted simply to make a few rich, white Americans even richer (they can't get any whiter, trust me).

We spent endless hours discussing the miracle that is baseball. We both had an unending curiosity and appreciation for the sport and could watch it and talk about it for hours. His was such a long life that he once saw Ty Cobb steal home at Fenway Park and went to the 1928 World Series. I can only imagine what it must have been like. He also drove a Model-T Ford at summer camp (it was actually an old car at the time) and rode a trolley past dairy farms in Brooklyn to visit his grandfather in the early 1900's. I can't really imagine any of that, either. When he was born there were no commercial airplane flights and a short 58 years later (and 3 days after my birth) a man walked on the Moon. He saw both the rise and fall of the Soviet Union but missed the last Cubs World Series win by only 3 years. During his life there have been 17 presidents, from Taft to "W" and I dare say dad made some trouble for a few of them and they deserved it, too.

During the past few years of his life, his eyesight and hearing were in pretty bad shape, so much so that he could follow almost nothing on TV. As a result he was limited to C-Span, CNN and baseball games. Victor was such a principled and caring man and it's a real shame that aside from the midterm elections of 2006, recent years held little succor for a man of his politics and temperament. Despite huge gains in said election, the senate continues to be soft and tame under the flaccid "leadership" of Harry Reid and the lunatic, often racist ramblings of Lou Dobbs on CNN drove him batty. Even the Mets failed him this year, performing the worst collapse in baseball history.

He was ready to go, I think. None of us were ready for him to leave, of course, but you never are, really. I never got to show my dad my "chops," professionally, at least not in full. He was many things, but a man of the Information Age was not one of them. 11 years ago he published his memoirs and wrote them out longhand, on a yellow legal pad. This was not a man to whom it was easy to explain blogs or even indieWIRE, really. He was concerned about my ability to take care of myself financially, of course but I think he was most concerned and eventually pleased and proud, that I, along with my brother and sister, had grown up as a "good person." I like to think I have a good moral compass, positive personal values and goals and a healthy and appropriately concerned outlook on the world. It's to his and my mother's credit that they really never gave me anything to rebel against and as a result, the apple couldn't have fallen closer to the tree.

He was and remains, my hero. I miss him, greatly.

Here are a few obituaries that have been running over the past few days:

New York Times
International Herald Tribune
East Hampton Star
Time Magazine
Marjorie Cohn: The Huffington Post

Photo, L to R: Victor Rabinowitz, Dr. Benjamin Spock and Leonard Boudin © The Associated Press

My good pals Tom Hall and Matt Dentler each tagged me for this meme and while like Tom, I rarely post personal things on my blog, I agree with him that sometimes a little "meet the blogger" action is called for and so, to wit:

Rules:
1. I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.

2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.

4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged and that they should read your blog.
So, here we go:

1. When I was a tiny tot, maybe even pre-natally, I was dragged around the world by my parents and as a result I have developed incurable wanderlust. To date I have been to about 20 countries on four continents and am constantly looking for the next place to go. I've visited Communist Prague in 1974 (it's changed a bit) and Havana in 1983 and 1999, swam with penguins and fur seals in the Galapagos and Portuguese Men of War in Portugal (duh). I've driven across the US four times and this is a magnificently beautiful country. Where to, next?

Ok, so I have finally gotten around to switching from Buzznet (they are so '05) to Flickr and am in the process of posting pix, some with witty bon mots, even! So far, it starts at the indieWIRE anniversary party in late November 2006 up to Berlin, 2007. Keep checking back, as by the end of next week I hope to have a few years worth of pix loaded, most of which have never been in this blog before and many of which include you. Yes, you!

So come on by and check them out and comment, comment, comment!
Even better, join Flickr, put your own pix up and be my friend!

Thanks.

When a recognizable actor shows up as a guest at the beginning of a TV episode and doesn't feature for the next 45 minutes or so, he (or she) did it.

Oh yes, I am an idiot....

I don't usually post personal, erm, shortcomings on this blog, but once in a while, I do something so stupid as to warrant disclosure. As a result, I am naming myself a Stupid Bastard and giving myself a Bernie Award.

Last night I went to the party for upcoming IFC release and Tribeca Film Festival selection You Kill Me, directed by John Dahl and starring Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni and Luke Wilson. While it was a decent party (not too crowded, some nice vittles, good crowd) the DJ lost the plot about 1/3 of the way through the party, moving from a pretty hip selection of Smiths/Fratellis/Stroks/Perter Bjorn & John and the like to, well , crap. However, that's not my point. My point is, I am an idiot. Why? This is why:

This is Diana, the beautiful young Portuguese woman I met at the party. As you can see in the above photo, she is quite fetching and looks lovely in my fedora. Now, why am I stupid? Well, Diana and her friends (including her cousin who rather off the cuff decided I should marry Diana) went on after the party to a local club, asking me to go with them. But me? I went home.

Oh yes, I am an idiot.

In Praise of Calvin Trillin

I urge you all to read Calvin Trillin's Op-Ed piece in Friday's New York Times entitled "Park, He Said." At the very LEAST, it will give you a few minutes of laughter in a world disturbingly bereft of such (automatic meatloaf carver, anyone?). If, however, you're not familiar with Mr. Trillin's work, you'll be introduced to one of the shining lights of modern literature. A thoughtful, incisive and often laugh out loud funny chronicler of, well, things that suit his fancy. A satirist, as well as a top-notch food and travel writer and self-proclaimed doggerelist, "Bud," as he is known by friends (I name drop on behalf of my parents, not me) is a true original and should not be missed.

Airline Toilets and the General Public

Am I the only one who finds it disturbing that there's a sign in airplane lavatories that reads something like:

Disposing of anything other than toilet paper in the toilet can cause external leaks and poses a safety hazard.

Is it just me or does that read something like "If you try to flush a load of solid objects down this loo, you might just bring this plane down." Sounds like an invitation to a deranged (or simply determined) passenger. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer that the idea not even be hinted at. How about a little lie? Something like: "Using anything other than toilet paper in this lavatory risks damaging the toilet and causing the entire plane to smell like poo?" That would sure stop me from pouring a load of ball bearings down the bog and might not give some nutty nut bar any bad ideas.

Just a thought.

My sincerest apologies for my lack of updates. Some recent events in my life have kept me mentally and emotionally occupied and to be honest, I just haven't been in the mood for blogging. However, life goes on, as they say, so on with the posting!

Coming soon:
More from AFI, Denver, the iW 10th anniversary party, Holiday parties, my thoughts on some year-end films, awards, politics, etc., etc.

So, as I was sitting in one of my 5 or 6 neighborhood Starbucks, the ceiling decided to cave in. Crash! Bang! Boom!

Just in can you all wanted to know what I might look like if I had the balls to grow my hair out the way some have suggested....

Dan Mirvish, one of the original shining lights of the US indie film scene and co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival, was recently seriously injured at his Los Angeles home, according to Film Threat. I first read the news about 30 minutes ago on Matt Dentler's blog and I was searching his post and Film Threat to find the funny, because this couldn't really be true. Alas, it seems to be.

Upon reading the report I quickly realized that no one in their right mind would make this up and my heart sank.

Last night, as I was looking in my freezer for something or other (it's not a very crowded frezer) I spied something against the back wall. Reaching in, I pulled out this:

Can anyone explain how one of my cufflinks came to reside in my freezer?

6:08 PM iChat with Brian Brooks :

Me: I'm drunk.

Brian: what's the occasion?

Me: Thursday?