Boroughs
Adapted and directed by, and starring Edward Norton, Motherless Brooklyn has been released. It is based on the 1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem. In gazing at the film’s cast of characters, it’s obvious that changes have been made. One is very disappointing, the absence of my second favorite character, a sort of femme fatale. I just finished the novel. I don’t know if any other work has had someone with Tourette’s Syndrome as its protagonist. Kudos to the author, born in Brooklyn in 1964, who dared to do it. A first person account, it’s the story of four teenage orphans who go to work for a low level criminal, mostly loading and unloading stolen goods. When a murder occurs, Lionel Essrog feels compelled to solve it. His affliction is perfect cover, as people assume he isn’t very bright. The plot is okay. The main interest is the character, the situations in which he finds himself. Some are quite amusing, such as a meditation session attended by Buddhist bigshots. I particularly liked this thought on the penultimate page: “… the labyrinth that runs under the world, which everyone pretends is not there.” This is a character, book that may endure. 311 pages, it’s not an easy read. The author’s vocabulary is impressive, and the hero’s verbal tics are at times very odd. Of course, that may be entirely true to those who suffer the condition. I have minimal experience with it, recalling only one sufferer, a clerk at the Commodity Exchange who was very intelligent. 343 users at Amazon have rated Motherless Brooklyn, forging to a consensus of 4.2 on a scale of five. It received the National Book Critics Award. It would appeal most to those who enjoy offbeat fare. Lethem is prolific. He has eleven novels and a novella in print, five short story collections, one comic book series, and numerous essays. I look forward to the release of the film to DVD, even though Alec Baldwin is in it. Here’s Edward Norton in character:
The Dick Van Dyke Show has been running on Decades, channel 5–5 on over the air antennas in NYC, Monday-Friday at 10PM. The closing credits often list John Rich as the director. I recognized the name from All in the Family. Born in Rockaway in 1925, he had a phenomenal run behind the camera, almost exclusively in TV, although he directed two Elvis films. He did 81 episodes of …Family, 41 of …Van Dyke, 43 of Benson, 26 of Gomer Pyle, 19 of That Girl and many other popular prime time shows, mostly sitcoms. WWII interrupted his education at the University of Michigan, where he returned to earn his degree after serving as an Army Air Force navigator. He passed away in 2012. Kudos, sir. Here he is:
Amusing headline at nypost.com: “First male birth control injection coming soon to a penis near you.” And another from foxnews.com: “Man, 74, divorcing 21-year-old wife after she reportedly cheated with 60-year-old reality show contestant.”
Fortunately, my car was parked in the prime spot. I set up the display and spent 90% of the time in the old Hyundai, out of the nasty wind blowing along Av. Z. My thanks to the gentleman who bought three books in Russian, and to the one who purchased A Year in Japan by Kate T. Williamson; and to the man with the little boy’s voice, who selected yet another book on Zen.
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