This is not a picture of my mother.  It comes pretty darn close.  She was 89 when she passed away.  She was small, about 5'3" and 95 pounds, somewhat short-cut gray hair.  She also had polio, and then late in her life developed something that's called post-polio -- it weakens the neck muscles, and so her head drooped.  (When she sat down, though, her head would fall back into its normal position, and sometimes she wore a neck brace.)

When I saw this picture below, I almost burst into tears.  I don't mean that in a metaphoric, social media kind of  way, where so many people "literally started crying" when they post a photo of a heart-breakingly cute puppy.  I mean I almost burst into tears.  And when I'd look at the picture again, several times, the same wave of emotion returned, each time

The one thing I know about my mother, though, was that as frail as she was, she was one of the strongest people I've ever known.  Again, I mean that quite literally.  I won't go through the litany of physical things she dealt with her whole life, but will just say that when that's your life, she just accepted it and plowed on and never complained.  As in, never.

(Okay, once. When she was 85 and had a stroke, that happily she recovered from, followed by macular degeneration, I was talking with her on the phone and ran through the litany of issues she'd dealt with her whole life, and then asked something I never had before, "So, mom, do you ever look up to the sky and say, 'Okay, God, I get it.  You can move on to someone else now."?  There was a brief pause, and then she said as simply as possible, "Yes."  That was the closest I ever came to hearing her complain.  And that was only because I asked.

I can't say that that's the same for this lady in the photo.  I hope it is.  But even when you plow on and don't ever complain, life is still there, sometimes pounding you.  

And so I look at this photo with great difficulty.  And anger at the hoarding.  And at the figure in charge who called it all a "hoax.

A couple weeks ago, I wrote here about my friend, novelist and ad litem children's advocate Gay Courter who was quarantined on the Diamond Princess with her husband Phil.  The happy news is that they're well and finally back home.​

​Huzzah.

She said it all played out like a B-movie and even had a crazy ending.  As Gay explained, "When the mayor of San Antonio said we radioactive zombies couldn’t enter his town, one of my travel insurance policies went into effect and they sent a private jet to take us home.  That part was fun."

There's sort of an an odd bonus ending to the tale, as well.  During the quarantine, the cruise line put out a notice on behalf of the passengers, which I came across on their website when trying to track down news of the Courters' status.  It said -- 
 
“Because of the extraordinary circumstances onboard Diamond Princess, the company is refunding the full cruise fare for all guests including air travel, hotel, ground transportation, pre-paid shore excursions, gratuities and other items. In addition, guests are not being charged for any onboard incidental charges during the additional time onboard. Princess Cruises will also provide guests with a future cruise credit equal to the cruise fare paid for the voyage."
 
I thought, boy, was that ever clever of Gay and Phil.  The lengths some people will go to get out of paying for a cruise.  And get another for free!  Mind you, I'm not sure if going on another cruise is high on their list, at least for now.  But perhaps in the future.  After all, they have it in writing, and as Gay wrote back, "Yes, now they are stuck with the deal!"
 

Sorry to hear that the great Swedish actor Max Von Sydow passed away at the age of 90.  I only had one occasion where I crossed paths with him, but it was memorable.

It was back in my dark days when I was doing movie PR, though working on staff as the head writer in the marketing department before I headed into freelance unit publicity on individual movies.  I found being on staff a bit more palatable for my taste.

At one point, we had picked up a bunch of movies from an independent company to release (I think it was the British firm EMI), and they didn't tend to have all the PR material we needed, so I would have to fill in the holes.  And on this instance, for the movie Flash Gordon, there was no biography for Max Von Sydow -- who played 'Ming the Merciless -- and as someone so renowned, I had to interview him and put a bio together.  He was in town briefly, so we set up a meeting.

I was a bit intimidated.  After all, I was still just slightly past being a kid, and he was...well, Max Von Sydow.  He was a legend for starring in films by Ingmar Bergman, including the classic The Seventh Seal (in which he famously played chess with Death), The Virgin Spring and The Magician.  He starred as Jesus Christ in the blockbuster The Greatest Story Ever Told.  Played the priest in The Exorcist.  And during his career, he got two Oscar nominations.  And was in both the Star Wars series and Game of Thrones.  And tons more.  And since, once he started making films in Hollywood he so often played villains or cold, distant characters, he was all the more foreboding. 

So, it was with a great deal of trepidation that I went to the meeting.  Unsure what on earth I could conceivably ask someone so renowned internationally, a major figure in film history.

He turned out to be one of the kindest, most thoughtful actors -- or film person, period -- I ever dealt with.  Though I was there to interview him for the production notes of the presskit, he spent almost more time asking me questions.  
  
It was a bizarre experience. At one point, I almost wanted to say, "Stop it! Le ME ask YOU my questions already!" And it wasn't just random questions he was asking, but follow-ups on what I'd said because he was interested.  Maybe it was part of his actor training to learn about people and study them.  Maybe it was because he'd been acting for so long (and went on to actor for another 30 years...) and had done so many interviews that he was tired of just talking about himself -- something, if that were the case, deeply rare for an actor, and to his credit on that alone.  Maybe it was because he was just a very nice fellow.  It felt like the latter.  Because it felt like just a very warm, pleasant conversation.

Which it was.

Far more so than this --
​

As you likely heard on the news, there were very long lines in California, in part because so many people voted, but mainly because it was a new system, and there were screw-ups.  To off-set them, California also instituted early voting for five days -- and in some areas for 11 days.  And they also sent everyone a vote-by-mail ballot.  And you could vote at any Election Center in your city, let alone in the state.  Still, though, most people waited to Election Day.

The Los Angeles Times wrote an article on it.
​

Readers of these pages will know that I often write about my friend Myles Berkowitz who, among his many other talents, is a unique individual with a unique personality and very politically-centered and active.  He is neither a Democrat, Republican or even an Independent, but what I refer to as a Mylesist, a unique political philosophy that encompasses one person and can probably only ever be understood by one person.  He will often register as a Democrat to vote in the primaries, but he is most definitely not a Democrat.  In fact, I'm sure he'd register as a Republican if he felt their primary was the more important one.  (For all I know, he has, though I don't think so.)

I mention all this because that quote above used in the Los Angeles Times headline is from -- Myles Berkowitz!  (Hey, I've told you want a unique guy he is.  I tries nots to lie to you.)

You can find the full article here, but this is the passage that deals with Myles --
​

What should have included in the article next was --

​Said his friend Bob Elisberg – “I told Myles to vote early and that the Felicia Mahood Center was close to him.  And I even told him that I myself had voted early there, and that I was only the only voter at the center at the time. (In fairness, it was an early Sunday morning.)  And today on Election Day when he called to tell me how much-too crowded the Hammer was and that he wanted to find someplace else to go, I told him again that he should go to the Felicia Mahood Center…which he did!  But he didn’t stay there.  I told him.  I told him.  I told him.  Not that I want to say 'I told you so,' or anything, mind you…  But I’ll bet you cash money that he’s complaining to you about how screwed up the new voting system is.  But I told him!!  Not that I want to say, 'I told…' oh, you know.  He’s a good guy, and I feel for him.  I’m really sorry he had to go through all that.”  Elisberg turned to walk away, but then stopped and turned back.  “But I told him.”

Okay, in fairness to Myles, he had a few funny comments that he told the reporter who left them out of the article.  One thing was that he said, "I took my 14-year old daughter with me to vote. But it was taking so long I had to leave her back at home.  By the time I finished she'd have been able to vote herself."

Another was -- "We often read about how in Third World nations there are people who walk across the countryside to get to a polling place just so that they can cast their ballot.  They voted faster than I did."

And then, since jokes come in threes, he added, "I think the State of California intentionally made this as terrible as possible because they want to convince people to vote by mail."

I will do Myles one other big favor.  The only thing about the article that bothered him is that it identifies him as a Bill Clinton voter in 1992 -- who he hates (though being a Mylesist nonetheless begrudgingly supported).  So, I thought I'd be nice to the guy, given how long it took him to vote, driving around town from one polling place to another, and clarify that point publicly for him.

When I spoke with him this morning, I had one question that bothered me -- how was he able to vote, I thought one had to be in line before 8 PM to be allowed to vote after the cut-off .  "I did, I finally got in line by the deadline," he said.  Ahh, I replied, when we talked during the evening, I had thought he wasn't in line before 8 PM.  He burst out laughing, "I was in THREE lines before 8 PM.  I just kept leaving them."

So, finally did get to vote and at last got home.  The good news is that he did not leave it in order to find another home that was more convenient.

The inveterate Chris Dunn sent me the link to an article in the New York Times about the botched quarantine for the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.  It was a terrific, detailed, fascinating article, which you can find here,  but that's not the reason he sent it.  It was because it turns out that someone we both know from a long while back is mentioned several times in the piece, and she and her husband even have several photo credits.  It's a lovely lady named Gay Courter, who is a successful novelist and non-fiction writer and also has served as an advocate ad litum for kids in children's court.  We haven't been in touch very often in the intervening years -- she lives in Florida -- though we did exchange emails a few years back.

I  just sent her off a note -- and though I'm sure when you're written up in the New York Times you get inundated by emails, I heard back from her fairly quickly.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that -- it turns out that she and her husband are still isolated, so I guess there isn't a whole lot to do after a while, and answering emails is high on the list of activities.  She says that so far they haven't tested positive for the disease, and wake up every day to reveille, making her think that she's Private Benjamin.  She added that they spend time thinking of sick jokes, and asked if I had any new quarantine quips for her...

(I didn't have any quips, though a couple of Fun Facts she could pass along.  Several years back, I finally made it through the entire Will and Ariel Durant Story of Civilization, reading one volume a year over the holidays.  In one of them, they wrote about a major outbreak of some virus (I forget exactly when this was or for what) between France and Italy.  As a result, people had to be isolated on an island for 40 days.  The French word for “40” is – quarante.  Hence, quarantine!  (Also, the word in Italian for island is “isola.”  Which brings us – isolation.)
 
By the way, Gay has a well-regarded book (4.5 stars on Amazon out of 5)  about her experience as a child advocate, I Speak for This Child.  If you're interested, you can find it here.)

All that aside, there was one weird thing in the New York Times article, part of  a chart with a Q&A on the virus.  At one point it says, “Scientists have estimated that each infected person could spread it to somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people without effective containment measures.”  Now, as far as I can tell, the way it is with human beings, “somewhere between 1.5 and 3.5 people” can only be 2 or 3 people.  I mean, I’ve scratched my brain as hard as I can and am not yet aware of any other figure it could be.  As such, saying “…could spread it to 2 or 3 people” is a shorter and far more clear way of expressing that.

I've written here in the past about what a terrific artist my cousin Diana Leviton Gondek is, who works out of the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago, where she's an artist-in-residence.  I'm biased, of course, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong.  (Among other things, she was commissioned to make life-size fiberglass horses to honor fallen Chicago police officers, of which one work was displayed at Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's office.  And she was commissioned to do the artiwork for the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics, which got its start in Chicago.)  You can see much of her work here, in case you want to see some actual visual evidence.

It was therefore a treat to read an absolutely wonderful article about Diana -- described as "Famed American artist" (which admittedly may come as a surprise to Jackson Pollock, though it allowed her to write me back, addressed as "Dear Cousin of Famed Artist") -- for an international women's magazine, eShe Magazine, published out of New Delhi, India. 

The article is detailed, but not terribly long, and I heartily recommend it -- biased as I am -- for the stories she tells about how she got from there to here.  What stood out most to me was talking about her mother, my Aunt Iris, who was an inspiration and so supportive of her.  It couldn't have been otherwise, since Aunt Iris was as close to being the living incarnation of 'Auntie Mame' as anyone I've ever come across -- though in fairness, that's help by her being my actual aunt.  Something not even Diana can claim.

You can read the full article here.

Unrelated to the article, but part of the whole "This is Diana" picture, she mentioned to me a wonderful-sounding workshop she's putting together for an Art of Epilepsy Exhibition, done with young artists who have epilepsy. After they finish their paintings on what life story they wish to tell, Diana will then create a sort of montage, "our version of the Chagall’s American Windows," is how she puts it, with the hope being to have it all come together at the Epilepsy Conference this fall.  The Neurologist in charge of the overall project, Dr. Julie Thompson-Dobkin, said she wants to use Diana's idea in other states where the exhibition is shown.

(If you don't know the Chagall American Windows, they're a mosaic he did for the Chicago Art Institute.  Here's a photo I took of it, which is three large panels together.)

And just so we end on Diana, and not that Chagall fellow -- who, great and famed as he is, he is not American, nor Diana, here is one of her horses, this the one outside then-Mayor Emmanuel's office. 

(Side note:  After I took the photo at City Hall, I spent a while there typing away on my cell phone.  As this whole process took a while -- including quite a few attempts trying to find the best angle to get the horse, door and Mayor's sign in the frame. with the cordoned-off area in the way -- it eventually caught the attention of some official people there who politely but pointedly asked me, "Er, sir, what are you doing??"  I explained that my cousin designed the horses and I was trying to write an email to her, tapping letter-by-letter with my thumbs, not one of my top skills, and figuring out how to send the picture.  That satisfied their concern, and since they all expressed how much they liked the horse, I even got bonus points for being Cousin of Famed Artist, a title I am now considering putting on my business cards)

I was very sorry to read about the passing yesterday of Terry Jones at the age of 77, one of the members of Monty Python.  He'd been very ill for a while with a form of dementia that, among other things, took away his ability to speak the last few years of his life.

I had the opportunity to spend some time with him once in 1983.  I don't have any specific memories of conversations, but strong general ones.  And they're very positive I was working at Universal Pictures at the time, and we released the movie, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.  As party of my job, I set up a screening of the film and held a Q&A with the Pythons who participated.  Only four of the Python were there -- though, of course, four Pythons is still high cotton.  But the two who weren't involved were my two favorites, Michael Palin and John Cleese.  But I certainly liked the other four -- Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam -- who were involved, although Jones was probably my least favorite actor of the group, and I of course didn't know Gilliam much since he was mostly the cartoon animator.

Needless to say, as happy as I was by the occasion, I was still a bit disappointed.  I spent a little time with the four fellow earlier in the day when they came to the studio offices, and then on the stage after the screening.  They were all reasonably pleasant, a little distant but fine.  But Terry Jones was an absolute, utter joy.  Warm and friendly as could be, a real gentleman, gracious and kind.  During the Q&A, he was in the seat next to me, and continued being as nice as before, and thoughtful, funny and supportive in his answers.  He had directed to movie, as he did all the Python movies (the movies that Terry Gilliam directed were separate from the group, though he directed a short film about accountancy pirates that preceded The Meaning of Life), so he had more to talk about from the production end, but he didn't hog the stage and was just a gem.  I wish I remembered specifics, but I'm glad how clearly I recall the generality.  I adored him ever since.

Small side note.  The Pythons tended to work in two-man teams, and Terry Jones generally worked with Michael Palin.  A few years before my Q&A experience, my friend Rob Hedden had made a documentary on the making of the film Brazil, that Michael Palin was in,  And as I wrote about in more detail here, Rob said that his experiences with Palin, and from the outtakes he showed me, Palin was just an absolutely wonderful guy.  And I've subsequently read and heard Pythons say how nice he was.  So, it didn't come as a shock when it turned out that Michael Palin and Terry Jones were partners.  What a nice team they must have been.

In addition to his Python acting and directing, Terry Jones also wrote a lot of books, including several non-fiction historical work book, and hosted TV programs on history.  I've only read one of his books, I believe it was his first and highly recommend it, a short children's book of a collection of short Fairy Tales.  The stories are a joy, very funny and generally sardonic.  The only about a rain drop may be the shortest and my favorite.  If you do get a copy, his admonition in the introduction is worth following.  He says that these began life as stories he told his children at night and are best read aloud.  I tried that on a few, even just to myself alone in a room, and he was right.  As good as they were when written, they sparkled when spoken.  You can find it here.  This is a link to the Alibris website, since the copies sold by third-party vendors on Amazon are around $60.
​

Rather than show clips of some of his appearances in movies, I've decided instead to show Terry Jones being Terry Jones.  So you can see. 

My pal Jeff Melvoin has been out of the country for probably eight months or so -- perhaps longer -- working in England as the sort of showrunning consultant on the upcoming season of the BBC hit show Killing Eve.  (Sorry, I don't know his exact title on this, though he was showrunner on such series as Designated Survivor, Army Wives, Alias, Early Edition, Picket Fences and much more, and runs the WGA showrunner program).

Production for the season has wrapped, and so he returns to these shores today -- just as Harry and Meghan leave, as wel, and the impeachment trial starts.  Coincidence?  I think not.

But it's good to have him back, and in his honor I offer this song from the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical Fiorello! by Harnick and Bock -- :"Home Again."

Classical musical station KUSC in Los Angeles has done some weird things over the years, mostly during the last five or so.  This concerns one of my bugaboos.  It's not anything major, just personal.  But then, that's the point of a bugaboo. The underlying theme behind all of them at KUSC is that the station has been dumbing down its programming. It's still quite respectable.  Just less so than before.  And if such things are needed to keep classical music on the radio dial, I get it.   I know we're lucky to have a classical musical station in Los Angeles unlike many cities.  Though I've heard classical music stations in some of the other cities that still do have theirs, and the level of weirdness is less.  Then again, in fairness, this is Los Angeles.  Though in equal fairness, because this is Los Angeles, the entertainment center of the U.S., if you're going to do shtick, you'd better do it really well because the competition is strong.

Anyway, back to the show.  And what follows is nothing especially substation -- just another one of my occasional personal bugaboo tales --

​Between 7-8 in the morning, which is generally when I get up, the station started two features about 10-15 years ago.  The first of these features, which comes on at 7:15 is the "Off to School" request selection.  I wrote about it here at great length, so I will spare you and not repeat it all again. The very short version is that it's a perfectly fine idea in theory -- letting kids request a classical music selection in the morning -- but is dismal in practice. Not only because they eventually realized that not enough kids were requesting classical music, so they've had to expand the "Off to School" concept to the point of meaningless, by now allowing requests from just about anyone in the world who has children regardless of age or has grandchildren or students, or who knows someone who may have once been a child -- but also because when an actual child does request something, it's almost always a movie theme (which isn't classical music) and usually the theme from Harry Potter.

The other feature comes along around 7:45 in the morning, the Great Composer Quiz.  Again, in theory it's a perfectly nice idea.  The host who created the idea at least put in the time to come up with thoughtful clues before playing a piece of music by the Great Composer who you were supposed to guess.  He was a bit overly-pedantic in presenting the quiz, making it seem Oh-So-Important ("...and so...who IS...today's -- GREAT...COMPOSER??!") but it was handled fine, and an okay guessing game.  

When a new host came in, though, his heart was never in it.  And worse, he didn't want to risk any listening not possibly missing the right answer, so it came across like he didn't try to come up with clues until five minutes before, and his clues would be things like, "Okay, today's Great Composer was German, and famous for writing operas like The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro, and a movie was made about his life that won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and he was considered a child prodigy who had a rival name Antonio Salieri and his name rhymed with "oat-zart."  And here's a piece of music he wrote -- and would then play "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."  But what made it worst of all is that after all these clues, he'd say, "Okay, I think after all of that you should really be able to get it now!!" which not only is not the point of a quiz, but it only served to make listeners feel really terrible if after all those easy clues they couldn't guess it.

I only bring this up today because this morning they went from the ridiculous to the sublime  There was a new host today -- I don't know if this is temporary or permanent, though she did a nice job -- and it doesn't seem like she has quite grasped the best way to handle the Great Composer Quiz yet.  It was actually sort of funny.  From "You will probably be able to guess this even if you have never listened to classical music in your life and accidentally just landed on this station today", we now are at "You probably won't be able to guess this unless you have a PhD in musical composition and a Ouija board."

I am not exaggerating today's Great Composer Quiz.  The clues were basically -- "Today's composer was born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia.  He only ate fish.  He was a bachelor.  And he was part of a group known as 'The Five.'  So, who is today's Great Composer?"  Okay, on three, all together, one -- two...wait, the looks on your faces suggest that those clues didn't help much.  Not to worry, I'm not too big to admit I didn't have a clue either.  But then I thought, well, maybe, the piece of music will ring a bell with me.  No, it didn't.  Not the slightest idea.

So, I waited to hear who the Great Composer was.  I know there are a lot of well-regarded classical composers whose names I recognize, but don't know all that well.  People like Scriabin, Monteverdi, Purcell, Donizetti, Messiaen, and such, composers I've heard of but know very little about and would have a hard time recognizing their music.  Though I know that experts would know them well.

And so, who was today's Great Composer who likes fish, is a bachelor and was born in Nizhny Novgorod?  It was none other than -- Mily Balakirev!!

And I hear the collective "Ahhhhhhhhh, of course!!  It was Balakirev!" from all of you.

I suppose that KUSC will continue to run these features for a while -- probably a long while.  And that's okay.  At heart, the idea behind them is fine.  And I am certain that there are many many who loooove the.  Fair enough. (And fair enough, too, that there are those who don't.)  It is just my fondest wish that if the station is going to have Fun Features that they actually figure out how to make them fun.  And make them work properly.  And not just be time fillers to seem clever and audience-involving when instead they handle them like afterthoughts.

Handel.  Now, if that was the Great Composer, I might have been able to guess it...

For the past three weeks, the country has been pretty-well inundated with Trump, Ukraine and impeachment.  And though we're all getting largely the same news, the challenge has been keeping up, missing some and hearing how different people analyze it.  So, it was sort of weird and refreshing yesterday to get an aspect of the story from a totally different perspective. 

Not a deep, substantive perspective, just one skimming across the surface.  Still, though,when a different angle shows up in a sea of All the Same, you appreciate it.

I was talking with a cousin yesterday, when a thought occurred to me.  "Your wife," I said, as the little light bulb went on above my head, "she's from Ukraine, isn't she?!"

Actually, I knew she was from Ukraine.  We'd discussed it briefly a year ago or so, but on a totally different story at the time, of course.  Back then, the news was about Paul Manafort, his coming trial and how his PR company had been paid over $60 million by Ukraine.  What bemused her about it all was that that may have been more than the entire military budget of the country.

And I knew, too, that my grandfather Morton Leviton was from Ukraine. He was born in Odessa, and came to the United States early on, getting his naturalized citizenship in 1912 at the age of 27. He became an architect though passed away long before I was born.  He was my mother’s father, and she absolutely, totally adored him, naming my brother John’s middle name was after him.  His wife, my Grandma Rose, was one of the utter joys of my life.

But much of that sort of stayed resting in the back of my mind, relaxing amid the Trump circus. I certainly remembered my grandfather's connection to Ukraine, but that was such a minor part of everything, it fell mostly in the Bemused Category.

So, it wasn't until yesterday talking with my cousin that the far greater connection he had -- and far greater connection his wife has -- bubbled to the surface.  (The two of them actually met in Ukraine, for that matter, so his knowledge of the country was more than tangential.  And hers is continual, still with family there and in regular contact.)

What I was curious about was how this story -- one that is so profoundly consuming on a non-stop hourly basis to the United States for it being centered on the likely impeachment of the president and which is focused entirely on Ukraine as the foundation of it all -- is seen in Ukraine.  Was something this overwhelmingly impactful to the United States as big a news story in Ukraine...or of so little interest that it doesn't even register much.

And the answer, he said, is the latter.

It just isn't much of a story there.  And there are two reasons -- one thoroughly understandable, the other a bit bemusing.  The first, he said, is that the far, far, far bigger story there is that the country is actually in a war with Russia, and the survival of the country is at the core of people's lives. Not a constitutional issue 3,000 miles away.  (Although of course it's worth nothing that at the heart of that constitution issue of impeachment is the matter of holding up $391 million in military aid to the country in their fight.)  The other reason, more on the whimsical side, is that given how totally corrupt Ukraine is, another country's corruption is meaningless to them.  In fact, in many ways it's just a given.  Not even remotely headline news.

As I said, this is not earth-shattering, deep perspective on the story.  But it certainly is intriguing to look at this swamp from a different angle.  And even, when it gets a bit overwhelming, somewhat nice...