on Woody Allen on November 22nd

PBS, running a good piece on Woody Allen on American Masters. A man who tells jokes because that's what he does, writing jokes in his head basically as he walks down the street. It's what he does. It's what he does in interviews throughout this piece. And we, the viewer, are left with saying to ourselves, 'this is what he does, he is funny, he tells jokes, and the jokes are about real life.' It's a perfect dovetail. It's poetry, truly, like Larkin is a poet.

Any writer would almost be envious. Here's a guy, writing about his own life, and making it funny. Like, for instance, there is Diane Keaton's grandmother, who really was a good deal anti-Jew. He's funny, and he's wonderful.

But then one realizes, you know, what today's date is, and it's a not so funny day. It's November 22nd. And we are edging up to the 50th anniversary, if that is the term for it, of a very very horrible day, an event, who knows what to call it.

My lovely mom tells a story. It was close to my brother's birthday, a little party for kids, out in Berkeley, when my father, my father was out there getting a PhD. later in career, able to switch, quite ably, as he was, from old school classic botany, to electronic microscopy, teacher on one hand, scientist on the other, and anyway, what's on the radio around noon or early afternoon out on the West Coast, as my young mom turns the dial looking for music that will go with cake and games for 2 and 3 and 4 year olds, with a little happy glamour, but, on every station, somber music, classical music. Every station. Bach? Barber? Mahler? Chopin? (Today, would that be done? One hopes.) You are not in Massachusetts, you're in San Fran, with 2 year old handsome baby boy, new at being a mom, and somehow, somehow, someone is, or is about to tell you, at this modern age, that Kennedy--what else can you call him--that Kennedy, oh, what to say, an Irishman, a Prince, a young energetic cultured funny guy, that he has, here in the United States of America, most civilized country in the world, that he, the youthful President who said those great lines on a cold day, unfurling his great talent, had been instantly murdered, was, yes, dead, dead, killed, murdered, dead by all reports anyway, and that, somehow--and this was bad too, on top of everything, and just showed you how obvious it was to everyone that, in one moment, in one weird horrible gunshot act, or Walter Cronkite with glasses, or all the radio bulletins that came out of news flashes, that he, he, was dead--everyone knew, instantly, all news sources, that he was dead, that basically, he was shot in the head, and that it was the most devastating sort of a thing. And of all the heads to shoot, on top of a million other things.

The Umbrella Man, in today's Times... an interesting little piece about, you know, the usual conspiracy theories. Turns out Mr. Umbrella Man, who later was identified, and testified on Capitol Hill for the assassination committee was really just making, interestingly enough, given Why England Slept, JFK's senior Harvard thesis about Chamberlain's acquiescence to Hitler, a small protest of his own sort, the umbrella being the very signature of Neville Chamberlain, really a pointed jab on the protester's part against the old man, Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK's dad, who, as we know, was a bit 'let's not get involved.'

Woody Allen, I don't know, would he make a joke of some sort, about something that day, or a joke about conspiracy theories, or about a lone gunman? Would Woody ever play Oswald in a tee shirt, drinking a Dr. Pepper, eating a thigh of fried chicken looking out the Book Depository window?

The clock ticks, and it's November the 22nd, and something there is about this day that hangs in silence and sends a chill down the soul and leaves us feeling alone.

A free way on-ramp, or leading up to it... America changed for ever, more so than by 9/11.

What happened on that day? Why does one feel it so? Why does it hit one in the stomach so? Why does it appall so much? Well, of course it does.

Woody Allen gives us jokes and good movies. With pretty girls around him. And us, the rest of us, or you or me in particular... I know we take something from Mr. Allen, as far as candor, but... we have November 22nd Syndrome, for good reason, and it's hard to get rid of, and maybe it is, given the horror of real history, a realistic thing.

Your correspondent, to use a Hemingway phrase, is 46 at the writing of this, the same age of President Kennedy that day, in fact, older by about 4 months, so...