~NORA EPHRON – YOU FLEW !!
from the 6 yr old, cute as homemade cheery pie – Hushpuppy of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD – the quintessential under-educated but dreamy-wise day-to-day tough survival artist & futurist of the Louisiana backwater bathtub – who hears the voices of her dead mother and of all living animals (!!) by holding their bodies to her ear like a telephone, and who sees the icebergs cracking up and crashing down in her dreams – by the power of the web – we move onto the recently deceased essayist, novelist, screenwriter and film director – in short, a strong but endearing female voice of another generation, and a voice of another definitive American immigration group – just past: NORA EPHRON, the quintessential wise-cracking New Yorker and Jew, some would say, a dying breed – of literary, including film – fame.
She died last Tuesday, June 26, 2012 at age 71.
not quite hard-core enough for me – but yeah I liked the film Julia and Julia (!!) – I was lucky enough to be spanked by God for the under-whelmed toss-off, in that I found myself a captive audience in the backseat of a silver toned Audi sedan sleekly racing upstate, for a Catskills getaway weekend, this past Fri – and NPR was on the dial. do not touch that dial.
as a wonderful homage to Nora, and all her accomplishments, dished up in a funny new age yiddisha mindset, a street-savvy wisdom born from personal experience – day-to-day survival in the over-educated, soulless, and way pampered big city (!!) – NPR played a re-run of an interview – on AGING (!!) done with NORA way back in 2006 – when she was 65.
subtitled: What I Wish I’D KNOWN – it hit home, was funny, and wise. she has a wonderful gentle speaking voice – but I guess esp for her generation, which is not quite as mean as ours, blame it on the web (!!) – it had its bite, no doubt.
case in point:
NEVER MARRY A MAN YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO BE DIVORCED FROM – check !!!!!!!!!!!
you can hear the interview:NPR – NORA EPHRON – Sept 5, 2006 – she’s 65.
and get the background: NPR – BOOKS – 2nd post down
the interview came out – I guess upon the publication of her book of essays on aging: ‘I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK’ – ‘AND OTHER THOUGHTS ON BEING A WOMAN’ – ALFRED A. KNOPF, NEW YORK 2006. and yes she riffed on her real HEARTBURN disaster of a second marriage – so yes, my ears pricked up.
and, score !!
I managed to get my hands on that very same book – a hardly used hardback from my local library – and yep !! – now I want to read all her stuff.
sample:
from the chapter: The Story of My Life in 3,500 Words or Less
subtitle: Everything is copy
Page 105: “I’m seven months pregnant with my second child, and I’ve just discovered that my second husband is in love with someone else. She too is married. Her husband telephones me. He’s the British ambassador to the United States. I’m not kidding.”
and, she wasn’t.
the second husband in question ? non-other than: CARL BERNSTEIN.
CARL BERNSTEIN and NORA EPHRON, FEB 22, 1978. FILE PHOTO: AP PHOTO BY RICHARD DREW. c/o ABIGAIL POGREBIN/LITCHFIELD COUNTY NEWS
if you want to read more, this is a great remembrance:
which one of you married the gentile ? – “NORA EPHRON grew up in BEVERLY HILLS with colorful parents and a Christmas tree . . . ” (!!)
so yes – check out: ABIGAIL POGREBIN – NORA EPHRON, WARM & UTTERLY JEWISH / THE JEWISH DAILY FORWARD
NORA EPHRON – ‘I FEEL BAD ABOUT MY NECK . . . AND OTHER THOUGHTS ON BEING A WOMAN’ (2006)
“Sometimes I go to lunch with my girlfriends . . . and I look around the table and realize we are all wearing turtleneck sweaters. Sometimes we are all wearing scarves, like Katherine Hepburn in On Golden Pond“. – NORA EPHRON