No Is A Complete Sentence

This is for the die hard readers who worry when I'm gone (he wrote, while experiencing illusions of grandeur). I am in the middle of a longish chain post. Many ideas are brewing, so is life. Here's an interim post to hold you (me) over.

Someone just got my attention by putting his hand on my back (here in the library where I'm deep in blogland.) I get startled when people do that. It was someone that I went through Smicha with. I recall him being impressed twenty years ago when we were listening to Yoreh Deah tapes together once that I seemed to always rewind to the right spot. He taught in my school (the one I work in, not the one I own) for one or two years about eight years ago. He told me that a student recently stopped him to say hi. The student went to Brandeis... and is bright... and sweet. Do I know who that is? His name is Avi... Avi Something...

Reminds me of the Robert Klein routine about how he goes to places like Texas to perform and people say "Bob, you're from New York - You know a guy named Tony Johnson?" Klein says, "Usually I know the guy. But still."

Yesterday I had a lovely visit with my parents. Perhaps (PG) I'll write more about it in time. For now I'll just say that I love them very much.

CBS FM is back and the DJs are celebrating like it was some kind of a moral decision. My understanding of it is that the owners saw that the ratings and revenue went way down after they switched formats. So they went back.

Reminds me of that time that Billy Joel created a stir at the Grammies. Here's how Wikipedia describes it:

During the 1994 Grammy Award Show, the director cut short Frank Sinatra's acceptance speech for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. During Billy's performance of 'River of Dreams', at the interim pause in the song, Billy extended it, looked at the celebrity audience with a grin while pretending to check his watch and said, "valuable advertising time going by...dollars...dollars...dollars..." which was met with laughter from the audience.

Which reminds me of the fascinating, little known story of Joel's family background. Here's the Wikipedia entry on Joel's paternal grandfather:

Karl Amson Joel (November 20, 1889 – November 4, 1982) was a German-Jewish textile merchant and manufacturer. He was the grandfather of conductor Alexander Joel and musician Billy Joel. Joel born in Colmberg as the son of a textile merchant. In 1928 he founded a mail order selling company for textiles and clothes in Nuremberg. The following year he also started manufacturing. Joel's company soon became one of the leading mail order sellers in Germany (along with Quelle or Schöpflin). After the rise to power of Nazism (1933), Joel was increasingly discriminated by the regional Nazi Party leaders, especially Julius Streicher. Therefore, Joel moved his company to Berlin in 1934 where he rented a factory site in Wedding and installed new packing machines. The stitching department, however, had to remain in Nuremberg. As discrimination further increased (e.g. deliveries had to be marked with an "J") and Jewish firms became "Aryanized", Joel was forced to sell his company to Josef Neckermann for an unrealistic purchase price in 1938. The original agreement of 2.3 million marks was further diminished by Neckermann to 1.1 million marks. The money was transferred to a trust account at the banking house Hardy & Co. in Berlin.

Meanwhile Joel and his wife Meta had emigrated to Switzerland in July 1938. Their son Helmut (later called Howard) attended boarding school there. As a so-called Devisenausländer" (currency foreigner) Joel could not get access to the trust account in Berlin. In August 1938 he was expatriated and his firm was confiscated the following month. Via France and England the Joels flew to Cuba. Finally, they reached the United States, where Joel started a new enterprise in 1942. In 1957 Joel got a compensation of 2 million German marks for his former company from Neckermann who ran the most successful German mail order selling company at the time. In 1964 Joel returned to Nuremberg, where he died. (This article incorporates text translated from the corresponding German Wikipedia article.)

Errands beckon, life awaits. Which reminds me of the book Errands by Judith Guest (do you know why that name rings a bell?) At the start of the book she writes that the word errand has a broader meaning than the one commonly known ("a journey made for a special purpose; an expedition; a mission.”) . Which reminds me that yesterday I watched part of Ordinary People while visiting my folks. It's one of my movies. Every time I see it I notice new nuances. I didn't recall the line that Jared says to his dad, "Everything's jello and pudding to you." A scene I did remember, but it struck me again is when Jared says to his therapist that his mother can't love him and Judd Hirsch replies, "she can't love you enough." Which reminds me of the idea that in the Torah people feel hated when they feel someone else is loved more (Leah, Yosef's brothers, "The Hated Wife" and more.) We watched that film in Social Work school and I remember talking about it on the Y.U. van with this flirty engaged girl who smoked.

Time to do the errands. Which reminds me...No...Just one more...NO.