Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, January 5
through
Saturday, January 11, 2020
It’s Saturday, January 11, 2020.
Welcome to the 645th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
MICHELIN Guide Paris & Ses Environs 2019: (French only) (Michelin Red Guide) (French Edition)
$19.95
For more, see 11.0 Thumbnails in this section.
See also 2.0 Commentary for mention of the Guide.
2.0 Commentary
I’ve had access to a car for the last two days and took advantage.
On Thursday I went shopping at Costco and stocked up on toilet paper, paper towels, and the lot.
And on Friday, I drove to my storage with Christmas stuff, returning with several cases of my book, Dom’s, an Odyssey.
Alternatively, I would have rented a zipcar and gotten everything done in a three hour trip, costing perhaps $50.00.
But meanwhile, we are 17 days without a car saving $901.00.
Which gets me to thinking, how much would it cost to rent an apartment in Paris for the month of June?
A small two bedroom in the 1st arrondissement could be had for 2500 euros at 1.11 dollars = 2400 or $2775. Divided by 30 = 92.50 per night and sharing the apartment would bring the cost down to 46.25 per night.
Now that’s a deal.
So should I start looking for roommates?
Thirty days.
While of course eating out frequently, it would afford me the opportunity to shop for and prepare, say, 10 meals at home.
Not only saving money but bringing us into the fabulous open air farmers’ markets.
Exciting.
While of course visiting the mainstays (here my heart skips a beat for the destruction wrought on Notre Dame Cathedral,) thirty days in the warm weather will afford us the opportunity to see some wonderful parts that a mere week’s visit crowd out.
And thirty morning coffees in a French café!
That is worth the price of admission.
I would have to make a chart of the month and plan each day out.
I think I enjoy the planning more than the trip.
Not.
But I do enjoy it.
Must order the newest Michelin Guide to restaurants.
Last visit using the Guide was 100% on target.
And check out Patricia Wells, a fountain of knowledge.
So much to do.
So little time.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“I saw a robin redbreast in Central Park today, but it turned out to be a sparrow with an exit wound.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Kail L:
Dom,
So glad the colonoscopy went well and you had support from Kat and Dom!
It's nice to know you take care of your health-
I hope Kat is on the mend by now.
I think it's so great you created a cooking class :)
Kali
Web Meister responds: Thanks, my dear.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Michelin Guides are a series of guide books published by the French tire company Michelin for more than a century.
The term normally refers to the annually published Michelin Red Guide, the oldest European hotel and restaurant reference guide, which awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments.
The acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant.
Michelin also publishes a series of general guides to cities, regions, and countries, the Green Guides.
This from 1911
Stars
Michelin reviewers (commonly called "inspectors") are anonymous; they do not identify themselves, and their meals and expenses are paid for by Michelin, never by a restaurant being reviewed.
Michelin has gone to extraordinary lengths to maintain the anonymity of its inspectors.
Many of the company's top executives have never met an inspector; inspectors themselves are advised not to disclose their line of work, even to their parents (who might be tempted to boast about it); and, in all the years that it has been putting out the guide, Michelin has refused to allow its inspectors to speak to journalists.
The inspectors write reports that are distilled, in annual "stars meetings" at the guide's various national offices, into the ranking of three stars, two stars, or one star—or no stars. (Establishments that Michelin deems unworthy of a visit are not included in the guide.)
The French chef Paul Bocuse, one of the pioneers of nouvelle cuisine in the 1960s, said, "Michelin is the only guide that counts."
In France, when the guide is published each year, it sparks a media frenzy which has been compared to that for annual Academy Awards for films.
Media and others debate likely winners, speculation is rife, and TV and newspapers discuss which restaurant might lose, and who might gain a Michelin star.
The Michelin Guide also awards Rising Stars, an indication that a restaurant has the potential to qualify for a star, or an additional star.
Bib Gourmand
Since 1955, the guide has also highlighted restaurants offering "exceptionally good food at moderate prices", a feature now called "Bib Gourmand". They must offer menu items priced below a maximum determined by local economic standards. Bib (Bibendum) is the company's nickname for the Michelin Man, its corporate logo for over a century.
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It’s Friday, January 10, 2020.
Welcome to the 644th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Caleb Strong
Caleb Strong, engraved portrait by James Bannister of the American Bank Note Company.
For details, see 11.0 Thumbnails this section.
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2.0 Commentary
The colonoscopy was an impactful event.
Knocks the beat out of the rhythm.
Prognosis is more health.
That’s good.
Something else good?
I learned something from the fast: it’s a heck of a lot easier than I thought it would be, this from an avowed, a card-carrying member, a founding father, a dyed-in-the-wool hedonist.
And it’s led me to rethink my dietary rhythm, to more accurately separate hunger urges from simple gluttony and the search for pleasure.
Am hoping this to be another arrow in my quiver as I hunt for the perfect balance of intake and bodily needs.
Now to get back on track, to sort out the events that got shunted aside and prioritize.
In our case, we are centered for the next two days on daughter Kat and boyfriend Will.
Last night they made a delicious hash.
Today is main meal out (‘Where’ is a surprise to me) followed by Will and Kat cooking meatballs and pork chops in an Italo-Sunday gravy.
In the offing, cleaning up all vestiges of automobile ownership.
Still to come, checks from our insurance company, AAA, and EZ pass.
Still to happer=n, return of transponders to garage and EZ pass.
In the offing, a four-hour dinner/class for clients who work full-time, live independently, like food, but have no one to prepare dinner or lunch for them.
Will let you know how the first ones go.
The class is limited to 7.
You buy the whole class for $500.00 plus the cost of the wine and food.
In the offing, getting the videos and podcasts on a regular routine.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“Do you know what I love most about baseball? The pine tar, the resin, the grass, the dirt. And that’s just in the hot dogs.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
Ann H was the first of many who said basically the same thing:
Glad it went well. The prep sucks!
Web Meister responds: You can say that again. Thank you.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Caleb Strong (January 9, 1745 – November 7, 1819) was an American lawyer and politician who twice served as Governor of Massachusetts, once from 1800 to 1807, and again from 1812 until 1816.
He assisted in drafting the Constitution of Massachusetts in 1779, and served in the Massachusetts Senate and on the Massachusetts Governor's Council, before being elected to the inaugural United States Senate in 1789.
The War of 1812 influenced Strong to come out of retirement and run again for governor.
It was largely his policies during the war that aroused secessionist sentiment in Maine, when Massachusetts's pro-British merchants opposed the war and refused to defend Maine from British invaders.
Sly devil.
Just signed another treaty with another tribe.
20.0 Acknowledgements
Thanks to Ann H, Sally C, and Colleen G for their contributions to our mail.
Thanks to Marc O for his long drive to my apartment to successfully work out the issues with the video. As son as Justin reminds me of the details in the video recording I’ll start back at home.
Thanks always to the support I get from the Microsoft store.
Thanks always too to Wikipedia for bringing the world of knowledge onto our devices.
And special thanks this week to Victoria V from Blue Bottle for her genius and work ethic in the kitchen; and thanks, also, to her mom for imparting in V the French love and respect for food.
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It’s Thursday, January 9, 2020.
Welcome to the 643rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author.
Photograph credit: NASA / Jim Campbell / Aero-News Network
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1.0 Lead Picture
Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) was an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author
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2.0 Commentary
Writing this Tuesday night in the throes of my 24-hour pre-colonoscopy fast.
Amazing to me that I’ve fasted all day (drinking just two cups of clear chicken-clam broth) and am not missing eating.
I’ve been moderately busy but that doesn’t account for my desires, or lack hereof.
A psycho-somatic effect I believe.
Knowing I can’t has made me accept that reality.
Rather than spending the day bemoaning the loss, subconsciously I’ve been ignoring that meals are an option, the simplest solution to ‘missing’ meals.
It’s 5.20pm, thirteen hours to go.
In less than an hour I must drink that most vile magnesium citrate.
And, in the event, I find that not only does my stomach repulse it, the sugar load to mask its vileness makes it feel and taste like one’s drinking melted sugar.
Worse, following their directions, you wash it down with another sugary drink, Gatorade.
I found sparkling water a better solution.
I admit that I did not follow instructions.
Supposed to drink three 10-ounce bottles.
After I finished one my body told me that anymore will result in an upchuck.
The threat of throwing up the small bottle I did finish tipped the scales against me drinking any more.
In any case, the actual process is easy as pie.
Change into hospital gown, prepped with a variety of needles and tubes, sing Lucy in the Sky and goodnight.
A half hour later you awake groggy but fine, waiting for your driver.
In my case, the test showed everything as it should be.
Thankfully.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“NASA’s Mars Lander found traces of ice and salt on Mars. Right now it’s searching for tequila.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Oh, my! That chicken dish looks good enough to lick at the computer screen! (And you had me at "garlic.")
Sally
Web Meister responds: And it was that good. Victoria introduced me to that well-known Korean dish. So pleased.
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11.0 Thumbnails
Stephen Hawkins was the director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology and previously the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge.
His scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation.
He was the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of general relativity and quantum mechanics, and was a supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general, including his 1988 book A Brief History of Time.
Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early-onset slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) that gradually paralysed him.
He is pictured here in 2007 being rotated in mid-air while experiencing weightlessness in a reduced-gravity aircraft, a modified Boeing 727.
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It’s Wednesday, January 8, 2020.
Welcome to the 642nd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
FARAH, Afghanistan A 6 year old Samadine Udine from Shorabad village in Farah Province, is prepared to go under anaesthesia prior to undergoing a hydrocelectomy at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Farah, Afghanistan, April 10, 2010.
The surgical procedure was conducted by the Farah Forward Surgical Team and a local Afghan physician as a way to provide mentoring and joint learning opportunities. Samadine has fully recovered and will be up and about in a couple of days. (ISAF Photo by U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Rylan K. Albright)
For more, see 2.0 Commentary and 5.0 Mail in this section.
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2.0 Commentary
Anesthesia is a state of controlled, temporary loss of sensation or awareness that is induced for medical purposes.
Me, tomorrow.
Now that I’m in my day of fast the real impact of the colonoscopy is upon me.
It's 11.00a and have done nothing but drink my morning coffee and water.
Plus some orange gelatin.
I must survive this.
Looking ahead, the worst event will be drinking that vile magnesium citrate at 6pm and again at midnight.
It's a laxative.
Last light we had a dinner party.
Great guests.
Two sets, didn’t know each other.
Fun to see them warm up as night progressed and then to listen to the excited and exciting conversation.
Got an idea to offer a cooking lesson based on this theme: I live independently, work full-time, and like to eat well, but returning home after work, I must prepare my own dinner.
Have some related food comments in 6.0 Food below in this section.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“Robbers broke into the Gap over the weekend. The suspects are described as being armed and casual.”
David Letterman
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This one from Colleen G:
Hey Dom--Happy New Year!
I've been busy, busy, busy as well and making my way back to the surface after the holiday spin cycle!
I have to comment that after reading your latest bit about the colonoscopy, it is confirmed that you are a writer through and through.
Only someone so in love with words could turn a momentary pain in the arse into a night out with laughs that could endure a lifetime!
Wow--well done! I can see you now on the billboard for a colon doctor's office. I'm sure there's plenty of money to be made at that:)
Cheers and Happy 2020!
Colleen:)
Web Meister responds: You always bring a smile to my face. What will your children say about your language?
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6.0 Dinner/Food
Victoria Vance. Remember the name and always accept any invitation to attend a meal that she is preparing.
I had he honor of cooking beside her and testify to her talent in the kitchen, her energy, and her direction.
Besides the myriad small chores any dinner party engenders, Vic prepared broccoli rabe with the requisite free-handed use of evoo, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt, a white clam sauce with a judicious use of the clam broth, and chicken and potatoes gochujang with a keen eye to presentation, something I rarely have the energy to effect. Fresh parsley, scallions, and basil, chopped and sliced and decorating the cooking surfaces lent a hopefulness to the preparation that found fulfillment in the tasting.
Victoria Vance’s interpretation of Chicken Gochujang.
And it tasted good, too.
It’s Tuesday, January 7, 2020.
Welcome to the 641st consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Valeria Golino in 2015
Bruno Chatelin from paris - 20743297423_7a12dc8346_o
For more details, see 11.0 Thumbnails, in this section.
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2.0 Commentary
I’m writing this on Monday afternoon, at the start of forty-eight hours of busy-busy-busy:
Tonight, a dinner party for six with younger people from two of my daily Prudential Center haunts, the Blue Bottle Café and the Microsoft store.
The menu: antipasto, linguini and white clam sauce, chicken and potatoes gochuyang, and broccoli rabe in garlic, oil, salt, and red pepper flakes.
Tuesday, a fast day due to Wednesday, Marc O will visit and spend an hour or two in my apartment tweaking the lighting in the newly-installed recording studio.
Kat will arrive from her ten-day educational visit to Israel/Palestine.
Wednesday morning I am scheduled for a 6.45 arrival at the health clinic for a colonoscopy.
Kat’s boyfriend arrives for a visit and I am optimistically hopeful to take Kat and Will for an evening meal of sushi.
After Tuesday’s fast and magnesium citrate purge I am optimistically hopeful that the early-morning anesthetic will be worn off.
My local children, my son Dom and daughter Kat, were both eager to pick me up after the procedure, although Kat coming off a long plane trip and head-and-chest cold syndromes, needs such an obligation less. Dom will get me.
That enthusiasm fills me with joy and love, and the prospect of the dinner, and Marc and the recording studio, and Will’s arrival are all great, and, really, the procedure itself is much easier than having one’s teeth cleaned, (thank you, Joseph Priestley.)
But I must admit to a diminution of this shower of joy by the pervasive thought of the potential discomforts of a procedure administered by a group of highly-trained, well-experienced medical personnel; a procedure during which I will not be around to suffer the slightest discomfort.
And even the groggy state in which I will awaken will be greatly enhanced by the presence of my son to half-carry me home like a sheep who has lost his way. Baa! Baa!
And with my daughter waiting at home to ease me into comfort.
So what’s with the bluesy note?
Rationally, makes no sense.
And perhaps I only think about it during the interstices between the great events.
Could I be so infertile as to have nothing else to write about?
Wheesh!
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“What I don’t understand is
how women can pour hot wax on their bodies,
let it dry,
then rip out every single hair by it’s root and
still be scared of spiders.”
— Jerry Seinfeld
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
The dinner tonight embraces three important recipes.
The Chicken and Potato Gochujang dish is basically a chicken brushed all over with a gochuyang (gochujang in its Korean anglicization) and slow-roasted.
The white clam sauce is a garlic and oil base, a very close iteration of the classically simple Aglio e Olio.
The broccoli rabe is an example of a recipe wherein a free-handed use of enhancements is rewarded: use as much as you can stand of salt, garlic, olive oil, and crushed red pepper. Not for the abstemious.
11.0 Thumbnails
The Volpi Cup for Best Actress is an award presented by the Venice Film Festival.
It is given by the festival jury in honor of an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance from the films in the competition slate.
It is named in honor of Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, the founder of the festival.
The 1st ceremony was held in 1932, when Helen Hayes received the Best Actress award for the title role in The Sin of Madelon Claudet—this was the only time that the award was chosen by public voting.
From 1942 to 1945, the festival was suspended because of World War II.
The student strikes in May 1968 opened a period of institutional changes, with no prizes awarded from 1969 to 1979.
The official name of the award has changed several times.
In 1934, Katharine Hepburn was honored with the Great Gold Medal of the National Fascist Association for Entertainment for the Best Actress for her role in Little Women.
It was renamed the Volpi Cup for Best Actress the following year.
The awards given from 1947 to 1949 were named the International Award for the Best Actress.
The Best Actress Award resumed in 1983, when Darling Légitimus became the first black woman to receive the award for her work Sugar Cane Alley.
In 1992, Ingrid Bergman was honored posthumously for her performance in Europe '51, which was denied by the jury in 1952 because her voice was dubbed from Swedish into Italian.
An additional award for Best Supporting Actress was given from 1993 to 1995.
At the age of four, Victoire Thivisol became the youngest recipient for the title role in Ponette in 1996.
Since its inception, the award has been given to 67 actresses.
Only three of them have won more than once: Shirley MacLaine, Isabelle Huppert and Valeria Golino, who have each won the cup twice.
Bette Davis is the only actress to win for two different roles in the same year; she won in 1937 for her contribution in Marked Woman and Kid Galahad.
In 1988, the award was shared by two actresses in different films: Huppert in Story of Women and MacLaine in Madame Sousatzka.
There have been two films, She's Been Away in 1989 and La Cérémonie in 1995, that garnered multiple winners in one year.
As of 2019, Ariane Ascaride is the most recent winner in this category for her portrayal of Sylvie in Gloria Mundi.
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It’s Monday, January 6, 2020.
Welcome to the 640th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The colon is the largest portion of the large intestine.
SAN DIEGO (April 5, 2011) Hospitalman Urian D. Thompson, left, Lt. Cmdr. Eric A. Lavery and Registered Nurse Steven Cherry review the monitor while Lavery uses a colonoscope on a patient during a colonoscopy at Naval Medical Center San Diego.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Chad A. Bascom - This Image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 110405-N-KA543-028 (next).
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2.0 Commentary
Medically speaking, having a colonoscopy sucks.
Big time.
When going for my annual checkup, I do not permit the traditional two-finger rectal exam.
The discomfort is so intense I take my chances without it.
So the thought of a fourteen-foot long, two-foot diameter hose being tucked up inside me haunts me.
I permit it because I get anesthetized.
Suck in that air, next thing I know I’m as groggy as hell, struggling to get to my feet and get the heck out of here.
It’s over.
Until the next time.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
“What I don’t understand is
how women can pour hot wax on their bodies,
let it dry,
then rip out every single hair by it’s root and
still be scared of spiders.”
— Jerry Seinfeld
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night is our co-operative dinner for six: two of the diners from Blue Bottle, three from the adjacent Microsoft store, and myself.
Discovered there’s a vegan among us.
We’ll survive.
I’ll bend the antipasto to include plenty of vegan choices.
The white clam sauce is based on oil and garlic which is easily convertible to garlic and oil sauce.
And I’ll add a broccoli rabe accompaniment to the main course, a chicken gochuyang, and cook the potatoes with he same sauce but not in the pan with the chicken.
We’ll be fine.
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8. “Hello! my friends,” Video
This week’s entry, originally scheduled for today’s post is postponed for later in the week.
Marc O is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday for some tweaking to the studio to eliminate a certain ‘washed out’ quality the bright lights are causing.
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It’s Sunday, January 5, 2020.
Welcome to the 639th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Rico Ponzo
Idaho cattle farmer – good neighbor
Favorite dish: Chicken Broccoli and Ziti
Died of a long-suffering illness
Loved Dom’s “Chicken, Broccoli, and Ziti”
For more details, see 2.0 Commentary, immediately below
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2.0 Commentary
Rico Ponzo passed away.
A man of many faces.
To me, a polite and amiable young man, always willing to do favors.
“Yes sir; no sir,” he was to me.
His father, Michael, my best friend for twenty years before his death some ten years ago, worked as manager of Dom’s, a high-end Italian restaurant of the 70s and 80s.
Rico came in often to say hello, and, every time he came in I asked him if he was hungry, and
every time I asked he said he was, and every time I asked what he would like, he asked for a plate, a large plate, of Chicken, Broccoli, and Ziti.
Chicken, Broccoli, and Ziti.
He had a plate one night some twenty years ago, his last plate at Dom’s.
He disappeared.
Several years ago he was found raising cattle in Idaho.
His adopted small town neighbors had nothing but praise for him.
The media reported anecdote after anecdote offered by his Idahoan friends testifying as to what a good neighbor he was, story after story recounting this good deed or that.
Sounded like the Rico I knew.
He got ill.
His last years were unpleasant.
God bless Rico and all of us as we pass through life,
”Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can.”
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
”We don’t understand death.
And the proof of this is that
we give dead people a pillow.”
—Jerry Seinfeld
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Sally C:
Dear Dom,
The photograph of that castle-fort looks like an impressionist painting! I love it.
And here is a little letter to my good friend Annmarie, who died on Tuesday, New Year's Eve, December 31, 2019.
"Annmarie, I wanted to send you today’s “A Word A Day” quote for your cache of quotations you send out daily – “Thought For The Day.” You’d like this one, it’s from Isaac Asimov. He said, “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” But it will go into your Inbox and remain unopened. The idea that I won’t receive your TFTD emails anymore interrupts my usually smooth train of thoughts, a bit startling, like an episode of hiccups.
"It’s hard to get used to knowing you’ve transcended the physical. The brain says, yes, it’s true, but the heart dawdles, drags its feet. It’s only been two days, so it’s normal to feel numb, but it’s a strange sensation. Life goes on, as it should. You wouldn’t want it any other way.
"Blessings on you: you are finally free of compromised joints, of asthmatic lungs, of crumbling bones. And maybe you can see now, after a life of blindness, although you saw much on this earth that eludes many others, far below the surface of the obvious.
"I shall miss your feisty independence, your joke to children that you were afraid of the dark, your proof-readers' eagle eye on my written documents, your passion for percussion, your weekly coordination of Sunday service music selections. I shall miss especially your often naughty razor wit. Despite the asthma, you had a full-bodied laugh. I loved how you raised your head, turned slightly as if to catch raindrops in your mouth, and bellowed with mirth.
"Thank you for enriching my life with your friendship. Go well, my friend and sister, into that new fellowship with Christ. With Him and in my heart, you will never be past-tense: you will always be present-tense. You’ve only undergone a change of address, after all. And if I listen, I’ll still hear that laugh.
Thanks, Dom.
Sally
Web Meister responds: Two In Memoriams. Sadly coincidental.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
Today we add Chapter Fourteen to the series, wherein Dee confronts and subdues evil.
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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10.0 A Tucker Johnson Movie Review
There is a scene in Punch Drunk Love where Adam Sandler, in the first truly “serious” riff on his comic persona, paces nervously around his office, the music percussively amplifying his frazzled emotional state. It’s an incredibly nerve-wracking sequence. Uncut Gems sustains that level of stress for nearly two and a half hours, making Sandler’s character from that film, Barry Egan look downright relaxed by comparison. The best performances by Adam Sandler, the ones that demonstrate what a magnetic actor he can be when throwing himself into a role, aren’t really in movies that cast him against type. Instead, they tend be in the ones that take the essential qualities of his comic abilities and somehow deepen them—the films that turn the very concept of an “Adam Sandler comedy” on its ear.
In Uncut Gems, the exhilaratingly tense and deliriously funny new movie by Josh and Benny Safdie, Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a New York City jeweler who lives his life in a state of constant, self-inflicted chaos. Barreling into every scene with motor-mouthed vigor, Sandler taps into a charismatic mania we’ve never quite seen from him—he’s like a young Al Pacino, bristling with ego and neurotic energy. Yet Howard isn’t so different, in basic profile, from some of the other id-driven clowns on the star’s résumé. He’s obnoxious, immature, prone to fits of rage and pleasure alike: a Sandler misfit all the way.
Howard is a gambler in the purest sense. He’s not just hooked on the wins. He’s a junkie for the uncertainty, high on the queasy death-wish apprehension of impossible odds. Striking out from his base of operations, the Brooklyn jewelry shop where he hocks diamond encrusted Furbies to the celebrities guided his way by an unofficial business partner (Lakeith Stanfield), Howard has a constant stream of cash running from the pawnbrokers to the bookies. He owes money all over town but bets every cent he gets his hands on. It’s a habit that’s put him in the crosshairs of some impatient lenders with hired muscle. They’re not the only ones totally exasperated by Howard and his self-destructive self-absorption. “You’re just about the most annoying person I’ve ever met,” someone says to his face. Notably, that someone is his wife Dinah (Idina Menzel).
The film opens with a zoom into a glittering gemstone, taking us on a CGI tour of its molecular architecture, until—in a prankish reveal—we realize we’re staring at the inside of a colon. This is the first time we see Howard, lying unconscious in a hospital bed, a camera up his rectum. It’s about the only moment in the movie where he’s not on the frenzied go. The gemstone turns out to be a black opal from Ethiopia, the new prized possession of his collection. It becomes the catalyst for a caper of pure reckless compulsion, as Sandler’s incorrigible wheeler and dealer outruns loan sharks while compounding the stakes of a dangerous hustle.
Set in 2012, the plot revolves around that spring’s NBA Eastern Conference finals; literally keeping balls in the air, Howard ends up roping Celtics forward Kevin Garnett—playing himself and adding some weight to the proceedings—into his house-of-cards gambit. Yet the Safdie brothers’ vision of New York feels more out of time: a mirage of the city as it once looked on screens in the ’70s and ’80s. These sibling filmmakers, authorities on Tri-State dysfunction, are addicted to chaos, too. Their last film, the gripping up all night crime drama Good Time, locked us into the headspace of another desperate schemer, a two-bit criminal played by a magnificently scummy Robert Pattinson. Uncut Gems may be the furthest the Safdies have strayed into the sphere of mainstream entertainment, but that’s very much a relative distinction; their style is still confrontational and flagrantly underground, even with a heavyweight cinematographer, Darius Khondji, providing the grubby, claustrophobic close-ups.
The film’s roaring dramatic and comic engine is Howard’s impulse control issue, his inability to stop making the wrong decisions. You watch with a pit-in-the-stomach dread usually reserved for people in horror movies wandering unthinkingly into mortal danger. Early in the film, the Safdies establish a ticking-clock deadline and then proceed to have their hapless hero completely ignore it—an ingenious assault on the nerves. They assemble a whole, rich ensemble of character actors and interesting nonprofessionals, then reduce most of them to enraged and flabbergasted spectators. Eric Bogosian, the gets one of the better roles as a fed-up relative looking to collect what he’s owed—a dynamic that leads to an amusingly tense Passover. Of everyone caught in the orbit of Howard’s obsessive self-sabotage, only his twenty-something mistress (Julia Fox, in a terrific breakout performance) has any patience left for him. It takes a while to recognize her loyalty as its own form of addiction: the devotion of a coconspirator in bedlam.
All the while, the Safdies enhance the anxiety with one of their most abrasive soundscapes: a mixture of Altman-esque overlapping dialogue, disconcertingly loud noises (like the persistent buzz of a broken automatic door lock), and a blaring electronic score that sometimes seems intent on drowning everything else out. Of course, the real source of anxiety is Howard himself, who’s responsible for every one of his problems. In the last 45 minutes, the film reaches a spectacular fever pitch of almost suicidal abandon—the havoc wreaked by a man who just can’t resist and would rather stop trying to. We watch his foolhardy flirtation with ruin in a state of shocked disbelief that borders on admiration. The queasy thrill of Sandler’s live-wire performance is the way he keys us right into Howard’s electric joy, putting everything on the line, consequences be damned. It’s a pure shot of the gambler’s high, and Uncut Gems gets us hooked on it, too. By the end, you want to cheer and more probably, retch.
TJ
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