[joe-frank-list] 'Karma memories'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	Joe says that while his father (Meyer Langerman) was slowly
dying his mother had an affair with Freddy (Theodore Frank, Joe's
eventual stepfather).  (Joe says he was a younger man; he was born in
1906, which makes him 19 years younger than Mr Langerman, 4 years
older than she.)  Joe says he was stationed in South Carolina near the
end of the war (he was in the Army).  (Mr Langerman died 1943 October
8, not the end of the war.)  She took a train to visit him; she made
love with another soldier along the way.  Joe says she told him about
10 years ago, when she was 80.  (This show was first aired in 2000,
making 1990 10 years before, when Joe's mother was 80.)
	1:20: Joe says his mother and Freddy married a year after Mr
Langerman died.  (They married 1945 April 28, 1 year, 8 months, 20
days after Mr Langerman died.)  Joe's uncle Ben took Freddy into
Langerman Shoe, was unhappy with his poor performance at work.  Freddy
preferred golf, bridge, a comfortable life.
	3:10: Joe's mother received war reparations.  Freddy took
some, which made her mad.  She lost respect for him, felt contempt for
him, wanted to kick him out; family life became unhappy.
	5:50: Joe's mother was a fine pianist, gave recitals after
dinner.  Freddy complimented her effusively, was generally servile to
her.  Joe resented his mother's bad treatment of him.
	11:40: Debi calls Joe to complain that he didn't use her story
in his last show.  She's worried that Joe may be mad at her.  Debi had
a dream that she killed Joe, buried him in a school bus.  They chaff
each other.
	17:50: Joe tells of visiting his parents in Palm Beach;
they're in their 70s.  (She was born in 1910, he in 1906, so they're
both in their 70s 1980-1986.)  They're sweaty but don't bathe.  Joe
complains about their smell.  They're unsympathetic.
	21:10: Joe calls Larry.  Larry quotes Beckett, 'You think
you're simply resting, the better to act when the time comes or for no
reason and you soon find yourself powerless to ever do anything
again.' (from 'The unnameable'), then V. S. Naipaul 'A bend in the
river', 'The world is what it is.  Men who are nothing, who allow
themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.'  Larry says he's
allowed himself to become nothing.  Joe disagrees.  Then Larry quotes
Matthew Arnold, 'What are the situations from the representation of
which, though accurate no poetical enjoyment can be derived?  They are
those in which the suffering finds no vent in action, in which a
continuous state of mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by
incident, hope, or resistance, in which there is everything to be
endured, nothing to be done.'  ('Theories of literature and
criticism', available at https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/12628)
	24:10: Joe sees Freddy drinking straight from the bottle.
Joe's embarrassed.  Freddy sings 'My defenses are down' (from 'Annie
get your gun', Irving Berlin, 1946)
	25:00: Kristine McKenna says that everyone has wreckage in
her/his life, that bullying harms the bully as well as the victim,
that we should avoid propagating the damage we suffer upon others.
(She expressed similar ideas in 'Karma, Part 5')
	28:00: A few years before he died (1995, in Palm Beach),
Freddy told Joe that he blamed him for an injury he suffered when he
was hit by a cab, because he was on his way to buy tickets to the
Army-Navy game for him and Joe.  Joe thought that Freddy was going to
tell him that he loved him.
	29:30: Larry wonders if he'll have an obituary in the 'New
York Times' (He didn't.)  Joe says being remembered by people who know
you is a more significant memorial.
	31:20: David Rapkin eulogizes Larry: he tells a waitress that
he's about to be deported, needs to take a shower, inveigles her to
let him shower at her apartment; then praises Larry's generosity, with
money, his car, his wife (Rapkin was 'so fucking horny'); he gets
weepy.
	34:00: Joe tells of going to temple on high holy days.  Joe
enjoys the service.  He forgot to take off his skullcap after services
once, was embarrassed, worried that Christians blame Jews for killing
Christ.  He remembers how badly Christians treated Jews.
	37:40: Joe says that when his mother was depressed, it put a
pall over the whole house.  Joe would hide in his bedroom when his
mother played piano in the afternoon.
	39:40: Freddy always tried to be cheerful, despite her
mistreatment of him.
	42:00: Larry says it's easy to identify why one is behaving in
an unproductive way; Joe disagrees.
	42:50: Larry describes the only good therapist he ever had:
the first session he built a fire in her fireplace.
	48:00: Joe tells how Freddy played with the children at large
family gatherings.  The children loved him, took advantage of his good
nature to hurt him.  This made Joe mad.
	49:10: Joe's mother cried when she held him as a child.  Joe
thought tears odd.
	50:00: Joe recalls childhood memories of the coolness of the
earth, ants underneath rocks, flowers.
	50:50: Joe's mother would walk through the woods alone in the
fall.
	51:00: Joe repeats, in summary, many incidents in the episode
so far.
	51:50: Jack Kornfield leads a meditation on forgiveness.
	54:30: Joe recalls his one good memory of his mother, Freddy,
and him, when he was 7 or 8.  Joe, his mother, her mother (Sabine
Passweg, before immigration Scheindel Sabina Passweg, born in Sambor,
Poland in 1886, mother of Ben Zion, Batschewa, and Friederike,
naturalized in 1941, died 1960.  She sailed from Lisbon in 1941.  Her
husband, Solomon, had died in 1936), and their dog Skippy would walk
down the road to greet Freddy returning from work.
	56:30: They'd gather in their uncle Ben's a few doors down,
sing songs in French and German and dance.  Joe's mother played the
accordion, cousin Jules the mandolin (I find no evidence of Jules.
Ben and his wife had 3 daughters, no sons.  Sigmund and Sonia Spiegel
had 1 son, Michael.)

	http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Karma_Memories

russell bell