The Irishman, Midway, Election Day, 75th Fairview Library celebration and family health issues on Monday Morning Diary (November 11)

by Sam Juliano

Veteran’s Day (November 11) means a day off from our school positions and a welcome panacea from all the stress experienced the past few days.  Lucille’s “gamma-knife” laser procedure went down perfectly on Thursday at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan. We picked her up at around noon, had lunch and then went home where she rested a few hours.  As is normal for this treatment, one must wait about six months to see the benign meningioma’s disabling via an MRI, but success usually greets the vast number of these procedures. The bottom line is that doctors are confident they achieved what they sought to do and we are more than relieved to have this episode behind us. We can never thank everyone enough for their exceeding kindness, concern and support.  Of course some people opt to do nothing with their benign tumors, and a good number go 15 to 20 years before even addressing them, but Lucille opted to play it safe.  Typically, she attended several events after the procedure much as I have despite spending several hours on Saturday in the emergency room at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck after I seem to have lost my vision in my right eye.  All was a blur and I thought I may have had retina detachment.  Alas it was diagnosed as a cataract (and a profoundly clouded one at that!) which I now must have replaced with the usual artificial lens as soon as possible, perhaps within the coming week.  It seems like something is always going on.  Cataracts of course are normal, and most people have relatives who have had one or both eyes done.  My own father had them done to both his own eyes about 20 years ago as I recall.

Lucille and I will be attending a 75th Anniversary celebration at the Fairview Public Library this afternoon in the building where I serve on the Board of Trustees.  Young Sammy and Jeremy will be joining us.

Jim Clark’s last stupendous work of film scholarship, a mega-essay on Claire Denis’ High Life was published last week, and J.D. Lafrance’s terrific review on the Coens’ Miller’s Crossing posted this past Tuesday.

Democrats Sweep Bergen County!!!

It was an off year election, one without a Presidential, gubernatorial, Senate or House of Representatives candidate. Normally this kind of contest heavily favors traditional Republican turnout but yesterday Bergen County Democrats again dominated, with all three freeholder candidates (Germaine Ortiz, Thomas Sullivan and Mary Amoroso) coasting to 10 point wins. Democrats held their seats in State legislative districts 35, 36, 37 and 38 and six new Democratic Mayors unseated GOP incumbents in Bergenfield, Dumont, Rutherford, River Edge, Maywood and Tenafly. It was a big night for Democrats nationwide with the shocking gubernatorial win in Kentucky, and the complete takeover by Dems in Virginia, but the Bergen County dominance dates back six years, which was the last time the GOP even held a single seat on the freeholder board! Congratulations Chairman Paul Juliano and the Bergen County Democratic team for their resounding victory, which was celebrated last night at the Hasbrouck Heights Hilton! Bergen is the state’s most populous county.

We saw two movies in theaters this past.  While one  (The Irishman) is a supreme masterpiece and one of the top two movies of the year for me, the other, Midway was largely a dud.  We saw:

The Irishman (Monday)  *****   IFC Film Center

Midway  (Friday)          **          Teaneck multiplex

I am still absorbing Martin Scorsese’s three-and-one-half hour gangland epic “The Irishman”, seen last night with family members at Manhattan’s IFC Film Center, but there is no question it is a staggering masterpiece, one of the director’s greatest works in a storied career, a film containing not one but three towering, brilliant performances by Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci. Shakespearean in scope, profound, elegiac and breathlessly entertaining, it is superbly scripted and edited (by Scorsese alumni Thelma Schoonmaker) and scored (with a haunting use of The Five Satins’ ‘In the Still of the Night”) and sheds new light on the Jimmy Hoffa days, JFK’s assassination, and oft-ferocious behavior in families led by mobster patriarchs. The film and its characters are richly drawn and methinks one viewing isn’t sufficient remotely. For me it is one of the two greatest films of 2019 with Florien Henckel von Donnarsmarck’s German epic “Never Look Away” which opened in mid January of 2019 stateside.