by Sam Juliano
Note: This was originally scheduled as the final post in this year’s festival. However, We may yet be getting one more from Adam Ferenz. Stay tuned! Scheduling rules do not apply this year!
Dearest Allan:
This business of wearing masks and social distancing would have had you regaling us with your satirical prowess, though watching from up there I’m sure you have had your fellow angels in stratospheric stitches. But let’s face it. You watched all your world cinema masterpieces and wrote your incomparable capsule reviews indoors anyway so there would be little opportunity for you to ever obscure your face or worry about standing in a line. Feeding your beloved ducks at the pond around the corner from your house wasn’t subject to any protective compromise either. In any case, our own close friendship would have gotten even closer as during this covid infringement on our liberties you would have had me at your beck and call. My e mail would be inundated with orders to watch this and that, and my life would basically have been spoken for. All the frustration you suffered for the better part of a decade in trying to reform the most renowned of philistines would have finally paid dividends.
I saw several outstanding films this past year via streaming. It is purely a guess, but I am thinking the film I wrote here to pay homage to you is one you would have showered with a fair degree of praise. As always I want to express how much we love and miss you. Time has not been kind in dimming the grief on your untimely departure. Still, all of us who benefited from your ornery passion and irresistible persona remain guided by you in spiritial and metaphysical terms as we will for the remainder of our own lives.
Love, Sam