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Weekend edition: What’s “real?” Ask M.C. Escher. More about Gabby Petito & Brian Laundrie? (Yes.) Another necessary movie. And a great good news story.

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Oct 21, 2021
Category: Weekend

“ILLUSION” IS THE WORD OF MY WEEK
I can’t be the only one here who watches what’s happening and asks: Can this be real? Are the people in the way of public health and sensible laws and help for people who need help so scared of you-know-who and so greedy that they’re willing to be defined by their cruelty? Or maybe there’s more being played out here, and I’m the one with limited vision. And so I think of….

Optical illusions. Mathematical magic. Disorienting and fascinating — a good description of what we’re living through. The one artist who combines both? Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972). In his work, fish become birds, stairways never end, water flows uphill.

It’s always useful to carve out space for beauty and whimsy, the irrational and the downright silly. Escher reminds us, with both bluntness and delicacy, how surface reality can trick us. [To read more, watch a video, and get the book, click here.]

THE GABBY PETITO AND BRIAN LAUNDRIE NEWS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW
What’s happening in Washington is historic and important. But when you hear a Gabby-and-Brian update, you stop and gawk. Is this story over? Far from it.

Consider: The FBI looks for a month, finds nothing. Brian’s parents finally help — they walk 30 minutes in the area the FBI combed …and find his backpack. Then “remains” are found. Why were they not found before? Oh, that area was underwater. My friend Suzanne has a smart comment: “If this were a film, the police would have found the remains a while ago and waited to see how long it took Laundrie’s parents to step in and find the remains on their own, Implicating them in some role or awareness.”

I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THIS MOVIE
“The Hand of God” will stream on Netflix, starting on December 15. It was written, directed, and produced by Paolo Sorrentino. The film is autobiographical. In Naples when someone says it was “the hand of God,” he means that a miracle has happened. It’s also a reference to Maradona’s famous “hand of God” goal. The title is no coincidence. When Sorrentino was young, he went to a soccer game just to see Maradona and didn’t go on vacation with his parents. That night, his parents lost their lives to a gas spill. He was saved by a miracle: “by the hand of God.” Watch the trailer. Tomorrow, watch it again.

GOOD NEWS STORY OF THE MONTH
As reported on Facebook by Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian-American poet who lives in San Antonio…

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.”
Well — one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.
“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying.
She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”
We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — from her bag — and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate — once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

FREE TICKETS. FREE TICKETS. FREE TICKETS
A few months ago, I was nuts for Jesse Malin. Watch/listen. Malin has a new CD coming out. There’s a New York show this Saturday, October 23, at Brooklyn Made, a new club said to be good and safe. I have 2 tickets. Yours for the asking. Write HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com

DAVE GROHL WAS GIVING A SMALL DINNER. THEN PAUL McCARTNEY JOINED IT. AND AC/DC. AND THEN THE PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND MARCHED IN. AND…
A classic story from a legendary musician. Start at 10:20. End at 14:05.

BONUS: GLENN GOULD PRACTICES
Click here.