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Weekend Butler, Tidings of Joy Issue: “The Hannukah Weed’ (a short story). A Pediatrician saves a life (a true story). Nina Simone sings “Suzanne.” Life-affirming commercials (yes, commercials). A political movie (the good guys win). The end of cigarettes (in New Zealand). And much more.
By
Published: Dec 14, 2022
Category:
Weekend
TWO COMMERCIALS THAT MAKE ME GLAD TO BE ALIVE (AND MAY HAVE THE SAME EFFECT ON YOU)
Suggestion: Have Kleenex handy.
A car commercial. (Really)
An insurance commercial. (Really)
THE BEST BOOK VIDEO
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a runaway hit as a book. And soon as a film. The book video is also a charmer.
IT’S TIME FOR… THE HANNUKAH WEED (A VERY SHORT STORY, ANNUALLY PUBLISHED ON BUTLER AT THIS TIME OF YEAR)
What do three honors graduates from Oberlin get when they come to New York?
A shared office with a window at a WeWork in Brooklyn.
Mark, Ben and David scratched out a living doing piecework, mostly ghosting first drafts for writers who were inexplicably successful on Substack, and then, in the second phase of their employment, eliminating touches like “very unique” and “brutal murder” that the stars were capable of inserting.
They lived in an apartment owned by the father of their roommate Jake, who was no prize but was the reason for a heavily discounted rent.
By their second year in New York, they had created a network: women who believed in them, women who didn’t but hung out with them anyway, guys who worked in investment banks and were already looking for the exit, connoisseurs of weed who liked to smoke with Jake. Was his weed superior? It certainly had the best hype: every few months Jake flew to California, visited greenhouses, curated a collection that was so easy to sell he had his days free.
Jake went to Napa in November, met a winsome botanist, and didn’t return. Checks slowed — Mark, Ben and David were contractors, not employees, and they could be made to wait until January. They bought a case of ramen. Better to have weed and no money than money and no weed, but — worst of all — their holiday party was approaching, and they were running out of weed.
A week before the party, they smoked their last joint.
David put the stub in the menorah.
In the morning, there were two joints.
A TRUE STORY, FROM A PEDIATRICIAN
from Twitter, The Readiatrician:
I said goodbye to a patient a few years ago. She didn’t die, she just got old. I treat patients to age 21 and they move on. When they do, I joke, “Well, I did my job! I kept you alive until adulthood!” With this kid, it was not a joke.
I met her as a preteen. She had a tough situation. Chronic illness since birth, multiple surgeries, depression and anxiety. In high school, there was a brief period of disordered eating. She attempted to take her own life twice. She hated doctors and would hide from me.
We booked her at the end of the day so I could take my time. Once I took her history through a closed door until she cracked it open. Another, I sat with her on the floor under the exam table. Once, she had a book with her. “I’ll Give You the Sun,” by Jandy Nelson. I’d read it.
“Oh,” I sighed. “That book made me feel things.” She glared at me to see if I was faking it. Kids can always tell when adults are lying, especially to build fake rapport.
So I asked, “Do you relate more to Jude or Noah?”
She eyed me again and said, “Jude. No one gets her.”
I told her, “I want to get you. I’m really trying.”
She waited a long time and then she mumbled “I know” before she walked out of the office. And I thought I’d lost her.
But at her next visit, she didn’t hide. She asked me if I read “Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.” I hadn’t but I told her I would take it out from the library that day. We started to talk books at every visit. She opened up. She started seeing a therapist. She thrived.
So why am I telling this whole story now? Last weekend, I stopped into B&N and there she was, working at the checkout! We hadn’t seen each other in years. She looked great. Healthy. Happy. She’s dating, taking classes at night, wants to teach. She made it.
“Well,” I said. “It’s so good to see you!”
There was no one in line. She leaned in, her eyes shining, “I got into verse novels. Have you read “Me(Moth)?”
“Yes! Fantastic! And “Red, White and Whole.”
She nods. And “Starfish.”
“’Starfish?’ Are you kidding me?”
She takes a step back, slides her feet apart and stretches her arms high and wide. “Look at me! I’m alive!”
“Look at you,” I marvel, softly. “Alive.”
I lean across the counter to give her a hug.
A line is forming and the person in front clears her throat. I glance behind me.
“Ok,” I whisper. “Be well.”
I hear her welcome the next customer. “I’m sorry for your wait. That was a good friend who helped me through a hard time. Oh wow, wonderful title! Have you read…”
THE WEEKEND SONG
“Suzaane,” Leonard Cohen’s signature song… sung by Nina Simone.
THE FILM I MOST WANT TO SEE: “LIVING”
I love Bill Nighy. I can’t wait to see him in this. Watch the trailer and you’ll see why.
LIFE IMITATES ART
You will recall, in Ishiguro’s novel, The Remains of the Day, it took the butler quite a while to figure out that Lord Darlington was a Nazi sympathizer and his guests had a common goal: to advance the cause of German fascism.
Now we learn that a just arrested prince in Germany had been plotting the overthrow of the government. From The New York Times:
The crenelated hunting lodge of Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss sits atop a steep hill, looking out over homes laced with snow and Christmas lights in Bad Lobenstein. Popular with the local mayor and many nearby villagers, the prince spent his weekends in the spa town, giving an aristocratic flair to this sleepy corner of rural eastern Germany.
But there was a darker side to his idyll. Heinrich XIII, prosecutors and intelligence officials say, also used his lodge to host meetings where he and a band of far-right co-conspirators plotted to overthrow the German government and execute the chancellor. In the basement, the group stored weapons and explosives. In the forest that sloped beneath the lodge, they sometimes held target practice.
THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE: NEW ZEALAND BANS CIGARETTE SALES TO EVERYONE BORN AFTER 2008
from The New York Times:
The new laws are aimed at eliminating most smoking by 2025 and slashing the number of licensed tobacco retailers.
In 2011, New Zealand first announced its plans to reduce smoking levels to below 5 percent of the population by 2025, a target extending across all ethnic groups, including Indigenous Maori and Pacific Island citizens. Over the years, the price of cigarettes has been hiked to among the highest in the world, with a pack of cigarettes costing about $20. With these measures, smoking has declined overall. The national smoking rate for adults has halved in the past decade. Only 8 percent of New Zealand’s adult population smoked every day in 2022, according to government statistics. By the end of next year, 90 percent of the country’s 6,000 tobacco retailers will have lost their licenses. Nicotine levels in tobacco and vaping products must be significantly reduced under the new laws, rendering them less addictive. Violators of the new rules could be fined up to 150,000 New Zealand dollars, or roughly $96,000.
THE WEEKEND MOVIE: A POLITICAL MOVIE… AND THE GOOD GUYS WIN!
In 1988, there was a referendum on Pinochet’s government in Chile. It was a straight “yes” or “no” proposition, and few believed that a majority would vote “no” — or vote at all. The “no” side had a real challenge. To show torture and repression would be to remind voters that they had reason to fear their government. That would reinforce hopelessness. But for the progressive ideologues running the “no” campaign, that kind of programming would at least be a raised fist. The “no” team brings in a consultant, Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal), a skateboard-riding advertising hotshot from Mexico who couldn’t be less political — we’ve seen him pitch a cola campaign in terms of the “social reality” of Chile. He looks at the commercial the “no” team has made — and rejects it. What’s needed, he says, is to treat the referendum like a commercial product and sell it to viewers. Like cola. The film is “NO” and it’s smart and funny and full of ideas that just might work in our country. Click for my review and the streaming video on Amazon Prime.
“ALL I’M ASKING FOR IS A LITTLE RESPECT WHEN I GET HOME”
Otis Redding made what would be his last TV performance in 1967 with this stunning rendition of “Respect.” He died the next day when his plane crashed into Lake Monona, Wisconsin. He was 26. Watch it here.
THE WEEKEND RECIPE
from V Is for Vegetables: Inspired Recipes & Techniques for Home Cooks — from Artichokes to Zucchini
Michael Anthony, chef at New York’s Gramercy Teavern, discovered this way of cooking string beans in a friend’s home kitchen outside Tokyo. In Japan, sesame sauce is often served with beans and other fresh vegetables at room temperature. This simple preparation appears often in bento boxes as well as on the menus of small, casual neighborhood restaurants in Japan.
String Beans with Sesame Sauce
2 tablespoons toasted white sesame seeds
1 tablespoon mirin (sweet rice wine)
2 teaspoons white soy sauce or shiro dashi
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon sugar
1 pound string beans, tips trimmed and blanched until crisp-tender
3 scallions (green parts), thinly sliced
Crush the sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle. (Don’t worry about grinding every last seed.) Add the mirin, white soy sauce or shiro dashi, sesame oil, lemon juice, sugar and a teaspoon of water. Stir until combined. The sauce should be the consistency of loose peanut butter. thin with a little water if needed. Put the string beans in a bowl, drizzle with the sauce, and top with the scallions.
