never and always

 

"The Hebrew language was too guttural for my taste.  Plus it was written backwards.  Who needed that?"

~ Woody Allen

        This is a week of autobiographies.

        Monday it was Tina Turner's book; Tuesday, Jerry Hall's, and yesterday Bob Dylan's Chronicles.

Today, looking at Woody Allen's autobiography Apropos Of Nothing, I noticed a couple of things in common with the Dylan book:  in both, they describe leaving New York City's noise outside by going in someplace -- in Bob Dylan's case a phone booth, and for Woody Allen, a movie theater.

[Dylan] --------------- "The phone booths were like sanctuaries, step inside of them, shut the accordion type doors and you locked yourself into a private world free of dirt, the noise of the city blocked out."

[Woody Allen] ----------------- "You sweat your way down Coney Island Avenue, an ugly avenue replete with used car lots, funeral homes, hardware stores, till the exciting marquee comes into view.  The sun is now high and brutal.  

The trolley makes noise, cars are honking, two men are locked in the moronic choreography of road rage and are screaming and starting to swing at each other.  The shorter, weaker one is running to secure his tire iron.  

You buy your ticket, walk in, and suddenly the harsh heat and sunlight vanished and you are in a cool, dark, alternate reality....And now you look up at the screen and to the music of Cole Porter or Irving Berlin's unspeakably beautiful melodies, there appears the Manhattan skyline."

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        -- Woody Allen as a child (Allan Stewart Konigsberg), going inside a movie theater, out of the heat and noise of New York City, to see a movie that takes place in -- New York City.... --

----------------------- The other similarity between the two books was their parents' advice.

Bob Dylan's dad:  "Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want."

Woody Allen's dad:  "When buying a newspaper from a newsstand, never take the top one."

Woody Allen's mom:  "The label always goes in the back."

--------------------- [excerpt from Apropos Of Nothing] ------------ The price in the classy cinemas was twenty cents, then a quarter, than thirty-five cents.  When it hit fifty-five cents, the neighborhood rose up like the crew of the Potemkin.  Someone told me a ticket now can be twenty dollars.  You know how many deposit bottles I would have had to return to get twenty dollars?

        There were movie houses around every corner and not a day passed when there wasn't something worth going to -- if you're okay with Crime Doctor or The Whistler.  I loved them all.  And one day my life changed when my father took me to Manhattan for what today would be called some quality time, although he was probably going into the city to pay off some bookies.  I was about seven years old and till then had only seen Brooklyn.

        We rode the subway, got off at Times Square, and walked upstairs, emerging at Broadway and Forty-Second Street.

I was flabbergasted. --------------------- [end / excerpt]

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♫

a song to listen to (accompanied by some narration)

on You Tube

Manhattan Opening (Woody Allen)

uploader / channel:  Justin Luey

(The song is "Rhapsody in Blue.")

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