Filming old ‘Haunts’
Kenneth Branagh back as Hercule Poirot in murder mystery “A Haunting in Venice”: “Anything beyond us? A ghost? A god? Agatha Christie has that knot in the stomach quality. This is in a ghostly palazzo. Actors had no warning of lights, winds, doors opening, things we were doing.”
Tina Fey: “The supernatural element took it another level. Audiences jump a bit. It was unsettling.”
Celebrities to hate watch
A seven-year investigation — thousands of unpublished emails, letters, court transcripts, original interviews — uncovers the rise of extremist neo-Nazi harassment against Jews.
Ian Halperin admired Pink Floyd.
But then Roger Waters called to boycott Israel, demonized country, and the dissonance became clear.
Son of a Holocaust survivor, author-filmmaker Halperin learned more.
Despite Mel Gibson and Kanye West’s hate speech, their careers continue.
Hate crimes surge. From Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue massacre in 2018 to today’s antisemitism on college campuses.
Halperin investigates this surge of hate — and the role celebrities play.
The book “Bigot” was published right before Hamas’ attack. Go. Read it.
Luxe liner notes
May 1939, a German ship carried 1,000 Jewish people to Cuba, which did not let them in.
Neither did US.
That’s one anecdote in travel specialist Geoffrey Weill’s book “All Abroad: A Memoir of Travel and Obsession,” which also has many vintage posters, including: 1945 poster linking Dutch railway Amsterdam to Brussels.
Everything’s in it but Hunter Biden’s IQ.
Florida keys to convo
Floridian transplants have zero intellectual chat. Nobody’s doing anything productive. Nothing, zero.
Each arrival’s opening conversation: “Know how important I was before I left my big New York job?” Follow-up: “Know how rich I am though I’m here temporarily in a two-room apartment?”
Big topic: NYC weather.
“Cold. Could hit zero.”
Forget NYC things called coats, sweaters, thermostats and radiators.
The male subject: golf.
The female: hairdresser.
The spinster: Where’s that young guy who’s supposed to drive me?
All: Where we doing our late 5 p.m. dinner?
Dollars and sense
Late economic report confirms USA and China the world’s richest countries.
South Korea and Germany — big on high tech.
Saudi, Qatar, United Arab Emirates — gas, oil, natural resources.
USA: Tourism, services, banking, energy, resilient to economic shock and the dollar (no matter how deep piggy DC dips into the piggy bank) is the world’s dominant reserve currency.
At Upper East Side’s Italian restaurant Due, you may hear — as I did — that nowadays the most important thing in rearing your children is learning how to protect yourself.
Mostly in New York, kids, like mostly in New York.