Who would Hollywood get to play Tennenbaum? Steve Buscemi? I love that guy. He’s too good for Tennenbaum.

Many years ago, a good friend of my mother’s was riding an elevator in a building in Leeds, England, with a man she could have sworn she knew from somewhere. “Don’t I know you?” She asked. His answer was, “I’m Cary Grant”.

Yesterday was one of those days. I got home at six in the evening, falling off my feet with exhaustion. The week before Purim tends to be hectic, what with costumes to prepare and early events. It’s not that I had so much to do yesterday, but it was hot and I was wearing the most uncomfortable shoes. By the time I got home my feet were killing me.

In the evening, when Bish went out to see the basketball game at a friend’s home, instead of going straight to bed, which was what my body was telling me to do, I plonked myself down in front of the TV and zapped. I watched the last hour or so of the Count of Monte Cristo with Jim Caviezel. What are people talking about? I think he’s the perfect Jesus Christ. I believe early Jews looked more like present day Turks than Osama Bin Ladens.

After that I caught the beginning of North by NorthWest. There was Hitchcock missing the bus. Wait a minute, Hitchcock missing the bus? Was I dreaming? Yes, there he was, as clear as the day is long. Now this must seem to you a strange thing for me to emphasize, so I’d better explain. I must have seen North by NorthWest dozens of times, but I’ve never seen the bit at the beginning of the film where director Alfred Hitchcock is seen reaching a bus just as the doors are closing and the bus is driving away, leaving Hitchcock standing there. Don’t ask me why I’ve never seen it. I know it happens, I know when. I just never seem to catch it. I’m always on the phone, in the toilet, making the coffee, switch over to the channel after it has happened, or I’m just not watching very closely. “How could you have missed it?” Yes, well. It’s not that it is very important. I suppose I could have rented the video or DVD if it was all that critical for my mental health or personal growth, and run the opening scene again and again till I saw it. But what fun would that be? And it really isn’t all that important, is it? Just a very minor irritation, like…er…having the bus drive off just as you are reaching the bus stop.

Well anyway, yesterday I got to see it. Now I can die happy. After that exciting moment (Sadly, a lonely experience, the girls were in bed. Not that they would have appreciated it anyway, I don’t think they’ve heard of Cary Grant or Hitchcock or even of Mount Rushmore), I lasted out till the scene in which Cary Grant is drunk in the car on the dark cliff road, about to go over the edge. Then I fell asleep. Strange place to fall asleep, I know, but I really didn’t need to see the rest of the film. I’d seen what I came to see, as they say. I usually watch it right through because I just love that Frank Lloyd Wright-style villa on the top of Mount Rushmore (at least it looks like it is in the film). Now that would be nice to live in. A bit out of my price range though, I suspect.

It’s looking like what we knew about the freed captive of the Hizbullah, Elhanan Tennenbaum, the drug deal story, is the truth after all. No cloak and dagger treason, no million dollars in a Swiss bank, just plain old greed and weakness of character. He’s looking more and more pathetic as time goes on. He says he lied about what he was doing in Lebanon (he had said that he’d gone to look for missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad and do some private business at the same time), because he was ashamed. Well, he should be ashamed. And now everyone knows his true worth. That’s probably the worst punishment there is, for a man like that. The worst punishment, and maybe also the best thing to happen to him, in the long run - to be completely and totally stripped of his pride.

Update: Now if you actually want some NEWS about Tennebaum, and not just my loose ramblings, you might try Allison.