Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Stand By ME, Norman Lear!

I announced this sentence over the office intercom tonight: "David, Norman Lear is at the front door for you."

In case you weren't sure, that was me, your lowly little Suburban Sweetheart, announcing to Rabbi David Saperstein, my famous figurehead of a boss, that Norman Lear, the famous TV writer/producer who brought us gems like The Jeffersons & Diff'rent Strokes, was at the front door of my office building... to light Chanukah candles with us.

Norman Lear, in his fisherman's hat & his LL Bean sweater, pitched to us his new campaign for People for the American Way, asking for our "visceral reactions" to it & really listening to our answers. And then? Then we sang "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel" with the famous Mr. Lear & listened to the ringtone on his cell phone - a Yiddish advertising jingle from the 1930s. This is such a phenomenally unreal paragraph that I'm inclined not even to believe myself; alas, dear readers, it is 100% true.



So leave it to my boss -- my famous figurehead of a boss, one of the most well-known, well-respected men within the North American Reform Jewish movement -- to NOT know how to take a picture with flash.