Geffner

Last night I watched Christopher Robin, the 2018 movie, with my daughter, Sabrina. This movie starts off surprisingly bleak and sad, but if you stay with it the heartbreaking eventually changes to heartwarming. Along the way there were moments that Sabrina and I found almost unbearably sad. It was sweet, though, that we were watching this together, because we held each other as tears streamed down both our faces. I wonder whether others experience this movie the same way that we did. We both related very personally to issues of thwarted dreams, and the heartbreak of fractured family and lost love. If you have not seen this movie and want to, I encourage you to watch it with a loved one or loved ones...and be ready to hold each other tight.

I'm very sentimental and nostalgic...especially for eras before I was born; and especially for Old New York City; and especially for the 1920's-40's. This 1928 film footage from NYC evokes all sorts of wistful thoughts and feelings in me about life in my city at that time. So much was happening here. 1928 was just four years after George Gershwin wrote Rhapsody in Blue, just one year before The Marx Brothers' first movie - The Cocoanuts - was filmed, and just a few years after my grandparents set foot in NYC, immigrating from Poland. It was also two years after my beloved piano was built by Steinway & Sons, also right here in NYC... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqz3lpUBp0&fbclid=IwAR1p0RaF32EjvCaNQT6d-q6elrcy2JigNc5s6GwBJhql5ZxmAWYklii5IoI

I performed a ventriloquist show recently for orphans at a Hasidic center in Brooklyn. It is always gratifying to be able to bring joy and laughter to people, but it is particularly meaningful to perform for audiences like this...for children who have experienced true hardship and undoubtedly great sadness. It reminds me of how fortunate I am in so many ways, not least of which is the fact that I have two amazing daughters. Having raised them as a single dad, I have great " nakhes" (pride and joy) to see that they are such talented, intelligent young women...and more importantly, that they are caring, warm-hearted, good human beings, with values that I respect and share. And that reminds me of how important shared values are in friendships and relationships. I once knew someone who told me that my love and concern for Israel is "very annoying". That same person also expressed "great disappointment" that I'm not interested in ziplining and similar...

When I was growing up I was encouraged by a number of people in the classical music world to work toward becoming a concert pianist. I considered that path intermittently as a child and teenager, but I had too many other interests that distracted me from spending enough time practicing the piano. Plus, I had a severe problem with stage fright. Eventually I became a professional ventriloquist, and I'm very glad that I did. It has felt like the perfect ar t-form for creative expression for me, and I have never experienced much stage fright while doing it. It has felt very gratifying to be able to bring joy and laughter to so many people, especially to children. I stopped playing the piano as a young adult and - for psychological reasons - I did not play it for many years. Then, when my first daughter, Michelle, was born, I began playing songs on the piano for her. Then I started playing classical music for her. From an early age it was apparent that Michelle had an extraordina...