I learned on Saturday that my Great-uncle Joe died Friday.  Sad news on top of sad news.  Joe was 70, and had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for years.  He was a champ throughout.  It was his heart that got him, though, not the rheumatiz.  I think it  had always been too big for his fragile body. 

Joe was the consummate pizza man.  He gave my mom one of her first jobs in his family pizza shop.  And then he fired her for putting far too many toppings on the pizzas.  According to my Mom, they were just a tiny bit decadent.  According to Joe, the pies she made were so overloaded that they would touch the burners on the salamander as they baked.  (Mom then got a job at Dairy Queen, and was fired for making the ice-cream cones too big–there’s a theme here, somewhere.)  When I asked Joe to teach me how to throw pizza dough, he happily taught me the bread side of the job, but insisted that my more reserved brother David be the sauce and cheese man, "just in case certain proclivities are genetic."  You haven’t heard the true music of American speech until you’ve heard an Italian-American Pizzaman say "just in case certain proclivities are genetic"  in a Pittsburgh accent.  I will hear it for the rest of my days.  Thank you for that, Joe.

Joe married my Grandpap’s youngest sister Sylvia after she divorced an abusive husband, way back in the day.  Grandpap taught the abuser about what it feels like to be bullied, and Joe taught Sylvia what it feels like to be worshiped.  Both lessons were priceless to Sylvia.  Joe never thought twice about treating Sylvia’s kids from her first marriage as his own.  Joe never thought twice about treating every kid in Pittsburgh as his own.  Joe’s Calzones were simultaneously as light as air and heavy as bricks.  Joe’s hands turned from supple, balletic tools to claws over the last 40 years.  But still he had the touch for delicacy. 

Even after decades of marriage to my Grandpap’s baby sister, Joe balked at the idea of taking a memento from Grandpap’s home after his death, saying that the choicest things should go to "Chuck’s real family." 

Joe, for once and for all, you were our real family.  I hope we convinced you of that when we sent you home with that box of Saints medals and trinkets you always loved. 
Joe–you were a great man.  I hope you remembered that even when your body turned against you. 
Joe–you were a great cook.  I know you always knew that.  We love you, Joe.  And we are legion. 

As I always do when something sad happens, I’m immersing myself in good books and films.  Expect a lot of reviews over the next few days.

My boy Martin McDonagh just won the Oscar for his first short film.  Bully for him!

The Cripple of Inishmaan by Martin McDonagh.   

Without Samuel Beckett, there would be no Martin McDonagh.  Well, maybe Pinter and Durang deserve some credit too.  Wait a minute . . . Pinter just got a Nobel Prize for Literature, and Beckett got his in 1969 . . .  does that mean Durang and McDonagh have some good news coming?  Congrats, you wacky playwrights!  Anyway, McDonagh has this amazingly Beckett-esque sense of comic timing and he uses it in plays that are much more accessible than most of Beckett’s work. 

In this play, news that Robert Flaherty is on Inis Mor (literally "Big Island"*) making the film Man of Aran reaches Inis Meain ("middle island"**) .  A trio of the local kids decide to convince a fisherman to row them over to Inis Mor so they can convince the Hollywood types to cast them in the fil-uhm ***.   Among them is Cripple Billy, a local fosterling with a withered leg and far too scholarly a mind to enjoy his compatriots any longer.  Hilarity ensues. 

But, because it’s an Irish play, most of the hilarity is really quite dark.  I haven’t had the chance to see this play live, yet, but I’m guessing it would make most American audiences supremely uncomfortable, what with all of the insults against Billy and the comments about priests who attempt to grope teen girls. 

* which is very funny to me
** creative, eh?  The third and south-most island is named Inis Oirr.  Who wants to guess what that means?  I’ll give you a clue–there’s a small island off the coast of Kerry called Beginis, which sounds like "begin-ish".  It means small island.  So that’s already taken.
***you must pronounce it that way

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