The Wit and Wisdom of Lee Israel, Vol. 4 (2010)

Having obtained a newly uncovered photo of Lee as a little girl (with her brother Edward), I thought it was high time to return to her collected e-mails. Since our last installment, we learned that the extremely funny, talented, and charming Chris O’Dowd has joined the cast with the already announced, amazingly wonderful Julianne Moore in Nicole Holofcener’s movie version of Lee’s memoir. This installment covers 2010, when she first discussed the possibility of Can You Ever Forgive Me? reaching the big screen. Plus: Lee Israel — early adopter of emojis! But we begin in classic Lee form….

1/14/10
Hello Jack I’ve decided that belated Happy New Year wishes need to be placed in the same category as white socks/Labor Day … we must all of us decide about the proper shelf life, when, in other words, enough is enough. .. I was just looking over a piece of mine that Tikkun is taking, and you came to mind because I think you would like it. May I send it to you? …Are you well? I am a little stoned ,having fallen down in the street on my nose two days ago …doing some collateral rib damage, which hurts a lot. My doctor is giving me Codeine with Tylenol though I would rather have Demerol neat. Let me hear from you. Say hello to Mappy. I like him so much. …My movie is moving along. There is money and talent. It could happen.

as ever, Lee

1/16/10, 4:51 pm
[after I suggested changing the name of a character, Gopnik, as it was the same as the lead in the Coen Brothers’ then-current film, A Serious Man:]

You are spot on …Here’s what happened. I really did expect that The New Yorker was gonna take this, and after they rejected it I went immediately to Hebe, because I didn’t then give a shit and I jewed it up. (Harry was a Christian originally.) And I had just seen Serious Man. The jewing was much better than I expected it to be, but you are absolutely correct about the name. But I still like Gopnik. Did I tell you that it is going to be run in the progressive-Jewish Tikkun Not even in the magazine, but on-site. (I keep all the rights) Pete Gabel (stop me if I told you this), the son of Arlene Francis and Martin Gable, is their exec editor and he is mad for it…But comedy is a tough fit etc. etc…. I love it that you love it; and you homed in (as Renee would have said) on all my favorite parts. She was originally named just Sally –obviously for the Harry-Sally thing -And in the jewed-up version I chose the most heavily Jewish version of the name…you know ,the one that’s in the Hebrew Bible!. … We have script for my movie … I ‘m lunching with Rhoda –Valerie Harper — who is going to play Tallulah on Broadway. Bu it is bound to fail. Nobody can ever play Tallulah as well as Tallulah played Tallulah …I broke a rib and am thus home tonight with all the codeine anyone could wish for … Let’s get together from time to time. Lee

6:30 pm
[after a day had been suggested for meeting up with our friend the Mapman:]

Perfect. Alert the geographer, and we’re off. …I understand why serious opiate addicts cause fires. I just now kind of nodded, but I’ve been off cigarettes for about twenty-seven years, so it was only a #2 pencil that slipped from my hand. Be good to see you all. Lee.

2/17/10
[after I sent Lee an essay of mine published in the New York Press:]

“…and mine to be an underpaid cog in the publishing world.”

Hey Jack …You’re not underpaid.

Seriously, it’s a terrific piece. Very funny. Do you get any feedback on this stuff?
March would be great for dining and I look forward to it. I have fun with you and Jungle Jim
Is GeoJim funnier? ….Do I need to remind you that I am always looking for copyediting work? Despite the great notices, the book didn’t sell that well, though the movie would help sales. There’s already a script. luv lee

2/19/10
[after I said I was watching Olympic figure skaters prance around:]

My father, a veteran of WW2, was also named Jack. And your homophobia dishonors him and all those other valiant men who liberated Bergen Belson.
Take care. You are skating on thin ice. Lee

3/10/10
[referring to some pastries she’d brought to our get-together the previous night:]

Loved those scones for breakfast. Glad I didn’t give them away to some scabrous beggar. lee

5/3/10
Hi Back watching baseball, which is still boring…My favorite names among the boys, not necessarily of summer. Swisher (who is a switch hitter), and this guy name Putz, which they pronounce anyway other than putz, ..Lynn Redgrave [her passing was announced that day] was a really good dame. Lee

5/4/10
I was researching a book about Vanessa Redgrave (never got done), when she was about to do a TV biopic called Playing for Time, in which she played a cabaret singer named Fania (sp. all wrong), who had been in Auschwitz.. I interviewed pro-Israel people out in Hollywood and they were going nuts. Vanessa did play for time, and she was just towering great. As always. The Israel-Palestine issue was much more one-sided then than now. The Zionist were shocked when I told them that I’d interivewed Fania’s brother and that she’d been lying about her Jewishness…claiming she was only one half Jew, when she was as pure Jewish as Jackie Mason.

5/18/10
Is there anything more boring than a 7th inning stretch? Just reread your piece about me.
I couldn’t have said anything as cruel as you assert, without softening it in some way. You cut the quote to make a point. To quote from Adison DeWitt …being straight you’ll not know that he was the dramatic critic in All About Eve ….and he said to Marilyn Monroe ….”I suppose you have a point. An idiotic point, but a point nonetheless.” And about the firing that you impute to my being difficult. …never understood any of it…. Hope you’re well and that you’re writing. Say hello to Map. As ever Lee

6/10/10
[after sending Lee an essay about a boxing match I’d attended at Yankee Stadium:]

That wasn’t Naomi Watts ringside, you fool, it was Ida Lupino. ..Loved your piece..Boxing has always been a big attraction for Jewish men …Until I was eleven, we lived in Woodside, a block away from Sunnyside Gardens. My father took me there often. I don’t remember much,except that I preferred the circus.You’d think the blood would have made an impression…Great to hear from you lee

6/11/10
Thinking about your boxing piece …here’s what I would have done…Brought Joyce Oates (I love calling her that; it’s so silly) to the bout with me. I just mean I would have touched on Oates’ (kids used to tease her, calling her Trigger)thinking and my own..But that’s me…Off to the gym Lee

8/11/10
[while the Yankees played the Texas Rangers in Texas:]

Hi W and Laura have really good seats! Cliff Lee is some kind of pitcher. Lee

9/6/10
Hi You’re funny. Bob Balaban and I are involved in yet another project. My Kilgallen as a possible TV.movie. I’m being terse because this is strictly entre nous. I’ll keep you informed. Are you writing? lee

9/7/10
[in reference to my admitted crush on Balaban’s daughter, who had worked at the same company as Lee and I, in a different division, and who I’d been friendly with:]

Did you see Bob Balaban playing a network head on an old Seinfeld? George and Jerry have come to him to sell their idea for a series “about nothing.:” He has a terrible cold because someone had sneezed on his eggs. His hot daughter walks in. George stares at her cleavage. And Balaban goes crazy! Just a heads-up. Lee

9/8/10
Hi I’m about to watch the Yankee game..those losers!. Made me think of a movie I watched weeks ago for no other reason than I was up at three in the morning and so was it, On Demand. Called Big Fan. Not the Robert DeNiro movie, but an indie done by the man who directed The Wrestler. Great surprise. Off-beat. Funny. Kind of Marty with call-in radio. I know you’ll dig it. So would Mappy
P.S. I saw a bag lady today on the subway. Her clothes were ragged and in total disarray. Hole in the trousers. Pants just about to fall down over her big fat ass. She was eating from a bag of chips and carefully brushing the falling crumbs off the front of her.Chaplin. Keaton. Oliver. lee

9/12/10
[after the Rangers had completed a three-game sweep of the Yankees:]

GLEE ON A DAY IN SEPTEMBER bY aNON

 

9/19/2010

[after the Orioles beat the Yankees in the bottom of the 11th:]

see below

LOL

10/7/2010, 1:10 pm
[after I teased her about John Lennon’s fingerprints being seized from a memorabilia shop:]

I didn’t know about this. Can you imagine the greed! Now it’s fingerprints. What’s next? Don’t answer… Movie is going along marvelously. They even gave me a chance to comment. I worked on notes for about a week. Yesterday, Balaban, et al. met to discuss. Of course, they are not obligated to heed…. Lee

4:57 pm
[after I referred to an interview with Terence Winter, in which he explained that in TV, the writer is king, but in movies, it’s all about the director:]

I know. But in their movie there is a character called Lee Israel. Gives me a certain added presence …

10/15/10
[after I teased her about a Kurt Cobain letter up for auction:]

cobain

Did you see that the Cobain letter was sold at $12,800?.And it appears that the gallery will not reveal provenance. ,,, I once saw at Gallery Gonif a signature on plain paper, on plain butcher paper and in pencil, GERONIMO. Thousands of dollars.
..I don’t know why your addresses are so weird in my address book. Must date back to the time I knew nothing about computers, to wit, last Thursday.

11/26/10
[after I invited her to a show I had emcee’d:]

Good morning. …Had I a car, a friend with a car, or money to spare for a taxi, I’d have been there. But Brooklyn by subway is not exactly Moonlight in Vermont. Lee

12/3/10
sixteen candles… give or take (great movie)

Jack
Thought she was forgotten on her birthday, author Lee Israel lowered her head into the gas stove ….but no, what light yonder lights …..yadda yadda. I may do a piece about Face Book, like the cavalry, coming to the rescue, and how what the hundreds of messages I received kept me head aloft. Well, maybe not hundreds, and actually friends are giving me a party tonight. . How sweet you are and how sentimental…Come visit. I have good drugs. Lee

• Volume 1: 2005–6
• Volume 2: 2007–8
• Volume 3: 2009