My Neighbor Turturro
I don't need a watch. I have John Turturro.
When I lived in Brooklyn, I was a freelancer who worked from home most days. So I didn’t commute to an office, but I did leave the house every morning to walk my toddler to day care. On my way back, I always passed two people walking in the opposite direction: my wife, who left the apartment after me, on her way to work; and actor John Turturro.
Sometimes John Turturro was dressed in a suit, carrying a briefcase, like a commuter heading to a mid-level corporate job. Other times he was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. But he was always walking in the same direction at the same time every morning.
The first time I passed John Turturro, I passed my wife a few minutes later and said, “Hey, guess who I just saw. John Turturro!” Celebrity sightings in New York are common, but they’re often still worth mentioning.
The next time I passed John Turturro, I passed my wife a few minutes later and said, “Hey, I just saw John Turturro again. I guess he must live around here.”
The third time I passed John Turturro, I didn’t bother mentioning it. Obviously he had someplace to go around the same time we did. That’s a fairly unremarkable thing to keep mentioning.
My daily John Turturro sighting soon became just a normal part of my walk. Sometimes I’d be early to drop off my kid at day care, or be running a little late. And sometimes my wife would be early or late. But John Turturro was always on time.
Eventually he became a benchmark for our morning routine.
One day I dropped off our son at day care, passed John Turturro on the way back as usual, and made it all the way home just as my wife was leaving.
“You’re just leaving now? I passed John Turturro, like, five minutes ago. You’re late!”
Another time I arrived home as my wife was rushing out the door. “Whoa, slow down. I can see John Turturro coming up the sidewalk. He hasn’t even passed our apartment yet. You have time.”
I wondered if John Turturro ever noticed that he passed me every day. It seemed unlikely. I blend into a crowd.
I also wondered where he was going every morning. Sometimes I’d see John Turturro after he’d walked past the subway station (which meant that I was behind schedule). Since he didn’t take the subway, he probably wasn’t going far. But beyond that I could only guess.
One day I saw an ad for a play at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) starring John Turturro. Well, that made sense. If he kept walking in the same direction after I saw him each day, he would eventually reach the BAM building about a mile down the road. Maybe they had early morning rehearsals and he liked the walk? That seemed plausible for at least part of the time. But for so long? And why the suit and briefcase?
Sometimes John Turturro would disappear. Weeks would pass where I wouldn’t see him. I always assumed he was off filming a movie or something. Eventually he would return, and then a Transformers movie would come out and I’d say, “Yep, I’ll bet that’s what he was doing.”
When you see a celebrity on the streets of New York, it can sometime be a little bit disorienting because there’s this person you’ve only seen in movies or TV suddenly out of context. Like when you saw your third grade teacher at the grocery store. But it turns out that when you see a guy every day on the streets of New York and then one night you’re watching Transformers 3 on TV and he pops up playing Agent Simmons of the Sector 7 Advanced Research Division, that can be disorienting, too.
I’ve since moved from New York, and now I don’t see John Turturro anymore.
So I bought an Apple Watch.
Speaking of My Old Apartment
That story reminds me of a photo series I shot while I was living in that Brooklyn apartment. The building I lived in was an average Brooklyn brownstone. But the view out the window was of a much more interesting building. I used to take pictures of it in different seasons. Here are a few of them.
Crowdfunding in a Jugular Vein
With MAD magazine all but dead, long-time MAD writer Desmond Devlin and creative partner artist Tom Richmond have teamed up to create a book of new movie parodies in the classic MAD style they honed over 20 years working together. And they’re raising funds for the project on Indiegogo. They have donor levels ranging from “Putz” where you get a PDF of one movie spoof, to “Megalomaniac” where you actually get to choose a movie for them to parody — like, say, Transformers 3.
👆Screenshot taken yesterday, not a current view
Hey, that’s four issues of this newsletter done already! I think that’s just enough for me to start adding a message at the end that if you’re new to the newsletter you should check the archive.
See you next week!
David
