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Anytime Chris and I need a laugh, we read this. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/t-magazine/natalie-portman-jonathan-safran-foer-emails.html
Their 15 years of emails were "mysteriously lost." This is the premise. Like we're supposed to believe that Jonathon Safron Foer (objectively annoying writer) and Natalie Portman had been exchanging fabulous and intellectual emails for years.
Then they 'start anew' for this NYT Profile. There are a lot of introductions. And talk of Foer's guinea pigs. And a lot of pictures of Portman in a bikini and oddly named sweaters ("The Elder Statesman") throughout. Ah, la vie boheme!
We learn about the trials of acting - and also that England is like some dark circle of the world where Portman must live without sun and work through the night - "I’m night shooting. It’s 3:30 in the morning and the sun rises at 4:50 here in England — when it rises at all."
We learn Foer defines "profiles" as stalker-like experiences - " it became clear we weren’t going to be in the same place for long enough to allow for a traditional profile — me observing you at the farmer’s market, etc."
Foer spends A LOT of time talking about garbage days and recycling days and then asks Portman (somewhat suggestively if you ask me) - "what has cleared your Wonder Line in the past couple of weeks?"
What is wrong with Foer and his creepy prompts: "Are there places where you feel a “something else”?'
We learn of a fun nickname Portman has: "An ex-boyfriend of mine used to call me “Moscow,” because he said I was always looking out the window sadly, like “Moscow,” like some Russian novel or Chekhov play. "
Post Anna Karenina revelation, Portman actually has beautiful insights into language and the Jewish diaspora: " earth (adama), man (adam), blood (dam), red (adom), silence (doomia). Etymology might seem dry, but the connections between words feel to me like the connectedness"
Here's a poem by Foer: "Not even Shabbat can stop the clock — two have moved from the future to the past in the course of our having this exchange — but every now and then the broken-down time machine that is Hotmail can cough itself back to life. "
The exchange ends with Foer MIRACULOUSLY finding the very first email of their exchange, back in 2002. What are the odds? Anyway. I'll let Natalie close out this thread: "It is our engagement in the process, our helping the creation of the piece, that makes us feel the story."
