Editors Matthew, Elena, Darin, and Melissa talk to Paul Rabinowitz about his piece Little Gem Magnolia and its surreal mix of genres. We touch on New Orleans, art, making time for art, and so much more.
Referenced in this Episode:
Little Gem Magnolia by Paul Rabinowitz on The Metaworker website;
I’ve Loved You So Long, film recommended by Paul;
The Selfish Giant, film recommended by Paul;
Author Bio:
Paul Rabinowitz is an author, photographer and founder of ARTS By The People. Paul’s photography, short fiction and poetry have appeared in many magazines and journals. Paul was a featured artist in Nailed Magazine, Mud Season Review and nominated for Best of the Net in 2021 for his Limited Light photo series. Paul is the author of Limited Light and The Clay Urn and working on a multimedia novel called Confluence. His poems and fiction have been the inspiration for numerous short films. https://www.paulrabinowitz.com/
Episode Transcript:
Matthew Maichen (00:00):
My name is Matthew Maichen and I’m the editor-in-chief of The Metaworker.
Elena L. Perez (00:07):
I’m Elena Perez the managing editor of The Metaworker.
Darin Milanesio (00:10):
I’m Darin Milanesio, another editor.
Melissa Reynolds (00:12):
And I’m Melissa Reynolds, also another editor.
Matthew Maichen (00:16):
And we are now here with Paul Rabinowitz.
Paul Rabinowitz (00:21):
Pleasure.
Matthew Maichen (00:22):
And we are discussing “Little Gem Magnolia”. So, Paul, why don’t you introduce yourself and the story and read an excerpt as you see fit,
Paul Rabinowitz (00:36):
Thank you very much for having me, Metaworker, and all the folks involved with this lovely literary journal. As I said, my name is Paul Rabinowitz, and I’m going to read you one of the poems that’s an integral part of the overall piece. We’re set in New Orleans, in a little cafe somewhere in the Faubourg Marigny section, which is right outside the French quarter, and this is the second part of the piece:
Paul Rabinowitz (01:14):
II
It was midnight,
the first time
An inbound streetcar near Canal Street
turned
before heading uptown
At Common Street
she hopped on,
white blouse covered in red ink stains
and her eyes
flashing
like carnival beads.
We ride along St. Charles under a canopy of live oak,
past Louisiana, Napoleon and Jefferson.
To the bend at the levee.
Her arm brushed my shoulder,
as she rose to pull the cord for her desired stop
The buzzer still rang through my ears at South Carrolton
Near the river,
dark and still
“So, that’s one of the four parts of this short story called “Little Gem Magnolia”.
Matthew Maichen (02:30):
Thank you. Thank you so much. You gave such a spirited reading of it. It reminds me of when I used to go to slam poetry nights—not anymore, unfortunately—but thank you. So, the thing that really jumped out to me about this piece…I just thought the mixture of poetry and prose was so interesting and the way that it kind of just moved between them as necessary based on ‘what’s gonna help tell the story better in a more impactful way. It’ll be prose if that’s the best way, it’ll be poetry, if that’s the best way…we’re going to do either/or depending on what works’. I’m glad that we’re kind of drawing attention to this one, ’cause it’s just so good and creative
Melissa Reynolds (03:43):
For this piece in particular, I thought that the imagery was fantastic. I almost felt like I was there.
Darin Milanesio (03:53):
Oh, I’m such a sucker for anything that’s New Orleans. I’ve never even been to New Orleans. Literally any story that takes place there, and it can kind of give that sense of place, I’m totally sucked in.
Matthew Maichen (04:07):
Hmm. I love that. So, the prose is kind of spare, isn’t it? It’s not overwrought, it doesn’t use unnecessary words at all, but even in not using those unnecessary words and not having flowery description, it gives you such a strong sense of place of New Orleans. And I have been there and I immediately felt myself back there as soon as I started reading this. It works the history of the city and the surrounding area in, in such a natural way. The real history of the city, right? The interesting part, the voodoo Queens and the weirdness and that stuff…it works it in, in such a natural way.
Darin Milanesio (05:10):
Yeah. I like the use of the language of, kind of connecting it to the New Orleans culture and not even just describing this sense of place, but my favorite line is: “his eyes burning like paprika on roasted almonds”. That is so good because obviously paprika is used in so much Cajun cooking and that line just really jumped out to me.
Matthew Maichen (05:32):
Yeah. And some of these things, I’m talking about them now, but there are things that I want to eventually ask Paul about, because what’s so interesting is that this strong sense of setting ends up playing into the connection between, I guess, the personal and the political, right? It’s this description of this history, but it ties into one person trying to find another person, which is the most personal thing ever. It kind of goes into, I guess, a romantic search for this woman. It’s just so interesting how it veers from one to the other, and it doesn’t feel like it leaves either out. Maybe I’m not saying that as perfectly as I could, but it feels like both of them are involved in the end result of the story.
Melissa Reynolds (06:52):
It’s funny to think of setting as a character, but it definitely has a presence, almost as if another character was standing there with them, especially with the peel to the lemon and the smell. But then also we kind of get to explore the setting as well with riding the train and talking about the channel and everything. I think that’s the main reason I felt transported there and I’ve never been there. I’ve only seen pictures, but it feels almost welcoming in the sense that I got from it, if that makes any kind of sense at all.
Darin Milanesio (07:39):
Before we get to questions, Matthew, do you remember when we were discussing this piece and we had a long discussion about the ending? I don’t know if you want to try to give your interpretation of the ending, before we jump into questions with Paul,
Matthew Maichen (07:54):
I think what stands out to me about this ending…to me personally, [what’s] interesting are the exact last few lines. He sees her and…I’ll just read it: “And I see Ayva stumbling towards me, her eyes peer through the dense fog In one hand she holds a white dress, stained with red ink In the other, a bucket and shovel.” I can’t lie. I read that and I’m like, ‘what’? It seems, reading it again now, my interpretation—and this is based on me going back to it a few times. I don’t know how Paul’s going to respond to this, but it seems like there’s almost a religious connotation to his search for her. If you look at religious iconography of gods and goddesses, there is a huge focus on what exact objects this god or goddess is holding and what those objects mean about what that god or goddess represents. My interpretation is—I’m kind of punting a bit, I guess—because when I look at this, what I think is if she is his goddess as the story would imply, then these objects that she is holding symbolize her domain. So, the white dress stained with red ink and the bucket and the shovel symbolize, I guess, a kind of beauty and profanity that she rules over. There may be a more literal interpretation, but I totally am going with that strange and almost religious one ’cause a bucket and a shovel is a very…. In the context of this story, there’s something that seems almost morbid about it. And then there’s also something that seems morbid about this white dress stained with red ink. It’s funny that it’s specified that it’s red ink instead of blood, but the image is still there of it looking like blood. That is as much of an interpretation as I have. I think that it is very profound.
Darin Milanesio (11:21):
I agree with everything you’re saying. We always have these conversations about…especially with things that are much more poetic. ‘Well, I didn’t understand it. So, I’m not sure if I liked it that much if I didn’t understand it.’ But then there are all these pieces that we didn’t have to completely understand everything, but we like it anyways. There’s a lot of things that I like that I don’t understand. I mean, I’m a huge fan of [TV show] Twin Peaks, for example. I don’t have any idea what’s happening in Twin Peaks—ever—when I watch that show, but I love it. I love the atmosphere that it has. I love strange characters and, you know, that’s how I feel about this piece. I don’t have to completely understand every image that’s in it. I mean, I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I don’t understand what these streets are and what’s there. I don’t really understand the ship and trying to pass through the sediment, the bend in the river. I think that we talked about that where you knew exactly where that was because you had been there.
Matthew Maichen (12:22):
Yeah, I’ve actually seen that exact location. That is actually a thing. Some of the locations described in this poem- slash-story-slash-whatever…I’ve been to that exact place and I know what is being described.
Darin Milanesio (12:40):
Yeah. I totally didn’t grasp everything, but the sense of place and the language and just the feeling of things and the kind of dreamlike quality, that stuff just kind of washes over me and that’s what I really enjoy about it.
Matthew Maichen (12:57):
Paul, what do you take away from hearing the conversation, hearing us discuss this piece and our interpretations of it? Why we liked it, why we published it. How do you react to that? What do you take from that?
Paul Rabinowitz (13:19):
First of all, fascinating to really sit in the same room here in New Jersey, in my little writing office where I wrote this piece, to listen to your interpretation. First of all, you’re all spot on, and even if you say that the poem just evoked feeling—hey, that’s good enough for me. I do feel that this is a pretty deep work. The setting is New Orleans, but the setting doesn’t have to be New Orleans. It deals with an immigrant who is somewhat…maybe desperate to stay in the country, let’s say, and she has to make a decision. The artist has to make a decision and the voodoo gentlemen has to make a decision. My first time…I lived in new Orleans, I went to Tulane (University), but before I went to Tulane, I left school in the Northeast. I’d just had enough with the Northeast at that point and I traveled down to new Orleans with two of my friends. We were all playing music at the time and we went down there to live and to absorb that amazing city. Then eventually I went back to school and finished up, but that was about a six year period that I was down there. I will say that New Orleans became a muse for me, and still is. When I can get my mind into sort of that same atmosphere today that I had when I was 21, 20 years old, magical things can happen. I wrote this piece very quickly, probably only in about two days. It flowed out of me. When that happens, you know…I also work with a lot of other mediums. I’m a fiction writer. I have books out, but poetry really is what drives me and I think even my fiction novels and novellas are driven more by poetry than they are anything else. Poetry allows us to create atmosphere that I feel sometimes prose lacks. But of course when they’re mixed together, there could be some magic, which I think I tried to do here. I didn’t do it intentionally, I think I just did it because I became so much part of the voice of the artist in this piece that I thought, well, we as humans can’t always just use strait narrative to tell our deepest feelings. Sometimes it’s just easier to do it through poetry or through lyrics or through song. Sometimes that’s what moves us more than anything else. I mean, I don’t know if anyone has been moved to tears over reading a paragraph in a book, but you could be moved to tears by hearing a song that just hits you or a poem. I think that’s what I try to do. I think I try to create— or I should say add to the void—through poetry rather than just going straight narrative through the whole thing. Relating to some of the things that you all said, I should say Little Gem Magnolia is actually an invasive species. Our natural plant is a Magnolia tree, but these little…they’re called Little Gem Magnolias, and you probably have them out on the west coast. We have them here even in New Jersey—I have one outside my backyard—but they’re invasive. They’re sort of not supposed to be here and we sort of mutated this tree so everybody can have it and they have incredible fragrances that I described in the story, and that Mel actually spoke about, as well. But the concept of an invasive…so when I say invasive…in other words, what we call Southern Magnolia, which we see in all the movies and those of you who haven’t been to the south or New Orleans, you know, it’s a prevalent tree. But the Little Gems are dwarfed Magnolias and like Ayva…you know, I nicknamed her Little Gem Magnolia because she is not from there. She is from somewhere else, not from this country, not from the United States. So, she herself is trying to overcome tremendous odds in order to grow or stay in the country. That’s obviously a prevalent thing right now in our country and throughout the world, people doing sometimes desperate things just to stay because the country that they’re leaving behind has become either a dictatorship or something else. And, the religious connotations…yeah, definitely. I think you hit it really on the head. Sometimes when, I mean, you’re all writers and sometimes you kinda hit on something and you kind of sit back and you scratch your head and you say, ‘you know what, I’m not really sure if that’s going to make sense’. And then you leave it for a day and you come back, next thing you say…’I don’t know what it is, but that bucket and shovel just fits’. I think it’s daring at times because, you know, I do write for myself, I think we all write for ourselves, but you also don’t want it to be such a mystery for the public that they’re like, ‘what the hell is going on here’. Yet I couldn’t get away from that bucket and shovel and I actually have a very close friend that I share my work with, Erin Jones, who’s a professor up at Emerson, and she read that and she said, ‘oh my God, that last line, I don’t know what it is, but that is so powerful’. I said,’ okay, well then I’ll just leave it’, you know? In retrospect, of course, especially after hearing all of your comments about it, it is so indicative of this work that Ayva, who is an immigrant whose green card is running out, has to make some desperate choices. And the desperate choice, as we learn in the piece, is to somehow get too closely involved with voodoo, which is a wonderful religion. It’s sort of had this negative connotation throughout American history because it was the Black or African religion that had to be seen as threatening. And it’s not, it’s a very beautiful religion. But his intentions were not always what she had in mind, the guy who comes into the cafe who’s involved with voodoo. So, that’s one aspect of the bucket and the shovel, that there could have been this thing where she’s going to have to almost bury herself in order to kind of reincarnate as another person in order to stay in this country, which is not unheard of. I don’t mean through death, but through changing your…everything about you. The second part of that, or another part of that, is the bucket is also…the bucket Is not full. I didn’t say a full bucket. It’s just a bucket. It’s also possible that the artist who is obviously,…she is his muse and he is where he is today because of this overwhelming character of Ayva. Whether she be…you know…Look, she is basically everything for him at this moment. He’s a married man. It’s spoken about in the piece. And that’s another huge leap that somebody would have to make or a sacrifice that he would have to make to just admit that there’s another person out there that’s driving his art. And as artists, we know that’s always prevalent in our work. It doesn’t have to be another woman or man, it could be some island in the middle of the Pacific that you went to and you keep going back to, but a muse is something very important to allow us to continue to create. The last thing I was going to say about that, the bucket and the shovel, is she’s coming to him now and saying, ‘You have a choice. You either bury me—here’s the bucket that’s not full—or you have to make a choice and embrace me with the empty bucket’. There is definitely religious connotations, but I don’t know where that comes from. I mean, I’m personally not a religious person, but I think I’m pretty spiritual. So, if we just leave it at that… Then, of course the white dress, when he first meets her, as I read in the first opening little poem, you know, she’s wearing this white shirt and she’s got red stains, she’s a tattoo artist. The white dress is such a metaphor for so many things. You know, marriage, the projection of marriage, the projection of something maybe more Virgin-esque, if you will. Not Virgin in the physical sense, but sort of like, again, he has to make this decision towards her purity and things of that nature where really all that she wants to do, ultimately, is just stay in the country.
Matthew Maichen (23:06):
I really like how I listened to you talk and, maybe this is just the way I’m hearing it, but it kind of seems like we’re all getting at this ending. Even though you’re the author, even though you’re the person who wrote it, we’re all kind of talking together to get closer to what’s going on in this ending. I think that’s just so cool, ’cause you admit straight up that you wrote it and it didn’t fully click with you after you wrote it, and that’s so fascinating. You’re right, it is brave. It’s difficult to accept that in your own work. It’s something that I feel inspired by. I feel like in my own writing, I should feel comfortable enough to not know what’s going on at first.
Paul Rabinowitz (24:11):
I want to comment on that ’cause that that’s…well, art is an evolutionary process. We’re never there, right? As Bob Dylan once said, we always want to be almost there because once you’re there, where do you go, you know? So, we always want to be striving for better writing, for more profound writing, better poetry, better music, whatever it might be. Maybe this was a moment in my own writing where I felt that this piece had something that may be my writing prior didn’t have. That there was something here that was deeper than maybe anything I’ve ever written before, possibly. Or different in a sense that it hit me in a different way. Maybe what you’re saying is right on in the sense that I also, maybe like Ayva, had that moment where, I don’t know why, but that line just felt right. And I was going to stick by it no matter what. It’s evolved into something that I think, you know, sometimes we don’t want to know the answers. Sometimes we want to read or see a movie that allows us to think beyond the ending. I’s up to your interpretation. You’ve hit it all very close, that that’s really what the bucket and the shovel was. Maybe it was my own transformation or….that’s not the right word, but my own…something…into another realm.
Darin Milanesio (25:48):
I am a huge believer that artists and writers are often tapping into things that they themselves are not always aware of. So, you can go back to Joseph Campbell, where you can kind of do the Jungian archetypes and unconscious type stuff. I’m a pretty firm believer in that stuff. When any artist kind of just feels like they needed to write something, even if they don’t understand it, that speaks to me immediately. When we’re discussing pieces, and a lot of us might not understand something, but there’s at least one of us that goes, ‘no, this really hit me. This really had an impact on me’, that makes the rest of us kind of pause and go, ‘okay, hold on here’. Maybe something is not always for us, but if it’s going to hit someone in some way, it must be tapping into something. We love when that happens. For you to have your friend read it, and that happened to her, that ending really just struck her, just like it kind of struck us, that’s great. That’s why writers need to let people read their work, just to see what hits.
Matthew Maichen (26:59):
Yeah. There is a certain belief of writing advocated by certain writers—too many for me to list here—that when you write a story, you are not creating it, you are uncovering something. There is something there, that as you go through the writing process, you are uncovering this thing that might’ve been either in you or outside of you before you started. But it’s not something that has its origin in a conscious thought, a conscious idea, that you have. It has a deeper origin, wherever it is coming from.
Melissa Reynolds (27:54):
Elizabeth Gilbert, the “Eat, Pray, Love” lady, has a lot of videos out on YouTube and I’ve watched one or two, and she talks about this thought that the ideas choose you. That it’s something out there, and if you don’t serve it properly or if you don’t grab onto it, then the idea moves on to somebody else. I thought that’s pretty cool. And kind of related to this thought that sometimes the story isn’t a hundred percent ours.
Matthew Maichen (28:31):
That’s so interesting. I love that. It’s funny, ’cause I was going to ask a lot of questions of Paul, and then he actually answered a few of them. So let me look at some of the questions I was going to ask…
Elena L. Perez (28:58):
I did actually want to ask about…because Paul, you also submitted a couple photos with this piece and we chose the one that you see featured on our site. So, I was just curious if you could give us a little more background on the photo and why you thought it was a good fit for this piece. Did you take it specifically for this piece or just… Yeah, talk a little bit about that.
Paul Rabinowitz (29:25):
I’m so glad you mentioned that because I’m actually looking right at the photo on the discord site, and the more I look at the photo, the more I love this photo. So, first of all, I’m a photographer as well as a writer, an author. I’m also, just so you all know out there because it’s really important…Well, two things I wanted to say: first of all, “Little Gem Magnolia” was the quickest piece I ever had accepted. I’m submitting work all the time. I write, I’m a pretty obsessive writer. I write every day and I’m probably submitting pieces to different magazines at least once a month and Metaworker, who has published another piece of mine as well, I’m a big fan of what you all are doing. I spend a lot of time on social media getting the word out about Metaworker. I just think you’re a great literary journal. This one, though, “Little Gem Magnolia” I think was accepted in a day or two. I don’t know what it was, but as Mel was saying, you know, sometimes these things, just…I think Bob Dylan said, I don’t mean to use his name twice, but for some reason, sometimes these quotes stick with me. But he said, ‘we don’t write it, we just pull it down’. Like those stories are all out there, it’s just our responsibility as writers to pull them down and make them their own. I felt there was something here with “Little Gem Magnolia” that was kind of special. I was really overwhelmed that Metaworker would call it their own and put it in their magazine. The reason I wanted to bring that up is, about two days later, after I sent out the link, when it was published in Metaworker, is I got a text from a friend of mine who is a choreographer. And she said, ‘we would love to turn this into a dance film’. I wanted to talk about that for just a second and then I’ll get back to the photograph. I am very involved…I’m not a dancer, but I’m very involved in the world of dance. I love dance, I love modern dance, and I do write a lot for dance. Choreographers and so forth who take my work and then they turn it into dance pieces. This person, Georgia Usborne, who’s a wonderful New York City choreographer and creator, dancer, director, is now wrapping her arms around “Little Gem Magnolia”. For all the reasons that you brought up, just fell in love with this piece and is going to turn it into a dance film, which should be out probably in August or September of 2021. I will keep you all in the loop on that. Metaworker gets a big thumbs up on that because of course you guys were the only ones to publish the piece as well. So, that makes me feel proud that I can do that. Getting back to your question about the photograph, I work in a lot of mediums. I work in photography, in writing poetry and prose. I also work with film, and I’m always sort of merging and melding these things together. With “Little Gem Magnolia”, the fact that it’s prose and poetry…I’m not a trained writer. I just picked it up about 10 years ago. I have nothing to go on, so I kind of feel like whatever I want to do is okay, because, well, Paul says it’s okay. I don’t really know that poetry maybe shouldn’t go with prose or whatever it might be, but I also mix a lot of photography in with my work, as well. I have a book out called “Limited Light”, which was a six-year process of me photographing artists. And this photograph [that accompanies “Little Gem Magnolia”] was done during that period. Tamara Zbrizher, who was the model here, was sort of leaning back almost about to fall. I filmed this outdoors and of course she has a beautiful tattoo, which is indicative of Ayva in the piece, and just the fact that she’s leaning back on a chair ready to fall…to me was such a great picture for “Little Gem Magnolia”. That whole idea of just holding on, so to speak. And her fingers are just trying to grab the grass. When I submitted the piece, I think if I remember correctly, you accepted the work, and then I said, ‘you know what? I have this photograph, and if you think it works with your piece when you publish it, let me know’. And then of course you came back and said yeah. So, that’s the piece, that’s a model that I work with. She’s also an incredible poet. All of my models are artists. I’m drawn to artists. So, that’s who this is, that’s where that came about.
Matthew Maichen (34:48):
I really like how… okay, so we want more visual artists to submit to us. If this gets out there, we really like visual art as well as poetry and short stories. We publish art as well as literary stuff, and we really like publishing art as well as literary stuff, and we want to do it again. For that reason, when Paul responds and says, ‘actually I take photographs and here’s my really good photo photography I think this matches my piece’, yeah, like 100%. Absolutely. There’s no problem there. We’re really happy that you did that. So, thank you.
Elena L. Perez (35:53):
I really liked that interplay, ’cause sometimes…you mentioned you didn’t specifically take this photo for this piece. And I like that. You’re working in different mediums, but somehow the same kind of ideas kind of crop up no matter what medium you’re working in. I like that interplay. This photo has the same themes as this piece that you’ve written, and I like that meshing of different forms coming together and creating something new. We appreciate you sending this photo to accompany the piece. It’s really awesome to have that.
Matthew Maichen (36:34):
The funny thing is, one of our questions was we were going to ask about the film and then you talked about the film, so you’re subconsciously choosing to answer a lot of the planned-out questions. Darin, you want to ask the questions that you asked before?
Darin Milanesio (36:53):
I think Paul kind of answered one. One question we like to ask is why The Metaworker, but he already said so many nice things about the Metaworker that I’m not going to make him repeat it all. The other kind of closing-out question that we like to ask is if there’s anything you want to plug. Either something that you’ve worked on, or we also like to ask if there’s anything you recommend. Something that you’ve read recently that really grabbed you, it could even be a movie or TV show that you think more people should be seeing. Whatever you want to throw out there, we’ll share it in the discord chat.
Paul Rabinowitz (37:32):
Just so you know, why Metaworker: writers always look at other pieces that have been published, as you all know, I don’t have to tell you that, but there was something about Metaworker. It was just something about Metaworker that I felt, you know, you also want to be comfortable where your pieces end up. I wouldn’t, you know, submit to somebody that publishes sports stories. I love sports, but that’s not where my piece… For some reason there was a flow in Metaworker that I felt, ‘wow, that would be really cool if one of my pieces were there’. The first one was “Self Portrait as Woman with Scarf”. Another piece that I stand behind and I really loved writing that piece. So, Metaworker because I think the work that’s in there speaks very closely to my work, and that’s where I wanted my work to be. As far as plugging, I have three things, actually. Anyone out there, I also run an arts nonprofit, and the first Wednesday of every month—I know Mel’s going to be there to read on Wednesday—we do a literary open mic. It’s called The Platform, and if you want to find out more it’s www.artsbythepeople.org
Matthew Maichen (39:08):
Wait, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but did you say that Mel is going to read there? I actually did not know about this.
Melissa Reynolds (39:18):
Yes.
Paul Rabinowitz (39:19):
Mel, I hope I didn’t spill the beans. I’m only saying that to draw all the people that know you.
Melissa Reynolds (39:25):
Oh no, that’s okay
Paul Rabinowitz (39:28):
Now maybe Mel won’t read.
Melissa Reynolds (39:31):
Yeah, I was going to go and listen, but then, George is like—that’s my writer group leader—he’s like, ‘you should read’. So, I’ll probably be reading a piece called “River and Stone”.
Paul Rabinowitz (39:48):
If I can just plug Mel for a minute, I have read some of Mel’s work, and I think she’s a terrific writer. I just think she’s an amazing writer, so I sort of asked if that could be possible that she would come and read. For those of you in the writing community, just so you know, we’re honoring a poet that passed away a few weeks back. She’s part of our Arts by the People family, and we were really saddened to hear that news, but her spirit lives on in her poetry. The other thing I wanted to ask you all is to go to my website, which is paulrabinowitz.com. You’ll be hearing pretty soon about the new films that are coming out, and you can visit some of the works that are up there, my books, my photography, and so forth. The last thing I’ll say is two great films I had an opportunity to watch very recently that I would strongly recommend. Again, we’re all coming from a literary background and these films hit me in such a literary way. They were absolutely beautiful films. One of them is called “A Selfish Giant”, which is based on the Oscar Wilde children’s story. This is an English film and it is an absolutely gorgeous film. I mean, we talk about endings…that ending of that film is why I write. In other words, that same sort of thing that you have at the end of “Little Gem Magnolia”, I think you find in this film called “This Selfish Giant” The other film that I just saw recently, which is a beautiful French film is called…and I have to get this right, so if you give me one second…I don’t have the name. I can look it up in a second.
Matthew Maichen (42:03):
Shall we have an audience question? Char asks: ‘I am curious, if the picture wasn’t taken for the story, what was it originally intended for, or is photography something you do too?’
Paul Rabinowitz (42:20):
That’s a great question. The photography is something I do irrespective of anything else. In other words, I photograph and then when I submit to journals, sometimes I’ll say, ‘Hey, I also have this photograph’. If I see that the journal, like Metaworker, posts a photo with the prose or poetry. I only photograph portraits. 80% of my work is black and white portrait photography. If you go onto my website, paulrabinowitz.com, you’ll find my work there. I have a solo show which I’m very proud of coming up in September, which will be a solo show of my photographs, but it’ll also be mixed with my text, my prose, poetry, and also with videos. The solo show is called, ‘Retrospective with Reading Glasses’. I’m a 60 year old writer—59, I’ll be 60 in April. I came late to the process here, so it’s sort of a play on the fact that I really can’t see anything anymore without my reading glasses. It’s a retrospective with reading glasses and the whole thing features kind of this idea of, you know, ‘what is art’? So, I’m trying to create an art exhibition that has something else to it. I hope that answered your question.
Melissa Reynolds (44:03):
If I can butt in for a moment, I have looked at Paul’s website and the photography there is beautiful, so it’s well worth the effort to go and find it.
Matthew Maichen (44:13):
Yeah. I think I’d like this to be a closing-out question because it’s a question about you, Paul. We published you twice now, and I’m just hearing now about all this stuff that you do. I’m a person with a day job, to be a little transparent. I’m a substitute teacher now. I have a teaching credential, so you know, I’m applying to become a teacher and I’m kind of currently in terror of like, ‘oh God, once I become a teacher, will I even have time to write anymore?’. But you don’t just write, you do all this stuff, so my question is in regard to doing all this art: how do you find the time?
Paul Rabinowitz (45:16):
That is another great question that could be a whole hours discussion on that subject. I will say that I founded this arts organization called Arts by the People about 12 years ago, and it was quite a leap. I was in the for-profit world, or I should say I ran a small business for many years. I sort of took that knowledge that I learned in the for-profit sector and I wanted to bring it into something that was more from the heart. That had more of a legacy about giving rather than sort of taking, if you will. I had reached a crossroads in my life at that point, sort of a perfect storm of a lot of things. My oldest son went off to college, so I began to feel sort of the beginning of this thing called being an empty nester. My father, who was a real influence in my life and a great friend, and also a brilliant man, was diagnosed with dementia and I knew that the next 10 years would be filled with lots of sacrifices and also going into a senior citizen home. So, this perfect storm came together at the same time, so I started this arts nonprofit that actually was started initially to help senior citizens with high level arts programs in senior communities because I went to see some of these communities and there was bingo and television and both my mother—my mother was an artist and she passed away this year—and my father was just this brilliant guy. I couldn’t see him just being passive for the next 10 years. I took control of saying, ‘well, what if we can go to senior communities and say, Hey, we have these programs. Would you allow us to come in and do these programs at your facilities?’ One by one by one, they all said, yes. and before I knew it, after five or six years, I had this really wonderful arts organization with 20 teaching artists working for us. That just continued to grow. If you go onto our website, you’ll see this myriad of programs that we do in all mediums. So, to answer your question, one led to the other. In other words, I was so involved in the arts and so involved with all of these mediums and I myself became influenced by it. And, also, I could make a living doing it. I became a really good grant writer, which for any of you out there who are writers, get involved with learning the art of grant writing, because that is an invaluable…that is so important in today’s world. There will always be money out there. It’s a matter of, who’s a grant writer who can actually get that stuff moving in your direction. There’s a lot of grants for artists. There’s a lot of grants for writers. You just have to know how to write them and get to them. That answers [the] question, that I’ve been able to sort of put all this stuff together and have the time set aside not only to do my work with the non-profit, but also to do my thing. I’m also extremely disciplined. As my wife would say, sometimes too much so, but that is who I am. I write religiously every morning for three-and-a-half hours. That’s been going on for 12 years and I’m also now an empty-nester. All three of my boys are out there in the world doing their thing, so it is a time factor, as well.
Matthew Maichen (49:08):
Wow. Well, that’s fascinating. Just three-and-a-half hours every morning. I hope that no one listening feels somewhat diminished by that. That’s great. That’s inspiring. And that’s not the only thing you do. That’s what blows me away because I think that’s what Stephen King—the amazingly prolific Stephen King—does. He does four hours a day and that’s all he does. So, you know, I’m impressed. Anyway, thank you so much for being here, for this really fascinating discussion. I feel like this has gone so great. Just so you know, in the chat, Char said, ‘oh man, I feel like a slacker’ and Mel said, ‘you’re a mother. There’s no slacking there’.
Paul Rabinowitz (50:20):
And I want to say that I agree. I work with a lot of single moms out there. It’s just within my circles here and a thumbs up to all of you out there that, you know, it’s difficult enough, especially during these times, but as a single mom or a single dad, you know, raising children…you guys deserve all the thumbs up in the world. And the funny thing, is you never get any of that. So, I’m telling you right now, thumbs up from me, recognizing all those single moms. And if you’re a single dad out there raising children, ’cause that’s really not easy. It’s tough. Kudos to all you. And I just want to say that movie was called…’cause I just pulled it up and I have to plug it because it’s such a beautiful film. It’s called, “I’ve Loved You So Long”. It is a gorgeous film with an incredible story. Especially if you’re a single mom and that was not a plug for that, this is a worthwhile film watching. “I’ve Loved You so Long”.
Matthew Maichen (51:26):
Thank you so much for being with us here for this hour, and just being really interesting to talk to. Thank you for submitting because we wouldn’t be having this discussion if you had not done that.
Elena L. Perez (51:44):
That was great. Thanks so much for the wonderful conversation. We look forward to the news of your film when it comes out. Thank you.
Paul Rabinowitz (51:52):
Yes.
Melissa Reynolds (51:52):
Thank you from me, too.
Darin (51:54):
Thanks Paul.
Paul Rabinowitz (51:54):
Thank you.
