Ampersand Poem by gershon hepner

Lurking in the ampersand
lies the symbol of combining
one and one, which hand in hand
makes two by means of intertwinin.

By contrast there's another symbol
which pulls us down from haughty highness
by making complications simple,
downsizing plus into a minus.

We tend to make a lot more fuss
about the minus than the ampers-
and, but I prefer the plus
when linked by it to happy campers.

Reviewing 'Julie & Julia' in the WSJ on August 7,2009, Joe Morgenstern writes:

Before and after everything else, Nora Ephron’s “Julie & Julia” gives us Meryl Streep in a grand comic performance—a fearless actress playing the fearless Julia Child in post-World War II Paris, where she’s in the process of transforming herself from an embassy wife into a world-famous apostle of French cuisine. That ought to be enough for one movie, and there’s more: handsome settings (the City of Light regaining its prewar lustrousness) , midlife romance (Stanley Tucci is Julia’s charmingly ardent husband, Paul) and foodie porn (brie, chocolate cream pie and beurre blanc sauce in lascivious close-ups) . Strangely, though, there isn’t enough for one movie, and the first clue to why lurks in the title’s ampersand, a sort of linguistic duct tape holding together two stories that never really function as one. The Julie story, intercut with Julia’s, takes place in New York half a century later, and involves a real-life blogger, Julie Powell, who is played by Amy Adams. A bright woman doing dull office work in the depressing aftermath of 9/11, Julie sets out to cook, in the space of one year, all 524 recipes in “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, ” the landmark book that Julia wrote with Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck. Julie’s intention is to write a blog about her culinary adventures, but the blog leads to a popular book of her own, published in 2005, that provides half of the film’s structure, though much less than half its substance.


8/7/09