Excerpt From NYT Interview With Mort Laitner—Humor

BOOK REVIEW

Mort Laitner: By The Book

AUG. 8, 2016

The author of “A Hebraic Obsession,” screenwriter for the movie “The Stairs”  and, most recently, “The Greatest Gift: Award-Winning Stories Filled with Life Lessons” directed a film, “Pandemic” which was banned by the State of Florida.

When you write, what is your greatest pleasure? 

I love writing subliminal messages into my short stories.

Why subliminal messages?

Because my words fly off the page, briefly and unperceivably into the reader’s brain and land somewhere in the deep recesses of their unconscious minds. I will never know if the messages affect the reader’s behavior, which makes the whole damn process so much more interesting. The power of words can be literally hypnotic and I believe that SM is peculiarly powerful. Most reader’s minds are on rest mode while reading which leads them to be ripe for hypnotic suggestions. Pounding a message into an college-educated person’s head is not always a successful approach. It often causes the opposite result.

Please give us an example?

Sure, in my story “The Cabin” I planted several subliminal messages about the upcoming election. I’m not going to give you all of them. Reread the story, I’m sure you catch them.

I loved that story. Please tell us some of the subliminal seeds you buried into your story?

Well you might remember that the protagonist has bought property in Canada. He uses some loonies, Canadian silver dollars, to pay for a canoe rental. The use of loonie was a sublime reference to one of the presidential candidates. You guessed it. The Donald. He is straight off of the drawing board of Loonie Tunes. He is a rare blend of some of my favorite cartoon characters:

Just like Bugs Bunny, he talks with a pronounced New York accent and  has little understanding of the rules of syntax. His remarks are flippant and insouciant (for Trump supporters “insouciant” means careless).  I can hear The Donald saying one of our adversaries, one of Bug’s most memorable quotes, “Of course you realize this means war!”;

Just like Daffy Duck, he is a total screwball, I need not say more but most shrinks have drawn the same conclusion;

When attacked The Donald blusters like Yosemite Sam in his extremely aggressive manner. They both have hair-trigger tempers;

I can picture watching Fox and seeing The Donald making fun of Porky Pig’s stuttering and then hitting the nuclear code button and yelling,” Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-… That’s all folks.” Finally, he tweets his cataclysmic message  to the world;

Now picture The Donald as Elmer Fudd saying, “Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting disloyal wepublicans.”

Next imagine The Donald as the dim-witted Tasmanian Devil, “Taz,” with his short temper and lack of patience. Sounds familiar and not hard to imagine.

Finally, picture The Donald as Pepé Le Pew leaving his stink of hatred across America.

Thanks for the interview. I’m sure the readers of the Times will get a kick out of it. Are there any last words you want to tell readers of the Times?

Sure, my readers will forget my short story, “The Cabin” but on November 7, 2016 in the voting booth their unconscious minds will kick in and they will remember my message.

Please share with all of your friends. I want to hear from the Times and The Donald.

The Cabin”

By Mort Laitner

The deed arrived in a dark-brown manila envelope. In bold black Helvetica fonts the words: SPECIAL DELIVERY ran across its face. Affixed to the right-hand corner of the envelope were four stamps. Each stamp pictured a loon gliding across a tranquil lake. In the background of the stamps, I saw a log cabin surrounded by fir trees.

Those stamps brought back memories of the silvery loonie coins I had tendered into the rough-aged hands of owner of the border-town trading post. It was dawn when I rented the canoe. I had crawled out of my cabin in darkness to catch the silence of the morning.

The trading post emanated an odor of fish, coffee and cardboard boxes. Between sips of his freshly made bitter-sweet coffee the store owner asked, “Young man, you planning on fishing this morning? Because if you are you will need to buy a license.”

“I’m not fishing. I’m just trying to recall my days in the Boy Scouts, when I canoed in many a lake in this part of Canada.”

The mention of the scouts brought a smile to his face. And then he said, “You’ll love the cries of the loons at this time of day. Those wails will cut across your heart”.

“Thanks for coffee and for the nature tips, I replied. “I’ll be back in around two hours.”

I paddled across the surface of the glass-like waters listening to the wails. The long solitary mournful sound of a diver calling out for its mate. Followed by the mate’s identical response as if they were two yodelers moaning for the return of a long-lost lovers.

I watched them swim, fly and dive for food. Unsuccessfully, I searched for their nests never guessing that I one day would live in their habitat.

But now in my Florida home, I touched the parchment paper and read some of the words on the deed:

For consideration for the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars the grantor hereby bargains, deeds and conveys the following real property to the Grantee forever, free and clear with Warranty Covenants: …

Then typed into this legal document was the foreign property address and legal description of my new home.

I now owned two acres adjacent to the lake, a log cabin and a canoe. I had bought my family a sense of security. I was now officially a neighbor to the loons.

I had faithfully followed the Scout motto: BE PREPARED.

The inauguration was less than a week away. My car was packed and in two days, I would be in my new home listening to the calls of the loons.

View a 39-second film trailer of “The Stairs” at https://mortlaitner.com/the-stairs/.

Hot of the presses Mort’s latest book, “The Greatest Gift— Award Winning Stories Filled with Life Lessons” or $10.00 on Amazon

https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Gift-Award-Winning-Stories-Lessons/dp/0996036911/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473472933&sr=1-1-fkmr0&keywords=the+greatest+gift+mort+laistner

For Autographed copy send $14.00 to address below.