O P I N I O N
NOT THAT PROFOUND
By Nathan Graziano
My daughter Paige, who is now 22 years old and lives in Boston, seemingly inherited my quirky, irreverent and sardonic sense of humor. I would label it as a form of gallow’s humor, garnished with a sense of the inane.
We both enjoy recognizing—and I mean, over-the-top celebrations—holidays that are so obscure that they fly under most radars, and there is a good reason for this: They’re ridiculous.
For example, every year on December 23, we celebrate Festivus, the holiday created by Frank Costanza (Jerry Stiller) on “Seinfeld,” which is a secular observance of the shallowness of the holiday season. As Frank proclaims: “It’s a Festivus for the rest of us!”
Each year, on Dec. 23, Paige and I—any friends or family are welcomed to join us, but most just think it’s weird—bring up a plastic pole from the basement1, have the “Airing of Grievances,” eat a meatloaf and drink champagne, then watch the episode2.
This year, I introduced a new holiday that will now join Emma Nutt Day—the holiday on Sept. 1 that recognizes the first female telephone operator—and Festivus on our calendars.
What makes Alex Kintner Day special? Clockwise, from left: watching “Jaws,” Paige and me in our sad black summerwear; the Bloody Marys and white fish on the grill.
On Sunday, June 29, Paige and I recognized our first Alex Kintner Day.
For those of you unfamiliar with the 1975 Steven Spielberg film “Jaws,” Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) is a young man who just wants 10 minutes more to swim in the ocean off the Amity coastline. His mother, who is only referred to in the movie as “Mrs. Kintner” (Lee Fierro)—checks his fingers for water wrinkling then capitulates, against her better judgment, and gives her son 10 minutes more in the water.
Those 10 minutes prove fatal.
Since the avaricious mayor of Amity Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), who almost reaches Trump’s level as a leader entirely incompetent and focused only on money and himself, allows the beaches to remain open after an initial shark attack, and despite police chief Martin Brody’s (Roy Schneider) protests, poor Alex is then gobbled on his yellow float by the shark (Bruce) like a peanut in a dive bar.
Apropos of any holiday, there needed to be a ritual—the Catholic in me lives on—so I decided, first and foremost, Paige and I needed to dress in all black to mourn young Alex’s untimely passing.
Similar to Festivus, we then watched “Jaws,” pausing the movie for a full minute after the scene of Alex Kintner’s death, a minute of silence and prayer and remembrance.
While Thanksgiving has the turkey and Easter has the ham, Alex Kintner Day is recognized with white fish and Bloody Mary’s. We decided that we could drink the Bloody Mary’s at the beginning of the film, but we couldn’t eat the white fish until the shark was dead, when the movie was finished.
Similar to our first Festivus, there are some kinks that need to be worked out, details that can be sharpened, but henceforth, my daughter and I will now celebrate each June 29 in honor of Alex Kintner, taken from us far too soon.
We miss you, Alex.
- Festivus requires an aluminium pole, but we had to improvise. ↩︎
- For those interested, it is Season 9: Episode 10 titled “The Strike.” ↩︎
Nathan Graziano can be reached at ngrazio5@yahoo.com