That Old Lady

Dangerous Reader

The photographs are by Justine Kurland.

The New York Times Op Ed is by Ivy Meeropol.

Because The Conflabbians (our famously ornery Ask E. Jean community) are buried under just gobs of engrossing novels, beautiful trips to the mountains, splashings at the seasides, picnics on the prairies and marching bands with happy baton twirlers . . . and because nobody has any worries, frets, fears, fantods, spiking anxiety, or terrors about the future . . . and because we all spend our days laughing and joshing and necking and dancing . . . . and because some Conflabbians do not subscribe to The Times, I will just quote a bit from Ivy’s Op Ed, all right?

It is about a little triumph Ivy pulled off——making a documentary about the two Trump Trials at a time when the rest of the country is——this is best word I can find——conforming. The movie is called Ask E. Jean. Its New York Premier is tomorrow, and LA is May 29th.

Here’s the open of Ivy’s Op Ed:

“Back in the mid-90s in New York City, E. Jean Carroll was an accomplished gonzo journalist and a funny, sharp advice columnist for Elle magazine — “Auntie E” to her readers. She also had a daily cable TV advice show. She was so recognizable that when Donald Trump ran into her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue early one evening he said, as she has recalled, “Hey, you’re that advice lady!” She was 52 at the time.

“Still, I confess that I didn’t know who E. Jean Carroll was when I saw her on the cover of New York magazine in 2019, when she told that story of meeting Mr. Trump and how the encounter led to a sexual assault. By then, he had become the president of the United States. After the article was published, Mr. Trump denied her account, and she sued him for defamation for saying that she was “totally lying” and that he had never met her and suggesting that her accusation was politically and financially motivated. In 2022, after New York State passed the Adult Survivors Act, reopening the time period during which people could bring a claim of sexual abuse, she sued him again, adding a claim of battery to a new defamation claim based on statements Mr. Trump made that year.

“In 2019, I contacted her and asked if she would consider being the subject of a documentary. I had a gut instinct that she was a voice in the wake of the #MeToo movement that we needed to hear. Little did I know about the wildly uncertain and, at times, terrifying ride I was about to go on with E. Jean and her lead attorney, Robbie Kaplan, during which I had a window into the challenges people can face when crossing Mr. Trump.

“I called it the Trump effect.”

And, Boy! At this point, the essay takes off like a bat out of hell!

And where does a banned movie premier in New York? At the famous old Art House theater, IFC, on Sixth Avenue at 3rd Street.