The Daily Hatch

Dear Mrs. Aronson,

I have just a few questions for you. I know that your brother Woody is very interested in Jazz and especially in meeting great clarinet players and my good friend Sean Michel (who appeared on American Idol in 2007) told me about his uncle who passed away in 1985, Joseph T. “Pee Wee” Spitelera  who played with Al Hirt’s band in New Orleans for about 40 years. If you do a You Tube search for “Dinah Shore Al Hirt” then it will bring up a 24 minute video entitled “Al Hirt on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show 1960,” and at the 4 1/2 minute mark Pee Wee Spirtelera takes off on a Clarinet solo that is out of this world. Also if you type in “Al Hirt Johnny Cash Show” then you will see a 4 min and 21 sec video entitled “Al Hirt on the Johnny Cash Show,” and at the 1 min mark Pee Wee goes crazy there in the  Clarinet on the Dec 16, 1970 Johnny Cash Show.

Below is a picture of Pee Wee and he has several other fine songs on You Tube too such as “Blue Clarinet” which would be perfect for a Woody Allen Movie.

Therefore, my first question is did Woody ever have a chance to meet Pee Wee? Secondly, I wanted to ask you if you have ever had the opportunity to examine the evidence that the Old Testament predicted the return of the Jews to the land of Israel?

I was fascinated with the movie “Magic and in the Moonlight” and not only have I seen it several times, but I have taken many of my friends to see it and I have blogged about it over and over at http://www.thedailyhatch.org. In the past I have spent a lot of time on my blog taking close looks at your brother’s films. For instance, if you do a google search for the words “Characters Midnight in Paris” then you will find that I have done over 40 different posts on that movie taking closer looks at the historical characters mentioned in that movie.

As you know the main point made in “Midnight in Paris” is that there is no “Golden Age” but all time periods were filled with their challenges just like the period we are in now. Solomon discovered this in the first chapter of Ecclesiastes (verses 9-10) and shared his thoughts also on the meaning of life. In fact, many of Solomon’s thoughts from that book apply to many of your brothers’ films. Again if you google the terms “Woody Allen Ecclesiastes” then it will bring you again to several posts I have done on Woody’s films and the answers Solomon gives in Ecclesiastes. 3000 years ago Solomon pursued six “L” words in his search for the meaning of life and probing the area of LAUGHTER was one of his first places to start. In Ecclesiastes 2:2 he starts this quest but he concludes it is not productive to be laughing the whole time and not considering the serious issues of life. Then Solomon also asserted the nihilistic statement in Ecclesiastes 2:17: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

In the Book of Ecclesiastes what are all of the 6 “L” words that Solomon looked into? He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). IRONICALLY, WOODY ALLEN HAS MADE ALL SIX OF THESE BUTTS OF HIS NIHILISTIC JOKES!!!

Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” This puts him in the same place that WOODY ALLEN finds himself and this is a center theme of MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT too. 

If you are an atheist then you have a naturalistic materialistic worldview, and this short book of Ecclesiastes should interest you because the wisest man who ever lived in the position of King of Israel came to THREE CONCLUSIONS that will affect you.

FIRST, chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future.  (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13)

These two verses below  take the 3 elements mentioned in a naturalistic materialistic worldview (time, chance and matter) and so that is all the unbeliever can find “under the sun” without God in the picture. You will notice that these are the three elements that evolutionists point to also.

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 is following: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

SECOND, Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)

THIRD, Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1, 8:15)

Ecclesiastes 4:1-2: “Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.” Ecclesiastes 8:14; “ Here’s something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what’s coming to the wicked, and bad people get what’s coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It’s smoke.”

Several times during the movie “Magic in the Moonlight” there are references to Friedrich Nietzsche’s conclusion that we must except a nihilistic worldview if we accept the conclusion that science rules out the possibility of God’s existence. I do agree with part of that statement and that is that nihilism is the proper attitude if there is no afterlife (google “Woody Allen Nihilism” and it will bring you to my blog again). However, there is good and sufficient evidence that shows that God exists. Just take a few minutes and look up the Old Testament Scriptures  Amos 9:14-15, Zechariah 12:3 and Isaiah 11:11-12 and notice that they predict the return of the Jews to their ancient land of Israel. ISN’T THIS EVIDENCE OF THE SUPERNATURAL that is the subject of MAGIC IN THE MOONLIGHT?

In fact, my former pastor Robert Lewis at Fellowship Bible Church in his sermon “Let the Prophets Speak” on 1-31-99 noted that even the great Princeton Theologian Charles Hodge erred in 1871 when he stated:

The argument from the ancient prophecies is proved to be invalid because it would prove too much. If those prophecies foretell a literal restoration, they foretell that the temple is to be rebuilt, the priesthood restored, sacrifices again offered, and that the whole Mosaic ritual is to be observed in all its details, (Systematic Theology. [New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1871; reprint Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdman’s Publishing Co., 1949], 3:807).__

Robert Lewis went on to point out that the prophet Amos 2700 years ago predicted the destruction of Aram, Philistia, Tyre, Edom, Ammon, Moab and Israel, but at the end of the Book he said Israel would one day be returned to their land and never removed. We saw from Isaiah 11:11-12 that the Lord “will assemble the outcasts of Israel and will gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” And that certainly did happen after World War II.  I corresponded with some secular Jewish Scholars on this back in the 1990’s such as Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell but they dismissed these type of Old Testament prophecies. Then on  Friday July 18, 2014 I had the opportunity to visit personally with Bill Kristol who is the founder of THE WEEKLY STANDARD MAGAZINE.  I actually gave him a copy of both letters I received back from his father Irving and their family friend Daniel Bell and he read them both as we stood there. I told him that those copies were his to keep, and he thanked me for that.

 Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

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