One of Jake's fondest memories was the time he attended the Compleat Festival of Woody Allen films at the Paradise Theatre in Manhattan....an entire month of nothing BUT Woody Allen films, in chronogical order, from the very first to the very last, from the Alpha to the Omega...capped by a personal appearance by Woody Allen on the final night, at which the Master had played the clarinet and talked for over 3 hours about sex, New York, existential despair, psychoanalysis, angst, women, God, atheism, death, and jazz.

It had been a Kafka-esque experience. His significant other, Angela, had unaccountably bailed out on their relationship halfway through that marathon, citing "unusual cruelty" as her reason for leaving him. That had puzzled Jake tremendously, but it had only slightly dimmed his excitment each night as the lights dimmed and the Master appeared once again on the silver screen, lifting Jake's mind into unrivalled realms of thespian grandeur.