The Washington Post - 20.08.2019

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 20 , 2019. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/STYLE EZ RE C

BY LISA BONOS

P

ikachu was bouncing up and down, weeping

with joy.

The bright yellow, red-cheeked Pokémon

mascot had just acted as an accomplice in a

marriage proposal, distracting 19-year-old Avery Ogle,

while her boyfriend, 24-year-old Braden Sawyer, got

down on one knee and asked if she would be his Player

Two for life.

Standing in a private spot at the Pokémon World

Championships, dressed in a rainbow outfit embody-

ing one of her favorite Pokémon, a balloon-type charac-

ter called Jigglypuff, Ogle said yes. Coincidentally, she

had also planned to propose to Sawyer during the

event, which brought an estimated 7,000 to 9,000

people to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center

this past weekend. After Sawyer surprised Ogle with an

opal ring, she dug into a backpack where she’d been

hiding gifts for him: an engagement ring and small

Pikachu doll wearing a tuxedo.

Newly engaged, Sawyer and Ogle pulled the life-size

Pikachu in for a three-way embrace. The character —

and the cheery Japanese anime world it inhabits — has

been a constant source of glee in their relationship.

The couple met at an anime convention in Salt Lake

City three years ago and bonded over their love of

Pokémon. Back then, Pokémon Go, the augmented-re-

ality smartphone game, was just starting to captivate

players around the world (while also leading to injuries,

SEE POKEMON ON C2

Catching Pokémon — and feelings

At world championships, fans play video games, hold stuffed Pikachus for good luck and even propose marriage

Want to make a

comeback?

First make

amends.

Mark Halperin,

an author and

media

commentator who

stepped down

from his various lofty perches in

2017, seems to have missed that

step along the path to would-be

redemption.

He has a high-profile book deal

— but what he doesn’t seem to

have is a sense of why he

shouldn’t have one.

And most of his comeback

enablers don’t seem to get it,

either. That includes his

publisher, Judith Regan, and the

prominent Democrats who

participated in his book, due out

in November, which transmits

their advice on how to beat

President Trump in 2020.

Let’s recall what numerous

women claimed Halperin did

when he was about as prominent

as a media figure can be. The

reported incidents happened

while he was at ABC News, where

he rose to become political

director in 1997.

Here’s how CNN reported it:

The accusations ranged from

“propositioning employees for

sex to kissing and grabbing one’s

breasts against her will.”

Reporter Oliver Darcy recalled

more of his 2017 reporting in the

network’s media newsletter on

Sunday:

“Three women who spoke to

me described Halperin as,

without consent, pressing an

erection against their bodies

while he was clothed. One woman

told me Halperin masturbated in

front of her in his office, while

another told me that he violently

threw her against a restaurant

window before attempting to kiss

her, and that when she rebuffed

him he called her and told her she

would never work in politics or

media.”

Halperin denied some of the

allegations and made a general

public apology for

inappropriately pursuing

SEE SULLIVAN ON C4

Halperin

doesn’t

deserve a

comeback

Margaret

Sullivan

BY LOUIS BAYARD

When it comes to Zsa Zsa and

Eva, we should probably admit

that we can’t always keep them

straight. Born a couple of years

apart, they tend to twin in our

memory: the same flawed English,

the same flawless complexions, the

same sugges-

tion of impure

thoughts be-

hind serene ex-

teriors. Which

one slapped the

cop? Which one

said, “New York

is where I’d

rather stay”?

Which one mar-

ried all those

men — or at

least more men

than the other?

Why, after so

many years,

should we even

try to distin-

guish them?

Or, on the basis of Sam

Staggs’s freewheeling “Finding

Zsa Zsa,” should we be making

larger distinctions? For, as it

turns out, the two Gabor sisters

are even more interesting for the

clan that enfolded them — a

fractious, tightknit brood of

Hungarian Jewish women who

imagined themselves somewhere

else.

Start with Grandmama Fran-

ceska, a redoubtable business-

woman who catered to Budapest

aspirations with strands of fake

SEE BOOK WORLD ON C2

A dahling

look into

the lives of

the Gabors

FINDING ZSA

ZSA

The Gabors

Behind the

Legend

By Sam Staggs

Kensington. 448

pp. $26

BY SONIA RAO

English director Gurinder
Chadha flips through the menu
of a D.C. Indian restaurant while
deciding what to order for lunch
on this early August afternoon. Is
she craving chaat? Chicken tikka?
Lobster malai?
“Jesus Christ,” she says of the
last. “Or gobi matar? I love a good
gobi matar.”
It’s somewhat amusing to hear,
given how many scenes in Chad-
ha’s most successful film to date,
“Bend It Like Beckham,” involve
the protagonist Jess’s Punjabi
mother chastising the teenager
for not knowing how to make
aloo gobi, a similar cauliflower
dish. Jess just wants to play
soccer, at one point venting to her
best friend, “Anyone can make
aloo gobi, but who can bend a ball
like Beckham?”
That was Chadha’s own story,
she says, one of dodging “that

box, that sweet little Indian wom-

an who’s going to grow up, get

married and cook Indian food the

rest of her life.” She acknowledg-

es the flaws in that youthful

perspective, of course. Her films

showcase a knack for telling

coming-of-age stories with hon-

esty and empathy, all while cen-

tering characters who might ap-

pear on the margins elsewhere.

Her latest, “Blinded by the

Light,” pulls from a memoir writ-

ten by a friend, English journalist

Sarfraz Manzoor, who was raised

by Pakistani immigrants in Lu-

ton, a working-class town north

of London. The film’s protago-

nist, Javed (Viveik Kalra), strug-

gles to reconcile his dual cultural

identities amid racism and eco-

nomic struggle in the Thatcher

era. But after his Sikh classmate

Roops (Aaron Phagura) introduc-

es him to Bruce Springsteen’s

music — “Bruce is a direct line to

SEE BLINDED ON C3

Springsteen, a Pakistani British teen and dreams from Bury Park

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

From left, Nell Williams, Aaron Phagura and Viveik Kalra in “Blinded by the Light,” which follows

Javed (Kalra) as he uses Bruce Springsteen’s music to shape his outlook on life.

PHOTOS BY EVELYN HOCKSTEIN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

A giant Pikachu, above, hangs at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the

District on Friday for the Pokémon World Championships. Thousands of people came

together to celebrate the Pokémon games, films, TV series and more. Players as young as

5 years old competed, at top, in the card- and video-game championships for prize money.

BOOK WORLD