An ode to Cesar

They say smell is a great rememberer. You smell something and are taken back to wherever, whenever something associated with that smell took place. I agree but today it was something I saw that took me back to the late 70s and early 80s.

At that time my job had me going to New York City about once a month to supervise the re-recording of a television program into foreign languages. We hired or rather contracted a gentleman in NYC by the name of Cesar Yazigi. If I could, I’d be putting little accent marks all over his name.

Cesar was many things. Wealthy for one – he lived on Beekman Place – not street and possibly in the same building as Leonard Bernstein and other wealthy NYers. His monthly maintenance he paid to his building owner (which for some reason he told me once) was way more than any mortgage I’ve ever had – and this was just for cleaning common areas, paying the doorman, security etc.

Cesar also hailed from Brazil and was in some way connected with the language school that came under the name Yazigi which if I recall, was to Brazil what we used to think of as Berlitz in the U.S. His primary day job, although I never once saw him go to the United Nations building, was to hire and train translators for the UN. Hence my association with him since we needed translators and people who could speak a variety of languages.

What did I see that reminded me of him? A canvas tote bag. I saw it and wondered if I could use one. What I remember about Cesar and tote bags was he never carried a briefcase. He always used paper supermarket bags to carry his stuff to and from the office.

Cesar had money to buy any type of briefcase he wanted but he chose to carry a paper bag. Cesar apparently never spent real money on clothes either. He was paunchy and seemed to always be in some state of dishevelment with a button undone, a wrinkled shirt, loose tie. Think Henry Kissinger with a Portuguese/Brazilian accent.

Cesar once told me never to take the time to stop and pick up coins on the street because you’d lose more money in your own time than you gain by whatever small amount you got stopping and bending over.

I never knew how old Cesar was. He always seemed a lot older but that could be because I was in my 20s. He was married to a pretty Armenian woman named Anik.

I lost touch with Cesar in the 80s and later heard he passed away. I wish I had kept in touch. Another thing he was, was extremely smart. And he knew plenty of good restaurants in the City. I ate lots of good food and likely never in the same place twice and he never let me pay for my food.

So here’s to you, Cesar. I miss you.