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This is a post to celebrate the advent of our new website. Hipp-hipp hurray! Up until now I was able to delude myself that I have a large readership, even though counter-evidence was constantly produced. One example – even my progenitor has no clue what’s written in there. My blog seems to be such a fantastic attention gripper, that not even she has the energy to delve into its one-liners.
At any rate, no more. My audience which was up until now bound to remain tacit, can respond to my posts. I can’t wait having to deal with the one possible inference from the encouraging: This post has 0 comments line.
This post has 0 comments!
This post has 0 comments!!
This post has 0 comments!!!
This post has 0 comments!!!!
This post has 0 comments!!!!!
This post has 0 comments!!!!!!
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| Come Dec. 21st everybody will be leaving. Y and I are going to be left to guard the fort and feed its cats!
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I am now in the midst of rewriting a paper. That's right! I had a paper, full of beautiful embellishments in the form of insightful insights which are now lost to the world and it is gone along with a year of scholarly work. My computer has gone brain dead, due, almost certainly, to my inadequacies as a technical-gadget owner.
Thing is that I am now faced with a moral conundrum – should I subject it to resuscitation efforts or shouldn't I? There are brain chirurgic specialists who may revive the patient – Y tells me that it's almost without a doubt that they will be able to breathe life back into the machine, but, like all doctors, even in a state which does have mandatory health insurance, they charge! And they charge a lot… it seems that people can get quite attached to the outputs of their psyche, demand has pushed prices to the level I would think fit for Nobel prize worthy material.
Anyhow, this is my first advice I feel completely worthy of offering the world – back up, always back up.
* this document has been backed up on ten different locations.
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Y and I are sitting in San Francisco in La Boheme, a wifi-generous coffee-shop.
Believe it or not, the owner just told me – he recognized that I am an Israeli somehow – that his brother has the concession to operate FOX in Beit Lechem….
Quite surprisingly – I find the hummus here to be mediocre and the same goes for the Baba Ganoush and the Falafel. Still, I enjoyed everything thoroughly, due to what can only be homesickness.
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Dec 9 - Window Cleaner - (SF Bay Area) <<skilled trades/artisan
Dec 9 - Web Site Developer - (oakland downtown) <<web/HTML/info design
Dec 9 - Gay Adult Studio in Search of Staff - (SOMA / south beach) <<et cetera
The top of his post contains real-life ads found (by me) on craigslist and referred to Y who is currently in the ropes of job pursuit.
The last one of the three actually asks the job seeker to answer the following obvious qualification-insightful question: "which is your favorite Spielberg film and why". I therefore take it to be an ad published by an academic wanting to assess the current desperateness levels in the job market. For the purposes of that researcher, our obvious answer is Jaws – because of the phallic poster.
Note also that the first ad is what apparently is forlorn manifestation of what must be years long pursuit after an artisan Window Cleaner!
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One of the best things of living here is that NYC is in our back yard! In a matter of minutes we located cheap airplane tickets for the end of this month, and pretty soon I am going to be standing on NY pavement! It took all of the self discipline I had managed to muster in my life time not to go to the other room to consult the New Yorker for goings on around town – virtually my town(!) – during the week we are going to be there.
I suspect, though, that NY is not a city for the poor. Let's see: no shopping, no expensive tickets to shows and to top it all, no acquainting ourselves with the razzle dazzle of new NY food. I think this would be a good time to cross the river to see Brooklyn, and maybe, just maybe, I should try and develop a taste for Queens or for Subway tunnel slumber.
It is funny though how lack of funds helps you realize what you love best; your true preferences become crystal clear. I thus fairly easily resolved myself to lousy seats, and today I even had the instrumental passing illumination, that it isn't really that exciting to hear classical music performed live. Waiving clothes purchases was no challenge – this is the upside of feeling like an overblown ogress. But what will I do without restaurants? I mean, there's a danger that I will become so emaciated that I will eventually want to get clothes too. That's it. Restaurants I simply can't afford to give up. Here it is – we all have to make concessions, these are tough times…
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For some reason – I think it has to do with my mother but I can't be sure – I am undergoing a period of mental inspection. The outcome of this soul-searching excruciating exercise is that I feel at odds with the world. I think that I'm not dealing with it in the right way, nor have I even, and thus have inter-temporal censure with regard to myself.
Right now, around ten reflecsive rebukes come to mind: Oren didn't recognize me when I accidentally met him in Stanford which means that I did less than an adequate service to myself back in my Hotbar days. Coming to think of it, even the people I did know and like, I can't call right now and that includes Shai, Ranen, Ziv and whoever, I didn't call that Nelli person Meital tried introducing me to which was stupid, I am currently working on ruining friendships with friends from back home, I don't know how to become friendly with professors, I fail constantly at expressing myself coherently – and a good example would be my encounter with Megan yesterday after we drove my mother to the airport, I'm not creating relationships with faculty in Tel Aviv, I haven't tried running for ages, I eat too much, I don't read the nytimes of the chronicle as much as I want to, and we still haven't used our canvass or started on our Jigsaw puzzle !
Well, I have to leave something for the posts to come, so I'll stop now…
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I haven't written in such a long time. It's just that my parents are here, and my life seems to have been shortstopped. It seems that I had to reorganize and it proved somewhat difficult.
Actually, in the last few days I am managing to do most of what I plan to – but I feel like I'm not completely here. At any rate, all I have to fill this post with are tidbits; for example, there was one hilarious thing from election night which I really wanted to write about and it goes like this:
"bums for o'bama – we want change!"
And also, a limping girl carrying a wooden cane singing to herself: "luckily I have just my'cain, and not McCaine".
Another thing was about the fantastic 20th century opera – Kafka fragments by a Hungarian composer called György Kurtág. The directing was spectacular, the violinist and soprano were amazing. It was really a unique experience – one that it would be hard to reconstruct in any other location than a concert hall.
I know – this is a lame attempt at a post. No start. No end. No sticking to one topic. No following any of my own rules. Still, where documenting of experiences was concerned this was important.
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I am currently on prescription of tiny concentrated insanity tablets, and at this precise moment, Aba and Ima are coming for a visit. This is not good. I can't even start imagining a spiraling of their standard lunacy with my plastic yet very real one.
Still, I can't say I'm not having fun. We just went to the sffs animation festival best of Annecy collection. It was fantastic. I can't help but thinking that the same as it is in classical music – that only flat-scale scores have any worth - it is with other forms of art. I say this because it is impossible to ignore that the best of Annecy is all flat – the best of the best are all heart breaking or morbid. Some of the flicks actually made me cry, the other ones, the ones which made me smile, I can't remember anymore.
I don't know, perhaps this is due to my flimsy emotional state.
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I am amazed. Y is now talking to a recruiter and is being interviewed quite aggressively. I can hear him explaining stuff about Java Interfaces and design patterns.
He is not at all nervous. When the guy on the other side of the line started asking him questions, he said calmly: Please give me a couple of seconds – I am translating my answers from Hebrew.
Now, he is answering matter-of-factly. Speaking in close to perfect English. Never groping for words. Pacing his speech. Unbelievable.
Now he is laughing… everything is cool and casual. And he is in the middle of cooking(!) he was actually annoyed that the guy was late calling – they scheduled the call for 11:00 and the guy had the gull to wait till 11:03 - not because he was feeling edgy expecting the call – like I vicariously was – but, because, he wanted to put stuff into the oven and was stalling till after the call(!)
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As I was distractedly ladling bubbling water from side by side it occurred to me that baths are one of the human experiences that do nothing but keep improving.
Judging from my baby pictures, I was not fond of baths at all. Of course, I used to take my baths up until the age of 2 in the sink. This sounds objectively unpleasant and I am not saying this so as to be critical of my mother's callous care of infants, dogs, sisters, husbands etc. it's just that it surely is disagreeable to be washed in a tiny basin with an ominous metal prong hanging over your entire body.
Then, finally old enough to take baths in a tub, I was finally encountered with the immense physical pleasure of having lukewarm water surround your body. Of course, bath was also a game venue. For hours I and the casual friend used to play uninterrupted. Of course, I was never as imaginative as some of my family members, whose privacy I'm not going to compromise, but still this was fun.
When I came to be able to read, my spectrum of bathtub activities grew substantially. Accordingly, so was the time I spend inside the tub.
During a visit to Moku's apartment, I had to opportunity to discover how fun it was to be able to indulge in the use of two towels instead of just one, which eliminated altogether the penalty of freezing on exit of the water, which is something which I always took for granted. Of course, going back home, this became only a distant memory, but still, one to reflect upon as one of the things my future had in store for me.
Then suddenly we became water conscious. Taking baths became morally suspect and sweeter by virtue of that reason alone. Of course, this also meant that baths became rarer and rarer events, all the more reason to experience each bath as a keyhole view of heaven.
And now, thanks to the Grand state of California, taking a bath is also criminal! I closed my eyes and the splutter of water was the sound of the wind in my hair, the rush of blood in my veins, as the Berkeley police was chasing me on their black horses with me on my white pony.
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We are now back from a superb concert in Hertz Hall, yet another gigantic arts hall on campus grounds, (I am sure I have repetitively referred to the fact that UC Berkeley is an uncanny cultural center). The program featured Vadim Repinski and Nikolai Luganski and it was magnificent. (Yael – if you happen to be reading, I keep forgetting to tell you that Simona Dinerstein is broadcaster's favorite in 102.3FM, SF Classical radio station).
At any rate, I am still at awe. And I am at awe about the fact that none of my geriatric fellow audience members made even the slightest gurgle. I am racking my brain trying to figure this out. I was about to chalk it to the weather. It is possible that in Israel there's always the random sore throat, which starts a race to the bottom by way of contagion. But soon I had a chance to test that hypothesis – a tiny clearing of the throat was sounded right after the Andante of the Prokofiev Sonata. And that was that. It started and ended without concurring echoes.
I hate acceding to the explanation from culture for the evolution of a social norm. What's more, I do believe that where I to approach any cougher at an Israeli Philharmonic concert, he would swear up and down that he voiced the respiratory noise only because he was about to choke to death from trying to keep it in. Still, I can't help but owning up to what seems like the flat truth.
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Tonight we went to see the Merce Cunnigham ballet at Zellerbach hall.
While watching the dancers I came up with an idea which I think is a novel one in the realm of choreography. My idea is caducity. I believe that the art form has failed to deal with human frailty. I have seen choreographies in which a dancer is wounded and carried by another. Still, I think that despite a vast spectrum of inspirations for movement, like animals, celestial objects, etc. we are not using what should have been one of our most immediate sources for germination of ideas and that is the movements of human beings.
I suggest old age as the first chapter in the frailty oeuvre. Second can be infancy, and third, invalidism. Old age seems to me to present an inexorable reservoir of movements which will be original ones for choreography. The latter can reward its inspiration pool by presenting resonating the motion of the old, its fragility, rigidity and flimsiness in all its innate beauty.
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I don't know where to start! I am so overwhelmed with so many things that I was almost unable to write, I just can't pick and choose!
There's the election! I am in awe. Really and truly. People are dancing in the streets. I think there isn't a single political leader in the world whose election as well as persona is so inspiring. I am choked up with experiences from last night. I'll spit everything out gradually.
Today has also rendered me speechless. Wednesday is my second scariest day of the week. Monday takes precedence according to my "intestine turbulence" meter, but Wednesdays are up there too. Anyhow, because of the craziness of the last days I spent the 3 hours before my seminar frantically preparing for the discussion about Seyla Ben-Habib tanner's lectures and when I finally came to class something kind of weird was transpiring - the two professors suggested that we skip class because of all the excitement and we ended up going to a bar with the both of them to have beers in celebration of Obama!!(*&#(!*#& - of course, being me, I started off by lamenting the fact that I wasn't allowed to make better use of that time and at the same time being intimidated by having to make the required social effort. However, in the end, it got me truly excited. They were so congenial! Prof. L actually paid for our first round of beers!
Not surprisingly, I have not given up the opportunity to do something that I could obsess about for the days to come – it seems that I still have one or two things to learn about American etiquette (what I'm allowed to say and order).
I then rode my bike home excitedly, thinking exactly how to tell Y about it so that I manage to convey to him the exact details of the experience, and when got there I found that I got my first paycheck from the University! And I haven't even asked for it! Trés cool!
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How come is it that Y and I can't have a say in our country's upcoming election?
We have to vote. We have to. How is it possible that people like us, who continue to pay taxes to the Israeli state wouldn't be able to partake in such a colossally weighty event? I am mindfully self-conscientious about my ranting on in regard to taxes, yet taxes, so I have come to understand are the backbone of demos participation, as strange as it sounds. However, I can't really blame that on capitalism, as the first cry for female suffrage relied upon taxpaying.
Of course, it's not just the tax issue, although I do think that it is a death blow to any counter argument. One could also think of me as a person on a mission, importing knowledge back home, without the slightest intention of using it to benefit US society and to top that, I have the gall of doing it on Scholarship! And I, pirating for Israel over on pacific shores, have to sit idly by while BB becomes prime-minister? It's impossibly undemocratic.
More relevantly perhaps there's the personal angle of all this. I have gone investing vast efforts in my future in Israel, whereas one of the most influential parameters in my future is taken out of my hands.
How is it that this country that I'm currently in, the same place in which it takes 3 to 6 months to get a working permit for a clear cut case, manages to work out the following straight forward directive:
How to Apply for an Absentee Ballot
I can't get to the polls on Election Day. Can I vote?
Yes. You may vote by absentee ballot if you:
• will be absent from your city or town on election day, and/or
• have a physical disability that prevents your voting at the polling place, and/or
• cannot vote at the polls due to religious beliefs.
This is it. Does that sound difficult? Or maybe it's expensive? My entire JSP program had already used their absentee ballot and had already voted Obama. Also, I believe that there are a few more people here than in Israel. I might be wrong about that though, maybe I should research into it.
I might go on to remind everyone that this country is not exactly an emblem for democracy – in most states inmates can't vote! And we all know, they have mmmmmmmaaaaaannny prisoners, around 1% of the population is currently behind bars.
Also, this is far from being equal treatment of all citizens: how is it that people who choose to inhabit territories outside Israel's judicial control can vote, and I cannot, when I am perfectly willing to go and place myself on a queue in the Israeli consulate, or rather send in my vote? I demand a similar legal loophole! (I have already expressed elsewhere, by inspiration from Hillel's prosbal or whatchmecallit, that loopholes are innate parts of a legal system, society endorsement and all)
How is it fair that observant Australian magnates can mobilize an entire public to vote for BB, and thus to affect the election in a substantial way, and all of us here cannot? Maybe one reason is that the thousands of us on US soil for the same purpose can't be bothered to even write a letter to contest this fact.
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Don't get this wrong. I am in a foul mood and had been for about a week.
The reason is that I am terrified that something would go wrong with my degrees coming from TAU and that I will become the main character in a story that will be told for decades on end about this girl who started the JSP PhD program.
This girl, people seem to recall, originated from some type of an indigenous culture, from a tribal society where clitoridectomy is probably the rage. Anyhow, as ill-suited to the more cultivated ways of the world - and of course, this is not meant as criticism, not at all – she believed that she could bring into the US the swindling ways of her own people, who are accustomed to street corner haggling and pirating and all sorts of ungodly ways.
What happened was that she found out she just couldn't and was sent off, with her burqa between her legs, back to her clan where she taught human rights to people who don't have food. (yeah! That's how some of the dissertations I've seen around here sound! How NGO's do the "noble" job of alerting the straving in Sudan of their Human Rights, believe that?)
I figured this out already, this is truly my main concern, that I'd be laughing stock or part of the JSP canon for freakish mishaps. I am genuinely scared. It runs to my dreams, to my mood, to my behavior toward people on the street, to the way I see the world. I am not enjoying planning my future, I am not enjoying any of it. And it's funny, one of the reasons this is scary is that I'm afraid to lose all that that I'm not enjoying right now.
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I am writing so as to alert to the fact that we have a fantastically creative idea; that we are awesome people; cool; unabashed by life; unafraid to grasp it by its neck. And most of all I am writing out of uncertainty, out of doubt that we will in fact come to engage in this activity. Cool as we undoubtedly are, we are also lazy, disorganized, flimsy minded and plain old overworked. But it's ok – these all match with being cool.
It goes like this: every since we got here, I think the roots of this go to the days when we sat, ate and slept on card boards which we nicked off of homeless people which America so abundantly provides, we started thinking about the suitable art to hang on our walls. At first with the extending of our limbs, and then with measurement tape, we figured out the proper size, and our only remaining mission was of choice. Ever since then, we started going to poster exhibition, both physically and abstractly (internet). We found nothing to ignite both of our animas. I must admit that this was a reason for my constant lamentation over what I tend to think of Y's cultural deprivation – most notably when he fails to like what I like. But still, it had the positive effect of helping us to save money that we don't have which we would have gladly spent on a purchase of a large mural.
Then arrived the idea. My idea. It came to me. M-e. I am aware of the subject of the post, but I am checking to see whether Y ever is part of my readership. At any rate, note how lovely it is: that we cooperatively create our own piece. Isn't that beautiful? We can jointly sign it and it can be the exact perfect size. Also, it would underline us as the actively imaginative people that we are, instead of merely passive art consumers, which we are also proud to be.
If not – at least it was a good subject for a post.
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Well, I've been lavishly entertained. Bay area is indeed a Cornu Copiae of culture. I was going to say "the" Cornu Copiae, but I know, one should not forget nyny, so I am using the more modest of propositions.
At any rate, don't think that it is by reason of destitution that I am choosing to write about Addis. Know that I could have easily written about the latest Yoshi's shows in either SF or Oakland, about the SFJazz Festival, about all theatrical events of Berkeley, about reading sessions, and wine, and dance companies and what have you. And it is after careful consideration that I choose to devote all my writing skills (well well) to the much thought of meticulous review of Addis; the summit of pleasure.
Addis is – honest to god – an Ethiopian joint in Oakland. It is spectacular. I write this while constantly having to wipe my keyboard of residue saliva. Surely, I should have gotten myself some form of insurance against mucus, saliva and plain slobber; this would have been a worthy expense. At any rate, for $19.98 you get a brown pita with several different and painfully tiny dishes neatly placed on top of it. Then you have to dig in with all your might, lest Y eats more than his fair share (around 25%). It is beautiful. I want to spend my days there. Our fellow table mates were all Ethiopian. The only intelligible thought that I can extract from that time period is passing rumination in regard to the possibility that King Solomon spoke Amharic. But I'm kind of proud that I had that one rumination which was not of digestive juices.
Run! Run! Or there'd be nothing left!
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I am a gray elephant. I walk around in my grayness through the woods.
I am a giant watermelon with no sweet part in it. I am all peel.
I am untouchable. I don't care about anything or anyone that doesn't have a favorable opinion of me. I shine everything away from me, with the repellent capability only matched by a mirror.
May this post refashion me.
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I kept racking my brain – in one of my tormenting background processes, probably, as I don't remember having a single conscious thought about this matter before – in regard to the question about how the academia is affected by the global crisis.
Well Eureka! Not in the ivory tower after all!
There's a direct and painful implication that's particularly burdensome on scholars (!) one should make sure that don't find the nearest bridge, literally! And here in the bay area we could actually find ourselves in a real state of deficiency. Horrendous thought. We might have to import! Aha! That would be a reason to revise immigration laws.
Surly it has occurred to the best minds that have written about issues that pertain to the booming financial systems of certain systems, the lessons to be taught and the lessons to be learned, that their work appears as complete and utter nonsense! All that meticulous work of citing and then reciting oneself down the drain!
Actually, I think that entire volumes of law reviews, economics journals and public policy bulletins should be torn asunder so that next generations can have the luxury of celebrating their fathers! (I am not going to use "mothers" in the academics lame attempt at affirmative action. This time it is all fathers. The fathers fault. I looked really hard. Didn't see any mothers there)
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