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Y and I have just returned from the best New Year ’s Eve party we’ve been to for ages. I mean, I don’t recall being in a better New Year ’s Eve party for at least the past 11 months.
So you see, this is the hard American truth: the bestest of parties… what can I say.
Actually, it was kind of nice actually, but mostly it was a learning experience. Getting better and better at Americanism.
• Always say you are having the time of your life.
• Always say the place is beautiful.
• Always compliment the food, drinks and the entertainment
• When you leave, don’t forget to say you had the best experience of your life.
• Kiss & Smile.
Anyway! I love you! Really! Love you truly and deeply! Each and every reader of this post. Actually, I love each and every non reader of this post! Happy new year everybody!
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• Written from Jupiter
Thanks to being literally kicked out of Fertile Grounds, Y and I just found out that it is possible to sit at Jupiter’s with one’s computer (!) This is really great.
The only downside is that you need to sit upstairs if your laptop needs feeding (there are no plugs downstairs) and that upstairs they don’t serve any food during the day…
Still, this is a great discovery and I am going to be a regular come Spring semester time.
Well, I don’t have anything to tell. I’m still shaken up by that nasty experience in FG, so I’m finding it hard to start working. I’ve already read the NYTimes and my blood pressure is still too high. And during the first part of the day I didn’t do any work because I started off by talking to both my parents, then went out for a run, then was too tired to work only to be followed by too hungry for work. Well! Anyway! Tomorrow is NYC!
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* writing from home. editing from E-22
I read my post from yesterday, incredibly aware of its frivolity. I am sitting in a fantastic coffee shop, reflecting about myself, blablabla. I almost want to bring the post down – I am so ashamed. But I won’t. I need to document the fact that I am living in an imaginary world.
Writing this post can serve as my amendment – it’s a type of punishment. I don’t want to be writing it. Mainly because I don’t want to have the opinion that I have and naturally, I don’t want to put it on a piece of paper. What’s more, I was quick to adopt that Israelis in Gola feeling – that I don’t deserve to have an opinion, exactly because I am able to sit in a coffee-shop and indulge in the Jewish art of self deprecation while not giving a moment’s thought about the “poor children” of both sides – those being killed and those having the rooftops shatter on top of their heads due to missiles.
Anyhow, I am painfully aware of the asymmetry of it all. Ours get shell-shocked their get buried under ruins. I also don’t accept the common notion that our fight is indeed with civilians – because they elected Hamas, because they allow for launchers to be placed among them, because they expose their children to hostilities, etc. etc. And this is because I don’t think people deserve to be targeted in combat because of the name of the faction they put on their ballot (yes, even if it was the ominous ‘H’ for Hamas), and of course, the poor children, the innocent children didn’t do that even.
What’s more, and this has increased ever since moving to Berkeley, I have a lot of appreciation for Pacifism as an ethical doctrine. Still, I am extremely uncomfortable with preaching people who for years now had to get into shelters due to constant threat of being shot at from a distance that they ought to turn the other cheek. My holocaust-cognition doesn’t permit this type of feeble acquiescence – my mind alerts me against it. Also, it did feel like a perpetrating danger – the missiles did increase in distance daily and Hamas was becoming increasingly cocky – and cocky is perilous.
So, as much as I’d really love to be able to be a part of the humane left – I do, I do want to belong to the peace mongers, to those who have their priorities straight - don’t kill, don’t die - that sort of mantra, I just can’t. I fully believe that IDF is doing all it can to direct the most precise and close-bounded attacks. The only criticism I am able to muster is that we should provide for the care of the wounded, and even that I see Israel is trying to do, allowing the Red Cross in, doctors for peace, and more international aid.
Yesterday I was content to entertain the idea that we can’t choke Gaza in a way that would make it impossible for their Palestinians to treat their wounded for weeks on end before the war. I concentrated on the fact that we can’t hold the moral ground of self-defense against a people over which we hold control – that it’s not a state Israel is fighting, that it provides for their every need and thus that it is burdened with their protection. But, who are we kidding! This is a sovereign state – Israel has a fight with their elected authority, it’s impossible to even afford the Palestinians the defense of being tyrannized by an illegitimate regime.
At any rate, I’d appreciate being convinced otherwise… really I would – but right now I am sorry to say that I fully condone this operation – at least to the extent of the current decisions that are being made.
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• Coffee Bar – fantastic place. We are bound to return. Great place. Great seats. Great wifi (stupid MsWord is suggesting that I use “wife”!). Great Coffee (I wish they had the kind of milk that I like, but well, that’s the small blot of inherent imperfection), great toilets (excuse me – restrooms!). Greatgreat Sandwich for Y. Mine was very good, but not the best I’ve had. Still, extremely sorry to see it disappearing…
More than ever I am aware of how uncool I am.
Cool is being comfortable and easy-going with people. I’m not. Just to serve as an example. The people working here look really really nice. This guy, who I think owns the place, came to unplug his iPod from underneath my feet. All I could manage was to mumble “sorry sorry” and then the verbose “thank you”. What glorious scriptwriting! Really, I sometimes believe I should have been an orator – what a waste!
New Year’s resolution: must improve in the easy-going arena.
I ought to practice. But of course, the entire notion of practicing defeats any “easy-going” concept… and writing a post about it! Noo noo… I’m hopeless.
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Hoola-walla?
• This post is written while sitting in the Piedmont Cinema house
We were just standing in a long long long line for Slum Dog millionaire and we met a Hoola dancer. I have a vague recollection of “hoola lines” but I’m not really sure what those are….
Ok. So there was a trailer for Waltz with Bashir. How fat and falafel proud that made me! I’m almost embarrassed to say…
Anyway, I’m home and too tired to finish this post.
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Writing from Fertile Grounds – a nice enough coffee shop (coffee - illy’s) with Arabic style food (Hummus, “Lebna” which I translate to myself as Labane, but I’m not really sure and stuff like that. Also, the occasional free Palestine poster. Still, the owner does speak Spanish which is truly baffling – I can only try and imagine their migration route… )
Slowly and surely going through VC and Startup papers. Kind of boring but essential. It is a beautiful sunny day.
Y is working. I am contemplating our next meal… typical chore distribution between the two of us.
The two not-not-gay guys behind me spoke quite passionately about the differences between Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli Hummus.
Now they left and the woman who’s sitting in their table keeps poking me with her elbow. I am no grumpy hag so I’m not even flinching, but this is so damn annoying that I am going to get up and overturn her table any moment now. Better yet, I’m going to ask Y to go over and knock her table down. Right, this has a more realistic air to it.
I wonder if that lady is looking behind her and glancing to this paper. Maybe in a bit she’ll come over and turn my table upside down. Maybe. Then my Schraffenberger Mocha will spill on the floor with the residue chocolate all gone. This will be a reason to be truly upset. I would be free to unleash the monster on her then.
Anyhow, I don’t have anything to say really. I’m just writing in order to substantiate my new decision and that is to note my location each time I write a post.
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Bush has revoked a pardon he has given only yesterday! In light of my previous blog, this is really too baffling for words. Reading the circumstances of the case, I keep rubbing my eyes in amazement. I realize that the revokating is due to reasons of apparency - pardoning somebody because of political contributions does seem a bit crass. Still, what does it say about what a crime is? The administration cannot really say with all seriousness that the one who was a criminal two days ago, was no longer yesterday, and today a born-again malfeasant? And why? because of a curtailed procedure - a new "field tribunal" instance, a presidential appeal system?
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Run-of-the-mill Crimes
What is the message carried by pardoning run-of-the-mill criminals, sometimes after their death, like in the case of Charlie Winters, and always years after they paid for it.
Does it have an internal-legal meaning? That the crime wasn’t a crime then? That these were purely mistakes in the application of the law? Or perhaps that it’s not a crime today? If so, does that mean that there are inter-temporal differences? That a one-time crime is truly an action which navigates through space detached from particular time & place circumstances, and therefore regardless of its existence as a criminal action in one scenario, it is decidedly not one when looking at it from a less reproving future?
What about the ethical implications? One option is that this act of pardoning is devoid of ethical implications – that the pardon is a one-time deal which is the result of pity, or some other social sentiment which has nothing to do with new-found blameworthiness. I don’t think that to be true – a punishment is never just incarceration or a fine; in fact it invariably carries with it a mark of Cain. What changes is the conspicuousness of the sign of ignominy. Therefore, blurring the mark is simply the curtailment of the punishment. If so, then the pardon does mean something with regard to the social stance. But what does it mean that when environment changes, that the prior conditions mean nothing? Is it a palatable concept that what society once thought immoral is irrelevant? To clarify, this means that prior-time culprits of acting in a way which was once perceived noxious – to the extent that the law did reflect the belief-system of society - are no longer responsible.
I would agree that usually those run-of-the-mill crimes don’t correspond to their title: crime. They are not even misdemeanors. But I do think that one crime lingers, and that is the one of acting against the commonality. I think it essential to underline that the pardon is for the direct content of the crime and not for the criminality.
- It is almost scary to write something for a post when one is well aware that there was ample analysis of the same question and that it is callous to refer to it without reading any of it. I remind myself the type of the medium – it can’t be anything but superficial, and I don’t think that that should render anyone mute. Everyone, including my future self, is free to dismiss it all as pure inconsequential ranting.
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| It’s quarter to 1AM. I Must have Latkes. Now!
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No matter what I do – it doesn’t matter if it’s washing dishes, writing a paper or sleeping – there always comes the moment of nausea, the moment when I am just fed up. It doesn’t have to be after a long time of engaging in the activity, sometimes it takes a mere 15 minutes for that acid taste accompanied by self-pity to percolate. At that moment I have to start doing something else. Doing can be starting a laundry or eating chocolate. I am now experiencing such a moment, and so I am writing a post. Hopefully that would suffice as a break. I’m not sure. Sometimes the time of day also says something of the length of the recess that I require, and for me, 19:08 is late. It’s late because it’s after 9 hours of work, and I’m tired. I’ve already tried most of my other beloved pastimes. For example, I looked for nice places to spend the day tomorrow, I plucked at my eyebrows, I read some of the paper – the parts were I believe I can identify great stuff to do in NYC. Still, nothing worked. I am just not as industrious as I am in the morning.
Well, tant pis.
Thing is, that if I don’t do much more today, I’m going to have to deal with that glorious feeling of pressure in a couple of days, when I realize that I have done nothing about either of my thesis, the preparation for the IP course, or writing stuff for the convention I’d very much like to partake in. Gosh, I also have my modest share in Yoav’s project. Here it is a preview for Sunday’s pressure. It’s a good thing that it’s rainy, or else I’d be obsessing about not having enough time to explore glorious California or fly to Seattle as I had intended.
The pleasure of being me… what can I say…
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It’s in San Francisco, and it goes by the name “Tartine”. My allegiance remains with Crixa cakes, don’t get me wrong; it is less ritzy, it has outlets for my laptop, and its cakes are unearthly. But Tartine would do especially if you head to Berkeley’s suburb known by the name SF. It doesn’t match Crixa – it doesn’t have its own wifi, its pastries are a bit too sweet, and unlike the grand Austro-hungarian Crixa atmosphere, it feels French! But, its menu is likewise extraterrestrial. I am currently in the midst of the post-cake consumption grief – trying to milk my plate for extra morsels, inspecting the other patrons whose plates are still not empty with the loathing they deserve for still occupying that place in heaven.
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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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