Chu- The topic of the post you cited was Islamic opposition to free press, which automatically raised the topic of the Danish cartoon controversy, which focused on Mohammed, the author of the Koran. So I commented on the Koran and then was asked, "Isn't Tanach worse?" So I answered regarding a comparison of Tanach and Koran. The New Testament was not relevant to the question.
But since you raise the New Testament I will comment. Jesus is an inspirational figure, but to view him as infallible or the son of God is really a step backwards from the fallible very human figures in the Hebrew Bible or Tanach. I believe that prophecy exists and if Jesus foresaw his death, then it is explainable that a person who foresees his life being cut short might view the world in a bitter manner. (Nietzsche says that if Jesus would have lived longer he would have had a more mature view on certain topics.) The animus against the Jews or the Pharisees that is expressed in certain of the gospels is certainly something that I hold against the New Testament. Unlike the Quran which was a guide to making war (parts of Tanach also were guides to making war, in a far crueler manner than the war that the Quran advocates) it is actually surprising the the New Testament could be used as a pretext and an inspiration for crusades and murders and warfare. But there you have it, humans are naturally makers of war (or should I say groups of humans are naturally makers of wars) and they can use anything to help justify their warmaking. When Jesus cursed the fig tree for not being ready to give him its fruit, this betrayed an impatience unbecoming to a man of God. (But as a man who died young and knew that he was about to die young, one is not surprised to find impatience.) When he said, I came to bring a sword and not to bring peace, maybe this is a verse that gave humans permission to use his personality to inspire them to kill.
When we come to the personality of Paul, we are dealing with a great orator and a very angry combative man. He made the Church into what it became and that is both an argument for him and against him. He wore his animus against Jews on his sleeve and compromise seems to have been foreign to his personality. He possessedwisdom, but his angry personality can be blamed for many of the evil developments of Christianity including its perverse attitude towards sex and its animus towards Jews. Revelations is a weird book, on the same low rung or even a little lower than Daniel.
Someone once commented about the New Testament, how is it that God spoke such a fine Hebrew and such a mediocre Greek. Yet the Sermon on the mount is rather important, and many of the parables are quite good and although much hatred for the Jews was spread by those who put on the passion plays, the story of the crucifixion is good literature. Yet I think the story of Joseph and his brothers is actually a deeper story than the story of the crucifixion in terms of teaching us about human behavior. And the deification of Jesus was a step away from monotheism and allowed for much pagan input in the new religion that Paul created and spread. Jesus's favorite book quite obviously was the Hebrew Bible and he seems to have favored the book of Isaiah.
The Hebrew Bible or Tanach, which includes many stories and many prophets and a much larger span of history, plus the Psalms, plus a great book like Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) is a far richer set of books than the New Testament.
Christianity's universal tendencies are "superior" to Judaism's particularist tendencies, yet the loss of the Sabbath, with its rich traditions and the loss of so many of Torah and the rabbis' rituals created a religion that was poorer for the traditions that it tossed away.
One can view the celibacy of the priests as something unrelated to the New Testament, but its roots are in that book as is the root that forbids divorce, both of which are negative developments. Maybe utopian or maybe not, but in the end by disregarding human nature they are negative developments.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
The outlaw josey wales (M31)
clint eastwood. josey starts as a farmer whose family is killed by yankees. (for more exact history see wikipedia). he joins up with the rebels and fights in the civil war. when the war is lost, he is with a group that refuses to surrender. finally their leader says, "boys, it's time to surrender." they surrender and are gunned down by the yankees. josey and a young (17 year old) boy go out on their own. there is a reward on josey's head. yankees pursue him, but when they get on the ferry he shoots the rope and cuts it and the yankees float away. when a farmer and his son capture him, josey and the boy shoot their way out. the boy dies (he was wounded in the original yankee massacre.) josey wanders and teams up with an old indian. he is cornered in a store as some white men are raping an indian woman (she speaks only indian and josey often says things like "I can't understand a word she's saying. why doesn't she stop talking.) he is trying to travel through the country incognito when a medicine con man (thief a la w.c. fields) recognizes him and the yankees try to kill him, but he gets away. he comes across some kansas old lady and her daughter (sandra locke) and he kills those who imprisoned them. they make their way to a house that the old lady's son (no longer alive) has built for her. some indians want to fight them and josey speaks sense to them in a moving passage (i speak words of death and words of life). they cut hands and become blood brothers. yankee bounties come to town and try to kill him, but between josey on horseback and the old lady and the rest of the crew armed with rifles, he is able to wipe them out. he is still bleeding when he goes to town and meets up with more bounty hunters. the people in the town, grateful for his generosity testify that they've seen josey wales killed by bounty hunters, so that the new bounty hunters (or soldiers) will give up the chase. along with the bounty hunters is the original leader of the "rebel outlaws" whose surrender led to his men getting slaughtered. He says that he doesn't believe that josey is dead, even as he looks josey in the eyes. He says he will head to Mexico in search of Josey. Now Josey can go home to the mousy Sandra Locke.
(solid) B
(solid) B
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
mondoweiss
The essence of Mel Brooks's
"The Producers" when it was made in 1968, 23 years after the genocide was that everyone would be offended by "Springtime for Hitler" and the rotating swastika. It was only when Dick Shawn was thrown into the mix and absurdity was added to absurdity, that offense turned into comedy.
When Monty Python did their "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" routine, no one was really offended. When Torquemada was torturing Jews in a musical scene in "History of the World Part I" no one was offended.
When Inglorious Basterds came out last year some people were offended and some weren't. I don't think Inglorious Basterds could have been made 42 years ago without offending more people.
"The Producers" when it was made in 1968, 23 years after the genocide was that everyone would be offended by "Springtime for Hitler" and the rotating swastika. It was only when Dick Shawn was thrown into the mix and absurdity was added to absurdity, that offense turned into comedy.
When Monty Python did their "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" routine, no one was really offended. When Torquemada was torturing Jews in a musical scene in "History of the World Part I" no one was offended.
When Inglorious Basterds came out last year some people were offended and some weren't. I don't think Inglorious Basterds could have been made 42 years ago without offending more people.
A single man (M30)
The year 1962. colin firth, a gay man has lost his lover of 16 years in a car accident. Things being what they were back then, he is a closeted gay man, that is that his class at the university does not know that he is gay and also he was not allowed to attend his lover's funeral, because it was only for family and he was not invited. (he was informed by a cousin of the deceased against the wishes of the parents). (the movie begins with him going to his lover's dead body next to the wrecked car, next to the dead dog, and kisses it goodbye.) It is now 8 months later and he is still in pain. he has various flashbacks of times he spent with his lover- when they met, a particularly day when he begged because he was older that his lover change the record and they argued about it and bantered pleasantly (the lover: as for me I could die right now because I'm happy at this moment. colin is reading metamorphosis and the lover is reading breakfast at tiffany's.) at school that day colin talks about fear (the cuban missile crisis is occurring in the background) when the topic of aldous huxley's book "after many a summer" was supposed to be discussed. one student takes an interest in colin, he's worried about him: he sees colin emptying his desk. colin is in fact carrying around a gun. the student asks for colin's address. (did you sleep with her? the student hangs out with a pretty lass. once, he answers. why just once? i didn't say just once. meaning at one time he slept with her, but no longer has this boy ever had a gay experience before this?) colin meets his neighbors at the bank. the mother and the daughter. daughter: daddy says you're a little light in your loafers, but you don't even wear loafers. want so see charlton heston. she carries around a lizard that they have named ben hur because he kills whatever they put in with him like the coliseum. want to come to a party, the mother asks. no, i'm busy tonight. he buys tanqueray for his visit to juliana moore, a fellow brit. but he empties his deposit box, so that all his possessions will be neatly present on his desk, as will be his tie, with instructions for a windsor knot, and the shirt and suit in which he will be buried in. (oh, yeah. he met a james dean type from spain outside the liquor store, he gives him a twenty and the youngster thought it was a pickup, but he was intent on dying. he bought bullets. the gun store kid says, maybe buy two, one for the little lady. another teacher says you should build a bomb shelter like me. i'm hiding it from the neighbors, so they won't beg to be let in.) he is about to kill himself before visiting juliana, but can't find the proper position in bed or in the bath or in a sleeping bag, and then she calls and he goes over to her house. she is extravagant. he once slept with her, a fact that he tells his lover in a flashback. he went to this woman when first informed of his lover's death. they talk, he leaves, heads home, again is tempted to kill himself, but there is no booze in the house, so he heads to the nearby bar. where the kid from school shows up. they talk. the kid challenges him to go swimming. he says yes. why did you suggest? because you said you'd do any silly thing and I wanted to know if you're full of shit, but you're not. are you? they go in for a swim. colin loses consciousness in the ocean and has cut his head. they go back to colin's. student goes to bathroom to get bandaids and sees a naked photo of the dead lover. we have to get you out of your clothes. he strips, lingers and then showers. they drink some beers. colin wakes up in bed and sees that the student is sleeping on the couch, with the gun, to keep him from killing himself. and then colin takes a look outside, he sees a bird and a perfect moon, and he says that it is a perfect moment and he takes his suicide notes and burns them, and he has achieved enough happiness in the moment to forget about suicide and he has a heart attack and he is about to die and he imagines his lover coming in a black suit and tie and kissing him and he smiles and dies: just like that.
A- (loses a point and a half for the too easy ending) otherwise too serious, not a critique but a warning to the viewer.
A- (loses a point and a half for the too easy ending) otherwise too serious, not a critique but a warning to the viewer.
Resnick the nudnik
last night i went to the cultural center on emek refaim. i would have gone anyway because they advertised that bigman would be there, but he wasn't. we arrived in time to catch most of the first half of the program, that included a rabbi gilad, who was impressive, from the same yeshiva as bigman and also some woman chana friedman, on the topic of tolerance. the second half of the program was about cooperation between various streams of judaism, which featured a rabbi barry schlesinger from the conservative movement. there were plenty of ugly women there, present for the homos and orthodoxy subconference which we didn't attend, there were a handful of pretty women as well, but i was probably too subdued to make a move on them anyway. i met one of the krakowski girls, who was friends with esther krauss, who didn't recognize me until i told her who i was and then felt embarrassed that she didn't recognize me, but hillcrest is warsaw ghetto to me (not auschwitz, but not good). it is what i call a recon exit, last one in memory was before or right after yom kippur with yossi klein halevi also on emek, but that time there was a bit more conversation. i blame myself for leaving too late to see the first part of the program, but i was going without sleep, so i shouldn't blame. and i really don't mind what i missed. resnick was a bit of a pain, until the walk home when he couldn't stop talking against barry schlesinger and the conservative movement. when we got home i mentioned 80 is for gvura and it is in chapter five, mishna 25, the last chapter that i chose (except for one and six) and he had to say each mishna, one by one, by number and he is a real nudnik. leaving for england in less than 48 hours.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
important movies
interesting that you posed the question important movies rather than favorite movies. "strangers on a train" by hitchcock- both favorite and important, the possibility of seeing hitchcock as an artist and not just a commercial entertainer first became clear to me after seeing strangers on a train. "taxi driver" inspired me to drive a cab/ but not to get a mohawk haircut. "pollyanna" moved me very much when i was a kid. "godfather II" bothered me very much. would michael really kill his brother fredo? "paths of glory" is a great movie, but i might think about "the shining" more than "paths" something about jack nicholson's thirst for drink "appeals" to me and the connection little danny has with scatman crothers. the maze and the snow. i often wish i had a million years of the same day like bill murray in groundhog day, so that i could learn an instrument and read many books without losing time.
eyes without a face/les yeux sans visage (m29)
a doctor helped by his secretary seeks to transplant a face onto his daughter whose face was disfigured in a car wreck. (the doctor who acts recklessly, drives recklessly as well.) when the surgery fails, he has to dispose of the bodies of the transplant givers (those he kidnapped with the purpose of stealing their faces). the daughter is helpless, wishes she were dead, hopes that the transplant will work, feels guilty/ambivalent for stealing the faces of these young women, grows desperate when her face rejects the transplant. the secretary is indebted to the doctor for fixing her own face and seems to be in love with the doctor. the daughter calls up her fiancee and thus alerts him to the fact she is still alive even after the doctor tries to pass off a dead transplant victim as his own daughter. young women are lured to the clinic by the secretary who promises them a cheap room. young women are going missing causing police interest. a surgery to take a woman's face is about to take place, when the police arrive, but the police are too incompetent to realize that a surgery is about to take place. but the daughter is present when the transplant victim awakens and she frees the victim. the doctor also experiments on dogs and birds. the daughter frees the dogs who kill the doctor. the daughter kills the secretary stabbing her right in the spot where her pearl necklace covers up the spot of the surgery that fixed the secretary. the daughter exits into the night with a bird on her arm (a spirit of the night with her spooky mask.)
mundane monday
Tonight is the first Sunday night without a holiday or commemoration involved in five weeks.
First came Passover (technically a Monday night) with a visit to my sister Batsheva's kibbutz, Shlukhot. My parents were also there, plus my other two sisters, Tova and Pnina, and four out of five of Batsheva's kids (one son wasn't able to get leave from the army), plus Batsheva's daughter- in-law and grandson. Tova's four kids and Pnina's three kids. Also present were Batsheva's brother-in-law and his family. It was nice. (I was in charge of a trivia quiz, which didn't go so well this year. The movie part of the quiz, movies that take place in Egypt, was a bit too easy. And the bible part of the quiz, focusing on the Hebrew words for hurrying (khipazon) and lass (alma), was a bit too hard. But I'm being a bit too hard on myself.)
The next week was the last night of Passover. (Passover is a seven day holiday, the first and last days are "real" holidays, when turning lights and computers and t.v.'s on and off is forbidden.) A friend of mine from Chicago is in Israel for a few months. He's real bright (brighter than me) and socially inept (more inept than me). I took him to my uncle's for the Sunday night meal. My uncle is a year and a half younger than me. (My mother's father divorced my grandmother and remarried and had Kenny or Kalman as the only son of his second marriage.) Kenny (known as Kalman to all his Israeli friends and wife) has five kids. The oldest, a son, about 22, got married last October. His newlywed wife was there. Also present besides Kenny's other four kids were Kenny's wife, Nomi and Nomi's sister and her husband and if I counted right their six kids. My friend, Richard, is an intellectual and has intellectual interests and so does Kenny and so they had much to discuss, but mostly it was very crowded and very noisy.
The next week was Holocaust remembrance day. I'm all for remembering the Holocaust, although I prefer to call it something a little less dramatic, like the Nazi genocide of the Jews. But I tend to remember it a bit too much without any prompting from the calendar. It is a bit problematic that Israel put it on the calendar a week before Independence Day with the express purpose of signifying a certain cause and effect- This is what happens to us when we don't have a country of our own to protect ourselves. But I don't really mind a little propaganda now and again, I just mind being reminded of the Holocaust when I think about it too much in any case without any prompting.
Then last week was Independence Day. The day before Independence day is memorial day, in memory of all soldiers killed and people killed in terrorist attacks. Of course that's a downer, but I accept it as part of the deal. Unlike Holocaust Day, it is necessary to have a Memorial Day and why not have it the day before Independence Day- this is the price we pay for having a country.
On Independence Day most people go to the park to picnic and my friend, Richard, instigated a picnic as well. There were seven of us- three married guys who came without their wives and three unmarried guys (including me), plus the ten year old son of one of my friends. It was fun.
This week there is no holiday and I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
First came Passover (technically a Monday night) with a visit to my sister Batsheva's kibbutz, Shlukhot. My parents were also there, plus my other two sisters, Tova and Pnina, and four out of five of Batsheva's kids (one son wasn't able to get leave from the army), plus Batsheva's daughter- in-law and grandson. Tova's four kids and Pnina's three kids. Also present were Batsheva's brother-in-law and his family. It was nice. (I was in charge of a trivia quiz, which didn't go so well this year. The movie part of the quiz, movies that take place in Egypt, was a bit too easy. And the bible part of the quiz, focusing on the Hebrew words for hurrying (khipazon) and lass (alma), was a bit too hard. But I'm being a bit too hard on myself.)
The next week was the last night of Passover. (Passover is a seven day holiday, the first and last days are "real" holidays, when turning lights and computers and t.v.'s on and off is forbidden.) A friend of mine from Chicago is in Israel for a few months. He's real bright (brighter than me) and socially inept (more inept than me). I took him to my uncle's for the Sunday night meal. My uncle is a year and a half younger than me. (My mother's father divorced my grandmother and remarried and had Kenny or Kalman as the only son of his second marriage.) Kenny (known as Kalman to all his Israeli friends and wife) has five kids. The oldest, a son, about 22, got married last October. His newlywed wife was there. Also present besides Kenny's other four kids were Kenny's wife, Nomi and Nomi's sister and her husband and if I counted right their six kids. My friend, Richard, is an intellectual and has intellectual interests and so does Kenny and so they had much to discuss, but mostly it was very crowded and very noisy.
The next week was Holocaust remembrance day. I'm all for remembering the Holocaust, although I prefer to call it something a little less dramatic, like the Nazi genocide of the Jews. But I tend to remember it a bit too much without any prompting from the calendar. It is a bit problematic that Israel put it on the calendar a week before Independence Day with the express purpose of signifying a certain cause and effect- This is what happens to us when we don't have a country of our own to protect ourselves. But I don't really mind a little propaganda now and again, I just mind being reminded of the Holocaust when I think about it too much in any case without any prompting.
Then last week was Independence Day. The day before Independence day is memorial day, in memory of all soldiers killed and people killed in terrorist attacks. Of course that's a downer, but I accept it as part of the deal. Unlike Holocaust Day, it is necessary to have a Memorial Day and why not have it the day before Independence Day- this is the price we pay for having a country.
On Independence Day most people go to the park to picnic and my friend, Richard, instigated a picnic as well. There were seven of us- three married guys who came without their wives and three unmarried guys (including me), plus the ten year old son of one of my friends. It was fun.
This week there is no holiday and I'm breathing a sigh of relief.
point blank (M28)
lee marvin. angie dickenson. marvin gets ripped off by "reese". at a heist at alcatraz, "reese" kills the victims, instead of just knocking them out. there's not as much money as he expected, so he shoots marvin, leaving him for dead and taking his wife. turns out that reese , marvin and his wife were a happy threesome (until this episode) and the wife was happy enough to go with reese except she wasn't happy that marvin got killed. marvin makes a deal with keenan wynn (who he takes for a cop), that keenan will help him find reese and marvin will help him. keenan gives marvin, marvin's wife's address, but reese is not there. he has left marvin's wife. marvin's wife commits suicide, but when her monthly alimony cash arrives, marvin finds out that a used car salesman might know something. marvin finds out that his wife's sister might know something. people higher up in the organization (reese used marvin's 93,000 dollars to buy his way back into the organization) put reese in a penthouse, so that marvin will try to gain entrance and get killed. marvin uses dickenson, his wife's sister, and she goes up to the penthouse. marvin goes up there and tussling with "reese", reese falls off the roof and dies. marvin mistreats angie and she leaves in a huff. marvin goes to someone higher in the organization and he sets up a drop to pay marvin, but it's just a set up for marvin to get killed, so the higher up gets killed. marvin looks up angie, whose life was destroyed because of her role in killing reese and marvin takes her to archie bunker's house. angie is pissed at marvin, but they make love and make up. archie shows up. marvin wants money, but the only cash part of the business is the drop at alcatraz. they go to alcatraz. the money is dropped off by helicopter and someone shoots archie. it is keenan wynn who is really part of the organization. archie lies there with the money next to him. the end.
B-
B-
thunderbolt and lightfoot (M27)
clint eastwood and jeff bridges. written and directed by michael cimino. jeff bridges a minor conman robs a car and bumps into clint eastwood. eastwood was hiding out as a preacher when a criminal breaks into the service and shoots things up. eastwood flees and jeff bridges picks him up. with a belt eastwood pops his shoulder back into place. they exchange cars a few times and head to warsaw montana. eastwood would have abandoned the kid, but he is being chased by two fellows "goody" and george kennedy. they are intent on killing eastwood, because he ran off with the money from a score. the money is supposed to be hidden behind a blackboard in a one room schoolhouse but when eastwood and bridges arrive, the schoolhouse is gone and replaced by a modern school. they decide on replicating the original heist. buying a tank gun. getting the safe combination from the head of the bank (armored car). getting the western union man to let bridges in, so that he will not be alerted by the alarm. they end up at a drive in with a trunkful of money. also in the trunk are kennedy and "goody", but kennedy sneezes and his shirt is sticking out the back, so there is a drive in lady who won't tolerate it, so they have to run away in their car. goody gets shot and kennedy dumps him out. then he puts the gun on eastwood and bridges and kicks bridges awful hard. kennedy gets killed in a chase. bridges and eastwood are back at their starting point, but they run across the old one room schoolhouse, kept intact as a historical monument. tourists are inside. so alarmed by eastwood and bridges appearance that they offer them their camera and wallet and then escape. indeed the money is still behind the blackboard and eastwood buys a car and drives into the "sunset" with bridges. but "midnight cowboy" style, bridges dies (from the kicks from kennedy), so eastwood drives on with a corpse next to him.
B
not worthy of summary- "the jerk" with steve martin and "date night" with steve carrel and tina fey. in both cases a plot summary is extraneous.
date night. tina and steve take somebody else's reservation. bad guys come in and assume they are roger o thorton. they chase them to central park. steve and tina go to the cops. but the bad guys are cops. they go to a security expert to find out where the real reservation lives after stealing the phone number from the restaurant. they go to the real reservation and find that it is the d.a. that is being blackmailed and they go to the d.a. at a strip club and then the cops and the head of the mob show up.
B
not worthy of summary- "the jerk" with steve martin and "date night" with steve carrel and tina fey. in both cases a plot summary is extraneous.
date night. tina and steve take somebody else's reservation. bad guys come in and assume they are roger o thorton. they chase them to central park. steve and tina go to the cops. but the bad guys are cops. they go to a security expert to find out where the real reservation lives after stealing the phone number from the restaurant. they go to the real reservation and find that it is the d.a. that is being blackmailed and they go to the d.a. at a strip club and then the cops and the head of the mob show up.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
midnight scribbles
sweet sleep after depression
busy picking pimples on my forehead
looking forward to the day before my death
his comic sense breaks through
the moment he is curious.
not every father is abraham-
some sons die for less.
but bless his heart he knew
what he wanted.
he stole the money
to sit on the floor
near the wisest of men.
a gaudy shade of lipstick
decorated and hid her mouth
the maw of death.
paul new man as director
told the actor to sing his lines in C
harmonicas played the tune to guide him
twice more he tried before the new man got his wish.
he warned us that the mayor was quite crooked
but still we couldn't just sit still
but beyond a call to action
his meaning was not clear.
I returned to the room
having fled to pee
in a drawer of toilet water and cosmetics
opposite their beds
invaded the star's intimate privacy
did you know jimmy green
twice we studied together
once a book of lore
the other philosophy too pure to fathom.
haven't seen him since seventy and two
i was intimidated by the man
never knew anyone like him.
i know i'm not black
the hobo said to me
because you're scared of black people
but you're not scared of me.
I wore his jacket for the moment
too big for me it kept me warm
i folded it and placed it on the table
I ignored her hand with its wedding band
offering a comfort i could not accept.
The borders between my faith and fear
lacked all order.
chaos reigned fiercely all through that night.
forever is a long time,
but it's deeper than just that.
don't bully me just cuz you're
first born to this horror.
no one knows the hour of your death.
the actors wait their lines
the soldiers wait their orders.
god knows the borders between reality and myth
were meant to be hopscotched like a child's game.
Don't bet against him no matter what the odds.
the father is quite fond of him
and will cheat in his behalf.
busy picking pimples on my forehead
looking forward to the day before my death
his comic sense breaks through
the moment he is curious.
not every father is abraham-
some sons die for less.
but bless his heart he knew
what he wanted.
he stole the money
to sit on the floor
near the wisest of men.
a gaudy shade of lipstick
decorated and hid her mouth
the maw of death.
paul new man as director
told the actor to sing his lines in C
harmonicas played the tune to guide him
twice more he tried before the new man got his wish.
he warned us that the mayor was quite crooked
but still we couldn't just sit still
but beyond a call to action
his meaning was not clear.
I returned to the room
having fled to pee
in a drawer of toilet water and cosmetics
opposite their beds
invaded the star's intimate privacy
did you know jimmy green
twice we studied together
once a book of lore
the other philosophy too pure to fathom.
haven't seen him since seventy and two
i was intimidated by the man
never knew anyone like him.
i know i'm not black
the hobo said to me
because you're scared of black people
but you're not scared of me.
I wore his jacket for the moment
too big for me it kept me warm
i folded it and placed it on the table
I ignored her hand with its wedding band
offering a comfort i could not accept.
The borders between my faith and fear
lacked all order.
chaos reigned fiercely all through that night.
forever is a long time,
but it's deeper than just that.
don't bully me just cuz you're
first born to this horror.
no one knows the hour of your death.
the actors wait their lines
the soldiers wait their orders.
god knows the borders between reality and myth
were meant to be hopscotched like a child's game.
Don't bet against him no matter what the odds.
the father is quite fond of him
and will cheat in his behalf.
wing and a prayer (M26)
WWII war flick. Dana Andrews and Don Ameche. The American navy is trying to trick the Japs into thinking they are chicken and also that they are scattered so that the Japs will attack Midway. This is the story of the fighter pilots on a ship forced to not shoot at Japs. That very fact makes them edgy. Add to that taking casualties, because they are playing defense without any offense. Don Ameche, hard nosed commander. Under him, Dana Andrews, who feels for his men, but must still impose discipline. One of the men, an academy award winning actor (who gets bagloads of fan mail). Another man, a guy who suffers from shock as an aftermath of Pearl Harbor. They participate in the battle of Midway. The shock sufferer dives into the path of a torpedo in order to save the destroyer and the oscar winner ditches his plane but gets picked up.
C-
C-
ride lonesome (M25)
randolph scott picks up a criminal and heads to santa cruz to deliver him up for the bounty money. the criminal's brother- lee van cleef, has been sent for to catch up and stop the delivery. along for the ride are pernel roberts and james coburn, who want to deliver the criminal in exchange for amnesty. also along for the ride is a dish, who thinks she's going to meet her husband. but when indians come along offering to trade a horse for her, it's her husband's horse- proof that he's dead. the prisoner gets his hands on a gun, but is bluffed out of it. then it becomes clear that scott is not interested in the criminal, but in his brother, who killed his young wife, many years before. there is a shootout between scott and van cleef and van cleef dies. we assume there is going to be a shootout between scott and roberts to see who is going to get the bounty or amnesty, but once scott kills van cleef he hands the criminal over.
C
C
age of consent (M24)
James Mason. and a young helen mirren. Michael powell directing. an artist goes to an island (off of australia) to find peace and quiet. He finds there a young nymph, who inspires him to paint (her posing in the nude, "the best work I ever did") other characters- a pain in the ass friend, who shows up to rob him. the girl's grandmother, who considers hellen a slut and steals hellen's money. (she's been paid for modeling and socking it away to get to brisbane) in a tussle for the money, the grandmother falls over the hill and dies. hellen has ignited a new love of life in james and now they will live happily ever after.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
yitte's mother's funeral
They brought yitte's mom to be buried in jerusalem last night. i saw yossi kaplan's brother, but not yossi, though reports were that he was there. i saw michel, but i didn't see yossi.
dad was not extremely mobile. the wheelchair is a heavy thing to lift. the gorgol, turkey necks were a bit chewy, cooked too fast. the sanhedrin page of the day took long and nate weiss's great grandson's birth was celebrated with cookies. born in a taxi, they called him maxi. they gave the driver a choice, either the name or we'll pay to clean the car. first funeral i ever attended. we're going to go every thursday on some kind of an excursion. mom was reminded of sabta's small body. (i just woke up from dreams of some nigger following me in northern new york). still have to do the taxes. today is yaffa's birthday. i need to get a pru u'rvu shiduch for resnick. the only reason to go to sheikh jarra is social and therefore the odds are against. i have a hard on against charedi as in chevra kadisha. i asked mom about tall rena forcing her way to the grave at her mother's funeral. mom: it's only a minhag, they can go, you know where. i said. it's a cemetery. appropriate of course. when i brought dad up from the daf yomi i advised him to daven maariv. too tired to go to resnick's. they had bags of dirt to pour on the grave. they emptied the casket (tin foil box) and made sure it was empty. carried her in a sheet and then dropped her in and were left with a sheet. buried in a kittel? tachrichin.
dad was not extremely mobile. the wheelchair is a heavy thing to lift. the gorgol, turkey necks were a bit chewy, cooked too fast. the sanhedrin page of the day took long and nate weiss's great grandson's birth was celebrated with cookies. born in a taxi, they called him maxi. they gave the driver a choice, either the name or we'll pay to clean the car. first funeral i ever attended. we're going to go every thursday on some kind of an excursion. mom was reminded of sabta's small body. (i just woke up from dreams of some nigger following me in northern new york). still have to do the taxes. today is yaffa's birthday. i need to get a pru u'rvu shiduch for resnick. the only reason to go to sheikh jarra is social and therefore the odds are against. i have a hard on against charedi as in chevra kadisha. i asked mom about tall rena forcing her way to the grave at her mother's funeral. mom: it's only a minhag, they can go, you know where. i said. it's a cemetery. appropriate of course. when i brought dad up from the daf yomi i advised him to daven maariv. too tired to go to resnick's. they had bags of dirt to pour on the grave. they emptied the casket (tin foil box) and made sure it was empty. carried her in a sheet and then dropped her in and were left with a sheet. buried in a kittel? tachrichin.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
mangal
Tuesday night- Chatzkal, Resnick, Levi and I met at Chatzkal's apartment, for a barbecue that Resnick had planned. (Last year he had done nothing on the independence day and was depressed by it and so he declared that he was throwing a picnic.) I was the first to arrive. We discussed the tanach quiz that chatzkal had seen, in which the son of Netanyahu came in 3rd (he said second, or sgan). He said that the kid seemed a little strange and I said that i had heard autism and we compromised on asperger's. which was a useful point of reference because the fifth person who arrived with a car was someone called avraham who was weird. (a former member of the sds, he now wants to burn down the supreme court and thus burning something down, whether rotc or supreme court seems to be the essence.) we piled into the car, with food and paper utensil, israeli charcoal and lighter fluid, a table and a chair, a barbecue. 3 in the back seat and two in front. first we went to buy some beer. I don't drink beer, i drink wine. what kind of wine. thunderbird and night train. (to levi) we got going and finally found the part of the park that we wanted. chatzkal knew where he was going. turns out avraham had no idea how to park, but finally gave the wheel to levi who parked the car. wouldn't have passed the new york state driver's test, but it was good enough.
we moved the stuff to the hill and then lit the fire. posed the riddle, a boat, a cigarette pack but no matches. throw one overboard, then the boat becomes one cigarette lighter. avraham liked that one. i noshed and resnick who told me not to talk to avraham while he was parking (he's not normal) which pissed me, but i controlled it. told me not to eat, because i would lose my appetite, very mothering, but so it goes. rugelach while the men drank beer. and me missing my reefer. and potato chips and cole slaw and potato salad and kababs and burgers and hot dogs, but no bread for me. and chicken wings which hurt my teeth. then rocky showed up with his son and resnick went into mothering overtime. nice to see rocky. avraham spoke out against obama and other things. (with ari shavit in today's haaretz, i think obama might indeed be trouble.) and rocky danced (reminded me of steve martin in the jerk) and he brought two gloves and a baseball and shmuel, rocky's kid had rollerblades. and i told the "i don't have to outrun the bear, i only have to outrun you" joke. and some charedim came and we davened mincha. and i did not eat marshmallows, which for some reason i keep calling mushrooms. (old age creeps in, but i will survive). and we sang shir ha'maalot. but i did not eat bread, so i couldn't bensch. i ate salad with my hands. the first burger was burnt, i had no pickle, but i had cucumber salad. and there was a moshava reunion that day, but this was better and chatzkal felt complimented. levi asked where we knew each other from and he was jealous of the long friendship. I only know resnick since simchat torah of 76, but chatzkal from 66 and rocky from 67. i mentioned the beverly mayersdorf there's a whale who wants three days lodging. simi rothner comes to mind right now. last night on the phone with rocky about locking me into the closet, baruch green came to mind. and rocky lost his footing when we walked downhill. celery and raisins on rosh hashana for a raise in salary. and lots of cola including pepsi max and coca cola. a mild suggestion that we sing "biladi" but no one objected. we drove and dropped levi off. he is living in safed. then to chatzkal's. i told the that's one, two, three shoot the horse joke and then that's one to the newlywed wife. and they thought it was reminiscent of the joke, which joke, the bear joke. and then to resnick's. he told me that steve klitsner doesn't believe in pru u'rvu regarding shiduchin and so i offered my aryeh connection. and i tried to download les diabolique and blade runner downloaded five percent. and i read him shlomo avineri and yossi alpher. beforehand i asked him whether he understands why palestinians are pissed, but now he amended it to say, they are pissed because they are brainwashed muslims (not his words, but his essence.) and we are dafuk. i taught him how to use his can opener, which reminded me of michele's father and i added a thanksgiving section of liberty maze.
we moved the stuff to the hill and then lit the fire. posed the riddle, a boat, a cigarette pack but no matches. throw one overboard, then the boat becomes one cigarette lighter. avraham liked that one. i noshed and resnick who told me not to talk to avraham while he was parking (he's not normal) which pissed me, but i controlled it. told me not to eat, because i would lose my appetite, very mothering, but so it goes. rugelach while the men drank beer. and me missing my reefer. and potato chips and cole slaw and potato salad and kababs and burgers and hot dogs, but no bread for me. and chicken wings which hurt my teeth. then rocky showed up with his son and resnick went into mothering overtime. nice to see rocky. avraham spoke out against obama and other things. (with ari shavit in today's haaretz, i think obama might indeed be trouble.) and rocky danced (reminded me of steve martin in the jerk) and he brought two gloves and a baseball and shmuel, rocky's kid had rollerblades. and i told the "i don't have to outrun the bear, i only have to outrun you" joke. and some charedim came and we davened mincha. and i did not eat marshmallows, which for some reason i keep calling mushrooms. (old age creeps in, but i will survive). and we sang shir ha'maalot. but i did not eat bread, so i couldn't bensch. i ate salad with my hands. the first burger was burnt, i had no pickle, but i had cucumber salad. and there was a moshava reunion that day, but this was better and chatzkal felt complimented. levi asked where we knew each other from and he was jealous of the long friendship. I only know resnick since simchat torah of 76, but chatzkal from 66 and rocky from 67. i mentioned the beverly mayersdorf there's a whale who wants three days lodging. simi rothner comes to mind right now. last night on the phone with rocky about locking me into the closet, baruch green came to mind. and rocky lost his footing when we walked downhill. celery and raisins on rosh hashana for a raise in salary. and lots of cola including pepsi max and coca cola. a mild suggestion that we sing "biladi" but no one objected. we drove and dropped levi off. he is living in safed. then to chatzkal's. i told the that's one, two, three shoot the horse joke and then that's one to the newlywed wife. and they thought it was reminiscent of the joke, which joke, the bear joke. and then to resnick's. he told me that steve klitsner doesn't believe in pru u'rvu regarding shiduchin and so i offered my aryeh connection. and i tried to download les diabolique and blade runner downloaded five percent. and i read him shlomo avineri and yossi alpher. beforehand i asked him whether he understands why palestinians are pissed, but now he amended it to say, they are pissed because they are brainwashed muslims (not his words, but his essence.) and we are dafuk. i taught him how to use his can opener, which reminded me of michele's father and i added a thanksgiving section of liberty maze.
alice in wonderland (m23)
Tim burton. Alice, a 19 year old, who is being proposed to by a toad, takes a time out to fall down the rabbit hole. entrance into underland is achieved by eating and drinking potion and cake that make her small enough to enter. she enters to discover that people question whether she is really THE alice. things are kind of slow, even though she is attacked by a giant dog like creature, until she visits the mad hatter, played by johnny depp. it seems that when alice was younger she used to visit there often and people have been waiting for her return. she is part of a prophecy that she will kill a giant monster called the Jabberwocky, which in fact she has to do in behalf of the white queen, against the red queen played by helena bonham carter. the red queen has a large head and she is imperious, always yelling off with her head. alice, a little too large visits the red queen's palace trying to save the mad hatter who had sacrificed himself earlier on her behalf. the mad hatter designs hats to try to please the red queen. he is slightly mad. he hates the queen for she is to blame for some slaughter or imbalance. when the red queen recognizes alice for who she is alice, must flee and she takes a special sword with her. there is an attempt to behead the mad hatter but the cheshire cat comes to the rescue and the beheading is not successful. a battle between the jabberwocky fighting on behalf of the red queen and alice fighting on behalf of the white queen (anne hathaway) takes place. alice girds herself by saying that she thinks of six impossible things before breakfast. and she slays the monster and everyone now is loyal to the white queen and the red queen and her squire are sent to exile and alice returns to real life. where she now has the strength to say no to the proposal from the toad and to embark on a life as an independent 21st century woman even though it is only the 19th century.
B/B+
many elements are involved besides women's liberation and self confidence and such. there are many references to the wizard of oz and the importance of dreams.
burton's best which include beetlejuice, scissorhands, batman with de vito. and nightmare before christmas, plus ed wood is joined by this. which is superior to most of his recent (last ten years efforts)
alice is a bit colorless, but so she is certainly the disney alice is rather colorless and she is surrounded by such craziness. even anne hathaway as the white queen seems a bit mad, so much moreso johnny depp and the red queen and the squire (crispin glover, with his first decent role in so long) plus the cheshire cat and the caterpillar and all the intrigues of the red queen's palace full of toadies (who wear masks and costumes, so as to pretend that they are disfigured in some ways to match the red queen's bulbous head disfigurement.)
B/B+
many elements are involved besides women's liberation and self confidence and such. there are many references to the wizard of oz and the importance of dreams.
burton's best which include beetlejuice, scissorhands, batman with de vito. and nightmare before christmas, plus ed wood is joined by this. which is superior to most of his recent (last ten years efforts)
alice is a bit colorless, but so she is certainly the disney alice is rather colorless and she is surrounded by such craziness. even anne hathaway as the white queen seems a bit mad, so much moreso johnny depp and the red queen and the squire (crispin glover, with his first decent role in so long) plus the cheshire cat and the caterpillar and all the intrigues of the red queen's palace full of toadies (who wear masks and costumes, so as to pretend that they are disfigured in some ways to match the red queen's bulbous head disfigurement.)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
mondoweiss yom haatzmaut
Foist of all, I was speaking to Witty. Second of all- “every dog its day will come”. Third of all, the Zionist Jews will not be free until freedom is available for pennies on the dollar for all. But fourth of all, habits are tough to break and Ari Ben Canaan is a hero of mine and so is Sal Mineo, so “od lo avda tikva’teinu, ha’tikva shnot alpayim, lihyot am chofshi b’artzeinu b’eretz tziyon yerushalayim.”
עוד לא אבדה תקותינו התקוה שנות אלפיים להיות עם חפשי בארצינו בארץ ציון ירושלים
And in honor of Martin Buber here is the new national anthem for the new state that will have room for all. (sung to the tune of “Baby Face”)
Holy land.
It’s great to live here in the holy land.
Ain’t it grand
it was planned
for us to live together in the
Holy land.
I went to the store before. It’s a 24/6 store. Actually it closes two hours or so before Shabbat and opens an hour after Shabbat, so it’s not strictly speaking 24/6, but almost. So it was open today, selling charcoal and mangals, whereas the mega store and the entire mall is closed. Inside working was a Palestinian. I would not go up to him and tell him happy yom haatzmaut. farkhan yam istaklal. I realize that there are sensitivities and losses and one man’s independence is another man’s exile and occupation and I accept the limitations.
In lieu of an apology I offered my alternative anthem. Not that I believe that the utopia of open borders will exist in my lifetime. It’s a myth of sorts. Just like Paul Newman and Sal Mineo is a myth of a fictitious past, so the utopia to me is a myth of a fictitious future. But I offered it in lieu of an apology.
Monday, April 19, 2010
jew hatred
another unpleasant participation in the mondoweiss hatefest. instead of posting to there, i will post to here
On the topic of the rationalism or rationales behind Jew hatred. Granted that Nazi Jew hatred was based upon a rational fear of communism, but the response was irrational. 1) If Nazism had not chased the Jews out of Germany, Germany rather than the US would have emerged as the first country to develop an atomic bomb. 2) The misuse of resources to kill the Jews rather than to win the war is proof that something that originally had a rational explanation ended up being extremely irrational.
On the topic of which type of hatred dominates the world at present, it is fair to say that anti Arab, anti Muslim discrimination is much worse than Jew hatred in North America and in Europe at present. But there are other parts of the world where hatred of Jews is the predominant hatred.
On the topic of the rationalism or rationales behind Jew hatred. Granted that Nazi Jew hatred was based upon a rational fear of communism, but the response was irrational. 1) If Nazism had not chased the Jews out of Germany, Germany rather than the US would have emerged as the first country to develop an atomic bomb. 2) The misuse of resources to kill the Jews rather than to win the war is proof that something that originally had a rational explanation ended up being extremely irrational.
On the topic of which type of hatred dominates the world at present, it is fair to say that anti Arab, anti Muslim discrimination is much worse than Jew hatred in North America and in Europe at present. But there are other parts of the world where hatred of Jews is the predominant hatred.
funny games us (m22)
naomi watts, tim roth are invaded by two young nazis (not literally, but blond and cruel and having fun tormenting their victims.) they take over their house, first coming in asking for eggs. then borrowing a golf club to kill their dog. forcing naomi to disrobe as their son can breathe but not see because of a pillow cover. they injure tim's leg right away with a golf club. the kid runs away to the neighbor's house, but is caught. they play eenie meinie mo and they kill the kid. they leave. tim and naomi try to call with the cell phone that was drenched but they can't be heard. naomi escapes but they catch her when she doesn't flag down a neutral car, but does flag them down. they talk into the camera. when naomi kills one of them with the gun, they press the remote and turn it back in time. they kill tim. they take naomi onto the sail boat. they toss her overboard. they visit their next victim asking politely for eggs.
yom hazikaron
it is a quarter after 11 in the morning. fifteen minutes ago the siren for the dead in israeli wars (do they include civilians killed by terrorists?) sounded. i thought of sariel and beni gal. a little moshe tal and some guys i never met, yair yehuda's cousin or brother.
seems to me there will be more wars. i think the settlements were a real mistake. but i have no time machine, so where do we go from here? with a solid right wing majority. maybe dan meridor is capable of negotiating a treaty, but will bibi give him the power.
so right away i'm figuring out chess moves to get us out of this mess. constantly reading mondoweiss. at times they infuriate and get me to hate the palestinians more. at times they make me rethink my position. they constantly get me to wish i had a time machine, but still even if i could go back in time, there are those that i wouldn't be able to convince.
i thought of gedalia pollack and thoughts that he lives in texas. visits to facebook prove my desire to go back in time. but time marches on.
my script moves slowly (my writing of it, not the pacing necessarily). i will survive. but i must add other things to my daily dose if i am truly to survive.
watching a movie of break in people (funny games) reminds me of holocaust rather than yom hazikaron. holocaust siren pissed me off a bit. i think about it enough. but yom hazikaron, although the timing is suspect, obviously the sentiment is understandable. america too has its memorial day, although it means nothing to most people.
i can't see my participation in politics really making the big difference of a change in israeli policy, so much more so palestinian policy. my wish to run away, besides a wish to escape my parents and refresh my habit, and earn a living. what does it mean?
god be with you.
seems to me there will be more wars. i think the settlements were a real mistake. but i have no time machine, so where do we go from here? with a solid right wing majority. maybe dan meridor is capable of negotiating a treaty, but will bibi give him the power.
so right away i'm figuring out chess moves to get us out of this mess. constantly reading mondoweiss. at times they infuriate and get me to hate the palestinians more. at times they make me rethink my position. they constantly get me to wish i had a time machine, but still even if i could go back in time, there are those that i wouldn't be able to convince.
i thought of gedalia pollack and thoughts that he lives in texas. visits to facebook prove my desire to go back in time. but time marches on.
my script moves slowly (my writing of it, not the pacing necessarily). i will survive. but i must add other things to my daily dose if i am truly to survive.
watching a movie of break in people (funny games) reminds me of holocaust rather than yom hazikaron. holocaust siren pissed me off a bit. i think about it enough. but yom hazikaron, although the timing is suspect, obviously the sentiment is understandable. america too has its memorial day, although it means nothing to most people.
i can't see my participation in politics really making the big difference of a change in israeli policy, so much more so palestinian policy. my wish to run away, besides a wish to escape my parents and refresh my habit, and earn a living. what does it mean?
god be with you.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
The Comedians (M21)
Richard Burton. Liz Taylor. Alec Guiness. Peter Ustinov. James Earl Jones.
Haiti. Burton owns a hotel that he wishes to sell, but can't. He's in love with Liz Taylor, Peter Ustinov (a diplomat's) wife. He returns from a trip to New York. Also on the plane were Alex Guiness, plus an old American couple. The old American couple stay at Burton's hotel. Unfortunately there is a corpse in his empty pool. Luckily they arrive when there is a blackout, so they don't see the corpse. (put there by the Tonton Macoutes, Papa doc's thug police). Eventually the old couple go to the beach to see a procession, which is a group of kids taken to watch a firing squad kill some rebels. When the wife screams, they get kicked out. they were trying to sell granola or some sort of vegetarian product. Guiness is an arms dealer. At first he is placed under arrest because the man whom he made the deal with has been killed. but then he is released and lives high (visits the local whorehouse). But then they discover that his partner has been less than honest with the guns that they bought and so he hides. Burton has him dress in a dress and black face and hide at Ustinov's. Burton is convinced that Liz slept with alec. The rebels try to recruit Burton, but he's a cynic. but then James earl jones, a doctor, is killed in the middle of surgery. He was supposed to deliver Guiness to the rebels in the hills, but Burton goes in his place. when the car breaks down they walk the last part of the way. Guiness, supposedly an army sort, in fact is a novice. The touton macoute kill Guiness, but the rebels kill the thugs. Burton has no choice but to join the rebels. Burton gives a rousing speech to a rabble. Ustinov and Liz are kicked out of the country for giving refuge to Alec.
C
Haiti. Burton owns a hotel that he wishes to sell, but can't. He's in love with Liz Taylor, Peter Ustinov (a diplomat's) wife. He returns from a trip to New York. Also on the plane were Alex Guiness, plus an old American couple. The old American couple stay at Burton's hotel. Unfortunately there is a corpse in his empty pool. Luckily they arrive when there is a blackout, so they don't see the corpse. (put there by the Tonton Macoutes, Papa doc's thug police). Eventually the old couple go to the beach to see a procession, which is a group of kids taken to watch a firing squad kill some rebels. When the wife screams, they get kicked out. they were trying to sell granola or some sort of vegetarian product. Guiness is an arms dealer. At first he is placed under arrest because the man whom he made the deal with has been killed. but then he is released and lives high (visits the local whorehouse). But then they discover that his partner has been less than honest with the guns that they bought and so he hides. Burton has him dress in a dress and black face and hide at Ustinov's. Burton is convinced that Liz slept with alec. The rebels try to recruit Burton, but he's a cynic. but then James earl jones, a doctor, is killed in the middle of surgery. He was supposed to deliver Guiness to the rebels in the hills, but Burton goes in his place. when the car breaks down they walk the last part of the way. Guiness, supposedly an army sort, in fact is a novice. The touton macoute kill Guiness, but the rebels kill the thugs. Burton has no choice but to join the rebels. Burton gives a rousing speech to a rabble. Ustinov and Liz are kicked out of the country for giving refuge to Alec.
C
my neighbor totoro (M20)
japanese cartoon. a father and two daughters move into a new house in the country. (older daughter has a short haircut and is at first mistaken for a boy). the new house has dust sprites. their mother is in the hospital. they are cared for by the neighbor's granny. their father is a professor and busy with books. when the older child goes to school, the younger child befriends a tree monster. they wait for their father to return on the bus and the tree monster waits with them. a cat which is also a bus takes the tree monster, totoro, away. they plant acorns that totoro gave them. they dream of the acorns turning into a giant tree and flying with totoro. the next morning the acorns have sprouted. they visit their mother in the hospital. their mother is supposed to come for a visit, a phone call tells them that she won't be coming. they are worried that she will die. the little one is lost. they search for her. totoro and the cat bus help find her. they bring an ear of corn to their mother at the hospital.
Anita Shapira on the Khazar theory
Anita Shapira wrote a scathing review of Shlomo Sand's book in The Journal of Israeli History. volume 28 No. 1 March 2009 (Google Anita Shapira and Shlomo Sand if you wish to read the review in its entirety.)
Because the calling Ashkenazi Jews Khazars is not an infrequent occurrence in the comments section, I will quote from Anita Shapira's review:"The most esteemed scholar of the Khazar monarchy, by Sand's own acknowledgment, is D. M. Dunlop, a British nonJew in command of the languages needed to study the Khazars, on whom information is found in Arabic, Hebrew, Byzantine and Chinese literature. This information is fragmentary and at times contradictory. Dunlop at the end of his book relates to the theory that the Jews of Eastern Europe are the descendants of the Khazars: he states that "This can be dealt with very shortly, because there is little evidence which directly bears upon it and it unavoidably retains the character of a mere assumption."
Because the calling Ashkenazi Jews Khazars is not an infrequent occurrence in the comments section, I will quote from Anita Shapira's review:"The most esteemed scholar of the Khazar monarchy, by Sand's own acknowledgment, is D. M. Dunlop, a British nonJew in command of the languages needed to study the Khazars, on whom information is found in Arabic, Hebrew, Byzantine and Chinese literature. This information is fragmentary and at times contradictory. Dunlop at the end of his book relates to the theory that the Jews of Eastern Europe are the descendants of the Khazars: he states that "This can be dealt with very shortly, because there is little evidence which directly bears upon it and it unavoidably retains the character of a mere assumption."
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The secret in their eyes (M19)
Argentina. a man who worked in the prosecutors office (more than a cop, less than a lawyer) writes a novel about a famous case. a woman is raped and murdered. when going through a photo album the man, Esposito, sees someone looking at the woman with suspicious leering. when he points this out to the murdered woman's widower, the widower calls the suspect's mother and when the cops go to arrest gomez. he is gone. the case is closed. then one day at the train station Esposito sees the widower. He is waiting to catch Gomez at the train station. Esposito is inspired to reopen the case. Esposito's partner, a drunk, figures out that Gomez is a soccer fan and they start to look for him at the stadium. They catch him. With the help of the female D.A. they goad him into a confession. (yeah, i fucked her with this big dick and i fucked her good.) But when there is a fascist takeover in the country, Gomez gets let off to help the fascists. Esposito's partner gets murdered in Esposito's apartment. Esposito assumes that he was the real target of the murder and he leaves town. Before he leaves he has a chance to confess his love to the female D.A., but he doesn't do so. He returns years later and he's still in love with the female D.A. but he is also obsessed with the case. He finds the widower and the widower claims to have killed Gomez. But esposito doesn't believe him and he finds that the widower is imprisoning Gomez with no kindness or human speech, in order to exact his revenge. Esposito realizes that many people are stuck in time, and he is stuck in love with the female D.A. and he confesses his love and though it is complicated they will try to make a go of it.
Friday, April 16, 2010
The drowning pool (m18)
paul newman as harper, private eye. in new orleans. hired by joanne woodward married to someone rich. unhappy marriage. receives a letter. made to look like the chauffeur sent it. in fact sent by the daughter. melanie griffith. the town cop is tony franciosa. the chauffeur is the villain from dirty harry. the millionaire is anne bancroft's hubby from the graduate. the title of the movie is from a scene where the millionaire who needs a piece of info from harper leaves harper in a room in an abandoned mental hospital and in order to escape, harper plugs the drain and lets the water flow so that he can reach the skylight which he plans to open or break, when the water brings him up there, he can't open it and he is about to drown. just then the millionaire and his henchman open the door saving his life. the movie starts out very good, there is tension between paul and joanne and that's good. but joanne doesn't get enough screen time and everyone else is pretty rotten.
C/C+
C/C+
laughing fit (13)
my sleep is off kilter.
i went to my parents like i do every thursday evening, last night. arrived in a bad mood. at dinner i mentioned that going to a shiva visit for someone i really didn't like was an unusual situation. we got to discussing old people and how mrs. kushelevsky is no longer with it. and i started laughing how old age is pick from three categories- legs, other physical and mental. and i started mocking someone paranoid, "they're trying to kill me." but dad didn't understand what i was talking about, or he thought i was talking about someone specific.
i tried to show them "a serious man" again, but their computer is messed up.
i got into the center of town, carrying two salmons and not enough sleep and called resnick, but he was at a class of steinzaltz.
when i was already on the bus he called me back. he invited me for a picnic on yom ha atzmaut. usually i don't talk on the bus, but i did. i asked if i could bring a palestinian flag. a woman (girl) gave me a dirty look. i have nothing planned for tuesday.
i dreamt that there was a family get together with various members invited and then on the way back we stop at some factory where there is a tour and some of the group have to be miniaturized in order to go on the tour and then they suffered the bends (ENZ) because of the combination of their miniaturization and the speed with which i carried them around. the guy from the cia said that i did a good job that 63% of them emerged without getting the bends (or a threat) they'd find out in a few days. and dov and tova were responsible for taking the tour and right before hand they had driven wildly and almost injured a woman because of their incaution. the kids didn't want to be miniaturized and in fact it was dangerous. but it was mostly bigger and older people who suffered more from the miniaturization.
i went to my parents like i do every thursday evening, last night. arrived in a bad mood. at dinner i mentioned that going to a shiva visit for someone i really didn't like was an unusual situation. we got to discussing old people and how mrs. kushelevsky is no longer with it. and i started laughing how old age is pick from three categories- legs, other physical and mental. and i started mocking someone paranoid, "they're trying to kill me." but dad didn't understand what i was talking about, or he thought i was talking about someone specific.
i tried to show them "a serious man" again, but their computer is messed up.
i got into the center of town, carrying two salmons and not enough sleep and called resnick, but he was at a class of steinzaltz.
when i was already on the bus he called me back. he invited me for a picnic on yom ha atzmaut. usually i don't talk on the bus, but i did. i asked if i could bring a palestinian flag. a woman (girl) gave me a dirty look. i have nothing planned for tuesday.
i dreamt that there was a family get together with various members invited and then on the way back we stop at some factory where there is a tour and some of the group have to be miniaturized in order to go on the tour and then they suffered the bends (ENZ) because of the combination of their miniaturization and the speed with which i carried them around. the guy from the cia said that i did a good job that 63% of them emerged without getting the bends (or a threat) they'd find out in a few days. and dov and tova were responsible for taking the tour and right before hand they had driven wildly and almost injured a woman because of their incaution. the kids didn't want to be miniaturized and in fact it was dangerous. but it was mostly bigger and older people who suffered more from the miniaturization.
something wicked this way comes (M17)
twenties america. jason robards is the father. a boy and his friend and the carnival comes to town. the carnival is evil. it appeals to people's unhappiness, regrets and yearnings, rather than their happiness with what they have. a man who desires women is abducted. a woman who yearns for her past beauty is abducted. a man missing an arm and a leg is abducted. the merry go round can turn people young. will and his friend nightshade discover the tricks of the carnival and the head of the carnival, mister dark,(jonathan pryce) seeks to kill them. (he is aided by a woman who is both temptation and death) lightning and rain are the foes of the carnival and evil. (lightning illuminates and rain washes them away) mister dark tries to elicit information from jason robards who regrets his life as a librarian and his inability to save his drowning son (who was saved by mister nightshade who then disappeared a few years later) and his old age. mister dark offers to turn the hands of time back (dramatically tearing pages from a book which then appear to be on fire, as he offers to go back in time to various ages of youth and the torn pages are the lost opportunities that jason passes up.) jason then saves his son and the nightshade kid.
the little girl who lives down the lane (m16)
jodie foster, a 13 year old, lives alone. in the mirror she reveals a chipped tooth and celebrates her birthday. martin sheen, a lo yitzlach son of a local upper crust female, knocks on her door on halloween to harass her. jodie gives him cake for his two kids and then chases him away. alexis smith (his mother) who leased jodie and her father the house, comes to harass her. jodie chases her away. in fact jodie's father is dead, though she pretends that he is still alive, (in the bedroom sleeping, in new york with his agent, in the study translating or writing poetry.) alexis returns to hassle jodie and tries to go down into the cellar. she sees something, screams and gets knocked on the head by the cellar door and dies. a local kid, italian, dressed as a magician and with a limp, befriends jodie. the kid's uncle the policeman shows up and wants to know where alexis smith is. when the policeman goes jodie shows the kid the dead bodies in the basement- alexis's and jodie's mother. jodie's mother and father divorced. her father got cancer and rented this place and then died, walking off into the ocean to solve the problem of burial. he left instructions how jodie can remain independent and aloof to the world. then her mother showed up, a vulgar woman with red fingernails. she gave her mother poisoned tea. the italian kid helps her bury the bodies. the italian kid helps convince his uncle that her father is still alive. the italian kid sleeps with her. the italian kid gets pneumonia. jodie discovers that despite her father's aloofness command that she has fallen in love with the kid. martin sheen shows up dressed up like the kid (as a magician). he has discovered evidence that there have been dead bodies in the cellar and he plans to use it to blackmail jodie into fucking him. she poisons him. she puts it in her own cup and he suspects her and then he drinks her cup.
jodie is jewish (explicit). her victims (after her vulgar mother) are wasps, unworthy wasps (a pervert and a racist overbearing mother). her allies are italians. her dead father- god, commanded her to remain aloof, but she needs friends (not just goyim but italian goyim, but one with magical propensities and with a limp).
jodie is jewish (explicit). her victims (after her vulgar mother) are wasps, unworthy wasps (a pervert and a racist overbearing mother). her allies are italians. her dead father- god, commanded her to remain aloof, but she needs friends (not just goyim but italian goyim, but one with magical propensities and with a limp).
Thursday, April 15, 2010
threat from arabic teacher (12)
i really don't like my arabic teacher.
so last night he asks, if you see someone doing something wrong in the street, what would you do?
and i answered, i wouldn't say anything.
why?
i don't want problems.
he said, exactly. once i told someone to stop and he punched me.
so last night he asks, if you see someone doing something wrong in the street, what would you do?
and i answered, i wouldn't say anything.
why?
i don't want problems.
he said, exactly. once i told someone to stop and he punched me.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
coogan's bluff (M15)
clint eastwood, a cop from arizona comes to new york to pick up ringerman. but ringerman is in bellevue and won't be released yet and lee j. cobb will not smooth the bureaucratic hurdles for eastwood. eastwood goes to bellevue and pops ringerman himself, but then as he is about to board the airplane, he is attacked and ringerman is released. eastwood is told that he should go back home, but he doesn't do so. he visits ringerman's mom and finds out the name of ringerman's girlfriend. he befriends a female cop or parole officer and thus finds the address of this girl and then she leads him to get jumped again. he goes back and threatens the girl with violence (the first time he plied her with love, but violence is more effective) and she leads him to the cloisters where wringerman is hanging out and after a motorcycle chase he catches ringerman and hands him over to lee j. cobb who sees him off at the heliport and the female cops gives him a last minute hug and wave at the heliport also.
C
C
The Bandit Queen (M14)
India. An eleven year old lower caste girl is given in marriage to a grown man. The man abuses her. She runs away back to her family. The local high castes accuse her of seductive behavior, so she is kicked out of town. When she returns a bandit (hired by the local high castes) abducts her and constantly rapes her. The hero shoots and kills the bandit and starts a gang. But when the head of the bandits (a high caste) is released from prison he eventually shoots and kills the hero, who loves and is loved by the heroine and then the heroine is raped for three days. She eventually sets up a new gang. when given misinformation that her rapist will be at the town where her extensive rape took place, she goes to that town and she and her gang kill 24 men. The government cannot abide this. But they want her alive (low caste people vote too). so they kill all her gang except her and the other leader and eventually she gives up.
B
B
The black swan (M13)
Tyrone power is a pirate in love with Margaret Sullivan daughter of a "lord". Tyrone's sponsor changes sides from piracy to regency and Tyrone follows him and calms himself. Meanwhile George Sanders (in an unusual role as someone from the lower classes) continues in his path of piracy. Margaret keeps spitting in Tyrone's face as he "woos" her. Her upper class fiancee is in fact leaking info to the pirates, both to gain booty and to destabilize Tyrone's sponsor. The constant piracy casts doubts on the sponsor's honesty and the sponsor sends Tyrone to confront the pirates. Tyrone first kidnaps Margaret and then discovers that the only way to confront the pirates is to feign cooperation (too slow to out run and too weak to outfight), but this fakery is discovered. But in a final battle Tyrone helps to defeat the pirates, but he is injured and finally gains Margaret's love.
(Also starring Thomas Mitchell and Anthony Quinn)
C/C+
(Also starring Thomas Mitchell and Anthony Quinn)
C/C+
post yom hashoah doggerel (10)
the sirens sang for the six million
but what about me and the walking dead
hardly awake, me you forsake
and my pals who you treat so bad.
it's not all the same
there's plenty of blame
i can't stand the garish sun.
but now that it's dark
not quite free as a lark
i've no energy to walk
let alone run.
i perform my dailies
so i'm pass, not fail
but progress is slow
when i crawl like a snail.
my roof ain't collapsin'
i'm no catholic who's lapsin'
but a jew in a war zone
naked of faith.
but what about me and the walking dead
hardly awake, me you forsake
and my pals who you treat so bad.
it's not all the same
there's plenty of blame
i can't stand the garish sun.
but now that it's dark
not quite free as a lark
i've no energy to walk
let alone run.
i perform my dailies
so i'm pass, not fail
but progress is slow
when i crawl like a snail.
my roof ain't collapsin'
i'm no catholic who's lapsin'
but a jew in a war zone
naked of faith.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Shiva call (9)
Friday night I went to my uncle, where my sister was for Shabbat. It was the first time that I showed up there uninvited and it worked out fine. It was nice seeing my nieces and my uncle's family was nice to see too.
Sunday night I went to console my brother's wife for the death of her father. the man was an OCD and a pain in the butt. The day my father broke his wrist, he was there hectoring my Dad and that was the last time I saw him and I was happy that he died and in a timely fashion. It was weird going to console people when I had wished the timely death of the deceased. The women and the men mourned separately so I didn't console my sister in law, but her brother for a few minutes. I spent less time there than I did getting there. (it looks like my brother has essential tremors). My landlord's brother (the super, so to speak) drives a cab and bumped into me in the neighborhood of the shiva. It was good that I went. I stopped by my parents on the way back. My mother was busy watching Holocaust shows, cuz last night was Yom Hashoah. I stayed only for a few minutes and brought my father upstairs from the daily page of Talmud. I might not have visited them, except I needed to use the facilities. I also grabbed a bite to eat. Hadar, a neighbor of my parents, thinks I'm a tzaddik. Then I went to visit Resnick, who is a pain in the butt. Then I walked home. This morning when the alarm went off for Yom Hashoah, I told myself that I have plenty of Shoah on the mind and i don't need to torture myself more. I watched a couple of films and did my daily dose of Liberty Maze.
Sunday night I went to console my brother's wife for the death of her father. the man was an OCD and a pain in the butt. The day my father broke his wrist, he was there hectoring my Dad and that was the last time I saw him and I was happy that he died and in a timely fashion. It was weird going to console people when I had wished the timely death of the deceased. The women and the men mourned separately so I didn't console my sister in law, but her brother for a few minutes. I spent less time there than I did getting there. (it looks like my brother has essential tremors). My landlord's brother (the super, so to speak) drives a cab and bumped into me in the neighborhood of the shiva. It was good that I went. I stopped by my parents on the way back. My mother was busy watching Holocaust shows, cuz last night was Yom Hashoah. I stayed only for a few minutes and brought my father upstairs from the daily page of Talmud. I might not have visited them, except I needed to use the facilities. I also grabbed a bite to eat. Hadar, a neighbor of my parents, thinks I'm a tzaddik. Then I went to visit Resnick, who is a pain in the butt. Then I walked home. This morning when the alarm went off for Yom Hashoah, I told myself that I have plenty of Shoah on the mind and i don't need to torture myself more. I watched a couple of films and did my daily dose of Liberty Maze.
warlock 1959 (M12)
A town needs a gunman to protect them from the cowboy troublemakers. They hire Henry Fonda. Fonda comes with Anthony Quinn, the gambler. Fonda quells the troublemakers. The troublemakers are forced to rob stagecoaches to make up for the fact that they've been kicked out of town. An enemy of Quinn's is coming to town and he learns of this. When the troublemakers try to rob the stagecoach, Quinn (long distance with a rifle) shoots his enemy. The troublemakers decide to make a stand and they confront Fonda. With the help of Quinn, Fonda fends them off. The brother of one of the men that Fonda kills is Richard Widmark, a good guy who had lots of bad friends. Fonda is a marshal, that is a somewhat vigilante appointed by the town, because the real law doesn't get to town often enough. When the real law comes to town and challenges the town, who is willing to be a deputy (real law), Richard Widmark steps forward and takes the job. The troublemakers wish to kill Richard Widmark, but Fonda helps fend them off. Fonda discovers that Quinn (a cripple) has killed people and used Fonda. Forced by Quinn, Fonda kills Quinn. Fonda, who had been considering settling down, now scoffs at the idea. Widmark tells Fonda to get out of town. Fonda tells him, you better come with guns if you want to kick me out. When Widmark confronts Fonda, Fonda demonstrates how easily he would have outgunned him, but having decided that he cannot domesticate himself, Fonda leaves town without killing Widmark, leaving a new law in the town.
C+
C+
purple plain (M11)
World War II flick. Gregory Peck is a fighter pilot in Burma fighting the Japanese. But he is nuts. Turns out his wife of one day was killed in an air raid on London and ever since he has been flying on fumes. He risks his own life and everyone around him, because he doesn't want to live. In Burma he meets a girl and falls in love. During an air raid he protects her and she gives him a ruby stone: keep it for me, she says. When he goes out on a routine mission to deliver a man to another place, the engine catches fire and the plane crashes. Now he is a man with a real desire to get back to his girl. Two men are with him. One- a mediocrity and the other- a new man who is injured and needs to be carried. The mediocrity says they should stay put and they will be found. but gregory has enough experience to know that they will never be found. They carry (on a stretcher) the injured man and make slow progress to the river and allied territory. (they crash landed in jap territory). But the mediocrity gives up and heads back to the crash site, convinced that they should stay there to be saved. The mediocrity shoots himself. Gregory carries the injured man by himself, but then the injured man convinces him to proceed alone. Gregory proceeds alone and collapses, but hears rushing water. The river is there. He has saved himself and saves the injured man as well. He returns to his girlfriend, who is asleep. she couldn't sleep the whole time he was missing, but when news reached that he had been found, she went to sleep. he goes to her room and falls asleep next to her.
B
B
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Don't bother to knock (M10)
The not so grand hotel. A hotel in New York, not so long after WWII, Richard Widmark, a pilot, in love with Anne Bancroft, a lounge singer, finds that Anne doesn't want him anymore, because he's too uncaring. He goes up to his room and across the way sees Marilyn Monroe, who is babysitting a little girl. He calls her up and she invites him over. When he arrives he finds out that she's wacko, with scars on her wrists, three years in a loony bin, still in love with a pilot who died over Hawaii in 46. When Richard reveals that he's a pilot, she assumes that he's her long lost boyfriend and her wackiness goes into overtime. Her uncle, Elisha Cooke Jr. the elevator jockey, got her the babysitting gig. He comes up and interrupts Richard and Marilyn. Marilyn is peeved at the eight year old girl, who keeps getting between her and Richard Widmark. The mother and Richard Widmark arrive in time to stop Marilyn from throwing the little girl out the window. Anne Bancroft is impressed that Richard Widmark is no longer uncaring and so they will love each other instead of breaking up and the New York mental hospital will be more caring to Marilyn than the mental hospital back in Oregon.
C
C
Saturday, April 10, 2010
The Scapegoat (M9)
Alec Guiness plays twins (chance twins who meet fortuitously) one a man with too little in his life and one a man with too much. the man with too much leaves the man with too little to take over his life. at first we assume that he has just abandoned everything and given up his life to someone else, but in fact he is using his twin as a scapegoat, as an alibi for a murder. for he kills his rich wife in order to get her inheritance. meanwhile the empty man has made friends with his daughter, gained the love of his mistress, gained insight into the family business that is losing money, gained insight into the sad wife (whose sonlessness is cause of financial problems), gained "insight" into betty davis, his mother who is a morphine addict. confronted by the full man who now wishes to return to his life now that the wife has been murdered with the perfect alibi, the empty man kills the full man and returns to the life he will lead.
B
B
the pied piper (M8)
an insignificant film with monty wooley. in france when war breaks out, an older cantankerous man is asked to take two children with him back to england. he agrees. one is roddy mcdowal and one is roddy's younger sister. (ongoing joke: is rodchester a state or a city. the kid knows the truth and monty says it's a state, in the climax otto preminger says he has a brother in rodchester, new york.) there really is not much tension between roddy and monty, but the premise is that there is. they start out on a train, which doesn't make it to paris. then they take a bus to chartres, a girl comes along with them on the bus. the bus gets shot at and a boy joins them. monty goes to visit french friends he met on holiday, anne baxter and mother. by this time a dutch boy has joined them. they arrange for a boat to cross the channel and the germans stop them. otto, the nazi kommandant (so to speak), is convinced that monty is a spy, but eventually monty convinces him of his innocence and otto convinces monty to take his niece, a half jew, with him to england and he takes a boatload of kids to england.
C minus.
C minus.
Friday, April 9, 2010
"Crash Dive" (m7)
Tyrone power is a much more exciting actor than Dana Andrews and in this film he wins Anne Baxter away from Dana. that is the land subplot. the submarine plot is familiar. a sub is captained by andrews and second in command is tyrone, who prefers pt boat duty. they come against a U boat and beat it by playing possum, sending up oil and clothing to convince it that they've been sunk and then they climb up and sink it. on the next go round they follow a sub back into its harbor to discover a major harbor of the enemy and then they blow up the ammo and sink all the subs and get out by the skin of their teeth. (new nuance. when their periscope is destroyed, the captain stays above and acts as the eyes of the boat.) funny black actor- when the landing party is putting on black to go ashore- "i'm the only born commando here". do you know how to swim underwater. No, but i'm about to learn right now. and funniest of all. "gosh all those mines. i wonder what happens if we hit one. ' I don't know, but here's the five dollars that i owe you.
C
C
God is my co pilot (M6)
The story of the flying tigers of china harassing Japanese targets during World War II. Originally brought to Karachi with a plan to attack Japan from a base in the Philippines, the group arrived after the Philippines were lost. They were then assigned to bring supplies to Chenault's group in China. When Scott (the hero from Georgia) met Chenault and the fact that his men were flying real missions, he wanted to join up and did. Raymond Massey is his usual tough self as Chenault. Alan Hale plays a priest. There's not much personality shown by anyone, except the Japanese, who are referred to as buck toothed and one of whom gets to hector the Americans. There are dogfights aplenty. The title is misleading for the amount of soul searching and searching for god is minimal. although after scott kills people he does go to father tom (alan hale) for advice and alan hale is always looking for the spark of god searching in scott. the blacks in macon georgia, scott's hometown are shown in a racially subordinate light.
C.
C.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Comparing Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto (8)
Recently Phil Weiss described the Israeli siege as causing Warsaw Ghetto like conditions in the Gaza Strip. My reaction was that with such polemics coming from the author of the site (rather than just a commentator) there seems no sense to continue to participate. The three facts which differentiate the Gaza Strip from the Warsaw Ghetto are: starvation, crowding and a border with another country. A quarter of the residents of the ghetto 100,000 out of 400,000 died of starvation and disease before the ghetto was liquidated. (the fact that the ghetto was liquidated and sent to Treblinka is considered outside the comparison) Thus 25% of the ghetto died from its conditions. According to Mark LeVine in Al Jazeera Feb. 2, 2009 in an article "Gaza is no Warsaw Ghetto" 6,500 deaths can be attributed to the siege. Thus a death rate of .4%. The density of population in the ghetto was 400,000 in less than a square mile. The density of population in Gaza is less than 11,000 per square mile. Gaza shares a border with Egypt. These are the primary differences.
I don't like to compare and I feel the Zionist Nazi comparison is unuseful rhetoric designed to inflame rather than to elucidate. And i am reminded of LBJ's accusation against a political foe- accusing him of fucking pigs. Get him to deny he's a pig fucker.
But the Gaza siege is cruel. designed to unseat Hamas by putting pressure on its people. Statements about putting the people on a diet and keeping the population down are certainly inhuman and show a very evil attitude.
Yossi Alpher has given up on a negotiated peace and this puts me in a tough spot. Now I seemingly favor an imposed settlement. My inaction on the occupation places me in a culpable position, but I am assured by the fact that activism has not changed anything, so my nonparticipation has not worsened anything. not very reassuring.
I don't like to compare and I feel the Zionist Nazi comparison is unuseful rhetoric designed to inflame rather than to elucidate. And i am reminded of LBJ's accusation against a political foe- accusing him of fucking pigs. Get him to deny he's a pig fucker.
But the Gaza siege is cruel. designed to unseat Hamas by putting pressure on its people. Statements about putting the people on a diet and keeping the population down are certainly inhuman and show a very evil attitude.
Yossi Alpher has given up on a negotiated peace and this puts me in a tough spot. Now I seemingly favor an imposed settlement. My inaction on the occupation places me in a culpable position, but I am assured by the fact that activism has not changed anything, so my nonparticipation has not worsened anything. not very reassuring.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
last day of pesach (7)
the last night i went to kenny's with resnick.
resnick is a genius, who thinks i am smarter than him. a false opinion based on the fact that i knew how to learn gemorah better than he did, because i had learned by lichtenstien and he hadn't. my ability at learning gemorah is unmeasured since i haven't used it much in recent years. since 74 very little and since 77 very very little.
but resnick, three years younger than me, is alike a fetus who walks. very dependent. can't control his mouth.
at kenny's house was a very tired nomi. tzviki who referred to obama as hussein and his pretty thin vegetarian jewish nosed wife.
also present eitan who entertained resnick and nomi's younger sister rivi and her husband chaim and six of their kids. two very pretty females about twenty years old. one son about eighteen. one little daughter about four or five and one daughter about ten. also: one eight year old son with a devilish (looks like a hughie auman kid) smile.
this time i told kenny that resnick is a bookish intellectual and they had something to discuss and so we or resnick by himself will go there again for a shabbat.
chaim invited me to hoshaya up near nazareth and i am tempted to go mostly because of his pretty daughters and a bit because of the glimmers of adventure.
why are you studying arabic. kommandant.
what is hoshaya like, small, but bigger than tzipori and in nazareth there are those who want their land back.
on the way to walking resnick halfway home, we stopped by a mizrachi layl mishmar where they needed us for a kaddish. of course resnick was impressed and sentimental at the singing from the windows of katamon that he accused me of wishing to return to the rightful owners from 47.
i gave him a bit of my adventures in concordance when we passed by ohel rachel.
my shoes are loafers and therefore cannot be tied to help my feet and they give me blisters when i walk in them (rather than just use them for show)
the next day i went to the kalush man, from whom i can tell he hates me and he didn't tell his wife that i was coming. micha showed up and could barely conceal his disdain. yaakov was also there and he wants me to support his family. steve peskoff was also there and he shared some ganga with a lot of tobacco and i got less than a shiur high. there was a jew whose grandson was getting a bris in caracas as we ate. the upshot were quite a few puns thanks to kalish and much agita thanks to micha.
should i visit pessie and pay a shiva call. i guess so. (the father who i didn't like is dead.)
i got upset with mondoweiss comparing gaza to warsaw ghetto and he somewhat apologized.
i read a bit more of shlomo sand.
resnick is a genius, who thinks i am smarter than him. a false opinion based on the fact that i knew how to learn gemorah better than he did, because i had learned by lichtenstien and he hadn't. my ability at learning gemorah is unmeasured since i haven't used it much in recent years. since 74 very little and since 77 very very little.
but resnick, three years younger than me, is alike a fetus who walks. very dependent. can't control his mouth.
at kenny's house was a very tired nomi. tzviki who referred to obama as hussein and his pretty thin vegetarian jewish nosed wife.
also present eitan who entertained resnick and nomi's younger sister rivi and her husband chaim and six of their kids. two very pretty females about twenty years old. one son about eighteen. one little daughter about four or five and one daughter about ten. also: one eight year old son with a devilish (looks like a hughie auman kid) smile.
this time i told kenny that resnick is a bookish intellectual and they had something to discuss and so we or resnick by himself will go there again for a shabbat.
chaim invited me to hoshaya up near nazareth and i am tempted to go mostly because of his pretty daughters and a bit because of the glimmers of adventure.
why are you studying arabic. kommandant.
what is hoshaya like, small, but bigger than tzipori and in nazareth there are those who want their land back.
on the way to walking resnick halfway home, we stopped by a mizrachi layl mishmar where they needed us for a kaddish. of course resnick was impressed and sentimental at the singing from the windows of katamon that he accused me of wishing to return to the rightful owners from 47.
i gave him a bit of my adventures in concordance when we passed by ohel rachel.
my shoes are loafers and therefore cannot be tied to help my feet and they give me blisters when i walk in them (rather than just use them for show)
the next day i went to the kalush man, from whom i can tell he hates me and he didn't tell his wife that i was coming. micha showed up and could barely conceal his disdain. yaakov was also there and he wants me to support his family. steve peskoff was also there and he shared some ganga with a lot of tobacco and i got less than a shiur high. there was a jew whose grandson was getting a bris in caracas as we ate. the upshot were quite a few puns thanks to kalish and much agita thanks to micha.
should i visit pessie and pay a shiva call. i guess so. (the father who i didn't like is dead.)
i got upset with mondoweiss comparing gaza to warsaw ghetto and he somewhat apologized.
i read a bit more of shlomo sand.
mourning becomes electra (M5)
O'neill does greek tragedy. difficult to take, plotwise, but the acting by michael redgrave and especially rosalind russell carries it through. a civil war family, this time from the north. mother loves a man (not hubby) and daughter loved the same man until she discovered that mother loved him. hubby returns home from war and wife tells him of her cheating heart and when his faulty heart trembles and he asks for his medicine she gives him poison instead. daughter (rosalind) comes in to discover mother's deed. brother returns from the war, touched. daughter proves to brother (michael redgrave) that mother loves a cheater. brother kills the cheater. when they bring the news to mother, mother kills herself. (her last word- Life! disdainful. and then a gunshot). brother cannot recover from his mother's suicide and his role in it, so he commits suicide. daughter is not weak like brother and mother, but she will remain in the mansion with the shutters nailed shut, unable to be anything other than faithful to the dead. father played by raymond massey (whose greatest role was as john brown and also the guy from the other planet). the mother was some foreign lady i've never seen before. solid B
also saw another movie "a few dollars more" about two bounty hunters who team up against a particularly evil man. highly rated, but i didn't like it. solid C. first team up of lee van cleef and eastwood before good bad and ugly.
also saw another movie "a few dollars more" about two bounty hunters who team up against a particularly evil man. highly rated, but i didn't like it. solid C. first team up of lee van cleef and eastwood before good bad and ugly.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Hang em High (M4)
Trying to catch up on Clint's western phase. This is a worthy movie with sufficient depth, dealing with the Oklahoma territory and a judge who has sole responsibility for being the law. as such he is in charge of hanging (the hanging judge was sober/he hadn't had a drink). played by pat hingle. clint is lynched on a false charge of stealing cattle. a sheriff cuts him down as he hangs and takes him to prison where his claims are found to be true. the judge hires him as a marshal. clint tries to arrest one of the men who was responsible for his lynching (near lynching) and he guns him down when the man draws on him. the judge warns him in the future bring back the men alive. eastwood arrests bruce dern for rustling and dern was also involved in the lynching. together with dern two young men were also arrested for rustling and despite their youth and their general goodness they are hung as well, disgusting eastwood with the judge's justice that knows no nuance. when eastwood can't be bribed to forget the near lynching, those responsible (ed begley and two lackeys) try to shoot him down, but eastwood survives. inger stevens nurses him back to strength. stevens is also set on revenge for a killing of her husband and the rape that she suffered but when she nurses eastwood back to health, she forgets her fixation on vengeance and is willing to live again. after eastwood recovers he kills begley and his lackeys. he agrees to remain as marshal when the hanging judge shows a modicum of mercy. not a great movie but the script contains enough nuance about revenge, pure justice, mercy and the hanging judge is interesting enough or the acting is interesting enough to give the movie a B minus.
From Paris with Love (M3)
Spoiler alert
This movie was of interest to me because I am writing a terrorist oriented thriller.
The relationship between James and Caroline was believable only on the basis of Caroline's looks. When she turned out to be a terrorist and when Jame ended up killing her, it was not all that difficult to believe and also not very upsetting, which it should have been if this were a movie about real characters rather than characters built on a sketch pad with a crayon. Travolta's character is good enough, but he just is not enough to sustain a movie on his own and his love for Burger Royale's a reference to his line in Pulp Fiction, again asserts the two dimensionality of his character. There is plenty of action and it moves easily enough but this movie cannot get a thumbs up and I give it a C.
This movie was of interest to me because I am writing a terrorist oriented thriller.
The relationship between James and Caroline was believable only on the basis of Caroline's looks. When she turned out to be a terrorist and when Jame ended up killing her, it was not all that difficult to believe and also not very upsetting, which it should have been if this were a movie about real characters rather than characters built on a sketch pad with a crayon. Travolta's character is good enough, but he just is not enough to sustain a movie on his own and his love for Burger Royale's a reference to his line in Pulp Fiction, again asserts the two dimensionality of his character. There is plenty of action and it moves easily enough but this movie cannot get a thumbs up and I give it a C.
Dr. King's Yahrzeit (6)
42 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee by James Earl Ray. Although the identity of his killer (or who paid his killer) was not apparent at the time, the death and its historic importance was immediately clear. I was watching "Bewitched" when the episode was interrupted by the news of the assassination. Robert Kennedy, who had just announced his candidacy for the president, was in Indianapolis and told a black crowd the bad news. Chicago, where I lived at the time, erupted in riots, which hurt the Jewish store owners in black neighborhoods. RFK was killed two months later by a Palestinian, which can be blamed on Israel.
MLK was about to embark upon a poor people's march on Washington and some of his advisers were opposed because unlike previous marches this one did not have a clear legislative objective. In fact in the 42 years since that time the gap between rich and poor in America has widened, although as far as lifting certain populations from certain types of poverty (malnutrition) the record is not as clear. In the world as well there have been major changes in the distribution of wealth, with India and China specifically creating new middle classes where there was no middle class before.
Still MLK stands for equal rights before the law and it is his name (and my allegiance or prejudice in favor of what he stood for) that comes to mind when confronting Israel's spotty record in regards to its Palestinian population in the 48 borders and its rather terrible record in regards to the Palestinian population outside those borders.
There are two problems involved with my personal position vis a vis the Palestinians (both those within and those without). Firstly what is my position. Secondly since I am not in power, what should be my position vis a vis the government's position. Must I demonstrate, must I voice my positions at Shabbat tables. Since I am still very much an outsider in Israel (unemployment adds at least one "very" to that description) this effects my openness to fully commit myself to the struggle for Palestinian rights.
Tonight my uncle's brother in law who lives in the overwhelmingly Arab Galilee will be present and he of the opinion that Israel must attempt to convince its Arabs to move elsewhere, a position that might be reasonable if it were feasible, but I doubt its feasibility. I have spent the meals of the last two holidays or holiday and a Shabbat where the overwhelming attitude has been anti Obama and also anti Arab. This does not increase my love for Israel or decrease my desire to leave Israel or at the very least to find some intoxicant to give some permission to my freak flag to fly.
MLK was about to embark upon a poor people's march on Washington and some of his advisers were opposed because unlike previous marches this one did not have a clear legislative objective. In fact in the 42 years since that time the gap between rich and poor in America has widened, although as far as lifting certain populations from certain types of poverty (malnutrition) the record is not as clear. In the world as well there have been major changes in the distribution of wealth, with India and China specifically creating new middle classes where there was no middle class before.
Still MLK stands for equal rights before the law and it is his name (and my allegiance or prejudice in favor of what he stood for) that comes to mind when confronting Israel's spotty record in regards to its Palestinian population in the 48 borders and its rather terrible record in regards to the Palestinian population outside those borders.
There are two problems involved with my personal position vis a vis the Palestinians (both those within and those without). Firstly what is my position. Secondly since I am not in power, what should be my position vis a vis the government's position. Must I demonstrate, must I voice my positions at Shabbat tables. Since I am still very much an outsider in Israel (unemployment adds at least one "very" to that description) this effects my openness to fully commit myself to the struggle for Palestinian rights.
Tonight my uncle's brother in law who lives in the overwhelmingly Arab Galilee will be present and he of the opinion that Israel must attempt to convince its Arabs to move elsewhere, a position that might be reasonable if it were feasible, but I doubt its feasibility. I have spent the meals of the last two holidays or holiday and a Shabbat where the overwhelming attitude has been anti Obama and also anti Arab. This does not increase my love for Israel or decrease my desire to leave Israel or at the very least to find some intoxicant to give some permission to my freak flag to fly.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Post Chashmonaim (5)
I spent shabbos with my first cousin and his family.
They've lived here almost four years, but next year they're moving back to Skokie.
My cousin has been traveling back and forth, making a living there and visiting his family one week out of four or something like that and that's no way to live.
The place is pretty enough, saw it mostly at night, but it's pretty enough. but it's in occupied territory. Morally it's dubious- two sets of laws, citizens and occupied. but mostly it's the pragmatics- assuming that the Palestinians don't really want peace, which is not an outlandish assumption, then a military occupation without settlements is somewhat sustainable, whereas a settlement occupation is not sustainable.
visited an old friend, i had last seen in 1981 when he tried to bring a rocking chair into my cab and we had nothing to discuss, which was a bit of a letdown. although he told me some gorelick stories which were okay. seems to me that he and menachem don't talk about each other at all.
as per usual, friday night was okay and once the sun rose it was no longer any fun being there. i think it was good going there to build a connection with some of my younger cousins, but my anticipation of it was such dread that it kind of messed up a few days there. i learned that my sister injured her wrist ice skating and my feeling towards that is that she should stop going on such excursions.
an e mail from my cousin (father's side, not mother's side) told me that my aunt turned a corner in terms of the white blood cell count, but i don't know what that means in terms of long range prognosis. i got some books to take to my uncle tomorrow night and my friend from america is coming with. hope it goes okay. but compared to my nervousness before shabbat, i am rather calm now.
They've lived here almost four years, but next year they're moving back to Skokie.
My cousin has been traveling back and forth, making a living there and visiting his family one week out of four or something like that and that's no way to live.
The place is pretty enough, saw it mostly at night, but it's pretty enough. but it's in occupied territory. Morally it's dubious- two sets of laws, citizens and occupied. but mostly it's the pragmatics- assuming that the Palestinians don't really want peace, which is not an outlandish assumption, then a military occupation without settlements is somewhat sustainable, whereas a settlement occupation is not sustainable.
visited an old friend, i had last seen in 1981 when he tried to bring a rocking chair into my cab and we had nothing to discuss, which was a bit of a letdown. although he told me some gorelick stories which were okay. seems to me that he and menachem don't talk about each other at all.
as per usual, friday night was okay and once the sun rose it was no longer any fun being there. i think it was good going there to build a connection with some of my younger cousins, but my anticipation of it was such dread that it kind of messed up a few days there. i learned that my sister injured her wrist ice skating and my feeling towards that is that she should stop going on such excursions.
an e mail from my cousin (father's side, not mother's side) told me that my aunt turned a corner in terms of the white blood cell count, but i don't know what that means in terms of long range prognosis. i got some books to take to my uncle tomorrow night and my friend from america is coming with. hope it goes okay. but compared to my nervousness before shabbat, i am rather calm now.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
"Make Way for Tomorrow" [M2]
Inspired to see this by a column in Slate upon a new release by Criterion.
This is one downer of a movie about a couple married for 50 years, whose kids cannot get it together to take care of their parents when their parents lose their house. At first the father stays with a daughter and the mother stays with a son. The daughter treats her father like dirt, although the father befriends a Jewish owner of a newsstand. The son treats his mother a bit better, but still the daughter in law blames the mother for their daughters running around town- for with grandma in the way, the daughter can't bring her friends home and so the only other choice is running around. So when the father catches cold they decide to send him off to the unseen daughter in California, but she has only room for one and not for both. And they send the mother off to a home for aged women. And mother and father get to spend one last afternoon together in New York City, the place where they spent their honeymoon.
This is a tear jerker, but because I am considering abandoning my parents to my siblings and their fate, it made me feel real bad and I did not like watching this movie.
Thomas Mitchell is a bit of a plus (It's a wonderful life and Only angels have wings) plus the black maid I recognized from "imitation of life" and Ma played Jimmy Stewart's ma in Mr. smith goes to washington. but to consider these recognized faces a joy, in the midst of the grief of bad children is untrue.
This is one downer of a movie about a couple married for 50 years, whose kids cannot get it together to take care of their parents when their parents lose their house. At first the father stays with a daughter and the mother stays with a son. The daughter treats her father like dirt, although the father befriends a Jewish owner of a newsstand. The son treats his mother a bit better, but still the daughter in law blames the mother for their daughters running around town- for with grandma in the way, the daughter can't bring her friends home and so the only other choice is running around. So when the father catches cold they decide to send him off to the unseen daughter in California, but she has only room for one and not for both. And they send the mother off to a home for aged women. And mother and father get to spend one last afternoon together in New York City, the place where they spent their honeymoon.
This is a tear jerker, but because I am considering abandoning my parents to my siblings and their fate, it made me feel real bad and I did not like watching this movie.
Thomas Mitchell is a bit of a plus (It's a wonderful life and Only angels have wings) plus the black maid I recognized from "imitation of life" and Ma played Jimmy Stewart's ma in Mr. smith goes to washington. but to consider these recognized faces a joy, in the midst of the grief of bad children is untrue.
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