Driving home from the funeral today, the sudden urge to buy, buy, buy came over me. It is a common hunger after leaving a cemetery, but on a Friday afternoon, when all the shops have shut down, the hunger increases, the desire not to be confined by any laws, any rules, even the laws of nature.
On the other hand the radio was playing Israeli Army songs from the fifties, sixties and seventies, and the simple beauty of the lyrics, the wonder and joy of life, and the warm nostalgia in songs like Nomi Shemer’s “What I Saw With My Eyes,” or “The Eucalyptus Grove” made me remember how little one needs to be fulfilled.
The view from my office, proving what Nick Carraway said, “—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.”
Margalit died today – a few weeks before her 95th birthday. The funeral is tomorrow in Haifa at 1.
Nurit asked me yesterday, “with the thousand things to get angry about in this country, why did you pick the Libyan trip of the Arab Knesset members, including Ahmed Tibi, to get fired about?” This morning Salman Masalha put it more concisely then I could. The Arab leaders have a lot to do at home. And people like Tibi could do it!
Every one of my friends has a different political point of you – two state, one state, allstate, no state. I like the two state solution, but – hey guys – we have to live somehow. Remember that story of the scorpion and the frog? The one where the scorpion asks the frog to take him on his back across the river. The frog says, “I’m not going to take you across – you’ll sting me and kill me in the middle.” “Be serious,” says the scorpion, “If I sting you I’ll drown.” So the frog agrees. Half way across the river the scorpion stings the frog. “Why” asks the frog as he’s going down. “This,” says the scorpion, “is the middle east.” I’m still trying to figure out if there is a way we can all get across.
Imagine yourself the aide of a person who becomes more and more important in the years you are with him. Imagine your values slowly becoming confused as everyone around you pressures you to ‘help them out.’ Imagine how suddenly you realize you’ve been taken far afield from the ethics you were taught at home. That the are somewhere you never intended to be, and the only way out is to betray those who helped you progress in the first place.
Oh, did you think I was talking about Shula Zaken, Olmert’s secretary? I was thinking about Israel.
The 10 Arab members of Parliament who went to see Kadaffi – in his private jet, at his expense – forgot to ask the ethics committee for permission. Whoops. And Tibi (my favorite) was insulted that he was even asked about why he didn’t. Now, let’s see. Libya is a foreign country. A member of parliament is a representative of his country. He doesn’t ask for the support of his parliament to visit a foreign country. This is not a problem? Ach Ahmed.
Here’s my natural cure: Sharav. It dries out my sinuses, clears my nose, unstops the plugs in my ears and makes the world accessible to me. I had wanted to do the television cure last night – where you lie in bed and wait for the tv to wash over you. but our commercials are getting longer, our programs thinner, and the news smellier. So we had to content ourselves with old DVDs. Someone absolutely must do something about television – or about us – The only program we watch besides the news is “The Bachelor” and only Ezsi watches it while I sit there and complain. The site, like the program, has more annoying commercials than anything else, but the program itself is much worse. Many people would like to be one of the many women he is courting. Me, I’d like to take the bachelor and slap him twice across the face.
I’ve got a 24 hour flu and have been comforted by Lisa’s announcement of Dr. Seuss in Yiddish. It looks good enough to cure me.
Looking for a real poet? Nathan Alterman is someone whose life I’d imitate any day. His involvement in ideology, in politics, in popular culture is something I would love to emulate. Was he right? Oh goodness. When he criticized Pope Pius, when he wept for the children victims, having them thank the lord for choosing them, wheh he saw the 67 war as a chance to make peace ( and to hang on to all territories as a trump card ) I don’t think he was wrong. And I wish he had had the power to make his dreams come true.
This morning we saw the exhibit of Alternman in the Land of Israel Museum. Pity it wasn’t in English as well because Alicia Ostriker would have loved the challenge of his multifaceted work. As it was, she had to be content with a quick general translation by someone who was too busy looking and reading to be clear.
Now that is a museum and I will never understand why they never make an effort to make things available to foreign visitors. There’s just so much one coud learn there!!!
Someday some analyst will look at this little diary and diagnosis an acute attention deficit disorder but as I remind you constantly it is not that I am constantly shifting attention but that i want to point out how complicated it is to live here and how complex it is to be a Jew. Not that it is easier to be Muslim. Wait, it is easier to be Muslim. It’s much more clear. Jews (at least the Jews I respect)are always trying to see every side of the situation and this makes any action impossible.
We spent the latter part of the evening, having eaten moderately and wisely at Pappa’s, forcing our guest Alicia to watch videos of my past performances. Poor Alicia, but I was impressed. Roy Yarkoni in all his stages is amazing, sensitive, warm, and incredibly talented, creating each time on a higher level. I, on the other hand, just schmaltz up the same stuff.
