the traffic jam before the game was incredible. Now the streets are totally silent. At half-time I ask you, why am I riveted to the TV? Maybe because no one will be talking about anything else tomorrow.
And then there will be nothing left to discuss. Politics is too terrible.
A few years ago Ronen Shapira recorded an album with my poems – three of the songs are sung by the fabulous Bracha Kol, and the others rasped by Ronen in his inimitable fashion.
Today he released the songs along with a melange of his compositions. Here’s one :
https://wildprayer.bandcamp.com/track/we-have-met-before
It’s the first song of “Love Bytes”
and here is the text:
LOVE BYTES
1.
We have
met before
you recall
that day
you felt
lava
from loins
to brain
to toes
for no
reason
That was me
music – dec 18, 2022 Read Post »
Tomorrow evening begins the holiday. Every night for 8 days.
It’s a holiday I always loved. Years ago I wrote a song for our group then, “Thin Lips,” and it went to “Panic Ensemble” at the end. It’s here.
Let me see if I can show it to you:<p>
<iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/_mICPObYjkg” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>
okay – it didn’t work – so if you didn’t press the link, here it is again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mICPObYjkg
There are lots of other versions of this song, but nowhere does it explain that the song is about the book of Judith, the apocryphal story that is associated with Hanuka, about a woman who beheads the villain and saves the nation.
So here is the text:
They always do it
those Jewish women
promise you everything
then take their revenge
Wine and cheese
and all that teasing
and you can be sure
those Jewish widows
know how to please
its never easy
with Jewish women
take over their town
they cut off your head
lighting candles
eating doughnuts
cut off your head
then celebrate
and complain
about the filthy Assyrian head
rolling across
their clean clean floors
We work with a very glitzy investment firm that has a showy event every year to prove that we should trust them. First, the CEO explains how wonderful the prospects for the future are, and then some important person is a guest speaker to give us an upbeat idea of how the world is running. It’s always interesting and even I am floored by the breakfasts on the terrace of the Rabin Museum and the hundreds of attendees.
But today was a bit different. For the first time, the CEO’s speech was not about how wonderful we’ve been doing, but about holding on and keeping a steady keel, and the guests – two celebrity news commentators – had some amazing jokes, but nothing good to say about our future. Nothing bad either – I’m sure they were warned – but not a single word of optimism. Nothing to mitigate the doom and gloom we are all feeling.
doom & gloom – Dec 16. Read Post »
I know this must be a minor and perhaps boring issue for most people, but as an elder citizen it has become important to me. I get a bunch of prescription medications – usually without actually seeing the doctor, for a period of three months. Nobody actually supervises this process, and as a person my age I’m entitled to have it all delivered to my home. So no one even questions the mix.
So far it’s been very convenient for me. I know what to take and when and what not to mix. But tonight I’d forgotten to ask for a delivery and had to go to the pharmacy myself, and for the first time this year, the pharmacist questioned the mix. I would have liked to hug her for being the first to pay attention, but she was a very businesslike person and clearly wouldn’t have appreciated the gesture.
medications-dec 15, 2022 Read Post »
The prize ceremony at the President’s house was particularly weird for me. I didn’t know the prizewinners personally but the fact that it was yiddish was enough to make me want to go. And although the President himself stumbled over the few words he was prepped to say in Yiddish, he acknowledged his limitations with a smile and won the crowd over by admitting them.
But I couldn’t help thinking about my earlier visits to the residence, about Peres’ knowledge of literature and his intimacy. There was an enormous crowd and I didn’t even get to shake Herzog’s hand.
Because we were early and the crowd was a bit elderly, we went out to see the busts of all the presidents of this country, and I got Gilad Zuckerman to stand in line with me along with the other presidents. Maybe I should try to actually get the job… After all, I know more Yiddish than he does…
yiddish – Dec 14, 2022 Read Post »
While all the dirty bargaining is going on in the government, I take comfort in my friends. The other night it was the wonderful book club I’m part of, which changed my mood from black (politics) to white (wisdom and warmth).
Today too we were bathed in warmth and hope, having gone up to Nazareth to visit a sick friend I was worried about. Against the background of the Christmas tree, the nativity scene, the amazing landscape, and the incredibly beautiful home, we shared a beautiful morning as the recovering patient kept displacing his elegant Persian cat to serve dish after dish of sweets, fruits, liquours, tea, and coffee. When we arrived home, the alley cat who has adopted us greeted us in the parking lot and accompanied us to our apartment, which looked incredibly messy and dingy to me, with our genuinely vintage furniture and our view of other buildings. The cat ate our leftover chopped liver and went to sleep on the bathroom rug as I counted my blessings. But why didn’t I take pictures?
friends – dec 13, 2022 Read Post »
It’s not only flowers. Everywhere I go, everything I do that is connected with money – I screw up. But today’s flowers reminded me.
Today I wanted to buy poinsettia for a sick friend in Nazareth I’m going to visit in the morning. At first, I went online to have them delivered tomorrow and the price was 89 shekel. But somehow I was worried that it would arrive on time, and I decided to go pick them up myself. Time is money so even though I was charged 150 shekel, I decided it was safer. And because the container was ugly I bought a straw one for another 50 shekalim.
On the way back, I thought – what a businesswoman I am. Just like yesterday, when I signed a contract to publish a book that would cost me an inordinate amount of money because I thought that the ms. has been laying around a long time, I was too tired to look for a publisher, and considered that all things considered, publishing it with them would cover all my problems and leave me free to write a new book. And then I transferred the major portion of the sum.
That’s when I began worrying about the exact definition of words in the contract and realized that certain things were not included. It was like the plant I bought for too much. And I remembered the first rule of opticians – They put the glasses on the customer and say, “That is 1$100. ” If the customer doesn’t blink, he says, “That will be for the frames. The lenses are another $100.” And if the customer still doesn’t blink, he says “each.”
This is the way our politics has been working on Bibi, So I’m not the only sucker in the world.
But if you want to pre-order a book in Hebrew that my publisher said was incredibly innovative and exciting (before I paid her), it’s 60 shekalim.
flowers – dec 12, 2022 Read Post »
