I know I try to write about Tel Aviv as much as possible, but now we’ve been in the US for weeks, enjoying some of our relatives – sadly postponing others, uncertain whether to contact friends, uncomfortable about going to plays or concerts, not well enough to go to my high school reunion, just barely strong enough to drag ourselves to museums, and enjoying almost every minute of it.  

Normally I try to do readings and interact with others – friends and poets – as much as possible.  And it would have been really nice to do that.  But we have pretty much isolated ourselves and are interacting with portraits, multi-media and sketches.  I mean the noble introverted expressions of Hans Holbein’s subjects, the vital red of Matisse, the effective inclusive politics of  Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme’s complex project May amnesia never kiss us on the mouth. 

What I see in the museums is what I see on the streets, in the news, with my friends, and inside of me:  a total confusion of ethics, aesthetics, guilt, and pretension.  If we can only acknowledge this confusion, we may be able to get beyond it to a new morality and more useful and pleasing standards.