israeli politics

what i was going to do yesterday was write about politics. but i got waylaid in the technicalities of the new site and the worry about whether anyone will ever get from the old site to the new. Okay, that was only part of it. there was a furtive visit with my son, a zoom introducing my brother to his first cousin (which was like connecting two conch shells – linguistically and ideologically), exercise, cook, eat, walk the cat (she now goes everywhere with us within our 1000 meter limit), argue with Ezi about why I hoard food, and watch Trump’s temperature.  

oh, yes, and i fixed – temporarily – the poem over the toilet: the point is if you’re reading the poem or looking at the picture you’re not going to aim properly, and then i’ll have a mess to clean up.

but then in the evening we went out for a walk, and, as usual, we met a poet neighbor by chance.  and Seymour Mayne – who knows all my secrets – wrote from Ottawa:

LOCKDOWN IN RAMAT AVIV

for Karen

Poets in the night,

groping for words of forbidden

greetings in the park,

while at the edge 

where tropical trees 

hold up against summer drought,

the pestilence’s rising roar 

assaults, then infects the silence.

 —

tell me that isn’t a wow poem.

October 8, 2020 Read Post »

israeli politics

this was the first night that the lockdown really got to me. i’ve never slept well, as you know, but Trump’s unreal recovery that made me suspicious of the reality of his illness, the multiple violations of the lockdown here – especially among people who are supposed to be leaders, the gradual loss of family connections, etc. The feeling of all this has to be overcome in order to make existence positive and productive. so i’m making today as warm as possible. more to come on my success or failure.

tonight’s ushpizin starts at 7 on israel time – to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScQVLMjZAz94e0n1o0Jrdzx4JzosBjAhNFukDKAj57ldMSPJQ/viewform. it should be a great evening. i’m reading a tiny bit, but i’m hosting and the featured readers are Noel Canin and Bill Freedman. they are really worth hearing.

it

October 6, 2020 Read Post »

blog

The continuation of my diary from April 2002 to today.  For archives press old diary 

October, 2020.

since this new site has a sense of self-significance that intimidates me at the moment, i’m going to try to be more representational.  i don’t know how i can ‘write to the moment, ‘ as Henry Fielding’s Shamela called it when she wrote things like “ Mrs. Jervis and I are just in Bed, and the Door unlocked; if my Master should come — Odsbobs! I hear him just coming in at the Door. You see I write in the present Tense, as Parson Williams says. ” i mean it’s a total fake to pretend to be immediate, because you can’t both “live and utter it” as Thoreau noted.  Either you live, or you note it down in passing – sloppy, mispelled, without transitions or absolute clarity or you polish and refine.  i don’t think i’m honest when i polish and refine.  do you? 

October 5, 2020 Read Post »