July 27, 2010

My Emerging Life as a Skinny Bitch

I recently skimmed the book "Skinny Bitch" by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. While I'm not quite the authors' demographic, I found the book worth a half-hour of flipping. The tone turned me off with all the profanities -- the authors came across as skinny, vulgar, vocabulary-impaired bitches, but that's just my personal preference. I can separate the message from the messengers.

While I'm not going to stop my carnivorous habits, I did decide to start my new life as a skinny bitch by cutting way back on artificial sweeteners. I always use them rather than sugar, but the authors made a good case for trying substitutes. As a result, I picked up some Agave natural liquid sweetener at Costco.

And you know what? I must have been on to something. Twice at the store, people stopped to talk to me about the sweetener in my cart. One man saw me while I was considering whether to buy and thought it was a good idea. Minutes later, a woman asked where I got it in the store because she wanted some. I pointed in the general direction.

Now Costco is a fun place for cart-snooping, to see what people need in vast quantities and then speculate on their lifestyles or interests. I can see that people were checking out my cart, also. Nobody ever stops to talk to me at Costco, so something about my new skinny bitch (skinny bastard?) lifestyle must send out powerful conversational signals.

I have not had a pack of artificial sweeteners in the weeks since I got the Agave.

Van | 11:31 AM | 07/27/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

June 07, 2010

D-Day Editorial, 1944: Inside the Hot-Type Time Machine

(What if the editorial writers of the New York Times from 2010 could be sent back in time to June 1944, to comment on the Allied invasion of France? The Hot-Type Time Machine might yield an editorial that sounds something like this, bringing a fresh and sophisticated 2010 perspective to those momentous days.)

We wish good results to the gorgeous rainbow of soldiers from Canada and England, along with an American contingent, in their latest attempt to mediate Germany’s western territorial dispute with France. The hostilities, which began in 1939 with French and Polish attacks on the embattled German state, have lasted far too long and cost too many lives. The intransigence of French and Polish populations and their enablers in the USSR, Denmark, Belgium, Greece and other countries has worsened a difficult situation.

Mediation by western forces under the command of General Dwight Eisenhower [note to research department: is “Eisenhower” a Jewish name?] may finally succeed in lowering the level of conflict and finding the long-sought final solution to issues of French and Polish land issues involving the Third Reich. We are pleased by the presence of legal officers with each U.S. platoon “hitting the beach,” to show the respect of the Allies for human rights and to ensure that the legal rights of German soldiers and SS peace activists are rigorously enforced.

Continue reading " D-Day Editorial, 1944: Inside the Hot-Type Time Machine"

Van | 11:25 PM | 06/07/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: - Useful idiots

June 05, 2010

He's Tanned, Rested and Ready: Eliot Spitzer Rocks Reunions at Princeton

Eliot Spitzer, Princeton Class of 1981, spoke on Saturday, May 29 on the topic “Lessons from the Economic Crisis” at Princeton’s annual Reunions weekend. As soon as I saw that Spitzer was speaking, I knew that nothing short of an asteroid hit on Nassau Hall could keep me from hearing him. The university also knew that Spitzer’s Class of 2000 Millennial Lecture would be a huge draw because the Reunions guidebook listed two locations for simulcasts for those who couldn’t jam into a lecture room at the new McDonnell Hall.

Spitzer and I attended Princeton at the same time (I was Class of 1980) and while I didn’t know him I remembered him as student government president. I followed his career and thought he was a great choice for Governor, even if, as a Connecticut resident, I couldn’t vote for him. His downfall shocked me, especially the abject humiliation of his wife up there on the platform for the world to see.

But I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for steely-eyed moralists like George Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Eliot Spitzer. All they have to do is whisper in my ear, “You’re either with us or against us” and I’m jumping up and down in glee like a teenybopper chasing after the New Kids on the Block. So unlike some classmates, I didn't quite feel utter moral revulsion at the thought of his appearance, more like a morbid curiosity about this very public step in Spitzer's re-emergence into the public sphere (it's not like he's been wandering the political wilderness that long, anyway).

Spitzer speaks at Princeton -- the mysterious faucets on the wall must have some symbolic meaning.

Continue reading " He's Tanned, Rested and Ready: Eliot Spitzer Rocks Reunions at Princeton"

Van | 02:25 PM | 06/05/10 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

May 23, 2010

“Elena Kagan, Girl Reporter!” Or, Writing About Sex, Sports and Rock n’ Roll at Princeton

The search for a paper trail obsesses many analysts of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Scholars parse her slim collection of legal writings with Talmudic zeal to tease out her opinions. Others pushed the trail back farther to comb through her provocative senior thesis at Princeton University, where she graduated in 1981: “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933.”

Yet few have examined her voluminous writings as a reporter and then Editorial Chairman of The Daily Princetonian, where she served on the 1981 Managing Board that ran the paper in 1980, during the spring of her junior year and fall of her senior year. Newsweek.com published a good roundup that looked at the ideological trends in her writing.

In the interests of contributing to civil discourse on Kagan, I recently dusted off my bound volume of the “Prince,” as it’s known, for 1979, when I was a member of the Managing Board from the Class of 1980. I have lugged this unwieldy tome with me from Princeton to Brooklyn to Queens to Brooklyn to Norwalk to Westport to Stamford to Westport over the last 30 years. I never looked at it, until now. Kagan cranked out reams of copy for the paper, on topics ranging from the South Africa divestment campaign and student government (sometimes quoting Eliot Spitzer '81) to the football team, Playboy’s “Girls of the Ivy League” feature and trends in the New York music scene, and much more.

Elena Kagan wrote several stories mentioning Eliot Spitzer.

Continue reading " “Elena Kagan, Girl Reporter!” Or, Writing About Sex, Sports and Rock n’ Roll at Princeton"

Van | 10:08 PM | 05/23/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

May 04, 2010

NY Times Gets Down and Dirty

This is the shape of all the news that's fit to print, 2010 style.

Today's New York Times had the most peculiar mix of articles I've ever seen in my decades of flipping through the paper. I wouldn't have noticed online, but the pattern leaped out to my trained eye when I saw the print edition on the train.

Let's start with an ad in the business section. I realize these are hard times for newspaper advertising and ad reps will take what they can get. But did the Times really think through the image implications of running a page 5 ad for "Larry Flynt's Heated Roof Deck and Cigar Lounge," complete with photos of pouting, um, hostesses? I wouldn't look twice at this ad in the New York Post sports section or the Village Voice, but the TIMES? I've never seen anything like this in the Times, and the questions it raises must outweigh the meager income the ad brought in.

Now, on to the stunning story line-up in the soft news sections of the paper.

Continue reading " NY Times Gets Down and Dirty"

Van | 10:38 PM | 05/04/10 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: - Useful idiots

April 18, 2010

My Day as a Political Provocateur: GOP Convention, 2004

Last week's threats of infiltration by leftist poseurs attempting to disrupt Tea Party Tax Day meetings showed there's nothing new under the sun. That's been tried before -- by conservatives. I know, because I did that, once.

A group called Protest Warriors crashed the anti-war parade held in August 2004 during the Republican National Convention in New York. PW had been working its shtick at events that political season, and garnering attention. Ever eager to get close to New York street theater, I joined the group for several counter-protests at the convention (I would later check out Union Square events held by the brilliant Communists for Kerry). The following essay, which I wrote shortly after the convention, describes what went down and my thoughts at the time. I'll leave it to readers to decide whether the long-defunct Protest Warrior activities rivaled those of anti-Tea Party types.

Looking back, PW's tactics bordered on suicidal. A well-done, stationary and protected counter-protest, at least in the midst of hundreds of thousands of anti-war protesters, made more sense. And as I remember the day, we got people just as riled by standing around as we did by infiltrating their ranks, and we faced a lot fewer physical threats. But, we had to give it a try and we had a memorable time. Six years later, the Tea Party movement is harnessing PW's pro-liberty ideas and in-the-streets tactics to a mass movement that's having political impact. Will it become a political juggernaut? We'll see in November.

In the Belly of the Anti-War Beast: NYC 8-29-2004

On August 29, hundreds of thousands of people gathered to denounce the war in Iraq, shriek about Bushitler and exercise their cherished First Amendment right to free speech. On August 29, I also went to New York to express my right to free speech, as a member of the New York chapter of the group Protest Warrior. I learned, however, that among some members of the Left, free speech only applies to their speech.

Some background: since early 2003, Protest Warrior has confronted leftists with witty subversions of their own slogans and truisms. The group’s very first sign set the tone: “Except for ending slavery, fascism, nazism and communism, war has never solved anything.” Through counter-demonstrations and peaceful infiltrations of anti-war marches, PW drives leftists batty with its brand of daring tactics and intellectually challenging posters (another favorite shows a woman in a head-to-toe “burkha” with a male fist holding a chain tight around her neck. The poster says, “Protect Islamic property rights against western imperialism! Say no to war!” With 7,000 members in chapters nationwide, the group is getting traction as an alternative voice in the marketplace of protest on matters of war and peace. And some people don’t hate that kind of intellectual diversity.

Politically, I’ve always been a maverick. Childhood friends in Texas think I’m a commie hippie pinko tree-hugger. East Coast friends suspect I’m a crypto-fascist Texas gun nut. The reality lies somewhere in the middle. PW tracked my foreign-policy views, and so August 29’s “Operation Liberty Rising” marked a great chance to express a real maverick position in the belly of the anti-war beast. I had read reports on the unhinged reactions of leftists to PW, but now I could see for myself.

Getting ready to stir things up.

Continue reading " My Day as a Political Provocateur: GOP Convention, 2004"

Van | 10:52 AM | 04/18/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: - GOTV '04

April 04, 2010

Not-Quite-Guilty Pleasure: The Ivy League Christian Observer

This being Easter, I'll share some thoughts on a magazine that faithfully arrives, unbidden, in my mail box: The Ivy League Christian Observer. Being Jewish, I have no idea how I got on its mailing list, other than some cross-over (!) drift of names from Princeton University to the Observer, which is published in Princeton but unaffiliated with the University.

However I got on its list, I scan the Observer when it arrives. I get a completely different take on Princeton and the Ivy League than I do from the mainstream press and the Princeton Alumni Weekly (truth in blogging: I'm a long-time contributor to PAW). The Observer rounds up Christian-themed news from around the Ivies, and the Winter issue featured the Chastity Center Petition at Princeton on the cover. A group called the Anscombe Society has been lobbying to get a Center for Abstinence and Chastity on campus. That effort has been rejected, but the society keeps up the fight (when I was an undergrad in the 1970s, abstinence and chastity was wildly easy to sustain given the lopsided gender ratio).

The same issue had an intriguing article about Harvard's "MBA Oath," written by members of the Class of 2009 there. The oath starts, "As a manager, my purpose is to serve the greater good by bringing people and resources together to create value that no single individual can create alone" and closes with "This oath I make freely, and upon my honor." More details can be found here.

The Observer's tone and content is clear and unapologetic. I may not follow its spiritual path, but the publication shows a very different side of the Ivy League, and not a bad side, either.

Van | 04:49 PM | 04/04/10 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

March 21, 2010

Rebel Soul: Notes of a Texan Abroad

[this essay first appeared in 2005, but never here]

A picture taken when I met my father after eight years apart reeks with irony. He left Texas after my parents divorced, heading to Michigan and then New York City. He never returned until he paid us a weekend visit in the fall of 1970. My brother and I, aged 11 and 13, stand with him in a yard in Mission, Texas. Looking warily at the camera, standing far enough from my father to signal unease, I have my arms crossed over an orange University of Texas sweatshirt.

This is ironic because I learned, often and in rough terms, that my father hated Texas. Whether this dislike stemmed from the failed marriage, his dismay at Mission’s lack of urban sophistication, or most likely a combination of the two, he never missed a chance to knock the state. He was from St. Louis and suited to cities, my mother was from Del Rio and listened to the morning farm report on the radio. Beyond speaking English, they had nothing in common.

Continue reading " Rebel Soul: Notes of a Texan Abroad"

Van | 05:44 PM | 03/21/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

March 07, 2010

My Personal Oscars, and a Razzie or Two

The Oscars are kicking off at this very moment, so this the right moment to share some thoughts on films, new and old. I don't have anything original to say about movies competing tonight. I liked "The Blind Side" for its depiction of Southern culture -- guns, God and gridiron -- and "District Nine" wowed me with its concept and execution, and I'm waiting for a sequel to that. I wanted to see Avatar 3-D but the projector broke down and I never tried again. I saw "The Last Station" last night and liked it -- Christopher Plummer deserves his best supporting actor nominee.

But other movies keep spinning in my mind, and I'll give them some awards as they tumble out of my head. Let's call them the "Vanwallies."

Best movie with unexpected casting: "Unleashed." I have great respect for martial arts star Jet Li and old pros Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins, but I never imagined a movie that would bring all of them together. Unleashed does that, in a great mash-up of butt-kicking action, sentiment and a harrowing plot concept. I've never seen a Bob Hoskins movie I didn't thoroughly enjoy, and this is no exception. Runnerup in the Hoskins film favorites: "Ruby Blue," in the blossoming genre of movies involving pidgeon breeding, mob violence and transgender issues.

Continue reading " My Personal Oscars, and a Razzie or Two"

Van | 08:31 PM | 03/07/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

February 03, 2010

An Entry in the Museum of Bad Art's Iterpretator Challenge

The Museum of Bad Art in Massachusetts is a little-known treasure of American culture. It challenges notions of good and bad in art, and makes the viewer stop and think, seriously, about what makes a work of art interesting, challenging, or plain ridiculous.

It recently closed the submission period for its seventh "Guest Interpretator Challenge." In this, members of the art-astute public were invited to submit a title and an intepretation for a new acquisition of MOBA. Always being up for a challenge, I looked at this vibrant canvas from every possible angle. After consulting many serious tomes on philosophy, artistic technique and cross-cultural ramifications, I created this submission, of which I am justifiably proud:

Worlds in Collision: When Karl Met Carrot Top

Pointless psychosexual and meteorological tensions permeate this tour de force, depicting an imagined meeting of European fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and American comedian Carrot Top as a youth. The negative space between the two captures the historic conflict between Europe and America. Sartorially sinister Lagerfeld, embodying the Old World’s dark perspective and penchant for donning sunglasses at night, leers at virginal Carrot Top, the naïve but spunkily practical symbol of America. By placing Lagerfeld on an inexplicable red platform, the confused artist adds either an ominous neo-fascist tonality or suggests that Lagerfeld is a space alien standing on the transporter that beamed him down from the mothership. Behind Lagerfeld, the calm sea, sunset and twinkling stars connote either a peaceful summer evening or a stormy, tragic meditation on the fin de siècle hopelessness of Lagerfeld’s fashion and art weltanschauung. In either case, the painting’s je ne sais quoi remains elusive.

Van | 06:29 AM | 02/03/10 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

January 24, 2010

Obama and the Press: Get Ready for the Comeback Kid

With all the frothing over the problems of the Democrats and the sudden reversal of fortune for the GOP after last week's election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts, let's step back and take the long view.

As a former member of the press, I've been around journalism enough to know that many mainstream reporters are rejoicing over the victory of Scott Brown -- NOT because they like conservatives or oppose President Obama, but because journalists love drama. A Brown victory is catnip for journalists. On TV and in print, they get to think deep thoughts about the end of hope and change, the fears of the health-care reformers, the civil rights of terrorists, and whether the Obama presidency is doomed. Should he just resign now and let Joe Biden assume the chore of cleaning up the messes left by the previous President?

And what about Sarah Palin? Will Brown outflank her as the new golden boy of the misunderstood guns-and-hymnals demographic?

Continue reading " Obama and the Press: Get Ready for the Comeback Kid"

Van | 02:01 PM | 01/24/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

January 18, 2010

Unsettling Reading: Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery

From the endless surprises of free publications of New York street distribution, I plucked the December-January issue of New York City Image: The Magazine for Enhanced Beauty & Wellness. The cover photo of Brooke Shield (Princeton '89) got my attention and I took a look.

One article especially unsettled me, and I'm trying to fathom why: "Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery: From Cultural Anonymity to Cultural Beauty." An excerpt from an upcoming book by Dr. Frederick Lukash, it outlined the kinds of plastic surgery most common by ethnic group. Lukash writes,

Individuals seeking surgery are not denying a heritage but responding to the shift standards of beauty. Beauty has become a hybrid mix -- people want the best of everything!

The article breaks down the cosmetic surgery most common among different ethnic groups. Among Middle Eastern/Mediterrranean types, rhinoplasty is most common since, as those raised in Jewish angst and comic stereotypes, "peoples from this background can have very defining noses." Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics also get the run-down as body parts get sliced, diced, reduced and enlarged.

In fairness, the article leavens its cheerleading tone with some words on the physical and psychological risks of cosmetic surgery. Still, the article left me shaking my head at the quest for some evanescent standard of beauty. It's not just women (and men, to judge from the horror stories on Awful Plastic Surgery) who want tightening after childbirth or massive weight loss, or relief from aching backs. It's the force that crosses cultures to drive people to go under the knife.

People make their own decisions, and if plastic surgery makes them happy, I can't condemn their actions. I prefer to hit the gym, but that's my take on my reality. Still, the idea of people around the world turning to plastic surgery as a path to happiness makes me wonder -- what happens 10 years after the surgery? More surgery? Where does it stop?

Van | 08:36 PM | 01/18/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

January 14, 2010

Plucky Marketers Sneak the Voice of the Proletariat into the Streets of NYC

One of my more illuminating experiences at Princeton came during my sophomore year, when I moved into a six-man suite in 1938 Hall. The previous occupants had a subscription to a newspaper called the Workers Vanguard. It always amused me with its rants and raves, always ending with strident appeals for workers revolution! Down with the capitalists! Long live the teachings of Trotsky! (Or was it Marx-Engels? I can't remember the exact political line. The WV definitely wasn't Maoist).

I developed a sneaking affection for left-wing publications, a real-world supplement to the Marx I read in history classes at Princeton. I don't see them any more on New York newsstands; either they're not being published or they've been pushed out of circulation.

Lately, however, I've been picking up copies of one of the gritty survivors, Workers World, the paper of the Workers World Party, which proudly proclaims on its front page, "Workers and oppressed people of the world unite!" Well, that's the real deal for fans of left-wing cant, sterner stuff than "We are the change we believe in." Some clever soul is slipping copies of the paper into news boxes in midtown Manhattan, in the slots for free distribution papers. Whenever I see one, I immediately grab it to check out the latest perspective of the extreme left (slightly to the left of NPR and the New York Times).

The stories are quite readable and give, if nothing else, a focused perspective on the news, be it climate change, the economy, the need to revive the class struggle, military issues, labor and that old, old favorite, "Justice for Mumia." Articles on Latin America also catch my attention. My politics differ from Workers World, but I have to give the paper's supporters credit for their plucky and successful guerrilla marketing campaign to get a very serious paper in front of New Yorkers. It adds some fiber to my reading diet.

Van | 08:56 PM | 01/14/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

December 31, 2009

New Year's Resolutions: The More Things Change . . .

In August 1986 I received a hand-bound blank book from my dear friend Rena Frank. I knew her through Dorot, a program for the Jewish elderly in New York. Rena and I were friends from 1980 until she died in 1994. Born in Berlin, she escaped Germany in 1938 for London and in 1952 she arrived in New York. She wrote on the first page:

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure much. May you have only happy thoughts and memories when opening this album.

I use the album as a special diary in which I write on only two days each year: My birthday and New Year's Day, two and and a half months apart. The book gives a snapshot of how I view my life, the year past and the year ahead. I dubbed it "The Book of LIfe" with the first entry on October 16, 1986, at a time when I was a freelance writer living in New York's neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. I have not missed an entry since then.

My entry for January 1, 1987 was this:

I'm well into carrying out my exciting program for 1987, called REVELATION-REVOLUTION '87. This consists of DAILY:

1. Flossing
2. Excercising (including occasional jogging)
3. Disciplined writing
4. Apt. upgrading
5. Surfin' safaris to exotic climes, preferably with an assignment.
6. A romantic involvement that feels right, where I go for her as much as she goes for me. Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it! I want to love.
7. At .least $25,000 in billings, with more efficient output.
8. Cut back on sugar -- it works for Melissa [a friend in Brooklyn].

Van | 06:27 AM | 12/31/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

December 26, 2009

Getting in Step with Footsteps

Over the fall I became aware of Footsteps, a low-key organization that helps people, mostly young, who leave the Hasidic world and need to develop life skills to help them survive outside the frum environment. Having wrenched myself from one faith tradition to another, I can empathize, indirectly, with the challenge of shifting your world view. www.footstepsorg.org is the website.

I read a book that gives excellent details about the difficulties of individuals who leave the from world: "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels," by Hella Winston, whose name may sound familiar to readers of New York's Jewish Week from her coverage of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities.

The book provides a lot to think about, in how communities control members, how people accept or bridle at these highly structured societies, and difficulty of getting beneath the surface appearance of Chasidic communities. One passage I found particularly fascinating involves sexual abuse. I've never understood how Jewish communities can deny or hush up such behavior against its most helpless members. I know it happens everywhere but the wall of silence that Winston has written about in her journalism always disturbed me greatly. The book provides an explanation:

Indeed, while it is unclear whether or not such abuse exists to a greater degree than it does in the general population, some have theorized that Jewish communities' historical antipathy toward informers has likely played some role in keeping such abuse quiet, when it occurs. The Yiddish word 'moser' is used to describe those who betray the community to outside authorities (historically, the authorities of tsarist Russia or medieval Europe). 'Messira,' or the act of informing, was once punishable by death, and remains a serious sin to this day.

When I read that passage, I thought not only of the pressures on frum young people to accept abuse (or frum approaches to "dealing" with it, as effective as the Catholic Church's past approaches to dealing with pedophile priests), but also of financial scandals. Were the crimes of Bernard Madoff aided, to any degree, by people who had suspicions but didn't want to be a moser? I don't know, but the idea of community standards backfiring in a horrible way came to mind.

Anyway, if you're looking for a worthy group for an end-of-year donation, consider Footsteps. How's this for an endorsement: I sent the group a check.

Van | 09:06 PM | 12/26/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Doing Jewish

November 28, 2009

How is Chabad Like a Denzel Washington Action Movie?

Last November, after Muslim terrorists killed the directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, India and other Jews, I attended a memorial service for them at Chabad of Stamford, Connecticut. There, I had a unique spiritual experience – and I mean that in the real sense of “unique,” something completely new in my life.

Continue reading " How is Chabad Like a Denzel Washington Action Movie?"

Van | 10:38 PM | 11/28/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Doing Jewish

November 08, 2009

From the Archives: Restlessness, 1974

Going through some files, I found this piece I wrote on March 21, 1974, when I was 16 years old. It has more than historical interest.

Restlessness

As I write this essay, I can look out the window onto the field between the school building and the street. I've looked out this window a thousand times and I will look through it again 10,000 times. The clouds keep rolling by with the wind, where from or where to or what for I cannot even guess.

Along the street seven cars, one truck camper and a single station wagon are parked. Again. I have no idea to whom they might belong.

So many things I do not know, and so many things that I see only on the surface. I go to school with 1,800 others. How many of them do I not know, or should know? Behind every face is a story, a long, unique story. How many of those stories do I know? How many know my story? I pass by people, like two fish in the ocean. Like the clouds drifting outside the window we neither know where to or where from or what for about each other, or even ourselves.

Van | 07:32 PM | 11/08/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

October 01, 2009

From the Archives: Report on Blackout 2003

[This essay originally appeared in the Stamford Times newspaper in the fall of 2003, about the August blackout. It has never appeared online until now.]

Long Day’s Journey into Another Long Day’s Journey: Blackout 2003
For 24 hours, no hearts were broken in New York City

Thursday, August 14, was progressing nicely. I got an excellent year-end review, raising hopes for continuing employment and (be still my heart) a bonus and a raise. I was looking forward to my vacation the next week.

In retrospect, signs abounded that Something Was About To Happen. Just before 3 pm, I pondered my American Express bill. Should I pay it online Thursday, or Friday, when I got my direct deposit? Did it matter? Which would hit my checking account first (given the perilous state of my finances, such timing is a major concern). I could wait, I could act, I could wait until later in the day. Finally, with the madcap abandon that so often marks my actions, I decided to pay on Thursday and at 3:01 pm I pushed the button to send American Express its latest cup of blood. Done.

Mrs. Ex-Wallach called me around 4:10 pm. She had driven our son and a friend to the Science Museum in Queens, a good summer vacation activity. We were chatting when the lights in my office suddenly died. My computer stayed on via battery power but everything else just stopped. The room stayed light because of sunlight from nearby windows. “Gee,” I said, “The power just went out.” In a matter of seconds I realized Mrs. Ex-Wallach had vanished, remaining only as a cellphone number frozen on the display of my office phone.

Continue reading " From the Archives: Report on Blackout 2003"

Van | 10:31 PM | 10/01/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

September 22, 2009

Revenge: Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, following on Defiance, voices the Jewish musing on revenge against Nazis during and after World War II. Defiance was based on reality; Basterds was a fantasy (which I may see on video, but not at a theater).

I've wondered what would have happened had the atomic bomb been available a year earlier; would Roosevelt have dropped it on Berlin, or Dresden, or Hamburg and brought the war to an earlier end? What would Germany have done? Japan?

After the war, Jews sought justice in various ways, and bagged the biggest fish with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

But the problem with revenge is it cannot be a controlled exercise. Once the bloodshed begins against enemies, the slaughter picks up a momentum of its own and can consume the executioners who started the process.

Consider this: Are some forms of revenge acceptable, and others not? We don't need the fantasies of Tarantino to show the relevance of that question. The Red Army in World War II provides the starkest example of revenge impulses gone berserk.

Continue reading " Revenge: Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities"

Van | 09:10 PM | 09/22/09 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

September 13, 2009

Pick to Click: "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith

On Friday I finished reading "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith, his smashing sequel to the justly praised "Child 44," about a serial killer in the closing months of Stalinist Russia. Both books captivated me. While the sequel got more mixed reviews on Amazon, I liked it a lot. The plot spins and twists through the territory of loyalty, betrayal, guilt and savagery of Soviet Russia in the 1950s. The prose is what I aspire to as a writer. I could cite many passages; here's one sample set in Budapest's secret police headquarters during the abortive Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Leo is the main character:

The offices were filled with citizens searching through files. Reading by candlelight, men and women thumbed through the information stored about them. Watching many of them cry, Leo didn't need the documents translated. The files contained the names of family and friends who'd denounced them, the words spoken against them. Like a hundred mirrors dropped on the floor, all around he saw faith in mankind shattering.

Wow.

Continue reading " Pick to Click: "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith"

Van | 11:03 AM | 09/13/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

August 19, 2009

Song List for an Imaginary iPod

I recently got a request on Facebook to list 25 random songs on my iPod. Alas, I don't have an iPod, so I've pulled together this imaginary list. It mixes Latin, hearbroken cowboy tunes, some show music, and classic jazz. I could do a separate list for each genre, but this gives a sense of what I like. I've even included some new stuff -- I've heard "Panic Switch" on WXRP in New York and like it, something I have said about maybe five pop songs in the last 25 years.

Without further ado, with lyric selections:

1. Carnivália, Tribalistas
2. Já Sei Namorar, Tribalistas
3. Amor Pra Recomeçar, Roberto Frejat
4. Dois Pra Lá, Dois Pra Cá, Elis Regina
5. Encontros e Despedidas, Maria Rita
6. Nena, Malo
7. Viva Tirado, El Chicano
8. Mr. Brightside, the Killers ("It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?")
9. Panic Switch, Silversun Pickups
10. New World Man, Rush ("He's old enough to know what's right and young enough not to do it")
11. Time Changes Everything, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys ("You've gone your way and I'll go mine, 'cause time changes everything")
12. Willin’, Little Feat ("I stayed on the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed")
13. Glamorous Life, Sheila E.
14. Closing Time, Semisonic ("Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end")
15. Long Distance Call, Muddy Waters ("There's another mule kickin' in your stall")
16. One of These Nights, the Eagles
17. The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, Traffic ("Take me for a ride, strip me of everything including my pride")
18. Gringo Honeymoon, Robert Earl Keen
19. Possession Obsession, Hall and Oates
20. Not a Day Goes By, Bernadette Peters
21. Blue Train, John Coltrane
22. Lush Life, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
23. Stranded in Your Love, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (with the great line, “Is it romance or circumstance?”)
24. New World Symphony, Antonín Dvořák
25. Remember, Micky and the Motorcars

Van | 07:08 PM | 08/19/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

August 17, 2009

From 1982: My First Time – To Visit Israel

[This essay appeared in the English-language weekly section of The Forward newspaper, then a Yiddish daily, on November 14, 1982. I have edited it slightly for clarity.]

“Why are you going?” the security guard at JFK International Airport asked me in a flat voice before I checked my luggage for a summer flight to Israel.

“Me?” I pointed at myself, surprised by this after the expected questions about packing and destinations. “You mean, why am I going to Israel for my vacation?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, because I’m a Jew. I want to see what it’s like.”

“But aren’t you afraid?”

“No. I’ll probably feel safer there than in New York.”

For the first time she smiled and wished me a good trip.

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Van | 03:15 PM | 08/17/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Eretz Yisrael

August 09, 2009

A Baptist Chick in a Halter Top

I confess: my favorite erotic aroma is chlorine. I can’t resist its siren song of smell. Chlorine imprinted itself on me as a pre-teen and I never escaped.

I thank Mrs. Walsh for this. Mrs. Walsh held swimming classes every summer at the pool of the Fontana Motor Hotel in Mission, my home town in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The pool reeked of chlorine, which clung to me and wafted around the whole complex. I could even smell it in the Fontana’s lobby, where I wandered after class.

Ever the curious reader, I checked out the magazines in the lobby’s gift shop. There I found Playboy. Golly, I thought, this is a change from Hot Rod and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Even then, I knew an 11-year-old shouldn’t really scan Playboy, so I slipped the magazine into another one – male readers know this drill. I flipped through the issue, trying to look nonchalant. But Misses June and July dazzled me with their undraped allure and bubbly smiles.

Case in point: I still swoon for July 1969 cover girl Barbie Benton, a/k/a Barbara Klein. In the unpainted passageways of my brain, the Fontana’s chlorinic aroma mixed with this vision of Barbie on the beach. A whiff of chlorine returns me to July 1969 – those eyes, those shoulders, Barbie’s brown hair tumbling down her curving waterslide of a back. In a flash I’m back in the Fontana’s lobby, where Mrs. Walsh’s class ended and my introduction to another wet side of life began.

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Van | 05:21 PM | 08/09/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

July 24, 2009

Jihad in Jersey City?

The shooting of five police officers in Jersey City, leading to the death of one, appeared in a new light to me after I read a gently worded NY Times article yesterday that, typical of the Times, buried the lead. The article focused on Amanda Anderson, the 21 year killed along with gunman Hassian Hosendove, a/k/a Hassan Shakur.

The article had a gloppy-romantic lead:

Like the female counterpart in Bonnie and Clyde, Amanda G. Anderson was a faithful accomplice in crime, who ran from the law with her man and remained at this side in shootouts until the very end.

The article yammered on about how "sweet and quiet" Anderson was, how much fun she had with ex-con Shakur and how he wanted her to convert to Islam.

Other news reports gave more details on Skakur's record and the role of religion in his life. Consider this story, which says,

Jersey City Police Director Sam Jefferson said the pair might have been expecting a confrontation.

“If he got caught by police,” Hosendove said, “he was not going to surrender.”

Hosendove said despite the drugs and guns, her brother, whose given name was Hassan Hosendove, was a devout Muslim and loving father to two children in South Carolina from a previous relationship. As part of his religion, he legally changed his name to Shakur.

Now the story gets interesting. the article says,

Ms. Anderson wore a Muslim headscarf, and kept a low profile. Recordings of what neighbors believed was Koran recitation came from the apartment.

All the articles I've read treat this as a shoot-out with a murderous thug, but I wonder if something else was at play. Did this "devout Muslim and loving father" have visions of 72 virgins in his head when he started gunning down Jersey City cops? What's the real story here?

Van | 03:16 PM | 07/24/09 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

July 17, 2009

FrostedFlake150YRS: A JDate Profile for Ruth Madoff

New York magazine recently ran an article about the golden past and grey future of Ruth Madoff, wife of 50 years of Bernie Madoff. She’s the talk of the town; I was recently in a store on the Upper East Side and heard three matrons talking. One asked, “Where do you think Ruth Madoff is going to live?”

With Bernie in jail until 2139, the Feds seizing her palatial homes and her sons refusing to speak with her, Ruth has had to adjust her lifestyle. She’s still got assets, with $2.5 million left to her by the government enough to throw off enough cash annually to pay for a decent, if not opulent, lifestyle.

With Bernie safely out of the way, Ruth can turn to what she really needs in her post-Mistress of the Universe life: a man. After a half-century of bliss with Bernie, Ruth should take a methodical approach to the search for love, combining her considerable charms with just the right spin on her unique circumstances. So, to get Ruth’s quest for romance off to a flying start, here’s my suggestion for a Jdate profile for . . . FrostedFlake150YRS.

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Van | 09:22 AM | 07/17/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: NYC