Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Still Here, Somewhat
I am in a quandary: I hate to blog about personal health, but I also hate to be a pollyanna. When people ask me how I'm feeling these days, I am constitutionally unable to say "Fine." If I answer "I've been better," of course they want to know what's wrong. If I answer "OK" I'm lying, just to protect myself from having to go into details that are beginning to bore even me. Having tantalized you, I will only say that I am currently suffering from a health problem, skin-related, which I hope is temporary, but meanwhile has diverted my energies from blogging. When it's over, I'll tell you all about it. Or maybe not.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Blaming
Here's a quote I saw on a sticky note on a friend's wall, attributed to D. Robert Anthony:
Who is this D. Robert Anthony?
When you blame others, you give up your power to change.Wow!
Who is this D. Robert Anthony?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Feeling Scattered
Subtitle Nuclear Family Smashed
Trying to settle down at home with my own dog and (temporarily) the lovely dog of Nominally Challenged, but this time I don't think the problem is jet lag. NC has gone for a Happy Family Event, but two other friends are away also, for more serious happenings: one for a sibling's funeral, one for chemotherapy. At times like these, I wonder what kind of family is it where each member voluntarily lives in a different country? Have there been studies?
Trying to settle down at home with my own dog and (temporarily) the lovely dog of Nominally Challenged, but this time I don't think the problem is jet lag. NC has gone for a Happy Family Event, but two other friends are away also, for more serious happenings: one for a sibling's funeral, one for chemotherapy. At times like these, I wonder what kind of family is it where each member voluntarily lives in a different country? Have there been studies?
Monday, November 12, 2007
In Treatment
10 AM yesterday (Sunday)
I thought I was signing up for a Biblical Hebrew class. At least, that's what I was looking for when I walked into the Alma Institute this morning. Unfortunately, the woman told me they don't offer classes in Biblical Hebrew, just classes about Bible given in Hebrew.
Me: That would be too hard for me. I need a class in English.
She: Well, we do offer classes on Jewish culture in English in our Bet Midrash. In fact, there's an interesting one this afternoon. The course started three weeks ago, but you can join today. There are 10 more sessions, one a week.
3 PM
I'm sitting in a seminar room at the Alma Institute with about 11 other people and the teacher, Ruth Calderon. There's a quick round of introductions and then we get a handout with some text in both Hebrew and English. Ruth explains: the text is intended to stimulate our thinking about creativity in Israel, and particularly creativity in Tel Aviv today and how it has been influenced by ancient Jewish sources, such as the example we will analyze. The technique is to read the paragraph, then turn to the person sitting next to you and discuss it between you for about 20 minutes. The paragraph is from a Talmudic tract dealing with God just putting the finishing touches on the Torah before he gives it to Moses. We analyze. We interpret. Then there is a class discussion with Ruth. It's delicious.
3:45-4:10 PM Coffee break
I go and register, i.e. pay tuition
4:15 PM Ori Sivan the head scriptwriter on an Israeli TV series called BeTipul (In Treatment) arrives. He describes his situation: last year's series was so successful that HBO bought it to Americanize, and tomorrow he starts filming this year's series for Israel. He's under a lot of pressure, but he promised Alma he'd speak, so here he is. He's brought a DVD to illustrate samples of last year's episodes, in Hebrew of course, and lucky for us with English subtitles that were added for the HBO people. The season consists of 50 episodes (!) For ten weeks the show plays in the same time slot every night, five nights a week.
In the first episode, on the first night of the week – in Israel it's Sunday night – the first patient comes to a therapy session with the psychologist, who is played by the actor Assi Dayan, real life son of Moshe Dayan. For the next nine Sunday nights each entire episode is that patient's talk therapy. Just the two actors talking. On Monday nights, the second patient has his sessions. On Tuesday nights it's a teenage girl. On Wednesday nights it's a married couple. On Thursday nights the psychologist has a session with his psychologist, played by Gila Almagor, a famous old-time Israeli actress.
5PM We interrupt the viewing of introductory clips to visit the set, which happens to be across the street. The production team is heading out, because they have to be back at 4AM tomorrow to start filming. I have a small weakening of the knees when I realize the beautiful mandate-era building where they will be filming is the very one that an old engineer friend of mine used to work in. I would meet him there often. Is Tel Aviv that small? Have I lived here that long?
5:15 PM We resume viewing and I am bowled over. You remember Tony Soprano's great sessions with his psychologist? From the samples, these look 100 times better, and there's no action outside the therapist's room. Now I certainly have to rent the DVDs and watch last year's episodes.
Sivan confesses that he had absolutely no concept of psychology as a substitute religion, which is what Ruth is getting at, but that writers and psychologists both work as detectives, coaxing secrets out of their characters/patients.
It will be fascinating to compare the Israeli and American versions of In Treatment. Watch your HBO schedules, guys.
I thought I was signing up for a Biblical Hebrew class. At least, that's what I was looking for when I walked into the Alma Institute this morning. Unfortunately, the woman told me they don't offer classes in Biblical Hebrew, just classes about Bible given in Hebrew.
Me: That would be too hard for me. I need a class in English.
She: Well, we do offer classes on Jewish culture in English in our Bet Midrash. In fact, there's an interesting one this afternoon. The course started three weeks ago, but you can join today. There are 10 more sessions, one a week.
3 PM
I'm sitting in a seminar room at the Alma Institute with about 11 other people and the teacher, Ruth Calderon. There's a quick round of introductions and then we get a handout with some text in both Hebrew and English. Ruth explains: the text is intended to stimulate our thinking about creativity in Israel, and particularly creativity in Tel Aviv today and how it has been influenced by ancient Jewish sources, such as the example we will analyze. The technique is to read the paragraph, then turn to the person sitting next to you and discuss it between you for about 20 minutes. The paragraph is from a Talmudic tract dealing with God just putting the finishing touches on the Torah before he gives it to Moses. We analyze. We interpret. Then there is a class discussion with Ruth. It's delicious.
3:45-4:10 PM Coffee break
I go and register, i.e. pay tuition
4:15 PM Ori Sivan the head scriptwriter on an Israeli TV series called BeTipul (In Treatment) arrives. He describes his situation: last year's series was so successful that HBO bought it to Americanize, and tomorrow he starts filming this year's series for Israel. He's under a lot of pressure, but he promised Alma he'd speak, so here he is. He's brought a DVD to illustrate samples of last year's episodes, in Hebrew of course, and lucky for us with English subtitles that were added for the HBO people. The season consists of 50 episodes (!) For ten weeks the show plays in the same time slot every night, five nights a week.
In the first episode, on the first night of the week – in Israel it's Sunday night – the first patient comes to a therapy session with the psychologist, who is played by the actor Assi Dayan, real life son of Moshe Dayan. For the next nine Sunday nights each entire episode is that patient's talk therapy. Just the two actors talking. On Monday nights, the second patient has his sessions. On Tuesday nights it's a teenage girl. On Wednesday nights it's a married couple. On Thursday nights the psychologist has a session with his psychologist, played by Gila Almagor, a famous old-time Israeli actress.
5PM We interrupt the viewing of introductory clips to visit the set, which happens to be across the street. The production team is heading out, because they have to be back at 4AM tomorrow to start filming. I have a small weakening of the knees when I realize the beautiful mandate-era building where they will be filming is the very one that an old engineer friend of mine used to work in. I would meet him there often. Is Tel Aviv that small? Have I lived here that long?
5:15 PM We resume viewing and I am bowled over. You remember Tony Soprano's great sessions with his psychologist? From the samples, these look 100 times better, and there's no action outside the therapist's room. Now I certainly have to rent the DVDs and watch last year's episodes.
Sivan confesses that he had absolutely no concept of psychology as a substitute religion, which is what Ruth is getting at, but that writers and psychologists both work as detectives, coaxing secrets out of their characters/patients.
It will be fascinating to compare the Israeli and American versions of In Treatment. Watch your HBO schedules, guys.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
What to do with the wedding ring?
Someone I know mostly from her blog is in the process of getting a divorce, which brings back memories of my own over 30 years ago – some sad, some funny, and for some, the returns are not in even now (!) For example, what do you do with your wedding ring when you get divorced? Someone else I know threw it into the sea, another flushed it down the toilet. There were certainly many angry times when those impulses felt appealing, but acting on them seemed wrong to me. Perhaps if we had not had children together, I would have felt entitled to act more childishly myself, but because they would be affected by every decision I made, I didn't. And I'm glad, because it would have meant not respecting the "mistake."
When I took art lessons many years later, I learned from my wonderful teachers that "mistakes" are not what I thought. Instead of dwelling on the mistake as a personal failure, I could try to look at it objectively, as an unintended outcome, a kind of surprise. I could spend my energies determining what to do with it. In art, I could either throw out the unfinished work, erase or overpaint the "mistake," or use the mistake to go in a different direction: software developers do it when they turn a bug into a feature. This approach demands more creativity than "yes/no," or "good/bad," but it's also moreprofitable interesting.
I certainly didn't expect to get divorced when I got married: who does? A family that experiences divorce has plenty of work to do to stay functional, and has to create many of its own transitions, such as the pickup and dropoff of childen with the other parent. Anyhow, in the end, I came up with a solution about my wedding ring that I am still happy with: after a suitable time had elapsed – I don't remember whether it was months or years – I took the thick gold wedding ring from my jewelry box to the jewelry district, where, ironically, my ex-father-in-law used to work, and traded it in for a gift to myself: a smaller gold ring that I still wear all the time on my left pinky.
When I took art lessons many years later, I learned from my wonderful teachers that "mistakes" are not what I thought. Instead of dwelling on the mistake as a personal failure, I could try to look at it objectively, as an unintended outcome, a kind of surprise. I could spend my energies determining what to do with it. In art, I could either throw out the unfinished work, erase or overpaint the "mistake," or use the mistake to go in a different direction: software developers do it when they turn a bug into a feature. This approach demands more creativity than "yes/no," or "good/bad," but it's also more
I certainly didn't expect to get divorced when I got married: who does? A family that experiences divorce has plenty of work to do to stay functional, and has to create many of its own transitions, such as the pickup and dropoff of childen with the other parent. Anyhow, in the end, I came up with a solution about my wedding ring that I am still happy with: after a suitable time had elapsed – I don't remember whether it was months or years – I took the thick gold wedding ring from my jewelry box to the jewelry district, where, ironically, my ex-father-in-law used to work, and traded it in for a gift to myself: a smaller gold ring that I still wear all the time on my left pinky.
Cellphones
All but one now replaced by my new iPhone. Sadly, I have to use the one in the upper left-hand corner in Israel, where the iPhone doesn't yet work without international roaming. At least not legally.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Three Books
While I was in the U.S.A. these last two months, I read two books and started a third. The purpose was more distraction than enlightenment, but I can recommend each as an absorbing read if its subject interests you.
Jews and Power, by Ruth Wisse
Having read a review somewhere, and then watched a clip of a video interview with the author, I became curious to read her new book. Happily, it is under 200 pages of beautifully-sculpted prose on a subject that fascinates me: the history of Jewish political power, both within Jewish society and in host states. Wisse writes as I wish all scholars would: understandably. She and Bernard Lewis are my gold standard of academic writing for the layperson.
The Center Cannot Hold, by Elyn Saks
Because the cousins where I stayed in California are psychiatrists, their bookshelves are filled with books related to their profession. They reserve a shelf or two for books by people they know personally, and Elyn Saks is one of them. She is a law professor at University of Southern California (USC). If that weren't enough, she is also an adjunct professor of Psychiatry at USC and a schizophrenic. This new book is autobiographical, fascinating, myth-busting, well-written, but painful in parts. Inspiring.
Raised on Radio, by Gerald Nachman
One of the tasks I had to begin, and decided to finish on my next trip, was to prune my brother's book collection. There were several books he'd received as gifts while he lived in the nursing home over the past years, sent by people who knew his interests. Among these was Raised on Radio, a book my daughter, elswhere, sent him knowing that he had been raised during the pre-TV era. The book is entertaining even for younger adults, but it's a delicious nostalgia trip for those of us who remember Jack Benny and Fred Allen as voices, not faces. I agree with one of the reviewers:
Jews and Power, by Ruth Wisse
Having read a review somewhere, and then watched a clip of a video interview with the author, I became curious to read her new book. Happily, it is under 200 pages of beautifully-sculpted prose on a subject that fascinates me: the history of Jewish political power, both within Jewish society and in host states. Wisse writes as I wish all scholars would: understandably. She and Bernard Lewis are my gold standard of academic writing for the layperson.
The Center Cannot Hold, by Elyn Saks
Because the cousins where I stayed in California are psychiatrists, their bookshelves are filled with books related to their profession. They reserve a shelf or two for books by people they know personally, and Elyn Saks is one of them. She is a law professor at University of Southern California (USC). If that weren't enough, she is also an adjunct professor of Psychiatry at USC and a schizophrenic. This new book is autobiographical, fascinating, myth-busting, well-written, but painful in parts. Inspiring.
Raised on Radio, by Gerald Nachman
One of the tasks I had to begin, and decided to finish on my next trip, was to prune my brother's book collection. There were several books he'd received as gifts while he lived in the nursing home over the past years, sent by people who knew his interests. Among these was Raised on Radio, a book my daughter, elswhere, sent him knowing that he had been raised during the pre-TV era. The book is entertaining even for younger adults, but it's a delicious nostalgia trip for those of us who remember Jack Benny and Fred Allen as voices, not faces. I agree with one of the reviewers:
Gerald Nachman's book RAISED ON RADIO is like having a great conversation with the world's biggest old-time radio authority...and enthusiast! I haven't listened to some of these shows in ten years, and yet its amazing how well I remember the VOICES when Mr. Nachman quotes an old gag or piece of dialogue.I had to leave before I finished it and it was too heavy to pack (544 pages!), but I've left a bookmark in it and hope to resume when I return. Thank you, elswhere!
Monday, November 05, 2007
Deathful
Pablofisherman died October 7. It will take me a long time to get used to that. We shared parents, a sibling, and a home for the first six years of my life, after which he went off to join the Navy and became an almost mythical figure for the next fifty years (!), with occasional visitations for major family events: bar mitzvahs, weddings, and funerals. Pablofisherman never married or had children. He had one long-term female companion but they drifted apart about ten years ago.
There were many family speculations about why he was so reclusive, and now it will remain a mystery. When he fell ill (literally: he took a fall seven years ago and lay unconscious in his home for many hours before a neighbor became suspicious and thankfully called the police), it became my responsibility to make decisions for him. Even though I lived eight thousand miles away, I was fortunate to have the Internet and a physician relative in place to be able to supervise his care. He returned to himself, but was not able to return to his home, and he spent his last seven years wheelchair-bound in a variety of "facilities," first at the expense of the Veterans' Administration and subsequently private.
I took these last seven years as a challenge to get to know him better, not so much out of any deeply felt bond as out of curiosity. To be honest, I was trying to learn what he and I shared and how we differed as much to know myself better as to know him better. Somewhere along the line I got the feeling that I had "broken his code," and could pretty well predict how he would react to various events. It didn't stop me from trying to get him to learn to use the laptop that I got for him, even though I failed on that one.
Coincidentally, about a week after P.'s death, the husband of a friend of mine died after a brief illness. En route home to Tel Aviv, I stopped in New York for a few days to pay a condolence call on her. Here were two men of the same generation, and the effect of their loss on those left behind is so different. In one case it's a mystery, in the other, a tragedy. Or maybe the other way 'round?
There were many family speculations about why he was so reclusive, and now it will remain a mystery. When he fell ill (literally: he took a fall seven years ago and lay unconscious in his home for many hours before a neighbor became suspicious and thankfully called the police), it became my responsibility to make decisions for him. Even though I lived eight thousand miles away, I was fortunate to have the Internet and a physician relative in place to be able to supervise his care. He returned to himself, but was not able to return to his home, and he spent his last seven years wheelchair-bound in a variety of "facilities," first at the expense of the Veterans' Administration and subsequently private.
I took these last seven years as a challenge to get to know him better, not so much out of any deeply felt bond as out of curiosity. To be honest, I was trying to learn what he and I shared and how we differed as much to know myself better as to know him better. Somewhere along the line I got the feeling that I had "broken his code," and could pretty well predict how he would react to various events. It didn't stop me from trying to get him to learn to use the laptop that I got for him, even though I failed on that one.
Coincidentally, about a week after P.'s death, the husband of a friend of mine died after a brief illness. En route home to Tel Aviv, I stopped in New York for a few days to pay a condolence call on her. Here were two men of the same generation, and the effect of their loss on those left behind is so different. In one case it's a mystery, in the other, a tragedy. Or maybe the other way 'round?
Sunday, November 04, 2007
The Savta Has Landed
This is Day One of Jet Lag. My plane touched down at exactly 8:30AM, on time to the minute. Bravo, Continental Airlines! Things got better and better after that: my luggage did not get lost or vandalized (I never lock it) and when emerging from Customs I was unexpectedly greeted by the fabulous Noorster Dahling!!! She had awakened at an ungodly hour on the Sabbath (question for theologists: is that possible?) to schlep herself and a pleasantly taciturn taxi driver out to Ben Gurion Airport just for moi! I was momentarily overcome by the profound sacrifice this gesture entailed. No wonder I feel like my friends in Israel are like family! (Please excuse my liberal use of exclamation points, but I just have a lot of exclaiming to do here.)
Pulling up to my building, we were greeted by my dog-sitter/apartment-sitter waiting on the street with dear doggie in her arms! Such commotion! Such emotion! So much tail-wagging by dog and adults alike! So many helping hands dragging the suitcases up the stairs!
My apartment has never before had roses in every room. I am so blessed.
Pulling up to my building, we were greeted by my dog-sitter/apartment-sitter waiting on the street with dear doggie in her arms! Such commotion! Such emotion! So much tail-wagging by dog and adults alike! So many helping hands dragging the suitcases up the stairs!
My apartment has never before had roses in every room. I am so blessed.
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