15: Revision

 The language of the heart.

“Perhaps only migrating birds know -
suspended between earth and sky -
the heartache of two homelands.”

Lea Godberg – Israel.

I always spoke Hebrew but for the past two years, while participating in various writing classes, I switched to English. I think about this a lot, when I struggle to find the right word, the most fitting idiom, an effective way to express an idea. I was not forced into this ambivalent relations it was me and only me who chose to turn my back on my own language. There is a certain measure of loneliness combined with a feeling of freedom that accompanies this choice. As if by distancing myself from my mother tongue I am allowing for more space and the leisure to experience something new, unconfined by the old rules.

Being there it is clear to me that when talking about mother tongue I am talking about more than a language. I am talking about myself at the deepest layers of my being and so I am curious how other writers, who write in a language other than their mother tongue, feel about this. Maybe through them I will gain a better understanding regarding the process of making the choice to write in a “foreign language” the relationship formed between the writer and his language of “choice”. And last but not least, the technical difficulties namely the use of grammar and words; the tools of the trade. 

Generally a very systematic person I start by looking for definitions for both mother tongue and language and identity (Wikipedia of course) many words later I surface up not only thoroughly tired but also very confused.

  So many definitions and observations and the only clear understanding I come out with is that there is truly not one simple characterization that can contain comfortably the wide spectrum of this somewhat fluid term. The definition of mother tongue is highly personal as are the reasons for which people adopt other languages. As varied as are the definitions so are the languages chosen by different writers and the special relationships that develop in the process both between the writer and his new language and the writer and the language left behind. Perhaps the best example of this ongoing conflict are those writers who keep writing in both languages going back and forth like Vladimir Nabokov, who translated many of his own early works into English and other works into Russian. Nabokov metaphorically described the transition from one language to another as a slow journey at night from one village to the next with only a candle for illumination. (Google)

I realize that scholarly definitions are not going to clarify it for me. If language indeed has such immense powers then the only way to try and weigh up the impact it might have on a person whose whole liveliness rotates around words is to listen. And so I continue my search by checking several web-sites and books written on the issue. I listen and re listen to the words expressing conflicts and wonderments and all the while I am searching for myself in other people journeys.

Reading what different writers say I feel how their words are touching me, addressing many of my thoughts and conflicts and make me feel reassured that I am walking on a trail others walked on before me. If it is a journey then language is only the path, the vehicle of transportation to where we really want to go.” and the place where we want to go is the place of our dreams, the place that everybody wants to go: a place of passion and truth and life and death”.  These are the words of Shan Sa (French author born in Beijing), who continue to say “When I started to write, I had to find my French, which was an invented language. No one could tell me, “That word is good” or “that word is bad,” because when I use a French word, I have my Chinese literariness and I have my Chinese judgment of this world."

 

 Words of one of my country’s most respected poets, an icon of the new revived Hebrew,surprise me. She that her stories and poems were a part of my childhood conveys so much frustrations and pain.

“The chime of the needles: Once upon a time –
I called the snow-space homeland,
and the green ice at the river's edge -
was the poem's grammar in a foreign place.

“Perhaps only migrating birds know -
suspended between earth and sky -
the heartache of two homelands.”

Lea Godberg – Israel.

A different angle I find in the words of Ian McEwan, “My mother was never like that. She never owned the language she spoke. Her displacement within the intricacies of English class, and the uncertainty that went with it, taught her to regard language as something that might go off in her face, like a letter bomb, a word bomb...”

My mother too did not own the language she spoke. Being torn from her mother tongue (German) at the age of fourteen she was never really comfortable with Hebrew and yet she never spoke to me in any other language. Her language while not officially banned was to remain her secret refuge. A hint of that I hear in the words of Luc Sante, “The screen language I employ in order to pass unmolested in the land where I have lived most of life without ever shedding my internal foreignness. French is my secret identity, inaccessible to my friends. Sometimes I feel as though I have it all to myself”

Will I ever feel completely comfortable writing in English I wonder as I read these words;

”English was still my very limited inner language, grammatically more or less correct, but idiomatic” Josef Skvorecky

Or Bill Bryson remarks; “The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinctions unavailable to non-English speakers” Mother Tongue Bill Bryson (1990)

I smile knowingly when I read Gary Shteyngart words “When I return to Russia, my birthplace, I cannot sleep for days, The Russian language swaddles me, the trilling r’s tickle the underside of my feet.”  I feel the same way when I go to Israel; the language rolls so easily, the words so accessible. No need to painfully search for them or work hard at making myself understood when one simple word carries a whole world of shared knowledge.

And what about the question of loyalty to heritage and culture, perhaps the deepest conflict associated with language cross over. Ironically my mother mothers’ tongue was not Hebrew, neither was my fathers’. Hebrew was their choice not only of a new language but also new life. So by using a language that does not belong to me I feel like betraying their trust and walking away from what was passed to me to keep and cherish; a legacy that goes deeper than words.

And yet when I listen to all these polished words of people who made writing their life and writing in a “foreign language” their professional choice I realize how each one of them had to go through the same kind of struggle as I do now. The words of  Joseph Conrad  hit home “All I can claim after all those years of devoted practice, with the accumulated anguish of its doubts, imperfections and faltering in my heart, is the right to be believed when I say that if I had not written in English I would not have written at all.”

These words do it, they cut to the chase and finally clear the fog created by so many conflicts and hesitations and frustrations. In the end it is very simple; if I had not written in English maybe I would not have written at all.

14:

 The language of the heart.

“The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinctions unavailable to non-English speakers”

Mother Tongue Bill Bryson (1990)

I always spoke Hebrew but for the past two years, while participating in various writing classes, I switched to English. I think about this a lot, when I struggle to find the right word, the most fitting idiom, the effective way to express an idea. I was not forced into this ambivalent relations it was me and only me who chose to turn my back on my own language. There is a certain measure of loneliness combined with a feeling of freedom that accompanies this choice. As if by distancing myself from my mother tongue I am allowing for more space and the leisure to experience something new, unconfined by the old rules.

Being there it is clear to me that when talking about mother tongue I am talking about more than a language. I am talking about myself at the deepest layers of my being and so I am curious how other writers, who write in a language other than their mother tongue, feel about this. Maybe through them I will gain a better understanding about the process of making the choice to write in a “foreign language” the relationship formed between the writer and his language of “choice”. And last but not least, the technical difficulties namely the use of grammar and words; the tools of the trade. 

Generally a very systematic person I start by looking for definitions for both mother tongue and language and identity (Wikipedia of course) many words later I surface up not only thoroughly tired but also very confused.

  So many definitions and observations and the only clear understanding I come out with is that there is truly not one simple characterization that can contain comfortably the wide spectrum of this somewhat fluid term. The definition of mother tongue is highly personal as are the reasons for which people adopt other languages. As varied as are the definitions of mother tongue so are the languages chosen by different writers as the ones to express themselves and the special relationships that develop in the process both between the writer and his new language and the writer and the language left behind. Perhaps the best example of this ongoing conflict are those writers who keep writing in both languages going back and forth, as can be seen from the rich literary of Vladimir Nabokov, who translated many of his own early works into English and other works into Russian. Nabokov metaphorically described the transition from one language to another as a slow journey at night from one village to the next with only a candle for illumination. (Google)

What effect does the process of changing languages has on the writer is my next big question. Taking into consideration the immense powers language has on us in general it is mind boggling to try and evaluate the impact it might have on a person whose whole liveliness rotates around words. And so I continued my search by checking several web-sites and books written on the issue; I keep looking for what other writers had to say on the matter searching for myself in their words.

***

“Writing in another language is just the path but not the place where we want to go, and the place where we want to go is the place of our dreams, the place that everybody wants to go: a place of passion and truth and life and death”. Shan Sa
***

“To cut to the chase, though: what in the world possessed me to write in a language other than my mother tongue? It is true that for many of us our relationship to our adopted language is not territorial. Mine is English that I cobbled together from the many places I have lived and the books I have read, a transnational quilt. It limits me in some respects, and opens avenues.”Dan Vyleta
***

“My mother was never like that. She never owned the language she spoke. Her displacement within the intricacies of English class, and the uncertainty that went with it, taught her to regard language as something that might go off in her face, like a letter bomb, a word bomb. I've inherited her wariness, or more accurately, I learned it as a child. I used to think I would have to spend a lifetime shaking it off. Now I know that's impossible, and unnecessary, and that you have to work with what you've got.” Ian McEwan

***

 “All I can claim after all those years of devoted practice, with the accumulated anguish of its doubts, imperfections and faltering in my heart, is the right to be believed when I say that if I had not written in English I would not have written at all.” Joseph Conrad

***

“Two selves exist within the language-adoptee, as with any adoptee-what might have been, what was lost, and the good fortune, the delivery from want and frustration. For a writer, the melting of another tongue is the madeleine, the way back and the way in, an early loss with the deepest memory, the mother of all plots.” Bharti Mukherjee

***

 “The screen language I employ in order to pass unmolested in the land where I have lived most of life without ever shedding my internal foreignness. French is my secret identity, inaccessible to my friends. Sometimes I feel as though I have it all to myself” Luc Sante

***

 “Americas are linguistically very tolerant, very nice. I was often congratulated on my very good or even excellent English. On each such occasion I grinned politely because I knew only too well that I was just American politeness. English was still my very limited inner language, grammatically more or less correct, but idiomatic” Josef Skvorecky

***

 “Even though I was told that my writing does not show signs of rigor mortis, it is a fact that I write slowly and laboriously, pausing after every word I set down. I change it countless times and repeat the process with each sentence and paragraph before I can move forward.” Louis Begley

***

I read all these polished words of people who made writing their life and writing in a “foreign language” their professional choice and realize how each one of them had to go through the same kind of struggle as I do now.  Still I am not content, in the back of my mind another persistent question would not let go. Maybe the biggest of them all, the question of loyalty to heritage and culture, perhaps the deepest conflict associated with language cross over. Not only using a language that does not belong to me but abandoning what was passed to me to keep and cherish, will it always be something I will have to reckon with?

But then I stumble upon the words of a soul mate from far away land.  “I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar, I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one. Don’t write in English, they said, English is not your mother tongue. Why not leave me alone…Why not let me speak in any language I like?”Kalma Das -1934

These words hit a chord in my heart. This complex issue of choosing a language to write in maybe is not complex at all. People move from country to country for various reasons that are either in their control or forced on them. Each move usually demands adjustments to different cultures, different landscapes and different languages. Some hold on to what was left behind while others embrace the newness as their own and take off. No one story is alike; each is unique just like we as human beings are unique and different. This is my story and it only just begun.

14: Mini research

The chosen

When Meir died after a brief and aggressive illness it was the middle of the winter. We took him home to be buried and spent almost a whole day trying to dig a shallow grave under the giant pine tree in the back yard. For the first time I understood why people in northern, snow covered lands sometimes have to wait till spring to bury their dead. We put a flat stone on the grave and wrote his name in English and Hebrew.

We were sad that he had to be buried in a foreign land and hoped the pine tree will be a reminder of our old home where Keren (my youngest daughter) found him almost sixteen years before, walking down our street just a ball of white fur with two mismatched eyes, one blue and one green. She decided he was lost or abandoned and took him home. Later it turned out he was not really abandoned and belonged to the little boy who lived down the street. He was convinced though, easily, by Keren that by letting his cat roam free on the sidewalk he lost all claims of ownership.

All this history was going through my mind watching his grave and thinking about his long and adventure full life but it was time to move on. For over fifty years I was chosen by different cats to make my home their own and had no say on the matter, now it was my turn to pick my new cat and I knew exactly what kind of cat I wanted.

***

I wanted a ragdoll.

***

For years I heard stories about them; how beautiful they were, how friendly, how their name came from the fact that when held in ones hands, unlike any other normal cat, they let go and become completely limp, hence the name. This was going to be my chosen cat, for once pure bread with known qualities and no surprises.

I turned to the internet to locate a qualified breeder and found few in Maine not too far away. As I read through their web sites I was reassured once more of the unique and exceptional characteristics of this special breed, a mix between a Birman cat with Siamese point coloration and a white Angora type Persian (mama Josephine the head of the dynasty) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragdoll

These absolutely angelic cats (pictures to prove that were supplied in profusion) had the best of both breeds, the stunning blue eyes of the Siamese cats (without their nasty character) and the soft silk like fur of the Persians.

I carefully checked again the lists of characteristics and marveled at each one, it was exactly what I wanted from my chosen cat:

-          Long hair cats with no shedding or matting so basically maintenance free.

-          A strictly house cat due to their natural shyness.

“We recommend that if you decide to get a ragdoll, that it should be an indoor pet. Ragdolls by nature do not have the aggressive instincts to fight other animals or the natural ability to defend themselves as well as other cat breeds.” (http://www.ragdollcatguide.com/)

-          Loving all humans disposition makes them act almost like dogs as they follow their human everywhere.

“The Ragdoll Cat is a large breed of feline, best known for an easygoing and mellow nature. Possibly the most loving and agreeable type of cat, the ragdoll would be an excellent choice as a pet” (http://www.ragdollcatguide.com/)

-          Fun loving and playful.

“Ragdolls display many characteristics traditionally attributed to dogs like retrieving toys.

While these wonderful cats are calm and sweet, they do like playing as well! Ragdolls are very energetic.”
(fanciers.com/breed-faqs/ragdoll-faq.html/)

These statements sounded almost too good to be true. As I was going over several breeders’ web-sites I almost chocked on the pouring sweetness and boundless love to these four legged normally selfish creatures. I called few of these breeders to find out only one had a new litter ready for adoption in few weeks. And so the choice was made and I purchased a flame point pure bread female ragdoll who in the future will answer to the name Sheleg (snow).

***

Finale

Sheleg has been with us for four years now and every once in awhile I pull out the above list present it to her and together we mull over the exceptional qualities of her breed.

Big and furry, check.

Big blue innocent eyes, check

White unmated coat, check

Friendly, check

And that is where the similarity ends.

Limp in my arms? Not on your life, she looks straight at me with those blue eyes; this is not going to happen. Retrieve toys? What am I a dog? The proof is in the assorted collection of stuffed mice lying all over the house that I end up picking. Follow you around? Why, I can just spend the day on my chair which is any chair I chose today. Timid and shy? Me? I have the best time devising clever attacks on my fellow cats or hunting for mice in the storage room. Maintenance free? Sure, don’t you just love those little white puffs of hair I decorate the living room with, or your chair, your clothes, your food.

I nod my head in quiet desperation wondering if I was better off when cats chose me and not vice versa.

 

Week 13: Another take on Smoke.

Smoke, the movie, 1995

I am not a smoker but I can imagine this scene, the act of smoking, the smoke swirling into the air, thin grayish fingers, completely weightless until it is gone and all that is left is a small mound of ashes in the ash tray and a hint of smell in the air to remind us of what was.

This is how I feel every time I watch this movie. I go through a whole slew of contracting emotions; from slight boredom at the movie slow progression to a growing  interest  in this group of people revolving around a Brooklyn cigar shop,  and the various complications of their life ending with deep satisfaction during the last scene; Auggie’s Christmas story. And then it is over and aside from that lingering sense of “feeling good”, there is nothing left.  

Trying to capture this elusive movie on paper is difficult.  If it wouldn’t sound corny I would say that it’s like trying to hold smoke in one’s clenched fist.

Let’s start with what it is not. Don't look for special effects, explosions, car chases or gun fights here; this is a movie with an emphasis on dialogue, ambiance, and characterization. The film has been perceived by many as too literate for its own good and it may seem, at times, needlessly stylistic.

And did I mention, slow? The minimalist conceits of Adam Holender's camerawork and the mood invoked by director Wayne Wang's leisurely pacing of scenes might seem to those who disagree with the film's meandering style as lazy, but the film surely is not.

Author Paul Auster and director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) worked on the story for years before it reached the screen. Paul Auster based the script for Smoke on a 1990 short story he wrote for "The New York Times." He also wrote and directed the film's sequel (of sorts), Blue in the Face (1995).

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, including the "J" train as it slowly creeps up the track towards the Williamsburg Bridge, and the old Williamsburg Bank in the foreground is the opening shot. A beautiful shot of that part of Brooklyn; close enough to hear the train but far enough to keep the other city noises in the background, it is also a good start and a fitting introduction to the smoke store and Auggie.

A Brooklyn cigar shop is the setting for this drama, director Wayne Wang interweaves the stories of several characters that have fractured family relationships in common. Harvey Keitel is Auggie Wren, poetic owner of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a store that he considers the center of the world -- a place where all of humanity eventually parades through. Other characters include Paul (William Hurt) a grief-stricken novelist; Ruby (Stockard Channing), Auggie's long-ago girlfriend; and Rashid (Harold Perrineau Jr.), a teenager who is befriended by Paul after saving his life and seeks his estranged father (Forest Whitaker).

 “What is the weight of smoke?” asks novelists Paul Benjamin in the beginning of the film.

 Not much but so much. Like the pictures that Augie takes of the same spot in his corner street. He shoots them every morning at the exact same time and while they appear to be the same, a closer look while taking the time to examine them closely, reveals how different they really are. Each picture captures less than a moment  but this moment can mean a life time like the one which shows Paul Benjamin’s’ wife seconds before she was shot.  What is the weight of one Corner Street in New York and the life of few people who might not be very important at all, but yet they are.

Paul Auster is a brilliant writer, the acting is superb, and the script is excellent. Smoke is a funny, sometimes poignant, slice-of-life film with a whole lot of heart. The story is like a colorful quilt, patches of individual stories touching and separating and the end result is like a warm enveloping blanket one can be submerged in.  

So what is the weight of smoke?  We actually get the answer based on an old story. If you smoke the cigar and then weight the residue and subtract from the weight of the unsmoked cigar what is left is the weight of smoke. And in the case of this movie, good storytelling, and that “feel good” lingering feeling we are left with, that is the weight of smoke.

Week 13: appreciation/depreciation; the review/2

Smoke, the movie, 1995

I am not a smoker but I can imagine this scene, the act of smoking, the smoke swirling into the air, thin grayish fingers, completely weightless until it is gone and all that is left is a small mound of ashes in the ash tray and a hint of smell in the air to remind us of what was.

This is how I feel every time I watch this movie. I go through a whole slew of contracting emotions; from slight boredom at the movie slow progression to a growing  interest  in this group of people revolving around a Brooklyn cigar shop,  and the various complications of their life ending with deep satisfaction during the last scene; Auggie’s Christmas story. And then it is over and aside from that lingering sense of “feeling good”, there is nothing left.  

Trying to capture this elusive movie on paper is difficult.  If it wouldn’t sound corny I would say that it’s like trying to hold smoke in one’s clenched fist.

Let’s start with what it is not. Don't look for special effects, explosions, car chases or gun fights here; this is a movie with an emphasis on dialogue, ambiance, and characterization. The film has been perceived by many as too literate for its own good and it may seem, at times, needlessly stylistic.

And did I mention, slow? The minimalist conceits of Adam Holender's camerawork and the mood invoked by director Wayne Wang's leisurely pacing of scenes might seem to those who disagree with the film's meandering style as lazy, but the film surely is not.

Author Paul Auster and director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club) worked on the story for years before it reached the screen. Paul Auster based the script for Smoke on a 1990 short story he wrote for "The New York Times." He also wrote and directed the film's sequel (of sorts), Blue in the Face (1995).

A Brooklyn cigar shop is the setting for this drama, director Wayne Wang interweaves the stories of several characters that have fractured family relationships in common. Harvey Keitel is Auggie Wren, poetic owner of the Brooklyn Cigar Company, a store that he considers the center of the world -- a place where all of humanity eventually parades through. Other characters include Paul (William Hurt) a grief-stricken novelist; Ruby (Stockard Channing), Auggie's long-ago girlfriend; and Rashid (Harold Perrineau Jr.), a teenager who is befriended by Paul after saving his life and seeks his estranged father (Forest Whitaker).

 “What is the weight of smoke?” asks novelists Paul Benjamin in the beginning of the film.

 Not much but so much. Like the pictures that Augie takes of the same spot in his corner street. He shoots them every morning at the exact same time and while they appear to be the same, a closer look and taking the time to examine them closely, reveals how different they really are.  What is the weight of one Corner Street in New York and the life of few people who might not be very important at all, but yet they are.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn, including the "J" train as it slowly creeps up the track towards the Williamsburg Bridge, and the old Williamsburg Bank in the foreground is the opening shot. A beautiful shot of that part of Brooklyn; close enough to hear the train but far enough to keep the other city noises in the background, it is also a good start and a fitting introduction to the smoke store and Auggie.

Auggie Wren is an enigma; at first sight one sees a rugged man worn out by the day-to-day routine. Those who know him better, like widower novelist Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), find a keen philosophical spark behind the skewed demeanor of a cigar shop proprietor.

The scene where Keitel and Hurt are sitting inside the cigar shop looking at Keitel's photo album and the latter identifies his murdered wife in one of them, is one of the most moving and provocative scenes and so is the entire last fifteen minute segment, essaying "Auggie Wren's Christmas Story", a distinctive piece that originally appeared in the New York Times in Christmas 1990. The film's closing dialogue perhaps sums the whole idea in the best possible way. 

 “Wren: If you can't share your secrets with your friends then what kind of friend are you? Benjamin: Exactly...then life just wouldn't be worth living.”

This is also the most unexpected moment in Smoke, Auggie's Christmas story. It’s sad, touching and funny all at the same time. It’s filmed once in color and again in black and white, while the closing titles are projected on the screen. In the story, a younger Auggie is returning a lost wallet to an elderly lady living in the New York’s Projects. The wallet was dropped by her grandson in a robbery attempt of Auggies’ smoke store. It’s Christmas day and these two lonely people; Auggie and the elderly lady share an unexpected Christmas meal at the end of which she falls asleep and he sneaks out of her apartment with a stolen camera, he picked from a pile of many others, stolen ones, he found in the apartment. And so this story takes us a full circle to the beginning of the movie and we get to have a slightly different view of Auggies’ love of photography.

Paul Auster is a brilliant writer, the acting is superb, and the script is excellent. Smoke is a funny, sometimes poignant, slice-of-life film with a whole lot of heart. The story is like a colorful quilt, patches of individual stories touching and separating and the end result is like a warm enveloping blanket one can be submerged in.  

So what is the weight of smoke?  We actually get the answer based on an old story. If you smoke the cigar and then weight the residue and subtract from the weight of the unsmoked cigar what is left is the weight of smoke. And in the case of this movie, good storytelling, and that “feel good” lingering feeling we are left with, that is the weight of smoke.

Week 13: appreciation/depreciation; the review

A desert concert

The yearly song festival hosted by my home town in Israel is now a long gone history but then, almost fifteen years ago it was still alive and kicking. The jewel in the crown of the many excellent concerts performed for three straight days was always the sunrise concert at the bottom of Massada.

Massada, an ancient Herodian compound of palaces and fortifications on top of an isolated rock plateau, is best known for being the scene of the last rebellion against the Roman army in 73 CE.  It sits on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. On the west side of the mountain in a natural drop in the ground a big amphitheater was created, using the natural slope and lined with stone benches facing the  Roman ramp. The huge artificial slope, leaning against the mountain was created by Roman ingenuity from tons of rocks and sand as a way of reaching the rebels at the top. 

The Concert starts few hours before sunrise. So shortly after midnight, a long line of private cars and buses descended from Arad, few hundred meters above the Dead Sea, into the dark desert. Armed with sleeping bags against the desert chill and the hard benches, and plenty of food to last for the many hours ahead, we settled on one of the benches ready to be entertained.

This was not going to be a usual type of a concert, more like a combination of poem reading and songs performed intermittently. The reading was to be performed by Yonatan Gefen a very popular song writer known mostly for his children poems. Those poems were read in my home for years and each of my daughters had her favorites and so did I. “Gal is the daughter of the sea...The most beautiful girl in  kindergarten...It’s not pleasant to see a locked kindergarten...I always wanted a dog...The wrong Dragon... “and many more. We could cite them, hum them, and remembered them years later with that bitter sweet longing people often sense reminiscing their childhood.  

 And the singer, let’s not forget him, just returning from a year abroad, was David Broza another favorite figure and a remarkable guitar player. Critics have labeled Broza as "a post-modern Leonard Cohen" and the "Stevie Ray Vaughan of rock”. He has also been compared to Bruce Springsteen as well as Gordon Lightfoot and Jackson Browne. Broza's American debut album, Away From Home, was praised by The New York Times as one of the best pop albums of the year. Time of Trains, his second American release, gained him recognition as one of the most important artists on the international music scene.

So I knew it was going to be a good one, still I did not expect it to be such a unique experience. The concert started on time and for the next three hours it was a continuous dialogue between these two performers and the huge crowd. It is hard to comment on the musical or literary quality since the crowed did most of the work. Everyone was singing along with the singer and narrating the words to every poem without missing a beat.

At some point I looked around at this unusual mixture of older couples twice my age, gruff young soldiers holding their weapons on one their side and hugging their girlfriends, cynical high school youngsters, all humming  along and reciting. All completely immersed in the chemistry created by the location, the velvety desert night and the two men on the stage.

As the sun rose over the Dead Sea, it climbed slowly behind the plateau and its rays created a perfect halo that softens the sharp lines of the mountain and broken ancient walls. Then as it climbed even higher it painted the ramp with shimmering whites and yellows reflecting the glow of the desert sand. And yet the crowed did not move, everyone continued with no signs of tiring. On and on the concert kept on going and the sun was getting higher and higher in the sky. The sunrise concert was turning into a late morning soon to be noon.

I’ve been to many concerts since, some were very good but none had that kind of magnetic energy created by good performers an enthusiastic crowd and almost two thousand years of history all combined. 

12:Intro

Don’t Panic

What makes you choose a specific book to accompany you over the years is still a mystery to me. Or, maybe I can ask  what’s make a book choose you and stick with you as it is being packed, time after time in dusty jam-packed boxes, move from one side of the country to the other, being placed on different book shelves or thrown into a pile, almost forgotten for long periods of time.

This one is my Hebrew version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  A paperback edition, quiet ripped with the years it fits its name so well, a tired traveler hitching a ride with many different readers most of them my family members. We all read it, at least once, at one time or another and most of us more than once. It bears the marks on it; crumpled pages, some torn and taped back in, other folded at the corners to show where the last reader, even though I stressed time and time again it annoys me, marked where he stopped.  Any one of us can randomly cite any line from it and the others will immediately fill in or in a heartbeat “get it” and laugh. Cues like “42”, “yellow”, “don’t forget to pack a towel”, “behind a locked door with a sign; beware, tiger”, will grant me a nod of approval from my daughters and a round of laughs.

Because that what it is, smart with a humorous spin that carries the totally bizarre story to the far end of the unknown Galaxy. Reading it I am freed from all constrains of reality. Its’ quirkiness is focusing the light on the ridiculous and amusing. Douglas Adams is being so accurate in pointing out, with a surgeon like precision where we as humans are lost not only in the vast boundaryless galaxy but on our own planet. He sticks the knife in and then with the utmost pleasure turns it on and on.

My youngest is the most devoted admirer of the book and used, from a very young age to read it aloud when we were together in the car on long trips. At the beginning she did not like it at all; the opening chapter in which the earth is being wiped out to make room for a galactic freeway scared her as she took it at face value. Over the years she learned to appreciate the bizarre scene, one of my favorites, in which Arthur Dent, the earthling and one of the books’ main characters, is going to a great trouble trying to save his house from being demolished by his town officials. All this time, his friend, Ford Perfect, an outer space researcher for the revised edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide and a seasoned space traveler, is trying to lure him away from his house and the doomed earth, about to be destroyed in a matter of minutes. 

Part of the book’s charm is that I can open it at any page, and it does not make a difference which one, and just start reading. Like a really good friend that even if you haven’ seen each other for years, you can immediately resume the communication, I feel the same. Beginning, middle, towards the end, I open the book and within seconds I am back in, as if I never left. Some people might sneer at this and see it as just another proof that the story line is lacking, the logic shaky, and all in all I let myself fall for a cheap cult culture.  Being blinded and carried away by a popularity wave of flashy words and clever phrasing wrongly seeing it as real literature. To those critics I say; in the words of the Hitchhiker’s Guide: 

“…for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older (Encyclopaedia Galactica) more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.”