Musings Merchant

04/15/2013 - The Day I Became A Hyphen

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:25:00 -0700

As I sit down to write this, I am accompanied by the sound of loud Israeli music, rambunctious conversation, and the ambient noise of people partying. The Israelis on the beach singing karaoke since sundown have not heard what happened in Boston, they were well liquored up before the marathon even started in celebration of Israel’s 65th Independence Day.

I had spent the day setting up tables, taping Israeli flags to the ceiling of a friend’s house, and helping my mother prepare a number of dishes for a potluck party. I was just getting to my second serving of homemade zaatar bread, meat-stuffed burrekas, and mediterranean vegetable salad when a friend messaged me with the news.

I saw the gruesome pictures, despite my general aversion to such reporting, but took a moment to digest the news of what appears to be a terrorist attack on US soil. I ran inside to flip on the TV, but the Israeli news channels were still playing the feed of the national ceremony in Jerusalem. The Prime Minister, the President, and assorted dignitaries were all there. But they didn’t know either.

I walked back outside to the festivities and quickly realized I was in no shape for jovial conversation. I may not be an American yet, not officially. But I am in spirit. I may engage in what amounts to PR for the State of Israel, not officially. But I am as Americans as I am Israeli. I realize now - more than ever - that I am a product of both cultures, an admirer of both storied histories, and a patriot of both countries.

Today I am an American, regardless of my immigration status. I do not need a passport to stand in solidarity with the people of Boston, the people of Massachusetts, and the people from all across the United States of America who came to participate in the marathon. I walked away from the parties to watch the news and follow breaking reports - and rumors - on Twitter.

Today, on my first Independence Day in Israel since 2010, I cannot celebrate the joyous occasion of the 65th anniversary of a two thousand year old dream because my other people are hurting.

Today I become a hyphen, an Israeli-American. The tragic events of today consecrate my allegiance more than any stamp from immigration services or oath ceremony ever could.

#prayforboston

I try to contain the wave of emotions that is washing over me with the force of a Caribbean storm. I...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:56:43 -0700

I try to contain the wave of emotions that is washing over me with the force of a Caribbean storm. I wash the dishes, sweep the floor, and fold my laundry to no avail. The tears keep on coming, welling up in a moment that is one part happy, two parts not. Then a lonely tear carves its way down my cheek, leaving a trail of salty secretions.

I remember a time when I used to like the taste of tears. But these tears are not catharctic, they are confused. There are so many emotions swilling in my grey matter pot, bubbling still from the passion yet to subside. I used to like the taste of tears because I once enjoyed basking in this emotion or that.These are not those tears.

These tears express the full range of emotions, happy and not. These tears mix joy and sorrow, hope and despair. They call forth an exquisite moment of connection with another soul, and the unbearable, inevitable separation that marked both an end and a beginning of the relationship.

These tears are not remorseful, nor do they carry the slightest tinge of regret. These tears are bittersweet, like dark sea-salt-coated nibs of dark chocholate. The contrast in flavor is a reminder that nothing is black and white, that in moderation opposite sensations are more than simply the sum of their parts.

"Watson: Is that what you’re going to wear… the guys on Wall Street wear suits. Holmes:..."

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 05:02:12 -0700

“

Watson: Is that what you’re going to wear… the guys on Wall Street wear suits.

Holmes: Those are costumes. I loathe bankers they rigged the roulette wheels of commerce, very nearly destroyed the world economy, and they still think that if they were suits they’ll be treated like respectable folks instead of the crooks that they are.

”

- Elementary, episode 4

Thirty months and then it’s done Though the lesson, far from gone Thirty months of numbing...

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 03:40:39 -0700

Thirty months and then it’s done

Though the lesson, far from gone

Thirty months of numbing cold

Lifted by a move so bold

It was not to be predicted

No matter how the tale was told

Thirty months and then it’s done

Reignite the spark of fun

The passion yearning for release

She brought me back from the abyss

#tumblrtherapy

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:28:34 -0700

I am pulled apart at the seams by my overwhelming interests. How does one choose?

How can I submit my Self to a thorough psychological examination as a memorist when I am consumed at odd hours with pushing the plodding behemoth that we call the Arab-Israeli peace process? They are not one and the same.

And if I were to pursue the path of shameless chronographer of our hedonist times and my Quixotic quest to change my fellow man, would my legislative interest in consumer advocacy and income equality be tainted by association? Only a fool tries to swim upstream while carrying a heavy load.

I know every day I diddle and avoid the choice is another day lost in pursuit of achieving one of these goals, fulfilling one of my passions. And yet I fail to act.

Session Time

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 02:33:30 -0700

There’s no day like today to try new things. Skype, SnapChat, or sext, there is no harm and much joy to be had in casual flirtation. Well, I’m not sure what casual is.

For several years flirtation was an innocent indulgence. Not even. A social norm, which I eventually learned to like. But it was literal diddling, there was little to no chance of actual intercourse. Yes, I’m weird. No, I don’t mind it… anymore.

But now, when the memory of sensual contact is nearly gone, now I stumble. Now I feel like I am losing part of the physical discipline as my facade of emotional fortitude chips and threatens to crumble… but not because I’m trying to put myself out there. Because now when the memory is fading, now I miss it more numbly than ever.

I play strong. I am strong. I will be strong. But I will nevertheless err. I must keep that in mind, then accept it.

Now is the time to take a serious foray into the (odd) modern breeding ground. If not now, then probably never.

Every time I watch a Les Mis performance - live, recorded, or in film - there are many lines that...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:19:14 -0800

Every time I watch a Les Mis performance - live, recorded, or in film - there are many lines that reverberate through my body for the days to come.

But one line - above all - resonates with my personal experience: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

There are as many interpretations of that line as there are aspiring writers in the world. But for me the line rings true because it is the reason I went from an arrogant atheist to an ambivalent agnostic.

I found God in love. I found God - ever briefly - in the having and losing of an overwhelming feeling that shatters the walls of our conscious being. Knowing what I felt then, I could no longer deny the possibility of a higher power.

One could pretend that science will one day explain Love, that the feeling is nothing more than the interaction of hormones, pheromones, and biological imperatives. Yet anyone who has ever sunk deep into the throes of Love senses there is more afoot.

I sat down for some Tumblr Therapy, but then it all worked out quickly and clearly in my head. Maybe...

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 01:48:29 -0800

I sat down for some Tumblr Therapy, but then it all worked out quickly and clearly in my head.

Maybe that’s why I haven’t been back here as much. My regiment has faltered, both mentally and physically. Yet I feel more alive than I have in a while.

I have more anger, but its fire keeps me warm and it feels good. I have been less patient, but the new-found pressures of time motivate me to more proactively practice my craft.

I am not as good, but in some ways I am better than ever.

If Dov Hikind was the religious man that his kippah lets him pretend to be, he would not have...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 00:28:28 -0800

If Dov Hikind was the religious man that his kippah lets him pretend to be, he would not have dressed in blackface for Purim.

If - however - Dov Hikind lost his sensibilities and decided to dress in blackface for Purim, he should at least have the decency to explain the tradition of the holiday in a way which allows him to shrink the controversy.

Let’s give it a try: Purim is a Jewish holiday in which we are commanded to drink until we cannot differentiate between good and evil. The point of this offensive costume was to stoke controversy by dressing up in a manner which was once considered acceptable (what was once right is now wrong) - though the truly committed man would be too inebriated to notice.

Ugh, if assholes weren’t the only ones who need PR agents, I might have had a career in this industry.

Fiction (practice)

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 15:33:53 -0800

He was a boy, and this was no ordinary city. If he was not careful, the people in the mansions up on the hills would chew him up and spit him out like a flaverless piece of gum. But how do you tell the young to stay vigilant? You can warn them, draw their attention to the greed and desire at the core of this city, but they may not listen.

The young are destined to repeat our errors; who are we to dissuade them? If we ignored our own parents’ advice, we cannot expect our children to behave differently.

Worse yet - for this particular young man - he was plopped down in the midst of an environment which bore no resemblance to that in which his parents were raised. Their advice seemed ever less relevant in surroundings where even they never felt in charge.

He was a boy, and this was no ordinary city.

But neither was he.

Touch-Typing: An Experiment

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 21:52:55 -0800

I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I am touch-tyuping, most likely with many mistakes.

My eye lids are closed, but I still see red.

theres a faint line of an arch black and yellow mizing into a neon green

I exhale and the red background turns black

I inhale, I see red

A text message breaks off my concentration

But I don’t let it

I breathe in

And I breathe out

From red to black

anf constantly the neon humms and changes colors

The back of my eye lids a screen for modern art

Dark Days

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 19:44:23 -0800

Few rays of sunlight broke through the mundane, grey clouds. The city was being pelted by heavy water drops, though the wind was calm and the rain only intermittent. I was walking alone through the historic Portuguese Synagogue, in the Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam. Each tread was careful and deliberate. The hall had several other visitors but I paid no attention to them. My mind conjured images of my last visit, when this old house of worship had been new to me - as it was to these visitors - but the sense of excitement was tempered by the dull ache in my chest.

I had been here before, under a different set of circumstances. I was here to avoid my previous destination; now I sulked through the streets of this magnificent city in a sad attempt to rekindle a passion long lost. But the memories around every corner only intensified the despair, the cold, empty side of the bed took on a significance it could not in any other city, in any other bed.

I was no longer enthralled by the magic of this city and its unique clash of cultures. Drowning in a puddle of old memories, knowing I could swim but unable to muster the motivation to, I reached the end of the road.

I crawled into the canal and never came out.

Les Mis Review, FISKED

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:07:00 -0800

Over at the New Yorker, a movie reviewer who has never experienced a stage production of Les Miserables and is not familiar with its songs was assigned to review the movie adaptation.

Now, I generally reserve fisking energy for cases of affront and media bias, but this reviewer has sacrificed his senses atop Mount New Yorker and lost sight of… well, much.

To those unfamiliar with the Internet-honored tradition of fisking, you are invited to either skim the linked article in full and return for my commentary or save time and only read the snippets which I copy over to lambaste.

I came to the material fresh, without preconception, and throughout the entire hundred and fifty-seven minutes I sat cowering in my seat, lost in shame and chagrin.

Oh my dear Mister Reviewer, let us begin with the most glaring flaw: unless you were born minutes before the opening scene, you have come in to the theater with more preconceptions than you could be aware of even if you were a full-time psychologist with twenty years of clinical experience.

We all have preconceptions. You either like the cast’s previous roles and films, or you didn’t. And believe me, that had an effect on your judgement of Hugh Jackman’s performance as Jean Valjean. You could have known that Jackman can sing or been surprised that Wolverine had more than abs for talent.

This movie is not just bad…. It’s terrible; it’s dreadful. Overbearing, pretentious, madly repetitive.

…

Didn’t any of my neighbors notice how absurdly gloomy and dolorous the story was? How the dominant blue-gray coloring was like a pall hanging over the material?

You know, Mister, I have a feeling that your neighbors - who bought tickets to a movie literally called The Miserable - were expecting to see a gloomy story dominated by a depressing color palette. Also, Mister, please look up Romanticism (more on that in a minute).

How tiresome a reverse fashion show the movie provided in rags, carbuncles, gimpy legs, and bad teeth?

You’re right, Mister Reviewer, a movie titled The Miserable, set in a dark period of French Revolutionary history, should have beautiful Hollywood actors and actresses in their Sunday best! Silly director with no clear direction for his film, trying to set a scene of abject poverty.

Everything is repeated, emphasized, doubled, as if to congratulate us on emotions we’ve already had. The young women, trembling like leaves in a storm, battered this way and that by men, never exercise much will or intelligence.

1. Romanticism

2. When the reviewer said he walked into the movie with no preconceptions he wasn’t joking. Apparently he lives in a world in which the 20th century and the feminist movement happened before… the 19th century.

I say we write this one off as another example of male privilege.

Is it sacrilege to point out that the Victor Hugo novel, stripped of its social detail and reduced to its melodramatic elements, no longer makes much sense? That the story doesn’t connect to our world (which may well be the reason for the show’s popularity)?

Social detail? But I thought you walked into this movie tabula rasa with no preconceptions?!

Connection to our world? Thanks to the world wide web we know that you, mister, are not very connected to our world. Your review of V for Vendetta has you rejecting the notion of London as a surveillance state. I think there are several hundred thousand CCTV cameras that tell a different tale.

And what play could be more connected to our world, in its current iteration? Over 40 million citizens of the richest country in the history of the world live in poverty while their elected overlords are discussing how to cut the porous safety net and let millions more fall through.

The people who care for the poor - Elizabeth Warren, Anthony Weiner, Barney Frank, Bernie Sanders, Ralph Nader - are vilified or ignored. Their voices break through the chatter less and less often.

And when a small chunk of the “masses” rises up, they are put down with force (#OWS). So please, Mister Reviewer, tell me more about how Les Mis is not connected to our world.

Dare I suggest that the mutual obsession of Valjean and Javert is actually boring and morally insignificant? The relationship never develops; the two men never push beyond the surface of each other’s characters.

You dare. But you shouldn’t. If their relationship never developed, the play would end with Valjean in prison and Javert alive. But Javert commits suicide because he can no longer bear to follow rules which have led to the deaths of poor, young, innocent souls - the very rules which Valjean breaks to fulfill loftier, moral commandments.

Saints do not make interesting heroes.

Right. Let me go throw out the vaults of films and manuscripts that use Joan of Arc, Thomas Becket, Mother Teresa, Jesus and the Apostles.

Every emotion in the movie is elemental. There’s no normal range, no offhand or incidental moments—it’s all injustice, love, heartbreak, cruelty, self-sacrifice, nobility, baseness.

You mean, almost like this film is an adaptation of a Romantic novel, a period in which the arts glorified exactly these emotions?

At this point, Mister Reviewer decides to let us in on a little history.

Which brings us to heart of the material’s appeal. As everyone knows, the stage show was a killer for girls between the ages of eight and about fourteen. If they have seen “Les Mis” and responded to it as young women, they remain loyal to the show—and to the emotions it evoked—forever. At that age, the sense of victimization is very strong, and “Les Mis” is all about victimization.

Just so that I understand, you have a problem with the movie because its female characters don’t show will or intelligence, but have no problem clumping an entire age-group of females and painting them with a stereotype? Got it.

That the story has nothing to with our own time makes the emotions in it more—not less—accessible, because feeling is not sullied by real-world associations. But whom, may I ask, is everyone crying for? For Jean Valjean? For Fantine?

Back to more false, unfounded assertions and silly rhetorical questions. But since Mister Reviewer asked, I might as well answer. I was moved to tears by the injustice of Valjean’s sentence and Fantine’s demise, much like I cried because of Troy Davis’ wrongful execution and Trayvon Martin’s murder.

Sentimentality in art is corrosive because it rewards us for imprecise perceptions and meaningless hatreds. Revolution breaks out in “Les Mis.” What revolution? Against whom? In favor of what? It’s just revolution—the noble sacrifice of handsome, ardent boys taking on merciless power. The French military, those canaille, gun down the beautiful boys. It’s all so generic. The vagueness is insulting.

Since you came in with no preconceptions, you also arrived with no working knowledge of history. The film takes place during a volatile time in French history, beginning in the Restoration period, skipping over the July Revolution, and dropping us off in the days before the June Rebellion of 1832.

But the reason it is so generic is because revolution always is. Most people are poor. Few are rich. The latter get fat and lazy at the expense of the former, until the a minority within the masses remember the old adage of “strength in numbers” and rally the impoverished to kill their exploiters.

The people are fighting for economic freedom and social reform against the landed elite which would rather not give up their spoils. Sounds like a movement you may have heard of. Almost like their is relevance in Les Mis for our times.

The only part of this that is insulting is the attitude of Mister Review up on Mount New Yorker.

Five consecutive New Years alone. Five winters passed, and no closer to Home. My heart - so warm for...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 12:44:06 -0800

Five consecutive New Years alone.

Five winters passed, and no closer to Home.

My heart - so warm for others’ sake -

Can do no more than reminisce

About the pleasures it forsakes.

Tumblr Therapy

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 16:24:22 -0800

I have many groups of friends. But I have never been invited to a group chat.

It’s my fault. I like making new friends. I like to change my interests and habits.

But maybe it’s not. It is possible that this behavior, this inability or refusal to enmesh myself in a group, to tie myself down to a set of people, stems from an aversion to betrayal and disappointment.

I was once part of a tight quartet. Two of them are visiting the third this holiday period. I was invited in passing, nothing more.

These three were like brothers to me.

My house was theirs to roam free.

But when we settled into adulthood, when what I had to materially offer no longer aligned with their interests, the connection grew weaker.

Vacation by vacation, year after year, the ties loosened.

Then I returned to Los Angeles physically defeated, mentally depleted, and emotionally exhausted. I expected comforting company and a few hands to lift me up from the floor.

What I got was disappointment, a reminder that everywhere we are alone.

What I got was betrayal, left to rot because I could not be exciting.

If the bonds of friendship forged over a decade can so easily shatter, why would I invest in casting them anew?

Untitled

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 20:36:33 -0800

Take my hand and bring me home
Provide me shelter from the storm
Warm my heart until it burns
Make it want you, make it yearn
For your touch, for your caress,
Your vivid tenderness
The guarantee of happiness

it's the end of the world as we know it... and i feel love

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:55:34 -0800

When dirt floats skyward and dust turns to stone

My love for you will die on a long forgetten shore

When pellets turn to pallets

And sand turns to gold

My love for you will fade from sight

Like the pyramids of old

But until the earth below shines bright

And the sky darkens for the eternal night

My love for you remains my light

Personal Mission Statement

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 05:24:12 -0800

I haven’t grown creatively in what feels like an eternity. I’ve been trudging through the same themes, singing the same tune for my own twisted form of Tumblr therapy.

My dear Tumblr, you are a treasure trove of recollections from my many moods and feelings. You have been my crutch, resuscitating the will ~~to quill~~ write, fail, and start all over again. My passion for writing had been dwarfed by my love for a woman. And you, Tumblr, helped bring me and my craft back to life.

Now the time has come for me give my tiny wings a chance. This is not a goodbye, it is a mission statement. We crossed the 150 post mark a while back, and I plan on reaching a few more landmarks. But I need to work harder, write more (maybe even more professionally).

And… I need to start by finishing my outstanding M.A. Before I grow creatively, I need to finish what I started. I know I’ve said this before. I pray I never have to say it again.

Countdown to horrifying and unhealthy Academic Mode - one week.

I don’t know what the end goal for feminism is. I barely know what gender equality activists...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 04:54:12 -0800

I don’t know what the end goal for feminism is. I barely know what gender equality activists want for their cause. But as a fairly sensitive dude I do have one request. I’m tired of the way we date and we it’s time we changed it.

I don’t think having a penis means that I have to be the first to make a move. If women can initiate and close multimillion dollar deals at Fortune 500 companies, than why shouldn’t the girl making eyes at me from across the bar be the one to get up and strike the conversation?

Maybe it’s because it’s five in the morning. Maybe it’s because I never liked gender roles. Maybe I’ll think this line of thought was silly in the morning.

Untitled

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:15:17 -0800

There are words I cannot wait to hear

And some I would not bear to

There may be silver linings to the darkest clouds

But why the need to sweep perspective

To chance the keys to the kingdom

On the hope of days long gone