Big in J.A.P.an
Travel literature, when boiled down to its essence, is almost always about some combination of the 3E's: Escape, Expunge, Expand. The protagonist travels because s/he is running from something (or someone), perhaps indefinitely; is looking to exorcise a personal demon; or is seeking to change and grow. …Or, even if not seeking the latter, w[...]
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The Sailor and the Survivor Go to Washington
If you are on anyone's mass e-mail list, by now you’ve probably heard of Harold B. Estes. For those of you who delete anything not work-related before reading, Estes is a very sharp-witted, conservative WWII vet in his mid-90's who wrote a strong letter of criticism to President Obama, virally distributed by e-mail in November.
His opening shot: "…I am amazed, angry, and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell ben[...]
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Eight Posts I Never Wrote
I've been something of a deadbeat blogger lately. I just don’t have the time…but that's never a good excuse: Time isn't something you have, it's something you make. Yadda Yadda. In honor of Hanukah – and the gift of my Dear Husband taking everyone out and leaving me to brood / work / clean – here are 8 posts I jotted down during the past few weeks, but never finished writing..[...]
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“…I Don’t Want to Imagine a Life Bound in That Way…”
Months ago, I e-mailed a friend (let's call him Earl) about who-remembers-what. Earl is also a writer, and in addition, works in photography, film, and music. He is waiting for his Big Break, which actually looks to be fast arriving. Earl is secular, Jewish, American, just a shade older than I am, and currently lives in a large arts-producing city with his significant other, a talented and funny writer / model / actress we'll call Joy. I ha[...]
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Mother Nature
Sukkot in Israel is a hiker and camper's festival. God wasn’t kidding when he asked people to walk to Jerusalem in Temple times on this holiday. I'm not sure if He cared about the ten young bulls, two rams, and 12 lambs (well-done). But I'm pretty sure He wanted people to walk the land in what constitutes autumn here, which is this: moderation (as opposed to colorful.)
He made a damn fine Holy Land, too, and I'm guessing He wanted people to en[...]
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Summer Prayer of a Hebrew Redneck Wannabe
Every summer, right in the hot, soft belly of July/August, I'm hit with it in the head, like the skillet of an angry housewife: the urge to play Alan Jackson loud with the windows of my minivan rolled down (ain't got no truck, just my luck), hang back on my porch at sundown, and[...]
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God’s Top Ten: WWYHDTM?
I have always been a fan of the top ten list. I suppose it started with Casey Kasem's American Top 40 (Yes. I was around and not in nursery school at the time. OK?), the cleverest marketing device the pre-digital music world ever came up with. After which I graduated to Letterman, who used (uses?) the top ten list as a cool comedic framing device, which I enjoyed even more. Kids, this was all before Amazon's Listmania was even an executive web dream.
Of course, t[...]
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The Other Mother’s Day
This past Friday was another kind of Mother's Day: The flip side, the dark side, the impossible side, the side that haunts every mother's quiet moments until she chases the demons away. Friday was the "yahrzeit," or anniversary of death, of Koby Mandell. You may remember Koby from the news, because the story is a hard one to forget. Koby was the 8th grader who, along with his friend, had cut school one beautiful day in May, 2001, as the second Intifada was heating up, [...]
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Dust. Wind. Dude.
There is a familiar pit in my stomach that tells me I must put something down on paper. So to speak.
It's a pit that reminds me of other pits, that makes me 16 again, and 26, all the years joined by a common physiological sense of being carried by an idea or a feeling, literally hungry for something to write. Medical science will tell you that the pit is the work of the vagus nerve in my abdomen, which[...]
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On Work and Freedom: For Holocaust Remembrance Day and Durban II
My amazing grandmother, Esther Klein, is turning 91 next month. She was in her mid-twenties when she was liberated by the Swedish Red Cross from an aimless, endless transport, after having spent several nearly lethal winter weeks in Ravensbrueck. Before that, she'd "worked" for several months in Auschwitz, after having lived for a very short time, along with her elderly pa[...]
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The Social Well
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