Fiona Apple -- Window

A lot of Jewish people don't like Chabad. And the reasons are too many to go into here.

Although my father and his wife daven at Chabad (the Conservative shul in his area recently moved out of walking distance, so it's Chabad or stay home for him on Shabbat, and he is shomer Shabbat) I have only talked to Chabad folks in person for about five minutes, and it was almost exactly three years ago.

It was a Sunday, and my girlfriend and I were walking in our town's little downtown, and Chabad guys were there and asked if we were Jewish, and they had us do the blessing and shake the etrog and lulav. Which was rather cool, because they were very happy to see us. It was like they were able to help someone do a mitzvah and that was exciting for them.

But I read chabad.org all the time, and I learn a lot. While I have issues with Orthodoxy in general when it comes to women v men and gay v straight, I LOVE Chabad because they are so dedicated, and I guess because I love the Baal Shem Tov, when you get down to it. I love the way Chassids look at the world.

I love things like this, which I just read in an article about Katrina by Yossi Tauber, the Chabad rabbi in New Orleans:

And then, in a moment of quiet, the teachings of my mentor and teacher, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, ring in my consciousness: "It is wrong to try to explain suffering or to excuse G-d for it, because then we would justify it somewhat. Rather, our role is to help alleviate suffering."

This truth is simultaneously painful and comforting. While we believe there is a "vast eternal plan" we should not attempt to understand the cause for the suffering of others. If we understood, it might become somewhat acceptable. Instead, we must become a partner with our Creator, using our energy and ability to help rather than blame or explain.

There's always these elements that are in tension with the other, as this Chassidic teaching says (referenced at Torah.org :

"a person must always carry around with him two conflicting ideas. In one pocket he must put the sentence "I am dust and ashes" [Bereshis 18:27]. In the other pocket he must place the sentence "For my sake the world was created" [Sanhedrin 37a]."

Sometimes G-d feels so close that I know that G-d has me in the palm of his hand, just like in Psalm 145, which we recite every day as a central part of the afternoon prayer -- "You open your Hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." G-d feels that close. Closer, really, because of that mind-blowing realization that our bodies and everything we sense is made of G-d. And then, soon enough, sometimes even in the next moment, the very idea of G-d seems silly, because how can those old folks drowned in their beds, little kids buried in earthquake rubble, dying as their lungs are violently crushed, be in G-d's palm at all? We can't contain the opposites comfortably.

It's like the last chapter in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes)and the way it ends -- "fear God and keep His commandments" after warning the young person how they will get old and stop desiring women and return to dust. It was to serve God that we were created, and it is only through doing this we can find meaning in life. When we are confronted by suffering and hunger in this world we must "partner" with G-d. We must be Her eyes and arms and legs and ears in this world. That is why we were created.

Bright Eyes -- Road to Joy

A wonderful, wonderful day. We have thunder and lightning and rain right now, clouds gray with rain, and I am so lucky to have my window view.

There was also thunder and lightning from 1am until 3:30am or so this morning, and while it was easy to get back to sleep each time, I kept waking up. In my half-asleep state, I was trying to remember which blessing to say over which phenomenon, "who makes the world of creation" vs "for his strength and power fill the universe." It made for odd dreams, especially since I watched the movie Constantine last night and its simplistic reading of Job worked its way into my dreams a bit as well.

But there's lots to do today, so I am going to go do it. Happy Monday!

Ayub Ogada -- Obiero

I love this music -- Ayub Ogada is a guy from West Kenya that sings and plays a particular kind of lute called a nyatiti, that's apparently a really ancient instrument. Anyway, it's really nice. I have no idea what he's singing, but it's very soothing.

Over the years, I've developed a nice collection of "world" music. My sophisticated method? I blindly buy albums on the Real World label. If it has that stripe of colors along the side, I buy it. It's a lame way to pick music, but it's worked so far. Some of the best album art ever is on Real World album covers.

So hey! On Yom Kippur I afflicted my soul...I didn't eat or drink or bathe or work. However, I wore leather shoes, and I decided not to afflict my girlfriend's nose, so I did brush my teeth in the morning.

Speaking of which, I really got an appreciation for the traditional mechitza (the barrier separating men and women in Orthodox synagogues) yesterday. Our synagogue, of course, doesn't have one. And when I was a teenager and going to morning services, it wasn't an issue, because women never went. (If there had been a teenage girl at morning services, though, perhaps I'd have kept going rather than dropping out after a while...)

But I could see how I was getting so easily distracted with women about.... the older women behind us were commenting on the services the whole time, my girlfriend and her friend were talking from time to time, teen girls were getting in and out of their seats... it was distracting for me. And of course, once you are conscious of being distracted, EVERYTHING was distracting. Now, I am a straight guy. Honestly, I can't remember any guys in the synagogue besides the rabbi and cantor on the bimah, and there were hundreds there. But I can remember all the women and teenage girls and where they sat and what they were wearing, that one blonde sitting on the aisle a couple rows back that was wearing profoundly inappropriate fishnets, the girl in front of me who was actually studying for the GRE the whole service... . Of course, the traditional rabbinical line seems to be how easy it is for weak men to be distracted by pure and holy women, so we need to stick the barrier up so we can pray without the distraction of all that female stuff.

And this sucks in a way, because I don't want my girlfriend and her daughter excluded from anything. But there are also surely benefits to women when they are able to be with each other and not burdened by being distracted by men. We have all seen how girls often do better in school without the distraction of boys. Currently, there is lots of attention being paid to womens' practice, like all the Rosh Chodesh groups being started up. And we see a small but growing number of feminists find great power and freedom in supposedly sexist practices like muslim headcoverings and Orthodox Jewish "modest" dress, because they are free to be themselves and be judged on who they are, not their body.

Also, another possible benefit is that you emphasize community when you have the men with the men and the women with the women. Honestly, I tend to stay joined to my girlfriend's hip -- I'd be a lot more likely to meet and mingle and get to know guys at synagogue if I were just with guys.

This is all speculation, and I don't see myself in a shul with a mechitza any time soon, but I can understand the reasons in a way I never have before. Who knows. I could be wrong.

Services were good, but by the middle of the afternoon yesterday I had a killer headache and was really grumpy. When it was all over, and we were at our friend's house for break-the-fast, I got a cup of coffee and enjoyed the act of drinking, and then I piled a plate full of kugel and eggs and bagel and tomato and onion and I reconnected with the wonders of food. And within fifteen minutes, I was SO happy. We had a nice time seeing folks we only see a couple times a year on big holidays. It was so nice, sitting at tables under the stars, seeing everyone illuminated in candlelight, all us modern mostly-secular Jews still fasting and celebrating together.

And then when we got home, I did the bedtime Shema and had a great night's sleep...

And now Shabbat is on us and I haven't got hardly anything done. It's amazing how fast time flies. Everyone have a good Shabbat.

An Easy Fast....

Well, I have to get home so we can eat our festive meal before sunset, and then it's Kol Nidre. I love fasting, and I'm looking forward to going all night and all day tomorrow without eating or drinking, just because I can (with G-d's help!). And as odd as it seems, I really like Yom Kippur as a holiday. I love the prayers, how evern the Reconstructionist synagogue we go to will have a long, long service with the proper prayers and shofar.

A friend of my girlfriend has a break-fast at her place every year with wonderful breakfast food and lots of people, so it'll be nice.

So an easy fast to all, and may you be inscribed in all the good books.

Gillian Welch -- I Dream a Highway

Podcast Outlaws is an useful site. They review podcasts you may not never have found on your own.

This whole Jewish thing is depressing me today. If I had grown up in some average American Reform or Conservative synagogue I wouldn't be feeling angst. I'd be happy with my level of (non)observance and not irritable. But with my odd upbringing, I have been for the past 27 years, in one way or another, trying to find my way into some sort of Jewish practice and not judge myself for not being perfect and not judge half the Jews I run into for silly reasons that have to do more with my insecurity than anything else. Either I'm not accepting of them or they're not accepting of me or they are too easily accepting, or they are not practicing enough, or they are too Zionist, or they are too anti-Zionist.

Perhaps in 5766 I won't commit every single one of the 44 sins of the Al Chet. A cursory glance tells me I've commited a lot today alone --- impure speech, foolish talk, scoffing, evil talk, prattle of our lips, glance of the eye, casting of the yoke, passing judgment, tale-bearing...

It's like the quote says:

"A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man's soul and his own stomach; a pious Jew worries about his own soul and his fellow man's stomach." – Rabbi Israel Salanter

I have been way too worried about judging everyone else's behavior and opinions and not enough about controlling my own behavior respecting other opinions. I have to really work on myself this year.

Bob Marley -- Easy Skanking

I was listening to this song this morning, standing in gorgeous gold sunlight, standing on a streetcorner and waiting for the light to change. Then, from my right, I saw five bombsquad trucks with lights flashing coming down the street, and I started to hear the sirens over the music. They went down a block before pulling to a stop outside some skyscraper or another. An unattended bag, I'm sure.

Something about Bob saying

Take it easy.
Excuse me while I light my spliff,
Oh, god, I gotta take a lift,
From reality I just can’t drift,
That’s why I am staying with this riff...

while the bomb squad rolled by... something about it was just sublime. It was magic.

So, Rastafarians have their spliff and Jews have their Shabbat, and I plan on getting totally lifted tonight with my daughter. We're gonna light the Shabbat candles and cuddle up and read and relax and ascend from weekday reality into cosmic reality, man....

Gut Shabbos!

Franz Ferdinand -- I'm Your Villan

You know, terrorists are so stupid. New York has this subway alert. Fox News says "A NYPD source told FOX News that the threat involved 19 suitcase bombs to be placed in the subway system."

These terrorists are going to stick out so easily. In London they were smart enough to use backpacks. Suitcases? No one uses suitcases anymore... --

Beatles -- I'm Only Sleeping

This is in my top five Lennon songs. I have no idea from time to time what other songs are up there, besides Julia, but those two are always in my top whatever Lennon songs.

I have been listening to Beatles all day... I just spent two hours with a coworker visiting from Denver... we were sitting here in my cubicle running reports all different ways to get data on a particular account-- my head hurts from the number crunching and account-specific questions--- but we listened to a lot of great songs while doing it.

You know, 5766 is a kickass year so far! I am getting enough sleep, I am being more focused than in 5765, my yetzer tov is totally ruling over my yetzer hara, I am praying... and it's almost the 3rd of Tishrei already! And I get to go and pick up my daughter now, so it's hard to get any better. :-)

Beatles -- Something

You know how George Harrison was just reaching his creative peak with "Something" and put out the amazing All Things Must Pass after the breakup (well, except for the jams on the last side) and then went downhill with increasingly goofy songs?

I keep wanting to make statements or arguments about this, tie it to some larger observation, but I can't figure out why the thought popped into my head. I love the song so much. It's one of the best guitar solos ever.

The Magic Numbers -- Mornings Eleven

This song is so damn catchy that when I played it in the car for only the second time, my daughter started singing along. When I wondered aloud how she'd already heard the song (I never listen to the radio, so I have no idea whether the music I listen to is getting radio play or featured on some ad or something) she said "No, you've played this song, like, ten times already!" I hadn't. I had just played it once. It's just that the chorus is so damn catchy and the song has tempo changes that reinforce the catchy chorus so well, that one time really sticks with you.

So. It's 5766 already. And I hardly got anything achieved in 5765 at all! But last year I was so unprepared for Rosh Hashana, and I didn't take off work. And on Yom Kippur I fasted but I worked. So this year, I'm taking off work, I'm going to services, I'm doing the whole thing. Well, not really. I'm going to wear my leather shoes and belt. I'm not wearing white. I'm not walking to shul. But I'm farther along the path than I was last year. It's painfully slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

So to everyone out there, L'shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem!

Thomas Dolby -- Radio Silence

OK. This is NOT the album I bought in 1982. When "Europa and the Pirate Twins" and "Radio Silence " came out I bought the original US release of The Golden Age of Wireless, which had a much better album cover-- Thomas Dolby standing on a stage with some sort of Jules Verne machinery behind him, and it was all golden. The album was a wonderful, wonderful thing. I played it to death. Radio Silence was especially cool to me, with the bizarre lyrics "Oh to paint her eyes of red, and her lips of blue/carve her likeness on the mast, Caroline 452/When they come to call for her, I will be there too" sung with such urgency you knew it was important, whatever it meant. And then, in the best part, there was Lena Lovich doing a mantra, chanting "Try to think of nothing" over and over again.

But every song was cool. Many of them tied in specifically to the wireless/technology theme. And it was a masterwork of synth stuff. This was one of the best albums of the new wave period. Then Dolby ruined the whole thing. Because then he did "She Blinded Me with Science." And that song became so big that they re-released the album, changing the album art, the song order, tossing great songs to stick in other songs, and even putting in a dorkier version of "Radio Silence." Dolby had a rock sensibility to him (he played rhythm guitar on Foreigner's Four album) and a funk sensibility, and the two sensibilities were balanced on The Golden Age of Wireless. Then his dorky funk sensibility won out, and I never bought anything of his again.

But at the time, I didn't care, because I had the original version of the album, and all was well. And then I lent the album to Fernanda Murillo.

Fernanda was one of the girls with whom I was in love in high school. I would make friends with girls and develop crushes and mope about in love with them like a dork. So anyway. She misplaced the album somewhere. And I never got it back.

After high school, I went to college and Fernanda went into the Army and became a medic. I once sent her a care package of clove cigarettes. She wrote back that the other soldiers hadn't ever smelled cloves -- some thought it was pot. (My first cigarette was a clove cigarette I smoked at the Balboa Pier at night with a gaggle of friends... I loved smoking cloves, especially at night by the ocean.)

I saw Fernanda a few times over the next few years, but we lost touch. A few years later, around 1990, I drove down her street and her parent's house, and all the other old bungalows on the street, had been replaced with an apartment complex.

Maybe she helped her parents empty out the house before they moved out and left the house to the wrecking ball. Maybe she found the album. Maybe she keeps it on a high shelf, safely out of the reach of her kids, in case she runs into me again. In the meantime, I hope she keeps it in its protective plastic sleeve, because it's valuable.

John Lennon -- Woman

I think I'm going to talk about artists and albums for a while.


Double Fantasy was the first album I ever bought. And it was the only album I ever returned for a refund.

I was 15, and it was early 1981, and John was dead. I knew John had been a Beatle, but that was it. I didn't know most Beatle songs. My mom loved "Something" and she had the single. So I knew that song, and the B side, "Come Together," but I don't remember knowing other Beatles. I was just not clued into music that wasn't on Top Forty.

I had heard "Starting Over" and "Woman" on the radio, and I really liked them. So I went to our local K-Mart and bought the album. I took it home, and I was horrified. What the heck was this Yoko Ono DOING? I had bought an album that was half great songs and half screaming! I was terrified! I put the record back in its sleeve and back into the cover and I went right back to K-Mart to return the album. The manager said I could exchange it. But I didn't know any other music, certainly none I wanted to buy. At that moment, the only other thing I wanted to buy was Beatles stuff, and they didn't have any. After looking around for a while I asked the manager to please give me a refund because there wasn't anything else I wanted. He acquiesed, and I went home.

I ended up not buying any Beatles music for many years, because those of you old enough will remember that the radio stations at that time ended up having Beatles-on-the-brain and had weekends where they played every single Beatles album. So I taped almost all the albums off the radio. For almost two years after that, I pretty much only listened to Beatles and new wave stuff on KROQ. It was late 1982 before I bought another album.

I felt really bad that I hated Yoko's "songs," too. I wanted to like her music. I didn't know anything about her at the time, except that she was John's wife, and he loved her very much. I could tell that from the cover. And I look kind of like John Lennon from the side when I am kissing my woman.

A tangential Beatles-related thing --- I and my brother and sister exist because my mom picked up my dad from across a crowded club in Germany by mouthing the words to "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" while looking suggestively at him and gesturing. It worked. I exist because of the Beatles. No wonder they are the musical yardstick by which I measure everything else.

David Bowie -- Looking for Water

David Bowie is the coolest. I've been thinking that for 23 years.

I didn't like Let's Dance when it came out. And I didn't know any older Bowie. I was a senior in high school and taking community college classes at the same time. I took an archeology class that involved doing excavation out in the desert. So one weekend, we're sitting around a campfire with kangaroo rats lurking in the shadows, and one older student is singing and accompanying himself on guitar. Blah, blah, whatever. Then he sings "Space Oddity." I'd never heard the song before in my life. It was amazing!



I bought the Changes One compilation immediately thereafter. I then gave my friend Russ Changes One as a gift. He loved Space Oddity so much he made a 90 minute cassette tape of just Space Oddity over and over again, and he listened to that tape for weeks. Anyway. So it's been Bowie ever since.

There's no other performer I like as much. When he comes out with new stuff, I buy it right away. Ten years or so ago, when Outside came out, I and a small caravan of Bowie fans drove from record shop to record shop in my town on the day the album was released until we found a shop that had it in stock. I'm not always able to be at the record store the day the albums come out, but usually it's within a couple days. Then I play it to death.

I have dreams about David Bowie from time to time. Usually he's staying as a houseguest and we get to hang out.

David Bowie is also the one performer I can think of where I actually have an aversion to seeing him in concert. I've never gone to see him perform, and I don't think I ever will. I HATE his live renditions of his songs. It's unfair of me, but there you go.

Joe Strummer -- Minstrel Boy

Earlier today I posted a great entry. Wow, it was awesome. It tied in novelist Anchee Min's experience of America (where she can be more Chinese than she was in China) with the farcical "anti-war" marches of this weekend and bemoaned the Left's loss of vision and embrace of isolationism, and how it reflected the Left's failure to believe in its own ideas anymore (with the exeption of Christopher Hitchens). Finally, it argued that true advocates for Palestinian rights in the West Bank and Gaza do not belong to groups like Peace Now, because Peace is not possible now. Peace will only be possible when Palestinians have civil rights and an effective and corruption-free government, and that anyone who cares about Palestinians can NOT support peace now, because there is not an infrastructure and an effective government in place to allow for peace.

And then something Bad happened and I lost the whole post. But trust me. Woo! It was a great one.

Shearwater -- The Ice Covered Everything

It's Shabbat again already. I think I got a few important things done this week. Maybe next week I'll try for a few more.

If I was a single-minded person, I'd stay focused on waste and corruption in Washington. Because if enough people get mad about it, maybe things will change.

But with a daughter who is becoming a teenager, I am worried about women and body image, and so my focus is on the Kate Moss debacle. Not because I care about Kate Moss or fashion models, but because I am angry at the nasty hypocrisy of the media and fashion industry. Moss has been using all sorts of drugs for years, and now she is tossed out on her ear because she was caught snorting on film? There are two facts that are clear:

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR HEALTHY PEOPLE TO LOOK LIKE FASHION MODELS.

FASHION MODELS AREN'T HEALTHY.

(Sure, we have "plus size" models. Recently, there was an uproar over Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and its "real" models. The company's ads feature attractive women with attractive bodies of different shapes and sizes. Sure, Dove is selling stuff, but the message is a good one -- beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. But this very message was drowned out by negative comments, because our perception of beauty has become so skewed and narrow that the average American apparently thinks that the average American -- themselves! -- is just unappealing and unattractive, and that beauty is a rare quality possessed only by fashion models and certain movie actresses.

Anyone with half a brain knows that for models to stay unnaturally thin, they must be doing unnatural things. The phrase "heroin chic" MEANS something, people. The fashion and music industries are fueled by legal and illegal stimulants and depressives of all kinds, and no one cares as long as the results are good. Our culture accepts and endorses drug use, as long as you hold it together.

LA's Stew (the best damn singer/songwriter in America, dangit) says in the last line of "Re-hab,"

When she got out of re-hab for the twenty-second time
her new take on life was very deep and empty
she traded mainline for online then she took up web design
now she's paid in full and blows the horn of plenty
once she said "hey listen baby I ain't gonna lie
there just ain't nothing I like more than getting high"
and funny how the maniacs who took the time to sob
seem to not mind a junkie with a well paying job--

Or as David Lee Roth and many other people have said "I used to have a drug problem, but now I make enough money." Because no one has a drug problem unless one has to get a fix and is reduced to prostitution or theft to get the money.

Or as Cher says in the great 90s film Clueless "It is one thing to spark up a dubie and get laced at parties, but it is quite another to be fried all day." Because it's OK to USE drugs, just not ABUSE drugs.

And how do you know the difference? Well, it's all how you carry yourself. It's a matter of poise and class. A model ought to do everything with style, with her body and hair and clothes just so. Kate Moss committed the worst crime possible. She was caught doing something properly kept private and discreet, sure -- this IS a great crime in America (and the reason Clinton was impeached). But worse than that, Kate Moss the fashion model, someone who must have poise and style and grace at all times, was caught in the most tacky poses possible, snorting with no sense of panache or style. She made cocaine and its users seem crass, dirty, and pathetic. And this, my friends, not the fact that she uses, it what the fashion companies could not stand.

The Jam -- Start!

So. Russ Feingold for President, anybody? I am not a Democrat and so can't vote in the primaries, but I wanted to toss that out there. After hearing him in the Roberts hearings and reading why he voted to confirm Roberts, I am impressed by how he operates from a position of principle.

At least, can we all agree that it's Obama as the VP? We could all save some time and just fill that position right away. We could have bumper stickers, _______/Obama 2008!

I have no idea why I am thinking so politically lately. Oh, yeah. Eric at Jewsinalabama.com. That's why. I try to stay away from politics because my candidates lose elections. Except for Clinton/Gore, I've never supported winners... I don't want to get my hopes up. But seriously. __________/Obama 2008!

Arcade Fire -- Wake Up

Usually the songs I happen to be listening to while typing these entries don't mesh well with the subject matter. But today, "Wake Up" fits rather well.

Someone like John McCain, who is really a mainstream Republican, comes off as a real maverick these days, what with his insistence that the government cannot spend oodles of money for Katrina without finding it somewhere. McCain thinks the place to look is in porkbarrelcrap like Alaska's infamous "bridge to nowhere," a $223 million dollar project to build a bridge as long as the Golden Gate Bridge to connect an island of 50 with the town of Ketchikan, which only has 8,000 people. They already have a ferry that leaves every fifteen minutes and takes five minutes to cross. This is a pathetic abuse of power by AK representative Don Young, and you can read all about it in this USAToday piece.

And, of course, the real story here is not that Don Young is evil. Don Young is just playing the game by the rules. And Democrats play it just as hard as Republicans. And they play it all to the detriment of the country. No one really voted for that porkbarrel, or any of the other billions of dollars in our budget going to fund bizarre projects like this that help a few contractors get rich and screw everyone else in the country. These items get passed into law via "earmarks" in huge massive bills so large that NOT ONE OF THE REPRESENTATIVES WHO VOTES FOR THE BILL EVER READS IT. The system, my friends, is broken. We need billions for Katrina damage and we have no easy way to find the money. The president won't raise taxes on the rich, Congress won't do anything meaningful to reduce costs, and people like McCain who want to be fiscally responsible are far and few between.

I never know where I fit exactly politically -- I vacillate between libertarian and libertarian-socialist poles, I think. Optimally, I'd be living in a kibbutz 60 years ago, with workers in charge and long and involved discussions over everything. I know that the kibbutz movement is dying. I'm not sure if it's because it was an unworkable idea or that too few Israelis tried it. Anyway. I gotta work.

Tim Finn -- Subway Dreaming

Dave of Israellycool has a good bunch of information and obits on Simon Wiesenthal, who just died.... and as he reminds us -- one of the most important blessings is the one when we hear such news -- Baruch Dayan Ha-emet. Simon Wiesenthal is one of the few people I think we really KNOW made a difference, a real tzaddik. He made sure people never forgot the Holocaust and he made countries and individuals be accountable. I think today's "truth commissions" in places like South Africa are due to the way Wiesenthal insisted that the injustices of the past had to be dealt with and confronted. He made his whole life about seeking justice for the 11 million plus victims of the Nazis.

The Wiesenthal Center & Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles is a strong lasting testament to his work, and to his viewpoint on the Holocaust.

The LA Times has a great quote from Wiesenthal -- 'The great things in life are never done by normal people. They're done by crazy people.' May all of us find ourselves touched with at least a little craziness, so we can do great things.

Common -- It's Your World

Hey. Thunder and lightning last night and this morning, and a little rain. Very cool. I am a thunder and lightning fool. There are specific blessings for both, but I couldn't very well get out my siddur while driving to look up the blessings, and I haven't been very good at memorizing blessings I don't use all the time. Of course, now I have my siddur out and my blessings ready, nothing is happening outside. Well, the clouds are appropriately puffy and gray, it's misting, but no thunder or lightning.

The blessing for lightning is Baruch atah adonai elohenu melech ha'olam, oseh ma'aso bereshit." Blessed are you, Hashem our G-d, ruler of the Universe, who makes the work of creation.

Thunder is "Baruch atah adonai elohenu melech ha'olam, se'cocho ug'vurato maley olam." Blessed are you, Hashem our G-d, ruler of the Universe, for Her strength and power fill the universe.

If a rainbow comes out, I have that blessing ready, but I can't sound it out properly, let alone transliterate it here! Luckily, my building faces West, and any rainbows happening for the remainder of the day will be to the East...

I just ate banana bread for lunch. My girlfriend's daughter made it last night. Very good stuff. But I'm still hungry, and the only food I have beyond a single box of raisins is supposed to be part of my earthquake kit.

Speaking of which, now I have my earthquake supplies together, can we please have the earthquake, already? We have several earthquake faults lurking under downtown, and it's just a matter of time before we have The Big One, and I'd rather we had it now, thank you very much, because the next few years are going to be very busy for me with graduate school and my daughter being in high school and all that.

Kanye West -- Touch the Sky

The Shabbat Bride is almost here. You can hear the rustle of Her dress, smell the spices in her perfume.

You know, I am terrible about getting my butt to shul and I have all sorts of excuses for it. But Friday night I get a bit closer to doing what I am supposed to do with Shabbat. And I really love the language of Lecha Dodi, phrases like

Shake off the dust, arise, don your splendid clothes, my people...

and

Awaken, awaken, for your light has come, rise and be bright, awake, awake, utter a song, the glory of the Lord is upon you revealed...

because the "glory of the Lord" is basically being with your family and friends and really paying attention to them, eating your best food on your best china and enjoying each other's company. And even when the teenagers are set on going out, you can usually get them to wait until after the blessings and the candles and the dinner, and there really is something like the Shabbat bride with us, some tiny little imagining of the perfection of the world to come, whether it comes in this world or the next.

My daughter is with her mom this week, and I miss her -- she loves fire, and she loves to light the shabbat candles. So Shabbat Shalom to everyone.

X - I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

The Roberts confirmation hearings are lots of fun. I loved constitutional law, so it's nice to be reminded of that class. More importantly, the Democrats are suffering for their huge failure to connect with American voters. Everyone knew, before the hearings started, that there was no reason for Roberts to give too much up in the way of substantive answers.

And why? Because Republicans don't need Democrats' votes, because Democrats are losing seats to Republicans, because Republicans are better at connecting with voters, because Republicans have a soul, a central organizing ideal, around which everything else flows. Voters see a Republican and they see someone who built a platform on a foundation of religion (even the low-taxes bit is religious in origin, from the 1800s economic darwinist movement thing popularized by Protestants).

Democrats are, on the other hand, a party currently consisting of people running around with planks and trying to build a platform without agreeing on the foundation and shape and building materials. Issues galore have the Democrats, but no discernable central theme or soul. And this is why Democrats are so frustrated today. Because John Roberts is, from what I can see, a good old fashioned conservative, someone whose highest allegiance is to a single ideal --the law, and they have no way to relate to that. Because the best they have is an allegiance to a bunch of positions -- gay marriage, affirmative action, wetlands protection. There is no central ideal at the core of their being.

That being said, my favorite bit from the hearings so far is the funny bit from Charles Schumer:

It's as if I asked you: What kind of movies do you like? Tell me two or three good movies. And you say, I like movies with good acting. I like movies with good directing. I like movies with good cinematography.
And I ask you, No, give me an example of a good movie. You don't name one. I say, Give me an example of a bad movie.
You won't name one. Then I ask you if you like
Casablanca, and you respond by saying, Lots of people like 'Casablanca.'
You tell me it's widely settled that Casablanca is one of the great movies.

Because it illustrates Schumer's frustration, appropriately illustrates the way Roberts won't be direct in his answers, and shows the important idea of movie preferences being Important. Our favorite movies are supposed to be windows into our souls, hints at our unique perspective and experience of the world. I'm not sure how true it is, but Roberts actually replied to Schumer by saying his favorite movies are Dr Zhivago and North by Northwest. So now thousands of movie buffs are probably trying to tease some hint at Roberts' inner life from these movies... since I never saw one and saw the other only once, I am useless in this regard.

But at the end of the day, it's obvious that Bush nominated someone who can do the job, and no one can argue with that. If the Democrats want to make nominees give them more answers and reassure them, and if Democrats want to have justices that suit their ideas, Democrats have to win more elections. And until they get a soul that burns as bright in their hearts as the Republican's soul burns in theirs, that isn't going to happen.

Silver Scooter -- Terrorism Lover

First off, this song predates the Eleventh of September, 2001. Unfortunately, Silver Scooter broke up years ago.

Secondly, when are we going to start the Revolution? I just read a review of The Republican War on Science and I am itching to get started. Just when I decide that I'm being immature, and that a bloody revolution will cause more harm than good, I am reminded of just where our country is headed if drastic action is not taken. There will be no scientific advances in the US if Republicans stay in power, because there is an evil axis of fundamentalists and business working to undermine science. From global warming to secondhand smoke to evolution, Republicans are manufacturing "controversy" where none really exists. No longer content to attack the legitimacies of policies based on science, they are attacking the science itself.

Last year I prayed that the American people wake up soon, so we could vote the crazy idiots out of office, but we had huge numbers of scientists endorse Kerry and decry Bush's hostility towards science, and the American people showed they didn't care by voting for Bush anyway.

So if a slim majority of Americans are idiots, how can we change things? Well, only around a third of Americans supported the American Revolution. Another third were firmly in the English camp, and a third basically were too busy to care much. If we can get ten percent of Americans to really give a crap about the future of our country, we can leverage our numbers and convince those who we can convince to join our cause. And then we can try winning the 2008 elections. And if that doesn't work, we can find our course of action laid out in the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

A newspaper reporter said of Emma Goldman that he agreed with everything she said, and that her only problem was that she was 8000 years ahead of her time. For anarchy, perhaps, but I hope we don't have to wait that long for intelligent leadership.

At core, all this comes down to my faith -- or lack of faith -- in my American brothers and sisters. Maybe it's a lost cause, and my future lies in making aliyah, like Israelisms' Carol and Charley talked about today. Or maybe when I have been in Israel for a decade or so, I'll agitate for Revolution there, as well. But no Che posters, please.

Beethoven -- Symphony #7

An hour or so after I made my last blog entry and talked about being really conscious of how important it was to be prepared, Los Angeles lost power. It started in waves. At first, we lost SOME power -- the lights were out, but the computers and network were still working. Then all power was gone, except for the emergency lights, which were powered by our building's backup generator. We waited around for a few minutes, until the security folks told us that all of downtown was without power, and then we all walked down the ten flights of stairs and went home for the day. I got to my girlfriend's house, fixed all the clocks, and watched the newscasters say the silliest things while the helicopter cameras filmed backed-up traffic at non-functioning intersections.

Within a couple hours, everyone had power back, but it was rather eerie before we knew the cause of the blackout. Another reminder for me to work on my emergency/earthquake supplies.

I love that a single person mistakenly cutting a cable caused millions of people to lose power on their own. It's great to know that one person really can make a difference in America.

Common - Love Is...

That Assam the American guy and his taped threat against Los Angeles have gotten everyone in my little group a bit more aware of our need to have supplies at our desks, either for earthquake or terrorism or flood or fire. It's always a bit disconcerting to have helicopters buzzing about nearby, a little more so now, as conversation often turns to idle speculation of how terrorists would attack which targets in LA (Hollywood studios? Financial District hi-rises? Dodger Stadium?) and how they'd do it (planes? poisoning water supply? truck bombs? subway bombs?).

But enough serious stuff-- I have mostly ignored hiphop or have been turned off by it, especially the vapid materialist tilt everything has taken--the Benz and Courvoisier and Rolex and Marc Jacobs, rims and woodgrain, blah blah blah. The narrative seems to be that one day, kids get ahold of a Barneys catalog, and then realize that their lives won't be complete until they are wearing $10,000 in clothing and accessories. In need of $10,000 quick, they naturally turn to selling drugs and pimping in order to get the stuff. And now, they have the bling. And we get to hear about it and see it, and it's all the worst of American consumerism. There's no soul.

Of course, this is totally unfair, because there's more to hiphop than what you see on MTV. I listen to dozens of new CDs a year and rarely do any of them get more than college radio airplay, and I would never judge the state of indie rock based on MTV or the local rock station, but I've done it with hiphop.

Then this weekend, I decided to give Kanye West a listen, honestly because of his "George Bush doesn't care about black people" fame, and I liked a lot of the songs.

And then I listened to Common's Be album. The whole CD is cohesively built around the idea of be-ing, loving the life you are living, and the intro starts out with a little litany of social and political problems and then

Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'ma learn through her
The Messiah might even return through her
If I'ma do it, I gotta change the world through her

which is, of course (except for the whole Messiah returning thing) just what every father has to feel at some point or another, and I knew that this was someone I could listen to. It's a great CD. So there's probably this whole niche of hiphop, or particular songs on CDs I'd like, and I think I'll listen to more.

Back to work!

King Crimson -- Exiles

So, it's a nice day. I worked, of all things, doing important stuff I haven't been able to focus on recently, and caught up on my This American Life listening.

Every time I drive to my g/f's house I drive by the ocean, and there's a particular mood that I often get into. This poem is one attempt to try and capture it....

McClure Tunnel

When PCH becomes the 10
the road curves away from the ocean
from South to East.
It’s like going from your bicep to your forearm
and the McClure tunnel is where your elbow is.
Some people honk in the tunnel
but I generally pray
for good traffic on the freeway ahead.

And somedays I get it. Just the other day
I was blessed. I did 80 the whole way.
The other drivers and I
filled with gratitude
grinned at each other
basking in the goodness
God had bestowed on us.
It was grace. We knew we deserved gridlock
but God gave us mostly empty lanes.

Today we got what we deserved.
We slouched down in our seats
feeling God’s condemnation in each stalled car
and accident blocking our way.

But it’s OK. We’ll do better, be nicer, work harder.
We’ll redeem ourselves, return to God.
And when I go home, it’s like a sign of good things
as I move from westbound 10 though the tunnel
to northbound PCH with the ocean sparkling
to the left with joggers and skaters on the boardwalk
and surfers in the water and it’s all golden.

The Arcade Fire -- No Cars Go

I had avoided playing The Arcade Fire for my daughter. She's in her hiphop and R&B thing right now, and I don't want to make her listen to my stuff all the time. It's not that I never do -- there are certain songs I have to share with her, and which she loves, like ELO's "Mr Blue Sky," T Rex's "Cosmic Dancer," and The Polyphonic Spree's "Soldier Girl." But I have been keeping The Arcade Fire to myself. I'm afraid, if I were to play Funeral for her and she hated it, I'd be really guilty, like my playing it for her deprived her of discovering them and liking them -- perhaps she'd have liked them if only I'd let her find them on her own later, in her own time. So I have resisted the urge to do a "Listen to this!!" and make her listen.

However, last weekend, we were in the car at night, and I had my iPod on shuffle, and "No Cars Go" came on. And she was sitting in the backseat and I could see in the rearview that her head was bobbing to the music. So tonight, I showed her the "Power Out" and "Rebellion" videos, and I played her "Tunnels" and "Laika." And while "Laika" was playing I played imaginary drumsticks all over the place like Richard Parry does, just to give her an idea of the energy when they played live, and then proceeded to play imaginary drumsticks all over her head and shoulders, and then I lifted her out of her chair and made her pogo dance with me until she pulled away in protestation, "Dad! Why do you get to jump?!" (Because I am always reminding her, when she jumps or runs indoors, that we live upstairs and must be considerate of our downstairs neighbors.) To which I replied, grinning and bouncing up and down and waving my hands in the air in a way that must have made me look even goofier than usual, "It's OK! It's The Arcade Fire!" And in that moment, as I jumped around the room, half in my apartment and half back at the concert, that sentence made perfect sense.

And later on, when she came to me with her written wishlist of songs she wants me to put on her iPod, it read

Weezer - Beverly Hills
Mariah Carey - Shake it Off & We Belong Together
Aqualung - Brighter than Sunshine
All American Rejects - Dirty Little Secret
Missy Elliot - Lose Control
Fall Out Boy - Sugar We're Going Down
PapaRoach - Scars
The Killers - Mr Brightside
Destiny's Child - Girl

and then she said, "Oh. And those two songs you played me." Which was confusing, because I had played about eight for her.

"Which two songs?"

"The HEY one."

"No Cars Go?"

"Yeah. And the one with the video."

"With the funeral?"

"Yeah. With the guy and the drum."

"Rebellion. OK."

Hah! This feels like Good Parenting to me.

Sufjan Stevens - Casimir Pulaski Day

It's almost Shabbat! It's a nice and cool overcast day. It's like Fall is getting ready to move into the neighborhood. She found a nice house and her offer was accepted, and now she's checking out the neighborhood and finding the nearest cleaners and Chinese restaurant while she waits for escrow to close.

I feel terrible complaining about things that are totally my fault, but I have terrible acid today. And I have known it for days, and while I have eaten some good food for it, I have also eaten terrible food for it, like pineapple and stuff that's hard to digest, and all the time I have known I SHOULD be eating ONLY mild stuff like a kitchari of lentils and rice. This weekend I promise myself I'll eat well. No wine for me, no chocolate, no tomatoes... just boring food that I can handle, so my body calms down. Right now it's a total acid trip thing in my tummy, man. And this is emblematic of my problem staying on task and living consciously.

I also feel terrible complaining about things that are annoyances related to fancy gadgets that most people can't afford, but I can't help it. My car isn't going to be repaired for a few more weeks. I've been in a rental car that doesn't have a cassette player, so I can't use the cassette adapter to listen to my iPod in my car. So I bought an iTrip. And while it may work perfectly in rural America, where there are a few stations, in LA it's impossible to find an empty band on which I can broadcast my iPod to my stereo. Also, this rental car has a sucky antenna, I think. So listening to my iPod in the car is basically a mild form of torture.

This morning I was listening to the new Israelisms podcast. And I was on 87.9. And all of a sudden, I started getting interference from a Spanish-language evangelical broadcast. It only happens in certain areas, but I couldn't hear what Charley and Carol were saying. I figured, "Well, the antenna is in the back of the car, maybe if I put the iPod in the back the signal will get to the antenna better." So I put the iPod on the backseat, and that worked ok until the iPod slid into a different position and then it was all about Dios this and Christo that in the middle of Carol and Charley again. So then I reached back and got the iPod and paused it. Then I noodled around with the radio to find some empty air. I changed the frequency the iTrip broadcasted on, started up the podcast again... all while driving in stop-and-go traffic. You'd think that being rear-ended less than a month ago would make me a careful driver? Forget it! I had to fix this darn thing and listen to the podcast. I can't wait for my car to be fixed so I can go back to hassle-free iPod listening.

Look at my problems. Static and interference and acid tummy... thank God. Perhaps I have a very weak neshama, so God can't trust me with real problems, but thank God I have such problems.

Randy Newman -- Baltimore

OK. If there was any doubt that Bush is a "war president" and most assuredly not a "disaster president" we now have his most assured move post-Katrina: A Day of Prayer. When I heard him talk about us being a nation that prays, at first I thought he was saying "We are a nation that preys" and it made a lot more sense. I don't think we need to be reminded to pray. And I don't think we need Clinton and Bush Sr to remind us to donate money. We need the differnt parts of our government to function as a government. But it's awfully hard for the goverments that make up the most powerful country in history to act like it, because our elected officials are mostly idiots who are more afraid of appearing to look "socialist" than they are of thousands of dead American men, women, and little children. We live in a country where "government" is a dirty word, and we are told that corporations can do everything governments can do better, cheaper. And then comes Katrina to show us that perhaps we need government and infrastructure and a measure of central planning and control after all. But the concept is foreign to everyone in Bush's administration.

I love how Cheney is impressed by the recovery effort. You know, I don't give a crap what else happens--- on this one test alone we fail utterly in our claims to be a great nation -- the literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dead bodies left unclaimed and disrespected. We are a country that spends millions of dollars each year to send archeologists into Vietnam, Cambodia, and other places in an effort to locate and retrieve the bodies of MIA pilots and soldiers missing for over forty years. Here we have the bodies right there, right now. But we do not have the planning and the will to honor those who died with proper respect.

Anyway.

David Bowie -- 5:15 - Angels Have Gone

Great weekend! Woke up each day in a warm, dry bed, with my woman snug beside me and my daughter down the hall in her bed, safe and warm, and hot running water. Today my daughter is at work with me, and tomorrow she starts 7th grade.

Besides that, we ate some nice meals out and saw a great movie from a few years ago, Intacto.

The problems of action vs restraint and acceptance runs through everything in our lives. It's the central crisis for everyone (and especially for addicts, which is why The Serenity Prayer is so important). This is stuff that I think of all the time, and which is central to the idea of chance and luck, explored in this movie.

In the world of Intacto, some people are luckier than others, and part of this luck is their ability to touch other (unluckier) people and steal their luck. The lucky people don't know how it works, and need to have things explained to them. This character Federico seeks out survivors of car and plane crashes and other such things and teaches them how the luck thing works, for his own ends, of course. At the beginning of the movie we see a disloyal Federico get "de-lucked" by "The Jew" Samuel Berg (a wonderful Max Von Sydow), who started his lucky streak when he survived the Holocaust and is now known as "The King of Luck." People who are lucky engage in gambling contests to see who is luckiest, with the winner of these contests eventually coming to Berg's casino, where they try to defeat him. So Federico takes our plane-crash survivor Tomas and grooms him to take on Berg, in the hopes that he will defeat Berg. Very interesting take on luck and chance and fate.

And it is a good movie to see in connection with The Pianist because that movie also deals with survival in the Holocaust came down to chance.

Intacto also works as a movie for me because it deals with the crisis faced by the world and especially by Jews after the Holocaust in a tangential way. The Holocaust is referenced, but in the words of Samuel Berg, and even then, there is no reference to death. He and other people are in a room. Every day, someone's number is called and they leave the room. We can assume they have something terrible happen to them when they leave, but we are not given details. All we know is that he is the lucky person whose number is not called. In this way, we are able to contemplate the central crisis of the Holocaust without having brutal and sadistic torture and murder re-enacted.

We are dealing with this quandary of two seemingly incompatible ideas: a universe made by and of G-d, where everything is purpose, shot through with meaning because it IS g-d, every particle, although we may not discern G-d working through our lives, versus a universe ruled by chance, where our actions, our very lives, are nothing more than the result of a series of random collisions stretching back to the first random fractions of a second after the Big Bang. How to reconcile the two?

Rabbi Barry Shafier (in one of his Schmuz lectures available as a podcast)tells a story from Talmud of a particular really saintly guy who, when really sick from a lifetime of hunger and deprivation, had a vision where he talked to G-d. The tzaddik asked G-d if he'd finally be able to have enough to eat and drink. G-d basically responded "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to turn back the world to the beginning and let everything happen again, just in case this time, things shake out a bit differently so when you are born, you end up being better off and have a life where you have enough to eat and good health?" (And I have heard another Talmud story with a similar idea. Someone wants to be rich. G-d says "sure. Show me which person I should make poor so you can be rich.")

Mike Oldfield -- Hergest Ridge

"This is what happens when there's a natural disaster of this scope," [the first lady] said. "The poorer people are usually in the neighborhoods that are the lowest or the most exposed or the most vulnerable. Their housing is the most vulnerable to natural disaster. And that is just always what happens."

And we know WHY it happens. Because those in this country with the means to change things, to make housing safe for poor people, to deal in good faith with the people in our country who work the hardest, do nothing. They shrug their shoulders. They accept that rich people are rich, poor people are poor. Or they go further and declare that the rich are blessed by God, and the poor deserve their poverty. We can't let these people run our country any more. God, please help our country wake up.

David Bowie - Soul Love

New Orleans is starting to get to me.

Everyone with a rudimentary amount of interest in current affairs has known for years that New Orleans was going to end up in this situation eventually. Newspapers reported the danger. State and federal governments developed plans. Money was earmarked to work on solutions, and that money was diverted other places. Everyone knew that hundreds of thousands of people in the area would not have the financial wherewithal or the physical ablity to evacuate, and that they would need help. And yet, when New Orleans was hit, the worst case scenario unfolded. The head of FEMA blamed the people who didn't evacuate for their own plight. People who survived the hurricane are dying in the refugee camps. And this is just New Orleans. We have hundreds of thousands of other people in other states suffering as well. And as the weeks and months unfold, we may see terrible diseases and problems we don't even imagine now.

Many cities in America are waiting in line for their own disasters. Here in LA, we have several disasters that threaten us -- earthquake on top of the lis, obviously. If nothing else, this disaster shows us that we can't count on the government to help us after these disasters. Experts tell us we'll be on our own for a week or more after a major quake in Los Angeles. And we can see how this is playing out in New Orleans. I have a little earthquake kit in my car, but I don't have the supplies I'd need to live for days. I don't have anything at work in case I am at work when the earthquake hits.

I am not going to run out and get a gun, but for the first time, I see a real utility in having a firearm. When we get our major quake in LA, we will definitely have roving bands of armored gangs roaming the streets. And of course, they'll respect superior firepower, and that's it... oh, this is too depressing. The only fantasy I can spin to numb the intensity of despair over this disaster is LA's future disaster...

T. Rex -- Dove

I haven't said anything about Katrina. I don't feel capable of saying anything. I imagine myself stranded without a home and with only the soggy clothes I am wearing and I can handle that for about a second and it's all I can stand, and it gets to feel like holding my breath underwater, and I have to come back to reality of being safe and warm and dry and airconditioned, knowing my family is safe and warm, reasonably sure of our lives.

And while I sit here, hundreds of thousands of people can't even scrounge through what's left of their lives and salvage one or two keepsakes or items around which they can start their lives over, because even the pathetic wreckage of their lives is still underwater.

And of course, millions of people are still getting over the tsunami last year.

Fiery Furnaces -- Wolf Notes

Oh, I am having fun this evening, going from blog to blog, following commenter links to their pages and reading their stuff... I got interested in some kashrut question and googled up this page where I read:

Rabbi Yehudah Rosaries, of blessed memory, was asked if it is permissible to deal in mummies ("mumia" in Ladino) since human flesh is forbidden as food.

He replied that it is permissible. Since the flesh is completely dry and cannot be eaten, it is not forbidden to deal in them because the prohibition depends on the article being edible.

It is true that it is forbidden to derive any enjoyment or gain whatsoever from the flesh of a human corpse; therefore, it would be forbidden to deal in a mummy. However, this prohibition is only true of a Jewish corpse. Since there is a question as to whether the mummy was Jewish or gentile we follow the majority of the world and assume that the mummy was certainly a gentile.

Furthermore, where these mummies are found, Jews do not live. Therefore, it may be assumed that it is a pagan gentile and we are permitted to derive profit from the mummy.

Exciting, the world this evokes. Were there ancient and dusty shops tucked away in secret corners of marketplaces containing relics and strange treasures and mummies? Or mummy brokers traveling from city to city connecting mummy buyer with mummy seller?

Death Cab for Cutie -- Crooked Teeth

I like Death Cab's new CD Plans... so there.

My girlfriend is flying back to LA with two of her three girls. The third is staying in NY where she's now attending college. We're used to saying "the girls" for all three of her daughters, and now it's not really possible any more. One of "the girls" just grew up when we weren't looking, and my daughter is growing up as well.

It used to be, when my daughter was younger, people would say "Oh, she's getting so big!" and I'd reply something like "Well, yeah, they tend to do that when ya feed them, ya know..." but now I know why people always remark on how fast kids grow, how big they get, how fast. I know that next thing I know my girl won't be a girl anymore, that I won't see it happen, that she'll grow up when I close my eyes for a second.

And my girlfriend is a little sad, but not very, because her daughter has blossomed into what my girlfriend had hoped she'd become the whole time. Her sisters are going to miss her terribly, however and probably have a period of adjusting to her not being there. Their triad shrinks to a dyad.

OH. For reasons too complicated to go into here, I have a photo of a Tibetan Buddhist statue of Khadrubje. I can't remember if he is a lineage guru or a dharma protector or what. My Buddhist excoworker left him and Dorje Shugden here to watch over me. But Khadrubje sees the emptiness at the heart of all things. Next to him I have a photo of my girlfriend. And I can't see any emptiness in her at all, although she is mostly emptiness, I know. Oh, I dunno. Never mind.

MTV Video Music Awards... SUCK

I am so pissed off at MTV. Even more than usual. I almost threw the remote at the TV.

So we were sitting watching the Video Music Awards because my daughter wants to.

And I was ready to settle in for a night of being bored watching really bad outfits and poor lipsyncing. But then they talked about the movie Rize and how it documents the "Clowning" and "Crumping" styles of dancing that originated in LA over the last few years. So my ears perked up, because I'd heard about the movie and was interested in seeing what the dancing looked like.

So the dancers come out, including the guy who stared it all, Tommy the Clown. And this is pretty cool, because this guy single-handed started a whole new dance thing, where in gang areas, kids are able to get into the dancing and being left alone by the gangs because they respect the clowning and crumping groups. It's a real dance thing started in the streets by the kids in the streets, not a bullshit fad with millions of studio dollars behind it. Clowning and Crumping are basically the antithesis of MTV. The dancers are doing something that takes hip hop away from the hell it's currently in, where every star idolizes what's basically the lifestyle of rich retirees in Florida.

So the dancers being on TV is really big, because not many people saw Rize because it was in limited release. And not many people know about this stuff. This could be the way this genuinely hip hop form of expression breaks out all over the place. They start to dance, and I am excited to see the crazy energetic moves they are doing.

For about two seconds. And then MTV starts acting like MTV, cutting to the audience so we can see the reactions of celebrities to the dancers. Because that's what the average American, in the mind of MTV, wants to see --who wants to see the performers on the stage perform when we can watch the celebrities watch the performers? And then we back to the dancing for about a quarter of a second. And then back to another famous person. And then back to the dancers. And so it goes for about fifteen seconds, and that's the end of the vital, energetic, REAL hip hop of the evening. And no one knows anything more about Crumping and Clowing because back to everyone trying to look like really old rich people...

I don't know why I got angry. I mean, it's MTV. It's ALWAYS sucked. At least today there's music on MTV tonight. And my daughter's happy.

The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat

So. I haven't listened to The Fiery Furnaces before. It's my first time.

Oh, My God.

I have no idea what the hell to say so far. I know I'm going to listen to this again and again, but wow. What is this?

It's so far over the top and bizarre. It's about time someone came about and did something to make Tales of Topographic Oceans and Lamb Lies Down on Broadway seem like concise and immediately-accessible works. This is what I love about prog-rock. All the glorious excess of King Crimson or Genesis or Yes, but done in one's garage by a real brother and sister.

Truly Awe-some.

Blur - Optigan 1

About eight years ago, I was writing poetry all the time. If you google my name and poem or poetry, you'll find a couple handfuls of my poems published online. And then I stopped trying to get poems published, because it started to feel like a crass sort of game, and then I stopped writing as many poems. But I still write some. But now I generally write for my girlfriend alone. Like this one I just wrote to her --

My Sun-Maid Woman
-----------------

Here you are
wearing a big red bonnet
and holding a tray overflowing with green grapes.
The sun behind you bursts with joy
its rays spreading out
to embrace the world
much as you do.

And no one else would have
as many grapes as this
on their tray.
I, for instance
tried to find grapes
worthy of picking
but rejected most of them
because they were too green
or not green enough
too ripe
too hard
insect-eaten
dirt-spattered.

But you move
from vine to vine
see each grape
touch it gently
and each grape stretches
into perfection
under your loving hands.

lRt 8-25-2005

Dang, check this out

Dust Devils on Mars!What a cool little movie. This is one of the most exciting things I've ever seen.

David Bowie -- Looking for Satellites

I had physical therapy today. There's a terrible Catch 22 with physical therapy. The therapy feels great, but it's primarily a healing thing. And when you are really sore, it's kind of painful. But once it does it's job and you're healed, then it starts to feel oh, oh, so good. But once you're healed, you don't need the treatment anymore. That's where I'm almost at with my therapy. I thought I'd need weeks of treatment, but not so, apparently. Which is a shame, because my physical therapist has skills.

Time flies... someone just emailed me asking if I could do a meeting in Denver on October 4th. That's Rosh Hashanah, so I can't do it. Wait a minute! It's Rosh Hashanah already?!? And my daughter turns 12 on the 12th. It's all going by way too fast! How do we slow down time's passage? I can't possibly do everything I need to in this life with everything going so quickly.

Lisa Germano - The Dresses Song

So. I hate our materialistic culture! I really do.

BUT! I don't hate materialism itself. I hate that people generally have no clue how to spend money! People waste money buying stupid things. And the rich are the worst. LA's Westside is littered with boring BMWs and Mercedes, all yawn-causing wastes of money bought more for the brand than the car. The owners of such cars should be flogged and made to donate the cost of the car to charity. But Maseratis... that's different! That's a legitimate use of money. A man in my girlfriend's neighborhood has a 2004 Maserati Gransport, and I shed tears of thanksgiving every time we take a walk and he's left it in the driveway. It's the most gorgeous inanimate thing there is.

Contrast it with the Bentley Continental GT. Loads of people are driving those around LA, but how many of them really CARE about their car? Few, I bet. The Continental is a gorgeous car and it's not to blame, but it's another flavor of the month in LA, like kukui-nut necklaces, and so everyone who can get one has gotten one, and just so they can feel like they are with the trends.

The guy with the Maserati, on the other hand? See, we know he's a real car lover. An aficionado. Someone who appreciates a fine work of automotive art. And someone who doesn't mind sharing with the likes of me. Just his leaving it out in the driveway so we can all gaze at it is a wonderful mitzvah.

This is how it will be with me and my Borsolini fedora! On Saturday night my girlfriend and I were window shopping in Beverly Hills and there was a little Italian store with Borsolini hats in the window, and oh, my hat-craving soul. I'm not sure if this is the model I was fawning over, but God forgive me if it is. It would figure that the hat I really wanted would be $435.

But then again, imagine the role I would assume when I donned such a hat! I'd be an ambassador of goodfeeling and art as I strode around Los Angeles in this unparalleled object of beauty! People would be filled with a sense of wellbeing knowing such style and grace was still extant in the world. But you know, it's the line of the brim that I like, the way the brim is down in front, up in back, the way the line is like half of infinity. I can probably find a nice felt fedora I like for $40 someplace, but oh... that Borsolini.

I never knew I could be so into "fine European" anything, but look at me. Between my lust for Italian hats and my German Rotring and Lamy pens, I'm one Euro-something or other.

Not to mention my high-minded ideals wrestling with base desire. Over a hat. But what a hat.

Los Lobos -- Sabor a Mi

I am so out of it today! I slept well, work is fine, but I am just not connecting with things that well. I am not sure if it's accident-related or just something that happens when one turns 40. But I feel well.

This weekend my girlfriend and I did my idea of a perfect weekend --we lazed about in bed (well, we didn't really laze), walked along the beach, watched movies, picked out a gorgeous dress for her to wear at her daughter's bat miztvah, and ate wonderful food at a Mexican restaurant. It was a great weekend.

We saw Fight Club. How did I miss that movie before? It was an amazing movie and very eerily dealt with issues I've been complaining about for years -- the dehumanization of modern life, the remaking of Americans into simple consumers, our identification of ourselves with our possessions. The idea that we suffer a spiritual crisis. And the places that the movie goes are places I tend to go in my simplistic fantasies. So for the last six years, my societal and political ramblings have been unwittingly echoing Chuck Palahniuk's 1996 book, and poorly at that? That's a depressing realization. All this time I thought I was unique, but it turns out I really am an easily identified and targeted demographic. Also, the movie puts the logical result of my ideals and prejudices into an unflattering light. I don't like my tendency to see the world as being primarily a matter of money that can only be put right by means of violent revolution. It's something I have been working on for years, but still struggle with. It's like my kneejerk response to any problem, my fight or flight instinct, is wrapped up in revolution. I feel a kinship with Emma Goldman, both in her young and naive idealistic phase, and in her later mature and disaffected rejection of every regime that claimed to put these ideals into practice.

Walking along the beach was great -- right at sunset-- the tide was out, and these large jellyfish, around 1' in diameter, were washed ashore. I flicked one back into the sea with a bamboo stick I found, but I'm not sure if the jellyfish was even alive, or if I injured it flicking it back in.

We get quite a bit of bamboo driftwood on the Santa Monica beaches, and I wonder if it comes all the way from Asia or if there are stands of bamboo in Central and South America -- I guess if I read this book I'd find out, but it seems a bit complicated and in-depth, even for me.

I am leaving here in a bit to take my daughter to the dentist for her checkup. This is a normal thing, but until a couple years ago, getting my daughter to let a dentist look at her, let alone touch her teeth, was a major struggle that entailed many tears and knotted tummies -- mostly mine! So while it's a boring and normal thing to take one's kid to the dentist, I am thankful to God that my daughter is now able to go and have her teeth checked and worked on without having a panic attack.

Spoon - I Summon You

Spoon's Gimme Fiction is one great album musically. I have been listening to it over and over. However, it is frustrating that the lyrics are so opaque. I can't tell if they are meant to be that way or are just bad. For instance --

The signal’s a cough
But that don’t get me off
I summon you to appear my love
Got the weight of the world
I summon you here my love

But you know, Britt Daniel sings this stuff so well that even the really mysterious lyrics come off as fraught with meaning I'm too simple to comprehend.

I am feeling woozy today but better as far as my achiness. I wonder if the Advil is to blame for the woozy feeling? I haven't taken medication in a long time.

Oh. I think Cindy Sheehan should shut up and stop whining. I am on MoveOn's mailing list, and when I got their emails asking for us to protest in solidarity with her, I rolled my eyes. I wish my political stands and opinions were so simple that they'd fit onto a t-shirt or bumper sticker, but they don't. I am not going to stand and protest in support of a woman who says that the war in Iraq is the fault of neo-conservative pro-Israel lobbyists, and then, when called on it, denies she ever said it. I'm not going to ask Bush to meet with this woman again. He already met with her once. And why should he meet with her again? So she can ask her stupid rhetorical question? I am sick of extremist simplistic leftists as much as I am of extremist simplistic rightists. I just want people to start being reasonable.

And another thing. I have decided that the "shul to which I do not go" is definitely Orthodox. I am never going to be THAT observant, but I think I ought to be more observant than I am. Meaning that I am typing this on Shabbat but I want to get to the point where I don't type stuff on Shabbat. I am starting to really feel that there is nothing for me in liberal/rational/Reconstructionist/Reform Judaism. Although some things about Aish Ha'Torah and Chabad irritate me, I am drawn to much of what they have to say in a way that isn't true of liberal Jewish stuff. And it's because liberal Judaism often ends up discarding mitzvot, deciding that practices are just silly, obsolete, indefensible. Things like kashrut, things that supposedly don't make sense, and well, if they don't make sense, we aren't going to do them. For me, G-d is especially present in weird commandments that don't make sense. When I wasn't practicing at all, I used to love ham. Since I became a vegetarian and then started practicing Judaism again five years ago, I haven't eaten anything trayfe, by which I mean pig or shellfish. And I love the taste of all pig products and I even like some seafood, especially squid. Why can't Jews eat this stuff? Who knows. It's certainly not for health reasons. It may be to make it hard for Jews and non-Jews to mingle. But that isn't as important as the fact that it's a commandment that I take on because it's part of being Jewish.

Now, I am not really trayfe-free. Because when you look a little closer, you'll see that I eat non-kosher cheese all the time. And challah that isn't really kosher. And non-kosher wine (though I doubt any pagans were involved in its making). But it's not that I don't think the idea of kosher cheese or wine or challah isn't mportant, it's just that I haven't got that far yet in my practice. It's the idea of working on doing more mitzvot as I can that's appealing to me. And I don't see anyone besides Orthodox (or Conservatives leaning towards Orthodox) with this sensibility. And the idea of Jewishness without mitzvot is appalling. While we may vary in our levels of observance, I guess I am pretty Orthodox in feeling that the 613 mitzvot are there for us to follow as best we can.

So this is my last day being 39. I'm not sure if this really means everything, and I certainly will listen to Carol and not act my age, but then I have the problem of deciding what age I should act. Older, younger?

I'd type more but my wrists are hurting. It's my age creeping up on me. :-)

Spoon -- Sister Jack

So. I am at work. I am working. My neck and back hurt. And in irritating ways. When I move my neck a lot often it hurts less then when I move it a little, like shifting my gaze from screen to paper. And then it's not always consistent. It's the sudden and unwelcome twitch, and that's the fun part! Also, I got a lot of sleep last night and I still feel very woozy and out of it.

So it was good today listening to the new Israelisms podcast and hearing Charley and Carol talking about Disengagement and Gaza. The whole thing on TV and in the papers makes me so proud of Israelis. While Israel is not perfect, I believe that one cannot be a Jew in today's world and not be a Zionist. There's just too many places in time where Jews thought themselves safe, integrated into society, and then the other shoe dropped, the new laws came, the pogroms, the expulsion. I am not even sure this will not happen in the US. I have people scoff when I say that, but I am not at all convinced the US does not have a fundamentalist antisemitic future coming. Jews need a safe place in the world.

And the high ideals and convictions of the Jewish state are on display this week. The way that in Israel we have people disagreeing vehemently and still being civil to each other in the vast majority of cases. I know Israel has come a long way from its pioneer days, and that the country is not as idealistic and socialistic as it used to be. But it's still a remarkable place and a remarkable people of which I'm proud to be a part.

So it's a sunny, perfect day outside and I'm feeling happy underneath all my muscle aching. I hope everyone has a good weekend, and Shabbat Shalom.

Beatles - Across the Universe

This is the song I find myself returning to when things are messed up. Today, things aren't really messed up, but I want to hear it. I'll be 40 on Sunday, and Lennon died when he was 40. More reason for me to live the best life I can.

Oh! Check out the damage to my car! There's damage to the front that will cost hundreds to fix but it's really subtle misalignment of the hood panel and bumper and it's no fun. The rear damage is more fun to look at. It looks like the car is repairable but I'll wait to see what the insurance companies say, of course.

I went to a doctor through my network. And while it really doesn't matter that much, I was trying to find a Jewish-sounding name, but there weren't any. The nearest doctor was Suleman Hakimi. I didn't realize till I got to his office that it was Solemon Hakimi, and everyone is obviously Arabic-speaking Jews-- I'll have to ask where from -- mezzuzah on the door, even a Mitzrach on the wall of the examining room (it was a really cool one that looked to be a print from the 20s). And I got a prescription and I got therapy. Now, I don't like getting massage. But this ultrasound thing-- oh my god. And electrical stimulation, and then massage. It felt so good. Then I went home and to sleep, and this morning I slept all morning, and now I am going to go to work for a couple hours because there's some stuff I have to do. My neck is more generally sore than it was yesterday, my shoulders too, and my lower back hurts. Also, my left arm hurts right where it meets the shoulder. That must be from the seatbelt hitting it... ANd there's this one spot right at the top of my neck that is really tender to the touch. And I feel generally out of it. Besides that, I am fine! And I get to have more therapy tomorrow.

Now I am listening to the David Bowie version of Across the Universe. If I had the Fiona Apple version I'd listen to that too.

Now I am gonna get into my little rentacar and drive to work and see how much I can get done, then I'm going to lie down and have my girlfriend feed me grapes. :-)

Unk Decemberists song playing @ Starbucks

So! 9am today I am on the 10 freeway East and in stop and go traffic. I am listening to the new Dawn and Drew podcast.

And when I stopped the woman behind me didn't.

All of a sudden it's like I'm at the beach and my car is lifted up and thrown into the car ahead of me by a massive wave. My neck hurts. The tea that was in the cupholder infront of me near the floor is suddenly all over the car. My glasses are off my head at an angle. my cellphone is somewhere on the floor. And Dawn and Drew are still talking about sheep's balls and how big they are. So my iPod came through just fiine. Hoorah. It took me a while to figure out how to turn off my car and my iPod. Then for a few minutes the three of us just sat in our cars in the #2 lane while all the other cars fought their way around us, honking.

And the whole time (well, after the first few minutes, when I was really freaked out and crying and trying to find everything in my car) I thought of the plaintiff in the court case I was a juror on, Mr. Melendez, and how he's in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And he can't move around. He can't lift his hands. He can't irritate his wife by coming up behind her when she's trying to put on her makeup and caress her breasts and nuzzle her neck.

And so I thank God for my life and my health and I enjoy the whole process of being able to photograph the damage to my car and to the other cars. I send kind and comforting vibes to the woman who rearended me. When I see her business card says she's in design, I ask her what shedoes. She tells me she's an interior architect. She offers to do my place next time I remodel. The woman I was pushed into happens to work at the building next to mine. We make small talk. I'm standing on the side of the freeway socializing. Life is good. Life is so good.

And now I am on hold with my health insurance trying to get a live person so I can get a referral to an urgent care. And my girlfriend is coming to this Starbucks to hang out and help me. And I'll be able to hold her and nuzzle her neck in public and embarrass her. How can God not have me in the palm of Her hand? How can I not be incredibly lucky?

Lisa Germano - Candy

So. I am at work. But today, I am not working. I am trying, I really am! But we have to do this stupid security class online and it takes forever to load each page, so by the time the page comes up, I'm trying to reply to an email or fix something, and then I am distracted five different ways.

But last night was great. I made my g/f cilantro pesto, and it turned out really well. My dinner skills are all pretty much limited to two things--

• 1) Variants on pasta with homemade sauces, like pestos or red pepper sauces
• 2) Variants on basic Ayurvedic stuff -- basmati rice, mung beans or lentils, and steamed veggies with spices

This is, however, lightyears from where I was ten years ago. Back then I was eating TV dinners and processed everything.

Man, I am scatterbrained. Before I started typing here, I was trying to work, but I had all these things I had to type here in my head. Now I am here I am thinking about work stuff.

So back to work.

Elvis Costello - Crawling to the USA

ACK!!! I am a lost soul.

I have had this 'goal' of losing weight for my 40th birthday for months. And while I have kind of exercised, I have not eaten well. It's not I've generally eaten poorly, but I have eaten way too much. And this weekend, I actually lost a few pounds. And yesterday, although we were supposed to fast, it being Tisha B'Av, I totally forgot, and ate. But I did eat sensibly. So this morning, I weigh myself, am happy and committed. So lunchtime coworkers invite me to lunch and I went and ate way too much... I am now falling asleep and feeling betrayed by myself. Truly, I am my own worst enemy. I am the Fool of Proverbs. Either because I am being idolatorous, and have made losing weight into a false god, or because I am always sabotaging the goals I set with my thoughtless behavior.

Destroyer - An Actor's Revenge

It's all disengagement today on the news. I started out my day by getting teary-eyed. I'm sure I'll end the day the same way.

But to less stressful things. eMusic has all the Destroyer albums now. Previously, they only had Streethawk, a Seduction. So I am overdosing now on the exhilarating Your Blues and This Night. Destroyer is one of those bands that's one guy plus whoever he has record with for that particular album. So this Daniel Bejar guy is basically Destroyer. His voice and singing style are really close to Bowie in his Ziggy period, but the lyrics remind me of later Bowie -- very cut-and-paste and opaque. The music is kind of Decemberists, kind of. Lots of fun. Bejar was part of the New Pornographers at some point, so he's the vocals on some of Electric Version.

Anyway.

My g/f is back from her trip to the East Coast. It was fun picking her and her girls up from LAX and seeing everyone again. Her girls have their dad and I'm not trying to compete or anything. But we have a relationship of sorts, and I do miss them when they're not around.

Yesterday my g/f and I we went bra shopping! It's hard to beat bra shopping for sheer weirdness of the usual rules being out the window. Normally we try and avoid staring at breasts. At Victoria's Secret, it was a salesgirl and I intently inspecting the way my g/f's breasts looked in one bra vs another. Very weird and fun. And we discovered the demi was the way to go.

Then we saw Broken Flowers. Gorgeous movie. Bill Murray is wonderful. Very ambiguous ending. It's like the movie was one long shot of an ice-covered lake. At the end, the ice begins to crack. And that's it. Of course, the movie is not just one shot of an ice-covered lake, but Bill Murray's character Don Johnston IS frozen in the movie, very passive, paralyzed into inaction by an unknown event or life crisis. And when he ends up flying around the country to visit ex-girlfriends to see which one of them wrote him an anonymous letter saying he has a 19 year old kid who is on a road trip to find him, it's only because his internet-savvy wannabe-detective next-door neighbor tracks everyone down and plans the whole trip. Nothing in this movie is caused of Don's own volition until the last minutes of the movie. There is a great arc in this movie. It's not fair to compare Bill Murray's character here to his character in Lost in Translation or The Aquatic Life or any other of his recent roles since he suddenly became one of our finest actors. But it's safe to say that if the other recent movies he's done irritate the hell out of you, Broken Flowers is definitely not for you.

Something hit me as we watched the previews --- I feel so unusual and odd most of the time, in my taste in movies as everything else. But when these little indie moviehouses get an audience for movies like Broken Flowers together, the theater is suddenly filled with people that share my taste in movies. And all the previews are often movies I want to see (mixed with one or two pretentious period costume drama pieces geared towards women). And then I realize that I am part of a neatly defined demographic that can be advertised to and classified and compartmentalized, despite all my feelings of uniqueness. Which is comforting, or scary, depending on what's going on in my life at the time.

Anyway. Back to work.

No Music -- Forgot my iPod

OK. So this week I've been driving to work because I have been missing the train by a couple minutes. And I've been having fun listening to podcasts. So this morning, I'd listened to all the podcasts and hooked up my iPod to my laptop to get a couple new podcasts that came through like Dawn and Drew and The View From Here. And in the rush to get my daughter and myself out the door, I forgot the iPod. Oh, well.

The View From Here guys had an episode where they went to this Israeli Arab town and had really good hummus. Except I discovered the pronunciation is really hOOmus where the h is the Hebrew "hairball-in-throat" sound. The whole idea of hummus makes me excited because I never knew it was so easy to make, and now I make it all the time. Probably not good stuff, but as good as the stuff in the stores. I did have one of our friends, an Israeli, tell me once that my hummus was good, so maybe it doesn't suck. And I'm even buying the garbanzo beans and soaking them and everything rather than using cans! And I'm discovering that tahini from the middle-eastern grocers is so much cheaper than in the supermarkets. Not to mention spices like cardamom and coriander and cumin. Cardamom is SO expensive in the supermarket, like $12 for a typical-sized spice jar of ground. You can get a huge bag of pods for a few bucks at these markets.

Along similar lines -- I bought a few mortars and pestles last year to help with grinding and pounding herbs, and started making pesto. Pesto, of course, is named for the fact you make it with a pestle. Except no one makes it with a pestle. They make it with a food processor. But when you make it with mortar and pestle it's so good! And my boss recently told me about cilantro pesto -- basically just replace the basil with cilantro. And I've made that recently and had it turn out very well. And cilantro is an herb that's very good for me according to ayurveda.

Back to work.

Rufus Wainwright - Imaginary Love

Well. Jury Duty is over. And while I was all into talking about it last week, the whole thing is so Last Week now. It was a case with a bus speeding down a residential street and slamming into a car driven by a guy with a .17 bac who was backing up. He's in a wheelchair for life. He'll need 24 hour care for life. We ended up decided the case 50/50. That would make his award around 7 million, but the MTA is going to appeal. By the time it's all done, he won't get enough money to really take care of him, I'm afraid. The plaintiff's attorney is an up-and-coming attorney Arash Homampour, who will probably end up very famous at some point. He used a computer for his case -- had all the evidence on there including videotaped depos. The software he used allowed him to rapidly find ANYTHING quickly. It really made things interesting, especially because a defense witness couldn't even make his laptop-projector connection work. While I don't think all this made a difference in our deliberations, it probably did.

Anyway. Being at work again is weird. At the conclusion of the trial I had a strong feeling I wasn't doing anything important and needed to change my life and take on more responsibility, like get my masters and do something more life-changing than my current job. We'll see. Now that whole feeling is fading. Soon it will be as wispy and faint as a dream and I'll wonder if I really felt anything at all, so pulled back into my normal life I'll be.

Having fun with podcasts. Currently I listen to

• Israelisms
• Keith and the Girl
• Dawn and Drew
• There are Jews in Alabama?
• Elvis Mitchell's The Treatment
• Soccergirl, Incorporated

and I have to say, that of all of these, Keith and the Girl is closest to me unsubscribing to, because they are too productive for me. It's fun to listen to -- Keith and Chemda are very interesting, very am ha-aretz, I think, in a good way, but they do an hour a day. It's too much to keep up with! Soccergirl's shows are so amateurish and patched together, but they are short. Same with Dawn and Drew. And Jews in Alabama and Israelisms come out less often so you can look forward to the shows and enjoy them and keep up with them.

Back to work!