BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
Artists are paid to dance at the edge of the cliff--the closer to the edge the more they get paid. Christos has walked at the very verge. He must walk at the edge and dodge the arrows shot at him by those unhappy with is vision. Before the gates were installed Christos had created a loaded moment. Expectations. Upon installation the moment exploded brilliantly for some and sighed like a smokey dud to others.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
From Basil to me:
A Stranger Among Us. Did you ever see that movie guys? I just watchedit on TV. A female cop goes undercover in a Hasidic community inBrooklyn to solve a murder. It is a crime movie but for me it was reallya spiritual one. It takes place in the heavily Hasidic population ofBrooklyn. The image you have in your mind of Hasidim, it was all there.In the homes, on the streets, in the shops, in cheddahs, in synagogue.Mobs of men with beards and peos, black wide rimmed hats, long black coats,open and flopping in the wind, long tsitzsis fringes visible, walkingquickly to who knows where. Kiddish and kaddish, women in shietels,plainly dressed, cooking, holding babies, little boys with yarmulkes andpeos. My people.... How can I be so different. It's as if we live ondifferent planets. They believe in so much. I believe in nothing.I know they are no better or worse than anyone else andthey hold no mystery for me. Why then do I feel that their veryexistence removes the burden of being Jewish from my shoulders? Why am Iso grateful for that? How can we be so different from each other? Ilove them with all my heart and soul.
From me to Basil:
Great Minds Think Alike:
On JetBlue back from NYC we were seated behind a family of Hasids. Grandmother, mother, two sisters, one with a baby and a grandfather. The grandfather took the window seat and buried himself in a book of Hebrew writing and remained in it until landing. The women and the baby however were in constant chatter and sharing of food across the aisle.
On the spot I wrote this:
2-22-2005,
JetBlue, LAG to FLL.
What is it? Why do these Hasids irk me so? They take so long to get seated, to stow their belongings, to decide who should sit where. The gradfather says nothing-- just takes a window seat and suddenly is apart from everyone and everthing. A book in Hebrew appears in his hand as though by magic and he buries himself in it.
Grandma has a large plastic container of food. I am afraid that it is going to smell. Why am I tempted to say something about the food they bring with them--or to make sure that they see that I am eating a ham sandwich? They open the container--surprise: it doesn't smell--it seems to be a mixture of kasha and mushrooms, maybe nuts. Grandma is putting some into a small cup and is giving some to her daughter.
Grandma leans over the aisle, reaching over to her daughter to pass the food and to talk. She makes herself unaware that she is different. Oblivious to the scene she is making. Leaning into the aisle, speaking loudly, in Hebrew or Yiddish to her daughter. It might as well be Greek to me.
What is it that annoys me?
And yet, there are times when I yearn to be one of them, to understand better who we were when we came one-hundred and twenty years ago. There is only one photo of my great-grandfather and very few of my grandfather, but I look deeply into each one trying to discern who they were. But it is impossible, and yet I peer and peer.
I crave understanding, but I know I will never carve it out of these photos.
If only I could have dinner with them, each of us at the same age--maybe 50, or even now at 65. What a dinner that would be. Great-grandfather Abraham, Grandfather Aaron, Father Bernie and me. I think that Max would like to be a part of the conversation too, Cousin Arnold might like to come.
Who are we really. How much have we changed since we landed here in the 1880s? How much are we the same? How much have we been affected by the thoughts of these ancestors--even though we may never have known them? I look into the mirror on my bathroom wall and I see my father's face. Did he see his father's? I make certain gestures that I know he made. Did those gestures come down from a previous generation too? Or has the slate been erased? Like a palimpsest how much of the writing underlies what is written over it? How much of them underlies what I am?
Seeing these Hasid's, awakens once again, my overwhelming sense of loss.
From Basil to me:
A Stranger Among Us. Did you ever see that movie guys? I just watchedit on TV. A female cop goes undercover in a Hasidic community inBrooklyn to solve a murder. It is a crime movie but for me it was reallya spiritual one. It takes place in the heavily Hasidic population ofBrooklyn. The image you have in your mind of Hasidim, it was all there.In the homes, on the streets, in the shops, in cheddahs, in synagogue.Mobs of men with beards and peos, black wide rimmed hats, long black coats,open and flopping in the wind, long tsitzsis fringes visible, walkingquickly to who knows where. Kiddish and kaddish, women in shietels,plainly dressed, cooking, holding babies, little boys with yarmulkes andpeos. My people.... How can I be so different. It's as if we live ondifferent planets. They believe in so much. I believe in nothing.I know they are no better or worse than anyone else andthey hold no mystery for me. Why then do I feel that their veryexistence removes the burden of being Jewish from my shoulders? Why am Iso grateful for that? How can we be so different from each other? Ilove them with all my heart and soul.
From me to Basil:
Great Minds Think Alike:
On JetBlue back from NYC we were seated behind a family of Hasids. Grandmother, mother, two sisters, one with a baby and a grandfather. The grandfather took the window seat and buried himself in a book of Hebrew writing and remained in it until landing. The women and the baby however were in constant chatter and sharing of food across the aisle.
On the spot I wrote this:
2-22-2005,
JetBlue, LAG to FLL.
What is it? Why do these Hasids irk me so? They take so long to get seated, to stow their belongings, to decide who should sit where. The gradfather says nothing-- just takes a window seat and suddenly is apart from everyone and everthing. A book in Hebrew appears in his hand as though by magic and he buries himself in it.
Grandma has a large plastic container of food. I am afraid that it is going to smell. Why am I tempted to say something about the food they bring with them--or to make sure that they see that I am eating a ham sandwich? They open the container--surprise: it doesn't smell--it seems to be a mixture of kasha and mushrooms, maybe nuts. Grandma is putting some into a small cup and is giving some to her daughter.
Grandma leans over the aisle, reaching over to her daughter to pass the food and to talk. She makes herself unaware that she is different. Oblivious to the scene she is making. Leaning into the aisle, speaking loudly, in Hebrew or Yiddish to her daughter. It might as well be Greek to me.
What is it that annoys me?
And yet, there are times when I yearn to be one of them, to understand better who we were when we came one-hundred and twenty years ago. There is only one photo of my great-grandfather and very few of my grandfather, but I look deeply into each one trying to discern who they were. But it is impossible, and yet I peer and peer.
I crave understanding, but I know I will never carve it out of these photos.
If only I could have dinner with them, each of us at the same age--maybe 50, or even now at 65. What a dinner that would be. Great-grandfather Abraham, Grandfather Aaron, Father Bernie and me. I think that Max would like to be a part of the conversation too, Cousin Arnold might like to come.
Who are we really. How much have we changed since we landed here in the 1880s? How much are we the same? How much have we been affected by the thoughts of these ancestors--even though we may never have known them? I look into the mirror on my bathroom wall and I see my father's face. Did he see his father's? I make certain gestures that I know he made. Did those gestures come down from a previous generation too? Or has the slate been erased? Like a palimpsest how much of the writing underlies what is written over it? How much of them underlies what I am?
Seeing these Hasid's, awakens once again, my overwhelming sense of loss.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Monday, February 07, 2005
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
People are dying everyday on behalf of an imaginary God.
Well, after all these years I realize now that I will have traveled this earth from birth to death without experiencing a single bursting wonderful week in my lifetime. Nothing has happened, not tragedy, not eleation, not discovery. My life, like most, has been nothing more than that of the average middle class American-- a lot better than most of the human beings on earth, yes-- but still, there hasn;t been a sense of brilliant moments, unbearable excitement, just an on going soap opera, a melodrama in which nothing happens that can't be fixed.
That ignores the loss of friends and family.
People are dying everyday on behalf of an imaginary God.
Well, after all these years I realize now that I will have traveled this earth from birth to death without experiencing a single bursting wonderful week in my lifetime. Nothing has happened, not tragedy, not eleation, not discovery. My life, like most, has been nothing more than that of the average middle class American-- a lot better than most of the human beings on earth, yes-- but still, there hasn;t been a sense of brilliant moments, unbearable excitement, just an on going soap opera, a melodrama in which nothing happens that can't be fixed.
That ignores the loss of friends and family.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
BusterStronghart@Gmail.com
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz
The first tale:
I could not get to see Bob as things got very complicated. I was to drive to a certain house in the far west of Ft, Lauderdale, a little known section of Tamarac, where he would be visiting another friend who is living with an Israeli. Then we would go aside for a time together.
Finding this place in Tamarac is harder than finding Timbuktu--and Spencer and I had a hard enough time getting there.
I obtained sets of directions from the friend, the Israeli, and later from MapQuest. MapQuest could not find the house until prompted by a US Postal Zipcode.
But then he left a voice mail asking me to come earlier but I was at the gym and so did not get his call until I got out of the gym returned to my car, the Solera convertible of which we spoke the other day.
And there was a second voice mail that he had arrived at the friend's house and that I should come there for a short time after which he would be going to still another house where Robin's brother, Mason, was staying (or lived?) ... At his point I decided that I should just go home and see Bob the next time that I am in New York which will be in February.
Is Robin's brother actually named Mason, or is he a bricklayer, or a member of a secret society? I'd like to get to the bottom of this. If he is a Mason perhaps he would have shown me a secret handshake or two--maybe I should have gone.
The second tale:
I am sending a copy of the Amos Oz book to Michel's (Patti's daughter) husband who is a history buff and who has a special interest in things Jewish. I can't finish the book because I keep rereading his sentences and paragraphs. He is delicious. Better than eating a warm, fresh apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese and better than most sex. Oz knows how to write--and yes, the translator did a fine job. I can't help reading the same lines over and over again.
But, from the memoir you can see that he had the genes to write and was brought up in a house of writers. Gad, there's so much to do. Now we have to find out about S. Y. Agnon. Did you know anything about him before the book? I had heard of him--but that's all.
I was speaking with my mother this morning who sends regards to all and who reminds me to be tolerant.
A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz
The first tale:
I could not get to see Bob as things got very complicated. I was to drive to a certain house in the far west of Ft, Lauderdale, a little known section of Tamarac, where he would be visiting another friend who is living with an Israeli. Then we would go aside for a time together.
Finding this place in Tamarac is harder than finding Timbuktu--and Spencer and I had a hard enough time getting there.
I obtained sets of directions from the friend, the Israeli, and later from MapQuest. MapQuest could not find the house until prompted by a US Postal Zipcode.
But then he left a voice mail asking me to come earlier but I was at the gym and so did not get his call until I got out of the gym returned to my car, the Solera convertible of which we spoke the other day.
And there was a second voice mail that he had arrived at the friend's house and that I should come there for a short time after which he would be going to still another house where Robin's brother, Mason, was staying (or lived?) ... At his point I decided that I should just go home and see Bob the next time that I am in New York which will be in February.
Is Robin's brother actually named Mason, or is he a bricklayer, or a member of a secret society? I'd like to get to the bottom of this. If he is a Mason perhaps he would have shown me a secret handshake or two--maybe I should have gone.
The second tale:
I am sending a copy of the Amos Oz book to Michel's (Patti's daughter) husband who is a history buff and who has a special interest in things Jewish. I can't finish the book because I keep rereading his sentences and paragraphs. He is delicious. Better than eating a warm, fresh apple pie with a slice of cheddar cheese and better than most sex. Oz knows how to write--and yes, the translator did a fine job. I can't help reading the same lines over and over again.
But, from the memoir you can see that he had the genes to write and was brought up in a house of writers. Gad, there's so much to do. Now we have to find out about S. Y. Agnon. Did you know anything about him before the book? I had heard of him--but that's all.
I was speaking with my mother this morning who sends regards to all and who reminds me to be tolerant.
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