Absent checking points

In the last six months I saw more or less recent Israeli movies, but very often, because of various time contraints I was unable to dedicate time to anything but watching. I am still optimistic about the possibility to succeed in writing at least a couple of lines about each of them.

And I will start with the freshest one, Yoav Shamir's Checkpoint. I liked from the very beginning the idea: filming - between 2001 and 2003 - at various checkpoints in Israel could offer various sociological, human, historical opportunities. Anyway, the category of the film is "documentary". And I was expecting at least some background information about the situation from the ground, some other aspects helping a viewer living outside the area to understand the context: why do you need controls, why the curfew in Jenin was introduced, why the rules were changing from an hour to another. Or why, for example, you need to control carefully children - in order to do not blow themselves up because they parents or relatives wanted to used them for various political reasons. The "documentary" is failing to explain this. And, instead, it is offering the image the Western viewer expect to see: "poor" Palestinians, aggressed by sometimes brutal youngsters with guns.

Now, I have to think about a recent problem: how much art is misusing and manipulating reality mostly in tensed political contexts? Yes, I know the benefactory influence as a soft power. I want to learn more about the bad side of the story.

A failure

or a different context?

By aiming to address this complicate and complex issue of "Jewish establishment", the risks of simplification are huge. And not avoided in this article.

In Judaism, you do not have a central-authoritative authority from the organisational point of view. It is availble from the religious point of view, where almost each community is having its own traditions and culture. No difference regarding the communities from North America.

In the same time, the gap between the conceptual ideas regarding many issues - including the settlements - and the reality - pressures and dangers - from the ground is getting bigger. Unclear to know what will prevail.

Healthy life

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything"

Mark Twain

Esterhazy Peter

on writing:

"My admittedly conscious use of language, I think, was not conscious. It was my hand or my stomach that knew. In short, I didn’t approach writing from the vantage point of theory, but from the side of practice – much like a stonemason".

Naked Truth and Resplendent Parable

The great scholar known as the Vilna Gaon once asked the Preacher of Dubno, "Help me to understand. What makes a parable so influential? If I recite Torah, there's a small audience, but let me tell a parable and the synagogue is full. Why is that?"

The dubner maged replied,"I'll explain it to you by means of a parable".

"Once upon a time Truth went about the streets as naked as the day he was born. As a result, no one would let him into their homes. Whenever people caught sight of him, they turned away or fled. One day when Truth was sadly wandering about, he came upon Parable. Parable, seeing Truth, said, "Tell me, neighbor, what makes you look so sad? Truth replied bitterly, ´Ah, brother, things are bad. Very bad. I´m old, very old, and no one wants to acknowledge me. No one wants anything to do with me´.

"Hearing that, Parable said, "People don´t run away from you because you are old. I too am old. Very old. But the older I get,the better people like me. I´ll tell you a secret: Everyone likes things to be disguised and perttied up a bit. Let me lend you some splendid clothes like mine, and you´ll see that the very people who pushed you aside will invite you into their homes and be glad of your company.

"Truth took Parable´s advice and put on the borrowed clothes. And from that time on, Truth and Parable have gone hand in had together and everyone loves them. They make a happy pair".

Yiddish Folktales, ed. by Beatrice Silverman Weinreich, transl. Leonard Wolf, First Shocken Paperback Edition, 1997, p. 7

Hilarious

From the recent transcontinental trips: to cross Thailand by car while watching "Good Bye, Lenin" in the original German edition, with Chinese subtitles.

Fascination of Jerusalem

Here in a musical interpretation of Emerson Lake and Palmer, after the verses of William Blake. In Blake's vision, translated into the political language of "make love no war" Jerusalem is the utopian place where humans are living together with nature, as at the "beginning" of times. An element of comparison with the corrupt cities of the industrial revolution's England.

New York city tales

Writing about well-known famous cities - as New York City - for example is risky, as there are places always on the front page of the newspapers from around the world and a permanent source of inspiration, reveries or even hate. In this case, what a writer must chose in order to make its writing interesting?

The advantages of the big cities is that you always could find new perspectives and new angles to outline. The direct personal experiences are adding a natural individual flavor you will not find in history books or usual news reports. Your art is to educate your eyes and share a personal experience of seeing a corner of a city. The voice in this case is only yours, as a strong manifesto of your individuality and precarity.

For me, Lily Brett's New York was an useful source of inspiration and exactly because of the very personal amprent of the place. About 50 very short stories, almost the same length, translating through her eyes a hectic world. I love New York and its people and its places, even it is not my favorite place in America. But I was pleasantly surprised to find in this book painting of corners and new descriptions of episodes I was familiar with. Enough food for my own literary travel works.

Accidents of style

I never been too much attracted to write literature or literary alike texts. I always read literature and in fact I spent the most part time of my intellectual life reading literature and thinking about literature.

But, I always appreciated the wit and the precision of the journalistic texts - not too much unnecessary words, concision, try to transmit the information in an efficient way. And the waste majority of my writings by now are exclusively dedicated to facts and figures, in general easy to quantify facts.

As it is usually happening in life, the plans could be reversed and the agenda changed. After being for such a long time a passionate reader of literature, it is about time to try writing myself something similar. Not too many pretention to acquire an easy and successful result. And do not think now that the immediate results matter too much. What I need is to polish my perseverance in the discipline of writing.

The amazingly interesting process of contributing to the 48 Hour Magazine last night made me aware of a potential I need to explore more. The potential of organizing words, polishing ideas and trying to transmit something to potential readers. It took me a long way to remember this, but at the end it is important to be ready to face your own self discoveries.

Sometimes I am trying to find an answer at this eagerness to share various experiences with the others. Why I cannot simply limit myself to read what other people think?

Art Spiegelman on comics and identity

An interview on comics and arts, with very witty answers to too stereotypical questions, on the occasion on a dedicated exhibition to comics, at the Jewish Museum in Berlin.

Writing free

For a long long time already, I associate writing with freedom. When you breath deep, you need space and freedom. When I want to write, I need to do it because I feel it to, not because I shall to. A matter of linguistic, semantics and a bit of psychoanalisis probably.

The consequence of this rebel way of writing is that every time I need to respect a deadline in order to deliver a writing product - it is how I call this kind of activity done under the time pressure - I am subconsciously missing the deadlines. I know what I want to write and, also, when and for how long and how much time do I need to polish my words. And, though I refuse any kind of time management, business-of-writing type of behavior.

And, I am always late with the deadlines. But not late enough to do not get the chance of being publishable.

Look

I am the kind of person who could really hurt you with a look. Probably you realize it better than anybody else and it is why you always prefer the cold, non-involved 2.0 ways of conversation.

But while you was struggling with your limited emotional intelligence and existential cowardise, somebody else successfully played its chances. And now, I am the one who wholeheartedly avoids you. For the rest of my life.

Laziness

I always loved to write. I never figured out myself doing anything else for life. Even when tried to imagine some worse-case scenario jobs, I encouraged to continue thinking about because an inspiration for writing. All the other activities from my life I've done were, again, a source of inspiration for writing. And, in fact, many of them already turned into various subjects for books or articles.

More or less it was a spontaneous process of me communicating fully with the world through written words.

The breakdown intervened when I started to think about writing. To get stuck into the style handbooks, and the amazing number of platforms about writing, and the enormous advices about how to write. Because wanted to improve and be the best - even I knew for a long time that you cannot be the best as a writer, only to aim to count among the best - I worked hard to identify bibliographical sources and to start conversations about "inner voices", dialogues, but also about "markets", "promotion plans". The motivation behind all these efforts - who reduced my writing time to, maybe, maximum two hours per week, was to rebrand my writing and reorient and reprofessionalize my skills. But I was so sad and felt alienated because away of my words. I mean, the words I was organizing, reorganizing, putting in various shapes. Me and nobody else.

But now I am back on the track, full of ideas and eager to write every day more than one hour and think about the auxiliar publishing concerns - maybe - one hour the week.