A tale for another time

Biography of a Grizzly

2007-02-24T12:21:00.000-08:00

Ernest Thomson Seton's Biography of a Grizzly

Even then, reading Seton's book, I could,

in my eighth long year, in bed

with chicken pox and Marvel comic books,

even then, I could sense something

deeply human about being hunted,

even then, seeing my father come home

from days and nights in West Texas

machine shops, with blue fingernails

and eyes that vibrated like hummingbirds,

even then, before Jessie the drunk foreman

came raging with his shotgun cocked

and shaking in his hands, before Red

the welder lay curled and crying on the bed

when his woman ran off and then,even then,

before the dust would thin

from Kansas skies and we would take the rags

from the windows and breathe again,

even then, I could turn with Seton's bear

at the gateway to the last canyon

as the Angel of the Wild Things waited,

as the fumes rose like night's warm quilt,

as the hunters crept closer slowly, slowly.

B. H. Fairchild

Jewish Minster - A ballad of sorts

2007-01-03T00:39:00.000-08:00

When he first came to town we were all quit surprised
By the black cloths he wore and the way that he sighed
But as soon as he spoke we knew it's quit right to have a
Jewish Minister

A few ladies at church had a hard time abiding
With the fact he rejected our Lord's crucifing
But the way he taught Hebrew was such a delight
Our Jewish Minster

He never intended to come here of course
He was lost on his way to the people who chose
To not send him a ticket as soon as they heard
he's a Jewish Minister

Today all the people they cheer and play bells
Since the sermons he preaches are always so well
And the jokes were so clever I wept from the joy
of a Jewish Minister

Zombie Worker

2007-01-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

And as the water cooler softly gurgeled in the background and the flickering bulbs above him twiched nervously Bob felt the presense within himself. His skin glistened with sweat and his fists clenched. He looked around to see Tom, Harriet, Mike, Ben, and Delphy.
He wanted to warn them but could not speak. It might have been life as a Navy kid, living in so many diffrent places in the world and being exposed to God knows what. Radiation, particals, strange plants, exotic animals.
Maybe it's the nuc subs, the sterophom cup, the instant chicken soup.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he opened his mouth to revel row upon row of rotting teeth and a black-purple void waiting to be filled with flesh...

They shot him down and burned the body five hours later.

Under the wheel of the Moon

2006-12-31T14:16:00.000-08:00

The werewolves shed their human shell and go hunting for blood-filled candies. Bhangra music expolds from the massive speakers places in the chests of convicts crossified on street intersections. A gass filled spider shaped baloon hovers above centrl squre. In the radio towers the pale host works the turntable while trying to remember the taste of water in a village with a forgetten name. It has been five hundred years since he last saw the sun. The whores sharp their knives looking for Jacks and Johns and Jims. Santa cowers in the sewers while the great gators walk by in trenchcoats and gas-lights looking for him. The scholar puts on his clock of eyes and focuses his mind on the point at the end of the sentence. Dances and fireworks and ale burn the night away.

The living deck

2006-12-29T11:43:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, in the night, he shivers in his makeshift cardbord castle. Nobody was ever told what dreams are projected behind his beating eyelashes.
His body is large and exposed. His beard huge, his hair long and filthy. He seats nexts to his cardbord castle all day watching the people walking to work, walking home, walking to see a movie, walking to a lovers meeting, walking to a work-out, walking to a funeral service, walking to church. Always they walk.
And always he seats. When he needs to make he makes his bussiness in a loo outside a Pizza place. The owner sometimes goes to see him. A Chinese man comes once a day with a greasy cardbord box with flaming red Chinese letters printed outside of it. Different letters every day. Once the letters meant: "Why?" In a dialect of a Chinese City that no longer exists.

The living deck went to the Chinese man's car and stayed there for half an hour. Then left the car and went back to his cardboard castle.
The following day the Chinese man returned with a box that said "Courage" in a Chinese urban slang that will be spoken one day on Mars by people who are too young to be up to what they're up to.

The living deck also has letters on his castle. They also posses a great deal of magic. But since they were spoken in the West for so long the letters seem communplace to most people.

"Co A LA"
" E SI"
"RA AN"

The letters change as the castle sheds its old skin and grows new organs when needed. The cops never hassale him.

The living deck now has a young woman coming to him. She throws him a coin, he grunts and lends her an ear. She whispers to his big hairy fleshy noise-pore when traffic goes by with a "VHOOOSH" and the people walking walking.

She glances around nerveously. The living deck is somewhat of a joke, somewhat of a myth, among people who went to college. Up there with the man with twenty women who all bear his name tattoed on their necks or hands. "Sam Savoir" in pale blue ink.
Oh I've seen them. Sitting around their man Sam holding babes and children and watching the man eat a salad under a tree in the City park.

The young woman was taken from one of these women by the women's mother. Which is why she can now read and write and pay the living deck.
She wants to find her mother.

The living deck closes it's eyes and a pattern begins to emerage on his skin. Tiny motors spray ink from the inside of his flabby flesh. Following a design selected randomly by a tiny computer inside the living decks brain. No two living decks have ever given the same reading to the same person asking the same quiestion. There are currently only three living decks in the world. One is dying in a hospital bed far far away.

The living deck now has a naked, chubby woman with pale skin painted from the inside of his skin. The young woman sees the colors added quickly. The blue water around the woman. The green bucket she holds. The light-blue water she pours from her bucket to the lake. A black bird next to her watching but not being watched. Yellow and Red stars gleaming above her head, between the nippels of the living deck.

The woman gasps. Tears roll down her eyes, she's thinking of someone. Can you guess who?

She thanks the living deck and leaves. Tommarow she will see a black bird being fed by an old woman. If she's paying attention she'll stop.

Paying attention is what this is all about.

Somewhere far away tiny out-dated motors spray more and more black and yellow ink on the inner side of an old man's skin. The pattern of the card which is of the number 13 grows larger and larger. The point of the cropping tool is now on the old man's cheek. Touching his lips.

No one remembers how the living decks got started. Some say it's a relic of a tatoo culture that went high-tech in the recent past with some mojo added for flavour. Some think there was a cult of the living deck once. But nobody knows for sure. There was a book containing interviows with twenty living decks (17 were straight men, one was gay, the two women were siamese twins trying to cash in since their circus act was losing it's appeal). But the book is no longer available even in the oldest, vastest libraries in your head.

No new people are joining the living decks. Why bother with it when there's so much to see and do in the city? Isn't it all much more fun when you don't know?

The old man on the bed in a place far far away is gasping for his last breath. After he dies. The motors will do one last thing. They will adorn every skin cell in his body with the design of all the decks that ever were. The Fools and the Devils and the Magicians and The Hanged Men and The World always dancing dancing dancing it's crazy dance.

If you try to remove the skin of a dead deck to keep the paintings you will be very, very, sorry before you pass away.

The point

2006-12-28T02:17:00.000-08:00

"But why Jack?" Bob said while holding his gloved hand on the gleaming blue formica table.
Jack waited while the cute waitress filled their coffe mugs and departed. Swinging her cute little tush under the short skirt. Steam rose from the mugs in heavy caffine scented streams. Muzzeling their faces and creating a delicate mist over his tinted glasses.
A bug fell into his coffe with a cheerful Plunk sound.
Neither of the men commented on that.
Jack lifted the mug to his lips and had a mouthfull of the bitter black liqud. It was scalding hot, but he didn't much care for that.
"Because I'm sick of it." He finally said, in a flat tone.
"Sick of what?" Said Bob. "Of being a human being? Of your job? Of our relationship?"

Something wiggeled under Jack's scarf.
"You're part of it." He said. "And so is the job, and the elections, and the quiet, constant increase in the number of homeless people on the streets. Of children sold for body parts in Eastren Europe. Of the whole stinking christ-sufferng mess of it..."
He stopped speaking after that and took a deep breath. Outside the planes from the recenty re-opened airport flew back and fourth. "Special Rate Flights! See Cairo, Dublin, or Paris for 100$!"
See and possibly be melted by some clever organism sprayed in the lobby. Why not.
"I'm sorry" He said. "It's not you, it's not us. It's me."
A scattering of bugs escaped from his left pants-leg and began eating his chair-leg. The waitress came up to them and said: "Sir I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Some of our other patrons are a little sensetive and well..." A quick glance around. "I think these sorta things need to be done privatly."
She lingered for a bit and softly said to Jack: "I'm sooo proud of you. I'm doing it too as soon as I finish college." Jack smiled, wished her luck.
They left more money on the table then was needed.
It was a short car ride to the open field where the swarm was waiting. They hugged for the last time. And then Bob watched with watery eyes as Jack's body melted into a hord of tiny winged insects all happily flying into the moonless night. Leaving behind the assorted garments of a heavily dressed short man.

He thought about giving the cloths to charity. But instead burned them then and there. Tying the painful stump.
A moth circled over his head. No doubt attracted to the light and warmth.
Bob didn't have the heart to shoo it away.

Too fucking Old Master for this shit

2006-12-16T14:06:00.000-08:00

"I went to the Classical Master, though. He was an old crab he was."
"I never went to him", the Mock Turtle said with a sigh "he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say."
"So he did, so he did", said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

("Alice Adventures in Wonderland")

As always, the most important quiestion in the world is "Who cares for you?"

An evening out

2006-12-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

A teacher of mine once told me something about the Tarot deck. It doesn't tell us anything about what's going to happen, what it does is, it presents us with the scripts we carry in our heads. Because the images can be read in so many ways it's clear that the one doing the reading is you. What's in it is exactly what you put into it.

Lately I've been putting more and more work into the field of emblems, enigmatic engravings meant to serve as a riddle. In the Eropean mind of the time the emblem was seen as a way to correct our inheritly flawed vision of the world. The eyes are decpetive, so by creating a complex, appealing image we lure the eye into seeing something which can't be explained. Then we try to explain it away. The answers come from our own thoughts and feelings, and that will lead us to see things more clearly.

Or so we hope.

So as a resulte, I try to be more careful with what I bring in to situations and places. For example, tonight I spent 200nis on cabs, tickets, and food. 200nis is what I make in a day.

Did I have a good time? Sure did! I met two lovely girlfriends of mine, listened to some live classical music and then to some live rock. Got to see some people I know doing what they love (music). And basically enjoyed myself.

So why do I feel like a Hebrew speaking cowboy or a Tel-Avivan Samurai?
Look at this picture and see what comes up.

25

2006-12-01T10:27:00.000-08:00

Wonderful, Wonderful, Wonderful. The new Dudo Geva expo at the Nahom Gotman Musuem is one of the best Birthday presents I ever got. The love and dedication that went into this expo are amazing. Paintings, cartoons, comics, animation movies and last interviews fill the small and lovely space and give us the work of one of the most talented and honest people who worked here. The published book is also a master stroke, a wonderful chance to get a good idea of what Geva was about without spending a lot of money on hard to find and out of print books.

What else? Now listening to John Lenon on this site containing 500 of the best albums of the last century. Went to see three short plays today with two lady friends from Jerusalem. And am just after a lovely meal with the family. My eldest sister took me out to dinner yesterday which gave us a rare chance to talk in person. I should make a note of it here, my eldest sister is pretty smart and cool:)

Tommarow I'm 25 years old. The past year was far from terrible but sadly not terribly exciting either. Getting a better job then a theater usher, starting the MA, and getting into Ashtanga Yoga was very good for me. In fact, it was wonderful. Now is a good time to start moving twoards a move out of my parents house and also, by far the most important thing, getting some romance back into my life. 2007 seems like a wonderful year for it:)

What else? Heartbreaking art of course, and saying thanks for all of my four and a half readers!

Searching for the dreaming

2006-11-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

Clifford Possum "Bush Fire Dreaming"

Haven't written down anything here in a long while. Didn't think I would be tonight but then I saw this painting and something just happened. I write constently, I write down what my proffesors talk about for starts. Then I go home and re-write it after thinking about it and finding a way of re-telling it which makes it interesting to me. I write academic pieces for presentations. I keep a note pad for ideas and bits I steal from others writing or speech. I keep a magical diary for my dreams and other workings. I am one of the few people around who still write letters and use the mail.

But I haven't written in my blog for a long while, not only because of my free willed busy life (After working four shifts a week with a computer screen it's hardly tempting to do more of the same at home. Yet another reason why I prefer letters to e-mails). But also because I'm begining to wonder if maintaining a blog is something I'd like to keep on doing. I might be a better blog reader then a blogger.

And yet, something happened to make me want to seat down and pour my thought via keybopard to the electronic void. And oddly enough it connects Latin poetry, Aboriginal Languages, and The Atalanta Fugiens.

We'll start with the Latin first, Claudius Claudianus has a line about the Roman legion. "Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis, Quae Scotto dat frena truci ferronque notatas Perlegit examines Picto moriente figures" "[This legion], which curbs the savage Scot and studies designs marked in iron on the face of the dying Pict."

He is refering to the Roman Army fighting the Celtic people of what is now France and Britan. I found this poetic line in a wonderful article by Kym ni Dhoireann. He was interested in the Picts because he was interested in learning if the celts painted their bodies and if so, how. He tried to tattoe himself with woad because many people believe that the celts used it for their tattoes. However, when he tried it he learned that it is not a very good tattoing ink at all.

The reason he tried it was that he is connected to Celtic Reconstructed Paganism. A very serious and earnest group of people who are trying to piece together how a Celtic Pagan culture might have looked like today if it wasn't conqured by Christianity. The scholarship and honesty in their work is awe inspiring.

It turns out that if you try out some of the accepted truths about things they don't always work. If woad makes for poor ink now it was not a very good one then either. ( "It is caustic, will cause the wound to not heal properly and it will not heal in. You might get a vivid scar, but it will not be at all blue.") So he suggests either copper or iron, since both can produce a blue pigment. He thinks the Latin Poetry bit might mean that the marks were made in iron produced blue pigment.

What caught my eye was that it is the marks on the dying figure that the Romans see. The very idea of theory (from the Greek ‘theorein’, which means ‘to look at’). That seeing the truth is possible, originated with the Greek-Roman thought. From the Culture of the Invaders if you like.

So people who are interested in learning how the Celts were have a problem. The Celts are gone, and the closest written source we have to what they were like is written from the eye of the invader. The moment the culture was looked at by the outsideres it began to die. Not all cultures die when looked at by outsiders and even dead cultures leave an impact behind. No one today has seen a living Roman Latin speaking soldier as well and yet some do study Latin. But it's tempting to link the gaze to death. The temptation is more poetic then historical, some cultures even looked back and non-western cultures also destroyed other people they could exploit. Even the Celts spoke about the Tuatha Dé Danann who lived there before they came. There is no virgin land anywhere.

And yet, the poetic link between the gaze and death is a strong one. In Jewish writings it is said that the angel of death "is all eyes".

So now I'm focusing more and more on the Atalanta, because these are tricky Art works that challange the idea that the truth can be shown at all. But it is done in such a powerful and moving visuall way that there's a built in conflict. Western Culture asking itself just how much can be seen, how much can be shown, and what is possible to leave behind when we go. The Atalanta was not meant to just be looked at by the way. There was a larger context to it. There is a text next to the emblem and music was suppoused to be played to accompany the various images. There's a preperation involved. Much like an Aboriginal painting is not suppoused to be put on a wall. It is meant to represnt a dreaming. Something I'm not sure I understand myself. And there was an initiation to the dreaming. Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri did not paint any dreaming, he painted male dreaming of his people. His daughters, painters as well, painted female dreaming, not the same thing.

Yet here we all are. Regardless of how things were or meant to be we are here now. The works are here now. We are all living-in-death now.

And we star gaze on into the living dreaming.

Antiquissima quaeque commentia

2006-10-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Image is from Alciati's book of Emblems. Title means: "All that is most ancient is a lie." It is not related to the shown image (Emblem 189) but to another.

I have placed it here because sometimes I like to give a sign of life and display what's on my mind in a diffrent context to see what clicks.

In the words of Grant Morrison: " While it is true that every grad school class on symbols will say that the meaning of the Holy Grail is The Femal principle, some time and effort devouted to meditating on the symbole and using it in the great work will produce far more interesting and meaningful ideas."

Sweet Mud, fantasy, things pile up

2006-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

* Just got back from seeing the new Israeli movie "Sweet Mud" and really enjoyed it. Everything is great, writing, acting, photography, everything. This movie is like eating very rich choclate for 90 minutes. One knows that every scene, every sub-plot, is wonderful. But it's hard to eat very good chocolate for 90 minutes. Partly because, it's a very emotional movie. However, I seriously believe this one deserves the Oscar. It is worth noting however that, as far as I can see, a great deal of Israeli culture-products (Movies, books, TV) deal with what a difficult place Israel is. Sometimes it's so hard that the characters die ("Life according to Agfa" 1992) and sometimes, like in "Sweet Mud", they have to run away from Israel. (Partly, this makes Spielberg's movie "Munich" a very "Israeli" film since the hero chooses to leave the country and live in Brooklyn.) There are movies that don't deal with Israel in the same way (Most notebly "Walking on Water" and "Guests") But one is an Action movie and the other a Hassidic - Religous tale. They put themselves in a diffrent context then movies that deal with "Israel" and are uniqe in the field of Israeli movies. (Btw, notice the logic loop here: If you make a "serious" movie - then it's hard to watch. If you make a fun movie - you're not "serious".)

**In a conversation with a friend I was able to get out an idea that's been on my mind for a while. A lot of fantasy is based on rules. Spells are cast a certain way, warriors act in a certain way etc. In some works ("Sandman", "Lucifer") it's one of the core elements. This is completly unlike real life where we have rules but not extending to every possible thing* and we can obiously dis-obey. ( I know some cultures do have laws for everything, esp in the Haredi comunity but most of us living in the west do not). This, I think, is the reason a lot of people enjoy it when young (And beyond too, but this particuler hook is luring when young) it presents a very strucured world to inhabt for a spell. Fantastic - Realism also shares a similar thing for the high-brow person, nothing happens in the tale in terms of action (drama). It's a stage on which the auther can express an idea and the ideas become the focus of the story. Some writers do it very well (Karen Joy Fowler comes to mind after reading her "Black Glass") And yet, if you compare that to any Jonathan Kellerman Alex Dalawer mystery the pulp-fiction comes out better in terms of characters. They're alive, they want something, they're beliveble. They don't spend a life time building a library with secrets. Don't misunderstand, I enjoy reading all of these works on diffrent levels, I just felt that these are worth to point out.

*** At work I actually recived a wbsite to look at that said: "Learn to ride horses from the comfort of your own sofa." This takes my previous choice for stupid sites "Draw real-life models on web-cam."

**** The image is up because it rocks. And because it helps me to focus on what's important in life. To find hot women who don't mind my admantium skeleton.

Ukiyo-e, Shuji, Nawashi - Things one should know

2006-09-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about my job is that I get to learn new stuff. For example, I was re-writing an Artist PR relese and read that this Japanese artist learned Shuji, or Japanese Calligraphy, at a young age.

Now this interested me because I like Japanese culture. So I looked on the web for Shuji calligraphy hoping to find pretty things.

As the computer filled up with pics of Japanese children learning to draw Japanese letters, it became clear that Shuji is indeed the art of writing Japanese letters, on the most basic level known to most Japanese, Shodo is "The way of writing", a higher artistic level of writing letters.

In other words, this guy was trying to sell being able to write in his own language as artistic skill. This is like me saying that I can draw Hebrew letters. It is indeed true, I can write the ancient language of my people just like any other Israeli person can, but it's not a special thing.

This however was followed by a pleasent Artist who claimed to be inspired by Ukiyo-e, which is both a wood-block printing technique AND the name for the theme "Pictures of the floating world." These were done between the 17 and 20 Century and are linked to the emerging Japanese middle class and the decline of "Ancient" Japan. Shunga, or Erotic Japanese prints, were a part of that visual culture.
It was a middle class comfort for a middle class just starting to understand itself as such. With wonderful artists like Hishikawa Moronbu and Utagawa Kunisada leading the way to see that new class, with it's good and ugly sides, in a the new way.

Now this Artist was a white American woman inspired by Japanese culture. Which made me think about something Midori said about the Nawashi (professional rope bondage performer ) trend in (some parts) of the west. "I think you can be a scholar of another culture, you can appreciate it. But there's a difference between a scholar and a fetishist. A scholar studies a culture in a three-dimensional way, but a fetishist selects certain things that appeal to him and creates a fantasy idea of what the culture is. "I think there's a lot of fetishizing of Japanese culture going on in certain circles."

So why be a fetisher when you can actually check stuff out* for yourself? Isn't that a whole lot groovier?:)

*Yes, there is some wonderful nawa shibari Art out there. And I suggest you start with Araki Nobuyoshi.

Thangka Art - Yama and "The King of Pain"

2006-09-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

"Every day people go to the Kingdom of Yama (Death), and yet people still believe this will not happen to them as well. In a world which is fleeting they seek a stable joy. Trapped in a cycle of suffering they seek happiness. That is the greatest wonder of all."

(From the Hindu Texts)

There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out/
There's a blind man looking for a shadow of doubt/
There's a rich man sleeping on a golden bed/
There's a skeleton choking on a crust of bread/
King of pain

"Essentially, while no one likes pain, we pay close attention to pain. So the pain and stress receives more cognitive processing. This is very much a downward mental spiral. Now, the law of attraction basically means that if I am “thinking” about pain while in “emotional” trance which is generally what pain generates, I attract those very things to me. Doesn’t this seem to be what happens? Once you start down that spiral, it gets increasing difficult to break out of it. More and more stuff happens and more and more mental energy is dedicated to the stress or pain of the situation. After a while, there is little mental energy left to think about things not related to the situation." (Vitmus)

"The goal of Yoga is to remove the causes of pain before it is formed."
(One of the many translations to the Sadhana Pada Sutra of Patanjali. Chapter 16).

Papa Legba, King Solomon - Old/New World Magic

2006-09-11T14:44:00.001-07:00

This is a veve of Papa Legba, the Loa of the crossroads, bringer of sacred knowledge to men and women, teacher of how to read the world. Opener of the paths between this world and the worlds above.

You'll be, mm-mm-mm-mm, magnet for love / You'll feel, hmm, light in your body
This symbole is from the Clavicula Salomonis, (Sepher Mafteah Shelomoh). To summon old world spirits.

One is drawn with flour on the floor, the other is printed in a book.
One is made to open things, so it turns to the four directions. Has no border. The other is made to protect. To be worn on the body. One was made by African slaves and the other by Jewish and Christian scholars.

But the principle is the same, look into the symbole and let your mind open to the divine. What the symbole represent. As Gershom Sholam said, "The symbole is what can not be replaced by words. It produces a variety of meaning in the beholder's mind that language can never aspire to." If words are but labels, magic is a good way to peel the labels off the beer bottle* of experince.

* People don't drink beer, they drink an image. Once you start drinking beer and not an image you might have more fun.

The Blind Donkey

2006-09-08T14:28:00.000-07:00

"Studying texts and stiff meditation can make you lose your Original Mind.

A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.

Dusk rain on the river, the moon peeking in and out of the clouds;

Elegant beyond words, he chants his songs night after night.."

Ikkyu

I had the pleasure of attending a fund raising evening for Mathan Vilner at the Land of Israel Musem in Tel-Aviv.

Mathan Vilner is a China expert who is a member of the Israeli Georaphical Society, their bussiness is to arrange guided tours for cultivated people who like to experience forigeness deeply. They have earned a very good name in a very tough bussiness.

Mathan Vilner is now in Germany going through cancer treatments. The fund raising was held to enable him to pay his medical bills. It consisted of his friends giving lectures on a variety of things (South American Shamanism/ Indian Dancing/The South Pacific/The Poetry of Ikkyu) And selling Art objects. So the sale and the tickets were the money earners. It was a long night, around four hours long.

There was a very noble and warm feeling to the whole event. Many people showed up for starter. Because the people giving the talks are very well known in their respective fields (Osnat Alkabir in Indian Dancing and Jacob Ras from TAU on Japanese Poetry to name just two) so it had a lot of appeal. All these wonderful people would share their passion with you for only 100nis, and you'd be helping someone.

And as truly moving this event was with these dear people selling objects which they really care for to save a beloved friend. (A woman sold a silk kimono her adoptive mother in Japan gave her, a man sold a mask from Bali his daughter bought on her bat-mitsva trip). I felt a sadness upon me. Because I know that when people in Sweden or Holland make the choice to become dancers or travel guides they don't have a dark shade in the corner of their minds saying: "As much as this makes me happy, this choice might mean that when I'm 40 I'll have to sell everything I own to survive cancer."

Sure, they have other fears. But since they live in countries with a good public health care system this is not one of them. Some fears might be universal, fear of death, fear of old age, fear of being unloved. Some are very specific, I don't wake up fearing not having enough to eat today. Yet many people in the world do. In the west, this fear is no longer with us. We are wealthy enough to worry about eating too much.

I believe that the fear of dying for lack of means to pay for health care will and should be treated as fear of starving to death. There is no reason for it. It can be prevented.

The joy of seeing, the joy of being

2006-09-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

Ah, pretty things.

(1891 A boy's book, marking the beginning of modern childrens' literature in Japan, influenced by german works.)

Art for living, Art for parting from this life. Music, the most sublime of all the arts, full albums and piano.

Sometimes life is so full of joy and pretty things that a quiet thanks is in order. Thanks for being alive, for being healthy, and for being able to enjoy Art, and love, and food, and all the other wonderful things in this material world. Like green grass and ducks in the pound of a city park. And a girl to put my head in her lap and sleep in the shade of a tree.

Well I gotta have it - sharing thoughts

2006-08-11T13:16:00.000-07:00

I've a new job with which I'm very happy. I work at a Tel - Aviv located computer service for a NY Art gallery. Basically, I get paid to look at Art websites and handle some of the e-mails. To me this is the perfect dream job come true. Not only that, it's also in walking distance from my first job as an usher at the National Theater and from where I practice Yoga. The past two weeks have indeed been a true blessing.

As part of my work, I'm exposed to many things. Like breathtaking Art and bussiness ideas I was unaware of. Not to mention stuff I really enjoy like getting an e-mail from a Canadian Artist living in the Yukon who would like a mention of her "partial-Native" heritage at her website blurb. A quick glance at wikipedia taught me that there are 14 "First Nations" living in the Yukon and that the term is used for Native People who are NOT Inuit or Métis. So she better state which of these 14 nations she feels related to don't you think?:)

The image is from the 'Sæmundar og Snorra Edda' and Samantha Simpson has a blog you should be reading. These I found out on my own, without the aid of the spider spirt working on my office computer.

I enjoy the image because it bring to my mind the lines from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner":

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came ;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

`God save thee, ancient Mariner !
From the fiends, that plague thee thus !
--Why look'st thou so ?'
--With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

Which, I think, are also about Art. That thing we all got to have, and once we do, cling to it and move on to buy something else. These objects that some of us spend lives and fortune gathering and keeping and mock us by staying on long after we're dead.

"Observe a secret beyond secrets. It erupts from a blazing noon in Adam's mind."

2006-08-04T13:35:00.000-07:00

"The Kabbalist brings new eyes to the world, eyes developed from reading behind, beneath, above, and beyond the text and commentary of the bible. The Kabbalist reader sees the text of the bible as if in literal cages - a cause of poignant heartbreak and a desire to set it free." (David Rosenberg "Dreams of Being Eaten Alive")

But what happens when you open the cages and let the wild things in there go free? Rosenberg's book does treat the matter of wild imagination with resepect and care (The title is clear enough about what might happen to the careless seeker of sacred knowledge). So let's explore what happened to the Kabbalah under Occult and Non-Jewish thinkers. The interesting thing, for me, is that a whole new Sephira was added at some point and accepted as a potent Symbol. In the original there are ten Sephiroth. A. E Waite (1857-1942) says that there is something quite strange lurking in the structure of things. "The conjunction of Chokma and Binah produced a quasi - emanation called Daath, knowledge, but it is not one of the Sephirot." ("The Holy Kabbalah"). This idea, possibly within the Order of the Golden Dawn, moves Crowley to develop it further to the "False Sephira". This is an Abyss of Reason in which one losses his or her sense of self only to become complete Binah - the female Sephira which recives the wisdom from the male Sephira of Chockmah. Benjamin Rowe writes that "The Binah revelation is understanding. That which is understood is: There is no end to the arising of mysteries within the field of the Beast. Each of them compounds the mystery of what came before, and non is accessible to solution. But the mysteries are very, very, beautiful for all their lack of purpose." ("The Beast and the Star.")

So what is this new, eleventh, Sephira? After seeing an engraving of eleven Sephirot in the Kabbalah Denudata (1677) by Christian Freiherr Knorr von Rosenroth I gussed it's the old Lion of Sfad, Rabbi Issac Luria working behind the scenes. And I was right! Now to the juicy and FUN part of research, to investigate further how this symbole traveled from Sfad to London and evolved into a rite of passage for modern magicians who wish to enter the city of pyramids.

Language of Orderly Imagination and Language of Wild Imagination

2006-07-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

I recently met to discusse my work with one of my proffesors and she told me that while my ideas and thinking are brilliant it's my writing that needs a lot of hard work. She compared my writing to note taking and suggested I be more generous with my readers.

Looking back to my work during the past year I think she has a point. While my Academic work (In Hebrew) has some value, even if only to better understand what intrests me in terms of research and writing. There's little doubt that this blog has mostly been an online note-pad with interesting links, the odd comment or rant, and a few pieces of personal writing which may or may not have some importence. I used to justifiy this by saying that even if my blog isn't always great it's at least a means to keep on writing in English now when I'm no longer taking any writing classes. Time to do better.

My work during the past half year had mostly been about John Dee, Riddles within Cultures, and the develpment of Modern Occult Thought in the West. Allthough I've always had a lot of intrest in the Caballistic work done by Gershom Scholem and the many wonderful Religons of the world it is only recently that my mind began to open up to the larger process of how Religous and Philosophical ideas travel in time and between cultures. And I'll try to write some more about that in future. Even if some of these thoughts are only half baked and even if they'll be sketches for larger works in the future.

Thanks for reading!

Lex Luther's Island

2006-07-24T01:23:00.000-07:00

For me, the most interesting moment in the movie "Superman Returns" was the moment Lex Luther presents Louis with a map of how the world will look after his evil schem. The US is sunk and in it's place will be an island which spreads in all directions. The image of the island brings to mind bad things like cancer cells and moth, stuff that grows and spreads. This image is very much unlike the map of the states where most states have long borders that make the map appear very "straight" and orderly like.

Now this is why some of us in the audience like villians in comics. They rarely kill (Or even succeed in their projects) and their whole point seems to be defy order. The Joker is so much dangerous fun because he escapes Arkham and tries to blure the bondery line between sane and insane. Luther, in the movie, makes it very clear that he is opposed to Superman because the power Superman has should be something all people posses or non at all. This, to my mind, makes him very likeable. What he's saying is: "There's a shitty deal here. The way this story works is HE gets to fly around with this beutifull body and WE lowly shits stand in awe of his a-sexuall goodness. This's a bad deal, let's turn it around." And he tries to do that by replacing Order with Disorder. If Superman is, like many others pointed out, a Christ-like figure then Luther is a Christ-Killer. He wants to kill God and replace God's order (Which is without reasons we can understand, just like the Superman story. There's no REASON why this alien from space looks human and speaks English now is there?:) With man-made order.

Two things came into my mind during the movie. The first was that the image of the island is very much like the post modern idea of knowledge structure. Modern knowledge structer is like a hirrechy, there's BA, MA, PHD and the higer up you go the less people there are and these people are MORE important then the people at the bottom. Like a pyrmid. Maps are bulit like that too. There's a reason why Europe is UP on most maps and that we're in the middle-east. Middle-East to WHOM? To ENGLAND not to US here in Israel!!! The US is actually a great example of a map fashioned FROM a power-center in the East-Coast onward. The boundry between most states isn't usually a natrual border like a river or mountain range but a line drawn in a map made real by humans. The map of the states is MORE rational then that of Europe in terms of lines (how it looks) because of that.

Now the post-modern idea is that of a knowledge structure that grows and collects information from all around it. Something with no straight lines, much like that new island on the map which is basically a living growing crystal.

The Second thing was that Lex Luther looks very much like Aleister Crowly. Bald, white man, very cultivated, very charming and amusing. With a burning desire to fuck things up. To rebel against the system. To steal the power of the Gods or the masters and make everyone into a master. If Lex wantes to kill Superman to gain Christ-Like power then Crowly actually devised a ritual in which you're supposed to kill a frog as a symbole for christ. This is why I disagree with Abigail about what's the climax of the movie. If you're there for the emotion, then you realise how potent the Luther-Kal El relationship is. Luther is likeable because he's daring, smart, able to make money. In his own way he's a postive example of Capitalism and in that very "American." He wants a democarcy without Super Men. A society of equals. Superman is also a powerful bit of stuff. He represnts religous ideals about the goodness of men and women that are uniqly American. These two powers of capitalism which makes everything and everyone the same VS the religous ideas of unlimited goodness which is un-democratic, un-fair, and without reasons are still very much at play to this day.

And one last bit, BOTH pwers are part of the SAME system, the story we're told.

The demon bridge Asana

2006-07-19T15:30:00.000-07:00

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
And Jill goes down on her back.

O look, look in the mirror,"

(W. H. Auden)

Hamsters and the letter "yat"

2006-07-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

"We should all kill our hamsters. One of my friends recently lost his wife to a terrible cancer case. Yet after she passed away he was doing fine and didn't seem to be grieving. We were all surprised by that. And then half a year later his hamster died. And he was BROKEN. That hamster was his wife's pet and as long as he had it he had some connection to her. She wasn't really gone you see? But when it died, he had to face her death. The same is true about people who are Buddhists or whatever, they say: "Oh, I live in the world and work and buy products and take part in this crule cycle that fucks up the planet and starves the third world but heck, I'm a Buddhist, it's all illusion anyway." And this hamster helps to keep them going as a part of the system. I think we should all get rid of our hamsters in order to change things for the better."
(Slavoj Žižek )

Dmitri Likhachev "presented a humorous paper on the need to restore to the language the letter "yat". The Bolsheviks banned the letter as part of a campaign to "modernise" Russian after the revolution. Later, one of Likhachev's interrogators railed at him for daring to waste his time on such things. "What do you mean language reform?" The interrogator shouted. "Perhaps we won't even have any language at all under Socialism."
(Page 104, "Lenin's Tomb", by David Remnick)

living in a country without a Slavic Studies Dept

2006-07-13T03:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went out in the morning and came back to see that our soldiers are now in Lebnon. This is an on-going (In Hebrew Rolling) Operation. History is being made every day.

I was going to write a post dealing with books I look for at libraries. I was going to mention that books that appeal to me have soft-covers, easy to read fonts, a cover-design which is interesting, and are fairly recent (Last twenty years or so). I was going to write about how much fun it is to walk in a good library and discover a book like that with the title "Inventing Japan" by Ian Burma or "Lenin's Tomb" by David Remnick. Then I was going to discuss in short how important poplar fiction is to generate intrest in poplar academic writing. My intrest in Japan is solidly based on having read "Shogun" by James Clavell as a boy. The intrest in Soviet and Modern Russia is due to such books as "Gorky Park" and "Omon Ra". Then I might have strayed from the path and wondered what happens when a Russian reads "Gorky Park" or a Japanese reads "Shogun" and lament the fact that despite having recived many Russian Immigrants to Israel and in fact always having some amount of Russian Culture intergraded in Israeli Culture Hebrew U had recently closed the only Slavic Studies Dept in the country. Thereby not allowing that impressive culture it's rightful place in the Israeli Academic world. Personaly I'd love to see an Irish-Studies Dept in Israel as well, but whereas Irish Culture is almost a non-presence in Israel (There is Guinness though) Russian Culture can be found in the way we speak and think.

Now all I want to do is type the words of the late Benni Peled that were published in today's paper: "A Soverign State does not engage in Retaliation Acts. This is what a strong tribe or community do. A Soverign State engages in Acts of War to gain Political Goals. Non of the Retaliation Acts had Political Goals and any protection of the (Israeli) tribe gained by them was for a limited time only. It is a fact that the struggle with our neighbors is on-going whenever they feel they can achieve a Political Goal by it. Their failure in achieving one up until now (1973) Does not mean the Tribe of Israel is a State. It proves that it is a strong community in the battelfield imposed on it."

Founding Fathers, thinking out load about History

2006-07-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

In one of his letters Thomas Jeffreson gives a young man the advice: "Don't bother with taking History classes because it's easier and more enjoyable to learn it from books."

While it is true that reading can be a great source of knowledge one has to meet, at least at some point in life, people who'll encurage him or her in their intrest. Before you pick up a book you need to know the matter is worth knowing something about and be confident of your ability to understand it.

In my case it was Miss Tamar Alfer, my High School English teacher, who opened the door to American Studies. It was Prof. Yishak (Ini) Abadi who opened the door to Israeli and Arab Studies. That was during my pre-military year of service. I was able to graduate from High-School with good grades and not know much about Israeli or Regional History. Much of it is, obiously, due to personal reasons. Many people grow up in familes that go hiking and talk about Israeli History as a living thing. Others have a personal intrest in it and join groups that discuss and do activities about it. It just so happens that mine didn't and I didn't. I think I knew who George Orwell was before I knew who Menacham Begin was. And to be fair, the image I had of Begin is from a comic strip done by Dudo Geva in which two rough-necks grab the character of the duck and chant: "Begin, Begin, Begin."

(Note: Begin was a Right-Winger and loved among the masses. These masses felt un-appreciated by the ruling Israeli "elite" so to speak. Geva's character, for better or worse, is a symbol of this so called "elite". Secular, European in origin, Israeli Jews. The rough-necks who chant Begin's name are thus presented as very diffrent from the gentle Tel-Avivian duck. Geva's work as a cartoonist can only be understood in relation to that particular Israeli culture.)

So it took me a while to understand that there IS an Israeli History which is worth learning about. It just so happenes that I didn't bother to do it. In a sense my years since the pre-military year of service were an attempt to "fill in the gaps" so to speak.

So after I finished reading "His Excellency George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis I read "Menachem Begin - A portrait of a leader. A Biography." by Ofer Grosbard and am now reading "Ben Gurion - A Biography" by Michael Bar-Sohar.

Great stuff!

I think that the most striking thing about our History is how fresh it is. Almost every quiestion that the founding fathers deal with, the treatment of the Native Arab people, the place of Religon in Israel, diaspora and Israeli relations - Is still a very real issue. Another thing which quickly appears is how sensative they are to larger things. Washington and Jefferson weren't dull either, but they were American first and all else second. Among the Israeli Founding Fathers what should be first, Jewish, Hebrew, Israeli, Humanist, Communist, Socialist, or even Pro-English - Isn't all that clear and it's not rare to see them change these definitions as they go along, changing the world and being changed by it.

How could they not? These weren't fifth generation Virginians or first generation Americans growing up in a place that had been setteled for a century by English speaking people. These were European Jews who grew up watching Jews being whipped in public parks and smelling the fires set by Cossucks raiding Jewish towns in Russia and Poland. A Begin or Ben-Gorion reading books to take their mind off the hunger and dangers are diffrent then a Franklin or Jeffreson collecting books. The laters had a langauge in which they felt at home, the formers had to learn Hebrew at some point or other. They were inventing themselves as they went along as well. As thinkers and leaders and men, they were living in a world which is very far from us today.

And the quiestion I still think about once in a while is this, why is it that so many Israelies of my generation grow up ignorant of our history?

A grand wee moment

2006-06-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Being up at 05:00 AM because I have spent the last 7 hours helping a friend make an Art Movie in which said friend dressed up as a giant chicken and danced.

I love my friends.

Now to take a nice hot bath and get some sleep before a double shift at the theater.

:)

Tree language

2006-06-26T03:57:00.000-07:00

Oscar cách i gceird araile
("Everyone is a beginner at another's trade or craft." Old Irish saying.)

I was reading this out of intrest in language and modern magical thinking about it when I learned something new.

Not only is there an Irish Celtic Langauge, there is also an ancient script for it called Ogham. Robert Graves seemed to have believed this script is connected to the Celtic Calander and Religon. Meaning, every symbol for a letter is also a symbol for a month and deity. He then seemed to have cemented this idea in the public mind by writing "The White Goddess". A book which is still read in circles keen on Myths, History, and alternetive ways of reading culture. And still despised by academic scholars.

This lead to someone interested in langauge and reality to claim: "each character represents a letter, a tree and a god, making it impossible to draw the line between ideogram and phoneme. The destruction of this script by invading societies was a form of mind control because Ogham mirrors the worldview, the mythology, of those who speak it. The implication is that carving out your own syntactical freespace can profoundly change the way you think."

Now, this interested me, IS there a language with a "holistic" three-in-one BUILT IN symbolism?

It seems the answer is NO. While there is an Ogham Script, Irish Language, and Irish people Graves seemed to have re-invented the relationship between these elements to suit his own fancy. In the words of Peter B. Ellis:"Hundreds of books are written on Celtic mythology, culture and history by people who have not studied one word of a Celtic language. Of all the civilisations in the world, the Celts alone appear to have become fair game for anyone setting themselves up as experts but who wouldn't recognise a Celt if one greeted them on an Irish or Cornish road with 'Conas tá tú?' or Dêth da dhys!'.

As for the relationship between signs, sounds, and meaning. The diffrence between a line on the ground and a sound is simple. This is an image, this is a sound. You see the one and hear the other. Grant Morrison wrote about a drug called "Key 23" which causes the user to percive words as what they mean. (A mug with the words "World's Best Dad" = One's own father etc). But he did that in a comic book. Any language is also a function of how the people speaking it see the world. And inventing your own signs IS a great way to learn new things about yourself and the world. Just like the other great ways, talking to people, making friends, listening to new kinds of music, or writing a blog.

It seems to me that Temple Grandin has a point, people who are word-oriented can lose sight of what's really there. And the whole focus on words (Blacks or African-American? Whores or Sex-Workers?) Is sometime just a way to avoid the understanding that changing the world is more complex then changing your mind.

Drasanta pathein, pathei mathos

2006-06-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

That's Greek for "Every drama (Action, actions) leads to pathos (Suffering), from suffering comes mathos (Wisdome). "

Wish I could be so sure.

It's around midnight and I've been up since six, had a busy day of Yoga, TAU, typing my paper, and working. On the various buses I've managed to finish "Charles Bukowski - Locked in the arms of a mad life" by Howard Sounes and start reading "His Excellency George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis. I'm hearing Johnny Cash now, it's been a good day.

And I still miss someone.
Give my love to Rose...

A salacious and ribald image of a concupiscent and inexorable nature

2006-06-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

The comic pump we call the heart

2006-06-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

"So you found the comics. Let's say you read the comics. Then what happened? I mean, you didn't just think, hey!I'm gonna base my life on this comic book!"

"Atually that's more or less exactly what I thought."
( "Enigma" Part 8)

This is a moment I remember so well.

It was during my army serivce and I went to a comic-book sale by comic-express. That was a mail-order company we used before there were comic book shops. Sure, we could've ordered our comics from the states and possibly with the internet (This was about four years ago, almost forever in internet terms) but comics are a very emotional thing. I think that's why most of us attend sales and go to shops even though we don't really need it to get the product. We also need other people to share our passion with.

I was off comics for a while because Marvel destroyed Spider-Man for me. I grew up reading Spidey so their take on how the last few years of Peter Parker's life wasn't really his but of his clone really turned me off comics. I suddenly felt that nobody cares about the charecters, that it's all a money making scame.

And I was right, but that's not all there is to it.

"Sandman" was what got me back into comics during army-time. And that's how I got to the sale.

Now at the sale there were these few guys talking. And they looked like the worse cartoon of a nerd anyone could think of. They were fat, poorly dressed, unshaved, looked like they haven't had a balanced meal or balanced anything in the last decade - And they were talking about comics.

And after a few seconds I understood two terrible things. That I can follow what they're saying, and that I have something I'd like to add to the debate.

That's when I learned that I love comics and am just as much a part of that tribe as these cartoonish dudes. Loving comics doesn't mean you have to BE like that. You can love comics and work out, keep a day job, and even go on dates! But it's just one of those things that you need to catch early and it never quite goes away. Like someone's first love.

Stan Lee Nicholas Cage and Michal Allred are very diffrent people doing very diffrent things (Writer, Actor, Artist). But they all love comics.

It's something to do with the image and the word, how appealing that is to a young mind. And about the good guys wining, doing good, and getting the girl. It's also about very hot women in tight outfits and the ability to put on a mask and be someone else. It's also about having fun and knowing the rules. Spiderman may be hurt but he'll bounce back, the Joker might have hurt a few people but nobody died or anything. And best of all, nobody is doing this for any reason which makes sense. In the words of Alan Moore: "I'm sure many people in the real world have had their parents killed in front of their eyes, I'm pretty sure that lead to a painfull life, possibly some intense therapy - but I'm postive nobody said: "I know! I'll turn to a bat and fight crime!"

This is why it's a fantasy you see? It may take on the Western or Space-Opera format, it may have hot babes and tears and drama, but it all works out in the end. (And even when it doesn't, like in "Tales from the Crypt", it's cool. Because these were bad people, and bad people desreve being eaten by vampiers and what not.)

And best of all, ther's always a "NEXT!" being made even as we speak.

Written after seeing "X-Men 3" and loving it.

Janissaries and Hierophants - Re:Chalie Wilson part 2

2006-05-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

This image belongs to a society now lost to us as much as the ancient Greeks or gwandanaland, that of the Soviet Union.

In his book "Charlie Wilson's War" George Crile presents the idea that the Afghan War was one of the reasons the Soviet Union collapsed.

This idea leads to a troubling element of Historical writing, that of deciding what is important and what is not. Was The Soviet war in Afghanistan important? Well, it lasted from 1979 to 1989, around 28,000 Russians died, and the cost was huge. After the US supplied the Afghans with stingers the Russians began to lose MiGs, a stinger costs between 60,000$ to 70,000$, a MiG costs 20 MILLION dollars. The 40'th Army used Spetsnaz Forces for every-day combat. These guys are the Special Russian Forces. They cost a hell of a lot to train and when the Afghans began killing them the moral was badly damaged. Even if they only killed them because they had an American-Made stinger to shoot down the MiG that gave them an Air-Lift. (As a side-note, the Soviet-Army, just like the American Army in Vietname, NEVER lost a direct battle with the enemy and, just like the Americans, they killed a hell of a lot more then they were killed.) The Soviet Army had to turn back, something which never happened befor. And a Hero of the Soviet Union, Valentin Ivanovich Varennikov , lost a fight.

But was it one of the reasons that lead to the collapase of the Soviet-Union?

That is a hard quiestion to answer. Charlie Wilson has no doubt: "They removed a threat we all went to sleep with every night, of World War 3 breaking out. The countries that used to be in the Warsaw Pact are now in NATO. These were truly changes of biblical proportion, and the effect the jihad had in accelerating these events is nothing short of miraculous."

Yes, Jihad, Holy War. In that sense, this book should be sold next to "Messages to the world - The statements of OBL". To understand OBL one needs to understand how meaningfull the Soviet retreat was to Muslims. To understand how the war was won one needs to learn of Charlie Wilson.
Funny old world innit? Funny, and sad.

Gust Avrakotos, the Greek-American CIA agent that was Wilson's partner in this secret CIA war - liked to think of himself as a Janissary, a warrior devoted to the Empire. It is one of the greatest ironies about modern democracy, in order to enjoy freedome we rely on people who function within strict, often violent, castas. They are our bullies, and we need them to survive. Otherwise we'll be buggered to death by dirt-poor mule-fuckers.
(This is true, Russians who were captured by the Afghans were either killed in the most horrible ways possible or kept as sex-slaves and then killed. The Afghans also fucked the fine Mules provided to them by the CIA. In some cases they also ate them. Once the Russians were out they began killing each other and ended up with the Taliban.)

I can not help but thinking that it is very hard to write a war book which is not, in some way, bully-worshiping. Is there anyone who would not like to play James Bond and fly Jets around and bang pretty girls on behalf of a great big cause? Even more so, aren't our Hierophants AS MUCH of a mess as our bullies?

What, you think I'm giving up cake for a crazy girl?

2006-05-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dang.
"Finder" is a gem of a comic.
Guess it's time for a link-dump for all of my four-and-a-half readership.

Carla Speed McNeil is doing work on a scale I haven't seen anyone attempt to do since Moebius, and that's what this is. A work of Art that is more Europe then America. This comic didn't sell so it's now a pure online and TPB work. This is what Art is when it's done out of pure love for stories and story-telling.

BTW, this world is pretty cool. It turns out that Mobius worked with Alejandro Jodorowsky. Now Jodorowsky taught Tarot to Eiale Ben-Dov. And Ben-Dov helped ME out with my Magical Work.

He also helped Hagar Yani, who wrote "The Whale from Babel" which I think is the best Israeli Fantasy book I read this year.

So: "Drawn Together", "Sadam and Osama", "Vincent", Alan Moore.

Killing Commies and Chasing Pussy - Charles Wilson Part 1

2006-05-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

I'm currently reading "Charlie Wilson's War" by George Crile, this book is about how one house member from Texas was able to single-handedly supplly the Afgahans with enough money and weapons to kill over 28,000 Russians, causing the Soviets to order their troops out of Afgahanistan.

He did it with the help of the House Appropriations Commitee.

You see, there are 50 House members in that commitee, it is divided into 12 sub-commitees headed by 12 chairmen. The HAC is headed by a chairman as well. (Currently Jerry Louis)

This commitee decides how to spend 500 billion dollars a year. This money is the entire State Depatment's budget for the year AS WELL as the entire US Military and Economic Assitance budget.

This means that whoever is seating there can decide how much money Israel will get to buy F-16's with. If Pakistan should get the same amount, or less, or (Some might argue) That it should only get money to buy American grain and dairy proudcts and no weapons at all. If you happen to be a worker in Texas (Where F-16's are made) You know the answer's F-16's. If you're the head of the Ohio Dairy Farmers Union you know Federal Aid should be used to provide children with one glass of milk per day.

The House Members who serve in the HAC are courted by Multi-Million dollar companies to make the RIGHT call (To buy their products) As well as by anyone in the Federal Gov who wishes to get anything done in his or her turf. CIA, FBI, all these guys and girls need paychecks and money to work.Whoever's on the HAC gets to write the checks.

This is the machinery of power, the people operating the machine are just that, people. If there's a budget, someone has to decide how to spend it. If there's any form of goverment at all then someone has to decide. This is a basic truth.

So is it any wonder that the people behind the machine can be just as foolish, naive, drunk, skirt-chasing, and money grabbing as the worst of us?

Charles Wilson hated commies and loved women. This is a man who, as a Naval Officer, wanted to blow away a Soviet Sub beliving no-one will ever know. A man who hid from the police when they came to arrest him after he slammed his car into someone else's and didn't even stop to see if the guy was hurt. He was a drunk.

But he managed to get what he want, because he was also charming and friendly and handsome. But most importantly, because the real world does not work on reason. It works on power, and money, and human weaknesses. These weaknesses aren't bad or good, they're just there.

How did Charlie convince the head of the HAC at his days to go to Afghanistan?

The Chairman loved expensive junkets to Europe using US Air Force jets but was so unliked by the other members that non wanted to go with him to justify the expense.

Charlie did, and the Chairman got to see Paris and then Afgahinstan.

This is the real world, and in the real world the things that can make or break nations can sometimes be who sat next to who at a dinner party or if the reception band played well enough or even if the women officers next to the VIPs were friendly or not.

For anyone even remotly interested in the real world this book is a must read. I'll tell you more about it when I'm done reading it.

I want "Student's Day" changed to "Sucking Satan's Cock For Money" Day

2006-05-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

Notes:
Unless Aviv Gefen and Asaf Amdorski are fucking live on the stage I do not want to see them or hear their music.

Real musicians do not performe while standing above a HUGE poster of "Nokia", or "Pepsi", or whatever. These guys had their shot at merch on the long bloody walk to the event and on the tickets and the posters. Any musician who performes under such conditions is never to be refered to as an Artist ever again.

This girl I met on the bus told me that she's doing an Art piece on "The Living Dead". Which, she thinks, are the young people going to these parties.

Well, as much as I like Artsy birds this is complete crude.

1) Real living deads would be eating people and fucking their remains. This audience just stood there and tapped their feets.

2) Just because other people have jobs does not make them the living dead. We all have the gift of being able to imagine something better for ourselves and doing it. It's nobody's fault if you don't except your own.

I'll repeat that, if you go to a party and you think all the people there are living dead - YOU are it my friend.

The fireworks were awsome, I also enjoyed jumping on the huge trampoline.

A late, but honest answer

2006-05-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

So I'm working in the theater last night and I see Nadav, a friend from the (Deep breath now) Pre-Military Year of Service I did at the Golan-Heights I've since lost contact with.

Which is totally cool because Nadav was, and might still be, a very cool dude.

So we do the traditional hug and dance and after the show he comes up to me (Note: This is very nice of him because most people I just happen to meet at work don't bother doing that.) And asks me: "So what has to happen in order for you to come to the group re-union"?

Well, I told him, I don't know what to tell you. I haven't thought of an answer for that.

The straight facts are quite plain. This particuler re-union is a weekend-long thing away from TA. Which isn't so hot for me since I can't drive. AND it also takes place at the home of a person whom I've tried to maintain some sort of a contact with and basicaly just cut me off completely. And I'm not too eger to spend a weekend under the roof of someone who doesn't deem my friendship as a worthwhile thing.

When I told that to Anna (The person who usually makes all the logestic efforts for these things) She said that the event is for all the people who went to the class and the owner knowes this so I'm defintly invited. To this I said that had this been importent enough to me then I would have. But it's not. Because I don't feel a part of this group anymore and I don't stay in touch with groups but with people.

Not that I wanted to tell that to Nadav after he seemed so honest and ernest about wanting me to attend. Esp so because, if I were honest, I'd have to admit that this is a case of "if" "then" rather then a major belief. Had this thing been a two hour thing in a Tel-Avivian flat I'd have come for sure.

So I've been thinking about this and this is my late answer to be posted on the old blog for future references.

1) I would very much appreciate it if, when I make the effort to call the few people I keep contact with, they'll actually talk to me and not pump me for info while not saying anything. A usuall talk with some of them is like this:
Me: So whassup with you?
Person: Oh you know, all is well, yourself?
Me: Well (Art, Work, BA, MA, Baltimore, Theater etc) And yourself?
Person: Nothing much. So what do you hope to do witht the MA?

2) I do not feel that going to a class like that when I was 18 commits me to anything at all. I was a very young man, scared of army service, who looked for and found a pleasent way to enjoy another year of youth. I am not responsible for the well being of Israeli society. People who talk like that past the age of 19 should be fucking shot in the head and I mean it.

3) I do not know you people because it's been six years since we lived together. I'd very much like to get to know the person you are today. And I can't do that if you keep talking about that year as if it's the best thing that ever happened to you. Being loved and touched by a woman was the best thing that ever happened to me in my teens. Growing up to realising what I like and dislike and that it's ok to live my life like I want to is the best thing that ever happened to me in my teens. Not picking avokados or seeing Sini with you guys, those things were great, they were FUN, but I hardly think of them as very importent. Going to Slovenia as an Artist and being interviowed on the radio there was WAY cooller then that! Living in the states and realising I want to live in Israel and not to be an Artist, THAT mattered!

4) Stop being so fucking OLD. You talk about cars and jobs and bitch about the country and go to SA and IN because you feel you should and none of you come back any different! This may be unfair of me to say (I know it's unfair) but I can't help it. Most of you just aren't interesting.

Non the less, I gave Nadav my contact details. Like I said, I'm always happy to stay in touch with people.

The recent increase in Spiderman images is due to me finding the old animation tv openings I enjoyed as a kid and later. Which may lead to a very mature yet geeky post on why comics and super-heroes are so special to me even today.

Now hearing: Radio Nova, the best in black music.

What's the matter with HIM? - Cartoons, freedom, and more

2006-05-01T13:44:00.000-07:00

I recently found some wonderfull animation clips on the web and wanted to post them here for sharing as well as knowing where they are if I need them.

Also, haven't been posting as often as usuall because I'm fairly busy with my academic projects, working at the theater, and taking Yoga seriously. In that sense I'm getting a lot more accumplished since returning from Baltimore, which is great.

So, I've found a 1940's animation vid called "Tin Pan Ally Cats" which has GREAT music and animation. It is also very offensive because it presents blacks in black-face fashion. Now I'm no Dan Clowes (He dealt with the issue of American Culture and the way blacks are presented in it much more fully and wisely then I aim to do here) But I felt that the issue needed some comment on my part before posting. I believe the movie works as a movie and is SO brilliant (Wait 'till you see what they did with Hitler, Stalin, and the Japanese) that it's still worthy of being presented. I also believe that this is a part of American Culture, and if you enjoy that culture then that's a piece of history right there. (Not being an American I say this as an outsider who's an Americanofill).

But more then anything else, I believe in people's right to say and see whatever they want. Even if I'm not always happy with what that is. I just don't watch it or explain why I dislike it. This is my view on EVERYTHING from Porn to Mein Kamp, sunlight IS the best disinfectent.

Saying this, I really do enjoy wild animation like "A house of Cosbies" (Here's all five movies) and "PussyCow." Just like I enjoy the Art of Rocking Jelly Bean and Tod Mcflerene.

MY blog, My fucking turn-ons yeah?:)

Wave of the future

2006-04-24T02:01:00.000-07:00

And now, music.

Wonderful grey and rainy day after two days of hot, dusty, "bitches from Hell" weather. Perfect time to catch up on "John Dee's conversations with angels - Cabala Alchemy and the End of Nature" by Deborah E Harkness.

"In 1584, when his scryer desribed the image of a "great place, about 300 mile long, like a park, enclosed with fire." And enthused that it must be paradise, Dee demurred. In spite of the angel's insistence that it was indeed paradise, Dee replied that: "Till 45 degrees, both northenly and southerly, all is known in the most part of the world. But of any such place there is no knowledge nor likelyhood by any history of these days, or of old time." (P 81)

living together does not mean knowing

2006-04-22T07:03:00.000-07:00

I was at a party last night and got to talking with someone who's a History major who said that women in Afgahnistan are better off today then they were under the Taliban. I wondered how can that be being that, as far as I know, the minute you leave Kabul you no longer enjoy personal security. Why should it make a diffrence for the better to women if they're being killed while possesing the right to vote in comparison with the past, when they had no rights but they weren't killed?

She said that under the Taliban life for women were so bad that as bad as things are now it's better for them. And I asked how can this be since during the Taliban men and women lived together and obiously Afgahni culture survived so it weren't so bad as to make all women commit sucide.

What she said, and I think is worthwhile posting here, is that living together doesn't mean much. Masters and Servents in Russia were both of the same culture and living together but that did not stop the masters from abusing the servents and doing terrible things to them. It's possible that if things in Afgahnistan will be very terrible for very long then eventually women won't care anymore about anything else except order. We both agreed we don't know enought about Afgahn culture to understand if their treatment of women is truly "in it" or a product of the Taliban idelogy. The quiestion of women's rights within non-western cultures is a very wide one and can't be fully ansered.

Had a good time at the party! Hope y'all had a good weekend!

Bab-El, the door to God, Babilon

2006-04-14T06:19:00.000-07:00

what I read.

what I hear.

Life is good! Whoopy!:)

the DMT virus - Sick, but in the BEST possible way

2006-04-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

"...the human DMT synthesizing enzyme has been found, cloned, and injected into a virus. When this virus infects cells in the test tube, those cells produce DMT..."

Rick Strassman is a Jewish Doctor, would he lie to you?:)

immensly good shit

2006-02-20T15:25:00.000-08:00

You reckon malicious extra-terrestrials have thrown a "frequency net" around our planet to prevent us accessing higher forms of consciousness, but that good ETs are fighting to free us. Why are aliens so interested in us?
Terms like 'good' and 'bad' are extremely simplistic in what is a far more complex situation. I prefer to speak of 'interdimensionals' rather than 'extraterrestrials' because the latter has connotations of 'little green men' and all the other cliché responses. Nor does it tell the full story.
Which is?
Our five senses can access only a tiny frequency range, like a radio tuned to one station. In the space you are occupying now are all the radio and television stations broadcasting to your area. You can't see them and they can't see each other because they are on different wavelengths. But move your radio dial and suddenly there they are, one after the other.
(David Icke)

I would like to add that this guy sells his books.

True tales from Tel-Aviv

2006-01-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

1) I went to Comicasa to check out what's new and discovered they charge 30nis for the "Solo" comic. (Which is 5$ so it's not as bad as it sounds.) Still, it seemed a bit too much. So I bought what was there and then went to see if Comics and Veg had the issues Comicasa were missing. As it turned out, Comics and Veg charge 25nis for the same comic. (And they had the missing comics).

Now, this may not seem like a big deal because it's only 5nis. But considering the fact I buy more then one comic per month AND the fact Comics and Veg ARE making a profit at 25 nis it's a safe bet I'll be spending less money at Comicasa from now on.

I understand that comics are luxeries and I'm more then happy to pay for the work and money runing a comic shop involves. After all, I too enjoy walking into a store and seeing what's on the shelves and talking with the owner about comics and other things. But there is no reason to charge these kind of prices. I'll still go to comicasa because it's my intrest to keep both shops alive (Plus the fact comicasa hands out free movie tickets once in a while). But let it be known that for now, comics and veg are the better deal.

2) I toured the local book shops and asked at one of them where is their sci-fi section since I remembered they had a pretty nice one. The owner takes me outside the store and points me twoards a hidden staircase. Upon entering, I found myself in a tiny cript with some other person there working on the computer. With old sci-fi books scattered about the shelves in the dim light.

This was the sort of place books go to in order to die. I really felt bad standing there and slowly realising that YES, this is the way things ARE. Sci-fi sells badly. Simple as that. And books that sell badly end up in these kind of places. The funny thing was this guy had some old Masada books that were quite lovely but priced at insane prices.

Later I went to another bookstore and saw they had a 50% off sale on their books and, at the top floor, they were selling books at 25nis and 10nis. These books were at the last stage before becoming bog-roll. (When books are taken out and pulped). So I'm guessing things are bad all around.

3) In a noble attempt to get back into shape I went to a fencing lesson this week at a local high school. As it turned out the instructor was the SAME person who taught me the sport when I was ten (!) Class consisted of two high school kids, a portly man in his 30's, and a younger man who was an hour late.

I don't know about you but seeing a portly man in a class makes me rethink the value of said sport. Also the hour late thing.

It was just SAD really. And apparently THIS is the longest runing fencing class in Israel. There's THIS sad thing and the PROS. And NOTHING in between. This sad collection of used shirts and swords and helmets all piled up disorderly in the back of a gym and Vingate. And the only way to get to Vingate is to be trained in Russia and come here later and REALLY want this as a carrer. There's just no class for people who want this to be a serious hobby.

So I said thanks to the intructor (Because it was fun to sword fight again) And am now looking for something else. Does anyone has any ideas?

In the Israeli Art scene you can be as radical as you want, as long as you don't talk about the Art Scene

2006-01-17T10:36:00.000-08:00

Hey there reader mon! Me love you looong time! I take you on tok-tok, then we do bom-bom, how's that?

OH, you here for the ART mon. OK, is good thing you say so now.

Well, Art mon, Art today is for those who have the bling-bling. And in Zion, we have very interesting people mon. I and I try to look see what they do.

And then, when I want to escape into the Anglo realm of sci-fi/fantasy, I check out Abagile. Because she uses words like: "Space-Whore Linkdump ". Which makes me laugh.

Yay space whores!:)

God Oh Fucking My

2006-01-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

Real live superheroes. Yes.

The Israeli Society for the promotion of Sci-Fi and Fantasy has a brilliant website with a link to the latest book by Kobi, the owner of "Front of Eden" bookstore and quite possibly the first one in Israel to publish his own sci-fi books. This, plus the fact we now have a sci-fi mag, makes me happy.

This new political party also makes me happy.

I'm going to read Kobi's book now and drink a second bottle of beer, which will make me even more happy.

Cheers and God bless.

Have I mentioned comics and babes yet?

2006-01-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

lynda Carter, and I really don't care what you think.

Also, Israeli music, FREE!!!

We’re all children when we go into the cinema. The actors stand four times our height and speak louder than we can.

2006-01-03T07:45:00.000-08:00

" We hand over our cash to be told terrible and wonderful things, and to see all kinds of magic."
Found here.

One of the nice things about spending five mounths working on a new machine (a lap-top computer) is to get back to your old machine and check out what sort of things the person you were half a year ago was into. I discovered this cool site for Jap underground culture and this, a web site devoted too magic. Not the rabbit and hat stuff, the: " A near death ritual I did in February 2004. I did this ritual to manifest change in my life. The actual ritual took place over three days and involved me bringing myself to a state of near death and having my personal demons consume myself in an effort to find perspective and manifest that perspective in my life. The culmination of the ritual was invocation of godforms that were used to birth "me" back into existence...While the three day ritual was very powerful, what was even more powerful was the results that continued to manifest and are still manifesting in my life at this point. These results were the "deaths" of relationships, career path, etc, and the births of new career paths, new relationships, and even a new state of residence. There was also much internal death in terms of habits and pursuits that were unhealthy being gradually replaced by a much healthier approach to life. " stuff.

Today I'm cleaning my room, apparently the person I was half a year ago was attached to SO much clutter. It's like being in a tomb surrounded by archiolagical layers indicating past events.

PS

Today my mom made me a sandwhich.
YAAAAY!!!!:) This is the first sandwich anyone made me in half a year! Love my mom! munch munch...

Back in TA!!!:)

2006-01-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

Plane landed at 08:00 and I've been up ever since (Now 23:50). Had a wonderful day. Bought this great new cd by the apples, then bought issues 1-3 of "Fell", followed by a delightfull meal at Sonia (On Simta Plonit) With Julia and Vick.
It's good to be back!:)

And here's yet another funny Jap vid, "Night on Fire".

2006 - coming to terms

2005-12-30T18:37:00.000-08:00

Had a great day today!:)

2005-12-27T20:23:00.000-08:00

Ten hours in NY, most of them at the Musuem of Natrual History, then buying some comics (Local/Brian Woods, Eightball/Dan Claus).
Then spending five hours on the road back home and then devouring a quarter of apple pie.

Yep, AMERICA!!!:)

PS

I got a big kick out of hearing Harrison Ford explain ALL people are made from the same cosmic matter created at the big bang. (In search for life at the NHM)
I bought the coolest magnet with spiderman and catwoman! (I don't care most of my three and a half readers don't understand. Catwoman was spiderman's romantic intrest in the perioud between Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane.)
YES, I know such things, and am still happy.

the bible lectures of Rabbi Soloveitchik

2005-12-22T18:38:00.000-08:00

"The king (Melek) is an artisan who shapes something amorphous and fashions it into something beautiful and fascinating..."

(Here)

The Homeric Hymn to Hermes

2005-12-21T13:42:00.000-08:00

"And Apollo was seised with a longing he could do nothing about. He opened his mouth and the words flew out: "Butcher of cattle, trickster, busy-boy, friend of merry-makers, the things you're interested in are worth fifty cows."

(Trans: Lweis Hyde, same place)

a tale for the last week in Baltimore

2005-12-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

"Trickster happened to look in the water and much to his surprise he saw many plums there. He surveyed them very carefully and then he dived down into the water to get some. But only small stones did he bring back in his hands. Again he dived into the water. But this time he knocked himeself unconsious against a rock at the bottom. After a while he floated up and gradually came to. He was lying on the water, flat on his back, when he came to and, as he opened his eyes, there on the top of the bank he saw many plums. What he had seen in the water was only a reflection. Then he realised what he had done. "Oh, my, what a stupid fellow I must be! I should have recognised this. Here I have caused myself a great deal of pain."

("The reflected plums", The Winnebago Trickster Cycle. Here)

Cambodian 60's rock and more

2005-12-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to me friend Johnni M I found an Israeli comic blog which is pretty cool, which lead to a great Jeruslam radio station online, and cambodian 60's music.

Oh, you got aids cartoon.

Tunak Tunak

2005-12-12T22:15:00.000-08:00

Life is indeed good.

more jap tv

2005-12-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5250971845178619832

Shingo moma

2005-12-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

Oh my fucking God, the drugs are kicking in...

Snowing outside part 2 - Thinking about women in the Arab world

2005-12-07T08:22:00.000-08:00

Beduin women in Israel making carpets, Arab women in Israel who want more political power , Palastenian women who posses more political power, but are runing under the ticket of a Hamas widow.

(Image is Rana Raslan.)

Snowing outside part 1 - reflecting on beloved comics

2005-12-05T12:56:00.000-08:00

"But reading this volume now, I suddenly got the grand, terrible flip of the entire strip. Calvin is, almost all the time, alone."

(John Hodgman, The New York times Book Review, Dec 4 05)

Well, you have to set those now. No one’s going to test you anymore - Thoughts on my 24 BD

2005-12-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

I think George Carlin, there’s a quote from him that’s like, “I’m here for me, and you’re here for me. No one’s here for you.”
(Link to great interviow which is also the source for first half of this post's title).

So yesterday the library Gods smiled upon me and handed me a copy of "Angels and Visitiations" by Neil Gaiman, and allthough I knew most of the stories some where new. And this bit from "Being an experiment upon stritly scientific lines" where the writer drinks and writes to discover what happens had me rolling.

(Drink number five)
Many writers such as for example myself have the TV on while working, because it is an educational instrument of great worth.
You can learn a lot from the television.
Omar Khayyam was on the other day, no, hold on, it was the other one, Heathcliff Williams, anyway he was on TV going on about big grey buggers, long noses, flappy ears, not hippos, the other ones, elephants, anyway, he was saying that the average ejaculate of an elephant would feed an ant hill for a year.
Which is impressive I suppouse, but I keep feeling sorry for the ants, just think about it.
I mean, somewhere around March some little ant is going to say "Oh no. Not elephant spunk again!"
"Eat your ejaculate, dear. Furnished by pulsing elephant testicales, that was. Full of vitamins and protein."
"But we bin eating it since January! I'm sick of it. Can't we go and chomp leaves, or milk some of those little sticky buggers, limb all over your roses...Aphids."
And the other ones says, "I'll have you know there's ants in the hills not far from here that'd be very grateful for a nice plate of elephant come."

My landlord actually got me a gift for my birthday, which was very sweet of him. After spending nearly four hours on the laptop I shall now treat myself to lunch, and then head to the national aquraium with a friend to enjoy the fishies.

Thanks for being there y'all.

Jim Elliot, in space

2005-11-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

So today in class I'm painting tiny telephone polls for a modle train station my historical preservation class is working on when I notice Patty is working next to me. Now Patty is a very sweet ultra-chrisitian girl that told me a few days ago her friend sent her an e-mail from Peru where he's doing some missonary work among the local indians.
"Why?" I asked.
"Well, have you ever heared of Jim Elliot?" She asked. "He was a missonary and the indians killed him."
"He was that good huh?" I asked.
(Blank stare)
"Well, he may have been a martyer, but he was a bad missionary, because the indians killed him. Had he been a good one they would've become Chrisitian. See?"

Anyway, I read up on that dude a little and today in class, while painting the telephone polls, had the following thought:

If aliens exist and poosses inteligence, does the message of Jesus Christ extand to them?

I mean, let's say you ARE a beliving chrisitian, would you get a calling to spread the word amoung non-human creatures?
How would the bible be transelated to aliens? Would some humans take on alien religons if any existed?

(It is thoughts such as these that kept other children away from me in elementry school.)

What is honor?

2005-11-28T13:56:00.000-08:00

When I was in the Israeli Army I served as a military policeman.

I had a miserable bloody time at it. And yet, I learned something.

I learned that prison is a horrible place to be in (Even as a cop working there). That the only choice is between a brutal police force and no police force. That the courts are blind and corrupt. And that the system can crush anyone whenever they want.

As it is written in Pirki Abbot: "Do not become familur with the authorities."

So you can only imagine how I felt when I read today that we, too, are en route to privatize our prison system.

Meanwhile in Iraq, this guy commited sucide. Worth your time folks.

Hey NY! I'm back!

2005-11-23T18:36:00.000-08:00

Took the Amtrak train from Baltimore to New-York and had four free hours between getting to Pen station and taking the Long Island Rail to East-Hampton. So I opened my eyewitness guidebook to NY and saw Pen station is on the exact same street as the Empire State Building! I immediately walked there, got on the lift, bought a ticket, nodded politely when I was told for the hundred time the visability is poor. And went up.

Man was that great, to see New-York spread out under my feet like the most beautiful carpet in the world. I stepped out to the observation floor and with the cold winds beating against my face shouted: “Hey New York! I’m back!”

It is this kind of behaviour that makes my company a continuing source of pleasure and wonder to the multitude.

Thoughs about education

2005-11-21T17:02:00.000-08:00

"The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." The second lesson I teach kids is to turn on and off like a light switch.The third lesson I teach you is to surrender your will to a predestined chain of command.The fourth lesson I teach is that only I determine what curriculum you will study.In lesson five I teach that your self-respect should depend on an observer's measure of your worth.In lesson six I teach children that they are being watched.The seventh lesson I teach is that you can't hide."

The writer is John Taylor Gatto. And the main link is here.

Brandeis MA - impressions and thougts

2005-11-16T11:16:00.000-08:00

Brandeis is a neat little place. The scenery is New England at it's best, trees changing colors, plenty of green to go around, crisp cool air - The buildings however are ugly. Very much like the buildings of BIU.

In fact, BIU and Brandies aren't so very diffrent in at least in one aspect. They are both predoninently Jewish, Brandeis has shirts with the Hebrew name Brandeis on it. When you look around you see some orthu guys and girls walking around, once in a while there's a Hebrew ad offering Hebrew lessons and asking for menian.

So is it really such a hot idea to leave Israel for America only to re-create a second class Israel in America? If Brandeis was in NY or SF there'd be no problem since there'd be plenty of America around, it but it's in Watham (40 min train ride from Boston). Just enough like home to make you ralise it's not. There's not much to do besides being there.

On the other hand, if an academic carrer in American History is the way to go certinly the US is the place to get it done. Not to mention the fact that Brandeis has a very generous scholarship system (100% plus living expenses) And you'll be working as an assitence proffesor. A job that Israeli graduates will kill for becasue there ain't enough of it to go around. In fact, Israeli unis are being downsized even as we speak whereever the humanities are considered.

For someone eager to make a name for himself in the field of Jewish - American History Brandeis is defintly the place to be at. Prof Sarana even gave me a copy of his new book and told me I should defintly apply. Heck, my writing teacher Jim Cary told me I'm defintly a born teacher. Most of my plays and stories seem to be about ideas anyway.

But why Brandeis and not, say, Columbia?
Well, it's the money, My finacess aren't exactly great as it is NOW living in Baltimore, I can only imagine how much under the eightball I'll be if I'll try to live in NY. Not to mention the fact the students can't work outside campous. Can't as in NOT at all. Where's in Israel, obiously, those things aren't an issue. Not only can I work but my friends and family are there too.

And four years aren't four mounths. People change in four years, meet other people, fall in love, change jobs. After four years I'll be diffrent then my friends back home, is this what I really want for myself? To live in the US? Join the class of the international movers, guys who work in the US and shuttle home once a year? I'm not the first one in the world to do this, Brits and Indians and French guys have been doing this for years. Esp since the high-tech ind emerged as a global market. But I'm not in that, I'm in ideas and language and writing. What kind of ideas will staying in Israel provide? What kind of ideas will staying in America provide? Why is it that a person can't split into two people whenever such decisons need to be made?

Off to see "Mirrormask" , if any of my four and half readers will care to comment that'd be magic.

Heading to MA to check out Brandeis Uni

2005-11-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

In the meanwhile, obey the voice.
"I believe he picked fast food restaurants because he knew, once you got them away from that book, once it was something outside the manual or the procedures, they would be lost..."

Shamans on crack

2005-11-10T06:20:00.000-08:00

any shaman who cannot journey without his plant allies is no shaman at all--he's just an addict with delusions of grandeur.
Also, peyote is good for you (If you're an Indian).

Squirrels on crack

2005-11-08T20:07:00.000-08:00

Would I lie to you?

Un-ba-fucking-live-able

2005-11-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

The Hebrew version of this work left some good bits out.

"You might wonder what could be interesting about living in a hovel like this and eating slop like this. Well, I tell you, it's interesting just to be alive."

(From "Something like an autobiography"/ Akira Kurosawa).

Rave Party at Underground Brit Cold War City

2005-11-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

The French appose glob-culture. Changing the suprem court? US laws regarding immigrants.Gay rights, in Turky?!! Wanna move to that island near Os? Undergraound Brit town for sale.

10% of the Israelies listen to musuem workers and 90% don't. The exact opposite of the US

2005-10-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

You kids are driving you mental? Why not takle them to the Hollocast musuem?! Where they can play with real inmates shoes!!!

This world is too much

2005-10-28T04:16:00.000-07:00

Ever woke up at 05:30 to drag yourself to uni through the dark and scary streets of Baltimore just to discover that, allthough you could have sworn you were supposed to leave at 7 am and driver told you that yesterday it turns out they meant 7 pm which is 19:00?

No, things like that never happen to other people, batsards.

That, and the fact gangs are buying children who lost their everything in Kashmir to use them as sex workers.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17009897%25255E2703,00.html

The Devil's Dictionary

2005-10-23T17:28:00.000-07:00

LAND, n.
A part of the earth's surface, considered as property. The theory that land is property subject to private ownership and control is the foundation of modern society, and is eminently worthy of the superstructure. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that some have the right to prevent others from living; for the right to own implies the right exclusively to occupy; and in fact laws of trespass are enacted wherever property in land is recognized. It follows that if the whole area of terra firma is owned by A, B and C, there will be no place for D, E, F and G to be born, or, born as trespassers, to exist.
Buy or read online

Hmmm....was that the front door?

2005-10-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

An Israeli writer harassed by Hassidim. Welcome to Iran.

The frightening thing about such an environment is not the number of poor artists, however. It’s the number of emotionally or psychologically disturbed members of the community who are able to find each other through the common interface of forums, comments, and submissions
(More thoughts on the web and the sad state of humanity).

Emanuel Barret

2005-10-20T06:34:00.000-07:00

Saw "8 women" last night and am still under the influence of Emanuel Barret. And who can blame me?

To other things, there's a debate now about the new diaspea musuem. More Isrseli Art for wankers. Unesco is anti globel-yankee culture.Cops against the war on drugs.

And, oh yeah, US Army burning bodies of Taliban fighters and calling them ladyboys.

Ride the wild ride of western culture!

2005-10-18T09:30:00.000-07:00

More barbie stuff true believers?

Met this guy at city cafe - check out his work.

The Internet is changing the economics of creative work - or, to put it more broadly, the economics of culture - and it's doing it in a way that may well restrict rather than expand our choices.
This is one of the most interesting debates going on in the Western world right now, and obiously, we're left out of the loop. Being consumers of technolagy rather then creators of it.
My Buddhist friend Ben suggested I'll check this out, more Bud mp3 for the curious.

White crackers and chopped liver blues

2005-10-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've recently read a great book on faith in the south. It's "Slavation on Sand Mountain" by Dennis Covington. Afterwards I read this artical, and got to thinking about that Jerusalem kid's song: "Does a snake kill? And does a snake revive? Nay.But when Israel raised their eyes to their father in heaven they were victoriuos."

Why do some white southeners hold serpents to prove they are in the spirt? Well, ironiclly, some of these practices originate with the souls of black folks. Spirit trees, which are trees covered with bottels to catch evil spirits, are an African thing. To believe a spirt can mount you and speak through you in tongues appears in Voodu as well. They call it to be the horse of the god (Le chavel de Loa). So, at an odd twist, this very white culture feeds of very black culture.

Why do we bow down to the word of God at shul in Yom Kipor? To make ourselves small, to hand over ourselves to the word. Why do Buddhist meditate? To learn that the self is a falsehood. Why did Protestants burn rather then become Catholic? To show that there is something greater then the self.

Reason and enlightment, and their offspring, capitalism, thrive on the self. The rational, male, educated self. The self that can see all that there is. The eye that is not located in any body. That is the eye of the camera, the eye that sees the globe at the desk, the eye that opens an anatomy book and sees the way the body is made. The eye that holds the body under a never ending scuritiny. The eye on the dollar bill, the one that doesn't blink.

It is this eye that tells us, you aren't good enough, you must improve yourself. To learn more, to lose weight, to earn more, to spend more.

And, like the ideal farm Jefferson dreamt about, it has no mother or father, it is self-sufficent, self-created, could go on forever if all things are looked after, eternal.

I've come to regard most of religon as a way to throw away one's selfhood, to empty out one's mind, and hand over the reins of one's life to something else.

Which leads to this very important quiestion, what is it about the self that makes so many people want to destroy it? Well, to begin with, the self is going to die. No matter how many plastic surgeries one does, how much money you earn, one day you die. In the words of Hanoch Levin: "You've always thought it is the other fellow that dies, well, today it is you!"

Death is scary, so people tell stories about it. In Rashomon the person to whom the monk and the peasent talk to says to the monk: "How do you know people do not lie after death? Have you ever been there? Bah! People tell stories about that other world because they fear it! All lies!"

This character is the one making fire during the rainy night, what does it use for firewood? The Rashmon gate. To survive, this person destroyes culture, a scavanger. He shows that by stealing a kimono from a baby left for adoptation later on. It is the peasent that adopts the baby and re-effirms the monk's faith in human nature.

So when we see the world around us speeding up, as the Buhagavad Gita says: "In the end-times, everything will be faster." And people traveling more, spending more, changing their sex, joining cults - Think about those who are against this thing. Those who stand against the eye AND the emptying out of the self.

In Yugimbo, the dying samurai clings to his gun.
That gun doesn't save him from the darkness.

Four color love story

2005-10-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

Such a great song, it really broke my little heart to pieces.

The Super Girls of slightly sour Mongolian cow's milk

2005-10-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

Chinese stick-girl changes pop culture.

Master's Time, your time, our times

2005-10-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

"And the sons of man sit in the dark....And the Lord shall shatter their shakels." (A prayer to begin Yom Kipor).
"Away with you Poor King (Melekh Evion), come High King (Melek Elion)." (A prayer to Rosh Hashana).

Last night a woman was sobbing outside my hotel room and (presumbly) talking on the phone about this man who dumped her. This went on from
four in the morning to four twenty.
Poor woman.

Spent most of the day at Monticello (Little mountain) which is were Jefresson lived. In that house they had a two faced watch. On the side facing the outside of the house, where the workers were, it only showed the hours. Since workers had no real need to know the exact time.
On the inside, where the masters were, it showed the hours, minutes, seconds, and days. Because master's time is bloody importent.

The importent thing to remember about Jeffreson is that he embodies westren culture. He is the writer of the decleration of independence and owns slaves. He is a man of vision, that of the all seeing eye - measuring the world and studying it to gain power over it. But this all seeing eye has no body to live in, and, having no body, it's blind to the small things. His little girl Mary starving for effection in America when he's in Paris. The noise his slaves make at night time. "Why don't they sleep?" writes the baffaled Jefresson, not understanding that the slaves don't give a toss about the work because they're not making anything from it. And night time is their time, slave time, to enjoy themselves as much as they can.

The audio-tour told me that one of the slaves kept a piece of wood for "Old Master's" coffin. And they were selling it as a good thing! Loyal servent like! Bloody rubbish! He's waiting for the white mother fucker to die so he can shove him in a box and dance on his grave pissed as a fart!

There is something very erry about the self-sustained farm. First of all because none of us is self-sustained. We all come from a woman and without the dad's part we wouldn't be anything at all. To live, we have to eat, food comes from the outside. The power to sustain the world comes from the sun. The bahagavad gita teaches that "Being comes from food". To be self-sustained, self-created, is slightly creepy. Like a snake eating his own tail, or a man sucking his own cock.

It is also a very intelectuall idea of reason. Reason doesn't like to have a mother or a father, it likes to pretend it sprang forth as an adult from someone's fore-head. But, obiously to all who know a bit of Greek, Athena sprang from the head of Seus. Reason came from reilgon, which comes from myth, which comes from stories.

Is it possible these are times for new stories?

You too should read "The filth" by Grant Morrison

2005-10-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

"I know this. I am Dimitri 9! Brain-fucked by rays in earth orbit. Then educated by KGB behavioral science bastards as hunter-killer chimp assassin."

Am in a hotel in Virgina listening to "There is no time" by Lou Reed and typing this into the great empty cold depths of cyber - space.

The books of Moses

2005-10-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

"The bible is not a third, forigen, language."
Damn straight.

Few dead animales comix presents:

2005-10-10T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend Jonathan Meshorer I've uniqe greeting cards to give the masses. Try them! Try them all!

Bits and odds

2005-10-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

"Later Rashomon won the American Academy Award for best forigen language film. Japanese critics insisted that these two awards were simply refletions of Westerners curiosity and taste for Oriental exoticism, which struck me then, and now, as terrible. Why is it that Japanese people have no confidence in the worth of Japan? Why do they elevate anything foreign and denigrate everything Japanese? Even the woodblock prints of Utamoro, Hokusai and Sharaku were not appreciated by Japanese until they were first discovered by the west. I don't know how to explain this lack of discernment. I can only despair of the character of my own people."

(Akira Kurosawa, "Something like an Autobiography.")

Smurfy death from above, stupid people and the things they do for i-pods
. How to watch tellie from around the world.

Off to walk the dogs, which, as time goes by, seem more trustworthy and lovebale then most humans.

Mokita - The truth everybody knows yet non speak of (Papoa New Guini)

2005-10-07T06:01:00.000-07:00

So I spent most of yesterday in Virginia looking at a huge bridge that's being built over the Potomac river, a house built by Frank Loyd Wright, and a mansion built by white slave owners. Unlike my usuall MO I shan't put any links on this post but just try and write for a bit on sights and thoughts.

The potomac is a big river, and the bridge being built is a big bridge. Allthough we all know America is much, much, bigger then Israel I reccomend everyone to see a project like this to appreciate what a diffrence that makes. I'd like to point out a few things I rather liked about the American way of doing things.

Allthough it's a construction site, there is a person there who'se job it is to be a guide to tourists, visitors, and reguler people living there who have an intrest in the bridge since, after all, it's paid for by state and federal dollars. Aka, their money. This is smart beause not only does the company get a show-case for potential clients ("Come see how we do things!") But also gives the general public a feeling that they're not being left out or trampled over. Maybe my more radical friends will say that they are and these acts are just blowing sand in the eyes of the public BUT personally I prefer it to not having anything like that. Which made me wonder if we'll ever see something like that in Israel with publicly founded projects like, the segregation wall maybe, or the road across Israel project...

For some reason, to learn that the construction site was changed to fit the needs of two bald egals who made a nest somewhere there. Or that a part of the project is always open so that the public can have acsses to a park near by. Well that's just great. That's the way it should always be. Also, something tells me the bridge won't fall after it's built like the Makabia one.

Onwards to the F.L.R house. Why is it, I wonder, that in the US there are so many people who're willing to work as tour guides in tiny houses and sites simply becasue they like them and feel it's importent and we in Israel do not? Now when I think about it I notice something which never crossed my mind before, all of these guides are mature. They are not college kids on a temp job. This is their job, this is how they make their living.

Also, we have so much recent, documented history that matters to so many people who're still alive. Is it not possible to make museums and sites in Israel more exaciting and interesting then they are now? Recently I heared a woman from the Maryland dep of tourisim explain that people come to the sign that says "Harriet Tubman was born here" and kiss the ground becasue that's the woman who helped their great-grandpa escape to freedom. Why don't we in Israel, who have such powerfull history, react in the same way? Partly this could be explained by the fact we do not have a living history of 200 years and so most of our history as Israelies happened somewhere else. (The places our grandparents and parents came from) BUT there are Israelies such as myself who are fifth generation Israelies and there are people who can trace their family to the war of 1948. Why don't WE go to sites and kiss the ground? Why is it that in America to be respectfull and emotionall about your past is ok but in Israel it's something to laugh about? Can you think of an Israeli version of "Granddaughters of the Revelotion"? Why not? It was these little old ladies that saved most of American material history in the twenties and forties when everyody was busy with other things.

The woman from the Maryland dep. of tourism also brought along maps and booklets with plenty of information on Maryland. If you were into the Civil - War you had a tour, if you were into Black history in Maryland you had a tour, Eating and Living well in Maryland? That too. And please bear in mind that this is the norm. There's a peron like that in Texas, in Long-Island, in every state. Because these people take their jobs seriously. This woman goes home and really thinks about ways to draw tourists to Maryland. (Becasue it's a low-pollution, jobs creating industry for locals since tourists like me come, spend money, and leave). So the govener of Maryland really cares about jobs in Maryland becasue he wants to be re-elected. So her dep. gets money to work with.

Did you know the National Park Service has a policy of writing all of it's on site texts on a level an eleven-grader could read and are now making it eight-grader? I thought about it for a while and really find nothing wrong with that. If the eight-grader level material is true, honest, and has a meaning - Then why not? There's always more if you look for it but the trick is to get people to stop and take notice.

I've spoken with the head of the Baltimore City Preservation dep and he explained to me that the current viow in America is that history is a collection of stories in relation to each other. Well, I told him I think that's becasue that, as painfull as American History is to the have-nots, there is something they all share NOW. (For example, belief in Democracy). But what do you do when this commun ground doesn't exist? How do you talk about the war of 1948 with a Jew and an Arab and talk about it truthly? Our truth is this, their truth is diffrent. Do we in Israel have a shared belief in anything besides survival?

If any of my four and a half readers would like to comment that be great.

Usuall thoughts and reports

2005-10-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

Had a wonderfull Rosh Hashana with the Isenberg family and their wondefull children. I swear, these kids make you seriously consider having a few of your own!:)

(Not to worry, my four and a half readers, no plans for that at the moment).

Allthough, personally, I had a great time at shul today and, well, you need God to have religon to have shul - So this might be a bit dumb of me - But still, check it out for laughs.

Lurid tales of Japanesse sex and proof Catherine Bell is super sweet next.
Mo Ho Ha HA!!!

Neverland and Dr. Lao

2005-10-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

After seeing "The seven faces of Dr. Lao" and "Finding Neverland" I think I can finally point to the diffrence between good entertainment and a work of genious. Especially so since the two movies deal with roughly the same subject, why fiction is importent for human life.

"Finding Neverland" is a fine piece of entertainment, but it does not have the warmth and smile that could make it into a lasting work. It depands too much on speciall effects (Which are quite pretty in itself) A very fake idea of Englishness designed to appeal to Americans and other Anglophile people. And that tear runing down Peter's cheek at the end royally fucked up my wilingness to believe in the movie. Even Johnny Depp seemed to crack a little when that happened.

"The seven faces of Dr. Lao" however is such a brilliant piece of work becasue it has warmth and charm, thanks mainly to Tony Randall who plays Lao and all of his faces. Further more, while Neverland claims to be inspired by true events (Whatever the fuck that means. Heck, a romantic comedy set in an SS unit is also inspired by true events. I'm sure that during the eight years of the SS some people there dated each other and fell in love while creating the third Reich) Dr. Lao is openly fiction, a make believe. And is set in an idea of America as seen from within. Neverland is America as seen from without.

But, in the end, there are no bad movies. Only bad moods. Because if a bunch of people spent two years doing something which involved costumes and make up for your pleasure, give 'em a chance why dontc'ha?:)

Cheers:

Hagay

THE KIDNEY-SHAPED STONE THAT MOVES EVERY DAY

2005-10-01T06:41:00.000-07:00

A short story by Haruki Murakami, sent to me and posted here to pass on a good thing.

I'm off to six flags to ride every ride twice!:)

Hagay

This is BIG my friends

2005-09-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

For the first time ever, archiological avidence from the first temple (Book of Jermia) was found.
Now, don't get me wrong, even IF this really is the seal of one of the people mentioned in Jermia that still doesn't prove EVERYTHING in the bible is true. (The leap from proving one thing to proving everything is too big to make) BUT this means that our connection to Israel IS TRUE, REAL, and has DEEP HISTORICAL ROOTS.
+1 old school sionot, -1 post-modern academics who explain that "no proff was ever found for the kingdom of David mentioned in the bible."

Ha!

Me happy.

Why china doesn't like my blog and more world matters

2005-09-27T05:28:00.000-07:00

A while ago Ella sent me an e-mail saying she couldn't read my blog in China. This is why.

Hagay Hacohen, PROUD free thinker against horrible opressive regimes.

And to other things, Algier tries to forgive by forgetting. Maybe their president should listen to some Aussi Bud talks as well? On the other hand Turky is talking about the Armenians for the first time ever. +1 Turkish gov!!!

Now listening to "When will Jesus brings the pork chops" by George Carlin. Is great.

Good morning Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, fucking grow up will u?

2005-09-26T05:39:00.000-07:00

When Jerusalem builds a huge bridge and TA sues people, world marches ahead with hot models in suggestive poses, talks about sex, killer dolphins, and da blues.

"And he got out of his room, and saw that while he was in there hiding the world was doing something else. The world in fact was building a huge slver city filled with every kind of pleasure, thing, and culture. But it was impossible to find a map to that city and whenever he asked anyone where to buy one they looked at him as if he was mad. Sp he made a promise to himself there and then that one day he'll own a resturant on top of the highset skyscraper in the city and there, alongside foods and drinks, there'll be maps of the city."

(Douglas Copland/ "The X Generation")

Acts of loving kindness

2005-09-25T07:54:00.000-07:00

More good people in the world, even in Israel.
Now listening to Holland, say hello.

Going to get some work done now, take care y'all.

Hagay

Neil Gaiman, kind souls from Main, life in grey

2005-09-24T16:41:00.000-07:00

Went to Washington for the first time since coming to Baltimore for the National Book Festival. Reason for going: To get Neil Gaiman to sign a copy of his new book for me and to see the Native American Museum in Washington. Also, I figured it's a good idea to start moving around Baltimore (Which is very close to Washington, which is where all the huge musuems are).

So I'm sitting at Penn station in Baltimore next to this kind looking fellow with an earring in his ear reading a book and waiting for my train when the speaker says: "Attention all passengers, all trains heading south are expriencing a lengthy delay."

Which, in Israeli, means: "Not going anywhere soon are ya mate?"

So me and this guy start to talk and, as it turns out, this guy is going to Washington for the demo against the war. He's an organic farmer from Main, an art teacher, a social worker who works with AIDS patients, and was brought up in a Pacifict Christian family. So we talk for a while and then he checks how much a cab would cost to Washington (Since we're not moving anywhere like) And it's a 100$. And we ride to Washington (Picking up a black woman who was late to fix a bride's hair in Washington) And when I offer to pay my share he says: "No, please, on me. you're a student after all." And pays for the ride himself.

Sometime I meet really good human beings, today was a time like that.

Oh, and guess what? When I told Neil that I hope to see him in TA soon he said he's going to be there next year. Quite nice. Also, it's very good to be able to talk, even for a second, with someone who wrote works that really touched your life. It does matter.

Weather turned grey and a little bit rainy today. I'm going to expreince fall in North America soon. Yipi!:)

Cheers:

Hagay

Jewish roots, Buddhist wings

2005-09-23T13:03:00.000-07:00

"I was reading a book where they ran an experiment - they trained mice to do certain tricks and then they killed them and chopped up their brains and fed the brains to another group of mice. Then they took this group and tried to teach them the same tricks and they took another group which they fed normaly, and it turned out that the mice who ate the brains learned the trick faster...It's connected to a theory I have about the survival of the Jews."

("The golden years"/ Jay Neugeboren. From this book Here)

"...It's like keeping a hand in front of your face. I have cancer, I am going to die, how frightening. Well of course it's frightening, it's awful. Yet you can move the hand away from your eyes. True, I have cancer, but it's only a part of my body. I've been healthy for so many years, I'm only sick now. Other people also have cancer, some overcome it, some don't and die. So what if you do die? You get reborn, get a new body, maybe a better body. Maybe you're getting old and ugly, need a new model..."

(Ajahn Brahm )

Aussi Bud talks mp3

2005-09-20T13:38:00.000-07:00

Open many doors mate!:)

HH

Why I shouldn't go to comics conventions alone

2005-09-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

There's a comic con in Baltimore this weekend so I went there and found someone magiclly took my money and handed me a huge pile of comics without tellling me. Seeing this, I sat down to a pleasent day of comic reading and now will share with you my finds and joys.

"The walking dead" continues to be an excellent comic. I picked up the third TPB and had it signed by the writer (Robert Kirkman). I always make a point out of telling creators I enjoyed their works. It's good for the soul. I also continue to enjoy "Zombie Tales" (Digital Webbing) And discovered a splendid horrer comic called "Trailer Park Terror" (Imperium). If you have an inner boy who craves alien space monsters, werewolves, undead, and busty girls these comics are a fine choice.

As the fan boy I am, I couldn't help buying three issues of "Spider Man and the Black Cat" which are fairly recent (2002) But the story arch was cut because the writer Kevin Smith would have had the Black Cat raped and the Marvel suits didn't enjoy that at all. Up to that point however we get to see the best of both spidey and Felica Hardy (The Black Cat).

I also took the time to become a member of the Comic books legale defence fund and as far as I know I am their only Israeli member. Got a copy of the Frank Miller work, signed, for ten bucks.

The real gems in the collection however are the following comics:

"Skyscrapers of the Midwest" by Joshua W.Cotter

"Lackluster World" by Eric Adams

"Weapon Brown" by Jason Yungbluth. Trust me, check out the link.
Abigail from "Asking the wrong quiestions" has written about the hardships of starting to read comics without the childhood background. I have to admit that, on a very deep and emotional level, I read comics because I love them. Because, deep down, I really want to see alien monsters from Mars and beutifull women and cowboys and Indians and how superheros save the day. I don't always want to see that (Just like I don't want to have just one food for the rest of my life) But these are the bones of the art. And this is the kind of freedom comics allow by their very nature as a very personal and subversive Art form.

Cheers:
Hagay

"Personally I am very pessimistic," Miyazaki says. "But when, for instance, one of my staff has a baby you can't help but bless them for a good future

2005-09-17T17:32:00.000-07:00

Read full interviow here.

Haredi-Pop singer!!! Yay!!!:)

2005-09-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

"Who are those Rabbies who say we can't come to his showes?" Said a young girl when hearing Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is against her favourite singer.

First the drawer system and now this, I predict that within the next ten years we will see unbelivable changes in Haredi culture. Mainly, the decline of the old rabbinical system and the growth of independent thinkers who'll operate via the web and the cellphones. New techs the old elits can't cope with. (See the Haredi attempt to ban mobiles from the yeshivot).

Cheers:

Hagay

I love Masaki Sumitaui!!!:)

2005-09-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

Check him out.

Hagay

Adrift on the nile

2005-09-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

When I was 14 I read a book that changed my mind forever about Arab culture and people, that book was "Adrift on the nile" by Naguib Mahfous. I just finished watching a movie adaptation of it thanks to them. What can I say? True works of genius never die.

Hagay

This is the land of the big dogs

2005-09-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

Haven'y posted in here for a while, for no particuler reason except work overload and no particuler hankering to write.

But today I saw a production of "All my sons" by Arther Miller at the Spotlight theater. Where I may get an internship from Bob Russel, a kindly man who looks a lot like Bengamin Franklin. He and his wife bought me dinner tonight at an Afgahn resturant, our waiter is related to the president of Afgahnistan.

If I'll end up working for him I'll have Franklin in my life alongside Mark Twain. Mark Twain teaches a writing for the theater class in my school. He keeps on saying his name is something else but I know he's Mark Twain. White hair and all.
I'm listening to "Love and Theaft" by Bob Dylan that I got for free at the Pratt. And will soon watch "From Dusk Till Dawn" which I got at the same place for a buck fifty. Run an internet check on that movie and you'll see why I wanna watch it.

Not gonna bother with spelling. Love you all. Shbat Shalom.

Hagay