Art is 80

This afternoon I watched the NHL Winter Classic. The Boston Bruins faced the Pittsburgh Penguins at Fenway Park. The Bruins, the team with the best record by a comfortable margin this year, beat the Penguins, 2-1. It was a very good game, IMO, and the transformation of Fenway Park into an ice rink was interesting to see. I was rooting for the Bruins, a team I have no real feeling for. But I was rooting for them because I just don’t like the Penguins. Probably because, back in the day, the dumped Jaromir Jagr on the Caps, and then set up a rivalry with their combo of Crosby and Malkin. That’s long time ago. But I just don’t like them Penguins.

That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, I have always been fascinated with Penguin Books. No, not the books published today, but the soft cover books published from 1935 to 1961, with the single color covers – orange for fiction, purple for mystery, red for travel and adventure, and so forth. About 30 years ago (that’s a guess), I started purchasing these old Penguins, and eventually I would buy them wherever I saw them for sale, hoping that I wouldn’t buy one that I already had. I didn’t read any of these books (or maybe only a few), but I kept them together and they multiplied, until today I seem to have about 730 of them at last count.

A little over a year ago, I decided to read them. I have read about 10%.

There are very few of them that I can’t get through productively. And the majority are books that I have not read by authors whom I don’t know.

Over the last two days, I have read my first Penguin of 2023. I read “Foreigners” by Leo Walmsley. I never heard of the book or the author. And, were I not in the grip of my Penguin reading, I never would have heard of either.

It’s a great book. Walmsley, born in 1892, is enough of a name in British writing that there is actually a Leo Walmsley Society, which is holding its next annual meeting in May in Robin Hood’s Bay, a seaside town in North Umberland, England. South of Newcastle. Walmsley grew up here.

“Foreigners” is one of a series of memoirs of Walmsley’s childhood. It is a short book (219 pages), written in the first person, and tells the story of a scrappy English kid (he doesn’t say how old he is, but I would say somewhere between 11 and 13), who has a tough schoolmaster who likes to box children’s ears, friends and friendemies who like to fight each other (fists and kicks) when they are outside of school, financially struggling parents, and seafaring friends (it’s a fishing village). There are a accidents and scandals and tragedies, there are many fights, and problems with parents and officials. It’s written in the first person like all of these things have just happened, but the writing itself is so professional that it gives away the author’s maturity (he was in his early 40s).

Some new words to learn – scaur, coble, thwart (a noun) and others. And you really get a picture of what Robin Hood’s Bay is like. A very attractive part of the world, to be sure. Google it.

For more Penguins, stay tuned. The next book on my pile is “The Root of Heaven” about Romain Gary. Gary was an interesting guy. Born in Vilnius (when it was Wilno, or Vilna), he lived in France where he became a diplomat and author. He married Jean Seberg, the actress, but they divorced after he discovered her affair with Clint Eastwood (among many others). Seberg committed suicide (barbituates) when she was 40. Gary did the same (gunshot) about 10 years later. Yes, it is true. You learn so much from Wikipedia.

I finished watching The White Lotus yesterday. Two seasons. Thirteen episodes. First year on Maui, second on Sicily. Everyone that I know seems to have loved the series. But why? I don’t get it.

The primary location on each island is a resort, a Four Seasons in real life, and they are attractive to be sure, as are their surroundings. The acting is of good quality – I would say average for Cable or Netflix series. But the story line, and what has been explained as the satire, is weak. And the characters extremely uninteresting.

Take the second season. There are three generations of Italo-Californians, who come to see the town where the grandfather’s mother came from. There are two young power couples (the men were college roommates) whose neurotic relationships flounder and heal and flounder and heal. There’s the obnoxious wealthy woman, whose husband……..(well, anything I say here would be a spoiler) and her henpecked young female assistant who craves freedom from her boss. There are two young Italian women, at least one of whom is a hooker, and the other a would-be singer and entertainer. There are the hotel employees, who have their own narrative, and of course there are the gay mafia (“we don’t use that word on Sicily”) guys and their yacht and palazzo. How could you possibly put these people together and make it interesting?

I wouldn’t recommend it. But everyone else appears to.

Maybe it’s a matter of age. Maybe it’s just a matter of taste.

Edie and I watch TV series during the evening; I also watch them while I am on the stationery bike in the basement. And that means an hour or so a day, four or five days a week. That’s a lot of time.

Right now, I am in the middle of a South African series called Ludik – he’s a major furniture dealer in Pretoria, who has a sideline of shipping illegal diamonds across the south of Africa. I think it’s pretty good. It’s the second South African series I have watched. The other, which I liked as well, was not about smuggling diamonds, but about smuggling endangered wild animals. I don’t remember the name. It’s been a few years.

Moving backwards, here is pretty much all of the series I watched in the last half of last year (July through December). The first half of the year will follow sometime soon.

1. The Perfect Mom – French. A French woman married to a German living in Berlin discovers that her daughter, a student in Paris, has been arrested for murder, and goes back to her home town and her past to rescue her. Thumbs up.
2. Man on Pause – Turkish. A comedy about a Turkish man for whom everything turns out wrong. Even the simplest of things go awry. That makes him a schlmazl, right? (No, that’s not Turkish). Thumbs up.
3. Post Mortem: Nobody Dies in Skarnes – Norwegian. What do you do if your funeral parlor just needs more customers? Yep, you guessed it. A bit macabre. But Thumbs up.
4. 1899 – International/English. This one got a lot of attention. It started out weird, but it wound up so far beyond weird that I find it hard to recommend for anything but the acting and the imagination. It’s a little pretentious, too. After we watched the series, we watched an hour long “making of” program. That was better than the series itself.
5. Two Summers – French. Four couples (more or less) go to a Mediterranean island for a weekend 30 years after they all went away together as university students for a weekend. The first weekend was not very satisfactory, but compared to the second weekend……. Thumbs up, half way.
6. Deadwind – Finnish. Actually, this year we watched the third year; had watched the others already. Police detectives in Helsinki assigned to various cases don’t always like what they find. Thumbs up, half way.
7. The Stranger – Korean. More police detectives – one an investigator with a strange brain condition that takes away his ability to have any empathy, and the other a woman who has a hard time in a male denominated department. They eventually uncover the murderer. Thumbs up.
8. Emily the Criminal – American. A young woman with a load of student debt gets an offer she can’t refuse (but should have – perhaps). Stars Aubrey Plaza, who plays Harper on White Lotus. Thumbs up a tad.
9. From Scratch – American/Italian. A black Texan law student goes to Italy for a summer art program and comes back with an Italian boy friend and then husband. He’s a chef, and he dies at a young age of a rare cancer, leaving her to carry on. Thumbs up.
10. Capitani – Luxembourg. Two years, two story lines. A hard to handle police detective is efficient, but sometimes hard to understand. Thumbs up, half way.
11. Equinox – Danish. A woman is hell-bound to find out what happened to her sister who, along with a number of classmates, disappeared just before their high school graduation. She succeeds. Thumbs up, pretty much.
12. Beloscoaran – Mexico. Another detective series – this one off beat (wait a minute, they are all off beat). Thumbs up, half way.
13. The Devil in Ohio – American. A young girl escapes from a cult, but they don’t want to let her go. Thumbs up.
14. The Pursuit of Love – English (BBC). Based on the book by Nancy Mitford, two British cousins’ lives take very different directions. Thumbs up.
15. The Extraordinary Attorney Woo – Korean. A young autistic woman with a superior mind tries to make it big in the Seoul big firm law practice. Thumbs way up.
16. Quicksand – Swedish. A high school girl is accused, and tried, for murder. Thumbs up.
17. The Bonfire of Destiny – French. An explosion at a gift bazaar in turn of the 20th century Paris and what happened to all those involved. Thumbs up.
18. The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem – Israeli. A Sephardic family in Ottoman Jerusalem and their daughter. Thumbs up, pretty much.
19. Clark – Swedish. The story of the criminal for whom the Stockholm Syndrome was named. Thumbs up.
20. The Mire – Polish. Tracking down the murderer of two, long ago at a summer camp. Times change in Poland. Thumbs up.
21. Another Self – Turkish. Young women look for love and try to forget past loves. Thumbs down.
22. Borgen (Season 4) – Danish. The first female prime minister (and star of the first 3 seasons) returns to politics, this time as foreign minister. Greenland wants independence and a deal with China. Thumbs up.
23. Black Spot – French. Murders in a remote town in the South of France. Thumbs up.

I know that’s a lot to watch. And that doesn’t even cover those I started and then quit after the first or second episode. I don’t even have a full record of those.

From the descriptions above, you might think that I remember all these plots in great detail. On the contrary, they fade into each other at times. But I do remember the acting and some of the characters. And because these shows have taken place in so many locations, they help my still pandemic repressed wanderlust.

But am I in fact watching too much? Maybe so. I might need a Stop Watch.

After watching two more episodes of Better Call Saul (we are behind the time – just about to finish Season 2), we went upstairs and I felt a little weird, like a sore throat was coming on. The result was almost no sleep during the night and a bad sore throat this morning. Negative Covid test. No temperature. Cold-eze, and two aspirin, and a cup of coffee. We will see how I hold up today. Plans with the kids canceled.

Last night, we actually went out early, to the Kennedy Center to see old friends Little Red and the Renegades perform from 6 to 7 at Millennium Stage. As Harry Rado said (paraphrase): “We played the Kennedy Center once before, at a folk festival about 30 years ago. This is our triumphant return.” Harry and Tom Corradino (Little Red himself) were college friends of Edie’s, and I have known them more than 40 years. They played at Hannah’s wedding. It was a very festive hour; all were in good shape. Zydeco at its best. Want to hear the performance? You can – on the Kennedy Center website.

Back to the house before 8, picked up dinner at our neighborhood upscale Mexican restaurant (fish tacos, guacamole, and tres leches cake, shared with Michelle and Josh. And a little Prosecco to wash it down. Then Better Call Saul with our friends Rosie and Simon, who have been staying with us for a week while they visit their own 9 month old granddaughter. They are leaving this morning, and unfortunately we can’t give them a proper send off. But they will be back.

So, it’s a new year. I have no real resolutions. I always want to accomplish more than the year before. Hear more music. Get more exercise. Read more books. Etc. Etc.

Happy New Year to all. And to all, a good night.

I saw a fascinating poll the other day that suggested that Black Americans, on the whole, would rather be called Black than African-American, and that the more educated a White American was, the more likely that he/she would use the term African-American, rather than Black. You know….. a book could be written riffing off of that basic observation.

Decades ago, the American Jewish Committee in DC sponsored what they called (I think) a Black-Jewish dialogue, where once a month or so, a group of Blacks and Jews would get together for an informal lunch time conversation about whatever was on their minds. Someone who participated asked me to join the group, which I did for a short while. I didn’t find it particularly interesting or helpful.

But, I remember the day a long time Jewish member asked his “friend”, a long time Black member “What would you rather I call you, Black or African American?”. His friend looked at him, without missing a beat, and said: “To be honest, whichever you call me, I wish you called me the other.”

This is an essential truth, and it may explain the results of the recent poll. The problem is: what to do about it. If anything.

Group identification can be the slipperiest of slippery slopes. How do Americans define Blacks? It appears that anyone is Black who has a Black ancestor – it doesn’t matter how far back you have to go to find that Black ancestor. You have a Black great, great, great, great grandmother? You are Black. It was that way during the time of slavery, and it is that way now (although the consequences have changed).

In apartheid South Africa, this was not really the case. People of mixed races (even when one of those races was Black) were classified as Coloured, and subject to different rules than Blacks. And in French America, centered around New Orleans, there were different distinctions – quadroons, and octoroons, for example, again with different caste distinctions.

But not in this country.

Now, let’s turn to Hitler and the Nazis. Jews were defined by them as individuals with at least one Jewish grandparent. So, if you had only one Jewish great-grandparent, you were not Jewish and could live your life. When Israel was established in 1948, and when it sought to be a refuge for Jews persecuted by the Nazis, it actually adopted the Nazi definition as the definition of a Jew permitted to immigrate into Israel. If you had a Jewish grandparent and wanted to come to Israel you could (and still can) come, even if in your mind you weren’t Jewish at all.

Now this might change, as the ever more powerful Israeli religious right wants to change the definition of Jewish for the law of return to those who are Jewish according to Jewish religious law. Under this definition, one who has a Jewish mother is Jewish. Period. If your father was Jewish, and your mother was not, too bad. If your mother converted to Judaism, but not by an approved authority, also potentially too bad. Whether you self-identify as Jewish makes no difference.

Of course, there is more to this world than Blacks and Jews. What is the definition of an Uyghur, for example, or a Rohingya.

It’s a complicated world to be sure. But I think we know that already. We will see what 2023 brings.

Oh! Why did I title this “It’s Raining, It’s Raining”. Because, on this last day of the year 2022, it is raining.

The time is 5:30 p.m., December 30, 2022. This is the latest that I have written a post on this blog since I started it about 5 weeks ago. What is my excuse?

The temperature today climbed to above 65. The sky was blue. That was my excuse.

Does that mean that I took a 10 mile hike? Nope, it just means I was out and about.

I went to two different laundries, one drug store, one library, one thrift shop, UPS, the Post Office, one funeral home, one coffee shop, one fish store, and one restaurant for lunch. I put 30 miles on my car (Thanks, Prius – I got 70.3 MPG today). I stopped to take some photos. And my very nice lunch with a former law partner and friend (same person) took up almost two intellectually challenging hours.

So who has time to write? Or even has time to think about what to write?

But a couple of thoughts – today would have been my parents 81st anniversary. I thought about putting their picture on Facebook this morning, but realized something I hadn’t thought of before. I don’t think I have a photo of them together (other than maybe at a party or function where they weren’t the sole reason for the picture). Is that weird?

And then I thought of tomorrow night – New Years Eve – the anniversary of my father’s sister Irene and her husband Joe Frey. I think that they married a year or so before my parents. I could check and make sure, but it is already 5:47 and I have better things to do right now.

My Uncle Joe spoke with a heavy Mississippi accent (he was from Canton MS) and was living in St. Louis working as a young salesman for a uniform company – Angelica Uniform Company, it was called. He was a very brash young man, and I know that my grandparents and Irene’s siblings did not think him an appropriate family addition. But Irene liked him (obviously), and they went out for New Years Eve and she didn’t come home that night. Scandalous, they all thought. What to do? What sort of punishment would be appropriate?

Well, no punishment was given out, because when Irene and Joe came back to my grandparents’ house on Jan 1, they explained that it was alright that they stayed out all night because they (like me today) were very busy. What had they done? They got married.

Their marriage only lasted, say, 60+years. Joe died in his 90s and Irene lived to 102. Throughout virtually all of their marriage, they lived in Dallas and they were – wouldn’t you know it – in the uniform business. My memory is that they had shops in Dallas, Houston and Ft. Worth. Joe remained brash, and kept his Mississippi accent. He became, for the entire family, one of their favorite (if sometimes exasperating) relatives.

(A brief, but relevant, digression: do you know that Angelica Uniform still exists? It is headquartered in St. Louis, has about 7000 employees – I have read – and has been in business for 119 years.)

5:54 now. Dinner must be coming along.

2022 was still not a normal year, but I (sometimes, we) did eat in restaurants more than we did in 2020 or 2021. I tried this year to keep a record of where I (we) ate and what I thought of the restaurant. I graded them A through D, and was surprised to find that I had labeled 37 meals with an A. How generous I am. I was also surprised that of the 37 A meals, 21 were lunches and 3 were brunches, leaving 13 dinners. Of the 14 dinners, 11 were in the greater Washington area and 3 out of town. Of the 37 A meals, 24 were in the Washington area and 13 on one of our three trips out of town.

TMI? Of course…….but what do I care?

A few more points before I get to the nitty gritty. First, we didn’t really go trendy this year, so all those articles you see about popular new restaurants are irrelevant to our eating. And, you will see little correlation between ratings and price, or ratings and atmosphere, although both price and atmosphere (as well as location) are important to make a choice of where to go. Finally, it is possible to have an A meal at at restaurant and go again and have a very different experience – but you know that.

Our local A experiences for dinner:

1. I’m Eddie Cano – our neighborhood Italian restaurant 3 blocks from our house. We ate there or carried out numerous times – they get an A, especially for their eggplant parmesan, their fish stew, and their broccoli rabe.
2. Corazon DC – a casual Mexican restaurant on 14th Street near Randolph, with good food and even better margheritas.
3. Jetties – an even more casual place on upper Connecticut Ave in DC which has very fresh and tasty salads. The A is based on carrying out – not eating in.
4. Busboys and Poets – this local chain of restaurants can be inconsistent, but we had a very good meal in the Brookland branch one evening.
5. Capitol Grille, Friendship Heights – another chain, much more upscale; our good meal came at a 90th birthday party for a former law partner.
6. Oaxaca – a very casual Mexican restaurant in Bethesda. We ate there a second time, and thought it was awful.
7. Melina – a Greek restaurant in the Rose Pike section off the Rockville Pike. The food was excellent, but the prices so high that your digestion still suffered.
8. Sheba – an Ethiopian restaurant in Rockville, where you have ten choices of vegetarian dishes and can get them all with two mixed vegetarian meals.
9. Cafe of India – the closest Indian restaurant to our house; it’s always good but sometimes better than others, depending on what you order.
10. Muchas Gracias DC – our neighborhood Mexican restaurant across the street from I’m Eddie Cano – try the fish tacos.
11. Estadio – 14th and Church, DC – Spanish and always excellent – we had my birthday dinner here.

My local A experiences for lunch:

Tokyo-Taipei (Chinese/Japanese in Rockville); Parkway Deli (Deli in Chevy Chase); Spring Garden (Chinese on Wisconsin Ave in DC); Clydes (Friendship Heights); Kenny’s (Chinese carryout in Wheaton); Full Key (Chinese in Wheaton); Bistro Aricosia (Afghan on MacArthur in DC); Siam House (Thai in Cleveland Park); Neramitra (Thai in Arlington); First Watch (national chain in Bowie); and Maggiano’s (Italian in Friendship Height; s, where you overpay for lunch but get a full $5 pasta to take home); Curry House (White Oak MD).

Our only local A brunch: Rosemary Bistro, right next to I’m Eddie Cano, three blocks from home.

As to our out of town A meals (some lunch, some dinner), here goes (for what it may be worth): Mama’s Kitchen in Webster MA; Allison’s in Kennebunkport ME; Rochester Cafe in Rochester VT; Camp Fire in Saranac Lake NY; Mesa Grande Taqueria in Auburn NY; Mama di Roma in Fairmount WV; Guadalajara in Grayville IL; Santa Fe Bistro in Creve Coeur MO; Kingside Diner (Clayton MO); Sugo’s (Frontenac MO); Main Street Diner (Frankfort KY); and Princess Diner (Frostburg MD).

A motley assortment? Yup, I guess so.

I read the other day that when you dream, two different parts of your brain are involved, one which creates the dream, and one which watches it. I don’t know if that is really true, but it’s a fascinating idea. And it aligns with my busy night last night.

I had trouble sleeping. That’s not unusual for me, I’m afraid. But it’s the nights when I have trouble sleeping that I have the dreams that I remember best.

I remember parts of two dreams last night. The first was quite detailed, although I don’t remember very much of it. But I do remember that I was part of a small group listening to a presentation on how utilities are financed in Massachusetts. (What? You think this is an unusual dream?) I remember listening carefully, and then I remember asking questions in my dream. I remember wondering if the utilities in Massachusetts were publicly owned or privately owned. I asked that, but don’t remember the answer. Then I had a more complicated question that I asked. And I asked it politely. I remember saying something like: “I want to step back a bit. Are these utilities financed with one loan that covers both the construction period and the post-construction period, or are they separate loans?”. I think I was told that there was one loan only, and I wondered what the flexibility was if circumstances changed, such as a drop in general interest rates.” What can I say? It was my dream.

The second dream was very different. I had an Italian friend (perhaps he was American, but was ethnically Italian). Either I picked him up at the airport, or he picked me up, but in any event on our way from the airport we were going to have a meal (lunch? dinner?) at an Italian restaurant he told me was very authentic. But we pulled up at a gas station. There were many gas pumps. But next to the door to the gas station office was another door with a sign over it that said “Spaghetti”. We went into that door, down a cement hallway, and into a large room where the mechanics were working on cars. We walked through that room (everyone was friendly) and went through a door at the back. All of a sudden we were in the foyer of a very upscale restaurant. The maitre d’ welcomed us and asked if we had a reservation. We didn’t. And he took us through the very crowded, white table cloth restaurant to a flight of stairs that went up to the second floor, a loft floor which was not quite as formal, but which overlooked the downstairs room. There were four people at one other table, but every other table was empty. We got one for two where we could look downstairs. What did we eat? How was it? No clue.

Yep, that’s what you dream when you’re 80.

Well, an argument can be made that Republicans are not sleeping dogs. Why not? Because they are neither sleeping, nor dogs, I guess. But then Blue Dog Democrats (the conservative branch of that party) are neither blue, nor dogs, so I think the Sleeping Dog title works pretty well.

Let’s analyze it:

Of course, you have to start with Donald Trump (unless you want to go all the way back to Nixon), who lies, and lies, and lies, and lies, and virtually all the Republicans (with the exceptions we can all name now, and virtually all of whom will be out of office in 2023) have just let him lie.

Then there are all those Republicans who, after January 6, had an immediate reaction to condemn the riots and the then president’s role in them, but who later (and not much later at that) reversed themselves 180 degrees and praised the president, even though they didn’t believe him at all praiseworthy. They too lied and lied and lied.

And then there are the election deniers, some of whom are delusional enough to believe what they have been saying, but presumably most of whom (and especially most of those who are political or media influencers) know the election results were very accurate. Another group who lied, and lied and lied and lied.

There were those who backed candidates like Herschel Walker, knowing that his victory would help the Republican Party retain a modicum of influence over the Senate agenda, even though they knew he was no more qualified to be in the Senate than their own pet dogs. Yet they extolled his qualifications, judgment and virtue, all the time lying and lying and lying.

And now (although there are other examples I could mention if I wanted to turn this into a book) there is George Santos, elected to Congress from Long Island, although the only things on his resume that is truthful is his name. In fact, I am probably concluding this too quickly – who knows what his name really is, after all? What will the Republicans do now? Will they vote to seat him in the House of Representatives that they now will control? Or will there be a half dozen Cheneys or Kinzingers to vote against him? And will the Republican leadership under Sleeping Dog McCarthy even allow a vote to be taken?

So (and you heard/saw it here first) – there may be still some Blue Dog Democrats, but they are far outnumbered by the Sleeping Dog Republicans. And what will the rest of us do? Will we just let the Sleeping Dog Republicans lie??

I say that because it’s natural to think that the lighting of the eighth candle last night ended the holiday. But it is still Hanukkah until the sun goes down this evening. And how is the last day of the holiday celebrated? By ignoring it.

As to Federal holidays (see yesterday’s article), today is Christmas. Yes, it’s the 26th, not the 25th, but because Christmas fell on a Sunday this year, the government moved the holiday to today. Well, I guess that’s ok for government work.

The District of Columbia is, for the purpose of holidays, a branch of the Federal government. So all government (Federal and District) offices are closed today, schools are closed, libraries are closed, post offices are closed, and so forth. So why is trash collection happening? Answer me that, and you win a prize.

Going back to Hanukkah, here are the three things that I learned this year. Because I am not naming names, there is no attribution, but if you want to know how I learned these things, email or contact me and I will tell you privately. And if you are the source and want to be identified, let me know.

1. For those of you who plan ahead, please be advised that there will be no Hanukkah in the year 3031! By quirk of the Jewish calendar (or, perhaps, by quirk of the Julian calendar), there will be two Hanukkahs in 3032 – the first one starting on January 1, and the second in late December. I will remind you again as the date draws closer.
2. Hanukkah is not 8 days long because the candles (or the oil) burned 7 extra days when the Temple was retaken from King Antiochus. Or if the burning did go on that long, nobody realized it until many years after the Maccabees revolted. It is 8 days long (so says Josephus and the Second Book of Maccabees according to my unnamed source) because Sukkot is 8 days long and the holiday of Sukkot had been banned by Antiochus, and it was determined to celebrate an off-season Sukkot once the Temple was restored.
3. There are, as you may know, actually 9 candles on a Hanukkiah. Eight represent the days of the holiday and the 9th is the shammes, the candle you actually light with a match and then use to light the other 8. In the film of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Lauren Bacall asks Humphrey Bogart what he is. He tells her “I’m a shammes”. He is actually a private detective. And why is a private detective a shammes? According to my unnamed friend (who has researched and published on the subject), it goes as follows: Back in the day, in synagogues across Europe, the man who assisted the rabbi in maintaining the facility (turning on the lights, keeping it clean, putting the books back in the right place, making sure things went on time, and providing a modicum of security was known as a shammes. He was primarily an assistant. Because the 9th candle is used to assist in lighting the other 8 candles, the 9th candle began to be known as the shammes. As Jewish shopkeepers began to spread across the United States in the late 19th century, they began to call the men whom they hired to perform the same duties as a shammes in a synagogue their shammes. One of the most important roles of the retail shammes was to provide security – to make sure people paid for what they took. The security providing aspect of the shammes was then transferred to provide detectives as the years went by. Of course, no one today calls a detective a shammus. And perhaps, in years gone by, no one did other than Raymond Chandler.

What did you learn this Hanukkah?

Let me make one thing perfectly clear (to quote someone from our past): I have nothing against Christmas.

Now that that is out of the way, let’s move onto the United States Constitution. The First Amendment, which says (in part): “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.”

Only Congress has the power to create federal holidays under 5 USC Section 6103, and on June 28, 1870, Congress declared Christmas (along with New Years Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day) a federal holiday, an act signed into law by President Grant.

Today, there are 11 Federal holidays. None of the others has a religious significance.

It seems clear to me that the declaration of Christmas as a federal holiday clearly violates the Constitution, but that – for any number of reasons – its designation has been challenged only sporadically in the courts and never taken to the highest levels of appeal. Certainly, no Supreme Court has ever been asked to rule on the question.

The arguments in favor of constitutionality are, I believe, largely rationalizations, and they go to forcing those supporting the federal holiday to argue that, basically, Christmas is not a religious holiday at all, or that it is a combined religious and secular holiday, and that the secular nature of Christmas overrides its religious origins. In other words, for those of you who deride the commercialization of Christmas: it is only this commercialization that allows it to stand as a federal holiday.

The most recent challenge to Christmas as a federal holiday that I have uncovered was brought in 1999, and dismissed by United States Judge Susan Dlott of the Southern District of Ohio with the following quip:

“An extra day off is hardly high treason, it may be spent as you wish regardless of reason.”

One more rationalization, I fear.

But back in the day, as I understand it from what little Googling I have done, in 1870, Christmas was not even universally celebrated and that, in fact, in this country it was much more a Southern than a Northern holiday and that Grant wanted it to be a national holiday to help ease the South back into the Union. The celebration of Christmas as a religious holiday grew in this country in the 19th century; remember the Pilgrims and other religious sects in this country outlawed the celebration of Christmas. And the pervasive celebration of Christmas as a commercialized holiday did not begin to occur until well after the Civil War into the 20th century.

Obviously, I don’t really know a lot about this subject, although I find it very interesting. Particularly interesting is what today’s Supreme Court would say if a challenge to Christmas as a Federal holiday was before it. I don’t think they would adopt Judge Dlott’s rationale – it is (and I have not read her decision, only the couplet) pretty silly, I think.

The Supreme Court today is an originalist court, right? They look back to what the founders thought when they wrote the Constitution. If they looked at the way Christmas was observed in 1783, what would they find? Would they find it a religious holiday, a secular holiday, or not really a holiday at all? And if they, in their heart of hearts, decided that the founders would never have picked Christmas to be other than a day of religious significance, how would they rule? I can’t imagine that they would declare the designation of Christmas as a federal holiday as being unconstitutional, can you, even if in fact it is?

To repeat: I am not against Christmas. I am not part of the non-existent war against Christmas. So why am I posting this?

Because I think that the Congressional designation of a Christian religious holiday as a federal holiday clearly violates the Constitution, but that it is very unlikely that any court would so declare but would continue to rationalize its acceptability, and that this conundrum is one of the underlying problems we have as a “constitutional” republic as we discuss other, and more important, matters.

Part 1: The Dream

I am a young man. My friend and I are going to spend some idle time. He’s a good friend. But we are joined by another young fellow – this one a tough guy. In my opinion, a thug. But OK.

The three of us are on a largely empty, but large, parking lot. One truck is there, with its driver in the cab. The thug and the driver get into an argument. The thug pulls a gun from his pocket and shoots the truck driver, who appears dead.

The entire truck goes up in flames. How did that happen?

The three of us are in an empty room next to the parking lot. The two others are on a video chat talking about the truck that is burning. I am appalled. We are right next to a murdered man, and one of us murdered him. I don’t want to be identified. I am not part of the chat, but I take one of those gray, plastic wastebaskets and put it over my head.

I start for home. I think about what happened. I realize I have no memory of what happened between the gunshot and the truck being on fire. Did I do anything? Would anyone believe me if I said I didn’t? Would the thug even say it was all my fault?

My life is ruined forever. I need a lawyer. A good lawyer. I go home to tell my parents. I am afraid and embarrassed. I’m not even sure how much to tell them. My parents are not home. WHERE ARE MY PARENTS WHEN I NEED THEM?

Part 2: The Reality

I am again thinking about is the return of Netanyahu as leader of the Israeli government, with new ministers who have as positions: (1) more tough police control of the 20% of Israel’s population that is Arab, (2) annexation of parts of the West Bank into Israel, (3) more support for fundamentalist Jewish religious schools, (4) allowing Haredi Jews to avoid military training or state service, and (5) no two-state solution.

Perhaps the most positive recent event in Israel has been the development and implementation of the Abraham Accords, with full diplomatic relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries, and relaxed relations with a number of others. There are those who attribute the Abraham Accords to Trump and Netanyahu. From what I can see, this attribution is 100% wrong. Here is my read: Netanyahu was talking about annexing parts of the occupied West Bank which had large Jewish settlements. Trump (and Kushner) came up with a “peace plan” which went nowhere, but would have allowed for annexation if certain preconditions were met. Trump then agreed with Netanyahu that if Israel wanted to annex parts of the West Bank at once, well before the preconditions were met, it would be fine with him.

Both panicked and seeing an opportunity, the business and political leaders of the UAE and Dubai (with silent Saudi assent) got into action, worried about the results of quick annexation. They developed the plan to allow for commercial and diplomatic relations with Israel (obviously to everyone’s advantage) in return for, among other things, Israel agreeing that annexation would be put on hold. Netanyahu agreed. But he is now pledged to break his pledge and to permit at least some expansion of Israeli’s national boundaries through annexations.

To the extent the new Netanyahu right wing government will annex Palestinian lands, clamp down on Israeli Arabs within the current State of Israel, deepen the divide between religious and non-religious Jewish Israelis, and so forth, it can only weaken Israeli relations with its partners in the Abraham Accords, with many or most Jews outside of Israel, and eventually with the American government. Perhaps, the right wing Israelis do not really care. The center and left wing minority in Israel clearly cares. The fact that the right wing is so much more powerful than the others is the overriding tragedy of Israel today.

Of course, there are those who say that these extreme positions will be modified once the new coalition takes power. But they said this about Hitler, too. And Trump. As outgoing prime minister Lapid has recently said about the new government: “This is not going to end well.”

Before we get to Lawrence, once again I must digress. A dream last night. I am with my parents. I am sitting; they are standing. My mother has just returned from taking her final classes. She says: “What do you think I should do next? Work for the government as a prosecutor? Or work for a law firm as a defense attorney?”

My response: “Mother. You are 113 years old. No one your age starts a new career.”

Now to our main topic.

Last night, for the second night in a row, we watched a movie based on a D.H. Lawrence novel. The night before last, it was the new Netflix film, “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”. Last night, it was “Kangaroo”.

You probably have not read “Kangaroo”, a novel written by Lawrence during the three months or so that he and his wife Frieda spent in Australia in 1922. While “Lady Chatterly” was a novel of erotic emotion,
“Kangaroo” is primarily a political novel. And although it is, for the most part, pure fiction, you know that the lead couple, a young British author escaping the mess that is Europe after the first World War and his German wife, are stand-ins for the Lawrences.

Australia is the new country, a virtual new world, that they are looking for. But what type of country will develop in this remote and rough-looking landscape? In 1922, Australia was a British colony experimenting with self-government. But the Australian colonial government hardly appears in the novel. There are other political movements afoot.

The novel centers on a proto-fascist leader, Benjamin Cooley, known as Kangaroo. His vision is a strong Australia, led by a brotherhood of military-trained believers called the Diggers, who worship him as a great leader. Sound familiar? His opposition? A socialist/Marxist leader of the working class, looking to replicate in Australia what had recently happened in the Russian Empire. Each of these movements would like young pseudo-Lawrence, a relatively well known English writer, to become their publicist; neither is successful in winning him over and, after a public clash between the Diggers and the workers, leading to death and destruction, the young writer and his wife decide that Australia may not be for them, and they decide to try the United States.

In 1922, Europe was trying to find itself, the war behind it, the Versailles treaty provisions bearing down on defeated Germany. Hitler had yet to appear (the Munich putsch took place in 1923), but Mussolini took power in Italy in 1922, and is referenced in the novel. And, in 1922, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was only five years old; Lenin was still alive, and Communism on the upswing in many places.

“Kangaroo” is a very good book (it even has some relevance today) and I recommend it. The 1987 film – not so. Skip it.

One more thing about “Kangaroo”. In the book, but interestingly not in the film, Kangaroo himself is Jewish. He isn’t a religious man, and he doesn’t appear to be part of a broader Jewish community, but he is Jewish. An unanswered question is why D.H. Lawrence made Kangaroo Jewish – was it a sign of antisemitism on Lawrence’ part? Or what?

I wanted to explore this a little and, surprisingly, found an article from Commentary Magazine in 1970 – by, of all people, Berkeley biblical scholar Robert Alter. Alter’s article looked at two authors – D.H. Lawrence and T.S. Eliot, both of whom had written about Jews. He examines the Jewish Kangaroo and other writings by Lawrence and decides he was not antisemitic; he reaches a very different conclusion about Eliot. Why, then, does Alter think Lawrence decided to create a Jewish Kangaroo? He posits that Lawrence wanted to show a fascist as a father figure and God is a father figure and in western civilization, whether you are Christian or Jewish, you look at God as being Jewish. (Is that really what Alter said? It was a convoluted argument, to be sure, and I may have misunderstood it completely, though I don’t think so. Alter, of course is still around. Should we ask him what he meant? If he still thinks this? If he even remembers that he wrote this article? But, again, I digress.)

That’s it for today. Temperatures falling. Staying home two days in a row. Today waiting for a stranger coming at 11 to figure out what is wrong with our dishwasher. We shall see.

But, first, let me digress. Why did Zelenskyy wear green pants and a green sweat shirt when he met with President Biden and spoke before Congress? Second, why did the “Jewish” president of Ukraine wish everyone Merry Christmas, but not Happy Hanukkah?

Now, to the main subject. “Lady Chatterly’s Lover”.

A lot of people are watching it on Netflix, I assume. I say that because the last three people I have mentioned it to have all watched it. We watched it last night.

As a film, it is worth watch. The acting is good. The story line is a good one. The nudity fits in with the story – does not seem gratuitous and is tasteful.

But there are a few things in the film that I noticed were different from the book. They were changed in a way that neither added to nor detracted from the D.H. Lawrence novel. So why were they changed?

I should say: SPOILER!!! and let you know that I read the book within the past month or so and this is based on my recollections of the book (again and as usual, I strive for 80% accuracy).

1. In the book, when Clifford first suggested that Connie have an affair to produce the heir that he could not produce after his war injury, she tried with one of Clifford’s friends who attended a party at their home. The party was in the film, as was the character, but there was nothing about their liaison. Why the change?
2. When Connie first met Oliver in the book, I remember it was at the pheasant hut, not at Oliver’s house. They met at the hut a few times before Connie went to his house. Why the change?
3. In the film, Connie was on her way to Venice, but still in London with her father and sister, when she heard that Oliver had been dismissed by Clifford and she rushed back. In the book, Oliver’s dismissal happened when Connie was already in Venice and she learned about it on her return. Why the change?
4. Finally, in the book, Connie receives the letter from Oliver when she is with her sister, telling her that he is somewhere living on a farm, and the book ends. In the film, Oliver tells her he is on a farm in Scotland, and she finds her way there and they reconnect. This is the only change of any real substance – but does it add something, or does it subtract something from the story?

At any rate – it seemed to me that it was change for the sake of change. That may be OK if you are suffering from boredom, but why in this film version of a classic book?

By the way, I read two other D.H. Lawrence books this year, and have a number that I want to read next year. The two others I read this year are little known – “Kangaroo”, set in Australia, and a Penguin book of “Selected Letters”, which were more interesting than I thought they would be. There is a film version of “Kangaroo”, I am told – that’s on the list, as well. There are also at least two older film versions of Lady Chatterly – I probably will not look at these.

By the way – for those very few who may somewhat slightly care – although the new furnace is good, the dishwasher is still not working.

(1) In case you are wondering who else is 80:

Joe Biden

Paul McCartney

Harrison Ford

Judge Judy

Barbara Streisand

Calvin Klein

Martin Scorsese

Michael Bloomberg

Wayne Newton

Garrison Keillor

Isabelle Alende

Martin Cruz Smith

Erica Jong

Daniel Barenboim

Maurizio Pollini

Linda Evans

Britt Ekland

Carole King

Mitch McConnell

(2) Quip of the day: Someone told me that it was often important to know when to keep quiet, so you won’t say more than you should. She said: “I have a friend who would not utter the word banana, because he was afraid he wouldn’t know when to stop.”

(3) Of course it will never end. Donald Trump (remember him?) broke with tradition when he didn’t release his federal income tax returns, saying that he couldn’t release them while they were under audit, but he’d release them when the audit was completed. Which he never did, saying that the audit just wasn’t finished. So, one more lie to add to the pile. It turns out:

a. His tax returns were never under audit, BUT

b. There is a federal law that requires tax returns to be audited and that, under Donald, that law was simply ignored.

So a double lie, it appears. But now we will get the returns. As Edie says, now “everyone can audit them”, and although they have not been released yet, we are told that in 2020 Trump paid no taxes, and in two of the other years of his presidency, he paid $750 each.

(4) My Tom’s Deodorant stick say that it expires 12-22. What possibly does that mean??

(5) Masks, again. We went to a Hanukkah party last night – 13 people attended. We all agreed to take a Covid test yesterday before the party. Presumably, all were negative. Half of the party was spent sitting around a table eating (and voting on the best latkes and best latke toppings – a contest with prizes thanks to party planner Edie Hessel) and obviously during that time, no one was wearing a mask. The other half of the time was spent sitting around talking – then about half of the guests were wearing their N-95 masks (some people put them on, and took them off, etc.). Does this really make sense? Not even Dr. Fauci or Dr. Wen can answer that, I’d bet.

Always many things to think about, but today it’s all about poor Merrick Garland. I am so glad that I am not him.

The Jan 6 committee has held their final hearing and taken their final vote. Donald Trump is being referred to the Department of Justice with recommendations to consider indicting him on a variety of charges. It is now up to Justice.

Well, what’s an Attorney General expected to do?

If he accepts the recommendation and commences an internal process to determine whether Trump should be indicted for anything, and if Trump is indicted, Garland will be accused of being partisan. If he ignores the recommendation, he will be accused of being cowardly.

If he undertakes a long and detailed investigation into the charges, he will be accused of dragging his feet. If he brings charges quickly, he will be accused of acting precipitously.

If he brings a case against Trump, and Trump is convicted, Garland will be accused of deepening the country’s divisions (depending on what results from a conviction, possibly even accused of creating riots more damaging that that of Jan 6). If he brings a case against Trump and Trump is pronounced not guilty, he will be accused of incompetence.

My mind goes back about 30 years. I was a relatively new and inactive member of our synagogue. The synagogue was undergoing a major renovation. Everyone felt good about it, and confident that the renovation would be a success. Then, as the renovation work neared completion, the synagogue ran out of money.

I was asked by a friend to join a group that was trying to figure out what to do. First, we had to determine what went wrong. It became clear that the primary responsibility lay at the feet of one individual, who was given too much power: power to approve design, power to supervise construction, and power to head the fundraising drive. And that no one was given the responsibility of keeping tabs on how he was performing this overwhelming task. It turned out he was performing it poorly.

I am not going into details. But the question was whether we should attempt to hold this individual, a long time member with a checkered professional reputation, responsible and perhaps even bring litigation against him. Should we engage lawyers to determine if such a case would be fruitful?

After much conversation, our committee decided that, even if such litigation would be successful, it had the potential to tear apart the congregation, and we were better off accepting our mistakes and our losses, and looking for a way to finance the remaining work.

Today, the congregation is thriving and, except for us old, old timers, no congregant even remembers (or ever knew about) this sad moment in the synagogue’s history.

This decision had nothing to do with who was right and who was wrong. It had nothing to do with what could be proven in a court of law. It had to do with the future and not the past. It was the right decision.

It is the type of decision that Merrick Garland could make, and maybe should. But for us, it was easy. Most congregants knew nothing of the facts behind the synagogue’s problems. Not only did most congregants not know who was on our committee (and obviously we did not have final say), but they didn’t even know our committee existed. Garland is not in that situation. For him personally, the decision would be very hard.

That brings in President Biden. In 1974, the new United States president was Gerald Ford. He was never even elected, having been selected by Congress to be vice president after the resignation of Spiro Agnew, and having become president after the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Just as today, the majority of thinking Americans may conclude that Donald Trump committed crimes, so then did the majority of Americans conclude that Richard Nixon had done the same. There was the same pressure and momentum for the Justice Department to go into action.

But Gerald Ford did something – he pardoned Nixon. Was he criticized for this? Absolutely. Was it the right decision? I think it was. It wasn’t based on whether or not Nixon committed crimes, or whether a jury could be convinced that he did. It was a question of trying to heal, rather than further divide, the country. Is it possible that Biden will follow the Ford example? I don’t know. I sure haven’t heard anyone talk about it.

Time will tell.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Although I have so far made it a point not to name names in this incipient blog, and a final decision is yet to be made, I am going to name a name today. I had lunch with my old friend Mel Gelman, who today is celebrating his 80th birthday. And yes, I told him all he needs to know.

On all other nights, we either light one candle or three or more candles. Why, on that night, do we always light two candles? And why do we light the second one with the first one we lit, rather than using a match for both?

A questions, questions. Life is filled with them.

So, it’s Hanukkah again. The holiday that Rabbi Avis Miller once said was “the most important Jewish Holiday”. (Rabbi Eugene Lipman similarly once talked about Thanksgiving as the holiday more Jews observed in America than any other…..but I digress) Why the most important Jewish holiday? Because, she said, if it weren’t for the Maccabees, Judaism wouldn’t exist. Well, to tell you the truth, I am not so sure. Probably an exaggeration. Judaism is clearly a religion of survival.

The Maccabees revolted because King Antiochus, for reasons apparently unclear, decided that the Jews were going to revolt, and decided to outlaw Jewish practice. A great example of unanticipated consequences – there was no revolt in the planning until Antiochus took this action – then the non-existent revolt he feared actually materialized, and he had the losing hand.

Often, this revolt is viewed primarily as a revolt against Hellenization, but that does not seem to be true, either. Judaism had accommodated itself to being part of the Greek empire, and while some Jews had Hellenized more than others, this does not seem to be the cause of the revolution, and indeed Hellenization did not stop after the Maccabees came out victorious. The Temple was cleaned, but the use of Greek language and practices did continue.

Which, of course, brings me to St. Louis in the 1940s. My family was 98% Jewish. I had one great uncle who married a Catholic woman, and – at that time – that was it. Everyone else was Jewish. We belonged to a Reform congregation, as did most of my family and friends. None of my family, in my memory, would have described themselves as Conservative, and those who were Orthodox were at least two generations older than I was.

We celebrated Hanukkah by lighting candles every night. And, as I remember, my sister and I got a modest present every night – maybe a dollar – something like that.

And then there was Christmas. This was the big day. We did not have a tree, but we did hang up stockings and in the morning the house was filled with Christmas presents wrapped in holiday paper. They were brought to the house by Santa Claus.

Sure, I believed in Santa Claus. And I was very impressed with him that he delivered presents to Jewish houses, even though we didn’t believe in Jesus or Christmas. I thought he went out of his way to make sure that we didn’t feel overlooked.

Our Christmas afternoon was generally spent at my father’s law partner’s house. They were Catholic and had a big tree. I always felt a little uneasy there, like we were trespassing, I think. I knew the day was something different to them than it was to us. I wondered if they really wanted us there. Perhaps we were keeping them from doing what they really wanted to do.

My other memories of the Christmas season? The downtown department stores and their window displays. We used to go down and look at them. And of course, the Christmas carols at school – no Hanukkah songs then. And a general holiday spirit that pervaded everything.

After my sister, younger than me, realized that Santa Claus was a fantasy, our Christmas celebration slowed down. Maybe it stopped. I don’t remember any Christmas gifts as I got older.

Once I left home for college, Christmas day didn’t seem special to me in any way. And I don’t remember paying too much attention to Hanukkah either. At college, as in high school, I had an equal number of Jewish and gentile friends, and religion paid no part in any discussions or activities. I was not involved in any Jewish groups at college – my few visits to Hillel left me uncomfortable – the students who hung out there had backgrounds very different from mine.

Several weeks ago, a topic of discussion on my Thursday morning breakfast Zoom, with about 30 older Jewish guys, the topic of Christmas celebrations in schools came up. Those of us (by far the majority) who went to public schools remember the Christmas celebrations and the question of how we should respond to them. People responded very differently at the time, it appears.

But one thing was obvious. Being surrounded by Christmas, Christmas spirit, Christmas music and even Christmas gifts did nothing to detract from our Jewishness as we grew up, or even then.

I know there are those who hate the Christmas season and feel alien to everything around them. That’s not me, I am happy to say.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On a very different note, I just finished reading “The Disenchanted” by Budd Schulberg. Never had read anything by him before.

It’s an interesting book to compare with “Tar”, the Cate Blanchett film I discussed yesterday. “Tar”, you recall (ha, ha) is about a world class first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, whose life and career tumbles, largely due to her sexual exploitation antics. “The Disenchanted” is about a writer, not a musician, and a male, not a female. But the story is the same: he wins a Pulitzer Prize at an early age and writes a number of very successful books before his alcoholism and his relationship with the female sex destroys his literary career. He tries to resuscitate it as he gets an opportunity to write a Hollywood screen play, but what begins to fall apart can never be put together again. Although there were parts I didn’t care for, it’s a good, well written novel. Just odd that it comes so close to the film. (“The Disenchanted”, by the way, is actually about F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was a friend of Schulberg’s, and the story in the book is apparently very close to the story of Fitzgerald. As they say: who knew?)

Yesterday, we went to our second movie in two weeks, and our second in two years, all at the same time. Last week, mid-week, we saw The Fabelmans in a virtually empty theater. Yesterday, week-end, we saw Tar in a surprisingly crowded one.

After seeing Tar, I read several reviews. And I have to confess that I don’t understand them. Yes, this is the story of the fall from grace of a world renown orchestral conductor. And, yes, Cate Blanchett does a memorable job in a demanding role. But (and I will try to limit spoilers a bit), what I thought (and I think Edie by and large agrees) is that Tar is a film geared to disbelief and unreality, while the critics all seem to take for granted that Lydia (the Blanchett character) is a realistic persona, and that, except for the fact the film is fiction, Tar could be a biopic. Come on…The writer/director Todd Field has said that he wrote this film for Cate Blanchett and if she said she didn’t want to play Lydia, the film would have been dropped. I believe that, because this was clearly her film. Every other character was relatively minor, and we only know the other characters in relationship to Lydia. I have no problem with that.

But this was no pseudo-biopic. This was a satire.

The film starts with several minutes of credits, one crowded screen after another after another. Now, my eyes (my age aside) are pretty good, but I couldn’t make out the names. They seemed blurry. Then Edie nudged me and said something like “My eyes just aren’t good. I can’t read the names.”

Then, throughout the film, so many of the lines, especially when they were two person conversations, were unintelligible. They were muffled, actors dropping second syllables, and the ends of sentences. And so much whispering. Could anyone hear the whispering? Now my ears may not be as good as my eyes, and often I will miss a line watching something, but it’s usually a question of processing, not of decibel level, I think. I know Tar is available streaming, but still, it appears, for an expensive rental charge. Are all these lines subtitled in the streaming version, or do some of them say “unintelligible” or “indistinct”?

So, now we have blurred credits and muffled dialogue. To me those are signs of purposeful lack of reality. Then there are other clues: like Lydia’s resume, as announced by Adam Gopnik before he interviews her. She has done everything. Gone to and taught classes at every major music conservatory. Conducted every major orchestra (she is currently conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) in the universe. Written extensively. Won Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, everything. And even spent 5 years deep in the Amazon jungle of Peru living with and studying an imaginary tribe with an extremely long name. Impossible.

And then who is Lydia? Where did she come from? A sophisticated lady, obviously worldly, with an obvious sense of noblesse oblige, but at the same time with a temper ready to lash out at the world. But there is no back story, whatsoever. She just is there. Then – at her nadir – she runs home, a wreck, to her childhood house on Staten Island, and runs into her brother (who looks like a sewer worker from the Jackie Gleason show, and who wants nothing to do with the famous sister he hasn’t seen for decades). Impossible. It is no more possible that Lydia Tar could have grown up in this Staten Island house than it is that I grew up in Buckingham Palace.

And look at the last scene – conducting an orchestra in a country that looks like it must be Thailand (but is not named) when the entire audience is in Monster Hunter costume (who even knows what Monster Hunter is?)? How can anyone think this is serious? Or possible?

Sure, the issues of sexual grooming are important ones. And in pointing out the dangers involved, the film provides a service. Sure, the issues involving kowtowing to celebrities are important, and here the film provides a service.

But it is done in context of a satire which none of the critics seem to acknowledge. Am I (are we?) wrong? One more thing – at the end of the film, the credits are repeated, the letters the same size, but everything readable with no trouble. Nothing blurred now – that’s because the film is over. And it is satire no more.

***********************************************

Moving for a second to another dream. Last night, I was given a black bag that contained $600,000 cash. I was a government agent, and needed to use this $600,000 as the first payment for something very important to my country. I was given the cash, I was told, because there was no other way to transfer this particular amount of money. And of course I needed to protect this bag. My country was not a rich one.

I was very careful with it. I kept it with me on a train. When my hotel room was not yet available, I kept it with me, though I checked my other luggage.

I knew I had some time before getting into my room. I went out on the street, saw a deli, went in and bought a bagel and lox. It was raining, and I sat outside under an eave. My sister (not my real sister) was there eating lunch with someone, with whom she was talking about the fate of our country. My bagel was good, but then. I talked with them, but then realized that I was not welcome in this conversation.

Then it hit me. Where was the black bag and the $600,000? I no longer had it. It must be in the deli. I ran back to the deli. On the floor in front of the counter – there it was. All is well.

We all know that, right? But sometimes we forget it and need to be reminded. So I refer you to today’s New York Times (Sat, Dec 17, 2022) to help you remember this important truth.

I start in the upper left: the remarkable story of the president of South Africa and the $600,000 he had hidden in his couch, because he thought it safer there than in his safe.

President Ramaphosa has a lot of money (still does, it appears, even after a total of about $4,000,000 was stolen from his game ranch). His net worth is closer to $500,000,000. He started out as a powerful labor leader, but became involved in owning McDonalds in South Africa, as well as owning one of the largest mobile telephone companies in Africa and Asia, a platinum mine and so much more.

But I digress. Where did the $600,000 come from? Apparently the money (in US dollars, by the way) was brought into the country by a businessman from Sudan, who originally said that it had something to do with a birthday present for his wife, and later said he used it to buy buffaloes (or maybe it was cattle) from someone – he didn’t know there was any connection with Ramaphosa. Uh huh. This is still being entangled, but – in any event – it does raise some important questions: why did Ramaphosa, after the burglary, not report it to the police (or to anyone else?) and why hasn’t he paid taxes on the funds?

And what about the Sudanese business man who brought the money into the country? Well, he’s quite a guy, too. The chairman of the board (does that mean major owner?) of Sudan’s oldest soccer (sorry, futball) team, and very close to the former (discredited) Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, he doesn’t seem to lack for funds. And he is smart enough not to live in Sudan any more, but now lives in – of course – Dubai, where apparently his lifestyle is beyond lush (he is married to a South African woman whose name – Bianca O’Donoghue – and blond hair make her seem an unlikely wife for Sudanese Hazim Mustafa Mohamed Ibrahim – but again I digress. And I leave these two love birds to each other).

At any rate, Ibrahim and Ramaphosa share one trait – fabulous wealth. And money makes the world go round. (One last thing – if you are wondering where Ramaphosa has his game farm, it’s in Phala Phala – which is near Bella Bella, but far from Walla Walla)

I move to the next column. Well, it’s about Elon Musk, who is teetering, perhaps, but still worth about $165,000,000,000 according to Forbes, and is the world’s second richest man as of today. We don’t have to discuss Musk; we all already know too much about him. And will be finding out more. And we all realize that he certainly believes – quite correctly, it appears – that money makes the world go round.

But, to disgress a minute, lest us not forget one thing: a billion dollars equals one million million dollars, so to get $165,000,000,000, take 1 million and multiply it by 165 million. You get the idea?

Musk takes up three columns. The fourth column is about the World Cup. Well, OK, this column is not about the influence of money on the World Cup, but the influence of the World Cup on diplomacy in general. But remember, the recent articles, have been about hidden payments made to EU officials by folks from Qatar – the home of the World Cup this year. and even this article does give some hints at World Cup economics. Did you know that British footballer David Beckham was paid to tout the World Cup this year? Apparently so – to the tune of $12,000,000. (Kinda reminds me of Brett Favre scooping up money from the poor people of Jackson MS.) And as to Beckham, whom did he watch the England-Wales game with? Rep. Ilhan Omar. Fascinating, to be sure.

Below the fold, there’s an article on Ticketmaster. It does talk about the Taylor Swift fiasco, where their computers crashed when too many people wanted to see her (I have never even heard her, but at least I have heard of her), and tickets were being scalped at “markups of tens of thousands of dollars”. Apparently, Ticketmaster now has had a second problem, concerning a Mexico City concert of Bad Bunny (“one of the world’s hottest pop stars”, they say), where people paid close to $1,000 for tickets that the box office scanners falsely said were counterfeit.

Now, you don’t have to be as rich as Musk, or even as rich as Ramaphosa or Ibrahim, to pay $10,000 or $1,000 for a ticket, but – gee – the facts that concerts with tickets going for prices like this sell out does tell you something about how much money is floating around somewhere, no?

Finally, the front page has the required story about the FTX scandal, and its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who apparently has seen his net wroth plummet to zero from $26,500,000,000 overnight. But this article concentrates not on B-F, but on Ryan Salame (the “e” is silent in Salame), another kid-executive of FTX, whose net worth has also disappeared apparently. A lot has been written about the political contributions of Bankman-Fried to Democrats – this article talks about the mega-contributions Salame has made to Republicans. I must admit to being bored with the executives of FTX – so I just ran through this article. Too quickly.

Yes, there is one more first page story – Russia destroying Ukraine. But that article is too hard to read. I’ll stick to following the money.

(Are my facts here all correct? I strive for 80% accuracy.)

People my age tell me about all their visits to their many doctors. I have been very lucky. My doctors visits have been no more numerous than when I was in my 30s. I understand that will probably change, but it hasn’t yet.

Yesterday, I had my annual ophthalmology appointment, and today my annual dermatology appointment. And a good time was had by all.

A little more than a year ago, my eye doctor merged his practice into a larger practice and moved his office from 5530 Wisconsin Ave to 5454 Wisconsin Ave. Not a big move, you say, but if you ever had to park in the garage at 5454, you’d not say that.

One thing about his new practice: I received 7 telephone and email reminders of my appointment. Then I received a “save time during your appointment” email with a 9 page questionnaire to fill out. I filled it out and know one thing for sure. None of the questions had anything to do with my eyes or my appointment. I assume all of this personal data is residing somewhere in Beijing. I asked my doctor why I had to answer questions on line, then when I got to the office, then when I talked to his assistant and then when I talked to him. He shrugged – “I guess they are all different questions…..and essential.”

My doctor’s assistant, Jackie, started my examination by asking me more questions. I first noted that I had floaters in 1972 (I remember the time precisely) and they haven’t changed since then. So, 50 years of telling eye doctors I have floaters. But Jackie wasn’t satisfied and wanted me to describe them. Never having taken a creative writing class, I admit to being at a loss for words. She asked me if they were circles, or strings, or a bunch of other things. My answer was always “no”. She then asked me: well, are they cow webs? I told her I didn’t even know what a cow web was. Her response: then they probably don’t look like them.

I later asked my doctor what a cow web was. He said “you mean cobweb?” I told him that I knew he wasn’t my ear doctor (I don’t have one), but I was sure she said “cow web”.

I always have a great time talking to my eye doctor. He complains about modern medicine and his own health problems and I listen and tell him jokes. My next appointment is December 19, 2023 (optimistic huh?), but maybe I’ll make a six month appointment just to talk.

Today, I had an appointment with my dermatologist. She with her magic CO2 machine with which Medicare will let her zap up to 14 harmless but unappealing things off my skin. She had a new assistant with her today. I was intrigued because she looked like she could be Brittney Griner’s twin sister. Except she wasn’t 6 foot 9. She was only about 6 foot 3.

My next appointment there? December 12, 2023.

December 2023 is filling up. If you want to make an appointment with me then, better sign up now.

I was really looking forward to last night’s presentation by Prof. Adam Mendelsohn on his new book: “Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War: the Union Army”. He was speaking in conversation with Prof. Pam Nadell of American University, and there was to be separate remarks by Adrienne de Armas of the Shapell Manuscript Foundation. My job was to introduce the program.

Before I tell you what went wrong, here’s the funny story of the day:

Prof. Mendelsohn is a native of South Africa and a graduate of the University of Cape Town with a PhD from Brandeis. His specialty is American Jewish History, although this seems weird for a South African who now is a Professor back in Cape Town, but he has written before on the Civil War, and has now finished his first book on Jewish military participation in that conflict. His second book is in writing; it will focus on the Confederates.

After his presentation, I asked him (seriously) if he was ever going to write a history of Jews in the Boer War (I assumed there were Jews on the British, but not the Boer side, but didn’t know). He looked at me and said: “You’re probably joking, but in fact, my father was a historian, and he already wrote that book”. Certainly not the answer I suspected.

OK, now for the problems. We were at B’nai Israel, a conservative congregation in Rockville MD. The program took place in the main sanctuary, a very attractive room and the room where the synagogue could live stream the event. We had about 40 people present, but over 500 had registered to view it remotely. We also had two cameras there from C-Span to record the event.

The program was cosponsored by the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies (that’s my connection), the Southern Jewish Historical Society and the Shapell Manuscript Foundation (home of the newly digitized and publicly viewable list of Jewish participants in the Civil War). The outline of the program was that, first, I would introduce Ms. De Armas, who would talk for ten minutes or so about Shapell, and then I would introduce Profs. Mendelsohn and Nadell.

My remarks were carefully written out (after all, this was my C-Span debut), but there was only a bare microphone for me to speak from – nothing to put my notes on. This was remedied with a quick visit to another room, where we found a music stand that we carried in.

The second problem was that, for whatever reason, Ms. De Armas decided she wasn’t going to come in person, but that she would speak virtually, on a screen from afar. I didn’t know this was going to happen until I go there, so I had to change my remarks a bit (not a problem), introduce her, and walk away while the techies brought her in on a screen (not a mammoth screen) and streamed her to the on-line crowd. Well, we could see her and her slides (which were much too detailed to be useful at least to the live audience), but her audio was completely muffled so people could only hear a part of what she said, which means that nothing she said made much sense. I was expecting that someone would decide to cut her off (the plan was to cut her off if there was a problem, and that I would go back up and ad lib until the problem was fixed), but this did not happen. She just went on as if there were no problem.

When she was over, I went back up to introduce the other speakers. That went fine, but when the conversation between the two of them started, I saw that Prof Mendelsohn, with a heavy South African accent, spoke very fast and used his hands enough that his voice moved to and from his hand held mic, making it difficult to hear everything he was saying. How it came across on-line, I don’t know.

At any rate, the program, about which I had such high hopes, fizzled, I thought. Too bad.

New furnace update? It’s too cold upstairs, and the clock on the thermostat was off by ten minutes this morning. We are awaiting a service call. But…..on a cold day…..ugh.

Yesterday, we got ourselves a new furnace. So far, so good. We will see – I always expect something new might have a defect. For example, we bought a new thermostat to go with our new furnace. But our furnace installers told us that our new thermostat (the one their firm had suggested) wasn’t working properly and we should return it. They gave us another model which they said was just as good. OK, fine with me, I guess. We had bought the first one on Amazon, and returns are easy.

But, always a glitch. The thermostat has lithium batteries and Amazon gave us a couple of things to put on the outside of the return container with “Hazard!” markings. OK, not a problem. But then I saw in the small print that if the lithium batteries are damaged, I shouldn’t return it, but instead call Customer Service. That’s what I will do today, because I don’t have any idea why the thermostat didn’t work.

But you remember (ha ha) that I said that I hadn’t started falling apart at 80 yet, but our house had at 40. Our next problem is our dishwasher. When you start it, a sign lights up that says, in effect, “Drain me!”. “Big deal”, you say, “that sounds easy”. Except that the manual instructions make it look just about as easy as building a nuclear bomb, and the YouTube video on how to drain a Miele dishwasher is over ten minutes long. Sometime today or tomorrow, I will do it. I’ll put on a wet suit and dive right in.

“White Lotus” – what’ so great about it? We dutifully watched the first year, and have started the second year. Except for the extraordinary beauty of Sicily, I can’t find anything to recommend it. (You don’t have to respond – I know you love it) I was hoping that the presence of F. Murray Abraham, who is 83, would mean that the second year of the show would have some relevance to an 80 year old. But no. I liked Abraham better when he was the evil string puller Dar Adal in Homeland, to tell the truth.

But I’ve been watching another short series, with the odd title “Man on Pause”, from Turkey, which I have been enjoying. I must say that Edie finds it worthless. I agree with her wholeheartedly, but its worthlessness doesn’t seem to bother me. And some of the scenery of the southwest Turkey does rival Sicily, for sure.

Finally, during our deep freeze, we actually went to see an afternoon film – “The Fabelmans”. What did you think? I thought that Gabriel LaBelle was a great Sammy, and Michelle Williams a great Mrs. Fabelman (although I couldn’t stand the character). I found it interesting as a biopic, but a little too long and draggy at times. I loved the train wreck, and learned a little about how to make a movie 50 or so years ago.

OK, that’s all for today. Busy day ahead. A fair amount of phone and email work for the Funeral Practices Committee and the Haberman Institute. Lunch at a too-expensive restaurants with some folks who have become Zoom friends, but I have never met in person. And this evening introducing Prof. Adam Mendelsohn of the University of Capetown (of all places) talking about Jewish participation in the American Civil War (of all things) at B’nai Israel in Rockville (also streaming and being filmed by C-Span) for Haberman.

But first…….I digress. Walt Kelly coined this, and I will always remember him for it. Such a useful phrase. But I have to admit something. True confession. When I was growing up, Pogo was one of the comics in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that appeared at the top of the page every day. And every day I’d read it, and I never understood one word of it. I had no idea what was going on. Not blaming Walt Kelly. Just a fact.

I digress again. While I am writing this, I am waiting for our new furnace to be delivered. The installers are already here. They are waiting, too. Our furnace went out Wednesday night. So we have had no heat since then. That’s Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and today. Luckily, I don’t think we ever went below freezing, but unluckily, the highs the last several days have been in the low 40s. But I am in my home office, which has its own furnace, so there has been one room in the house where we could be comfortable. But after 6 days, this is getting old.

Would you mind a digression? Last night – although the down blanket does cut the atmospheric cold – I had a terrible time sleeping. It might have been the cumulative cold, or it might have been the four full garlic cloves I had at dinner, or maybe the double espresso that I had after dinner. Hard to say.

My fourth digression goes to the dinner itself. Of course, we have gone out to eat every night starting Friday night. Last night we went with very good friends to I’m Eddie Cano, our neighborhood Italian restaurant. (Sorry, I must digress: “I’m Eddie Cano”. What kind of a name is that. First I need to tell you that the “a” is pronounced as in “ah”. Then, if you say the name quickly, it’s supposed to (I think it does) sound like “Americano” with an Italian accent. Try it.)

I had a perfect dinner. I started by surprising myself and saying to the server: “I’ll take a Gray Goose martini, straight up, with a couple of olives”. When was the last time I asked for that? I think it was never. But I must say this: it was the best drink I ever had and I am going to order one every chance I get. Can’t wait for lunch in a few hours.

But I digress. For my main course, I ordered cacciucco. Google it. It was perfectly put together, but it included the four garlic cloves, cooked and softened. Garlic cloves often make it had for me to sleep and I usually avoid eating them, but they went so well with my martini.

Then, after dinner, I ordered “an espresso — no, on second thought, a double espresso”. Again the Gray Goose martini straight up speaking?

Mini-digression here: everyone liked their meal, but no one had a martini and a double espresso. Edie had eggplant parmigiana, and our friends had a vegetarian ravioli, and lobster meat with black ink squid spaghetti.

Well, I guess we haven’t got to the Civil War yet. It’s because of my digressions. I am going to take a couple of Alka-seltzer and see what happens. Supposed to be good for your digression.

Civil war tomorrow.

I think we all dream, and remember little of what we dream after we wake up. But sometimes your dreams stay with you. Last night was one of those times.

I had to make a business trip to Denver. I was at the airport. I was traveling by myself and met a young African American man. We spoke and decided that I would save him a seat on the plane. I found a two-seat row that was empty and sat down. A few people tried to sit next to me but I said I was waiting for a friend. One woman paid no attention to me. She had an interesting face. She looked like she was South Asian, but she had a chin that projected forward further than anybody I have seen in real life. She ignored me when I told her that I was saving the seat. She told me her name (which I don’t remember) and that she worked for the U.S. government, at some security related agency. She spoke with an accent. She asked me a lot of questions. My friend never showed up, so she remained. I had a feeling that she knew the man behind me.

She told me that she was going to Chicago. I was surprised and told her the plane was going to Denver. She told me I was wrong. I looked at my ticket and saw that I had to change planes in Chicago. I decided that everyone else on the plane must be going to Chicago.

The stewardess asked us to pull down the shades. Everyone did, and she told us about our upcoming flight (to Chicago). It was a long speech and I realized that I didn’t remember leaving the ground. I peeked out the window and saw we were just pulling out of the gate.

We started slowly. We lifted off the ground, but only about 20 feet or so. We were flying at this level through town, our wings barely missing trees and buildings. Eventually, we rose up.

Before I knew it, we were coming back down. The stewardess said we had some mechanical problems that had to be addressed. We all got out. I was told we were in Marietta GA. I wandered through a shopping area waiting for the plane to be repaired. I was with others. We heard (how I don’t know) that they were bringing in a tow boat to tow us and that we’d have to wait for another plane. We walked down a street and saw a rusty tow boat heading where we thought the plane must be.

END OF ACT ONE

I am in an office conference room with three other men. We are all wearing dark blue suits, white shirts and ties. I tell them the story that I just wrote in Act One. Except it isn’t Denver I was going to, it was London. And although I never got there for obvious reasons, at the same time, I remember the week I spent there. I didn’t tell the other men about what I did in London because I knew it made no sense, as I was stuck in Marietta GA.

It was lunch time, and we left the building and went out onto a major street. The neighborhood looked a bit downtrodden. One of the men told us he knew a place, that we should turn to the left. We did, but there didn’t seem to be anyplace to eat. We passed an Indian restaurant which would have been fine with me, but it didn’t look completely reputable.

My companion said we should have turned right, not left, so we reversed course, and we wound up in a more upscale commercial area. We got to the restaurant he was talking about. It was a fast food chicken place, with only outside picnic table like seating. He said he knew it was good because he owned the building it was in and he owned the restaurant.

The large scale menu was on the side of the building. The only word you could see from a distance was “SAMPLE”, which topped four separate columns. It seemed that each of these SAMPLEs headed a column that gave you a choice of the type of chicken to order. But to decide what to order, you had to read the fine print, which looked like the scrawl a homeless man would write on a piece of cardboard – no punctuation, no margins, etc. And each ingredient seemed to be identified by a letter. So under a SAMPLE, it would say (B) (G) (H) (O) (N) (U) to explain the ingredients. In addition, there were thousands of post-its one the menu wall, in all colors, and you had no idea what was one them or if they were also related to ingredients of each type of chicken.

I told my companion the owner that it was impossible to read this confusing menu. He looked surprised at me and said “I never thought of that. You might be right”.

I woke up.

END OF PLAY

So that’s the dream I remember is pretty extensive detail. What interests me about this is that this memorable dream was so uninteresting and unimportant.

Time for a nap.

And not a drop to drink?

Is this where we are heading? I see so much being written about climate change, which is obviously a big problem, but comparatively little about water change. Of course, climate and water are closely related, but it seems to me that our water problems might be our biggest ones.

I am obviously not an expert here, but there are some things that I think about:

1. Rising seas, largely as a result of melting ice caps and glaciers, threaten not only coast lines, but larger swaths of land and even the existence of some islands. We read about the potential of rising seas on islands particularly on the Atlantic Coast, and only coastal cities, such as Charleston SC and Miami. They seem inevitable. Houses are even now crashing into the sea on the western coast of Nantucket Island, and every coastal storm causes a rise in sea levels that is a bigger threat than the wind to coastal buildings.
2. We hear about some independent nations in the Pacific and Indian oceans, such as Vanatu, Kiribat, Tuvalu and the Maldives, being under threats to their very existence by rising seas.
3. We see that every year, at least 25% of the comparatively large nation of Bangladesh is flooded, and that the flooded area will be undoubtedly increasing in the size in future years.
4. We read about glaciers melting in Greenland and Antarctica, among other places, with the potential result being a significant rise in sea levels word wide.
5. At the same time, we see interior glaciers melting in various parts of the world, causing immediate extensive floods, but portending the possibility of insufficient melting and consequently insufficient water flow in the future.
6. We read of increasing desertification in various parts of the world, perhaps the rest in parts of Africa, which will lead to large areas becoming uninhabitable and to mass out migration.
7. We read about rivers which are flowing at record lows, especially lately the mighty Mississippi, and certainly the Colorado in the western U.S., and we see the dangerously low levels of western lakes, such as Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, and Shasta Lake in California.
8. We see that areas in this country, which are at peril for water shortage, such as Nevada and Arizona, continuing to grow in population.
9. And of course we see continuing droughts, often with no signs of near time reversal.

Clearly, there are people who are worried about this in all places where water shortages. But it is difficult (a) to come up with solutions on which a sufficient number of people would agree, (b) come up with solutions that necessary organizations, corporations and governments would be willing to implement, and (c) come up with solutions that are affordable and do not have untold unexpected consequences.

Most countries are currently failing at these. One country which has been able to meet the challenge so far is Israel. In Israel, all water is the property of the government, irrespective of its source, and its distribution is controlled by the government, but it is kept completely out of politics. It is viewed as a natural resource. Israel reuses almost all of its water, not only water available from storm drainage, but also water from sewage. It is all purified and reused for various specific purposes – sewage water may, for example, be used for irrigation but not for drinking water. In addition, Israel has agreements with some of its neighbors, particularly Jordan, to share water resources, some of which is found in aquifers which are shared by the two countries. And, Israel has a very sophisticated desalination process, converting sea water to usable water. And it is reversing desertification. All of this is discussed in fascinating detail in Seth Siegel’s book “Let There Be Water”, which I highly recommend.

Yes, Israel is ahead of most of the rest of the world. Whether it will stay that way, we will see. And the entire world has a massive challenge. And I, for one, am not at all certain that it can meet it. It requires cooperation, reliable scientific knowledge, financial solutions, and common sense. Do we have any of that now?