A Surprising Gap in my Education (29 cents)

I went to a noontime slide lecture, held at the Renwick Museum, yesterday. The topic was the Bauhaus Workshops, and the presentation was given by by Ursula Ilse-Neuman. I am not sure who she is because I missed the introduction, but she is a curator somewhere, I believe, and a scholar. She speaks with a slight German accent, but with the speed of a French bullet train. If you blink, she has left you in the dust.

This made her a little hard to follow, as did the fact that she had a lot to say within her allotted 45 minutes of time. I believe that her speed exhausted many in the audience of about 100. There were zero questions at the end, perhaps because of a desire for a little space and some fresh air.

But the presentation was very informative and quite well organized.

Here is where my education failed me. I guess I knew nothing about Bauhaus. I knew it was a German movement, I knew it was a between the wars movement. I knew it involved Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe. I know a Bauhaus inspired building when I see it (usually). And I thought I knew that Bauhaus was a modernistic, but pared down industrial inspired architectual movmement.

I had no idea that the Bauhaus was a school that lasted for fourteen years (first in Weimar, then in Dessau and finally in Berlin), until Hitler shut it down (with great publiciity) in 1934, that it involved an extraordinary number of well known twentieth century artists (as teachers or instructors, as students, or as both), or that it was reconstituted in Chicago (where it was renamed and now forms part of the Illinois Institute of Techonology, and inspired Black Mountain College in the Piedmont region of North Carolina (also home to an array of famous twenty century artists) which closed in 1957, and also had influence over artistic teaching in Northern California.

I now know that, in addition to architecture (which hardly was mentioned yesterday), Bauhaus involved painting, fabrics and weaving, pottery, metal working and jewelry, furniture, and sculpture. That it was a holistic program, designed to blend the working of craftsmen with the working of artists, and on an equal footing (it was in a sense a socialist, or at least social democratic movement), and that the major item of contention within the movement itself was how much focus should be put on industrial design (i.e., items that can be manufactured), rather than on individualistic pieces of art. It spread in both directions. For example, in the U.S.A., Chicago was more industrially oriented (and techologically), while Black Mountain seemed to be more individualistic.

Josef and Anni Albers, Marcel Breuer, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Andreas Feininger all taught at Bauhaus. Josef Albers was a student, as was (at Black Mountain) both deKoonings, Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, Jacob Lawrence, Franz Kline and others.

Oh, yes, one more rather important point. The Bauhaus style inspired some extraordinary works in all of the categories mentioned above, much of which is now quite familiar. Only when you see it context with the Bauhaus philosophy, however, does it all (to my untrained) eye, all fit together in surprising ways.

A bit too early, perhaps, but funny

The cartoon this morning in the Washington Examiner. Jerry Falwell, who died yesterday, is standing before (presumably) St. Peter, who says to him: Here we take people regardless of race, gender or sexual preference. Fallwell has a terrified look on his face and responds: oh my, do you mean I'm in hell?

One Movie, Three Plays and a Good Meal (5 cents)

One of the weirdest movies I have seen is, in English, "One Hand Can't Clap", a Czech film shown at the Avalon. What is it about? Is it about the suave vegetarian Prague restaurater who, in the cellar of his restaurant has another, even fancier restaurant, where he serves exotic protected species? Or his wife, who is against anything having to do with eating or wearing animals, who insists that their house have neither TV nor computer, who homeschools their kids and obviously knows nothing about her husbands underground proclivities. Or the two children, one a pre-teen boy who dresses like a girl and the other a pre-teen girl, who attempts to murder her brother? Or the host of the TV show, which is a voyeur's version of Candid Camera, or his daughter who has been embarrassed on the show irretrievably. Or the fellow who goes to jail for transporting, without knowing it, endangered species for the restaurant, who gets out of prison and who, in spite of having a good heart, is befriended by a more mischievous ne'er-do-well, and who meets the daughter of the TV host, and who seeks to find out why these birds were coming into the country. Oh, yes, it is a comedy.

Much less weird are "Either/Or" and "Shylock" at Theater J. "Either/Or is of course Tom Keneally's story of Kurt Gerstein, the German Nazi who decides that his party is not always in the right, but who wants to be in the thick of things to act as a witness, but for whom the killing of Jews and others is too much. He becomes an unsuccessful whistle blower, but his papers are presented to the victorious English, although Gerstein is either murdered or commits suicide in prison before any trial can be held. Well acted, well written. But is it the best material for a play? Somehow, it would make a better movie, I think.

As to Arnold Wesker's "Shylock", a reworking of the story found in "Merchant of Venice", starring Theodore Bikel, in a modified stage reading formulation, it starts out very well, with a sympathetic Shylock, good friend to Antonio, and for whom the bond of a pound of flesh is meant to be a joke. But when Antonio's ships are lost at sea, even though all government parties are willing to forget the entire deal, Antonio and Shylock agree that the precedent would be potentially dangerous to the fragile Jewish community and insist on going through with the bargain. Of course, it does not happen because of the non-lawyer discovering the legal problems with the contract. The play deteriorates, I thought, in the second act. I don't think Wesker knew how to end it. I think he stuck too close the story line, something he did not need to do.


Before Shylock, we ate at Merkado. Very nice supper. Fish all around.

We also went to Theater J for the Friday afternoon reading of "The Milliner" by Susan Glass. An English playwright it is loosely (very loosely) the story of her grandfather, for whom English exile during the war did not end his love of Berlin, to which he returned. I think that he found out that while he remained a Berliner and always will, he was clearly no longer the German he thought he was.

Seemed like old times.

A beautiful Sunday afternoon. The ballpark. Nobody in the stands. I thought I was back at Sportsman's Park watching the Browns.

But something's wrong. Something's different? What could it be?

Oh, now I see.

The home team won.

Abraham: father of us all?

I had wanted to read Bruce Feiler's "Abraham" from the day it came out. Not that Feiler is a great scholar, or anything, but I had read "Walking the Bible", which I found to be an ingenious book. Not one that was profound, and in fact I thought that some of his statements and conclusions were wrong (or at least arguable), but the concept of exploring Israel and Sinai with the Torah text in mind, and doing so on three levels (the text itself, the condition of the biblical sites today, and using biblical historians and archeologists as guides) was very effective. I thought that it would be a very good introduction for those who had traveled to Israel, but not thought about things in these terms. [In fact, perhaps Moshe Pearlman's book, "Footsteps of Moses", wrtten 30 years ago, did much the same thing; I have the book, but have only looked at the pretty pictures].

When he put out "Abraham", which dealt not only with Judaism, but with Islam and Christianity, and which dealt with a broader geographic area, I had great hopes.

Unfortunately, the book is not very good. It (like the first book) does not go beneath the surface, his travels are much less extensive than in his earlier book, and his conclusions again seem not always right, and sometimes stretched to make the point.

For example, he says that the three religions all stem from Abraham, but from a different Abraham. The Jews get Abraham who made a covenant with God. The Christians get an Abraham for whom faith is all important. And the Moslems get an Abraham who always submits to God's will. Well, in fact, each of them have an Abraham whose qualities (good or bad) contain all three elements. Feiler's division is handy and seductive, but I do not think that it holds up.

I Missed Three (1 cent)

I missed 3 newspaperboxes in front of Marvelous Market. Total = 955

Cerrado!!

Turning the Page's annual book sale has been advertised that it will close on May 18. Today is May 10. It is "temporarily closed" with a sign that says: check our website for updates. The website says that it closed due to unforeseen circumstances, and more sales will be held later somewhere sometimes, perhaps.

So, I walked two blocks to Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, to see the Roman Vishniac photography exhibit that is open from Monday to Thursday, 12-3. I got there today, a Thursday, at 1. Locked tighter than a drum. No sign, no nothin'.

Cerrado.

848 + 104 = 952 (7 cents)

Number of newspaper boxes on streets and streetcorners between Chevy Chase Circle and K Street. (see April 3 blog)

I Gotta Tell You (25 cents)

I gotta tell you

about Rafael Patai's book, "The Seeds of Abraham"

about our conversations with a beekeeper and a fur trapper at the May fair in Solomon's Island, MD

about our dinner at Sushi Taro, and Michael Dirda's lecture on the writing of Isaac Babel

about Sari Nusseibeh's and Tova Reich's presentations at Politics and Prose

about the concert today at the Church of the Epiphany

about the Flower Mart at the National Cathedral

about the reading of Susan Glass' play "The Milliner" at Theater J

about the opening of Thomas Keneally's "Either/Or" at Theater J

about the delightful movie "Avenue Montaigne" at the Avalon

But when?

Books of the Day (2 cents)

1. The International Spy Museum has occasional noontime book signings and lectures, and I have attended a handful. They are, of course, free, as opposed to the museum which charges a hefty admission (I have never been in the museum).

Yesterday, the speaker was Bill Gertz, Washington Times reporter who concentrates on espionage, and writes from a (whether it is accurate or not) right wing paranoid perspective. His newest book, published last fall, is called "Enemies", not to be confused with the Isaac B. Singer book of the same title.

The books contains a series of chapters, each concentrating on someone spying, or allegedly spying, against America. The premise is "they are out to get us, we are out to stop them, they are competent, and we are not", or something like that.

The stories are all interesting, of course, from Wen Ho Lee (who he believes is guilty as sin), Katrina Leung and her lovers in the American intelligence establishment, spies from Cuba, from North Korea, from everywhere. Are they accurate? I am not sure.

He was written a lot about China: "The only reason they want nuclear weapons is to fight a war with us eventually".

What about Israeli spies? Well, those he thinks are more "friendly spies". You don't want them spying on us, but you also don't want to hurt the Israelis' feelings because we cooperate with them so well. "They are good on human spying; we on electronics", he said.

My own instinct of course is to be very suspicious of Gertz's dogmatic conclusions, but - especially because he is talking about undercover and counterintelligence - I find it hard to dismiss anything he has to say entirely.

2. Leaving the Spy Museum, I walked over to 7th Street. I wanted a place to get a light lunch, and I thought about the cafe at Olson's, a book store. To my surprise, though, every table was filled, and on my way out, I stopped to look over some of the new books. I found a signed copy of Tatyana Tolstaya's new collection of short stories in soft-back (I think perhaps there is no hardcover edition) and bought it. I then took it to Jaleo's where I sat at the bar and had a very nice salad (spinach, cheese, red peppers and walnuts)for less than you pay at Cosi's. I read the first story, "Loves Me, Loves Me Not", told by a precocious 5 year old Leningrader, talking about her French speaking, old and overweight nanny. Which was great. Twenty three more stories to go.

3. We went to see Tova Reich speak about her new book, "My Holocaust" last night at Politics and Prose. Reich has written a satirical book on the commercialization of the Holocaust. Two Polish survivors make a lot of money leading tours through Auschwitz and Birkenau, but one of their daughters has become a nun at the local Carmelite convent. One of the survivors becomes the head of the D.C. Holocaust Museum, and becomes under pressure to expand the museum to cover the "holocausts" of other groups. There is a museum takeover lead by African American Pushkin Jones, of the United Holocausts association. Etc.

Her reading shows that her writing is very clever. She brings up a large number of points that are worthy of discussion and debate. She says that she is against the commercialization of the Holocaust, that there are too many museums and monuments, and that the dead should be permitted to rest in peace. She also believes that the Holocaust is THE Holocaust, and it is a Jewish thing, belonging to no one else.

But wait a minute. Her husband, Walter, was the director of the Holocaust Museum here. And what is this book if not an attempt to capitalize on the commericialization of the Holocaust? Or am I missing something? Perhaps. It could be that she has written "My Holocaust" as the commercialization to end all commercializations. I guess.

Am I being critical? Not at all. I think I'll read the book.

Avraham Burg Last Night at Adas Israel

Avraham Burg is very impressive. His background is impressive, his father having been an Israeli cabinet minister and his maternal grandfather the former chief rabbi of Hebron. He himself has been a cabinet minister, the speaker of the Knesset and the head of the Jewish Agency. He has his share of charisma. His accented English speaking style is punctuated and animated. Because of his religious upbringing, he can bring biblical quotes to whatever is the task at hand. His mind is very agile. And he has a good sense of humor.

He divides the worlds into what appears to be an infinite series of groupings. People who like Jews, people who hate Jews. People are universal thinkers, people who are parochial. People who embrance modernity, and people who shun it. People who say potayto, people who say potahto. People who are part of the problem and people who are part of the solution.

He talks about the Jewish world going into many directions - insular, wordly, observant, humanistic. Some (or all) will succeed, and split further, while some (or all) will fail.

He is on the side of those who favor humanistic values, and universal thinking.

Then there is Israel. While discussing Israel from several aspects, he avoided (perhaps as a result of bad experiences in other American synagogues?) the tough questions, questions that he has written about and been such a lightning rod at home. He did say that the state of Israel's leaders have not treated its Arab neighbors well, and he did say that this was not consistent with Jewish values. (One thing of interest in his remarks was something like: "If you ask any Jew, what makes up Judaism, the answer will always include a reference to treating people well.")

But he did not talk about the ultimate dilemma which has been a focus of his most controversial remarks in Israel: can Israel remain a Jewish state without continuing to maltreat the Arabs, and if it does so, is it really a Jewish state? (He did give a reference to his appearance on an Israeli talk show where he 'debated' several former Gaza settlers and announced that he was not their 'brother'; he was their adversary, and that he only had one sibling, his birth sister. But then later on he addressed the audience talking about their 'brothers and sisters in Israel'.)

And his lecture was noticeably absent on solutions. Particulary at a time when the acting head of the Palestinian parliament gave a Friday talk at a mosque in Sudan, saying that all Jews and all Americans must be annihilated.

He was very good to listen to. He was provocative and hopefully he got some in the audience, who were not used to thinking, to start thinking. But this was not an adverse audience, as it seemed to me that most of the more right wing members of the Congregation did not attend. It was appreciative of his remarks, and (whether it knows it or not), it is looking for leadership on the issue. In the diaspora (a term that Burg thinks has become archaic), he might be able to provide this type of leadership. In Israel, it seems to me that he has come too close (by his march leftward) to becoming the Ramsey Clark of Israel. But perhaps that is too harsh.

I would definitely like to hear him again, and give him a chance to expound on what he said, and move to the next level. Whether, in a discussion rather than a lecture format, he would be effective, I don't know. He may overwhelm any discussion. If not, the discussion would be worth having.

Examples of the humor: What is a conservative? A liberal with teenage daughters? What is the diaspora? Exile, after it has become comfortable.

May 1, 2007 (2 cents)

At the gym for about an hour, reading Raphael Patai's "Seeds of Abraham" while on the elliptical.

To the dry cleaners, taking and picking up.

A bagel with a little orange marmelade and some very good coffee.

The metro to work.

A busy morning.

Lunch with a friend at "The Fourth Estate".

A quieter afternoon.

A meeting with a client in from Florida

The metro again.

A very nice supper at Indique.

Listening to Avraham Burg speak at Adas Israel.

Home.

Descended from the Elephants?

We all know (or at least we all think)that elephants, very social animals, know when they are about to die and, for whatever reason, wander off by themselves to die alone, away from their mates and friends. For humans, this has never been a normal course of action. The perfect death, in fact, is generally idealized as one where you die peacefully and painlessly in your bed surrounded by family.

How to explain, then, the fact that three of the six movies we saw at the DC International Film Festival had its central characters take on the habits of elephants?

First, take "The Education of Fairies", where the Argentinean filmmaker had the mother/wife tell her husband that, for reasons she could not explain, their seemingly perfect marriage was over and that she would have to leave? In fact, we learned at the end of the movie that she had been diagnosed as having a vascular brain disease (a la Senator Tim Johnson) and could die at any minute, or be paralyzed, and she could not inflict that sorrow or responsibility on her husband and (seven or eight year old) son. In fact, she does not leave, either because she is convinced not to, changes her own mind, or does not have the internal strength to carry out her plans. But this is the central dynamic of this excellent movie, around which all other plots and subplots turn.

Then, there was "Le Voyage en Armenie", where the elderly and stubborn Armenian emigrant in Marseilles, in order in part to avoid the surgery that his no longer that young and stubborn cardiologist daughter has arranged form him, and in part to re-unite with his girl friend of 50 (?) years earlier, sneaks out of Marseilles to return to his homeland. He did not tell his daughter or son-in-law, but apparently told his teenage granddaughter who was sworn to secrecy. Now, going to Armenia is not exactly wandering off into the jungle, particularly when there is an old flame waiting for you (and of course we have no idea where our "Fairies" heroine would have gone), but it is abandoning the comfortable if not perfect (in "Fairies" it was both comfortable and perfect) life you have known, to undertake a final journey into terra not quite cognita.

Finally, "My Mexican Shiva". Here, Moises dies in the first scene, but his death is the core of the entire film. He had run off, at an advanced age, with a "shicksa" (perhaps when his wife was still alive; this is what killed her, according to their daughter). But three months before his death, he leaves his new love without saying good-bye or leaving a forwarding address. She believes he has found someone still newer; in fact, he has learned he had a coronary condition, and he simply checked into a hotel. What he did during his last three months is not clear, but he seemed to have avoided his girl friend and his family, although he died dancing at a reunion of his Yiddish Theatre troupe of many years past.

So what is it that sent all three filmmakers in the same direction? It seems to me that running away at this time to face death alone is so counter-instinctual.

I can't imagine that this is to be a trend in film or literature, but I'll keep my eyes open.

Goal Met, Barely

I went to the National Galler of Art to see the Jasper Johns exhibit on its last day (it has been open since January). Very glad I did. Never having been a Johns fan, I was surprised. His pieces look much nicer in person than in reproductions. They look much better in large numbers, than singly. The exhibit only covered ten years of his career, from 1955 (when he was 25) to 1965. Targets (in fact, Target the store was the main corporate sponsor), Red-Yellow-Blue, Numbers, were the main subject matter. The colors, the proportions, the thought which went into each piece, and the complexity of the materials used, were very apparent.

(The goal, met barely, is to make sure that I see all major exhibitions in town)

Afterwords, dinner at Le Chat Noir, French restaurant on Wisconsin and Emery. Did not know what to expect. Very nice.

Quick Film News (1 cent)

We saw our final two films at the DC International Filmfest, "Hula Girls" and "My Mexican Shiva".

"Hula Girls" is the story of the 1965 closing of the Joban Coal Mine in Iwaki, and the conflict and depression which accompanied it. A group of city boosters decided to create a tourist destination, a Hawaiian theme park and to train local teenagers to be Hawaiian dancers. It is based on a true story, and deals primarily with emotions all around. Today, over 40 years later the theme park is going strong, and the performances continue daily.

In the movie, Iwaki seemed very remote, terribly ugly and overall a horrible place to be. Wheter this is an accurate portrayal, I do not know, but today it is a city of about 350,000, with museums, beaches, hotels, restaurants and, of course, the Hawaiian Center.

The movie has won some awards, but I found it a bit tedious. Three stars.

"My Mexican Shiva" on the other hand is a very clever and enjoyable movie. I hope it is shown again in Washington; I think large numbers of locals would enjoy it. Very basically, the father/grandfather falls dead of a heart attack at a reunion of his Yiddish Language Theater Company, and shiva occurs involving his largely estranged, and highly disfunctional family. His neurotic daughter, ready the fly off the hook at any moment, controlled if at all only by her stable husband. His adolescent son who is chronologically about 50. The son's ex-wife, a New Ager, living in Arizona. Their son, on the lam from a drug charge, who has become a ba'al tshuvah in Jerusalem, but is arrested by the Mexico City police on day two of the shiva. The daughters, two children, a son (with wife and baby) and single daughter living in New York. Many elegant old members of the Mexico City Ashkenazic commmunity. A Chaverman who runs the shiva. Two not quiet real orthodox rabbis, who are looking at the entire affair and judging the deceased. And many others, not the least of whom belong to a Mariachi Band. Five stars.

I Did Not Care For It At All ($1.26)

The Saul Steinberg exhibit at the Museum of American Art. At all.

High Heel Shoes and Low Hanging Earrings

We went back to the DC International Film Festival tonight to see two more films. The first, "Armenia" (or in the original French "Voyage en Armenie") is the story of an older man with a heart condition who has spent most of his adult life in Marseilles, but rather than face an operation decides to go back to Armenia. His physician-daughter follows him there, and spends the movie searching for him to bring him back to France for his surgery only to find out that she is more Armenian that she ever knew.

The visuals are terrific. You get a great feeling for various aspects of the country (assuming that the terrific visuals are indicative of the country as a whole). The plot, on the other hand, while is has its moments, is a bit contrived and convoluted, as the whole of the country seems to glom on to this French speaking physician (who trapses around the rocks and railroad tracks wearing four inch spike heels), causing her to meet more people and have more adventures in six days than is humanly conceivable. She even gets to shoot two heavies who were manhandling her manicurist and hairstylist, who was also dealing in illegal medications and dancing nude in a nightclub. Did I like it? I have no idea. The combination of the plot and the scenery created such an odd mix than I have no idea if I was seeing a good travelogue or a mediocre adventure yarn, or an unusual finding of one's identity.

The second movie, "The Sound of Soul" was a disappointment. Sacred music recorded at the Fez Festival of Sacred Music. Some of the music was pleasant; some was jarring. The narrations were run of the mill; and the comments of World Bank and WTO officials seemed simply out of place. The portrait of Fez was interesting, but I got a better feel for Armenia. It just was not special. But I did get to watch the low hanging earings of all of the female performers (except for those in complete head wrappings).

It Makes You Want to Cry

I just read the headlines (and a few of the articles) in the first DC version of The Onion. You know, an article on Earth Day ("Cheney Celebrates Earth Day by Breathing Oxygen"), and on Radio Shack ("Even CEO Can't Figure Out How Radio Shack Still in Business"), and on gender issues ("Female Boss Walking Around Like She Owns the Place").

Enough, I said (my coffee getting cold), I want some hard news before I start my workday. So I turned on my computer, and went to my homepage Drudge Report to see what was new in the world. "India Court Orders Gere's Arrest for Obscene Kiss", "Hugh Grant Arrested Over Baked Beans Attack", and "Man Accused of Dental Work in Garage".

I kid you not. (For you oldtimes, that is paar for the course.)

Much to Report and Where to Start? (27 cents)

Not sure why I have not been reporting as we go along, but I haven't been. So here goes...

1. A weird ad in this month's Smithsonian Magazine by Travel Texas, a Texas tourism promotion site, starts out with: "There's more art in Texas than in the Louvre." Huh?

2. The quickie restaurant reviews:

Dinner upstairs at Bistrot Lepic, still one of our favorites. I had, for the first time, cassoulet, which seemed to have three kinds of meat, carrots and a large number of white beans, and was quite the thing for a chilly, rainy spring night. Our waiter was French (and just passing through on his way to start is career as a musician in Los Angeles, "but don't tell my boss") and his English needs some improvement. My wife ordered "flounder" and got "foie gras". I should have been suspicous when she asked him what wine he would recommend with the flounder, and he said "but, of course, champagne". She tells me, as it turns out, that champagne and flounder make a good combination.

It's been a long time since we ate at Cafe Le Ruche in Georgetown, but our lunch on the outside patio away from the hubbub was perfect. My wife's salad was filled with all sorts of things, and I had French fish soup (a red soup with, I think, trout, no seafood) and an appetizer plate of lamb sausages, called merguez, which are eaten in France but come from North Africa. Fairly spicy with some sort of chili sauce built in to the mix.

We had brunch at Cafe Ole, a "Mediterranean" (read north African/Turkish) restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, near the FannieMae headquarters. Also out on the patio, and also quite good. Their brunch menu is a full menu, not only eggs, and the main style of service is mezes, small servings, although two (they recommend two to three) was more than enough. My two were a baba ganoush and a Moroccan chicken stew.

Then there was lunch at Kinkeads, another old reliable, but a bit pricy for noon time. We went with a friend; he had fish and chips. My wife had salmon and what she describes as a perfect avocado salsa; I had a arugula and beet salad, and three kinds of cheeses (none of which I could identify if I passed them on the street), all of which was more than tasty.

Dinner at Frascati in Bethesda, which we enjoyed the last time, was a real bust. Don't think we will go back again. Lunch at the Austin Grill in Bethesda equally lacking (Austin Grill has closed in Glover Park; is the entire chain in trouble?). And dinner at Jandera, an Thai restaurant also near FannieMae, was very ordinary.

Carryout from Jyoti, the Indian restaurant in Adams Morgan, was good as always.

Conclusion: we eat out too much.

3. Movie Reviews.

We saw two movies at the DC International Film Festival last Saturday night. We loved the first, an Argentinian/Spanish movie called "The Education of Fairies", set in Catalan outside of Barcelona, about a woman, her young son, a man, and another woman, who fit the definition of a fairy. The story line was (if a little obvious at times) a good one, the acting (particularly, but not only, the young boy) was extraordinary, and the visuals could not have been better. A strong recommendation if it comes back. The second movie, "Just Sex and Nothing Else" is Hungarian and is a comedy based on a Hungarian dramaturg who is in her mid-30s and giving up on love. But she wants a baby, so is looking for just sex and nothing else. Well, things don't turn out quite as she plans, and that is OK, but the movie, to me (but not to the audience it appeared) was a bit too dark and the funny pieces were not really funny.

4. Books.

For one thing, there was the Stone Ridge Books Sale, where I bought too much for a change, especially as it followed by only one week the Arlington Library sale.

But I read a couple of books, as well. First, a short novel by English writer Julian Barnes called "The Porcupine", which tells the story of a post-Communist eastern European country and the trial (or is it a show-trial) of its former leader. The prosecutor is the son of one of the leader's cohorts, and owes his job to the now defendant, who pulled strings to give him the best of the best. Moral ambiguity, is that the point? I am not sure. The advantage of the book is that it is short.

I also ready Amos Elon's "Flight to Egypt", which he wrote in the late 1970s. Following Sadat's trip to Jerusalem, Elon accompanied Begin to Israel, and became the first Israeli journalist to spend time traveling the country and assessing its modd. It would have been interesting to have read the book when it first came out; it is equally interesting today, because although the mood may have changed for the worst, the issues are the same, and the history which comes out through interviews with leaders in all facets of Egyptian life provides a very good backdrop.

4. The events.

There are several to report.

First, Professor Fred Lazin of Ben Gurion University, head of their politics and government department, gave a talk to BGU supporters about the current political situation in Israel. Second, we heard a speech by Haaretz journalist Tom Segev about the year 1967, and what it has meant for Israel (this being the year of the Six Day War and the start of the occupation, and the year of the creation of many myths0. Third, we went to a full day colloquium where twelve academics from the US, Israel and Canada spoke about various things relating to the future of Zionism and its relationship to the state of Israel. Many interesting thoughts were developed, although the presenations were uneven, and the day could have been thought out a little better by the organizers. If I have time, I will provide more details later.

On Sunday, Adas Israel's yearly Guardian of the Righteous commemoration, where a gentile who sheltered, protected or saved Jews during the Holocaust is honored. This year's honoree is Heinz Drossel, who at 90 or so could not make the flight to DC form Germany. His story is a very interesting one. He never joined the Nazi party but was an office in the German army. On several occasions, he disobeyed orders. Such as when he was asked to escort certain Russian prisoners to where he knew they would be executed, he instead told them to run.

On leave in Berlin in 1942, he saw a young woman about to jump into the River Spree. He talked her out of it, learned she was Jewish, told her he would find places for her to hide, and did. In 1946, he married her.

One of the individuals saved by Drossel spoke; he is the father of a friend. He currently lives in Michigan. His family was living in the same village as Drossel's parents, under false papers. When it appeared that their identity had been discovered, he went to Drossel, his friend, and told him the story. Drossel and his parents took care of them.

Finally, Saturday we went on a 90 minutes walking tour of the portion of Georgetwon formerly known as Herring Hill. It is between 29th and Rose Park, north of M Street. This is the traditionally black section of Georgetown and the history of the Georgetown African-American community was the focus of the walk. It was fascinating. Between the 1830s and 1940s, Georgetown was about 1/3 African American. Starting as slaves, sold at auction at Wisconsin and O, they became laborers and real estate investors, doctors and wharf workers. And the created several churches that still stand. They were dispossessed by gentrification, except for a few families, who can trace their ancestry back several generations.

Zhukov (ten cents)

William Spahr has published a biography, more or less, of Marshall Georgii Konstantinovich Zhukov. I say more or less, because his sources were very limited and most of what he wrote was based on Zhukov's own memoirs, which are suspect because they were written in the Soviet Union and subject to censorship and control.

Yet enough of the story comes out to give a good idea of Zhukov's triumphs during World War II and the immediate post-war period, his brief reign as Minister of Defense, and his discreditation and internal exile.

He was a very smart military leader, whose contribution to the eventual Russian defeat of the German invasion was immeasurable. He was brave and not afraid to speak up even to Stalin in the midst of the purges. He was crafty enough to stay alive during all of the Soviet times of trouble. He was ruthless enough to lead his commands in large part by fear. And he was bright enough to write very sophiticated memoirs of the war years.

The book brought back again to my mind the MILLIONS of Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during WW II. It showed me something that I did not know at all, which is that Stalin was the ultimate military decision maker, as he was the ultimate decision maker in all fields. And that he made his decisions based on reports brought to him and discussed with him, and wa shimself without military training.

Zhukov was a very powerful figure. This was both his strength and the cause of his downfall. Party leaders feared him as they feared anyone with sufficient charisma and visibility to become more powerful than they.

I read the entire book today, which means I skimmed over a lot of material, including detailed military campaign data. I cannot say that the book left me totally satisfied, mainly because I don't think its sources were totally satisfactory. But to remind me, and teach me, about the Soviet experience during the war, it is clearly worth reading through.

The Three State Solution

I have decided that the two-state solution is not going to resolve the Israeli-Palestinean problem.

So let me tell you about the three state solution.

There will be three states, Israel, East Palestine, and West Palestine (as to names, the last two are placeholders; I do not know what the eventual names will be.

East Palestine will consist of the current West Bank, subject to final boundaries. It will presumably be controlled by Fatah and may or may not eventually combine with Jordan.

West Palestine is Gaza. It will presumably be controlled by Hamas.

The rationale: first, there is less commonality between West Bank and Gaza than imagined. They have not been part of the same polity since the end of the Ottoman Empire. They presumably have little family connections. They certainly have been isolated from each other since the formation of the state of Israel. They have political differences, and different economic considerations. The existence of a single Palestinean state separated by Israel will create continual problems and never permit the development of a truly autonomous Palestine.

Finally, as it is now 40 years since the 1967 war and the start of thinking about the two state solution, it is time to give it up as hopelesss. No political entity has a 40 year gestation period does it? Particularly no entity has spent 40 years in the desert.

Or am I forgetting something?

Perhaps Not the Rehoboth You Know

I picked up Alexs Pate's novel, "West of Rehoboth", because its title attracted me, and because I saw it was set in West Rehoboth, an African American neighborhood just west of downtown Rehoboth Beach DE.

It is a relatively short novel that I read in two sessions, Sunday and Monday. It was touch and go as to whether I would pick it up again on Monday, because I wasn't enjoying it. Today, looking at 14 customer reviews on Amazon.com, I see I was not the only one who thought that the book started out slowly, but improved considerably.

Not that the book is perfect, but largely because of the development of the character of Uncle Rufus (name a little to close to Uncle Remus?), I would recommend it highly.

It is a coming of age story. Twelve year old, chubby African American Edward Massey is a bookworm and would-be detective. His mother, every summer, takes him from their North Philly home to stay with relatives on the Delaware Coast. Each year, he notes a strange man, Uncle Rufus, appearing and disappearing from a shack behind his aunt's house. No one talks to him and no one talks about him.

Rufus is a drunk, he is homeless, he is mentally unbalanced. But who is he really? After shooing Edward away a number of times, circumstances develop where Rufus decides to "educate" the boy and tell him his story.

No one has had all the bad luck that Rufus has had. He is in love with Edward's aunt, always has been and it appears always will be. He is a former crab fisher, who has a hard time controlling his temper and keeping a job, but he has ambition. He is not a big guy; whenever he gets in a scrape, he comes out the loser. Finally, it all gets to him, he challenges one of the West Rehoboth bullies, he is knocked back, but pulls out a knife and kills his adversary. He had had too much to drink.

He had to leave town and the woman of his dreams. He joins the Merchant Marine, and travels the world for five years. He saves his money (while all his fellows are chasing wine and woman), only to have it stolen by a man he thought his friend. He hikes back to Rehoboth, but must stay out of sight; he is still a wanted man.

Time passes; he mind deteriorates.

A sad, sad story. But for Edward, living a sheltered and protected life, it is eye opening. An important part of leaving his childhood behind and becoming a man.

Is Edward really Alexs Pate? I would think so. Was there an Uncle Rufus?

"In the Storm of the Eye"

"In the Storm of the Eye" is the name of the relatively short memoir of Bill Leonard, long time CBS radio and tv broadcast journalist and executive, and one time president of CBS News. The books got off to a very strong start, with the story of Leonard, having become president in 1978, being introduced to his new responsibilities by CBS news star Walter Cronkite telling him he wanted to retire. The three replacement candidates were Roger Mudd (who appeared to have the inside track), Charles Kuralt (a little too folksy) and Dan Rather (young and inexperienced, but promising). Of course, Rather was hired, and the story of the decision making and of the personalities of those involved was interesting.

There was nothing in the book that was either boring or offensive, but I guess I didn't really need to read about all of the changes over the years of CBS executives. The book was losing my interest until there was a discussion of some of the more influential specials, documentaries, and 60 Minutes pieces, some of which I remembered. Also, of interest were the discriptions of the very early days of television, when no one really knew if it had a future, or not.

He described a number of CBS news personalities, most of whom he seemed to have gotten along with well. But, something was missing. Where was Daniel Schorr (whom as you know we just saw ten days ago talk of his experiences, including the 25 years he spent at CBS). And, it is not that Schorr's time was without drama. Remember the Nixon enemies list. And there were other instances where Schorr 'protected his sources' in spite of Congressional pressure to reveal them.

Perhaps there is another story here. I wish I had read the book before the evening with Schorr. I would have had something to ask him in the q and a period.

"From the Shadows"

"From the Shadows" is the name of the memoirs of Robert M. Gates, our current Secretary of Defense. It was published in 1996, three years after the end of his two year term as Director of the CIA. A book that has not been widely read, it is fascinating on several levels.

Gates was the first CIA Director to grow up in the CIA. Recruited out of graduate school at Indiana University, he spent his entire career (until 1993)at either the CIA or in the White House with the National Security Council.

This makes for fascinating inside history, and insight. By and large, Gates presents himself as a practical, well-meaning middle of the roader. And as an ultimate professional.

He rose quickly in the organization, and was asked to work for the NSC in the Ford administration. National Security Advisor Brzezinski asked him stay on into the first Carter years. He has worked with every president since Johnson and every CIA director since Colby.

What does he think of the presidents with whom he worked closely? Nixon was a very good president, when his paranoia did not get in the way. Ford, he liked. Carter has gotten a bad rap; his policies set the standard for Reagan. Reagan had vision and purpose, but began to lose it mentally early into his second term. George H.W. Bush, he loved.

What about the CIA itself? Clearly bureaucratic. A lot of turf protection. A tremendous amout of rivalry. Some politics (depending on the director) in finalizing analytic pieces. Soviet moles (John Walker, Ames Aldrich).

Foreign policy in the government? Not bureaucratic at the highest level, but continual disagreements (until Bush I) between State, Defense, CIA, and the NSC. At time, particularly when Schultz was at State, Weinberger at Defense, and Casey at the CIA, it was vicious. Schultz being the "let's negotiate" guy, and Weinberger and Casey being the "we should not talk to them" types. More than you can imagine.

The focus was always on the USSR (and sometimes on its puppet in the Caribbean). CIA directors all had their own approaches. The most extreme case was, of course, Bill Casey, who wanted to use resources to support the Contras, fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. Congress prohibits the funding, so Casey (legal opinion in hand) decides that non-government and foreign governmental sources should be encouraged. But he did not want the CIA involved, which is how the White House and Oliver North got started.

At the same time, there was a widespread feeling that Iran should be given the right to buy some advanced weaponry. This today may seem weird, but at the time, there were a number of reasons for this. First, there was the thought that it would strengthen moderates in the government. Second, it would counter the Soviet strength in Afghanistan. Third, it would help the release of some hostages in Lebanon (even then through Hezbollah).

What the CIA may not have known, is that North and others used funds raised through the sale of arms to Iran in order to support the Contras.

It is not perfectly clear how much the CIA actually knew about Iran/Contra. When Bill Casey was suddenly taken ill with a brain tumor and died shortly after, Reagan nominated Gates to take his place as CIA director. His nomination did not last very long, because of Iran/Contra. Gates, who claims he knew nothing, was in a terrible position: if he knew about Iran/Contra, he was involved in violating the law; if he did not, what value is the CIA anyway?

This last question is a good one. There is so much analysis going on, but what good does it do? On a direct basis, it is hard to say. And, with the spy scandals, maybe we lose more than we gain? But perhaps just the idea of a CIA is helpful, if not its activities. The fact appears to be that there is no major gain that can be ascribed either to CIA analysis or operations.

Finally, the book chronicles the end of the Soviet Union, the death of Brezhnev, the temporizing of Andopov and Chernenko, the rise of Gorbachev, the maturation of Yeltsin. And their ultimate failures.

The CIA (but along with others) predicted (with some trepidation)that the Soviet Union was in an untenable economic crisis, and had no way out. This makes for some inevitability, but, to Gates, Gorbachev, for all of his good qualities, was hopelessly naive, and that this naivete helped bring about the destruction of the USSR. He also gives credit to Bush, for his personality in treating the Soviet reformers on a one-to-one basis, to Reagan for, in effect, keeping his eye on the prize, and surprisingly, Jimmy Carter for his human rights campaign, which he feels set the stage for everything that happened to breakdown Communist control in Eastern Europe.

This is one of the most surprising elements of the book, his treatment of Jimmy Carter. He was not close to Carter, and maintains that Carter's communication skills within the White House was poor at best, but he thinks that Carter's foreign policy was quite effective (and that Carter's defense cuts were, with one exception, proper cuts related to outmoded programs), and that the Reagan White House built on the Carter program. That there was complete continuity between the two administrations.

Having been forced to withdraw as CIA director/nominee in the 1980s, he was renominated by Bush in 1991, received Senate support, and served for two years.

In 1993, for the first time, he found himself outside of government, winding up with quite a good position: president of Texas A & M, where he by all accounts did an outstanding job. Bush II called him back to serve as Secretary of Defense after Don Rumsfeld resigned. But all of this will have to await the next book.

Don Ho Dies in Hawaii

I saw in the paper this morning that Hawaiian singing legend Don Ho died at age 76 of heart failure. Too bad, becaue Ho was the rare example of one singer who created/preserved a specific genre, and whose career never seemed to falter.

But we need to make some things clear.

Don may have been a Ho, but he was not nappy haired.

Imus may be a Don, but he is not a Ho.

You can quote me on this.

One More Blog About Don Imus (Who Needs It?) (1 cent)

I must admit to have been an occasional Don Imus watcher. A few years ago, I was fairly regular. Why is this? Because he was, I thought, entertaining and charismatic, and could be counted on for interesting guests. As to his crude and cruel 'humor', I generally cringed. I didn't really overlook it, but I didn't let it stop my enjoyment of the show. And, perhaps in the sense that it was 'live' and 'spontaneous', it added something. And I did wonder why no one washed his mouth out with soap.

Imus had two sidekicks on the show. One, Charles McCord, did the news and played it fairly straight. I always have liked him. The other, Bernard McGuirk (McJerk?) was the opposite; he was the crudest of the crude, the instigator of all things bad on the show. He was also the producer of the show.

Now, I don't know the working relationship between the members of this longstanding trio, and particularly, I don't know, as between Imus and McJerk, which one came up with the most outlandish lines or skits. I don't really care.

Enough has been reported about all the crude remarks Imus has made over the years, and how the audiences, the sponsors, and the networks tolerated (welcomed?) them. Was it money only? Was it enjoyment? Was it tacit approval? (By one theory, Imus was willing to say what a lot of people would think, but were not in a position to say.) Again, I don't know.

I have, however, long been intrigued about his guests, and their willingness to participate actively in the show, particularly since so many of the guests were so prominent politically, and who worked hard to maintain a level of politician morality that was so different from the Imus morality. Think Joe Lieberman. Think John McCain. Think John Kerry.

Then there were the clergymen, Rabbi Mark Geller and Father Tom Hartman. What is their excuse?

As to the NBC journalists, Tim Russert and David Gregory and the others, well I thought that business was business, and they were on to promote the networks. But then there were the print journalists who called in as well. What were they thinking?

Many people want to expand this discussion. They want to take on the rap industry (that is probably a good thing). They want to take on the conservative talk show hosts (it is about time someone did). They want to take on Bill Maher (I think he is pretty outrageous). They want to take on Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson (that is not going a little too far; that is going way too far). But where are the limits on this type of talk? And on whom should the limits be placed? And should they be legal limits (as they are with obscenities), or simply societal acceptance limits (assuming there is such a thing in such a diverse society). These are the questions that need to be addressed.

Of course, it is not the words themselves that are problems (although 'ho'' is not a word), but the use of the words and the identity and intent of the speaker. Can Jews tell jokes on Jews, and blacks make fun of blacks, while neither should put down the other? Perhaps, although this in many ways goes against the grain, and certainly against the American premise that everyone should be treated and considered equally. Once, I was in a group of black and Jewish professionals, and one of the Jewish members set to one of the black members: "Help me out here, what do you want me to call you? Black? Or African American?". The honest answer came back: "Whichever one you call me, I want you to call me the other one." This tension will always exist.

Well, what about Imus' charitable activity, which seems to be quite extensive, with his camp for children with cancer, his raising funds for all sorts of health facilities and programs, and his wife's work making housekeeping green? You can't excuse a murderer because he was good to his mother. You don't excuse Mussolini because he made the trains run on time. I think the same goes for Imus. His charitable work is terrific and you can only hope he keeps it up.

I think he has been properly booted, and hope he does not return to the airwaves. As Imus would say (were he not Imus): This scraggly, turkey headed, scarecrow of a weasel got just what he deserved.

OK, Not So Weird (1 cent)

After talking to a number of people about my mysterious open window syndrome, one of them said to me (joking, I think) "maybe your remote does more than you think". It got me thinking and lo and behold this is the answer. If you keep holding down the open door button, it becomes an open window button. Whew!

A Little Too Weird

6:45 a.m. get in my car in my driveway and take the short drive to the gym.
6:50 a.m. park car on Yuma Street
7:55 a.m. walk from gym to car, open door with remote key control, sit in car and turn on motor.
7:56 a.m. notice that driver side window is completely open. do not remember opening window, but think I must have done so. close window.
7:57 a.m. see that passenger side window is also open. clearly do not remember opening both windows, but think I must have done so. close window.
7:58 a.m. leave parking space, decide to pick up some bagels, take short drive and park on Livingston Street, noticing, while I am driving, that it feels cool (it is cool outside, but should not feel that cool in the car)
8:05 a.m. park car on Livingston Street, still feeling cool, look up and see that the skylight is completely open. to open skylight, you must reach to front ceiling, and pull and hold a switch. I know I did not do that. I also know that nothing was open over night, as it rained hard, and the insides of the car were completely dry.

I have no answer. Does this mean that there is a God? And that He has nothing better to do?

Brats

"Brats" is a 2005 Czech movie which we saw tonight at the Avalon (one Wednesday each month, another award winning Czech film). We enjoyed it.

A couple has trouble having children, and adopts two boys, both of gypsy parentage. Then they have one of their own. The kids are hard to handle--the adopted boys have a hard time focusing and an easy time getting into trouble. The younger son has a serious asthma condition. They move from Prague to an exurban village for the fresh air, and hopefully for good neighbors (the Prague neighbors did not take to the gypsy boys).

It does not work out. The kids have trouble adjusting. The parents (and especially the mother) are isolated and overstressed. And one man in particular is out to get the kids, falsely accusing them of vandalism and calling them 'black bastards'.

Watching all of the bickering between the kids and between the parents, combined with the youngest boy's medical condition, and the problems with the neighbors, and the continual bullying and ribbing between all of the children made me very nervous. In addition, some weird camera work (a lot of scenes from above, a lot of face focusing, and a lot of blurred images)are disturbing.

Nevertheless, the movie is enjoyable, draws you in and keeps you going. I'd recommend it.

By the way, the boys are brats. But the Czech title of the film is "Smradi", which is translated as "smell" or "stench". This would be an ambiguous title. What stinks? Is it the gypsy kids, as the bigots think? Or is it the bigots? Or is it everything in the Czech Republic.

Why did they translate the title into English as "Brats". On the one hand, the boys are all brats, but "brats" is a very unsympathetic word, and the kids are very definitely meant to be objects of sympathy. But the three boys are also, of course, brothers, and the Czech word for "brothers" is "bratri". So the English title also has multiple meanings, but is more in the nature of a double entendre than it is ambiguous in the way Smradi is.

Tricks of Memory

I parked my car in the garage and entered the building's elevator lobby this morning, where a man in a Nationals' cap and warm up jacket was already waiting. He was probably about 50. I asked him if he was on the team.

On the way up, we and a few other Washingtonians lamented the Nationals, Caps, Redskins and Wizards.

Then, I got thinking. Forty years ago, a book was published called "Letters To and From Groucho Marx", real letters if I recall that Groucho sent (and the responses he received).

One, to Yankee Joe Dimaggio went something like: "Saw you late last night at Toots Shor's restaurant in New York. You were dressed in slacks, a sport jacket and tie. I was shocked. What would you have done if a ball game had broken out?"

My elevator companion was ready for action.

But what does all this say about memory. Let's say I read the Groucho book when it came out, or within a few years. 35-40 years ago. Why is it that I remember this letter, and nothing else at all?

Or, better still, although I remember this letter, do you think it is really in the book?

Memory.

What are the Seven Lively Arts Anyway ? (6 cents)

I really don't know. But I assume that theater and music are two of them.

Today, the last day of Passover, I went to church twice. At noon, I went to the Church of the Epiphany for its Tuesday noontime concert, and saw three Levine School faculty members (floutist Rebecca Collaros, pianist Grace McFarlane and cellist, Vasily Popov) perform flawlessly. A treat.

Interestingly, their program, entitled "A World-Wind Affair with Strings Attached" was comprised of pieces with which I had no familiarity whatsoever. The only piece that was vaguely familiar was Chopin's Barcarolle, and I know I could not have identified it by listening.

I thought that the selections were mixed; this was the only downside. But I did hear something that I don't believe I had ever heard before, and would like to hear much more. It is called "Kaleidoscope" by Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa (1907-1995. I do not recognize the name. It is for flute, piccolo and piano, and contains a number of short rhythmic selections: march, musette, burlesque. You get the idea.

I enjoyed the Chopin (a lot of notes in that piece), and Debussy's Syrinx, a short flute solo. Madrigal by French composer Philippe Gaubert (1879-1941), another unknown to me, left me cold (i.e., didn't like it and didn't dislike it; the moment it was over, it slipped from my memory). The final piece, for three instruments, was Bohuslav Martinu's Trio for flute, cello and piano, which I thought the performers played about as well as it can be played. And I tried and tried to like it, and I just didn't. OK, so I should hear this again, too, and see if it was just its novelty that made it miss the mark with me.

This evening, we went to a first staged reading of a play called "The Quilt", written by Jason Ford, the son-in-law of friends. We did not know what to expect. It was part of a series of readings produced by the Playwright's Forum, and was held at St. John's Church in Bethesda.

It was quite good, and the post-reading discussion about good and weak points was also very interesting. The story line (in brief, and without giving away too much) is about a family who inherited a quilt which is sacred to a cult-like religious group. The cult members thought that the quilt had been lost and when they discovered its existence, they wanted it back. How they got it back, how the family was inevitably step by step roped into relationships with cult members, how tragedy struck, and how it ended. This is the play.

Having seen a number of readings over the past few years, this one ranks very high. Of course, whether it will ever again see the light of day, and how many drafts and re-drafts it will go through, is yet to be determined.

Ali Alawi at Politics and Prose

Ali Alawi spoke about his new book on occupied Iraq. Allawi left Iraq in exile in the early 1970s with his family. He went to England, studied and then taught at Oxford and became an investment banker. He went back to Baghdad, became Finance Minister and Defense Minister. He got disgusted; he got angry. He wrote this book.

The book has been very well received.

It was pretty depressing. To sum it up: things were bad, people were killed, then there was the invasion, then we had hope, then we screwed it up (we = everyone involved), now things are really tough, but maybe we can still turn it around. But our window is very small. He believes the Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds and of Shiites, and that there have been another several hundred thousand who have died as a result of the invasion and occupation. Then there are a couple of million refugees, mainly in Syria and Jordan. The midddle class is gone. The Shiites and the Kurds are allied. The Sunnis are in trouble. If America gets out without leaving a structure, it will get worse. If they stay, it will get worse.

He believe that, with the advent of the Bush II administration, academics who had been peripheral became core, and they developed this plan for the middle east that had nothing to do with the middle east.

There was no happy ending.

Imus, Youmus Go!

The Weekend (one cent)

The weekend is about to be over. It is going to end with our study group meeting at our house to discuss the growing trend of recognizing Sephardic Passover culinary traditions in Ashenazic homes. That is, traditionally Ashkenazic (today, basically Europeans and their descendants) keep stricter Passover rules, not eating certain foods eaten by those who define themselves as Eastern or Sephardic (Iraqi, North African, Arab, etc.). The Sephardim eat rice, beans and legumes; the Ashkenazim do not. But now that geogrpahy is losing its importance and communities (particularly in Israel, but to an extent here today as well) are mixing, what should be the tradition in the future? (Yes, these are the discussions that make up religious life, everywhere. Except perhaps for Unitarians)

Last night, we were disappointed when we went to see The Hoax, the movie with Richard Gere and Alfred Molina about Clifford Irving's book, The Autobiography of Howard Hughes, which turned out to be a forgery and was pulled off the press. Irving and his cohort Richard Suskind each spent time in jail, as did Irving's then-wife. This all took place in the 1970s.

The story is a good story and could have been told much more intelligently that it was, I felt. I thought Gere did a good job (considering the way the movie was put together), Molina not so good. The story was told half as reality, and half as Irving's fantasies, and the mix did not mix.

Before the show, we went to the last game of the Caps miserable season, where they lost to top NHL team, the Buffalo Sabres. The game was actually pretty good, and the Verizon center was sold out (of course, a lot of Sabre fans were there). The Caps promise that they will be better this summer. I hope so. But then again, hockey is not played in the summer.

And the Nats have now lost 6 of their first 7, even though they are getting a lot of hits, and very good relief pitching. Interestingly, their problems seem to parallel that of the caps.

Offense:
Nats good
Caps good

Offense When it Counts:

Nats bad
Caps bad

Goalie/Relievers

Nats good
Caps good

General Defense/Starting pitchers

Nats bad
Caps bad

We will see how the season goes, but I don't think it will be pretty.

A short blog about rape and the Washington Post (5 cents)

On page B-1 of today's Post (carried over to page B-2) is an article entitled "Comments on Rape Law Elicit Outrage". A long term Maryland delegate from Prince George's County, Joseph F. Vallario, Jr. , quoted a 17th century English jurist, Sir Matthew Hale, saying in effect that women who were not raped could claim that they were. The context was the discussion of proposed legislation denying parental rights to rapist fathers.

Outrage resulted. Someone googled Hale and discovered the presumed exact quote: "Rape is an accusation easily to be made, hard to be proved, and harder yet to be defended by the party accused". Although no one seems to be calling Vallario evil, many were appaled by the reference.

I am always concerned about the requirements of political correctness, particularly since the quotation does not seem out of line to me; rather, it appears to state a truism.

The article had another surprising reference: in 1987 Virginia apparently passed a law, according to the article, "prohibiting judges from instructing juries to be "skeptical of rape claims". That in itself seems a little weird.

So, OK, no one is in favor of rape, and I think it makes sense that a rapist should not have paternity rights. But (particularly where there has been no criminal conviction) how do you know if a rape occurred.

In fact, on the same page, there was an article (by chance it seems) about a Naval Academy midshipman accused of raping a fellow student. The midshipman's defense is that the sex was consensual. The case is ongoing. Was there a rape? Without some overriding physical evidence, how would you ever know?

A Great Miracle Happened Here

The Capitals and the Nationals won on the same day.

Elijah in the Haggadah (12 cents)

Between the third cup of wine, the tradition is to open the door for Elijah. People remember doing this as long as they remember attending seders. In this country, in Israel, in Europe.

But it isn't in the Haggadah.

There is a mystery here that must be unraveled.

The Plague Continues (12 cents)

By my count, you pass 848 newspaper vending boxes on Connecticut Avenue between Davenport St. and K St.

This and That (2 cents)

1. The New York Times reports that the Baltimore Orioles will have their tenth straight losing season this year, and that that has not happened since they were the St. Louis Browns. Ha!

Of course, the Nationals will have their own problems, won't they? Their five starting pitchers, for example, won a total of (that is all of them added together) two games in the majors last year!

And the Nationals have let Alfonso Soriano and Jose Vidro go. They must be modeling after the Capitals who, after last night's loss, have now lost their last five hundred games, or something like that. Since they traded Dainius Zubrus for very little and then gave away Jamie Heward, what has their record been? Hint: I don't think that they have won more than the Nationals' pitchers won last year.

It's the Washington way.

When I lived in St. Louis, they used to say it was "First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League". Washington, which is looking for a new slogan, seems to be "First in news, one of the first in zoos, and last in all the leagues".

My suggestion for city slogan: Washington - where you don't go to the mall to shop.

2. Washington does have cherry blossoms, and yesterday was a beautiful day to walk around the Tidal Basin, and also to stop at the Washington Monument for the kite festival. Billions of people were there, old, young, white, black, Oriental.

3. We saw two movies, "Namesake" and "Flannel Pajamas". Both were relationship movies, and in both cases the relationships went haywire. No happy endings.

"Flannel Pajamas" was the weaker of the two, although I did not really like either movie very much. Two New Yorkers are fixed up by their mutual therapist. They live in New York (the New York papers tended to give the film much more positive reviews), she is somewhat shallow girl from Montana with an attractive smile, he is a Jewish (though you can't prove it by anything that happens in the movie) talker who seems as untrustworthy as they come. Her family is drenched in alcohol and her parents divorced; his mother was crazy but his parents stayed together. Functionality was not a part of either of their family backgrounds. They fall in love, they get married, and then they begin to torment each other, not because they want to, and not loudly, just inevitably. Who are these people, who are presumably finding themselves? I am not sure that they knew themselves any better at the end than they did at the beginning.

We went into "Flannel Pajamas" blind (it was close by and started at the right time), but I thought that my reaction to "Namesake" was going to be positive. But here you go. A young woman in Calcutta has an arranged marriage with a Bengali living and teaching in New York. They struggle (in every way) at first, but wind up with an acceptable house in the suburbs and a lot of Bengali friends. So far, so typical. Their two children become all-American (not surprising) and their older, gifted son (a Yalie and an architect) falls in love with a non-Indian, blond haired daughter of wealth (shades of "Flannel Pajamas"). He ignores his family, and seems to be well on his way to marriage, when his father dies, and he has guilt and regets and remembers he is Indian, and throws away (really, no better word for it) his girlfriend Maxine, and meets and quickly marriages the girl of his parents dream, the daughter of a couple of from the old country. Happy ever after? Not on your life. His new wife, Mo, it seems needs more than one guy at a time and begins an affair with old French boyfriend Pierre. Splitsville, once more.

Commonalities: relationships that go sour, although in the first movie you thought it was because they were from different backgrounds, and in the second the only reason they got together is that they were from similar backgrounds. And Christmas: in the first movie, Christmas in Montana is central to everything, although the fact that the boyfriend was (so-called) Jewish did not seem to matter at all. In the second, the Hindu family has wreaths and trees and reindeer on the lawn, all brightly lit.

Ugh.

3. Good food. Arucola and Luiginis. Neither new to us. Both reliable for good fish dinners. And a very good Italian wine, Passamante, at Luigini's.

Sticking with food for a minute, the weekend before, we had a tapas lunch at Jaleo, and I ordered a sherry, a Palo Cortado. What is that? I looked it up in Wikipedia, and they said: "it is a rare variety of sherry that is initially aged under flor to become a fino or amontillado, but inexplicably loses its veil of flor and begins aging oxidatively as an oloroso." No wonder I liked it.

4. I finished the book about Colonel Frank Brandstetter, World War II hero, owner/manager of Las Brisas Hotel in Acapulco, U.S. intelligence operator. As I said before, it was an interesting book. I looked it up on Amazon. There appear to have been no professional reviews (it was published by University of North Texas Press), but has twelve reader reviews, all positive, some glowing. Several of the reviewers talk about meeting Brandstetter and how impressive he is. Several say that this story is very important and should be assigned by schools and bought by libraries.

Well, that's enough to get you suspicious. Friends of the author writing reviews? You gotta wonder. Particularly, since entries on Google about Brandstetter are primarily limited to mentions of the book.

Is the guy real?

Extra, Extra, Read All About It (4 cents)

Am I the only person concerned about the proliferation of newspaper vending boxes on DC streets? I don't object to those that offer useful publications, but many are there offering free advertising publications or purporting to provide publications that have ceased to exist. These tend to become used as trash cans or the like, and become dirty and unsightly. I have no idea what the law is regarding these boxes.

But clearly there are too many of them and their numbers are growing. For example, on L Street between Connecticut Avenue and 17th Streets (one block), there are 38 boxes. Last night, when we attended a movie about 40 blocks up Connecticut Avenue, I counted more than 20 boxes on that block.

One day, when the weather is nice and I feel like a long walk, I will pick a street (maybe Connecticut Avenue) and count the boxes from stem to stern.

Daniel Schorr at 90 (81 cents)

Daniel Schorr, still active at ninety, participated in a conversation this evening with Marvin Kalb at Adas Israel.

Schorr talked about his first job with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, how he became a European stringer for a number of American and British newspapers, before going to work for Edward R. Murrow at CBS. And the rest is history. He has been everywhere, and reported everything.

But best were the anecdotes:

1. When he first was given a responsibility on television, he asked someone what you need for success in this new media. He was told that the answer was "sincerity". "You need to project sincerity, and know how to fake it."

2. When he was in Moscow in 1956, he was going to go on vacation, but had heard that there might be a secret meeting of the Communist Central Committee. Important things were going on, including the Stalin denunciation, the Hungarian revolution and invasion and the march by Israel and others towards the Suez Canal. He was at a reception and Khrushchev was there, and he had a chance to speak a little to him. He told Khrushchev that he was about to leave on vacation, but that he had heard there might be a meeting, so he just did not know what to do. Khrushchev says to him: "Let me understand this. You want to take a vacation but are concerned that you are gone for two weeks, there might be a meeting of the Central Committee. Right? Well, Gospadin Schorr, my advice to you is to go ahead, not worry about anything, and take your vacation." "So there won't be a meeting, Mr. Khrushchev?" "Well, let's put it this way. If it really becomes necessary to meet, we will go ahead without you."

3. During the Nixon years, the Nixon administration identified Schor as one of its enemies, and the White House asked the FBI to get some background on him. The FBI misunderstood the request, thinking that they were being asked to do background checking on Schor for a possible White House appointment so, among other things, they interviewed Schorr, who told them that there must be a mistake and there was no White House job he would accept. The White House was nonplussed at this revelation, and thought that the best thing to do was to tell a White (House) lie: "we were thinking about hiring him, but changed our mind". Of course this all came out, and the misuse of the FBI was one of the bases for the suggested Nixon impeachment. Twenty years later, Schorr was at a dinner where ex-President Nixon was speaking. He went up to him and said: "Mr. Nixon, you may not remember me..." Nixon interrupted him and said: "Your Dan Schorr. Of course I remember you. I almost gave you a job."

4. As to Libby and the effect it might have on future leaks to the press: "Libby. I believe that it means that there will be no major leaks the next three weeks."

Other things he said were not funny, but interesting. The position over time of the New York Times not to over-hire Jewish journalists or to cover Jewish issues to closely. The respect with which Edward R. Murrow held his journalists (Murrow, who had never been a newspaperman), and how much respect CBS boss William Paley had for his journalists: "You guys go get the news, and don't worry about the money. We hae Jack Benny to make the money."

Was Nixon a bad president? No, a good one, just paranoid. Was he anti-Semitic? No, but some of his people were, and he wanted to be one of the guys. What about Carter's reference to Israel and apartheid? "Not worth talking about".

Kalb added a lot to the night, as well. He has known Schorr since 1956, asked questions well, and added his own interesting comments.

It was very well attended.

Paul Limbert died at 101 (1 cent)

But not before he wrote his autobiography at age 100. I read it, "Reliving A Century", perhaps faster than any book I have ever read. After all, how much time does one want to spend on Paul Limbert.

Well, let me tell you. It seems to me that he was quite a guy. He was from a small town in southeastern Pennsylvania, went to Franklin & Marshall College, was ordained as a minister, and was primarily interested in religious education, veering more towards the education side as his career advanced. His religious outlook was always broadly liberal and ecumenical. I assume that he could get along with, and respect, everyone. He got an advanced degree from Columbia, taught at the New School, and became president of Springfield College. Thoughout all of this, he was very active in YMCA affairs, traveling the world (and I mean the world) until he was well into his 90s.

He had a long marriage, children and grandchildren, and said one of his major accomplishments was presiding, or co-presiding, at the wedding of each of his grandchildren, including the one who married a Jewish girl.

He admits to getting old, saying that at 99 he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure, and in fact he died a year after this book was finished.

He comes across as the kind of person that everyone should try to be. So, although I never heard of him before I picked up this book, and although I ran through it in about two hours, I think one should want to spend a lot of time on Paul Limbert.

All the News That's Fit to Print?

Yesterday's and today's Washington Post's front page. (I understand that the motto is the Times', not the Post's)

1. The Republicans have been arguing against giving the District a voice in Congress because it would be unconstitutional. But when it comes down to the vote itself, they don't vote against it for that reason, but instead attach a rider to overturn DC's gun laws. So much for Republican principles! (I think the Constitutional question is a serious one, and my response is easy: amend the Constitution.)

2. John Edwards' wife cancer has spread and is now Stage IV. Very sad. And I can understand wanting to get on with your life. But continuing to run for the presidency? I don't think that is the thing to do. But what should one do in this circumstance? Let's fall back again on Republican principles. WWND?*

*What Would Newt Do?

You remember that Newt G., when his wife had cancer, told her he wanted a divorce!! [Odd isn't it, that the family values parties has Newt, who has been married three times, John McCain who has been married twice, and Rudy Guliani, who with his wife have six marriages between them? The party of family values, indeed. Why, by the way, has the other Republican contender, Mitt Romney, only had one wife? After all, as a Mormon, can't he have as many as he wants?]

3. So by a close vote, the House has put a 2008 deadline on troops in Iraq. I would like to have no troops in Iraq in March 2007, but does this legislation really make sense? On any level? But why are we in Iraq now, after all? You got it. Republican principles.

4. Alberto Gonzales continues to maintain that he had nothing to do with firing 8 U.S. attorneys. Now it turns out, he was in at least one meeting to discuss this very topic! Well, perhaps he just doesn't remember. That was Scooter Libby's excuse you recall. Must be another example of Republican principles.

So, what would I say, if I were a Republican, to all of this? I would say: "You are mistaking the principles of these Republicans for Republican principles. Republican principles are in favor of democracy for all, family values, national self-determination, and honesty and transparency before all."

I see.

Something to Think About (8 cents)

I am reading a book entitled "Brandy: Our Man in Acapulco", the story of Colonel Frank M. Brandstetter. I am only about 25% through the book. Brandstetter was a Hungarian refugee, World War II American army hero, and (I am led to believe) later both a hotelier and a CIA spy. The first part of his life was more than interesting, and I have a feeling we haven't even gotten to the good part.

But enough of that. I want to quote from page 72 of the book:

"Finally, the German soldier [and POW being interrogated by Brandstetter] spat on a small American flag that Brandy had on his desk.

"Infuriated, Brandy jumped up and slugged the German in the face, knocking him senseless. He realized that he must humiliate the prisoner, so he ordered his sergeant to undress the German while he was unconscious. When the POW revived, he was quite humbled. Standing at attention in the brisk, cold room without a stitch of clothing on, he answered the questions without further resistance. In the midst of the interrogation, two British officers accidentally stepped into the room, took one look, then left.

"Brandy thought that they might report him for demeaning the prisoner, but he concluded the investigation. Years later, by one of those strange quirks of fate that seemed to trace his life, brandy met the British actor David Niven after his filming of "Around the World in Eight Days". Niven had been a Phantom during the war, and when comparing notes with Brandy, he asked if Brandy had ever heard the story of an American FID officer who had questioned a German prisoner in the nude! Niven, it seems, had been one of the two officers from General Bernard Montgomery's headquarters who had interrupted the questioning, and he remmebered the moment for years afterward as one of the most gratifying he had experienced during the war."

Think Abu Graib.

Is this really that bad??

MELTDOWN!!!!!!!

Balalaikas at Church

I had not attended church since before Christmas.

OK, not church church, but the Tuesday noontime concerts at Church of the Epiphany.

So I was glad to get back this week, and hear the Balalaikas, a local group composed of Russians, Ukrainians and a couple of Americans.

The instruments are balalaikas, domras and a bayan.

The music was what I would call Russian easy listening. Familiar tunes with nice melodies and just the right rythm to keep you going. The only piece that I think they could have skipped was "Lara's Theme", the non-Russian tune from Doctor Zhivago. But I guess it is a crowd pleaser.

A very pleasant hour.

A Senior Moment, or Not? (34 cents)

This morning, I left the gym and walked the fifteen minute walk home, only to realize that I had left my keys and wallet in plain sight at one of the exercise machines. I walked back and everything was there, and I went back home.

I thought that this forgetfulness must be a sign of age, but.....

This evening, as I was walking up the street, I passed a young man (maybe 25-30), who was speaking into a cell phone: "Listen, I can't go home, because I left my keys in the bag, and can't get in."

So, maybe it is not a sign of age.

Just of mental incompetence.

Got Ten Minutes to Spare?

That's right, ten minutes.

If you do, stop in the Renwick and look at the 2007 invitational craft show.

You won't need more than ten minutes, and it will be ten minutes well spent.

Only four craftspeople are involved, and I liked three of them very much, Peggy Bartron and Beth Lipman (very different works in glass), and Beth Cavener Stichter, who sculpts large, whimsical clay animals.

I repeat. Stop by.

Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was a preeminent 19th century American photographer, best known for his kinetic pictures (pre-movies) of galloping horses and athletic men.

I always thought that he must have had weird parents, because they named him what they did. Then I learned that they named him Edward Muggeridge, and he changed his own name. So, I thought he must be weird.

Or at least not ordinary. This was confirmed when I learned that, after he immigrated to America from England and married, he shot and killed his wife's lover, was arrested and tried, but acquitted on the basis of a justifiable homicide.

But he apparently decided it was time to get out of town, and so he worked out an arrangement with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, in 1875, to take a trip to Central America, and take some pictures.

What pictures they are. And, although I have never been to Central America, how must it have changed.

For anyone interested in 19th century photos of fairly remote places, go see the exhibit at the American Art Museum. It will be there through the end of April.

(And, if you have a few minutes, you can also stop by the Decatur House and see about 20 large black and white pictures of Washington DC taken by photographer Volkmar Wentzel. They are beautiful pictures, although I think they are more art, than travelogue. Night scenes and snow scenes predominate, with a few portraits and more intimate settings.

Only a Coincidence?

Yesterday, we were entertained twice, going to both a movie and a play. We did not know quite what to expect from either.

The movie was 'The Lives of Others', the highly touted German movie about totalitarian East Germany, and play was Martin McDonough's 'The Pillowman', about another (unnamed) totalitarian country.

We did not know we were going to see two shows about totalitarian countries and, more than this, about police enforcement.

More than this, though, each had as a central feature, the change in attitude of a major enforcement official, who had a change of heart as he became more sympathetic to a presumed criminal. And in each case we were dealing with the investigation of a writer nd his circle.

Other than this, there were great differences. In The Lives of Others, the East German Stasi was attempting to get the goods on a prominent East German playwright largely because the Minister in charge of the Stasi wanted to get as his own the woman (an actress) who lived with the playwright. So, the investigation itself was corrupt, the investigator began to sympathize with his target, and when the target at long last himself began to undertake actions that were in fact anti-government, the investigator decided not only to doctor his own reporting, but, so to speak, to change the facts on the ground to thwart his fellow investigators.

In The Pillowman, the question was whether several murders of young children could be ascribed to another writer, as the murders bore similarities to some of his stories. It turned out that the writer himself was not at fault (unless you can be at fault for writing horror stories), but someone close to him was. But the harshest of the two policeman investigating the situation began to soften, as his own history began to cloud his mind.

The morals of the stories? One, that totalitarian countries tend to go after innocent people, but the innocent people may not be all that innocent. And second, that the enforcement bureaucrats are people, too.

Well, neither of these may be profound. I thought that both the movie and the play made for interesting watching (although the movie was a bit too slow and long for my taste), but neither was compelling and neither is the last word on this subject.

Dinner at Viridian, however, was the highlight of the day. The barrimundi was the best I ever tasted.

A Double Constitutional Whammy for Washington (one cent)

The sad facts:

1. Washington's gun law, prohibiting keeping hand guns in residences, was declared unconstitutional by a D.C. Court of Appeals panel of three Republican judges, including Judge Silberman, who has always been controversial. The argument of course is that the second amendment to the Constitution allows us to have a gun in our house. What kind of gun? How many guns? Those questions have not yet been adjudicated.

The sad fact is that guns kill people, and injure them. Gun fanciers, when its convenient, say you need guns for sport, and, when its convenient, say you need them for self defense. And, they appear to say, the second amendment protects the ownership of guns for these, and presumably for any, reason.

The argument about what the second amendment really says will go on forever, because there is no answer. It becomes, in my mind, irrelevant.

What is relevant is that, from everything I have seen, guns kept for self defense kill and injure more innocent people accidentally than the kill, injure or scare off intruders. And a significant number of those people are children.

We don't know yet if the ruling will remain, and if the District's gun control laws will, to this extent, be unenforced. But if they are, and if casualties result,I suggest we keep a new statistic in the District of Columbia.

And that we call it the Silberman count.

2. D.C. Representation in Congress. The bill to give D.C. a single vote in the House of Representatives (and to Utah an additional one) will pass the House of Representatives, but it is not clear that it will get the 60 votes necessary to pass the Senate under Senate rules.

Whether such a law would be constitutional is a matter of hot debate (and, unlike the silly debates over the second amendment, is a legitimate one), and in fact the law may not be consitutional.

But the recently announced White House opposition to the law on consitutional grounds is, if not unexpected, certainly misguided. Let the court's decide the consitutionality, if that is in question, and come up with an alternative plan (say, a Constitutional amendment) if it is not.

Imagine. Can you see the Bush White House supporting a democratic regime in Iraq based on the simple premise that all Iraqis 18 years of age and older can have representation in the Iraqi parliament, except for those residing in Baghdad?

What is the difference?, I ask.

And, by the way, getting back to the Constitution, the Constitution talks about the need for a militia to ensure a free state, and therefore that the right to own and bear arms should be protected. Of course, it says nothing about where the owners of the guns shall be permitted to keep them. And, it talks about the right being necessary to ensure a free state. What is a "state"? Is it a country, like the United States (see the difference-- 'state' or 'States'), or a state like Louisiana? It surely isn't a state like D.C., is it? So maybe the second amendment doesn't even apply to our nation's capital. It's a thought. No sillier than some of the other constitutional arguments made with regard to the Second Amendment.

By the way, the Cato Institute lawyer who brought the gun case, a man named Robert Levy, who does not live in the District, was the subject of a biographical piece in this morning's Washington Post. Now, I understand that newspapers are not always accurate in their descriptions. But I will say this: if they are only half accurate in their descripton of Levy, he is an awful human being.

I know that is harsh, but read the article and decide for yourself.

Maybe we should have two separate gun crime statistics. The Silberman count and the Levy count, one for juvenile casualties and one for adults. I don't care which is attached to whom; take your pick.

1958 (Read On)

In 1958, I could have bought and read "Eastern Exposure" by Marvin Kalb, and "Days of Our Lives" by Rose Pesotta. I didn't however, and I bet most others didn't either.

But I have read them now and enjoyed them both.

Here is a brief reprise.

"Eastern Exposure". In 1956, journalist Marvin Kalb was a Harvard graduate student in Russian Studies (or some such field), doing his dissertation research under the auspices of Harvard's Russian Research Center on the subject of Count Sergei Semeonovich Uvanov, an early 19th century Russian government official. He learned that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow wanted to hire two press attaches. He applied for the position and was accepted. He had never been to the U.S.S.R., but knew the country from afar and spoke the language well enough to get along.

"Eastern Exposure" is his journal of his year in Russia. Whether he had any responsibilities at the embassy is unclear, because the journal is full of wanderings through the city, brief descriptions of people he met, theatrical and musical performances, short excursions out of town, and travel to such places at Leningrad, Baku, Samarkand, Tashkent and Tblisi. He carried a U.S. diplomatic passport.

Russia had long been closed to foreigners (at least Russia outside of Moscow and certain specified tourist locations). You still could not wander at will, but with the help of the diplomatic passport and Intourist guides, you could do much more than you could just a few years earlier. And 1956, to Kalb's benefit, turned out to be a tumultous year in Soviet history. It was the year in which Khrushchev gave his famous XXth Congress secret speech denouncing Stalin, and it was the year of the Hungarian Revolution. It was also, as a consequence of mainly the latter, the year that the USSR tightened up its loosening regulations for foreignors, so that the 1956 experience might not have been replicable in 1957 or 1958.

What effect this book had on Kalb's career as a journalist, I am not sure. It is mainly a blog, no better and no worse, but because of the subject matter, even today makes for fascinating reading, as Kalb sees modern Moscow, European Leningrad, and variations of Asiatic Soviet cities that range from the lively (Tblisi) to the overly depressing (Tashkent). He meets people afraid to talk,and people anxious to talk, He goes to churches, and synagogues, and libraries, and hotels, and museums. He travels on Russian airplanes, and trains. He hears a lot of sad stories, he hears stories of hope. He is very happy to come home.

"Days of Our Lives" was written by a woman who became a high ranking AFL-CIO figure, but who lived in the Ukraine in a shtetl called Derazhnaya until she was 16 when, just before World War I broke out, she and her grandmother took a boat to the U.S. Her town had about 5000 Jews (and a fair number of gentiles), and was, if not idyllic, certainly a more than satisfactory place to grow up. Especially if you are one of 8 children, and part of the economic elite (in our terms, this would probably mean middle class, no better) of the Jewish community, so that you did not have to worry about food or shelter, and your family was always respected by the overall community.

Her story of life in Derazhnaya, day to day, holiday, Shabbat, etc. is set out with clarity and a little humor. To the extent it is typical, it makes for good reading as a primer on shtetl life. This was clearly a period of transition, where the old ways were being transformed by modernity, where there was communication with the outside world, and relatives already sending gifts from America, but where Jewish life still kept in its basic form the aspects of the past several hundred years. I recommend this book, because of its straightforward description of this life. Not over sentimentalized, not over dramatized. Just day to day life.

What stands out? Probably, doing the laundry, something that happened every two weeks. Read on:

"If the weather was good, the pair would take the soiled linen into the back yard and wash it in wooden tubs. In winter they would do this in the kitchen. When the clothes had been painstakingly soaped and soaked and rubbed on a a washboard with white lime, I would accompany the two down to the river, three or four hundred feet away, and we would rinse each peice thoroughly, a slow and arduous process. We knelt at the river's edge and dipped each piece into the water, beating it with a wooden paddle on a flat stone, then dipped it in again and wrung it out with our hands. Aches and large areas of chapped skin were the result.

"The next step was to bring the linen back, give it a sudsy bath, and put it into a zelnitzya, an improvised sterilizer, made of a large hollowed out tree stump, about four feet high, with a wooden lattice fitted into the bottom. On this lattice, the clothes were placed and covered with clean sifted wood ashes.

"Then we would pour in several samovars of boiling water, using our extra large samovar, designed for special occasions. The water would trickle down through the compact mass of bedding, towels, table cloths, napkins, underwear, and other articles, and would flow through the lattice work at the base of the stump. Then we would put a wooden cover on top of the sterilizer, and let the hot steam and wet ashes do their work overnight.

"Returning next morning, mother and daughter would pull the plugs, remove a layer of soft, warm lava-like substance into which the ashes had turned, and take out the clothes, by this time sterlized and bleached. To the river again for another thorough rinsing, and then home once more, to blue and starch the white pieces and hang the whole wash outdoors to dry.

"This part of the process had its vicissitudes. Wind would blow dust from the street, rain would fall....From the hour we began washing until the next day, and sometimes the third day, when all the pieces were finally ironed and put on the shelvesin the linen commode, we were never certain of the outcome of our joint labors."

Another interesting subject in the book was Pesotta's discussion of three different young Jews whom she met while still in the Ukraine - one who worked as a gardner, one as a housekeeper, and one who helped escort small children to school. Each was described as "simple" and not quite all there. Each remained in her town a while, and then disappeared.

After she left the Ukraine, she ran into all three, one in America, one on the boat and one 20+ years later when she was on a trip to Europe. None were "simple" at all. It turned out that each was a political radical, in hiding from the Russian government until they could get out of the country. It was as if there were some sort of "underground railway" in operation that moved them from town to town and gave them a different, and presumably non-attention getting persona. I had not seen discussion of this elsewhere.

Finally, when she came to the United States, she and her grandmother (who had gone through all sorts of life adventures only to be killed by a hit and run driver in Chicago)came on a second class ticket. She said that this way they avoided Ellis Island, which was only for steerage passengers. I did not know that either. Do you think it is true??