Taxis (2 cents)

I used to take taxis all the time.

Now I never take them.

Will someone please tell me what happened?

Emma Lazarus

"Emma Lazarus" is a new book by Elizabeth Shor about, you guessed it, Emma Lazarus. It is part of the Nextbook/Schocken series.

What did I know about Emma Lazarus before I read the book (or more accurately before I heard Elizabeth Shor lecture recently)? I knew that she wrote the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free......". That's it. That is all I knew.

What did I assume? I think I assume that she was a radical Jewish New Yorker, sort of an Emma Goldman. You know, you see one Emma, you've seen them all?

I did not know that she was a member of a very old and distinguished Sephardic Jewish family who could trace American roots to the 17th century, that she had plenty of money, and that she was educated and worldly and sophisticated. I did not know that she was close to Ralph Waldo Emerson and a friend her his daughter's, as well as of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, or that she knew William and Henry James, and even William Morris. That she was a very well published poet, and playwright and essayist.

I did not know that she never married (and that when she died, I am not sure that any of her five sisters had married), and that she died of Hodgkins Disease at a young age (nor that her physician was Dr. Hodgkins himself).

I did not know that she was a secular Jew, who became very interested in the rights of refugees, and in the possibility of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Before Herzl. And that she was very controversial. And that she did not seem to mind at all.

I did not know that, although her poem was selected for the Statue of Liberty (the poem perhaps being less controversial at the time that the statue itself), that she did not live long enough to see it in place.

I did not know that she was an absolutely fascinating and brilliant individual who, as Shor suggests, was way ahead of her time.

Who Killed Walter Benjamin?

That really is not the question. A better question is "Why Did Walter Benjamin die?"

Walter Benjamin, German/French/Jewish intellectual died in Port Bou, Spain, in September 1940, on his way from Vichy France to the United States (via Spain and Portugal). That much we know. But....

did he die of natural causes (he was in poor health and on an arduous journey), or

was he poisoned by Gestapo forces quartered in Port Bou, or collaborating Spanish Falangists, or

did he swallow the morphine tablets he was carrying and commit suicide?

These are the questions. Along with "does it really matter now"?

Forgetting this final question, it should be noted that from 1940 until very recently, Walter Benjamin's suicide was a given. But its only evidence is a suicide note reported by a companion, who said that she was unable to produce the note. Those who were there (we are talking 65 years ago) seem to doubt the suicide story. Some say that his lingering condition was not consistent with overdosing on morphine. Some say that as a suicide, he would not have been buried in a Catholic cemetery. Some say that the town's preferable doctor was out of town the day Benjamin got sick and he was replaced by a physician who was a fascist and German collaborator.

A documentary movie on the subject ("Who Killed Walter Benjamin?") was produced in Spain in 2005. It has been shown only sporadically, but it made the Jewish Film Festival and we saw it Sunday afternoon. I thought it was a terrific movie, not because it reached a conclusion, but because it took the point of view of a journalist, or investigator, trying to get to the bottom of the story, interviewing witnesses, their children, Port Bou residents today, scholars, and so forth, each with a somewhat different view of the situation.

It seems that nothing will ever been known definitively. But, after all, it was 1940 and this is 2006.

But what about the Litvinenko affair of 2006? Will we ever know what happened here??

Skriker

Skriker. Spike her. Strike her funny or sad or frightful. Insightful of beans. Beings. Human beings. Seeings. Fleeings. Flings and things. No kings or queens or jacks or aces. Faces. Places. In tech. Don't spec. Expect. Expectorate. Ration. Passion. Expression of things unseen.

If you have not seen Skriker at the Warehouse Theater, Caryl Churchill's play, you will have no idea what I just said. If you have, you will have no idea what I said. That's the play.

Fairies, demons, goblins, visions, angels, devils, gnomes, knolls, trolls. Name them if you can.

They used to be important and influential. Now they just hang around bumping into each other trying to figure out how they fit into the scheme of things. How they can still have an impact. And an impact they can have, but they can't seem to control the results. Brownian motion of unwordly beings.

Or, no. They don't exist at all. Two sisters see them, at different times, at the same time, differently, similarly. Mental illness? Genetic defect? DNA, say?

Not certain. Striker. Spike her. Striker funny or said or frightful. Insightful of beans..........

Congratulations, Hannah

A Worthless Question (2 cents)

Who was the literalist who convinced Pumpernickels to add the word "Each" after the words: "Hot Dogs: $2.50" on a sign over the counter?

What's In a Name?

There is a new proposal to rename the Washington Convention Center in honor and memory of the first home rule mayor of the city, Walter Washington. It is under active discussion, I understand.

If the proposal is adopted, the new name for the Washington Convention Center will be, I assume, the Washington Convention Center.

Not sure that I like the sound of that.

The More Things Change ($13.27)

I am reading an older biography of Winston Churchill, by a lifelong friend of his, Violet Bonham Carter. It was published in 1965.

Although I am not yet very far along in the book, I was taken by surprise in her discussion of the period of the English war against the Boers in South Africa, almost 100 years ago to the day.

Look at these two excerpts:

On politics: "the tone of the General Election of 1900 was set by Mr. Chamberlain with the slogan 'Every seat lost to the Government is a seat gained to the Boers....'....All the LIberals, even those who had most loyally supported the war measures, including some who had lost their sons, were lapped in a general condemnation as 'Pro-Boers'. Posters presented pictures of eminent Liberals offering tribute to [Boer] President Kruger, helping him to shoot British soldiers and haul down the Union Jack."

On war: "Lord Kitchener....had the difficult task of dealing with a mobile and elusive enemy scattered in small groups over the wide spaces of the veldt, an enemy who fought without a uniform, who was a farmer at one moment, a guerilla fighter the next, and then a farmer again..."

The more things change........

Rabbi Steinsaltz has a cold (2 cents)

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz admitted, at his appearance at the DC JCC last night, that he brought a cold with him from Israel. His admission was hardly needed, as his symptoms were clear, but he used his cold as a metaphor about Israel today.

Asked about the mood in the country in light of the recent war and so on, he said that everyone in Israel was filled with a malaise. It was as if Israel had a cold. Not pneumonia, which has possible fatal consequences and therefore must be dealt with on an emergency basis, but a cold, that annoys, zaps energies and vision, and lingers and lingers and lingers. I thought this was a fresh way to look at the problems there, although perhaps he was being too optimistic. Perhaps it is pneumonia, and people are just afraid to go to the doctor.

Steinsaltz had nothing good to say about Israeli politics, or about Israeli politicians. In an appreciated line, he said that people here should keep in mind that the United States is not the only country that can elect a stupid president.

But he discounts a lot of these problems, it seems. His view of the world and its history is clearly a long term view. What happens today or tomorrow, or what happened yesterday, as important as it may seem at the time, is only one event, and it will quickly be overtaken by others. His prime attribute seems to be patience. Perhaps tolerance, as well.

The holocaust? It is too early to talk about it. It is too personal. He can talk about the explusion from Spain; that was 400 years ago. But the holocaust just recently happened.

Arabs? He says, you know, there is nothing in the Jewish religion that says you have to kick Arabs. Of course, he continues there are clearly some Arabs that deserve kicking. But there are also Jews who need to be kicked, he points out.

I had seen Rabbi Steinsaltz once before, years ago. His conversations (and this was a conversation) with American audiences are low key, and do not give hint of what everyone admits to be his extraordinary scholarship. Perhaps, this is language. Perhaps, it is what he believes his audiences want (or can absorb). I don't know.

You expect a session with someone like Steinsaltz to last for hours and hours and hours. This one lasted just one hour, and it was cut off. Why? Was it his illness? Was it related to when the custodians had to clean the hall? Could it have gone on longer had his interlocutor wanted it to?

Misha Galperin of the local Jewish Federation asked the questions, and did I thought quite a good job. The audience questions were a little weaker.

A worthwhile event? I think so. Yes.

When autumn started creeping in, I started creeping out (2 cents)

I was really looking forward to a performance of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons at the Church of the Epiphany today, to be performed by nine musicians, led by violinist Elizabeth Field, playing on baroque instruments.

Before the performance began, Field gave a very interesting introduction, talking primarily about the differences between contemporary and baroque instruments, both with respect to their structure and to their acoustic qualities. She explained that the instruments being played today were not 300 years old, but were built to replicate those standards.

She then said that Vivaldi had composed this piece to follow along a particular poem and that original manuscripts had the words of the poem over specific measures. She had someone read (poorly) portions of the poems, and had the orchestra play the corresponding themes at the start of each of the four movements (sort of like Peter and the Wolf, I am afraid). I found that quite offputting.

I listened to Spring and Summer, and whether it was the musicians, the arrangements, the instruments, or me, I don't know, but I was not enjoying the performance at all. And I cannot imagine that a good performance of this piece can ever be unenjoyable. I think that some of the musicians were having trouble controlling the sounds of their instruments (or was this the instruments and if so, did it say something about these particular instruments, or baroque instruments in general?), and from time to time, the pacing of work seemed off, both slow and uneven.

At any event, as summer became history, and autumn was creeping in, I crept out.

Mission Accomplished

My goal over the Thanksgiving holiday was to read Fritz Stern's "My Five Germanys", and I did it. The book was interesting in a number of ways. First, it provided a good overview of 20th century German history, and second, it was a rather complete compendium of Stern's professional life, both as a Columbia University professor, and as a writer and speaker on topics related to German history. For Stern, throughout his life, associated with very accomplished people, whether they be German politicians or cultural leaders, German refugees in this country, or fellow historians, as Columbia and elsewhere.

Stern tells the story of his early years in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), and his coming to this country in 1938 at age 12 with his parents and older sister. His story was different from many you read, because although both sides of his family had been Jewish, both of his parents, as well as one set of grandparents, had converted and been baptized, as was he at birth. Never being religious (although clearly celebrating Christian holidays), his Jewish identity was really defined by the Nazis, and as time went on, he considered himself more Jewish than Christian (although his Jewishness was never religious or ritualistic). And, which I had not thought about, many, and perhaps most, of his parents' friends in and from Germany were also baptized Christians with Jewish backgrounds.

But all of this made for confusion. Germany, America. Jewish, Christian. And this confusion more than anything else led Stern to become a historian of Germany. His entire career seems to have necessarily be dedicated to the question as to how Nazism could have arisen as it did in this very civilized nation, and now that the war has been over for 60 years, how should Americans and/or Jews react to Germany.

In this, for all of his erudition and study, and perhaps because of it, he has no clear answers. He is certainly a strong anti-Nazi; he is equally a strong anti-Communist. But he also does not believe that the Hitler years were inevitable, nor that there is any clear flaw in the German character.

He believes, and I tend to agree with him, that historical trends develop as a result of a combination of earlier historical trends, but that going from stage A to stage B is never inevitable, that accident and chance play their roles, and that strong figures tilt the balance, sometimes for good and sometimes for evil. Hitler was not necessary, he says, but his rise was understandable. The question is for him, as it is for many, how to make sure that similar causes do not result in similar effects. For this reason, economic chaos, political unrest, and social problems are perhaps more worrisome for Stern than for others, and for this reason, he has tended to speak his mind, whether his opinion is the popular one or not.

There is a lot of namedropping in this book. This is not surprising, because Stern knows everyone (at least everyone other than Hollywood stars, who do not play a role). While this could be bothersome, I did not find it so, because everyone he mentions fits into a context and he deals with them as professionals (writers, teachers, politicians, etc.) and not as subject for gossip mongering.

And, because he is extraordinarily complimentary to most of them. I don't know if I have ever read a book by an academic, where so much praise is laid upon those who might be considered his competitors.

Stern clearly comes down as a middle of the roader, when it comes to judging his German Heimat. His venom (except for that now and then lashing out at Bush, father and son) is saved for Hannah Arendt, for whom he appears to have little respect on any level, as being too much of an apologist for evil, and Daniel Goldhagen, whose book concluding, so to speak, that Germans have an indelible anti-Semitic gene in their makeup, as trying to turn grays into black and white.

I recommend this book highly, if you like this kind of thing. Maybe next Thanksgiving.

I am proud of this one (1 cent)

This is Diamond Head (with Waikiki in the left foreground) from the air when we were on our way from Oahu to the Big Island.

Not bad, huh? Not everyone can convince Oahu to hold this pose.

 

Does a Little Cheating Matter? (1 cent)

I go into Pumpernickels for a cup of coffee and a bagel. There is a line of about ten people. In front of me is a man, there with his young son. An older man (father? father-in-law?) comes up to him holding two large cups of coffee in his hand, which he has self-poured from the store's coffee urns. He asks the younger man if he can hold them (a clear impossibility, since he has a child in one hand and his own coffee in the other). The younger man says 'no', that the older man should find a table and sit down. The older man is concerned that there is something wrong with sitting down with his two large cups of coffee before paying. The younger man tells him not to worry, that he will pay for the coffee, and that the proprietors know that the older man is not going to cheat them. The older man agrees, apparently finds a table, and comes back a minute or so later with money which he gives the younger man to pay for his two large cups of coffee.

The younger man gets to the register. He tells the cashier what he is buying, adding that he is also going to pay for two cups of coffee that have already been taken to a table. The cashier says: 'large or small?'

The younger man says 'small'.

Curtains!

The most recent plays we have seen were Robert Brustein's "Spring Forward/Fall Back" at Theater J, and Paula Vogel's "The Long Christmas Ride Home" at the Studio Theatre. Both were disappointing. Brustein's play was about three generations of increasingly less Jewish families, whose taste in music disintegrated as did their overall cultural level. It was trite, demeaning to the women in the play even more than the men, and painful to sit through. Vogel's play was also about three generations who went from bad to worse after a miserable Christmas celebration where the father and his father-in-law got into a fist fight, and the kids (who seemed to have a chance in life) turned out to be wasted, social outcasts. Both playwrights are well known and celebrated; both theaters put on nice productions with strong casts. But neither play was worth the time or ticket price in my opinion. (The reviews, by the way, were mixed, as apparently were overall audience reactions.)

Why continue to go to theater if this is what you see too often? Because, as the old saying goes, "better bad breath, than no breath at all".

What does the Mailman Really Think of Us?

This is one day's mail (in no particular order):

1. A solicitation from the Central Union Mission, Washington DC.
2. A very special offer for friends and family from Lord & Taylor.
3. "Something in it for you" from Valpak Savings.
4. The Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles seeking money to protect against "a new and growing threat to world Jewry"
5. Nov. 23 edition of "Washington Jewish Week"
6. The Jewish Social Service Agency of Rockville MD asking us to donate our automobile.
7. The American Bible Society asking us to "help spread the good news....the savior has been born!"
8. The March of Dimes asking us to walk for someone we love.
9. Special offers and premium savings from Mastercard
10. A rent check from our daughter/tenant.
11. A socilitation from the Capital Area Foodbank
12. A notice from the Department of Motor Vehicles
13. Something from the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania
14. A petition from Planned Parenthood
15. Another communication from Planned Parenthood asking us if we trust our doctor or a politician more.
16. A solicitation from Azlheimer's Disease Research
17. A credit card bill from Citi bank.
18. A check for a charity that we do volunteer work for
19. Something from Politics and Prose book store
20. An ad from Pangea Artisan Market and Cafe on Pennsylvania Avenue
21. An Important Renewal Reminder from WAMU-FM
22. Saks Fifth Avenue Classic Collection
23. Newsletter from the Arlington Public Library
24. A note from Comcast asking us to subscribe to a new French language channel
25. An ad from the Department of Commerce Federal Credit Union for certificates of deposit
26. An ad from Virginia Gardens & Hardscapes, LLC
27. The December magazine from WETA
28. The American Jewish Historical Society's Heritage Magazine, Fall 2006
29. The magazine of the Catholic University of America
30. The monthly Comcast channel guide magazine
31. "Gift documents" from American Express
32. A large envelope for my two daughters from their cousin Donna
33. The November 24 issue of The Forward newspaper
34. The latest issue of "Clinician Reviews"
35. An announcement of a "public auction" of a house in our neighborhood.
36. A large 2007 calendar from Jewish Funds for Justice
37. A "caring publications" catalog from Boulden Publishers
38. "Small Loans-Big Changes" from FINCA
39. An invitation for a planning session at our synagogue.
40. An ad from Zebra Hall, San Francisco
41. A request from the World Jewish Congress for our help in stopping Iran's nuclear program.
42. A solicitation from DC Appleseed "solving DC's problems"
43. A solicitation from Columbia Road Health Services
44. A solicitation from DC Vote
45. A solicitation from CARE
46. A solication from Neve Shalom/Wahat Al-Salam
47. An ad from Kitchen Guild
48. The "world's best travel awards" from Travel and Leisure
49. A solicitation from the American Diabetes Association
50. A solicitation from the House of Ruth
51. A bank statement from PNC Bank
52. Another bank statement from PNC Bank
53. Another bank statement from PNC Bank
54. A offer from The Forward
55. A solicitation from Mazon, "a Jewish response to hunger"
56. An ad from Nuevo Mundo clothing store
57. An unmarked envelope from Sioux Falls, SD
58. A solicitation from JPPC of Union City NJ
59. A communication from the Yale Law School alumni office
60. A communication from the Textile Museum
61. A solicitation from MADD
62. A solicitation from People for the American Way
63. A solicitation from the Hope for Henry Foundation
64. A letter from Grosvenor Park Condominium


You will note two things:

1. There are no personal letters or other forms of communication. Our postman does not deliver those any more, it seems.

2. There are no bulky catalogs. Wait until they start coming!

This is too easy!

Why did we go to Hawaii? Because I was able to acquire (sight unseen, and site unseen) 200 acres of prime land on the Big Island where I planned to build a golf course. When we got there, however, we discovered that the land was in the middle of the national park and that it was all covered by a lava flow. I am not deterred, however. We are going to lease the land (for which we already paid a fortune) from the National Park Service and build a beautiful course, although I expect that the balls will bounce a little too much. The water holes (filled with boiling lava) will be a challenge, though. Steam vents will keep you warm and toasty. Suntan lotion and good shoes will be required. Golf carts not allowed.

Pushing "publish again". 

We did go to Hawaii

and I am finally trying to learn how to upload photos to my blog. If this works, you will see a picture of the large crater at Volcanoes National Park.

Let's see what happens when I push "publish".



 

Thanksgiving (11 cents)

In a modern day replication of an ancient biblical tradition, each year a scapegoat (in this case a scapeturkey) is selected by the President of the United States, and pardoned from its otherwise anticipated sacrifice and allowed to live, presumably in some subliminal way to atone for our national sins (and we right now have many). This year, the 36 pound turkey is named Flyer and is pictured on the front page of the Style section of the Washington Post with President Bush and a number of children, under the caption "President Bush and a flock of kids make up this year's White House turkey tableau".

An editorial comment, or just the sad truth?

I read "Honky"

It's a book by an NYU sociology professor, who grew up white in a low income project south of the lower east side, where everyone else was black or Hispanic. I picked it up yesterday, and it looked like an easy read (it is under 200 pages) on a short night.

It's not a bad book, but don't bother looking for it (as if you would). In case you couldn't figure it out for yourself, if you are white and poor, you have many more chances to break from that economic situation than if you are black and poor, or Hispanic and poor. Particularly, if your grandparents are not so poor, and don't live in "the projects", and if your intellectual/artist parents know how to wangle you into Stuyvesant High School.

Enough said.

Bam, Clang, Ting, Brrrrmmmm

What fun!! "Constellations for Organ and Percussion" by Dan Locklair, performed this afternoon at The Church of the Epiphany by Leon Khoja-Eynatyan and Scott Hanoian. The percussion instruments were the marimba, two timpani, brake drum, suspended cymbol, three tom-toms, vibraphone, traingle, glockenspiel, xylophone, orchestral chimes and snare drum. Where did Khoja-Eynatyan learn to play this music? Studying at an institution in Moscow with the unlikely name of the Maimonides State Conservatory.

I am not sure where you can hear this piece, but you certainly should try.

Khoja-Eynatyan played a solo marimba piece called Tune for Mary O, by Rich O'Meara, written in honor and memory of his sister. A beautiful and sad and Irish elegy. Very nice.

Hanoian played Bach's Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, and he played it very well, but the stars of the show were the contemporary pieces.

Starbucks

So, I go into Starbucks. There are some customers sitting at tables, but I am the only one at the counter. There are two young women working there, a cashier and a barista. I order a small cup of black coffee. The cashier tells me it will be $1.60 and I pay her. She then says: what is your name?

I am trying to figure out what difference my name makes, and I ask her: "Do you need to know my name in order to give me a cup of coffee?" "Yes", she says, "what is your name?"

I tell her (naturally) "Arthur". She says "thank you".

In the meantime, the barista, who is standing about 20 inches to the cashier's left, has already poured the coffee. There is still no one else at the counter. The barista looks vaguely at me, as if there is a crowd around me and says, in a voice somewhat to loud: "Arthur?".

I say softly, "That's me".

She hands me the drink.

On to Serious Business

I just got back from Politics and Prose, where I heard retired Columbia U. German history professor Fritz Stern talk about his new book of memoirs, "Five Germanys I Have Known" (namely, Weimar, Nazi, Bundesrepublik, DDR and the new reunited Germany). And I quote from the Introduction:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the German roads to perdition, including National Socialism, were neither accidental nor inevitable. National Socialism had deep roots, and yet its growth could have been arrested. I was born into a world on the cusp of avoidable disaster. And I came to realize that no country is immune to the temptations of pseudo-religious movements of represssion such as those to which Germany succumbed. The fragility of freedom is the simplest and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Of course, National Socialism had, as one of its most core positions, anti-semitism. It has always made me wonder whether Nazi philosophy without anti-semitism would have been a possibility and, if it had been implemented in that manner, what would have been the course of history in the twentieth century. (After all, Mussolini's fascism for years had no anti-Semitic facets, and there were many Jewish Italian fascists.)

But perhaps without anti-Semitism, National Socialism would not have been accepted by the German people; that is a question I cannot answer.

That brings me to another book that I read while we were going to, in and coming back from Hawaii. "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll. This is the history of the relationship between the Catholic church and the Jews. I am not quoting Carroll here, but a loose paraphrase of his main thesis could be:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the Catholic roads to anti-Semitism were neither accidental nor inevitable. Catholic anti-Semitism had deep roots, yet its growth could have been arrested. And I came to realize that no church is immune to movements of repression such as those to which Catholicism has succumbed. The fragility of religious tolerance is the simplement and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Which then leads me to a very thoughtful question asked by a young woman at the Stern presentation. Again to paraphrase, she said:

"Can there be any positive movement of national [or religious ?] identity that does not need to demonize others?"

Of course, here in the United States of America, we have a constitution that guarantees religious liberty, and a history that more or less supports that constitutional guaranty. But on Saturday, I was speaking to a friend, who believes that Islam is not (no longer) a religion, but is an international movement for world conquest that needs to be fought with all the strength that we can muster. He would amend the constitution to eliminate protection of Islam by the first amendment, he would drive out of the country all Muslims (maybe not members of the Black Muslim movement), he would have Congress declare war on Islam, and he would fire bomb them like Dresden and nuke them like Hiroshima.

And surely we know non-Jews, who believe that Judaism is not a religion, but a movement of international control and conquest.

To quote Vonnegut, "and so it goes".

So could it happen here? (I have never read Sinclair Lewis's book; should I?) Probably not, but I did pick up a book (that no one has picked up in 75 years, and very few before that) by former Georgia Congressman William D. Upshaw, published in 1923. The book contained various speeches that Upshaw had made, including one entitled "Justice to the Hebrew Soldiers", presented to Congress in 1920, and which was basically a plea for Jewish chaplains in the armed forces. What sounded like a right thinking position, being pressed for all the right reasons, ended like this:

"and I say this as my last word, that personally, as a Christian man myself, I would that every honest Hebrew would see in the Hebrew Christ the Messiah who has already come and who has meant so much to me in my own heart and life, but until he does, as long as the Hebrew soldier wishes his own rabbi as his teacher, then......I saw let the voice of the Hebrew soul be heard.

"and so it goes".

Where Have I Been? (6 cents)

This is a good question. But it has an easy answer. We were in Hawaii for two weeks. And now we are back.

There is a lot to write about about Hawaii (is there a prohibition against double prepositions?), but this is not the time or place. It would take too long.

Let's talk about what I saw upon my return to Washington.

First and foremost, I have a question for Police Chief (exiting) Ramsey, or for Police Chief (entering) Lanier: why were there seven (7) individuals directing traffic at the corner of Connecticut and K Street today?? Don't you think that six could have done just as good a job?

(That is not to say that the 7 were doing a good job. Tomorrow, let's try 8)

Giant Food's Training Program (36 cents)

Giant Food's Training Program leaves something to be desired.

I don't usually shop at Giant, but I made a quick stop last night to buy some peanut butter.

At the checkout stand, the young woman told me that it was $3.99. I gave her $4 and told her to keep the change. She seemed appreciative.

So far, so good.

Then, as I was leaving, what did she say? She said "see you again". "See you again?"

She obviously does not know the proper way to end a conversation with a supermarket customer. She should have said, of course, "paper or plastic".

I did not let her phase me. Not getting thrown off by her mistake, I looked her in the eye and said: "Paper or plastic to you, as well."

National Portrait Gallery and All that Jazz

The recently reopened National Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art is an absolute treat. We spent a few hours there on Saturday, looking at the portraits of famous Americans, as well as the best of the portrait contest entries. More visits to come, with much more to say.

Saturday night we went to the Baird Auditorium to hear eight members of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra present a concert devoted to Billy Strayhorn music. Strayhorn wrote for the Ellington Band until his death at the age of 52, and although he stayed in the background, a significant number of the tunes and arrangements of Ellington's signature pieces were in fact by Strayhorn, or orchestrated by him.

Something to Live For, Multicolor Blue, Strange Feeling, Clementine, It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, Things Ain't What They Used to Be, Sitting and a-Rockin', All of a Sudden My Heart Sings, I'm Checking Out-Goombye, Satin Doll, Triple Play, What Else Can You Do with a Dream, UMMG, Tulip & Turnip, Daydreams, I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good, Take the A-Train.

Led by Loren Schoenberg, whose narration was informative and entertaining, with excellent vocals by Delores King Williams.

The audience was primarily white (strange for a jazz concert), and primarily old. Where is the younger generation? This was a program that anyone would have enjoyed.

Volcano (2 cents)

As we get ready to go to Hawaii (yes, you may not have known that), I read "Volcano", a beautifully written book by University of Oregon creative writing professor Garrett Hongo. Volcano is not Mauna Loa, but rather the town of Volcano, located near the timber line in the southeastern section of the Big Island.

Hongo's ancestry is not Hawaiian, but Japanese. In fact, Hawaiian natives are not to be found in this book. And Hongo, ethnic Japanese, who was raised in Los Angeles, discovers that his roots are in the town of Volcano, at the Hongo Store, founded by his grandfather, who like many Japanese came to Hawaii years ago to work in the sugar cane fields. Their lives were hard, the store was no supermarket, they had typical family issues, they were sent into detention camps during World War II, and they came to the mainland to try to get a fresh start.

But, like the Jews after the Holocaust, they were quiet about their experiences during the war, and it has only been recently that so many books about the Japanese experience have been written. But adolesence in Los Angeles was difficult. There was prejudice and, just as bad, lack of known history.

An adult writer, Hongo, his wife and young son, went to Hawaii for a sabbatical, and decided rent a house in the forest on the side of a mountain near Volcano. And here, Hongo finds his roots.

You get island history, you get a lot of family history, and you get an incredible amount about Hawaiian flora and fauna, and geology. And because Hongo is primarily a poet, you get all of this served up beautifully. Worth while even if you don't go to Hawaii.

books ($2.10)

Two recent books read.

"Chanel" by Axel Madsen. Not surprisingly, I knew little about fashion designer Coco Chanel, but in reading recent books I saw references to her ambiguous (at best) stance during World War II when she stayed in Paris, and befriended a German spy. And that intrigued me.

The Madsen biography was written fifteen years ago, and I did not know if it would whitewash her, but it didn't. It portrayed her as a very talented and interesting person, who life was fascinating.

Basically, she was orphaned early and grew up in a Catholic orphanage, a fact she tried to hide all her life. She learned to sew and got jobs at shops of various sorts in the rural area where she was born. She tried singing and dancing, and met her first nobleman and millionaire and that started a series of relationships that continued throughout her life.

She was attractive, if not beautiful. She was always quite thin. She was bright without being intellectual. Her interests were wide, including interests in hobnobbing with the wealthy.

One of her male friends funded her first business, but she proved very successful very quickly, both as an entrepeneur and as a designer. Catering to the individual tastes of her wealthy clientele, bucking fashion trends, creating casual clothes in a fancy era (in part as a result of shortages during World War I and the need for women to get jobs), creating recognizable trademark designs and encouraging them to be copied by others, developing pearls as a jewelry of choice, and of course Chanel No. 5 perfume.

She had Jewish friends. She was clearly a French patriot. She hated war. She did not seem to object to the anti-Jewish practices of Nazi Germany, and seemed to feel that occupation would be better than war. she thought that she could end the war, as an emissary to her old friend Churchill, going with German support. It didn't happen this way of course.

After the war, she fell out of fashion. She had lost control over most of her business.

She had no children. She never married. she was quite interesting.

Another Cheney Matter

Apparently, Congressman Rangel made it clear that President Bush has nothing to worry about if there is a Democratic Congress elected. Basically, he assured the president that impeachment was an impossibility as long as Cheney was vice president.

Vice President Cheney (8 cents)

Vice President Cheney says that he was being misunderstood. That he did not say that he approved of "waterboarding" (a type of torture, apparently) and that approving it was a no-brainer.

He says he does not believe that accepting waterboarding as being appropriate was a no-brainer.

What was he talking about then?

Perhaps, he was speaking of himself.

Finally a Good Radio Ad (12 cents)

After all my complaining, three cheers for Don Beyers Volvo. If only they weren't in far-out Virginia, and if only I wanted another Volvo.

Viva Laldjerie (11 cents)

We have subscribed to a short series of Sunday afternoon films at the Smithsonian's Ripley Center. The first was a 2004 film, Viva Laldjerie, set in Algiers, and made by a French-born Algerian-by-ancestry filmmaker. The film has received mixed reviews, but we found it very interesting and worthwhile.

Basically, it centers around three women: a former cabaret dancer/singer, her 27 year old daughter, and a prostitute. They live in a down and out residential hotel in Algiers. The daughter is the main character; she has had a 3 year relationship with a married physician, she picks up men here and there for one night stands, she works in a photo shop, she goes to clubs, but she dresses modestly on the street. Her mother's world was shattered when her husband died "of disgust" and Islamic fundamentalists took control (social, one assumes) of the town in which they lived. The prostitute is also a mentor to our heroine (not in prostitution but in accommodating to the world around them).

Algiers comes across as a city without personality. On purpose, one assumes. Is it a western, modern city? Maybe. Is it controlled by Islamic forces? Perhaps.

In fact, neither description would appear accurate. The city, without a personality, without a clear identity, does not appear to know how to describe itself. There are western commercial forces (viz., the traffic and the camera shop), and there Islamic forces (viz., the female dress).

Go back to the women. They are caught in the middle. If Algiers was a truly Islamicist city, they could not lead the double lives (public and private) that they lead; society would not allow it. If Algiers were a truly western city, they would not lead the double lives that they lead; there would be no necessity. But Algiers is neither one, nor the other.

And while you get the feeling that this state of non-identity cannot be permanent, you also get the feeling that, whatever happens to Algeria, it will not be for the better.

The film has been shown in Algeria, which is also interesting. Although the more explicit sexual scenes and scenes of female nudity were cut out, not surprisingly.

Why I will never be an expert in African art (11 cents)

Fon, Kota Baman, Kissi, Kongo, Nafana, Bembe, Boki, Yoruba, Tsogo, Attie, Lumbo, Senufo, Bullum, Edo, Idoma, Dogon.

Those are the groups resposible for the 23 works of art in the preview exhibit of the 525 item Disney Tishman collection at the Museum of African Art.

To understand the art in just this preview exhibit, you would need to understand something about the Fon, Kota, Baman, Kissi, Kongo, Nafana, Bembe, Boki, Yoruba, Tsogo, Attie, Lumbo, Senufo, Bullum, Edo and Idoma, not to mention the Dogon.

This says it all

The Washington Post reports that a few partially destroyed the United States Army Counterintelligence Facility at Ft. Meade. The sub-headline made it clear that American security was not adversely affected.

Three Disappointments in One Week (one cent)

A bit much, I'd say.

1. There is a major exhibit of Mexican paintings at the Ripley Center. It is the third Latin American exhibit that I have seen in the last year or so. The first was at the National Geographic and consisted of Peruvian works; the second also at the Ripley concentrated on 20th century Latin artists. Both were wonderful, and I assumed I would enjoy the all-Mexican exhibit to the same extent. There are about 100 works on display; they include works be the well known Diego Rivera, Tomayo, Sequieros and others. It is said that most have not been seen outside of Mexico. I didn't like any of them. It did not appear to me (but what do I know?) that any of the pieces, even those by first rate artists, were first rate pieces.

2. Then there was Saturday night supper at Nirvana, the Indian restaurant at 19th and K. It is a very busy place at lunch time, but at 6:30 on a Saturday night was virtually empty. It is a vegetarian restaurant, so I knew the menu would be no problem. Except that there was no menu, because it was Diwali, and there was a special all you can eat thali menu, with about 7 or 8 different dishes, served in those little tin dishes that is used for thalis. Diwali is a sweet holiday, and the dishes seemed all to be party starch and partly sugar. Big disappointment, especially at $20 a head.

3. Finally, as part of the Washington Performing Arts Society "edge" series, Israeli born cellis Maya Beiser performed last night at the Kennedy Center. Her show had been written up pre-performance both in the Post and the Jewish week. I knew it was a "performance artist" show, that there would be mixed media, and that the pieces were all very, very contemporary.

There is no question but that Beiser can play the cello. No question. but, with few exceptions, the pieces left me completely cold. The best (and my wife agreed) was a Cambodian piece called Khse Buon, written by Chinary Ung, who is not only a composer, but a scribe who has preserved much of Cambodian folk tradition. And a shorter piece called Feige/Antiphonal Song by Tan Dun matched the cello with a young Chinese woman singing a folk song of her particular ethnic tradition on a screen. We enjoyed that as well. But the highlight of the show, so they said, was a 40 minute song by Armenian composer (I guess, composer) Eve Beglarian, where there were seven tv screens of various sizes (all showing the same black and white video), the cello, and Beiser's speaking voice. It is called "I am writing to you from a far off country". It should have been called: "Sonata for solo cello, television and platitudes". Absolutely worthless, I thought, as must have some of the people that left in the middle.

But again, there is no question but that Beiser can play that cello.

The Influence of Ibsen on Hitler and the Chinese Fortune Cookie Industry (4 cents)

Last night, we saw Henrik Ibsen's "Enemy of the People" performed at the Washington Shakespeare Theatre. And it was a very good production of the 19th century drama about the doctor who discovers that the water in the town's baths is polluted and, rather than being the hero that he believes himself to be, turns into an 'enemy of the people' because of the potential effects on the town's economics and on the potential effects on the influence and reputation of the town's leadership.

What is the right thing to do? If your position is correct but will cause consequential damage, what should you do? How is public opinion formed? Should public opinion be what counts? When should deference be given to established leadership, and when to revolution? All this and more forms the core of the play.

U.S. Holocaust Museum scholar Steven Sage (see earlier post) has written a book which claims that Hitler was influenced by Ibsen, and acted out his conception of some of Ibsen's characters. "Enemy of the People" is one of the plays mentioned by Sage, who is quick to add that Ibsen was blameless, and that Hitler was the problem. But, I must say it was hard to see the connection watching the play. On the other hand, maybe with the play fresh in mind, it is time to look at the book.

But Ibsen's influence was not limited to Germany.

About ten years ago, I opened a fortune cookie at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant and received the odd 'fortune': "never wear your best pants when you are fighting for freedom". How random, I thought, where could that have come from.

Now, I know. When Dr. Stockmann's pants show a rip, he says to his wife: "you should never wear your best pants when you are fighting for freedom".

So, who writes fortune cookie fortunes? Down in the luck Ibsen scholars?

The night at the theater was odd in another way. The entire plebe class of the Naval Academy was in attendance, bedecked in their dress blues. Hardly anyone else. I felt I needed to apologize to the usher for forgetting my uniform at home.

Did the plebes like the play? I guess so. They clearly liked the young actress who played Stockman's daughter (and who was the only young woman in the production). She won by far on the applause meter. And turned a little red.

Toho Koto

The foreign minister of Japan, Yoriku Kawaguchi, gave an award in 2003 to the Washington Toho Koto Society for spreading the knowledge of Japanese music across the United States. Did they deserve it? Did they spread this knowledge to you?

Today, two society members, Kyoko Okamoto and Sachiko Smith (suspicious last name, Smith) played the koto and the shamisen at the Church of the Epiphany. When they started with a 16th century piece which seemed like discordant plings to me and nothing more, I said to myself: this may be two weeks in a row that I cannot sit through the entire hour, but.....

When they moved into the 20th century, things improved. Listening to this music is like looking at a Japanese print, or perhaps like reading a poem. It is not music like melody and harmony and rhythm. It is music like: let's set the mood, and luxuriate in it. Hana Ikeda (also known as flower petals) just brings up the delicate flowers floating down the stream or across the lake. Other offerings showed children at play at the ned of day, and showed autumn closing in.

So much sounds like raindrops, like the fountains in a Japanese garden.

Do Japanese whistle? If so, they don't whistle these songs, but they come out of the concerts as if they were in a transcendental meditation session.

By the way, does anyone know how Japanese music is written? Can't be with clefs, staffs and notes, can it? That would really be coincidenta.

Change the station, please

So everyone will know: I will change the station whenever I hear a Head-on or Activ-on commercial, a Geico commercial (except for ones with the gecko), a Melwood commercial, or a McDaniel College commercial. Broadcast stations, beware. Taking their money is not worth it.

Recent Miscellany (5 cents)

1. "Schlemiel" is a musical written by Robert Brustein, based on one of Isaac Singer's Chelm stories. Chelm of course is the Podunk of the Pale of Settlement, filled with people not quite bright enough to live anywhere else. Schlemiel is sent to spread the word to the rest of the world of the intellectual strength of the Chelmite elders. He gets turned around and finds himself back in Chelm, but believing he has found another town which is a clone of Chelm, complete with a woman who looks just like his wife (but is nicer) and kids who look just like his (but are more polite). It was performed as a modified concert reading, complete with klezmer band at the JCC and was quite a success. Brustein was in attendance.

2. Timothy Naftali, a UVa professor, has recently been appointed to head the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, where he will hae the task of melding the National Archive's Nixon presidential and post-presidential material, with Yorba Linda's pre-presidential material. Before taking on this task, he has written a number of books on the Soviet Union, two with respected Russian historian, Fursenko. The newest book, "Khrushchev's Cold War" is a story of the Khrushchev decade from the point of view of the Russian leader. It was based on recently discovered notes by Khrushchev's note taker (a low-tech equivalent of Nixon's tapes), and provides insight into the Russian's way of thinking. Basically, they knew how inferior Russia's strength was, and decided to bluff us. They knew they could not bluff Eisenhower, but thought Kennedy was weak, and that he was simply a puppet of the wealthy capitalist families.

The premise was fascinating, and Naftali is an excellent speaker. He talked at a free session at the Washington Spy Museum. I bought the book (retail!).

3. The next day, I went to see former Secretary of State James Baker, speak about his new book at the 18th Street Borders. Perhaps I would have bought it, but could not purchase two full price books in as many days. Baker is very engaging and affable. I did not necessarily expect that, and talked about himself as a Houston lawyer, who chanced into politics. I am sure that the book is interesting.

4. Saturday night, we saw the Caps lose their second in a row overtime game, this time to the Atlanta Thrashers. Neither team looked its best. Our Russians clearly had an off night.

5. There were a number of book sales this weekend. My most interesting buy, I think, was a copy of one of Elie Wiesel's books, inscribed to Colin Powell.

6. Sunday, we went to a friend's house and saw her son-in-law, David Edelman, read from his new (and well reviewed) science fiction book, "Infoquake". Just may read it on the plane to Hawaii. Oh, yes, we are to fly to Honolulu on the 2nd of November. If the earth does not quake again.

7. Food: another very good meal at Rosa Mexicana, a decent, but not as nice a meal as usual, at Jaleo's, and a nice broiled rockfish at Crisfield's in Silver Spring. Does anyone go there any more? Pretty empty on a Sunday night.

8. Sukkah is coming down today. We had dinner in it one night, lunch twice, and I had a number of breakfasts. Altogether, not bad. We also had two sukkah meals out, one with our study group, and one freezing with friends in Rockville. Both just fine (if cold).

9. We also saw Al Gore's global warming movie, "An Inconvenient Truth". Well done documentary showing increasing carbon dioxide, melting glaciers, changing oceans and flooding coast lines. Goes well the Tutavu the week before, which is receding into the sea. And think about Venice and the perpetual walkways in St. Mark's Square. And then I saw an article yesterday that said that Hawaii's Big Island would sink beneath the sea in only about 80 million years. And then an even more mysterious one about the central downtown area of Mexico City, which is apparently sinking over 2 1/2 inches a year. Where is it sinking to? No ocean near there.

So, now we have the Big Bang theory confirming creation, and global warming leading to the next Noah.

More Gruber (3 cents)

The second Ruth Gruber book I read was called "Haven", and I recommend it highly, although I think it reads best if you first read her memoirs, "Ahead of Time". She has now finished her education, is back in the United States, and has moved to Washington work for Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes. World War II is raging, and the government has done little to assist the Jews who are trapped and being liquidated. In fact, no country is doing very much, and England has closed Palestine to further refugees.

Bowing from pressure on both sides of the issue, the administration decides to make a concession and admit 1000 refugees. A selection committee is appointed, and Gruber (now in her late 20s) is the Interior Department's representative. She is also asked, particularly because of travel experience and linquistic ability to accompany the refugee on the passage to America.

900+ individuals, mainly but not all Jewish, young, old, with families, alone board the ship in Italy for a harrowing two week passage. Not only is the ship crowded, but they need to (they are part of a convoy) fight of German air and submarine attacks. They land safely in New York.

The refugees are not being admitted to the country as immigrants, only to wait out the war and then be returned to their homes (of course, most don't have homes any more), and they are moved by train to Oswego NY, where they will stay on a decommissioned military base for over a year, their fate unknown, their situation better than in Europe, but not good.

Finally, additional litigation is passed allowing them to be permitted to come into the country on immigrant visas.

Throughout all of this, Gruber has collected their individual stories, has asssited them adjust, and has lobbied for them in Washington.

She wrote the book (which has recently come out as a re-issue) in the early 1980's, thirty five years after Oswego was closed, and following a reunion with many of the refugees.

What a difference 35 years makes: lawyers, doctors, professors, business executives. Virtually everyone remained in the country and at least a large number of them did very well indeed.

For the first time, I walked out.... (1 cent)

of the Tuesday concert at Epiphany Church. There were two sopranos and a piano. It sounded like the singers were miked. They were not only loud, but they were muffled and loud, and with the sounds reverberating off the walls of the church, they were creating their own echo. They were not bad; they just were (for me) impossible to listen to.

Busy Day (5 cents)

Saturday was pretty busy. It started slowly as the outdoor book sale at the Georgetown library was rained out, but it quickly picked up.

1. Movies at the National Geographic. NG was having its "all roads" film festival and I selected two hour long films which began at 11. They were both about Pacific Islands, the first about the nation of Tuvalu (formerly the Ellice Islands) and the second about the Big Island, Hawaii.

The first movie was an extraordinary downer. There are eight islands in Tuvalu, and the total population is about 10,000. The islands are atolls, so there is no topography. Just flat land (and not much of it). The islands have been a nation only since the late 1970s, and are very poor. There is also no future as global warming is contributing to rising sea levels and it is estimated that in about 50 years or so, they will have to be completely abandoned.

A good deal of the population has already left, mainly going to New Zealand. Sixty of these emigrees formed a "malaga' (Tuvalan for something or other) and headed by boat back to the islands for a stay of two months. It included the elderly who wanted to go home one more time, young women who wanted their children to see where they came from, and the children. Many had been a way for a decade or two.

Two young American filmmakers followed the malaga. You could see the excitement when the boat left Auckland. You could see the disappointment when they saw what had happened to their home. Poverty, crop failure, boredom, trash. Nothing was good.

The saddest movie I have seen in a long time. It is called "Time and Tide". The filmmakers were there for a talkback.

The second movie was called "Mauna Kea: Temple Under Siege", and it was the story of the conflict between native Hawaiians who revere Mauna Kea, whose ancestors are buried on the mountain, and want to see it remain (or return to being) pristine, and the world astronomy community and the University of Hawaii, who have built seven or eight observatories on the mountain and are planning more. I found it hard to decide whose side I was on here, and did not know how honest the movie was about the varying positions. But it was interesting (and depressing) and a good introduction to our first visit to Hawaii next month.

2. Lunch was at the Beacon Hotel, where I expected more than we got. Very limited Saturday menu. We had ordinary omelet, in the too-cold sunroom, with lackluster (at best) service.

3. Then on to the new Katzen arts center at American University. We had not been into the building before, and it is very nice (and very, very expansive). We went to see the first round competition of eight AU student musicians vying for the chance to perform with the AU Symphony at a spring performance. There were three vocalists, two violinists, a cellist, a clarinet, and (believe it or not) a tubist. We did not stay for the judging, but the quality was quite good and although we were probably the only people there who were not students or parents, we were glad we went. The music choices were interesting and we learned that someone named Edward Gregson actually wrote a tuba concerto, and thought I wanted to hear the complete Concerto No. 1 in F minor for clarinet and orchestra by Carl Maria von Weber.

After the concert, we looked at two exhibits at the museum. The first, to commemorate the 50th anniversity of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, consists of a large number of photographs taken in Budapest by photographers and residents. The brutality and the amount of destruction is striking. A very worthwhile exhibit. Then, we saw works in glass (not sculptures, but geometric forms of translucent colors, with other colors wafting through) by Mindy Wiesel, which were also quite nice.

4. A quickish dinner at Jaleo was followed by the Capitals home opener against the Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes. After their poor, poor showing two nights earlier against the Rangers in NY, fans (and there were many) were expecting the worst. But it was a 5-2 victory, with Alexander Semin scoring three times, and Alexander Ovechkin scoring twice. We will see what happens from here.

Susan Strasberg's "Bittersweet" (3 cents)

I am not sure "Bittersweet" is the right name for Susan Strasberg's 1980 memoir. A better title would be "Sad".

Strasberg, daughter of Actors Studio method acting instructor Lee Strasberg and acting coach Paula Miller Strasberg, died in 1999 at the age of 60 of breast cancer. Her mother died of the same disease at an even earlier age.

Why, sad? Because Strasberg seemed to me (and I am not sure why I read this book, or having started it why I finished it) a very attractive, intelligent woman who was completely lost. She blamed a lot on her parents (and she probably is correct in this) both for babying her and ignoring her at the same time. They also wanted her to avoid an acting career and pushed her into it.

Yet, she remained extremely close, much too close, to them, running back to them from time to time, and reverting to what appeared to be a little girl every time she did.

After starring, as a teenager, as Anne Frank, in the initial Broadway run of "The Diary of Anne Frank", she never hit the top as a stage or screen actress, although she seemed always to have enough to keep her busy. She knew everyone in the theatrical world (and perhaps not many others), and the lives of these actors and playwrights, directors and producers gave her a warped view of normal human relationships from the beginning.

She was very close to Marilyn Monroe, for whom her mother acted as a drama coach and companion, and who left the administration of her estate to her father (his estate, and his widow, apparently still control Monroe affairs).

She became sexually involved with actors, such as Richard Burton, at a very young age. This seemed just fine with her otherwise overprotective parents, but was disastrous for her. It appeared that she never (at least up until she wrote this book; I don't know what happened later) had the maturity either to pick appropriate male companionship, or to deal with the emotions that her bad choices created for her. She was married once to an actor named Christopher Jones; this was probably the lowest point in her relationship with men. He and she vacillated between periods of closeness and estrangement, but he drank and was physically abusive to her over a long period of time (slapping her, blackening her eyes and cheeks), etc., but she always came back for more. Until one day, she did decide she had enough.

I am not sure where the "sweet" comes into play. Her early Broadway success? It is not described as a happy success, just a professional one. The first few months of her love affairs? They don't show sufficient maturity on her part to be considered "sweet". Her relationship with her parents? No. Her daughter by Jones? Perhaps, although you don't get a chance in this book to get a full picture of it, since her daughter was so young when the book was written.

Not "bittersweet", just sad.

Slaughterhouse Five (10 cents)

I watched Slaughterhouse Five tonight, the movie version of Kurt Vonnegut's book that was made over 30 years ago. Never saw it before.

This is one good movie.

Music, Music

Tonight was a night for music.

First, the Federal Music Connection playing dixieland at Colonel Brooks' Tavern (every Tuesday night).

Then, on the way home, Bach's Concerto for Two Pianos in C minor on WGMS. They said that it is Bachtober.

Three Recent Books (12 cents)

I have read three interesting books in a row. Wow!

1. Vantage Press is a vanity press. That is, it is one of those companies you go to when you want to publish your own book (at your own cost), but want it to look like a real book. These books obviously rarely sell, and their quality varies, but fairly often you find books that are surprisingly interesting. Particularly, memoirs. And a lot of these books are memoirs, the stories of the lives of the author, to be preserved for children and, more often, grandchildren.

The book I picked up is called "The Last of the Numbered Men" and was written by Harry Posmantier, and published in 1984. Posmantier's photograph is on the back cover, and he looks like a typical, normal, average person. He is a plumbing contractor in Skokie, Illinois, which furthers that image. But it is deceptive, because he did not come to the United States until 1957. Until 1948 (through the war), he lived in Poland, spending the last several years in various Nazi work camps, escaping extermination. And from 1948-1957, in Israel.

A normal childhood in Bendin, Poland, with a typical Jewish middle class family. Then, the Germans enter Poland, and he, like many Jewish males, was sent to a work camp, and because he remained fairly healthy, he stayed in the camps for 4 1/2 years. Getting by on his strength, his stamina, and his personality. The stories are interesting, to be sure, and Posmantier gives you a good description of the fellow detainees he comes in contact with, as well as some of the German or Polish guards and townspeople, some of which are quite surprising. For example, a number of camp workers, when they left the camp on days off, would go to see Posmantier's parents (before they were deporting) bringing letters back and forth and CARE packages. At some danger to themselves.

And some other surprising things. He was at a camp at one time which had both Jewish and Russian prisoners. He says that the Russians, when one of their own died, engaged in cannibalism. Is that possible?? And he also gives credibility to the reports of soap made from Jews' body fat, and lampshade, made from human skin. Is that true, or not?

That raises the question, in any memoir of this type, as to how much is accurate and how much hyperbole. Reading through this, you believe everything you read, even the fantastic parts. I have to assume that these books are truthful. And when you read this book having read earlier this year Imre Kertesz' "Fatelessness", you see the similarity of their work camp experience.

2. Ruth Gruber is a well known Jewish reporter, who has written a lot about Israel since before the earliest days of the state. She has written many books, and I believe is still alive in her 90s. I picked up "Ahead of Time", a recent book described as "my early years as a foreign correspondent". The memoir is extraordinary.

Born in Brooklyn to eastern European refugees, her parents thought she was going a long way from home to go to college (at age 15) in Manhattan. But she pursued, studying German language and literature, and winning a fellowship first to the University of Wisconsin (she hitchhiked there by herself) and then to the University of Cologne Germany, where she came into contact with the burgeoning Nazi movement. Obtaining a Ph.D. in English literature in Cologne in one year (a record, particularly since one of her oral examiners was a professor, who was known to hate Jews, women and American), she returned to the U.S., got a job as a journalist, and before she was twenty five, went back to Germany in 1935 (!), to Poland to visit her mother's family (read the book and see what happened in her ancestral shtetl), and to Russia, when she went to the artic regions as the first foreign correspondent in Soviet times. And a second trip to the USSR, this time to Yakutsk in far northeast Siberia.

An unbelievable story that makes you want to look at everything else she wrote and follow her career.

3. The third book was a biography of Caresse Crosby by Washington writer Anne Conover. Another fascinating story, Crosby left her husband to marry Harry Crosby, seven years her junior, and they set Paris aflame in the 1920s, meeting all the creative types in that city at that very creative time, founding the Black Sun publishing house, giving X-rated parties, and (more or less) having a terrific time, until Harry committed suicide. After a while, Caresse comes back to the U.S., and after a short time in rural Virginia, comes to Washington, where she opens a prominent gallery which operated throughout the war years, and continues her publications, fostering new artists and writers from Europe in the immediate post-war years. Then she leaves that part of her life behind, and spends the rest of it trying to foster world peace and world government, coming in contact with another group of prominent world citizens.

All three books are worth reading.

What comes next? Well, I must be on a female biography binge. I am reading a biography of Coco Chanel (she interested me because of questions about her politics during World War II when she was in France), and the autobiography of Susan Strasberg, the original portrayer of Anne Frank, and the daughter of method acting coach Lee Strasberg. So far, both are very engaging.

Music (2 cents)

MUSIC:

I recently attended two musical performances.

The Washington National Opera is performing "Sophie's Choice", Nicholas Maw's controversial opera, based on William Styron's book. The 3 (formerly 4) hour opera has received reviews which I would characterize as good if you like this kind of thing. At the Kennedy Center Millenium Stage, the opera company puts on, with respect to each opera, a talk back with musical selections. I went last Monday evening to learn a little more about Sophie's Choice.

I have not read the book. I saw the movie, and did not like it. It is not that I didn't like the cinematography or the acting; I did. I didn't like the story. I found it extraordinarily manipulative. Any story which has the heroine having to decide which of her children to save and which to let go to the gas chambers is, by its very nature, manipulative. And, I think that there are enough real Holocaust stories, that you don't need to sweeten the pot with made up ones.

But I was intrigued by the opera, and wanted to learn more. The talk back featured three of the leading performers, including Angelika Kirschlager, who sings the role of Sophie, Dale Duesing (the narrator) and I believe Rod Gilfrey, who sings Nathan. They were all in the British production, which was the world premier. The fourth participant was Marin Alsop, newly appointed director of the Baltimore Symphony.

The conversation was fascinating. What it is like to play in a show this emotional. What it was like taking a four hour opera and condensing it to three. What were the differences in the London production, with a complicated set and 17 costume changes for Sophie, compared to the Kennedy Center production with a minimalized set. The difficulties of singing such a complicated musical score. And the orchestra: how to keep everyone together and on cue with a score that the musicians are not familiar with, and which has no regular rhythmic structure. How to keep the orchestra from overwhelming the voices.

The two pieces which were part of this talk-back were sung by understudies, and young artists, and they were terrific. And the talk back conversation was, I thought, extraordinary. These were four very able speakers, who seemed to be willing to share very much about their own feelings towards the script and towards each other with the audience. It is too bad that it won't be repeated, and was not (I don't think) recorded.

On Tuesday, I went back to Epiphany Church for what I hoped would be an enjoyable cello and piano concert, the cellist being John Kaboff and the pianist David Kosutic, both locally based teacher/performers. Disappointment. In part it was the selection, I think. An Adagio and Allegro by Schumann and the Sonata in G minor by Chopin, neither of which I am familiar with (is that the problem?), and neither of which seemed particularly memorable. But more than that it was the cello tone, and what I perceived as a lack of true sympatico between the musicians. The last piece was an excerpt from Ernst Bloch's Baal Shem Suite, again something I am not familiar with, but it did nothing for me.

You regular readers may recall a concert by Kaboff last year at the Andersen House. What did I say there? I said that the pieces were unfamiliar to me and that the musicianship, while competent, was not star quality. I guess I skip the next Kaboff concert. How will I ever remember?

This Morning, I heard..... (4 cents)

First, something to give me concern about the Redskins. One of their receivers was being interviewed on TV and was asked how he thought the team would do on Sunday. His answer was "we'll step up to the plate". I don't think they are ready for prime time. (By the way, with a 4:00 p.m. Sunday game, they are running smack into EDT and CDT Kol Nidre - bad planning)

Second, the Orioles beat the Yankees on a one-hitter. Pitcher Daniel Cabrera said: "I thank God for looking out for me and bringing me this close to a no-hitter". That's looking at the glass half full.

Third, the C-Span call in guest this morning was roundly criticized by a caller for referring to Bill Clinton as "President" Clinton. Only GB is president, she was told. So, she corrected herself and later referred to John F. Kennedy simply as "Kennedy". The C-Span call in guest this morning was roundly criticized by a caller for referring to "President" Kennedy, simply as Kennedy.

Finally, a White House spokesperson, talking about recent reports from Jack Abramoff about his administration contacts, said that she was surprised that the media paid attention to any of this. She said (and I paraphrase): how can the media pay attention to something that a liar says about what goes on within the White House? Now, there's a question.

Why are the fruit trees blossoming (21 cents)

The fruit trees on Connecticut Avenue just south of Yuma Street are in blossom. It is September 27. Global warming?

Only the Good Die Young (2 cents)

I go to a new doctor for a physical. I am led into a room, and told to wait for my blood test and EKG. It is a typical doctor's office room. There is music coming through a wall speaker. The song is "Only the Good Die Young". I think I may be in the wrong place.

My Two Commentors

I like getting comments, and usually don't think that they need a response, but the two comments I received on my posting about Hugo Chavez and Noam Chonsky must be answered.

First, to Francmasse: My short blog was not meant to be a detailed socio-political analysis, but rather a little satire or comedy. Francmasse appears not to be able to recognize either. It is a little odd, isn't it Francmasse, that someone who is so anti-American and anti-Jewish proves his position by citing an American Jew? No irony there? It happens all the time, largely because Jews are not monolithic and have opinions of all varieties, and because they often tend not to be shy about expressing them.

As to the contents of what Chomsky says, this was not the subject of the posting. I don't think you can read my post and learn whether or not I am a Chomsky expert, or someone who never heard of him, or what I think of his opinions. As a matter of fact, I agree with a large amount of what Chomsky says. Unfortunately, he is a pedant and like most pedants (even brilliant ones), he often appears only to see one side of many sided issues.

As to Shahidon, who seems to believe that I am hopelessly immature for not realizing that people don't have to be anti-Jewish to be anti-Israel, in fact I usually argue that side of the position; I believe there are many people who detest Israeli policies (as they understand them), and who have nothing against Jews or Judaism, and may not even know anything about Judaism.

But, Shahidon, your views are misplaced when it comes to Chavez. Far from limiting his comments to Israeli policy, Chavez in building his populist image in Venezuela has lashed out against those elements of the Venezuelan population which he views to be too liberal, too internationalist, too wealthy and too intellectual and, as a part of this, he has singled out Jews and Jewish organizations for unbelievably harsh treatment. He is playing the old political game of trying to build anti-Jewish feelings amongst the people as a way of identifying an evil to be drive out of the country. Before you throw around your criticism, Shahidon, do a little research. Any of the major publications which cover Venezuela will support what I say.

N for Neatness (4 cents)

Yesterday, we had ten for dinner. Today, we are having 8. After clearing the table yesterday, I saw that the tablecloth was perfectly clean; we can use it again today. This is a first. Our guests get a "N" for neatness.

He Take Me Money and Run Venezuela (one cent)

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez apparently does not like the United States and does not like Jews. He thinks that they are evil and, to prove his point, he says that everybody should read "Hegemony or Survival" by Noam Chomsky. Who is Noam Chomsky? An American Jew.

Go figure.

Burma/Myanmar

It appears that the protestors who are railing against the lack of democracy and respect for human rights in the country that calls itself Myanmar, are in fact referring to the nation by its old name of Burma. An interesting observation, to be sure, and I should learn more about the underlying nuances involved.

But, before I expand my knowledge on the subject, I have some thoughts for the protestors. The signs and placards that I have seen have been too commonplace. How about something like:

Tie the tyrants

By their feet

Drag the tyrants

Through the street.

Burma. Save.

Efficiency

I am currently writing with my Ukrainian pen, which is a ball point pen encased in handpainted wood, with a whistle at the back end.

What efficiency. Normally, I need to carry my pen, my work of art, and my whistle separately. They take up so much room, I don't normally have space for keys or wallet. Now, my mobile storage problem has been solved, thanks to Ukrainian ingenuity.

Our Next Seder (20 cents)

Although it is not yet Rosh Hashanah, I am already planning our next seder. We are going to invite the John Kerrys, the Wesley Clarks, the Madeleine Albrights, and now the George Allens. We are going to put an extra cup on the table for Katherine Graham.

By the way, what are the 3 stages of adulthood?

First, when you hope that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will fall on weekdays, so you can miss work.

Second, when you hope that they fall on weekends, so you don't have to miss work.

Third, when you don't care where they fall, because you really don't pay enough attention to work to care if you miss it or not.

Can't Sleep? (one cent)

Heard on the radio this morning:

Do you have trouble falling asleep? Wake up in the middle of the night? Wake up too early in the morning?

If so, there is a chance that you might be suffering from.........

insomnia.

(I'd say 100%)

I Gotta Get More Regular (11 cents)

I need to post every day, even if only a little.

Well, I am watching Cable Channel 147, country music videos, and just heard an advertisement to enlist in the Army Reserve (Reserve enlistment ads run pretty regularly on this station). If you join, you will get first class training, be able to continue your education, serve close to home (except when called up to serve your country). And, if you enlist now, you get a free sports watch. Scouts honor.

Today was a beautiful late summer Sunday, perfect for all sorts of activities. So, what did about 175 people do at 3 p.m. this afternoon? They packed the community room at the DC Jewish Community Center to hear Rebecca Goldstein give a lecture on Spinoza. Goldstein's new book, Uncovering Spinoza, has just been issued, and she spoke for about 45 minutes. What a good talk. And, you will be able to see it soon on C-Span's Book TV.

Spinoza as the ultimate rationalist and logician. Basing his theory on Euclidian mathematics, he believed that everything could be demonstrated a priori, by the use of reason, and that religious ritual and superstition was harmful, not helpful. He was excommunicated for life by the Amsterdam Jewish community when he was 23 years old. He was a universalist, very conflict adverse, yet the cause of extraordinary conflicts. He was the descendant of Portuguese Marranoes and lived at the time that the newly established Jewish community in Amsterdam was trying to define itself, and its members trying to determine what it meant to be Jewish, and how they should behave.

The night before, even more people were at the Studio Theater to see a production of Red Light Winter, a three actor play. Two men, one woman, Man #1 loves woman, Woman loves Man #2, Man #2 and Man #1 are friends, but Man #2 is macho, and Man #1 nerdy. It starts in Amsterdam, when the girl is a prostitute, that #2 engages (after having his own fling with her) to bed Man #2. It ends in New York, months later, when the girl is no longer a prostitute, but a simple girl suffering from AIDS going home to her parents in Baltimore, where Man #1 still loves her, but the girls does not remember him, but she does remember Man #2 who, of course, does not remember her. The acting wa good, some of the dialogue was clever, the play moved along, but I can't say that it was profound theater.

Before the play, dinner was at Rice and, with the exception of the appetizer tempura (which was mainly fried breading), it was very good. Warm eggplant salad, rockfish steamed with ginger, and duck in a plum and ginger sauce. And good coffee.

It's really a Dud, man.

I mean "Expecting to Fly" a "sixties recogning" by Martha Tod Dudman. It is another one of those tell-all, coming of age book by a bright young woman, who talks about her adolescent experience with drugs and sex.

I had two reasons to read this one. First, because Dudman grew up in Washington DC (in fact in Cleveland Park), and I was interested in what life was like for teenagers here in the 1960s. Secondly, because her father was the Washington correspondent for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, whose articles I read growing up, and about whom I was interested to read (from his daughter's vantage point).

Well, it was not much about Richard Dudman (although it brought back memories about his being captured in Cambodia during the war), and not at all about St. Louis, which did not seem to be in Martha's consciousness. And, I guess there is some redeeming social value to the book, as she left her wasted adolescence behind and apparently became a normal wife/mother in Maine (although the book ends the summer after her first year at college). What you did see was that she began to realize that things had to change during her college years, and you could see how these new feelings began to overtake the old, giving her promise of escaping from what was most likely the deadest of dead end lives.

But was the book necessary? Probably not. And what will her children and grandchildren think when they read it?

Oh, well.

An idea for the Bush administration (3 cents)

I went to a soprano/piano concert yesterday at Epiphany Church. The performers were both Levine School faculty members with impressive resumes. When I looked at the program, I was intrigued because I had no familiarity whatsoever with the music. It was all by an American composer, now 55 years old, named Libby Larsen, and the program consisted of 17 songs (from various cycles) about the American west, a substantial number of which were based on the writing of Edith Wharton.

The soprano had a very unusual voice. It was a husky soprano voice. The pianist was terrific.

The music was very twentieth century. Which means that, on first hearing, for me it was totally meaningless. Perhaps if I heard it several times, I would feel differently, but I was quite uncomfortable throughout the concert (with only occasional moments of relief) .

How to explain it: try rap music, sung by an operatic soprano with a husky voice, with only piano accompaniment, and no rhythm at all. Does that make sense?

Then it occurred to me, and this is my idea for the Bush administration. Maybe let the prisoners sleep four or five hours in silence but otherwise play a recording of this concert (at a volume a little too loud) into each cell. Can this be criticized?

Primary Day in DC

Years ago, a candidate for mayor was tacking up his own posters in our neighborhood, wearing an "I Love Boston" shirt (we live in DC). I couldn't believe it, and told him so.

Today, driving down Connecticut Avenue, I see a man holding a very large Linda Cropp sign, wearing a New York Yankees cap.

I don't get it.

Today or, rather, Yesterday (2 cents)

1. Rock Creek Park. Traffic was very bad this morning through Rock Creek Park, although it began to move fairly well near the zoo. But then there was a major back up south of Calvert Street that did not seem to have an explanation. But, as usual, the Rock Creek commuters were all very polite to each other, allowing incoming traffic to cut in on an alternate car basis.

One disturbing item, however. Some young father had put his young son in a child's bicycle street (with helmets) and decided to take a ride down, first Broad Branch, and then Beach Avenue, through the park during rush hour. Why on earth would anyone do this on these narrow, winding, two lane roads, with no shoulders, with a young child?

Finally, the slow traffic gave me one more opportunity to ask myself whether the District (or more properly, perhaps, the U.S. Park Service)should change the sign that points to Peirce Mill, but calls it Pierce Mill, so that the spelling is correct? Which then leads to the questions (a) what is all that construction around the waterfall at Peirce Mill about, anyway?, and (b) what is going on with the mill building itself? I remember when they actually used to grind and sell corn; that was quite a treat, to see the waterwheel going, and so forth. I also remember when the art gallery was used for special exhibits, but I don't think that happens either.

2. Gas Prices. Why could it be that gas prices yesterday on Route 40 between Baltimore City and Ellicott City were about 40 cents a gallon less than gas prices in northwest DC? It can't just be the difference in applicable taxes; DC and Maryland are historically much more aligned.

3. 9/11. This is 9/11, and the 5 year anniversary of the attack. I understand remembering the attack and memorializing the victims, but can't that be done with a minute or two of silence, rather than through the monopolizing of every radio station and newscast, and a bevy of programs all around the country? The newspaper this morning listed what must have been twenty different programs here alone; and I am sure there are more.

4. Garlic. Last night I had supper with a friend at the Shanghai Garden, where the food is always good. He ordered garlic eggplant. I had some and, true to all of my recent experience, it took me hours to fall asleep. This is what garlic does to me. In reading websites about garlic and sleep, I find that while there appears to be evidence of a connection, the experts differ as to whether garlic keeps you up, or puts you to sleep. Huh?

What Took Me So Long? (12 cents)

It is now Sunday night, and I have not had an entry since last Wednesday. Not sure why. At any rate....

1. Baseball. We went to see the Nationals beat the Cardinals at a Wednesday day game. The Nats won two of the three game series, continuing to do well at home. Then, they flew to Denver and lost four straight to the Rockies, although scoring 28 runs. They gotta get their act together.

2. Art. On Thursday, I went to the National Gallery and went on the docent tour of the exhibition of Venetian Art, 1500-1530. I had been at the exhibit twice before, but for the first time realized that 1500-1530 meant just what it says: all this art was completed within a 30 year period. The tour was good because it gave a little more historical context (the build up of Venice, its wealth and art patronage, the development of large wealthy controlling families, the loss of its eastern market when Constantinople fell in 1452, the jealosy of the remainder of Italy and the formation of the Cambrai league to keep Venice from expanding inland), and described the major artists (Bellini, Georgioni, Titian). Bellini was old in 1500 (about 70), his pupil Georgioni died at a young age of the plague, etc. We learned about certain techniques (how in Venice, the artists drew outlines on the canvas, or wood, while in Florence, they drew the designs first on separate paper). We learned about the placement of characters, the direction in which they looked, curtains of honor behind the central characters, and so forth. We learned about the donors who commissioned the paintings and how they were painted in with the saints and holy family. We learned that Joseph was always painted old, so it would be clear that he could not have been the father. Unfortunately, the hour exhibit was an hour old, when the leader was only about 1/3 through the paintings and announced that he appeared to be running overtime. I left at that point, and headed back to work.

3. Books. I finally finished "Grace and Power" by Sally Bedell Smith. If you read Seymour Hersh's "The Dark Side of Camelot", this book is a good companion piece, going over much the same ground, but concentrating on Jackie as well as Jack. What a different time it was then: it would be hard to conceive of a president with as many girls and affairs as Jack had (Bill Clinton looks like a monk in comparison) today with the press remaining silent; it is impossible to imagine how much time the Kennedys spent away from the White House (together or apart): Virginia, Camp David, Europe, Hyannisport, Florida; it is impossible to imagine how much socializing they did with their friends, going to restaurants, house parties, weekend getaways, and so forth, staying out until 2 or 3 in the morning. None of this could happen today.

4. Restaurants. Another nice meal at Arucola on Wednesday, and tonight, we ate at the Double T Diner in Ellicott city, with relatives. Six people, under $100 with tip, and good food. Go figure. Not elegant, however.

Kennedy and Bernstein (2 cents)

I am reading Sally Bedell Smith's book "Grace and Power", about Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and I am sitting here looking at the PBS special on Leonard Bernstein. Needless to say, Jack Kennedy and Leonard Bernstein were both extraordinary people in a number of ways (Bernstein being the one with talent and charisma; Kennedy with power and charisma).

But what I am thinking about today is their circles of friends and acquaintences. They knew everyone who was anyone. Without exception. How different it must be to be in that position.

They interviewed Bernstein's three children (or perhaps it was three of Bernstein's children, I don't know), and they talk about growing up in the Bernstein house, where there were always talented people coming and going, and where they all were having a good (no, great) time. The Kennedy White House (and other Kennedy venues) was the same.

Thoughts of a Labor Day Weekend (12 cents)

Friday evening: delicious halibut dinner at home.

Saturday: the Paul Klee exhibit at the Phillips. The exhibit is quite extensive, and is titled "Klee in America". That's because it concentrates on the 100 or more Klee paintings in the United States. The signage unfortunately concentrated more on provenance (how that particular painting got from there to here: Klee was never in America), rather than what it was supposed to signify. How to describe the intricate, mainly line drawings? One of his American angels described it best: caricature, mysticism, and a wonderful sense of color. My wife read that, as a young man, he was a househusband. Perhaps this explains much of the childlike nature of much of his work. A few of the works are in the Phillips collection: One called "Arab Song" and one "Young Moe"; they may be the two best known works in the show. The show is about to end; the gift shop has sold out of soft cover catalogs.

Next to the Klee exhibit, there is an exhibit of children's art (American and Japanese) and a couple of works done by Klee and by Picasso when they were children. Some of this work, by very young children, is exceptional. My own artistic ability, I am happy to say, is about on a par with the five year old Klee.

We then wandered the remainder of the museum, which is extremely nice, and comfortable, as they do not overload the walls with works of art, but give each one a little breathing room. Mainly impressionist and later, we should go back more often. (But, of course, it costs)

Saturday evening: Baseball. We saw the Nats beat the Diamondbacks 5-3 in the second game of a day-night double header. The afternoon game had been postponed from a rained out Friday. The crowd was fairly spare. We liked our new center fielder, Nook Logan, who snagged a fly ball from nowhere (he did the same thing, but even more spectacularly on Sunday)

Sunday: We drove to Baltimore to see the Baltimore Antiques Show. Over 500 exhibitors. It only lasts three days. Everything for sale is of the highest quality, and priced more than accordingly. Can it be worth it to all these vendors to pack up, come, unpack, and leave for just three days? We are talking about some people with furniture; others with large amounts of crystal, glassware, china, and so forth? We bought nothing. What could we possibly need? But it was very interesting to walk around.

Sunday evening: Dinner in Little Italyin Baltimore. La Tavola. We each had opa, a Hawaiian fish, and a salad. It was not cheap, but quite good. The restaurant is very nice: dressy casual. The restaurant is dressy; the customers are casual.

We then drove a bit around Fells Point and beyond, and then Federal Hill, remarking on the differences between Baltimore and Washington, and thinking we need more driving time.

Monday: it is page to stage time at the Kennedy Center, the free readings of plays to be performed over the course of the year by theaters all over town. The Theater J play is Either/Or by Thomas Keneally of Schindler's List fame. It deals with a theological student who opposes the Nazis but joins the SS to be a "witness" after he learns that his sister in law has been murdered as being a defective. He becomes not only a witness, but a reticent participant. And then the war is open. Is he guilty of anything, or was he trying to do whatever he could? It is not being performed until the spring, but I think will be good.

Monday evening: dinner at Logan Tavern. A salad salmon for me. The salad better than the salmon, but I don't think that they got fresh salmon on Labor Day.

Mark Stein

I am not sure who Mark Stein is. He seems to be a Canadian journalist with a British accent. He seems to be very conservative in his politics. He seems to believe he knows everything. He apparently took Rush Limbaugh's place for two weeks last month. He may have something to do with the "National Review". He was on C-Span this morning.

Here is what I think. This man has (1) the best speaking voice imaginable, and (2) probably the best command of the English language, syntax and vocabulary, of anyone I have heard in a long time.

Some of us are just born record-keepers (4 cents)

I am in my local liquor store, buying our Friday night wine. An obviously homeless man, not particularly well spoken, points to a small bottle of gin behind the counter and say something like: "That 'n". He pulls out some single family bills and a few quarters and pennies and counts out the few dollars needed to acquire his half pint bottle. The clerk puts the money into the register and closes the door. The man stares at the clerk. The clerk look's back with a half quizzical, and half worried look. The man breaks the stare first, and says: "Don't I get a receipt?".

The Amalfi Coat is a Beautiful Place

Its hills are as high as ever, I am sure. But the Amalfi Restaurant in Rockville has gone downhill, it would seem. Years ago, we had consistently good food there, but Sunday night, the most descriptively accurate word would be 'mediocre'. Is this typical? Was the kitchen staff having a bad day, or celebrating an August vacation? Have our expectations changed, or our taste buds?

We may never find out.

Graham Hancock (45 cents)

The only thing that is not top rate about www.grahamhancock.com is that sometimes you want to print out an article and you get a blank page. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe everyone else can print everything out.

I decided to make this website my homepage on Explorer (I use www.drudgereport.com on Firefox). Every day, they pull together interesting articles about archeology or ancient history. Just today, for example, they have articles (full articles, or at least links to full articles) on studies showing that prehistoric birds might have attacked early humans for food (a study done at Ohio State University); a study posted in Neuroscience Letters that concludes that there is no single part of the brain designed for communication with God (I had never even considered that possibility)(a University of Montreal study); a 2700 year old Saxon belt buckle, very rare, found by a treasure hunter with a metal detector outside of London and given to the Museum of London; a story of 10,000 year old sandals found in Oregon and to be shown in an upcoming National Geographic story on footwear; an article from Australia talking about the discovery of a fossil of a fish with lung capacity which appears to be about 400 million years old, suggesting that fish started to come onto land a long time ago; findings by a Spanish university that suggests that Mayan civilization began to decline when they discovered that there kings were not gods; 3000 year old tombs have been found in Jilin Province in China; the Vatican is not satisfied that the new form of developing stem cells, without killing embryos, is ethical; an article on the continuing debate about whether small skeletons found in Indonesia denote a different form of homenoid, a kind of hobbit; Japanese research that shows bacteria and microbes can be used to power very small machines; Neanderthals had aspects of creativity; and the ruins of Lebanon did not seem to be harmed by the recent war. And it is like that every day!

Cosi's (ten cents)

Heard yesterday at Cosi's Dupont Circle. A young man walks up to the sandwich counter, and says, with no trace of emotion or irony, "A tuna cheddar please. But with no cheese."

this is a test.