Though the Lincoln-Douglas debates are rightly considered the apex of competitive political discourse in American if not world history, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are all but non-existent, still I find parallels with the elegant yet forceful antebellum rhetoric of The Great Emancipator and The Little Giant, and the bold if futile recent actions of Palestinian President Mahmoud “Abu Mazen” Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.
On Monday, October 16, 1854, in Peoria, Illinois, nearly four years before Abraham Lincoln would traverse the state in a series of debates with Stephen A. Douglas, the future President rose from the audience of a Douglas address to invite the crowd to return after their supper, at which time he would deliver a prepared response (Douglas and Lincoln had arranged the dual appearance ahead of time, and Douglas had negotiated a one-hour rebuttal following Lincoln’s remarks).
“The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the propriety of its restoration, constitute the subject of what I am about to say,” Lincoln began. The Missouri Compromise, which prohibited slavery in the western territories north of the parallel 36° 30’ north and cut through present-day California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and the Oklahoma panhandle, had been in effect since 1820. The actual compromise was that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state even though it was above the line, and Maine would be admitted as a free state.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, designed by Douglas and signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May 30 of that year, effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise and replaced its imaginary line with the concept of “popular sovereignty,” in which settlers of a territory would decide for themselves whether to establish it as a free or slave-holding state. The act resulted in political chaos, with the new Republican party eventually rising from the ashes of the fractured Whigs.
Passion – and empathy
But in 1854, all that was on Lincoln’s mind was that slavery was no longer on the road to extinction – he had hoped to starve out the institution by confining it to the lower south, where cotton would eventually destroy the soil in which it grew. Minus that crop, he was certain, the need for slaves would disappear.
Impassioned as Lincoln was about the repeal of the Missouri Compromise – in a short campaign biography he wrote in late 1859, Lincoln noted that after several years working in his successful law practice, “I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again” – he took the platform that night armed with logic rather than vitriol, even saying at one point:
“Before proceeding, let me say I think I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist amongst them, they would not introduce it. If it did now exist amongst us, we should not instantly give it up.”
Lincoln and Douglas were both speaking about self-government and self-determination that day. For Douglas, those terms meant that the free white settlers of a territory could decide for themselves the nature of their society. For Lincoln, they meant that all people living within the boundaries of this nation have a voice and the right to rise to the level of their ambition and ability without government-imposed impediments.
The U.N. General Assembly: What’s good for the goose…
On May 14, 1948, ninety years after the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel – Israel’s “declaration of independence” – was announced to the family of nations. It reads, in part:
“On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel [“land of Israel”]; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.”
Israel and its citizens have been defending this right with their blood for 63 years.
On Friday, September 23, 2011, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stood before the United Nations General Assembly and asked that Palestine be granted independent statehood. Members of the Israeli delegation left the hall as Abbas rose to speak. His proposal is unlikely to get far in the U.N. Security Council since the United States holds veto power there, but his stake, now planted, will not easily be removed.
So now let’s see how language from one era has resonance on another.
“…[M]asters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.” Jews understand what it means to be strangers in a strange land. They know of longing, of the sweet taste of freedom, of the unceasing desire for self-determination. Lincoln understood that this was all that slaves desired, to be masters of their own fate. But would a racist country – racist both North and South (it’s worth noting that Abolitionists were a fringe group and largely anarchic; though history has been kind to them, they were far from pragmatic) – let them be free on the same land in which they were enslaved? Lincoln eventually thought not, as he conceived an ill-designed plan to ship freed slaves to Liberia.
“They are just what we would be in their situation.” Lincoln’s empathy is acknowledged to be nearly superhuman, particularly in the context of his time. This simple acknowledgement of his, though, is not well understood by many Jews and by the Israeli government in particular. Benjamin Netanyahu possesses neither the empathy nor the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. He seeks to claim disputed lands by building settlements on them in violation (so say the U.N. Security Council and the International Committee of the Red Cross) of the Fourth Geneva Convention (Netanyahu, needless to say, does not concur).
While Lincoln appealed to “the better angels of our nature”, which he knew existed among his friends and his enemies both, Netanyahu effectively thumbs his nose at his friends (the U.S., to the tune of $3 billion a year) and gives the finger to his enemies. He is provocative, obstinate, and arrogant, which plays well to the hawks at home but which has cost Israel as much good will over the last few years as George W. Bush did for America following 9/11. On the international stage, Israel is now seen as the aggressor, the tyrant. It can’t be surprised that Abbas brought his case to the U.N. given that he and Netanyahu cannot come to terms even on the conditions that would only bring them to the negotiating table.
The fiery trial: then and now
“In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve,” Lincoln told Congress on December 1, 1862. After years of bloodshed, countless deaths of innocent civilians, instability that strengthens the resolve of terrorists, it has to be clear to all parties that the only way to assure the long-term security of Israel is to enable the establishment of an independent, autonomous, and internationally recognized Palestine.
In that same address to Congress, Lincoln noted, “The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” If Benjamin Netanyahu wants to be remembered, nothing will assure his place in history more than in assuming the mantel of peacemaker.
The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel closes with the following: “WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.”
Sixty-three years later, it’s time to make good on this promise.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Thirty Years On, King Crimson’s Discipline Retains Its Power
King Crimson, Discipline. Released September 22, 1981.
In the Jewish community, a boy comes of age at his bar mitzvah, which typically occurs at age 13. For me, that was 1976. Disco was at its height and bad fashion was the only fashion there was. But at 13, I didn’t care so much about the rather desolate cultural landscape into which I was thrust. At 15, however, I did begin to care. In just those two years, the insipid simplicity of disco was replaced by the inspired simplicity of New Wave. But simplicity was not where my head was at. I’d begun doing certain things recreationally and my brain was excited by more complex and sophisticated music.
By 1979, I was firmly a fan of “progressive rock,” most specifically the music of bands such as Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and Rush. These bands would more or less align themselves with the credo that appeared in the liner notes of Gentle Giant’s second album, from 1971: “It is our goal to expand the frontiers of contemporary popular music at the risk of becoming very unpopular.” Applying instrumentation not typically found in rock music (such as violin, cello, and flute), technology (such as synthesizers and various new gizmos), lengthy compositions, and album-length concepts, progressive rock was never radio-friendly, though some groups like Yes, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, and Rush did manage to become quite popular, often through a somewhat more accessible tune edited for radio that managed to slip through the programming gatekeepers.
Unfortunately, 1979 was not a great time to enter this genre. Gentle Giant was working on its final album, continuing a recent trend of ever more commercial-sounding releases. King Crimson had disbanded in 1974. Yes lost its singer and keyboardist following a creative nadir of an album called Tormato. Pink Floyd was riding high with The Wall, but significant personnel changes were on the horizon, as they were with The Moody Blues and Jethro Tull. ELP was gone. Rush was doing well on the radio, which to some extent cut into their prog cred, and an exciting new band called U.K., comprising two ex-members of King Crimson, broke up after only two albums and two tours.
So it was that I turned my back and ears on the current music scene and instead became obsessed with the music of 1967-75. To this day, my younger colleagues consider me “the ‘70s guy.” Even when entering college in the fall of 1981, I was decidedly anti-anything that had to do with ‘80s music or fashion. There was, however, one thing that helped me bridge the gap between the past and the present: the sudden and surprising reappearance of King Crimson.
Unbeknownst to me, guitarist Robert Fripp, the group’s leader and only constant during its initial run from 1969-74, had approached drummer Bill Bruford, who had been in the last incarnation of the band, which lasted from 1972-74 (and on U.K.’s first album, as well as being the original drummer of Yes and serving short tour stints with Genesis and Gong), with the idea of doing a project together. Fripp, who had been working with the likes of David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, and Daryl Hall, wanted a somewhat funkier drum sound, with less emphasis on cymbals. Bruford had just gotten a Simmons electronic drum kit. Together, they began to sketch out a sound.
Bassist Tony Levin, who had played on Fripp’s first solo album and was a mainstay of Gabriel’s band, was recruited, as was Adrian Belew, an innovative guitarist who had brought interesting sounds to Frank Zappa and the Talking Heads. These two additions were notable in that they were the first Americans to be members of King Crimson (though the band was not yet called that), and they brought with them a host of electronic goodies: Levin the Chapman Stick, and Belew an assortment of pedals and gizmos that enabled him to mimic the sounds of wild animals. Not only that, but never before had another guitarist slung his axe alongside Fripp, an acknowledged master of the instrument.
Fripp dubbed the band Discipline and they began gigging as such. Eventually, Fripp concluded that this band was, in fact, the reincarnation of King Crimson. The name was minimally more marketable (though the band had its cult following, it had been seven years since they last were heard from), but more significantly, it raised the expectations for the outfit.
From my dorm at college, I heard that a new King Crimson album – titled Discipline – was afoot and even more exciting, the band was set to play at the college that spring. I couldn’t imagine what the new Crimson would sound like. My friend Marc, back home in Newton, Massachusetts, bought the album before I did and we listened to it together for the first time over the phone. It was unlike anything we had heard before. Yes, there was a Talking Heads rhythmic influence, the production values were of its time, and it was unquestionably progressive. But the front line of Chapman Stick and the twin interweaving guitars created a unique sonic jigsaw that could only have come from something called King Crimson, even as it distinguished this edition from all previous ones.
I bought the album as soon as I could and played it often. I became very familiar with the seven cuts. But as the concert approached, I began a relationship with that album unlike anything I have ever had with any other recording.
I was a member of the student group that produced and promoted concerts on campus, and one of my responsibilities as a Publicity Department volunteer was to set up a record player on a table on the Campus Center Concourse and play the records of artists who were appearing, give out information, and answer questions. Typically, I had other volunteers I would schedule for when I had classes, but at this time for some reason I can no longer remember, extra hands were hard to come by. Therefore, I manned the turntable for long stretches over a three- or four-week period.
What this meant was that I heard Discipline in full probably four or five times a day for weeks. The first interesting aspect to that is that I never became sick of it. There always seemed to be new things to discover in it. The other thing is that I found the varying tempos and timbres of the album seemed to match perfectly the rise and fall of activity within the Campus Center. In between classes, students would rush through with a cacophonous din of conversation, shoe clacking, and the beeping rustle of retail transactions all around me. But then it would clear out and serenity would take over. Fast, slow, loud, soft, organic and electronic, Discipline had it all, and it truly became my soundtrack for that period of my life.
Ultimately, the concert came and it was a glorious experience. In the meantime, 1981 also saw Rush come out with its masterpiece album, Moving Pictures. In 1982, Asia, a supergroup comprising exp-members of Yes, King Crimson, and ELP, debuted to much commercial acclaim. Yes rocketed to the top of the pyramid in 1983 with 90125. It seemed progressive rock was back with a vengeance. But when Crimson disbanded again in 1984, the genre again appeared on the verge of extinction. Groups still plied their trade, but more often than not the music was a series of trade-offs between the echoes of the glory days and a more commercial, current sound that alienated as many old fans as it did win new converts.
But that’s as may be. The fact is, for 30 of my 48 years, King Crimson’s Discipline has been an album of unique emotional and visceral power for me, one that is by turns terrifying and tranquil, and as complete as it is complex. To Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, and Bill Bruford: Thank you.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Remembering Marc Rains, March 5, 1963 – August 29, 2001
Ever play a game called Which One Am I? You take an ensemble of any kind and identify which character or member is most like you. You can also play it by matching characters with other people you know. I’ll do it now to give you a sense of who my friend Marc was:
I think you get the idea. Marc was a bit of a rebel, a free thinker. Uncomfortable with authority, he never wanted to have to answer to anyone. We all got high back in the day, but whereas it was a purely recreational activity for the rest of us, for Marc it was a Statement of who he was and what he believed in, which was, in a word: freedom. He dreamed of a world with no hassles, just hedonistic pursuits. He wanted to suck out all the marrow of life, one joint at a time.
He wasn’t all about drugs, of course. He was also very interested in creativity, especially music and writing. In fact, while I had known Marc since kindergarten, we didn’t become close until junior high school when I somehow found out he could play the organ and he somehow found out that I had been writing lyrics. We would get together at his house, steal some of his parents’ booze, and I would sing my lyrics while he wrote down the notes I was intending to sing.
Eventually he wanted to express himself through writing as well. He would start something, get stuck, and give it to me to finish. I encouraged him to keep working through the blocks. There was one piece of his that I liked a lot and he gave it to me as a present. Except for all the things he owned, like records, he wasn’t about ownership.
I know what you’re thinking, what a hypocrite. Yeah, well, it’s not easy living the life of a nonconformist iconoclast. For one, you need money to eat. So he took a job, but it was a job he could live with: at a record store. He never went to college with the rest of us; in fact, he never finished high school. All through elementary school, he always had the most extraordinary record of absences from school. Some of this was because of health problems that plagued him all of his short life. But by the time he got to high school, he just couldn’t be bothered with schedules, homework, and responsibilities.
He did, however, go to high school. He would show up in the morning and park himself in the cafeteria, where he would stay most of the day, striking up conversations with whomever happened by. Connecting, that’s what he really valued, more than sitting in one desk-chair in one classroom for 50 minutes, then sitting in another one in a different classroom for another 50 minutes, and so on.
Though we were very tight in junior high and most of high school, things started falling apart as college loomed closer. We were moving in different directions, meeting different people, having different experiences. The one thing that kept us connected was music. I remember in 1981, my freshman year in college, he bought the King Crimson album Discipline, which was the first album by the group since 1974. It featured a new lineup and we were curious what it would sound like. He called me up and we listened to the album for the first time together over the phone.
Eventually, his health problems became quite serious. He had a kidney transplant. Within a few years, he needed another one. In spite of his condition, he wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle and for some reason, he eventually took up cigarettes. He used to say that he didn’t want to live to age 40, but that was when we were stupid teenagers and we thought 40-year-olds were decrepit hags who shat themselves. Still, it seems he knew he was living on borrowed time and didn’t want to waste his remaining years going through the trouble of being healthy.
But he was also very useful. He took the experiences he had with dialysis to become a dialysis technician and more importantly, he would counsel and console kidney patients who were going through what he had gone through. He met a woman he loved and got married. He had two daughters. He was very happy. Though we both lived in Massachusetts, we were basically on different ends, me in the north, he in the south. We didn’t see each for long stretches, though we communicated by phone and email on a semi-regular basis.
At some point, there were issues with the second kidney surgery, and his pancreas was damaged. He had to have a gaping hole in his back for a long time. I visited him in the Intensive Care Unit. I was going to see David Crosby in concert and he asked for a shirt. When I went back to the hospital to give it to him, his room was empty. I was chilled, but it turned out that he was transferred to a regular room. I went there and he was sleeping. I left the shirt on his bed.
In 1997 or 1998, he had a stroke. He was only in his mid-30s. The next time I saw him, I didn’t recognize him. He had lost a lot of weight, had not much of an expression on his face, and moved slowly. It was at the shiva of a friend’s mother. I helped him get some food, and we talked about what was going on. He had been through so much, but he was optimistic. He loved his life. He loved his family. He had a lot of joy and a lot to live for.
The last email I have from him was sent to me on January 1, 2001. Typically optimistic, it reads:
Next thing I heard was that he had died. He was being prepped for open-heart surgery and went into cardiac arrest. It was August 29, 2001. He was 38 years old. He’d fulfilled his prophecy. Less than two weeks later, 9/11 happened. It seemed that everything was falling apart.
Marc’s final request was to be cremated and have his ashes spread over the golf course we used to sneak onto and party at in high school. He told his wife to contact me and have me plan it. It was sufficiently moving for me that it inspired me to write an essay and a one-act play about the experience. With his unusual request, he had managed to bring together a number of friends who had become estranged over the years.
A few years later, his wife called me and asked me to take his records. Going through them was like watching a documentary of our lives. I remembered where and when he had purchased those albums and gotten those autographs. I remember listening to them with him. I remember how much they meant to him.
Two years ago, I got a message from his oldest daughter who found a letter I had written to her mother after the funeral. I had promised her I would help with the girls. But I had one of my own and a rough marriage, and I never kept my promise. I’m now Facebook friends with both of his girls; I’ve helped them restore and retain memories of their father and they’ve helped keep his spirit alive for me. Marc always was all about connections – and second chances.
I’m thinking of you, buddy. Damn, but you would have loved Facebook. And seeing how your girls have grown. And me? I’d love to write one more song with you. One with a chorus that keeps on repeating and never fades away.
• The Big Chill: William Hurt’s character
• Doonesbury: Zonker
• Crosby, Stills & Nash: David Crosby
• Dead Poet’s Society: the kid who changed his name to Nuwanda
I think you get the idea. Marc was a bit of a rebel, a free thinker. Uncomfortable with authority, he never wanted to have to answer to anyone. We all got high back in the day, but whereas it was a purely recreational activity for the rest of us, for Marc it was a Statement of who he was and what he believed in, which was, in a word: freedom. He dreamed of a world with no hassles, just hedonistic pursuits. He wanted to suck out all the marrow of life, one joint at a time.
He wasn’t all about drugs, of course. He was also very interested in creativity, especially music and writing. In fact, while I had known Marc since kindergarten, we didn’t become close until junior high school when I somehow found out he could play the organ and he somehow found out that I had been writing lyrics. We would get together at his house, steal some of his parents’ booze, and I would sing my lyrics while he wrote down the notes I was intending to sing.
Eventually he wanted to express himself through writing as well. He would start something, get stuck, and give it to me to finish. I encouraged him to keep working through the blocks. There was one piece of his that I liked a lot and he gave it to me as a present. Except for all the things he owned, like records, he wasn’t about ownership.
I know what you’re thinking, what a hypocrite. Yeah, well, it’s not easy living the life of a nonconformist iconoclast. For one, you need money to eat. So he took a job, but it was a job he could live with: at a record store. He never went to college with the rest of us; in fact, he never finished high school. All through elementary school, he always had the most extraordinary record of absences from school. Some of this was because of health problems that plagued him all of his short life. But by the time he got to high school, he just couldn’t be bothered with schedules, homework, and responsibilities.
He did, however, go to high school. He would show up in the morning and park himself in the cafeteria, where he would stay most of the day, striking up conversations with whomever happened by. Connecting, that’s what he really valued, more than sitting in one desk-chair in one classroom for 50 minutes, then sitting in another one in a different classroom for another 50 minutes, and so on.
Though we were very tight in junior high and most of high school, things started falling apart as college loomed closer. We were moving in different directions, meeting different people, having different experiences. The one thing that kept us connected was music. I remember in 1981, my freshman year in college, he bought the King Crimson album Discipline, which was the first album by the group since 1974. It featured a new lineup and we were curious what it would sound like. He called me up and we listened to the album for the first time together over the phone.
Eventually, his health problems became quite serious. He had a kidney transplant. Within a few years, he needed another one. In spite of his condition, he wasn’t living a healthy lifestyle and for some reason, he eventually took up cigarettes. He used to say that he didn’t want to live to age 40, but that was when we were stupid teenagers and we thought 40-year-olds were decrepit hags who shat themselves. Still, it seems he knew he was living on borrowed time and didn’t want to waste his remaining years going through the trouble of being healthy.
But he was also very useful. He took the experiences he had with dialysis to become a dialysis technician and more importantly, he would counsel and console kidney patients who were going through what he had gone through. He met a woman he loved and got married. He had two daughters. He was very happy. Though we both lived in Massachusetts, we were basically on different ends, me in the north, he in the south. We didn’t see each for long stretches, though we communicated by phone and email on a semi-regular basis.
At some point, there were issues with the second kidney surgery, and his pancreas was damaged. He had to have a gaping hole in his back for a long time. I visited him in the Intensive Care Unit. I was going to see David Crosby in concert and he asked for a shirt. When I went back to the hospital to give it to him, his room was empty. I was chilled, but it turned out that he was transferred to a regular room. I went there and he was sleeping. I left the shirt on his bed.
In 1997 or 1998, he had a stroke. He was only in his mid-30s. The next time I saw him, I didn’t recognize him. He had lost a lot of weight, had not much of an expression on his face, and moved slowly. It was at the shiva of a friend’s mother. I helped him get some food, and we talked about what was going on. He had been through so much, but he was optimistic. He loved his life. He loved his family. He had a lot of joy and a lot to live for.
The last email I have from him was sent to me on January 1, 2001. Typically optimistic, it reads:
Happy new year,
Well, I made it thru every thing they did again! My right side feels a little alien but its getting better every day. I have to go 6 weeks infection free and then they'll start looking at putting a permanent access back in my body right now I have a catheter sticking out of my neck which drives me a bit crazy, but they still get to dialyze me with relative ease, and I still have a right arm so all in all things are OK I guess.
How is all by you? A nice holiday? I hope!
can't keep arm in this position for typing for to long talk to you soon!
Love to all!
Marc
Next thing I heard was that he had died. He was being prepped for open-heart surgery and went into cardiac arrest. It was August 29, 2001. He was 38 years old. He’d fulfilled his prophecy. Less than two weeks later, 9/11 happened. It seemed that everything was falling apart.
Marc’s final request was to be cremated and have his ashes spread over the golf course we used to sneak onto and party at in high school. He told his wife to contact me and have me plan it. It was sufficiently moving for me that it inspired me to write an essay and a one-act play about the experience. With his unusual request, he had managed to bring together a number of friends who had become estranged over the years.
A few years later, his wife called me and asked me to take his records. Going through them was like watching a documentary of our lives. I remembered where and when he had purchased those albums and gotten those autographs. I remember listening to them with him. I remember how much they meant to him.
Two years ago, I got a message from his oldest daughter who found a letter I had written to her mother after the funeral. I had promised her I would help with the girls. But I had one of my own and a rough marriage, and I never kept my promise. I’m now Facebook friends with both of his girls; I’ve helped them restore and retain memories of their father and they’ve helped keep his spirit alive for me. Marc always was all about connections – and second chances.
I’m thinking of you, buddy. Damn, but you would have loved Facebook. And seeing how your girls have grown. And me? I’d love to write one more song with you. One with a chorus that keeps on repeating and never fades away.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Late thinking on early adopting
Recently, I was out with a friend and I received a call on my cell phone. Shucking my clamshell-styled telecommunications device, I took the call. After I hung up (in truth I was hung up on but that's another story), my friend marveled that I still have a flip phone. Everybody else, it seems, has some kind of Star Trek gizmo that they poke and stroke every few minutes to get information they don't really need except that it's fun to poke and stroke a device.
The fact is, I was the last person I knew to get a flip phone in the first place. I used to have a basic little flat thing that if I held the ear part to my ear, the mouth part rested at the top of my jowl. Considering that a number of my friends think of me as being somewhat of a mumbler, that phone never was all that practical for me.
What I find interesting is that I've become such a late adopter. I used to be just the opposite. I had one of those Cellular One bag phones in the '90s and I distinctly recall calling people from my car and saying, "Guess where I'm calling from? MY CAR! Isn't that so cool?" Back then it was. But that was probably the last time I was cool.
CD players became available between my junior and senior years of college, and when I moved into my senior-year apartment, I was rocking one of those beasts. I was, in fact, the first of my friends to own one. It was big, expensive, and had none of the features my friends' CD players had when they got theirs several months later. But I was proud to have one first. Only trouble was that music stores had maybe 40 CDs to choose from. Before long that all changed, of course. And by the time I got my second CD player (only a year or two later), the landscape was forever altered, and I was just another one of the masses who were making vinyl obsolete (for a little while anyway).
Another great technology I adopted early was a CB radio. Mine was about the size of a small radio station. I knew about five or six people who also had CB radios, and after school we would get on the air and talk funny to each other until we got bored. In retrospect, there was no good reason for me to have a CB radio. There were no smokeys I was evading in my Newton, Massachusetts, neighborhood. But it was cool to say "10-4, good buddy" and if you knew that 10-100 meant you needed to take a leak, you were pretty happening.
But of course, CB radios went the way of 8-tracks (had one of those, too) and I guess after all this time I've come to realize that there's no great advantage to being an early adopter of anything. Things always get thinner, faster, cheaper, and more powerful in their second generations than their first. Over the last several years, it was mainly my financial situation that kept me jumping on anything new; now it's more a case of replacement fatigue. I'm tired of upgrading.
Case in point: I took my daughter to the phone store the other day. Her phone and mine are on the same account and i had received a message saying that one of our phones was due for an upgrade. We went in and learned that it was my phone. My daughter, whose phone slides and glides and glows, was crestfallen. So I let her have my upgrade, and now hers is more like the Star Trek ones. I still have my flip phone. I can use her upgrade in November, at which point phones will probably be in our shoes a la Maxwell Smart. Keeping up with the Joneses is impossible enough for me; I'm not even going to try to keep up with society's joneses.
The fact is, I was the last person I knew to get a flip phone in the first place. I used to have a basic little flat thing that if I held the ear part to my ear, the mouth part rested at the top of my jowl. Considering that a number of my friends think of me as being somewhat of a mumbler, that phone never was all that practical for me.
What I find interesting is that I've become such a late adopter. I used to be just the opposite. I had one of those Cellular One bag phones in the '90s and I distinctly recall calling people from my car and saying, "Guess where I'm calling from? MY CAR! Isn't that so cool?" Back then it was. But that was probably the last time I was cool.
CD players became available between my junior and senior years of college, and when I moved into my senior-year apartment, I was rocking one of those beasts. I was, in fact, the first of my friends to own one. It was big, expensive, and had none of the features my friends' CD players had when they got theirs several months later. But I was proud to have one first. Only trouble was that music stores had maybe 40 CDs to choose from. Before long that all changed, of course. And by the time I got my second CD player (only a year or two later), the landscape was forever altered, and I was just another one of the masses who were making vinyl obsolete (for a little while anyway).
Another great technology I adopted early was a CB radio. Mine was about the size of a small radio station. I knew about five or six people who also had CB radios, and after school we would get on the air and talk funny to each other until we got bored. In retrospect, there was no good reason for me to have a CB radio. There were no smokeys I was evading in my Newton, Massachusetts, neighborhood. But it was cool to say "10-4, good buddy" and if you knew that 10-100 meant you needed to take a leak, you were pretty happening.
But of course, CB radios went the way of 8-tracks (had one of those, too) and I guess after all this time I've come to realize that there's no great advantage to being an early adopter of anything. Things always get thinner, faster, cheaper, and more powerful in their second generations than their first. Over the last several years, it was mainly my financial situation that kept me jumping on anything new; now it's more a case of replacement fatigue. I'm tired of upgrading.
Case in point: I took my daughter to the phone store the other day. Her phone and mine are on the same account and i had received a message saying that one of our phones was due for an upgrade. We went in and learned that it was my phone. My daughter, whose phone slides and glides and glows, was crestfallen. So I let her have my upgrade, and now hers is more like the Star Trek ones. I still have my flip phone. I can use her upgrade in November, at which point phones will probably be in our shoes a la Maxwell Smart. Keeping up with the Joneses is impossible enough for me; I'm not even going to try to keep up with society's joneses.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Demarcations
I wrote this after visiting a cemetery with my four-year-old girl, Stella.
There is fascination and there is obsession. Between the two is a line. It may or may not be a thin line. But there is a point, a line, a point along a line, a line of infinite points, across which fascination – which is healthy – becomes obsession – which is not. The subject now is death. The fascination is hers. The obsession is his.
They are now in his apartment, a two-room attic studio on the third floor of a nondescript house on the harder edge of a transitional neighborhood. Down the street is more residential, but his house is on the corner, closer to the business district: a pub, a few convenience stores, a deep-discount supermarket that stocks brand-name seconds and brands that have never advertised themselves anywhere. Just beyond that on the other side of the street is a strip club that is one more knifing away from being closed for good. Amateur night was three nights ago, but he’s not interested – the girls are probably only four years older than his older daughter.
His house, then, is a demarcation point, signifying the split between residential and commercial areas.
He is with his younger daughter, Stella, nearly five, nearly a decade younger than her sister. The difference in age can be explained largely by the mismatched libidos of he and his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Like the lottery commercials say, you have to play to win. Not much chance they’d get pregnant having sex half a dozen times a year. And yes, boom, one day when they least expected it, they got lucky. But luck is relative. Money was already tight, the marriage already in trouble. Tension grew. Eventually, she wanted him out of their bedroom. So he slept in the den for more than a year before finding the cheapest apartment available that was close to his kids.
The wall in the den against which the futon couch that served as his bed stood abutted the bedroom he used to share with his wife. That wall was a demarcation. It separated man and wife; it was a physical symbol of the distance between them.
Now, the older daughter is at school. The wife is working. He is alone with Stella. He is thinking of what they can do together. Just a mile from his apartment is an old Jewish cemetery where his paternal great-grandparents are buried. He decides they should visit. He likes to visit them anyway.
They get ready to leave. She is excited. When she gets excited, she jumps up and down. He tells her she can’t be do that in his apartment. Why? Because there are other people living underneath them. The sound disturbs them. It’s not like her house where the whole place is hers. Here, the floor distinguishes between one tenant and another. It is another demarcation, a boundary of personal space in a place that is only partly private.
They go out his door, down the back staircase, through the side door of the house, and onto a short paved path to the sidewalk. They cross the street to his car and drive to the cemetery. They arrive quickly. The cemetery is small, smaller than a supermarket. The stones are old and covered in a mix of words and symbols, English text and Hebrew text, mold, moss, and lichen. His great-grandparents, Max and Rose, are in the rear. As they walk, Stella starts to skip ahead.
No running, he tells her. Why? It’s not respectful, he says. What do you mean? A cemetery is a place to think about your loved ones who are gone. We don’t run or play here because it can disturb other people. It disturbs the sanctity (he thinks but does not say because she won’t know what the word means). You mean it’s like in your apartment, she asks, why I can’t jump on the floor because I’ll disturb the people downstairs?
He smiles. Yes, it’s the same. You don’t want to disturb the people downstairs. People like Max and Rose, downstairs permanently. The ground, this ground itself, is a demarcation between the living and the dead. And so they walk on to Max and Rose’s resting place, and there he begins to tell her about them.
What’s going on up there?
What?
Someone’s up there, Max. Who is it?
What do you think, I have eyes in my skull? How am I supposed to know who’s up there?
It’s two voices, a man and a girl.
OK, so now you know. It’s a man and a girl.
We’ve been here many years, you longer than me, when have we ever heard a little girl?
How do you know it’s a girl? Maybe it’s just a bird?
Oh sure, so a man and a bird are standing above us talking to each other. Smart, Max, you’re really smart.
Well, what difference does it make? It’s not like they’re digging us up.
I just want to know who’s visiting us. Very few people come to this lousy little cemetery at all and I’ve never heard a girl come to us. Now go find out who they are.
Rose, I’d love to go see who they are for you, really I would. But you see, I’m dead.
Excuses! Send your spirit form up there and take a look.
All right, all right. You want I should scare them away?
No, you schmuck! Be invisible. Just take a peek and let me know who’s up there. Gevalt!
Twenty-seven years she outlived me. Twenty-seven years I had peace and quiet.
I heard that!
OK, let’s see, activate spirit form, turn invisible, float out of the box, up through the ground; WHOA, that sun is bright! Now who do we have here? Ah, it’s him again. Nice boy, a real mensch. Doesn’t forget his elders. But who’s this little cutie? With red hair no less! Who had red hair? Must be his daughter. He’s reading our Hebrew names to her. Mordecai and Raisel. Telling her our journey from Pinsk, Russia, to Chelsea, Massachusetts. Little more than 100 years ago now. Well, anyway, no threat to us. Time to report back to the boss.
He never knew Max, but Rose lived to be 101, long enough to dance the hora at his bar mitzvah and well beyond that. Three years ago, a chance glance at an envelope of documents he’d been given by his aunt a few years earlier revealed Max’s naturalization certificate. It had the date and place of Max’s birth, the date he left the old country, the name of the ship he sailed on, and the date he arrived at Ellis Island. As it turned out, the following year would mark Max’s centennial anniversary of coming to America.
Intrigued by the discovery, he announced to his family that he was going to research Max’s story and asked their help in setting up a commemoration on or near the anniversary of Max’s arrival. He interviewed great aunts and uncles, did research online, and gradually pieced together the story. The czar was conscripting Jews into his army, though otherwise denying them basic rights. Max’s brother left for America and having received word that he was OK, the man known officially as Morche Rubacha soon decided he should go, too.
By that time, Max and Rose were married and had two children – one of whom was Stella’s great-grandfather, Harry. Yet Rose also was pregnant with a third child. Still, a distant Max was preferable to a dead Max, so he went. When he got to New York, his plan was to live with his brother. He had a little difficulty finding him, though, because his brother had changed his last name from Rubacha to Rubin. Max followed suit, also ditching Morche and Mordecai for the simple and quintessentially American “Max”.
Max was a carpenter by trade, and the following year the Great Chelsea Fire of April 12, 1908, destroyed most of the inner urban suburb of Boston. Assuming there would be plenty of work for him, Max left his brother and New York and relocated to Chelsea. Three years later, Rose and their three children finally came to America and rejoined him. They quickly built their family to an eventual 11 children. Longevity being a Rubin trait (actually, it was from Rose’s side, given she outlived Max by nearly three decades), Stella’s father had many primary information sources at his disposal. Interestingly, it was only in beginning his research that his own father told him that Max and Rose were buried a short drive from his house. From that time, he had been a regular visitor.
It’s the blond guy again, with his daughter. Oy, such a shayna punim. And a gingit, too!
You mean, Jason? He’s Harry’s grandson. Paul is his father. I tell you that every time.
OK, so his name is Jason. Look, I was dead before he came. I had a hard enough time remembering my own children’s names.
So what’s with the redhead?
Nothing. She’s cute. A little kid. The red hair must be from your side.
I don’t remember any redheads in my family. Must be from Paul’s wife’s side.
Mildred?
Mildred, you remember, but you don’t remember Jason?
Mildred was alive when I was alive!
Yes, but they have the same coloring. Her mother’s people were from Austria.
They have gingits in Austria?
Well, they’re very fair.
And what? We discriminate? Ho ho ho!
You’re not funny, Max, you’re not funny. You weren’t funny then. You’re not funny now.
Oh, no Rose. That was funny. That was funny!
Longevity had its limits, though. When he was only one year old, his sister, Donna, died of leukemia. She was only seven. Paul and Mildred were devastated, especially Mildred, who could not endure any mention of Donna and would not allow any photos of her to be displayed. He has no memory of her – did not, in fact, know about her until he was about five or six and a friend relayed what he’d been told by his parents – yet he has always felt guilty about having been a needy toddler during a time when his parents were intensely mourning. Surely, he feels, there must have been a pall cast over the house, an interruption in the blissful focus of a deepening parent-child bond.
He never felt unloved, but he did feel loss. His mother became overprotective and he complied with her wishes never to wander far, at least until he was a teenager. If he so much as sneezed, his mother would chase him with a thermometer. When he was older, if he stayed out late, she stayed up late. Yet starting when he was in grade school, night thoughts of death – of laying within a closed coffin forever – brought terrors he could not subdue on his own. He went when he was younger into his parents’ bed; as he got older, he used drugs to clear his mind of the scary images.
In his adolescence he hit upon a new strategy, that Donna was his guardian angel. Close calls on the ball field, fevers that broke, even a rough airplane ride that unnerved even the seasoned flight attendants but landed safely were all evidence that she was watching out for him. Yet still, death was always the enemy. The eternal finality of death was an idea to be fought.
As a young man out of college, hitting the great incline of life, he was moved by being present at a relative’s funeral. He realized that funerals calmed him, gave life meaning even if it settled no great questions about death. The eulogies told him that lives well lived are well-remembered. The rituals brought dignity to the transition from the known world of the living to the unknowable world beyond. Even pure expressions of grief – the clutched tissues of which there never are enough to stem the streams of tears, the babbled words and wails of an elderly spouse now alone – impressed him.
He began attending any funeral or burial in his social circle. He began frequenting cemeteries, visiting and communing with his own lost loved ones. He took comfort in being close to death, but always on the safe side of it. Always he could walk away.
And then he became a parent, and life and death took on new meaning to him. He had to be alive for his children, and yet his love for them was so deep and strong that he knew he would take a bullet for them, would stand in front of a racing car to protect them. He had a fantasy that someone would try to abduct one of his daughters, he would catch the fiend and beat his skull open on the sidewalk. That was how he could adequately express his love for them.
But he did more. He talked to them about his mother, now dead. About Donna. About his grandparents. About Max and Rose. The older one was sensitive and it was kept from her that cemeteries contain dead bodies. But the younger one seized life and knowledge. She knew already, no doubt the older one told her. But she wasn’t scared. She was fascinated. Curious. She wanted to play where dead bodies lay. So she joined him there.
She amazed him. For a long time, he blamed her birth on his financial and marital troubles. But her unceasingly wide-eyed enthusiasm for life captivated him. She may indeed have been the last straw that ended her parents’ marriage, but it was a doomed marriage anyway. She made it possible for them to move on with their lives with less stress, anger, and misery. She made him see that things could be better, that the future was less hopeless and scary. That life was still worth living – and for her sake, to keep on living was essential.
She, then, was herself a demarcation. A demarcation between a painful past and a hopeful future. Between a fear of death and a new appreciation for life.
So, what are they talking about?
Who?
How do you ask such a question? I would strangle you if you weren’t already dead, you aggravate me so much. Jason and the girl, of course!
He’s telling her my story, what else?
Your story, huh? Your story? Your story is not such a story. You came here in a boat. You lived with your brother. You moved to find work. When were you planning on sending for me? After a while I couldn’t wait anymore. I came, not alone, but with three children! Did he mention that?
Yes, he mentioned it. He’s a good kid, may God keep him on that side for many years to come.
It’s good that he tells our story. He’s a real mensch that one. As long as he tells our story, we live. He should know that. He should know that you’re never really dead until you’re forgotten. And you’re never fully alive until you know your history. He should know that.
He knows, Rose. He knows.
There is fascination and there is obsession. Between the two is a line. It may or may not be a thin line. But there is a point, a line, a point along a line, a line of infinite points, across which fascination – which is healthy – becomes obsession – which is not. The subject now is death. The fascination is hers. The obsession is his.
They are now in his apartment, a two-room attic studio on the third floor of a nondescript house on the harder edge of a transitional neighborhood. Down the street is more residential, but his house is on the corner, closer to the business district: a pub, a few convenience stores, a deep-discount supermarket that stocks brand-name seconds and brands that have never advertised themselves anywhere. Just beyond that on the other side of the street is a strip club that is one more knifing away from being closed for good. Amateur night was three nights ago, but he’s not interested – the girls are probably only four years older than his older daughter.
His house, then, is a demarcation point, signifying the split between residential and commercial areas.
He is with his younger daughter, Stella, nearly five, nearly a decade younger than her sister. The difference in age can be explained largely by the mismatched libidos of he and his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Like the lottery commercials say, you have to play to win. Not much chance they’d get pregnant having sex half a dozen times a year. And yes, boom, one day when they least expected it, they got lucky. But luck is relative. Money was already tight, the marriage already in trouble. Tension grew. Eventually, she wanted him out of their bedroom. So he slept in the den for more than a year before finding the cheapest apartment available that was close to his kids.
The wall in the den against which the futon couch that served as his bed stood abutted the bedroom he used to share with his wife. That wall was a demarcation. It separated man and wife; it was a physical symbol of the distance between them.
Now, the older daughter is at school. The wife is working. He is alone with Stella. He is thinking of what they can do together. Just a mile from his apartment is an old Jewish cemetery where his paternal great-grandparents are buried. He decides they should visit. He likes to visit them anyway.
They get ready to leave. She is excited. When she gets excited, she jumps up and down. He tells her she can’t be do that in his apartment. Why? Because there are other people living underneath them. The sound disturbs them. It’s not like her house where the whole place is hers. Here, the floor distinguishes between one tenant and another. It is another demarcation, a boundary of personal space in a place that is only partly private.
They go out his door, down the back staircase, through the side door of the house, and onto a short paved path to the sidewalk. They cross the street to his car and drive to the cemetery. They arrive quickly. The cemetery is small, smaller than a supermarket. The stones are old and covered in a mix of words and symbols, English text and Hebrew text, mold, moss, and lichen. His great-grandparents, Max and Rose, are in the rear. As they walk, Stella starts to skip ahead.
No running, he tells her. Why? It’s not respectful, he says. What do you mean? A cemetery is a place to think about your loved ones who are gone. We don’t run or play here because it can disturb other people. It disturbs the sanctity (he thinks but does not say because she won’t know what the word means). You mean it’s like in your apartment, she asks, why I can’t jump on the floor because I’ll disturb the people downstairs?
He smiles. Yes, it’s the same. You don’t want to disturb the people downstairs. People like Max and Rose, downstairs permanently. The ground, this ground itself, is a demarcation between the living and the dead. And so they walk on to Max and Rose’s resting place, and there he begins to tell her about them.
What’s going on up there?
What?
Someone’s up there, Max. Who is it?
What do you think, I have eyes in my skull? How am I supposed to know who’s up there?
It’s two voices, a man and a girl.
OK, so now you know. It’s a man and a girl.
We’ve been here many years, you longer than me, when have we ever heard a little girl?
How do you know it’s a girl? Maybe it’s just a bird?
Oh sure, so a man and a bird are standing above us talking to each other. Smart, Max, you’re really smart.
Well, what difference does it make? It’s not like they’re digging us up.
I just want to know who’s visiting us. Very few people come to this lousy little cemetery at all and I’ve never heard a girl come to us. Now go find out who they are.
Rose, I’d love to go see who they are for you, really I would. But you see, I’m dead.
Excuses! Send your spirit form up there and take a look.
All right, all right. You want I should scare them away?
No, you schmuck! Be invisible. Just take a peek and let me know who’s up there. Gevalt!
Twenty-seven years she outlived me. Twenty-seven years I had peace and quiet.
I heard that!
OK, let’s see, activate spirit form, turn invisible, float out of the box, up through the ground; WHOA, that sun is bright! Now who do we have here? Ah, it’s him again. Nice boy, a real mensch. Doesn’t forget his elders. But who’s this little cutie? With red hair no less! Who had red hair? Must be his daughter. He’s reading our Hebrew names to her. Mordecai and Raisel. Telling her our journey from Pinsk, Russia, to Chelsea, Massachusetts. Little more than 100 years ago now. Well, anyway, no threat to us. Time to report back to the boss.
He never knew Max, but Rose lived to be 101, long enough to dance the hora at his bar mitzvah and well beyond that. Three years ago, a chance glance at an envelope of documents he’d been given by his aunt a few years earlier revealed Max’s naturalization certificate. It had the date and place of Max’s birth, the date he left the old country, the name of the ship he sailed on, and the date he arrived at Ellis Island. As it turned out, the following year would mark Max’s centennial anniversary of coming to America.
Intrigued by the discovery, he announced to his family that he was going to research Max’s story and asked their help in setting up a commemoration on or near the anniversary of Max’s arrival. He interviewed great aunts and uncles, did research online, and gradually pieced together the story. The czar was conscripting Jews into his army, though otherwise denying them basic rights. Max’s brother left for America and having received word that he was OK, the man known officially as Morche Rubacha soon decided he should go, too.
By that time, Max and Rose were married and had two children – one of whom was Stella’s great-grandfather, Harry. Yet Rose also was pregnant with a third child. Still, a distant Max was preferable to a dead Max, so he went. When he got to New York, his plan was to live with his brother. He had a little difficulty finding him, though, because his brother had changed his last name from Rubacha to Rubin. Max followed suit, also ditching Morche and Mordecai for the simple and quintessentially American “Max”.
Max was a carpenter by trade, and the following year the Great Chelsea Fire of April 12, 1908, destroyed most of the inner urban suburb of Boston. Assuming there would be plenty of work for him, Max left his brother and New York and relocated to Chelsea. Three years later, Rose and their three children finally came to America and rejoined him. They quickly built their family to an eventual 11 children. Longevity being a Rubin trait (actually, it was from Rose’s side, given she outlived Max by nearly three decades), Stella’s father had many primary information sources at his disposal. Interestingly, it was only in beginning his research that his own father told him that Max and Rose were buried a short drive from his house. From that time, he had been a regular visitor.
It’s the blond guy again, with his daughter. Oy, such a shayna punim. And a gingit, too!
You mean, Jason? He’s Harry’s grandson. Paul is his father. I tell you that every time.
OK, so his name is Jason. Look, I was dead before he came. I had a hard enough time remembering my own children’s names.
So what’s with the redhead?
Nothing. She’s cute. A little kid. The red hair must be from your side.
I don’t remember any redheads in my family. Must be from Paul’s wife’s side.
Mildred?
Mildred, you remember, but you don’t remember Jason?
Mildred was alive when I was alive!
Yes, but they have the same coloring. Her mother’s people were from Austria.
They have gingits in Austria?
Well, they’re very fair.
And what? We discriminate? Ho ho ho!
You’re not funny, Max, you’re not funny. You weren’t funny then. You’re not funny now.
Oh, no Rose. That was funny. That was funny!
Longevity had its limits, though. When he was only one year old, his sister, Donna, died of leukemia. She was only seven. Paul and Mildred were devastated, especially Mildred, who could not endure any mention of Donna and would not allow any photos of her to be displayed. He has no memory of her – did not, in fact, know about her until he was about five or six and a friend relayed what he’d been told by his parents – yet he has always felt guilty about having been a needy toddler during a time when his parents were intensely mourning. Surely, he feels, there must have been a pall cast over the house, an interruption in the blissful focus of a deepening parent-child bond.
He never felt unloved, but he did feel loss. His mother became overprotective and he complied with her wishes never to wander far, at least until he was a teenager. If he so much as sneezed, his mother would chase him with a thermometer. When he was older, if he stayed out late, she stayed up late. Yet starting when he was in grade school, night thoughts of death – of laying within a closed coffin forever – brought terrors he could not subdue on his own. He went when he was younger into his parents’ bed; as he got older, he used drugs to clear his mind of the scary images.
In his adolescence he hit upon a new strategy, that Donna was his guardian angel. Close calls on the ball field, fevers that broke, even a rough airplane ride that unnerved even the seasoned flight attendants but landed safely were all evidence that she was watching out for him. Yet still, death was always the enemy. The eternal finality of death was an idea to be fought.
As a young man out of college, hitting the great incline of life, he was moved by being present at a relative’s funeral. He realized that funerals calmed him, gave life meaning even if it settled no great questions about death. The eulogies told him that lives well lived are well-remembered. The rituals brought dignity to the transition from the known world of the living to the unknowable world beyond. Even pure expressions of grief – the clutched tissues of which there never are enough to stem the streams of tears, the babbled words and wails of an elderly spouse now alone – impressed him.
He began attending any funeral or burial in his social circle. He began frequenting cemeteries, visiting and communing with his own lost loved ones. He took comfort in being close to death, but always on the safe side of it. Always he could walk away.
And then he became a parent, and life and death took on new meaning to him. He had to be alive for his children, and yet his love for them was so deep and strong that he knew he would take a bullet for them, would stand in front of a racing car to protect them. He had a fantasy that someone would try to abduct one of his daughters, he would catch the fiend and beat his skull open on the sidewalk. That was how he could adequately express his love for them.
But he did more. He talked to them about his mother, now dead. About Donna. About his grandparents. About Max and Rose. The older one was sensitive and it was kept from her that cemeteries contain dead bodies. But the younger one seized life and knowledge. She knew already, no doubt the older one told her. But she wasn’t scared. She was fascinated. Curious. She wanted to play where dead bodies lay. So she joined him there.
She amazed him. For a long time, he blamed her birth on his financial and marital troubles. But her unceasingly wide-eyed enthusiasm for life captivated him. She may indeed have been the last straw that ended her parents’ marriage, but it was a doomed marriage anyway. She made it possible for them to move on with their lives with less stress, anger, and misery. She made him see that things could be better, that the future was less hopeless and scary. That life was still worth living – and for her sake, to keep on living was essential.
She, then, was herself a demarcation. A demarcation between a painful past and a hopeful future. Between a fear of death and a new appreciation for life.
So, what are they talking about?
Who?
How do you ask such a question? I would strangle you if you weren’t already dead, you aggravate me so much. Jason and the girl, of course!
He’s telling her my story, what else?
Your story, huh? Your story? Your story is not such a story. You came here in a boat. You lived with your brother. You moved to find work. When were you planning on sending for me? After a while I couldn’t wait anymore. I came, not alone, but with three children! Did he mention that?
Yes, he mentioned it. He’s a good kid, may God keep him on that side for many years to come.
It’s good that he tells our story. He’s a real mensch that one. As long as he tells our story, we live. He should know that. He should know that you’re never really dead until you’re forgotten. And you’re never fully alive until you know your history. He should know that.
He knows, Rose. He knows.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
A Mother's Day poem for my mother
Lazy Sundays
by Jason M. Rubin
for Mildred Rubin (1933-1999)
I long for lazy Sundays like I had when I was young
If I had known how fleet they’d be more tightly I’d have clung
I’d wake up not by ‘larm bell rings but rather by the scent
Of onions in a frying pan; I knew just what that meant
A breakfast made by mother dear, the best I’ve ever had
The only morning meal we'd share, we siblings and our dad
Those eggs with onions, bits of lox, and bagels fresh and warm
To fill my plate in those old days I’d weather any storm
I’d watch my father build his bagel piling lox and cukes
Atop a sliced tomato and red onion, no rebukes
In fact I sought to emulate his architect’ral feat
And strained to stretch my mouth so what I’d built I could then eat
My mother served us all, of course, and cheerfully at that
Despite the fact that she had toiled while all of us just sat
Indeed those lazy days I loved were lazy not for her
I’d change that all today if only with us she still were
A poem for my mother, though, is all I can now do
And if you’re reading from above, you know, mom, I love you
On Mother’s Day my thoughts still stray to Sundays I dream of
And to the woman who fed me with lox and lots of love.
by Jason M. Rubin
for Mildred Rubin (1933-1999)
I long for lazy Sundays like I had when I was young
If I had known how fleet they’d be more tightly I’d have clung
I’d wake up not by ‘larm bell rings but rather by the scent
Of onions in a frying pan; I knew just what that meant
A breakfast made by mother dear, the best I’ve ever had
The only morning meal we'd share, we siblings and our dad
Those eggs with onions, bits of lox, and bagels fresh and warm
To fill my plate in those old days I’d weather any storm
I’d watch my father build his bagel piling lox and cukes
Atop a sliced tomato and red onion, no rebukes
In fact I sought to emulate his architect’ral feat
And strained to stretch my mouth so what I’d built I could then eat
My mother served us all, of course, and cheerfully at that
Despite the fact that she had toiled while all of us just sat
Indeed those lazy days I loved were lazy not for her
I’d change that all today if only with us she still were
A poem for my mother, though, is all I can now do
And if you’re reading from above, you know, mom, I love you
On Mother’s Day my thoughts still stray to Sundays I dream of
And to the woman who fed me with lox and lots of love.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Mr. President, please do not publish a bin Laden death photo
Dear President Obama:
I congratulate and thank you for finding and eliminating as a threat Osama bin Laden. By all accounts, our troops undertook a variety of actions to establish that the deceased was indeed Osama. By all accounts, the body was handled with respect to, if not in absolute accordance with, the proscribed death and burial rites associated with Islam. To do both of these things so quickly and efficiently is evidence that every aspect of this operation was considered well in advance of its execution. For this, all involved should be commended.
Surely, though, the question of whether or not to publish a photograph of Osama in death must also have been considered. Perhaps the brisk success of the mission and the near-universal acclaim it has received has provided a window of opportunity to reconsider this question? If so, Mr. President, I respectfully implore you not to release any photographic or videographic evidence of Osama's death and burial you may have.
I understand the reasons why the body was disposed of quickly. I understand that no legitimate nation-states would want his remains in their soil. I understand that rogue entities and terror groups ought not be allowed to make him a martyr. I understand the danger and difficulty of bringing his body back to the U.S. or to a U.S. territory. And I understand that burial within 24 hours was what Muslim practice required.
I do not claim to be an expert on Muslim death rituals, but from what I've heard they appear quite similar to Jewish death rituals, in terms of washing and enshrouding the body without embalming or otherwise seeking to preserve or tamper with it. Soon-as-possible burial ensures it will decompose back to the dust of the earth from which it originally sprang. Jewish custom also prohibits viewing the body except by those entrusted with washing and preparing it for burial, a holy act. This is why open-casket wakes and funerals are not part of Jewish tradition. I can only assume it is so for Muslims as well. In death, the body is naked of its soul. To view it is to disrespect it. I'm not saying that Osama, dead or alive, deserves respect, but when a person passes from its mortal state to the unknown, from its place among humanity to the judgment of Divinity, our work is done.
We have seen over the past decade brutal thuggery and cruelty among our enemies in the Middle East. Bodies have been dragged in public and shown on television, Daniel Pearl's beheading was on YouTube. This is what inhuman savages do with their kills. Vlad the Impaler, inspiration for Dracula, put the heads of his victims on stakes leading up to his castle door. We are not trophy hunters. We are not savages. We made a justified kill. It is over.
There are those who doubt the deceased truly is Osama bin Laden. The Taliban, for example, says that America has shown the world no conclusive evidence. To this I say, So what? Who are we to care what the Taliban says? Why should we be concerned about satisfying the Taliban? If they don't believe it, fine. It doesn't change anything. They won't lay down their arms if shown that he really is dead. And if they doubt, then they have no grounds for retaliation. That's a win/win in my book.
The image, we are told, is gruesome. He was shot above his left eye and part of his skull was blown off. We know what this looks like from the JFK Magruder video. It is unsettling to say the least. Showing this image will only engender sympathy and inspire rage among those who wish to do us harm. Among our friends and allies, our own people and especially the 9/11 families, it will only disgust the masses and disennoble the mission. We believe you, Mr. President, and again, we thank you.
But please, do not release the photo.
Respectfully,
Jason M. Rubin
I congratulate and thank you for finding and eliminating as a threat Osama bin Laden. By all accounts, our troops undertook a variety of actions to establish that the deceased was indeed Osama. By all accounts, the body was handled with respect to, if not in absolute accordance with, the proscribed death and burial rites associated with Islam. To do both of these things so quickly and efficiently is evidence that every aspect of this operation was considered well in advance of its execution. For this, all involved should be commended.
Surely, though, the question of whether or not to publish a photograph of Osama in death must also have been considered. Perhaps the brisk success of the mission and the near-universal acclaim it has received has provided a window of opportunity to reconsider this question? If so, Mr. President, I respectfully implore you not to release any photographic or videographic evidence of Osama's death and burial you may have.
I understand the reasons why the body was disposed of quickly. I understand that no legitimate nation-states would want his remains in their soil. I understand that rogue entities and terror groups ought not be allowed to make him a martyr. I understand the danger and difficulty of bringing his body back to the U.S. or to a U.S. territory. And I understand that burial within 24 hours was what Muslim practice required.
I do not claim to be an expert on Muslim death rituals, but from what I've heard they appear quite similar to Jewish death rituals, in terms of washing and enshrouding the body without embalming or otherwise seeking to preserve or tamper with it. Soon-as-possible burial ensures it will decompose back to the dust of the earth from which it originally sprang. Jewish custom also prohibits viewing the body except by those entrusted with washing and preparing it for burial, a holy act. This is why open-casket wakes and funerals are not part of Jewish tradition. I can only assume it is so for Muslims as well. In death, the body is naked of its soul. To view it is to disrespect it. I'm not saying that Osama, dead or alive, deserves respect, but when a person passes from its mortal state to the unknown, from its place among humanity to the judgment of Divinity, our work is done.
We have seen over the past decade brutal thuggery and cruelty among our enemies in the Middle East. Bodies have been dragged in public and shown on television, Daniel Pearl's beheading was on YouTube. This is what inhuman savages do with their kills. Vlad the Impaler, inspiration for Dracula, put the heads of his victims on stakes leading up to his castle door. We are not trophy hunters. We are not savages. We made a justified kill. It is over.
There are those who doubt the deceased truly is Osama bin Laden. The Taliban, for example, says that America has shown the world no conclusive evidence. To this I say, So what? Who are we to care what the Taliban says? Why should we be concerned about satisfying the Taliban? If they don't believe it, fine. It doesn't change anything. They won't lay down their arms if shown that he really is dead. And if they doubt, then they have no grounds for retaliation. That's a win/win in my book.
The image, we are told, is gruesome. He was shot above his left eye and part of his skull was blown off. We know what this looks like from the JFK Magruder video. It is unsettling to say the least. Showing this image will only engender sympathy and inspire rage among those who wish to do us harm. Among our friends and allies, our own people and especially the 9/11 families, it will only disgust the masses and disennoble the mission. We believe you, Mr. President, and again, we thank you.
But please, do not release the photo.
Respectfully,
Jason M. Rubin
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