home is where...

where you make it, where the heart is, where the heart of the one you love is, where your viola is...
I returned yesterday from a trip home, to many homes. To Jersey City and NYC, to Maryland, where my sister and brother-in-law and their fabulous twins live, to Florida, where my grandmother and aunt and uncle and cousins and their fabulous kids live... I wish to Maine, where my husband's fabulous family lives, but it was not to be on this trip. I return to our new apartment in Givatayim, the first neighborhood I lived in when I moved to Israel almost 2 years ago. I lived with the sweetest woman named Bracha, and certainly she was a blessing. She'd tell me what it was like when she moved to ISrael from Poland in 1935. "I built this country," she said at least 20 times while I lived with her. When it was hot I'd come home and find her in her stockings and bra, laid out on her white leather couch, feet up on the glass coffee table. "It's ok," she said, "as long as it's just you and me."
Now Christopher and I live in a completely renovated shoebox of a place, paying almost 3 times what I paid to share Bracha's lovely, lived-in flat. It's the way of all things, what's going on with apartments in every urban area in the world I guess. Our landlords bought an apartment and split it in two, adding a wall to what used to be a big living room so we have a narrow living room and a narrow bedroom- a studio disguised as a one-bedroom. On this trip I saw that along with the dizzying numbers of high rises and fancy condo buildings going up all over Jersey City, and even Bayonne (when that place gets gentrified... well, you never know. Everyone used to say Jersey City was a slum and look at it now!) two of my three (!) nursery schools are being turned into condos, one of them being Washington Square Church! How weird is it to live in a church, knowing it was ripped apart inside for the likes of the yuppiest people ever?
Anyway, there's much more I could tell of the trip than just to report on the gentrification of the tri-state area. Oh, but on that subject- Red Hook Brooklyn! Wow. I'd never even been there before. My last night in town I drove out with my friend Ed to see the incredible Heather and the Barbarians. (Look them up on myspace for the most gorgeous singer ever, in ever sense of the word). Ed grew up in Brooklyn Heights, and remarked as we drove deeper and deeper into the hood that he used to be afraid to even go near Red Hook because of the wild dogs. Well, now it's all cozy taverns and upscale MExican joints. The show was so so good. I miss that family of mine so much, the Boston crowd. Almost all of whom live in or around NYC now! Really makes it easy for me when I get home. Or, easier anyway. I barely had time to see my friends at all on this trip. It was the second time this year the 4tet had a little US tour, and we played some of our best concerts ever. I had such an awesome time with them. Christopher and I try to take advantage of these tours to see our family and friends since one ticket is paid for, but when it's not a real vacation it makes everything hard. I can't believe the amount I squeezed into the time- a litte over 2 weeks. It was made even shorter by the awfully inconvenient strike, which started an hour before our flight was to leave. I feel bad even complaining about it, even though it was a royal pain in the tush. It was the first time I'd ever even been anywhere during a strike, one that affected me anyway, and I agreed it was necessary... but can't they just strike in a way that doesn't make my plane late?
Anyway, we're playing a project now with Tel Aviv Soloists with one of my all-time heroes, Tabea Zimmermann, leading the orchestra from the principal viola chair. So I need to practice! I'll try to be more... regular in this space. Please keep in touch if you're reading this! I miss everyone back home.

Morning after the last of three concerts in as many days (two on Saturday, one last night)... enjoying a little time off, sad that Christopher has to work all day... tooling around on the internet, found this great interview with Jeffrey Sebelia, who won Project Runway. I miss that show.
I promise more than just links, but my brain isn't at full capacity these days.

Great article on the new wave of old-time bands, featuring the awesome Crooked Still.

Israel's friends

Just saw this piece on yahoo news, about right-wing Christian evangelicals who sailed a boat from Louisiana to Israel. "We had to be nice to these people," port spokesman Yigal Ben-Zikry said. "They're more Zionist than any Israelis I know." Been hearing about these evangelical Israel-lovers (like our President) for a while. In particular, heard that they were some of the biggest donors of the money I got for moving here. I made Aliyah with the help of an Israeli foundation called Nefesh B'Nefesh (soul with soul), but rumor has it the money they gave me came from people who want all the Jews to move to ISrael so the apocalypse will come. Or something like that. Obviously I'm not extremely well-informed on their beliefs here! I do know that some Americans and Canadians who've made Aliyah with Nefesh B'NEfesh's help have donated the money they got to Palestinian right-of-return causes.
I donated my money to my college-loan collectors, and to a trip to Mexico last year. The latter expenditure turned out to have an effect they would have liked. I brought another soul to Israel!

photos, grammar, and farts

You may have noticed I've stopped putting photos up here. My computer hates me, and takes hours eating the photos I try to upload to this. If you want to look at pictures, scroll down to earlier posts. OR check out Christopher's and my* flickr page.
*By the way, any grammar nerds out there know how to deal with this? I remember from English class, if you want to talk about something that belongs to two people, you would say, for example: Molly and Jenn's adventure. If you want to talk about Molly's and Jenn's individual books (which I know each will write some day- though they may do it together too!), you'd say Molly's and Jenn's books. If i'm talking about, say, Christopher and my demonic hellkitten Spinoza, doesn't that sound weird?
Also, another appeal for advice: anyone out there have the experience of the little kids you're teaching (in private lessons) farting all the time? I usually just pretend nothing happened, and maybe, on some pretext like looking for my pencil, take a couple steps back. I wish I could high-five them or make a stupid joke. I don't want them to feel embarrassed, but I was never very comfortable with that whole functioning of the body in public thing. When I was their age I was a champ at holding it in. Then again, I always had awful stomach problems! The whole thing of it being embarrassing is so dumb. Anyone read the BFG? In it, the giants believe it's polite to fart and rude to burp. I could never make it there.

amazing news

I just saw the headline: New Jersey Court Backs Full Rights for Gay Couples. (full article)
Some friends of our family just got married in Massachusetts, and my parents told me that the Rabbi said some moving words about how much it means to be married in the one state where gay couples are allowed to as well. Another friend of mine, after I'd told him about Christopher's and my marriage, shared some of his thoughts on the subject, mentioning that friends of his had opted out because of its not being allowed for everyone. I can't say we had given it so much thought! Or maybe that's not right- we made the choice we wanted to make. But New Jersey is proving, once again, that it's the awesomest state in the nation. It was so meaningful to make our commitment legal at the crazy, crooked-facing City Hall building I walked past every day I lived in Jersey City, for tons of reasons. And now there's another one. I hope the legislature now does what it should and calls a spade a spade. That word is so ---what's the word? I'm wanting to say tantalizing (marriage, not spade. Yikes!) or paralyzing but I mean dividing. Oh, polarizing!! I can't say I have much faith that the elected branch of government can be as brave and forward-thinking as our courts. Guess I'm an elitist.

brilliance

you may have noticed the change in my profile. That's because I did, actually, clean my viola with cough syrup last night. We got back from Masada and the Dead Sea in the afternoon, collapsed for a long nap, I woke up, took out the axe, and saw it needed cleaning. Reaching for the rubbing alcohol bottle, I grabbed another of similar size. And that's the story. I scrubbed away at the fingerboard and strings, thinking the alcohol must have aged and that's why it had changed color. The fingerboard was very shiny, but the rosin at the end by the bridge wasn't coming off. Turns out I was caking it on even more.
Kids, don't clean your viola with sugar-based substances!!!
Luckily, the alcohol got it all off. But there's still a faint smell.
So, that's my news. We went to Petra, Aqaba, MAsada and the Dead Sea since I last wrote, but that's what I felt needed to be shared.
Oh yeah, and that I fell off a skateboard the other day. Christopher was teaching me the basics of going downhill, and when I finally felt I'd mastered them I started for a long run from the top of a very, very shallow hill to go the length of a parking lot. C videoed me on our little camera- I wish I could post video here, because I have to say it's pretty funny. I go by him all smiles then almost at the bottom I "start to go all squirrelly" (C's words) and fall on my face. Or my knee, to be more precise. It hurt. I was worried we couldn't go ahead with our whirlwind Masada trip. But it was fine, and by the time we were climbing I was barely aware of it.
We left Tel Aviv at 3 AM and were at the base of the fortress at 5, the sun just starting to come up. I felt like a true ISraeli, climbing Masada for my third time. My first time, with Birthright, we met a bunch of high school kids at the youth hostel, some of whom were climbing it for their 9th time! We got up quicker than the other two times I'd gone. My second time was with my friend Sara and we took our time, chatting and resting to enjoy the view. Climbing with Christopher, I strangely remembered all the stories Sara had told me on our trip. One was about a documentary she'd seen about a WW2 ghetto in which the women all wore the same dress to get married in. And the dress is still around apparently.
So, random interjection here: Christopher and I were married last March. We had done it for practical as well as emotional reasons. And had been quiet about it because we didn't want any confusion with the "big" wedding.
Figured I needed to write that here sometime.
We will still have a big celebration. More a renewal of vows. But something so I can wear the amazing dress from MY past: my grandmother's dress from the 30's, which my aunt Susan also wore, and preserved so perfectly, you'd think it was just made. So beautiful.
Also, getting back to my "story," had to write that news now so you'd understand when I wrote that I've married a mountain goat. I knew of C's climbing tendencies on the vertical wall. But he left me scrambling behind him going up Masada. It was great to be so challenged- quoting my yoga CD "we often give up before fulfilling our true potential." I definitely didn't think I could get up there that fast, but it was fun. I found the only way I could do it was talking. If I let him get too far away from me so that he couldn't hear my ramble anymore, I would just start focusing on how weak I felt. So I'd chase after him to keep the steady stream of nonsense carrying me.
After we explored the top, yelled into the echo canyon, ate sandwiched and drank bug juice just like a good school group, descended- by the end we had "Elvis leg" from the stress of straight-down on the knees- we went to check out the Ein Gedi Spa, where Sara and I had gone on my last trip. Massages, mud dips, hot springs. All perfect after a crazy early-morning mountain climb and no sleep. But, instead, we slept. In the spa parking lot. And then went to swim in the Dead Sea for free at the local public beach. The water was the most beautiful emerald green. It didn't sting at all on my skateboard scrapes, but hurt like hell on my many scars from Spinoza. He's a beast to us. On our way back, we stopped for Moroccan "harira" soup and salads at this bedouin-tent-style restaurant. MAde it back home in less than 12 hours.
just enough time to clean my instrument.

save the Mexican garter snake!!!

just saw on my yahoo page that they're facing extinction. How sad. Cause they're not cute and cuddly, so you know there's no big international movement to keep them from harm.
Isn't it crazy how many things are going extinct in our lifetimes? The ever faster motion of evolution.
Anyway, we're going to Jordan tonight. And I'm so excited for this little vacation, I've put on this girly disco-dancing music even though I'm all done packing. Now I'm sort of just typing so I can keep listening to this old Stereolab song my high-school idol and queen bee Shannon Hughes put on a mix for me waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy back in the day. When mix meant tape. Where is Shannon Hughes now? Can anyone tell me? I'm so much of who I am because of her. She's probably why I always think at first that the people who end up being my best friends hate me. And why I'm scared of people. But I love her!!! If anyone has any knowledge of her whereabouts please tell me.
We're going to see Petra, of Indiana Jones fame. I can't wait. I'll post pictures (if you're lucky).

it's a new year

So the year has changed. It's like 557890 now. I have no idea actually. I made a dumb joke to Christopher the other day about how lucky Jewish Chinese people living in America are. Three new years.
On Thursday the quartet recorded some songs for a pop singer here, Daphna Dekel. Hilla told us that she's Itamar's(her five-year old) favorite singer. During the war, she made a song for kids about how soon everyone will be hugging each other and we'll all live in peace. Hilla said the video was on TV three times a day, and every time, Itamar dragged her in front of it and told her she had to watch it again because it was such a beautiful song. When you're recording string tracks, usually the singer isn't even there, but Daphna stayed through the whole session, and kept offering to bring us coffee. She was probably the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, and I secretly made a plan to go over to Hilla's so I could sit on the couch and watch with Itamar. Every time she'd stick her head in, I'd nudge Hilla, like, "get her autograph for Itamar!!" How happy would you be if you found out you were a five-year old's favorite? I guess when you get to a certain level of fame, you just know you're popular with a lot of kids. But it's got to always feel good.
One of my students in Jerusalem has, well the only way I've found to put it is a "little-girl crush" on me. Whenever she plays, even if she should be looking at the music, she's looking up at me to see my expression. It makes me giggle, and when I giggle she giggles, and it's a very funny vibe for a lesson. Both of us like, awww, she likes me. She's 8, and practices everything I give her. I've never had a studio before, I've only subbed for friends. That feeling, when the kids comes in and has practiced? Priceless. Now I understand everything! And on the other hand, when you have a kid who clearly doesn't want to play at all, it's torture. Luckily, my one student who was like that decided she wanted to play guitar. I tried to find music at her level that was fun to play, to draw her in. I tried playing for her. I tried simple duets we could play together. And I liked her a lot, she was sweet and funny. But I'm not doing this for the money, you know? I wish I could make someone want to play who doesn't, cause we should have little kids everywhere playing. There should be orchestras in every school. But classical music is so irrelevant to most little kids' lives now. It's super sad to say, but true. That New Yorker article I mentioned before is great because it talks about a program that's introducing music to kids in an awesome way- through ensemble playing. It's so classic, the kid who can't play with his friends cause he has to practice. Alone. There's this self-fulfilling culture of isolation in classical music. The other program mentioned was a school big band in Newark, where the teacher encourages kids to arrange music they listen to, stuff on the radio, to play in school. I will never forget Lenny Smith, who taught me to play "Boom Boom Boom Let's Go Back to my Room" on my violin while we were on a Synagogue retreat in the Poconos. I was 8. When I played a bit of Dvorak's "Humoreske" for my 10-year old viola student, telling her it was the next piece I was going to give her, she exclaimed, "That's a cell phone ring!"

wire interviews

I just discovered a little treasure-trove archive of interviews with heroes of mine. I can say I've been in the same room as all these people except for Le Tigre, but I have faith that will happen someday. I want to choreograph dances for them to do at our quartet concerts
Anthony Braxton
"I feel very grateful that I discovered early the role models that will allow me to work for the rest of my life - and still be frustrated."
Steve Lacy
"I don't care whether it's Dixieland, Flixieland, Pixieland, or a private or public joke or no joke at all - if it's alive, I'm for it."
Lee Perry
"I introduced dub because I knew it was the roots of the heartbeat. The drum represent your heartbeat, the bass represent your mind and brain. I'm a heart and brain protector, and I'm a projector. I'm also an inspector, a director and imitator. The liquidator and Exterminator."
Le Tigre
"Right when I was figuring out I had a voice I was told I had to speak in tongues."

"who took the bomp from the bompalompalomp?/who took the ram from the ramalama dingdong?"

links and run-on sentences

I've taken on something that's going to be very hard for me. I agreed to teach 4 violinists and 2 violists at the Hasadna Conservatory in Jerusalem. I'll be teaching little kids who most likely speak no English. Since I haven't been at Ulpan (Hebrew class) for more than a year, and speak English with almost everyone I know here, I'm throwing myself into the fire. Also, I've never taught on a regular basis before. I couldn't believe they were willing to hire me with the experience I've had, subbing for friends here and there, teaching at a couple of chamber/orchestra camps, and giving comments in my viola professors' studio classes at school- which everyone has to do anyway! The most difficult part of it all will be the twice a week commute to Jerusalem and back, effectively taking away two whole afternoons.
It feels like a turning point because I've always paid my rent as a freelancer. Even after joining this quartet it's been the same; we live gig-to-gig. I have friends who have tons of students, enough to know that it could be a lot worse than 6! I'm looking forward to building relationships with these kids and learning from teaching them. The thing that most convinced me to take this job was the school itself. It reminded me a lot of Third Street, the little community music school in the East Village that I went to from age 5 till high school graduation. On the way to the office where my interviews were I stepped over kids building wooden and cardboard sets, and saw flyers for dance and theater performances. In the room where I met with the director of the school, tons of rental violins leaned against each other in the corner, each with a nametag on the case. The school occupies part of the second floor of a large old school building on Emek Refaim, the main street of the "German Colony" neighborhood, which should be renamed the American Colony (that already is a very different neighborhood on the other side of Jlem). Almost all the Americans I knew who stayed in Israel this past year lived in apartments there or very close-by. I'd actually been in the outer room of Hasadna's office before, when my friend Miki led the Saturday-morning service for an egalitarian (aka men and women have equalrights in leading the service and can sit together) minyan (congregation, at least 10 people big). I think that swayed my decision. I'd already witnessed a warm and friendly community in that space.
Speaking of community music, my Mom's been telling me about a New Yorker article this week by their brilliant critic Alex Ross about community chamber music initiatives all around the country. I haven't read it yet (it's not online sadly) but it sounds awesome. Everyone go out and rent a storefront and put on chamber music recitals.
The most amazing moment of the short run of "Music from Blue Hill" concerts I put on in the park near my house in Jersey City was when two kids rode up on bikes in the middle of one of the early movements, and stayed till the end of the piece. I can't remember which piece it was now, maybe the Mozart C-major quintet, but it was so amazing. We were up in the round, open gazebo, and the kids' heads were, like, on the level of our feet. They stayed exactly where they were the whole piece, right next to the gazebo, not moving to where the audience's chairs were set up for a better, more head-on view.
Checking out the New Yorker website for that article, I found a great 1964 profile of Bob Dylan by Nat Hentoff, one of my old heroes. I got into him for the jazz liner notes and stayed with him for the politics. His were the only columns in the Village Voice I consistently read besides the La Dolce Musto (occasionally!!) and Free Will Astrology. Googling him I found out he's become a pro-life activist! It seems like some people are so radical, they want to be radical to the radicals. Or, that's the only way I can explain it, maybe just the ornery-ness of a crotchety old dude. OR maybe it's just what he believes, but that's the hardest of all for me to swallow.
"I love you so much Freddy . . . even if you are stinky sometimes." That's definitely not from the New Yorker. pet fashion week.
today is the end of my vacation which means it's the end of this kind of unchecked web wandering.
If anyone reading happens to be a music educator themselves, please post. I'd love to get a dialogue going about teaching music to kids, or at least get advice from the experts!!

some fun

pictures from around Tel Aviv, the top two from when my Dad was visiting and we took him to the local park where we often hang out. The kids there are super cute. Also Christopher skating at the Motorola building near our house. I was sitting on the steps writing letters while he was skating, in view of the security cameras, and a cop drove up to tell me I couldn't sit there. Didn't say anything to C about the skateboard.
That other one, well, that's just to make your day.

beautiful things

I have a story about my dear friend Matana that has become legend in my own anthology. Years ago, while we were both still in Boston, she showed up one day with her saxophone case absolutely covered in a collage of billions of bits of paper. It was beautiful. Still is, she still has that, and it's faded into this kind of radiant, glue-soaked antique yellow. Anyway, when I commented on it that day, she told me it had taken her 6 hours to do. Now, Matana was, like BORN busy! I'd never heard of her spending 6 hours doing anything that wasn't playing her saxophone, and I exclaimed as such. She replied that it's important to her that everything in her life be beautiful, so it was worth however long it took.
That story has inspired me so much.
I often stop myself from daydreaming, or doing things like origami or drawing my hands, because it's not productive. And now I have to fight with an even more "waste-of-time" addiction: Project Runway. Christopher and I have been watching it on Itunes (he says he downloads it for me, but I know he's super into it, too!!) It's the first show, ever, that I've felt connects with my life. I know, it's fake, it's a fake competition, but the way everyone's in this little bubble, with nothing but each other and their creative impulses and their insecurities... Seeing how each reacts to the pressure, how different some people's creations become compared to what they show at the beginning, the things they made before they were put in a petrie dish.
Plus, um, I love clothes.
When the quartet was in Singapore, we were grabbed by a palm-reader while strolling in touristy Chinatown. He said he'd show us his gifts with free "previews." From my hand he told me that I will be happiest in front of many people, "thousands of people, millions of people." I was a little embarrassed about that, it's like I'm embarrassed that he basically said I'm a performer! That's the thing about performing. I've always loved it, and I guess it was obvious to everyone but me. Like, when my mom and I went to see the Joffrey Ballet Nutcracker when I was 5, I brought my tutu and shoes so I could do a little after-performance show on the stage. It seemed completely natural to me at the time- hey, we were paying for classes at Joffrey anyway, so I deserved to be on that stage as much as anyone. Or the time we went to some kids' show, by a clown or something, and I just had to wear my new... nightgown. With cabbage patch kids on it. And then, of course, when the clown or whoever was searching the audience for volunteers, I waved my hands crazily, and my mom got to witness her daughter onstage in front of a whole bunch of people, in her pyjamas.
And then again, I wonder if these stories that have become legends to me, if they're not apocryphal and built up by my own imagination combined with need for a remarkable life or something. I've been known to do that before. For years I had it in my head that my parents met hitchhiking, that my mom picked my dad up on a road in or around Chicago. Totally not true. Or the memory I've always considered to be my first- of Mt Ranier in Washington from the backpack baby-holder, looking over my Dad's head- maybe that was just an early product of seeing a photo of those rainforests, being told I was there when only a year and a half old, and fabricating my own narrative for it.
At any rate, I have all these stories, I have all this proof that I was quite the performer when I was little. And then years and years of performance anxiety to make me doubt that. So much so that I'd judge what I was meant to do by how not-scared I felt doing it. Which is why when I got into improvising at NEC I thought that was it, I wouldn't return to classical music, because I got so much less nervous in the bands I was playing in. And then, when I did the audition with the quartet, it was such a fun and relaxed experience, I was overwhelmed. Pretty much every single audition I'd done before that I'd nearly had a heart attack, or gone "blind" so that I had no idea how I'd played or behaved.
I recently re-read an article by viola goddess (there's really no other word for her) Karen Tuttle called "'Staying Open' = Projection= Musical Excitement" about opening the capacity to projection in viola students, or more generally, any students. "When we are born we communicate directly," she writes. "If we can retain this directness, we can project. A healthy person insists from infancy, 'If it does not feel good, it is wrong.'" (sounds like I make decisions on the opposite supposition- "if it doesn't scare the crap out of me, it's ok") "He allows his body to flow with love, anger, joy or sorrow wholeheartedly and shamelessly as it did in infancy..." OK, I could type this whole article here, it's so inspiring. It's from a 1985 issue of "American String Teacher," that I copied from Karen Ritscher, my teacher at Mannes who studied with Tuttle (by the way, having a name that starts with K, or a hard C for that matter, seems to help one's viola career enormously!!)
I went to this article after Christopher was telling me about some of the methods he's being taught in his training at Berlitz, where he was hired to teach English. One thing they said is that body language and tone of voice are vastly more important than content. That bothered me, until I started thinking about it. You can't really "teach" anybody anything, I mean, you can't force it into their brain. But if you present it to them in a way where they feel open and respected and nurtured, that's huge.
I realize this is insanely messy, this train of thought I've been following. Hmm, let me see if I can sum up. I like beautiful things? I've been on vacation so I've had more time to think about these things and satisfy my hunger for them. I'm on the path to maybe someday actually being creative with the origami, making my own folds as opposed to just following patterns. I've gotten mad into watercolor. Yesterday I completely rearranged our living space, so it feels much more warmer and home-like. Christopher and I have mused on how cool it would be to, someday, take a pattern- and clothes-making class at a community college or something so we can act on all our discussions on creativity and design that have been going on since long before we started watching this silly reality show.
By the way, I was just checking my Oaxaca pics on this to make sure I put that great one of Christopher doing a handstand on the beach, and I can't believe I put two of the stray dogs there. I gotten bitten in the butt by a dog on that trip! What can I say, I'm such a sucker.

In memoriam

Yesterday morning I went online to get the address of the recording studio I had to go to from my email. There was a message from the New England Conservatory Alumni Association mourning "the loss of Andrew Starr Kyte." Andy Kyte and I were at NEC at the same time. We were friends, but more like we had good mutual friends. We never were close. When you lose someone you didn't know very well and all of a sudden find yourself really missing them... the temptation to poetics and melodrama is big. I always liked him, always found him interesting and smart and funny. The thing is, though, I think I always worried about Andy, even though I never got the story from him about what he was going through. He loved a lot of things and involved himself in them, but he also had something distant about him. He could be like a lamb in wolf's clothing- scathing, funny, sarcastic, but there was a quietness, a kindness in the way he listened. For my graduation recital I got an orchestra together to play Hindemith's "Der Schwanendreher" a viola concerto. I asked Andy to play first horn, and he also got together most of the rest of the brass. True to form, the brass players all had the best time in rehearsals, joking about everything, laughing at the back of the orchestra. I remember having some issues with the conductor, who had very different ideas about the piece than I did, and often times Andy would speak out in my defense, in his own way, like "Dude, it's her recital!"
I don't know. this is all very random and stream of consciousness, I know, and I feel like I almost don't have a right to speak about him since we weren't close. Like, what do I know, what did I ever do for him? I guess this is that feeling you get when you lose your chance to get to know someone better. And I'm also feeling so much for my friends who I DO know well, who did know him well, and are now mourning and feeling the loss so acutely.
Meanwhile, there's all this going on here. I feel even less of a right to speak about it. It's shown me what a tenuous connection I have to this country. I feel more shame about this war going on than anything. I understand the necessity of defense, of attack even. But why so much death?
Some people Christopher and I have talked to have said they didn't continue to go to the reserves because they knew they wouldn't be put into combat units. Like the only reason to be part of the Army is to kill people. From a different generation of ISraelis you hear about how their friends from the Army are their friends for life, how it's a necessary part of being an Israeli. I've heard this quote from someone: "If the Arabs put down their guns there would be no more war. If the Israelis put down their guns there would be no more ISrael" HAve I put that up here before? I used to believe it, but now I don't know. I feel like the guns could bring about the end of this country much faster than diplomacy would.
Meanwhile Christopher and I have fun as much as we can. We play frisbee, basketball and chess, go rock climbing, and read books to each other. We paint, and I've been doing origami again. Right now The Goonies is on in the other room. I'm going to go watch it and try to just enjoy the day, try to resist the constant urge to put on the news as much as possible.

squid and the whale

Oh yeah, in response to Judd about this movie: I thought it had such potential, but all it showed was the disfunctional side of every relationship in the movie. I felt about it the opposite of what I felt about Munich. In that, I thought Spielberg's editor did nothing about all the unnecessary scenes and storylines, and the movie was way too long for it. It would have been really good otherwise. Squid and the Whale felt way too short, and not funny when it was meant to be but rather disturbing. that being said, I also super appreciated the Museum of Natural History's Blue Whale playing such a pivotal role. That thing used to scare the daylights out of me! I was afraid to go out from under the overhangs by the wall in the sea creatures hall because I was afraid it would fall on me. Sort of like how I would hide under the little desk at the ticket window at the center of the Great Hall at Grand Central Station because I was afraid of high ceilings: afraid my shoulders would grow wings which would be out of my control and fly me to the ceiling and leave me there. For real. That fear lasted a very long time.

tomorrow tomorrow

I've been biting my nails more than ever. And at first it wasn't about what's been going on this week. Tomorrow morning is Christopher and my big meeting at the Ministry of Interior, to get him working papers and health insurance- just some of the benefits of citizenship. If you're not Jewish, this country makes you wait 4 and a half years with an orange "Temporary Resident" ID (the same ID Palestinians who are allowed to work here get) before you get the "full" rights I got upon landing at Ben Gurion last year when I made Aliyah. Of course, even then, I doubt he'd get the 76% discount on a new car or the check in his bank account every month... Right now what we're really interested in is that work permit and health insurance. And they make it hard. We have a stack of papers 3 inches thick to bring in. And still it's not certain, even though we have (seemingly) everything they've asked for- a list that differs depending on whom you talk to and which color paper they give you.
So that's been stressful. But this new offensive up north. Christopher asked me this morning if I didn't think something like this would happen when I moved here. I knew about the suicide bombings, but on our Livnot trip, when I first was here, I heard about the highest tourism rate in 20 years, about the new calm, and the Disengagement seemed to lead towards that as well. I remember a few years ago I played a gig in New Hampshire, and the orchestra put me up with this absolutely lovely couple who had an incredible house on a lake (and the best in-house art collection I've ever seen!). The husband was British and the wife German. One night after a dinner of swordfish, we sat up talking till 1 or 2 in the morning. They told me how they'd each come to the states, and how the US represented the best possible place they could be. Somehow we started talking about Judaism, and they were surprised that a Jew could show so little interest in Israel. Really, before I ended up here, it meant almost nothing to me. A symbol, a source of a lot of names in the prayerbook, but a problem in its decisions and treatment of its neighbors. And anyway, I'd had enough positive Jewish experiences at Havurah and Kol Zimrah and Jews in the Woods to feel like the spiritual home is where the heart is. Simple as that. But then the couple started into how they felt like nothing would end well in the conflict here. "How can it?" the wife asked. "There's no solution." I felt, and very fervently, the opposite. "It has to end well," I said. "There's no other choice."
Hmm. Maybe the first strong feeling I ever had about this place? And now. I'm reading for the very first time all the news text messages my cell phone company sends me (in Hebrew). Christopher and I have watched news clips from the international press, as well as videos from all kinds of points of view put up on youtube.com. Wow, if you want to see some disturbing stuff, read the comments people put up on the videos of Israeli settler violence. One person wrote that seeing that, he understood why Hitler would want to kill all these people. On the other side, there were all sorts of "F*ck Arabs" and throw them in the sea sort of stuff. People feel so strongly about this all over the world, while right in the country it takes a lot to get people to really listen to the news. That's happening now. Thursday night, my quartet rehearsal was punctuated by lots of discussions among ourselves about the escalation. Our roommate Shai is not only watching the news all the time, he's on the phone to friends at the same time, discussing it. He and most of his friends are from the Kiryot, a group of small towns north of Haifa, at least one of which has already been hit (and where my father famously got lost driving at night while he was here visiting with us! The towns are so small and off the beaten path I guess, they stop putting English on the road signs) so you can understand why they're keeping touch so well.
As with my whole connection to this country, I'm reserving judgment until tomorrow. If they don't let my love stay here and work here and contibute all he has to offer to their people, I can't imagine why I would want to stay. On top of that, I don't know if how bad I want to let things get before I get on a plane. I do feel a tremendous, albeit confusing connection to this country. I am smitten, wholeheartedly in love with my quartet more than anything. I am so lucky to get to play with them. I am also so unbelievably lucky that the man I love came all the way from across the world to be with me, and he did think about these things happening before he came! But my family and spiritual center are elsewhere.

diatribes

The other day an old friend of mine sent these questions. I'm putting them up here along with what I wrote back to him because I found them thought-provoking. Anyone reading this, feel free to post opinions or questions.
(Ed:) Hearing constant criticism of Israel here in NY makes me wonder about what the young people in tel-aviv are thinking these days. I know there was that show that parodied Sharon, with a guy in a fat suit, it was supposed be very popular. But are people pissed off at the government? At Abbas? Europe? Everyone? No-one? Have you met any arabs living in tel-aviv? If so are they totally alienated? Or do they feel they are treated fairly? (or are there even any there??)

(me:) People here view the world media as being very pro-Palestinian and anti- Israeli. Israelis are always quick to say that no one criticizes the Israeli government more than they do. Which may be true, but when it comes to actually doing anything about it, there's so much bickering nothing gets done. But also it's really hard, because the media shows them literally nothing of what's on the other side of the fence. They have no idea what it's like to be Palestinian. So when all they see is rockets and bombs and kidnappings, they get all super supportive of the army even though the culture of it seems to be fading. It's easier now to get out of it. In my quartet only one of them served, and she was in the army string quartet and fired a gun once in basic training. People love Sharon, especially since he went into a coma! It's like Rabin all over again, they think they lost the one person who could do the job. What they don't see is that even Sharon wasn't willing to go the rest of the way after Disengagement, to make the rest of the sacrifices necessary, and if anything Olmert was doing better. Now I don't know. The whole thing going on now makes me so angry at both sides- whatever, nothing new. What pisses me off is that it's been all about the kidnapped soldier and the killed settler was like nothing big, because he was a settler so everyone in the world media and in ISraeli media has this attitude like he was asking for it.
And in terms of Arabs in Tel Aviv, I've met none, but I've seen a few, mostly at the University actually. Every time I see them I get happy. This city is so segregated. Or, just Jewish, barely anything to segregate!
In terms of the show with the actor in the fat suit, I think Ed is referring to "Eretz Nehederet," or "Gorgeous Country," which is a really funny fake-news/sketch-comedy show. On my last El Al flight, from Bangkok, they had a little video on the lady who does makeup for it, and showed the brilliant transformations she was able to effect.

By the way, a couple of things. The other day I was at my friends Hilla and Alex's house, and noticed all their clocks were much faster than my cell phone clock. I like to have a couple of clocks set fast to get my butt in gear, but I usually keep that at what I think is "Tel Aviv Mean Time" or whatever just so I know what's real. But more and more it's seemed that that one's been slower than all the other clocks. Now the phone could just be getting slow, or I could have messed up in setting it, but it made me think of how in classical music, A keeps getting higher. When I was a kid we learned A was 440. Now it's almost always 442, and the summers I spent in Germany it was 443, 444, sometimes even 445! It's like the clocks of the world are following that higher-tension pitch trend, and everyone's trying to get there faster.
Also, one of the homesick-type feelings I've felt since I got here was that I was missing out on all the big movies of the last year, since they come out earlier in the states, and I never have time anyway to see them. Well, Christopher and I have been watching a bunch of movies, including some of the big hyped ones. They're all so bad it makes me angry! Like, how's everyone been duped all this time! King Kong sucked. Million Dollar Baby sucked. The Squid and the Whale, which was supposed to be this great independent film made by a guy who normally works with Wes Anderson, one of my favorites, sucked. There are more, but those are the ones that made me most indignant. I'm going to stop reading movie reviews because there must be something in the water that's making people desperate, and liking movies they'd obviously hate if they had any sense. (Now I know I'm being very mean. It's my way or the highway!)

Spinoza

We got a kitten. (I just typed "We got a mitten") His name is Spinoza. Also, my Dad's been visiting for the last 3 weeks. And tonight I'm flying to Singapore with the quartet. I promise to write a proper thingy from there, but here's some shots of the star of our home.

rushed

This is going to be rushed and have a lot of typos. I'm on break from rehearsal at Hilla's house. WE're learning Quartettsatz, and I couldn\t be happier after literally a month of nothing but Elvis Costello. Who's amazing, don't get me wrong, but you know... I needed a little Schubert to wake me up. A Little Schubert. The title of an adorable kids book I grew up with that I'm planning on translating into Hebrew for Itamar, Hilla's 5-year old. We premiered this theater piece of Costello's "Juliet Letters" last week, and after a pretty hellish couple of weeks of rehearsals, it came together somehow, and the audiences were all over it! Which is a blessing and a curse, cause I want to move onto other things, play more thorny, difficult contemporary music. But if there's demand for it, we'll be playing this a lot, maybe even on tour, which I'm not so psyched about.
speaking of touring, tomorrow Christopher and I board a bus to Eilat, Israel's Atlantic City, along with the rest of the Solanei Tel Aviv chamber orchestra. And their significant others- the whole reason we're all doing this concert is the 3 nights hotel stay, and being fed, and being near the beach. And hopefully getting to scuba dive again in the red sea. I did it for the first time in Dahab, Sinai, last month, and it was so amazing, every time I close my eyes I'm still underwater above the reef, the surface a glimmering roof over my head, oddly shaped and brilliantly colored fish everywhere around and below me. So sad about Dahab. We had such a great time there and truly felt it was the safest, coziest, happiest place. I'll put up pictures of our 3 hour camel ride soon.
Now it's back to Schubert.
love to everyone back home!!!

two days later

The other day I heard a man blow himself up.
I didn't want that to be what I wrote about first thing in more than a month on this. I was planning on writing about how I voted in the Israeli election. Then I was planning on writing about Christopher and my trip to Sinai. But I just hadn't gotten around to it. Then there was the bombing at the Old Central Bus Station. Nine people killed, not including the 18-year old suicide bomber. His final pictures were set in front of a peaceful, autumnal New England landscape, the type of landscape I get more homesick for than I do for the streets of Jersey City. C and I watched "Paradise Now," the Palestinian-made movie about two suicide bombers, some weeks ago. We were thinking about it the other night when we walked up to the park at the top of our street, where Christopher likes to skateboard and we sometimes throw the frisbee around, to watch the sun set over Tel Aviv. We can see the whole city from there, glittering in its disco lights. It's quite a different view from what the two men see, their town of Nablus in the West Bank. The most affecting moment of the movie is when they get dropped off in Tel Aviv and look at the super-modern white-stone architecture, the women in bikinis rollerblading at the beach, the happy families with their dogs. This place is so small, it's hard to believe how many people can't and don't ever leave their hometowns, or home refugee camps, and never see this metropolis maybe 15 miles away.
Anyway, the bombing happened right as I ran out of the New Central Bus Station, where we've been having rehearsals, to meet Christopher for lunch. He was inside looking for me. I heard a loud, clumsy-sounding, as in, it had a couple parts to it, boom. Now, whenever I hear a boom here my first thought is, bomb. This time, after less than a minute, sirens filled the air and ambulances and all sorts of police vehicles filled the streets. C and I went to get sushi at a place in our neighborhood we'd never been before. My cell phone, which I'd had on silent for the rehearsal, was full of calls and messages from the girls in the quartet, who'd heard about the bombing while they were still in our rehearsal room. They knew that where it happened is on the way to my place, and that I was biking home as usual, and wanted to know I was safe. So that was when I heard what happened.
I miss baseball. I miss my cats, all the comforts of my parents' house. I miss the subway and the people I love to see in New York. I miss not having to worry about the people I love being hurt.
Nightmarish visions of the future make every city like this. Maybe this is an escalation, and maybe soon many more places will be. It's not all of Israel that you feel this immediacy of danger, that you feel yourself always at the middle of someone's bulls-eye. I'd say a majority of it, you still feel that magic of a just-discovered Eden. It's easy to forget here that it was settled through colonization. I'm not saying -AT ALL- that I agree or even sympathize with people who blow themselves up to hurt Israel, or with people who say this place shouldn't be here. Everybody needs a homeland, that should be the lesson of this place, and the history that led to its founding.
I'm probably not making any sense. It was an interesting experience leading up to voting. There are a lot more choices here than in the states. I wanted to vote for Hadash, the only party in Israel that is both Arab and Jewish. It's a communist party, at that. Ultimately, though, it was like choosing Gore over Nader. the coalition government means that smaller parties have almost no voice, even though their appeal is so great to us idealists. The pensioners' party, founded and peopled by all retirement-age people, ended up doing well among young, artsy people like me, and doing far better than expected. They benefited in a way from the low turnout. A lot of people who hadn't planned on voting, when they heard late in the day that Avoda, the Labor Party, had secured a strong place in the coalition, decided they could afford to vote idealistically, and threw their support behind this admirable cause: raising the average pension from Israel's current abysmally low 1,500 shekels a month- about $300. But I didn't think that far ahead, or wait that long, and decided to vote Avoda, both to support their frontman Amir Peretz, whom I like, and to make sure there was a strong left next to Sharon's Kadima, which was certain to win the most seats. The voting place, a school, was surrounded by banners and flags, with people for all the right-wing and religious parties like Shas, Likud, and the new ones, Israel Beiteinu ("Israel Our Home") and Zazim Yemina ("Moving Right"), many of them blasting dance music from boomboxes. It was a very funny scene for me and C, a circus to Americans used to the dignified silence that surrounds voting stations in the states. Inside, I gave my Tehudat Ze'ut, my national ID, to some people at the front desk, and they told me to which room I'd been assigned. They asked why Christopher wasn't voting, and I said, "Next year! He hasn't made Aliyah yet." He waited with his book as I went to my assigned room, where a row of four people sat at schooldesks, checked off my name, and held on to my Tehudat Ze'ut, I guess as collateral that I would vote correctly. I sat behind a desk with a large posterboard blocking me from their view. In front of me on the desk were about thirty stacks of pieces of paper, each emblazoned with a powerful, short word. On the posterboard was a key to what each word stood for: Power for Likud, Yes for Kadima, Truth for Avoda... That was easy, since Truth starts with an Aleph and they were arranged alphabetically. I put the paper in the blue envelope the folks at the desks had given me, sealed it, left my little hidden desk, and in front of the four of them, put the envelope into a big cardboard box. I felt like I was acting in a classroom play about the democratic process.
As Christopher and I rode our bikes away from the school, people still tried to give us fliers convincing us to vote for whatever. One religious man, a Dosi in the Israeli-Yiddish parlance, shouted at me, "Return to the Answer!" (the Hebrew naming of people who've become religious, like borne-again for Christians) "Stop wearing pants! Stop riding a bicycle! Observe the Shabbat!" I laughed as I pushed by him, thinking about how C and I had bought candlesticks at the Flea Market in Jaffo just the week before for our own Friday night observance. He probably wouldn't believe me.

the news

So. I haven't written in a while. And here I am, sitting in Ben Gurion airport, surrounded by stressed people with luggage, and this is the most time I've had to type in my computer since... since the last post I think! Definitely since before Christopher came to Israel. The quartet was gearing up in preparation for this trip we've been working towards for months now, and meanwhile I had my love here, first time in the country, doesn't speak Hebrew (then again, neither do I, almost) and so so exciting. He loves it here, and for the first time, the place feels like home to me! Well, he was here for a month. And during that time, it's hard to write about since now we're on to a new phase- but it was pretty incredible the level of connection. I mean, that was already clear in Mexico, when we met. Anyway, I'll get to the point: we're engaged! I've been looking forward to finding a way to break the news up here, but this stream of consciousness ramble will have to do for the time being. On top of having my Quartet in my Home, and the whirlwind of concerts and auditions, meetings and lessons we had, the real impression from this 2-week (!!) jaunt is the amazing love our parents and families showed me and Christopher. There's nothing I can compare to meeting someone and knowing they are GOING to be your father-in-law! Or brother in law, etc etc. I'm returning to Israel a new person, strengthened by all this new family. Also by all the love our friends have shown us, too, but unfortunately we barely got to see any friends on this trip, since meeting the families was the priority.
sigh. Living so far away really sucks sometimes.
Maybe I'll be able to give more specifics when I next write. For now I'll just include some pictures from our wonderful little trip up north. These of us were by the falls in the Yehudiyah Forest, in the Golan Heights, easily (by my lights) the most beautiful corner of Israel. The Landmines sign was not far from there, outside a field that seemed to be swallowing, or drowning, some old rusty farm trucks. The sunset was the night before, when we drove up to the extreme north to check out Mount Hermon, the only place in Israel where people ski and ice-skate.
I'll put up some more pictures soon. It's been a whirlwind back here in Israel, too, since two good friends came and stayed with me during the time before and after Christopher came. I'm dying for an Afooch, though, Hebrew (or, in this case, maybe I should say Israeli) for cappucino. Means literally "Upside-down." Sort of describes my state of mind right now! In a good way.

Oaxaca pics, 3

shots of Elisa and Christopher with adorable stray dogs. We were suckers, even after a (domesticated) dog, saw me as a walking T-bone steak.
The beautiful and singular John Altieri. So glad to catch up with such a dear Eastman friend on this trip...
Christopher's stupendous one-hand-stand.
me+ elisa.

Oaxaca pics, 2

These are from the beach and New Years' Celebration.
Notice I forgot my camera for all the "important" moments: the wedding. Visiting Monte Alban, this amazing flattened mountaintop that's home to incredible ancient Mixtec ruins. The New Years Eve dinner. The little town we stayed in, Puerto Angel's city-wide dance party, which began at 2AM on New Years Eve and featured about 3 stories worth of speakers blasting Mexican dance music... but I still managed some entertaining shots. Impossible not to considering the landscape and the phenomenal people I met. Up top is me and Rebecca. That cactus-topped house overlooked the cove we all swam in- where some of the guys got stung by black Urchins when they tried to climb onto the rock ruled by Rebecca, Elisa and myself. The punishment of Sirens Rock, we figured. Then you see the bride and groom in all their blinding hotness. The beautiful Banjo performed handstands and other yoga moves on the beach (I didn't just take this shot cause of his cute bottom! I swear). And those crazy partiers are all from the magical land of Kennebunk, which both Rebecca and Sol call home.

Oaxaca pics, 1

(out of order! but oh well)
to bottom:
view from the backseat.
An Xmas angel who caught my eye on Av. Indepencia.
truck-riding champions, hanging on like it was nothing through the craziest roads I've ever been on.
(We went to the beach 2 days after the wedding. 6 hours through the mountains. I took these 2 shots from the car Sol- groom extraordinaire and debonair- drove like a Formula 1 pro through the hairpins, steep up and downs, sudden stops and one-lane surprises. I was pretty doped up on Dramamine. It was a blast.
from after the ladies breakfast, my first morning in Mexico. Can you believe I got to spend it with these beauties? The stunner in yellow scaling the building is my bestest girl Erica. The brunette in shades is Rebecca, the most ravishing, brilliant bride.
Christopher. You'll be seeing more of him.

woken up

Love that delicious long moment, turning the corner from sleep to awakeness. My pillowcase and blanket are yellow, and my bottom-sheet white, so I emerge into the illusion of sunlight, or the middle of an egg.
I thought we had rehearsal this morning, but turns out it was moved to the evening, and since I left my planner in Jersey City I missed it. But nice to wake up so early to a free day. I have a nutty, messy collage I made in a quasi-ecstatic, exhausted, homesick fit last Thursday, hung next to my bed, so it was the first non-egg-colored thing I put my eyes on this morning. Immediately made me hungry to look at Marianne Brandt and Hannah Höch, the two collage-artists who most directly (as in, if you were to look at my collage, you'd think, "This girl likes those ladies a LOT") inspire me. I googled them, and here are some works of theirs I have to show you.
from the top, those pics are:"Me" by Marianne Brandt, collage by Hannah Höch, a poster for "Ce Qu'il en Reste" ("What Remains") choreographed by Louise Bedard, and based on Höch's collages, and two untitleds by Brandt, from 1924
Also in the googling, came up a very cool blog/website of a gallerist and artist living in Portland, Or. Check it out for beautiful visuals and thought-provoking words on looking and meaning.
I realize I never wrote anything about my time in Mexico. It's hardest to write about the things you feel strongest about, isn't it? Especially in a public place. It was the most beautiful wedding. I'm so lucky to have witnessed these celebrations of truly awe-inspiring love. Tali and Daniel's last June on the beach in Jaffo- so much love exploding everywhere, at some point (midnight?) a big group of us couldn't hold ourselves back from running straight from the dancefloor into the ocean, where we gambolled (is that a real word? Or Louis Carroll creation?) in the waves like we were golden retrievers.
Rebecca and Sol had the presence of mind to realize that everyone would need days of wave-playing to feel sated in our celebration of their marriage. And the New Year. And the fact that we were all together in *Mexico*!!!
Oaxaca is the most richly colored, pungent-everything, corner of the world I've seen since India. Actually, I kept thinking of India during my time in Mexico. Something in the richness of life, the direct and tangible line of thousands of years connected to this moment, the poverty, but also this potential I could feel for continued and accelerated movement forward. Oaxaca's not a "tourist town" at the same time that it's been colonized by tourists. It almost feels like people come there to be colonized by the town instead. You want it to stamp itself into you permanently like you're a piece of soft tin, ready to have the birds and hearts and skulls of Oaxaca pressed into you.
you know what? I'm stumbling on this. Maybe I should have written about it right when I came back, when the lack of sequence of my memories would be redeemed by the vividness of the colors, which would have bled inexorably into my language. Now it's all tainted by my week back here. I'll paste some pictures from the trip and give you the two most important facts you need to know, aside from the perfect union of Rebecca and Sol, and that their Catholic ceremony was done in Spanish, next to the largest (in circumference) tree in the world: the 3,000 year-old el Tule just outside the city of Oaxaca:
1. I got bitten in the ass by a dog.
2. I fell in love.